It was hard to sit still and watch his smug bully’s face during the February 2 State of the Union speech. It was infuriating to watch the standing ovations of the surrounding Congress, or hear the fawning patter of the news media.

In official traditions, the President tells Congress each year how the "Union" (meaning the United States) is doing. In reality, the State of the Union speech is a "bully pulpit" where presidents build public support for their next actions.

George W. Bush didn’t dare breathe a word of truth about the real "State of the Union." Bush couldn’t mention how most of the planet thinks he is a bloody cowboy who wants to rule like a new Roman emperor. He didn’t mention how the invasion of Iraq has turned into a brutal counterinsurgency. He didn’t discuss how bitterly the U.S. "homeland" is divided between "two Americas"—half of which hates the sight of him.

Could he mention how millions mutter about maybe moving to another country, or finding new and powerful ways to resist? No.

Bush didn’t even discuss the usual government balance sheet (for the obvious reason that the annual budget deficit is approaching half a trillion dollars, while he demands 0 billion more to occupy Iraq and Afghanistan).

No, this government is on a faith-based mission. Facts aren’t allowed to obscure the vision. Obstacles are just supposed to be bulldozed away, by brute force if necessary. And every policy speech of theirs has a chilling feel of Orwellian double-think.

Bush was puffed up during this speech by Iraq’s staged election-under-the-gun, which came to us distorted through the lens of an incredibly dishonest media. This election sham was offered as proof that (regardless of "errors") the U.S. is at least (somehow and supposedly) "doing some good in Iraq." In the audience of Bush’s speech, his conservative supporters dipped their fingers in purple ink and waved them around (in supposed "solidarity with Iraqi voters").

How much more honest it would be if they just dipped their hands in Iraqi blood and waved that around while Bush ranted.

*****

Let’s look beneath the ugliness of it all and do some "reconnaissance on the enemy." Let’s dissect what this speech shows about where this government is actually planning to go. Three things jump out:

• First, Bush openly threatened Syria and Iran.
• Second, he took aim at Social Security and proposed first steps toward its privatization.
• And third, he made it clear that he will seek to end women’s legal right to choose abortion and appoint a new wave of judges to get this accomplished.

King of the World

The President of the United States stood in front of Congress like an emperor announcing what other governments must do—Saudi Arabia must do this, Egypt must do that, Syria must heel. He openly encouraged the overthrow of Iran’s government and pledged support for that effort.

In Iraq, Bush had said he was invading because of WMDs—but there were no WMDs. He accused Iraq of "links" to "terrorists"—but there were no links. There was supposedly a threat to the U.S. "homeland"—but there was no such threat.

What very very short memories we are expected to have! Because now, in this speech, we are suddenly back to Square One. Bush’s justification for threatening Iran? They may be trying to get WMDs. They supposedly back unnamed "terrorists." (Déjà vu all over again!)

So here we are: Justifications for war blended into each other, until it is clear that, for the U.S. government, no justification is needed.

And the underlying, unstated logic behind this? The U.S. is making an aggressive grab for world domination, and everyone (especially the strategic Middle East countries and the potential rival powers of the European Union) is simply supposed to fall in line.

Bush’s speech was surrounded by more explicit and more ominous threats from his government. Vice President Cheney openly said that Israel might now launch targeted strikes on Iran. The new Secretary of State Condeleezza Rice refused to say there would not be war, explaining that Bush was not taking "any option off the table." In other words, Iran (and other countries in the world) now live under a permanent, unrelenting threat of U.S. attack.

Let’s talk about values for a moment: All this naked imperialism is supposed to be considered normal. A simple and mindless equation is used: The U.S. government is for "freedom" and backed by "god"—and so whatever this government does, or wants, or demands is righteous.

And no one is supposed to think too deeply whether all this negates the rights of other nations, whether it disregards what their people really want, whether people ruled by the U.S. are ever really "free," whether there really is a "god" backing colonial crusades, or whether what really is being imposed isn’t just the sordid interests of U.S. capitalism.

The Last Shred of Security

Bush has declared war on Social Security.

Some things need to be pointed out before we can get to the heart of what that means:

First, his targeting of Social Security is a sign of the extremism of the forces who now rule the U.S.

Social Security was set up to guarantee a minimum survival pension for much of the population and to guarantee that disabled people and orphans aren’t simply abandoned.

Nearly 48 million people currently receive Social Security benefits (with average benefits of ,000 a year). Without Social Security, it is estimated that half of older people would find themselves in desperate poverty—unable to cover the bare necessities of life. Though it is shamefully inadequate, Social Security is popular (and even beloved) because for many working people it is the only pension they have.

And so Social Security has been considered "the third rail" of U.S. politics—meaning that if a politician even lays a finger on it, it could be political death.

Bush (and his charging crew of right wingers) clearly dare to go there—with hatchets in their hands.

Second, Bush’s program has nothing to do with solving a "crisis in Social Security."

For decades, reactionary forces have deliberately "under-funded" all the social institutions and programs they wanted to destroy (including public education, public housing and Social Security). Then, as a program like that grows bankrupt and frustratingly inadequate—they say "it isn’t working" and demand its abolition through privatization.

Privatized education (like school vouchers, etc.) leads to formalizing a class-tiered and segregated educational system, filled with religious ignorance.

When horrific public housing gets torn down, hundreds of thousands are driven into homelessness.

When welfare was gutted, many more impoverished women were driven into prostitution. And whole communities are driven deeper into the "faith-based" embrace of fundamentalist churches.

Social Security is now grossly underfunded. And their solution? Bush’s plans don’t solve Social Security’s funding problems. He never discussed funding at all. His plan was for the "partial privatization" of the system—shifting some of the tax money of younger people into the stock market. And this is no solution at all: and will increase the insecurity of people’s lives and retirement.

Third, Bush’s approach to Social Security is to turn different sections of the people against each other, and against the remaining national social net.

After working their lives away, people need to be cared for—and guaranteed dignified, meaningful, and secure lives even after they are too old or sick to work. This has never happened under this capitalist system, and even the flimsy, tattered social net that does exist is now under frontal attack.

But as Social Security stumbles toward bankruptcy, the discussion of its problems are used to fuel a raw mood of dog-eat-dog. Bush argues that since old people are now living longer, they are an unfair burden on coming generations of young people. And so young people (supposedly) should look at their narrowest selfish interests—and demand that more of their retirement taxes should go straight to themselves (personally, as individuals).

In the most twisted argument seen in a loooooooong time, Bush actually says (in his current speaking tour) that Black people should support Social Security privatization because they die earlier than white people, and fewer Black men make it to retirement age. Is he arguing that efforts must quickly be made to guarantee decent health care for Black people so they don’t die needlessly? No! His argument is that Black people should help him dismantle Social Security, because (supposedly) fewer of them live to get it!

(Not only is his argument twisted, it is also a lie. For about 20 percent of retired people, Social Security is the only income. But that number is 38 percent among Black and Hispanic elderly people. Attacking Social Security means attacking the most poor, and not surprisingly that includes many Black people.)

Fourth, Bush’s plan of partial privatization is only a first step.

The goal here is to create the political conditions for abolishing universal social protections. Once younger people invest part of their social security tax in the stock market, once the unified system is broken up, then (and this is openly stated in conservative think-tanks) the larger "political consensus" backing the social net is shattered. These are plans to ultimately end a universal, guaranteed national pension system!

Now, let’s look at the bigger picture. This destruction of Social Security is part of a larger move to actually rewrite the social contract of U.S. capitalism and to create a so-called "ownership society."

Let’s talk about values: The conservative Republican forces now in power want a society without a hint of social solidarity or the "entitlements" of guaranteed mutual support. They want a society where fear and insecurity reinforce conformity and obedience, and where an individual’s only refuge is the traditional family and the traditional church.

They want a world that glorifies "personal responsibility"—which really means that the injustices of society can be blamed on supposed moral flaws (and "irresponsibility") of those who are suffering.

In short, they want a society where poverty comes without dignity or entitlements, and where wealth comes without guilt.

And let’s talk about the material underpinnings of those ugly values: They want to guarantee that the United States has an ever-growing lower tier of desperate people who live in fear of falling. Their whole program is fundamentally rooted in capitalism and in the capitalist need for more and more people willing to work for less and less—to guarantee the global competitiveness of their "homeland."

Rewriting the Basic Law

Bush’s speech laid out a tight and specific battle plan for winning "the culture wars"—by using presidential powers to remake the legal system. Bush said he will appoint judges who don’t "legislate from the bench," and he demanded that the Senate’s Republican majority have a free hand to approve his nominees. And he called for passing a constitutional amendment against gay marriage.

To understand what all this means, let’s list the major Supreme Court decisions that conservatives are talking about when they denounce "judges legislating from the bench":

Brown vs. Board of Education (1954, which dismantled official state segregation of schools)

Griswald v. Connecticut (1965, which said states could not make it illegal to sell birth control)

Loving v. Virginia (1967, which overturned state laws forbidding interracial marriage)

Roe v. Wade (1973, which made abortion legal across the U.S.)

Lawrence v. Texas (2003, which legalized gay sexual acts anywhere in the U.S.)

Bush and his supporters uphold a legal doctrine called "strict constructivism"—which means that judges can only uphold those rights that are literally written into the Constitution. Large parts of the modern legal tradition, like the "right to privacy" and "separation of church and state," are not literally written into the words of the Constitution.

Once again, let’s talk about values: What guides this whole program is the fundamentalist view that people are basically sinful, that their behavior and choices need to be confined and sharply limited. It is a view that says Right and Wrong are absolute and determined by fundamentalist Christian teachings on "god"—and therefore people should not have wide "choices" about their own lives or about the direction of society itself.

Bush justified his plans by talking about "building a culture of life"—which is a code word for attacking women’s right to choose. And it is revealing that, in the same speech, he talked about how he plans to reform the federal death penalty system—which is a plan for getting the federal government back in the business of executing prisoners! What a wonderful "culture of life"!

Let’s talk about the bigger picture:

The right wing calls all this "culture wars"—and they really mean "wars." At the end, they want a victory where their enemies are flattened and they have the power to remake the U.S. (and much of the world!).

Specifically they want to impose a reactionary and traditional view of patriarchy on family and sexuality, including especially on women and teenagers. They want to end abortion and much more: they want to sharply restrict birth control, sex information, tolerance of gay sexuality, and social experimentation. They want "cultural diversity" to disappear under a tidal wave of conformity and censorship. Many of Bush’s Christian fascist hard- core supporters openly see their goals in theocratic terms—they want the harsh morality and rules of their religion to be the law-of-the-land.

It is a vision of a world where everyone "knows their place" and where the power of society will slap you back into your place if you forget.

They think this is their moment. And they are looking for openings to make big advances. Imagine if there is another incident like 9/11. How will people like Bush, Alberto Gonzales, Rumsfeld and Condoleezza Rice exploit it? And what will the U.S. and the world look like if they have their way? From the commanding heights, in the White House, in Congress, in the military and in the Supreme Court—they are like the gangster who warns "We can do this the hard way, or we can do this the easy way."

An Unacceptable Future

After the State of the Union speech, it stood out how unopposed Bush’s program currently is within the power structure.

The Democratic leadership, of course, got their usual "moment of response." Who was the first speaker for the Democrats? Senator Harry Reid from Nevada, a conservative Mormon and supporter of the criminalization of abortion. This social conservative now heads the Democrats in the Senate!

With him was Rep. Nancy Pelosi, the House Democratic leader, who argued against "slipping out the back door of Iraq" and demanded that Bush accelerate the creation of an Iraqi puppet army.

Who can imagine either of them leading any real opposition to the program Bush was laying out?

And yet, if you really listen to Bush’s speech and afterwords piece together what it means—it is clear. They are serious about all these changes, and the people need to be very, very serious too. They have their filthy values, and we need to fight for our values: internationalism, bold social experimentation, liberating social change, equality and choice for women, real eye-opening education, scientific critical thinking, and a whole culture of mutual support among people.

Clearly millions of people would be horrified to live in the world Bush envisions. And literally millions would help fight it—if they understood deeply what is at stake, and if they saw a way to actually resist, and if they got a living sense of a liberated new society that is worth fighting for.

A former worker at TBN threatened to disclose an alleged 1996 homosexual encounter.



Televangelist Paul Crouch, founder of the world's largest Christian broadcasting network, has waged a fierce legal battle to prevent a former employee from publicizing allegations that he and Crouch had a sexual encounter eight years ago.

Crouch, 70, is the president of Trinity Broadcasting Network, based in Orange County, whose Christian programming reaches millions of viewers around the world via satellite, cable and broadcast stations.

The source of the allegations against him is Enoch Lonnie Ford, who met Crouch at a TBN-affiliated drug treatment center in 1991 and later went to work for the ministry.

After Ford threatened to sue TBN in 1998, claiming that he had been unjustly fired, Crouch reached a 5,000 settlement with him. In return, Ford agreed, among other things, not to discuss his claim about a sexual encounter with the TV preacher.

But in the last year, Ford has threatened to go public with his story, prompting a flurry of legal maneuvers — conducted in closed court hearings, sealed pleadings and private arbitration.

In court papers, Crouch has denied the allegations, and ministry officials have described Ford — who has a history of drug problems and has served time for a sex offense — as a liar and an extortionist.

At stake are the public image of one of the world's most successful televangelists and, potentially, the fortunes of the broadcasting empire that Crouch and his wife, Jan, built over the last 31 years.

TBN and Crouch went on the legal offensive after they learned that Ford had written a book manuscript that included an account of the alleged sexual encounter.

In a dramatic flourish, Ford had appeared at a TBN broadcast studio in Costa Mesa, minutes before the start of a "Praise-a-thon" fundraiser, and, without comment, handed Crouch a copy of the manuscript

Ford's lawyer later told ministry officials that they could keep the work out of public view by buying the rights. After some discussion, he suggested that million might be a reasonable price.

While negotiations continued, Crouch sued to enforce the 1998 secrecy agreement and obtained a restraining order barring Ford from seeking a publisher for his book.

Orange County Superior Court Judge John M. Watson also granted Crouch's request to conduct the case in secret, sealing all documents and expunging any mention of the suit from public court records.

Both sides eventually agreed to let a private arbitrator decide the matter. In June, the arbitrator ruled that Ford could not publish the manuscript without violating the 1998 settlement — an act that could subject him to monetary damages.

This account of the controversy is drawn from interviews with friends of Ford's, unsealed court records, correspondence among TBN lawyers and a copy of the arbitrator's confidential ruling. The arbitrator's decision contains details about the 1998 settlement and Ford's manuscript — both of which are under seal.

Records and interviews show that even as they battled to keep Ford's story from leaking, TBN lawyers worried that details would eventually come out.

"I am absolutely amazed that Lonnie hasn't gone to Penthouse or Dianne [sic] Sawyer with his manuscript, notwithstanding the [judge's] injunction," TBN attorney Dennis G. Brewer Sr. wrote in a March letter to the network's other lawyers.

In a subsequent letter, in May, Brewer mentioned the anguish that Ford's accusations had caused Crouch's youngest son, Matt, when he learned of them in 1998.

Brewer wrote that the younger Crouch had told his then-law partner, David Middlebrook: "I am devastated; I am confronted with having to face the fact that my father is a homosexual."

Middlebrook and Matt Crouch have denied that there was such a conversation.



Millions of viewers



Paul and Jan Crouch started TBN in 1973, using a rented studio in Santa Ana. Over the next three decades, they built a worldwide broadcasting network by buying TV stations and negotiating deals with cable systems and satellite companies.

Today, TBN's 24-hour-a-day menu of sermons, faith healing, inspirational movies and other Christian fare reaches millions of viewers from Spain to the Solomon Islands.

Paul Crouch is the driving entrepreneurial force behind the network and one of its most popular on-air personalities. He and Jan, his wife of 46 years, have cultivated a folksy on-screen image as a devoted couple.

TBN officials have long been concerned about how Ford's allegations could affect the network, which relies heavily on donations from viewers. Officials said they were particularly worried about possible comparisons to the scandal that brought down televangelist Jim Bakker in 1987.

Bakker resigned from his PTL Ministries in 1987 after admitting to paying a secretary 5,000 in ministry funds to be silent about an earlier affair. Bakker later went to prison for bilking donors.

TBN officials said they were careful not to pay Ford with ministry funds in 1998. They declined to say whether the money came from an insurer, Crouch personally or some other source.

Ford, 41, said he could not discuss his manuscript or his allegations against Crouch but he did provide basic facts about his background and his time at TBN.

Ford, whose father and grandfather were ministers, grew up in Fairfax County, Va., moved to California in 1989 and worked in a string of jobs that included jewelry salesman, produce clerk and gas station attendant. For years, he struggled to kick a cocaine habit.

In 1991, he checked into a Christian drug treatment program in Colleyville, Texas, on a TBN-owned ranch. It was there that Ford met Crouch. In 1992 the network hired him to work on a phone bank in Orange County. Ford said he also ran errands for the Crouches and drove Paul Crouch to appointments.

Ford repeatedly ran into trouble with the law, but TBN stood behind him. In 1994, he pleaded no contest in San Bernardino County to having sex with a 17-year-old boy and served six months in jail, according to court records. TBN took him back after his release.

In 1995, he pleaded guilty in Orange County to possession of cocaine and served about 30 days in County Jail. Again, TBN took him back.



Lake Arrowhead cabin



The alleged sexual encounter between Ford and Crouch occurred in the fall of 1996, according to Sandi Mahlow, a Tustin housewife who met Ford in a Fullerton church 10 years ago and became a close friend.

Mahlow, 50, who helped Ford write his manuscript, said he broke down in tears after returning from a weekend spent alone with Crouch at a TBN-owned cabin near Lake Arrowhead. Mahlow said Ford told her that he and Crouch had engaged in sexual acts.

"Lonnie had a lot of bad traits; one thing he isn't, and that's a liar," Mahlow said. She said she helped Ford with his manuscript for no pay, as a favor to a friend, and has no financial interest in the book.

After the alleged encounter, Ford continued to work at TBN. For a time, he lived rent-free in an apartment at the network's Tustin headquarters, according to Mahlow and another friend of Ford's, Diane Benson, who met him at an Anaheim church 14 years ago.

A third friend of Ford's said that in October 1996, about the time of the alleged Arrowhead encounter, ministry officials gave her a ,000 check to pay back money Ford owed her. The woman spoke on condition that she not be named, saying she feared retaliation.

TBN officials acknowledged that the ministry paid some of Ford's debts. They said the network commonly extends such generosity to employees in financial trouble.

Within weeks of the Arrowhead trip, Ford tested positive for drug use and was arrested for violating terms of his probation. While Ford awaited sentencing, the ministry again came to his support, urging the judge not to impose more prison time.

Ford "has continuously shown a very positive attitude regarding whatever we have asked him to do," wrote Ruth M. Brown, Paul Crouch's sister and TBN's director of personnel. "He carried out his duties cheerfully and always tries to do more than asked."

The judge sent Ford to the California Rehabilitation Center in Norco, a drug treatment facility in the state prison system.

In August 1997, Jay Jones, TBN's director of telephone ministry, wrote prison officials that Ford would have a job with the network after he got out, despite his "extended leave of absence."

But Ford said that after he was released in February 1998, he was told he no longer had a position at TBN.

"There comes a point in time when you have to say, 'Enough is enough,' " said John Casoria, a TBN lawyer who is a nephew of the Crouches.

Ford responded with his threat to sue. The settlement followed.

Despite TBN's efforts to keep Ford's charges secret, they surfaced in an unrelated 1998 lawsuit. A former bodyguard for TBN personality Benny Hinn testified in a deposition that during a European bus tour that year, Hinn had told a group of associates about "a sexual relationship that Paul Crouch had with his chauffeur."

The witness, Mario C. Licciardello, quoted Hinn as saying: "Paul's defense was that he was drunk."

Hinn and six others mentioned by Licciardello, who died in 2000, told The Times that Hinn never made such remarks. However, Rick Jones, a retired police officer and ordained minister who worked for Hinn, said he heard Hinn talk about Crouch's alleged homosexual relationship on that bus.

Jones said he was disgusted by the talk and "got up and walked away. I didn't want to hear gossip."



Asking million



Meanwhile, Ford began to have second thoughts about keeping silent. Last year, with Mahlow's help, he wrote his manuscript, titled "Arrowhead."

Friends said Ford wanted to expose what he viewed as Crouch's hypocrisy. They said he also needed money and hoped to earn some by selling the manuscript. It's unclear how Ford spent his 1998 settlement, but today he leads a modest existence, living in a room of a Lake Forest home and working as a mortgage salesman.

Ministry officials learned of the book in April 2003, when Ford walked onto the set of TBN's Costa Mesa broadcast studio and handed a copy of the manuscript to Crouch.

Ford's attorney, Eugene Zech, said that Brewer, the TBN lawyer, called him the next business day. In court papers, Zech said that Brewer asked "if Ford might be willing to accept million in exchange for the manuscript."

Zech said in the court filing that he suggested million.

When the parties went to arbitration, Crouch's lawyers argued that publication would violate the 1998 settlement and cause irreparable damage to Crouch's reputation. Ford's lawyers argued that the secrecy agreement was overly broad and violated his free-speech rights.

Arbitrator Robert J. Neill ruled that Ford's right to make his allegations public "was sold to [Crouch] for 5,000." Ford "bargained away his right to speak on certain matters and now suggests that his right to free speech trumps that bargain…. [His] right to discuss these matters was bought and paid for. He relinquished that right."

Paul Crouch Jr., a TBN executive and the televangelist's oldest son, said that despite the favorable ruling, he wished his father had never entered into the settlement with Ford.

Crouch said advisors persuaded his father that it would be cheaper to settle than to litigate. He said TBN was particularly anxious to avoid negative publicity because the ministry was celebrating its 25th anniversary that year.

"In hindsight, we should have fought Lonnie tooth and nail," the son said in an interview. "We should have drawn the battle lines right there."

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