Free for all (W's Ghostwriters)

[struggle4progress]

By confabulating freedom and liberty Bush's speech writers seek to strip both of meaning, writes Azmi Bishara

Contemplating Bush's speeches there is the temptation to discuss words and their meanings. But Bush does not write his own speeches. Commentaries on his inaugural address of 20 January in the US press make it clear that Michael Girson was responsible for the speech which underwent 22 revisions.

Rarely has the business of ghostwriting and revising presidential speeches been talked about with such candour. Ghostwriting has long been an open secret. Now, though, the American establishment sees no harm in admitting that the president of the world's sole superpower is unable to pen a quarter-hour speech. Nor do people presume he should be capable of this task, or that this is even an issue to begin with. It is all perfectly normal now to see the president's word cobblers in a press interview, offering an exhaustive postmortem of the drafting process.

This applies not only to the US but to many other countries in today's world -- an undoubtedly new world in which charisma has assumed a new meaning and, more importantly, in which the concept of lying has undergone a complete upheaval. The lie has become the truth. Whereas formerly the fact that the president did not write his own speeches was something to be kept from the people, it is now no longer necessary to conceal the lie. The president can now recite speeches, feigning conviction in words everyone knows he never wrote but without having to feign he wrote them. To some people such open deception passes for honesty. <snip>

There was one sentence in the speech that revealed with spine chilling clarity the ulterior purpose behind Bush's rhetoric: "America's vital interests and our deepest beliefs are now one." This must be the most insidiously propagandistic statement I have ever read. Nothing more clearly epitomises this administration's determination to compel the public to identify with the ideology of the state. The American people are to understand that their "deepest beliefs" and their interests are one and the same thing. Taken in the context of this speech, and in conjunction with Bush's other speeches, they should further understand that it is now in America's interests for that most American of beliefs -- liberty -- to be wielded as a primary instrument in foreign policy and the pursuit of imperial hegemony. On this, moreover, Bush is explicit: "Advancing these ideals is the mission that created our nation. It is the honourable achievement of our fathers. Now it is the urgent requirement of our nation's security, and the calling of our time." <snip>

http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2005/728/op13.htm