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No
One To Beat But Ourselves
April 30, 2003
By Joseph Vecchio
There's been a lot of stuff going down the last few days.
The admissions that "weapons of mass destruction," which has
been added to my personal list of silly euphemisms, may have
been "destroyed" or "will take time to find" would under normal
circumstances make an administration look bad, but of course
the way the press is now, if George W. Bush were to push someone
off a building in broad daylight they'd spin it to say he
was simply tryng to help and the man jumped.
I doubt if we'll ever really know the full extent of the
crimes of the Bush regime. I figure if Reagan & Co. could
get away with selling weapons to our enemies, then Bush &
Co. can do pretty well anything they like. The obvious double-standard,
where we on the left are lectured endlessly about "personal
responsibility" yet the blatant disregard for the law by the
right and their refusal to accept responsibility for their
own actions ought to sicken Americans, but people just seem
to take all of this in stride, as if it were perfectly reasonable
for some people to break the law and perfectly reprehensible
for others.
Consider this: the biggest accomplishments of the Bush regime
thus far have been two "wars" fought against virtually defenseless
nations, and those were preceded by the worst terrorist attack
ever perpetrated on American soil. Note: we still don't know
where Osama bin Laden is, and I'm doubtful we'll ever find
out where Saddam Hussein is, either. The economy has been
a wreck, and the US has become the ultimate rogue nation,
disdainful of, and in some cases blatantly ignoring international
institutions that we helped to bring about. There is nothing
that has happened since George W. Bush took office that could
be in any way remotely called a success, yet he is supposedly
an unstoppable force in American politics. Why is that?
It would be easy to blame the Democratic Party for sleeping
on the job, but you have to understand exactly what it is
they're up against. The GOP leadership is motivated, organized,
and most importantly, well-funded. They have a vision of a
country unhindered by a federal government, where corporations
can enjoy the blessings of citizenship but suffer none of
the consequences. To be blunt, the Democrats were blind-sided.
They, and a few moderate Republicans, believe in the rule
of law - and because they believe in it, they find it hard
to imagine that people would break both law and tradition
without even batting an eye. What we're seeing from the GOP
is power politics, pure and simple, and they excel at it,
and no one here knows how to deal with it. So while they share
some of the responsibility for allowing the right to take
over, the fault is not totally theirs.
It would also be easy to blame the entire media which is
covering up for the crimes: I'm sure that far more journalists
would be willing to begin to report the truth of what is happening
if it weren't for the fact that they knew they could lose
their livelihoods if they did so. While we might sneer at
a lot of them, I imagine the pressure for some must be very
difficult. That's not to say there aren't those who gladly
accept the thirty pieces of silver, but I'm sure there are
others who are simply afraid to do the right thing if doing
so means they have to destroy a career they took so long to
build. So while they, too, share some of the responsibility
for what's been going on, the fault is not wholly theirs,
either.
If, as the Declaration of Independence states, governments
derive their just powers from the consent of the governed,
then the governed also share the ultimate responsibility for
the actions of their government. This is less true of countries
like Iraq, where they are raised without the idea of individual
freedoms, and have never really had a role to play in government
to begin with. But in our case we have to take much more of
the blame, because frankly we ought to know better.
The hard truth is that we are very, very bad citizens. We're
people who love the blessings of liberty but refuse to share
in the responsibilities of citizenship. In some cases, we
take great pride in destroying the social fabric that binds
us together, laboring under the false impression that anything
that can be done can be done without that fragile infrastructure
that so many have worked so hard to build. We're people who
worship the soldiers that protect our freedoms yet who threaten
to kill those who use that freedom to say things that make
them uncomfortable.
In sports, an individual or a team will occasionally be
put into a position where they are far superior to any opposition.
They can only beat themselves, the saying goes. That's the
position we're in now. But this is a sports season that never
ends, and sooner or later something will happen to make us
stumble, and in this sport, the price for failure is very
high indeed. We could have been something special: we cold
have been the greatest nation among free nations, leading
the world towards unity and peace, instead we've chosen arrogance
and "unilateralism." The rest of the world may not have a
lot of say about it now, but underneath they're fuming and
waiting for the opportunity to slap us down, just as there
are those of us in the US who would love to dismantle the
power of the GOP leadership, but are unable to fight back.
But in the end, the decision, and the responsibility, belongs
to the American people. I think they need to start asking
themselves if this endless war scenario is what they really
want, and if it is, let's stop all the pretense about liberty
and equality. If we're going to be an Empire, then let's be
one and get it done with. Let's reinstate slavery and tear
up the Constitution. Rights? Rights only belong to those who
have the force to back it up. Laws? Laws don't mean a damn
thing, they're just useful tools to categorize how we're getting
rid of our opposition. If this is what we believe, let's just
do it.
But if that's not what we want, let's take these people
out at the ballot box and let's get back on the path we were
on before all of this: the path of rights and laws, of shared
responsibilities and earned liberties. A path that is walked
by individuals but is greater than any single person. A path
that leads towards a bright future and not a bleak past.
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