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March 20, 2006
Who Are We?
I get up everyday and read the NY Times. Occasionally I finish reading the front page, editorials and op-eds and feel sick. I think how horrible the country is or how disgusted I am with the government. I get discouraged by the thought that we have to endure almost three more years of this administration.
Congressional Republicans support a President who allows torture and misled the country into a war costing hundreds of billions, if not trillions, of dollars. Thousands of American soldiers are killed and injured while VA funding, especially medical services, is cut. Rendition, torture, deception, wiretaps, secret prisons, prisoners dying from torture, wars based on lies, threatening the courts, interpreting laws to suit personal needs, appointing friends and supporters to high positions of power, acting outside the law, suspending habeas corpus, tax cuts for the wealthy and the largest budget deficits in history all occur and yet there are millions of supporters who think this is more than fine. I read today that Bush's Budget proposal cuts cancer prevention programs. The upper 2% in our country get richer while the lower 98% get comparatively poorer.
Internationally, our war inflames anti-American passions around the world. We systematically break international agreements. Global warming might as well be a Disney fantasy film. We accuse three countries of being the "Axis of Evil", invade one of them and then are outraged when the other two refuse to give up their nuclear ambitions. One wonders if they might want to protect themselves. For the most part we have completely ignored Darfur, where thousands die at the hand of government backed genocidal militias.
Last week on a TV show called Boston Legal James Spader's character ran down a litany of occurences, some of which I mentioned above, the lying about war, the torture, the threat to civil rights, etc. and asked, "Where was the outrage? Where were the protests?" Yes, there are a few small ones, and some of us care; we read blogs, post comments (many of which are rather inflammatory) and support organizations like MoveOn.org, which is a good start and certainly better than nothing. Some of us work for candidates or participate in our communities. But for the most part the country does little. Bush’s poll numbers drop, but folks generally go to work and spend their nights watching television or playing with the latest tech toys.
Too many of us blindly follow our teams; Republicans, Democrats, Green Party, Christians, Jews, Muslims, environmentalists, oil industry, whatever. We suspend our analytical thinking and refuse to question our own decisions. We see too much of the "my team, right or wrong" attitude. How else to explain the thinking of 50,000 people turning out to mourn someone like Slobodan Milosevic, a known torturer and political, murderous thug? The same thing happens here. We are not who we say we are. We do not respect other points of view. We act arrogantly. We do not respect civil or human rights. We are not honest with ourselves, let alone others.
We have allowed Bush to become a leader who does not embody long standing American values. And the fault is ours, as individuals. We must do more, even those who have always opposed the administration. To those who write here, or act in other ways, get more friends involved. Today, do a little more than yesterday. It is our job to continue to seek better means of communication in the hope that somehow we will find a way to get people to listen. We cannot stop trying to find the key, for as James Spader says at the end of Boston Legal , "We have become a very mean country."
Posted by Chip Spear at March 20, 2006 2:23 PM
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