It's things like
this that really run me off the rails. Besides invading a country out of spite; beside the manipulation of the dollar to keep a semblance of economic stability; beside the intent to consider hamburgers an output of manufacturing, beside... Wait, I remember where I am writing this. I don't need to go on.
I had a lot of questions during the run-up to the war. I was not confused about where I stood, but I asked everyone older than me (32), what they thought of Spring 2003 compared to Spring 1968. What I wanted to know is: "That was worse, right? Tell me that the burning of cities and the assasinations, -- all the while not even knowing the truth about the build-up of troops, and Milhous, and Kissinger, and everything... That was worse, right?"
No one seemed very willing to say so. Or, they weren't exactly eager to tell me to relax. What I want to know is: How are do you deal with this?
In the movie
A Thousand Clowns Jason Robards explains (to a nephew, I think) the abundance of stuffed, carved, and cast-iron eagles in his ramshackle apartment: "You can never have too many eagles, my boy."
The intention is to show the older man's peculiarity and simple-minded devotion (which means he only lacks a debilitating handicap to get an Oscar). In short, we're supposed to be charmed.
This is how I think of the White House, and it's a nightmare. I'm not a class warrior, and I agree with others that the economy is a dangerous "single plank" to run on. But I just don't see how else to make the point: Those people are not like the rest of us.
It would be one thing to have a president driven by religious concerns. But Bush's motivation is far more dangerous. He is motivated by A SIMPLE IDEA. I am sure that when he thinks of "America" he doesn't think of the shape of the land-mass, the painting of the Constitutional Convention, a mind's-eye glimpse of the first page of an atlas... He thinks of an eagle, or a flag, or some other ridiculous metonymous symbol (not counting the Statue of a French woman).
For those of you who infiltrated Fox's teleplay of the war, you'll remember the graphic of an eagle screeching and morphing into an F-15 firing (air-to-air missiles (not cluster bombs). Perhaps it was the other way around. What's the difference? Precisely.
So now we have news that the government knew, and knows more, about the international nuclear ring than we will be told. This has to be hushed up so that Bush can slap Osama bin Laden in October with George Stephanopoulous kneeling down to trip him.
How much, Mr. Cheney, - How much is enough? That's the question I hope someone would ask (someone still in the race, that is). Just because you and your family, and your family's family will never, ever, have to want for anything, . . . Do you think that that, alone, makes you right? Just be honest. Be Honest. Tell the truth about what you stand for, put it to a vote, and I will abide by the decision.
Maybe this is their plan. Maybe they think if they scare us all enough, we'll turn just as selfish as they are. And maybe that's the real source of the ache that makes me rub my head. If I were as reactionary as the administration seems to wish me, I'd now care nothing for:
Anyone who's rich, anyone who is poor, anyone in a union, anyone not in a union, anyone over 65, anyone under 18, anyone not born here, anyone born here but who works somewhere else, anyone who had the G.I. Bill, anyone that lives in a city, anyone that doesn't live in a city, anyone who farms, anyone who doesn't farm . . . In short anyone who's for whatever I'm not for; anyone who's not "for" me and my interests.
Mr Newberry's post, earlier today, was the way out of this mess. The administration is so bad that Democrats need not shy away from any of our more lofty ideals, for that is the only way to embrace all of these factions. The administration's bile of exceptionalism and empty rhetoric is the easiest and (right now the) only game in town. And it is becoming increasingly difficult to keep one's head above it.
This all came up because I had a terrible passing thought while reading the Seymour Hersh article: I need not worry about paying off my student loan debt, because we're all going to be killed by some bomb in D.C. If I were to follow such a program, I would reach the height of what Bush (and the press) term moral clarity.
But Bush doesn't have to worry about paying for his parents' health care. What kind of morality is the judgement between my teeth, my future economic security, and that of my parents?
There is help for me. There is this internet space, for solace. There is Jon Stewart making the novel claim, that a President who thought well of his constituents "wouldn't talk to [them] this way." And, recently for me, there is Barbara Tuchman's depiction, in The Guns of August, of how the German army came to justify summary executions in it's push through Belgium: They blamed the sniping of troops on an organized plot. They could not believe why a people, so completely conquered, would feel compelled to fight back.
There, I said it: The Bush administration as Imperial Germany. Check it out.
But the book is at home, and the Daily show is so brief. What would you suggest?
Thanks to all of you.
