Bullies Ascendent

By Nina Burleigh, AlterNet. Posted November 1, 2004.

Bully – n, blustering browbeating person, esp. one habitually cruel to others who are weaker; ... vb: to treat abusively. – Webster's Dictionary

Thanks to satellite television, even pygmies in the Central African bush are familiar with the bullying ways of George W. Bush and his men. The swagger, the smirk, and the Abu Ghraibsters' photos are logo enough for Islamist recruiters. Europeans fear and revile us for the same reasons, while in China, they simply stay out of our way.

Americans know that Bush's international bullying has diminished our reputation in the world as a nation of law and reason. Some Americans – Bush's xenophobic base – love exactly that about him.

Iraqis are the poster victims of Bush's bullies. The war has killed at least 100,000 civilians, according to Johns Hopkins researchers. What no one talks about is how the Bush bullies have affected us here at home, so that we, as a society, have grown accustomed to menace and threat as replacements for debate and persuasion. Quotidian bullying could be this president's true and lasting legacy – beyond debt and war – to America.

The "yuppie riot" organized out of Texas bully Tom DeLay's office during the 2000 vote count in Miami set the tone. Those buttoned-down brown-shirts, the Bush-Jugend if you will, have not regrouped for public displays of force since. They haven't needed to. The president himself, by example, has emboldened natural bullies and made new bullies across the nation.

Here at home, we have watched the Bush bullies kicking the already down, again and again – with the gay marriage amendment, the cash grabs for the already rich, the silencing of dissent by the Patriot Act, the immigrant roundups, and the complete and utter absence of concern for improving health care.

The triumph of the bully is especially noticeable as the election draws near.

RNC Chairman Ed Gillespie recently sent a letter to Rock the Vote in Washington, accusing the organization of "malicious political deception" for sending sample draft cards via e-mail to educate their 600,000 e-mail members about the draft. In his letter to the organization, Gillespie wrote: "As a non-profit organization that enjoys the benefits of being formed under 501 (c )(3) of the Internal Revenue Code, you have an obligation to immediately cease and desist from promoting or conducting your 'Draft' campaign."

In the current climate, an overt written threat by a governing party official to revoke non-profit status is hardly worthy of press attention. This is a year when pepper spray fired from paintball guns onto small-town children barely gets ink.

President Bush's visit last week to Jacksonville, Ore., a tiny mountain town of fewer than 3,000 souls, was heralded by the usual black helicopters bristling with guns. When peaceful protesters lined the main street hoping the President might glance at their signs from his bulletproof limo, they were shot at with paintball guns firing pepper spray.

CNN the next morning gave a few chipper, upbeat seconds to the abuse. Transcript: "Well, good morning, Heidi," Suzanne Malveaux said. "Of course, as the campaign heats up, so do those protests, as well. It was last night in Jacksonville, Ore., is where there was a group of protesters blocking the street along the motorcade route. And a group of local police hit them with pepper. This is fire from paintball guns. A couple of people were arrested during that scuffle. But for the most part, things were rather peaceful.

"There were also a lot of Bush supporters that were along that route. And for the most part, President Bush, of course, projecting optimism along the campaign trail."

Of course, Suzanne.

In fact, Jacksonville residents reported after the attacks that even small children were sprayed, and innocent bystanders shot in the back at point blank for helping the fallen.

The bullying of protestors has been common throughout this campaign season, in small towns and big cities. Under the guise of rooting out terrorists, the Bush security forces have arrested protestors within a wide perimeter around the president, and for the least offensive reasons.

Nina Burleigh has written for The Washington Post, The Chicago Tribune and New York magazine. Her book "The Stranger and the Statesman," a history of the Smithsonian Museum and its founder, will be published in paperback by Morrow this October. She's currently writing on a book about the French scientists who founded Egyptology.

Liked this story? Get top stories in your inbox each week from Election 2004! Sign up now »