Words, UnLtd. October 2002

PROTESTING BUSH AT THE UNITED NATIONS:

OUR VOICES WERE HEARD

By Marta Steele

The greatest cure for post-9/11 massacre disorder is to go back into that same sort of weather and watch it offer better than a holocaust. I can enjoy late summer again, having immersed myself in midtown Manhattan September 10 and 12, though I refuse to visit ground zero until it becomes something else again, taking on an identity other than crater of smoking vulnerability. The reason is that the massacre did not have to happen. We have not solved the puzzle completely but circumstances scream more conclusions than so far have been drawn. Had a natural or unpreventable disaster occurred, I would be far more at peace. The best I can do in terms of attempting to put the event behind me and getting on with the issues that have resulted is to attack the ineptitude that allowed those needless deaths. So many alternatives were possible. War planes could have been dispatched to protect the Pentagon and World Trade Center, we are now told. We could have fought back instead of froze as sitting ducks. So many Afghans might now be alive, not to mention Americans and others, had the “president” of this country demonstrated other priorities at that moot moment in our history (which he witnessed as it occurred, on closed-circuit TV, for reasons so far unexplained) besides reading to schoolchildren about a goat.

Which is to say, We all had plenty to protest on September 12, wearing black, at Dag Hammarskjold Plaza in Manhattan, in front of the United Nations, an event co-sponsored by NOW-NY, VoterMarch.Org, Democrats.com, Democracy March, and Citizens for a Legitimate Government. Scheduled speakers who appeared were Mark Crispin Miller, NYU professor and author of the bestseller The Bush Dyslexion, Todd Gitlin, Columbia professor and frequent contributor to The New York Times, The Washington Post, and Salon.com, Bob Fertik, co-founder and managing partner of Democrats.com, the largest independent community of Democrats, now over 100,000 strong, and Louis Posner, attorney and founder/executive director of VoterMarch.org, a not-for-profit organization active in forty states advocating for voters’ rights. Posner was moderator of the protest, where we were confined to a narrow aisle of pavement the length of 47^th St. between 2^nd and lst Aves, bounded by police barriers. “Why cage us in like wild animals when the predators are the ones we are protesting,” I thought, “and why don’t the police join us, having been denied a raise this year by the one they are protecting, despite their exemplary heroism and sacrifice a year ago?”

The issues were, first and foremost, the absurdity of going to war against Iraq when Hussein is still scrounging for metal pipes and uranium, which even black markets are denying him. The terrorists are elsewhere than Iraq; the 19 hijackers all hailed from “ally” countries, mostly Saudi Arabia. Bin Laden is somewhere else and we hear nothing of further efforts to find him; and while we scrimmage in Iraq, the al Quaeda are gliding back into Afghanistan to resume their activities in the setting where they were when 9/11 occurred. Further issues included the administration’s total indifference to the environment, which to them is nothing but a place to build corporations and scour the land surrounding them for every natural resource available, without concern for pollution of air and water. The destructive spread of corporate greed into  $7 trillion of taxpayer money in the few months following Bush II’s inauguration and government indifference to women’s issues and civil rights were further concerns. The speakers, both invited and impromptu, were most informative on all of the above. Radioleft.com, an internet station that serves 85 countries, broadcast the event.

To the ground base of drums beaten by monks from Boston, the speeches immediately shocked, assaulted our senses. Lou Posner recalled that the US is the only country in history to have resorted to nuclear warfare, killing one million Japanese at the end of World War II, most of them innocent women and children. The stakes of an Iraqi War “make Vietnam look like child’s play,” he continued. In lieu of engagement with the US, Iraq has said it will retaliate by bombing Israel, and Iran has said the same thing. In return, Israel has threatened a nuclear response. All because Bush is too inept to address the issue directly, terrorism, and is attempting to save face and divert our attention by means of bullying a weaker and more accessible foe. “Our blood for their oil,” in short, if you insist on a further motive. Greed. Unadulterated greed, sparing nothing. “No blood for oil,” became the first communal chant of the day. 

Next to speak was Henry, who expressed solidarity with the long-suffering Iraqis and focused on media indifference to peace marches held at Washington Square by a group called Voices in the Wilderness, which on September 10 concluded a 40-day hunger strike. At Union Park, a group of Roman Catholic nuns and priests were in the midst of a 30-day water fast for peace. The New York Times is not representing Americans with different viewpoints, he said. Nor have we justification for war. Iraq represents no clear and present danger. On 9/11 we were attacked by people we had trained in the 1980s to combat the Soviets in Afghanistan. We should drop the sanctions against Iraq, not bombs. “Drop sanctions, not bombs,” affirmed the group of fifty-odd people who attended. We’re protesting now to avoid an endless war, Henry concluded; we’re here before more bombs drop.

 “The news media vary news every hour,” said Bob Fertik, next to speak, “but the pain in our hearts endures.” One block away, Bush is urging the world to go to war, but our enemy is al Quaeda, not Iraq. “He’s so proud of his ability to make hard question seem easy,” he continued. “But war is psychotic hell, neither heroic nor patriotic. Bush never fought for the United States, so he doesn’t know what war is like.”

Fertik thanked the veterans present at that point, for their sacrifices and then reverted to an unfavorable comparison with Bush, who had cost taxpayers $1 million to learn to fly warplanes and then appeared at his final test inebriated, and flunked. That he was able to proceed on his path toward the White House instead of being incarcerated hinges on his connections with the 41^st president.

The only presidential election Bush II ever won, said Fertik, was the 5-4 decision by the Supreme Court, and all 5 of the justices who voted for him had been appointed by his father.

“Three thousand people died as terrified Americans waited for a real president to take charge. You were no president!” Fertik apostrophized. “You sold your campaign to the highest bidders. You took away our freedom and our rights…. You have no right to send our children off to war.”

Fertik continued by quoting back to the phantom Bush words he had spoken, written for him by others, affirming the sanctity of human life, and then confronted him with his utter hypocrisy in pushing a war against Iraq on a world that is nearly unanimous in its opposition, including all the Arab countries. “Your party impeached Clinton for lying about sex, an affirmation of love of life; you are full of hatred and lies — which is worse?”

“We will not spill precious Iraqi and U.S. blood,” he continued. “We will not join you in embracing death. This November we will sweep every Republican out of office. We will hold you accountable for your lies. We have tolerated far too much.”

Adding that both the 41^st and 43^rd presidents hold prison records, Lou Posner moved to the next speaker, Mitchell Cohen of the Green Party, who resorted to another novel approach: Instead of using a microphone, he had his audience repeat his words, to reach more ears. Each sentence began, liturgically, with “We are here today” and concluded with various purposes: to say no blood for oil, to oppose Bush’s oil wars, to opposed the decimation of the Bill of Rights by the Resident, to say no war against Iraq or any other country, to uphold the freedom of Americans and all, to oppose the ecological destruction that is caused by Bush, war, and globalization. Opposite the UN at 7 am, people from the Brooklyn Greens unfurled a 50-foot banner opposing the Iraqi war, facing the UN from the middle of the East River, so positioned that Bush and the General Assembly delegates will face that banner in the course of his official visit.

“We are here to support all those who put their bodies on the line to resist war, including soldiers who will refuse to serve, and those refusing to fight in the occupied territories [of Israel] and to support all those anti-war heroes in international solidarity who are protecting those who this government is funding to be killed.”

“End war. Support the world movement for peace. End globalization of all resources: privatization of oil, water, and all that makes life meaningful and possible.”

Cohen reminded the demonstrators what prompted the U.S. Congress to approved the Gulf War. A young girl identified as a genuine Kuwaiti testified that Iraqis were stealing Kuwaiti premature babies out of incubators. On the basis of that testimony, the Gulf War began, he said. The girl who testified was later found to be the daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador to the UN, hired by one of Bush I’s PR firms to conduct propaganda within the media. Her story turned out to be false. 200,000 people were killed outright as a result, by U.S. bombs, and a further million died as a result of the sanctions imposed on Iraq that cut them off from medicine, food, and clean water.

“We should applaud ourselves for seeing through the lies and propaganda of the war machine.

If con is opposite to pro, then Congress is the opposite of progress,” was the sophism with which Cohen concluded his speech. “All power to the people,” he concluded and the audience reiterated. “No blood for oil!”

Bob Fertik introduced Larry Leder, a World War II veteran, as part of “an earlier generation of activists from whom we all learned.” Leder spent four years fighting in the South Pacific during that war. “Bush and Cheney have no contact with the meaning of war,” he said. “Will Bush invade Iraq to divert our attention from the [illegal] elections? He’s interested only in Middle Eastern oil, totally unaware of the real danger, which is not Iraq.”

Bush is one of the greatest dangers we’ve ever had in the United States, he said. “We have no legislators here –why aren’t they here? …. Hopefully leaders of war at the UN will tell Bush no war!”

From the Iraqi American man who was next to speak, we heard a message from Iraqi children: that the school year in Baghdad was beginning. Please send pencils and books, not bombs. “We already have oil. We can’t drink it. What is war all about? The vindictiveness of the US?”

“Bush is pandering to US corporations and oil interests. We need urgent change and it’s got to start now!… In this Cradle of Civilization, peace, negotiation, and dialogue are the answer. You’re promising genocide. Iraq is not Afghanistan. Listen to the people, not Cheney.”

“After 9/11,” Lou Posner took up, “we smelled the smoke of the graveyard. Are we asking for senseless revenge… under the pretext of anti-terrorism?”

Guitarist George Mann had important words as well as [parodic] music to contribute, reminding us of the recent and successful NAACP lawsuit against Katherine Harris and Jeb Bush in Florida. They admitted that 90,000 people on the illegal database that included priests and elected officials were denied their vote, which would have been 90% Democratic. This means that legally, two years after the fact (though attention was called to it as early as 3 weeks after November 7 by the courageous investigative reporter Greg Palast) there is admission that the wrong person is in the White House. What has been done about it? Nothing. Where are the media? Here on this page and a few others, but not many. That they may try to put behind them, but the dire outcomes are too many and too devastating.

Earth, gape. Occupying the White House is someone not there 42% of the time, which he spends on vacation. This information, at least, was supplied to the public by The New York Times not long after the Resident moved in, for whatever time he spends there.

Cheryl Guttman, co-organizer of the demonstration today with Lou Posner, and a dedicated organizer for Democracy march, next spoke after leading a vigorous chorus of “No blood for oil.” Drawing a parallel from Spielberg’s insightful recent movie Minority Report, she warned that pre-emptive strike is a very dangerous doctrine. Because of the suspension of our civil rights, any one of us could be whisked away by the government – and Cheney is even scarier, she added.

Columbia professor Todd Gitlin was next on the podium, to startle us with the observation that not since the last bank loan to Argentina has credit been squandered so quickly as Bush “frittered away” the global capital that came here after the 9/11 massacre. “Millions all over the world declared identity with all Americans, temporarily putting aside their grievances over imperialism.”

The best American ideas are rights and our care for justice, he continued and contrasted that with our “abyss of apocalyptic violence.” He then listed the many ways the Bush administration had already aroused worldwide anger: rejection of the Kyoto Accords, the International Bioweapons Accord, the International Criminal Court and the Antiballistic Treaty: an arbitrary unilateralism contrary to the morality of the Declaration of Independence. It was as if twenty-one years, not twenty-one months had elapsed since Bush II took office, he said, by the time “the jetliners exploded us into a new era.”

“Now anti-Americanism is back in vogue, goodwill is gone, and the White House bulldozer defies all,” said Gitlin. Today’s UN visit is a grudging gesture. Arrogance is his foreign policy. Thuggishness does not embarrass them,” who tell us that “dissent is the cry of the unpatriotic.”

His eloquence was a joy. “The effects of their myopia are all over,” he continued. “The Afghan casualties exceed those of 9/11. Team Bush is glued to Sharon’s battering-ram diplomacy.” Washington, DC, has barely one ally. Contrast that abyss with the unanimous support for attacking the Taliban. Even former allies like the Republican Scowcroft have gone public with doubts about the “recycled Nixon theory” of intimidation through fear of capabilities.

Bought out after his drunkenness episode by family members, kicked farther upstairs by cronyism, taught that he can get away with anything, this “lone bully is … a gift to Al Quaeda.”

Gitlin then enumerated Hussein’s atrocities, including chemical warfare directed against the Curds in violation of the UN resolutions —“ he must be contained by UN inspections, armed if need be.”

Bush must be made aware of the danger of provoking retaliation by means of weapons of mass destruction. “Yes to multilateralism and international law, no to Washington, DC, privatizing water, no unilateralism, no one-sidedness.”

“At this very moment,” Lou Posner continued, “Bush is seeking support for war, saying, ‘Your o.k. would be nice.’ But war machines are already in motion.”

“No war. Let Iraq live. He’s not our president. Daddy wanted him to finish up the war, but times are different. Iraq attacked Kuwait. We had Arab support. There’s a powder keg in the Middle East we don’t want Bush to ignite. In the twentieth century, there was much death and destruction. Tens of millions were killed. Let the twenty-first century not be like the twentieth. No more death and destruction!”

Next to speak was Michael, who recommended that direct action gets the good. Nonviolence directs our actions. Through nonviolent civil disobedience it is our business to demand no war on Iraq. He has been arrested often and recommends less partisan politics and working together for peace. “They don’t know what they’re doing yet. They’ll figure it out.”

Lou Posner at this point exhorted that peace and law abidance is a prerequisite. “If we’re for peace, we must set a good example.”

Sarah Flounders, of the International Action Center (IAC), told demonstrators that wherever Bush goes, there are always demonstrations and protests. We must stop the imperialist war before it starts and mobilize the power of the people all over together, which can stop war. Sanction is a weapon that killed 1.5 million Iraqis. We should not forget the power of the Pentagon. This is a war for oil and we all know it. Activism is needed. Unity is power.

Flounders announced a mass mobilization scheduled for October 26 in Washington, DC, sponsored by a large conglomerate of organizations. The scheduling one week before the November elections is strategic and purposeful, “to change the political climate.” Half a million people are hoped to attend, and the same number at a mirror event slated for San Francisco. Closer to the present, on Saturday, September 14, at the Fashion Institute on 27^th and 7^th Avenue, Ramsey Clark, recently returned from a delegation to Iraq, will speak on conditions there. He will also attend the October 26 rally.

Singer and songwriter Patti Smith added the perspective that small numbers today grow to large numbers tomorrow; opposition to the war in Vietnam swelled from 35 to 35 thousand. Everywhere the US goes, we leave chaos. She quoted Nelson Mandela: “We are creating chaos. The world is frightened, out of balance. Only people can put it back in balance.”

She reaffirmed her words with the song “People Have the Power.”

Mark Crispin Miller, NYU professor and author of the bestseller The Bush Dyslexicon, followed with the observation that it’s been many years since the 1960s and “this is not your daddy’s protest, but something new. Most Americans are with us, so is the military, many Republicans, and Scott Ritter.”

The Iraqis hated Ritter above and beyond the other weapons inspectors, Miller told us. And Ritter came back with evidence that no weapons remain in Iraq. “The whole rest of the world except for Tony Blair is with us.” This is not a war for oil. “Papa Bush is against it. So is the family.”

Bush is insulting the UN’s intelligence, he continued. “The far right, the multinational corporations and oil cartels, hates the UN, thinking that it is one world government. Bush acts like he owns this country, as if he’s president. The election was stolen. There is a usurper in the White House. Whoever wins the election in a democracy should be president.”

Miller quoted a statistic slightly variant from the one cited by George Mann: 94,000 voters were struck from the rolls in Florida, one-half of whom were black. The statistic of 3,000 felons was consistent. “This means that 22,000 votes were lost and he still won — definitely grounds for impeachment.”

Miller had further disturbing news. The enemy, he said, is not just the inexorable drive for oil at all costs. In Florida, another issue the media have ignored is the support for Bush by the Storm Front, who are neo-Nazis. When fraud and violence are used to gain power, we have fascism. Quoting USA Today, Miller said that Bush’s decisions are made on whims, without consultation. He thinks that God is guiding him.

Another branch of activism dating back to the 1960s is the National Organization for Woman (NOW), represented by the president of the Manhattan chapter, Matthea Marquart. “We say yes to democracy, no to Bush,” she told us. “His actions declared war on our rights. He stole the presidency… and declared war on women, depriving any organization of funding that mentions abortion as an option.”

Equating the fetus with an unborn child is his way of attempting to equate abortion with murder, she said. Women in the military are no longer able to have abortions in military hospitals the world over, but are forced to seek outside treatment, with less of a safety margin as a result. She directed the demonstrators to the web site truthaboutgeorge.com for facts on the Bush presidency “undiluted by corporate interests.”

Further denouncing the current administration, Marquart said that NOW has been protesting “since day one” that Bush is not our president. With his unilateral decision making, “he can we monitor other elections when ours are in a shamble? Don’t let him work in secrecy –let him know he’s not our president!”

Lou Posner took his turn at the podium to look back on the first-ever demonstration by Votermarch, because it had occurred at Dag Hammarskjold Plaza in February of 2000. From that handful in the winter weather, six weeks later 8,000 people from forty different chapters converged on Dupont Circle in Washington, DC, to protest the Bush inauguration in the sleet and snow, and there were more protesters than supporters, he said. “Americans should not be aggressors,” he said. “Those who live by the sword die by it” (quoting the Bhagavad Gita (Song Celestial: 4).

Susan Johannessen of Legitgov.org, exhorted those present not to be discouraged by their numbers. “Bush cannot speak for us; we must speak for ourselves. We are not united behind Bush’s warmongering.”

The heartening news was that three hundred demonstrations and protest events now occur weekly in this country. “People are by-passing the media to reach out peace via teach-ins and forums,” she said. “People are protecting themselves from the Patriot Act. Everywhere Bush goes, hundreds protest. Even Crawford, Texas [site of the “Texas White House”] protested.”

Lou Posner spoke again of the dangers of an Iraqi war and of the U.S. as “a military superpower that imposes its will on other countries but can’t break their will.”

“No more death and destruction,” he exhorted. “No more tens of millions to perish in violence. The UN was formed for world peace, not to be Bush’s instrument for war.”

The founder of the web site unansweredquestions.org, Kyle, told us of the frustrations experienced by the FBI in May 2001, thwarted from investigating leads on rumors about hijackings and that Bush had been briefed about a possible al Quaeda attack. On June 10, 2002, CSPAN and the mainstream media boycotted a conference on victim families of 9/11. CNN did tape it.

Not a single open hearing on 9/11 has been held, he said, although this was supposed to begin as early as April 2002. This situation he contrasted with the Pearl Harbor analogue; in this instance, he said, open hearings were held two weeks after the disaster. “Support accountability,” he demanded. “We’re being lied to. We need to build bridges to stop war.”

Cheryl Guttman reclaimed the podium to relate a disturbing anecdote about information and misinformation. It seems that MSNBC caught the Bush administration in a lie. The Bush people said they had evidence from the AEC of arms buildup in Iraq. But embarrassingly, the AEC denied the allegation, though ABC affirmed it. For ambiguities like this, we need Indy media, she said, the nickname of independentmedia.com.

Tv producer and activist Lenny Charles urged us to “take back the media. We tell the truth at Freespeech TV on Cable. He called the UN a type of “dog show” and remarked further that Europe is being pressure to support the Iraq invasion, because “it is o.k. to bomb brown people but not whites.”

We need human shields, like those who defended the Arafat compound. Watch for Independent Media, he said, including radiofreeamerica.tv, accessible via DVS satellite.

Because the scheduled speaker Liz Abzug, daughter of former New York Representative Bella Abzug and Barnard professor as well as Tribeca activist, was unable to attend, Lou Posner read words from her, a string of abstracts, that rang to my ear like a cross between rap and Gertrude Stein. I heard the verse-like stream of consciousness: “No respect, no freedom, no justice, dignity – this is our formula…..” I may have heard wrong or I may have heard poetry. A young lady walked past us who looked distinctly like Bella Abzug, only younger, I felt to be in the presence of a ghost of the 1960s, returned to revive our despondency.

Speaking of legislators, Sarah Ferguson next jarred us out of the poetic mode. “What can we do against these nut cases?” she asked. “Where are the New York Senators? Where are our elected representatives, the ones we did elect??” The demonstrators began to call out “Hillary” and “Schumer.” Gore has done little and Lieberman nothing, she reminded us. “We need to go directly out and change minds…. We put these people in power; they need to speak for us!”

We received ample education on environmental issues next from Kathy Williams. “This is the worst environmental crisis in history,” she said. “Global warming, rainforests, destruction of wetlands, coastland, toxichemical pollution; the U.S. military driven by Bush and Cheney can obliterate the planet.”

Uranium bombs (with a half-life of 4.5 million years), such as those we have already dropped on Iraq, make areas uninhabitable. “A U.S. war on Iraq would be only target practice, with few U.S. deaths and massive destruction in Iraq, due in part to the high level of U.S. weapon accuracy.”

The Bush machine must be stopped. 9/11 is just the tip of the iceberg: the chickens came home to roost. “The U.S. has no right to patrol 80% of the world’s oceans, harming marine life,” she said. “Nor do we have the right to drop uranium bombs.”

“Muslims, Arabs, and immigrants are not the real enemy,” said Lou Posner. “We’re all immigrants. Indians are the only real Americans. [I felt like being difficult and reminding him that anthropology theorizes that they crossed over here from Asia at a time when Asia and America were linked. Who is native to anywhere? But I kept quiet. No one owns any land but God, the Amerindians have told us again and again as we traded their sacred lands with them for minor trinkets.]

“We will not allow immigrant discrimination, like that in Germany in the 1930s,” he said. We must re-establish the UN as an instrument of peace. It’s about oil, stupid! War is also terrorism. Out, out, damned despot,” he concluded, reading one of the many signs being waved in protest.

As if from the bottom of Pandora’s Box, an environmentalist named Kim offered us a gem of hope. “We don’t’ need oil,” she said. “Technology has discovered that we can run cars on water that emits life-giving oxygen back into the air instead of carbon dioxide. Oil will run out, hydrogen won’t. Write to your legislators about hydrogen fuel cell.”

At that point, in a deliberate act of civil disobedience, two demonstrators, including a blind woman, sat down in the street outside of the barricades. The two were hauled mechanically into the paddy wagon by the slightly edgy police, present in disproportionate numbers. Outcries of “shame!” and “No free speech in America” responded to their bored, if not exasperated motions. “We’re penned in like cattle!” Demonstrators had taped a banner on the outer side of barriers facing 47^th St. and were told to take it down. I watched sadly but then the policeman just walked away as some of us replaced the banner undisturbed.

Folk singer Joel Landy, another parodist, next held the podium (his web site Songs of Freedom is linked to Votermarch.org). The movie Beautiful Mind was the leitmotif behind his message. “Bush is seeing things that aren’t there,” he opined. “Is it power that makes the world blind / or the power of a beautiful mind?” he sang, followed by a spoof of “Love Potion #9,” “I took my troubles to the GOP.” He followed up with a parody on “Those Were the Days, My Friend,” “Once this country had a Constitution….”

Carol Schlipp, of Planned Parenthood in New York City, expressed disgust with the failure of Bush’s policies to cooperate with the world while soliciting world cooperation, making the U.S. a pariah. 169 countries signed the Treaty for Women’s Rights, for example, but not the U.S. Absolute hypocrisy is involved in the U.S. de-funding the UN Population Fund also, allegedly because of events in China, though the Population fund “has been very effective in bring about change. This is a slap in the face to women around the world.”

“Some of us in the U.S. oppose Bush. It is important to let the world know.”

Queried Glen from the International Action Center, “Of the twenty-five places in the world where the U.S. has intervened since World War II, have we left a more democratic regime than when we came there?”

“An eye for an eye leaves us all blind,” he continued. “Why won’t the U.S. support the International Criminal Court? Because Bush II would be the first American to be prosecuted. We must speak out for civilization to continue. Peace is our only hope. Come march in Washington or San Francisco on October 26, at our major peace rally.”

Jennie Hurwitz’s guitar playing and songs wrapped up the stream of events at 1:30, when we were scheduled to vacate the site. Bush did not appear. I don’t imagine he would have listened anyway. He will just know, one day soon, that our efforts produced results, that despite his every destruction, democracy always prevails where the people keep it alive.

We have taken upon ourselves the burdens of the office of the chief executive because the current illegal occupant has no notion of their weight and impact, no feeling for the ramifications of his actions, no notion of results that affect anyone beyond himself and his immediacy.

There may have been fifty or so protestors present today. But the gravity of our fears and premonitions was heavy with history. I felt the presence there of everyone who had ever been an innocent casualty of war. I looked up at the heavenly weather the events of 9/11 had so brutally violated, grateful to be able to enjoy it again despite everything, after a year of phobias and nightmares. The man across the street attempting to sell an unjustifiable war to the world would deprive so many of this simple pleasure forever, because, despite his fantasy of being God-sent, he has never himself understood its beauty or meaning. He is safe in his underground bunker, so he thinks, whatever happens to the rest of us; his impulse is chthonic: toward gold and oil, not the light of day. How dare he presume to lead us others, when he neither understands us nor cares to, nor understands why he should care.