ANTHONY VIOLANTI: THE UPCOMING BATTLE for the American Soul: Second Story: The stakes in the coming presidential election are frighteningly high

(Buffalo News) ~This is Anthony Violanti's latest story for First Sunday on the homeland's changing cultural landscape. He covers media for The Buffalo News. His e-mail is aviolanti@buffnews.com

"You will remember where you were this summer. It will be the same way you remember where you were when John Lennon was shot, or when Scott Norwood missed that field goal, or when our lives changed as profoundly as they did that crystal-clear Sept. 11 morning when hijacked planes flew like arrows into two humanity-filled symbols of American hegemony.
Now, the American cultural homeland, the landscape where all of us play out the drama of our lives, is about to confront its destiny. The moment of truth for this country is coming, and its name is that four-year commencement known as a presidential election. There's a word to describe all those people who still reject or cannot recognize the meaning of this presidential election: idiots.
This country will define itself in November. American history, the kind that leaves an indelible mark on each citizen, is going to be made. If it's not clear by now, it should be: The direction of our country and our lives will be determined by what happens in this presidential election. Now, in mid-summer, sandwiched between the Democratic and Republican conventions, we are catching the heat of a campaign that will not only shape our future but the future of our country.
And people from all different political and cultural backgrounds recognize how much it matters.
"November's vote will be a big decision on foreign policy, economic policy and judicial appointments," says Bill Kristol, editor of the Weekly Standard and one of the most influential conservative voices in Washington. "People would be foolish not to care about this election because there's more at stake than just an election."
What's at stake is America's identity and standing, at home and throughout the world. What's at stake is the way we live and what we represent. The campaign between President Bush and Democratic Sen. John F. Kerry, more than any since the Reagan years, will define our country.
"It's horrendous the way we are perceived in the world community," says Geraldine Ferraro, the first woman on a national ticket when she ran for vice president in 1984 with Walter Mondale as presidential candidate.
"President Bush went to Ireland, and you had 40,000 people marching against the United States," Ferraro says. "Whoever heard of that? This is killing us. Something has to be done to re-establish our standing in the world, not only with our friends, which is mind-boggling, but also, if we want to resolve some of these problems, we have to start a dialogue with the people who are not our friends."
Maybe the Bush White House will do an uncharacteristic about-face. Maybe it will back off from its existing policy of pre-emptive war, building a new American Empire and fostering fear-mongering back home with endless warnings of terrorist threats. If the Bush administration does not change that existing policy - the choice between the candidates seems clear.
America needs change, not for the sake of change, but for a return to the values that represent our country. Sept. 11 may have changed the way we live, but those terrorists did not and could not destroy our history, cultural heritage and moral standing in the rest of the world. That could only happen from within.
Sadly, that heritage and the fundamental Constitutional fabric of our society have been under siege for the past four years, culminating with the war in Iraq, the major focus of this campaign and election.
The war in Iraq has taken the lives of over 900 American fighting men and women. But that's only part of America's challenge over the past four years. We had a presidential election decided by a politicized Supreme Court, and the candidate who lost the popular vote won the White House. We live under the bright colors of daily terror alerts and surrender guaranteed Constitutional legal rights in the name of patriotism.
Such digression from the Founding Fathers' vision of America does not come cheap. Consider this little shorthand list of what actually is at stake in this election:
Cost: The White House intends to ask for an additional $25 billion to operate in Iraq and Afghanistan in fiscal 2005, a number Time magazine estimates is only half or a third of what those operations will actually cost. The nation has spent more than $126 billion on the war in Iraq; each American family will pay $3,400 for it, according to studies issued by the Institute for Policy Studies and Foreign Policy in Focus in Washington. Military personnel are stretched to the limit, with extended tours of duty and the call-ups of National Guard and Reserve troops. Bringing back the military draft has been discussed by members of Congress. The financial demands of Iraq War Part II will continue to escalate, sucking up money that might be spent on health care or schools or struggling cities like Buffalo.
International Profile: "A lot of people in America don't understand how America is perceived in the rest of the world," says Jehane Noujaim, a documentary film director whose current film, "Control Room," is about press coverage of the Iraq war. "They don't know why there is this anger against the United States.
"When I'm sitting in a coffee shop in a poor, rundown section of Cairo and I hear Bush on TV talking about how he's bringing freedom and democracy to the Arab world, it gives me a stomachache. You have to understand that the Arab world is seeing film of American destruction and killing in Iraq. It is being beamed into their living rooms every day. That's how other people in the world see America."
Domestic Identity: "I've never been so alienated from my country," Art Garfunkel said in an interview when he and Paul Simon performed at HSBC Arena in June. "I don't think any comparison to the '60s matters. This is the worst I've ever seen the state of the nation. It's as if we're living in a bad dream. It goes on and on, ever since this new White House regime came into power."
Garfunkel is not alone. The cost of the war and White House economic programs have upset conservatives. "Federal government spending is out of control," David Keene, president of the American Conservative Union, wrote in a letter to members.
"This administration cannot be trusted to govern if it cannot be counted on to think and, having thought, to have second thoughts," wrote conservative columnist George F. Will.
"We lied our way into the war; it's a terrible mistake, a terrible foreign policy error," Ron Reagan, son of the late president, told CNN. He also disagreed with Bush's stand against stem cell research and addressed the Democratic convention.
Basic National Credibility in the Electoral System: "I don't know how to see this election," Garfunkel said. "I almost feel the rules are suspect, which is a whole new feeling I've had as an American. I'm one of the Americans who kind of feel my country has been stolen from me."
Garfunkel's distrust over vote counting in the 2000 election remains. Does this election year offer any hope?
"No," Garfunkel said. "I think that whatever is hidden from me, whatever pulled off this amazing thing to put such an ordinary man (Bush) in such an important position of power, whatever trick that made that happen, is firmly in place to do it again. And it's still hidden from me."
Earlier this summer, a Senate Intelligence Committee issued a report saying the Bush administration's primary reason for going to war in Iraq - Saddam Hussein's possession of weapons of mass destruction - was untrue.
"Listen, we thought there was going to be stockpiles of weapons," Bush said at a campaign rally soon after the report was released in July.
So Bush led America to its first pre-emptive war (meaning we started it) in history and immersed America in what many see as an ill-planned quagmire because he "thought" Iraq had weapons?
Regardless of one's political loyalties, it's crucial to remember: Pre-emptive war has always been a foreign concept to America.
"The United States has long taken a leading part in advocating an international law which will outlaw aggressive war," the late Robert H. Jackson, a Jamestown lawyer who became a Supreme Court justice and later prosecuted Nazi leaders at the Nuremberg War Trials, once said. "Aggressive war is criminal."
Jackson was also concerned about protecting constitutional rights, often trampled in the name of war. "We must not forget that the process which tries to overthrow your liberties is a subtle thing and is never announced as such," he wrote. "It is under the guise of protecting you."
National Security: "I believe we were right to go into Iraq. America is safer today because we did," Bush said.
But how safe is America?
This year, even the presidential election may fall victim to the terrorist scare. News reports indicate Election Day could be postponed because of a possible terrorist threat. That would be another historical first under Bush.
Iraq, meanwhile, has become a haven for terrorism, possibly the most dangerous country in the world. One of the first acts of the new Iraqi government was to declare martial law, hardly a sign of a budding democracy.
Many, including Richard Clarke, former White House terrorism adviser under Bush, believe the war with Iraq has hurt the American fight against terrorism throughout the world and also weakened the defense of our country at home. During Clarke's testimony before the 9/11 commission, he apologized to the American people for the government's failure to protect them.
"Frankly," Clarke later told CBS, "I find it outrageous that the president is running for re-election on the grounds that he's done such great things about terrorism. He ignored it. He ignored terrorism for months, when maybe we could have done something to stop 9/11. Maybe. We'll never know."
Kerry has suggested the Iraq war has diverted the United States from other threats to this country.
"The facts speak for themselves," Kerry told the New York Times. "There was less nuclear weapons material secured in the two years after 9/11 than in the two years before. North Korea has reportedly quadrupled its nuclear weapons capability in the past year. Iran is developing nuclear weapons capability. Afghanistan has become a forgotten front in the war on terror."
So far, Kerry's exact stance on the war in Iraq has been vague. Many observers think it's by design, waiting until the moment is right to articulate a coherent policy and correct his inconsistent Iraq war voting record.
"I'm surprised Kerry hasn't made the break with this war," Helen Thomas, veteran Washington, D.C., journalist said last month. She has covered the White House since John F. Kennedy was president.
"His mantra was always anti-war," says Thomas. "Then he voted for the resolution giving Bush the power to do anything necessary in Iraq, which was the green light for war. It was almost word for word like the the Tonkin Gulf Resolution that gave Lyndon Johnson the right to make war in Vietnam.
"Kerry has to make a break with the (Bush) policy," says Thomas. "If he's going to be "me too,' he might not win."
No matter how controversial or costly, the Iraq War suits Bush in this election year. The war on terrorism is his badge of political identity.
"I'm a war president," Bush told NBC. "I make decisions here in the Oval Office in foreign policy matters with war on my mind. Again, I wish it wasn't true, but it is true. And the American people need to know they got a president who sees the world the way it is. And I see dangers that exist, and it's important for us to deal with them."
Despite the gravity of this election, somehow, the media doesn't get the message. Instead of issues of life and death, we get analysis about red states and blue states. Instead of policies of war and peace, we get stories about soccer moms and NASCAR dads. Instead of matters of conscience and morality, we get ideology and a combination of journalism and entertainment that has morphed into something called Infotainment.
The media is suffering from inverse reality in this election year. The more crucial this election becomes, the more it is portrayed as a shouting match between talking heads.
"Politics is becoming an increasingly ugly business," says Graydon Carter, editor of Vanity Fair magazine and author of the book "What We've Lost" due out next month. "And the uglier it gets, the more it drives good people away from the arena."
Voters are having a difficult time as they take stock of where we're going and where we've been in the last four years.
"I would say they are both fearful and their lack of understanding of the real issues makes them hidebound," says Carter. That's hidebound, as in "stubbornly prejudiced, narrow-minded or inflexible."
In a way, the campaign shows how far we have come since those days of Sept. 11, when Americans were united and had the sympathy of the rest of the world.
"I live in New York and I think George Bush exploited the terrible things that happened on 9/11 in the most cynical way," says Anthony DeCurtis, a writer for Rolling Stone magazine. "I think this campaign reflects that exploitation. It's sad and it's frustrating."
November's election represents a clear choice for the country's future. If it's a battle for the nation's soul, even seasoned seen-it-all politicians say that struggle is profoundly worth it.
Geraldine Ferraro ran on the ticket against Reagan in 1984. She learned an enduring lesson about America during a presidential election year.
"You go all over this country and it's amazing how many people you see with the tremendous values that make us strong," says Ferraro. "People are so patriotic, and it's not just waving the flag. They have real pride in their country.
"I remember going to these big campaign rallies. I'd look down from the stage and I'd see men with kids on their shoulders, women with babies in their arms, and elderly people just standing and listening. They were all together. They were there because they believed in democracy and they believed in this country. They believed anything was possible."
Maybe that's what presidential elections are all about: possibilities. Maybe that's what America is all about. This country and its leaders have lost their way before, but America somehow always managed to rediscover its moral equilibrium and reinvent itself.
The country has three months left in this campaign to find that redemptive road, to find a leader who best represents this country's historical legacy and future hope.
To fail, to make the wrong decision, means a long and painful four years until our next national commencement exercise."