Civilized Behavior
We do not consider patriotism desirable if it contradicts civilized behavior.
Friedrich Durrenmatt </em>
I was sadden to discover that Bush would not be visiting my fair city on his “Interview with a sociopath” book tour. And before you accuse me of delusional name calling, read this:
Antisocial personality disorder is specifically a pervasive pattern of disregarding and violating the rights of others. Diagnostic criteria for this disorder state that this pattern must include at least three of the following specific signs and symptoms:
- Lack of conforming to laws, as evidenced by repeatedly committing crimes
- Repeated deceitfulness in relationships with others, such as lying, using false names, or conning others for profit or pleasure
- Failure to think or plan ahead (impulsivity)
- Tendency to irritability, anger, and aggression, as shown by repeatedly assaulting others or getting into frequent physical fights
- Disregard for personal safety or the safety of others
- Persistent lack of taking responsibility, such as failing to establish a pattern of good work habits or keeping financial obligations
- A lack of feeling guilty about wrong-doing</em>
Only takes three for a diagnosis? The Bush years were all of these on parade, in glorious high def on our TV screens every night. I could link to examples of each, but there is no need. Either you understand that we tolerated- nay, exalted- a monster in our midst, or you don’t. Either you gritted your teeth in ashamed rage at what passed for American values for those eight years, or you slept comfortable in your xenophobic blindness, thankful that daddy was fighting the bad guys.
I recall sitting silently in a crowd watching the grotesque cable news dramedy that surrounded the death of Gerald Ford, a punchline of a president, feeling repulsed that we were supposed to lionize a man who let Nixon walk, and green-lighted the genocide in East Timor. It was 2006, and you’d think by then my ability to be repelled by our national spectacle of ignorance would have been used up; after two stolen elections, two illegal wars and of course the off Broadway version of the Reichstag Fire, but no, I was still able to feel disgust, indignation, and shame at what most around me accepted as normal.
I feel the same today watching George Bush parade his personality disorder across the country, sitting down with Oprah or Matt Lauer, uttering statements such as “Damn right! I committed a war crime” or how his lowest moment of his Presidency was having his racism acknowledged in the public square by a rapper. These are the words of a sociopath, a person devoid of a moral code and completely lacking empathy for his fellow man, but if you mention that he wears the Emperor’s New Clothes of a war criminal, people look at you as if you are completely deranged. But they think this guy is a patriot.
It is seductive to ponder just getting over it, as if such a thing were possible. How I wish that I could just simply not care that our nation is less a functioning democracy but rather a cult of personality , subject to the greedy whims of the grifter ruling elites (thanks, Matt Taibbi), forced to accept as reasonable and sane petty despots such as grandstanding nitwit Darrell Issa, who of course sat on his hands for eight years while Bush ran roughshod over the world, Cheney committed treason, and our national wealth was loaded-figuratively and literally onto pallets and handed off to the richest among us.
Yes, I’m sad that Bush won’t be signing books in my town. I would hope that for $35 and a wait in line I could stand face to face with the man, summon my inner Kayne, and tell him that not all of us are fooled, that some of us recognize him to be a disturbed tyrant who should be hung from the neck till dead. That he made me ashamed to be American, if he was what the world saw when our flag got raised. To tell him that if there was any justice in the world, his final days would be full of the same suffering he visited upon Fallujah.
But for that they would consider me uncivilized.
