Philosopher Alex Miller at Macquarie University in Sydney reviews Molly Ivins’s most recent polemic against Bush. Those in the dogmatic slumber of American-liberal Bush hatred would do well to read it. An excerpt:

“It becomes clear very rapidly that, for all their invective against Bush, Ivins and Dubose are quite happy to support the economic system that spawned him. For example: ‘The free market is a wonderful thing — but it functions well only within a nest of law and regulation.’

“They lament, ‘All of us are responsible for our magnificent political heritage winding up in a system of legalized bribery’. Their political heroes are heroic defenders of the oppressed such as Democrat politicians Ted Kennedy and Clinton, and despite a few mild gestures of disapproval towards the latter, they think that US capitalism was basically AOK until Bush turned up.

“‘Magnificent political heritage’? Trying telling this to the people of Argentina, Cuba, Vietnam, Laos, Nicaragua, Indonesia, Chile, Korea, Columbia, Palestine and all the other countries that the USA or its agents plundered and raped long before George.W. sobered up and bought his way into the White House.

“Many of the facts that Ivins and Dubose turn up indicate that Bush is only a symptom of the disease that underlies the US political system, not, as they imply, the disease itself. For example, they point out that between 1996 and 1998 (when Clinton was president), the following big companies paid zero taxes: AT&T, Bristol-Myers Squib, Chase Manhattan, Enron, General Electric, Microsoft, Pfizer, and Philip Morris.

“Predictably, Jimmy Carter isn’t portrayed as the sanctimonious hypocrite whose secret orders led to the Taliban taking power in Afghanistan, but rather as a president who ‘based his public policy’ on ’emphasising human rights’. If that isn’t enough to make you weep, the advice that Ivins and Dubose give to [exploited manual laborer] Sherry Durst on how to change the system is: ‘Lost your job? Need health insurance? Child care? Try voting!’. Unfortunately, those of us who are not US citizens don’t have that option. But, fortunately, we do still have Marx and Engels.”