How Could We Have Been So Stupid?

I've just watched George Bush's State of the Union speech, and stared in amazement as he spun one politicalized lie after another while the Republican side roared approval of one failed policy after another while the Democrats looked on in stone-faced silence. Justifying the extension of a deadly and doomed war, cynically buying votes with a "stimulus" package which will stimulate nothing, re-introducing a "trickle-down" tax break for the very wealthy who will never spend their unearned good fortune, and crushing the privacy rights of citizens and aliens alike with heavy-booted government wire-taps. All this while we, the public, watch in silence.

I thought back to my first experience in politics, helping Jack Kennedy get elected. I, and all my college friends, had a clear, pure view of the absolute rightness of a man championing civil rights, national unity, and the value of intelligence in politics. Surrounding himself with educated thinkers instead of polical hacks, he created a government that resurrected a belief in American politics, leading us to the confidence that all obstacles could be overcome. Not by war but with a Peace Corps. Not with disrespect and cynicism, but with the firm extension of civil rights and unabating respect for personal liberties.

Then, disaster. Kennedy is assassinated. Martin Luther King is assassinated. Malcolm X is assassinated. Bobby Kennedy is assassinated. Watts burns. Johnson embroils us in an unneeded, endless war through lies and exaggerations (sound familiar?). Nixon continues the jingoistic hostilities demanding an impossible total victory before he brings the troops home (sound even more familiar?). Nixon tries to steal an election illegally (sound even more familiar? But unlike Bush, he didn't get away with it). Nixon resigns. Agnew resigns. The public ceases to expect honesty in politics. Carter proves gutless and ineffectual at both war and finance. Reagan leads us into a major economic disaster by tax-benefitting the rich (and those who think they're rich), then is transformed into some sort of saint after his death. Clinton runs the country splendidly and then can't keep his zipper shut. The religious Right continues to try to rearrange the constitution so that they can bully the rest of us out of our rights while pursuing an ideological agenda. Evangelism can't be the basis of the Constitution for gosh sakes, the darn thing was written mostly by Jefferson, a Deist who had not a syntilla of belief in Christianity.

Which brings us to the cynicism (and abject stupidity) of George Bush, the leader of our country. We allowed him to take office on a clearly flawed election swung by a state controlled by his BROTHER. (Jeb couldn't step aside while a thorough investigation was made on this crucial issue?). This is a man who despite a Yale degree can't pronounce the word "nuclear". He picks as vice-president a hatchet-man with riveted ties (financial and personal) to the defense industry, then we're somehow surprised that this VP collaberates in a scheme to start a war. He appoints an Attorney General who runs rough-shod over his obligation for fairness in judicial appointments. He keeps up the pretence of searching for nuclear weapons, a job that has as much chance of success as OJ finding the "real" killer. And we elected (sort of) this idiot TWICE. I guess we deserve what we got.

I was going to revert to my usual tools, irony, satire and humor, for this post, but that speech really ticked me off (could you tell?). Does he really expect Americans to continue to buy this hogwash? Are we that stupid? Apparently.

Later