President who couldn’t find a coherent sentence with two hands and a flashlight

by Mary MacElveen

As all of you know, I love to quote excellent passages coming from various places such as the United States Declaration of Independence, the United States Constitution, words spoken by past leaders and, yes, movies and television shows. I do that since I find what is written to be of great value ... we all can learn a thing or two ... hopefully by learning a valued lesson ... we the people can change not only this country for the better, but the world as well.

Many of you around the world from as far away as Australia, Jordan, China and Japan have taken time to write me asking why the American people can settle for such a corrupt and criminal government.

The answer is found in a movie that I have cited in the past ... "The American President." It is because many can no longer distinguish the difference of true moral leadership. While I would love to hold the elected officials of the United States solely responsible for this lack of moral leadership, the responsibility lies as well with the American people who will settle for giving the world someone who is morally bankrupt ... his name is George W. Bush.

In "The American President," President Shepherd’s aide Lewis Rothschild (played by actor Michael J. Fox) says to the president: "People want leadership. And in the absence of genuine leadership, they will listen to anyone who steps up to the microphone. They want leadership, Mr. President. They’re so thirsty for it, they’ll crawl through the desert toward a mirage, and when they discover there’s no water, they’ll drink the sand."

Bush and the GOP led government are truly a mirage, where there is no water to be found ... we need true moral water to quench our thirst. As former Vice President Al Gore has made many policy speeches throughout these past five years, I have often said: I long to drink from the fountain of intelligence.

I want you to pay close attention to how President Shepherd responds to Mr. Lewis: "Lewis, we’ve had Presidents who were beloved, who couldn’t find a coherent sentence with two hands and a flashlight. People don’t drink the sand, ’cause they’re thirsty, Lewis. They drink it ’cause they don’t know the difference."

I would not call Bush beloved.

In fact when the movie character said: "couldn’t find a coherent sentence with two hands and a flashlight" it was pretty prophetic since this movie was made prior to Bush taking office.

I would say that the movie writers were visionaries...

I often wonder why many Americans do not know the difference and, speaking with a fellow writer here at VHeadline.com a while back, I was told that non-Native Americans here within the United States do not promote the telling of spoken history with those around them. Native Americans, as well as many of the poor in Venezuela, do ... and I think that’s the reason. Yes, we send our children off to school to learn their lessons, but due to many Americans working longer hours because they must in order to survive, any discussion of what their child has learned in school is often not spoken of. Also with many parents shuffling their children off to various sporting events, no time is left for an actual family dinner ... add to that any homework they might often have late into the night, any conversation is left out.

When life was at a slower pace, the family dinner was our very forum to discuss what needed to be discussed. I still remember growing up in the sixties and seventies where we rarely went out for dinner, everyone helped out, we could all gather around the dinner table to discuss a wide range of issues such as politics ... I do come from a politically engaged family ... as well as speaking of our own family’s spoken history.

While those years were of the Cold War, oddly enough, while I knew what it meant, I felt more secure. Yes, I witnessed the images of the Viet Nam War beamed into my home on a nightly basis ... but what my parents did was to take time out to discuss it with all of us. That is what the children growing up now are, for the most part, missing out on. With their parents working longer hours, while they may know of the Iraq War, they may not have anyone to discuss their feelings and they often will have questions with no one is there to answer them.

Also during the sixties and seventies, the space program was something we were all engaged in. It was President John F. Kennedy’s challenge to the American people to land a man on the moon and when a rocket went up, we gathered around our black and white television sets to take pride in something. I still remember when we touched down on the moon and my father took us all out to dinner and we spoke excitedly of it ... it was our hope for a far better future.

What exciting moment has replaced that today?

When I read US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s statement that we will be at war for the next 20 years ... what hope does that give today’s generation?

Again referring back to "The American President" Shepherd states this of his opponent: "Bob Rumson is not the least bit interested in solving it ... he is interested in two things and two things only: Making you afraid of it and telling you who’s to blame for it."

Does Bob Rumson remind you of someone?

I am so tired of living in fear and where I do crave hope. Many elected officials consistently blame each other instead of solving the problems of the American people and showing the world that solutions are indeed possible.

Our children are listening and what moral lesson are they teaching them ... that they must always live in fear and always blame someone else?
In this fast-paced western culture, many have become noise junkies when we are not working, going to school or performing our daily tasks. To our very peril, many are not sitting down alone deep within your own thoughts and say reading the actual history of the United States and the world.

So, how do we know where we come from and where we are going?

Many are not reading just for the sake of reading ... even the works of the great masters can often bring out valued lessons. If we look at the latest statistics, readership for the print news medium is down. People are relying too much on the noise from their TV sets to gather information. Some may not even use the TV for that purpose ... but solely for entertainment. Again, given the time constraints on many Americans, this was bound to happen ... a fast-paced world has dumbed us all down.

The American media often gives folks such as Pat Robertson (who threatened President Chavez’ life) a podium: What are Americans to think?

Just the other night, Fox News’ Sean Hannity and Alan Colmes egged him (Robertson) on. By doing so, they added a toxicity to any discussion Americans may have ... they gave Americans a noise-fix that has little value and no morality.

Just the other day I read: Ann Coulter ’Jokes’ That a Supreme Court Justice Should Be Poisoned—And is Compared to Lil’ Kim where the syndicated columnist, Ann Coulter said of US Supreme Court Justice Paul Stevens: "We need somebody to put rat poison in Justice Stevens’ creme brulee." While she said it was "joke to the media" it was as much of a terrorist threat as the one made by Pat Robertson. In both cases the Patriot Act must be applied.

So far neither have been arrested and, in both cases, it sends a loud and clear message to the American people that the law means nothing ... then again, when you have Bush breaking so many laws, that too sends a clear message to us all that any morality and leadership is truly gone.

As I wrote in a previous article, if the United States were to invade Venezuela, a former Marine friend said he "would stand on the beaches of Venezuela and defend it from American forces that were invading" He stated, just the other day, in an email: "I fought as a United States Marine for freedom and honesty. We do not have such in this nation today."

As we still live in this "United We Stand" mentality, we should listen to what this former Marine has to tell us ... after all, while many of us slept, he watched our backs.

So, have we lost our moral compass because we Americans acquiesced to it and our elected officials refused to enforce it?

Have we allowed our addiction to noise to get in the way of going deep within ourselves to know what is morally right and wrong?

Are we indeed drinking the sand because we can no longer tell the difference?

That is for you to decide...

Mary MacElveen

mary@vheadline.com

http://www.vheadline.com/MacElveen