Editorial -

Historical Overtones Weigh Upon
The Upcoming Presidential Election

By William Finucane

It certainly seems as though this election year has lasted an eternity. In reality, it has lasted only some months longer than usual because Democrat challenger John Kerry became the clear nominee early and immediately started his campaign against Republican incumbent George Bush. But even this was probably a smart move on the part of the national Democratic Party, since the Republicans were using both the presidency and the Congress to press their own agenda long before the traditional ‘political season’ began.

By now, with less than a week before the national balloting, all Americans have likely heard either all there is to say about either candidate, or believe they have heard all that is necessary. Most of the rhetoric from both sides involves pliable truth: facts twisted to suit one side or the other. That’s natural. Elections subsist on strong talk. However, the GOP has been caught this year in more outright fabrications than in times past, which seems to underscore a Republican drive to remain in power no matter what the cost in tradition, honor, principles or respect for the electoral system.

Yet the truth of our election, this time, has much to do with war; war unlike any that we have fought in the past, and with related domestic policy changes that have been largely hidden from public view because of the predominance of news about the war. A nice and neat conundrum that has confounded the passive mainstream press and helped the GOP.

That ironic situation makes everything else pale.

It’s unlikely that either side is going to fix health care or solve the nation’s economic woes in four years, although in terms of health care and the economy it is reasonable to assume that ‘more of the same’ can be expected from a second term with G. W. Bush as president. It seems equally clear that under a Democratic administration headed by John Kerry, at least an effort would be made to start the process, to begin to move toward a solution to the newly acquired national debt and the health care crisis.

After all, the massive debt facing America was largely created in the four years of George W. Bush’s presidency, so viewing that reality optimistically it should be possible to at least start to roll-back the monetary crisis in the next four years, under Mr. Kerry.

However, what is perhaps the most important point is that the next president will decide how the United States appears to the rest of the world and to America’s own citizens. This will take less than four years to accomplish. Will America be perceived as a global tyrant, concerned about its own well being at whatever expense to others, or will it be seen as the true leader of the democratic free world. In other words, will America have an imperial or a democratic face and posture?

The choice will be whether America has an open open-arms posture of trying to solve human problems throughout the world, or whether it will show a raised arm with a closed fist to any nation or people that might stand in the way of U.S. economic dominance. If the nation’s course turns out to be the latter, history shows what to expect; such a posture will begin a degrading slide into oblivion.

America is continually processing information and modifying itself to meet the new facts and concepts it perceives, and understanding that phenomenon is a key to understanding the nation. But up until very recently, the process has been healthy.

America is in some ways like Rome in ancient times, always in danger of collapse from its very size and its lack of understanding of other cultures. Rome absorbed Greek and other fully developed cultures, but did not know the apparent power of the ‘savage hordes’ that surrounded the civilized core of such countries. Of course the savage hordes were not savages at all to the people within, they simply had different cultures and goals, and were at different levels of maturation and sophistication.

President G. W. Bush is like a late Roman leader who promises all citizens will be made safe if they simply remain loyal to him and unquestioning of his policies, which often focus on attacking and killing as many perceived enemies as possible.

Mr. Bush’s projected fight will be long, bitter and will cost all the protected citizens many of their most important rights; but what is liberty and freedom if one is unsafe? This is the argument Mr. Bush and the Republican Party press forward, yet it blatantly contradicts all of known history, not just Western history.

Giving up freedom and liberty in exchange for safety has been shown to be the worst of fallacies in every culture with a recorded history. It is simply the precursor to totalitarianism of one form or another.

Playing upon people’s fears while simultaneously stirring aggressive patriotism is a time honored mechanism by which tyrants tell citizens they will be showing bravery by giving up individual authority for collective security, yet the tyrants know that they are playing a game of cowardice. If enough citizens can be frightened out of their rights, the tyrant will accumulate that collective power and sneer contemptuously at the very people who  trusted their safety to him by forsaking their personal liberty and authority.

Giving up individual authority to a central political figure is a sure road to a temporary, false security based on belligerence and absolutism, and the long-term consequence is always a slide into national oblivion, but usually after a period of painful despotism.

In perfect alignment with this analogy, G. W. Bush has only absolute friends or sworn enemies, and seems proud of that fact. Even to attend a political rally for Mr. Bush or his vice president, Richard Cheney, it is necessary to indicate support for the GOP, and often an actual ‘loyalty oath’ is required and must be signed.

There are no neutrals, no quiet voices, no compromise, no peace except Bush’s peace in the world he inhabits. He and his cohorts call upon the West to accept their views, and then to support an attempt to dominate if not convert the Muslim world, using a volatile admixture of fundamentalist Christian religion and right-wing militaristic politics to justify aggression, while satisfying the more pragmatic corporate leaders and Wall Street barons with the practical rationale of controlling Arab oil as an overall goal.

But for people who are not driven by greed alone, and who do not believe in a simplistic religiosity resting on versions of ‘the end of days,’ or impending Armageddon, the only alternative to an unending war fueled by the type of hatred spawned by such policies is to call for honest and open negotiations. Showing the world a desire for fairness, coupled with consistency in policy decisions, undercuts the professional haters. 

It is the absence of hope that propels the underdogs into suicide attacks, but the cynical and greedy among the downtrodden that exploit and direct such hopelessness into carnage for personal gain can be thwarted by providing alternatives aimed at developing hope for a better future.

This is not capitulation. This is common sense, based on a respect for people everywhere. It is not weakness, and in this election only John Kerry seems to know this and is willing to act upon that knowledge.

A couple of years ago Mr. Kerry was speaking to both American and Vietnamese people in an attempt to get the people of the two nations to work together. This was not a politician’s dinner speech. It had excruciating immediacy. It was an attempt to bring the two nations together, and it had some success; Kerry and Sen. John McCain led a delegation that sought to find lost Americans, whether dead or alive, and return them to the United States.

Kerry had credibility. A generation ago, Kerry fought the Vietnamese and killed at least one soldier in close combat. Whatever lies have been piled up around Kerry, his command of a swift boat, and his injures, his wartime combat killing provide a stark reality that his critics cannot explain away, and which explains why such vitriol has been expended on torturing and twisting Kerry's military record. 

Much of that anger has nothing to do with Kerry's actual performance as an American officer in combat, and everything to do with the fact that he returned to the U.S. and stood against the war he had fought. Some veterans cannot distinguish between an act of conscience by a citizen and veteran opposing a government war policy, and the soldiers carrying out the policy. 

By failing to separate a war policy and its political policymakers from themselves as the military people ordered to implement the given policy, the veterans also confuse patriotism. They conclude that because they are brave and patriotic, the policy they followed must be supported otherwise it somehow undercuts their effort. But that is not the case, and never has been.

Lt. John Kerry understood that difference, and years later, as a United States senator, Kerry showed a further understanding that for this nation, and the world, it is vital to offer a fair hearing on all issues and to seek to restore good will whenever possible.

In other words, John Kerry knows when to fire a gun and when to talk peace. And he knows America will have to do this again in the Middle East. Similarly, it is vital that America must know when to do this; if that is not permitted, peace will never happen.

G. W. Bush is too narrow minded, too easily steered by his dozen or so advisors, and it seems that they – not Mr. Bush – run the nation. It is not one leader taking suggestions from various other people, no, it seems clear that the situation is reversed; that is, it is a man who lets others do his thinking and then provides the friendly, good-hearted and often slapstick public face in order to sell the policy to his fellow citizens.

In a war, the leader needs to be leading, not following un-elected ideologues. It seems clear that Mr. Bush follows.

As an individual, John Kerry in public often appears stiff and uninteresting, overly concerned with details, a Massachusetts senator who the GOP calls more liberal than his senior, Sen. Ted Kennedy.

The liberal charge is hackneyed, of course, but illustrates how the Republicans have captured the national dialogue with catchphrases. The current Republicans in power call themselves conservatives, or neo-conservatives, but they aren’t interested in conserving anything, rather they are radicals who are interested in a one-party form of government whereby their national and international agendas can be achieved without hindrance or debate. But they have a convenient label to hide behind, and other labels to throw pejoratively at those who would oppose their power-grab.

Nonetheless, in some ways Mr. Kerry plays into their labeling. He could bore most people to tears with government patois. But that doesn’t matter.

John Kerry has what is needed in an American president: Kerry knows both sides of war, and how to conduct both equally well. Most importantly, he knows when it is time to put down the guns and start talking.

Given the current global situation, much of which was created by the actions of Mr. Bush and the GOP, that point when Americans may put their guns to rest may be years in coming, but Kerry will be looking for it all the time.

The current president, G. W. Bush, isn’t interested in any such subtlety. He constantly points out how he knows how to spot and kill enemies, indiscriminately, until all of them are wiped out, utterly. It is a remarkable skill for someone who never fought in a war, but Mr. Bush declares openly that he "understands" the Arab and Muslim fanatics. Perhaps he does, in some unique way that is relatable to fundamentalist religions of all stripes, but his approach is nonetheless that of a late dynasty Roman leader.

Kerry’s management of world conflict will be to fight with an eye on opportunities for peace. History shows this is the path that leads to long-term power and strength for a nation. Any other methodology will lead America down Rome’s path to self-destruction and historical oblivion.

These are the reasons that it seems vitally important to support John Kerry in the election November 2^nd.