La folle colère de l’Amérique

La folle colère de l’Amérique

Le Sydney Morning Herald (Australie) de ce 23 avril 2010 décrit dans un long texte très intéressant la “folle colère”, avec le qualificatif placé où il faut, qui embrase rapidement l’Amérique. Le caractère le plus remarquable de ce texte, dans l’impression générale qu’il nous laisse, est que cette colère a de moins en moins à voir avec des faits concrets (crise économique, idéologie, etc.) et prend de plus en plus l’allure d’une dérive psychologique à la fois insaisissable et collective. Cela se développe notamment à l’ombre du quinzième anniversaire (19 avril 1995) de l’attentat d’Oklahoma City.

Parlant d’Obama, avec toutes les caractères très spécifiques qu’on lui connaît, y compris sa qualité d’Africain-Américain, Bill Clinton, mis en évidence ces derniers jours par plusieurs discours de commémoration de l’attentat qui a marqué sa présidence, a, pour une fois sans aucun doute, une remarque intéressante qu’on retrouve dans le corps des citations ci-dessous : «It's like [Obama] symbolises the loss of control, of predictability, of certainty, of clarity that a lot of people need for their psychic well-being. I worry about it.» La remarque est nettement de l’ordre de la psychologie collective et rend bien compte du climat qui s’installe et s’étend aux USA.

Quelques extraits de ce très intéressant reportage…

«…Paranoia abounds, as if the election of Barack Obama 18 months ago signalled the end of American liberty. And the coalescing of a wide range of issues – not least economic torpor and its inherent social upheaval – is playing into the hands of extremists whose anti-government rhetoric is beginning to echo that which pervaded the lead-up to the bombing of the federal government offices in Oklahoma City in 1995.

»“We are in the midst of one of the most significant right-wing populist rebellions in United States history,” Chip Berlet, of the progressive think tank Political Research Associates, has observed. “We see around us a series of overlapping social and political movements populated by people [who are] angry, resentful, and full of anxiety. They are raging against the machinery of the federal bureaucracy and liberal government programs and policies including healthcare, reform of immigration and labour laws, abortion and gay marriage.” […]

»Their re-emergence prompted Bill Clinton, on the eve of this week's 15th anniversary of the Oklahoma bombing, to draw parallels with the agitation in the early days of his administration.

»Then, it was mostly the extremist voices of talkback radio: now, it's “the echo chamber” that is the internet, Clinton said, expressing concern for the safety of Barack Obama amid the current hostility. “An African-American president whose father was from Kenya, whose mother's second husband was a Muslim as President Obama is different and symbolises the increasing diversity of America,” Clinton said in an interview on CNN. “It's like he symbolises the loss of control, of predictability, of certainty, of clarity that a lot of people need for their psychic well-being. I worry about it.” […]

»Mark Potok, who edits Intelligence Report, a publication of the Southern Poverty Law Centre, notes that a few days after the Oklahoma attack a USA Today poll showed 39 per cent of respondents agreeing with the proposition that the US government was “so large and powerful that it poses an immediate threat to the rights and freedoms of ordinary citizens”.

»A recent CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll asked the same question and found 56 per cent of Americans now agreed, “a simply astonishing measure of how angry and suspicious we have become, even when compared with the period of the mass murder in Oklahoma”, said Potok. ”The fury is building again. This time over bailouts of banks and the auto industry, health insurance, the economy, government spending and the country's changing demographics.” […]

»“The question is not ideology,” the Secretary of Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano, told Fox News this week. “We've always had groups on all sides that have held beliefs that are very strong and express them very vociferously.”

»Napolitano said she agreed with an assessment from her department last year that concluded that the threat posed by ''lone wolves and small terror cells'' was more pronounced than in past years. “I wish it were possible to stand here and say that threats from terrorism and violent extremism have gone away since [Oklahoma]. We know that's not the case.”

»In a climate of such angst, strange things continue to emerge and paranoia gives rise to conspiracy theories. To wit: Georgia's state legislature is on the verge of passing a Republican-sponsored law making it illegal to implant a chip, sensor, transmitter or tracking device into a person against his or her will.

»Microchip laws already exist in California, North Dakota and Wisconsin. Virginia wants one, too. Despite there being no evidence of such practice by government departments, Georgia's Republican representative Ed Setzler justified the bill: '“This is proactive,” he explained.

»The sponsor of similar Virginian legislation, Mark Cole, a Republican, said he feared chips could someday be used as the “mark of the beast” described in the Bible's Book of Revelation…»

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