America Used To Be Really Goddamn Awesome
I've been captivated by Ken Burns' The War this week and it struck me how awesome America used to be.
The prevailing attitude of the ladies and gentlemen featured in Burns' film, and by proxy all Americans of that era, was that if we had to fight a war, we had better do it right. Clearly and with little dissent, we had to fight that war, and without fail, Americans rallied together to do it really damn well.
People from every corner of the nation selflessly pooled their resources for the great cause of World War II, and I'm not sure about this one, but I don't think President Roosevelt ever once asked the country to sacrifice by going to the mall. And I'm pretty sure he didn't outsource the construction of tanks, Flying Fortresses, Hellcats and Thunderbolts to Mexico and China. That's a hell of a thing by today's standards, isn't it?
We've fallen so far from what we used to be, even as recently as thirty years ago when the comparatively liberal president Richard Nixon opened a dialogue with Red China, whilst Mao supplied arms to North Vietnam. One day long ago, it was okay to wish for an end to a war, without being accused of hating the soldiers who were fighting it. It was once a given that socialized public education, police, fire departments, roads, parks, national defense and the constitutionally mandated General Welfare & Domestic Tranquility were simply a part of the American way of life and would always be there.
And when our nation had to go to war, we would be there for her.
Conversely, when we crumble to the pressure of our reactionary and authoritarian elements, we get Japanese internment camps, the rise of the military industrial complex, and men turned away from service due to the color of their skin. Some of our greatest failures have been conceived when our irrationality, fear and lust for power overrule our traditional American ideals -- even during our finest hours as a nation.
And now, 50 years later, in our lives and times, we get President George W. Bush and Vice President Richard B. Cheney.
The Bush Years have been a monumental, cataclysmic failure on most fronts due to its inattention to what has, historically, made American great. The president and his thinning ranks of fawn-eyed Hannities don't understand this yet. They don't understand it mostly because they're too ignorant -- blinded by sloganeering -- to the very basic reality that Bush Republican style government, in practice, is about as successful and practical as a paper condom. It always has been.
Nowhere is this more apparent than when they compare the Bush Wars to World War II. It's a desperate notion, one that seeks to conflate our current president with greatness he doesn't deserve and an historical legacy he will never achieve. It's also meant to inflate our current "enemies" to Hitler status, and thus proving the case for war.
The comparison is pure horseshit. (Say nothing of the fact that it elevates Bin Laden or the late Saddam or the present Ahmadinejad to a level of villainy they also don't deserve. It's like saying a doofus villain like Solomon Grundy is the next Lex Luthor. I'm sure they appreciate being granted superpowers enough to take over the world, though.)
If it's so fucking important to stay in Iraq, and if it's so fucking important to invade Iran -- and if it's so fucking important to wiretap your phones and read your mail, and to shit all over your constitutional rights and the Geneva Conventions -- and all of it is part of a larger World War II style conflict, then why aren't the Bushies taking their metaphors seriously by demanding the sacrifices of World War II?
Did President Roosevelt cut taxes or ask veterans to pay higher deductibles? Did President Roosevelt outsource the army by hiring no-bid corporate mercenaries?
From the bombing of Pearl Harbor to the surrender of Japan, automobile manufacturers stopped making cars in lieu of manufacturing hardware for the war effort. Can you imagine, among all of the scrap metal drives -- the rationing of everything from gasoline to frying pan fat -- if Roosevelt had allowed SUV drivers to receive tax breaks in which sheer vehicular tonnage was rewarded at the peril of even one American G.I.?
If the quintessential symbol of the American character in World War II was Rosie The Riveter, the poster for the Bush Wars has to be that of an SUV driver receiving a tax break while sucking down enough Saudi oil to drive to a mall where he's expected to buy lead-tainted crapola manufactured overseas -- a yellow ribbon hypocrite magnet dangling just above his exhaust pipe and several inches from a fading W04 sticker. The caption: "The Bush Patriot Says: 'I'm On It, Mr. President!'"
The Bushies can't possibly take their own World War II metaphor seriously because they don't truly believe in the comparison.
They know, as you and I do, that these wars have little to do with stopping a new Hitler. If we peel back the layers -- if you look at what truly drives little childish men like Hannity and Cheney and Kristol, you'll find that it has little to do with liberating nations from an occupying Nazi force and ending a brutal holocaust. Beneath the pasty white surface of a typical Bush Republican you'll find greed, fear, ignorance, anger and a basic lack of understanding of America's place on the world stage. They're traits that drive nations into unnecessary wars. They're also traits that often breed cowardice.
To wit... Those of you demanding a war in Iran, I have one question for you. And no, I'm not going to employ the tired military service argument, but I must ask you this: what is the very minimum you're doing right now to prepare for your war? Are you refusing to support further tax cuts or pumping less "Islamofascist" oil into your SUV tank?
You're probably not doing anything because all you're expected to do is to say that you support the troops (what does that mean in practice?). And as long as you don't oppose the president as he dismantles the Constitution in favor of a corporate police state, then you've contributed to your president's war effort. That's the Bush Republican way. Oh, and to shop. You have go to Disneyland and buy shit you don't need at the mall (what the fuck is a Webkinz?).
How will the Ken Burns of the future portray the Bush Wars? I imagine that a large part of a future documentary about these times will detail what Rick Perlstein sublimely referred to this week as the destruction of America's character.
Whoever the future Ken Burns might be (hopefully, it'll be Ken Burns), he or she will have to dig deep into the destruction of our national character and detail the stories of torture and secret detention facilities; outsourced corporate thugs murdering foreign civilians; government scare tactics without substance -- it'll be a documentary in part about your non-military friends and family who supported this president's war but who sacrificed nothing in its execution.
So here we are in late 2007. The president believes that history will vindicate his efforts to destroy the American character and to bring about the ascendancy of neo-conservatism. After all, he fancies himself the new McKinley -- or is it George Washington? Is he Lincoln this week or Truman? Is he still fighting the Vietnam War or is it World War II? Korea or the Civil War? Goddamn him and his marble-mouthed horseshit. That's exactly why it has to be up to you and me to write the history -- the truth -- now. It won't be a proud endeavor because there has been little to be proud of, but we have to make sure that future Americans know exactly what happened in the Bush Years and in the Bush Wars.
The pendulum keeps swinging further to the right and seldom in our generation has it swung all the way back. When a president can look you in the eye and say he's going to veto healthcare for children, and his people are fine with that; and when the same sales pitch for Iraq is being employed for Iran -- and it's working, what else can you say about that fucking pendulum?
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I don't buy the cr*p the Viet Nam anti-war movement didn't hate the troops. as soon as My Lai and Kent State happened, I hated them.
I didn't carry that hate long, but it was there.
I also don't trust the white-washed version of The Greatest Generation. They took back Rosie the Rivoters job and told her to get in the Kitchen and have babies. They locked away Japanese Americans and did NOTHING to German Americans or Italian Americans. They stole everything Japanese Americans owned, and had the f*ckin gaul to ask young Japanese men to serve as translators in the Military. We had segregated Black troops. Roosevelt who did some remarkable things, RETURNED a boat load of Jewish refugees to die in the Camps.
I do hate this government and I hope/pray every day. every FILTHY F*CKIN SECRET of Cheney/Bush gets revealed. Without that then all this hideous f*ckin sh*t of the past 6 years is for NOTHING.
I can honestly say that I have not read any other piece that more clearly or concisely, or poignantly, captures how I feel at this moment in time. I have tried to hold on to my belief in America's resiliency but the amurica I see now frightens and distresses me. I remember clearly what I told my friends the day that georgie was installed in the presidency and the evangelico-facists christo-nazis were rejoicing - "We now begin our long decline."
What you are feeling is systemic all over the country. The latest poll, don't know which, puts the American belief in country/self at its lowest point ever. Even compassionate conservatives feel betrayed by the Bush/Chene
brilliant post. it saddens me. I am old enough to remember and to know the difference. I also saw it comming. If we learn anything at all from this it should be to not let religion take over politics. You do not find true leaders or true leaders in religious fundamentalists. You find the opposite. religiosity, its what the weak hide behind. real character is brave enough to stand on its own and needs nothing to hide behind. bush is a pathetic weak man of low character who has brought the whole country down to his level. I only hope we can learn from this and start realizing that REAL leadership and REAL character have NOTHING to do with religious fanaticsim.
I am afraid that the family value, pro life, [go to meeting sunday] crowd has destroyed our country. They (the neocons) have exported our manufacturing base to g*d knows where, for cheaper labor, no oversight, probably slave labor. While rewarding themselves with really neat tax breaks.
A country cannot exist without producing something, the only thing we export in any quanity is our ever weakening dollar. In the last few years gas has tripled, milk has doubled, the few jobs left pay no more, some even less.
The U S public has been taken for a ride down an economic slope that we may never climb back out of. The only way out of this mess is to vote every elected official out of office next election, and never vote for an incumbent again, maybe new people would get rid of CAFTA and NAFTA and all the other economic giveaways and restart our industrial base again...
I am buying American for Christmas. Examining all my food products and asking the butcher where's the beef from. This economy is in the dumps because Bush/Chene
The pendulum? It does not swing. The clock is tilted. Tipped over. All of the cogs inside have come off thier spindles and fallen into a useless pile. All of the finely honed, unhinged, machines working in concert, toward the same goal of nothing. And nothing is what will continue to be done. Hillary is Rudy is John is Mitt. Holy Wars Batman! Dollar Hegemony strikes again. Now. Stay tuned for the blowback.
I've been saying for the last 6-7yrs..ev
Hey,we know the enemy-it has a name. We've got Michael Moore, Soros and many others who believe that this nation is not lost to greed, hegemony and multinational corporatists. We can't abandon the ship- it is still afloat. It's flag is tattered and its bows are laden with the wounded, but Bush/Chene
Bob, you are correct; I was a little kid during WWII, and I would say the Bush comparison with Iraq is utter idiocy. WWII was a time of greatness and that greatness (with both Republicans and Democrats)continued until about the mid to late 1980's. In 2000, the country began going down hill at an alarming speed, which sped up dramatically after 9-11. Politics became the only consideration in government and its entire function. In addition to zero ethics at the highest levels of government, the very wealthy, which have always controlled the politicians and media, seem to have lost all common sense. The future now seems to depend on whether the pendulum swings back to common sense soon enough -- if at all.
Fucking, Amen!
Bush is responsible for the biggest heist in American history! He stold the Constitution while we were listening to him defend it. What a clever bastard.
The current Republican Party are criminals. The Democratic Party is largely the same. We are having a class war in this country which has not been seen since the Industrial Revolution.
There is a reason that money trumps all else in this country. These people are glorified bank robbers. All that is happening is that we are bickering while they distract us and rob us and our children. They will bail out with a golden parachute just like the corporate world. There is a massive transfer of wealth from the American Treasury (us) to the coffers of the rich (them.) They are the mob.
This will not end until the public demands it. History is replete with examples. Those that don't think fascism can happen here are naive of history. The question isn't "if" but "when." The only question we need to ask is are we going to let them get away with it?
Personally I believe we are headed for a violent resolution. The coasts get nothing for their tax dollars. Inside of twenty years someone legitimate will run on secession in the West. Civil War seems likely to me. A broken military and a well-funded private para-military (Blackwater). We will be lucky if the country survives in any recognizable form.
That being said, accepting anyone condoning more of the same to me seems treasonous. Hillary is a joke.
At least Edwards speaks of poverty.
Think Dennis Kucinich. If people can get passed the superficial things we rate as winning qualifications for a president, we have in Dennis Kucinich a man that can at least dream and speak of the awesome America Bob writes about. If you listen carefully to his positions, he stands for the American ideal we all grew up to know and love. I dare to believe that despite his diminutive size, Kucinich also has the cujones to lead us to that America.
Excellent post Bob, but I can't help but add that this country of ours is STILL awesome in many, many ways. We've hit a rough stretch of road (no doubt), but hopefully, once these bastards are out of office we can begin again to be great. The Rove/Bush/Cheney cabal has been successful because they have turned Americans against themselves. And that's what is unforgivable. Question: Where's the "christian community"? Where's their outrage, their shame ?
"they have turned Americans against themselves"
I totally agree with you on this most excellent point. I think another good question to ask would be how is the next president, whomever he or she may be, going to even begin to repair this damage? Maybe the 1940s were a simpler time and there is just no going back.
I think 1/3 of that wonderful christian community is still counting on Jesus to show up in the next 2 1/2 months. What a country!!
Brilliant. Simply Brilliant.
Isn't it ironic that Bush43 is looking for vindication from history? La Historia me Absolvera is Fidel Castro's masterpiece defense in front of a Tribunal after the Moncada Barracks attack on July 26th 1953. Is the "Deciderer in Chief" being influenced by his terrorist friends in Miami, who knows?
Thanks for your effort and your talent. You speak even to the spiritual side of all of us who know what's really happened to... us.
The American public, including you and me, Bob, have awakened to the problem; the solution to it is where the failure lies.
America in 1941 knew how to respond to Fascism and Japanese imperialism. We rolled up our sleeves and went to work out-manufacturing the Axis powers and volunteering to put orselves in harm's way.
Today, we vacillate, complain, and inveigh against the gutless wonders that talk big and are consistently wrong.
Our fathers, mothers, grandfathers and grandmothers; would have known how to deal with these domestic terrorists. It would have been unpleasant
The time for polite talk is long gone.
The demand for accountability must be persistent, unflagging, and determined.
Patriots have to act, and then America will again be God-Damned Awesome.
Hear, hear.
Read the book "The Shock Doctrine" by Naomi Klein. It explains a lot about what's going on.
It's Orwell's 1984 for a 2007 audience. Reads like a novel, but wow it has a real punch. The Shock Doctrine will wake a lot of people up.
The Bush White House lies and lies and lies and lies. They lied us into a dreadful war we can't seem to end. They torture, they eavesdrop on Americans, they exposed a CIA operative, they got rid of U.S. attornies for political purposes, they didn't recognize global warming until today, they don't know the meaning of the word "diplomacy," and now they're talking war with Iran. President Bush should go down as the worst president in American history. I just pray historians record these terrible years correctly and that the next president of the U.S. begins to restore America's decency.
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