Category Archive

Surprising, I suspect, its distributor and a lot of reviewers in the mainstream media, War, Inc. is opening several more cities today, and apparently expanding to a few new theaters in cities where it was already showing.

There’s been none of the traditional marketing hype surrounding this movie. In fact, aside from an appearance on Countdown by John Cusack (the film’s co-writer, co-producer, and main star), I think all of the promotion of this movie has taken place online, either at the MySpace page set up by Cusack and the War, Inc. team, or in the liberal part of the blogosphere, where a lot of people (myself included) have been raving about it.

I’ve said a lot about War, Inc., here because I think it’s a film more people should see (just like I think more people should read Naomi Klein’s Shock Doctrine and watch Robert Greenwald’s Iraq for Sale). It focuses its satirical eye on what Klein calls disaster capitalism, a disturbing practice that has exploded and flourished under the current administration’s policies (though it’s been around longer).

Disaster capitalism is what happens when large corporations descend on a country or region in the wake of a disaster (natural or man-made) and start making sweeping changes in the way business (particularly local industry or natural resources) is done and governments are run while the people who live in the region are still in shock from the disaster itself. Of course, these sweeping changes tend to be of a nature that is extremely profitable for said corporations. And often disastrous for the local population.

We’ve seen aspects of it here in America, particularly in the wake of 9/11, when all sorts of appalling legislation that has turned out to be very profitable for certain corporate backers of people in the Bush White House was rushed through Congress. It’s been seen in post-Katrina New Orleans, and it’s probably happening right now in the parts of the Midwest that were affected by the floods a few weeks back, as well. And what some of these corporations (Halliburton, Blackwater, KBR) have done in Iraq is enough to leave one mortified that one shares a common country with the people running them.

It’s a phenomenon I haven’t talked about much in this blog, and which frankly I should probably talk about more. Because once you look at the economic angle, at where the money is actually going, the driving force for a whole lot of otherwise bizarre policies coming out of the White House suddenly becomes very clear. And very disturbing.

But I digress.

The point of this post was supposed to be to alert my you, my dear non-existent readers, to the fact that War, Inc., a movie that satirizes the disaster capitalism process, is opening in a bunch more cities today.

Cities like San Luis Obispo and San Diego in California; Portland, Oregon; Scottsdale, Arizona; Bethesda and Baltimore in Maryland; Philadelphia; Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, and Plano in Texas; Lexington, Kentucky; Frontenac, Missouri; and Denver, Boulder, and Colorado Springs, in Colorado. (Info about theaters here.)

I have to admit, that last city kind of caught me by surprise. I have family in Colorado Springs, so I’ve spent some time there, and I have to say, it’s a pretty conservative town. It’s the home of Focus on the Family and about a dozen other right-wing evangelical organizations, for one thing, and there are a lot of current and retired military people there. They have the Air Force Academy, Peterson Air Force Base, and the Cheyenne Mountain NORAD people there. There may be an army base somewhere around there, as well, now that I think about it. These are the people who voted overwhelmingly for Bush in 2000 and 2004. If you’ve ever wondered where the 28 percent of the population that still approves of George Bush is hiding, well, a disproportionate number of them can probably be found in the Springs.

So I was a little surprised to see that War, Inc. would be showing there.

But then I thought, well, there are a lot of soldiers living in Colorado Springs who’ve been in Iraq and seen how things are. They know what’s going on over there. What companies like Halliburton and Blackwater are doing, mostly on taxpayer dollars.

They’ll get it.

Anyway, if you haven’t already seen War, Inc., and you live in or near one of the cities where it’s just opened, you should check it out. Because if you’re the type of person who reads this blog on a regular (or even irregular) basis, I suspect you’ll get it, too.

-jane doe

A storm’s moving in here in Redstatesville. The wind doesn’t seem to know quite which direction it wants to be blowing, and there will be lighting and thunder for certain before I go to bed tonight.

I look at the news - the war in Iraq, the reviving war in Afghanistan, the potential war in Iran (if Dick Cheney gets his way), elections, White House scandals, the economic mess, the cost of oil (both in dollars and in human terms), the insanity of our Middle East policy, religious extremism (Christian as well as Islamic), the environment and global warming, our eroding civil liberties and loss of privacy, and the constant, deafening efforts of right-wing politicians and pundits and priests trying to paint scientists, liberals, artists, academics, and anyone else who objects to all this insanity as anti-American and in league with the terrorists - and it’s hard not to think something similar is going on on a national scale, building toward some serious thunder and lighting, and maybe a bit of destruction before the year is through.

It’s all got me feeling a bit twitchy.

It’s not any one thing in particular that has me so nervous. Rather, it is an aggregation of things. Stories glimpsed briefly, often in the non-mainstream news and the blogosphere, that individually would qualify one for a lifetime membership in the Tinfoil Hat Brigade if one were to make a big deal out of them, but when looked at together, begin to seem more than a little ominous, like storm clouds building.

Like this story in the Denver Post about how “hundreds of police, firefighters, paramedics and even utility workers have been trained and recently dispatched as ‘Terrorism Liaison Officers’ in Colorado and a handful of other states to hunt for ’suspicious activity’ — and are reporting their findings into secret government databases.”

Or this one, from May 2007, about the Bush administration contracting with Halliburton to build “detention camps” within the continental United States for use in the event of a “national emergency.”

Or this presidential directive, also from May 2007, granting the president extensive, extra-constitutional authority over the operations of the government in the event of a “catastrophic emergency.”

Or this story about a plan prepared by the Pentagon for “massive airstrikes against 1,200 targets in Iran, designed to annihilate the Iranians’ military capability in three days.”

Twitch, twitch.

It’s like we’re building toward some big, possibly transformational event, and I can’t help feeling that it all comes down to who wins the presidential race in November. The candidate who promises change, or the one who promises only more of the same.

And I’m very much afraid of what may happen if we end up with the latter option.

-jane doe

I went to Congressman Dennis Kucinich’s web page today, hoping to find a copy of the articles of impeachment he has submitted to Congress. Instead, I found this, from today:

“WE WENT TO WAR FOR THE OIL COMPANIES” Kucinich Tells Congress
Demands Bush Administration and Oil Company Execs be Held Accountable

Washington, Jun 26 - US Representative Dennis J. Kucinich, in a speech to the House of Representatives today, tied the secret meetings of the Cheney Energy Task Force to the recent award of non-competitive oil contracts in Iraq and said that both the Bush Administration and the oil company executives who participated in those meetings in 2001 should be held criminally liable for an illegal war and extortion of Iraq’s oil.

“In March of 2001, when the Bush Administration began to have secret meetings with oil company executives from Exxon, Shell and BP, spreading maps of Iraq oil fields before them, the price of oil was $23.96 per barrel. Then there were 63 companies in 30 countries, other than the US, competing for oil contracts with Iraq.

“Today the price of oil is $135.59 per barrel, the US Army is occupying Iraq and the first Iraq oil contracts will go, without competitive bidding to, surprise, (among a very few others) Exxon, Shell and BP.

“Iraq has between 200 – 300 billion barrels of oil with a market value in the tens of trillions of dollars.  And our government is trying to force Iraq not only to privatize its oil, but to accept a long-term US military presence to guard the oil and protect the profits of the oil companies while Americans pay between $4 and $5 a gallon for gas, while our troops continue dying.

“We attacked a nation that did not attack us.  Over 4000 of our troops are dead.  Over 1,000,000 innocent Iraqis have perished. The war will cost US taxpayers between $2 - $3 trillion dollars. Our nation’s soul is stained because we went to war for the oil companies and their profits.  There must be accountability not only with this Administration for its secret meetings and its open illegal warfare but also for the oil company executives who were willing participants in a criminal enterprise of illegal war, the deaths of our soldiers and innocent Iraqis and the extortion of the national resources of Iraq.

“We have found the weapon of mass destruction in Iraq.  It is oil.  As long as the oil companies control our government Americans will continue to pay and pay, with our lives, our fortunes our sacred honor,” he concluded.

I have nothing to add right now, except (a) if you haven’t already done so, you should check out Naomi Klein’s book, The Shock Doctrine, which has just come out in paperback, and (b) I really, really think it’s time Bush and Cheney were impeached.

-jane doe

Finally got to see War, Inc., last weekend when I was in Chicago. The showing I saw was on Sunday afternoon, and at that hour, unfortunately, the theater was more empty than full. Still, a fine time was had by all, I think.

Looking around on the net, one sees that War, Inc., has gotten rather mixed reviews from mainstream sources, and I can only conclude that those people don’t get it.

Me? I loved it.

War, Inc. is subversive, rebellious, twisted, and, most importantly, funny. The filmmakers made their political and social points without being heavy-handed, and clearly had fun doing so. This is what a good satire should be like.

The film stars John Cusack (who also co-wrote and co-produced it) as hitman Brand Hauser. Hauser is hired by Tamerlane, a US-based corporation run by a former Vice President (Dan Aykroyd) which has just successfully invaded a country called Turaquistan in the first-ever entirely corporate-fought war, to kill a competitor who has the temerity to build an oil pipeline in his own country in competition with Tamerlane.

Whew. That was a lot of info to fit in one sentence.

Tamerlane is a rather deliberate hybrid of Halliburton and Blackwater, and any resemblance between Iraq and Turaqistan (or between Aykroyd’s character and Dick Cheney) is purely intentional, I’m sure.

Hauser’s cover on this assignment is that he has to act as the trade show host for Tamerlane, which is showcasing all the wonderful products the company makes to help rebuild the country…sort of…most of the products seem to be things like inflatable prisons, weapons, security devices, and artificial limbs. Does any of this sound familiar?

While on assignment, Hauser is aided by his super-efficient assistant, Marsha Dillon (played by sister Joan Cusack). The relationship between these two characters seems very reminiscent of the roles the two Cusacks portrayed in Grosse Pointe Blank, but it works in this movie, too.

Hauser also finds himself interacting with lefty reporter Natalie Hegalhuzen (Marisa Tomei), an about-to-be-married 18-year-old Middle East pop star named Yonica Babyyeah (Hilary Duff), her piggish husband-to-be, Ooq-Mi-Fay (I’ll leave it to you to figure out the piglatin translation), their entourage, and the voice of an OnStar-like guidance system (Montel Williams).

Mayhem ensues.

I’ll refrain from detailing the storyline more than I already have, because I don’t want to spoil it for anyone. Suffice it to say, there is sufficient plot excitement to keep the film moving along at a good pace, but probably no huge surprises as the story unfolds.

The performances from all the major actors are great. Cusack is again wonderful in the conflicted hitman/everyman role. Marisa Tomei, Ben Kingsley, and Dan Aykroyd all nailed their parts. And much to my surprise, Hilary Duff was great as Yonica, the Middle East’s Britney Spears. I’m not familiar with her earlier work, and I’d kind of assumed that her acting talent would be about on par with Britney Spears, as well, but she showed a great ability to disappear into the character - I really wouldn’t have recognized her if I hadn’t already known she was playing the role.

There’s a lot going on in this movie at any point in time, beyond the main focus of the scenes. The advertising signs scattered all over the place in Turaquistan were hilarious, and there was a lot of funny stuff that you would miss if you blinked. I’m really looking forward to getting this movie on DVD, so I can figure out some of the things that went by too fast on the screen to be appreciated.

The soundtrack is good, which is no surprise since Cusack has shown a real talent for pulling together nice soundtracks in earlier movies where he’s been involved in the production (e.g., the Grosse Pointe Blank soundtrack, which is awesome). A fitting selection of tunes for the big scenes, plus some original songs written by Paul Hipp for Yonica’s performances in the film, like her trade show number, I Want to Blow You…Up, which, as you might expect from its title, is heavy on the innuendo, hold the subtlety.

My overall recommendation on this movie is this:

If you are a neo-conservative, don’t bother. Either you won’t get it, or it will piss you off. Of course, from the absence of badly-spelled troll-like comments I receive on this blog, I assume not many neocons are reading this, anyway.

For everyone else: If you are sick of the Iraq war, if you are tired of the way the Bush White House is running this country for the benefit of its corporations instead of its citizens, go see this movie.

Make a little noise.

Get rowdy.

And don’t forget to VOTE in November.

-jane doe

Okay, this is not exactly a movie review, I guess, since I haven’t seen it yet.

Please. Like I have those kinds of contacts.

Still, it’s a movie that I’m really looking forward to, assuming it ever makes it here to Redstatesville. Which it may not. It is opening May 23rd in a few theaters in New York and L.A. Wider release presumably (hopefully) to follow.

The movie, War, Inc., is by all accounts a mish-mash of genres and a wicked satire of the highest order. John Cusack (who also co-wrote and produced the picture) stars as hitman Brand Hauser (NB: not the same character as the hitman Cusack plays in Grosse Pointe Blank, another wonderful movie he co-wrote, produced and starred in), who is hired by the management of a Halliburton/Blackwater-style corporation called Tamerlane to assassinate the head of a rival company. The story involves the first ever entirely corporate-managed foreign war in a country called Turaqistan, and is clearly based on the Iraq war fiasco, while exploring themes similar to those found in the documentary Iraq for Sale and Naomi Klein’s wonderful book on disaster capitalism, The Shock Doctrine.

[Side note: if you haven't read Klein's book yet, you ought to pick up a copy at your earliest opportunity. Like now. Really. It's that good (and disturbing), and it will change the way you look at a lot of major events you see reported in the news. Seriously, head over to Amazon.com or (better yet) your favorite independent bookstore and pick up a copy NOW. This blog will still be here when you get back, I promise.]

I’ve always thought that Grosse Pointe Blank – Cusack’s 1997 movie about a hitman in existential crisis who attends his ten-year high school reunion – ought to be required viewing for anyone thinking about becoming a corporate attorney (they call them hired guns for a reason, folks!). Martin Blank’s recurring assertion that “It’s not me” in that movie goes to the heart of a lot of business dealings that are too easily rationalized as “It’s just business, nothing personal.”

War, Inc., looks even better in that regard, from what I’ve heard, and the early buzz I’ve heard is very positive.

So why am I writing about a movie that I haven’t seen yet? A movie that, in fact, may not open here in Redstatesville where I live?

Because this thing really looks brilliant. Don’t believe me? Check out the clips and blurbs on Cusack’s MySpace page.

Also, because I am hoping that one of you, my dear nonexistent readers, has seen it (it was apparently showing in Toronto last week) or will see it soon (as noted, it opens in NY and LA on May 23rd). So I’m putting out a call here: if anyone reading this little blog sees it (either opening weekend or before then) and wants to post a proper review (or even an improper review) here, please contact me directly at janedoe [at] inbox.com.

Worst case scenario, I will post a review myself if/when it opens here in Redstatesville (or somewhere within relatively easy driving distance of here).

In the mean time, of course, I still think Bush and Cheney ought to be impeached.

-jane doe

Follow-up: minor formatting corrections. Sorry for the multiple posts, RSS subscribers.

Okay, listening to the MSNBC coverage of the speech. And Olbermann starts out with calling Bush on distortions and outright lies about terrorist plots the government has allegedly stopped. Also compares Bush’s words about Iran with the stuff he was saying in the run-up to the war with Iraq — which, as we know, turned out to be almost entirely false or inaccurate. Thank you, Keith!

- jane doe

Seriously, how many debates have the political parties had at this point?

At least they’re getting down to a semi-manageable number of participants at this point. Tonight we have Romney, McCain, Huckabee, Giuliani, and Ron Paul. The real nutjobs have mostly dropped out of the race, with one or perhaps two exceptions. Which is kind of a shame, because the nutjobs keep the debate entertaining, but whatever.

Anyway, I’m going to watch this for as long as I can stomach. Past experience suggests this will be somewhere around seven and a half minutes. Here in more or less chronological order are my thoughts as I watch this fiasco:

• Ooh, Brian Williams’ tie is certainly purple.
• Romney makes me very nervous, but I can’t pinpoint what it is that makes me think that. Maybe it’s just residual nausea induced by big business types in general.
• On the economy questions McCain only seems to want to talk about the “bridge to nowhere” and making the Bush tax cuts permanent.
• Giuliani looks like he spent a little too much time at Mystic Tan. McCain, on the other hand, looks like he needs to schedule a visit (at least on my TV screen).
• Giuliani is talking about major reductions in spending on the “civilian” side. Translation: social programs will be cut, but the military will still get a blank check.
• McCain also looks like he has too much concealer below his eyes.
• Dammit, Huckabee is actually making sense on the economic issues. He points out that money for the stimulus package is probably going to be borrowed from China, and to the extent that the package puts money back into consumers’ pockets will be spent on products that were made in China. So whose economy is being stimulated by it? (I say dammit about Huckabee, by the way, because he actually kind of scares me on some of the religious issues.)
• Romney is talking about his experience in business, again. Because we’ve done so well with the current president, who ran on a campaign of bringing business expertise to the White House.
• McCain, here’s a clue: the Republicans didn’t lose in 2006 because of a few pork projects. You lost because of Iraq and other Bush administration misdeeds. (It would be nice if a few Democratic politicians remembered that as well.)
• Ron Paul is speaking the Libertarian party line. As usual. (And out come the Ron Paul supporters to leave me nasty comments about how he’s the greatest thing since sliced bread. Forget it, guys, I’m a dyed-in-the-wool liberal, you aren’t going to change my mind about the man.)
• Giuliani is asked about the big bankers going abroad to get cash to stay afloat, so naturally, he turns the discussion to 9/11.
• Russert just asked a killer question on the economy — pointing out where we were in 2000 as opposed to where we are now, then asking the candidates why the voters should trust the Republicans on economic matters going forward?
• McCain just mentioned the famous “bridge to nowhere” for the second time so far in this debate.
• Romney again touts his expertise in the private sector. Of course, he obviously did pretty well there, since he can apparently afford to run for president largely out of petty cash.
• Romney just claimed that Republicans “ARE the party of fiscal responsibility” (or words to that effect). He also mentions the bridge to nowhere.

Sorry, folks, that’s as much as I can handle for now - though I’ve set a personal record by sitting through nearly 30 minutes of Republican posing. I can’t take anymore, though — McCain is going on about how we are succeeding in Iraq. If I want my television to be in working order tomorrow, I’m going to have to turn it off right now, before I’m forced to throw something through the screen.

Of course, it goes without saying that nothing I saw tonight changes my belief that Bush and Cheney really ought to be impeached.

- jane doe

I’ve said it before, and I say it again. Keith Olbermann is a god. Once again tonight he hit one out of the park with one of his special comments.

Keith was reacting to two things in this special comment: (a) the alleged president’s recent surprise trip to Iraq, during which he admitted to now being willing to (and I swear that I am not making this up) “speculate on the hypothetical” of removing some (not all, just some) of our troops from Iraq, and (b) this article in the New York Times (h/t to Nicole Belle at Crooks and Liars) which includes excerpts from a Dead Certain, a new book by biographer Robert Draper, who managed to get half a dozen one-on-one interviews with the chimp in chief by casting the book he was writing as essentially the first draft of how history would interpret Bush’s legacy.

I have not read the book yet (just ordered it from Amazon — I’ll post a review later), but judging from some of the excerpts in the Times article, Bush is every bit as appalling in person in unguarded moments as I had previously suspected. Speaking about the ongoing debate about troop levels in Iraq, he actually told the biographer, “I’m playing for October-November…To get us in a position where the presidential candidates will be comfortable about sustaining a presence.” Playing, as if this were some sort of game and not hundreds of soldiers and civilians dying and suffering life-altering trauma.

Keith did an admirable job of ripping Bush a new one this evening, as he has so often with his special comments in the past. Tonight’s was particularly scathing. Crooks and Liars already has the video posted. Here are a few particularly choice remarks, transcribed as always by yours truly:

“And so he is back from his annual surprise gratuitous photo op in Iraq, and what a sorry spectacle it was. But it was nothing compared to the spectacle of one unfiltered, unguarded, horrifying quotation in the new biography to which Mr. Bush has consented.”

* * *

“And there it is, sir, we’ve caught you. Your goal is not to bring some troops home, maybe, if we let you have your way now. Your goal is not to set the stage for eventual withdrawal. You are, to use your own disrespectful, tone-deaf word, playing at getting the next Republican nominee to agree to jump into this bottomless pit with you, and take us into it with him, as we stay in Iraq for another year, and another, and anon.”

* * *

“Everything you said about Iraq yesterday, and everything you will say, is a deception for the purpose of this one cynical, unacceptable, brutal goal: perpetuating this war indefinitely. War today, war tomorrow, war forever! And you are playing at it. Playing! A man with any self-respect, having inadvertently revealed such an evil secret would have already resigned and fled the country. You have no remaining credibility about Iraq, sir.”

* * *

“Just over five hundred days remain in this presidency. Consider the dead who have piled up on the battlefield in the last five hundred days.

“Consider the singular fraudulence of this president’s trip to Iraq yesterday, and the singular fraudulence of the selling of the Petreus Petraeus report in these last five hundred days.

“Consider how this president has torn away at the fabric of this nation, in a manner of which terrorists can only dream in these last five hundred days.

“And consider again how this president has spoken to that biographer, that he is playing for October-November, that the goal in Iraq is, to get us in a position where the presidential candidates will be comfortable about sustaining a presence. And consider how this revelation contradicts every other rationale he has offered in these last five hundred days.

“In the context of all that, now consider these next five hundred days.

“Mr. Bush, our presence in Iraq must end. Even if it means your resignation. Even if it means your impeachment. Even if it means a different Republican to serve out your term. Even if it means a Democratic Congress, and those true patriots among the Republicans, standing up and denying you another penny for Iraq, other than for the safety and safe conduct home of our troops. This country cannot run the risk of what you can still do to this country in the next five hundred days, not while you, sir, are playing.”

Keith already said it, but just so there’s no doubt, allow me to state once again that I truly believe, based upon all the evidence to date of their various high crimes and misdemeanors against this country, that both Bush and Cheney ought to be impeached.

-jane doe

Addendum: There is a nifty extension that puts a countdown clock reflecting the number of days left in the Bush presidency (barring impeachment) right in that little status bar at the bottom of the browser window. It’s reassuring to see that number go down each day, I can tell you, though it is distressing to think how much more trouble Bush might cause in the time he has left in office. You can download the extension here.

As this is the 231st anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the document that started our removal of a tyrant from power over the United States, I thought I would go through that grand old document and catalog which of the crimes of England’s King George have been committed by our own current (in his own mind, anyway) King George. I was only going to include the applicable ones in this post, but since that turned out to be the majority of them, anyway, I just left in all of them. Happy reading!

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

The first Iraq financing bill this year, which would have set real benchmarks and started the process of bringing our troops home. Stem cell research. There probably would have been more, but since he had a rubberstamp congress for much of his administration, there have been relatively few vetoes.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

Not really. Though should we consider his “signing statements” a failure to pass laws, in that he is denying the laws should apply to him, the answer to this one could change.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

No, though prior to the current term of Congress, members of the Republican party forced their opposition to hold hearings that were unfavorable to his administration (to the extent they could hold them at all) in a cramped basement room rather than a regular hearing room.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

Not yet. Give him time. For now, he just ignores them.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

See above. Also, consider his use of “temporary” appointments of U.S. Attorneys in the wake of the firings last December, to avoid having to seek Senate confirmation of same. Not strictly on point, but more or less the functional equivalent.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

Well, not exactly, but heaven knows immigration is a mess at the moment.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

No, but he has of course endeavored to stack federal courts, and particularly the U.S. Supreme Court, with justices favorable to his point of view, and then whined that the Democratic Party was being obstructionist on those few occasions when they attempted to block his less qualified or more appalling nominations.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

No, but change judges to United States Attorneys and you would have something here. Clearly, he has tried to subvert the ability of courts to hear matters within their purview – e.g., by gutting habeas corpus.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

Department of Homeland Security, NSA (okay, that’s not really new), TSA, anyone? Also, let us not forget his (often successful) attempts to politicize the ways that various agencies carry out their duties and/or use those agencies to further the election of Republican Party candidates, in blatant violation of the Hatch Act.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

Well, he hasn’t done this here, since obviously we have consented to the maintenance of a standing military, but I imagine people in other parts of the world might have something to say about this one.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

Hello, Military Commissions Act, goodbye, habeas corpus.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

Some might point to the WTO, though that predates Bush. So, no, not really. However, he has repeatedly subverted provisions of our Constitution and our laws, so I think that counts as a practical equivalent.

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

Well, this is more a complaint among the various countries we are occupying…still, he hasn’t done this here.

For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

Okay, this doesn’t involve troops, and there was a real trial by jury, but I would argue that his commutation of Scooter Libby’s sentence is the moral equivalent of this.

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

How about destroying our country’s reputation in all parts of the world – does that count?

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

Does running up a huge national debt that we will eventually have to pay off through our taxes in order to pay for the war he lied to get us into count? I’d call that one close enough.

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:

Hello, we have a winner! See the Military Commissions Act, and Guantanamo.

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

What do you think happened in the case of most of those people locked up in Guantanamo – it now appears that the vast majority of them didn’t really do anything that would justify locking them up for five years without trial, then creating some sort of mockery of a judicial process to avoid having them tried in U.S. courts where there are procedural safeguards.

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies

Um, well, okay, this one he hasn’t done yet. Though he has gone a country with a functioning if oppressive government – a country which we now know and should then have known was not a threat to us – and overthrown that government and introduced a system of chaos, death and destruction. I think that’s probably close enough on the whole scale of moral wrongs.

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

I think the gradual destruction of our civil rights under the U.S. Constitution, as well as his expansion of presidential authority outside the bounds of Constitutional authority, his hobbling of congressional oversight capabilities, and his institution of the infamous “signing statements” that purport to excuse him from violations of the laws passed by Congress all qualify under this grievance, don’t you?

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

Again, I would say the signing statements amount to a presidential grab of Congressional authority.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

Not quite, but I would argue that his repeated violations of the civil rights of American citizens qualifies as the substantive equivalent to waging a covert war against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

Hmm – plundered our seas? Check. Ravaged our coasts? Katrina is close enough – he ravaged New Orleans by inaction (and recent reports suggest he and his buddies are getting set to ravage its ruins for oil). Burnt our towns? No, he did that to the Iraqis. Destroyed the lives of our people? Hmm, how many U.S. Soldiers dead in Iraq as of today? Also, if destroying the livelihoods counts, then consider the whole Valerie Plame fiasco which has happened on his watch.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

Ding ding ding! We have another winner! Well, foreign to the Iraqis, anyway. Can you say, Blackwater?

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

Um, give me a few minutes, I’m sure I can think of something here…okay, maybe not.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

No, all the insurrections he has incited against him are foreign in nature…so far. Though of course the Iraq war has increased the terrorist threat against us beyond what it was at the time of 9/11, so we’ll call this one a “yes”, too, shall we? And let’s also not forget his party’s tactic of accusing anyone who disagrees with Bush of treason, whipping up hatred against Democrats and liberals.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Ding ding ding! We have another winner!

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred. to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence.

Replace “British” with “White House” and you have another winner, see the Patriot Act, the Military Commissions Act, the parade of civil rights violations at the White House’s direction, and various other high crimes and misdemeanors.

For all these reasons, and for others perhaps not stated herein, I really think that Bush and Cheney ought to be impeached.

Happy Fourth of July, everyone! Do something really patriotic: go out and protest this administration’s actions!

-jane doe

Last night’s Special Comment by Keith Olbermann, prompted by our alleged president’s commutation of an unrepentant Scooter Libby’s prison sentence before all the appeals had even run their course, but also recapping Bush’s (and Cheney’s) other many crimes against this country, our Constitution, and the laws of man, was in it’s own way as powerful and moving as the words of Thomas Jefferson in our Declaration of Independence, adopted 231 years ago today.

Crooks and Liars had the video clip posted within hours of the broadcast last night (and possibly within minutes of the west coast broadcast, which is where I think Nicole Belle is based), and Salon.com posted the full transcript (with permission from Olbermann and MSNBC) today — as always, if you’re not a subscriber, you have to watch a short ad, but it is worth it.

A little later today, I will be posting a piece where I will go through the original Declaration of Independence and pull out all of the original King George’s offenses that could be said to apply equally to our current self-styled King George, but in the meantime, go watch or read Olbermann’s speech at one of the links posted above. He has done a far better job cataloging this administration’s crimes and articulating his condemnation thereof than I ever could.

Happy Fourth of July, everybody! And lest there be any doubt about it, I want to emphasize that I really think that Bush and Cheney ought to be impeached.

-jane doe

This guy is my new hero.

And you know what? He’s right. Bush and Cheney ought to be impeached.

-jane doe

Something in a comment I got last night made me fear that one of my major concerns/points in my previous posts on the subject of terror management theory was not coming across clearly, so I thought I’d take another stab at it.

My hope, in writing about terror management theory and its implications, is that by educating others about it I can help reduce its effectiveness as a tool of manipulation. I do not mean to imply that the threat of terrorist attack is not a legitimate one, nor am I deluded enough to believe that awareness of the theory will insulate people against its effects if, heaven forbid, another event of the magnitude of 9/11 were to occur at some time in the future. Rather, I seek to ameliorate its effects as a tool of political manipulation by our own leaders and voices in the media and blogosphere.

I fear some may also misinterpret my intent in making certain named and unnamed Republicans the villains of the piece. I do not believe that all, or even many, Republicans are evil. I know and respect many people who have been lifelong Republicans, even though I frequently disagree with them.

I have two main reasons for making Republicans the villains of the piece when I ventured into Paranoid Conspiracy Theory Land in yesterday’s posts. The first is that, as I already indicated, I believe that Bush, Cheney, Rove, and their ilk are already using the principles of terror management theory consciously and deliberately to manipulate the public, and that it would therefore be a much shorter trip for them to make the jump from merely hammering on 9/11 and the terrorist threat in speeches to manufacturing a situation that looked like a real terrorist threat of far more serious magnitude than pizza delivery guys attacking Fort Dix or a plot by intermitently homeless immigrants to blow up JFK airport by igniting jet fuel storage tanks miles away from the airport – particularly when something as serious as the next major national elections were at stake.

The second reason I chose to make the Republicans the villains of the piece is because, given the current political situation, I believe that they are the party most likely to benefit from such an attempt. The general public is very annoyed with our beloved president at that moment, and that annoyance has been transformed into much stronger support for Democratic Party candidates – we already saw some of this last November. By the time the next federal election rolls around, we will in all likelihood be another two years into the catastrofuck that Iraq has become, and may be at war on other fronts if Bush follows through on his saber rattling. (And by the way, has anyone else wondered how exactly he plans to back up those threats, given the current, over-extended state of our military? I can think of only two options: reinstituting the draft about six months ago, or using at least “tactical” nukes (if not the really big ones) to bomb Tehran into the stone age – a move that would probably be the kiss of death for our country on an international scale, completely alienating our few remaining allies and uniting everyone in the Middle East against us. But I digress.) The point being, the Republicans are the ones who would most need some sort of major attack on U.S. soil to turn public opinion their way in time to change the outcome of the election.

I also want to point out that even when I ventured into Paranoid Conspiracy Theory Land, I did not go so far as to think that Rove and Cheney, or any other members of my hypothetical evil back room cabal would actually plot a real attack against U.S. civilians. I frankly do not believe that they would do that – I cannot believe that, because if it were true, the implications for our democracy would be unthinkable. In my second scenario (the one where a nuclear weapon was actually detonated in downtown Los Angeles), they just made the mistake of seeking help in carrying out their attempt to scare voters from individuals with a hidden agenda who did want to kill a lot of innocents. Big difference.

Although there have been studies showing that mortality salience tends to make people in the aggregate (though not in all individual cases) more likely to support more charismatic and/or authoritarian candidates and policies, such politicians could theoretically arise in either party – though I tend to believe authoritarianism is more compatible with a Republican worldview than a Democratic one, at least as the two parties seem to be expressing their views through policies of late. [Addendum: I will acknowledge that this belief could be a side effect of my own biases, which are decidedly on the liberal end of the political spectrum. Except that I really don't think that's the case.]

And here is a big news flash for those who think that I am so blinded by my own political views that I would continue to follow a Democratic candidate using fear tactics to sway voters: if such a candidate did exist, and I became aware of him or her using such tactics the way certain Republican politicians and commentators are at present, I would call him or her to task for it, as well. It is the emotional manipulation and scaring of voters for political gain that I am objecting to here. I have targeted Republican politicians because they have been the ones blatantly engaging in this sort of behavior in recent years.

As I said in response to a comment last night, it is my hope that if members of the public are educated about terror management theory, they will become more conscious of deliberate attempts by politicians of either party attempting to use emotional manipulation to obtain votes, and thus better able to resist such attempts. Politicians of both parties really ought to be focusing on the issues facing our country at the moment in the course of their campaigning – and to their credit, many of the current crop of presidential candidates in both parties seem to be attempting to do just that. (Well, except for Giuliani, who can’t shut up about 9/11 – though that is perhaps understandable since it is public perception of his performance in the aftermath of that catastrophe that is keeping him viable against the other Republican frontrunners among likely Republican primary voters.)

Notwithstanding the foregoing, I really think that Bush and Cheney ought to be impeached.

-jane doe

Monday night, Keith Olbermann updated a report he did in August 2006 about the nexus of politics and terror to incorporate recent events. He and his staff went through the news archives and found thirteen instances where the current administration either raised the terror threat level or announced the threat or foiling of a “terrorist attack” at times that could best be described as politically convenient. More specifically, these instances all took place at times when the White House was facing a variety of political difficulties (e.g., the absence of WMDs in Iraq, political scandals, the 2004 Democratic Convention, and so forth). Crooks and Liars has posted the clip and I suggest you go watch it here before continuing with this post.

Olbermann points out that, of course, the fact that these events happened close in time does not mean that they are related. It could, in fact, be a coincidence that the White House has just happened to raise the threat of terrorism whenever it is taking a particularly bad beating in the press over its various misdeeds.

And pigs might one day evolve wings and learn to fly.

I do not believe for one moment that it is mere coincidence that the Bush administration just happens to uncover some plot or threat of attack whenever the administration is facing political troubles. Rather, I believe that we are seeing is an administration deliberately using terror management theory to deflect attention from scandals and manipulate public opinion to expand White House power in our increasingly, distressingly authoritarian society.

What is terror management theory? If you are like the vast majority of people, you have never heard of terror management theory. In all the books I have read recently by various political commentators, I have seen plenty of talk about the White House’s use of fear and 9/11, but no mention of terror management theory. It has received surprisingly little attention from the mainstream media. Nobody talks about it outside of certain academic circles, mostly within the field of social psychology, and presumably certain government officials at the Department of Homeland Security and the White House, whose discussions I am not privy to.

The DHS and White House officials are among those who know about terror management theory because they’re the ones paying for at least some of the research in this field. DHS and military officials have received briefings from some researchers in the field, and have presumably reported on those briefings to their superiors in the White House. Other research has been funded by grants from the National Science Foundation and similar organizations.

All this silence on the subject of terror management theory is striking, because the theory so thoroughly explains much of the Bush administration’s interactions with the press and the public that understanding the theory can change the way you interpret the news.

Several times, I have seen Keith Olbermann ask Countdown guests if they knew why the Bush administration kept raising 9/11 for purely political reasons or in seemingly inappropriate contexts, and I have found myself saying to the television at these times, “Well, it’s basic terror management theory, Keith.” And I have foolishly assumed that, because I know about terror management theory, lots of other people who are interested in the political happenings of our world must, as well, so I have not done much with that knowledge. After all, there are plenty of articles out there on the subject. So lots of people must know about it, right?

But it has become clear to me that most people don’t know about terror management theory or its implications. Most of the articles that I have read appear in academic journals. As a graduate student at a large university, I have free access to many of these journals. Most people do not. It is for this reason that I am publishing this little primer, if you will, on terror management theory and its current political implications. Because I think this is something the general public, or at least political commentators, need to be more aware of.

So take my hand, don’t be afraid…because afraid is exactly what they want you to be.

The Basics

Terror management theory is primarily the brainchild of three university professors who do research in social psychology: Thomas A. Pyszczynski, at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, Sheldon Solomon, at Skidmore College, and Jeff Greenberg, at the University of Arizona. They initially articulated their theory in the late 1980s, but it didn’t begin to get much attention outside of social psychology circles until shortly after 9/11, when suddenly the government became interested in funding a lot of research in terror management.

This is already going to be a long post, so I’ll spare you a detailed history of the theory’s development, and will only be hitting relevant highlights of the theory itself. The three authors mentioned above co-authored a book called In the Wake of 9/11: The Psychology of Terror following 9/11 which explains much of the theory and its background (and is also a really good read) if you are interested in finding out more about it. I want to emphasize that none of the terror management theory stuff is my work – I have just read articles and books by these three men and others in the field, and have drawn my own conclusions about the theory’s implications, specifically that George W. Bush and others in his administration have been deliberately using the results of terror management theory research to manipulate public opinion (though others have written about how the theory has played out in American politics, see especially Pyszczynski, 2004, as well as several of the articles mentioned at the end of this entry). Unfortunately, I can’t provide links to most of the articles I relied on in writing this post because they are in proprietary databases, but I will provide full citations at the end of this post for those who want to track down the articles.

At its most basic level, terror management theory has its origins in existential psychology. Human beings are, at least as far as we know, the only beings that are aware of the inevitability of their own death. This creates a tremendous amount of anxiety in most people’s minds, and we go to great lengths to insulate ourselves against that anxiety. We have, as individuals and societies, developed a number of defense mechanisms to protect ourselves from the thought of our own mortality. Religion provides us with a kind of immortality (e.g., life after death or reincarnation), as do various social institutions (e.g., I may die, but my family/country will go on).

Every now and then, though, things creep by our defenses and remind us of our own mortality. Maybe a loved one dies, or we have a conversation with a coworker whose spouse is terminally ill, or some fanatics fly airplanes into buildings killing thousands of people, forcing our minds to confront the possibility of our own deaths. This awareness of death is referred to by terror management researchers as mortality salience. This is where things start to get really interesting.

Terror management researchers have found that in conditions of mortality salience, certain predictable changes in individuals’ opinions and behavior occur as part of our defense against thoughts of our own mortality. Most intriguing for the purposes of this discussion are changes that affect the political realm, particularly how people are likely to vote.

The Intersection Between Theory and Politics

Let me repeat that last point. In italics, to show that I am not fooling around here. Terror management research can be used to influence how people vote. And it can be used by one party – the Republicans – more effectively at the present time than by the Democrats, because of the direction of changes in most people’s opinions.

You see, people in a mortality salience condition – that is, people who have recently been reminded of the possibility of their own death – are more likely to espouse more traditional opinions usually associated with the conservative end of the political (and religious) spectrum (see, e.g., Cohen, Ogilvie, Solomon, Greenberg, & Pyszczynski, 2005; Pyszczynski, 2004). More importantly, given efforts by the Bush administration to expand White House authority and eliminate our civil rights (ostensibly in the name of fighting terror), people in a mortality salience condition are more likely to favor more charismatic and authoritarian leaders (Landau, Solomon, Greenberg, Cohen, Pyszczynski, Arndt, et al., 2004; Cohen, Solomon, Maxfield, Pyszczynski, & Greenberg, 2004).

Thus, it is very much in the interest of the Bush administration to put the public into a mortality salience condition when it is taking actions that are causing significant protest in the public arena. Not to sound like a member of the Tinfoil Hat Brigade, but I believe this is all a part of a deliberate attempt by the Bush administration to institute an increasingly authoritarian political agenda which may have continuing effects on the political landscape long after his term in office expires. I cannot prove this, of course, not having been privy to administration political strategy sessions, but I believe that the evidence supports this inference.

We saw significant evidence that this is exactly what the Bush administration was doing in the run-up to the 2004 presidential election. Bush repeatedly hammered the 9/11 theme in nearly every campaign speech and public appearance – often when it seemed inappropriate given the subject under discussion. At the time, many people commented on the way he was doing it, and wondered whether this was truly a good idea given that he had not been able to find Osama Bin Laden, and given that people were increasingly of the opinion that the whole Iraq mess might well have been a huge, tragic mistake – one that has now cost thousands of lives and billions of dollars.

Those who know terror management theory, however, saw these constant reminders of 9/11 for what they were: a death prime, intended to induce mortality salience in the public mind in order to sway more voters in his direction. Indeed, at least one study that I am aware of found that Bush’s constant hammering on the 9/11 theme played a significant role in the final outcome of the 2004 presidential election (Cohen, Ogilvie, Solomon, Greenberg, & Pyszczynski, 2005).

Of course, as some will be quick to point out, politicians and other leaders have been using fear as one of many tactics to sway their followers (and opponents) for as long as there have been politicians. If I am recalling my ancient Roman history correctly (and forgive me if I am not, as it has been nearly twenty years since I read of this anecdote), Cato the Elder, as part of his ongoing effort to persuade the Roman Senate to authorize war against Hannibal and Carthage, once held up a freshly cut branch from a fruit tree and asserted that it had been cut in Carthage mere days before. His point was that if a branch from a fruit tree could get from Carthage to Rome so quickly that its leaves were still unwithered and fresh, how quickly might Carthaginian troops make the same trip? This tactic – a brilliant piece of political theater for the age – worked in a way that his constant exhortations at the end of his speeches that he thought Carthage out to be destroyed didn’t. Rome was soon at war with Carthage. (And doesn’t this whole incident remind one of the selling of the whole Iraqi WMD “threat” prior to the Iraq war? Aluminum tubes and yellowcake, anyone?)

What is curious about the present use of fear by Bush and his minions is just how blatant it is if one is aware of the workings of terror management theory. Olbermann’s piece on the nexus of politics and terror Monday night brilliantly points out some of the many times the Bush administration has attempted to use reminders of 9/11 and threats of future terrorism in its attempts to sway the public, and specifically how these attempts have often closely followed some of the many political reversals suffered by this administration.

Reminders of 9/11 and the World Trade Center have been shown not only to induce mortality salience, but also specifically to increase support of President Bush (Landau, Solomon, Greenberg, Cohen, Pyszczynski, Arndt, et al., 2004). According to the authors of that study:

From our perspective, the increase in favorability toward Bush reflects the effects of death reminders on the appeal of a leader who promotes security and the vanquishing of evil, but an alternative possibility is that reminders of death or 9/11 simply make people more politically conservative, which in turn makes Bush more appealing. (p. 1143).

Following their data analysis, however, the study’s authors inferred that the inductions (that is, the use of the mortality salience prime in terms of the reminders of 9/11) “enhanced affection for President Bush without altering political orientation” (p. 1144) – that is, people did not change their characterizations of themselves as politically more liberal or conservative, they just changed their views of President Bush. Curiously, both groups (liberal or conservative) fell at roughly the same level in their support for President Bush in the terrorism priming condition, unlike in other conditions with a terrorism-neutral death prime or a control condition in which the student participants thought about an impending academic exam (though the differences between liberals and conservatives in the other two priming conditions were not statistically significant).

The study’s authors acknowledged the possibility that mortality salience or reminders of terrorism might increase support for anyone in the presidency or with the potential to become president, so they conducted one further experiment as part of the study. They used four groups, two each to evaluate support for either George W. Bush or John Kerry. For each candidate, the parties were in one of two conditions: mortality salience (that is, they were reminded of death) versus intense pain salience (the report is silent as to the type of pain used for the induction, but researchers in terror management theory commonly use a reminder of severe dental pain for the control condition). The data for this study was collected in May 2004 – well before the presidential election the following November.

The results of this study were striking: in the pain condition, support for John Kerry was much higher than support for Bush – suggesting that in the absence of fear of death, Kerry might well have won the 2004 presidential election. However, in the mortality salience condition, support for Bush was much higher than support for Kerry. Conclusion: reminding people of death (and by way of example of 9/11) helped George Bush and hurt John Kerry.

It is worth noting that this study was published in September 2004 – roughly two months before the election. It would be interesting to see whether Bush upped the 9/11 rhetoric following the articles publication – though of course, even if an increase were shown, it could be argued that that was more a function of the increase in all political rhetoric in the final days in the 2004 campaign rather than of the Bush administration seizing upon the findings of the study and changing its tactics.

A Bit on the Nature of Psychological Research

Do the studies cited above mean that we are mindless in our responses in conditions of mortality salience? Of course not. As with all psychological research, this research does not mean that for every person who is reminded of (or in psych-speak, primed with) thoughts of mortality will respond in the manner predicted, but there will be statistically significant changes across groups in these opinions and behaviors. Some individuals will respond more or less strongly to death primes, and their manner of response may be influenced by other factors, such as the strength of their underlying values and beliefs, temperamental factors like tendency toward anxiety, perceptions about the likelihood of the event used as a prime happening to them or those they care about, et cetera.

Interestingly, the strength of an individual’s response to a death prime might vary given the specific nature or strength of the prime. Now, in psychological research, researchers are limited in the sorts of stimuli they can use in the course of their research. They are not permitted to cause their research subjects undue anxiety simply in the name of furthering this research, and all research that uses human subjects must receive prior approval from an institutional review board which examines the materials and procedures to be used in a study and may request changes to the study or refuse to authorize it entirely if they believe it may be in any way harmful to the participants. Thus, most research in the field of terror management theory merely induces some thoughts of death or some control stimuli (like the previously-mentioned thoughts of dental pain), either directly or with subliminal stimuli.

As a result, the degree of response to mortality salience in experimental settings (known in statistical terms as its effect size) is often relatively small – maybe only a few percentage points different on the dependent variable being studied (e.g., support for a given political candidate, degree of agreement with certain statements, level of anxiety), even though the difference is considered statistically significant.

However, in conditions of mortality salience in the real world, the impact of a death prime on thoughts and behaviors can be far more significant. One need only recall the crazy things many normally sane people were saying and doing in the immediate aftermath of the events of 9/11 (I, myself, actually expressed gratitude that Bush was our president instead of Al Gore on the day of the attacks, to my now great embarrassment), to realize the potential impact of a disaster of that scale.

Political Ramifications of the Research

Which brings me to some of the political ramifications of terror management theory, some of which we have seen and are continuing to see.

If you will recall, in the days before the 2004 presidential election, the race was really too close to call, with Bush and Kerry jockeying for the lead and a very closely divided electorate. In every speech and political appearance, Bush and his supporters kept hammering on the 9/11 theme – an attempt to raise mortality salience in voters, to sway those who were swayable to vote for Bush over Kerry.

Now, talking about 9/11 and the terrorist threat would not be as strong a death prime as an actual terrorist attack in those final days of the campaign would have been, but in a close election, Bush would not need to achieve a very large effect size, in terms of the overall percentage of voters swayed by reminders of 9/11, in order to tip the balance in his favor. And of course, when all was said and done, Bush won by a vary narrow margin of the popular vote, and by a single state (Ohio – a race which many still question the result of) in the electoral college. I am aware of at least one study that attributed his victory to reminders of 9/11 and the effects of terror management theory (Cohen, Ogilvie, Solomon, Greenberg, & Pyszczynski, 2005).

When differences in the parties’ levels of support are much greater, as we saw at the midterm elections last fall, the relatively small effect size obtained by mere reminders of 9/11 would not be sufficient to overcome the many other factors influencing voter decisions (such as concerns over the continuing, deteriorating situation in Iraq, frustration with White House scandals and the rubberstamp Congress, etc). Thus, in 2006, we saw a change in the power structure in both the Senate and the House of Representative, in spite of White House officials repeatedly raising the specter of 9/11 and the terrorist threat.

All of this hasn’t really stopped the alleged president and many of the Republican candidates for the 2008 election from continuing to beat the 9/11 drum. Rudy Giuliani in particular has been guilty of this offense (and really, is there any wonder?).

And with the 2008 presidential election looming, I find myself getting increasingly nervous about the potential implications and effects of terror management theory in the run-up to the election. Care to venture into Paranoid Conspiracy Theory Land with me, my dear non-existent readers?

Your Humble Author Heads into Paranoid Conspiracy Theory Land

Okay, then. Let’s fast forward to, say, late September of 2008. Both parties have had their conventions by this time, and have nominated their respective candidates. For the present hypothetical, let’s assume that the Democratic Party has nominated Barack Obama and/or Hillary Clinton and the Republicans have nominated Rudy Giuliani and/or Fred Thompson, though the actual identities of the candidates may not matter all that much.

The war in Iraq is continuing, and who knows, we might also be fighting a second front, either Afghanistan (again) or Iran, or maybe both if Bush gets his wish. Members of the military are on their fourth or fifth combat rotations since the start of the Iraq war, and there is talk of reinstituting the draft to fill a desperate need for more troops as the military has been stretched beyond capacity. Also as a result of the wars, the deficit has reached truly breathtaking new heights (more than it already has, that is), and the economy is suffering as a result.

The United States is essentially standing alone in the world, as Bush has completely alienated our few remaining allies. Most people have lost count of the number of Congressional investigations into various administration actions and scandals. The Democratic Congress has been unable to rein in an increasingly isolated and intransigent President Bush, because they lack the votes necessary to overturn his vetoes, and there are continuing rumors that the president has returned to the hard-drinking ways of his youth. Even Barney has abandoned him in disgust at this point.

Although the Republican candidates have attempted to distance themselves from Bush and link themselves to the memory of Ronald Reagan, their continued support for the unpopular war(s) concern many voters, and Giuliani’s positions on a number of social issues, particularly abortion, have alienated many in the traditional Republican base. Democrats are ahead in the polls by a substantial margin, both in the presidential race and the various Congressional races, and barring any unforeseen catastrophes, look likely to win the presidential race and increase their margins of control in both houses of Congress. Clearly, at this point, merely banging on the 9/11 drum will not be sufficient to turn the election in the Republican party’s favor.

Cut to a smoke-filled back room somewhere in Georgetown, where Dick Cheney and Karl Rove (who in my hypothetical finally left the White House early in 2008 to “pursue other options” following increasing revelations about his involvement in various White House scandals) meet with a number of Republicans and certain business leaders who have traditionally worked in a behind-the-scenes sort of way to maintain and expand Republican Party power in this country. Also included in their number are several less-savory types with connections to a number of organizations that Republicans would never publicly associate themselves with, in spite of utilizing their services on occasions when normal political channels will not produce the results desired. Cheney and Rove, of course, are aware of the particulars of terror management rheory and its implications, as they would have been briefed by DHS and military officials who were, in turn, briefed on the research by some of the researchers themselves.

[NB: I have picked Cheney and Rove for my little paranoid speculation because I believe them to be fully aware of terror management theory and because I think they are evil bastards, not because I have any substantive reasons to believe they actually have been or necessarily will be directly or indirectly involved in anything as sinister as I am about to describe. It could involve people mostly uninvolved in the current administration who have found out about terror management theory by reading the research, or hearing about it at other backroom political gatherings in the past, or whatever. Not that this is ever going to happen, of course. Just paranoid ranting on my part. But still, very, very plausible…]

Our evil back room cabal discusses the election, which at the moment looks bleak for the Republican party, and lets those not already in the know into the implications of terror management theory. After some debate, the group decides on a course of action. The meeting adjourns, and one of the less-savory types leaves to place a few calls from a secure line to some, for want of a better term, business associates in a country in Eastern Europe.

Flash forward again to Monday, October 20, 2008. The election is now fifteen days away, and the evil back room cabal’s plot is about to come to fruition. This part could play out one of two ways:

Scenario 1: Federal agents, acting on a tip, raid a storage locker near downtown Los Angeles, and discover a nuclear warhead that has somehow been smuggled into the country. The warhead is real – perhaps one that was lost around the time of the Soviet Union’s collapse, perhaps from some other source. Federal agents then raid the home of the Islamic immigrant in whose name the storage locker was rented, accidentally killing him in the process. A search of his apartment reveals no evidence of co-conspirators, but does provide “evidence” (planted by associates of the aforemention member of the evil back room cabal) tying him to the storage locker.

The White House immediately calls a press conference, showing everyone the nuclear warhead and touting the raid as a significant victory in the war on terror. Immediately following the press conference, there is speculation that the President may declare martial law and postpone the election, though that never actually comes to pass. People around the country, and particularly people who live and work in Los Angeles, lose a lot of sleep over the next few nights, thinking about the bullet they dodged.

Suddenly the presidential election looks too close to call, and the outcomes of a number of Congressional races look less certain, as well. Republicans return to the familiar territory of harping on 9/11, terrorism, and the Los Angeles plot. Political observers everywhere bite their nails as November 4th approaches.

Scenario 2: The above-mentioned Soviet nuclear warhead is smuggled into Los Angeles, but this time, there is no successful raid by federal agents. It seems some of those, um, business associates had a real desire to wreak some havoc here, and moved the warhead from the locker where it was supposed to be discovered to some undisclosed location – actually, to an unused office on one of the upper floors of an office building in downtown Los Angeles. The warhead is detonated, killing hundreds of thousands of people in the surrounding area, vaporizing the entire downtown section of Los Angeles, and injuring and sickening millions of others outside the primary blast radius. (I pick on Los Angeles in this scenario because it is a city the neocons probably wouldn’t miss much if something went wrong with the plot – though San Francisco might be better from that perspective – plus a nuclear warhead seems a somehow fitting, Sodom and Gomorrah type ending for that town.)

Chaos reigns, and people across the country go into a sort of dazed shock over the magnitude of the loss – it is like the aftermath of 9/11, but several orders of magnitude greater.

Bush declares martial law with himself under more-or-less complete control, under the provisions of that little policy directive for continuity of government that made the news a few weeks ago. Elections are cancelled. There is no real help for the residents of Southern California, because the bulk of the National Guard troops and equipment in California and the surrounding states are all in the Middle East fighting Bush’s wars, so Bush calls on his buddies at Halliburton and Blackwater to restore order. Civil rights are suspended, not only in the disaster area, but nationwide. Oddly, given the effects of terror management theory and the general public’s fear of further attacks, there is almost no protest against the President’s actions, and those few who dare to speak out are swiftly arrested, classified as unlawful enemy combatants and sent to Gitmo, never to be heard from again.

Of course, none of this could ever possibly happen. Clearly, I am allowing my distrust for the current administration and certain Republican politicians override my good sense and push me into paranoid fantasies. And strictly speaking, neither of these attack scenarios in the days leading up to the election are particularly original. I have heard both scenarios or variations on them discussed elsewhere, with two significant differences: (1) in the scenarios I have heard elsewhere, the attack or threatened attack in the days before the election would be the result of the actions of foreign terrorists, not a plot by American citizens hoping to influence the election; and (2) I have heard no mention of terror management theory in connection with any of these scenarios.

It is terror management theory that makes my scenarios believable to me – and makes me willing to speculate that the events I discuss could actually arise from the intentional action of Americans, rather than being the unfortunately-timed acts of real foreign terrorists. One implication of terror management theory, after all, is that it is possible for someone with knowledge of the theory to actually manage terror (though I am quite certain that is not the intent of any of the researchers who developed the theory).

So am I some paranoid person, looking for trouble where there is none and trying to create problems where none exists? Possibly. I certainly hope so, because the alternative – that I am correct in my speculations in this humble little blog entry – is really too terrible to imagine. Clearly, though, as this post from Crooks and Liars suggests, I am not the first to have thought of the possible political consequences of another terrorist attack on U.S. soil.

Nevertheless, just in case I haven’t made this clear already, I really think that Bush and Cheney ought to be impeached.

-jane doe

Addendum: I have tried to be as complete as possible in citing the studies I refer to directly in this article. If I have inadvertently omitted any citations or mistakenly cited the wrong study for one of the points I attribute to research in the field of terror management, please e-mail me at janedoe [at] inbox.com (particularly if you are one of the authors on a study where I’ve omitted the correct citation) so that I can make any necessary corrections to this entry. And as always, thoughtful comments on or criticisms of this entry are welcome and encouraged. Thanks! -jd

Addendum 2: I should probably note that I’ve made a couple of minor changes to this post, mostly in terms of fixing grammatical errors or clarifying some confusing phrasing. I didn’t specifically call out the changes, as they were non-substantive, but thought I should probably mention it.

References

Cohen, F., Ogilvie, D. M., Solomon, S., Greenberg, J., Pyszczynski, T. (2005). American Roulette: The effect of reminders of death on support for George W. Bush in the 2004 presidential election. Analyses of Social Issues and Public Policy, 5, 177-187.

Cohen, F., Solomon, S., Maxfield, M., Pyszczynski, T., & Greenberg, J. (2004). Fatal attraction: The effects of mortality salience on evaluations of charismatic, task-oriented, and relationship-oriented leaders. Psychological Science, 15, 846-851.

Landau, M. J., Solomon, S., Greenberg, J., Cohen, F., Pyszczynski, T., Arndt, J., Miller, C. H., Ogilvie, D. M, & Cook, A. (2004). Deliver us from evil: The effects of mortality salience and reminders of 9/11 on support for President George W. Bush. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 30, 1136-1150.

Pyszczynski, T. (2004). What are we so afraid of? A Terror Management Theory perspective on the politics of fear. Social Research, 71, 827-848.

Pyszczynski, T., Solomon, S., & Greenberg, J. (2003). In the wake of 9/11: The psychology of terror. Washington, D. C.: American Psychological Association.

Well, the big news of the day, of course, is that the judge handed down a sentence in the Scooter Libby case. Thirty months in jail for lying under oath. And my oh my look at all the people who came out to write letters of support for Our Boy Scooter, according to Kos: Kissinger, Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld, Bolton, Perle, and Feith. And who didn’t write one? Darth Cheney.

Hmmm.

Of course the sentence will be appealed, with debate about whether Libby should be allowed to remain free pending that appeal. And the possibility (probability?) of a presidential pardon looms as well, though probably not until Dubya is on his way out the door.

Let’s all take a few minutes to remember what this is all really about, though, shall we?

What started it all was Ambassador Joe Wilson reporting, based on his investigation, that he didn’t believe claims that Iraq was trying to obtain yellowcake uranium in Niger were credible. This took place during the run-up to the Iraq war, in late 2002, and Wilson’s report contradicted the story our beloved president and his minions were trying to sell us all at the time, which was that Iraq was developing weapons of mass destruction. He was trying to convince us of this, and of Saddam Hussein’s love for al Qaeda, so that he could justify an invasion of Iraq to make the Middle East safe for Halliburton.

Wilson’s report undermined the president’s efforts in this venture, of course, so someone in the White House set out to discredit and retaliate against Joe Wilson. Part of that retaliation involved the leaking of Wilson’s wife’s status as a covert CIA agent, putting not only his wife, but her intelligence network — OUR intelligence network — at risk at a time when we desperately need whatever intel we can get.

The people who are pleading for leniency for Scooter Libby seem to think that his crime — lying under oath — is such a minor thing that he should receive no more than a mere slap on the wrist.

Let’s all remember that Scooter Libby’s crime was really just a small part of a much larger crime: the Bush administration’s manipulation of intelligence and public opinion to start a war of aggression against a country that was not really developing weapons of mass destruction, was not really allied with al Qaeda, and was not really a threat to the United States. A war that has killed thousands of Americans and tens of thousands (more likely hundreds of thousands, we just don’t have any way of counting accurately) of Iraqis –many of them innocent Iraqi civilians.

Do you think his crime was such a minor thing? I don’t. I think the real crime is that Scooter Libby is the only person to have been charged in the whole mess so far.

And by the way, I really think that Bush and Cheney ought to be impeached.

-jane doe

So apparently our alleged president, in his infinite wisdom, has decided to begin a covert campaign to destabilize Iran. Obviously the fiasco in Iraq, the re-emerging war in Afghanistan, the Justice department scandal, the World Bank mess, and his battles with Congress aren’t enough to occupy his time, and he has decided to go looking for additional trouble on another front.

And how do I know about this covert campaign, you may ask? Because it was very helpfully reported by ABC News.

This, of course, has prompted howls of ungrammatical outrage from the steadily dwindling number of Americans who still support George Bush – witness the comments to the above-referenced story, where commenters called ABC News “traders” (one assumes the person meant traitors) and speak of their “tresonous [sic] actions”.

While I can understand the poorly articulated concerns of those who commented on the story, I disagree with their conclusions. There are actions that our government takes that clearly should be kept secret. Broadcasting details of troop movements during combat operations, for example, would put our troops and our entire strategy at grave risk. Barring some notorious exceptions, I think our press has generally been sensitive to this need for vagueness in reporting on ongoing operations.

On the other hand, when our leaders decide to take unauthorized action against a country with which we are not at war, hoping to destabilize its government in the face of very vocal protests by many Americans that we should not go looking for trouble with that country given our current commitments in the world arena, and a news organization finds out about it, I believe that circumstances justify a decision to report on that story.

Clearly, someone within the administration was concerned enough about Bush’s decision to feel that public disclosure was necessary to prevent a huge catastrophe. Just a few weeks ago, George Tenet came under strong criticism from many quarters for his decision not to quit as head of the CIA and go to the press in protest of Bush’s actions in the run-up to the Iraq war. Someone watching all that apparently concluded that they didn’t want a similar catastrofuck on their conscience with respect to Iran – and bless them for it.So am I angered by ABC News’ decision to run this story? No. I view them as the whistleblower in this instance, alerting us to yet another questionable action by this administration that is running amok at our expense. We cannot afford a war with Iran at this time, due in large part to Bush’s bungling of the Iraq situation. And frankly, I don’t trust the motives of anyone in the Bush administration anymore.

Yes, they found him guilty, on four out of five counts. Proving that occasionally, the jury system works in this country. Really, after all the testimony, was there any doubt that he wouldn’t be found guilty on at least one count? I don’t think so.

But the question is, now what? Everyone’s like, well, Rove this, and Cheney that, but are there going to be any consequences to either of those alleged gentlemen as a result of all this? I suspect not. Just a lot of sound and fury, which in the end accomplishes nothing. Sad, yes, but true.

In a just world, Cheney and Bush would both be impeached for their repeated, flagrant violations of the Constitution and their crimes against humanity (and yes, I have decided to use that term for their authorization of torture and other misdeeds), and they would be removed from office. But in the current environment, I don’t see it happening. I want it. I’ll scream at the top of my lungs that it should happen. But again, that is just more sound and fury.

I tell myself that the great big wheel-o-karma will eventually come swinging back around and whap them all upside the head — and I will allow that perhaps we are starting to see a bit of that already. But will true justice be served? And what would true justice look like, for these bastards who have stolen our civil liberties, violated the laws of man, waged an unjustified war that has resulted in the deaths of thousands of our own citizens and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, most of them civilians, and brought shame upon our nation? Is there a form of justice that can be administered in this lifetime that is sufficient to offset the crimes this administration has committed against our own citizens and the citizens of other countries?

It’s enough to make those of us of different spiritual/religious/philosophical bents begin to appreciate some of the appeal of the Christian notion of a hereafter where the good are rewarded and evildoers are punished in a manner that is suited to their crimes. The ancient Greeks told stories of Tantalus and others, condemned to eternal tortures that reflected the appalling nature of their acts. Dante wrote of the Inferno and the Purgatorio. These notions of punishment that far exceed what we mere mortals can do seem somehow fitting for the catastrofuck our leaders have wrought.

But then I wonder, what punishment for us, the American people, for failing to stop the bastards once the nature of their misdeeds became clear? Perhaps having to live with them as our leaders is our punishment? Do we not deserve to be shunned by the civilized nations of the world, for allowing such conditions to fester? I speak out, I write letters, I call members of Congress, but I feel as if I should be doing more — that I owe it to the other people of the world who are being harmed by our current administration’s actions.

And yet tomorrow, I will go to work, and to classes, and do the daily tasks of life that we all do. I will bemoan the state of the world with my co-workers and my fellow students. My day will be filled up by the little day-to-day things that seem to take up all my time, and at the end of the day I will once again wonder, what could I have done today that would help to fix things? And I will again berate myself for not having done something more concrete, and maybe hate myself just a little bit more.

Against all that, finding Scooter Libby guilty of a few relatively minor crimes really doesn’t seem all that important…

-jane doe

I am in despair tonight, and I should apologize upfront because this is going to be rambling and far less focused than my posts usually are, but I feel a need to vent.

Our country is in a sorry state, and most people seem to feel like it is someone else’s problem to fix. Perhaps it is beyond fixing. I don’t know. It just seems that everywhere I look, I see mounting problems, with more problems lining up behind them. I find myself laughing in that nervous, slightly insane way that is nevertheless preferable to screaming at the existential horror of it all. I literally pull my hair and bang my head against the wall, and I lie awake at night wondering whether our country will survive another 686 days with George W. Bush in the White House.

Why do I feel such despair, you may ask? I hardly know where to begin.

First, above everything, we have the war in Iraq. The war we shouldn’t be in. The war our alleged president manipulated intelligence, manipulated public opinion, and flat-out lied to get us into. It will be George Bush’s legacy to our country, to his and our everlasting shame. Support our troops by sending more of them over there to die, that makes sense.

From this problem stem so many others. Our executive branch’s apparent abrogation of the Geneva Convention (and large portions of the Constitution), the effective elimination of habeas corpus, the torturing of prisoners of war — sorry, unlawful enemy combatants — these are not steps the president should be taking in our names. Once America stood as the bastion of freedom, honor, and human dignity. It was supposed to be a place where all men and women stood equal before the law, where all were treated with respect and one was innocent until proven guilty. That no longer is the case. Instead our officials are resorting to the means and methods of petty dictators, while still trying to claim the moral authority we once had.

Remember those civil liberties that we were always told set our country apart from other, less worthy nations? The liberties politicians say they are protecting when they send our military men and women off to war — in Iraq, in Afghanistan? Gone now, many of them. Fourth amendment right to be “secure in [your] persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures”? Gone. Gotta fight them terrorists. Feel like exercising your first amendment right to speak up about that? You’re emboldening the terrorists, you traitor. We must fight the terrorists overseas so we don’t have to fight them here, and the only way to save our democracy is apparently by turning it into an authoritarian dictatorship.

And don’t get me started on the growing intolerance in this country. I want to cry when I hear Christians claiming there is some sort of war against Christianity in this country, just because some people think the ten commandments don’t belong in government buildings. The reason I want to cry is because I am a practitioner of a non-Christian religion, and I feel like I am regularly hit in the face with Christianity everywhere I look these days. Don’t get me wrong — I think people should be able to practice whatever religion they want. And I am cool with the fact that the majority religion in this country is Christianity so they get their holidays as official days off work, even though the rest of us don’t. But I am terrified by people who think they should legislatively impose their religious beliefs on the rest of us. And yes, if you think that stem cell research is immoral, that Intelligent Design should be taught as science, and that park rangers at the Grand Canyon shouldn’t be able to talk about how long it took for the river to carve the geological formations there because it contradicts the biblical timeline for creation, I am talking about you.

Of course, with the war, and all the money that is going straight from the IRS to Halliburton’s coffers (with a little bi