(DV) Zingh: Dear George . . . Have I Told You How Much I Appreciate You?

Dear George,

I hope you don't mind if I address you familiarly, Mr. President? It seems like you've been on my mind so much these past many years that I can speak to you like an old buddy.

I want you to know, George, that despite all the derogatory things that I've said and published about you on the Web, I really, really do appreciate what you've done for me. So, I'd like to express my sincere thanks to you, publicly, just this once.

Of course, just because I appreciate what you've done for me, please do not misunderstand me. You're still an ignoramus, a liar and a thug. But I do appreciate you.

When you first were “elected” in 2000, George... well, at that time, I still thought that you were, more or less, elected... I thought of myself as a proud and politically “liberal” citizen. You know who I mean, George. I was one of those gullible, Panglossian types who got my news from the television, and who thought that the United States was the champion of democracy that could do no wrong. My glass was always half full and never half empty. I used to vote for the Democratic lesser-of-two-evils and I really thought that the Two Parties were totally different. Yes, I admit that I wore rose-colored American glasses, George; but I've grown up since then. I've gotten wiser and I've educated myself better. You know, once I was blind and now I can see, and all that. I owe it all to you, George. You have been the impulse behind my improved vision, my educational betterment.

You see, unlike your predecessors -- Republican and Democratic presidents alike -- you have absolutely no skill whatsoever concealing in silken gloves the tightly clenched iron fists of greed and power. True, your predecessors hammered their victims as viciously as you do, but they succeeded in covering their actions with a veneer of righteousness that, in those naïve days, caused me to accept the veneer as reality. Your naked power plays, by contrast, are so crass, so blatant, so transparent that you have completely shattered any illusion that what America does is for the good of its citizens and the good of the world. In short, George, you've opened my eyes, not just to your transgressions and those of your associates, but to all that preceded you, too.

You see, unlike Mr. Clinton, who, at least, purported to feel our pain while he caused so much of it, you just inflict pain without any empathy at all. It really looks like you enjoy inflicting pain and killing people and punishing anyone who crosses you. You seem to have that natural Machiavellian knack, even though you probably have never read, nor could you comprehend, the words of Machiavelli's book. And unlike your predecessors who lied so effectively while they led us into one imperial war after another, you lie very, very unskillfully. It is as though you and your associates know that you no longer need to feign any conviction or consistency in your lies; instead, you rely on the fact that most Americans simply cannot accept, simply refuse to accept the truth about what you have done and what you are doing.

The effect has been jarring, George. So jarring that you have caused me to go back and reexamine my own gullibility, my own innocence, my own mental construct of my old liberal American world. Your insensitive, heavy handed style of governance, so much like that of a Mafia don, or the tinhorn despots you are allied with, has startled me into looking more closely at how someone like you could come to power in these United States. And once I started looking more closely, George, I continued digging, searching, analyzing. Then I fell through the looking glass and tumbled deep into the wonderland of our political and economic history.

George, I frankly needed more time, more space, better sources of information, so all-consuming was the quest for truth that you launched me on. So I disconnected my television (no great loss there, I assure you!), changed my old habits and amusements, and poured my energy into study and examination of what had gone wrong for someone like you to be holding the reins of government. Thanks to you George, I also had to get beyond all those tired old media -- the New York Times, the Washington Post, the weekly news magazines, the Rupert Murdoch news holdings, the ClearChannel radio stations, the whole raft of corporate media that seem to be your cheerleaders. You also caused me to reexamine my old perceptions of the so-called “Democrats” and the “public” radio and television stations because they, too, had more and more often fallen in line with the corporate Weltanschauung that you embody. Thanks to you, George, I have finally learned what I should have learned long ago: you can't trust the Pentagon, the CIA, the FBI, any large corporation and anyone in the administration. If the Federal Reserve Board says its Black, it's probably White. If the Pentagon says its Hot, then it's probably Cold. If the CIA says its False, then it's probably True. If Wall Street says Buy, then you should Sell. If the DOJ says it's Constitutional, then it most likely is Not Constitutional.

I'm on a journey now, George, and I have you to thank for pushing me off on it. You gave me a big shove into unknown waters when you said that I'm either with you or I'm against you. You shoved me off because I am most definitely not with you. I admit that it's a little scary because I'm not certain where it all leads, George. I am certain, however, that it leads far away from the illusory world of faux democracy, deceptocracy, secret government, torture, lawlessness, economic and political degeneracy that you epitomize.

I think, George, that quite frankly you scare a lot of people. No, I'm not talking about little people like me. I think you scare the bejeezers out the mucky-mucks who own and run you, the people who bankrolled your career and who pull your puppet strings. You frighten them because they must recognize how effective you have been in startling whole masses of people like me, in the U.S. and elsewhere, into undertaking similar journeys. In short, you, George, have the capacity to single-handedly rip the veil off the 200-plus year illusion of American exceptionalism, economic aggression and exclusionary politics that has sustained our national ego for all this time. You, George, seem to have the innate ability to disillusion oh so many millions of people with our hollow economic, political and social orders so that, more than any progressive, more than any liberal, more than any revolutionary, you could actually kick out the psychic props that hold up the whole rotten edifice. Thus are you most frightening to those who desperately want to paint the smiley face back on capitalism, who want to re-clothe the iron military fist in silken gloves of “diplomacy” and who want to restore the myth that America is somehow better than everyone else. You, George, have not even bothered with the niceties of gloving your bloody hands in silk. You have not trifled with the diplomacy of manners or the perfume of noble causes. Yours is the face of raw, naked power. You have dropped the mask, George, and the face you show us is not the one that our Owners and Leaders want us to see.

Equally frightening to the Leaders and Owners and String-Pullers of our world is how effectively you have discredited most of the major institutions they rely on to command respect and obedience from all of us. By packing the Courts with right wing radicals you have denigrated the judiciary. By cozying up with fanatical religious bigots, you have undermined the respectability of the religion you profess. By claiming the power to eavesdrop, kidnap, torture, incarcerate and wage war, literally at will, you have debased the presidency and proved the need for a weaker, a more constrained Executive Branch of Government. By manipulating world financial institutions, discarding treaties willy-nilly, and force-feeding your authoritarian brand of top-down “democracy” down the throats of the unwilling, you have caused disrepute for everything that you tout.

Of course, I completely understand, George, that America is not better, or worse, than any other nation on earth. Given the same degree of power and opportunity, every civilization, every ethnicity, culture, religion, empire or nation has done, or would do the same. There is no more criminality, no more avarice, greed or corruption in our body politic or among our people -- nor any more “goodness”, charity, benevolence, wisdom, insight or piety either -- than in any other place on the face of the earth. What distinguishes the U.S. from everyone everywhere else is the current balance of political, economic and military power. We have it; others don't.

But the mere recognition that we are fundamentally no different than anyone else threatens the mythology that has stoked our hallucination for many decades. What you have therefore caused me to understand, George, is that even impeaching you is not sufficient. Replacing you with a prettier face or a nicer president or a Democratic Congress is not enough. Nostalgia for a better time is not enough. George, what you have taught me is that there really is nothing to be nostalgic for.

That doesn't mean that we shouldn't cherry-pick the best from whatever any culture or economic or political theory can offer. It simply means that we have to look forward to creating new and better systems, rather than just dumping your kind and returning to a mistaken nostalgia for a past that never was. This is a troubling understanding, but thanks to you, George, many people now think that way.

By the way, George, particularly as to you, I have a theory, why your poll numbers have plummeted. Please don't take this as a personal attack, because I really am grateful to you. You see, it's really not what you do that alienates even your erstwhile supporters, but how you do it.

Surely, in the past, many American presidents and politicians and businessmen have instigated unjust wars and wreaked havoc among the downtrodden in order to line their own pockets and protect their real constituents' economic interests. Many Americans could tolerate the injustice of what was done in their names because these past acts were often deftly carried out and the protocols of social illusion were respected. Moreover, many Americans perceived that they benefited from these injustices, albeit indirectly, and, in some instances, they even shared the biases that blessed the travesties that were committed.

But you're something special, George. You're inept. A bungler. An incompetent. You have no finesse. Indeed, throughout history, many have shown themselves quite willing to accept the evils dished out by their leaders. But incompetence -- whoa Bessie! -- that is the one unforgivable sin. For many of your own disappointed supporters, including the country's legitimately worried power elite, you should be impeached for your bungling and ineptitude, if not for the actual deeds that you have done. America hates a loser, George, and you're a loser.

As for me, personally, I'd like you to stay on in office, George. I don't want you to be impeached. I would like it if you fulfilled the remaining three agonizingly long years of your presidency (if only we could keep your twitchy fingers off the nuclear button and prevent you from attacking anyone else). A few more years of you -- should the world survive them -- and some of the critically important lessons for change might actually take root. For you have become such a wonderful enzyme, such a potent catalyst for our collective political and economic education, that were you out of office and some pretty-faced, old style, more adroit political deceiver in charge, then we might all start to slip back into our dreamland; we might all backslide into complacency, slip back into the hallucination and politically degenerate state of our pre-Bush years.

So be assured, George: I, we, indeed the whole world appreciates what you are doing for us. You are still an ignoramus, a liar and a thug, but we appreciate you.

Zbignew Zingh can be reached at: Zbig@ersarts.com. This Article is CopyLeft, and free to distribute, reprint, repost, sing at a recital, spray paint, scribble in a toilet stall, etc. to your heart’s content, with proper author citation. Find out more about Copyleft and read other great articles at: www.ersarts.com. copyleft 2006