[Source: http://www.regressiveantidote.net/Articles/Getting_Past_Oh.html ]
"Why Americans Misunderestimate the Depravity of the President They Hate
Most Americans have long ago now reached two conclusions about their government. First, that George W. Bush is an incompetent president with, additionally, a temperament ill-suited to the job. And second, that his grand project – the invasion of Iraq – was a major mistake.
Both these conclusions are absolutely incorrect. But only by omission. They are, in fact, quite accurate as far as they go – it’s just that they don’t go nearly far enough.
Bush is incompetent and Iraq is likely the greatest foreign policy blunder in two-plus centuries of American history. But to say that – and particularly to say that alone – does not truly do justice to either disaster, Bush or his war. The truth about this president and his motives for war are far, far uglier than the words ‘incompetence’ or ‘mistake’ imply.
But getting to that requires of American citizens several attributes which have been, shall we say, in something less than great abundance of late. It requires historical background, factual knowledge, a motivation to understand, and the wisdom that results from the combination of all of these. And it requires a substantial degree of courage to go where the facts lead.
Most Americans lack a large degree of each of these, let alone the requisite combination of all of them. As such, this much reviled president is perceived as ‘merely’ incompetent and error-prone. Would that he and his actions were actually so benign. It would be a much better world. In fact, they are far more deeply pernicious than Americans are willing to let themselves understand. One way to appreciate the extent of American ‘ostriching’ is by doing a bit of comparative analysis.
It is a curious and telling fact that Europeans figured out Bush far before his own constituents did. There are two reasons for that. One is that they were less frightened than we were. Not that they’re necessarily braver than Americans in general, but they’ve had more experience of terrorism in the past, and we were just hit badly – they weren’t. Americans were therefore a fearful people in 2002 and 2003, looking for leadership and reassurance. But looking, as it would turn out, in all the wrong places.
The other thing is that Europeans have a more mature politics than Americans do – let’s just come right out and say it. You can see it in their attitudes toward sexuality, drugs and crime. You can see it in their wholesale rejection of nationalism and religion, humanity’s worst mythologies and twin curses, wherever they arise. You can see it in their rejection of the juvenile selfishness that characterizes the American style of raw capitalism and obsessive consumption. And you can see it, especially, in their foreign policies and attitudes toward war. In large part because they so heavily and repeatedly paid the consequences of their own prior immaturity about war, their understanding and approach to it today are far more advanced than that of Americans.
It is not that Europeans are cowards or unreliable allies, as American neoconservatives love to paint them whenever the folks on the other side of the Pond get in the way of the raw exercise of American imperial power. They are neither. What they are, rather, is sober. They understand that war is sometimes a necessary resort, but that it must always be the very last resort, and only ever contemplated when the alternative is considerably more horrible (which is to say, given the horror of war, very rarely indeed). They know this all to well, because they spent centuries living it up close and personal. As someone once remarked, “Europeans know that anything could happen there, because everything has happened there”. They have learned through the hard experiences of Flanders and Stalingrad and Normandy and Dresden and Dachau the stakes involved when the public is cavalier or even less than vigilant about holding back the dogs of war. Americans have some sense of this after the twin disasters of Vietnam and Iraq, but both of these were fought elsewhere. And, however ugly they were, by far and away the vast majority of the dying was done by brown people living on other shores. Not pleasant, to be sure, but not catastrophic at home. We have never experienced Berlin, 1945.
snip.....
And so it is that Americans continue through their day, oblivious – by self design – to the magnitude of the evil that has been visited upon them. But, ironically, this is not remedy at all. Obliviousness to victimization by government is no excuse, especially in a democracy, and especially when other innocent people are much greater victims, to the tune of about a million in number.
To a very large extent, those who would ignore the crimes committed in their name – crimes they have the power to stop – become criminals themselves."
"Why Americans Misunderestimate the Depravity of the President They Hate
Most Americans have long ago now reached two conclusions about their government. First, that George W. Bush is an incompetent president with, additionally, a temperament ill-suited to the job. And second, that his grand project – the invasion of Iraq – was a major mistake.
Both these conclusions are absolutely incorrect. But only by omission. They are, in fact, quite accurate as far as they go – it’s just that they don’t go nearly far enough.
Bush is incompetent and Iraq is likely the greatest foreign policy blunder in two-plus centuries of American history. But to say that – and particularly to say that alone – does not truly do justice to either disaster, Bush or his war. The truth about this president and his motives for war are far, far uglier than the words ‘incompetence’ or ‘mistake’ imply.
But getting to that requires of American citizens several attributes which have been, shall we say, in something less than great abundance of late. It requires historical background, factual knowledge, a motivation to understand, and the wisdom that results from the combination of all of these. And it requires a substantial degree of courage to go where the facts lead.
Most Americans lack a large degree of each of these, let alone the requisite combination of all of them. As such, this much reviled president is perceived as ‘merely’ incompetent and error-prone. Would that he and his actions were actually so benign. It would be a much better world. In fact, they are far more deeply pernicious than Americans are willing to let themselves understand. One way to appreciate the extent of American ‘ostriching’ is by doing a bit of comparative analysis.
It is a curious and telling fact that Europeans figured out Bush far before his own constituents did. There are two reasons for that. One is that they were less frightened than we were. Not that they’re necessarily braver than Americans in general, but they’ve had more experience of terrorism in the past, and we were just hit badly – they weren’t. Americans were therefore a fearful people in 2002 and 2003, looking for leadership and reassurance. But looking, as it would turn out, in all the wrong places.
The other thing is that Europeans have a more mature politics than Americans do – let’s just come right out and say it. You can see it in their attitudes toward sexuality, drugs and crime. You can see it in their wholesale rejection of nationalism and religion, humanity’s worst mythologies and twin curses, wherever they arise. You can see it in their rejection of the juvenile selfishness that characterizes the American style of raw capitalism and obsessive consumption. And you can see it, especially, in their foreign policies and attitudes toward war. In large part because they so heavily and repeatedly paid the consequences of their own prior immaturity about war, their understanding and approach to it today are far more advanced than that of Americans.
It is not that Europeans are cowards or unreliable allies, as American neoconservatives love to paint them whenever the folks on the other side of the Pond get in the way of the raw exercise of American imperial power. They are neither. What they are, rather, is sober. They understand that war is sometimes a necessary resort, but that it must always be the very last resort, and only ever contemplated when the alternative is considerably more horrible (which is to say, given the horror of war, very rarely indeed). They know this all to well, because they spent centuries living it up close and personal. As someone once remarked, “Europeans know that anything could happen there, because everything has happened there”. They have learned through the hard experiences of Flanders and Stalingrad and Normandy and Dresden and Dachau the stakes involved when the public is cavalier or even less than vigilant about holding back the dogs of war. Americans have some sense of this after the twin disasters of Vietnam and Iraq, but both of these were fought elsewhere. And, however ugly they were, by far and away the vast majority of the dying was done by brown people living on other shores. Not pleasant, to be sure, but not catastrophic at home. We have never experienced Berlin, 1945.
snip.....
And so it is that Americans continue through their day, oblivious – by self design – to the magnitude of the evil that has been visited upon them. But, ironically, this is not remedy at all. Obliviousness to victimization by government is no excuse, especially in a democracy, and especially when other innocent people are much greater victims, to the tune of about a million in number.
To a very large extent, those who would ignore the crimes committed in their name – crimes they have the power to stop – become criminals themselves."