In other words: A discussion of The Bush Administration
Fear is the enemy
“We have nothing to fear but fear itself.” FDR
Terrorists are called terrorists because their only effective weapon is terror. It is fear. But they are not the source of fear in America right now, and America has never been more afraid. Our government is the source of our fear. “Nothing could have been done to stop the attacks,” was said after 9/11, from people who knew better, and that was the excuse for the Patriot Act. But that has since been proven wrong. It seems now that if several mistakes had been avoided, the attacks themselves could possibly have been stopped. Incompetence was the problem, not our civil liberties. As far as I can tell the Bush administration has been destroying our liberties left and right, but has done nothing to solve the underlying problem of bureaucratic ineptitude. Have we forgotten that back in the days when warrants were required, and civil liberties were respected, we were still able to prevent a dozen planned millennium attacks. 12/31/99 went on without a hitch. That isn’t to say we need not be more vigilant. No 9/11 proved that we do need to be much more vigilant, that we do need to work harder and better at securing our nation. But it did not mean the terrorist should win, and we should just scrap this whole freedom thing because it wasn’t working out.
Nonetheless our administration feels it must build up the fear. If the fear is strong, we’ll fight, almost without question. If the fear is strong we’ll allow our “temporary” limits of our civil liberties to become permanent. If the fear is strong we won’t have the will to protest or complain. If the fear is strong we will understand that our failing economy should not be the priority. One cannot help but sound paranoid when one compares the tactics of the Bush administration with that of Fascists. But there are parallels. The use of physical threat to intimidate (yes, I’m talking about the crowd of paid republican folks who stormed the building to (successfully) prevent uncounted ballots from being reviewed), the “temporary” limiting of civil liberties based on a terrorist bombing. The use of patriotism to sway argument. There are more similarities (check out google’s list of websites devoted to the subject). I wonder if there was a twinkling in Karl Rove’s eye when he said "It's like being at a Nazi rally," watching the world series crowd cheer Bush.
There is other fear, the fear to speak out, and the fear to let everyone know around you that America is at a dangerous cross roads. The push, push, push is constant from the media, rah, rah, if you don’t support the President you are unpatriotic. You feel like you are alone. But I really do believe that there are more out there than you could possibly imagine that are feeling the same things you are. It may not be the majority, but it easily would be if the majority was simply told what is happening. Read anyone some of the provisions of the homeland security act and the patriot act, and they will be stunned. This is not America. Though Michael Moore is annoying (but often funny), he also makes some great points in his more calm post-Oscar interview (watch the video clip).
You know who is really afraid? Bush and folks. They are the classic bully stereotype. They talk big. They swagger. But in this case they never do the punching themselves (no I won’t go into the whole chickenhawk thing again discussed in this post). They are afraid though, they are horribly insecure. The surround themselves with “Yes” men, so they don’t ever have to have doubt. They are so insecure they search for belonging, through fundamentalism and through nationalism. True patriotism, is ideas and ideals, they are too abstract, nationalism however is more definite, it is simple. These are the people you felt pity for in high school and they now are leading the world into some terrible times.
We used to be a nation that could disagree and still know we all had the best hopes for our nation in our hearts. I disagreed with Reagan, but I believe he believed in the same American that I do. Bush doesn’t. He does not know what America means.
- rob 5:18 PM - [PermaLink] -
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