James Moore
America's role as the unwavering good guy is a mythology that has sustained us but may ultimately be our ruin. We are not the knights of perpetual goodness on steeds of democratic glory saving the world from tyranny. Often, we have played the opposite role. Unfortunately, as the eight years of the Bush administration are coming to a close, we seem to still want to believe in our own righteousness, instead of scrutinizing our government's behavior in our name. The founders, of course, had a different construct in mind. The United States became a nation on the premise of the simple notion that there was nothing more patriotic than the act of questioning authority, and that is the only way it will survive as a country of free people.
Working people tend to turn to the media to handle this responsibility for our democracy. This is our mistake. There is, of course, as the wise man said, "no such thing as a free press unless you own one." America's media are generally owned by the corporate entities that have interests that do not serve the public. Consequently, when Brit Hume and Brian Williams and Wolf Blitzer intone their stenographic journalism based upon the White House's message of the day, we are all misled. Those who go further are shouted down or vilified as unpatriotic and ridiculed for not wearing flag pins on their lapels. Global conflict is reduced to the simplicity of a football game under the Friday Night Lights.
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