BUSH'S AMERICA:  THE WORLD'S LAMENT

                      Ronald E. Santoni

Having just spent part of another spring and summer  first  in England
and then in France, and having
spoken to people from  many other countries,  I cannot  refrain from
reporting  once more  some of my
observations  while there.

In short,  people overseas  cannot quite believe that a US president
and his administration could have
wreaked so much damage on their own nation and the whole world. Not one
person to whom I spoke
had a good word to say about George W. Bush. But even the  French,  for
whom Bush had replaced
French Fries with "Freedom Fries," felt sad about the plight of an
American people subjected to
undemocratic rule by a deceptive, arrogant president  and--they
thought--demoniacal advisors. At so many
levels, the alleged  "city on a hill" was becoming a symbol of
darkness, not light, and the emerging  Bush
America  has been digging its own grave. Slowly, but surely, the cost
of our war in Iraq was gradually crippling
the United States economically; and the continued hacking away of our
personal freedoms by this group of
corporation-possessed (in the name of "family values, of course!),
"America, Right or Wrong", neo-cons was
making America's claims to loving freedom either hollow, hypocritical,
words, or a laughing-stock. In addition,
my overseas discussants were at a loss to understand  how extreme
right-wing fundamentalist religion could
come to govern the direction of government in the USA? And oppose
evolution, reject the fact of global
warming, justify or ignore the killing of innocent people!   Have so
many American citizens and politicians lost
all respect for thinking, for science, for Biblical scholarship, for
individual integrity? Why aren't the American people
rebelling?, they asked.

I have to acknowledge  that I found little grounds for disagreeing with
my international interrogators. For the
last seven plus  Bush years, I have watched the United States
deteriorate as a nation. I have viewed all of the
above, and more.  For example, our inept president, far from dealing
seriously--or morally--  with the issue
of global  carbon emissions, simply pulled out of the Kyoto accord.
Further , in the name of  a "War on Terror", our
president and his sycophantic administration have violated treaties and
human decency by nurturing Guantanamo
and allowing terrorist methods to torture prisoners "suspected" of
terrorism. And, usually, before trial !
Moreover,  an ideologue-president  has systematically stacked a Supreme
Court to insure that his views
on prayer in school, the legality of abortion, censorship, school
integration, capital punishment, etc., will eventually
prevail. Bipartisanship is a word he occasionally uses but fails
drastically  to comprehend. In fact, George W. Bush
  will likely be recorded in history as the American president who most
polarized his country and the world, who
most naively  saw the world in Manichean terms --the "good guys" (
"us"--the Americans) and "bad guys"(them"--
"the Arabs/" "the Islamists"). And may I dare mention Bush's 10-year
tax cut that offers a paltry offering to the poor
and dispossessed, while putting $1.35 trillion in the coffers of the
privileged  wealthy.

It is time to listen attentively  to people around the world. It is
time for our country to  move in a new, creative
direction; to return to the principles of  democracy, kindness,
generosity, and inclusiveness on which we claim to
be founded.

Given the presidential candidates  now before us, Barack Obama is our
only presidential hope for a new day.
Although not perfect by his own admission, he will break our present
paths of self-destruction and narcissism,
and reach out  to the world in behalf of  mutual cooperation, justice,
and peace, not narrowness, national self-idolatry,
and conflict.

Obama is the WORLD'S candidate. He can restore our international
respect  Let us put  misinformation and prejudice
aside and work for this candidate of reconciliation and humaneness, not
tired militarism and corporation control.


( Ronald E.Santoni is the Maria Theresa Barney Professor of Philosophy 
Emeritus at Philosophy at Denison University
and Life Member of Clare Hall, Cambridge University)

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