Wednesday, June 16, 2004
Battered Spouse Syndrome
William Pfaff hits the nail on the head:
About the only thing that's made the last 3 1/2 years bearable has been knowing that, well, we didn't actually elect the incompetent thugs running our country. And indeed, it's been almost pedantically instructive to verify how people willing to seize power illegally will invariably proceed to exercise it in the same abusive manner. So we've been in the fortunate position of getting a free pass to the spectacle of seeing just how precarious democracy is, and how implacable are its enemies.
The real horror show will come this November, if, having lived through everything that's gone before, we turn around and ratify it. There will then be no excuse. There will be no one in the world who will sympathize with us. Our self-abasement will be complete. We will have effectively told our abusers that we won't fight back, that we deserve it. And you can bet on it, they will not miss that message.
The fact that the outcome in November is even in doubt, however--that there is still substantial support for these criminals even after everything we know, that honest journalists like Pfaff are a tiny minority in his profession, that the nominal opposition party has only meekly and intermittently protested this sustained assault--is itself an indictment of our country and its claim to represent the best of Enlightenment ideals. That itself is, or should be, cause for serious national soul-searching. Yet far from leading us in that long-overdue encounter, our institutions have instead (to pick only the most recent example) led us in a weeklong veneration of a Presidency nearly as lawless as this one. This tenacious refusal to confront our situation forthrightly, to tell ourselves hard truths instead of dangerous lullabies, has been an increasingly ominous symptom of what is becoming, in my view, a national pathology. We may already be seeing the consequencesof this neglect.
Changing Administrations this November is only one albeit necessary step to getting well again. If we stop there, we'll only be in remission.
All of this is a ghastly scandal, one of the worst in American history. It is evident cause for impeachment of this president, if Congress has the courage to do it, and for prosecution of cabinet figures and certain commanders. However in view of the partisan alignment in Congress, quite possibly nothing will happen before the November election.
What then? It also is quite possible that George W. Bush will be elected to a second term. In that case, the American electorate will have made these practices its own. Now that is something for our children to think about.
(via Eschaton)
About the only thing that's made the last 3 1/2 years bearable has been knowing that, well, we didn't actually elect the incompetent thugs running our country. And indeed, it's been almost pedantically instructive to verify how people willing to seize power illegally will invariably proceed to exercise it in the same abusive manner. So we've been in the fortunate position of getting a free pass to the spectacle of seeing just how precarious democracy is, and how implacable are its enemies.
The real horror show will come this November, if, having lived through everything that's gone before, we turn around and ratify it. There will then be no excuse. There will be no one in the world who will sympathize with us. Our self-abasement will be complete. We will have effectively told our abusers that we won't fight back, that we deserve it. And you can bet on it, they will not miss that message.
The fact that the outcome in November is even in doubt, however--that there is still substantial support for these criminals even after everything we know, that honest journalists like Pfaff are a tiny minority in his profession, that the nominal opposition party has only meekly and intermittently protested this sustained assault--is itself an indictment of our country and its claim to represent the best of Enlightenment ideals. That itself is, or should be, cause for serious national soul-searching. Yet far from leading us in that long-overdue encounter, our institutions have instead (to pick only the most recent example) led us in a weeklong veneration of a Presidency nearly as lawless as this one. This tenacious refusal to confront our situation forthrightly, to tell ourselves hard truths instead of dangerous lullabies, has been an increasingly ominous symptom of what is becoming, in my view, a national pathology. We may already be seeing the consequencesof this neglect.
Changing Administrations this November is only one albeit necessary step to getting well again. If we stop there, we'll only be in remission.
