It has often been stated that American politicians became cartless horses when the Cold War ended. For years, national policy had been formed in response to the (sometimes imaginary, sometimes genuine) threat of the international Communist plan for world domination. Once this threat no longer became credible, there was rampant confusion, basically until Bushco seized the opportunity after 11 Sept to create a replacement for the defunct Soviet empire: the War on Terrorism.
Wordy random philosophizing follows...
Democrats and moderates of all persuasions have criticized the logic of the WoT: How can you have a war on a strategy? How will we know if we've won or lost? Who exactly are the "good guys" and the "bad guys"? In response, Bushco has been more forthcoming about what the WoT really is: the War on Islamic Extremism. This refinement of terminology is rather post-hoc; in reality, everyone knew that Bushco was trying to avoid (with less than full success) explicit Crusaderism by using the earlier terminology. And, dasvedanya comrades, we have a new enemy: devout--no,
extremist Muslims.
Whatever you call it, though, it is impossible to blame Bushco and his fellow travelors among the Democrats for the thoroughness with which the WoT/WoIE caught on among Americans. In fact, there was a near-audible sigh of relief among the masses as they tried out "Islamic Terrorist" on their tongues, and found that it fit quite nicely into the lingual void left by the loss of the International Communist Plan for World Domination.
It may be that since WWII, which catapulted the USA into the heady sphere of world dominance, we have been unable to view the world in terms other than "US against them". For us to change this dichotomous perspective into one where we are unified with other nations in a cooperative venture to mutually live and work together in peace and prosperity, may be impossible. It may be too late--we may have too large of a scapegoat jones: an unbreakable addiction to the constant struggle against an implacable, mysterious foe.
Even in our domestic politics, we consistently exclude the middle in our debates. Logic would suggest that there should be a strong moderate party or coalition, with fringe parties on the left and the right. Instead, the parties of the left and right each try to use the center as a wedge to lever control away from the center. There have been several small and usually unsuccessful attempts to form moderate coalitions, but these are almost always condemned as devious plots to undermine the ideological purity of the right or the left, rather than as the logical and rightful leaders of the country.
So, my conclusion is that we as Americans seem to have a need to define ourselves as the mirror image of our understanding of an opponent. We are reluctant to define ourselves inclusively and independently. In our domestic politics, each of us needs to have an enemy we can work against to seize power; in our foreign policy, we must have a current, active enemy as the ridgepole upon which we can hang our initiatives. The result of this domestically is that we have had a series of marginal governments that have used sometimes questionable or even illegal manoeuvres desperately to increase the sliver of majority they enjoy. The result of it internationally has been a steadily increasing loss of respect and isolation throughout the world.
Yet, this analysis of the situation does offer a glimmer of hope, if. If, that is, we can somehow induce this most Christian of nations to understand the intensely moderate, centrist, and cooperative meaning of "Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you", then perhaps we can start to stand on our own feet, instead of depending on an enemy to tell us how to think and how to act.
Daily Kos is a leftist blog, and a damn good one. But I just have to wonder how much more good it could do if it were a centrist blog, trying to push the country to the center, aiming to reduce difference between left and right. Could dKossacks stomach the process of finding good things to say about Bushco, of loving him/them? Could Americans stomach the process of finding good things to say about alQaeda, of praying for them? It seems farfetched, I admit it. But I fear that unless we can do those things, we'll continue to be pushed around by our real or imagined enemies, without an identity, and without a leg to stand on.
This diary is already too long and boring, but I have to close by mentioning that there is no incompatibility between the word "moderate" and words like "liberal", "Democrat", and "Republican". I suppose there could even be moderate conservatives, although I admit it sounds oxymoronic even to me. We can continue to have diverse opinions and advocate them strongly. The shift I'm talking about is that it should all be directed toward consensus and inclusion rather than merely toward beating our enemies.
Greg Shenaut