valued the founding principles of the United States; over and again fear conjured up and used as national stimulus by the executive branch of government to control and subvert our representative democracy.

With the majority of Americans now aware the efforts of this administration have created a disaster in Iraq that dwarfs the scale of destruction that occurred in New York City – over a half million civilians killed, two million displaced, the infrastructure bombed into near inoperable oblivion, depleted uranium and uncontrolled toxic waste spread throughout the country - the meme of the Bush policy took dramatic turn in a recent speech to a gathering of military veterans in which Bush reconstructed the history of the United States in Vietnam and introduced another force to subjugate the independent thinking of his countrymen: the politics of shame.

We threw in the towel during the Vietnam War, we could have won if only we'd stayed longer, if only we had had the courage for more sacrifice (not Bush's nor Cheney’s, but we all know those stories), transparent denunciations in front of an audience of military veterans accusing his countrymen of incompetence, of engendering disgrace, of thereby giving solace to our “enemies,” failures he suggested were directly connected to the present military occupation of Iraq and about to be repeated.

The following media week was a-buzz with commentators endorsing Bush’s revisionist history and his fatuous conclusions. In this new construct Vietnam wasn’t a national tragedy because of the violent warfare against that country but because we hadn’t the moral fiber to endure and “win.” Never mind that it was the CIA that engineered the coup against King Sihanouk which led to the Khmer Rouge and the killing fields which Bush blamed on our “withdrawal” from Vietnam or that “withdrawal” in the end was by helicopter from the rooftops. One can counter all the ignorance of his baseless thinking but his point wasn’t to educate, rather to use shame to re-construct a base of support for his failed efforts in Iraq and as President.

It's one thing to falsely rewrite history; it's another to dishonor the country for which you are chief executive. The use of shame as a whip is woven through the religious history of the western world: the supposed sinful origins of man and/or fall from grace, the centuries old traditions that human beings are unworthy without blood sacrifice; these and a host of similar constructs have been poisonously woven into the collective consciousness of humanity by those who would manipulate and control. In this sense Bush’s latest endeavors are really nothing new and betray a deeper knowledge of history than his venal remarks would credit.

However, for the people of the United States, this new bottom of the national barrel can mark an opportunity toward enlightenment and freedom, for if nothing else they clearly illuminate the motivations behind our current dilemma and thus the path out. Where fear has been sown let there be courage to greet the day and to refuse the nihilism of war and violence. Where shame has been spread let there be the understanding that shirks off the accusations of tyranny. Let us stand in the sovereignty and freedom of our true birthright:

To feel and speak the astonishing beauty of things—earth, stone and water,

Beast, man and woman, sun, moon and stars—

The blood-shot beauty of human nature. - Robinson Jeffers

God bless America indeed.