Where are We Headed?

I was recently reading an Op-Ed in the Washington post (by David Broder, I believe) that, among other things, harkened back to April 4, 1968 and a certain speech that was proffered in response to the shocking events of that day. Matters of race have always been a haunting concern of mine, which is odd considering my upbringing; the relatively monochromatic environment of my youth. It seems to me that the greatest amount of tension in this world derives from distrust between those of differing race and/or differing religious beliefs. There will always be differences between peoples and nations but it is on us, each of us, to make the choice as to how we respond to these differences. We are now fighting a costly war over those very differences. And to what end? To what fucking end?

http://www.americanrhetoric.com/mp3clips/politicalspeeches/
rfkonmlkdeath0ttuu.mp3

We are fighting here at home as well over the rights that inconveniently provide restrictions to the prerogatives of the executive branch. In the name of the War on Terror, this administration has carefully, with laser precision, distmantled many of the safeguards that have prevented this country from sliding backwards into the old familiar realm of despotism and totalitarian rule. Of the many transgressions, the warrantless wiretapping program was recently address by Federal Judge Taylor who wrote:

“It was never the intent of the framers to give the president such unfettered control, particularly when his actions blatantly disregard the parameters clearly enumerated in the Bill of Rights."

Bush responded to this ruling in the following fashion:

Those in favor is this decision "simply do not understand the nature of the world in which we live."

Bush's world is increasingly being recognized as one of skewed concepts, fear-mongering and echo-chamber policy decisions. George Bush does not consider anything. He acts. He grabs his gun and shoots at the first thing that looks suspicious. Some people would hail this as heroism. These are the same people that feel that NASCAR is the height of Western Civilisation and that anyone who is not a gun-toting white guy is clearly inferior. Most, I think, would just consider it foolhardy and dangerous.

In the final analysis, I believe that virtually no one truly understands the nature of the Bush World that all of us have been forced to occupy since the year 2000, even Bush himself. He is a spoiled brat in a grown-up, graying man's body. He wants to do what he wants, when he wants, how he wants. His patrician-paternal pangs of twisted instinct give him the false confidence to say he knows what's best. Mercifully, we have a constitution that bars him from being the last word on that and most other scores. It is my strong belief that George W. Bush is a study in what it means to be a terrible leader.

In contrast, Robert Kennedy gave the above linked speech of hope, against the advice of the police and his associates, in a ghetto in Indianapolis on the night Martin Luther King Jr. was murdered. He recognized a time of horrific strife that could lead to greater division and ill will and encouraged strength, love, prayer and optimism. George Bush would have highlighted the negative, tossed out platitudes about getting the men who did the deed and stated that this manner of evil is merely the world we live in. I've always admired RFK far more than any other public figure in recent times, and, stumbling across this passage I was reminded, starkly, as to why. I don't know about you, but I refuse to give up hope that this world, in these times, can be so much more than a prison made for us by those who would try to frighten us or those who would capitalize on that fear.

There is a better way.

I refuse to live in George W. Bush's world of doom. His terrifying words, following the striking down of the secret NSA wiretapping program by a Federal Judge as unconstitutional, are the words of a coward. They are the words of man who does not see that we have a choice today as to how we solve our problems. George W. Bush will never recognize what RFK surely did: We choose the kind of world we live in through our actions.