I found
this Counter Punch article somewhere on DU today and it frightened me greatly. The writer advances the notion that the reason that GWB and neocons are and remain in power is because collectively, as a society, "We the People" want him there. If you haven't read it please do. Here's a snippet that captures the general thrust of his thesis:
Whatever the truth about who's the majority, this whole drama really is about the Culture War, and the culture of the majority can be a beast. It's the classic sado-masochistic Christianity of Erich Fromm's seminal work, Escape From Freedom, his still-modern explanation of what the Germans saw in Hitler, and liked so much.
Why don't Americans demand more justice from police? Maybe they just don't want to.
Maybe they really do want to punish and pick clean society's easy targets, the brown, the poor and the underprivileged, whether criminal or otherwise. The cops do it now, as do predatory lenders. Soon the tax code will take up the task as well, all with the assent of the "moral" majority.
Need more evidence of this public hard-mindedness? Look at the broad popularity of those punishing reality shows -- the avenging angel cop busts, the afternoon courtroom morality plays, the people-are-stupid talk shows like Springer and his friends.
First look at the shows themselves; how brutal, how Puritan. Then look at those who watch them. What secret glee. What proof that the punishment we mete is deeply deserved.
And who is that viewer? Don't kid yourself -- it's not the Barroom Betty, the Backwoods Sam, the Truckstop Jim of cliched imagination. These shows are popular.
The viewer is my neighbor and yours. It's the man down the street with the law degree and the job at Motorola, the one who hates affirmative action because, frankly, he just wants more for himself. It's the relative with the high-paying union job and a hatred of immigrants stealing his hard-earned (Left-won) wages. It's the rebellious party-hearty college kid who thinks everyone (but him) gets away with way too much.
Judge Judy and her ilk say a lot about us -- about our greed, our hate, our fear, our need to punish. Our "leaders" seem to pander to that, but perhaps they don't guide us at all, but follow along. Perhaps we lead them, order from the menu, and let them deliver. Did the hanging Southern posse ride at night because the rest of the town secretly (ineffectively) said No, or secretly (complicitly) said Yes?
One could easily believe the latter. If the nation as a whole really thought it vile to demonize the poor as "welfare queens," Reagan would never have rounded first base, much less made it to the White House.
If the nation as a whole really objected to mass murder in Texas prisons, we'd have thrown Bush out with the bathwater he rode in on.I get the sense that most folks on DU are coming to the conclusion that Bush will probably lose in 2004. I see very little mental arming for the opposite outcome. If the above article is accurate, if Bush is there because the citizenry want him there there's a very real possibility he'll remain in power. Another terrorist attack, a nuclear war on the Korean pennisula, mass casualties in the Middle East could drive the public, out of fear, further into Bush's camp. If Bush wins in 2004 what will that say about our society? What will you do if that happens?
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