The Cloak of Patriotism

Since the inception of the United States of America, with the Declaration of Independence, it is the Bush administration that have so far strayed furthest from the founding principles. The actions of this administration during its eight year tenure have not just come to be widely regarded as controversial, but illegal. This was a government which detained United States citizens for three years and more without charging them with any crimes or affording them any counsel, advocated for torture, invaded Iraq, initiated domestic spying programs and consequently and undeniably, placed its President as above-the-law.[1][2]

Prominent anti-Bush blogger at the time, Jim Downey, supposes that the Bush administration was only able to get away with “such abuses” by “wrap[ing] himself in a cloak of patriotism”; an efficient means of endearing oneself to the public, especially in times of great adversity.[3] Many fringe political characters and bloggers at the time wrote of and campaigned against the government’s gross misconduct, however, the general feeling was one of such insecurity that none of it ever came to properly effect the administration’s abilities. A majority of Americans (50.7% to be exact) were sufficiently persuaded by his arguments for prioritising security over liberty, and in 2004, with the events of 9/11 still looming in most minds, the American people re-elected George W. Bush for a second term in office.

In his book How Would a Patriot Act?, lawyer and activist, Glenn Greenwald warned that the “concentrated and unlimited power… claimed by Bush constitutes a true crisis for the United States — it has the potential to fundamentally change our national character, to radically alter our core principles”. The recent NSA exposés and their implications on the Obama administration have so proven Greenwald’s assertions to be accurate.

The Obama administration has continued to falter on a basic level. They have failed to deliver on their pre-election declarations that “no one is above the law” and that “if crimes have been committed then they should be investigated”.[4] No member of the Bush administration has been prosecuted for the aforementioned abuses of power. This is worrying because it reaffirms Greenwald’s earlier statement and sets an undesirable precedent for what governments yet to be elected might get away with.

Greenwald describes President Bush as an “omnipotent ruler”, and it is hard to refute such a description. Then Vice-President, Dick Cheney, once stated that he “believe[s] in a strong, robust executive authority… he needs to have his constitutional powers unimpaired”. This statement arouses imagery of the British establishment that the founding fathers decided to rebel against in the Revolutionary War. Despite President Bush’s Department of Justice issuing a letter on the 19th January 2006 entitled “Legal Authorities Supporting the Activities of the National Security Agency Described by the President”, which, amongst other things, claimed that the President’s unlimited powers were not confined to being used abroad, but can be wielded “wherever [terrorists] may be — on United States soil or abroad”, the people of America expressed little opposition. Americans can therefore not blame lack of information on their inability to act against President Bush, for the administration boasted regularly of Bush’s “extra-legal” status.[5]

It is instead, entirely reasonable to conclude, that the vast majority of Americans were aware of the Bush administration’s violations and that these violations were, in the words of Professor Jack Z. Bratich (of the Journalism and Media department at Rutgers University), the fourth, unmentioned, component of Donald Rumsfeld’s ‘known-unknowns’ monohybrid, ‘unknown-knowns’.[6][7] Bratich describes these unknown-knowns as “things that we know are happening, but we forget, or deny, or repress”. Bratich cites the public response to the Abu Ghraib torture revelations as an example of an unknown-known. But what is the motive behind American citizens choosing to suppress their knowledge of Abu Ghraib and other atrocities? Shame is certainly at least partly responsible. This shame serves as a substitute for having to confront reality, and for some is a much easier option than protest.

In his essay Good Manners in the Age of Wikileaks30, Slavoj Žižek surmises the WikiLeaks revelations to be mostly underwhelming and ineffectual, stating that “the only surprising thing about the WikiLeaks revelations is that they contain no surprises”.[8] Here, Žižek alludes to Bratich’s unknown-knowns, and the problem that arises when an unknown-known becomes a publicised unknown-known; something which “we can no longer pretend we don’t know what everyone knows we know”. The problem with unknown-knowns becoming publicised, is that the American people are not just forced to confront the truth of the secrets revealed, but they are also asked to react. Unfortunately, most people are unwilling to swim against the tide. Instead of choosing to affect the future of their country, the majority of American people are instead immobilized by their shame.

The United States government, as with every government, need to be subjected to constant checks and balances. However, whenever the American population are presented with an opportunity to review their government, the majority shy away. The actions of WikiLeaks and Edward Snowden are little short of a novel means of refreshing an American citizen’s own cloak of patriotism. The act of the reveal by Snowden is enough to satisfy most American’s concerns about power imbalance; whilst the shame of one’s tacit involvement in whatever infractions are being revealed is enough to ensure no contribution towards enacting change. Žižek characterises such behaviour as cyclical, “the ideology of such works resides in their upbeat final message: what a great country this must be, when you and I can bring down the President, the mightiest man on Earth!”

The exposure of incriminatory government secrets is by no means a recent sensation. Forty years ago, President Nixon and various officials within his administration were implicated in various domestic spying scandals. The American people had the opportunity then to demand greater transparency, and it was their responsibility to maintain it. Unfortunately, the outrage did not last too long in the memory. By the turn of the century the transparency laws and amendments introduced as a result of the Nixon administration’s behaviour were being abused in new ways. In order for Edward Snowden’s revelations to have their full, desired effect it is imperative that the American people forgive themselves for past ineptitude, shirk the sanctity of shame and instead make their indignation matter.