In the days before Watergate, the American people were accustomed to believing everything they were told by their government. Of course, Americans may not have agreed with the policy of that government, but they always assumed that what they were being told was the truth. It wasn’t really until the Vietnam War and the Watergate scandal that the American people realized that their government was not above lying to them.
In the period of time since then, the evidence presented to us showed more and more that the White House and Congress had no problems with lying and as such were not going to stop. Thus, there was no reason for us as a people to change our perception.
Yet change it has. Instead of becoming more cynical about it, Americans at large have actually become more trusting of the government, especially with the Republican government currently in power. While there are those who do not trust Bush and his cronies in the White House and Congress, they are definitely in the minority. This blind trust of Bush by the majority of the American people have led them to denounce any evidence of errors being performed by this administration. The evidence is denounced as being manufactured, and the purveyors are portrayed as communists, or worse, liberals.
I support the candidacy of the Democratic former Governor Howard Dean. While there are some positions of his that I do not necessarily support, I see in him the greatest possibility of pointing out all the errors “accomplished” by the Bush administration in the past three years. The Democratic Party as a whole cannot be trusted to show just how much of a mess this country has become since the younger Bush has come into office.
What we liberals and moderates need to do, as responsible Americans, is to realize just what Bush has done to destroy this country. Once we have done that, it is morally imperative for us to go out to the uninformed masses of Americans and show them the truth, whether they like to hear it or not.
They must know about the lies the Bush administration has spread concerning the “threat” and later war in Iraq. They must know that the current economic slump was in fact accelerated by the great Bush tax cut, not halted by it, and that anything said to the contrary is a lie. The only people who benefited from the tax cut are the rich and those businessmen who are continuing to throw out American jobs to line their own coffers.
Let us not forget the Bush education plan, “Leave No Child Behind,” which is in fact based upon the plan of a corrupt Houston school district administration. The low high school dropout rate which drove the White House to emulate it in their education plan was actually caused by the transfer of students to other school districts before they dropped out, causing their own dropout rate to plummet dramatically. This particular example makes one wonder whether or not Bush knew the truth about Houston and deliberately lied to the American people.
I would also like to add that it is disheartening to see the citizens of our country have such a blatant disregard for our common history. The refusal of the U.S. government and the upper classes to inform the general population of its true intentions is nothing new in American history.
The best example that comes to mind is in the late 19th and early 20th century, during which the upper classes both ruthlessly exploited the lower classes to increase their own power, and engaged in propaganda and ultimately war with Spain over a bogus threat to American security.
Another good example is during the initial years of the Great Depression, in which President Hoover had no compunction in allowing those who were suffering continue to suffer. His plan of trickle-down economics was designed with the explicit intent of gaining more money for the business world that had caused the depression, while doing nothing to relieve those languishing in poverty and unemployment. The drive of industrial age business leaders and the plan of trickle-down economics have ominous similarities in today’s world of economic slowdown and cutbacks in safety and environmental regulation.
Am I alone to think it’s alarming that the U.S. government and the upper classes are repeating those policies which caused so much damage in the past? Isn’t it also alarming that the American people do not recognize that we have been repeating the mistakes of the past, even though the proof that we are doing so is sitting right in front of our noses?
I welcome the chance to vote for Howard Dean in a presidential election. We Americans need the debate Dean’s presence would bring. In addition, we as Americans need to see the truth and nothing but, something that has been denied us since the day Bush was sworn into office. It is up to us to help ourselves.
Newmark can be reached at mnewmark@campustimes.org.
