"Karl Rove’s Master Plan: A One-Party America," for BuzzFlash.com by James Moore, Co-Author of "Bush's Brain"

A BUZZFLASH GUEST CONTRIBUTION
by James C. Moore, Co-Author of "Bush's Brain"

BuzzFlash Editor's Note: If you caught the admission by former Texas Lt. Governor Ben Barnes (revealed on the Internet this weekend) that he got George W. Bush in the Texas Air National Guard because he was a rich kid, jumping his name over hundreds of other applicants, some of whom died in Vietnam, you can thank Jim Moore who uncovered the video on a website. Moore is a long-time Texas journalist and Karl Rove watcher. He co-wrote "Bush's Brain," the seminal book on Bush's Machiavelli, a truly evil man, with Wayne Slater. The book, now a movie, leaves little doubt, from his past Lee Atwater style dirty tricks, that Rove designed the Bush GOP Swift Liars strategy and the most recent outbreak of unpatriotic, anti-Veteran sophomoric demagoguery on the floor of the GOP convention: delegates wearing band-aids to mock recipients of the purple heart.

As for the admission of Ben Barnes that he was ashamed of enabling Bush to avoid service in Vietnam while other young men died whose place Bush took in the Air National Guard, the mainstream press virtually ignored it, except for a lone Associated Press story that appeared in the back pages of the pro-GOP news section of the New York Times. Yes, the American media feasted on the lies of the Karl Rove Swift Boat prevaricators, but they couldn't handle the truth about America's man in the White House being a coward and a liar. The guy wouldn't even take his medical exam as a pilot because he was allegedly doing drugs and was grounded. But why let the facts get in the way of Rove-orchestrated lies about Kerry?

In the following commentary, written exclusively for BuzzFlash, Jim Moore, who apologized in a previous BuzzFlash piece for voting for Bush in 2000, reveals what Rove has in store for America.

For more background on Rove, we urge you to read "Bush's Brain" or see the movie now playing at selected theaters.

Here is Moore's commentary:

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While everyone analyzes and complains about his tactics, Karl Rove has his eyes on a grand strategy.

The Swift Boat Veterans for Lies is but a tiny piece of a schematic Rove has been carrying in his head since his salad days in Texas. Bush’s Brain will die happy the day he achieves his two greatest goals. The first of these is to turn the U.S. into what is fundamentally a one-party system. Secondly, he wants the federal government to have so little money that it can do nothing to get in the way of business interests; nor will it be able to sustain any kind of socially progressive assistance for disadvantaged Americans.

His desire to destroy the Democratic Party is not about fair play politics. Rove sees a country where there is only symbolic opposition and democracy is more of a "Potemkin Village" show than an actually tallying of votes and a discussion of issues. He and the Republicans believe they know what is best for America. They do not consider ideas from the left or the center. Those people are simply wrong to them.

Of course, the irony is lost on Rove and his henchmen that a one-party nation, at the worst, turns us into something akin to a communist country or, as a minimum, the pseudo-democracy maintained for decades by Mexico.

But Karl doesn’t care. America is not important. Political victory is what matters, the control of power, and the economy. This isn’t conspiracy theory nonsense. He’s taking the steps. And they are working. During his interview with Brit Hume on Fox News last week, the network played a video clip of an interview with me and I said, “I truly believe that the policy and politics of Karl Rove are a threat to our republic.” The senior presidential advisor dismissed me as “a far left-winger who has been drinking too much swamp water.” Rove obviously doesn’t realize that 99 percent of America is to the left of him politically and the remaining one percent is likely holed up in a compound in Montana.

So what is he doing? Why do I believe one guy is ruining our political system? Because I know his three-step plan.

It began here in Texas when Rove was rebuilding the Republican Party in the Lone Star State. Rich people were asked to contribute to an organization called the Civil Justice League. They were billed as a grass roots political action committee that wanted to elect judges more sympathetic to the business community. And they did. They also carried the message that trial lawyers are bad people who are ruining our civil justice system. Eventually, sweeping tort reform was enacted in Texas and trial lawyers discovered there was no money in taking most cases because the size of settlements had been limited.

It is not a coincidence that trial lawyers contribute mightily to Democratic Party causes. And tort reform in Texas was not about bringing more justice to the courtroom. It was a step in taking away the ability of trial lawyers to make contributions to Democrats. And it worked. Rove has taken the “lawyers are bad people” campaign onto the national stage and he is winning there, too. Trial lawyers are getting hammered on issues like asbestos and mercury poisoning and every other case they bring against corporate America. If President Bush is re-elected, we will see sweeping reforms that drastically limit the amount of money any lawyer can earn in a liability lawsuit. Trial lawyers will discover, as they already are, that they cannot afford to take most contingency cases. Damage caps generally will not cover costs of preparing for trial. This accomplishes Rove’s first step: Lawyers without money mean the Democratic Party has lost a critical source of funding.

Step two is to destroy unions. They, too, give greatly to Democrats. Every chance he gets, Rove has a Republican member of congress drop a provision into a bill that weakens collective bargaining rights. This was the Democrats’ main complaint against the Bush-backed version of the Homeland Security Bill. A key provision reduced the ability of federal workers to negotiate for better pay. Every time an industry is on its knees, Rove sees a chance to get government to help them, but only if its workers will make concessions to get the company going again. These are always about the strength of unions. If he can destroy unions, Rove will take away another critical source of money for Democrats. If Mr. Bush wins another term, there will be draconian measures enacted reducing the negotiating power of unions in this country and their right to organize and negotiate.

The third ingredient in Mr. Rove’s political stew is Israel. Through the years, Jewish voters in America have contributed as much as 40 percent of the funds for the Democratic Party on an annualized basis. This is an astounding figure given the fact that people who identify their faith as Jewish in census forms amount to only about two percent of the U.S. population. Their money is critical to Democratic issues and Rove wants to get as much of it over to Republicans as possible. To do this, he has simply had the president step back from criticizing Israel. Bush Administration policy regarding Ariel Sharon has been strictly laissez faire. Sharon can do no wrong. “Israel has a right to protect itself,” White House spokesman Scott McClellan says ad infinitum. There is little, if any, pressure for Sharon to make concessions for peace.

America’s interests are Israel’s interests and since our sworn enemy is Arab Muslim, this calculus is easy for Rove. The Bush White House has been the most disengaged on the question of Israel and Mideast peace of any in the past half century. And don’t think the Arab world does not further resent us for this policy. While Rove and company rattle their sabers at Iran for building a nuclear reactor, Israel has not even formally acknowledged to the world that it has a nuclear program, even though its arsenal is estimated to be the world’s third largest. Israel has not signed the non-proliferation treaty nor has it ever undergone nuclear inspections by an international team. Many Democratic Jewish voters (who tend to be more sympathetic to the Israeli Labor Party) are angry about Sharon’s policies and the Bush administration’s tolerance of them, but others are beginning to send money to the Republicans. I interviewed a Jewish industrialist in the south last summer while doing research for a book and he told me he had been a Democrat his entire life until Bush came along. When I asked why the switch he said simply, “He cares about Israel.” This man is now a Bush Pioneer and has raised $100,000 on three occasions for the president.*

When Rove has finally dried up the lifeblood of the Democratic Party, he will guide the president and congress in a direction that begins to bleed the federal government of its money.

Eventually, the Washington bureaucracy will be a vestigial organ, a government that cannot govern because it has no money. There will be no social programs to help the poor. Businesses will develop risky products without the risk of liability and the great institutions, which have nurtured the growth of our nation, will begin to falter and fail.

This, of course, has already begun to happen. We move closer each day to an imperial presidency and a one party nation while Section 8 Housing for the poor is reduced and more homeless are created and state governments are given the option to bail out of Head Start funding, a program the president promised to protect when he was campaigning. As we reduce assistance for the poor, we still manage to send our troops into combat without bulletproof vests or armored plating on their outdated vehicles. But the president smiles and says things are getting better. And we believe him because Americans choose to believe their president.

Rove knows that, too. He knows that we are all too busy worrying about our jobs and retirement and health care or paying for our children’s college education that we don’t have time to pay attention to the details of issues. Few of us read the three thousand word stories in the newspaper. We read the headlines. We watch the news with the sound turned down. We’re too busy. But citizenship is a job, too. And while we’re worrying about the mortgage, Karl Rove is busy stealing our democracy.

The plan is working perfectly.

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*BuzzFlash Editor's Note: The latest polling shows that the Jewish vote, probably the highest percentage Democratic vote after the black vote, is still expected to go 80% for Kerry (about the usual presidential vote percentage for a Democrat). Rove is more interested in peeling away campaign contributions than votes, because the Jewish vote tends to be concentrated in blue states anyway, with the exception of Florida. But the Jewish community also still remains one of the largest financial bases of support for the Democrats.