What Would We Do Without Bush?

[davidswanson]

By David Swanson

Have you ever met one of those remaining 15 or 20 percent of Americans who have the kool-aid IV in their arms, and they ask you "Well, what would you DO then?" meaning "If you're so opposed to recklessly wasting our grandchildren's money slaughtering innocent people around the world, what exactly would you do instead? What would you do to make sure we bombed the evil people who need bombing, other than bombing them?" The question also takes a more directly answerable form when someone asks "Why are you so negative, criticizing our Commander in Chief all the time? What will you do when you don't have Bush and Cheney around to attack anymore?"

Well, of course, we'll criticize McCain or Obama, or maybe even praise something if Obama does something we approve of (which seems rather unlikely with McCain). Democracy requires eternal vigilance, and citizens of a democracy do NOT have a "commander in chief." There is no sharp line between criticizing someone for not doing what we want, and urging them to do what we want. Still, what we want exactly is a fair question. We claim that Bush's mayberry machiavellis have made us less safe, less free, and less prosperous, but what would we do if we were running the country or had people who represented us running it?

One of the best outlines I've seen of a foreign policy that makes sense and could make us all more safe, more free, and more prosperous can be found in a short new book called "Re-Engage: America and the World After Bush," by Helena Cobban. Like Thomas Jefferson and most people with useful ideas for the world, Cobban lives in Charlottesville, Virginia, where we work together on the Charlottesville Center for Peace and Justice. She also writes for the Christian Science Monitor and works in Washington, D.C., for the Friends Committee on National Legislation. That's Friends as in Quakers.

Cobban explains that addressing problems with only the tool of military force often makes it impossible to address the roots of the problems. She advocates a policy of "inclusion," which involves repairing relationships with the rest of the world, recommitting to international laws and organizations, and treating security as something broader than just protection from bombs. Cobban addresses issues of economics, poverty, immigration, and terrorism, and makes clear that these issues cannot be separated. China, which has loaned the United States the money to occupy Iraq, plays a major role in Cobban's picture of world relations in the coming years.

Cobban attempts to give Americans some context:

"Perhaps the longtime big picture security our country enjoyed prior to 9-11 meant the attacks of that day caused a particularly deep shock to our national psyche. The attacks were outrageous. They capriciously inflicted death, mutilation, and the loss of loved ones on scores of thousands of Americans (and citizens of other countries present on that day, too). However, the trauma of those attacks should not obscure the fact that, at the big picture level, our country remains extremely secure -- especially if we compare our situation with that of most other countries around the world. Remembering this can give us the self-confidence we need to deal rationally and effectively with the other security challenges we face."

Cobban tackles the question of addressing terrorism:

"We need to stay vigilant about securing airplanes, along with other potentially vulnerable facilities such as fuel depots, nuclear power plants, and emergency communications. Our main focus, though, should be to work with others to prevent terror networks from becoming entrenched and beyond the reach of law in the first place, as Al-Qaeda did in Afghanistan in the 1990s and as many terror groups did in Iraq after 2003.... One essential step in this campaign is to prevent the collapse of state institutions in deeply stressed and vulnerable countries...."

Cobban lays out a strategy that includes politics, police work (rather than military), peace negotiations, and consistency (rather than hypocrisy). She addresses as central concerns: global inequality, absence of human rights, climate change, and global power shifts that will end the American empire. How, Cobban asks, "should Americans deal with being a former uberpower?"

"First, there is no cause for alarm. I grew up in a Britain that, at the time, seemed to be losing its power in the world rapidly. Every month, it seemed, an additional nation in Africa or Asia was gaining its independence from the bonds of empire. But ... withdrawing from the former empire turned out to be good for Britain - as it was for all the other European powers that decolonized in those years. Being a former uberpower will probably be just as good for Americans. It will enable us to deal in a far more friendly and constructive fashion with the rest of the world's peoples than we can ever hope to do if we try to retain strong U.S. 'control' over everything that happens in the world."

This is a positive vision in every sense. We can actually be better off by changing course, and we can help others around the world to do the same by working with them as equals, equals who can all be better off than the "homeland" of the empire used to be.

[izquierdista]

1. The 15 to 20 percenters

They are a pitiful bunch with the ability to be wrong about on almost every subject of importance that they come across. On 9/10, they would gladly have destroyed New York City as the worst that modern liberal society had to offer, but just a day later, they were wounded deeply and in solidarity with all Americans defending New York. They have the decision making ability of a toddler, one second holding onto something bright and shiny with a deathgrip and minutes later discarding it without a care.

They don't gather information to make decisions so much as grab onto something that fills an emotional need at the time. A need to feel like they are one of the "good guys"; that they are punishing the "bad guys" and that some authority figure approves of them.

To bring them around required the same patience as dealing with a toddler who has not learned how to reason. They will always need an enemy to fight, so give them an abstract one and tell them they are winning. Right now, they are fighting "terror", but it could just as easily be "pollution" or "global warming" or "hunger".

They won't have any recollection of Dubya or Cheney after they are gone from the stage. They live in their greedy, selfish moment (which is why they are so easily deceived by Republicans) and can't see past this trinket, the next toy they want to buy. The only way to deal effectively with them is by strict behaviorism -- for doing task A, you get reward B. Chain two tasks together or delay the reward, and you have lost them. They will go back to listening to Limbaugh and nodding in agreement saying "ditto".

Right now there is a big opportunity to haul them en masse away from the Repubs. They were told all they had to do was fill out papers and they could get a mortgage; now the bank is foreclosing on them. They were told that their son could get money for college; now he requires 24 hour nursing care. But they can't be blamed for making those decisions; they are oblivious to any blame. They need to be told that there is a new way coming; that there is a new way to act and then they will get what they need. They can't just vote for the white guy, because he is wearing the black hat. They will need to vote for the black guy with the white hat.

[babylonsister]

2. Heave a huge sigh of relief? That book sounds really good. Diplomacy?

There's an idea! Thanks, David.

[Faygo Kid]

3. I still have a couple of "friends" who are pro-Bush.

Doesn't matter what you say to them. They simply DO NOT question GOP authority - and shockingly, they are both lawyers.

One other multi-millionaire "friend" dropped off the radar entirely in 2005. Four young sons of military age. I asked him, since he was so gung-ho about the war in Iraq, if he would allow any of his sons to enlist. He said no. I asked him if he would be willing to pay the taxes necessary to fund the war without expanding the deficit. He said no.

I haven't seem him since. He's a subdivision builder in mid-Michigan. I suspect he's seen better times than these, but I guarantee you this: He is still 100 percent pro-Bush.

These are the people who will be the first to flock to his banner when he attacks Iran, and seeks to silence dissent. Scary.

[oxbow]

4. Those 20 percenters are pretty entrenched in their ways.

You'd have to be to still support these guys at this stage, where the farce has grown this thin. I'd rather 're-engage' the rest of the country. Y'know, the sane part?

[ToughLuck]

5. What would we do without Bush? ..we would have a democracy.

[BrklynLib at work]

6. K & R..and forwarding to everyone I know.

[liberal N proud]

7. I think I know all 15 or 20 percent of the remaining bu$h lovers

But on to what would we do without him?

Gore would be President, the economy would most likely still be strong and gas prices would probably still be less than $2.00/gal.

The world would still look at America as the model Democracy. We would not be hated around the globe and most of all, I absolutely doubt that more than 4000 or our young would have died for a lie.

And of course we would have held Gore accountable these last 8 years. That is what the Republicons don't understand, how the left doesn't tolerate bull shit from anyone including it's own.

We would all be much safer if we didn't have bu$h and I am sure our level of safety will rise the minute that asshole is in jail.