We were traumatized, and I believe we have not yet recovered, from the September 11 false flag attacks, which Bush was warned were imminent by the CIA on August 6, 2001. In other words, he knew, he could have stopped it. If you believe Richard A. Clarke, the chief of counterterrorism under several administrations ending with Bush, the administration did everything it could to make sure September 11 happened. This national catastrophe was avoidable, it was intentionally inflicted on us and it’s something from which we have not healed. If I am not mistaken, we have yet to hold a national day of mourning.
That was turned into two wars, one of which came with the prisoner torture and sexual abuse scandal at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. American servicemen and women, acting in the name of the American people, paid for with our tax dollars, sodomized and tortured numerous Iraqis, grinning and flashing the thumbs-up.
I believe that this was done to taunt the Muslim world; and it was done as a form of psychological abuse and desensitization of the people seeing the images. The message was: get used to it, which shuts down our hearts; and the subliminal message was, don’t complain, because you could be next.
For a last example, there was the horribly botched response to hurricanes Katrina and Rita in the summer of 2005. The American government proved, paraphrasing the New York Times, that it is utterly incapable of taking care of its people, and we have lived with that knowledge for years. This includes the disgusting, vicious, antienvironmental policies of the Cheney-Bush administration, in a time when everyone knows that we have to take care of the planet and its fragile atmosphere.
We have now elected a president that the majority of voters seem to feel, at the very least, is a decent and capable guy. He appears to be all there; there is actual consciousness visible behind his eyes. He is capable of speaking in sentences, of doing basic arithmetic, and teaching constitutional law.
He is young enough to have a vision of the future, and to not be stuck in a militant or war-hero mentality. I believe he is qualified for the presidency in part because he was not subjected to having his spirit broken at boot camp and being forced to commit murder. His wife is his intellectual and spiritual equal, presented to us as such. I think for everyone, their young children are an exciting and genuinely welcome presence in the White House. And many of us are chuffed that a black family is moving in.
People accuse his supporters of thinking Obama is a god. You may accuse me of thinking he is a person.
We are people too, and more than we have political work to do, we have personal work to do. We need to be more introspective, and understand why we are so prone to cheering on militancy, greed, and ignorance. We need to understand why we’re so eager to be lied to. We need to understand why we are so easily manipulated. And we need to assess the many festering psychic wounds of the Cheney-Bush years, so they don’t run our lives forever.
What we have witnessed in these past few months is that finally it became easier to say “I love” than “I hate.” To me, that is encouraging.