Pack Up the Moon and Dismantle the Sun

I rather liked the MoveOn ad from the Times. It was crass, but these are crass times. It was simplistic, but these are simplistic problems, basic ones -- after all -- the American people have been treated as foolish consumers of a product -- in this case a war -- by an administration that hovers in a bipolar helix between hapless fervor and rank cynicism. Depending on the day. I wrote MoveOn a check, like a lot of people did -- back when we were going to war in Iraq -- for the first ads. There should have been ads and protests and actions every single day from then on.

And I liked the ad a lot more than the posturing of the senators who decried it -- amongst them at least one psychosexual hysteric with a jones for hookers. But hey, this is the circus, this is a Golgotha, and if the Barbarians are at the gates -- at least they're putting on a show. Some time ago a mogul told me he thought the six month test Bush proposed was 'fair and dead on'. This is a man who controls and has made billions of dollars and is hipper than anyone in the room, and smarter too. So what can you say? Now let's face it. We're in Iraq for the next decade. We are in Iraq for the next decade. At least. No way out. This is how America crumbles; at the hands of the most misguided ideologues since the Crusades. Men who led America to catastrophe, who betrayed all the promise we had left -- and for what? The naive and arrogant expectation that a grateful culture would be democratized magically, instantly, and with no ambivalence. I often think that Mr. Rove would not have lasted two rounds with the boys at CAA or any decent studio head -- they'd have swallowed him and his woozy hucksterism with a glass of water -- if only he'd been a schlepper out of Burbank, instead of our very own minor-league Talleyrand. Mr. Draper in an interview regarding his book on Bush says that the fatal flaw in this most likable of men, is a kind of frightened, defensive lack of curiosity. That seems right. In the Atlantic Monthly, one of the ex-speech writers for the administration turns on one of his own with the ferocity of a cartoon pirate turning on another pirate after the treasure is all gone. This is how it goes down, folks. They're not conservatives. They're not even Republicans. They are de-regulating cynics who pray that capitalism works like the glorious God-Powered Rube Goldberg machine it is. Just add self-reliance and a few days in Aspen. This crowd? They make one long for the intellectual rigor of a Nixon, and they don't deserve to even speak the name Goldwater. I liked the MoveOn ad, because it was probably true, in the Freudian sense, even if it is a little shrill. We have been betrayed. "Weapons of mass destruction" was always a guess -- and a wrong guess that calcified into a frightened and incurious dogma (the reasons for the war have changed), is going to do us in.

And not one of the viable candidates for the presidency is going to be able to save us.

The general didn't betray us. His bosses did. How will America survive the cold brutality of the neo-con pillage? And what if America has not had enough cheap patriotism and actually decides that a Romney or Thompson or a (wow!) Rudy administration is a righteous notion? I liked the ad, because the people who loudly decried it as an outrage are as blind as moles to the true outrage of what it means to be an American now; of civilians and young soldiers dying in the dusty and terrifying streets and fields of a bitterly divided and shattered state thousands and thousands of miles away.

I liked the ad because it was cheap and street, and true in spirit. I think tonight that America is shuddering, is in spasm, and she is losing blood. Christians -- real ones -- steeped in compassion and gentleness -- are impotent abdicators to sharpies and megalomaniacs who see God as a vicious cop on their beat.

Why do i feel this way tonight? Because six years ago I saw and heard in ways I'll not share here -- the end of one world -- and the start of another. Six years ago today, amidst the gore and dying and murder -- there were the stirrings of a world united with this country. "We are all Americans today!" -- you heard it from France and England and almost everywhere else --
but for three days after -- a shell-shocked and incompetent president flew hither and yon -- in a hapless prelude to the years of dark buffoonery to come. And the mythology that the president "found his voice" at Ground Zero days later -- is pablum from a Capra out-take.

I walked through Tribeca, where I then lived, days later. Past the National Guard. Past the fliers and into the smoke of lower Manhattan.

That smoke has spread across the nation, and instead of uniting us, has become a dark cloak, one used by liars and zealots, one used to gull a frightened polity, and to seize power. Our individual rights are almost as precarious as our bridges.

Now, six years after the worst day in modern memory for this writer -- the day of the dead --
the only thing I have left is personal -- holding the people I love -- and acting with a desperate and flailing and imperfect personal decency in the hopes that others around me are doing the same. Not enough, not enough, not nearly enough.
.
It is about to be September 12th. I want to paraphrase Auden and silence the clocks and the noise and pray in the silence to a a god I don't trust or even know how to believe in -- for a way to help my country -- and everyone in it -- find a way through the dark toxic cloud that was conjured up six years ago at the tip of Manhattan.

It is almost September 12th, and still people are dying.

Comments

[esquire07]

Great Article.

I commend Moveon.org for their courage.

America is close to utter and complete finaccial and moral Bankruptcy. The treasury has been looted by the neo-cons and their buddies in the Arms and Oil industries.

Bush is ready to start War with Iran. US troops die to fill corporate Bank accounts. The World truly hates America.

Things ain't looking so good. Wait for a year or two from now when the bill comes due.

America is truly fucked.

[Mack20]

Then maybe you should move to Canada or better yet, Cuba.

[Shadow51]

Or maybe we should reclaim our country and unfuck it.

[triestina]

OK I can't back this up with names, but it seems to me that I have seen a lot of former military commanders, once they are retired and their pensions are safe, suddenly criticize war strategy and president? so why believe a word they say while on on "duty"?

[abbiehoffmansghost]

Like the ad? I loved it. I wish that they'd re-run it once a week.

[wanked]

Jon,
Nice. Lets support Move on when they go after the Bush Dems.

[craigdp]

I understand and share your anomie and agony. We have some 500 days left for our own religious fanatics to wreak havoc, then we can begin to clean up the mess and restore out shredded reputation in the company of nations. Until then, hold your family close and resist, as and how you are able.
Henry James said it well: "We work in the dark - we do what we can - we give what we have."

[JackieBinAZ]

Don't hold your breath. The 2006 election was supposed to be about beginning to clean up this mess. I'm afraid we really are screwed.

[frustratedinohio]

Thank you for this. It made me cry. I agree with every word.

[jimmyaj]

We would all do well to remember that our troops in Iraq are NOT "defending freedom" and "spreading democracy".

What our troops are dying for is: 1.) A failed and deteriorating attempt to take over Iraq's natural resources; 2.) An attempt (as was stated above) to create a buffer between Iran and Saudi Arabia; 3.) A boondoggle to boost the cash flow of various war profiteers like Halliburton, Blackwater, and dozens of others, including arms manufacturers; 4.) A distraction to draw the public's attention to and support for the destruction of our Constitutional rights.

[MainSpark]

"When the anarchist at Moveon.orgg" put on a uniform and wear it for 20 years, ready to give their lives for their country (sic) than they have a right to run such a disgusting ad. Until that time, (that will never come,) they have NO right to disrespect General Petraeus."

- - - - - - - - - - - - -

Oh, I see how it is. In order to "disrespect" Petraeus, one must have worn a uniform and served twenty years in the military. Ahh, so.

I wonder: how many of those "anarchists" at MoveOn.org may already have served in the military?

You know, my reading of the First Amendment didn't mention anything about the necessity of military service as a prerequisite for free speech.

So, considering that Dick Cheney didn't serve in the military, does he have the right to disrespect me? Well, that's to say, disrespect me again? For unlike Mr. Cheney, I actually did serve this country in the military. I wore a Navy uniform.

But I still don't see how lack of military service matters, in regard to free speech.

[xenofile]

In Starship Troopers, Robert A. Heinlein advocated that only those who had performed military service would have full citizenship rights (including the right to vote).

I'm not advocating this position, but that's an antecedent for this type of thinking.

[godlessclif]

"The Battle of Vienna in which King Sobieski defeated the 100,000-man army of "Islamic hordes" under Kara Mustafa Pasha was one day after the arrival of the Polish army with their winged hussars - Sept. 12. The western expansion of the Caliphate ended there, but the push back took many years."

So King Sobieski went to Iraq to fight them there so he would not have to fight them in Poland. Right?

[rabun666]

Good post. September 11, 2001 is the day that 19 terrorists with box cutters defeated the United States of America. One battle is all that it took. OBL's and al-qaeda could have never imagined the success of their plan, they won the war. Furthermore, it's like Bush was the perfect ally for them in assuring their resounding victory. 19 men with box cutters defeated a nation of 300,000,000 cowards. OBL worked like hell to get Bush elected in 2004 and was successful. OBL picked Bush to be the president of the USA. How could OBL have had imagined that his successful defeat of the United States would have been so easy, easier than the defeat of the USSR in Afghanistan. When Time decides to name the MAN OF THE CENTURY IT HAS TO BE OSAMA BIN LADEN, the man who defeated the USSR and the USA.

[Shadow51]

"19 men with box cutters defeated a nation of 300,000,000 cowards."

Nailed it. Why? Not because we want to "cut and run" instead of "kicking ass". Because we cower like dogs every time this craven administration trots out the "terrorist threat" and trashes our real heroes when they tell us the truth. It's funny, really, the rest of the world has been living for years with the "terrorist threat". We can be brave as long as it's happening "over there", even when it happens to Americans. But when it happened here, we were ready to believe the most obvious lies from a bunch of evidently sexually tormented power freaks as long as they said they would protect us.

We have sacrificed our honor for a totally false sense of security sold to us by a bunch of sleazy shysters. I mean, seriously, would you buy a car from ol' Smilin' Georgie, or Mr. "Go Fuck Yourself" Cheney?

All it takes for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.

[UncleDave]

While the success of 9-11 was beyond OBL's dreams and The Thugs led US into what OBL wanted,'Defeat' is a bit strong IMO. 'Defeat' implies that a nation is laid prostrait and the will to exist has disappeared. I feel that a growing populace that is disgusted by the tactics of fear should apply it's will to confront 'the war on terra' as it should be- by adjusting National policy to repairing Our relations with the world. That,of course,requires leadership that is lacking Today.

[jackbauer0396]

This post is really the antithesis, the foil for anything George W. Bush can say. It's grounded in reality. It employs the use of facts. Groundbreaking stuff here, Jon, and I applaud you. Though "We're Kicking Ass" can elicit "HOORAH'S!" out of every neocon, posts like this resonate and are multi-layered, cogent arguments. The part I found most profound, was the last full paragraph.

"It is about to be September 12th. I want to paraphrase Auden and silence the clocks and the noise and pray in the silence to a a god I don't trust or even know how to believe in -- for a way to help my country -- and everyone in it -- find a way through the dark toxic cloud that was conjured up six years ago at the tip of Manhattan."

This country does need help. It is the burden of the electorate to steer this country in the right direction. Yes, Bush is in power, but guess what? We put him there. And if he stole the election, then we let him. It's not the people who support Bush who are the problem, no. It's the people who don't give a shit.

[snakespeak]

Wow-it is as if Jon Baitz were narrating the collapse of the -whatever it is we have become- even as we experience it. The towers' collapse was just a metaphor for the collapse of the American post WW II culture. Very heavy, baby. Quo Vadimus?

[Roses]

Thank you for such a beautifully written article. You expressed for millions of us who think with sadness on that day and sadness for what has become of our country.

[realitytrumpsbull]

9/11 was a horrific day in more ways than one, not only that someone/some people would band together to kill innocents, but also in the sense that our borders had been breached by foreign hostiles bent on destruction, who then committed an act not unlike an indian raiding party on horseback, wreaking destruction and chaos.

Then, they invaded Afghanistan, and there was 'axis of evil', the Patriot Act, so forth, and so on. Then came the Iraq invasion. Then it was Dick Cheney and Valerie Plame, and yellowcake from africa, and this and that and the other circumstance, and suddenly it stopped being war coverage and started being Jerry Springer with bullets. So, the saga drags on,
the billions are burned, Petraeus stands there holding the bag, and Bush's friends are still screaming 'stay the course!' somewhere, and they still haven't caught Osama. Meanwhile, in Afghanistan, the war on terror has become the war on terrordrugs, and you kind of have to wonder what in the blankety-blank-blanker is REALLY going on here, and whether the whole activity might not be better renamed Operation Government Doughnut, or Operation Dubious Clusterblank, or Custerblank, whichever seems more apt. And, and, as democrats and republicans(DINO's and RINO's) posture their
intentions to out-defend each other, and ever more tax revenue gets poured down the black hole that is the middle east, and people accuse each other of theft and fraud while driving off to the sunset with entire camping trailers full of money behind them, it does bring a tear to your eye when the commentator opens his mouth and starts to talk about Iraq. There is such a thing, in my view, as not throwing good money after bad, and I believe that we passed that 'benchmark' a long time ago. Maybe, hopefully whoever gets elected next time around
will take their inspiration from a horny, half-starved rabid pit bull when it comes to things like preventing people from making entire careers out of perpetuating wars that shouldn't have ever been started in the first place...

[UncleDave]

Well said. The 'indian raiding party' analogy is more apt than most people care to admit.Indiginous people desperately trying to repel foriegn invaders bent on stealing everything in sight.

[nikto]

Some of the knowledge-challenged righties on this thread could benefit by reading this:

http://www.debunker.com/texts/anti_chr.html


The section on the Crusades is
especially helpful.

But then again, why do I even bother?

It is well-established and empirical by now that true ideological righties' ignorance of Truth and history is intentional and purposeful.

It keeps them in the dark, but "in the right".

If rightwingers could let go of their
"Right Man Syndrome" for just a little while, they might actually learn something and EVOLVE.

But Evolution is not within the capability of most righties--That is why they deny
it so relentlessly.

But Jesus demands we keep trying to reach out to them, as hard as that may be.