FANTASTIC ARTICLE by David Halberstam, one that contextualizes dubya bush in his beloved arms of "history," that History that bush imagines will one day enshrine all his greedy, violent, lie-littered deeds with some sort of benevolent and holy light. Oh, so sad, but Mister Halberstam rips shit up:
President Bush lives in a world where in effect it is always the summer of 1945, the Allies have just defeated the Axis, and a world filled with darkness for some six years has been rescued by a new and optimistic democracy, on its way to becoming a superpower. His is a world where other nations admire America or damned well ought to, and America is always right, always on the side of good, in a world of evil, and it's just a matter of getting the rest of the world to understand this. One of Bush's favorite conceits, used repeatedly in his speeches, is that democracies are peaceful and don't go to war against one another. Most citizens of the West tend to accept this view without question, but that is not how most of Africa, Asia, South America, and the Middle East, having felt the burden of the white man's colonial rule for much of the past two centuries, see it. The non-Western world does not think of the West as a citadel of pacifism and generosity, and many people in the U.S. State Department and the different intelligence agencies (and even the military) understand the resentments and suspicions of our intentions that exist in those regions. We are, you might say, fighting the forces of history in Iraq - religious, cultural, social, and inevitably political - created over centuries of conflict and oppressive rule.
Something about reaping, something about what ya sow, ya know? LiddleBrain-bush, tha menso with a hoe.
The Unapologetic Mexican has been known to scribble a few things besides meandering, verbose, self-congratulatory blog posts. However, they are rarely as fun. Finally, let it be known that Nezua first dared bust out this Habanero of Truth at exactly 7:40 AM.
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I think about what it was like after the last presidential election, where I felt stunned that Bush was re-elected, even though no one I would LOVE to see in that position was running against him. Still, in 2000, I felt like, well maybe there are lots of people in this country who it chills me to share this system with, but stolen elections are not the same thing as "the people have spoken." In 2004, it was devastating to have so many voters reaffirm the decisions that gw and his buddies are making, that are hurting so many, in so many places. One of my friends said, at the time, "well then, it serves the American people right that it's their sons and daughters who will be shipped off to get hurt and die in Iraq, or when more terrorist stuff happens here in the states." And although I can't really get it up for serves-you-right logic whenever anybody's life is on the line, I do understand the idea of actions and consequences. But I also feel like - what about all the people here who are fucking terrified of the government, "their" own government, who are not in support of current US actions at home and abroad, but who are nonetheless equally vulnerable to it? Yes, it is necessary for each person to stand up anyway, but willingness to do so does not necessarily translate to the ability to wrest power from the fucking maniacs today. Or anytime soon, for all we know.
I don't say that in it's-so-unfair mode. I think about people elsewhere who are as scared of my government as I am, and who haven't done anything to promote its power, and who are nonetheless paying with their well-being or their lives anyway. And in fact they have way more reason to be scared than I, personally, do, or likely ever will. I just feel like, fuck man, there are people being killed and hurt by the government here, and people who are doing amazing work in resistance to this government here, and this motherfucking administration is making the whole of this country's population seem like monsters, or people who support monsters. And, that's that, really. No different really than the way the gw machine tries to make populations elsewhere into monsters for their own propaganda purposes. Anyway, thanks for link to that article and for this post.
Excuse me Joan, but if you back up to January of 1981 when Reagan took office and move forward through his years and the Bush 41 years in Washington, and study also the Newt Gingrich lunatic festival of the late nineties, then you will realize that the events are cumulative, the loss of freedom is an aggregation of tiny thefts of rights and the Bush 43 years are just more of the same, but much further along the path to tyranny, and now being done by a rather incompetent group of cretins.
Indeed their gross inability to successfully hide their intentions is our only real hope. That is, if the citizenry is able to effect any real change in November of 2008, or more importantly, if they even care.
I am of the opinion that the population does not care, does not understand, does not think that they can influence the outcome. 50% of the population does not vote.
I couldn't supress my alarm any more in 1979 and left the country then. I keep my very few visits there {to the US} short as I find the current atmosphere to be like suffocation. If you have lived in the US all of the time that I have not, perhaps you have not noticed the inexorable, but slow, devolution of the country.
I certainly have. It is enormously tragic.
RC
A perspective from outside the forest is always of value. This ability to "see ourselves as others see us" is sadly lacking, both by our overlords and the common populace. What was once the sacrosanct, inviolable, Bill of Rights http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/constitution.billofrights.html
is now diluted, shaded in grey, subject to many qualifiers, and even ignored. International law fares no better.
I gag at the way our government speech writers and spinners freely toss around the buzzwords like "freedom and democracy" and the resultant kneejerk positive reactions that we, the people, have been programmed to accept. Many have bought into the myths and have lost sight of the realities.
You may now return to your free speech zone, citizens.
RC, I have been here my whole life, and during the times you mentioned, but mostly all I remember from the eighties is the horribleness of my home life and my disappointment that Reagan did not die when he was shot. I don't mean that flippantly, either - I was young when that happened, and from things my parents said, I had the impression that Reagan was going to start a nuclear war, and I thought it meant we'd all live if he died back then. And during the late eighties and early nineties, I made it my business to be drugged as much of the time as possible. Point being, I see what you're saying about this not being a sudden thing. I just am more conscious of blatant craziness in the last several years rather than the last twenty or thirty.
1945 U.S. economy equalled 50% of global economy. Today, although it is vastlylarger it equals less than 25%. Makes it so much harder to kick folks around.
FANTASTIC ARTICLE by David Halberstam, one that contextualizes dubya bush in his beloved arms of "history," that History that bush imagines will one day enshrine all his greedy, violent, lie-littered deeds with some sort of benevolent and holy light. Oh, so sad, but Mister Halberstam rips shit up:President Bush lives in a world where in effect it is always the summer of 1945, the Allies have just defeated the Axis, and a world filled with darkness for some six years has been rescued by a new and optimistic democracy, on its way to becoming a superpower. His is a world where other nations admire America or damned well ought to, and America is always right, always on the side of good, in a world of evil, and it's just a matter of getting the rest of the world to understand this. One of Bush's favorite conceits, used repeatedly in his speeches, is that democracies are peaceful and don't go to war against one another. Most citizens of the West tend to accept this view without question, but that is not how most of Africa, Asia, South America, and the Middle East, having felt the burden of the white man's colonial rule for much of the past two centuries, see it. The non-Western world does not think of the West as a citadel of pacifism and generosity, and many people in the U.S. State Department and the different intelligence agencies (and even the military) understand the resentments and suspicions of our intentions that exist in those regions. We are, you might say, fighting the forces of history in Iraq - religious, cultural, social, and inevitably political - created over centuries of conflict and oppressive rule.
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Comentarios (6)
Changeseeker dijo:
The Blessing and The Curse: What you plant will grow.
Palabras por Changeseeker spat forth on el 6 de Julio, 2007 at 09:43 AM
Joan Kelly dijo:
I think about what it was like after the last presidential election, where I felt stunned that Bush was re-elected, even though no one I would LOVE to see in that position was running against him. Still, in 2000, I felt like, well maybe there are lots of people in this country who it chills me to share this system with, but stolen elections are not the same thing as "the people have spoken." In 2004, it was devastating to have so many voters reaffirm the decisions that gw and his buddies are making, that are hurting so many, in so many places. One of my friends said, at the time, "well then, it serves the American people right that it's their sons and daughters who will be shipped off to get hurt and die in Iraq, or when more terrorist stuff happens here in the states." And although I can't really get it up for serves-you-right logic whenever anybody's life is on the line, I do understand the idea of actions and consequences. But I also feel like - what about all the people here who are fucking terrified of the government, "their" own government, who are not in support of current US actions at home and abroad, but who are nonetheless equally vulnerable to it? Yes, it is necessary for each person to stand up anyway, but willingness to do so does not necessarily translate to the ability to wrest power from the fucking maniacs today. Or anytime soon, for all we know.
I don't say that in it's-so-unfair mode. I think about people elsewhere who are as scared of my government as I am, and who haven't done anything to promote its power, and who are nonetheless paying with their well-being or their lives anyway. And in fact they have way more reason to be scared than I, personally, do, or likely ever will. I just feel like, fuck man, there are people being killed and hurt by the government here, and people who are doing amazing work in resistance to this government here, and this motherfucking administration is making the whole of this country's population seem like monsters, or people who support monsters. And, that's that, really. No different really than the way the gw machine tries to make populations elsewhere into monsters for their own propaganda purposes. Anyway, thanks for link to that article and for this post.
Palabras por Joan Kelly spat forth on el 6 de Julio, 2007 at 10:49 AM
RC dijo:
Excuse me Joan, but if you back up to January of 1981 when Reagan took office and move forward through his years and the Bush 41 years in Washington, and study also the Newt Gingrich lunatic festival of the late nineties, then you will realize that the events are cumulative, the loss of freedom is an aggregation of tiny thefts of rights and the Bush 43 years are just more of the same, but much further along the path to tyranny, and now being done by a rather incompetent group of cretins.
Indeed their gross inability to successfully hide their intentions is our only real hope. That is, if the citizenry is able to effect any real change in November of 2008, or more importantly, if they even care.
I am of the opinion that the population does not care, does not understand, does not think that they can influence the outcome. 50% of the population does not vote.
I couldn't supress my alarm any more in 1979 and left the country then. I keep my very few visits there {to the US} short as I find the current atmosphere to be like suffocation. If you have lived in the US all of the time that I have not, perhaps you have not noticed the inexorable, but slow, devolution of the country.
I certainly have. It is enormously tragic.
Palabras por RC spat forth on el 6 de Julio, 2007 at 05:27 PM
peasant dijo:
RC
A perspective from outside the forest is always of value. This ability to "see ourselves as others see us" is sadly lacking, both by our overlords and the common populace. What was once the sacrosanct, inviolable, Bill of Rights
http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/constitution.billofrights.html
is now diluted, shaded in grey, subject to many qualifiers, and even ignored. International law fares no better.
I gag at the way our government speech writers and spinners freely toss around the buzzwords like "freedom and democracy" and the resultant kneejerk positive reactions that we, the people, have been programmed to accept. Many have bought into the myths and have lost sight of the realities.
You may now return to your free speech zone, citizens.
Palabras por peasant spat forth on el 6 de Julio, 2007 at 08:57 PM
Joan Kelly dijo:
RC, I have been here my whole life, and during the times you mentioned, but mostly all I remember from the eighties is the horribleness of my home life and my disappointment that Reagan did not die when he was shot. I don't mean that flippantly, either - I was young when that happened, and from things my parents said, I had the impression that Reagan was going to start a nuclear war, and I thought it meant we'd all live if he died back then. And during the late eighties and early nineties, I made it my business to be drugged as much of the time as possible. Point being, I see what you're saying about this not being a sudden thing. I just am more conscious of blatant craziness in the last several years rather than the last twenty or thirty.
Palabras por Joan Kelly spat forth on el 6 de Julio, 2007 at 10:59 PM
Chuckie K dijo:
1945 U.S. economy equalled 50% of global economy. Today, although it is vastlylarger it equals less than 25%. Makes it so much harder to kick folks around.
Palabras por Chuckie K spat forth on el 8 de Julio, 2007 at 01:22 PM