by Don Hynes
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| Vantage Point | Culture and Politics by Don Hynes |
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"No man is prejudiced in favor of a thing, knowing it to be wrong.
He is attached to it on the belief of its being right; and when he sees it is not so,
the prejudice will be gone." - Tom Paine
May 05, 2003 Raising the Bar My buddy Steve and I were having our Friday afternoon gab session on current affairs at Artichoke Music. I was poking fun at the President’s recent Top Gun photo op, questioning his posture after a dubious personal military service, when the fellow standing next to me took objection. I asked him if it was because what I was saying was untrue, but that didn’t matter, he was offended and turned to go. I wanted to talk it over but didn’t know how in that moment. Thankfully he had forgotten something on the counter and when he came back to retrieve it I asked him for a word and apologized. I wasn’t apologizing for my beliefs, but for an unintended insult of his. Then he wanted to apologize, saying he was pretty edgy because his son is a marine, had fought on the front line in Iraq and was still there. He said he respected the President because of his integrity, and although we disagreed on that, I told him that I agreed with the values he found in the President and I cared about the country too. We shook hands over a divide that had seemed pretty bleak a few minutes before, but now was connecting us. The right and left are trading volleys over the heads of a vast majority of good intentioned people, both in the US and abroad, who really want the United States to stand for freedom, for democracy, for compassion. We have a President who says all the right phrases, shamelessly, and while one side builds him up the other side tears him down, but the problem is that the core beliefs of many in the U.S. populace are entwined in the President and tearing him down becomes a repudiation of the values he espouses. The challenge of this time for those who don’t see eye to eye with the present government is to elevate the discourse, to present an alternate view in a way that doesn’t forsake our sense of incredulity and humor, but doesn’t devolve into a cynicism that alienates our friends and neighbors. We’ve got to bridge the divide because the bridge is what promises a decent future for our country and the world upon which we hold a dominating influence. Vot Looks Like My wife Linda tells the story of an Hungarian woman who owned the Cafe Budapest in Copley Square in Boston. She wanted Linda to construct a real stain glass window for her restaurant where a contractor had installed a plastic one that “looked just like stained glass.” “I hate vot looks like,” she said to Linda. That statement became a mantra for many different circumstances in our life, applying more than ever to current national affairs, as the spin doctors produce image after image that most people believe to be the substance the images pretend. President Bush’s recent speech from the deck of an air force carrier was roasted by Maureen Dowd, a speech in which there were so many quarter truths and fabrications you have to dissect it word by word to gain an understanding. He spoke about “our coalition who joined in a noble cause," including the armed forces of the UK, Australia and Poland, about re-building Afghanistan, a myth at best, about destroying an ally of Al Qaeda which Iraq was not, and here William Rivers Pitt takes on his biblical references. The only corollary I found substantial was between the tragedy of September 11 and the war in Iraq, for in both events approximately 3,000 civilians were killed and their extended families devastated. Karl Rove, the President’s chief advisor and master of “vot looks like”, was one of the original media specialists hired to defend the tobacco industry against victims claims against the marketing of cancer. Here Carla Binion takes on the more recent false claims used to promote the war in Iraq. While the President and the Washington press corps celebrate victory Tom Friedman of the NYT doesn’t care about WMDs or any of the pre-war arguments, the destruction of tyranny was enough. Crusading columnist Paul Krugman doesn’t agree. An opposing liberal view that should at least be heard and considered is John Lloyd's on facing terror from Open Democracy. His sobriety is not without complement in the mid-east as reported here in the Arab News. National Over and again the pandering to compassion by the government is revealed as something quite different when the deal gets struck, as in this article about the US lobbying to weaken the International Tobacco Treaty. Senator Rick Santorum’s comments on homosexuality are considered by Ellen Goodman as representative of a Republican theocracy. This American brand of fundamentalism is so pervasive in the government that it has lead the U.S. into the unenviable position of becoming Iran’s friend when it comes to women's rights. More “vot looks like” from moral crusader William Bennett, who turns out to be a compulsive gambler, while William Greider articulates the real agenda for the current administration, which is "rolling back the 20th Century." “Vot looks like” poverty remains poverty after all the promises and hand wringing. My home state of Oregon’s health care is evaporating as our schools become the next shameful Appalachia. Poverty is rising among minorities with few signs of a superpower at home. Michael Moore’s recent film, Bowling for Columbine won the Academy Award, and although criticized for inaccuracy, began to connect the dots between violence and its instruments both in weapons and policy. International The Washington Post reports this chilling news of nuclear and biological sites looted in Iraq. Demonstrators were shot and killed in Falluja in two incidents as U.S. soldiers “open fired on a crowd comprised of a large number of children and teenagers. Local residents said that the children were protesting the occupation of their school by the US soldiers and that the Americans started firing when a rock was thrown.” Is this an initial lesson in democracy? The most under-reported story of the week was Vladimir Putin’s icy reception of Tony Blair in Moscow and a simultaneous meeting in which “Brussels, France, Germany, Belgium and Luxembourg agreed to set up a ‘multinational force HQ for non-Nato operations’." The country with the biggest arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in the mid-east is Israel but those weapons aren’t up for scrutiny in the next "road map." The WMDs exploded in Iraq are reported here in Asian Times the effects of which will require an unprecedented if not impossible clean up effort. Eduardo Galeano writes a poignant view of the recent repressions in his home country of Cuba. Inspiration Here’s a thoughtful film clip that speaks to the contribution we each can make from Positive Pause, and a link to Anita Roddick’s new book entitled A Revolution in Kindness. Poetry Here’s a link to an as yet undiscovered Oregon poet. Pick up those first editions while they last! Peace. *** |
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