[Marxism] The Pathology of George Bush

["Tony Abdo" <gojack10@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

There are two articles on the internet these days analyzing the personality
of George Bush.  It is an interesting contrast, the opinions of John
Chuckman as he reviews the film success of 'Farentheit 9/11', and those
expressed in the commentary by Doctor Castro of Cuba, as he argues against
President Bush on the theme of prostitution and piracy in the Caribbean.  I,
for one, love it when the doctor comes out in Fidel!  Contrast him to the
typical pendejo American doc.   Tony


John Chuckman...
<<The truth is that Bush is a fairly typical white, suburban, middle-aged
American. He talks and thinks the way a great many Americans talk and think.
He jogs and plays golf. He has a fondness for schoolboy pranks, although
less clever ones, similar to Michael Moore's. He unquestioningly accepts
America's fairytale, official version of itself as God's own chosen place on
the planet with liberty and justice for all - something shared by Michael
Moore and most flag-waving American liberals.

Bush's personal redemption story is shared in tens of millions of American
homes. When Americans aren't experiencing redemption first-hand, they are
consuming it from checkout-line magazines and talk shows. It's a national
obsession with its promise of being able to start life over representing
another kind of clinging to childhood.

Bush has always enjoyed a comfortable life without any evidence of earning
or meriting it, but that is what so many Americans dream of doing as they
throw away money on state lotteries and at casinos. Americans love watching
television families similar to Ozzie and Harriet in the 1950s where nothing
real ever happened, just nice people floating in a timeless space. Many
modern shows, like Seinfeld, are just hipper versions of the same thing.

Bush's total lack of interest in serious books -- there is no evidence he's
ever read one -- genuine art, and new ideas is quite typical. The last
President of the United States who took some interest in the arts or
thinkers was Kennedy. Bush's lack of interest in anything outside the United
States -- only altered as required in his role as President -- and his
Blondie Bumsted behavior, right down to choking on a pretzel while watching
football from a couch, put him at the very middle of middle America.

You may ask, we know Bush is a brutal, rather psychopathic man, so how can
he be like so much of middle America? You see, middle America is not the
harmless, gentle place it seems in Hollywood's confections. It is the place
where thirty-year old couples assume they are entitled to a five-bedroom
home on a sprawling lot in the suburbs with at least two lumbering vehicles
in the driveway. It is the place which ignores the ugly parts of its own
society, the ghettos, the broken-down schools, the lack of healthcare. It is
the place where the relentless demand for still more endangers the planet's
future. And it is the place that drives America to global empire.

Bush is not, as so many American liberals claim, out of step with American
history. Childish slogans about taking back America or, even worse, 'Dude,
Where's My Country?' are just that, childish. Bush is an awkward, unpleasant
exemplar of enduring American behavior and values. Did the invasion of Iraq
represent different values or attitudes than the 'Remember the Maine'
invasion of Cuba? How about the invasion of Mexico, or the seizure of
Hawaii, or the holocaust in Vietnam>>

above is from http://www.yellowtimes.org/article.php?sid=2011

and from Doctor Castro...
<<This obliges me to give a most serious and honest explanation of the
causes, which in my view, give rise to these inconceivable, irresponsible
statements by the President of the most powerful nation on the planet, the
same who is threatening to wipe the Cuban revolution from the face of the
Earth.

I shall do this as objectively as possible, making no arbitrary statements
or shamelessly misconstruing other people's words, sentences and concepts. I
shall avoid any petty sentiment of vengeance or personal dislike.

A theme that has been widely documented in several books by outstanding
American scientific authors and other personalities is the current US
President's alcoholism which lasted two decades when he was between 20 and
40 years old. This feature has been rigorously and impressively dealt with,
from a psychiatric point of view and using scientific criteria, by Dr.
Justin A. Frank in a now famous book called "Bush on the Couch".

Dr. Frank begins by saying that it is important to scientifically define
whether Bush was an alcoholic, or if he still is one. He has literally said:

"... the more pressing question involves the influence his years of heavy
drinking and subsequent abstinence still have on him and those around him".
(p.39)

He goes on to explain and I quote verbatim:

"Alcoholism is a potentially fatal, lifelong disease that is notoriously
difficult to arrest permanently" (p. 40)

Later, referring to the man who is now President of the United States, he
says:

"Bush has said publicly that he quit drinking without the help of AA (an
organization dedicated to helping alcoholics) or any substance abuse
programme, claiming that he stopped forever with the assistance of such
spiritual tools as bible study and conversations with the evangelist Billy
Graham".

On page 40 of the book he recounts that, according to ex-presidential speech
writer David Frum, when Bush took over the Oval office he summoned a group
of religious leaders, asked for their prayers and told them:

"There is only one reason that I am in the Oval Office and not a bar... I
found faith, I found God. I am here because of the power of prayer".

Dr. Frank thinks that this statement might be true and goes on to say the
following:

"...surely all Americans would like to believe that the president no longer
drinks, even if we have no way of knowing for certain. If so, he fits the
profile of a former drinker whose alcoholism has been arrested but not
treated".

He then adds:

" Former drinkers who abstain without the benefit of the AA program are
often referred to as "dry drunks", a label that has been bandied about on
the Internet and elsewhere in reference to Bush. "Dry drunk" isn't a medical
term, and not one I use in a clinical setting. But even without labelling
Bush as such, it's hard to ignore the many troubling elements of his
character among the traits that the recovery literature associates with the
condition, including grandiosity, judgmentalism, intolerance, detachment,
denial of responsibility, a tendency toward over-reaction and an aversion to
introspection." (p. 41)

Dr. Frank insists that he personally has treated alcoholics who held their
addiction in check without proper treatment but that they are generally not
very successful in learning to control the anxiety that they once tried to
suppress by drinking and he explains that:

"Their rigid attempts to manage anxiety make any psychological insight
hard-won. Some can't even face the anxiety of admitting their alcoholism.

Dr. Frank then goes on to say:

"Without that admission, I have found, even former drinkers cannot truly
change, or learn from their own experience".

And then referring to Bush specifically he argues the following:

"The pattern of blame and denial, which recovering alcoholics work so hard
to break, seems to be ingrained in the alcoholic personality; it's rarely
limited to his or her drinking. The habit of placing blame and denying
responsibility is so prevalent in George W. Bush's personal history that it
is apparently triggered by even the mildest threat"

"... The rigidity of Bush's behaviour is perhaps most readily apparent in
his well-documented reliance on his daily routines--the famously short
meetings, sacrosanct exercise schedule, daily Bible readings, and limited
office hours. A healthy person is able to alter his routine; a rigid one
cannot". (p.43)

"Of course"--the eminent US doctor goes on, and I quote--"we all need rest
and relaxation, time to regroup, but Bush appears to need it more than most.
And this is hardly a surprise--among other reasons, because the anxiety of
being president might pose a real risk of leading him back to drinking." (p.
43)

"Along with rigid routines go rigid thought processes--another hallmark of
the Bush presidency. We see it in the stubborn, almost obsessive way in
which he holds on to ideas and plans after they have been discredited, from
his image of himself as a "uniter, not a divider" to his conviction that
Iraq held weapons of mass destruction (or, in absence of such weapons, that
somehow "America did the right thing in Iraq" nevertheless). Such rigidity
of thought is not motivated by simple stubbornness; the untreated alcoholic,
consumed with the task of managing the anxieties that might make him reach
for a drink, simply can't tolerate any threat to his status quo".

http://www.counterpunch.org/castro07302004.html

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