Text or Subtext or Just Say Yessir

By: Bill C. Davis

The current global proceedings are being reported and packaged by a collapsed and commandeered "conscience" for the American public. The media, it seems now, is almost exclusively a government agency. They are given the text and we the people are left to divine the subtext. Text is what is read at us by people who have been cast to play journalists on TV. (Who can forget the famous quote from a commercial that had a man holding some kind of medication he was selling and saying, "I'm not a doctor but I play one on TV."?) Did that imply a certain contempt the media has for the consuming public? That phrase can be substituted for so much - "I'm not a journalist but I play one on TV." "I'm not a statesman but I play one on TV." "I'm not the president but..." Well, we think he's getting an acting coach - or maybe a stunt double. So journalist, statesman, president provides the text. The subtext is what lies beneath the text. It's the secret that the text is fashioned to hide. The subtext is what drives a thinking person to distraction.

The text being read at us defies all logic and yet somehow that protects it from criticism. George W. is the complete model for that phenomenon. Our acceptance of what is being shoved at us is much like the response of a hostage who is being told to agree to whatever his captor says; or a drill sergeant barking insults at a new recruit. Whatever insult the drill sergeant hurls at the recruit his only response can be, "yessir". This is a war on terrorism. Yessir. We are protecting the future for our children and grandchildren. Yessir. We do not mean to kill civilians and we are sorry and we care about those starving refugees and that Red Cross sign was not painted big enough and all we care about is stopping those people who want to hurt us because they are hiding all over Afghanistan even though we told you most of them are in sixty countries but when they heard we were going to bomb Afghanistan most of them came running back here and so we must keep bombing. Yessir. This massive release of ordinance will bring us peace. Yessir. Bunker busters are necessary for the security of our homeland. Yessir. Anyone who wants to avenge the unintended loss of life will be too damn scared to try anything. Right? Yessir!

Unintended loss of life - Rumsfeld just says it like saying spilled milk. No use crying over it. They aren't us. We don't target them. The fact that they weren't targets doesn't make them any less dead or mangled. I suppose it's hard to argue this on a humanitarian level. The humanity of the enemy or the humanity of the people in the way of the enemy doesn't quite act as an obstacle for bombing. Sorry, but we have a job to do. Yessir. But practically speaking doesn't the war on terrorism defeat the mission statement? Is this, in the long run, more of a war for terrorism than on terrorism. Does this not create the exact conditions which generate the rage that creates the insecurity that our children and grandchildren will feel for years to come?

Tim McVeigh presented the model for the evolution of a terrorist. He certainly was not born a terrorist. He was in fact an American soldier who killed Iraqi soldiers. As a soldier he was taught, as we are being presently sold, that violence will solve problems. We tell our high school students that it doesn't but maybe that's because they're too young to understand the complexities of global politics and how some truths don't apply to certain kinds of people who are fanatical and a little strange and who want to go to Allah anyway and we're just helping them get there, but American boys and girls should never use violence to solve a problem or settle a score. One American boy did - and for all we know there may be many American boys who are presently using anthrax and terrorism to address grievances that they feel cannot be addressed through current democratic channels. They feel all recourses have collapsed and in their rage and impotence they devise a tactic that will attack the perceived oppressors, from Brokaw to Daschle.

The target of terrorism is the oppressor - perceived, imagined or real - the oppression is the catalyst and the oppressor or the symbol of oppression is the target. This is not a defense of or argument for - it is - from observing it - a reality - presently and historically. A war is an open conflict between two claimants. Terrorism is the response of the weak and vanquished who have no hope of winning an open conflict so they must be covert, sly and diabolical. After they attack they cannot be given a forum and prior to their action they haven't "earned" a forum. Ironically, keeping bin Laden, the prime suspect, an enigma has done more for his public relations throughout the region in which we are struggling for influence than all of the press briefings from the Pentagon has done for our cause. The actions of the US military speak loud and clear to the region. The follow up press briefings do not help clarify. The convoluted logic and the bloodless catch phrases add heat to the simmering rage in the region. This morning we were treated to a profile of Commander Tommy Franks showing him to be a loving father and grandfather - pictures - music - his grandchild calls him Pooh - after Winnie. I remember when Barbara Bush referred to Schwarzkopf as Fonzie bear. Yes - let's make them very cuddly. I am cuddly - right private? Yessir. You are a bundle of love and you would not hurt anyone except someone or some thousand or two who may or may not deserve it - sir.

When talking about all of this I don't know how to refer to my country. There is the government - and there is the collective, ingeniousness and imagination of much of the American people. There are the ignorant and arrogant, that minority presently being disproportionately represented in Washington. But in the main, the American experience is about the frontier and the support of democratic principles by people from all over the world who longed for those principles and those frontiers. America is a homeland and it has been populated and will be populated by people from other countries who are born to be American. The government presently, and for some time, has ceased to fulfill the original premise which required a government of the people by the people and for the people. The government that we have seems to resemble organized crime more than it satisfies our founders' model. Is that model now a fantasy to be manipulated much the way right wing 'Taliban' Christians manipulate the spirit of Christ? Is that model no longer viable and the vacuum has been filled with business people using the powers of government to secure their corrupt gains? Is the military a mercenary force available to the highest bidder (ie: Saudi Arabia) but is being billed as a brave fighting force defending our freedom and national interests? Protection in exchange for cheap oil? Is this why we are so fascinated with the Sopranos and the Godfather because on some level we know that that is the model we are functioning under? Do the Carlyle group and Haliburton and Lockheed Martin and GE/NBC and countless other concerns that get their man in Washington create the subtext for the text that we are subjected to hourly? It's just business - nothing personal - our military will defend regimes that the government (a.k.a. Cheney, Bush, Baker, Carlucci, et al) can do business with. In our name these forces are keeping internal and external enemies away from the highest bidder. If the internal forces are looking for representative government it doesn't matter. The military has a commander-in-chief who is doing business and our military will protect those deals (subtext) as if they are protecting our enduring freedom (text).

Why would James Baker of The Carlyle Group set up camp in Florida in November and December and insult the Florida Supreme Court and attack democratic principles unless he was doing business. He was staging a coup while accusing the resistance to the coup as a coup. Was he doing a patriotic duty or did he know back then that he needed to lay pipe across Afghanistan and Gore was not a commander-in-chief he could do business with? Who would offer to America and the world George Bush as president except someone or some group that was going to get something from him. They certainly could not have believed he would be good for the progress of the country or the world or that he embodied some bold philosophical principle. He has been in nine months and look at what he has delivered. And look at his approval ratings. They're almost as good as Saddam Hussein's. He has a 99% approval rating in Iraq. But the Iraqis are pretty much brainwashed and they are afraid to criticize his regime. Luckily, we have a free press and we are not brainwashed and we don't need to be afraid to criticize the illegitimate regime that is presently committing our resources and our young citizens and soldiers to a war that defies logic and conscience. If we were afraid and if we were brainwashed I'm sure our present military dictator would have approval ratings every bit as good as Saddam Hussein. But we are free and our present way of life, which George made clear to the world was not negotiable, will be protected by this long, long war to rid the world of evil. That is the text of his message. We will get rid of evil in the world - Won't we? Won't we?... I can't hear you.

Sorry sir - I get distracted by the subtext.

Don't think about the subtext. That's how the terrorists win.

Yessir.