The Conservative Victim

Posted on August 31, 2004 in Campaign 2004 Propaganda

UPDATED.

It’s politics Tuesday!

Conservatives go on and on about our “culture of victimization” but nowhere have I seen anyone say a word about George W. Bush’s performance on the Today Show when he complained about the attacks being made on his National Guard Service. The gist of the message from the man whose cronies have gone to great lengths to disparage the genuine military service and accomplishments of real veterans and those draft resisters who made true sacrifices in the name of conscience is “Pity me”.

This theme plays a lot on conservative talk shows and in their literature. “Oh look what I have been made to suffer for my beliefs” is the common refrain as they collect their royalty checks from gatherings of billionaires and corporate executives. They, like their election-stealing, sucker-punching, and unconscienably-draft resisting figurehead now squatting in the White House, see the status of victim as something worth seizing for themselves. So they go to great lengths to pump up their own “sufferings” and decry those of others.

Any real victim knows that being one is not a blue chip ticket to happiness. Most of us want to end it. The Right, on the other hand, does not believe that we can take steps to alleviate suffering. They agree with the Buddha that suffering is an intrinsic part of life, but instead of acting compassionately, they choose instead to add to the suffering of others, to show that they are the “tough guy”.

Bush is typical of their species. When the going gets tough and someone shows him for the bully that he is, he whines. This man couldn’t face either the jungles of Vietnam or the inside of a jail cell. He callously destroys the life of the members of our National Guard only so that he can claim that he was at risk to be sent. The point is that the National Guard under Johnson and Nixon was a different organization where one could spend the war in little fear of seeing combat, a fact attested to in the literature and news of the time. The National Guard of the 1960s is not the National Guard of today. Perhaps if it had been, we’d see a substantially different character in office today, one who would think twice before cheapening the service of those now serving in Iraq with claims that he was under risk when everyone knows he was not.

Sorry, Mr. Bush, but you are not unjustly picked on. What you need is a sea change in attitude and behavior. You are not a victim. You cause distress.

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More thoughts: Have others noticed that some of our most intractable and enduring conflicts involve disputes over who gets to be the victim? Foremost among these in my mind is the Israeli-Palestinian standoff. But it is not the only one. There’s power in claiming victim status and a great deal of money and energy goes into attempts to seize the mantle.

What is especially aggravating about Bush and his ilk is that of all those who reach for that alledgedly golden ring, they as a class deserve it the least.