From the latest Austin Chronicle:<snip>
The question of identity rides on another question: Why, in spite of a disastrous economic and foreign policy record, does George W. Bush appeal deeply to nearly half our population – people largely as well-meaning and desirous of peace as the other half?
The answer is: Bush feigns certainty. It is his entire appeal. That is why he cannot admit a mistake, even when reversing policy (as he's often done). He presents himself as a man who never questions, never doubts – a man for whom the sea change of the Sixties, already evident to Stirling Silliphant by 1962, never happened. As Steve Erickson has written, Bush wants to repeal not only the Sixties but the Enlightenment. Science must be wrong if it posits evolution and global warming – for evolution means that the Creation is never finished, is never complete, is never finally decided, is never certain; and global warming means that Nature has a kind of will that may be at odds with humanity's will, with Bush's will. The tempestuous 21st century must bend to his will, at any cost – he will walk upon its waters and calm the storm with a word. That grandiose and pathetic fantasy is his true election promise.
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It is appealing precisely because it is an attack upon reality. That's why proofs of the facts have little impact on Bush devotees. For it is these very facts that they want denied, attacked, and destroyed. Many are poorly educated, without the skills or sensibilities for success in the 21st century; many others, affluent and educated, cannot bear the truth stated so clearly by Silliphant four decades ago, that what is good for a man's business may be wrong for his country and what is good for his country may be wrong for the world – for they cannot bear the consequences of admitting that their good comes at the expense of another's harm. And many are threatened to their core by what science uncovers every new day. Underneath it all, Bush promises success to the ignorant, conviction to the confused, and innocence to the affluent.
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Which means that in this election no less than the identity of the United States of America – as a force, as a symbol, and as a place to live – is at stake. If Bush wins, the power of the United States will be committed to the delusional. There is no freedom in delusion, and for that reason, more than for any machinations of power, America's freedoms will erode and die. As our Founders knew, freedom requires a passionate commitment to the search for truth – knowing always that each truth opens up new questions that make a further search necessary. So they created that most flexible of documents, the Constitution, building into it safeguards against any one faction's truth becoming hard and fast and dominating. But delusion cannot tolerate checks and balances. Thus the Constitution itself becomes the enemy of Bush and his devotees.
The basic issue is: Can America, finally, grow up? Can America cease its adolescent insistence on a purity that never was and cannot be? Can America face a murky reality in which choices are always double-edged and the good always brings with it a bit of bad, the bad a bit of good? Or will we, as a people, try to walk on water – and, even as we sink and drown, vagrants amidst the plenty, gurgle the conviction that we were right all along?
Kerry, however flawed, tries to face a real world. Bush (like Nader) tries to make reality warp to his delusions. This election will be decided on a question of identity: Will we, as a nation, choose the consistency of delusion? Or are there enough of us willing to face the irrationality of the real?
more at: http://www.austinchronicle.com/issues/dispatch/2004-10-15/cols_ventura.html
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