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

[UncleDave]

For Me,my first thought yesterday was it's hard to believe it is only six years from that awful shocking day-it feels much longer.Perhaps my mind has a hard time accepting that reality because my mind,my emotions and my soul cannot accept my government's behavior,since Then.The path taken since That Day is as crazy as the events of That Day. Six years ago, I believed the words'those responsible will be hunted down and brought to justice'. Today,those words are a cruel joke spoken by a clown leading a criminal cadre of scum.And that,perhaps, is why That Day seems so long ago.I am weary of no justice anywhere to be seen or felt.I am weary of fearing those who vowed to protect me.That,to me, is the Ultimate Betrayal- not only to me,but to those that died That Day.

[Roses]

Thank you so much for a wonderfully written article. It is also very sad and bittersweet. Thank you again for speaking for so many of us.

[cynara]

I don't remember the Republicans comming out to condemn the damning and false accusation from the Swift boat veterans in the '04 campaign. Or the damning and false playboy ad in the Tenessee race. Now we have a damning, BUT TRUE, ad from Move-On and what are Dems doing? Getting in line to condemn it.. Way to show backbone...

[temashana]

Abraham Linoln had is sussed out a long time ago, and sadly most people are apathetic nowadays.

"No man is good enough to govern another man without that other's consent. . . . These United States of America can never be destroyed from forces outside its borders. If America falls, it will fall from within. Brought down by apathy. When good people do nothing, Anarchy reigns." - Abraham Lincoln in a 1854 letter to Congress

[humbug]

I read the article & comments. Loved it all, even the simplistic notion that no one can comment about the military unless you've served. It you follow that logic, consider the following: If you don't like the food served you, you can't complain unless you are a cook. After you pick your newly tuned care up and find it knocks, don't complain unless you are a mechanic. More analogous to the Iraq situation, you have no right to a malpractice suit if your stupid surgeon leaves his bubble gum in your prostate when closes the wound. After all, you've probably never been a surgeon. As to the Bushies, they have a right to call for war, but when they commit young people to the risk of death when they were unwilling themselves, you might well consider their likely hypocrisy, duplicity, real commitment and deception. The logic of the right (and some of the left) is something to behold. It is humbug.

[bethinCary]

The entire Bush Presidency has been nothing but one lie after another. This WH is more concerned with CYA than actually passing anything that is beneficial to anyone but himself and his corporate buds.

This ad called all the people who have lied under GW into question-the way most Americans feel.
Why is it wrong for Moveon to say what all of us think.
GW, nor anyone under him-has any CRED left.

[Dvmx]

We've had four courageous and popular leaders who spoke out for peace and against the war industry. Who declared that world peace was the challenge for all honorable men to pursue.
They were all killed. JFK, MLK, RFK, and John Lennon. To the last, assassinated.
Every once in a while, I read their speeches again.
It's amazing how much honor, dignity, and wisdom we have lost in the last 30 years.
Dvmx.com

[rmreddicks]

You may wish to delve further into what JFK did as opposed to what he sometimes said.

[Bocababs]

Very well written. It's not the Move.on Ad that shocked some on both sides of the aisle. It is the truth telling of the ad that did not sit well. For six long years now, and mostly because of 9/11, our voices have been silenced for us by this very administration. I lost a job over the 2004 elections..no need to go into it, but now that the people are starting to be unafraid to speak out, it is truly scaring a lot of other people out there in the world of "You watch me, and I'll watch you."

[Shadow51]

So eloquent. These are dark times for our country, and for those of us sensitive to the suffering of others and feeling so helpless to stop it. Most often lately I feel like Cassandra, doomed to know the future and powerless to stop it. There is an ending coming, and it will be a very painful one, but with every ending comes a beginning. We who continue on with what's right regardless of how much we are demonized will keep moving toward that beginning, even though we can't yet see it through the darkness.

Don't despair. The Universe will seek balance. We are an important part of that balance even though we may feel helpless now. Or to paraphrase Samwise Gamgee, there is still good in this world and it is worth fighting for.

[UncleDave]

Shadow-You are eloquent yourself,sir or madamme. Your last line says it all. thank You.

[Shadow51]

Thanks. Most of the time I'm just mad as hell ;)

[Mel J]

BRAVO JON! THANK YOU FOR YOUR SHARING YOUR INSIGHT!

[BDuPont]

When a general acts in a way that protects his job first, and not the truth - which is in the interests of the nation that employs him then he indeed is a General BetrayUs or a WasteMoreLand.

[hopeless277]

Go, team, go. Win, team, win. USA, USA, USA, hooray!!! Bush's only talent, cheerleading.

[FlowerGirl]

He was also a good exploder of toads. He loved that.

[maddog2112]

I am going to move on and make my first donation right now! The "Outrage" from the left was phoney and transperant. Anyone who make a valid point about their absurdity is attacked and labled extreme. Moveon had yet to even come close to the extreme positions of Hannity, limbaugh, coulter or Oriely. All of them have made far worse statements and all of them have made worse statements that they knew at the time where completley innacurate. I don't care if the man cheating on his wife, or the one strolling for sex at the airport, or the one molesting pages, or the one with his trophy wife, or the one taking bribes from lobbyist, or the one exposing our agents, or the one lying about WMD's, or the one who marreid his cousin, or the one saying things are going well in Iraq are offeded and why should I?

[Shadow51]

That about sums it up.

[Neuromancer13]

Back to the main topic:
If bilge such as this: http://www.swiftvets.com/ is allowed, then how can you (wingnuts) possibly (legitimately, non-hypocritically) object to a bold, timely and well-referenced piece such as MoveOn's.

When serving Generals write op-ed pieces about their own operations, then they have willingly entered the political field, and are thus legitimate targets of political speech.

Great piece. I'm glad there are those of you out there with the eloquence to say what most of us can only feel.

[Aunt Shecky]

I am a sucker for any writer who quotes Auden.