Our Most Serious Loss
The figures are by now familiar, a downward spiral of public faith in the President, Congress, the entire Federal government. But the latest Gallup figures show something more ominous–Americans losing trust in themselves.
Politicians come and go, but voters have always been sure they could correct mistakes at the ballot box. But now only 70 percent of Americans trust the public’s ability to perform its role in a democratic government, down from 78 percent two years ago and much lower than any other previous Gallup reading.
These figures suggest a growing crisis of confidence that won’t be resolved by a change in the White House. As leading Democratic candidates now waver over promising to have our troops out by 2013 and the President goes cheerfully along his “What? Me Worry?†way, Iraq is beginning to feel like flypaper, keeping us from moving ahead on other national issues such as health care, education, economic uncertainty and social justice.
Before 9/11, we lived in a confident, even cocky, society. How do we get back the trust we lost in ourselves and one another?
Cross-posted from my blog.
opinions powered by SendLove.to
11 Responses to “Our Most Serious Loss”
I’m not surprised at the Gallup figures. You can smell it in the air and hear it in commentary.
It isn’t 9/11 that changed as, Think of how WWII, with its horrendous loses, rationing, etc etc..served to lift national confidence. The attack at Pearl Harbor didn”t destory our spirit. Even though there were some controversial measures taken as a result (the internment of Japanese-Americans). the country didn’t lose its basic sense of who we are, what we stand for or our national unity.
We lost our confidence because of how 9/11 was handled, not just in Iraq, but at home. The country was deliberately split between the godd guys and the bad guys along party lines, and that split has by now become an abyss. A house divided devotes its time to infighting, always a morale destoying enterprise.
The icing on the cake is that this cataclysm comes at a time of economic turmoit.
It’ll be miracle if we ever recover.
It has to do with more than Iraq. The real problem is the total lack of leadership in America. Politicians have no problem asking the middle class and blue collar Americans do to things that they would never do themselves. From the left’s use of chickenhawk or exposing sexual hypocrites to the right’s pointing out how the left avoid public schools, public universities, or careers with large number of blacks.
Why should anyone in the U.S. feel comfortable with the polticial situation when the elected leaders just refuse to deal with immigration, crime, education, traffic, or even the lack of accountability of civil servants.
The reaction to 9/11 was so much worse than the event itself. Its as though collectively we drew ourselves into a fetal position so we could hide from the terrorists. Unfortunately, both 9/11 and Katrina revealed massive shortcomings in the government’s ability to protect us from cataclysmic events. I would call it a defining moment for America, when we realized our vulnerabilities.
Al queda must have enjoyed watching us turn on each other and probably loved watching politicians so easily manipulate the populace by using fear.
The reason is called “poisoning the well”.
For example, you may notice that no airliner ads ever talk about their safety records, or criticize other airlines. If they were to do so, it would undermine the faith of everyone in flying.
During the Clinton era the GOP hit him with everything in the book. Yes, he was slick Willy for sure, and yes, he is a faithless character…but they damaged the presidency in their desire to damage him. In the Bush era, a time of war, the Democrats did the same.
One can still see the Michael Moore lie from Fahrenheit 911 about Bush letting bin Laden’s family leave because of the Bush family’s conspiracy with bin Laden…even after Bush critic Richard Clarke declared he had done so.
Democrats and the liberal media have attacked Bush and the United States. The NYT revealed secrets of the government’s monitoring of AQ financial transactions that even the Times has conceded were fully legal…I doubt they would have done so were a Democrat in the White House.
Poisoning the well of public trust in institutions…by both Democrats and Republicans.
Here we go again. Even as Marlowe speaks of how both sides have poisoned the well his post does the same.
Notice the part I highlighted. How many really attacked the United States? Bush, yes. Policies of his administration, yes. But the numbers who were really attacking the United States are minuscule. We all need to remember to watch the size of the brush we use.
The right wing smear machine has actively tried to equate opposition to the Bush administration’s policies as lack of patriotism — oh why do liberals hate America??-when the very opposite is true. Liberals love America but hate what the Bush administration has done to it since 9/11. Marlowe seems to have bought into their propaganda- which should tell you how successful they are at spreading it. This brings to mind another recent comment by Marlowe about how the left “hates the troops.”
Marlowe- come clean- are you a closet talk radio junkie???? Deep down don’t you get it that this is what the right wants you to believe?
Marlowe -
What are you saying?
That selling the war on fudged premises had nothing to do with it?
-tha politicizing the war by demonizing everyone who doesn’t agree with the administration had nothing to do wih it?
- that the ‘vast liberal media’ made up the bngliing of the war?
- that liberals forced Abu Graib and tortuee on the administration?
All that would come as a surprise to the many conservatives who now (better late that never?)
concede that ‘mistakes’ were made.
And btw, calling these disasterous decisions and inexcusable lapses of judgment ‘mistakes’ is like calling Katrina an irritating draft.
Maybe the liberal press created the whole war out of illusions, and it never actually happened?
I sure would be glad to wake up from this nightmare, in that case,
I agree with the argument that the well has been poisoned. But I think it’s much worse than that. It’s amazing that so many people who make that argument follow it up by poisoning the well even further.
George Sorwell said it well.
We are having repeated discussions about excessive partisnahip, but the arguments are made by employing excessive partisanship
That just raises the anger up another notch.
That’s like pouring salt on a wound.
Not helpful.
Not only excessive-but downright unfair and untrue. This is very depressing stuff to hear from a fellow TMV-er. To be clear as a bell:
The left doesn’t hate America or the troops. They may hate George Bush and Dick Cheney- and may even think Petraeus has been brought into the fold just to keep the war going. But that’s a different story.
I still think Marlowe may be a closet dittohead.
Welcome back, Marlowe.
Yes, how evil that “liberal” media is. It fired anti-war commentators (Phil Donahue), and hired pro-war commentators (Michael Savage), suggested to us all that supporting the war was the “patriotic” thing to do, and offered non-stop propaganda in favor of the war back in 2002-2003.