It's Not the Election

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Rod Amis <rod () g21 net>
Date: October 19, 2004 9:59:25 AM EDT
To: dave () farber net
Subject: It's Not the Election

Professor,

Not sure if this is right for IP or not, but thought I'd send it along 
for your consideration.  It's from an editorial I ran this week at 
http://www.g21.net/mars394.htm (conclusion of the column.)  Thanks for 
your great newsletter/discussion group.

Cheers,

RA

G21 Editorial: The Aftermath

In January, 2001, I was in Washington, D.C., attending the inaugural of 
George W. Bush as President of the United States. Those of you who read 
the description I wrote in these pages after returning from that event 
will recall how appalled I was by what I saw. There was a razor-wire 
topped fence put up along the parade route of this inaugural and you 
couldn't enter the area without going through a security check point. 
The average reader won't think these kind of precautions are unusual 
today but let me remind you that this took place in pre-9/11 America. 
This kind of Banana Republic demonstrated fear of the general populace 
was unheard of in America before this time. I could not believe I was 
still in my own country.

 In fact, my level of fear and anxiety increased in subsequent days 
(justifiably, I now believe) and I decamped for Europe.

 So, contentious and electric as the current election cycle in the 
United States has proven to be, like many people, my gravest concern is 
about the aftermath of this election.

 No matter who wins on 2 November this year, America will be a 
virulently divided, angry nation. The roiling political anger that is 
evidenced by the unprecedented number of attack ads airing on 
television from both political parties and independent groups 
supporting them is at such a level, and so directed toward our emotions 
as a people, that I fear it is feeding something dangerous that even 
the most Augustan of leaders will find difficult to contain or control.

 No matter who is elected the next President of the United States, half 
the popular of the country -- and perhaps more -- will be passionately 
unsatisfied and angry.

 This is no small matter in a nation that is armed to the teeth.

 But that is only the top level of my concern today.

 My secondary concern, as I watch the hate-mongering around me, the way 
in which people are being played with the fiddles of fear and 
retribution, springs from a deeper source -- the prompt for my memories 
of the Bush inaugural.

 This nation, through its educational system, spends twelve years -- 
more or less -- in inculcating its children, its citizenry, with the 
notion that their homeland came to be through an act of revolutionary 
violence that produced revolutionary justice as embodied in its 
Constitution. Most of us grew up being taught to more or less revere 
the notion that taxation without representation was tyranny, that the 
people have the right to seek redress of grievances from their 
government and that if the government was not responsive to the will of 
the people it should be replaced. These were revolutionary concepts 
then and could be conceived as being even more so today.

And these concepts are the meat and bread of American political 
thought. Reflect on that notion for just a moment. Take a deep breath.

As I did in that article about my first direct experience of the 
Administration of George W. Bush, nearly four years ago, let me remind 
you of the contrast between the razor-wire and checkpoints for U.S. 
citizens and a previous President walking the streets of Washington to 
the White House and openly embracing his people only a few years 
earlier. When Mr. Bush was first faced with the American people he had 
a special armed limousine ordered and raced through the streets of our 
nation's capital ... Again, this was before 9/11.

 In the view of many, this first experience of this regime was merely a 
precursor of asking for lists of books you check out of your local 
library and transcripts of your e-mails and telephone calls, orange 
alerts and the push for a national identification card.

 During my lifetime, I have not heard the notion of moving to Canada or 
some other country after an election come up in regular conversation so 
much as I have this year, not since the Vietnam war. This time the 
interlocutors are not only draft-age adolescents but men and women with 
homes, mortgages and businesses established in their communities, 
people with children still in college and even retirees.

 So it is the aftermath of this election that I take most seriously 
today, my loves, and not the election itself.

 The MM (Mouthpiece Media) has made much of the fact that this country 
has experienced the most massive voter registration drive in the last 
fifty years, at least, during this election cycle. By even conservative 
estimates, millions of people who have not voted before or who have 
discontinued voting are now on the active rolls and poised to make 
their voices heard during the next few weeks.

 Any number of people who were turned off by politics or simply 
ignorant of the civic process are now fired up to make their voices 
heard in a participatory democracy. They are daily exhorted to have 
their concerns, their interests and their ideas put on the front burner 
of the national agenda.

What if these newly kindled desires are frustrated? Just asking.

[End Snippet]

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