The Divide Between "Getting It" and "Saying It"
by Sajeela Moskowitz Ramsey, Ph. D.
This commentary is a response to New York Times op-ed journalist Paul Krugman's article entitled "Who Gets it?" (New York Times, 01/13/2004). The article cites Democratic candidates Dean and Wesley as "getting it", and as being willing to question the current administration and its policies, as opposed to other candidates who are not. Krugman raises the question of whether or not these candidates will simply be seen as radicals and as overly-critical, and concludes that to win the election it will take an energized group of voters willing to stand up for their candidate in the face of unfair smear tactics.
Krugman quotes General Clark as saying our nation is "dealing with the most closed, imperialistic...administration in living memory", and I agree! I also agree with Krugman wholeheartedly that the Democratic party is plagued by a gap between "those who are willing to question the people running our country, and those who aren't"; indeed, a divide between "getting it" and "saying it". Krugman broadens the critics/non-critics gap across party lines in mentioning former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill's charge that Bush was plotting to invade Iraq from the get-go. Not that I think what O'Neill was willing to say was criticizing the President. I think he simply stated the facts. And, whether you are Democrat or Republican, "who gets it" is one thing, because there is a LOT of information easily available about what the administration is up to. But who speaks it is a critical issue (no pun intended).
The Emperor that too few seem willing to speak out against is, and has been all along, naked; flappin' in the breeze, if you will, like dirty laundry. What I wonder is what the hell it takes for Americans to not only "get it", but to speak out against an obvious problem with our President's policies. We should thank our lucky stars that Dr. Dean and General Clark, following Dean's lead, have adopted stances of open "criticism" against the Bush administration. I consider their doing so to be neither "hard line" or "radical", but rather, the appropriate exercise of fulfilling an enormous civic need to prevent this Democracy from devolving into a Fascist farce, compliments of our current President and his friends.
And who would the President's friends be? Not the testosterone-deprived "corporate types who have grave misgivings about the Bush administration" -- yet who are "are afraid to give money to Democrats", for fear of retribution from Bush and company. Nope. The friends surrounding this President --- and not just surrounding him, but insulating him from the general public's (gasp!) potential criticism --- are ultra-loyalist staff members and others in tow who were handpicked to serve a very special agenda, of which I shall say more, momentarily. But first, let's look at all the President's circle of friends; friends like the folks down at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), for example, from which some thirty members of the current administrative staff were garnered. Then there are the folks from the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq (CLI), a group chaired by Bruce P. Jackson, former VP to Lockheed Martin. CLI is, according to Jim Lobe of the Advisory Committee of Foreign Policy In Focus (November, 2002) "a spin-off from the Project for a New American Century (PNAC), located, of all the places, at AEI.
Lobe's report details the marriage between "neoconservative Jews and heavy-hitters from the Christian Right" who have formed CLI, and who "have anticipated to a remarkable degree the administration's policy course" with regard to fighting the war on terrorism, including the invasion of Iraq. CLI's predecessor, PNAC, boasts a Statement of Principles signed by (see PNAC's web page) still more friends of the President; friends such as Jeb Bush, Dick Cheney, Steve Forbes, Dan Quayle, Don Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz. Other friends of the President worth noting include the Carlisle Group, an international investment enterprise that, according to Oliver Burkeman and Julian Borger, (The ex-presidents' club, in The Guardian , October 2001) "has become the thread which indirectly links American military policy in Afghanistan to the personal financial fortunes of its celebrity employees, not least the current president's father." Carlisle's investors include Bin Laden the Senior, who happened to be meeting with George Bush Senior on official Carlisle business the morning of September 11, 2001. And so the circle of friends around George Dub goes.
And what might the special agenda of PNAC and other related entities serving and influencing our current administration be? One need only read PNAC's web site to understand what it is that the Emperor and his friends have been up to, since well before 9/11. In a nutshell, they are building the Emperor an empire; in fact, a global empire. PNAC aims "to remind Americans of the need to increase defense spending significantly" and to "challenge regimes hostile to our interests and values", while promoting "the cause of political and economic freedom abroad". Last, but hardly least, PNAC doctrine would have us "accept responsibility for America's unique role in preserving and extending an international order friendly to our security, our prosperity, and our principles. Such a Reaganite policy of military strength and moral clarity may not be fashionable today. But it is necessary if the United States is to build on the successes of this past century and to ensure our security and our greatness in the next."
And there you have it. Why bother dressing up for the occasion, Mr. Bush? You apparently have nothing to hide. Not that there is anything wrong with institutionalized empire-building. This country became great on the backs of policies such as Manifest Destiny, and gosh, what was the policy for the indentured labor and enslavement of Africans? Hmmmmnnn....I think we just called it "slavery". After all, we were just ensuring our greatness and moral clarity --- into the next century. Those who are in power and who are privileged stay that way by protecting their position in the affairs of history. So all of this is nothing new. It is just down to who "says it", once they "get it".
Mr. Krugman asks rhetorically "what's the answer?", suggesting that a (dare I call it regime change?!) will happen only if there is "an energized base, willing to...stand up for the [Democratic] candidate in the face of...unfair coverage" of said candidate who would question the President or his policies. Furthermore, he says that the Democratic candidate will need to "get out the message that [the candidate] isn't a radical -- and that Mr. Bush is." So who "gets it"? And who dares to speak it? Me, that's who. And Dean, and Clark, and I hope more and more and more people who "get it". May we keep on saying that the President has had no clothes on from the start, and that, frankly, the Bush parade is a travesty that must come to an end.
© Dr. Ramsey 2004 Sajeelacore@juno.com is a Communication, Change and Culture Specialist who operates a Neurofeedback Practice in Portland, Oregon.
