Tuesday, July 04, 2006
(7:54 AM) | Adam Kotsko:
Tuesday Hatred: At Least I Know I'm Free
I hate America.No, wait -- only quasi-fascist reactionaries actually hate entire countries. What I meant to say is what people actually mean when they accuse others of "hating America": I hate American foreign policy. All those constitutional rights, etc., are great. I enjoy them. I'm using them right now, in fact. Plus there are tons of other things that I really love. Somehow I think that we could manage to have those things without bombing other countries into the stone age and torturing innocent Afghan goatherds until they commit suicide.
I hate it when people act as though we had this enlightened approach before, but Bush came in and ruined everything. I hate the Monroe Doctrine. I hate the idea of spreading democracy at gunpoint, except when we're spreading military dictatorship at gunpoint. I hate neo-liberalism. I hate how many people died in what no respectable pundit will come out and call what it is: a resource war.
I hate virtually everything that has happened in our country since 9/11. I hate George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, John Ashcroft, Alberto Gonzalez, John Yoo, John Roberts, and Samuel Alito. I hate how George W. Bush stole the 2000 election and the 2004 election. I hate that our Supreme Court has been vandalized by an illegitimate president who is also a war criminal. In a just world, Bush would have been rotting in a jail cell by 2003, not appointing Supreme Court justices who will shape our nation for a generation. I hate the Republican Party and everything it stands for. I hate the Democrats less, but I still hate that a muddling "centrist" grab-bag of people who currently stand for little more than continuing to have a constitutional republic are the last best hope for our country.
I hate it when people -- in full knowledge of the fact that the right wing has systematically shaped and manipulated public opinion through massive propaganda efforts -- act like we should take the supposed rightward tilt of public opinion as a brute fact. I hate that two generations ago, the majority voter registration in the Church of the Nazarene, for instance, was the Socialist Workers Party, but now we are in a situation where even the most left-wing Christians tacitly grant legitimacy to the fusion of Christianity with right-wing capitalist kleptocracy.
I hate that the continued existence of George W. Bush and the high-ranking officials in his administration means that I cannot in good conscience maintain a position of blanket opposition to the death penalty. They are all guilty of capital crimes, and I hate that we will never get a trial, that justice will never ever be served in this case.
It has never been different or better. There is not some past era of American politics that we should look to as our example. We need the unprecedented. If we are going to use religious language here -- and why not? -- I will say, wholeheartedly: "God bless America." But I understand the blessing of God on America to be something that will look an awful lot like a curse to the murderers and criminals in our ruling party, to the "reasonable" Beautiful Souls in our opposition party, to the decadent and soulless drones in our media elites -- the good news would have to look like the worst possible news for them.
So: God bless America. In the meantime, to celebrate the Fourth of July, I am going to drop my voter registration form in the mailbox, to celebrate my right to go to a polling place and make my minimal gesture toward staving off the worst: voting a straight Democratic ticket. Ah, America! Say what you will -- at least I know I'm free.
