I’ve been wondering
that myself over the last few weeks. Is it the failure
of a weak-kneed press who, too busy cannibalizing
its own, hasn’t challenged the candidates on
anything except decades old blunders? Is it because
Kerry is too bright and doesn’t view the world
in black and white, but in the nebulous way it really
exists? Is it due to an artful Bush propaganda machine
that can convince people of just about any alternative
reality, including that the Iraq fiasco has made them
safer? Or (as the presidential debate showed us),
is it because each time Kerry discusses “global”
responsibility, the Republicans launch into jingoistic
flag waving? “No, I’d say it is something
different. I’ve decided it’s because many
Americans think John Kerry is a snitch.
Sure, we all like to celebrate whistleblowers, put
them on the cover of Time, and make cool movies about
them, but deep down we don’t particularly “like”
them. Somewhere in the back of our minds echoes that
schoolyard refrain, “Nobody likes a tattle-tail”.
For this reason alone John Kerry shouldn’t have
emphasized his war years in the presidential campaign.
He should have known that his military service would
take a back seat to what he did on returning from
Vietnam, when he publicly denounced the “Genghis
Khan” like behavior of the American military.
Far from causing people to admire him for his conscience
and bravery for speaking out, his truth-telling simply
reminded them of their own failures of conscience,
their own inability to do the right thing when challenged,
and that Uncle Sam is not always a shining beacon
of emancipation and moral clarity. That’s not
the kind of stuff that wins elections.
What wins is appealing to that significant mass of
the population who still live as though they were
walking the halls of Washington Elementary or skulking
around their high school alma maters, desperate to
be among, or remain with, the in-crowd. These are
the citizens who feel compelled to vote for George
W. Bush, though he has the chuckle, smirk, and demeanor
of the classroom bully we all hated. These are the
folk who can laugh off the litany of “youthful
indiscretions” George compiled until the age
of 40 (Who doesn’t wish they could remain an
adolescent until middle age?). These are the citizens
who when the chips are down seek solace in Nick at
Nite and the Happy Days of yore, when snitches could
be controlled by the Eddie Haskells of the world.
So let this be a word of warning to Jimmy Massey,
the former Marine Corps Staff Sergeant, who suffered
through a tour of duty in Operation Iraqi Freedom,
only to return and decry (like Kerry) the atrocities
committed on a civilian population. If you ever decide,
Jimmy, to enter politics and run for president, don’t
put your war service at the top of your resume. Voters
aren’t going to like being reminded how we “lit
up” (i.e. machine-gunned) cars full of innocent
Iraqi civilians. How Baghdad locals fleeing before
the invasion ended up dead and tossed into ditches.
How young demonstrators were wiped out. How people
with their hands to the sky were shot by servicemen
with itchy trigger fingers. And how depleted Uranium
turned the Iraqi countryside into a toxic wasteland,
poisoning thousands of women and children.
Nobody likes a rat.
| D.A. Blyler is the author of
the novel Steffi’s Club. His essays have
appeared at Salon.com, The Korean Herald, Bangkok’s
The Nation, and other international and online
publications. A lecturer at Rajabhat University
Rajanagarindra, he makes his home in Thailand.
His latest novel can be purchased at Amazon.com. |
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