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FTR #259 Campaign 2000 — Beating the Bushes in Florida

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MP3 Side 1 [1] | Side 2 [2]
RealAu­dio [3]

1. This pro­gram ana­lyzes some of the events in the 2000 pres­i­den­tial cam­paign against the back­ground of the polit­i­cal her­itage of the Bush fam­i­ly.

2. In par­tic­u­lar, the broad­cast relates recent sto­ries involv­ing Latin Amer­i­can polit­i­cal vio­lence with the polit­i­cal milieu of Jeb Bush (gov­er­nor of Flori­da and the broth­er of George W.)

3. Dis­cus­sion begins with new dis­clo­sures con­cern­ing the assas­si­na­tion of Orlan­do Lete­lier, a Chilean diplo­mat liv­ing in exile in the Unit­ed States. Recent­ly declas­si­fied doc­u­ments reveal that U.S. intel­li­gence was aware of the impend­ing assas­si­na­tion. (“Doc­u­ments Shed Light on Assas­si­na­tion of Chilean in U.S.” by Christo­pher Mar­quis and Diana Jean Schemo; The New York Times; 11/14/2000; p. A8.)

4.The Lete­lier assas­si­na­tion was part of an inter­na­tion­al assas­si­na­tion con­sor­tium known as Oper­a­tion Con­dor. Next, the broad­cast excerpts RFA#37 and reviews key aspects of Oper­a­tion Con­dor. (The mate­r­i­al is from The Great Hero­in Coup: Drugs, Intel­li­gence and Inter­na­tion­al Fas­cism, by Hen­rik Kruger, soft­cov­er and hard­cov­er edi­tions copy­right 1980 by South End Press.)

5. Oper­a­tion Con­dor and the Lete­lier killing were orches­trat­ed by an inter­na­tion­al fas­cist milieu that Kruger calls the Inter­na­tion­al Fascista. (Idem.) Incor­po­rat­ing Nazi SS offi­cers, CIA oper­a­tives, anti-Cas­tro Cubans and Latin Amer­i­can and Euro­pean fas­cists, the Inter­na­tion­al Fascista is at one with the polit­i­cal forces behind George Bush.

6. Many of Con­dor’s crimes were com­mit­ted while the elder Bush was direc­tor of the CIA. (Idem.)

7. One of the major ele­ments in Oper­a­tion Con­dor and the Fas­cist Inter­na­tion­al was the CORU orga­ni­za­tion. (Idem.)

8. Head­ed by a mil­i­tant anti-Cas­tro Cuban named Orlan­do Bosch, CORU was behind a wave of ter­ror­ist inci­dents in the U.S. and Latin Amer­i­ca, again, while Bush was direc­tor of the CIA. (Idem.)

9. A col­league of Bosch’s and an alleged par­tic­i­pant in the 1976 bomb­ing of a Cuban air­lin­er in which 73 peo­ple died was recent­ly arrest­ed in Pana­ma and detained on sus­pi­cion of con­spir­ing to mur­der Fidel Cas­tro. (“For­mer CIA Agent Accused of Cas­tro Plot

10. Next, the pro­gram excerpts more infor­ma­tion from RFA#37, detail­ing Jeb Bush’s role as his father’s liai­son with the anti-Cas­tro Cubans in Flori­da. (“The Fam­i­ly That Preys Togeth­er” by Jack Col­houn; Covert Action Infor­ma­tion Bul­letin #41; Sum­mer 1992.) The anti-Cas­tro Cubans were deeply involved in the Con­tra sup­port effort.

11. Jeb Bush also main­tained con­tacts with fig­ures from the Mia­mi under­world milieu. (Idem.)

12. In par­tic­u­lar, Jeb led the effort to win free­dom for CORU’s Orlan­do Bosch. (Idem.)

13. In light of the polit­i­cal her­itage of the Bush fam­i­ly and the asso­ci­a­tions main­tained by Jeb, the elec­toral irreg­u­lar­i­ties beset­ting the 2000 cam­paign should not come as a sur­prise. The con­clud­ing por­tion of the broad­cast details some of those irreg­u­lar­i­ties and some of the peo­ple appar­ent­ly involved in them. In addi­tion to the dis­put­ed “but­ter­fly bal­lots” in Palm Beach coun­ty, African vot­ers appear to have been inter­dict­ed in large num­bers in their attempts to vote. (“Fair­ness for Whom?” by Bob Her­bert; The New York Times; 11/13/2000; p. A25.)

14. A Repub­li­can offi­cial con­tra­vened Flori­da elec­tion law by allow­ing Repub­li­can work­ers to camp out in her office for as long as 10 days to make hand­writ­ten cor­rec­tions on the pre-print­ed appli­ca­tions. (“G.O.P. Played Role in Absen­tee Vote” by Michael Moss and Ford Fes­senden; The New York Times; 11/14/2000; p. A1.)

15. As has been well-record­ed, the Flori­da offi­cial in charge of the bal­lot­ing was co-chair of the Bush for Pres­i­dent cam­paign in that state. (“Flori­da Offi­cial Has Dual Roles In a Mael­strom” by Michael Coop­er; The New York Times; 11/14/2000; p. A1.)

16. Even though Jeb Bush recused him­self from the recount bat­tle, some of his top aides have not. (“Jeb Bush’s Top Aides Tak­ing Time Off to Help the Gov­er­nor’s Broth­er” by Lisa Get­ter; The San Jose Mer­cury News; 11/17/2000; p. 25A.)

17. In addi­tion, it turns out that the head of the polit­i­cal desk at Fox news who led the media stam­pede to reas­sign Flori­da from Gore to Bush, was Jeb and “W’s” cousin John Ellis. (“One More elec­tion Embar­rass­ment for the Press: Bush Cousin” by Tom Rosen­stiel; The Los Ange­les Times; 11/15/2000; p. B9.)

18. Ellis was in close tele­phon­ic con­tact with Jeb and “W” on elec­tion night, appar­ent­ly feed­ing them polit­i­cal intel­li­gence on the elec­tion. (“News Exec­u­tive Called Races, and Bush” by Bill Carter; The New York Times; 11/14/2000; p. A17.) (Record­ed on 11/19/2000.)