Four More Years: A Liberal Call to Arms

November 4, 2004

So, George W. Bush has been reelected as the President for another four years [19].

When one considers the past four years, one can only wonder what it is that inspired the American people to reelect a man who has led this nation into a war with lies [1] [2] [3] [9] [11], a hypocrite who speaks of fiscal responsibility [4] while running up the greatest deficits this nation has ever known [5] [6], a salesman of ignorance, prejudice and fear who paints a picture of the world as a dark and evil place from which only he can save the United States [7] [8] [10].

Yet this it seems that this is the man that this nation has selected to lead it once again.

What is it that we have brought upon ourselves? What will be the results of America’s willful ignorance, of our paradoxical mix self-inflicted apathy and imperial desires, of our faith-based anti-intellectualism?

The answer is simple. We have purchased four more years of the same, and more. For George W. Bush never said truer words than when he said, “I have more to do [12].”

To begin with, we will face another four years of the soiling of our own nest. Many Americans seem to have become immured to the word “environment,” forgetting that it is a word that does not describe a cause, but rather defines the very place that we live, the air we breathe, the water that we drink.

Yet we have purchased four more years of havoc for this pale blue dot that we call home [13].

For four more years, the environment will be despoiled as George W. Bush continues to discard the protections that took years to build [14] [15] [16] [17]. And while George W. Bush caters to the desires of industry [18], he ignores the fact that the climatic state change predicted by global warming theory [20] [21] has manifested itself, with record breaking hurricanes smashing into Florida [22] [23]. Yet President Bush refuses to have any part of the Kyoto treaty [27] [28]; a treaty that was years in the making.

And while the damage to Florida and the surrounding areas was terrible [26], many people do not realize how devastating the hurricane season could have been. This last hurricane season, we almost lost New Orleans [24] [25] – a metropolitan area with over a million people [24]. Had Hurricane Ivan hit the coast directly, and landed at New Orleans, scientists say that there would have been a tidal swell of 10 to 16 feet that would have lasted 12 hours [24]. Consider the effect on a city that is below sea level, and surrounded by water on three sides.

And while overwhelming evidence mounts that global warming is not a theory concerning something that will occur in the distant future, but rather, an active effect that is occurring right now [21] [29], George W. Bush stifles and censors the government’s scientists whose job it is to learn about these things [31] [32], and whose job it is to alert the nation of this danger [30].

George W. Bush’s environmental “leadership” is akin to the head of a household of small children not only not cleaning the house, but never even chastising the children for any mess they make, and even encouraging the children to soil the dwelling. Eventually, the stench of raw sewage would drive the residents from such a home; the human race has no new house to move to.

Just as George W. Bush is allowing the destruction of the physical environment in which we live, he is also leading the Republican Party in the pollution of our political environment.

In the last four years, we have seen tactics and practices never before seen in American politics, and there is no indication that we will see anything except four more years of the growth of the most un-American political behavior in the history of this nation. Four more years of private rallies for the supporters of the President, where loyalty oaths to the president are required [33] [34], and those who would observe their leader but support his opponent are labeled stalkers. Four more years where citizens who wear shirts proclaiming “Protect Our Civil Rights” within the sight of the President are ejected from his presence on the charge that their attire is obscene [35]. Four more years of surrounding the Imperial Family with nothing but supporters at their public appearances [36] [37].

But it is not only the external aspects of the Republican Party that have changed. For the first time in history, there exists the position of a political advisor who exerts more control over the President than can be possibly be healthy [39] [40]. The cartel that the President has surrounded himself is aggressive, imperialistic, ruthless and amoral in their pursuit of Pax Americana [41] [42] [43]. They will go to any end [47] and say anything [46] to make their vision come true, regardless of the cost to America; regardless if the price will destroy America [44] [48].

Certainly Bush and his allies are willing to destroy groups of individuals in their pursuit of power. Those who are different, who follow a different code, who march to the beat of a different drummer are being singled out. George W. Bush has advocated discrimination against gays in the form of his efforts to “protect marriage [49] [50].” Because of his efforts, because of the efforts of the reactionary right, 11 states now have bans against gay marriage [51]. Gays are a relatively small minority, and are easy for the majority to despise [52], if for no other reason than their differences are viewed as being so fundamental and because their homosexuality makes them sinful [53] and disgusting [54] [55] in the eyes of many, even if they do not admit to such views. But one wonders, who will the next target be? [56]

These practices and others like them are an effort to promote a feeling of exclusiveness, of belonging to an inner circle. It is the same feeling that the member of a popular clique feels; it is the feeling that one gets when one is admitted to a secretive lodge; it is the feeling of superiority and of being “on the inside” that is being fostered by the Republican Party. It is divisive, it goes against the grain of that which defines American politics; and just like in Germany in the 1930’s, it is extremely effective [57] [58] [59].

Along with the allure of the inner circle, along with the slogans of “With Us, Or Against Us” [60] [61] comes the sale of the fear and hatred. Fear of enemies that Republican leaders claim can and will strike if anyone disagrees with them [38]. Fear that our cities will be incinerated in the fire of nuclear explosions [8] Fear that our very nation will fall if a different path is taken, or if a voice is raised in defiance of the course set for this nation [62] [63].

And like a malignant cancer, the levels fear and hatred are growing. Like an addict, the old dosage is no longer enough; now, the dosage must be bigger, stronger, purer. No longer does the Bush Administration make any effort to distinguish between Muslim, fanatic and terrorist [66]. Slowly but surely, Muslims are becoming the enemy, the target, the soldier of Eastasia to George W. Bush’s Oceania [64] [65].

And none of this would be possible without the lies that George W. Bush and his associates and allies have woven [72]. The Bush administration has flat out lied for four years. They lied about weapons of mass destruction, they lied about connections between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden, and with these lies, they led America into war [3] [9] [67] [68] [69] [70] [71].

Yet many Americans seem to be desperate to fill some need, something that they sense is lacking. And instead of attempting to gain wisdom, instead of trying to build our nation up from the inside, they fill this unidentifiable void with dreams of empire, dreams of glory; they fill themselves with the lies of the man who would be the first American emperor in all but name, the man who they think will bring Pax Americana [41] [42] to the world.

And so the lies of George W. Bush are accepted by his followers and acolytes, who even go so far as to convince themselves that no lies were ever actually told. In his classic novel, 1984 [74], George Orwell’s character Winston Smith could not have been better conditioned than many Americans seem to be [73]. And the greatest irony is that while George Orwell thought that it would take terrible torture and deprivation to break his character, Winston Smith, Americans seem willing to generate phenomenal levels of cognitive dissonance simply for the illusion of greatness, for the dream of empire, for the sake of the feeling of power and superiority that the schoolyard bully thrives upon.

And where will this trend take us [73]? We already have our “Two Minutes of Hate,” though we call it the six o’clock news. Will we see the formation of an arm of the Republican Party who acts as an Antiterrorist Squad, complete with uniforms, armbands and jackboots? Perhaps the Boy Scouts will have a new merit badge for spying on suspicious foreigners. Will my writing this be legal in four years? Will reading it be illegal? Already, the President encourages the thought that those who disagree with him are not really American – and, in fact, implies that they are treasonous [38] – what is the next logical step in this progression?

And not only has George W. Bush led much of America down the path of hatred and fear, and of greed and aggression, his government has led the effort to enact law that would allow the persecution of those who George W. Bush finds undesirable, of those who are targeted for attack by the Bush government. The Patriot Act was just the start [44] [45]; the second phase has been the inclusion of the Patriot Act II [48] in the legislation spawned from the 9/11 commission’s recommendations [75] [76].

But it is not only within America herself that George W. Bush exerts his corrupting influence. In all likelihood, we have four more years of wars of aggression. Four more years of lies to take us into wars that will bring thousands of Americans home in body bags [77] [78] from nations and parts of the world that America cannot and will not understand, and will never truly be able to assert the level of influence over that George W. Bush desires. Four more years of the accumulation of hatred [87] from those who we deprive of life, liberty and country [82] [83] [84] [88]; four more years of the generation of breeding grounds for new fanatic terrorists with no purpose but the destruction of the United States [79] [85] [86]. And four more years building anger and resentment from our traditional allies [89] [90] [91] [92].

And how will we pay for these four more years of aggressive wars? President Bush hasn’t said. But he has paid for the last four years by borrowing from our children and grandchildren [93] [94].

We defeated the Soviet Union primarily through economic war. Now, it seems that President Bush is waging economic war against our own nation, and there is no end in sight to the attacks.

And what became of “compassionate conservatism?” [95] That catch phrase that was invented to make the radical reactionary policies of George W. Bush seem moderate, that ingenious bit of doublespeak that allowed conservatives to apply a balm to their conscience while they stripped the safety nets from the poor and the needy [96] [97] [98]. What became of that wonderful ideal presented to us by George W. Bush that we could be both conservative and compassionate at the same time? [95] Were we conservative as we mortgaged our children’s lives to pay for the war in Iraq? [93] [94] [99] [100] Were we compassionate at Abu Ghraib? [79] [82] [83] [84] Or Guantanamo Bay? [80] [81] What is compassionate about the rising levels of homeless people [101], the increasing percentage of Americans below the poverty line [102], or the slashing of funding for programs designed as a safety net for our people [97] [98] ?

And while conservatives hid the dismantling of 30 years of progress behind this particular mental fig leaf, George W. Bush was busy handing the stock of the store over to Corporate America [104] [105], and to the military-industrial complex that Dwight Eisenhower warned us about [103]. For the past four years, we have seen the power of Corporate America rise through graft, corruption, bribery in the form of lobbiests, and the exercise of raw power to levels never before seen in this nation [105]. We have seen the employees who spent their lives building the great American companies robbed of their pensions [106] [107]; we have seen their jobs sold overseas [108] [109] [110].

And as with most of the practices of this administration, there is no reason to believe that we will see anything but four more years of catering to the needs and desires of Corporate America. While the great American corporations continue to enjoy postal drop citizenship in Bermuda and tax free money transfers in the Kamen Islands, the working families of America will be forced to pick up the bill [105].

And not only is it the mega-corporations that benefit from the rule of George W. Bush – it is also the rich [111]. The estate tax, which affects only 1% of Americans [111] [112] [113] [115], has been done away with. Capitol gains taxes have been massively reduced [114]. And President Bush advocates tax cuts [7] to bribe the citizenry into voting for him while the deficit continues to soar [5] [94] [116] [117]. Tax cuts that the nation flat out cannot afford [119]. Yet George W. Bush persists in his bribery of the citizenry, and in so doing, has generated more debt faster than any president in the history of the nation [118]. And still, there are many who believe that the President leads still leads the party of fiscal responsibility.

In fact, it was only hours after President Bush accepted Senator Kerry’s concession call that he asked Congress to raise the debt ceiling to over eight trillion dollars [120]. The only question now is whether it will be our children, grandchildren, or great-grandchildren that will pay for the wild spending advocated by President Bush.

But while we are acquiring a debt that we cannot pay, that our children will have to pay; while we are sending the jobs that should be theirs in a few years overseas, we are also stealing another aspect of their future: their education.

No Child Left Behind sounds good on paper. Yet this program, like so many of George W. Bush’s initiatives, may look good on the surface, but in reality, is an unfunded mandate that actually works to the detriment of the schools upon which it is imposed [121] [122] [123].

And what can we expect from George W. Bush during the next four years? Four more years of neglect for our children’s education. While President Bush has promised to hold schools accountable [124], he has not allowed for funding to improve the schools [125]. Because of this unfunded mandate, schools will be closed down with nothing to replace them [126]. While there is no doubt that our educational system needs to do better, destroying it without something to replace it is a cure worse than the disease.

But perhaps one of the most sickening aspects of a reelection of George W. Bush is the prospect of four more years of his brand of arrogant Christianity [61] [127]. After George W. Bush has used Jesus as a get-out-of-jail-free card to excuse his alcoholism and drug addiction [129], he decided that he had a direct line to God, and that this “inner certainty” would guide him above all things, including his experts, advisors and generals [61]. Yet the God that George W. Bush follows seems to be somewhat different that the God the rest of the nation follows. After all, the God that George W. Bush follows told him to attack Iraq and expect no casualties – it would seem that the rest of the nation missed that message from on high [128].

Americans built a great nation with hard work and common sense, upon a foundation of the great liberal thinkers of the eighteenth century. Our nation was built to withstand the tide of mob opinion, and the ebb and flow of public fancy. Yet today, we face dangers that we have never faced before. We face the festering sore of fascism disguising itself as pious, compassionate conservatism. We face the deceit of a leader who promises ownership while borrowing from our children, who lies to take us to war, who calls legislation that destroys our natural resources the “Healthy Forests Initiative.”

America is built strong. But everything has a breaking point.

It is possible that America needs yet again to learn lessons that were learned by generations past. But these lessons will not come cheaply, and may never be the same again. The stain upon the ideal that is the heart of America may never be removed if we continue down the path that we seem to have set for ourselves.

What is happening, however, should not be seen by the liberals of this nation as cause for despair, though it is easy to fall into that trap.

What is happening, rather, should be seen as a warning, as a call to arms.

The liberals and progressives of this nation are viewed as weak by those who call themselves conservatives. Yet it is the liberals of this nation who have stood firm and fought for their beliefs, not allowing themselves to fall prey to the seductive messages of hatred and of fear preached by George W. Bush. It is the liberals who have stood firm and rejected the cult of belonging and exclusiveness being wrought by the Republican Party.

Yet just as in this presidential election, the Republican election machine attempted to turn the character strengths of Senator Kerry into weaknesses, the right has misrepresented liberal values for years. Accusations that liberals desire a welfare state wherein no one wants to work, accusations that liberals would prefer to live off the sweat of conservative labor, accusations that liberals would pander to foreign interests and not defend our nation and other falsehoods are the weapons of choice of the right.

The liberals of this nation must never forget that it is they who have fought through the dark times in this nation’s history to bring the advent of the unions and child labor laws [134], who strove to provide safety nets for the poor, the sick and the elderly [135], who have worked to ensure that the land upon which we depend is not befouled [136], who have stood up for the rights of all when the reactionaries of this nation would have left those rights by the wayside.

The damage that George W. Bush will likely cause to America during the next four years will likely be vast. But it can be mitigated.

During the final months of this election, the facade woven by George W. Bush began to deteriorate with increasing rapidity. Associations between the White House and Halliburton became a criminal matter [130], Osama bin Laden, healthy and hale, released a video tape warning America of further attacks [131], more Americans died in Iraq [132], North Korea and Iran were seen to advance further towards being true nuclear powers [133].

Though one should never revel in things that hurt our nation, these are indicative of the truths that George W. Bush would hide from America; these are things that he would rather the American people not see. It is the duty of those who would oppose the fascism of George W. Bush to make these truths known to an American public who would rather, for the most part, not be aware of them.

While there is indeed a distressing tendency towards self-imposed doublethink these days by many Americans, these things cannot go unnoticed. And when a dazed American public wakes from its dream and realizes what a nightmare George W. Bush has led us into, the liberals will again be needed to heal a damaged nation.

Addendum: What can you do?

Keep the faith. What we were fighting for during the last four years was worth fighting for then, and it is worth fighting for now.

Volunteer to help out with a local political group. This can be a political party, a local representative, a senator, a city councilperson. Any group, campaign or representative is always glad to have volunteers. Do what you can.

Keep yourself educated. Though we may be in for a lot of bad news in the next few years, keep your head out of the sand. There is going to be one hell of a mess in need of cleaning made during the next few years; the first step is knowing what is happening.

Talk. You may be outspoken, but continue to talk to people – friends, co-workers, strangers. The Republicans will probably be insufferable for some time, but once the euphoria wears off, as the war in Iraq becomes more and more like Vietnam, and as the bills for the incredible deficit spending come due, more and more Republicans will begin to rethink their positions.

Run for office. Not quite ready to be a Senator? Then be a school board member.

October/November 2004 Column Listing