It seems to this ancient essayist that it is his duty occasionally to present his readers with a new word – a neologism, if you will. There are politicians and preachers and television commentators who use the term “revert back” to refer to some event or condition that has happened before and is happening again. If those folks can use such a duplication of words having the same meaning, then there can be no constitutional criticism of my newly coined term as a “new neologism.” And so the neologism is dis-inspired.
The root word of course, is inspired, a term that has French and Latin roots. When Merriam and Webster list such new neologisms in their dictionaries, there is every reason to conclude that credit will be given to this old ink stained wretch for producing a term the world has been waiting for. It is also my hope that the Duke of Edinburgh and the Prince of Wales will work it into their speeches and official announcements about how hard work will earn you a princedom.
Inventing this neologism became a vital requirement as a means of surviving the latter months of 2004. First there was the presidential election which assaulted the eyes and ears of the American electorate to the point of exhaustion. Before the election results were finally in the book, advertising for Thanksgiving and Christmas shopping overwhelmed us. For example, every year the plethora of ads for watches would convince most impartial observers that Americans have only recently learned to tell time. And then there are the cell phone ads. My educated guess is that a female model with her blouse unbuttoned to near the navel, will appear in 80% of the ads. The connection between female undress and the decision to buy a certain brand of cell phone is unchartered water for old geezers like me. Then we have, “Donald Trump – the Fragrance.” This must be the most scandalous anomaly of the 21st century. And so you see, there is an urgent need for a neologism like dis-inspire to describe the reaction of many people – people like me.
As these lines are being written on a cold, raw day in late December, 2004, there is another reason for dis-inspiration. That has to do with performances by high school bands and choruses where there is spirited disagreement about the religious content of their music. An adjoining town, Maplewood, seems to have banned all references to Jesus and angels and the like. In this town, Millburn, the high-schoolers in year end concerts have included Christian carols, Kwanzaa songs and Jewish hymns. It is unclear to me whether the Muslims sing much of anything. As always, there will be a debate about the manger scene set up in the little park across from the railroad station.
This is the season when good cheer is supposed to radiate throughout the towns, but instead, we find an element of disagreement among many of us. My reading is that the bombing of soldiers in the “Chow Hall” in Mosul is having a depressing effect on the alleged good cheer of the season, in spite of what Rumsfeld says. For the old essayist and his wife, we were saddened at year’s end by the loss of Irving Licht, our neighbor and friend. He was a good man.
And finally, there was the calamitous news about the tsunami in Southeast Asia. The Bush people offered $15 million for relief of the victims. When a United Nations official termed that “stingy,” Colin Powell and Bush issued angry denials but upped the amount to
$35 million. Eventually, it was raised to $350 million. Compare that with Japan offering $500 million immediately. Contrast that with Bush, during his re-election campaign offering as much as $13 billion to Florida. Could it be that the bulk of the tsunami victims could not vote in United States elections, and that they are Muslims? Could Bush believe in that verse from Romans, Chapter 12, Verse 19, that “Vengeance is mine saith the Lord?” We just don’t know, do we.
If all of the foregoing thoughts are dis-inspirational news to you, perhaps you may wish to consider that the Grand Duke of Crawford is set to star in a $40 million Inaugural bash. Bush likes to think of himself as a “wartime president” in the nature of Franklin Roosevelt. In 1945, when Roosevelt was sworn in for his fourth term, he took the oath of office, had a luncheon and went back to work on wartime issues. The Cowboy president, born in New England, who started a war all by himself, believes he is entitled to an extravagant event, war or no war, armor or no armor on our military vehicles, tsunami or no tsunami. It might be supposed that if anyone hinted or suggested that the $40 million be sent to survivors of the tsunami in Southeast Asia, he would be classified as a spoil sport, or even worse, a Democrat.
Bush’s attitude toward the cataclysmic events he has caused in Iraq is the primary reason for my dis-inspiration. The blood of 1333 American dead, so far, is on Bush’s hands, and he seems not to care. Our wounded now is at the 10,000 level, but only recently has Bush or Rumsfeld started to visit the armless, the legless, the dead men walking at Walter Reed Hospital. For the 100,000 Iraqi dead, there are the comforting words of Tommy Franks, our four star General, who said, “We don’t do enemy body counts.” Early in December, Bush awarded the Medal of Freedom to General Franks. Bush should have wrapped the Medal of Oxymorons around Frank’s neck rather than the Medal of Freedom.
Clearly, the term dis-inspirational applies here even though it is much too mild a term. It will have to do the job until a better new neologism can be constructed.
All of that brings me to a much larger concern having to do with the future of this United States. There was a time in 1943 when the Germans shot two airplanes out of the sky. One was on August 1st, and the second was December 8th. The aerial engineer/gunner on both those planes was your old essayist. The odds of my reaching my 22nd birthday at that time were imposingly against celebrating any such an anniversary. But as it has actually turned out, my life is now in its eighth decade due mostly to innovations in cardiology, associated medical practices and clean living.
For all the time that has been allotted to me, it has been my practice to observe and to be involved in the affairs of the federal state. For nearly a four year period, my assignment at AT&T was as a lobbyist involved intimately in the agencies of government. Given that background, the question that absorbs me is whether the American period of world influence and dominance has begun to wane. Is American hubris so great as to imperil our influence in world affairs? In my considered opinion, the answer is a dis-inspirational affirmation of the thought that our influence in world affairs, is rapidly dwindling. My feelings also have to do with the survival of democracy in this country as we have known it in the past. As we go forward, there will be an attempt to justify the reasons for my current disillusionment.
The title of this essay is Halley’s comet. That particular comet occurred in 1910 and was selected because one of my older brothers was named Halley, after the comet. Comets are short lived phenomena which appear in the sky, attract enormous attention from earthbound gazers and, in a matter of minutes, burn out and disappear.
In the affairs of men and states, the phenomenon of world domination lasts somewhat longer, but after a time, the attraction and the ability to influence or dominate others comes to an end. Off the top of my head, a handful of examples come to mind. The first few examples all have a Mediterranean aura about them.
In the beginning, there was the Roman Empire which held sway in Europe, Africa and the Middle East for a substantial period of time. When the Romans faltered, we find the Spaniards coming to the fore establishing outposts in Africa and Latin America, which were enforced by the mighty Spanish Armada. Even Portugal had a try at Empire with outposts reaching from Guinea Bissau in Western Africa to Brazil in South America. The French had establishments in Africa and are at this moment, trying to untangle the mess in its former possession of Ivory Coast.
While the European continental powers were at work on their outposts, England was establishing the British Empire which stretched from Australia and New Zealand to Canada, to much of the African continent and on to India. Even though the British Empire had been in existence for perhaps a few hundreds of years, when the 20th Century rolled around, the former possessions told Mother England that they wanted to run their own affairs. The meltdown started in 1922 when Ireland ended 800 years of English dominance. Before long, Canada and Australia told London that its influence was no longer needed. When World War II ended in 1945, the rest of the British Empire started to throw off their colonial ties to England and the Empire was no more. This is what some of us believe is happening to U.S. domination of world affairs.
Our ascendancy started in the war years of 1941 to 1945. For the 60 years following the surrender of the Axis powers in 1945, the United States has in large measure, dominated world affairs. Our rise to the top of the list brings to mind some other empires which are now long gone such as the Byzantine, the Persian, the Belgian, the Muslim, the Macedonian, the Nordic, the Ming, and the Ottoman Empire, which had a stake in what we now know as Iraq.
The overwhelming point is that all these empires which preceded the American era all died. Some lasted hundreds of years but in the end, the comet doctrine applies. People bow down and accept domination for a time, but when that time expires, the people take their fortunes in their own hands and when that happens, the empire collapses of its own weight and dies.
What troubles me as another year draws to a close, is the thought that throughout the indulgences of the United States government as represented by George Bush, our time at the top will cause us to be the shortest lived empire in world history. Permit me to offer a few facts that will endorse my gloomy and dis-inspirational outlook.
When Bush ran for re-election in 2004, major newspapers overwhelmingly endorsed his opponent, John Kerry. Bush’s hometown paper, the Crawford Iconoclast, listed George W’s shortcomings in its endorsement of Kerry. It reads like this:

“Few Americans would have voted for George W. Bush four years ago if he had promised that, as President, he would:

• Empty the Social Security trust fund by $507 billion to help offset fiscal irresponsibility and at the same time slash Social Security benefits.
• Cut Medicare by 17 percent and reduce veterans’ benefits and military pay.
• Eliminate overtime pay for millions of Americans and raise oil prices by 50 percent.
• Give tax cuts to businesses that sent American jobs overseas, and, in fact, by policy encourage their departure.
• Give away billions of tax dollars in government contracts without competitive bids.
• Involve this country in a deadly and highly questionable war, and
• Take a budget surplus and turn it into the worst deficit in the history of the United States, creating a debt in just four years that will take generations to repay.”

That was what Bush’s home town paper had to say. My hometown paper, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch said,

“Based on his record, George W. Bush has not earned re-election. He has mishandled the war on terrorism, shut his eyes to disagreeable facts, left the next generation in hock and presided over a sharp loss in jobs, health insurance and prosperity for millions of Americans.”

The New Yorker Magazine said this:

“What matters infinitely more is that George W. Bush is the worst president the country has endured since Richard Nixon, and even mediocrity would be an improvement. Indeed, if one regards the Bush Administration sins of governance – its distortion of intelligence in a time of crisis, the grotesque indulgence of the rich at the expense of American prestige and influence abroad, its heedless squandering of the world’s resources – as worse than the third rate burglary and second rate cover up of thirty years ago, then President Bush is in a league only with the likes of Harding, Fillmore, Pierce and Buchanan.”

In the election, however, some of the American electorate responded to a crossing of the church-state division by religionists who saw Bush as a man of God. In the end, the electorate voted for the triumph of ideology over reality, fantasy over truth on the ground and faith over facts. The American voters in the red states voted for what they perceived as godliness in preference to competence. For as long as we are burdened by the Bush arrogance and incompetence, the United States will pay a heavy price – and one which may threaten or end our domination of world events. If that is the case, our period of world influence will have lasted must less than a century. Remember the doctrine of the comet.
Those were a few of the indictments against Bush before the election. Since his reelection, his arrogance and his ignorance of fact have grown, if that is possible. The fact that the dollar is at an all time low against other major currencies seems not to discourage him. Neither does the debt that his administration has rolled up. To a large extent, the Chinese and Japanese bankers now hold our future in their hands.
Bush’s attempts to privatize Social Security is a payoff to the financial industry just as the Bush backed Medicare bill, which forbids the U.S. Government to bargain on pharmacy prices, is an enormous payoff to the pharmaceutical industry. Arrogantly, he has sent the same names for judgeships back to the Senate Judicial Committee which rejected them earlier as too ideologically biased before. One of the nominees is a man who invented the right of the President to name an “enemy combatant” which would deprive American citizens of lawyers and all access to the courts. My views run counter to Bush’s. Using executive privilege, he could name me as an enemy combatant and deprive me of access to lawyers and to the court system. But that man has Bush’s backing.
As we go forward burning up our finite fuel sources, Bush has made no move to restrict such things as 300 horsepower engines in cars. His failure to consider the plight of American railroads is an outrageous disgrace. The fact that he will not see to it that American elections are fair and transparent is another disgrace. Our roads are in disrepair and over-loaded, but Bush offers no relief as he “stays the course” in a disastrous war in Iraq.
Americans are being manipulated by the expense in dollars and human terms in Iraq. There are knowledgeable men who say the insurgency could go on for 10 years. If the situation were reversed, there would be no hesitation to predict a 10 year insurgency if the U.S. found itself under Arab occupation.
For a man who brags about his godliness, are we to consider wiping out the Islamic faith as part of God’s plan? According to Bush, God’s plan does not include the effects of global warming, where ice in the arctic regions has already begun to melt.
Aside from all the other failings of Bush, there is the abysmal state of our relations with foreign governments. Recently, our only ally in Iraq, Great Britain, invited Bush to visit Queen Elizabeth. His inability to handle heckling and opposition ruled out the traditional address to Parliament. He was nowhere to be seen on the streets of London and this is with our only ally in Iraq. And Bush traces his ancestry to England. Some homecoming! His relations with other foreign powers are equally abysmal.
In the recent tsunami tragedy, Bush had nothing to say for three days. His response was to pledge $15 million for tsunami relief which is not even a drop in the bucket. His actions in this case have needlessly alienated Southeast Asia as he has alienated Europe and Arab lands.
Perhaps it might be supposed that the new Bush term will be marked by people such as Jim Bunning and Bernard Kerik. Bunning holds a Senate seat in Kentucky and gives every indication of being overcome by Alzheimer’s disease. He refused to leave his office in Washington to debate his opponent claiming that the Mafia was after him. He reads no newspapers and says he gets his news from a single source, Fox news. When it appeared Bunning was in deep trouble with his unknown opponent, there was an implication that Bunning was running against a gay man – in Kentucky. This is a typical Karl Rove trick. But the administration went all out to save Bunning’s seat – at least until he is institutionalized. Bush’s democracy in action?
Even after Bernard Kerik had been shown to be involved with mob figures in New York and after the disclosure that he used an apartment set up for worn out workers at the World Trade Center for assignations with two women who were not his wife, and after it was disclosed that Kerik had a child which he did not support, Bush said he was sorry that Kerik had withdrawn from consideration because “he would have made a great Secretary of Home Land Security.” Now the New York Post says it has evidence that Kerik can’t account for $800,000 when he ran the New York Department of Corrections. My ears and my only eye heard Bush say that Kerik would have made a “great secretary.” My ears and my eye must be lying to me.
So you see the close election is interpreted by Bush as a mandate. A mandate to Bush supports his intellectually challenged arrogance. There is no other word for Bush’s attitude toward the world but arrogance. For years, my personal view of Bush has had three components. For his refusal to serve when the Vietnam War occurred, he is a coward, Nothing less! Secondly, in all his dealings with Americans and with the rest of the world, he is the epitome of a bully. Nations and individuals that do not fall in line with the White House line are bullied. See our closest neighbors Canada and Mexico, who have been shunned. And finally, Bush is a flat out liar for his distortions of truth that now has us engaged in a long term quagmire in Iraq. He started this war on his own and the blood of our soldiers and Iraqi civilians is on his hands. And he seems not to care.
It might be added that Bush is a cheat because of his use of receivers strapped to his back during his debates with John Kerry. Of this there is no doubt.
Leading us into our future is a man of limited intellectual capacity with no curiosity who is a coward, a bully, a liar and a cheat. Nations led by such a person will find in a fairly short order that their pre-eminence will be severely compromised. And rightly so.
We have run up our debts to the point where we are largely at the mercy of Chinese and Japanese bankers. Bush’s side kick, Chaney, says deficits don’t matter. Sooner or later, there is a price to be paid and it could well be that the price will establish China as the world leader for some time to come. Our own ascendancy starting in 1945 and may be lucky to last 75 or 80 years. In terms of world domination, such a short life span is like a comet burning itself out. Truly it is dis-inspirational.
At my age, American influence on world affairs will undoubtedly outlast me. But for my children and grandchildren and all the other American children and grandchildren, there is no alternative but to weep. With our choice of leaders and with a rapacious party under the control of those incompetent leaders, there is no escape from the thought that we have squirted and squandered it all away. When Bill Clinton turned over the U.S. Government to Bush, we were at peace with the world, there was a surplus of dollars in the treasury and in most parts, people had jobs. In four years, Bush has squandered all that and has set us on a course of pre-emptive invasions wherever we see an opportunity such as oil in Iraq.
Bush says he is a man of religion. Many of us see him for what he is. From the start of his administration, the main ingredient in his arsenal is fear. When Bush puffs his chest and says he is a wartime president – a war that he alone started – he should get some one like Condoleezza to tell him that at the beginning of World War II, Franklin Roosevelt said, “The only thing to fear is fear itself.” Condoleezza may understand that philosophy even if Bush does not.
Unbridled fear is the primary stock-in-trade of dictators such as Hitler, Stalin and Tojo. It is also the main constituent of religionists who wish to put the “fear of God in every man.” Franklin Roosevelt said it best.
This has been a long year ending season with the election and the celebration of Ramadan, Chanukah, Christmas and now Kwanzaa. It could possibly be that your old essayist is suffering year-end dis-inspirational moments. It would be nice if there was any cogency to that view. We are headed in my lonely view, toward what appears to be the shortest lived leading influence in world events in history. Facts are facts. Depending on supernatural creatures such as gods and the saints and angels to make thing aright is nothing more than blowing in the wind. We had our chance and in the view of this old soldier, the American electorate relied on alleged godliness rather than on competency. What a shame! When citizens of other countries look at what we have done, there is nothing other than shame for what was done in the election of 2004.
The Saturday edition, Christmas Day, of the New York Times brought this letter from George Mc Govern, a decorated officer in WWII and the Democratic candidate for President in 1972. McGovern who was also a Senator wrote these lines:

To the Editor:
I’m for keeping Donald H. Rumsfeld as secretary of defense because he is against increasing the number of American soldiers in Iraq. Sending more soldiers only means more targets for those Iraqis who don’t want our army occupying their country.
I did not want any Americans to risk their lives in Iraq. We should bring home those who are there. So better Mr. Rumsfeld than some eager beaver who wants to double our army in the desert as we repeatedly did in the jungle to no avail in the 1960’s and 70’s. We toppled Saddam Hussein; as George Aiken, that wonderful old Republican senator, said of an earlier time of troubles, Declare victory and come home.
Once we left Vietnam and quit bombing its people, they became friends and trading partners. Iraq has been nestled along the Tigris and Euphrates for 6,000 years. It will be there 6,000 more whether we stay or leave, as earlier conquerors learned.
I tried to persuade Santa Claus to bring our troops home for Christmas, but he said, “No, Rumsfeld sees light at the end of the tunnel if we hang in there and don’t listen to old veterans like McGovern.”
Is there really a Santa Claus, Virginia? If so, why were 14 soldiers killed at lunch after a hard night searching for that light at the end of the tunnel?
George McGovern Mitchell, S.D., Dec. 22, 2004

Mc Govern is not only right, but he fought a war while Bush fled to the Air National Guard of Texas. Iraq will be here for 6,000 more years. And the period of American domination over world affairs will be long gone if we continue to embrace leaders such as the current Chief Executive. And the dis-inspirational doctrine of the comet lives on!
E. E. CARR
December 27, 2004
~~~
I couldn’t have picked a more timely essay for today. I’m feeling dis-inspired as hell.
“Donald Trump – the Presidency” is officially more of a scandalous anomaly than “Donald Trump – the Fragrance.” It begins today, god help us. Pop was unenthusiastic about Bush’s $40 million inauguration price tag. Trump’s will be $90 million, excluding the $100 million cost for security, which is sort of unavoidable. He raised the $90 from “corporations and individuals, which is roughly double the previous high for inauguration donations.” So while I’m not upset like Pop that we aren’t putting that money to better use (since it was voluntarily donated for this purpose), I’m much more concerned that the president-elect is starting his term with $90 million in additional outstanding favors that he owes back, on top of the ones he already owes from the campaign itself. Nobody donates without an expectation of reciprocity.
Too much of this essay his hitting too close to home. The republican doctrine of “ideology over reality, fantasy over truth on the ground and faith over facts” has only gotten worse. So, so much worse. The “inability to handle heckling and opposition” now extends to the president-elect using Twitter to personally counterattack every figure who criticizes him publicly, from actors to reporters. His “relations with other foreign powers are equally abysmal” — but at least Bush never promised to make Mexico pay for a ludicrous border wall. Amazingly enough, this pissed off Mexico so much that they just extradited El Chapo to the United States during the last day of the Obama’s presidency, making it so that Trump couldn’t claim credit for it.
Finally, the overreliance on fear as a weapon was what characterized the GOP message more than anything else through the election season. Fear minorities. Fear Islam. Fear terrorism. Fear immigrants. Fear everything, and apparently there’s only one person who can keep you safe, and he’s an arrogant reality TV star with zero political experience.