archy

Who writes this stuff?
John J. McKay is an underemployed, grumpy, and aging liberal who lives in a small house with his clever wife, two cats, and a couple thousand books. To comment on anything in archy, send him an e-mail.

Mammoth Tales progress

Who is archy?
I introduced the patron cockroach, his creator, and his definitive artist in these two early posts.
One. Two.

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John Batteiger's DonMarquis.com
Jim Ennes's DonMarquis.org

Blogs I'm reading this week
Ahistoricality
Alicublog
The American Street
Bad Tux the Snarky Penguin
Bartholomew's notes on religion
Cocktail Party Physics
Cosmic Variance
Daily Kos
Demisemiblog
Dum Luks
The Early Days of a Better Nation
Eschaton
Firedoglake
The Greenbelt
Hatewatch
Hulabaloo
John Hawk's Weblog
Michael Bérubé
Mudflats
MyDD
The Nattering Nabob
Orcinus
Pacific Views
Pam's House Blend
Pandagon
The Panda's Thumb
Paperwight's Fair Shot
Peevish...I'm Just Saying
Pharyngula
Political Animal
Progressive Alaska
Progressive Gold
Rev. BigDumbChimp
Roger Ailes
Sadly, No!
ScienceBlogs
Seeing the Forest
Shakesville
Skeptico
Skippy the Bush Kangaroo
Slacktivist
Talk to Action
Talking Points Memo
TBOGG
That Would Be Me
Thinking Meat
Why Now?
Witness for the Prosecution
World O' Crap

The Liberal Coalition
archy
Bark Bark Woof Woof
Blog Around the Clock
Bloggg
Collective Sigh
Corrente (new home)
Corrente (old haunted mansion)
Dohiyi Mir
Echidne of the Snakes
First Draft
Florida Progressive Coalition Blog
Grateful Dread Radio
Iddybud Journal
The Invisible Library
Left is Right
Lefty Side of the Dial
Musing's musings
Pen-Elayne
Rational Animal
Rick's Cafe Americain
Rook's Rant
Rubber Hose
Scrutiny Hooligans
SoonerThought
Speedkill
Stupid Enough Unexplanation
WTF Is It Now??
Yellow Doggerel Democrat
You Are a Tree

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Friday, September 29, 2006

It's not quite too late
I have always hoped that America would outlive me, but I have always carried a nagging dread that it would not. Over the last five years we have taken a number of steps away from being America. Yesterday was the worst of all.

The United States of America is neither a true territorial state nor a nation-state. It is not a state primarily defined by a unique territory nor is it defined by a unique ethnic group of Americans. America is a set of institutions and values and Americans are those people holding citizenship under those institutions and believing in those values. When we abandon those institutions and values we cease to be America. A certain body of territory might still exist on the map with the name "United States of America" and the same group of people might still inhabit it, but it will no longer be America and they will no longer be Americans.

Nothing lasts forever. That's a simple law of nature. Sooner or later everything ends. Some things die; the end is neat and clean. Others whither away and the end is harder to pin down. Sometimes it's a bang, sometimes it's a whimper, but the end always comes. Someday everyone we know will die. Someday everything we have built will be broken and cast aside. Someday America will be gone.

Most people have a hard time believing that. They prefer to believe that every swing one direction will be followed by a swing the other direction. They prefer to believe that everyone will get their turn and that the mistakes of one group will always be fixed by the next group. They prefer to believe that there will always be a tomorrow. Those are pleasant, reassuring beliefs, but none of those things are guaranteed. Some changes are irreversible.

One by one the Bush administration has crossed lines that America never would have crossed: unprovoked war, state authorized torture, unlimited detention without charge or trial, wholesale wiretapping, secret judicial proceedings, unrestrained executive power, repudiating the Geneva Conventions, and, now, selectively withholding the writ of habeas corpus. It's not that we haven't blurred these lines before, but in the past we have always recoiled in horror when it became clear what we were doing. For the last five years the administration has systematically repudiated one American value after another. Congress, through cowardice or approval, has enabled the administration in every one of those steps.

These retreats from our Americanness will not be repaired by a simple change of administration in two years. A new administration might officially reverse every one of these repudiations, but the precedent has been set that American values are no more permanent than the next election. What country will trust us knowing that the Republicans might return? It took sixty years to build the international order that the Bush administration irreparably damaged in a few months from 2001-2003. It took over two hundred years to build the structure of rights that the Bush administration has irreparably damaged over the last five years.

Though we can't reverse the damage, we can stop further damage. It is vitally important that we take away at least one house of his rubberstamp congress (preferably the Senate). The new congress might be gutless, but even that is an improvement over being completely in his pocket. We cannot turn back the clock and regain the structures that he has so grievously harmed, but, given enough time and good will, we might build new structures almost as good. America is not dead yet, but it cannot survive many more of this kind of blow.

Now is not the time to give up the fight.

PS - As someone who has lived through the collapse of a peaceful and prosperous country, Coturnix's views on this should be read by everyone.

posted by John at 11:38 AM |