When life imitates art
Bruce Olin
By PAULYNN PAREDES SICby Paulynn Paredes SicamB
http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/NewsStory.aspx?section=Opinion&OID=62659y PAULYNN
PAREDES SICAM
t's a terrorists' dream scenario. Never could we imagine an America so
disliked by so many. Never has there been an American president so scorned
by his peers, so hated in the world.
My brother in Florida said last week that he and his wife decided to vote
early for the November 2 presidential election. After lining up for three
and a half hours to cast their ballots, he wrote his siblings in an e-mail,
"I hope our votes are counted."
Although Florida did earn its bad reputation for dubious electoral practices
during the 2000 elections, my brother's expressed fear still sounded
strange, coming as it did from a citizen of the land of the free. After all,
hasn't America been preaching to us and the rest of the world about the
values of democracy and good governance? Hasn't America been bringing the
good news about free elections even to such unstable places like Afghanistan
and Iraq?
But my brother's fear is real. With so many first-time voters who registered
to weigh in for this first truly ideological battle for control of the US
homeland between liberals and conservatives, the stakes have never been
higher. America is today truly divided along ideological lines and people
are making sure their sentiments are heard. And the Republicans, who are
expected to move heaven and earth to remain in power for the next four
years, have already shown how the combination of a governor-brother, a
compliant electoral commission and a friendly Supreme Court can be counted
on to ensure their victory in a closely contested election.
The America of today-the government, that is-is light years away from the
America we grew up with. To the world, the benign and inspiring faces of the
"leaders of the free world" like Dwight Eisenhower, John Kennedy, Jimmy
Carter, Bill Clinton, and even Ronald Reagan (bless his benighted soul) have
been replaced by the sniggering, contemptuous countenance of George W. Bush.
Gone is the concern we once felt America had for the welfare of all peoples.
In its place is the contempt that George W. Bush has expressed over and over
in his words and deeds for the world outside the US of A. This is a man who
has made a career out of making no one who is not an American Republican
feel good about America.
Far from being the statesman we expect the leader of the most powerful
country in the world to be, he has divided his country, not to mention the
world, into those who are with him and those who are against him. Instead of
trying to make friends and influence other world leaders who may disagree
with him, he intimidates the weak into submission and tries to bamboozle the
strong into supporting his wrong-headed foreign policies and lining up with
his war against terror.
A unifying president and world leader, George W. Bush is not. After the
tragedy of 9/11, instead of building on the sympathy of the world over the
terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, he quickly
alienated even his natural allies by ignoring their counsel, subverting the
United Nations and mounting a full-scale war against Iraq in search of
nonexistent weapons of mass destruction.
Perhaps because it read too much like pulp fiction, the American people were
not so quick to pick up on what the world already knew about George W.
Bush-that he was an incompetent leader unduly influenced by a cabal of
neoconservatives who are not above destroying the world order if that is
what it will take to push forward their economic and political agendas. But
four years, several wars, thousands of lives lost and many other
devastatingly wrong decisions later, it looks like life has imitated cheap
art too well.
The outcome is a terrorists' dream scenario. Never could we imagine an
America so disliked by so many. Never has there been an American president
so scorned by his peers, so hated in the world. To the half of the world
that he has victimized, Bush is the enemy in their own war against terror.
To them, Bush has become what Osama bin Laden is to the non-Muslim world. A
Bush victory would be great for Osama bin Laden.
If the world could vote, the US presidential elections would not be the
cliffhanger that it has become. John Kerry would sweep the polls, and the
entire planet could expect to be better for the change in leadership. But
the world doesn't get a vote, the importance of this national election to
the world notwithstanding and from the surveys of American voters, it looks
like over there, he can probably still fool half of the people most of the
time. So George W. Bush could still win, in spite of his having monumentally
failed most of the American people most of the time.
Tragic as it would be for the world if George W. Bush were to lead America
for another four years, it would be worse for America itself. Besides the
lies, the misgovernance and the loss of countless of their young men and
women in a war they don't understand, just think of what it would be like
being an American in the world that is becoming increasingly anti-American
brought about by the policies of George W. Bush.
With life imitating art so closely in the US, thinking Americans know things
won't get better for them or for the world with four more years of George W.
Bush. So I join my Florida-based brother in hoping and praying that his and
all the other votes for freedom, fairness, truth and justice-great values
the America we know has always stood for-are counted.
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