The current implosion of the Bush Administration almost gives me wood: teak, I think.
Hypocrisy unmasked with regards to Cheney leaking, his lax muzzle discipline relates to all aspects of his sorry existence. Brownie stridently trying to protect his own ass by putting Chertoff's on the line. Could it be that finally, the American electorate will see through these pieces of s**t. The good news started me on meditation about citizenship and how important it is to actually be a citizen rather than a subject. Here goes.
On the Incompetence of Bush; A lesson for the American Republic
When our republic was first brought into being, it was to confront the issue of the contingency of a society existing in time, with the passage of generations. How can a society remain in existence in the form in which it was created? The republican answer to that question is the citizen. Monarchies require subjects. Republics require citizens.
In the American version (the thinking and language of which started in Renaissance Italy and made its way through England) the citizen is that person who owns land and is willing to take up arms to protect the society. For example, virtually all the leaders of the American revolution were in militia that fought the French and their indigenous allies in the war that was called the French and Indian War on our side of the Atlantic. They took up arms because of their self-understandings as citizens. Much of our history is the story of the expanding definition of citizens.
Public education is the means of creating good citizens. The forty year assault from the radical, religious Right in America on our public education system is expressly motivated by a hatred of central ethic of a republic: that educated citizens can rule themselves and their fellow citizens, and that they are capable of solving all political and social problems that may arise, and do so in a way that sustains the concrete existence of their republic. The religious Right in America has a more vicious view of human beings; that we are tainted by original sin and cannot accomplish anything without Jesus. Of course it's not the actual Jesus but a Jesus of their myth making. And it really upsets them when they realize that Jesus isn't a citizen, what he thinks about American politics doesn't count.
When former citizens begin to think of themselves as consumers of government services, when they become taxpayers, then the forces that would transform our republic into a tyranny have the upper hand. This is what has already occurred in the U.S. The only remedy is a return of an educated citizenship.
In his Republic, Plato said that we would have no end to mischief and pain in our societies unless philosophers came to rule or those who rule become philosophers. For 2500 years people understood Plato to mean that he wanted a philosopher to rule as a kind of enlightened despot. What Plato really meant was this: in a democracy, the people must be philosophers. To Plato this meant that in a democracy people had to be able to tell the difference between bullshit and truth.
To make the point he told the following story.
Conceive something of this kind happening either on many
ships or one. Though the ship owner surpasses everyone on board in
height and strength, he is rather deaf and likewise somewhat b
short sighted, and his knowledge of seamanship is pretty much on the
same level. The sailors are quarreling with one another about the pilot-
ing, each supposing he ought to pilot, although he has never learned the
art and can't produce his teacher or prove there was a time when he
was learning it. Besides this, they claim it isn't even teachable and are
ready to cut to pieces the man who says it is teachable. And they are al-
ways crowded around the ship owner himself, begging and doing every-
thing so that he'll turn the rudder over to them. And sometimes, if they c
fail at persuasion and other men succeed at it, they either kill the others
or throw them out of the ship. Enchaining the noble ship owner with
mandrake, drink, or something else, they rule the ship, using what's in
it; and drinking and feasting, they sail as such men would be thought
likely to sail. Besides this, they praise and call 'skilled sailor,' 'pilot,'
and 'knower of the ship's business' the man who is clever at figuring out d
how they will get the rule, either by persuading or by forcing the
shipowner, while the man who is not of this sort they blame as use-
less. They don't know that for the true pilot it is necessary to pay
careful attention to year, seasons, heaven, stars, winds, and every-
thing that's proper to the art, if he is really going to be skilled at rul-
ing a ship. And they don't suppose it's possible to acquire the art and e
practice of how one can get hold of the helm whether the others
wish it or not, and at the same time to acquire the pilot's skill. So
with such things happening on the ships, don't you believe that the
true pilot will really be called a stargazer, a prater and useless to them by those who sail on ships run like this?"
"Indeed, he will," said Adeimantus.
"Now," I said, "I don't suppose you need to scrutinize the image to see that it resembles the cities in their disposition toward the true philosophers, but you understand what I mean."
"Indeed, I do," he said.
The citizen is the ship owner. Politicians are the sailors who claim to know about piloting a ship and convince the ship owner that they should do just that. Since the ship owner doesn't know anything about piloting a ship, how is she supposed to determine which sailor is ignorant but a good campaigner and which sailor actually may know something.
The American electorate can only look to itself for the incompetence of its President. Taxpayers rather than citizens, the electorate was persuaded by the venal lies of Bush and his minions because they couldn't tell the difference between the truth and bullshit. (Of course, the evidence it still out: I think Bush stole both elections and we Americans are not really this fucking stupid).
This is why the Democratic Party agenda of strong support for public education - the education of good citizens--is the key to saving the republic.