The Obscurantist

Adam Trueblood Commentary	Index
The Obscurantist President Bush nearly won the national vote in 2000 based in part on his reputation for plain speech and honesty. Yet in reviewing the administration’s communication with the public over the past three years, one can’t help but wonder if Bush’s carefully cultivated image of sincerity is his greatest lie of all. The Bush administration has been characterized by patterns of disinformation, dissembling, and outright deceit on a scale that seems grand even in comparison with the Nixon administration. Words are distorted, manipulated, used in ways that destroy their true meaning, leaving the democracy crippled because the voting public is separated from truth. Bush’s contempt for the truth was foreshadowed in the 2000 debates and in his inaugural address, when he delivered promises to lead the country as a uniter and compassionate conservative, and to restore “honor” to the White House. Bush’s term instead has been marked by the most divided, angry electorate since Vietnam, and his administration has corrupted even the conservative tradition upon which his principles are putatively based. Bush is not a conservative, but a radical, an extremist leading the country headlong into war, fiscal recklessness, and a sinister strategy of wealth redistribution that has nothing to do with compassion, as the wealth is being concentrated rather than dispersed. The White House has been thoroughly dishonored by the president’s lies about Iraq and repeated refusal to engage in sincere dialogue on issues ranging from WMD to terrorism threats to Abu Ghraib to his environmental policies. The White House leads not with the promised humility that Bush was so fond of evoking in 2000, but with an arrogance and abuse of power that have left the rest of the world more fearful and prone to hate the United States. As a result, all Americans are less safe both at home and abroad under the president who is so fond of glamorizing his role as guardian of national security. Following is a look at the corruption of meaning of many fundamental principles under Bush: “Freedom” Bush and his advisers are fond of repeating the word freedom as a means of obscuring their true underlying purpose and as a way of inhibiting dissent. Not many Americans would argue that freedom is not a noble goal, both for our own citizens and for the rest of the world. But what is Bush’s concept of freedom? The administration has embarked on an unprecedented worldwide effort to apprehend and, without due process, incarcerate thousands if not tens of thousands of those whom it deems to be threatening in some way. There are torture camps established in Iraq, an unlawful concentration camp at Guantanamo, a network of prison camps in Afghanistan, and at home a system of military detention devoid of traditional civil rights protections now that The Patriot Act is in effect. The president promises a rosy sounding “freedom” to the people of Iraq, yet they are subject to search and seizure by the military, abuse when apprehended, and a local government that must obey the occupying military force. “Democracy” The fundamental element of any democracy is a respect for human rights, a respect that begins with the recognition of the individual’s right to vote. Bush has shown only contempt for human rights, despite his eagerness to evoke the lofty principle of “democracy” when giving public addresses. This contempt is evident by promulgation of The Patriot Act in the US, and a general reduction of a nebulous group of insurgents, terrorists, would-be-terrorists, and assorted “evildoers” to a level that can only be described as subhuman. Bush has spoken of smoking them out, of bringing them back dead or alive; he has smirked with satisfaction in reference to the many suspected terrorists who have been disappeared or executed, and his administration has approved a general policy of extrajudicial executions. He fondly discusses bringing unsavory characters “to justice” as if he were a sheriff or cowboy shooting a mangy dog that had pulled a steak from his campfire dinner plate. “Terror” In Bush’s mind, those who oppose the US by violent means are terrorists, but the US is free to use violence and mete out destruction as it pleases in pursuit of its goals throughout the world. In supposed pursuit of “terrorists” in Iraq, the US military has done an effective job of terrorizing the population, as estimates of Iraqi civilian deaths range from several thousand to more than ten thousand. Children are killed and mutilated, villages destroyed, innocent civilians slaughtered, yet in Bush’s world this is only “justice”. Apparently “terror” that is spread by the most powerful military on earth is not terror at all. The list of distorted meanings is a very long one indeed under the Bush administration, including such obvious instances as the Patriot Act (which allows for incarceration of Americans who don’t agree with the government), the Clear Skies Initiative (which allows for more air pollution), the Healthy Forests Initiative (which allows for more logging in national forests), etc. Perhaps the most disturbing subversion in meaning is found in Bush’s concept of war and peace; in Bush’s distorted world peace now means perpetual war, and our contribution of “peace” to the world is accomplished by unleashing the full force of our military might in dominance of foreign populations. May, 2004