War against Political Addiction
[12-17-02]
Prof. David C. Wood of Vanderbilt University, speaking
at an act of witness against war in Iraq on December 10, analyzed the
administration in Washington as helplessly addicted - addicted to the
easy exploitation of fear as a tool for expanding their control and
their wealth, while obscuring their own exploitative misdeeds. Only
citizen action, he says, can help them find a cure.
Remarks by Prof. David C. Wood, chair of the
Philosophy Department, Vanderbilt University, at the act of witness
against war in Iraq, December 10, 2002
There are people out there who need our help - desperately need our
help. They have broken into the political candy store, and they cannot
stop eating. I am speaking of the current occupants of the White House,
all but one unelected businessmen and/or ideologues. As for the one who
was elected . . .
Why do they need our help? They need our help because
they have discovered a terrible truth, and they cannot stop feasting on
the consequences. The terrible truth, one that Machiavelli discovered,
that Joseph Goebels re-discovered, is that if you can keep a nation in
fear they will bow down before you as their leader, if you can construct
a plausible enemy and declare war, the people will rush to put on
uniforms and fight. The economy may be in free fall, but if you puff
enough smoke into the beehive, the worker bees will turn sleepy and not
notice you are stealing the honey.
Why do those who are helping themselves need our help?
Because having discovered this terrible truth, this secret set of
buttons which, when pushed, make the engines of democracy work backwards
as a structure of manipulation, they cannot stop pushing these buttons.
A previous administration declared a War on Drugs.
These machiavellian mandarins are our latest drug
addicts, addicted to the rhetoric of national security, military
build-ups, hugely increased 'defense' spending, the war on terrorism, on
the 'axis of evil', on Saddam the Antichrist, etc. They are addicted
because, unable to believe their luck, they discover that when they
press these buttons, they sweep away effective opposition from
democrats, they can curb civil rights, launch the most arrogant and
dangerous national security policy in living memory, and license
state-sponsored violence on the part of its allies (such as Australia,
Israel). They are addicted to the power to turn back hard-won social
programs, to enact repressive legislation (Total Awareness Initiative),
to realign the Supreme Court etc. etc. If Saddam had not existed, if
would have been necessary to invent him.
These people need our help if they are not to get
completely hooked on the drip drip drip of the power that comes through
the inculcation of fear. How can we help them, and in helping them, help
ourselves? I have an immediate suggestion - tell all your friends to go
see Michael Moore's Bowling for Columbine, an exploration of the culture
of fear in America.
Perhaps the horror of 9/11 was not just those who died
on that day, but the ancient alarm bells it triggered. I suspect that
deep down there is a nagging fear in most of us that one day the world
will wake up and want to take back some of our stuff - that one day we
will be forced to share our toys with the dispossessed. Perhaps too,
whites fear cosmic restitution for the heritage of slavery that, in the
face of black poverty and under-achievement in the heart of America,
still accuses us.
There is a solution to these problems. It is to pledge
ourselves to the cause of peace, and the cause of social justice for all
Americans, and to a new role for America in the wider world - that we
use our unprecedented wealth and power to promote not just our own
interests, but the interests of the disadvantaged and dispossessed
around the world.
In that way we can project an America to be genuinely
proud of. Al Qaeda will wither on the vine, terrorists will look for
other work, and we can slowly exorcise from our troubled psyche the
specter of the enemy who will come in the night. Then perhaps we can all
begin to enjoy the real fruits of peace. And the more we do this, the
more we can help the good people in the White House candy store break
the habits to which they are addicted. One day - they will press the
fear button, the security button, the secrecy button, and nothing will
happen. The next day's Doonesbury cartoon will feature a frantic
internal phone call on Pennsylvania Avenue: "What's the problem
Karl?" "The problem Sir, Mr. President, is that the people
don't believe us any more." That is a day to work for.
