Rumsfeldia: Fear and Loathing in the Decade of Tears
- Thread starter Drew
- Start date
- Status
How exactly was I being "a dick"?
You came into a thread just to criticize the TL ("simple dreadful. Dreadful!") and then gloated about it being inactive.
Stolengood
Banned
I didn't gloat; I just expressed my opinion. I do think this WAS a good TL, back in the day, but that swerve into dystopia was... just too much. And then it kept piling on.
While I do not agree with stolengood entirely (and I've been a fan since the beginning), I do feel that this TL jumped the shark somewhere around the blackmail of the whole Academy Awards. Rumsfeldia has not been as frighteningly realistic as Gumbo, though it is of course extremely entertaining. I sincerely hope there is a Conclusion to this epic some day.
EDIT: didn't see CalBear's post before posting. My apologies for restarting anything!
EDIT: didn't see CalBear's post before posting. My apologies for restarting anything!
Just caught up on this....scary stuff
So if corporations get to run for office. (Assuming there are elections one day)..Coke v Pepsi may not just be rock and roller cola wars but an campaign election for President...
Or maybe Gerald Ford v Ford Motors?
Bob Dole v Dole banana?
a three way race for President between Governor George HW Bush...his son actor George W Bush and Anheuser-Busch beer ?
So if corporations get to run for office. (Assuming there are elections one day)..Coke v Pepsi may not just be rock and roller cola wars but an campaign election for President...
Or maybe Gerald Ford v Ford Motors?
Bob Dole v Dole banana?
a three way race for President between Governor George HW Bush...his son actor George W Bush and Anheuser-Busch beer ?
Nazi Space Spy
Banned
Ok, when you post things like this, the whole forum panics and thinks their is an update
. We should all be patient with Drew; I'm sure new stuff will be up soon.An update (Merry Christmas)
Television Commercial #1:
Foreground: a dark-skinned Desert Bandit sneaks-up on a group of white, blond-haired children playing, and watches them with an evil smile.
Narration: “The threat is real. If the communists get their hands on Africa’s uranium, then our children are doomed!”
The bandit pushes the button on an electronic device in his hand.
A mushroom cloud appears and obliterates the playground. The children’s bodies are shown as black silhouettes.
Suddenly an American soldier puts a bayonet through the bandit.
Narration: “But America won’t let that happen. Instead we will defeat the threat in Southern Africa and secure our homeland against those who would destroy our freedom.”
Cuts to President Rumsfeld reviewing Marines in dress uniform.
Narration: “President Rumsfeld fights evil and defends freedom.”
Voice of Rumsfeld: “Only by destroying the enemy in Africa can we really be free. Won’t you help me do that, for the sake of our freedom and our way of life?”
Narration: “Write your Congressman and Senator today and demand they support President Rumsfeld’s fight for freedom.”
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Commercial # 2:
Carroll O’Connor as Archie Bunker enters an office where he confronts Sorrell Brooke playing his boss Mr. Sanders.
Bunker: “Mr. Sanders, something’s wrong here. See here, in my envelope, I got, you know, about half my pay, and some investment certificates in the company. That ain’t right there, Mr. Sanders.”
Sanders: “Not right, Bunker? What are you, some kind of Communist?”
Bunker: “No, not me, Mr. Sanders. I’m a true blue American. I fought in the big one – W-W-II – for the good old U-S-of-A to save the world from democracy, you know.”
Sanders: “Well then Bunker, haven’t you heard of President Rumsfeld’s new plan? Instead of getting all your salary, and wasting it, you get to leave some of your hard earned money with the company, where it can do some good, like saving your job. Instead, you get an investment certificate for your hard work. Down the road you can turn that into cash, when the economy is better and the buck means more.”
Bunker: “But I don’t understand, Mr. Sanders, why don’t I get full pay for my work? I mean there, Mr. Sanders, I’m working hard as always, even more since the government brought back the twelve hour work day.”
Sanders: “Haven’t you been listening, Bunker? Don’t you know that a salary is really a Communist racket to steal from the productive business, the innovator, the job creator, and give it to the shifty, the lazy – you know, as money just for showing up. We’re following President Rumsfeld’s plan, to reward hard-work with investments in the growth of our economy, and to stop cash pay-outs to the bums and lay-abouts who simply show-up for a paycheque, and then waste the money on drinking, buying sex and supporting anti-freedom causes. In today’s America, Bunker, work is rewarded with an investment in the future.”
Bunker: “So, if I work hard, then I get to share in the success of the business down the road, when profits are really, how you say, overstrung?”
Sanders: “Exactly, Bunker. Your investment certificates today are a share in building freedom for the future.”
Bunker: “Well that’s the American way!”
Narration: “Investment certificates – it’s the American way.”
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Backstage:
Carroll O’Connor to government production supervisor: “This is all bullshit, and you know it. These things are nothing but a rip-off that puts more money in the hands of the rich and screws the hard working poor.”
Supervisor: “That’s not your concern. Do the job you were hired for.”
CC: “Putting myself out as the face of this horseshit – and screwing hard working people – that is my concern.”
S: “Really? You want to take that up with your son Hugh? Wasn’t his – well-being – the reason you agreed to do this? Of course, if you’d prefer him to go to a house of – correction – instead of a hospital, that’s up to you.”
O’Connor wanted to say a lot of nasty things about President Rumsfeld, but in the circumstances held his tongue.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Commercial # 3:
The kitchen of a middle class home. An American flag logo is prominently displayed on one of the walls.
The wife enters with a bag of groceries and the husband helps her put it on the counter.
Louise: “You know, Harry, I have to wonder about Jim and Carol.”
Harry: “Why?”
Louise: “Jim keeps talking about income inequality, and social programs, like the money we work hard to earn somehow belongs to everyone else.”
Harry (unpacking groceries): “I know I work hard to put food on the table. You know after all that economic chaos caused by Gavin, Wallace and all those Democrats, we’re finally getting back on our feet, thanks to President Rumsfeld’s common sense ideas.”
Louise: “I know, and you’d think Jim would get it; I mean he’s making more now too, thanks to President Rumsfeld. Instead, he keeps talking about how the poor are getting a raw deal.”
Harry: “Raw deal? What a bunch of welfare bums? They’re only screaming because President Rumsfeld is making them work, instead of handing our welfare checks.”
Louise: “You know it’s so obvious how President Rumsfeld is helping out regular, hard-working Americans. How could Jim not get it?”
Harry: “Maybe he’s involved in something else. Anyone who would question what President Rumsfeld has done for us must be up to no good.”
Louise: “You think that maybe he’s a revolutionary?”
Harry: “Sounds like he’s in love with foreign communist ideas.”
Louise: “Should we report him?”
Harry (Picks-up the phone): “right away.”
Narration: “A strong America depends on the vigilance of every citizen. Help defend freedom by reporting anyone who might be planning trouble. Act now, before it’s too late!”
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Commercial # 4
Background: The tanks rolling through Red Square on Revolution Day, intercut with images of Nikolai Ryzkhov speaking from the top of Lenin’s tomb.
Narration: “Communism begins with a concern for the poor, for inequality, and ends with a greater inequality, called tyranny. In the Soviet Union first they took the businesses, then they took the farms, then they took personal choice – and now they are prisoners. “
Cut to photo of Ron Dellums meeting with Democratic Party leaders Jerry Brown and with Jimmy Carter.
Narration: “Will you let them take your freedom here too? The first step is up to you!”
The blue star field on the American flag turns red, and a hammer and sickle fades into view over the red field, while a large white question mark appears in the center of the screen.
----------------------------------------
Commercial # 5
Harry and Louise in their kitchen. Harry is going through their bills.
Louise: “Did you hear that some of the radicals on city council want to put pollution controls on the river?”
Harry (tossing aside bills in frustration): “Yeah, and increase our water rates. Why is it, now that we’re getting ahead, after Gavin and Wallace ruined this country, that we have to put up with this.”
Louise: “Really, what’s more important? Clean water or jobs?”
Harry: “Thank God President Rumsfeld is putting them in their place. He understands jobs and building profitable businesses is more important – Heck! It’s more right – than hugging trees.”
Narration: “Don’t let so-called environmentalists steal the money from your pocket.”
President Rumsfeld: “The best pollution control is a successful business. Don’t give an inch to the environmental conspiracy. When a tree-hugger speaks-up, tell him or her that you’re for jobs and your families economic future and against communistic environmentalism.”
-----------------------------------
Commercial #6
Two workers look at their pay cheques in front of a generic factory.
Worker One: “Hey, no more union dues.”
Worker Two: “Yeah, thanks to President Rumsfeld the unions aren’t stealing from your cheque anymore. Finally got those thieving unions in check.”
Worker One: “You got it. Unions, nothing but crooks and commies! Now I get to keep what I earn, not give it to some red commie union boss.”
Narration: “Unions: a conspiracy against average Americans.”
President Rumsfeld: “This administration will take positive action against the centuries long criminal conspiracy to defraud the working public, which has called itself Organized Labor, but which is really the largest organized crime outfit in our nation.”
---------------------------------------------------
Commercial #7
Background shows a photo of FDR seated next to Joseph Stalin at Yalta (and a photo of Harry Truman at Potsdam is inserted over the figure of Churchill at FDR’s right.)
Narration: “Forty years ago Democrats conspired to sell out this country to a foreign communist interest. They imprisoned Americans in the anti-freedom agenda of the New Deal, and they joined Joe Stalin in suckering is into a costly commitment to use American tax dollars to prop-up pro-Moscow socialist governments in Europe.
“One man recognized the crisis, and stepped forward boldly to restore true freedom in America. Today Europe is Moscow’s problem, and our tax dollars are serving America at home.
“President Rumsfeld: A true American patriot.”
------------------------------------------
Commercial # 8
Filmed with Independence Hall in Philadelphia in the background.
Narration: “In 1787 our founders crafted a Constitution which preserved freedom and promoted democracy. But in the early part of the twentieth century corrupt politicians (switch to cartoons of corrupt, cigar smoking politicians) tried to fix the game by overthrowing an appointed Senate, making it instead a club for millionaires to pass expensive new taxes on the rest of us.
(Switch to shots of President Rumsfeld meeting with supporters).
“But today, under the valiant leadership of President Rumsfeld, a group of courageous patriots has banded together to restore the original Constitution by repealing the 17th Amendment and returning the Senate to the people.”
Former Idaho Governor Ed Crane (Lib-ID): “Sure, I oppose Rumsfeld on many things, but I agree on the need to repeal the seventeenth amendment. It’s un-Constitutional.”*
Narration: “Support our President in his effort to restore our Constitution. Write your Congressman and Senator today and tell them that you want the seventeenth amendment repealed.”
----------------------------------------------
*= edited from a longer comment: “Sure, I oppose Rumsfeld on many things, but I agree on the need to repeal the seventeenth amendment. However, his idea to have the President appoint fifty of the senators is just as bad. It’s un-Constitutional.”
-------------------------------------------------------------
Commercial # 9
Actor (as reporter): “President Rumsfeld has put his authority behind restoring the original Constitution by getting rid of the corrupt election of Senators. Let’s see what people just like you think:
Hardhat: “There’s too many politicians takin’ our money. I’m with Rumsfeld, let’s get rid of the bums.”
Housewife: “I don’t know much about it, but I think the fewer politicians we have, the better.”
Businessman: “The less government, the better for business. Get the government off my back, and I’ll create more jobs.”
Southern White: “The Senate was a Roman thing, right? Should we even have that kind of un-godly thing in our country?”
Older woman: “Well, I remember all those Senators, like McGovern, both Kennedys, Humphrey – all working to make the lives of ordinary Americans more difficult while they were giving our tax money away to ingrates and no goods. I say, they should get theirs and President Rumsfeld has my support.”
Actor: “There you have it. Ordinary Americans stand by President Rumsfeld’s effort to restore the Constitution as the founders intended. How about you?”
-------------------------------------------------------
Commercial # 10
Against the backdrop of poor and economically blighted areas, featuring the faces of black people who aren’t happy being filmed.
Narration: “The Poor- who are they? Are they even poor? The New Deal and the Great Society gave them welfare and foods stamps – things hard working Americans never got from their government. And what did the poor do with these handouts? Nothing.
“The poor. Are they even really Americans?”
President Rumsfeld: “The only way to end poverty is to end welfare and put everyone on the same level, where hard work is its own best reward. I’m for hard work, and against hand-outs.”
---------------------------------------
Commercial # 11
Background: Urban riots.
A (white) family of four (Father, mother, daughter, son and adorable, large dog) look around themselves at all this urban violence. The parents tried to shield the children, who look terrified.
Narration: “Today, the American family is in danger.”
Switches to a bright suburban community.
Narration: “But here, at Palm Acres, our walls keep the unrest at bay.” (Briefly shows large, concrete wall topped by concertina wire – the wall is painted a bright yellow colour).
The family looks happy in their new home.
Narration: “Palm Acres: Behind the walls of security, where your family can grow in peace.”
Mother is now pregnant with third child.
----------------------------------------
Commercial # 12
Background: Vintage film from the 1930’s of an elderly woman receiving her first Social Security cheque.
Narration: “It began as a measure to keep the aged quiet. Why? Because FDR and the liberal Democrats wanted to change America, and they knew the aged would fight it, unless they were paid off.”
Montage of Union bosses, street riots, figures exchanging cash in white envelopes.
Narration: “By the 1960’s it had grown into a corrupt pool of money which was used to underwrite the so-called Great Society. But then the economy crashed, and the true cost of Social Security was exposed.”
Picture: Unemployed white blue-collar workers.
Narration: “Today, we have a new policy to end this taking for good.”
Worker One: “Hey, no more social security deductions.”
Worker Two: “Yeah, now I can do with my money what I want. No more paying my hard earned dollars into that crooked Social Security slush fund.”
Worker One: “Thank God Rumsfeld is looking out for the little guy.”
Worker Two: “Yeah. Rumsfeld, he knows a scam when he sees one.”
Narration: “At long last an end to the Social Security scam. Write your Congressman and Senator today and tell them you support President Rumsfeld’s initiative to get rid of the crooked Social Security system.”
------------------------------
Television Commercial #1:
Foreground: a dark-skinned Desert Bandit sneaks-up on a group of white, blond-haired children playing, and watches them with an evil smile.
Narration: “The threat is real. If the communists get their hands on Africa’s uranium, then our children are doomed!”
The bandit pushes the button on an electronic device in his hand.
A mushroom cloud appears and obliterates the playground. The children’s bodies are shown as black silhouettes.
Suddenly an American soldier puts a bayonet through the bandit.
Narration: “But America won’t let that happen. Instead we will defeat the threat in Southern Africa and secure our homeland against those who would destroy our freedom.”
Cuts to President Rumsfeld reviewing Marines in dress uniform.
Narration: “President Rumsfeld fights evil and defends freedom.”
Voice of Rumsfeld: “Only by destroying the enemy in Africa can we really be free. Won’t you help me do that, for the sake of our freedom and our way of life?”
Narration: “Write your Congressman and Senator today and demand they support President Rumsfeld’s fight for freedom.”
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Commercial # 2:
Carroll O’Connor as Archie Bunker enters an office where he confronts Sorrell Brooke playing his boss Mr. Sanders.
Bunker: “Mr. Sanders, something’s wrong here. See here, in my envelope, I got, you know, about half my pay, and some investment certificates in the company. That ain’t right there, Mr. Sanders.”
Sanders: “Not right, Bunker? What are you, some kind of Communist?”
Bunker: “No, not me, Mr. Sanders. I’m a true blue American. I fought in the big one – W-W-II – for the good old U-S-of-A to save the world from democracy, you know.”
Sanders: “Well then Bunker, haven’t you heard of President Rumsfeld’s new plan? Instead of getting all your salary, and wasting it, you get to leave some of your hard earned money with the company, where it can do some good, like saving your job. Instead, you get an investment certificate for your hard work. Down the road you can turn that into cash, when the economy is better and the buck means more.”
Bunker: “But I don’t understand, Mr. Sanders, why don’t I get full pay for my work? I mean there, Mr. Sanders, I’m working hard as always, even more since the government brought back the twelve hour work day.”
Sanders: “Haven’t you been listening, Bunker? Don’t you know that a salary is really a Communist racket to steal from the productive business, the innovator, the job creator, and give it to the shifty, the lazy – you know, as money just for showing up. We’re following President Rumsfeld’s plan, to reward hard-work with investments in the growth of our economy, and to stop cash pay-outs to the bums and lay-abouts who simply show-up for a paycheque, and then waste the money on drinking, buying sex and supporting anti-freedom causes. In today’s America, Bunker, work is rewarded with an investment in the future.”
Bunker: “So, if I work hard, then I get to share in the success of the business down the road, when profits are really, how you say, overstrung?”
Sanders: “Exactly, Bunker. Your investment certificates today are a share in building freedom for the future.”
Bunker: “Well that’s the American way!”
Narration: “Investment certificates – it’s the American way.”
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Backstage:
Carroll O’Connor to government production supervisor: “This is all bullshit, and you know it. These things are nothing but a rip-off that puts more money in the hands of the rich and screws the hard working poor.”
Supervisor: “That’s not your concern. Do the job you were hired for.”
CC: “Putting myself out as the face of this horseshit – and screwing hard working people – that is my concern.”
S: “Really? You want to take that up with your son Hugh? Wasn’t his – well-being – the reason you agreed to do this? Of course, if you’d prefer him to go to a house of – correction – instead of a hospital, that’s up to you.”
O’Connor wanted to say a lot of nasty things about President Rumsfeld, but in the circumstances held his tongue.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Commercial # 3:
The kitchen of a middle class home. An American flag logo is prominently displayed on one of the walls.
The wife enters with a bag of groceries and the husband helps her put it on the counter.
Louise: “You know, Harry, I have to wonder about Jim and Carol.”
Harry: “Why?”
Louise: “Jim keeps talking about income inequality, and social programs, like the money we work hard to earn somehow belongs to everyone else.”
Harry (unpacking groceries): “I know I work hard to put food on the table. You know after all that economic chaos caused by Gavin, Wallace and all those Democrats, we’re finally getting back on our feet, thanks to President Rumsfeld’s common sense ideas.”
Louise: “I know, and you’d think Jim would get it; I mean he’s making more now too, thanks to President Rumsfeld. Instead, he keeps talking about how the poor are getting a raw deal.”
Harry: “Raw deal? What a bunch of welfare bums? They’re only screaming because President Rumsfeld is making them work, instead of handing our welfare checks.”
Louise: “You know it’s so obvious how President Rumsfeld is helping out regular, hard-working Americans. How could Jim not get it?”
Harry: “Maybe he’s involved in something else. Anyone who would question what President Rumsfeld has done for us must be up to no good.”
Louise: “You think that maybe he’s a revolutionary?”
Harry: “Sounds like he’s in love with foreign communist ideas.”
Louise: “Should we report him?”
Harry (Picks-up the phone): “right away.”
Narration: “A strong America depends on the vigilance of every citizen. Help defend freedom by reporting anyone who might be planning trouble. Act now, before it’s too late!”
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Commercial # 4
Background: The tanks rolling through Red Square on Revolution Day, intercut with images of Nikolai Ryzkhov speaking from the top of Lenin’s tomb.
Narration: “Communism begins with a concern for the poor, for inequality, and ends with a greater inequality, called tyranny. In the Soviet Union first they took the businesses, then they took the farms, then they took personal choice – and now they are prisoners. “
Cut to photo of Ron Dellums meeting with Democratic Party leaders Jerry Brown and with Jimmy Carter.
Narration: “Will you let them take your freedom here too? The first step is up to you!”
The blue star field on the American flag turns red, and a hammer and sickle fades into view over the red field, while a large white question mark appears in the center of the screen.
----------------------------------------
Commercial # 5
Harry and Louise in their kitchen. Harry is going through their bills.
Louise: “Did you hear that some of the radicals on city council want to put pollution controls on the river?”
Harry (tossing aside bills in frustration): “Yeah, and increase our water rates. Why is it, now that we’re getting ahead, after Gavin and Wallace ruined this country, that we have to put up with this.”
Louise: “Really, what’s more important? Clean water or jobs?”
Harry: “Thank God President Rumsfeld is putting them in their place. He understands jobs and building profitable businesses is more important – Heck! It’s more right – than hugging trees.”
Narration: “Don’t let so-called environmentalists steal the money from your pocket.”
President Rumsfeld: “The best pollution control is a successful business. Don’t give an inch to the environmental conspiracy. When a tree-hugger speaks-up, tell him or her that you’re for jobs and your families economic future and against communistic environmentalism.”
-----------------------------------
Commercial #6
Two workers look at their pay cheques in front of a generic factory.
Worker One: “Hey, no more union dues.”
Worker Two: “Yeah, thanks to President Rumsfeld the unions aren’t stealing from your cheque anymore. Finally got those thieving unions in check.”
Worker One: “You got it. Unions, nothing but crooks and commies! Now I get to keep what I earn, not give it to some red commie union boss.”
Narration: “Unions: a conspiracy against average Americans.”
President Rumsfeld: “This administration will take positive action against the centuries long criminal conspiracy to defraud the working public, which has called itself Organized Labor, but which is really the largest organized crime outfit in our nation.”
---------------------------------------------------
Commercial #7
Background shows a photo of FDR seated next to Joseph Stalin at Yalta (and a photo of Harry Truman at Potsdam is inserted over the figure of Churchill at FDR’s right.)
Narration: “Forty years ago Democrats conspired to sell out this country to a foreign communist interest. They imprisoned Americans in the anti-freedom agenda of the New Deal, and they joined Joe Stalin in suckering is into a costly commitment to use American tax dollars to prop-up pro-Moscow socialist governments in Europe.
“One man recognized the crisis, and stepped forward boldly to restore true freedom in America. Today Europe is Moscow’s problem, and our tax dollars are serving America at home.
“President Rumsfeld: A true American patriot.”
------------------------------------------
Commercial # 8
Filmed with Independence Hall in Philadelphia in the background.
Narration: “In 1787 our founders crafted a Constitution which preserved freedom and promoted democracy. But in the early part of the twentieth century corrupt politicians (switch to cartoons of corrupt, cigar smoking politicians) tried to fix the game by overthrowing an appointed Senate, making it instead a club for millionaires to pass expensive new taxes on the rest of us.
(Switch to shots of President Rumsfeld meeting with supporters).
“But today, under the valiant leadership of President Rumsfeld, a group of courageous patriots has banded together to restore the original Constitution by repealing the 17th Amendment and returning the Senate to the people.”
Former Idaho Governor Ed Crane (Lib-ID): “Sure, I oppose Rumsfeld on many things, but I agree on the need to repeal the seventeenth amendment. It’s un-Constitutional.”*
Narration: “Support our President in his effort to restore our Constitution. Write your Congressman and Senator today and tell them that you want the seventeenth amendment repealed.”
----------------------------------------------
*= edited from a longer comment: “Sure, I oppose Rumsfeld on many things, but I agree on the need to repeal the seventeenth amendment. However, his idea to have the President appoint fifty of the senators is just as bad. It’s un-Constitutional.”
-------------------------------------------------------------
Commercial # 9
Actor (as reporter): “President Rumsfeld has put his authority behind restoring the original Constitution by getting rid of the corrupt election of Senators. Let’s see what people just like you think:
Hardhat: “There’s too many politicians takin’ our money. I’m with Rumsfeld, let’s get rid of the bums.”
Housewife: “I don’t know much about it, but I think the fewer politicians we have, the better.”
Businessman: “The less government, the better for business. Get the government off my back, and I’ll create more jobs.”
Southern White: “The Senate was a Roman thing, right? Should we even have that kind of un-godly thing in our country?”
Older woman: “Well, I remember all those Senators, like McGovern, both Kennedys, Humphrey – all working to make the lives of ordinary Americans more difficult while they were giving our tax money away to ingrates and no goods. I say, they should get theirs and President Rumsfeld has my support.”
Actor: “There you have it. Ordinary Americans stand by President Rumsfeld’s effort to restore the Constitution as the founders intended. How about you?”
-------------------------------------------------------
Commercial # 10
Against the backdrop of poor and economically blighted areas, featuring the faces of black people who aren’t happy being filmed.
Narration: “The Poor- who are they? Are they even poor? The New Deal and the Great Society gave them welfare and foods stamps – things hard working Americans never got from their government. And what did the poor do with these handouts? Nothing.
“The poor. Are they even really Americans?”
President Rumsfeld: “The only way to end poverty is to end welfare and put everyone on the same level, where hard work is its own best reward. I’m for hard work, and against hand-outs.”
---------------------------------------
Commercial # 11
Background: Urban riots.
A (white) family of four (Father, mother, daughter, son and adorable, large dog) look around themselves at all this urban violence. The parents tried to shield the children, who look terrified.
Narration: “Today, the American family is in danger.”
Switches to a bright suburban community.
Narration: “But here, at Palm Acres, our walls keep the unrest at bay.” (Briefly shows large, concrete wall topped by concertina wire – the wall is painted a bright yellow colour).
The family looks happy in their new home.
Narration: “Palm Acres: Behind the walls of security, where your family can grow in peace.”
Mother is now pregnant with third child.
----------------------------------------
Commercial # 12
Background: Vintage film from the 1930’s of an elderly woman receiving her first Social Security cheque.
Narration: “It began as a measure to keep the aged quiet. Why? Because FDR and the liberal Democrats wanted to change America, and they knew the aged would fight it, unless they were paid off.”
Montage of Union bosses, street riots, figures exchanging cash in white envelopes.
Narration: “By the 1960’s it had grown into a corrupt pool of money which was used to underwrite the so-called Great Society. But then the economy crashed, and the true cost of Social Security was exposed.”
Picture: Unemployed white blue-collar workers.
Narration: “Today, we have a new policy to end this taking for good.”
Worker One: “Hey, no more social security deductions.”
Worker Two: “Yeah, now I can do with my money what I want. No more paying my hard earned dollars into that crooked Social Security slush fund.”
Worker One: “Thank God Rumsfeld is looking out for the little guy.”
Worker Two: “Yeah. Rumsfeld, he knows a scam when he sees one.”
Narration: “At long last an end to the Social Security scam. Write your Congressman and Senator today and tell them you support President Rumsfeld’s initiative to get rid of the crooked Social Security system.”
------------------------------
Rumsfeld's PDB
President Donald Rumsfeld liked the Archie Bunker commercial: he’d have to talk to Pat Buchanan about commissioning some more – and see if they could get the “Meathead’ guy from the old show, so Bunker could put his lefty ideas in their place. Rumsfeld made a quick note about that.
He opened his President’s Daily Brief. It seemed to be getting thicker all the time, despite his commands that it be kept short. Oh well; it was a big, busy world out there.
China was still a mess. A lot of places along the coast were still no go areas because of contamination from the left-over biological weapons. Hong Kong was in a constant state of health crisis; thousands died on a weekly basis. The British had had no choice but to declare martial law, which in turn had provoked all sorts of protests. Great, though Rumsfeld. That’ll keep the limeys busy and out of our hair.
Rumsfeld regretted that the CDC and various domestic health agencies had been able to control the outbreak in the U.S. before the election. The spreading virus had had so much political potential, but the health teams had acted too quickly, before the full political effect could be realized. Someone had screwed-up on that one.
Much of Hong Kong’s economic activity had been transferred to Singapore. The American Ambassador had made clear to Lee Kuan Yew that if he played ball the sky was the limit. If not, well who was there to help him? Singapore’s Prime Minister had gotten the point – and fallen in line. Unrestricted capitalism – there was paradise in Rumsfeld’s eyes.
A de-facto war had broken out on the mainland between The Republic of China (Taiwan) and the South Korean forces – mainly a skirmish over borders and land. The North Koreans were also biting off chunks of Manchuria, which technically was part of the Soviet puppet People’s Republic of China, but the Soviets didn’t seem to be doing much about it. The war between the South Koreans and the ROC allowed the U.S. to sell arms to both sides, and generally perpetuated chaos in China: it was becoming a war of attrition between two equally balanced militaries.
The Japanese seemed to be exploiting the war to their own ends, using arm sales to both sides as a cover to expand their own domestic arms industry. Time would come, the analysts guessed, when Japan would exert some muscle to put the ROC and the South Koreans in their place. Then when Japan got too high-handed, the U.S. could use the ROC and Korean resentment of them to unite the two erstwhile enemies in a punitive war against Japan. Then the U.S. could re-build Japan, and start the cycle among the three all over again. Cheney had coined a new term for this: constructive destruction. If Chamberlain had been able to play the French, the Germans and the Soviets this way then World War II would have been a strictly continental affair.
Intelligence reports indicated that there was an Islamic Caliphate of some sort forming in the chaotic areas of Western and Central China. So far they were mainly fighting the Soviets and their puppet PRC, which was proving ineffective in expanding its remit. The analysts weren’t sure why the Soviets were holding back, more or less standing pat on the puppet PRC’s limited frontiers. Rumsfeld guessed that Ryzhkov didn’t want his MBA Communism experiment run off the rails by the cost of a major military operation in the wilds of China.
Curiously the Chinese Islamists had executed an emissary from the PJO. Apparently they wanted nothing to do with the Middle Eastern jihad, or they were making nice for Pakistan, which seemed to be supporting them. India might have counterbalanced that, except it was no longer in a position to project any power beyond its borders.
South Vietnam was surging economically, which up to now had been good for U.S. business. They were working hand-in-hand with their North Vietnamese allies to carve-off chunks of China in the South: apparently long standing Vietnamese resentments of China outweighed ideological differences in Hanoi and Saigon.
“Let’s build-up North Vietnam,” Rumsfeld scrawled in the margins. No need letting the South Vietnamese get too powerful. Singapore was getting wary of Saigon; maybe Lee Kuan Yew wouldn’t mind teaching capitalism to the beleaguered Communists in Hanoi.
Withdrawing U.S. troops from Europe east of the Azores had given the Administration much more military flexibility. They needed boots in Southern Africa, and it didn’t hurt to have extra soldiers around for whatever came-up. Boosting the US presence in Japan, the ROC and South Korea had allowed each of those countries to think the U.S. was with them. The added multiplier was that with more U.S. troops in South Korea and the ROC, each of those countries felt free to commit more of their armies to the battlefront in China. The Pentagon, which had advisers on both sides, found it a good place to test new weapons and tactics. Nothing like running a war from both sides to really get down to the nitty-gritty of modern warfare.
India was falling apart. Mainly Sanjay Gandhi was trying to install himself as a new dictator/visionary, but the state governments in the South were resisting. They were calling him an Indian version of the Lesser Mao, and the CIA analysts tended to agree with that assessment. He had some odd ideas about population control in the country: he offered the rural poor men a choice between a voluntary vasectomy or, if they didn’t co-operate, an involuntary castration. This was making many in the rural population restive. It looked like all out civil war wouldn’t be too far in coming. Once it disintegrated, Cheney had developed a plan to pit the regions against one another. Scratch any future problems from India. While the Soviets were pouring money into Gandhi’s government, the CIA was identifying dissident leaders, particularly among the Tamils, who would fight back against a Gandhi dictatorship.
There were rumors that Pakistan was trying to take advantage of the situation by spreading dissent among India’s Muslim population. All the better, Rumsfeld thought. Pakistan couldn’t take-over India, but if India disintegrated, then Pakistan could further accelerate the constructive destruction, and who knows what opportunities an expanded Pakistan might present. And of course Pakistan’s rising power would be checked by a good insurgency in the parts of India they might occupy or annex.
An unexpected outcome of the Indian disintegration had been an invasion of Sri Lanka by an ethnically Tamil army, which had come to the assistance of its ethnic relatives on the island. The Tamils had taken over and were now being accused of oppressing the former ruling Singhalese majority. The Singhalese were fighting back in what promised to be a lengthy guerrilla war.
Southern Africa was all but destroyed, rendered desolate by the use of dirty weapons, chemical weapons and conventional warfare. South of the Tanzania, Zambia and Angola line the Malan regime was the last man standing, and then only holding on with U.S. support. A lot of the area had descended into chaos. That gave the mining corporations a free hand, and no more interference from the South African monopolies. Malan’s hands were full repressing his own people.
The French, the Soviets and their allies were closing in on the PJO in North Central Africa, with the help of an unlikely alliance of Egypt, Libya and Algeria, all deathly afraid of the PJO. Much of Chad and Niger had fallen to the PJO, and Mali was a non-state now.
In Arabia the Salafists were engaged in a long insurgency with the Iraqi backed Arab Republic forces, while the Holy Places remained under the control of an international force from various Muslim countries. Israel held the extreme north-western corner, causing a great deal of anxiety in Amman and Damascus. Syria and Jordan had joined forces, while Iraq licked its wounds from the recent coup and tried to hold on to the Arab Republic. Iran was stable under a repressive military regime, although the Kurds were restive. For the moment they were causing more problems for the Iraqis, the Syrians and the Turks than the Iranians.
In Greece a civil war was continuing, with the Soviet backed Socialists holding the North, and a U.S. backed Junta holding the South. Although no U.S. forces were directly involved, Washington had arranged to hire Chilean, Vietnamese, Cambodian and even some Chinese mercenaries to fight on behalf of the Greek Junta. The Turks were being sucked in along the fringes, creating even greater instability and forcing the Soviets to adopt the role of peacekeeper.
For a while it had looked like Yugoslavia might come unglued now that Tito was dead. A Serbian firebrand named Slobodan Milošević had been stirring-up Serbian nationalism, until he was assassinated, probably at the behest of Moscow – or so the CIA speculated. After Milosevic had been murdered, the Soviets had been prominent in brokering a new Federation, and as a result having to absorb the costs. Good, thought Rumsfeld. More economic commitments for the USSR.
Poland, under a military junta, seemed to be paying lip service to Communism, and was still a Soviet ally, but now the junta seemed to be following the path of Pinochet and his Chicago Boys in a quasi-capitalist, socialist experiment in mixed and free markets. If Ryzhkov was trying his MBA Communism with moderation in the USSR itself, he seemed ready to let it go with steroids in Poland and Hungary.
Western Europe had moved nicely into a Soviet-leaning “Co-Prosperity Conference of Europe.” Stretching from London to Moscow, and including most of Europe except Greece and hermitic Albania, the left leaning policies of this group nicely vindicated the President’s contention that NATO had been a fraud, manipulated by the Soviets to expend American dollars and resources to watch over a Europe that was truly socialist and ungrateful for what the United States had done for it.
Rumsfeld was pleased that he had ended the NATO fraud on his watch. Wallace had promised to end the “post-1945 world” as he put it, but he hadn’t done much. Don Rumsfeld had changed the whole dynamic of the Cold War – and passed the burden of Europe completely to the Soviets, where his specialists assured him a little time and economic reality would end-up draining Moscow dry.
Moscow had allowed Germany to re-unite, under a decade long formula which would see the former East Germany slowly integrated into the Western Republic. For now East Germany remained a “special zone” within Germany with its own Communist government, but no Soviet troops to prop it up. The German solution had been Ryzhkov’s gesture of goodwill and show of earnestness.
Although Federal Chancellor Helmut Kohl and his Christian Democrats had been in power when this was negotiated, the West German voters had gotten with the zeitgeist of Europe and elected the Social Democrats back to government, under Federal Chancellor Vogel.
As a reward to Kohl, and so that he remain involved in the process he began as Chancellor, Helmut Kohl is named as the new Federal President of the uniting Federal German Republic.
The assassination of James Callaghan had put the political wind under Prime Minister Neill Kinnock’s wings, and he had used the PIRA’s moment of uncertainty in the aftermath to wring an agreement out of them. The war in Northern Ireland now appeared to be a guerrilla war between the Unionist fanatics and the government, with the PIRA drawing back to the sidelines. Since the pre-dominant image on the British mainland of the Unionists was the ruddy face of Ian Paisley screaming all sorts of hysterical nonsense, many there believed the Unionists were crackpots and malcontents. This made the British actions against the Unionists in Ulster popular. Paisley’s party, the Democratic Unionist Party, had been banned altogether for inciting terrorism. Paisley himself was a fugitive, living and working underground. The CIA was funnelling money and arms to his group.
In North America the Canadian and Quebec governments had managed to find their way into prolonged negotiations over sovereignty. Rumsfeld couldn’t help but think that it was a failure that the Quebecois and Canadians had proved so reasonable, and had resisted the urge (supported by covert U.S. financing) to be more confrontational.
Mexico was moving in a more left-wing direction, gaining support from Western Europe and Cuba. Rumsfeld decided they had to do something about that.
In Chile a Franciscan monk named Father Cuerda had started a popular movement which was giving Pinochet fits. Cuerdan revolution, looking if anything like a Roman Catholic version of the Jihadist movement animating the PJO – the Cuerdan ideal was a combination of Maoist revolutionary ideas wedded to extreme religious egalitarianism – was spreading into Argentina and Peru, causing heartburn all around. Pope Pius XIII had apparently tried to reign Father Cuerda in, but his intervention had only inspired Cuerda to advance his revolution even more.
Brazil was disintegrating into three min-states, each under increasing financial control of the U.S., working through various corporations. Cuerdanism was starting to breakout there as well, which only promised further trouble.
Best of all, from Rumsfeld’s perspective, none of the affected South American countries were attempting to work together to face the common problem. Instead, faced with a major, cross-border movement, they each retreated into their own sovereignty and blamed each other for the problem. That division, in Rumsfeld’s estimation, worked in his favour because he could deal bi-laterally with each capital, and rub their raw wounds to continue pitting one against the other.
-----------------------------------------------------------
President Donald Rumsfeld liked the Archie Bunker commercial: he’d have to talk to Pat Buchanan about commissioning some more – and see if they could get the “Meathead’ guy from the old show, so Bunker could put his lefty ideas in their place. Rumsfeld made a quick note about that.
He opened his President’s Daily Brief. It seemed to be getting thicker all the time, despite his commands that it be kept short. Oh well; it was a big, busy world out there.
China was still a mess. A lot of places along the coast were still no go areas because of contamination from the left-over biological weapons. Hong Kong was in a constant state of health crisis; thousands died on a weekly basis. The British had had no choice but to declare martial law, which in turn had provoked all sorts of protests. Great, though Rumsfeld. That’ll keep the limeys busy and out of our hair.
Rumsfeld regretted that the CDC and various domestic health agencies had been able to control the outbreak in the U.S. before the election. The spreading virus had had so much political potential, but the health teams had acted too quickly, before the full political effect could be realized. Someone had screwed-up on that one.
Much of Hong Kong’s economic activity had been transferred to Singapore. The American Ambassador had made clear to Lee Kuan Yew that if he played ball the sky was the limit. If not, well who was there to help him? Singapore’s Prime Minister had gotten the point – and fallen in line. Unrestricted capitalism – there was paradise in Rumsfeld’s eyes.
A de-facto war had broken out on the mainland between The Republic of China (Taiwan) and the South Korean forces – mainly a skirmish over borders and land. The North Koreans were also biting off chunks of Manchuria, which technically was part of the Soviet puppet People’s Republic of China, but the Soviets didn’t seem to be doing much about it. The war between the South Koreans and the ROC allowed the U.S. to sell arms to both sides, and generally perpetuated chaos in China: it was becoming a war of attrition between two equally balanced militaries.
The Japanese seemed to be exploiting the war to their own ends, using arm sales to both sides as a cover to expand their own domestic arms industry. Time would come, the analysts guessed, when Japan would exert some muscle to put the ROC and the South Koreans in their place. Then when Japan got too high-handed, the U.S. could use the ROC and Korean resentment of them to unite the two erstwhile enemies in a punitive war against Japan. Then the U.S. could re-build Japan, and start the cycle among the three all over again. Cheney had coined a new term for this: constructive destruction. If Chamberlain had been able to play the French, the Germans and the Soviets this way then World War II would have been a strictly continental affair.
Intelligence reports indicated that there was an Islamic Caliphate of some sort forming in the chaotic areas of Western and Central China. So far they were mainly fighting the Soviets and their puppet PRC, which was proving ineffective in expanding its remit. The analysts weren’t sure why the Soviets were holding back, more or less standing pat on the puppet PRC’s limited frontiers. Rumsfeld guessed that Ryzhkov didn’t want his MBA Communism experiment run off the rails by the cost of a major military operation in the wilds of China.
Curiously the Chinese Islamists had executed an emissary from the PJO. Apparently they wanted nothing to do with the Middle Eastern jihad, or they were making nice for Pakistan, which seemed to be supporting them. India might have counterbalanced that, except it was no longer in a position to project any power beyond its borders.
South Vietnam was surging economically, which up to now had been good for U.S. business. They were working hand-in-hand with their North Vietnamese allies to carve-off chunks of China in the South: apparently long standing Vietnamese resentments of China outweighed ideological differences in Hanoi and Saigon.
“Let’s build-up North Vietnam,” Rumsfeld scrawled in the margins. No need letting the South Vietnamese get too powerful. Singapore was getting wary of Saigon; maybe Lee Kuan Yew wouldn’t mind teaching capitalism to the beleaguered Communists in Hanoi.
Withdrawing U.S. troops from Europe east of the Azores had given the Administration much more military flexibility. They needed boots in Southern Africa, and it didn’t hurt to have extra soldiers around for whatever came-up. Boosting the US presence in Japan, the ROC and South Korea had allowed each of those countries to think the U.S. was with them. The added multiplier was that with more U.S. troops in South Korea and the ROC, each of those countries felt free to commit more of their armies to the battlefront in China. The Pentagon, which had advisers on both sides, found it a good place to test new weapons and tactics. Nothing like running a war from both sides to really get down to the nitty-gritty of modern warfare.
India was falling apart. Mainly Sanjay Gandhi was trying to install himself as a new dictator/visionary, but the state governments in the South were resisting. They were calling him an Indian version of the Lesser Mao, and the CIA analysts tended to agree with that assessment. He had some odd ideas about population control in the country: he offered the rural poor men a choice between a voluntary vasectomy or, if they didn’t co-operate, an involuntary castration. This was making many in the rural population restive. It looked like all out civil war wouldn’t be too far in coming. Once it disintegrated, Cheney had developed a plan to pit the regions against one another. Scratch any future problems from India. While the Soviets were pouring money into Gandhi’s government, the CIA was identifying dissident leaders, particularly among the Tamils, who would fight back against a Gandhi dictatorship.
There were rumors that Pakistan was trying to take advantage of the situation by spreading dissent among India’s Muslim population. All the better, Rumsfeld thought. Pakistan couldn’t take-over India, but if India disintegrated, then Pakistan could further accelerate the constructive destruction, and who knows what opportunities an expanded Pakistan might present. And of course Pakistan’s rising power would be checked by a good insurgency in the parts of India they might occupy or annex.
An unexpected outcome of the Indian disintegration had been an invasion of Sri Lanka by an ethnically Tamil army, which had come to the assistance of its ethnic relatives on the island. The Tamils had taken over and were now being accused of oppressing the former ruling Singhalese majority. The Singhalese were fighting back in what promised to be a lengthy guerrilla war.
Southern Africa was all but destroyed, rendered desolate by the use of dirty weapons, chemical weapons and conventional warfare. South of the Tanzania, Zambia and Angola line the Malan regime was the last man standing, and then only holding on with U.S. support. A lot of the area had descended into chaos. That gave the mining corporations a free hand, and no more interference from the South African monopolies. Malan’s hands were full repressing his own people.
The French, the Soviets and their allies were closing in on the PJO in North Central Africa, with the help of an unlikely alliance of Egypt, Libya and Algeria, all deathly afraid of the PJO. Much of Chad and Niger had fallen to the PJO, and Mali was a non-state now.
In Arabia the Salafists were engaged in a long insurgency with the Iraqi backed Arab Republic forces, while the Holy Places remained under the control of an international force from various Muslim countries. Israel held the extreme north-western corner, causing a great deal of anxiety in Amman and Damascus. Syria and Jordan had joined forces, while Iraq licked its wounds from the recent coup and tried to hold on to the Arab Republic. Iran was stable under a repressive military regime, although the Kurds were restive. For the moment they were causing more problems for the Iraqis, the Syrians and the Turks than the Iranians.
In Greece a civil war was continuing, with the Soviet backed Socialists holding the North, and a U.S. backed Junta holding the South. Although no U.S. forces were directly involved, Washington had arranged to hire Chilean, Vietnamese, Cambodian and even some Chinese mercenaries to fight on behalf of the Greek Junta. The Turks were being sucked in along the fringes, creating even greater instability and forcing the Soviets to adopt the role of peacekeeper.
For a while it had looked like Yugoslavia might come unglued now that Tito was dead. A Serbian firebrand named Slobodan Milošević had been stirring-up Serbian nationalism, until he was assassinated, probably at the behest of Moscow – or so the CIA speculated. After Milosevic had been murdered, the Soviets had been prominent in brokering a new Federation, and as a result having to absorb the costs. Good, thought Rumsfeld. More economic commitments for the USSR.
Poland, under a military junta, seemed to be paying lip service to Communism, and was still a Soviet ally, but now the junta seemed to be following the path of Pinochet and his Chicago Boys in a quasi-capitalist, socialist experiment in mixed and free markets. If Ryzhkov was trying his MBA Communism with moderation in the USSR itself, he seemed ready to let it go with steroids in Poland and Hungary.
Western Europe had moved nicely into a Soviet-leaning “Co-Prosperity Conference of Europe.” Stretching from London to Moscow, and including most of Europe except Greece and hermitic Albania, the left leaning policies of this group nicely vindicated the President’s contention that NATO had been a fraud, manipulated by the Soviets to expend American dollars and resources to watch over a Europe that was truly socialist and ungrateful for what the United States had done for it.
Rumsfeld was pleased that he had ended the NATO fraud on his watch. Wallace had promised to end the “post-1945 world” as he put it, but he hadn’t done much. Don Rumsfeld had changed the whole dynamic of the Cold War – and passed the burden of Europe completely to the Soviets, where his specialists assured him a little time and economic reality would end-up draining Moscow dry.
Moscow had allowed Germany to re-unite, under a decade long formula which would see the former East Germany slowly integrated into the Western Republic. For now East Germany remained a “special zone” within Germany with its own Communist government, but no Soviet troops to prop it up. The German solution had been Ryzhkov’s gesture of goodwill and show of earnestness.
Although Federal Chancellor Helmut Kohl and his Christian Democrats had been in power when this was negotiated, the West German voters had gotten with the zeitgeist of Europe and elected the Social Democrats back to government, under Federal Chancellor Vogel.
As a reward to Kohl, and so that he remain involved in the process he began as Chancellor, Helmut Kohl is named as the new Federal President of the uniting Federal German Republic.
The assassination of James Callaghan had put the political wind under Prime Minister Neill Kinnock’s wings, and he had used the PIRA’s moment of uncertainty in the aftermath to wring an agreement out of them. The war in Northern Ireland now appeared to be a guerrilla war between the Unionist fanatics and the government, with the PIRA drawing back to the sidelines. Since the pre-dominant image on the British mainland of the Unionists was the ruddy face of Ian Paisley screaming all sorts of hysterical nonsense, many there believed the Unionists were crackpots and malcontents. This made the British actions against the Unionists in Ulster popular. Paisley’s party, the Democratic Unionist Party, had been banned altogether for inciting terrorism. Paisley himself was a fugitive, living and working underground. The CIA was funnelling money and arms to his group.
In North America the Canadian and Quebec governments had managed to find their way into prolonged negotiations over sovereignty. Rumsfeld couldn’t help but think that it was a failure that the Quebecois and Canadians had proved so reasonable, and had resisted the urge (supported by covert U.S. financing) to be more confrontational.
Mexico was moving in a more left-wing direction, gaining support from Western Europe and Cuba. Rumsfeld decided they had to do something about that.
In Chile a Franciscan monk named Father Cuerda had started a popular movement which was giving Pinochet fits. Cuerdan revolution, looking if anything like a Roman Catholic version of the Jihadist movement animating the PJO – the Cuerdan ideal was a combination of Maoist revolutionary ideas wedded to extreme religious egalitarianism – was spreading into Argentina and Peru, causing heartburn all around. Pope Pius XIII had apparently tried to reign Father Cuerda in, but his intervention had only inspired Cuerda to advance his revolution even more.
Brazil was disintegrating into three min-states, each under increasing financial control of the U.S., working through various corporations. Cuerdanism was starting to breakout there as well, which only promised further trouble.
Best of all, from Rumsfeld’s perspective, none of the affected South American countries were attempting to work together to face the common problem. Instead, faced with a major, cross-border movement, they each retreated into their own sovereignty and blamed each other for the problem. That division, in Rumsfeld’s estimation, worked in his favour because he could deal bi-laterally with each capital, and rub their raw wounds to continue pitting one against the other.
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The restive armed forces - and Sarah Louise
Robert Draper – Freefall: America under Rumsfeld and Cheney
The United States has never suffered a military coup in its history, despite the fact that on several occasions senior Generals (all retired) have been elected to the Presidency. Even in the darkest days of the Civil War, when General George B. MacLellan, chief of the largest Union Army hinted openly at such a thing, it never materialized. Until 1986, it was thought to be an anathema to the American system of government.
The first military coup in U.S. history aimed to oust the Rumsfeld Administration in 1987. The underlying causes were complex, hinging not so much on a single factor but instead on a slow pile-up of aggravations which by 1987 had reached a tipping point.
One of these factors was President Donald Rumsfeld’s withdrawal from NATO. The President treated it as a triumph of strategic thinking. His spin-machine produced a counter-narrative to history that essentially cast the whole American commitment to NATO from 1949 through 1983 as the result of a Soviet conspiracy at the Yalta and Potsdam Conferences in 1945 to burden the United States with the defense of Europe. The Rumsfeldian narrative added that most of the nations of Western Europe, upon which the seven administrations preceding Rumsfeld’s had lavished this largess (which included the Marshall Plan) were culturally and politically pro-Communist, and therefore pro-Soviet in their tendencies. Thus, according to Rumsfeld, the ultimate con perpetrated by Stalin and his successors had been to convince seven American Presidents and their advisors to finance and support nations which would become American enemies. When, after U.S. withdrawal from NATO, the nations of Western Europe did in fact develop a closer relationship with the reforming Soviet Union, the Rumsfeldians trumped this around as proof of their historical contention.
Ironically, President George Wallace had first spoken in his 1977 inaugural address about revisiting the arrangements of 1945, however his administration had done little about it. President Rumsfeld would use Wallace’s off-hand reference to suggest that his view was in fact a bi-partisan consensus, rather than a self-serving policy to cast-off Europe and free the military for other activity.
Many of the Cold Warriors in the Pentagon and the armed services did not accept the Rumsfeld consensus, and felt that the NATO withdrawal had been a fundamental betrayal of American leadership in the world. This was not sufficient to spark rebellion, but it was in many respects the beginning.
The wholesale privatization of the armed services, begun in 1985 and continued through the rest of Rumsfeld’s tenure, seemed to be more of a direct casus belli for rebellion among the senior ranks of the armed services. While Rumsfeldians characterized this as resistance to change, many – and especially the eventual – though unofficial – leader of this group, Joint Chiefs Vice Chairman General Alexander Haig – saw it as a further degradation of the U.S. military’s readiness. While General Haig and many of his supporters could accept a privatization of military services, what they could not easily accept was a Rumsfeldian attitude that gave contractors and their representatives primacy over uniformed military personnel. General William Odom captured the feeling when he stated, “as an Army officer I report to the President, but now I’m being asked to salute and take orders from the Chairman of TRW, and not even the chairman really, but one of his subordinates.” The military culture was insular and very much steeped in centuries of tradition. The contractors put in charge by the Rumsfeld Administration were dismissive of much of this, and this deeply insulted the uniformed leadership.
As Rear Admiral John McCain USN, one of the significant conspirators stated: “I knew this was going to destroy us when I saw ground support tactics subjected to a cost-benefit analysis. Within a few months strategic decisions were being made based solely on the ‘potential revenue stream’ versus the ‘cost inefficiency’ of an activity. Accountants were making military decisions, often to the detriment of the people in the front lines who would be facing any potential enemy. For me, the line was crossed when TRW mounted a cost-comparison study to see if it was more economically efficient to rescue downed pilots, or simply write them off and train replacements. This, to me, betrayed the very foundations of what military service was about. We were no longer warriors in our country’s service; we were widgets: inter-changeable parts on a spead sheet!”
The Rumsfeld period also saw an increase in the use of the military for domestic law enforcement, and in particular in operations that were correctly fit into political suppression. This ran against the grain for many officers, such as McCain and even the otherwise politically conservative Haig. By this time, from early 1986 onward a tipping point had been reached which slowly pushed these officers into action.
Another factor which came from the depths of the U.S. intelligence community and could not help but infuriate Haig, McCain and others was the realization that the U.S. government was enabling the flow of heroin from Asia to certain American cities with pro-We The People constituencies, most notably San Francisco, New York, Chicago, Newark and Miami (to name the top five only). The United States military had been co-opted into politically motivated narco trafficking, and this Haig, McCain and others felt was just morally wrong. It galvanized them to action.
The armed services Chiefs had worked closely with Secretary of Defense Connally, and had developed a grudging respect for him in Rumsfeld’s term as their advocate with an increasingly erratic administration. In April 1985 Secretary Connally was relieved of his post, and cast into the hidden web of Rumsfeldian political detention centers with the excuse that he was being treated for a nervous breakdown. Connally was replaced by William Kristol, a political ameteur, who was clearly a White House lackey who quickly alienated all of the Chiefs, not least of which because it became quickly apparent that Kristol was out of his depth at the Pentagon.
There can be no overall consensus over the extent of who was involved, since membership lists weren’t kept, and others who had not been involved beforehand became embroiled in the Haig coup afterward. It seems likely that Vice President Edwards and Senator Jimmy Carter of Georgia (a Naval Academy graduate who had developed a close working relationship with fellow Naval Academy man RADM McCain during the latter’s posting as liaison to the Senate Armed Services Committee) were, with Carter persuading Edwards of the need to remove Rumsfeld. Senator Carter, a Democrat, in-turn planned to work with a newly installed President Edwards to rapidly return civilian control to the situation. Although Vice President Edwards had long supported many of Rumsfeld’s economic policies, he came to believe that the Rumsfeld domestic political agenda had devolved into an un-constitutional tyranny.
Other names closely associated with the coup were Secretary of State Kirkpatrick and Attorney General Deukmejian, who seemed to share Edwards’ reservations about Rumsfeld, and who, in the event of the coup, would prove important in helping to restore a quick civilian administration, and in Deukmejian’s case, managing the legal fall out from a military action.
The extent of the involvement of others within the government is not clear, many would soon have cause to obscure their exact roles.
Meanwhile, Haig, supported by RADM McCain, Brigadier General Colin Powell, Air Force Lieutenant Colonel J.E.B Bush and his aide, Air Force Technical Sergeant Sarah Louise Heath, moved to remove Rumsfeld from office.
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Robert Draper – Freefall: America under Rumsfeld and Cheney
The United States has never suffered a military coup in its history, despite the fact that on several occasions senior Generals (all retired) have been elected to the Presidency. Even in the darkest days of the Civil War, when General George B. MacLellan, chief of the largest Union Army hinted openly at such a thing, it never materialized. Until 1986, it was thought to be an anathema to the American system of government.
The first military coup in U.S. history aimed to oust the Rumsfeld Administration in 1987. The underlying causes were complex, hinging not so much on a single factor but instead on a slow pile-up of aggravations which by 1987 had reached a tipping point.
One of these factors was President Donald Rumsfeld’s withdrawal from NATO. The President treated it as a triumph of strategic thinking. His spin-machine produced a counter-narrative to history that essentially cast the whole American commitment to NATO from 1949 through 1983 as the result of a Soviet conspiracy at the Yalta and Potsdam Conferences in 1945 to burden the United States with the defense of Europe. The Rumsfeldian narrative added that most of the nations of Western Europe, upon which the seven administrations preceding Rumsfeld’s had lavished this largess (which included the Marshall Plan) were culturally and politically pro-Communist, and therefore pro-Soviet in their tendencies. Thus, according to Rumsfeld, the ultimate con perpetrated by Stalin and his successors had been to convince seven American Presidents and their advisors to finance and support nations which would become American enemies. When, after U.S. withdrawal from NATO, the nations of Western Europe did in fact develop a closer relationship with the reforming Soviet Union, the Rumsfeldians trumped this around as proof of their historical contention.
Ironically, President George Wallace had first spoken in his 1977 inaugural address about revisiting the arrangements of 1945, however his administration had done little about it. President Rumsfeld would use Wallace’s off-hand reference to suggest that his view was in fact a bi-partisan consensus, rather than a self-serving policy to cast-off Europe and free the military for other activity.
Many of the Cold Warriors in the Pentagon and the armed services did not accept the Rumsfeld consensus, and felt that the NATO withdrawal had been a fundamental betrayal of American leadership in the world. This was not sufficient to spark rebellion, but it was in many respects the beginning.
The wholesale privatization of the armed services, begun in 1985 and continued through the rest of Rumsfeld’s tenure, seemed to be more of a direct casus belli for rebellion among the senior ranks of the armed services. While Rumsfeldians characterized this as resistance to change, many – and especially the eventual – though unofficial – leader of this group, Joint Chiefs Vice Chairman General Alexander Haig – saw it as a further degradation of the U.S. military’s readiness. While General Haig and many of his supporters could accept a privatization of military services, what they could not easily accept was a Rumsfeldian attitude that gave contractors and their representatives primacy over uniformed military personnel. General William Odom captured the feeling when he stated, “as an Army officer I report to the President, but now I’m being asked to salute and take orders from the Chairman of TRW, and not even the chairman really, but one of his subordinates.” The military culture was insular and very much steeped in centuries of tradition. The contractors put in charge by the Rumsfeld Administration were dismissive of much of this, and this deeply insulted the uniformed leadership.
As Rear Admiral John McCain USN, one of the significant conspirators stated: “I knew this was going to destroy us when I saw ground support tactics subjected to a cost-benefit analysis. Within a few months strategic decisions were being made based solely on the ‘potential revenue stream’ versus the ‘cost inefficiency’ of an activity. Accountants were making military decisions, often to the detriment of the people in the front lines who would be facing any potential enemy. For me, the line was crossed when TRW mounted a cost-comparison study to see if it was more economically efficient to rescue downed pilots, or simply write them off and train replacements. This, to me, betrayed the very foundations of what military service was about. We were no longer warriors in our country’s service; we were widgets: inter-changeable parts on a spead sheet!”
The Rumsfeld period also saw an increase in the use of the military for domestic law enforcement, and in particular in operations that were correctly fit into political suppression. This ran against the grain for many officers, such as McCain and even the otherwise politically conservative Haig. By this time, from early 1986 onward a tipping point had been reached which slowly pushed these officers into action.
Another factor which came from the depths of the U.S. intelligence community and could not help but infuriate Haig, McCain and others was the realization that the U.S. government was enabling the flow of heroin from Asia to certain American cities with pro-We The People constituencies, most notably San Francisco, New York, Chicago, Newark and Miami (to name the top five only). The United States military had been co-opted into politically motivated narco trafficking, and this Haig, McCain and others felt was just morally wrong. It galvanized them to action.
The armed services Chiefs had worked closely with Secretary of Defense Connally, and had developed a grudging respect for him in Rumsfeld’s term as their advocate with an increasingly erratic administration. In April 1985 Secretary Connally was relieved of his post, and cast into the hidden web of Rumsfeldian political detention centers with the excuse that he was being treated for a nervous breakdown. Connally was replaced by William Kristol, a political ameteur, who was clearly a White House lackey who quickly alienated all of the Chiefs, not least of which because it became quickly apparent that Kristol was out of his depth at the Pentagon.
There can be no overall consensus over the extent of who was involved, since membership lists weren’t kept, and others who had not been involved beforehand became embroiled in the Haig coup afterward. It seems likely that Vice President Edwards and Senator Jimmy Carter of Georgia (a Naval Academy graduate who had developed a close working relationship with fellow Naval Academy man RADM McCain during the latter’s posting as liaison to the Senate Armed Services Committee) were, with Carter persuading Edwards of the need to remove Rumsfeld. Senator Carter, a Democrat, in-turn planned to work with a newly installed President Edwards to rapidly return civilian control to the situation. Although Vice President Edwards had long supported many of Rumsfeld’s economic policies, he came to believe that the Rumsfeld domestic political agenda had devolved into an un-constitutional tyranny.
Other names closely associated with the coup were Secretary of State Kirkpatrick and Attorney General Deukmejian, who seemed to share Edwards’ reservations about Rumsfeld, and who, in the event of the coup, would prove important in helping to restore a quick civilian administration, and in Deukmejian’s case, managing the legal fall out from a military action.
The extent of the involvement of others within the government is not clear, many would soon have cause to obscure their exact roles.
Meanwhile, Haig, supported by RADM McCain, Brigadier General Colin Powell, Air Force Lieutenant Colonel J.E.B Bush and his aide, Air Force Technical Sergeant Sarah Louise Heath, moved to remove Rumsfeld from office.
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Those of us in the Toronto area have just lived through a Ford joke worse than this, which would be ASB in any TL but OTL.
And that is Rumsfeldia. Thank God it's not the world I live in.
Anyway, YAY, NEW UPDATES! They're as great as any other update!
Anyway, YAY, NEW UPDATES!
They're as great as any other update!
Imperator Maximilianius
Banned
Those of us in the Toronto area have just lived through a Ford joke worse than this, which would be ASB in any TL but OTL.
"The only difference between reality and fiction is that fiction needs to be credible."
- Mark Twain
Seconded. Really got to screw the pooch to get that diverse rogues' gallery on board for a coup.
- Status