I've written about this before, but I don't remember what I said. And now I have more evidence that this is increasingly becoming a problem in the cultural and political life of this country.

When I first started saying that I was opposed to the war (and there hasn't been a war that I've been for, so this is not exactly a novel concept) I also started hearing, from one specific person, that because I opposed the war, I was in favour of Saddam Hussein.

Um, no.

Whether or not I think that it is America's business to dictate policy and politics to the rest of the world doesn't mean that I support any dictator, whether American or otherwise. I don't. I do believe that democracy of some sort, adjusted to fit local cultural realities, is a reasonable concept. I believe that every person should have some say in how their country is run. I believe that politics is entirely a large enough and vague enough arena to accomodate this concept, because let's face it - politics tends to be run exclusive of local realities.

So democracy for everyone, as far as I'm concerned.

This does not mean that just because I oppose the war I support Saddam Hussein. I don't know how that leap of logic can be made, other than by saying that the only options in life are A and B. If A, then not B. If B, then not A.

But the real problem here is the creativity of people in power. I do not restrict that simply to people in politics, but that is largely where the problem has originated. The current administration's policy, in the build up to the war, of cleverly linking Saddam and 9/11 in the same sentence, has created the A/B dichotomy, or certainly brought it to the current level of use. And that is how people have conflated the relevant concepts.

Saddam Hussein's dictatorship has nothing to do with the moral rightness of the war. The war has nothing to do with the moral rightness of Saddam Hussein's dictatorship. But the government has linked them, and forever linked they will be. Which is why I can be told that opposing governmental policy is the same as supporting a dictator who violates human rights. Note that it is also opposing a dictator that violates human rights, but that's never brought up, oddly enough.

But that is one incident of A/B thinking. And for a while, I had the (naive) belief that it was the only significant instance that I was likely to see any time soon. That particular little birdie was shot down yesterday, in Ruben Navarette's column about No Child Left Behind.

I don't have the article here to quote, but his opening paragraph was, essentially, that anyone who opposed No Child Left Behind opposed reasonable child education standards and actions. Because of course I think that we should jam fifty or sixty kids, preferably all with chemically-induced ADHD and/or behavioural problems, into one classroom. I think that sounds great, and I think we should take that a step further and insist on having teachers who have uncontrollable drug habits. Mental disorders could be substituted in the event that someone is not willing to take up using crystal meth, or perhaps crack. PCP would be favourite, in such an environment. Hell, let's get out some Quonset huts, or perhaps we could get some third world engineers to build shacks using native materials for school buildings. It would certainly be cheaper than insisting on actual standards for teachers, or on a reasonable infrastructure. Because this makes so much sense.

Let's get this straight. Just because I think that No Child Left Behind is a poorly thought out, ill-implemented, probably unimplementable, sop to the concerns of America today DOES NOT mean that I feel that there is no need for education reform. If A, then NOT B.

But it's a clever tactic. It turns the problem into an extremely simplistic one (and god knows that America loves simplistic problems, such as Britney Spears being a bad mother) of opposition. There is no third option, in this sort of thinking, because the third option is the complicated one. The third option is the one that says "The problem is larger than we're willing to admit, and means that the problem will not be solved with a quick fix."

And that's hard for people to hear. I'd love it if there was a quick fix for education, immigration, end-of-life concerns, global warming, jobs, wages, and all those other hot-button issues that we've created in this country as a way of avoiding the real aspects of those problems. I'd love it, and if there was a quick fix I'd be the first one trumpeting the solutions.

There isn't one.

Anyone with the depth to consider the problems, or whatever problem you have chosen to consider, knows this. It doesn't matter if what you're interested in is the increase in genetic disorders such as Rage Syndrome and hip dysplasia in overbred dogs - you understand, because you have put time and effort and thought into the matter, that there is no simple solution.

No Child Left Behind does not solve the issues that face education in this country.

Laws violating the sanctity of religious assistance do not solve the issues of immigration.

The Patriot Act does not solve the issue of terrorism.

Poorly-managed FEMA funds do not solve the issue of Katrina and its ancillary damage.

I could go on.

But it all sounds good, in the role of "person in power", to say that there is ONE problem and ONE solution and everyone who does not support that is evil. It sounds good, and it gets approval, because it means that there is a solution and it is not complex, and it does not require thought and it does not take effort.

It sounds easy to implement, and that's why it's successful. The problem will be solved when the steps are taken. The problem does not, in essence, exist any longer.

Personally, I think this sort of logic is probably the worst crime being committed by people in power. But they succeed because it is easy, and life is entirely complicated enough without making it harder. And we will accept anything they say, as long as it sounds like an easy answer. It doesn't have to work, as long as it sounds like it's being solved. Whether the implementation will solve the problem, or make more, is irrelevant. It's easy, it's being solved, we don't need to think about it, and we can go back to looking for pictures of Christina Aguilera and Britney Spears wrestling naked in Jell-O.

Every night I fall, every night the dream's the same,

Channon