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Gathering Place
 R.W. Burniske |
Let us question authority
to preserve democracyWhile participating in a march honoring Martin Luther King Jr. in Honolulu on Jan. 19, I could not help wondering what Dr. King would make of the current state of our union. His opposition to pre-emptive wars and state-sponsored violence should be obvious, but how would he assess the health of our public discourse and democracy in light of the past 12 months?
We would do well, after all, to remember that shortly after the observance of King's birthday in 2003 the president of the United States used the State of the Union address to garner support for a pre-emptive war against Iraq. That speech included at least one bogus claim due to "faulty intelligence," a claim that damaged the credibility of President Bush and his administration. Whether he knowingly deceived or ignorantly misspoke, Bush misled everyone who trusted and based their opinions on his words at that critical time.
What should Americans do about that now? What should the journalists, especially those too comfortably "embedded" in the pre-war White House to ask difficult questions, do now? What should the politicians who called war protesters "un-American" do? What should the people who allowed themselves to be silenced by flag-waving zealots do?
I believe King would say that we must at least reclaim our rights as citizens of a democracy. That means demanding a more genuine public discourse, one that encourages and respects alternative viewpoints.
Apologists for the Bush administration have tried to dismiss the flap about his use of "faulty intelligence." Rather than forget it, we ought to revisit that deception and use it to question the state of our union and the health of our democracy. Public acquiescence has emboldened this administration not only to deceive, but also to endanger U.S. soldiers, squander more than $100 billion in its current military campaigns and perpetuate a cycle of violence that helps terrorist organizations recruit members.
Meanwhile, the Bush administration exploits the war on terrorism as an excuse to defund social programs that took root during the civil rights movement that King championed.
This is not the time to give Bush a political mulligan for misspeaking and misleading. As members of a democratic society, we must question the intelligence of those who shape public opinion. The Bush administration is no exception; nor are the media, which too often have imbibed and regurgitated this administration's faulty intelligence.
Since Sept. 11, 2001, we have become an acquiescent nation. Too often, we have failed to question authority; too quickly, we have forfeited civil liberties in exchange for the false promise of security. In a speech at the University of California in 1958, King called for resistance to social injustice, encouraging what he considered a healthy form of "maladjustment."
As King observed, "We should all seek to live a well-adjusted life in order to avoid neurotic and schizophrenic personalities. But there are some things within our social order to which I am proud to be maladjusted and to which I call upon you to be maladjusted. I never intend to adjust myself to segregation and discrimination. I never intend to adjust myself to the tragic effects of the methods of physical violence and to tragic militarism. I call upon you to be maladjusted to such things."
A year ago, King would have joined opponents of the U.S. attack on Iraq, everyone who had the courage and conviction to defy the faulty intelligence that claimed "you are either with us or you are with the terrorists." Today, he would remind us that if we wish to preserve freedom and democracy in America, we must question the wisdom of our leaders and their actions. Why, he might ask, are we so eager to dismiss the intelligence of common people for the faulty intelligence of elected officials?
After all, if not for the "maladjustment" of its original patriots, America might still bow to a British monarch and pay taxes without representation.
R.W. Burniske is an assistant professor in the College of Education at the University of Hawaii at Manoa.