A nation of wusses

Three years later and we’re still scared? What’s wrong with this country? Yes, 9/11 was terrible and traumatic, and it’s worth finding out what the U.S. had been doing wrong, and worth even more to do what really can be effective to minimize terrorism against America. But we’ll never do either in a climate of fear.

A substantial part of the population, polls say, are afraid they’ll be killed in a terrorist attack. Despite the fact that they are statistically more in danger of being killed by falling down the stairs while talking on a cell phone. Around 3,000 people died tragic deaths three years ago, and in the three years since, more than 10 times that many died each year of cancer from smoking and bad stuff in our air. Five times as many people die each year because they don’t have health insurance.

Your life is more in danger in New York City crossing the street or taking a taxi than from a repeat of 9/11. Do you live in fear of getting behind the wheel of your car?

Instead, we’ve had exactly one incompetent guy tried to light explosives in his shoe, and now tens of thousands of people every day stand in line like sheep to take off their shoes for inspection before being granted the privilege of inhaling stale air and not getting a bad meal in a cramped airliner seat. We must be grateful that nobody tried to light their shorts.

Now any one of us can be pulled away from the airport counter, hustled to a room and questioned like people caught stealing Bush’s remedial reader from the White House bathroom, because of a bad joke, the attempted smuggling aboard of a dangerous nailclipper, or maybe a foreign-sounding accent, or just as likely for no reason at all---because a name sort of matches a name on a list compiled by---well, nobody knows who compiled it, or why names are put on it, and certainly how to get names off when there’s a mistake. And like sheep we just let this go on. Why? Because we’re wusses.

We have a lot of help. The GOPers keep it alive but the New York and Washington based media does, too. Some of that is understandable---they knew people in the rubble, they were nearby---but those images can't be bad for ratings either. By now the actual events of that day are long lost in what has come to adhere to the images of it, as our parrotheads and other leaders repeatedly tell us what to think about it. Or more properly what to feel.

The people of London and other cities in England during the Blitz endured a 9/11 nearly every day for years, and apparently with a great deal more grace. If you want some justified fear, try getting sick without having health insurance, or losing your second job that’s the difference between paying the rent that means your kid has a place to live so she can go to school and gets at least one hot meal a day.

It’s not just that it’s unseemly to be so chicken-hearted. It’s dangerous, because fear clouds the mind. You think with your glands and do what seems the fastest and easiest to avoid danger. If you’re right, you escape. If you’re wrong, you perish. If the panic echo of 9/11, kept alive by the fear-mongering GOPers, leads America to retain the destructive services of G.W. Bush because he offers a simplistic analysis and simple solutions which also happen to be worse than dead wrong, we will perish as a free and prosperous people, and we’ll take the future with us.

Certainly terrorism is an important threat, now and even more so in the future, to the stability of our society. But fear of terrorism, and the manipulation of that fear by the Bushies, has already done more damage to America, to freedom here and to American standing in the world, than terrorists could dream of. And it’s done too little to stop terrorism now, and has worked against stopping terrorism in the near future.

Bush keeps to his steady course, which we’re supposed to admire as he heads us crashing into the iceberg that’s been clearly visible for months.

It’s 9/11, do you know where your Homeland Security is? Off making deals with huge corporations run by GOPer donors for expensive technologies of dubious usefulness, while there’s not enough money left for police to patrol borders or the streets, ports to inspect cargo ships or air freight, or fire and rescue to respond if something happens.

Meanwhile a select few Americans keep getting richer, keep getting more gravy in tax cuts, while the bottom falls out for most everyone else, and the rich-run media projects these images of wealth to the 9/11th of the world that’s indelibly poor if not outright starving and suffering through lives we can barely imagine. But some of the people in those exploited and usually invisible countries have figured out that vastly destructive power comes in very small packages, and that technology can be turned against those who have it.

But of course terrorism can’t be springing from that. Those terrorists are the embodiment of Evil, they were obviously born that way. They Hate Us, and Our Way of Life. They want to Take Away Our Freedom. They are swarthy and speak ugly guttural languages, they have religions of Hate not Love (and so we must kill them) and are really aliens from the godless planet of Hell.

Face to face with someone out to kill you, you defend yourself and those around you. Soldiers know this, and soldiers who have operated well and honorably under fire have the skills necessary for such defense. And sometimes you attack the enemy before the enemy can attack you, assuming you are real certain of the enemy, and its ability and intent to attack you. If not, everyone in the world is potentially an enemy. Fear becomes what we call paranoia, which politically is expressed as institutionalized fear, as a massive cult of fear.

9/11 remains vivid, and Americans (some pollsters say) are bored with Iraq, they’d rather let George II do it (so sure of his right to rule even as a young fool that he could contemtuously blow off even the safe duty he drew thanks to his family connections, while the kind of people he is sending to die, maim and be mained in Iraq were sent to die, maim and be mained in Vietnam) and watch Donald Trump purse his lips and say those immortal witty words, “you’re fired.” More than a thousand American soldiers have died in Iraq, with 8 or 10 thousand more wounded, there and in the region, and nobody seems to know---or for that matter care--- how many Iraqis. But that's over there, in Hell. Call me when Baghdad Disneyland opens.

Iraq may hold together until November 2, but nobody credible in the world believes it will be a beacon of democracy any time soon, and most are pretty sure the current government will fall and civil war will ensue. After November, we can expect Shock and Awe bombing as we’ve never seen, and we’ve at least heard of some before. After that, the necons will be loose, and the reality of not enough money coming in or armed forces stretched too thin, won’t impress them any more than it has already. Look out world, you haven’t seen WMD like you’re going to once GW is reelected. Saddam was wishing for nukes, but North Korea and Iran are doing more than wishing…

If this election rides on the fear engendered by 9/11 the chances are 9 out of 11 that our fear will become a self-fulfilling prophesy. Put back in office the man who most voters voted against last time, and it will then be time to be afraid. To be very afraid.

This is a link to the Boston Globe story discussed below:

Boston.com / News / Nation / Bush fell short on duty at Guard

UPDATE: All the noise you may have heard about possibly forged documents has nothing to do with the documents in this story. Nothing in the Globe story or in the blog entry below is based on information in the documents that may or may not have been forged. Not that you would know that from how the story is being reported on 9/10. GW Bush is still the president who is willing to spill the blood of other men and women but was not willing to risk his own, or even go through the motions of pretending to do alternate service in the safety of the U.S. Yes, it's about character all right: the character of the man in the White House who doesn't now own up to what he did then, and apparently hasn't learned anything except how to manage appearances better.

If A Shoe Drops on CNN, will we hear the sound?

CNN's Aaron Brown program on September 8 was one for the time capsule. What will future viewers, if any, think of it, think of them, think of us? A heartbreaking breakdown of the 1,000 American soldiers who were killed or died in Iraq, a so-called controversy on whether the University of Utah has the right to ban guns on campus, campaign reporting than manages to obfuscate the issues in the guise of clarifying the strategy and dynamic; a couple of authoritative studies that conclude that Iraq is deteriorating, that the situation there is worse now than it was before the American invasion, and that the most likely outcome is civil war.

Oh, and the reports that George Bush, the resolute leader of men to their deaths, consistently shirked his dubiously won National Guard duties, and by rights should have been shipped to Vietnam for his failures to keep his word and do the bothersome minimum his political influence bought him.

So catastrophic is this reporting that CNN couldn't face the implications of what it was presenting. So instead of covering the revelations arising from documents obtained by the Boston Globe and CBS News, and the thorough reporting both of these experienced and professional news organizations did on the subject of George W. Bush's dishonorable non-service, Brown and Co. reported first and foremost on White House reaction. "The White House said" began and ended each fragment of the story, and the questions to reporters was, what about what the White House says about this. Is this how they covered the non-story of the allegations made against Kerry's Vietnam record, not by responsible and thorough reporters, but by political enemies? Not exactly.

And Jeff Greenfield doubts that this clear evidence that should shame Bush from office, that is so morally corrupt in a man who sends others to fight and die to satisfy his delusions, is likely to change many minds. Why won't it? Because only those who want to believe it will believe it. Where is the objective judgment that all will concede tells the truth? he asks.

Are they talking about the same two stories? In one, the official record and the overwhelming evidence produced by journalists is that John Kerry earned his medals, acted heroically under fire in Vietnam, and has essentially told the truth about his experiences. In the other, the official record and the evidence painstakingly accumulated and evaluated by journalists shows that G. W. Bush failed to complete the drills he was obligated to perform in the Texas National Guard, failed to complete the drills he was obligated to perform when he transferred to the Alabama national guard unit, and failed even to serve at all with the Boston national guard as he promised to do. He obtained his national guard appointment due to political influence, and apparently got his honorable discharge despite his failures to meet his obligations, also because of political influence.

He even specifically "misspoke" or lied when "the White House" said he had stopped flying his fighter jet because his National Guard unit stopped using that plane. As weak and wimpy as this excuse is, the records show it is false anyway. The plane in question remained in use. G.W. just never bothered to show up again.

This is the man more than half of American voters polled believe is a strong leader, the best to lead the nation in Iraq and the war on terror?

Right. And Nixon was our greatest defender of the Constitution, and our greatest Civil Rights leader was Bull Connor.

Are we really going to permit GW Bush to be president for another four insanely awful years, just because John Kerry can't stand still when he talks? GW has gone beyond depending on telling the Big Lie in order to remain in power. He has become the Big Lie.

A Fresh Start

Now it begins in earnest, and it appears the Karl Rove lies and distraction machine has had its effect. It again becomes possible that the administration that presided over the most disastrous four years since World War II with the most profoundly destructive implications for the next fifty years, may be rewarded with another term.

The Kerry-Edwards campaign is fighting back with a clarity not seen since the primaries. But we return to our belief that the theme that could mean victory is simply FOR A FRESH START.

To energize the base and to win swing voters and inspire non-voters, we need to inspire emotionally while we make sense on the facts. We need to be positive at the same time as we relentlessly expose the damage that Bush has done, that must not be rewarded with four more years.

There is power in words, and these words---A FRESH START---are optimistic at the same time as they imply Bush's failure and the need to repudiate his administration. In themselves they do not attack anyone personally. Whether the implication is "throw the bums out" or a more neutral "time for a change," these three words say it.

Yet these words are primarily oriented towards the future.

They express what this campaign is already saying, especially since the Willy Horton Writ Large GOP convention. They don't concentrate on blame, yet the action required is crystal clear: for A FRESH START, vote for Kerry-Edwards.

If you are convinced this is an effective combination of words to use, it may be up to you to use them---in your letters to the editor, or any other communications you have in support of saving the future by getting Bush out of power. It may have to be a slogan, an idea that percolates up from a few individuals and possibly gets noticed by the campaign. But even if it doesn't, even if it clicks with one voter enough to earn one vote, it will have made an important contribution. Especially in a race which may be extremely close.

Now we turn the lectern over to Morgan....



Focus for Fall

Kerry has been hammering away at the folly and tragic cost of the Iraq war, and that's good. But prominent in his Iraq critique should be mention of the issue that stirs emotions, particularly of swing voters: the prison abuses, like Abu Grav.

Kerry reportedly was advised by Bill Clinton, shortly before going under the knife, to concentrate on economic issues, including the highly appropriate one of health care.

Kerry should emphasize most of all the health care crisis. Jobs, lower incomes, income disparities, are all vital issues, but it is easy to obscure them with apparently contradictory numbers. The facts in the health care crisis are stark. The platitudes that perhaps once were true simply aren't any longer: America is not the healthiest nation in the world, with the best health care system in the world, as most have long believed.

An American girl born today has a life expectancy lower than that in 18 other countries. An American boy is expected on average to live as long as a boy born in Brunei, and not as long as boys in 30 other nations.

Among the world's 13 wealthiest countries, the U.S. has the lowest (or nearly the lowest) life expectancy at birth and life expectancy for infants. It is worst (or nearly worst) in infant mortality and low birth weight. An American infant is more like to die than an infant in Croatia.

We're used to thinking of heart attacks as being the province of busy, wealthy middle-aged white men like Clinton, but in fact cardiovascular disease is a leading cause of death in poor black neighborhoods. This is where the vast wealth of the few really pays off: a woman born in a wealthy Washington neighborhood can expect to live 40 years longer than a male born in a poor DC district. It's a more potent killer, thanks to the stress of poverty, than drugs or homicides. So is cancer. And so is the amorphous category of "untreated conditions."

People die younger in Harlem than in Bangladesh.

The major health role of income disparity is expressed in various factors, but the most obvious one is health insurance. The wealthy have it (or don't need it), and they get better care.
The result is not just in getting life-saving surgery, but in getting simple check-ups and relatively simple care to follow up on what's found. But when care is postponed and then is given haphazardly, grudgingly, and in inferior ways, the result can be measured not only in dollars lost to the economy, but in human suffering. The suffering of people you see every day of your life.

In 2002, some 40 million Americans had no health insurance, including some 20 million with full-time jobs. Some 75 million Americans under age 65 were without health insurance for all or parts of 2001 and 2002. And it's worse now.

New figures from Kaiser, a leading health insurer, show costs of health insurance rose 11% just in 2004. The cost to insure a family for a year is now approaching the annual income of a worker earning minimum wage.

The Institute of Medicine blames gaps in insurance coverage for 17,000 preventable deaths a year. That's 5 times the death toll of 9/11, every year.

Health care is an issue that unites the poor and the middle class workers and families, small business and even large businesses being hampered or crushed by rising health care costs---rising faster than income for one thing, up 50% since Bush took office---and significantly, many health care professionals, including doctors and their organizations, and even some health insurance executives.

The U.S. health care and health insurance system is destructive and on the verge of collapse. It is a potent issue for John Kerry and John Edwards. All Bush has done is increase the burden on Medicare recepients while enriching drug companies and adding to the deficit. It's virtually all cost and no benefit, except to the already wealthy. Sound familiar?

John Kerry pledges to introduce legislation to create affordable health care insurance for all Americans as his first proposal to Congress.

Health care and health insurance is of immense personal importance to me. I am one of those Americans who lost health care coverage during the reign of GW Bush. I am six weeks older than Bill Clinton. Clinton has had the best medical care possible for at least the last decade, and had no apparent health problems, yet he required open heart surgery or he likely would have had a major heart attack that would have disabled or killed him.

As Senator Hillary Clinton pointed out, they have great health insurance, and Bill Clinton got the best care by the best doctors in reputedly the best hospital in the world for his condition.

If later today I were to have chest pains, or require any kind of care, it's very likely I would either not receive it, or it would be inferior and inadequate. If I had what Bill Clinton had, I wouldn't be facing rehabilitation, I would be facing imminent death.

With John Kerry's health care plan, at least the debate will be revived, and perhaps something will be done. This election could literally be life and death for people like me. It is life and death, and the difference between health and suffering, for millions.