COLUMN: The State of the Union, progessive style
Our president spoke highly of bipartisanship, securing democracy and protecting American values during the State of the Union address last week. Conversely, he strongly condemned isolationism, growing tyranny in the world and Iran, where he claims the clerical elite isolate and repress their people. The only thing I could disagree with the man on is his claim that by abandoning Iraq, we would be abandoning our values and would bring the conflict to our shores.
I don’t like the word “abandon”. When you put it in such simple terms, it makes it sound like dumping an infant in the dumpster and walking away. A few inescapable conclusions: Iraq was pre-emptively invaded for reasons that never panned out (aka lies), and people want us gone, and by people I mean Iraq, America and the global community. There is probably only one group that is happy with our presence, and it is the leadership behind terrorist organizations who’ve hit recruitment pay dirt. Also, we abandoned our values when we invaded the country under false pretenses. As a misled populace, the fault of that lies mostly upon our nation’s leadership, but that doesn’t make us any less responsible to put an end to it.
But back to our president’s statements I agreed with, bipartisan cooperation is a wonderful thing. No one person should entirely align themselves exclusively with one party. Ideas can come from both sides, and it’s important to not reject proposals simply out of party loyalties. While I will sing the endless praise of progressives, Democrats do not have a clean record by any means. I’ll say it again: Parties are born and parties eventually die, and over their lifetime their ideologies, values and intentions evolve rapidly, but the dichotomy between conservatives and progressives has always been there.
If only bipartisan cooperation were discussed back when Republicans controlled all three branches of government instead of now with a Democratically led Congress and an ever-unpopular administration… I wish I could credit this administration with the bipartisan cooperation idea instead of the Democrats in Congress who boldly announced it as soon as they took control (we might be sore losers, but we are ultimately gracious winners).
But I’ll move on. Fighting against tyranny for the cause of democracy is a meritorious goal, and I am glad it played such a huge role in Bush’s address. But I think you’ll all agree that before going the extra mile (invading and overthrowing a despotic government), we should work on democracy and human rights at home. Roll back the misnamed Patriot Act and all of its civil rights violations-no more spying on the law-abiding American citizenry without due process of law.
The clerical elite Bush accused of repressing citizens, while a concern, can be found outside of Iran too. In recent years a different breed of religious fundamentalism has taken a firm grip on American politics that also meddles in the personal lives of people who fanatical faith groups dislike.
And if Bush wants to justify invading Iraq by calling his opponents isolationists, he’s going to have to try selling that elsewhere, because it’s getting harder and harder to buy into his lies.
The irony behind trying to spread democracy tyrannically doesn’t escape me. There are ways to encourage the spread of peace and democracy without going to war and setting up martial law. And for the record, in regards to Iraq: There were no connections to 9/11, no weapons of mass destruction, nor are we winning. It might be easy to buy into the lies again, but don’t. To sum it up, I’ll quote Bush himself, “Fool me once, shame on – shame on you. Fool me – you can’t get fooled again.”
Class dismissed.
Matthew Blackham is a junior majoring in sociology. Comments can be sent to matblackham@cc.usu.edu.