Jacob, there is a wealth of wisdom and depth in your post and I enjoyed reading it. That post raises, of course, follow up questions concerning the process by which this country chooses it's leaders and governs itself during times of uncertainty. It seems that lately we're not doing too well in protecting the visions and principles that have largely set us apart from the abuses of some of histories other great powers. I suspect it's because of the old maxim that power corrupts, superimposed on the evident fact that many of our decisions are made with our emotional minds as opposed to our thinking minds.
I couldn't imagine an immature, cocky and untested personality like George W. Bush ascending to the presidency in the tense times that existed when, if diplomacy failed, there was a perceived threat of a devastating nuclear war. In the absence of that threat, however, the stage was evidently set for an administration that pandered to our basic needs, wants and desires, without regard to underlying principles and without a careful vision of the long term aftershocks resulting from the unfettered exercise of our massive economic and military power.
In this era when psychologists and ad executives have learned how to identify our emotional buttons and, more importantly, how to push them, we are prey to those with commercial or positional access to the media. Unless we feel involved enough to engage in actual discourse about the issues, most of us will internalize subliminal messages that become part of what we "KNOW."
When Bush says Saddam and Al Queda in the same phrase often enough, we will KNOW there is a connection, even though we may not realize where, or how, we garnered that information. When Rumsfeld and Cheney and Rice look us right in the eye through the screen and get emotional about the need to "protect" ourselves from the "grave danger" presented by Iraq, we will come to FEEL the threat of a mushroom cloud, of dead and dying poisoned Americans and of a future where we are held hostage to Iraqi State terrorism on a major scale, without even understanding the basic analysis that could support that fear.
In times like that, our democracy is poorly suited to achieve optimal choices in policy. We are too easily manipulated. Those that are the most likely to adhere to an "ends justify the means" approach, are the most likely to be able to fear monger and capitalize on our emotional thinking. Once they've achieved the strong support of a majority of us, then if their judgement is good they may lead us on a positive path, if they are extreme thinkers with unrealistic views of human nature and the world, they will likely lead us down a negative path.
My problem with Bush and the special interests and powers that guide him, is on both levels. They are clearly "ends justifies the means" adherents on the one hand. On the other, they are clearly dogmatic thinkers that shut off all opposing views and their view of the world and the average people that populate it are skewed. It is a formulae for disaster and almost every assessment that they've made in terms of how the world, the Iraqis and others will react has proven to be fatally wrong.
It will all change when the average American begins to feel the pain IN HIS EVERYDAY LIFE. Only then will most people begin to internalize the questions and issues that we should have been debating in our homes and with our friends and neighbors a long while back. It's not enough that many moderate and careful thinkers figured this out from the onset. Now that we have a climate that allows extreme thinkers to take extreme views without fear that we are heading down a path that will lead us to a nuclear confrontation with a major superpower, those that erroneously consider these questions to be remote from their personal lives will have to get a wakeup call. Maybe Congressman Rangely is right; maybe we should renew the draft so that the average American will "FEEL" personally impacted by the foreign policy decisions that take this country to war and send back our young in plastic bags and medivac planes. Maybe then we will, as a nation, seriously ask "Is it worth it? Where will it lead? In the end what will we have accomplished?" |
