The State of the Union
by Charles C. Hall, Ed.D

"Every day, I ask myself the same question: How can this be happening in America? How can people like these be in charge of our country? If I didn't see it with my own eyes, I'd think I was having an hallucination."

- Philip Roth - The Plot Against America.

"Some deemed them wonderous wise, and some believed them mad."

-Beatties Minstrel -

"As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron."

- H.L. Menchen - 1920 Are we there yet?

Are you listening?

The above quotations speak volumes to those among us who are paying attention to what is happening to our shared beliefs that we are a nation of laws and not men. Are you one of the listeners? Garrison Keillor wrote, "We have this ability in Lake Woebegon to look reality right in the eye and deny it."

Who could have imagined forty years ago that a president of the United States of America would have declared the Geneva Conventions on torture no longer apply to this country? There is one word in the English language I wish I had never heard: "Waterboarding." When it became known that waterboarding is an accepted practice by interrogators of those in custody, I was physically ill. Suddenly, all the horrors of the Spanish Inquisition, the witch hunts in Britain and the European continent of the Dark Ages and beyond, flooded my mind. How could this be? The top law enforcement officer writing the opinion that persons captured anywhere in the world had no rights under our Constitution and the Geneva guidelines was - is - anathema to me.

What have we become in so short a time? Do we feel so superior to other peoples that whatever we do can be excused on the basis of our past largesse? Examples: The Berlin Airlift in `46 and `47 saving millions of Germans from starvation; the Marshall Plan which gave all of Europe a leg up in its recovery; the help we gave Japan, a brutal enemy in the Pacific region, so on and so forth.

There is no question that America was a beacon of hope for tens of millions of desperate souls seeking sanctuary from dictatorial regimes. We respond to disasters all over the world in the blink of an eye. Our citizens are generous to a fault when tragedy strikes foreign shores. Our school children save pennies and dimes to help children in other countries as well as here at home. Our Red Cross, Salvation Army, and non-governmental agencies step into the breech with the humanity of a Good Samaritan.

But since 9/11/02, we have lost our sense of "justice for all" in a frenzy of fear and loathing, mistreating people entirely innocent of any hostile act against us, and shamefully condoning such behavior. Also, in this climate of fear and retaliation, some of our own cherished beliefs and freedoms have been blasphemed and suspended. I ask again, "How can this be?"

When a president can invade a country preemptorially and believe, without doubt, that it is a perogative of his office, we have looked into the abyss. This is particularly true when one goes on "gut instinct" as does Mr. Bush. He told Bob Woodward, "I'm not a textbook player. I'm a gut player." What we have here is a person who believes himself to always be right because "he looks to a higher power" for his warrantless decisions. Such certainties are against all I've ever understood about America.

When the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the vote count to be stopped in Florida, I was outraged, not because Bush would become president, but because it was wrong on the merits. I would have felt the same way if the ball had gone to Gore.

I did not believe Mr. Bush would be a good, (even a mediocre) president because of his history as a loser in business, his alcoholic dependence, (which he admitted), his sudden discovery of religion, so on and so forth. He seemed like a hollow shell to me -- there was no "there, there" as the saying goes. Anyone who relishes the idea of being a C stud who touts his disdain for newspapers and books, and brags frequently about his inability to be engaged with ideas, is not someone I would believe had my best interests at heart. He never admits to colossal mistakes at home or abroad. He can "believe " all he wants to that "God wanted him to be president," but, to me that's disparaging God.

Foreign and domestic policies are a shambles, we're sinking into an abyss of enormous debt, most of the world believes we are led by a petulant, undisciplined adolescent, our moral compass is in the tank, and there's no groundswell of outrage on the part of the citizenry. The mind reels.

The U.S. Congress cannot escape its guilt for the fix we're in, and (maybe will be) for decades to come. It gave cover to Mr. Bush to exorcise his obsession (demons?) with Saddam Hussain. It simply, and simplistically, went along with the Bush/ Cheney, et al, line that Saddam had WMD that could be sent our way "in forty-five days." Intelligence services the world over gave the assessment that all such talk was not supported by the facts. The White House and Congress are overflowing with Lake Woebegoners -- and not a few of "just plain folks."

I shall return to the query I posed at the beginning of this discussion: How did we come to endorse the inhumane treatment of those in our custody, from other countries, some of whom have practiced torture for millenia? How did we sink to the level of the barbarian? Once upon a time, we were seen as the aura of hope and light to millions of people living under heartless regimes. We have now sold our soul for a mess of porridge.

Contrast our current state to the following true story. In 1920, the Berman family left Germany for the U.S. As they cruised past the Statue of Liberty and on toward Ellis Island, it was the most dramatic moment of their lives, and the most important sight they had ever seen. Morris Berman's (3rd generation) mother told him the following: Sometime after WWII, her father, (the 1920 Berman) found a small American flag on the ground. He picked it up, dusted it off and set it on the mantlepiece, saying, "If not for this, we would have all perished in Auschwitz."

Can we reclaim the world's esteem by returning to our roots and a country, honored and loved by the oppressed peoples of the world, who once believed we were their last best hope?

So it goes . . . .