Bush only seems able to express our anger, not our hopes. His whole focus is on an America whose role in the world is to negate the negation of the terrorists. But America has always been about the affirmation of something positive. That is missing today. Beyond Afghanistan, they’ve been much better at destruction than construction.
- Stephen P. Cohen
Perhaps the saddest thing about life in post-9.11 America is that we as a nation have become so addicted to the vague, ill-defined, but ever-present THREAT that is terrorism that most of us can no longer remember a time when we weren’t afraid. In a bit over three years, the threat of terrorism has become part and parcel of our day to day lives. In large part, this is true because the Bush Administration has convinced us that it is true…but is it really?
Yes, 9.11 was a horrific day in our collective history. Put that day aside for just a moment if you can, though. Is the threat of terrorism really any more prevalent than it was prior to 9.11? I would submit that it is not. What has changed is that we spend our lives living in fear of the unknown, the different, and the unquantifiable. 9.11 simply brought a threat that had long existed to the forefront of contemporary thinking.
No, I’m not about to argue that terrorism is not a serious risk. Clearly, 9.11 demonstrated that the risks are both serious and real. What I am arguing, though, is that we live in fear because we allow ourselves to be scared, and because we have allowed our leaders to convince us that we MUST live in fear, because “THE EVILDOERS” are out there. Well, guess what? They’ve ALWAYS been out there. They were out there prior to 9.11, and they’re still out there now. Because of the vast, undeniable import and scope of 9.11, we now have a tangible “enemy” at the forefront of our collective thoughts. That enemy hardly represents a new or recent threat, however.
I don’t know whether to laugh or cry when I hear the president and vice president slamming John Kerry for saying that he hopes America can eventually get back to a place where “terrorists are not the focus of our lives, but they’re a nuisance.” The idea that President Bush and Mr. Cheney would declare such a statement to be proof that Mr. Kerry is unfit to lead actually says more about them than Mr. Kerry. Excuse me, I don’t know about you, but I dream of going back to the days when terrorism was just a nuisance in our lives.
If I have a choice, I prefer not to live the rest of my life with the difference between a good day and bad day being whether Homeland Security tells me it is “code red” or “code orange” outside. To get inside the Washington office of the International Monetary Fund the other day, I had to show my ID, wait for an escort and fill out a one-page form about myself and my visit. I told my host: “Look, I don’t want a loan. I just want an interview.” Somewhere along the way we’ve gone over the top and lost our balance.
We have allowed the Bush Administration to convince us that we need to be constantly on guard and afraid. This threat is nothing new, though. It has been with us for longer than most of us are willing to admit. Why, then, are we now so terrified of “THE EVILDOERS”? The answer is simple- because the Bush Administration has staked their political future on it. By keeping the American people in a constant state of fear and trepidation, they are able to deflect attention from issues deserving our attention. Paralyzed by our collective fear, we have given George W. Bush and his minions a free pass.
In order to move forward, we need to find a way to come to grip with the reality that we are no more or less at risk than we were prior to 9.11. Yes, we need to be vigilant- but this was true prior to 9.11. Somehow, we need to hold our leaders accountable for finding solutions to issues in dire need of attention: health care, education, immigration, Social Security. By viewing every public policy issue through the lens of terrorism, we are selling ourselves short while we provide the Bush Administration with a free pass. WE DESERVE BETTER.
By exploiting the emotions around 9/11, Mr. Bush took a far-right agenda on taxes, the environment and social issues - for which he had no electoral mandate - and drove it into a 9/12 world. In doing so, Mr. Bush made himself the most divisive and polarizing president in modern history.
By using 9/11 to justify launching a war in Iraq without U.N. support, Mr. Bush also created a huge wedge between America and the rest of the world. I sympathize with the president when he says he would never have gotten a U.N. consensus for a strategy of trying to get at the roots of terrorism by reshaping the Arab-Muslim regimes that foster it - starting with Iraq.
But in politicizing 9/11, Mr. Bush drove a wedge between himself and common sense when it came to implementing his Iraq strategy. After failing to find any W.M.D. in Iraq, he became so dependent on justifying the Iraq war as the response to 9/11 - a campaign to bring freedom and democracy to the Arab-Muslim world - that he refused to see reality in Iraq. The president seemed to be saying to himself, “Something so good and right as getting rid of Saddam can’t possibly be going so wrong.” Long after it was obvious to anyone who visited Iraq that we never had enough troops there to establish order, Mr. Bush simply ignored reality. When pressed on Iraq, he sought cover behind 9/11 and how it required “tough decisions” - as if the tough decision to go to war in Iraq, in the name of 9/11, should make him immune to criticism over how he conducted the war.
Of course, fully one-half of the American voting populace seems perfectly content with their fear-based lifestyle. Some of us, though, want something better- and we deserve something better. Clearly, we’re not going to get it with four more years of George W. Bush.
If you want to stop living in fear, if you want government that will address the issues facing our country, if you want a President willing to be honest with all Americans- especially those who don’t necessarily support him, the choice on November 2nd is clear. Only John Kerry has demonstrated the honesty and the integrity to look Americans in the eye and tell the truth- not some fear-based massaged version of the truth designed to minimize political fallout.
America needs a President who can get us back to accentuating the positive, who knows how to build and not just destroy. We need a President whose main accomplishments don’t have the word “war” contained within. We deserve better than George W. Bush.
WAKE UP AND SMELL THE CAT LITTER, AMERICA. WE DESERVE BETTER.
