Devil is in the details
Reader comment on item: My Gloom: Back to September 10

Submitted by Diane Alden (United States), Dec 21, 2005 at 12:21

While the "war on terror" may be taking a politically correct turn, that happenstance is not as important as the politically correct or incompetence of the Washington establishment of BOTH parties in donig what needed doing re our national security. Simple things like policing the borders with more than a drone, a few BP agents, and a tendency to look the other way and millions of Mexicans and other than Mexicans, storm into the US since 2001. In case after case, Bush, Rice, Ridge stated that commercial considerations trump national security. There is not one major speech of policy declaration offered by those folks where commerce and trade and business as usual is not placed before national security. In fact it is in the Homeland Security Directive itself where it is plainly stated that trade and commerce is uber alles. As part of Bush, Rice, neocon grand strategy, the US has morphed from a Constitutional Republic to a "commercial republic." That is according to a speech by a mouthpiece for current economic and foreign policy, Charles Krauthammer at the AEI Institute only a few years ago. Bush, Rice and Ridge, haven't heard too much from Chertoff, have stated that the way to change mankind, including jihadism, is to make sure they have enough "market" philosophy and KFC to satisfy their deepest longings. As long as Bush continues in this vein, and as his supporters Rice et al really believe in a sort of Hegelian way, the materialism and consensus is going to remake human nature, thus, totally abnigating the history of mankind on what drives people to do what they do, believe what they believe, etc. Bush would have had a lot more support from conservatives, paleos or constitutionalists, if he had not placed commerce as the CORE of our national identity and zeitgeist. What concerns me is that philosophy thinks that our freedoms evolved out of our commercial or economic dealings rather than freedom making economics run, and mankind given as much liberty as situations and controlling power or elites will allow.

Our problem is not only with jihadists and testosterone driven young men with a bad combination of militarism and religion, but the leadership in Washington that has placed ONE aspect of our national identity and greatness above all others. A materialistic outlook about human nature, and the idea that trumps what drives men to do what they do, once again shows no understanding of human nature, history, culture, religion, and what makes civivlizations grow nad thrive. IF we are all about economics and trade, we are little better than the Roman Empire at the time of Caesar Augustus and from that time forward. Rome lost its belief in itself, its egdge in innovation and growth of knowledge, and became about mass preoccupation with self and pleasure, and money getting for the elites. Makes me ask, are we at the end of the Republic and beginning of empire which as history shows always collapses from its own decadence and a prosperity that came from living off the capital and strengths of the past.

More of us would trust government if it so often did not misuse its power against the simply silly or ignorant, if it did not keep going back to over indulgence of "preferred minorities," and if we had leadership, including the current president, who paid only lip service to the Constitution they swear to uphold. Recent rumors circulating regarding a meeting of Bush and congressional leadership has him remarking the US Constitution was "only a g....damned piece of paper." The upshot is Bush believes his powers derive from his status as commander-in-chief. It just goes to show how little he understands the concepts behind that document, the one he swore to uphold and which he apparently holds in so little regard. If one were honest, as even some of us died in the wool to the barricades conservatives have been forced to become: The last three presidents have been unmitigated incompetent disasters more concerend with their own careers or advancing the cause of corporatism at our expense. That is not conspiracy theory, that is contained in so many major policy papers and statements by all three presidents it is beyond debate.

Trust has to be won and deserved. None of the last three occupants of the White House, US Senate en masse, deserve that trust. If I were dictator for a week the rotten system of Beltway corruption and failure to shore up the creaking Constitution by the power elite, would guarantee them all a one way ticket back to the rocks from whence they crawled.

As it is we have the best government money and a weird bastardization of economic theory have created. A theory which has loosed incredible selfishness and lack of understanding about what has actually made this nation great. Economics is only one aspect, this nation has remained great because it tried so hard to remain true to its core beliefs which reside in the Western Canon, law, Judaism and Christianity, and a sense of right and wrong, ethics and fair play. Neither party, including the Bush Administration exhibits any of that these days. We are all the poorer because of it.

Diane Alden
Carrollton, Georgia

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