Lincoln, Douglas, and Us

It's tough, as George W. Bush pointed out several times during the first presidential debate. It's tough to send young soldiers into harms way, it's tough to comfort their parents when those young soldiers are killed by improvised explosive devices, and it's tough to build a democracy in a country of over 20 million people who have known only savage misery from their leaders and from foreign invaders and occupiers since practically before the first George Bush, I mean the primordial one, crawled out of the petroleum goo and bought his first yacht. I appreciate the toughness of all those tasks. It's also tough for me to write this editorial. Like I imagine John Kerry (and Al Gore before him) was momentarily stunned after each of Bush's debate responses, at a loss to decide which of the MULTITUDE of inconsistancies, untruths, and breaches of logic to use the next ninety seconds of national air time to address, I just don't know where to start, what bears repeating, what has already been said too many times or by others better than I could reproduce here. And yet, I still don't feel like there's another topic worth discussing when the fate of humanity might literally hang in the balance.

I read the previous paragraph, and I can hear the scoffs of people who will say the fate of humanity isn't really hanging in any balance at all, or if so, not in the way I think it is. They'll say that the president doesn't have that much of an effect. They'll say that Kerry isn't all that different from Bush, except maybe that he's not as good a man and he doesn't stay the course. They'll say that the dramas of today are no different from the dramas that have gone before—that humanity has been down this road dozens of times. They'll say, as I heard on talk radio the other day, that Bush is "trying," and that he "deserves a chance" to make things right. Some, like my old friend Joe, will say that both men are evil. He means evil, really, literally. That you don't become a presidential nominee by being a conscience-driven, productive member of society, and that any idealistic notion of voting for Kerry in the hopes that he'll produce some miraculous shift in all of our fortunes is just ridiculous.

Except that the president DOES have a huge effect on this world, from the policies he implements to the wars he prosecutes to the "activist" justices he promotes to the bully pulpit he utilizes. And Kerry IS all that different from Bush, both in terms of the ideas he espouses and the intellect he employs and the character he has displayed over the course of his life, and while Kerry may be maddeningly ineffectual at times at translating his ideas and actions into the 30-second soundbite, black and white cowboy hat, good versus evil, media and spin-driven world of American politics, he IS a better man than Bush, character-wise, and when you take away the Karl Rove orchestrated, Bob Dole inspired, systematic attacks on Kerry's alleged flip-flopping, Kerry DOES stay the course, in that if he believes something to be right, he will make himself very unpopular to support it. And while yes, history repeats itself, yadda yadda, consider that some of the roads we've been down would, I'd like to think, be better to avoid. Do we really want another world war? Do we want another civil war? Do we want another draft?

And while the humans behind human history may be fundamentally unchanged, human existance is completely and profoundly different than it has ever been. Consider if you will, that I'm typing these words into a laptop as I sit on a boat in Southern California. I will press a button, and even though I am not physically connected to a phone or an internet cable, it's conceivable that in a matter of seconds, someone in Africa, or China, or ANYWHERE on this planet (and I suppose on the International Space Station, if there are any Eclectica fans in orbit) can read what I've typed, formulate a response, and email me back, again in a matter of seconds. Just as we also possess the capability of obliterating the entire city of Los Angeles in the same number of seconds, a capability it's possible that terrorists already possess as well. Just think about those conditions and their ramifications for a second, and I don't see how you can't conclude that ours is a different time from any other.

As for Bush trying and deserving a chance, his "trying" is and has been from the beginning predicated on a deeply flawed view of reality, one probably as equally informed by greed as it is by ignorance. And I frankly don't give a damn what BUSH deserves (this same individual who appears to have built his career on unearned privileges). This is a presidential election, and the only salient concern is what the VOTERS deserve. Of course, the airtight logic of such things is that we, the collective whole of American voters (and non-voters), WILL get exactly what we deserve. If we give the election to Bush, we deserve everything he does and then some, especially because none of us can rightfully claim we didn't know he has repeatedly lied to us and repeatedly proven himself incapable to seeing beyond the end of his nose. If we can't make up our collective mind and we leave it too close to call, we still deserve four more years of Bush and the worst he has to offer, because none of us can rightfully claim we didn't know that close elections can be nefariously stolen. And if we vote for Kerry, in what I still hold out hope will be the landslide it should be, we will get the opportunity, at least, for something better.

Which leads me to my friend Joe's supposition, that all presidential candidates are inherently evil. I think there's a kernel of truth in this idea. Not that I think George Bush or John Kerry or Bill Clinton, etc., are evil in the sense that I think terrorists are evil. Ruthless, probably. Egomaniacal, maybe. Certainly ambitious to a degree that eclipses the average human being. Are they the best and the brightest, the strongest, the most fair-minded? I doubt it. They are celebrities, and like many hollywood celebrities, they hide, figuratively, behind collagen injections and boob jobs, hair transplants and scripted lines. But they are the people we have elected (literally) to those positions. And they are still people. They've driven around Texas with their wives and fished hamsters out of the lake for their daughters. We're stuck with them, and we therefore have to choose the candidate who is at least aligned with good and truth, even if the man himself might fall short. What's frustrating to me is that at last count a majority of likely voters in this country still think that choice is Bush.

Here then, are three reasons why the best choice is Kerry:

1. Bush is a divider, not a uniter. He and his administration have had an undeniably polarizing effect on the nation, and their influence has expanded to divide the entire globe. While sticking to one's guns and fighting evil is a good idea, failing to appreciate that liberals and Muslims and gay people as a whole are not the bad guys, that they want the same fundamental things as most good, God-fearing Republicans has been one of Bush's greatest oversights.

2. The separation of church and state is a good idea. It doesn't mean that people can't be religious. It shouldn't mean that religion is treated like a taboo subject in schools or any other public realm. But it should always be approached as a deeply individual topic. George Bush has gone too far in blurring the lines between church and state. His religious beliefs guide his policy decisions (ie stem cell research) in ways that are completely inappropriate for the leader of a country that is home to millions of citizens whose beliefs are not the same as his.

3. Bush has no credibility on the world stage, and while he's fond of trying to paint Kerry's criticisms of the war as making him less capable of assuming the title of Commander in Chief, his own dismissal of world opinion and the United Nations all but guarantees he will continue to lead a "coalition of the willing" rather than participate in a global community. This fact impacts both the war in Iraq and the War on Terror, and it holds ramifications for everything from global warming to nuclear non-proliferation to economic and trade issues, etc., etc.

More that ever, I've come to realize that the world, with regards to human social existance, is a lot more complicated that I'd previously thought. It appears that Bush is simultaneously drawing the opposite conclusion, that there are simple answers to all of life's questions. And yet, as simple as they are, boy they sure are tough.

 

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