http://select.nytimes.com/2006/05/15/opinion/15herbert.html?th&emc=th
America the Fearful
By BOB HERBERT
NY Times Op-Ed: May 15, 2006
In the dark days of the Depression, Franklin Roosevelt counseled Americans
to avoid fear. George W. Bush is his polar opposite. The public's fear is
this president's most potent political asset. Perhaps his only asset.
Mr. Bush wants ordinary Americans to remain in a perpetual state of fear -
so terrified, in fact, that they will not object to the steady erosion of
their rights and liberties, and will not notice the many ways in which their
fear is being manipulated to feed an unconscionable expansion of
presidential power.
If voters can be kept frightened enough of terrorism, they might even
overlook the monumental incompetence of one of the worst administrations the
nation has ever known.
Four marines drowned Thursday when their 60-ton tank rolled off a bridge and
sank in a canal about 50 miles west of Baghdad. Three American soldiers in
Iraq were killed by roadside bombs the same day. But those tragic and wholly
unnecessary deaths were not the big news. The big news was the latest leak
of yet another presidential power grab: the administration's collection of
the telephone records of tens of millions of American citizens.
The Bush crowd, which gets together each morning to participate in a highly
secret ritual of formalized ineptitude, is trying to get its creepy hands on
all the telephone records of everybody in the entire country. It supposedly
wants these records, which contain crucial documentation of calls for
Chinese takeout in Terre Haute, Ind., and birthday greetings to Grandma in
Talladega, Ala., to help in the search for Osama bin Laden.
Hey, the president has made it clear that when Al Qaeda is calling, he wants
to be listening, and you never know where that lead may turn up.
The problem (besides the fact that the president has been as effective
hunting bin Laden as Dick Cheney was in hunting quail) is that in its
fearmongering and power-grabbing the Bush administration has trampled all
over the Constitution, the democratic process and the hallowed American
tradition of government checks and balances.
Short of having them taken away from us, there is probably no way to fully
appreciate the wonder and the glory of our rights and liberties here in the
United States, including the right to privacy.
The Constitution and the elaborate system of checks and balances were meant
to protect us against the possibility of a clownish gang of small men and
women amassing excessive power and behaving like tyrants or kings. But the
normal safeguards have not been working since the Bush crowd came to power,
starting with the hijacked presidential election in 2000.
After the Sept. 11 attacks, all bets were off. John Kennedy once said, "The
United States, as the world knows, will never start a war." But George W.
Bush, employing an outrageous propaganda campaign ("Shock and awe," "We
don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud"), started an utterly
pointless war in Iraq that he still doesn't know how to win or how to end.
If you listen to the Bush version of reality, the president is all powerful.
In that version, we are fighting a war against terrorism, which is a war
that will never end. And as long as we are at war (forever), there is no
limit to the war-fighting powers the president can claim as commander in
chief.
So we've kidnapped people and sent them off to be tortured in the
extraordinary rendition program; and we've incarcerated people at Guantánamo
Bay and elsewhere without trial or even the right to know the charges
against them; and we're allowing the C.I.A. to operate super-secret prisons
where God-knows-what-all is going on; and we're listening in on the phone
calls and reading the e-mail of innocent Americans without warrants; and on
and on and on.
The Bushies will tell you that it is dangerous and even against the law to
inquire into these nefarious activities. We just have to trust the king.
Well, I give you fair warning. This is a road map to totalitarianism.
Hallmarks of totalitarian regimes have always included an excessive reliance
on secrecy, the deliberate stoking of fear in the general population, a
preference for military rather than diplomatic solutions in foreign policy,
the promotion of blind patriotism, the denial of human rights, the
curtailment of the rule of law, hostility to a free press and the systematic
invasion of the privacy of ordinary people.
There are not enough pretty words in all the world to cover up the damage
that George W. Bush has done to his country. If the United States could look
at itself in a mirror, it would be both alarmed and ashamed at what it saw.
***
Michele Welsing
Communications Director
Southern California Library
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
323-759-6063, ext. 15 (ph)
www.socallib.org
Working for a world where all people have the ability, resources, and
freedom to make their own histories
SEE CULTURE CLASH THIS WEEK
Don't miss an evening of theater and music on Thursday, May 18, at the
beautiful L.A. River Center, featuring Culture Clash reading from two world
premieres--Zorro in Hell and Water and Power. Zorro in Hell is CC's
insistently original take on time-honored legend, a downward spiral along
the Camino Real where fact and fiction collide; Water and Power is the
group's first dramatic work about corruption, elected officials, and the
brutality of the LAPD in current-day Los Angeles. Ollin will also perform,
bringing a highly charged Chicano groove that takes music fans on a trip
through the melting pot of their East L.A. neighborhood.
Activist/author/historian Rudy Acuña will be the guest speaker. Tickets are
$50 and all proceeds benefit the Southern California Library. For more
information or to order tickets, call the Library at 323-759-6063 or go to
www.socallib.org.
Honoring
FRANK WILKINSON
A key figure in L.A. history, Frank Wilkinson died earlier this year at age
91 after half a century as a national civil liberties leader and housing
activist.
EXHIBIT OPENING
The event kicks off a traveling exhibit on housing featuring historical
materials from the Library's collections, including materials drawn from
Frank's papers; photography; artwork; and multimedia.
The L.A. River Center, located at 570 West Avenue 26 in Los Angeles, is a
hidden jewel minutes away from downtown Los Angeles. Behind its thick, ivy
covered walls are beautiful fountains, flowers, patios, and lawns. For more
information, go to the L.A. River Center website:
http://www.lamountains.com/parks.asp?parkid=32
Map and directions are available on our website.
For more information, contact:
Southern California Library
Phone: 323-759-6063 Fax: 323-759-2252
For more information or to purchase tickets/ads or donate online go to:
www.socallib.org/SCLWebSite/events/annualevent06/index.html
***
Dear Zinn "People's History" Members and Friends,
A PROPOSED COURSE/DISCUSSION GROUP: SEPTEMBER 2006-JUNE 2007
"EMPIRE AS A WAY OF LIFE": THE NATIONAL SECURITY STATE AND U.S. IMPERIALISM,
1945-PRESENT
Beginning this September, I wish to lead a discussion group on
the U.S. Empire and imperialism. The roots of the Empire lie in the very
founding of the nation, but we will focus our reading and discussions on the
modern era: the end of World War II and the creation of the National
Security State through present U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
This era has witnessed countless acts of U.S. subversion and aggression
throughout the world, e.g., against Argentina, Brazil, Chile, China,
Columbia, Cuba, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Greece, Guatemala, Grenada,
Haiti, Honduras, Indonesia, Iran, Italy, Kampuchea (Cambodia), Korea, Laos,
Nicaragua, Panama, Venezuela and Vietnam.
Through a serious and disciplined examination of key works in the field, we
will attempt to gain a deeper understanding of the economic and political
forces that have created and sustained this imperialism and violence. Over
the course of our meetings together, we might read four short paperbacks and
a few key articles, e.g., Noam Chomsky, Imperial Ambitions; Gabriel Kolko,
The Roots of American Foreign Policy; Michael Parenti, Against Empire; and
William Appleman Williams, Empire as a Way of Life (the above four represent
about 75 pages of reading per month). The books would be selected from an
extensive bibliography I have compiled that I will gladly share with you.
We would meet once per month; perhaps twice if we decide
collectively that it's necessary to pursue our discussions. I've begun to
explore some sites here in Santa Monica, such as the Library and the Ken
Edwards Center - both with ample parking on the premises (will try for a
Tuesday evening though that is uncertain right now). If you wish to
participate, please reply by May 23rd so I can move ahead with a
syllabus/outline and find an appropriate room to match the number of
participants.
Please share this note with friends and colleagues. Those of you who
attended the "People's History" discussions over the last two years might
add a thought from that group as an inducement for anyone potentially
interested in this venture. If you have any questions, contact me by email
or call 310-393-4815.
Peace,
John Marciano
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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