[BRIGADE] PJB: The "Isms" That Bedevil Bush
Published: Tue, 03/25/08
"In smearing as nativists, protectionists and isolationists those
who wish to stop the invasion, halt the export of factories and
jobs to Asia, and stop the unnecessary wars, Bush is attacking the
last true conservatives in his party..."
Brigade, did you know you can post comments about Pat's columns and
more in our Buchanan.org Forum? Check it out at:
http://buchanan.org/blog/?page_id=725
For the Cause, Linda
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The "Isms" That Bedevil Bush
By Patrick J. Buchanan
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
On reading George Bush's discourse to the New York Economic Club
last week, Cicero's insight came to mind: "To be ignorant of what
occurred before you were born is to remain always a child."
With Iraq entering its sixth year, the dollar sinking to peso
levels, the economy careening into recession, and 12 million to 20
million illegal aliens roosting here, Bush alerted us to what
really worries him:
"I'm troubled by isolationism and protectionism ... (and) another
'ism,' and that's nativism. And that's what happened throughout our
history. And probably the most grim reminder of what can happen to
America during periods of isolationism and protectionism is what
happened in the late -- in the '30s, when we had this America First
policy and Smoot-Hawley. And look where it got us."
Let us try to sort out this dog's breakfast.
First, America was never isolationist. From its birth, the republic
was a great trading nation with ties to the world. True, in 1935,
1936 and 1937, a Democratic Congress passed and FDR signed
neutrality acts to keep us out of the Italo-Abyssinian and Spanish
civil wars. And FDR did say, "We are not isolationist except
insofar as we seek to isolate ourselves completely from war." But
how did staying out of Abyssinia and Spain hurt America?
As for Smoot-Hawley, it was a tariff enacted in June 1930, nine
months after the Crash of 1929, which occurred, as Milton Friedman
won a Nobel Prize for proving, when the stock market bubble, caused
by the Fed's easy money policy, burst. Smoot-Hawley had nothing to
do with a Depression that began in 1929 and lasted through FDR's
first two terms. This is a liberal myth, probably taught to Mr.
Bush by New Deal Democrats at the Milton Academy.
America First was an organization of 800,000 anti-interventionists
formed at Yale in 1940 by patriots like Gerald Ford, Potter Stewart
and Sargent Shriver, backed by John F. Kennedy, to check FDR's
drive to war. Herbert Hoover supported it, and its greatest
spokesman was the Lone Eagle, Charles Lindbergh.
But America First did not make policy. FDR did. And it was FDR who,
by cutting off Japan's oil in July 1941, rebuffing Prince Konoye's
offer to meet him in the Pacific or Alaska and issuing a virtual
ultimatum on Nov. 26, 1941 -- to get out of China -- that propelled
Japan to its fatal decision to attack Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7.
Isolationist is an epithet used to smear those patriots who adhere
to Washington's admonition to stay out of foreign wars, Jefferson's
counsel to seek "peace, commerce and honest friendship with all
nations, entangling alliances with none" and John Quincy Adams's
declaration that America "goes not abroad, in search of monsters to
destroy."
Does Bush regard these statesmen as blinkered isolationists?
Protectionism is the structuring of trade policy to protect the
national sovereignty, ensure economic self-reliance and "prosper
America first." It was the policy of the Republican Party from
Abraham Lincoln to Calvin Coolidge. America began that era in 1860
with one half of Britain's production and ended it producing more
than all of Europe put together. Is this a record to be ashamed of?
Compare protectionism's success to Bush's record.
Since 2001, he has presided over the seven largest trade deficits
in history, the loss of 3.5 million manufacturing jobs and the
collapse of the dollar, and added but one-fifth of the private
sector jobs Bill Clinton created. Gold has gone from $260 an ounce
to $1,000, oil from $28 a barrel to $100.
"Nativism" is another smear term, dating to the early 1850s and the
Know-Nothing Party, which sought to halt immigration after millions
of Irish flooded in after the famine of 1845. It carries a
connotation of xenophobia, or the fear and hatred of foreigners.
Thus does Bush tar critics who deplore his dereliction of duty in
failing to defend this nation's borders against a Third World
invasion that may turn this republic into a Tower of Babel.
From 1924 to 1965, there was indeed little immigration. Does that
make Coolidge, Hoover, FDR, Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower and
Kennedy knuckle-dragging nativists? When JFK took office, we were
as united and strong a country as we have ever been. How did we
suffer from not having 12 million to 20 million illegal aliens here?
In smearing as nativists, protectionists and isolationists those
who wish to stop the invasion, halt the export of factories and
jobs to Asia, and stop the unnecessary wars, Bush is attacking the
last true conservatives in his party.
Which is understandable. For after the judges and tax cuts, what is
there about Bush that is conservative? His foreign policy is
Wilsonian. His trade policy is pure FDR. His spending is LBJ all
the way. His amnesty for illegals is Teddy Kennedy's policy.
Two-thirds of the nation says we are on the wrong course.
Two-thirds rejects NAFTA and amnesty. Two-thirds wants out of Iraq.
Two-thirds rejects Bush. Bush says that people are being misled by
those wicked old isolationists, protectionists and nativists. At
least he and Poppy will have something to agree on in retirement.
SOURCE: http://buchanan.org/blog/?p=970
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