The Clipboard: Blowing up democracy on Fourth of July

From an article¹:

America, Happy Fourth of Ju-lying.

On this day to celebrate the birth of democracy, we mourn the death of our Founding Fathers' ideals.

President Bush recently lashed out against reporters for divulging a secret government program that monitors international banking transactions. He called such newspaper revelations "disgraceful" acts that help terrorists.

Bush, an underwhelming intellect in college, presumably slept through history class -- you know, the part where Thomas Jefferson, says, "Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter."

It is funny how the president gets more worked up about a free press doing its job under the Constitution than about rogue American soldiers torturing suspects in Abu Ghraib, or U.S. troops allegedly raping an Iraqi girl, killing her family and burning her body, or the administration's own ad hoc system of military tribunals that flies in the face of U.S. and international laws, or government spooks plowing through phone records. (link)

What's truly un-American is the violations of civil liberties and of international law that Bush and his supporters are so proud of.

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Complete text of the article, Blowing up democracy on Fourth of July, by Robert L. Jamieson, Jr.

America, Happy Fourth of Ju-lying.

On this day to celebrate the birth of democracy, we mourn the death of our Founding Fathers' ideals.

President Bush recently lashed out against reporters for divulging a secret government program that monitors international banking transactions. He called such newspaper revelations "disgraceful" acts that help terrorists.

Bush, an underwhelming intellect in college, presumably slept through history class -- you know, the part where Thomas Jefferson, says, "Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter."

It is funny how the president gets more worked up about a free press doing its job under the Constitution than about rogue American soldiers torturing suspects in Abu Ghraib, or U.S. troops allegedly raping an Iraqi girl, killing her family and burning her body, or the administration's own ad hoc system of military tribunals that flies in the face of U.S. and international laws, or government spooks plowing through phone records.

The administration will even lie or distort to achieve ends, as it did with weapons of mass destruction. And remember Jessica Lynch, the valiant blond soldier who shot mean Iraqis like Rambo? That turned out to be hyperbole to drum up war support.

If the Bush brand of democracy looks this way at home -- under a modicum of public scrutiny -- one can only imagine what it looks like in Iraq, where fewer American eyes can see what is going on.

Iraq was supposed to be a shining example of democracy in action.

The picture, it turns out, is not so pretty -- and it hasn't been from the earliest days after the U.S. invasion, according to Belltown filmmaker James Longley.

The 34-year-old cineaste figured there was a compelling but untold story in Iraq. From early 2003 to April 2005, Longley spent hundreds of hours capturing people at the grass roots of the France-sized country. His 2006 documentary "Iraq in Fragments" -- which won a directing award at Sundance -- tells stories Bush would rather see on the cutting room floor.

In Baghdad, Longley filmed men on gritty street corners. "Why don't they take the oil and leave us alone," one man says to the camera. By "they" the man meant us -- oil-hungry Americans.

An Iraqi adds: "This humanitarian aid they talk about -- where is it?" Another adds: "If it's like this in the beginning, what will it be in the end?"

Venturing into southern Iraq, site of the Shia uprising, Longley took footage of a rally.

"They came to teach us of Western democracy," a man says, standing at a podium before hundreds. "Killing. Displacement. And torture. Arrests without charge. ... This is the democracy they have brought. But Islam is the true democracy -- the opposite of the false, empty democracy they are boasting of."

Another Iraqi man mentions the West's lack of understanding. America, he says, underestimates how much people in his country know about democracy.

"We know what democracy means," he says. If the elections succeed, he says, the popular will shall throw out Americans "with a slap on the face."

One man tells Longley: "America promised one thing and did another. They came as liberators and became occupiers. They came to support the people and then turned against us, against the Iraqi people, against Iraq. That's America."

The strongest nod of support for the United States in the 94-minute documentary comes from the Kurds in the north. They suffered greatly under Saddam's murderous rule.

"God brought America to the Kurds," says a grateful Kurd. "He brought her to us, and they liberated Iraq ... We came out of darkness into the light."

Such a bright moment for Uncle Sam gets lost amid the film's critical voices. The criticisms may come as a shock to some people -- as much of a shock, perhaps, as the recent revelations about how the U.S. government works domestically behind the curtains.

I chalk up such shenanigans as par for the course for Bush & Co.

In Bush's world, the media should be lapdogs for the administration, not watchdogs. Asking questions is rude. Lies aren't lies -- they're examples of "truthiness." And when all else fails just pull out the fear card -- with color-coded terror warnings -- and distract the public.

In Bush's world, Iraq isn't a failure.

It is a gleaming success waiting to spring from the cocoon, because, well, that's what Bush says it is.

That sound you are hearing this Fourth of July isn't just fireworks.

It is democracy being blown to bits by a president who likes to play with fibs and fire.

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