LUDIC LOG

Back on July 4th, I wrote in this space about the curious strain of American thought -- a strain very much in command of the national discourse at the moment -- which claims a supreme love of country while looking upon the things that make the country unique as distasteful at best and downright undesirable at worst. I refer here to the style of 'patriotism' which paints itself as fiercely pro-American, while simultaneously praising the incidental or inessential qualities of this nation (its wealth, its power, the character of its citizens) and ignoring the qualities that truly embody its greatness (its devotion to the process of law, its assumption that its citizens should be protected no matter what their personal beliefs, the primacy of civil rights). In a time and place where the tone of public conversation has become relentlessly harsh and unprecedentedly rightist, the irony that those who advocate war as a way to protect our freedoms are those who seem most annoyed at people who exercise those freedoms is becoming more noticable (and less noticed) by the day.

While the press has become less a public watchdog and more a public relations arm of the federal government, we are nonetheless assured -- in the absence of reason -- that liberals control the media. This is, frankly, an obviously foolish claim. It is almost impossible to imagine a visitor from Europe (or, indeed, from anywhere) coming to America, spending a week being exposed to our magazines, newspapers, films, television, radio, political speech and public discourse, and concluding that there even was a liberal element in this country, let alone that it held sway in any aspect of public life. What would once have been instantly recognized as rightist ideology appears in abundance in almost all our journalistic organs. McCarthyite phrases such as "pro-terrorist", "idiotarian" and "anti-American" are deployed so routinely to describe those in opposition to the current administration's policies that they have entered the common conversation. The nation's most prominent newspapers, television news shows, and radio programs all display a blatantly neo-conservative tilt. Young people are increasingly reactionary, the traditional party of the left has all but abandoned classic liberalism, and it has become a truism that you must look to foreign news sources for balanced coverage of American current affairs.

We seem to have lost all sense of perspective in favor of a sort of diffused hostility towards dissent. While it's possible to get too carried away with this idea -- no one is being arrested or carted away, at least not just for talking -- it's safe to say that we've, well, become a bit overenthusiastice about the idea of presenting a united front. While the government rolls back civil rights, engages in short-sighted and dangerous fiscal policy, and gears up for a bloody war to no good end, we make national heroes of people like cryptoimperialist Robert Kagan and national scapegoats of people who ask sensible questions at inopportune moments like Susan Sontag. The failure of France to support our pocket war leads to asinine gestures such as boycotts of French products and the public demolition of Peugots, recalling the idiotic xenophobia of World War I. We make common cause with the grasping governments of Turkey and Bulgaria (whose citizens, not incidentally, overwhelmingly oppose the war) and claim them as the 21st-century vanguard of Europe, while dismissing France, Germany, and Russia as outdated relics of a best-forgotten past. From every corner of the culture there are shrill bleats directed at those who speak out against what the country is becoming: Hollywood celebrities who speak out against war are treacherous snakes; educators who pose difficult questions are villainous insects eating the heart of America; citizens who march in protests against the war are communist dupes, friends to terror, or worse. And Bill O'Reilly, a McCarthyite born too late, thinks the atmosphere sufficiently poisonous to utter the following words:

"We expect every American to support our military and if they can't do that, to shut up. Americans...who actively work against our military once the war is underway will be considered enemies of the state by me. (A)nyone who hurts this country at a time like this, well, let's just say you will be spotlighted." 

In the end, though, this is little more than vaporing by the chattering classes. In a different time, their vitriol wouldn't seem so corrosive in the eye and the ear; as little as four years ago, when these same people were hurling feces at Bill Clinton, they seemed more like bothersome gnats than huge vultures feasting on the corpse of old America. What is it, then, that has made them seem newly menacing? What has emboldened them so? What has happened, that America seems so much less like a democracy?

Leadership, is what happened. We look to the man on top to set the tone for those under his command, and the man at the top has set set the tone, all right. It's no surprise that, given the nature of his ascension to the presidency, George W. Bush has so little apparent regard for the will of the people. He came to us as an illegitimate leader; he eased into the role of a bullying boss; and he is transmogrifying into a dismissive dictator. His advisors are much given to unfortunate symbolic displays that seem to show a contempt for dissent: from Colin Powell covering Picasso's anti-war masterpiece "Guernica" before giving a speech promising war, to John Ashcroft speaking in the name of justice while the statue of Justice is hidden behind him, to Laura Bush canceling a poetry festival at the White House lest it become a platform for troublesome pacifist sentiment, the people around the President don't seem to show much feeling for the American tradition of giving the opposition a voice. His administration is unsettlingly willing to ally itself with the stifling of public opinion, warning people to watch what they say, scolding the networks for airing unapproved news, and supporting the city of New York in their attempt to shut down a peace protest before it happened. And as for Bush himself, he recently admitted to Bob Woodward that one of his favorite things about the office is that "somebody needs to explain to me why they say something, but I don't feel like I owe anybody an explanation" -- not the sort of thing one expects the nation's premier public servant to say. His reaction to millions of people marching for peace all over the country was, to put it bluntly, contemptuous; he squeezed out the phrase "democracy is a wonderful thing" with a scornful sarcasm that held the barest level of tolerance for the democratic traditions of America.

It's all trickling down from the top these days. An acid tide sinks all boats.