America Is Becoming Unhinged: A penitent America was hopeful, but it didn't last long

The Hill Times (Canada’s Politics and Government Newsweekly) ^ | March 17, 2003) | Jim Creskey

[quidnunc]

Ottawa – America is becoming unhinged and it is impossible to imagine that Canada will be not affected.

This was not the case after 9/11. The attacks on New York City and Washington, D.C., were sad and tragic but they built a unity that took the form of a new patriotism inside the United States — and a new international solidarity with America outside the country. It isn't true that this new-found patriotism and solidarity had no depth. Sure, some of it was as disposable as the feelings that emerge from a night at the Oscars. But at its heart was a genuine sympathy for the lost lives of ordinary people and a steely willingness to rally behind any sensible idea or cause that might prevent a reoccurrence of 9/11.

Most of that goodwill has been squandered now. The Bush administration has managed to drive a wedge between the American people and between America and the rest of the world. It is the kind of division that has not existed since the Vietnam War. America erupted in those days and Canada rolled with the tremours. On the one hand, Canadian industry actively supplied the U.S. military; on the other, Pierre Trudeau's Canada offered sanctuary to thousands of young American war objectors along with regular though mild criticism of U.S. policy. It did Canada little harm. But the American empire was younger, more secure in those days. In the three decades since Vietnam, America has aged centuries.

America, following the loss of the Vietnam War, was chastened. It wasn't something that a politician could brag about but it was largely wholesome: like a reformed alcoholic making a searching and fearless moral inventory of himself or herself, as the 12-step program would put it.

The Jimmy Carter administration provided the right setting for this process and was starting to get around to making amends to those who were harmed by the country's addiction to violence when the process came to a halt. Politically, a national amnesia set in. When the Soviet empire crumbled under its own weight with an admirable — and nonviolent — shove from Lech Walesa, Pope John Paul II and Mikhail Gorbachev, Washington erroneously took the credit for it. That misconception set the stage for the kind of policy that rules today.

A penitent America was a hopeful thing but it didn't last long in Washington, D.C.

By the time the World Trade Centre Towers were destroyed, all the lessons hard-learned in South East Asia were forgotten. Following an initial response of conservative-style moral clarity and decisiveness, the Bush White House increasingly grew to emphasize a heightened sense of imperial destiny. It expressed itself in a disdain for the encumbrance of multinational organizations, a reluctance for, if not an outright avoidance of treaties, a new emphasis on militarism, a discomfit with refugee and immigration responsibilities and a rising tendency to sacrifice cherished constitutional freedoms to national security.

-snip-

[SouthParkRepublican]

I thought so. It was just a long-sighted plan that happened to come to fruition during the Reagan administration because Carter was not re-elected. Damn clever RAT strategies! I sure hope Jimmy knows I’m onto his covert operation that laced Billy Beer with mind control drugs.

[Reverend Bob]

Major GAG alert.

[knak]

as disposable as the feelings that emerge from a night at the Oscars

where do they get off?

[Mister Baredog]

we can deal with leftist idiocy without going wobbly.

This is true, but I do love the lampooning etc. and I go to barf alerts first for some good laughs from FReepers, I'm still new here but I love this place!

[OPS4]

Garbage is very well identified by its smell.
This smells! Dont step in it!

Ops4 God Bless America!

[Jorge]

A penitent America was a hopeful thing but it didn't last long in Washington, D.C.

Who was penitent? And what for?
What is the author of this article talking about?

[Eastbound]

"The Bush administration has managed to drive a wedge between the American people and between America and the rest of the world."

What a crock! The only wedge I can see is the one driven through the heart of the vampires who have been sucking the life-blood out of our country.

[aculeus]

Keep it up Canada and we'll close our border. Try not going to Florida in winter.

[F.J. Mitchell]

Welcome Friend, and never apologize for being new here-we all started out that way. Lampooning is my favorite thing too-sometimes exposes the lampooner to a flame war though-but what the heck, no pain no gain.

[tomkat]

Dear Mr. Creskey:

[goldstategop]

I think the author's upset Al Qaeda didn't finish America off. And now we're finishing off Al Qaeda and Saddam. Who says the greatest country in the history of mankind can't fight and chew gum at the same time is living in a fantasy world. That's where the Left is the moment their kooks took them over.

[FirstTomato]

This is actually funny. Jimmy Carter was the worst President in US history, imho even worse than Bubba.

That this writer likes him speaks volumes.

[F.J. Mitchell]

THat is scary. If all women were equipped with a finger of such proportions, we guys would be facing extinction.

Mr./Ms. Moderator, I knew I was skating on thin ice when I posted this response, but I could not help myself-the devil made me do it. Use your own dicretion in regards to it. I'll understand.

[KaiserofKrunch]

Please don't insult morons! They are far smarter than the writer of that article.

[Trust but Verify]

Hogwash.

[tomkat]

... we guys would be facing extinction

foflol !

[MarkL]

The simple fact is that liberals, leftists, and communists like, and need, victims. A "penitent America?" "Penitent" for what? What was it that the US should be penitent for? The Bush administration has gone out of its way to NOT insult, demean, or for that matter, attack anyone. But there comes a time when you MUST act. That time is way overdue, and the America haters don't like the idea that the US has said, "Enough!!!"

A stong America will not be a victim, and these people are afraid and hate that fact.

Mark

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

Don't you know the Soviet Union fell because of Jimmy Carter's brilliant plan? By ruining our economy, eviscerating our military, and allowing pissant backwater camelsh*t countries to make us look like bumbling, inept fools, he encouraged the Russians to invade Afghanistan, which caused the Russian downfall < /sarcasm >

Part of me thinks that that--followed by the Reagan Administration--was in fact God's plan for the destruction of the Soviet Union.

Reagan could fight Communism for 40 years, spend two terms as POTUS notably engaged with the threat of the Soviet Union, and the USSR hit the ground with a thud immediately after his presidency. And supposedly serious people can suppose that one thing had absolutely nothing to do with the other. Amazing!

[Gumdrop]

Here's to the beautiful Lake of the Woods! Notice how this guy gave credit to Gorbachev, but none to Reagan and Thatcher? What a dunce.

[GladesGuru]

This screed was actually written by Billy Carter when "under the influence".

That's the only excuse for such drivel.