Administration pretends it can ignore public
Robert Jensen
School of Journalism
University of Texas
Austin, TX 78712
work: (512) 471-1990
fax: (512) 471-7979
rjensen@uts.cc.utexas.edu
copyright Robert Jensen and Rahul Mahajan 2003
Dallas Morning News, February 18, 2002, p. A-15. Also posted on ZNet, Counterpunch and Common Dreams web site.
by Robert Jensen and Rahul Mahajan
On Saturday (Feb. 15), we stood on the
Capitol steps in Austin, Texas -- across the street from the governor's mansion
where George W. Bush once lived -- and spoke to 10,000 Texans who had gathered
to reject Bush's mad rush to war in Iraq.
The next morning we watched National
Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice explain on a talk show why the views of those
10,000 people -- and hundreds of thousands more across the United States, and
millions more around the world who rallied and marched against a war -- don't
really matter.
At first glance Rice seems right; increasingly public opinion has little to do with public policy, which is probably why Americans feel so alienated from politics.
In the past decade, the institutions
that govern our lives have grown more unaccountable and remote. Take a crucial
issue such as corporate power. Public outrage over Enron and similar scandals
has been wide and deep. On the eve of the 2000 election, a Business Week survey
showed that nearly three-quarters of Americans said business has gained too much
power over too many aspects of their lives. The public would like to see
corporate power curbed, yet politicians -- Republicans and Democrats -- take no
serious action.
Of all the public policy issues, none
seems as remote and beyond citizen influence as foreign policy. Even though
opposition to U.S. wars persisted throughout the 1990s, organized protest
dwindled as people begin to feel powerless.
In the past six months that trend has
dramatically reversed, for several reasons.
First, after Sept. 11, 2001, everyone
sees that foreign policy directly affects us at home; there is no denying that
U.S. actions in the Middle East have helped fertilize the soil in which
terrorism grows. People realize it is a mistake to leave such issues to
foreign-policy “experts.”
Second, people understand that the Bush
administration is manufacturing pretexts for war and that there is no credible
threat; none of Iraq's neighbors (with the exception of Israel, whose leaders
favor a U.S. war on Iraq for their own interests) fears an Iraqi attack. The
Hussein regime is brutal (which is not exactly news to the American officials
who once supported Hussein), but few people believe that Bush is telling the
truth about U.S. motivations. When administration officials claim a war has
nothing to do with U.S. desires to maintain and extend its global hegemony --
including greater control over the flow of oil and oil profits -- people around
the world simply laugh.
And, perhaps most importantly, people
are beginning to believe once again that they can change things.
In public, Rice and other
administration officials appear to pay little heed to opposition. They want to
undermine people's sense of their own power, instill a sense of futility and
convince us of the inevitability of war. But in private, they no doubt are
paying attention -- and are nervous.
The same has been true in the past. In
1969, President Richard Nixon had a secret plan called "Duck Hook" to
escalate dramatically the attack on Vietnam, including the possible use of
nuclear weapons. Nixon officials planned to issue an ultimatum to North Vietnam
on Nov. 1, 1969.
On Oct. 15, across the country millions took part in local
demonstrations, church services and vigils as part of Vietnam Moratorium Day.
Another major demonstration was in the works for the following month. Although
the public would not know until years later, that opposition was a main reason
Nixon canceled Duck Hook.
The Bush administration, as the Nixon
administration before it, wants desperately to ignore the rising tide of
worldwide and domestic opposition to this war. But the more we begin to believe
in our own power and act on that belief, the harder it will be to ignore us.
That is why -- even as Bush officials
work desperately to block diplomatic solutions -- all who reject the
administration's militarism and plans for empire must speak louder and press
harder. That commitment by people of conscience -- people who believe in their
own power -- has changed history in the past. Our commitment today can do the
same.
---------------
Robert Jensen, an associate professor of journalism at the University of Texas
at Austin, is the author of Writing
Dissent: Taking Radical Ideas from the Margins to the Mainstream. He can
be reached at rjensen@uts.cc.utexas.edu. Rahul
Mahajan's latest book is the forthcoming "The U.S. War on Iraq: Myths,
Facts, and Lies." He can be reached at rahul@tao.ca.