On the John
1.20.09-We still got problems
Completed on October 17, 2006
I saw a new bumper sticker the other day. It was a fun one. In big bold print, on a red, white, and blue background, three numbers sat in the form of a date. It looked like this:
1.20.09
In case you hadn’t yet figured out the date’s significance, it was clarified below with a tag that read: “Bush’s last day.”
Ah. I see.
It’s one of those.
Now don’t get me wrong: I do not like George W. Bush. It is my feeling that his presidency has been a largely negative influence on our country and on the world at large. Proof for this is widespread and varied, and almost too obvious to list. But perhaps the biggest negative impact of the 43rd presidency is one that is rarely mentioned: Bush has (unwittingly, or, perhaps, wittingly) turned himself into an all-powerful and omnipresent symbol and target for what is wrong in the world. In turn, his impending departure is being taken as a Godsend by many, a sweeping fix-all that will improve our country like the flipping of a switch.
If only it were that simple.
George Bush has not made this country worse simply by being president. No single man has that much power. What he has done is played to and exploited the political, religious, and social gaps already existent in our country. And he has done this exceptionally well. Point, Bush.
That this is all he has really done is either good news or bad news, depending on your view point. If you realize that we have a great deal more control than popular opinion would lead us to believe, it is good news. If you realize that Bush leaving office will not be the mind-blowing game-changer you may have thought, it is bad news.
A leader is just that. A leader. One who leads or, to be more accurate, makes attempts to lead. There are many different kinds of leaders in our world today, and these leaders have different followers. Barack Obama is one leader. Louis Farrakhan is another. David Miscavige is another. George W. Bush is another.
Certainly Bush has the largest forum of any leader in the world. His kingdom, if you will, is massive, and his power and influence extend well beyond America’s borders. But his power is not absolute, as individuals make choices everyday that have nothing to do with President Bush.
Every time we are involved in a discourteous exchange while in traffic, Bush is not to blame. Every time we are quick to insult and slow to forgive, Bush is not to blame. Every time we use violence rather than communication to solve a problem, Bush is not to blame. Every time a school ignores persistent bullying, or a parent shrieks at a Little League umpire, or we look first at television and music and video games as the ultimate destroyers of our society rather than looking first at ourselves, Bush is not to blame.
Bush is one man. Likewise, Barack Obama is one man. Here in Illinois, we are anointing Obama as The Answer. OK then. Let’s imagine that sometime in the next two years, Obama decides to run for president. Let’s assume that he steamrolls his way through the primaries before defeating whatever Republican challenger might stand before him in November. It is now January 20, 2011, and in two years President Obama has turned our gap-filled red-and-blue patchwork of a nation into a beautiful palate of purple-faced citizens, people who happily seek common ground on such old school red-and-blue issues as abortion, gay marriage, gun control, and education. Even if all that happens, even if we decide to bulldoze the twentieth amendment so that Obama can surpass FDR as the longest tenured President in the history, even if we put it to a vote to rename January 20th as Barack “The Greatest American Ever” Obama Day…well, he’ll still only be one man. Bringing out good traits in a people is no different than exploiting bad ones.
Yes, Bush has created or contributed to problems that we as individual citizens have very little control over. Barring large-scale activist movements, we will probably not have much influence over drilling in Alaska, bombing in Iraq, or torturing in Guantanamo Bay. Some, certainly, but not much. But there is much that we can control, namely our actions, attitudes, and interactions with others.
It seems that more and more we wish to look outwardly for answers to our society’s problems. Yet when we do, we are looking for solutions from the very structure that many of us deem responsible for the problems themselves. We have grown quite lazy as a people, and while we seem to hear much about our collective laziness as manifested in obesity and overdependence on technology, we are rarely focused on our laziness as citizens. Governments and citizenries should be highly beneficial to the individual, but this only happens when the individual takes ownership over each. This is not happening, and we are suffering because of it.
So celebrate 1.20.09 if you want to. President Bush will be, for all intents and purposes, gone by noon of that day.
We, on the other hand, will still be here.
Copyright 2006, jm silverstein