[1188] in peace2
[bjohnson2001@earthlink.net: Article from San Francisco Chronicle]
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Francis Doughty)
Sat Nov 3 14:34:56 2001
Date: Sat, 3 Nov 2001 14:34:44 -0500 (EST)
Message-Id: <200111031934.OAA00610@eecs-ath-10.mit.edu>
From: Francis Doughty <doughty@MIT.EDU>
To: peace-list@mit.edu
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Reply-To: bjohnson2001@earthlink.net
From: "Barbara Johnson" <bjohnson2001@earthlink.net>
To: "Carol Chandler" <CarolIrene@aol.com>,
"Carolyn Gray" <pepgray@javanet.com>,
"Elissa Scudder" <elissascud@aol.com>,
"Francis Doughty" <doughty@mit.edu>, "Jack Beal" <freckbea@dmcom.net>,
"Jean Fielding" <fielding@crocker.com>,
"Laura LoChirco" <lochirco@crocker.com>,
"Marie Gorst" <hmgorst@sover.net>
Subject: Article from San Francisco Chronicle
Date: Sat, 3 Nov 2001 9:59:24 -0500
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<DIV></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>--- Barbara Johnson</DIV>
<DIV>--- <A href="mailto:bjohnson2001@earthlink.net">bjohnson2001@earthlink.net</A></DIV>
<DIV>--- EarthLink: It's your Internet.</DIV>
<DIV>
<DIV>Mark Morford, San Francisco Chronicle:</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>This much is true: It really is possible to love your country and value</DIV>
<DIV>your freedoms and still believe the government is full of fools and</DIV>
<DIV>prevaricators and BS artists and Dick Cheney. Really. It is still</DIV>
<DIV>possible to feel warmly patriotic in personal and important ways and yet</DIV>
<DIV>believe the military and the generals and the war machine do not have</DIV>
<DIV>your best interests at heart and really couldn't care less what those</DIV>
<DIV>interests are anyway but thank you for sharing now please sit down and</DIV>
<DIV>do as we tell you and by the way, thanks for all the flags and the</DIV>
<DIV>money. And it is still possible feel unified and spiritually connected</DIV>
<DIV>to all that is good and righteous about your generally nonviolent</DIV>
<DIV>Americanism -- you know, wine and sex and good music, large dogs and</DIV>
<DIV>literature and clean water and tongue kissing in the streets and still</DIV>
<DIV>be depressed when our famously nonintellectual president talks to the</DIV>
<DIV>country like we're all five years old and heavily dosed on Ritalin.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>When Bush employs phrases like "bring the evildoers to justice" over and</DIV>
<DIV>over, 17 times in one speech alone, and he furrows his brow like a</DIV>
<DIV>serious Muppet and offers carefully scripted reassurances deliberately</DIV>
<DIV>lacking in polysyllabism and detailed explanation because that would be,</DIV>
<DIV>you know, complicated. When he repeats primitive little maxims like</DIV>
<DIV>"There are no negotiations" and responds to press-conference questions</DIV>
<DIV>about the vitriolic anti-US hatred that has blossomed around the globe</DIV>
<DIV>by saying, "I'm amazed. I just can't believe it because I know how good</DIV>
<DIV>we are," thus causing a giant global spasm of multinational cringing and</DIV>
<DIV>openly insulting the intelligence of anyone who can walk and breathe at</DIV>
<DIV>the same time. When he delivers very earnest speeches he had no part in</DIV>
<DIV>writing, and when he is forced to speak extemporaneously, sans script or</DIV>
<DIV>TelePrompTer, and is reduced to simplistic good-guy/bad-guy platitudes</DIV>
<DIV>and flustered, rapid blinking, and who cannot for the life of him</DIV>
<DIV>articulate a complex idea, some sort of nuanced elucidation of our</DIV>
<DIV>nation's motives and positioning, that contains more than one possible</DIV>
<DIV>level of meaning. </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>But perhaps that's too harsh. Unfair. He's the president, after all. He</DIV>
<DIV>is a Good Man. He's our leader right now, he's doing his best and he's</DIV>
<DIV>all we've got. This is our rallying cry, our motto: He's all we've got.</DIV>
<DIV>There's your bumper sticker. And there he is. Except for Cheney, which</DIV>
<DIV>isn't exactly reassuring. No one has ever seen this man's mouth actually</DIV>
<DIV>move. No one can take one look at his oddly spiritless and wan figure</DIV>
<DIV>and not think, oh dear God, that man is running on fumes. From a bunker.</DIV>
<DIV>With ropes and pulleys. But you're not supposed to. In fact, you really</DIV>
<DIV>aren't allowed to criticize the president or the veep right now, not</DIV>
<DIV>supposed to feel strangely leaderless and adrift, not permitted to look</DIV>
<DIV>upon the events of the past weeks with much wariness or bitterness or a</DIV>
<DIV>disquieting sense that we're setting things in motion that have no</DIV>
<DIV>predictable outcome -- ugly, subterranean, hateful things that could</DIV>
<DIV>last years and will surely cost billions and will deeply entrench the</DIV>
<DIV>nation in a bizarre and poisonous shell game with shadowy opponents of</DIV>
<DIV>largely unknown capability and do you hear that? That soft roaring?</DIV>
<DIV>That's the sound of the GOP-stroked military machine, quietly cheering.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Never mind the staggering multibillion-dollar political mess in Saudi</DIV>
<DIV>Arabia that fueled bin Laden's network for years, or the enormous oil</DIV>
<DIV>fields that are desperately vulnerable to terrorist attack at any</DIV>
<DIV>moment. Never mind the US government's outright rejection of new</DIV>
<DIV>advancements in alternative fuels to get us away from oil and out of the</DIV>
<DIV>Gulf entirely. Instead we get: Evildoers. Air strikes. Hundreds of dead</DIV>
<DIV>civilians. Rumsfeld denials. And Bush, squinting, saying things only</DIV>
<DIV>small children and GasMaskExpress.com shoppers find comforting and</DIV>
<DIV>manly. It is, Bush tells us, a war on terrorism. We will eradicate</DIV>
<DIV>terrorism through largely violent and aggressive means, because that is</DIV>
<DIV>what we must do and what we always do and everything else takes too damn</DIV>
<DIV>long. We have to do something. This is the common wisdom. Bush said so. Mr.</DIV>
<DIV>Rumsfeld told him so, with his black and shiny hawk eyes all a-glimmer.</DIV>
<DIV>Disagree? You traitorous whiner.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>This war, it will be just like the War on Drugs. It will be potent and</DIV>
<DIV>effective and our objectives will be clear. The nation had a nasty drug</DIV>
<DIV>problem and we declared a war on drugs and spent billions over many</DIV>
<DIV>years and now you can't buy drugs anymore. It will be just like that.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>There is more than one way to respond to the horror of Sept. 11. And</DIV>
<DIV>there is more than one kind of patriotism. We forget this. You do not</DIV>
<DIV>have to rally around Bush and tolerate Cheney's chthonic creepiness and</DIV>
<DIV>wave a frantic flag and believe every scripted half-truth that drizzles</DIV>
<DIV>out of the Pentagon, applaud the nonstop attacks on an already</DIV>
<DIV>demolished nation. </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Pro-America does not mean pro-war. Or pro-Bush. Or anti-Afghanistan. Or</DIV>
<DIV>pro-little flags-on-SUV-antennas. It means thinking independently and</DIV>
<DIV>getting better informed and filtering your news very carefully and</DIV>
<DIV>realizing that just because one version of the American aggro attitude is</DIV>
<DIV>currently being ramrodded down society's throat doesn't mean you have to</DIV>
<DIV>swallow. It means you don't have to find Tomahawk missiles really cool</DIV>
<DIV>or think all those tens of thousands of Europeans and Egyptians and</DIV>
<DIV>world citizens protesting the US bombings must be commie jerks, or feel</DIV>
<DIV>sad and morally depleted when you can't seem to draw any intellectual</DIV>
<DIV>nourishment whatsoever when Bush declaims, "Terrorists want us to stop</DIV>
<DIV>our lives, stop our flying, stop our buying. But this nation will not be</DIV>
<DIV>intimidated by evildoers." You don't have to buy into that infantile</DIV>
<DIV>hokum for a moment. After all, this is America.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV></DIV>
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