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SHADOW BOXING
In
boxing, it is said that, to beat the champ, you have to knock him out.
Democrats, independents, Greens, Libertarians, and Republicans with
even a sliver of common sense and decency would do well to heed this
adage. Most importantly, they
must recognize the need to take the absolute opposite approach in 2004, if
they want to stand a chance. To
even lay a glove on the current titleholder is a costly mistake.
This
is not to condone the actions of the head of the present administration;
just recognition that he is President in title only.
In the coming election, attacking Bush the person will be both
ineffective and irrelevant. And
that is just the way “they” like it.
They, of course, being the powerful few that direct the Republican
Party to do their bidding. Their
names do not appear on any ballot and will not be found on campaign
literature. However, they are
the pipers to whose tune he steps.
Clearly,
the draft dodging, C-student, legacy can and does offer little to US
policy. The
cheerleader/alcoholic/drug use obfuscator has been handled and spoon-fed
since his AWOL National Guard and
failing-business-till-his-dad’s-friends-bailed-him-out days.
He was chosen and positioned to run for President because he had
name recognition, a cleaner record than the rest of the Bush clan, and
absolute loyalty to the wealthy interests that control the
"ultra-conservative" Republican wing. His qualifications were enhanced through an upbringing which
completely circumvented any actual labor, thereby sparing him the
encumbrance of any original thoughts or personal ethics.
Once he was lawyered into office by the firm of Baker, Olson,
Harris, and Scalia, he allowed “Vice”-President Cheney to open the
gates of public office to the right-wing think tanks.
He offered their canned policy as his own while reading the
speeches that were written for him. He
was the Trojan horse of the neoconservatives.
On
9/11, he was shoved into the spotlight and quite possibly medicated after
he hid from the cameras till his handlers could get his speech ready.
Really, if the President was really at risk, would he even get into
Air Force One? Since that
time, his image has been micromanaged and recreated.
Bush who cheated his way into the Texas Air National Guard became
the airman in the tailored flight suit.
Bush the C-student who would likely require coaching to beat Dan
Quayle in a game of scrabble is now touted by Dr. Rice, the only cabinet
member in history named after an oil tanker, and the rest of his cabinet
as possessing a deep and almost prescient intellect, as demonstrated to
the cameras by toting books thicker than Uncle Fahd’s wallet.
Bush the alcoholic, drunk-driving, almost-never drug abusing,
thrice-arrested criminal is now the Captain of Family Values, the defender
of the Faith in first-person contact with God.
A man so steeped in scripture and its interpretation that no mere
religious leader, including the head of his own
Episcopalian
Church, the Pope, or Archbishop Desmond Tutu, can better understand God's
five-year business plan for reshaping the world.
The
staunch advocate of states rights while Governor of Texas is now allowing
more federal control over states than any President in recent memory.
An outspoken proponent of local control of education is now
preparing to force the handover of public schools to private management
firms from Portland, Oregon to South Portland, Maine.
The candidate who ran on a platform that assailed the material and
human folly of nation building and global policing is now investing our
children's-children's (our meaning not his) money along with the lives of
innocent mothers, fathers, brothers, and sisters to do just that.
The avowed fiscal conservative is now tooling around the Ponderosa
with his side kick Lil’ Putty-Pute in a pickup while his friends and
handlers run up the greatest deficit in history.
These same patriotic Americans steadily guide the economy into a
jobless and weak recovery. After
assuring that “his” tax cuts would result in massive job creation, he
presides over an historical first, an economy 22 weeks into a recovery
that still has fewer jobs than when the recovery began.
The hero of the American worker and entrepreneur is currently using
our tax dollars and his party’s legislative power to facilitate the
increasing flow of US jobs overseas, including a bank of phone callers in
India soliciting donations to the Republican Party.
The
compassionate conservative has been coached to repeat such chilling
phrases as “pre-emptive war" and "enemy combatant" and
the administration metes out swift and terrible retribution against any
individual, group, or country that dare oppose their juggernaut.
For them or against them, what will it be?
The rejected law school applicant now treats the constitution,
treaties, law-enforcement jurisdiction, as well as local, state, national,
and international law as so much annoying clutter.
The son of the multilateral coalition builder has become the
unilateral coalition buster. A Governor whose record on education reform relied on biased
test data, reduction through redefinition, and enlarging the cracks
through which children fell emerges as the man who would leave no child
behind, except of course those whose parents didn’t have a lot of money.
Sadly, but without shame, the President of The United States has
become merely and transparently the president emeritus of the Republican
Party who is pledged to increase the party’s strength by any means
necessary, other oaths (and that “will of the people” bologna) be
damned.
So
many things about this man’s installation and “rebirth” are
repugnant and vile. As
demonstrated here, he arouses passionate opposition. This is what they are counting on. Such is the wisdom and craft of the image-makers behind the
throne. They have succeeded
in marketing the President to the US (most of whom get their
"news" from a nightly cocktail made with one part talk radio,
one part Murdock newspaper, and two parts Fox infomercial, spun not
stirred) as a lovable and plain-spoken Texas lawman come to rid this here
town of anyone he would likely misidentify as an Islamist or Terrorite.
Along with that tin star, he packs a revolver loaded by his speech
team with deadly accurate sound bites and catch phrases.
In this movie, the less-evolved redskin savage evildoers are simply
replaced with left-leaning liberal evildoers.
The
down-on-the-ranch tough guy is humble and God-fearing.
He has experienced Lamarckian “evolution” into a relentless and
resolute leader delivering passion-less English as a second language
speeches scripted to instill hate and fear.
He may seem out of touch with the pesky details of running the
largest military and economy in the world, preferring instead to spend his
time back on the ranch, clearing trails of pesky scrub that the servants
must have missed. Gol’ dang
it, we love him anyhow.
There
it is. That's the problem.
When anyone questions or criticizes the policies channeled through
this administration, government spokespersons, complicit talk show hosts
(not otherwise engaged in besmirching the reputations of African-American
athletes), or corporate columnists immediately spin it as a personal
assault on Bush himself. Callers
are asked why they "hate Bush so much" or why they are so
frustrated by his “success” that they will stop at nothing to bring
him down. He is insulated
from responsibility, yet his persona insulates and provides cover for the
administration-for-hire’s actions.
Candidates and others opposed to the government's current direction
away from helping Americans make a better tomorrow need to attack the
policies directly and avoid the temptation to involve the man, as easy and
deserved as that may be. Truly,
there are probably few people in the administration that have less power
than he does. Arguably,
Grover Norquist, William Kristol, and Rupert Murdock have more influence
by email than he does from the Oval Office.
However, his face is the one lit by the hundred thousand dollar
stage lights and pictured aboard the hijacked aircraft carrier by cameras
strategically positioned to avoid showing the fast-approaching shoreline.
As
difficult as it may be, this man should be treated as the distraction he
has been positioned to be. He should be ignored and his name not even mentioned.
Policies and their impact on people should be stressed.
Personal attacks should be avoided at all cost.
Clearly, it is not the easy way.
Even more clearly, it is the only way.
The long and difficult task of returning the power of
self-governance to the hard working and deserving people of this country
cannot begin until he is removed from office.
All recovery begins with a difficult first step.
As a nation drunk on fear and hate like so much Halliburton Ale and
Carlyle Stout, we have turned to a false-prophet for protection, the
critical and initial act in the creation of a tyrant.
As in Plato’s cave, this one man is really a shadow cast by the
hands of power. Only when we
turn away from the shadow and recognize to whom the profits from our
losses of industry, freedom, and life flow, can we begin again to secure
the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.
Christopher
Scott c_scott1@comcast.net
Bio:
For the past six years, I have served as an
administrator in a high school located in the northwest suburbs of
Chicago. The school has an
incredibly diverse population, both in terms of race and ethnicity as well
as socioeconomic status and family structure.
I have had an opportunity to work with many families, social
service and law enforcement agencies, and educational organizations.
Prior to my current role, I taught sciences at another high school
in the district. Other
teaching experiences included both public and private schools.
During a six-year hiatus from education, I earned a
Master of Public Health degree in Environmental and Occupational Health.
I worked for four years at the Chicago office of an international
consulting firm. I was rated
highly by clients and peers in technical work and project management, as
well as coordinating professional development and designing training.
However, I returned to teaching to reconnect with providing
services directly to people, rather than long days dealing with chemical
data and legal/technical arguments. I
managed to clarify my personal and professional mission statement as
"directly helping people get from where they are to where they want
to be, which may include identify one or both and the route in
between".
I also have a Master of Social Work degree as
well as an uncounted number of courses that range from microbiology to
human relations. Over time,
my ravenous appetite for reading has moved steadily from a varied diet
that included fiction and technology to one based solely on biographies
and nonfiction works regarding social and political issues.
I find nothing more depressing than finishing a good book.
With access to the Internet, I have replaced my subscriptions to
local papers with spending late-night hours (once the kids are in bed)
reading newspaper and magazine articles from across the country and around
the world.
I live with my wife and two children, leaving for work
well before the sun goes up and returning often after it has gone down
again. Although I never miss
the opportunity to help my own or the neighborhood kids catch insects or
understand how a small motor works, I credit my wife, the most organized
and thorough person I have ever met and my kids with teaching me far more
than I have taught them. I
watch all the kids ride around and around the cul-de-sac and wonder what
variables have combined to place them (us) in a safe, clean neighborhood
while other children find themselves living in danger and despair. |
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