The two main political parties don’t happen to have a plank in their platforms on this particular matter. Worse, for some time they have immersed themselves in the “Politics of Nothing” where the truly difficult issues are ignored completely or locked into permanent stasis. What is left are the personal and the dregs. One is reminded of the old aphorism about college life, namely that, “the reason university politics are so vicious is precisely because the stakes are so small.”
The process of electing an American president has now become sufficiently grotesque and expensive, voters no longer expect any deep controversy on a matter of true substance to force itself upon them during this quadrennial circus.
The media focuses 75% of its coverage on who’s up, who’s down, the polling numbers, endorsements, pratfalls, scandals and peccadilloes. Only 25% is left to cover what a candidate actually believes, assuming they would tell, or how they would govern, assuming they knew.
All of which might suggest, why not make the partisan case. Pick a party and convince it the UFO/ET intriguees out there number in the tens of millions (they do). Show ‘em the websites, the mail lists, the demographics (high education, high income), the emotional intensity, and then close with, “Four words, ‘Go Alien, Kick Butt.’” You got your pro-life vs. pro-choice, your pro-gun vs. anti-gun, and now, your Rare Earth vs. Aliens Coming out the Wazoo. Finally the politics of UFOs would take flight with everyone taking sides and spending hundreds of millions of dollars making TV commercials intent on showing the other side is comprised of idiots.
We could do that, but it would be wrong.
So let’s examine the coming election and how a victory by George W. Bush might affect the process of disclosure of the extraterrestrial presence. But in doing so, let’s not misinterpret a tough and candid analysis as a campaign ad for electing Al Gore (and vice versa, next week).
Election 2000 offers up a host of delicious ironies.
Much has been made of the millennial turnover. Certainly the politicians have taken advantage of this arithmetic inevitability. So many bridges to the 21st Century have been built, no one is at risk of getting their feet wet. A cynic would say the year 2000 is about as important as that moment, while stuck in another freeway jam up, you happen to note your odometer turnover 100,000 miles. You smile for a moment, and ten seconds later it’s history.
Call it accident, fate, or a cosmic joke – the next couple of years will live up to the pre-turnover hype. This election campaign, conducted in the last year of the second millennium and placing a new president in office in the first year of the next, is indeed our political connection between two worlds. What is at stake is whether the 21st Century will surpass the horrors of the 20th or bring the human race freedom at last from the brutality, some say evil, of its pre-sentience animal nature, its lizard brain.
The moment screams for a president with profound new vision, someone poised by special background and circumstance, to lead the most powerful nation on the planet into truly new territory.
So, naturally, what we have is perhaps the most dramatic instance of “same old, same old” in memory. After eight painful years of dealing with the consequences of a president who lost, or perhaps never had, his moral compass, the Democrats put forth a candidate who is as close to a seamless extension of that president as has occurred in any election this century. More on that next week.
And the Republicans? In 1990 President George H. W. Bush began a campaign with an 80% approval rating. He was, and is, the quintessential 20th Century political man: WWII, cold warrior, diplomat, CIA, VP, secret societies, backroom connections, patriotism, control, plausible denial – the total package. Perhaps he somehow sensed that cosmic change was in the air because in mid-campaign the sitting president lost his vision, stomach for the process, perhaps even his desire to be president and came unglued
At the end he could barely deliver a speech without falling into near incomprehensibility. What followed was an upset, which in the opinion of this author surpassed that of Truman over Dewey in ’48. William Clinton, the anti-Bush, is elected. He takes office as stunned Republicans stare in disbelief.
Despised by the military and intelligence careerists to such a degree it becomes a serious matter of protocol noted by the press, Clinton immediately comes under political and personal attack almost unprecedented in the modern era. Finally, in a fashion worthy of Shakespeare’s best tragedies, he defies his enemies with a consummate act of self-destruction and hubris, handing them all they need to destroy him completely and take the Democratic Party with him.
He barely escapes by virtue of the incompetence of the Republican leadership in the House and their own personal failures coupled with Clinton’s almost preternatural survivability. Nevertheless, the country is put through a nightmare.
There is every indication the public wants to put this behind them - the extreme partisanship, special prosecutors, tawdriness, and political gridlock. They want a new start and a rejuvenation of the presidency which has been further weakened and humiliated. So who do the Republican insiders and deep pockets line up behind early on and in extraordinary financial fashion?
The son of George Bush, George Bush, a man in some respects more like Clinton than Gore. The showing of E.T. was the last event on June 27th. The very next event the next morning, June 28th, was a meeting between President Reagan and James A. Baker 111, Chief of Staff; Edwin Meese 111, Counselor; and Michael K. Deaver, Deputy Chief of Staff; met in the oval office. From there the four men went to the highly secure White House Situation Room where the President participated in a briefing of the U.S. Space Program. Participants included six members of the National Security Council or National Security Affairs and no one from NASA.
The absence of anyone from NASA for a briefing of the U.S. Space Program is unheard of. The absence of any NASA people is even more unusual, in light of the fact that a couple days later, President Reagan attended the landing of the U.S. Space Shuttle at Edwards Air Force Base.
The White House files also documented the thank-you letters sent from the White House to Spielberg. On July 12, 1982, President Reagan signed a letter addressed to Spielberg which stated,
"Nancy and I want you to know how much we enjoyed seeing ‘E.T.’ It is truly a film classic and you are to be congratulated for your splendid work... we appreciate your sharing ‘E.T.’ with us... "
Spielberg went on to show E.T. to the United Nations where he was introduced by Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar, who would have his own dramatic UFO experience a couple years later. (complete story) Spielberg was presented the UN Peace medal by de Cuellar.
On December 9, Spielberg traveled to England where he screened the movie for Queen Elizabeth and to Prince Phillip, who was like Reagan, a UFO enthusiast .
Reagan Goes to Roswell