Thursday, May 15, 2003

Governance by Lies Anyone who hates Bush and thinks that he represents a danger to our country must confront the question:  if you hate him so much, why is he so popular?   I have been thinking about this question for weeks, because I think it is serious.  The movement cannot turn inward and just hope for disaster so that people will see we were right.  Instead, we must think through what makes some one so dangerous also popular and politically powerful.   I think one important thing is his capacity for lying.  There has been mini media frenzy on the East coast lately around Leo Strauss, since reporters have discovered that the intelligence groups who lied about Iraq are run by “Straussians.” From Tom Paine: Shadia Drury, author of Leo Strauss and the American Right says "Strauss was neither a liberal nor a democrat," in a telephone interview from her office at the University of Calgary in Canada. "Perpetual deception of the citizens by those in power is critical (in Strauss's view) because they need to be led, and they need strong rulers to tell them what's good for them. "The Weimar Republic (in Germany) was his model of liberal democracy for which he had huge contempt," said Drury. Liberalism in Weimar, in his view, led ultimately to the Nazi Holocaust against the Jews. Bush and Rove don’t lie because they think democracy is weak.  They lie because they can gain power by lying, and they have no intellectual or moral compunction that pushes them to be consistent, principled, or scientific. Thus Bush can doubt the validity of evolution and global warming.  He can say that he is focused on Osama Bin Laden dead or alive at one point, and then say he is no longer important at another.  He can claim Iraq has nuclear material, and then not be bothered by the gross forgery of his evidence. But those around them see these lies as a necessary part of the iron backbone, without which the country would be weak and defenseless. Bush infuriates people like me because we believe in moral principles, scientific integrity, democratic principles, and human rights.   Bush will violate each of these things for a goal that he claims is “promoting democracy’, but which in fact is simply a power grab, enriching the wealthy class.  So back to the question of popularity:  Bush is popular because a huge part of the country is very comfortable with his lies because they make them feel better.  This is part of the impact of the Southern domination of much of American politics.  In the South, lies and myth making are part of history, because you cannot live with the legacy of slavery and homicide without lying about it.  The South never experienced the truth and reconciliation process that went on in South Africa, and so still today, one hundred and forty years after slavery, most white southerners don’t understand what happened, but live on by myth. In this situation, intellectualism, particularly Yankee intellectualism, was always a threat—it was a continuation of the abolitionist movement.  Abolitionists were agitated about universal human rights – if all men were equal, than slavery was an abomination.  I don’t think the South ever forgave the abolitionists, or accepted the fundamental human rights which they stood for. So, in this anti-intellectual climate, it is easy to say that Saddam Hussein was behind Sept. 11th, and the majority of people in the country believe it.  So when Bush bombs far off caves in Afghanistan and collapses the desperately weak Iraqi army, people feel vindicated, safe from terror. The “war” on terror is one gigantic lie, yet it is one that has provided a political framework for Bush’s power.  The danger is that of any war -- unexpected devastating losses.  Bush has not prepared American for what might happen, but has frightened them so much that a very small attack can cause emotional and economic hysteria.  Consequently, he can propose more and more radical measures—concentration camps in Guantanamo,  secret arrest and detention of American citizens and immigrants, preemptive attacks on other nations, rethinking the first use of tactical nuclear weapons—because America’s fear is like a blank check. How much more truthful, but less satisfying, if Bush said that serious grievances were behind a growing Muslim fanaticism, and that terrorists will be tracked down by investigators and police like criminals, but that no matter what these small groups can do, they can’t threaten the economic and social security of the U.S.  Then the focus would be on the people, not their leaders, and the old Straussians with their elitist, secretive, anti-democratic ideas would have to find a new sandbox to play in. 10:34:40 PM   comment []

© Copyright 2003 Toby Sackton. Last update: 6/12/2003; 12:31:43 PM.