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- Reflections From the
Heartland Part II:
- Fanatical Bushism
Institutionalized
- Jesse Lee OpEdNews.Com
July 5
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The Federalist Papers
addressed an issue that may have seemed alien to us for most of our
lives, but which may be enlightening now.
That issue is the potential in a democracy, which of course was
the thing being debated, for a “tyranny of the majority”.
The meaning of that phrase has in large part become a dusty
historical relic, and most Americans would not be able to give you a
sensible explanation of what a “tyranny of the majority” might
look like, and many might just dismiss it as a term with the ring of
liberal propaganda.
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And the idea that a tyranny of the majority could potentially
be a real flaw with democracy has, in fact, been lost on America for
some time, despite the fact that it has emerged and existed as a
problem since the very founding of the country.
Hamilton and Madison let the problem rest on two tentative
solutions:
- 1)
A system of checks and balances including the free press, an
independent judiciary, a House of Congress, and a Senate designed to
be deliberative and counter-majoritarian.
- 2)
A nation so large and diverse that a united, solid majority
would never be able to even recognize each other, much less organize
for persistent domination of the remaining minority.
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- We have seen how this administration has
used fanatical Bushism to eliminate the first obstacle.
The free press has been intimidated into servitude.
The “Liberal Media” assault has successfully forced even
the historically noblest agents of the press to cease pursuing truth,
and instead to pursue a narrowly defined centrism, which conservative
think tank media operatives and the administration itself continually
push further towards the right. The
House and the Senate have been castrated, and Republican lawmakers
have forfeited any claim to upholding the proud tradition of their
positions as independent-minded servants of American justice and
prosperity. Bush’s
judicial nominees represent such a clear expression of the
administration’s extremist ideology that it is laughable to refer to
the judiciary as “independent” any longer.
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The second obstacle has fallen many times in the past, usually
in obvious cases where a majority could easily recognize each other
and their victims, such as the oppression of blacks, the internment of
the Japanese, and to the degree that they have been able to be
recognized, the punishment and marginalization of homosexuals.
And now there is a new assault in the name of fanatical Bushism.
The allegiance to this president, embedded in a larger and
intense hatred of his liberal opponents has become so powerful that it
is truly easy to recognize, and the fanatical sector of the population
has used Bush’s tenuous majority to bully the large minority in this
country that finds Bush objectionable.
This is the essence of the problem of tyranny of the majority,
a scenario in which 49% of the country is completely excluded from
control of their country and therefore their lives.
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In the Heartland the problem has become institutionalized. Fanatical Bushism has permeated institutions ranging from
venues of social interaction, to the workplace, to the commons, and
especially into both the federal and local governmental institutions. This edition of Reflections
From the Heartland focuses on testimonials from readers in Bush
country demonstrating this infiltration into the essential fabric of
their daily existence.
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- Have a Drink?
- I saw this same mentality the night before the invasion of Iraq. I
was at a tavern I used to like to frequent, that is close to my home
in a Mayberry-like town south of Cleveland, Ohio. People were high-fiving
each other, laughing and talking about how we were going to "Kick
Saddam's Ass". Someone happened to mention the Dixie Chicks' flap
about their comments regarding Bush at a London concert. The common
thread of conversation was that the Dixie Chicks were essentially
traitors for daring to question Bush on Iraq. I spoke up, telling them
that not only did I agree with what the Dixie Chicks had said, but
asked them when it became treasonous to use one's First Amendment
rights to speak out.... The silence and stares were unreal... you'd
have thought I was a three-headed monster the way people were looking
at me... my "friends" acted embarrassed, the way you might
act embarrassed when a young child acts out or in some other
uncomfortable situation... After a brief moment people resumed their
conversations, essentially ignoring me.. I felt like a leper... After
a bit I left feeling sad and out of touch with things... I still do,
although I'm convinced at some time people will open their eyes to
what's happened. I just pray that time isn't too far off and too many
more people don't die in the meantime....
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- At School
- My daughter was unable to voice her views
in school. People would start yelling at her "What!? You're
against the war!?" like it was some kind of crime. She felt like
she could not speak out. There was no opportunity for debate, only
screaming of propaganda B.S.
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Outside Kansas City, MO
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- At Work
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My company employs about
300 people in a variety of departments. In early March, about 10 days
before the war, identical American flags popped up on each person's
cube in one particular department. They were all displayed the same
way, as if they had been deliberately put there by the same person,
all at the same time. I walked through that department in March and
wondered why the flags were there. Was it support for the troops or
support for the oncoming war? Knowing the manager of that department
as I do, I suspected that it was a little of both, plus a large dose
of pro-Bush bravura -- this person, in November of 1999, referred to
Mr. Bush as "President-Elect Bush" at a company-wide
meeting, which, given his position, amounted to a corporate
endorsement of the man who hadn't even been declared the winner yet.
Anyway, I came back to my department on that day in March and wondered
aloud to a sympathetic coworker what someone like us would do if we
were in that department. What would happen if I took the flag down?
Would I be told to put it back up by the manager? Would I be pressured
by my co-workers to put it back up? Would my position suffer if I
refused? Unfortunately, I've never been able to ask anyone in that
department, because I don't know any of them very well -- and frankly,
I'm a little afraid to voice my opinion within earshot of the manager.
It's interesting to note that, after Mr. Bush's appearance on the
Lincoln declaring the "war" to be "over," the
flags disappeared. Even though we're losing an average of 1 soldier a
day.
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There is a small school of deconstructionist thought, what some
call “whiteness studies”, which studies the manifestation of
racism as a sense of entitlement to space.
This might be construed as an over-intellectualized way of
saying racist whites think they own America, but the language may be
instructive here. The
last testimonial about the workplace strikes me as an aggressive
claiming and occupation of space itself, in this case the very space
in which the reader labors and spends most of her waking hours.
The fact that the flag is used is also significant, for the
flag under Bush’s hate-mongering has become for fanatics not so much
a symbol of genuine love of country as resentful animosity towards
liberals and protesters. And
under the Bush juggernaut, including his media regurgitaters, there
has emerged a genuine attempt to claim this space, the space of
America, for their own. The
process has been vicious, exclusionary, and reactive, and has
resembled many historical eras around the world in which large
populations were united in hatred.
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But this effort has not been purely social or abstract, it has
found its most flagrant manifestations in Republican-dominated
governments. It was widely reported and debated when Grover Norquist,
right-wing guru, stated that he and the right were trying to bring
“bitter partisanship and nastiness” to the state capitals. What was less reported was to what a large degree that agenda
was already well under way. The
power grab from Bush and his congressional minions, a quintessential
demonstration of tyranny of the majority, has been mirrored on smaller
scales in local and state governments across the Heartland.
The story poked its head out when Tom Delay’s anti-democratic
redistricting plan, highlighting a relentless state congressional
assault in Texas, compelled Texas Democrats to flee the state.
The Washington Post
on Wednesday, July, 2nd, ran a story elaborating on how
such gerrymandering is being used in unprecedented ways across the
nation by Republican majorities. Furthermore, the fiscal train wreck that the
administration has concocted for our nation has already arrived in
Republican dominated states, whose legislatures have colluded with
Bush’s “starve the states” plan in order to rid the states of
social programs, and to keep the enormous tax-cuts in the pockets of
the GOP’s rich donors. These
are two typical testimonials on the state of the states:
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- What
has happened in this most right wing Republican state is criminal. The
Bushistas have been test-driving their
strangulation of social and medical support programs for the elderly
and people with disabilities for the past 4 years here. So many frail
and helpless people have been disenfranchised.
Some have actually have lost their lives. It is surreal.
- The
mendacity permeates the legislature, the governor’s office and the
state health and welfare system. The prevalent attitude is one of
frank disdain for the weak and the helpless. The only recourse is
through the courts, but not through the state attorney general’s
office because our attempts as healthcare advocates to
use the state protection and advocacy system to address
violations have been failures. The state protection and advocacy
system is too corrupt. Consequently,
the elderly and people with disabilities in
Idaho have no rights, they have no voice, and our US Senators and
Representatives are so bought and sold I find myself desperately
writing to congressional delegates from other states.
- Along
with other healthcare providers, I organized a protest of the changes
in policies during the 2002 legislative session. Three of the other
healthcare providers involved in the protests have closed their doors
because of retaliation from the Idaho Department of Health and
Welfare. Those professionals were basically
run out of business, accused of Medicaid ‘fraud’.
- It is not safe to dissent in Idaho.
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Northern Idaho
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- I
am an attorney in Memphis. I have a both a Tennessee law license
and a Texas law license (where I am from and where I used to
practice). I left Texas in 1996 because the Republicans
devastated worker's compensation and made it financially impossible
for lawyers to handle workers compensation anymore. You can't
imagine what not having good legal counsel has done to the poor
bastards who get hurt in Texas now. The Texas Republican
strategy was and is to promise people all the rights in the world
and then to surreptitiously make sure that no lawyer can take their
cases when their rights are violated. The Texas public bought this
BS and the people were screwed. So I left. I had to
move to a state that still would allow me to make a living
representing injured workers.
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Both Tennessee and Texas are the heartland (or the heartless land) you
describe, but Texas is by far the worst of the two…As bad as it is
here, I have friends in Texas who can hardly say a word. It
is really bad there…
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And so when one has been excluded from participation in all of
life’s institutions, one must go outside of them.
This is one testimonial which captures what I heard from
virtually all of my respondents who attempted that most basic human
activity of protest against authority.
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- My
friend Chris had anti-war stickers on his car. He would get flipped
off driving down the road. His car got badly keyed. People would write
'fuck you' notes and slip them through a cracked window. People would
openly confront him at gas stations.
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- My friend John
staged a one-man protest against the war. People drove by flipped him
off and threw garbage at him. – Downstate IL
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- There is a painful polarization dominating this country, and it is
blinding us to the unprecedented grab for power and money that the
Republicans, united under a Teflon leader, are perpetrating on
America. It is far from
the case that all Republicans are Bushist ideologues, but even those
exceptions have been disciplined into subservience.
We must make an attempt to end this ideological civil war,
which has lost touch with reality.
We must all attempt to put our swords down, to work towards a
cease-fire. We must
funnel our passions towards open, non-combative communication across
the ideological gap. As
long as we are polarized, majorities are easily recognized, and the
tyranny of the majority is inevitable.
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There is hope, I believe.
For despite the many notes I received detailing protests that
went unheard, there were also some that met with great, albeit
localized success. These
“Success Stories” will comprise the third and final installment of
this series.
- Reflections
From The Heartland Part I: A Family Affair Jesse
Lee
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- Jesse Lee is a recent graduate of Trinity College in Hartford
with a degree in Political Science and Philosophy. He works as a
paralegal in Washington, D.C. where he was born and raised. He also
volunteers with MoveOn and The Education for Peace in Iraq Center
(EPIC). He encourages your comments at kirkout79@hotmail.com.
This
article is copyright by Jesse Lee and originally
published by opednews.com but
permission is granted for reprint in print, email, blog, or web media
so long as this credit is attached.
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