The Impending Cultural Crisis
The cultural clash we are living - the one represented by Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld-Rice-Wolfowitz-Bolton vs. virtually the rest of the world is not so much a clash as it is a crisis. A cultural crisis - a cultural crisis whose epicenter is the United States, involving ethics and values, and the very vision of the future of humanity. This cultural crisis is being abetted by the very language being employed in this conflict. It involves a monumental struggle over the meaning of precepts and words, including those at the core of our very existence: peace, truth, democracy and life itself. The Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld vision is one of U.S. worldwide military and economic domination, yet outside of the Bush 2002 doctrine, this scheme has been painted more recently as a vision of worldwide democratization - this while this administration has been busy dismantling virtually every democratic institution, not only at home, but worldwide. Those associated with this vision, including the likes of Tom Delay and Newt Gingrich - are supported by a talk radio mindset that discourages checks and balances and dissent.
All this has come under the guise of the “war on terror” - a war so ill-defined that it is virtually a license for permanent worldwide war. Worse, this U.S.-led war is being waged with the assistance of some of the world's most unsavory military dictators. Yet combined, these despots (primarily from the Middles East and the former Soviet Union) weld nowhere near the same amount of power as the Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld troika. Since 9-11, international law and all its institutions have been not just cast aside by this administration, but actively undermined. The International War Crimes tribunal (the administration insists on its soldiers being exempt from its jurisdiction), Guantanamo (it's prison was built specifically to be out of the reaches of U.S. courts) and Abu Ghraib (emblematic of the widespread use of torture by U.S. forces) are the most salient examples of the flouting of international law.
This doesn't even include the administration's ordering of secret mass (post 9-11) arrests (without charges or legal representation) of thousands, nor does it include the subsequent and even more draconian USA Patriot Act (anyone can be targeted and presumed guilty until proven innocent). Neither does it include the assertion that the Geneva Conventions do not apply to the United States (green light for secret indefinite detentions and widespread torture and abuse). All this amounts to the creation of a moated society based on fear - principally, the fear of outsiders - aided and abetted by a compliant media that has, in effect, succumbed to self-censorship. With this track record - this radical cultural shift is being promoted as part of that worldwide democratization effort. This is what is producing a cultural crisis to the point of reaching critical mass. The camel's proverbial back is on the verge of breaking.
A culture built upon proven falsehoods (the need to rush to war because of the imminent threat Iraq posed to the United States and the free world) will eventually have to reconcile its moral scorecard with its children. The very meaning of truth is at stake. But there will never be reconciliation because admitting that the war was trumped up would be to admit not only to the war's illegality, but it would open up the administration to legal liabilities. And thus, the administration will instead continue to change its rationales as to why it went to war. Such a nation - with superpower status - that insists upon imposing its culture upon the world - will soon see its culture come under extreme scrutiny. And the verdict is in. The world is not clamoring to emulate that U.S. culture of domination. That's why the cultural crisis is at home, not abroad.
At a certain point, a lie, pedaled as truth, will eventually crumble. Time does not convert falsehoods into truth, not does it convert immoral and illegal wars into moral and legal ones. Militarism pedaled as peacemaking, while leaving death and destruction in its wake, will invariably cause dissonance or delusion. (Previously, mass delusion was winning hands down). Preaching about a culture of life (respect for the unborn and the dying), while spreading and promoting permanent worldwide war (or the expansion of the death penalty) will invariably cause the world to ask: What is it about this culture we are supposed to be embracing or emulating? Now, U.S. citizens are beginning to ask the very same question. This is what is precipitating this cultural crisis.
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