In most democratic societies the leaders seek to infuse the public, the people who ultimately decide whether or not such person is to be the leader, with comfort and an optimistic sense of growth and progress. Even in tough times, leaders seek to convince the hoi polloi {the common class} that the problems are ebbing away with the leaders vision.

The current trend of politics of Bush is one based on fear, denial, and mendacity though. Whenever a problem requiring leadership arises, any problem, the most likely pronouncement is the outright lie and then a segue into fear-based accusations and apocalyptic ramblings. This troubling rhetorical device, for I hesitate to name it a logic, seems based on the predicate that the people of our nation are too stupid to see through the constant lying and corruption overwhelming democratic government in America. Perhaps the Machiavellian nature of this communication is the best approach to maintain power, but if so it does not represent anything American which these vipers so readily claim as their cloak and banner.

In my understanding, granted that I am white and relatively well-educated, the idea of America is one where the individuals of society, and their communities, can rise above the petty corruptions and the self-destructive hatreds of racism and xenophobia, which have always and continue to plague our nation. Whatever problems exist within our culture and society need to be exposed, reviewed and modified to ensure the greater good and maintenance of our nations functioning as an entity in the international arena. This understanding is what make democracy a possibility. The attack on this understanding, as destructive in the long-term as any physical attack on the nation, is rooted in a deep alienation from the very process of these democratic ideals.

And so, we witness the rise and domination of our national character by the corporate state, we see the scum of racism and xenophobia creep back up the foundations of our great cities and into our countryside and places of learning, we see the propaganda of denial and enshrining of lies pour out of the corporate media, we see the environment, the very essence of the health and wealth of America drawn and quartered like an accused innocent before Tourquemada.

All the while our leader(s) fiddle while our nations best traditions burn. All the while the bodies of our newest enemies, and their wives and children, continue to mound higher into grotesque pyramids of colonialist influence. All the while the most vulnerable people within out society are victimized and made to pay a higher price so that the rich can continue their ugly and tacky assault on humanity. All the while the specter of an enemy undefined creeps through our nightly countryside and infects our children with the twin demons of hatred and stupidity.

The fear is palpable. It springs like a noxious weed from Washington and Crawford. It is fed by the most disturbed and provincial, the most unscientific and demagogic, the most insane part of American psyche. It is anti-American and terrorist, and like racism it is homegrown and perpetuated by a media and weapons complex that knows no morality and no sense of value other than that which is accrued in off-shore bank accounts and maintained through the enchantment of lies, denial, and false accusations.

This is our America. This is America under Bush. And the whole world mourns the loss of Ameica to the vacous idiocy of the far-right and their sponsors-- the corporate death state.