<![CDATA[So, listening to the President Bush claiming his victory, there were two passages that I think bode very dark for the country. First, this man who claims to be disinterested in his legacy said his was an “historic victory.” This suggests that, like after 2002, the neocons will claim their “due,” as they did with the largest of the Bush tax cuts for the richest one percent.
The other passage that troubled me most of all was the president’s reference to “one future that binds us.” This sounds like a man who is going to tell us all where to go and how fast to march. He meant to say, I think, that there is one future that will unite us.
His speechwriters or the candidate must have chosen this word carefully, since it was the keystone of his “appeal” to Kerry supporters. If he means “bind,” my worst fears have already been confirmed. And he meant “bind,” an American future that constrains thought and action to the narrow parameters of evangelical neoconservatism allows rather than an era of unlimited possibility.
After all, what is the most popular film of the past four years, the very years of Bush? The Lord of the Rings, which provides this example of a binding future:
“One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them,
One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them.”
Congratulations, Mr. President. You have my loyal opposition generally and, if you make sound decisions for our country, my support. I’ll be the judge of what’s sound, because I’m American.]]>