Putting the Public
Back in Public Policy
by Robert Jensen and
Rahul Mahajan
Dissident Voice
February 17, 2003
On Saturday
(Feb. 15), we stood on the Capitol steps in Austin, Texas -- across the street from
the governor's mansion where George W. Bush once lived -- and spoke to 10,000
Texans who had gathered to reject Bush's mad rush to war in Iraq.
The next
morning we watched National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice explain on a talk
show why the views of those 10,000 people -- and hundreds of thousands more
across the United States, and millions more around the world who rallied and
marched against a war -- don't really matter.
At first
glance Rice seems right; increasingly public opinion has little to do with
public policy, which is probably why Americans feel so alienated from politics.
In the
past decade, the institutions that govern our lives have grown more
unaccountable and remote. Take a crucial issue such as corporate power. Public
outrage over Enron and similar scandals has been wide and deep. On the eve of
the 2000 election, a Business Week survey showed that nearly three-quarters of
Americans said business has gained too much power over too many aspects of
their lives. The public would like to see corporate power curbed, yet
politicians -- Republicans and Democrats -- take no serious action.
Of all the
public policy issues, none seems as remote and beyond citizen influence as
foreign policy. Even though opposition to U.S. wars persisted throughout the
1990s, organized protest dwindled as people begin to feel powerless.
In the
past six months that trend has dramatically reversed, for several reasons.
First,
after Sept. 11, 2001, everyone sees that foreign policy directly affects us at
home; there is no denying that U.S. actions in the Middle East have helped
fertilize the soil in which terrorism grows. People realize it is a mistake to
leave such issues to foreign-policy "experts."
Second,
people understand that the Bush administration is manufacturing pretexts for
war and that there is no credible threat; none of Iraq's neighbors (with the
exception of Israel, whose leaders favor a U.S. war on Iraq for their own
interests) fears an Iraqi attack. The Hussein regime is brutal (which is not exactly
news to the American officials who once supported Hussein), but few people
believe that Bush is telling the truth about U.S. motivations. When
administration officials claim a war has nothing to do with U.S. desires to
maintain and extend its global hegemony -- including greater control over the
flow of oil and oil profits -- people around the world simply laugh.
And,
perhaps most importantly, people are beginning to believe once again that they
can change things.
In public,
Rice and other administration officials appear to pay little heed to
opposition. They want to undermine people's sense of their own power, instill a
sense of futility and convince us of the inevitability of war. But in private,
they no doubt are paying attention -- and are nervous.
The same
has been true in the past. In 1969, President Richard Nixon had a secret plan
called "Duck Hook" to escalate dramatically the attack on Vietnam,
including the possible use of nuclear weapons. Nixon officials planned to issue
an ultimatum to North Vietnam on Nov. 1, 1969.
On Oct.
15, across the country millions took part in local demonstrations, church
services and vigils as part of Vietnam Moratorium Day. Another major
demonstration was in the works for the following month. Although the public
would not know until years later, that opposition was a main reason Nixon
canceled Duck Hook.
The Bush
administration, as the Nixon administration before it, wants desperately to
ignore the rising tide of worldwide and domestic opposition to this war. But
the more we begin to believe in our own power and act on that belief, the
harder it will be to ignore us.
That is why -- even as Bush officials work desperately to
block diplomatic solutions -- all who reject the administration's militarism
and plans for empire must speak louder and press harder. That commitment by
people of conscience -- people who believe in their own power -- has changed
history in the past. Our commitment today can do the same.
Robert Jensen is an associate professor of journalism at the University of Texas at
Austin and author of the book Writing Dissent: Taking Radical Ideas from the
Margins to the Mainstream. He can be reached at rjensen@uts.cc.utexas.edu. Rahul Mahajan's latest book is the forthcoming
"The U.S. War on Iraq: Myths, Facts, and Lies." He can be reached at rahul@tao.ca.