The Suspension of Reason
March 9, 2002
By Teresa Simon-Noble

Any act of violence precludes the suspension of rational thinking while opening the floodgates of emotion.

We have been innundated by a floodgate of emotions following the act of violence perpetrated upon the New York Twin Towers on 9/11. From the populace we have heard a constant chorus of "burn the ragheads, send them home." From the networks we have watched an unstopping stream across the television screens of "America at War," or some similar formulation of the same stream.

From the He-Man-In-Charge walking the corridors of power at the White House, the choice of his framing the violence against the twin towers as an Act of War rather than as an Act of Violence, or even as a Criminal Act, has rung loudly upon this land.

From the Bush Projectionists there has been a constant flowing of unfounded, dark, and unproven advisories warning the public of possible continued acts of violence against the United States Mainland, and along with it there has been a suppression of civil liberties, a buildup of the military budget for a re-armament of the nation's military, a constant drumbeat of war, a planting, feeding and a triangling of the anxiety of the nation into a psychology of war, as if war were the nation's only weapon, only answer.

Too bad that the Selected-He-Man-In-Charge, walking the Corridors of Power at the White House, arms arched-out a little, hands turned in, fingers pointed toward his body, really mindful of a Chimp-In-Charge as he tramps down those halls, has no way to deal with his own anxieties about his own presidency, his own role, his own power, his own position in the White House vis-a-vis the power of his father, and of his father's Cabinet, other than by triangling it all into his insidious mentality of war in which opposition to war becomes a sin at best, a treasonous act at worst, and a, EITHER YOU ARE WITH US, OR YOU ARE AGAINST US statement which labels those opposing war as "terrorists" even in the sight of their very friends who know better.

I am baffled when Pundits claim that this sick pattern emmanating from George W. Bush and from his father's Cabinet proves to us how much the He-Man-In-Charge has grown since those vicious attacks on the Twin Towers. I am baffled to read about those Pundits who place the Selected Son of Bush as one of the Great Leaders this Nation ever had next to the two Roosevelts and to John F. Kennedy. I am baffled to read that GWB has said that he finally found his niche in the war against terror.

Anxious thinking triangled into bellicose stances are a George W. Bush staple. In fact, doesn't "niche" mean "a situation or activity specially suited to one's character or abilities"? I am baffled that there are those who deny the possible underpinnings that this war against terror, however it started, may have been a war created to suit George W. Bush, to give him his "niche," his high place among the nation's (p)residents.

I am baffled that no one calls Bush on the carpet; that there is no modern age Socrates willing to deliver GWB from the darkness of the cave influencing his view; I am baffled that so many have stepped on to the merry-go-round of Bush's anxiety; that no one is willing to help him stop this merry-go-round on which he is constantly spinning and endlessly spinning us into his pathological quest for war.

What a different world this would be for him, and for the rest of us if anyone could help him stop the axis spinning the emotions and emotionality that constantly pour out of his lips.

What a different world this would be! What a different kind of an answer would he have for his Cabinet, for the rest of us, and for the world if his mind could only see through the corridors of reason.

Teresa Simon-Noble is a freelance writer. She has worked in the mental health field for 18 years.