INSIGHT Weekly commentary
October 2 , 2006
Is this the nation we want to be?
It could be the end of empire, it could be the extremists who have seized control of Congress and the White House, it could be the fear fabricated by right-wing media and politicians, or it could be we're not paying attention. But the undeniable fact is that we're sliding into a ugly swamp of xenophobia, militarism, callousness, and short-sighted selfishness, and we're sinking deeper every day.
Strong words, I know. But consider a few recent developments. Congress is going along with President Bush's destruction of habeas corpus and other constitutional guarantees, individual protections against government power that have been in place since the Magna Carta in 1215. (And these violations are wrought by the "conservatives"!) The anti-immigrant juggernaut includes the building of fences along the U.S. borders and military patrols and hostile action. This is not only noxious symbolically, dubious legally and harshly unfair, it also doesn't work.
Almost unnoticed last week was the report from leading scientists that the Earth has reached the highest warming levels in 12,000 years. More politically significant, it seems, is that gasoline prices have dropped such that SUV owners and GOP politicians breathe a sigh of relief.
And then there's the war. The National Intelligence Estimate says, quite unremarkably, that the Iraq catastrophe is producing new jihadists. But Bush's reaction is to blame leakers and claim, improbably, that this is proof that we need to stay in Iraq and apply more military firepower to defeat the terrorists that we, in effect, helped recruit. Meanwhile, the Washington Post reports that "three-quarters of Iraqis believe U.S. forces are provoking more conflict than they are preventing in Iraq and should be withdrawn within a year," measured by a Post poll with a very large sample. The next day, a University of Maryland poll of Iraqis showed that a solid majority (61%) approve of the attacks on U.S. troops, and confirms the Post's findings about attitudes toward withdrawal and the deadly effects of the U.S. presence.
Given the scale of mayhem in Iraq, the casualties that now reach into the hundreds of thousands, this should not be surprising. But it should be discussed, which it scarcely is. That these poll numbers simply reinforce the judgment of dozens of intelligence analysts should tell us something about this draconian misadventure and the reverberations it is sending around the world.
Then there is the usual, grinding gloom about the economy---growing inequality, massive budget deficits and trade imbalances, stagnant income for regular workers, enormous benefits for the rich.
Cheap philosophy is easy in such circumstances, but it's difficult to avoid some obvious similarities in this cascade of troubling news. The immigration hysteria is likely a direct result of the refracted pain of Iraq. Because immigration is good for our economy---even illegal immigration is a plus, as academic studies and even Republican Mayor Bloomberg of New York insist---the Mexican workers must be tarred with another brush, that of criminality or job stealing or, most illogically, terrorism. It fits a long pattern of blaming recent immigrants in times of national stress. Along with the growing anti-Muslim frenzy in the right-wing blogosphere and news media, we see a vivid pattern of blaming the victims of U.S. muscle flexing, economic predation, and violence.
Actual problems---growing inequality, destruction of the Earth's ecosystems---are then conveniently relegated to the back pages. It is fear, fear, fear 24/7: a strategy for keeping power in the hands of the men asleep at the wheel on 9/11, dealing away the nation's economic future, and creating a cesspool of violence in the Middle East that is unprecedented in that region's bloody history.
The Constitution is one sacrifice for this power play. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis are another. Untold billions resulting from the unfolding ecodisaster. This is the nation we're becoming.
--John Tirman
This is JohnTirman.com