``Why I will be rooting for a George Bush election victory'' Matthew Parris
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I proposed this months ago making a more nasty case---that of spite on middle America and its persistent self-satisfied conception of its own and US society's moral superiority, along with its absurd mentality of denial and apparent willingness to accept any lie no matter how preposterous.
Strangely after the home slide show of Abu Ghraib, I won't be rooting for George Bush. I don't have to. It's over. It's all over. There is no more.
Oh, sure there will be a lot of crying and hand wringing, crocodile tears. There are already stories of a new paint job and curtains for Abu Ghraib. Promised investigations to get to the bottom. Public show trials and courts marshal for the lowest ranking military personnel, with assurances about never again and so forth and so on.
But it's over. The entire conception of Pax Americana, the `New World Order', the macho talk about Freedom and Democratic values trumpeted out by the US Rightwing, all the God crap from the Christians, the Democratic Party simpering and slavish mewlings on the similar themes has now joined a long line of other historically Bright Shining Lies.
Bush may win. Kerry may win. Kerry may try to make it all right and become stuck in the same mire. We might be in Iraq this time next year, still killing, rounding up, torturing, interrogating and disposing of thousands of people.
In some sense, which I can't quite name yet, none of that matters any more.
We have crossed a line. No matter how much the US political establishment and its supporters try, no matter what they say, no matter what they do, they can not get back on the other side.
Abu Ghraib can not be undone.
Kerry and the Democrats have a fast disappearing moment to escape, but it won't last long. They are going to have to decide what side of this door they are on. The door has already closed. But it isn't locked yet. Once it locks, it will be too late to change their minds.
They think they are just deciding about a few abusive practices, which since these are now public, of course they condemn. But that's not it. The war was a lie, the occupation was a sham, and now both are unambiguously revealed to serve a gross atrocity. It is still barely possible for the Democrat opposition to hypocritically claim ignorance and get back on the other side. They can just barely lie their way back.
But the door is already locked from the view of Iraq and the rest of the world. It is just a question within the myopic US political world, whether the door has locked yet.
I am no sure how long the Democrats have here. Guessing on my own, I would say another week, maybe two. About one more incident from some where besides Abu Ghraib will turn the key. After that the door will be locked.
I think if the US public re-elects George Bush after this, they will have stepped over the same threshold. They will join the good Germans of another age.
>From what point of view, am I making these pronouncements?
It's hard to describe, but it comes down to a few textbook histories of the US, some Enlightenment philosophy, some European history, some essays of Arendt---and some recent reading on Weimar era Germany.
In Weimar according to several accounts including the letters of Mann, and essays by Arendt and Strauss, it was understood at a particular moment that the German republic would go down the toilet. That moment was the election of Paul von Hindenberg. Hindenberg had been the field marshal for the invasion of Belgium in WWI. He represented an imperial monarchy built on military power. That is to say, he was a figure of a completely un-democratic German ideal. Mann had written before the election that he hoped a new Germany had learned its lesson. Arendt saw it the same way but wrote about it after the election. Strauss mentioned the same conclusion but wrote about it very much later. Before that election the door back to a democratic society had almost closed, but it wasn't locked. After the election of Hindenberg the door was closed and locked. Germany was headed in some other and at that point unknown direction.
I am not saying the US is on the road to a fascist regime---although it may be.
I am saying that there are such things as moments when societies have to collectively decide and what that decision or reaction is can not be taken back later. The reason it can not be taken back is because as that moment passes, it turns subsequent events including elections, revolutions, wars, laws and other institutional means based on that reaction. 9/11 was one of those events and Abu Ghraib is its historical closing parenthesis.
Most people in the US don't realize that this is one of those moments. Maybe some political opposition figures understand. Certainly the criminals in power know. They know if they can get away with this, get through it, pay nothing politically, then a new level of public tolerance for the worst of political crimes including war, invasion, occupation, slaughter, and torture has been cleared.
After Abu Ghraib, the entire sweep of events that constitute George Bush, the War on Terror, and the invasion of Iraq has been given an unmistakable stamp, a simple icon that everyone can understand.
The icon is the man in the cone shaped hood standing on a box with his arms out, hooked up to electrical wires. It is an icon that represents all brutal tyranny, military dictatorships, and totalitarian regimes everywhere. It has a very haunting resemblance to crucifixion. Because of the cone hood it has collective resonance with the KKK, Goya's Disasters of War, and the Inquisition.
Tolerate or excuse this, refuse to drastically change course, and the door locks.
CG