t r u t h o u t Perspective
Monday 28 March 2005
America has become a savage carnival of freak show religiosity and circus clown politics.
Let's call them what they are: Ghoulish Obscene Panderers. How else to describe Tom Delay and Bill Frist, et al., as they crawl into bed with a brain-dead woman to pose for a political Polaroid?
If Bill Frist is the paragon of compassionate-conservative medicine in this country, it is no wonder the GOP wants to do away with trial lawyers and medical malpractice awards. I mean, if Dr. Frist can diagnose via video, surely we can all be diagnosed and healed by touching the magic screens of our televisions, powered by the celebrated and all knowing all-powerful Dr. Oz and his media-evangelists, cured through Our Lady of the Sacred Cable Cathedral and the Holy Order of St. Arbitron, all included in our monthly satellite and cable subscription fees. Better than national healthcare. God is good.
And while the circus of life unfolds before us, notice how no one acknowledges the rampage of giant pink elephants. The media, like a good Ring Master, barks and waves, diverting our attention to the death-defying trapeze artists, the bearded lady, the two-headed boy, and the miniature fire engine loaded with seltzer-spraying pundits fresh from clown college. Modern journalism under the Big Top.
No one wants you to see what just happened. They hide the fact that Congress passed legislation that 80 percent of America thinks is wrong and invasive, that Congress passed this act with only a minimum of congressional and senate membership present, which should scare the living bejeebers out of all of us. What about separation of powers? GOP is the power. What about the rule of law? Only the GOP makes the law. Constitution? Just another dead document. What about activist courts and judges? The GOP will tell you when activism is good and when the evil liberals do bad activism, and never mind the difference!
Wake up America! The Republic is dead. Welcome to the United States of Jesus, sponsored by the GOP Gospel Hour Medicine Show.
It's all a cheap savage carnival on the midway of mendacity. If you want to know these people's moral values, look no further than their pocketbook. And remember, George Bush says their money is our money. Our values are their values.
For every $1 we spend on education in this country, we spend $6 on the defense industry. Are we really six times more dedicated to killing than educating?
While Congressional Christian Conservatives fight to keep a brain-dead woman alive, they cut millions and millions of dollars of VA Healthcare for the treatment of brain-injured soldiers returning from the Iraq war, as well as dozens of programs intended to help the wounded veterans and their families. Why are they so eager to bury the living while digging up the dead for political fundraising?
Helping the poor and homeless is called "entitlements," while tax cuts for the wealthy and tax-subsidies for corporations are considered the "America way." Sort of like saying that kicking people while they are down is the best way to get a good shoe shine.
They fight to keep a brain-dead woman alive while allowing our youngsters easier access to guns than to mental healthcare. But hey, it's only ten little Indians in Red Lake, and besides, Terri Schiavo is a true American.
And like that old adage, "follow the money," if you watch the deposits and withdrawals of our moral leadership, you'll see exactly where their values are, and in turn, why they couldn't care less about your values. Because it is not about values, it is about power and winning and ruling. Values are like congressional ethics, flexible moral standards based on convenience and financial contribution. How else to explain Democratic support of the vile and onerous bankruptcy legislation? I guess it's true that a conservative Democrat is just a Republican in cheap clothing.
These folks hold the Constitution as irrelevant and Catechisms as the only key to America's greatness. They want the Ten Commandments in all public buildings and the 12 Apostles in Congress. They want the Virgin Mary to teach sex education, and they believe in the Holy Trinity of Bush the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Rove.
Money is free speech for those who can afford it, while "silence is golden" applies to the middle class and working poor.
So here we are, in a nation that claims to value the sanctity of life above all else - even as Justice Scalia bemoans no longer being able to put teenagers to death - but content with enforcing capital punishment on mentally retarded prisoners.
It's a freak show, folks. For one thin dime, one tenth of a dollar, you can dance with Christian cannibals while being baptized in the healing waters of the Potomac and witness the second coming of GOP's chosen children - them that's got.
It is a savage carnival that fights to keep a brain-dead woman alive, while pulling the plug on democracy and the Constitution.
Wednesday, March 30, 2005
Monday, March 28, 2005
Mr. Bush and His Easter Rebellion By Steve Weissman
t r u t h o u t Perspective
Sunday 27 March 2005
Why do so many zealots live in the land of darkness?
Whatever they believe, those consumed by truth rarely understand how anyone of good faith can possibly fail to see their particular light. Those who refuse "the truth" must be wicked, willful, or somehow uninstructed, and become the target of fervid evangelism, whether with soothing words or avenging fire.
Our President uses both, as he showed in his Easter message.
"For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life. John 3:16.
I send greetings to all those celebrating Easter, the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. Through His sacrifice and triumph over death, Christ lifted the sights of humanity forever. In His teachings, the poor have heard hope, the proud have been challenged, and the weak and dying have found assurance. Today, the words of Jesus continue to comfort and strengthen Christians around the world. "
Many - though by no means anywhere near a majority - who believe in these words will find it wonderful that the President has repeated them in the exercise of his public office. Mr. Bush and his political advisors know this, and clearly used the opportunity of his weekly radio address to further cement the bond between the President and those who want to turn America into "a Christian nation."
Nor does the president or his flock necessarly mean to hurt or exclude those of us who follow other paths - or no religious path at all. He is only bringing us the Word, and what could be a greater gift?
Well, thanks, but no thanks. The dangers are far too real. By so publicly rejecting the Constitutionally mandated separation of church and state - and throwing off the good manners of millions of Americans who exercise their freedom of belief in private - Mr. Bush threatens to lead America down the road to open religious conflict. We've seen where that leads from South Asia to the Middle East, and in the bloody history of Europe's religious wars. Is that what we want for America? Is that what we want for the world?
From his first use of the word "Crusade" to describe his "War on Terror," Mr. Bush has led Muslims everywhere to see America as fighting a holy war against them. This only builds support for Osama bin Laden and others who would fight a holy war, or jihad, against those who fail to salute their religious banner. Why, in his self-righteous blindness, does Mr. Bush persist in being their recruiting sergeant?
No doubt, many on my side of the political divide will dismiss Mr. Bush's Easter antics as merely pandering to or emboldening his supporters on the religious right. I fear worse. I could be wrong, and hope I am. But I see our preacher-president raising the flag of Christian nationalism over the Oval Office. As my colleague Will Pitt has discussed, the religious right openly, even seditiously, calls for the creation of a United States of Jesus. With his Easter message, Mr. Bush has come perilously close to publicly joining their ranks.
Also, make sure to check out this book:
Lakoff, George.
Don't think of an elephant! Know your values and frame the debate.
Foreword by Howard Dean. Introduction by Don Hazen.
White River Junction, VT : Chelsea Green Publishing, c2004.
ISBN: 1931498717
You can by the book here: http://www.chelseagreen.com/2004/items/elephant
To quote from the back cover: "[It] is the antidote to the last forty years of conservative strategizing and the right wing's stranglehold on political dialogue in the United States. Lakoff explains how conservatives think, and how to counter their arguments. He outlines in detail the traditonal American values that progressives hold, but are often unable to articulate. Lakoff also breaks down the ways conservatives have framed the issues, and provides examples of how progressives can reframe the debate. His years of research and work with environmental and political leaders have been distilled into this essentail guide, which show progressives how to think in terms of values instead of programs, and why people vote their values and identities, often against their best interests ... Read it, take action --- and help take America back."
Also, also, check out this link:
http://www.google.com/url?sa=U&start=6&q=http://www.bushflash.com/
Sunday 27 March 2005
Why do so many zealots live in the land of darkness?
Whatever they believe, those consumed by truth rarely understand how anyone of good faith can possibly fail to see their particular light. Those who refuse "the truth" must be wicked, willful, or somehow uninstructed, and become the target of fervid evangelism, whether with soothing words or avenging fire.
Our President uses both, as he showed in his Easter message.
"For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life. John 3:16.
I send greetings to all those celebrating Easter, the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. Through His sacrifice and triumph over death, Christ lifted the sights of humanity forever. In His teachings, the poor have heard hope, the proud have been challenged, and the weak and dying have found assurance. Today, the words of Jesus continue to comfort and strengthen Christians around the world. "
Many - though by no means anywhere near a majority - who believe in these words will find it wonderful that the President has repeated them in the exercise of his public office. Mr. Bush and his political advisors know this, and clearly used the opportunity of his weekly radio address to further cement the bond between the President and those who want to turn America into "a Christian nation."
Nor does the president or his flock necessarly mean to hurt or exclude those of us who follow other paths - or no religious path at all. He is only bringing us the Word, and what could be a greater gift?
Well, thanks, but no thanks. The dangers are far too real. By so publicly rejecting the Constitutionally mandated separation of church and state - and throwing off the good manners of millions of Americans who exercise their freedom of belief in private - Mr. Bush threatens to lead America down the road to open religious conflict. We've seen where that leads from South Asia to the Middle East, and in the bloody history of Europe's religious wars. Is that what we want for America? Is that what we want for the world?
From his first use of the word "Crusade" to describe his "War on Terror," Mr. Bush has led Muslims everywhere to see America as fighting a holy war against them. This only builds support for Osama bin Laden and others who would fight a holy war, or jihad, against those who fail to salute their religious banner. Why, in his self-righteous blindness, does Mr. Bush persist in being their recruiting sergeant?
No doubt, many on my side of the political divide will dismiss Mr. Bush's Easter antics as merely pandering to or emboldening his supporters on the religious right. I fear worse. I could be wrong, and hope I am. But I see our preacher-president raising the flag of Christian nationalism over the Oval Office. As my colleague Will Pitt has discussed, the religious right openly, even seditiously, calls for the creation of a United States of Jesus. With his Easter message, Mr. Bush has come perilously close to publicly joining their ranks.
Also, make sure to check out this book:
Lakoff, George.
Don't think of an elephant! Know your values and frame the debate.
Foreword by Howard Dean. Introduction by Don Hazen.
White River Junction, VT : Chelsea Green Publishing, c2004.
ISBN: 1931498717
You can by the book here: http://www.chelseagreen.com/2004/items/elephant
To quote from the back cover: "[It] is the antidote to the last forty years of conservative strategizing and the right wing's stranglehold on political dialogue in the United States. Lakoff explains how conservatives think, and how to counter their arguments. He outlines in detail the traditonal American values that progressives hold, but are often unable to articulate. Lakoff also breaks down the ways conservatives have framed the issues, and provides examples of how progressives can reframe the debate. His years of research and work with environmental and political leaders have been distilled into this essentail guide, which show progressives how to think in terms of values instead of programs, and why people vote their values and identities, often against their best interests ... Read it, take action --- and help take America back."
Also, also, check out this link:
http://www.google.com/url?sa=U&start=6&q=http://www.bushflash.com/
Thursday, March 24, 2005
Free Speech Checked at the Door
This one gets my blood boiling!
By Jim Spencer, Denver Post Staff Writer
The man near the entrance of George Bush's nonpolitical, taxpayer-financed "town hall" meeting Monday stopped Karen Bauer and Leslie Weise. He directed the two Denver women toward a man in a smiley-face tie.
"You've been ID'd," the second man told them.
Bauer and Weise were amazed. Hidden under their business suits, the members of the group Denver Progressives wore T-shirts that said "Stop the lies."
Along with another Denver Progressives member, Alex Young, they planned to expose the T-shirts as the president talked about Social Security.
They reconsidered when smiley-face-tie guy said the Secret Service was coming to speak to them.
Soon, a stocky man with a shaved head, an earpiece and a red lapel pin arrived. He never identified himself as a Secret Service agent, but he did have a message.
"He said we were allowed to go in, but if we caused any problems, we'd be taken to jail," said Bauer, a 38-year-old marketing coordinator.
Bauer and Weise will meet today with Secret Service officials to discuss their removal from the Bush meeting.
"Freedom of speech, general assembly, they're all guaranteed under the Constitution," said Lon Garner, special agent in charge of the Secret Service's Denver district. "We are not an enforcement arm to the president other than security."
Garner said his agents don't remove people from presidential gatherings unless they break the law. The Republican staff, on the other hand, may ask people to leave, Garner said. And like the Secret Service, they also wear lapel pins and earpieces.
Garner said he understood that Republicans had two names on a "list."
The GOP operatives actually targeted three people who might turn the president's carefully contrived "town hall" meeting into real democracy.
More than an hour before the president arrived, Bauer, Weise and Young were ordered to leave the Wings Over the Rockies Museum.
The stocky guy "grabbed me by the arm and spun me around," Bauer said.
"We kept asking, 'Why is this happening?"' Young said. "The guy said, 'If the staff asks you to leave, you have to leave. This is a private event."'
It wasn't. Bush's Denver appearance probably cost taxpayers tens of thousands in jet fuel, room rent and personnel.
"This was an official White House event and not a political event," Colorado GOP executive director David Wardrop explained.
Anyone with tickets could have attended, added assistant presidential press secretary Allen Abney.
"The White House welcomes people exercising the right to free speech," he said.
The facts beg to differ. Bauer, Weise and Young had tickets. None acted up.
On Tuesday, Weise said a Secret Service spokesman told her that Republicans who asked to have her ejected from the supposedly nonpolitical event described her, Bauer and Young as "protest-type people" who were part of the "No Blood for Oil" group.
Weise, a 39-year-old lawyer, is not sure such a group exists. She does, however, have a bumper sticker on her car containing those words.
If that's what it's come down to in America, if a bumper sticker allows the Republican Party to bully you out of seeing the president of the United States, then George Bush and his GOP henchmen are living a lie.
The president constantly claims freedom as God's gift to everyone.
"We shouldn't be surprised when people are willing to take risks for freedom," Bush told GOP cheerleaders allowed to hear him speak in Denver.
"Free societies are peaceful societies. Free societies are hopeful societies. Free societies are the best way to defeat the dark vision of the terrorists."
They sure are, Mr. President.
But societies that smother dissent are never free
...and with that, here is another poster...
By Jim Spencer, Denver Post Staff Writer
The man near the entrance of George Bush's nonpolitical, taxpayer-financed "town hall" meeting Monday stopped Karen Bauer and Leslie Weise. He directed the two Denver women toward a man in a smiley-face tie.
"You've been ID'd," the second man told them.
Bauer and Weise were amazed. Hidden under their business suits, the members of the group Denver Progressives wore T-shirts that said "Stop the lies."
Along with another Denver Progressives member, Alex Young, they planned to expose the T-shirts as the president talked about Social Security.
They reconsidered when smiley-face-tie guy said the Secret Service was coming to speak to them.
Soon, a stocky man with a shaved head, an earpiece and a red lapel pin arrived. He never identified himself as a Secret Service agent, but he did have a message.
"He said we were allowed to go in, but if we caused any problems, we'd be taken to jail," said Bauer, a 38-year-old marketing coordinator.
Bauer and Weise will meet today with Secret Service officials to discuss their removal from the Bush meeting.
"Freedom of speech, general assembly, they're all guaranteed under the Constitution," said Lon Garner, special agent in charge of the Secret Service's Denver district. "We are not an enforcement arm to the president other than security."
Garner said his agents don't remove people from presidential gatherings unless they break the law. The Republican staff, on the other hand, may ask people to leave, Garner said. And like the Secret Service, they also wear lapel pins and earpieces.
Garner said he understood that Republicans had two names on a "list."
The GOP operatives actually targeted three people who might turn the president's carefully contrived "town hall" meeting into real democracy.
More than an hour before the president arrived, Bauer, Weise and Young were ordered to leave the Wings Over the Rockies Museum.
The stocky guy "grabbed me by the arm and spun me around," Bauer said.
"We kept asking, 'Why is this happening?"' Young said. "The guy said, 'If the staff asks you to leave, you have to leave. This is a private event."'
It wasn't. Bush's Denver appearance probably cost taxpayers tens of thousands in jet fuel, room rent and personnel.
"This was an official White House event and not a political event," Colorado GOP executive director David Wardrop explained.
Anyone with tickets could have attended, added assistant presidential press secretary Allen Abney.
"The White House welcomes people exercising the right to free speech," he said.
The facts beg to differ. Bauer, Weise and Young had tickets. None acted up.
On Tuesday, Weise said a Secret Service spokesman told her that Republicans who asked to have her ejected from the supposedly nonpolitical event described her, Bauer and Young as "protest-type people" who were part of the "No Blood for Oil" group.
Weise, a 39-year-old lawyer, is not sure such a group exists. She does, however, have a bumper sticker on her car containing those words.
If that's what it's come down to in America, if a bumper sticker allows the Republican Party to bully you out of seeing the president of the United States, then George Bush and his GOP henchmen are living a lie.
The president constantly claims freedom as God's gift to everyone.
"We shouldn't be surprised when people are willing to take risks for freedom," Bush told GOP cheerleaders allowed to hear him speak in Denver.
"Free societies are peaceful societies. Free societies are hopeful societies. Free societies are the best way to defeat the dark vision of the terrorists."
They sure are, Mr. President.
But societies that smother dissent are never free
...and with that, here is another poster...
Wednesday, March 23, 2005
Dictators, Tyrants and Fools By William Rivers Pitt
t r u t h o u t Perspective
Tuesday 22 March 2005
The greatest strength of the Republican majority in Congress and their allies in the White House is their unfailing ability to say and do anything, no matter how hypocritical or brazen or wrong, in order to win. The second greatest strength of the Republican majority in Congress and their allies in the White House is the simple fact that the news media almost never calls them on this, but that is an essay for another time.
We all know by now about the enormous raft of lies that were fed to the American people and the world about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Would you be shocked to know, however, that they are doing it again? Earlier this year, the Bush administration told allies in Asia that North Korea had supplied nuclear materials to Libya. This was a bald-faced lie; North Korea sold nuclear materials to Pakistan, an ally of the United States. Pakistan turned around and sold the stuff to Libya, but the Bush crew decided to fire a salvo of lies and disinformation at North Korea, and US allies in Asia.
The Washington Post reported on Sunday the fallout from these lies. "The Bush administration's approach, intended to isolate North Korea," wrote the Post, "instead left allies increasingly doubtful as they began to learn that the briefings omitted essential details about the transaction, U.S. officials and foreign diplomats said in interviews. North Korea responded to public reports last month about the briefings by withdrawing from talks with its neighbors and the United States."
This is why Condi Rice is touring Asia right now; some outraged allies have to be soothed. No, we didn't really lie to you. It's just that we can't make Pakistan look bad under any circumstances, and we surely can't have people know that our ally was selling nuclear materials to Libya. According to the Post, "The White House declined to offer an official to comment by name about the new details concerning Pakistan. A prepared response attributed to a senior administration official said that the U.S. government 'has provided allies with an accurate account of North Korea's nuclear proliferation activities.'"
Yes, the administration provided an accurate account…except for the fact that it was all wrong and designed to cover the backside of a rogue nation ally. These people will say anything. It is their greatest strength.
Take, for another example, the widely promulgated idea that 'Freedom is on the March' in Iraq. Yesterday, according to wire reports, freedom in Iraq looked like this: At least 45 people died in violence in Iraq, including a US soldier. Rebels struck around Iraq, hitting security forces in several parts of the country. In Mosul, a suicide bomber with a fake badge slipped into a building housing the provincial anti-corruption department and detonated himself inside the office of its chief, General Walid Kachmoula, killing him and two of his guards.
Attackers struck again a few hours later, opening fire on the procession bearing Kachmoula's coffin as it made its way to the cemetery, killing two people and wounding 14. Two unidentified bodies, shot in the chest and head, were discovered. In Baquba, gunmen attacked a police station, killing at least four police and wounding two. A truck bomb rammed into the entrance of an Iraqi army barracks, wounding 17 people. In Baghdad, 24 Iraqi rebels were killed and six coalition soldiers wounded in a firefight. In the northern city of Kirkuk, a U.S. soldier was killed and three others wounded when a roadside bomb hit their patrol.
Yet Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told a Fox News interviewer, "It's a wonderful thing to see 25 million Iraqis liberated, to see their economy improve as it has been, to see their political process move toward democracy."
They will say anything. It is their greatest strength.
Take, for a truly nauseating example, the grotesque charade that has unfolded around Terri Schiavo. Schiavo, as most know by now, is the Florida woman who languishes in a vegetative state while religious conservatives use her parents to keep her alive as a means to score political points. Sunday night saw an unprecedented barnstorming of legislation through Congress, pushed by the Republican majority, to keep Schiavo from being removed from the machines that are keeping her alive. The fact that her husband wants the measures to sustain her life ended, and that Florida law clearly gives him the right to make this decision, did not get in the way of a good chunk of political theater.
The myriad ways in which this issue rings the hypocrisy bells are difficult to quantify. The GOP, party of states rights, the sanctity of marriage, family values and religious freedom, placed the federal government into the role of mother, father, husband, wife, doctor and priest in this matter, and never mind the fact that they bulldozed Florida law again.
There is also the matter of the GOP talking points memo floating around out there which specifically states Ms. Schaivo's condition is a perfect wedge with which to remove Florida's Democratic Senator, Bill Nelson. Never mind the fact that the 'Culture of Life' advocates pushing this are also greasing the skids towards more executions of prisoners, or that they support a war that has killed and wounded well over 200,000 people in Iraq.
The next time you find yourself in a debate about Ms. Schiavo with a person who agrees with Bush and the Congressional majority on this, ask them about Sun Hudson. Hudson was born with a genetic disorder and was sustained by machines from the day of his birth. The Texas hospital housing him decided there was no point in sustaining his care, and Hudson was removed from his machines. He died at five months old.
This happened last week.
Five-month-old Sun Hudson was removed from his life-sustaining machines by a Texas law signed by then-Governor George W. Bush in 1999. The law allows patients deemed unsalvageable by the hospital to be removed from ventilators and other medical apparatus, with a ten-day window given to the families of the stricken to find another facility before the plug is pulled.
Sun Hudson was African-American, and neither Congress nor Mr. Bush came storming to his rescue before his death last week. Believe this: If Ms. Schiavo were an African American child, a Hispanic mother, an Iraqi wife, an Afghani grandmother, an American soldier suffering massive brain trauma from an explosion in Mosul, anyone from Darfur or the Congo, if she had been anything other than a white woman in a Fundamentalist-controlled state, we would have never, ever, heard of her.
The piercing hypocrisy found in this hue and cry over Schiavo is the simple fact that the GOP majority pushing this doesn't give a tinker's damn about her condition or her fate. They want to cobble together some kind of bastardized precedent with this to knock down a woman's right to choose, and they'd like to tag Nelson while they're at it. Beyond that, this is a smokescreen to cover their true intentions.
Understand that whatever these people are making noise about is not what they actually care about. They did it a couple of weeks ago; while shouting about Social Security reform and getting everyone all fired up over that, they passed the Bankruptcy bill, the Gun Manufacturers Shield Law and opened ANWR for drilling. They've known their Social Security 'reforms' have been dead in the water for weeks, but kept pushing them to distract opponents from their true goals, which they reached in fine style.
So it goes with Ms. Schiavo. They don't care about her. They want everyone looking at her, however, while they prepare to destroy the filibuster in the Senate in order to appoint a few far-right judges to the bench. Never mind that the Senate has confirmed 204 of Bush's judicial nominations, blocking only 10, which is an approval rate of 95%. The GOP majority still shouts "Obstructionist!" and is preparing to annihilate the one firebreak given to the minority that keeps truly bad nominees from becoming judges. They will try to do this soon, while everyone is caught up in the saga of the Schiavo feeding tube.
These people will say anything, and use anyone as a pawn, no matter how gross or disrespectful or hypocritical or flatly illegal it may be. They do this, ultimately, because they want everything their own way, with no room for compromise whatsoever. It is their greatest strength. It may also come to be their greatest weakness.
Only dictators, tyrants and fools believe they can have it all their way. Every dictator, tyrant and fool in history who has tried to have it all his way has failed in spectacular fashion. Often, that failure brings about the destruction of their family, their army, or their entire nation. Yet the lessons of history do not resonate with dictators, tyrants and fools. That, more than anything else, is why they always fail.
What we have seen in these last years is mushmouthed dictators in the Executive, petty tyrants in Congress, and fools in between trying to have it all their own way. They will fail, as ever. The backlash comes. Mahatma Gandhi once said, "When I despair, I remember that all through history, the way of truth and love has always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time they seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall. Think of it, always."
Always.
Tuesday 22 March 2005
The greatest strength of the Republican majority in Congress and their allies in the White House is their unfailing ability to say and do anything, no matter how hypocritical or brazen or wrong, in order to win. The second greatest strength of the Republican majority in Congress and their allies in the White House is the simple fact that the news media almost never calls them on this, but that is an essay for another time.
We all know by now about the enormous raft of lies that were fed to the American people and the world about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Would you be shocked to know, however, that they are doing it again? Earlier this year, the Bush administration told allies in Asia that North Korea had supplied nuclear materials to Libya. This was a bald-faced lie; North Korea sold nuclear materials to Pakistan, an ally of the United States. Pakistan turned around and sold the stuff to Libya, but the Bush crew decided to fire a salvo of lies and disinformation at North Korea, and US allies in Asia.
The Washington Post reported on Sunday the fallout from these lies. "The Bush administration's approach, intended to isolate North Korea," wrote the Post, "instead left allies increasingly doubtful as they began to learn that the briefings omitted essential details about the transaction, U.S. officials and foreign diplomats said in interviews. North Korea responded to public reports last month about the briefings by withdrawing from talks with its neighbors and the United States."
This is why Condi Rice is touring Asia right now; some outraged allies have to be soothed. No, we didn't really lie to you. It's just that we can't make Pakistan look bad under any circumstances, and we surely can't have people know that our ally was selling nuclear materials to Libya. According to the Post, "The White House declined to offer an official to comment by name about the new details concerning Pakistan. A prepared response attributed to a senior administration official said that the U.S. government 'has provided allies with an accurate account of North Korea's nuclear proliferation activities.'"
Yes, the administration provided an accurate account…except for the fact that it was all wrong and designed to cover the backside of a rogue nation ally. These people will say anything. It is their greatest strength.
Take, for another example, the widely promulgated idea that 'Freedom is on the March' in Iraq. Yesterday, according to wire reports, freedom in Iraq looked like this: At least 45 people died in violence in Iraq, including a US soldier. Rebels struck around Iraq, hitting security forces in several parts of the country. In Mosul, a suicide bomber with a fake badge slipped into a building housing the provincial anti-corruption department and detonated himself inside the office of its chief, General Walid Kachmoula, killing him and two of his guards.
Attackers struck again a few hours later, opening fire on the procession bearing Kachmoula's coffin as it made its way to the cemetery, killing two people and wounding 14. Two unidentified bodies, shot in the chest and head, were discovered. In Baquba, gunmen attacked a police station, killing at least four police and wounding two. A truck bomb rammed into the entrance of an Iraqi army barracks, wounding 17 people. In Baghdad, 24 Iraqi rebels were killed and six coalition soldiers wounded in a firefight. In the northern city of Kirkuk, a U.S. soldier was killed and three others wounded when a roadside bomb hit their patrol.
Yet Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told a Fox News interviewer, "It's a wonderful thing to see 25 million Iraqis liberated, to see their economy improve as it has been, to see their political process move toward democracy."
They will say anything. It is their greatest strength.
Take, for a truly nauseating example, the grotesque charade that has unfolded around Terri Schiavo. Schiavo, as most know by now, is the Florida woman who languishes in a vegetative state while religious conservatives use her parents to keep her alive as a means to score political points. Sunday night saw an unprecedented barnstorming of legislation through Congress, pushed by the Republican majority, to keep Schiavo from being removed from the machines that are keeping her alive. The fact that her husband wants the measures to sustain her life ended, and that Florida law clearly gives him the right to make this decision, did not get in the way of a good chunk of political theater.
The myriad ways in which this issue rings the hypocrisy bells are difficult to quantify. The GOP, party of states rights, the sanctity of marriage, family values and religious freedom, placed the federal government into the role of mother, father, husband, wife, doctor and priest in this matter, and never mind the fact that they bulldozed Florida law again.
There is also the matter of the GOP talking points memo floating around out there which specifically states Ms. Schaivo's condition is a perfect wedge with which to remove Florida's Democratic Senator, Bill Nelson. Never mind the fact that the 'Culture of Life' advocates pushing this are also greasing the skids towards more executions of prisoners, or that they support a war that has killed and wounded well over 200,000 people in Iraq.
The next time you find yourself in a debate about Ms. Schiavo with a person who agrees with Bush and the Congressional majority on this, ask them about Sun Hudson. Hudson was born with a genetic disorder and was sustained by machines from the day of his birth. The Texas hospital housing him decided there was no point in sustaining his care, and Hudson was removed from his machines. He died at five months old.
This happened last week.
Five-month-old Sun Hudson was removed from his life-sustaining machines by a Texas law signed by then-Governor George W. Bush in 1999. The law allows patients deemed unsalvageable by the hospital to be removed from ventilators and other medical apparatus, with a ten-day window given to the families of the stricken to find another facility before the plug is pulled.
Sun Hudson was African-American, and neither Congress nor Mr. Bush came storming to his rescue before his death last week. Believe this: If Ms. Schiavo were an African American child, a Hispanic mother, an Iraqi wife, an Afghani grandmother, an American soldier suffering massive brain trauma from an explosion in Mosul, anyone from Darfur or the Congo, if she had been anything other than a white woman in a Fundamentalist-controlled state, we would have never, ever, heard of her.
The piercing hypocrisy found in this hue and cry over Schiavo is the simple fact that the GOP majority pushing this doesn't give a tinker's damn about her condition or her fate. They want to cobble together some kind of bastardized precedent with this to knock down a woman's right to choose, and they'd like to tag Nelson while they're at it. Beyond that, this is a smokescreen to cover their true intentions.
Understand that whatever these people are making noise about is not what they actually care about. They did it a couple of weeks ago; while shouting about Social Security reform and getting everyone all fired up over that, they passed the Bankruptcy bill, the Gun Manufacturers Shield Law and opened ANWR for drilling. They've known their Social Security 'reforms' have been dead in the water for weeks, but kept pushing them to distract opponents from their true goals, which they reached in fine style.
So it goes with Ms. Schiavo. They don't care about her. They want everyone looking at her, however, while they prepare to destroy the filibuster in the Senate in order to appoint a few far-right judges to the bench. Never mind that the Senate has confirmed 204 of Bush's judicial nominations, blocking only 10, which is an approval rate of 95%. The GOP majority still shouts "Obstructionist!" and is preparing to annihilate the one firebreak given to the minority that keeps truly bad nominees from becoming judges. They will try to do this soon, while everyone is caught up in the saga of the Schiavo feeding tube.
These people will say anything, and use anyone as a pawn, no matter how gross or disrespectful or hypocritical or flatly illegal it may be. They do this, ultimately, because they want everything their own way, with no room for compromise whatsoever. It is their greatest strength. It may also come to be their greatest weakness.
Only dictators, tyrants and fools believe they can have it all their way. Every dictator, tyrant and fool in history who has tried to have it all his way has failed in spectacular fashion. Often, that failure brings about the destruction of their family, their army, or their entire nation. Yet the lessons of history do not resonate with dictators, tyrants and fools. That, more than anything else, is why they always fail.
What we have seen in these last years is mushmouthed dictators in the Executive, petty tyrants in Congress, and fools in between trying to have it all their own way. They will fail, as ever. The backlash comes. Mahatma Gandhi once said, "When I despair, I remember that all through history, the way of truth and love has always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time they seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall. Think of it, always."
Always.
Monday, March 21, 2005
March 20th, 2005: 2nd Anniversary of the War in Iraq
Although our incompetant, special interest, media would have you believe that there were no protests yesterday, the truth tells a far different story...
A fact to consider: The mainstream news media all but buried stories about the global protests this weekend. CNN.com even ran an online poll at one point asking if it was time to have the Iraq protests stopped. Yet consider that last year, to mark the first anniversary, there were 319 protests all across the country. This year, there were 765 protests all across the country.
THERES SOMETHING HAPPENING HERE.
(Walter Ducharmarme, of Cambridge, Mass., stands beside a row of symbolic coffins as demonstrators gather on Boston Commmon, Sunday, March 20, 2005, to mark the second anniversary of the war in Iraq. - AP Photo/Josh Reynolds)
(Holding torches, some 2,000 people form the sign of peace during an antiwar and anti-violence rally in the Heroes Square in central Budapest, Hungary, on Sunday evening, March 20, 2005. The rally was organized by the Humanist Movement of Hungary to mark the second anniversary of the US-led invasion of Iraq. In the background the Millenium Memorial, left, and the Gallery of Arts, right, are seen. - AP Photo/MTI, Zsolt Szigetvary)
ALSO PLEASE READ THE FOLLOWING STORY HIGHLIGHTING WHAT ACTUALLY TOOK PLACE YESTERDAY...
Media Downplay Historic Day of Protests
By Scott Galindez t r u t h o u t Report
Sunday 20 March 2005
Fayetteville, NC -- The second anniversary of the war was the impetus for major demonstrations throughout the world. In the United States, over 800 communities held events calling for an end to the occupation.
CNN, however, reported that in the United States "barely a ripple was made while large protests took place in Europe." The New York Times reported that protests in the United States ranged from 350 people in Times Square to thousands in San Francisco. Later in the same story, the Times reported that several thousand marched from Harlem to Central Park. If thousands marched in New York, why did the Times highlight the 350 in Times Square?
CNN's report was worse … nothing about US protests. While they only saw a ripple, a huge wave passed them by. If CNN had been in Fayetteville, North Carolina, they would have seen what could be a major turning point in the anti-war movement. The largest Anti-war protest ever in this heavily military town took place.
The march was led by two banners carried by family members of soldiers who died or served in Iraq. The first banner said "The World Still Says No to War" and the second banner was "Bring the Troops Home Now." A few feet behind was a banner carried by Veterans of the Iraq War. One of those veterans, Sergeant Camillo Mejia, recently served 9 months in jail for refusing to return to Iraq after leave. Mejia told the crowd: "After going to war and seeing its ugly face, I could no longer be a part of it."
Following the Iraq Veterans was Military Families Speak Out. "I can't remain silent on these issues, slap a yellow ribbon on my car and call it supporting our troops," said Kara Hollingsworth, the wife of a soldier serving his second tour of duty in Iraq. "I support our troops by making sure they are not put in harm's way unless absolutely necessary."
Many veterans of past wars were also among the ranks. Sections of the march resembled army units marching in formation calling cadence.
Speaker after speaker told stories of loved ones they had lost during the war and the now 2-year-old occupation of Iraq. Flag-draped mock coffins were carried by many.
Congresswoman Lynn Woosley of California called on the crowd to lobby Congress in support of House Concurrent Resolution 35, calling on the President to bring U.S. troops home.
The March was part of a series of events aimed at breathing new life into the anti-war movement. The first-ever Iraq Veterans Against the War national conference is also taking place, along with a Conference of Military Families Speak Out. A third major conference of Southern anti-war organizers is also taking place in Fayetteville.
CNN missed the boat … perhaps a good thing for them, since they were only prepared for a ripple and not the giant wave that formed in Fayetteville.
A fact to consider: The mainstream news media all but buried stories about the global protests this weekend. CNN.com even ran an online poll at one point asking if it was time to have the Iraq protests stopped. Yet consider that last year, to mark the first anniversary, there were 319 protests all across the country. This year, there were 765 protests all across the country.
THERES SOMETHING HAPPENING HERE.
(Walter Ducharmarme, of Cambridge, Mass., stands beside a row of symbolic coffins as demonstrators gather on Boston Commmon, Sunday, March 20, 2005, to mark the second anniversary of the war in Iraq. - AP Photo/Josh Reynolds)
(Holding torches, some 2,000 people form the sign of peace during an antiwar and anti-violence rally in the Heroes Square in central Budapest, Hungary, on Sunday evening, March 20, 2005. The rally was organized by the Humanist Movement of Hungary to mark the second anniversary of the US-led invasion of Iraq. In the background the Millenium Memorial, left, and the Gallery of Arts, right, are seen. - AP Photo/MTI, Zsolt Szigetvary)
ALSO PLEASE READ THE FOLLOWING STORY HIGHLIGHTING WHAT ACTUALLY TOOK PLACE YESTERDAY...
Media Downplay Historic Day of Protests
By Scott Galindez t r u t h o u t Report
Sunday 20 March 2005
Fayetteville, NC -- The second anniversary of the war was the impetus for major demonstrations throughout the world. In the United States, over 800 communities held events calling for an end to the occupation.
CNN, however, reported that in the United States "barely a ripple was made while large protests took place in Europe." The New York Times reported that protests in the United States ranged from 350 people in Times Square to thousands in San Francisco. Later in the same story, the Times reported that several thousand marched from Harlem to Central Park. If thousands marched in New York, why did the Times highlight the 350 in Times Square?
CNN's report was worse … nothing about US protests. While they only saw a ripple, a huge wave passed them by. If CNN had been in Fayetteville, North Carolina, they would have seen what could be a major turning point in the anti-war movement. The largest Anti-war protest ever in this heavily military town took place.
The march was led by two banners carried by family members of soldiers who died or served in Iraq. The first banner said "The World Still Says No to War" and the second banner was "Bring the Troops Home Now." A few feet behind was a banner carried by Veterans of the Iraq War. One of those veterans, Sergeant Camillo Mejia, recently served 9 months in jail for refusing to return to Iraq after leave. Mejia told the crowd: "After going to war and seeing its ugly face, I could no longer be a part of it."
Following the Iraq Veterans was Military Families Speak Out. "I can't remain silent on these issues, slap a yellow ribbon on my car and call it supporting our troops," said Kara Hollingsworth, the wife of a soldier serving his second tour of duty in Iraq. "I support our troops by making sure they are not put in harm's way unless absolutely necessary."
Many veterans of past wars were also among the ranks. Sections of the march resembled army units marching in formation calling cadence.
Speaker after speaker told stories of loved ones they had lost during the war and the now 2-year-old occupation of Iraq. Flag-draped mock coffins were carried by many.
Congresswoman Lynn Woosley of California called on the crowd to lobby Congress in support of House Concurrent Resolution 35, calling on the President to bring U.S. troops home.
The March was part of a series of events aimed at breathing new life into the anti-war movement. The first-ever Iraq Veterans Against the War national conference is also taking place, along with a Conference of Military Families Speak Out. A third major conference of Southern anti-war organizers is also taking place in Fayetteville.
CNN missed the boat … perhaps a good thing for them, since they were only prepared for a ripple and not the giant wave that formed in Fayetteville.
Wednesday, March 16, 2005
Neverland Ranch Investigators Discover Corpse Of Real Michael Jackson
Source: The Onion
SANTA BARBARA, CA—During a search for evidence at the Neverland Valley Ranch, investigators discovered a corpse that has been identified as that of Michael Jackson, Santa Barbara police officials announced Tuesday.
"Coroners have officially pronounced Michael Jackson dead. From what we can tell, he died between 18 and 20 years ago," forensic investigator Tim Holbrooke said. "We are not certain, at this time, who—or what—has been standing trial in that Santa Maria courthouse."
According to Holbrooke, Jackson's corpse was buried just inches below a stretch of the miniature-train tracks that run throughout Neverland. The largely desiccated corpse wore the remains of a red, zipper-covered leather jacket and a single glove.
"We positively identified the body as Jackson by his dental records and DNA," Holbrooke said. "But even before we conducted a single forensic test, we began to suspect that that we'd uncovered the real Michael, and that the disturbing figure claiming to be Jackson was a fake."
Holbrooke said that, although the corpse was in an advanced stage of decomposition, when investigators compared the body to early-career publicity photos of Jackson, they saw a striking resemblance in bone structure and facial features. But when they compared the body to photos taken after 1987, the resemblance was negligible.
"This discovery raises a lot of questions, but it also sheds light on a number of disturbing incidents," Holbrooke said. "Frankly, Jackson had been acting pretty strange."
Above: Investigators move Jackson's body, found buried at Neverland Ranch (above).
Forensic experts and music critics are postulating that Jackson was dead before the release of the multi-platinum album Bad. Detectives are currently analyzing the lyrics to "Man In The Mirror" for any clues relating to a look-alike entity that many suspect murdered the youngest member of the Jackson 5 and assumed his identity.
"We believe that Neverland served as some sort of freakishly whimsical tomb constructed by Jackson's killer," Holbrooke said. "We also suspect that all of the iniquities that occurred on that ranch were the work of the imposter. I wouldn't have ever thought it possible, but we are looking at a situation where the sexual abuse of a 13-year-old cancer patient is the tip of the iceberg."
Holbrooke said that, while the living Jackson is the leading suspect in the murder investigation, he "could be another victim of some sort."
"Basically, we have no idea what type of creature we are dealing with," Holbrooke said.
A member of the investigative team that discovered Jackson's body described the experience as "otherworldly."
"As we neared the perimeter of Neverland, the dogs started whining and howling like crazy," Santa Barbara County detective Frank Poeller said. "We had to pull them into the house. When we got to Jackson's bedroom, one of them almost choked himself to death on his leash trying to get out through the window. Minutes later, the same dog led us to the corpse."
A representative from Jackson's self-created label, MJJ Productions, said he was not surprised to find out that the current Jackson is an imposter.
"When we were recording 'Heal The World' for Dangerous, I could tell something was terribly, terribly wrong," MJJ manager Luke Allard said. "Michael didn't seem like himself anymore. He'd demand bizarre food and sit for hours in a hyperbaric chamber. His appearance began to become more and more peculiar. Soon afterwards, he started wearing a mask and confiding in a chimpanzee."
"I remember thinking, 'This man has become a monster,'" Allard said. "If only I'd known how right I was."
Above: The creature that claims to be Michael Jackson.
Allard said he thinks that the imposter broke ties with Jackson's former friends and surrounded himself with children who were too young to notice the radical change.
Vanity Fair reporter Beth Pither visited Neverland in 1994.
"A strangely fearful staff member led me to Jackson, but ran off before I opened the door," Pither said. "Standing there with my hand on an ice-cold doorknob, I heard strange, unnatural sounds—leathery wings flapping, a sorrowful wail, and loud hissing. A wave of dread passed through me as I opened the door, but all I found was Michael and some kids in pajamas eating ice cream and watching 101 Dalmatians."
While their claims have not been corroborated, other Neverland visitors have reported that when when Jackson entered a room, lights flickered, faucets ran blood-red, and screams escaped from the walls.
To aid in the investigation, the FBI enlisted Dr. Richard Weingarden, a noted expert on the paranormal from UC Santa Barbara. After only two hours, Weingarden abandoned the project.
"The smell of sulfur, the decaying facial features, the bizarrely high-pitched voice—it sounds exactly like..." Weingarden said, trailing off. "I'm sure it's nothing. Not a big deal. Nothing to be terrified about, certainly. I have to go. I've got a family."
Thomas Sneddon, the prosecutor in Jackson's child-molestation lawsuit, said it remains to be seen how the shocking discovery will affect the trial.
Megan Gustafson, who left her post as president of the Akron, OH Michael Jackson Fan Club after the singer was accused of molestation, offered a positive view of the grisly revelation.
"This is very disturbing news," Gustafson said. "But to be honest, it's kind of a relief too. Thriller and Off The Wall are really amazing records. Now I can pull them out of my 'ruined by child abuse' storage bin and start listening to them again."
SANTA BARBARA, CA—During a search for evidence at the Neverland Valley Ranch, investigators discovered a corpse that has been identified as that of Michael Jackson, Santa Barbara police officials announced Tuesday.
"Coroners have officially pronounced Michael Jackson dead. From what we can tell, he died between 18 and 20 years ago," forensic investigator Tim Holbrooke said. "We are not certain, at this time, who—or what—has been standing trial in that Santa Maria courthouse."
According to Holbrooke, Jackson's corpse was buried just inches below a stretch of the miniature-train tracks that run throughout Neverland. The largely desiccated corpse wore the remains of a red, zipper-covered leather jacket and a single glove.
"We positively identified the body as Jackson by his dental records and DNA," Holbrooke said. "But even before we conducted a single forensic test, we began to suspect that that we'd uncovered the real Michael, and that the disturbing figure claiming to be Jackson was a fake."
Holbrooke said that, although the corpse was in an advanced stage of decomposition, when investigators compared the body to early-career publicity photos of Jackson, they saw a striking resemblance in bone structure and facial features. But when they compared the body to photos taken after 1987, the resemblance was negligible.
"This discovery raises a lot of questions, but it also sheds light on a number of disturbing incidents," Holbrooke said. "Frankly, Jackson had been acting pretty strange."
Above: Investigators move Jackson's body, found buried at Neverland Ranch (above).
Forensic experts and music critics are postulating that Jackson was dead before the release of the multi-platinum album Bad. Detectives are currently analyzing the lyrics to "Man In The Mirror" for any clues relating to a look-alike entity that many suspect murdered the youngest member of the Jackson 5 and assumed his identity.
"We believe that Neverland served as some sort of freakishly whimsical tomb constructed by Jackson's killer," Holbrooke said. "We also suspect that all of the iniquities that occurred on that ranch were the work of the imposter. I wouldn't have ever thought it possible, but we are looking at a situation where the sexual abuse of a 13-year-old cancer patient is the tip of the iceberg."
Holbrooke said that, while the living Jackson is the leading suspect in the murder investigation, he "could be another victim of some sort."
"Basically, we have no idea what type of creature we are dealing with," Holbrooke said.
A member of the investigative team that discovered Jackson's body described the experience as "otherworldly."
"As we neared the perimeter of Neverland, the dogs started whining and howling like crazy," Santa Barbara County detective Frank Poeller said. "We had to pull them into the house. When we got to Jackson's bedroom, one of them almost choked himself to death on his leash trying to get out through the window. Minutes later, the same dog led us to the corpse."
A representative from Jackson's self-created label, MJJ Productions, said he was not surprised to find out that the current Jackson is an imposter.
"When we were recording 'Heal The World' for Dangerous, I could tell something was terribly, terribly wrong," MJJ manager Luke Allard said. "Michael didn't seem like himself anymore. He'd demand bizarre food and sit for hours in a hyperbaric chamber. His appearance began to become more and more peculiar. Soon afterwards, he started wearing a mask and confiding in a chimpanzee."
"I remember thinking, 'This man has become a monster,'" Allard said. "If only I'd known how right I was."
Above: The creature that claims to be Michael Jackson.
Allard said he thinks that the imposter broke ties with Jackson's former friends and surrounded himself with children who were too young to notice the radical change.
Vanity Fair reporter Beth Pither visited Neverland in 1994.
"A strangely fearful staff member led me to Jackson, but ran off before I opened the door," Pither said. "Standing there with my hand on an ice-cold doorknob, I heard strange, unnatural sounds—leathery wings flapping, a sorrowful wail, and loud hissing. A wave of dread passed through me as I opened the door, but all I found was Michael and some kids in pajamas eating ice cream and watching 101 Dalmatians."
While their claims have not been corroborated, other Neverland visitors have reported that when when Jackson entered a room, lights flickered, faucets ran blood-red, and screams escaped from the walls.
To aid in the investigation, the FBI enlisted Dr. Richard Weingarden, a noted expert on the paranormal from UC Santa Barbara. After only two hours, Weingarden abandoned the project.
"The smell of sulfur, the decaying facial features, the bizarrely high-pitched voice—it sounds exactly like..." Weingarden said, trailing off. "I'm sure it's nothing. Not a big deal. Nothing to be terrified about, certainly. I have to go. I've got a family."
Thomas Sneddon, the prosecutor in Jackson's child-molestation lawsuit, said it remains to be seen how the shocking discovery will affect the trial.
Megan Gustafson, who left her post as president of the Akron, OH Michael Jackson Fan Club after the singer was accused of molestation, offered a positive view of the grisly revelation.
"This is very disturbing news," Gustafson said. "But to be honest, it's kind of a relief too. Thriller and Off The Wall are really amazing records. Now I can pull them out of my 'ruined by child abuse' storage bin and start listening to them again."
Thursday, March 10, 2005
Remembering All Those Arguments Made 1,500 Deaths Ago
By Joseph L. Galloway Knight Ridder Newspapers
Wednesday 09 March 2005
Washington - Something about anniversaries prods us to pause and reflect on what's transpired in the intervening time. March 20 is the second anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, and it's a good time to consider what's happened since then.
Do you recall our civilian leadership's rationale for a pre-emptive war against Saddam Hussein? President George Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney and, yes, former Secretary of State Colin Powell told the world that the United States had no choice but to invade Iraq. They said Saddam was hiding chemical and biological weapons, and that his scientists would be able to produce a nuclear weapon in a few years.
Do you remember those who predicted that the operation would be financed in large part by sales of Iraqi oil? It would be cheap, easy and, oh yes, so swift that civilian leaders in the Pentagon ordered the military to plan to begin withdrawing from Iraq no later than the summer of 2003.
There was no need for much post-war planning because there wasn't going to be any post-war. America would come, conquer and get out. If Iraq was broken, its new government headed by the neo-conservatives' favorite exile, Ahmad Chalabi, could fix it. There would be no need for American nation-building, just some modest humanitarian aid.
Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld's office had visions of a replay of the almost effortless destruction of Afghanistan's hated Taliban regime using precision-guided munitions, Special Operations forces with laser pointers and Afghan allies.
In Iraq, as in Afghanistan, less would be more, lighter would be better and faster would be best of all. Any Third World regime could be taken down by a few special operators and some airplanes. The Army's heavy divisions were relics of the Cold War.
When then-Army Chief of Staff Gen. Eric K. Shinseki reluctantly answered a senator's persistent questioning by suggesting that occupying and pacifying Iraq, an unruly nation the size of California with 25 million citizens, might require a force of "hundreds of thousands," he was mugged by Rumsfeld's minions.
Under Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz hastened to the Hill the next day and told the legislators that Shinseki's estimate was "wildly off the mark," and that Iraq wouldn't be nearly as tough as Afghanistan had been because Iraq didn't have the sort of nasty ethnic divisions one found in Afghanistan.
At that moment, in late February 2003, on the eve of the invasion, the U.S. invasion force of 278,000 American troops began to dwindle as someone tried to prove the job could be done with fewer than Shinseki's 200,000 troops. Call that the Shinseki Threshold.
One division's tanks and Bradley fighting vehicles bobbed around at sea for weeks and arrived too late for the attack. A second division of tanks and Bradley armored vehicles slated for the follow-up to the invasion was canceled; a third division's deployment to Iraq was postponed for several months. Military Police units needed to secure a hundreds of miles of dangerous supply lines - and to establish law and order - disappeared from the war plan.
A strike force that amounted to an Army division and a Marine Expeditionary Force, with Air Force and Navy fighters and bombers, took down Baghdad in three weeks.
But as the invasion forces regrouped, the world witnessed an orgy of looting and burning of government ministry buildings, and even the power plants upon which a city of 11 million people depended. There was no one to prevent it.
Birthing democracy, Rumsfeld allowed, can be "messy."
After nearly 18 months, the Pentagon admitted that a team of nearly 1,000 intelligence officials and scientists had combed Iraq for evidence of chemical and biological weapons or any sign of an active nuclear weapons program. They found nothing.
This war that was supposed to be a cakewalk has taken the lives of 1,510 American troops and sent thousands more home, maimed by improvised explosive devices that tear off arms and legs.
American taxpayers have paid more than $200 billion in two years for a war we were told wouldn't cost much, if anything, and the cost in fiscal 2006 will be at least $70 billion more.
Now the administration tells us that we had to attack not because Saddam had weapons of mass destruction and ties to al-Qaeda, but because he wasn't a democrat. Sadly, however, the costs of trying to make Iraq a democracy probably would have been lower, and the chances of succeeding better, if we hadn't gone to war with flimsy evidence and wishful thinking.
and with that I offer you another poster...
Wednesday 09 March 2005
Washington - Something about anniversaries prods us to pause and reflect on what's transpired in the intervening time. March 20 is the second anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, and it's a good time to consider what's happened since then.
Do you recall our civilian leadership's rationale for a pre-emptive war against Saddam Hussein? President George Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney and, yes, former Secretary of State Colin Powell told the world that the United States had no choice but to invade Iraq. They said Saddam was hiding chemical and biological weapons, and that his scientists would be able to produce a nuclear weapon in a few years.
Do you remember those who predicted that the operation would be financed in large part by sales of Iraqi oil? It would be cheap, easy and, oh yes, so swift that civilian leaders in the Pentagon ordered the military to plan to begin withdrawing from Iraq no later than the summer of 2003.
There was no need for much post-war planning because there wasn't going to be any post-war. America would come, conquer and get out. If Iraq was broken, its new government headed by the neo-conservatives' favorite exile, Ahmad Chalabi, could fix it. There would be no need for American nation-building, just some modest humanitarian aid.
Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld's office had visions of a replay of the almost effortless destruction of Afghanistan's hated Taliban regime using precision-guided munitions, Special Operations forces with laser pointers and Afghan allies.
In Iraq, as in Afghanistan, less would be more, lighter would be better and faster would be best of all. Any Third World regime could be taken down by a few special operators and some airplanes. The Army's heavy divisions were relics of the Cold War.
When then-Army Chief of Staff Gen. Eric K. Shinseki reluctantly answered a senator's persistent questioning by suggesting that occupying and pacifying Iraq, an unruly nation the size of California with 25 million citizens, might require a force of "hundreds of thousands," he was mugged by Rumsfeld's minions.
Under Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz hastened to the Hill the next day and told the legislators that Shinseki's estimate was "wildly off the mark," and that Iraq wouldn't be nearly as tough as Afghanistan had been because Iraq didn't have the sort of nasty ethnic divisions one found in Afghanistan.
At that moment, in late February 2003, on the eve of the invasion, the U.S. invasion force of 278,000 American troops began to dwindle as someone tried to prove the job could be done with fewer than Shinseki's 200,000 troops. Call that the Shinseki Threshold.
One division's tanks and Bradley fighting vehicles bobbed around at sea for weeks and arrived too late for the attack. A second division of tanks and Bradley armored vehicles slated for the follow-up to the invasion was canceled; a third division's deployment to Iraq was postponed for several months. Military Police units needed to secure a hundreds of miles of dangerous supply lines - and to establish law and order - disappeared from the war plan.
A strike force that amounted to an Army division and a Marine Expeditionary Force, with Air Force and Navy fighters and bombers, took down Baghdad in three weeks.
But as the invasion forces regrouped, the world witnessed an orgy of looting and burning of government ministry buildings, and even the power plants upon which a city of 11 million people depended. There was no one to prevent it.
Birthing democracy, Rumsfeld allowed, can be "messy."
After nearly 18 months, the Pentagon admitted that a team of nearly 1,000 intelligence officials and scientists had combed Iraq for evidence of chemical and biological weapons or any sign of an active nuclear weapons program. They found nothing.
This war that was supposed to be a cakewalk has taken the lives of 1,510 American troops and sent thousands more home, maimed by improvised explosive devices that tear off arms and legs.
American taxpayers have paid more than $200 billion in two years for a war we were told wouldn't cost much, if anything, and the cost in fiscal 2006 will be at least $70 billion more.
Now the administration tells us that we had to attack not because Saddam had weapons of mass destruction and ties to al-Qaeda, but because he wasn't a democrat. Sadly, however, the costs of trying to make Iraq a democracy probably would have been lower, and the chances of succeeding better, if we hadn't gone to war with flimsy evidence and wishful thinking.
and with that I offer you another poster...
Friday, March 04, 2005
America No. 1?
America by the numbers
by Michael Ventura
02/03/05 "ICH" - - No concept lies more firmly embedded in our national character than the notion that the USA is "No. 1," "the greatest." Our broadcast media are, in essence, continuous advertisements for the brand name "America Is No. 1." Any office seeker saying otherwise would be committing political suicide. In fact, anyone saying otherwise will be labeled "un-American." We're an "empire," ain't we? Sure we are. An empire without a manufacturing base. An empire that must borrow $2 billion a day from its competitors in order to function. Yet the delusion is ineradicable. We're No. 1. Well...this is the country you really live in:
by Michael Ventura
02/03/05 "ICH" - - No concept lies more firmly embedded in our national character than the notion that the USA is "No. 1," "the greatest." Our broadcast media are, in essence, continuous advertisements for the brand name "America Is No. 1." Any office seeker saying otherwise would be committing political suicide. In fact, anyone saying otherwise will be labeled "un-American." We're an "empire," ain't we? Sure we are. An empire without a manufacturing base. An empire that must borrow $2 billion a day from its competitors in order to function. Yet the delusion is ineradicable. We're No. 1. Well...this is the country you really live in:
- The United States is 49th in the world in literacy (the New York Times, Dec. 12, 2004).
- The United States ranked 28th out of 40 countries in mathematical literacy (NYT, Dec. 12, 2004).
- Twenty percent of Americans think the sun orbits the earth. Seventeen percent believe the earth revolves around the sun once a day (The Week, Jan. 7, 2005).
- "The International Adult Literacy Survey...found that Americans with less than nine years of education 'score worse than virtually all of the other countries'" (Jeremy Rifkin's superbly documented book The European Dream: How Europe's Vision of the Future Is Quietly Eclipsing the American Dream, p.78).
- Our workers are so ignorant and lack so many basic skills that American businesses spend $30 billion a year on remedial training (NYT, Dec. 12, 2004). No wonder they relocate elsewhere!
- "The European Union leads the U.S. in...the number of science and engineering graduates; public research and development (R&D) expenditures; and new capital raised" (The European Dream, p.70).
- "Europe surpassed the United States in the mid-1990s as the largest producer of scientific literature" (The European Dream, p.70).
- Nevertheless, Congress cut funds to the National Science Foundation. The agency will issue 1,000 fewer research grants this year (NYT, Dec. 21, 2004).
- Foreign applications to U.S. grad schools declined 28 percent last year. Foreign student enrollment on all levels fell for the first time in three decades, but increased greatly in Europe and China. Last year Chinese grad-school graduates in the U.S. dropped 56 percent, Indians 51 percent, South Koreans 28 percent (NYT, Dec. 21, 2004). We're not the place to be anymore.
- The World Health Organization "ranked the countries of the world in terms of overall health performance, and the U.S. [was]...37th." In the fairness of health care, we're 54th. "The irony is that the United States spends more per capita for health care than any other nation in the world" (The European Dream, pp.79-80). Pay more, get lots, lots less.
- "The U.S. and South Africa are the only two developed countries in the world that do not provide health care for all their citizens" (The European Dream, p.80). Excuse me, but since when is South Africa a "developed" country? Anyway, that's the company we're keeping.
- Lack of health insurance coverage causes 18,000 unnecessary American deaths a year. (That's six times the number of people killed on 9/11.) (NYT, Jan. 12, 2005.)
- "U.S. childhood poverty now ranks 22nd, or second to last, among the developed nations. Only Mexico scores lower" (The European Dream, p.81). Been to Mexico lately? Does it look "developed" to you? Yet it's the only "developed" country to score lower in childhood poverty.
- Twelve million American families--more than 10 percent of all U.S. households--"continue to struggle, and not always successfully, to feed themselves." Families that "had members who actually went hungry at some point last year" numbered 3.9 million (NYT, Nov. 22, 2004).
- The United States is 41st in the world in infant mortality. Cuba scores higher (NYT, Jan. 12, 2005).
- Women are 70 percent more likely to die in childbirth in America than in Europe (NYT, Jan. 12, 2005).
- The leading cause of death of pregnant women in this country is murder (CNN, Dec. 14, 2004).
- "Of the 20 most developed countries in the world, the U.S. was dead last in the growth rate of total compensation to its workforce in the 1980s.... In the 1990s, the U.S. average compensation growth rate grew only slightly, at an annual rate of about 0.1 percent" (The European Dream, p.39). Yet Americans work longer hours per year than any other industrialized country, and get less vacation time.
- "Sixty-one of the 140 biggest companies on the Global Fortune 500 rankings are European, while only 50 are U.S. companies" (The European Dream, p.66). "In a recent survey of the world's 50 best companies, conducted by Global Finance, all but one were European" (The European Dream, p.69).
- "Fourteen of the 20 largest commercial banks in the world today are European.... In the chemical industry, the European company BASF is the world's leader, and three of the top six players are European. In engineering and construction, three of the top five companies are European.... The two others are Japanese. Not a single American engineering and construction company is included among the world's top nine competitors. In food and consumer products, Nestlé and Unilever, two European giants, rank first and second, respectively, in the world. In the food and drugstore retail trade, two European companies...are first and second, and European companies make up five of the top ten. Only four U.S. companies are on the list" (The European Dream, p.68).
- The United States has lost 1.3 million jobs to China in the last decade (CNN, Jan. 12, 2005).
- U.S. employers eliminated 1 million jobs in 2004 (The Week, Jan. 14, 2005).
- Three million six hundred thousand Americans ran out of unemployment insurance last year; 1.8 million--one in five--unemployed workers are jobless for more than six months (NYT, Jan. 9, 2005).
- Japan, China, Taiwan, and South Korea hold 40 percent of our government debt. (That's why we talk nice to them.) "By helping keep mortgage rates from rising, China has come to play an enormous and little-noticed role in sustaining the American housing boom" (NYT, Dec. 4, 2004). Read that twice. We owe our housing boom to China, because they want us to keep buying all that stuff they manufacture.
- Sometime in the next 10 years Brazil will probably pass the U.S. as the world's largest agricultural producer. Brazil is now the world's largest exporter of chickens, orange juice, sugar, coffee, and tobacco. Last year, Brazil passed the U.S. as the world's largest beef producer. (Hear that, you poor deluded cowboys?) As a result, while we bear record trade deficits, Brazil boasts a $30 billion trade surplus (NYT, Dec. 12, 2004).
- As of last June, the U.S. imported more food than it exported (NYT, Dec. 12, 2004).
- Bush: 62,027,582 votes. Kerry: 59,026,003 votes. Number of eligible voters who didn't show up: 79,279,000 (NYT, Dec. 26, 2004). That's more than a third. Way more. If more than a third of Iraqis don't show for their election, no country in the world will think that election legitimate.
- One-third of all U.S. children are born out of wedlock. One-half of all U.S. children will live in a one-parent house (CNN, Dec. 10, 2004).
- "Americans are now spending more money on gambling than on movies, videos, DVDs, music, and books combined" (The European Dream, p.28).
- "Nearly one out of four Americans [believe] that using violence to get what they want is acceptable" (The European Dream, p.32).
- Forty-three percent of Americans think torture is sometimes justified, according to a PEW Poll (Associated Press, Aug. 19, 2004).
- "Nearly 900,000 children were abused or neglected in 2002, the last year for which such data are available" (USA Today, Dec. 21, 2004).
- "The International Association of Chiefs of Police said that cuts by the [Bush] administration in federal aid to local police agencies have left the nation more vulnerable than ever" (USA Today, Nov. 17, 2004).
No. 1? In most important categories we're not even in the Top 10 anymore. Not even close.
The USA is "No. 1" in nothing but weaponry, consumer spending, debt, and delusion.
And with that, I offer you this picture to tie into the above realities...
Tuesday, March 01, 2005
"The Third Stage of American Empire": By William Rivers Pitt t r u t h o u t | Perspective
Tuesday 01 March 2005
There have been three stages of American empire since the creation of this nation. Each has fed the other, and each has been established and fortified by war. More importantly, each has been fortified by the vast profits derived by the few in the making of war. The first two stages did not collapse, so much as they were absorbed by the next iteration, carrying over all circumstances and attendant difficulties. We exist today within the third stage of empire, one that is sick at the core.
The first stage of this American empire began with the Mexican-American war, but began to flourish at the conclusion of the Civil War. All the states east of the Mississippi River had been brought by force back under the rule of the federal government, a national taxation system had been established to provide revenues to that government, and the nascent outlines of what Eisenhower described as 'the military/industrial complex' had been built by the lucrative contracts handed out to arm, clothe and feed the military.
For many years prior, Americans had been pushing into the western lands occupied by native peoples. Under the banner of Manifest Destiny, the military/economic machine created to fight the Confederacy pushed its way to the Pacific Ocean. In the process, the vast majority of Native Americans were erased from the book of history, a book that is always written by the victors.
The boundaries of this first stage were limited to the 48 continental states, but did not long remain this way. By the time Woodrow Wilson assumed the presidency, the first stage had expanded to include Cuba, Guam, Puerto Rico and the Philippines. Imperial footholds had been established in South America and East Asia. While other global empires were on the wane – the Spanish empire was essentially dissolved with the signing of the Treaty of Paris in 1898, while the French and British empires were being attacked and slowly rolled back – this American empire became more muscular with each passing day.
The transition between the first and second stages began on April 2nd, 1917, when newly re-elected President Wilson reversed his campaign theme of staying out of the European conflict and asked congress for a declaration of war against Germany. Previously, Americans had defined themselves in no small part by being separated from the troubles of the 'Old World.' When the doughboys shipped out, however, that line of demarcation was crossed.
Despite the eventual victory in Europe, the second stage took many more years to flower and flourish. American armies and navies were essentially dismantled in the aftermath of the 'War to End All Wars,' and the 1930s saw the near-collapse of the American economic system. The advent of and eventual victory in World War II not only cemented the second stage, but resurrected and forever changed the fundamental underpinnings of the American economy. From that victory to now, the American economy has been based centrally on preparation for and fighting of wars.
By the end of World War II, the influence of the American empire stretched throughout Europe to the borders of the new foe, the Soviet empire. Strongholds of the second stage could be likewise found in Africa, the Japanese mainland and many Pacific islands and, with the creation of the state of Israel, the strategically-vital Middle East. American corporations that had built the victorious war machine swam in an ocean of profits. The 'military/industrial complex' was about to become the dominant force in domestic and global commerce, conflict and social structure.
The central reality of the second stage was the Cold War, a death struggle between two competing empires waged across the width and breadth of the planet. The icy staring contest at Checkpoint Charlie in Berlin stood a grim counterpoint to the hot blood spilled in proxy wars fought in Korea, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Angola, the Sinai Peninsula and elsewhere. American and Soviet arms dealers salted the world with millions of conventional weapons to aid these proxy fights.
All the while, larger and more powerful nuclear weaponry was developed by both sides, deployed across the globe, and aimed with deadly intent. On several occasions, most prominently during the Cuban Missile Crisis, these dragons came within inches of slipping the leash. The production of these weapons left uncounted tons of waste behind.
The roots of the third stage were planted deep in this time. At home, the populace became accustomed to existing in a perpetual state of war. The establishment of the Truman Doctrine by men like Paul Nitze created the foundations for an enduring reality: Americans are most easily governed when they are made to fear the strangers 'over there' across the horizon.
Profits from contracts for the development and deployment of weaponry became profitable on an epic scale. The military/industrial complex came to own whole swaths of the American political spectrum on both sides of the aisle, and attached itself umbilically to the petroleum industry as a matter of basic expediency. One cannot fight wars without an abundance of oil and gasoline, and after a fashion, the means and the ends became indistinguishable.
The transition from the second stage to the third stage of American empire came slowly. Millions of Americans took to the streets to protest the large-scale death empire required. The Vietnam War ended with images of Americans fleeing from rooftops in helicopters. A president was required to resign his office or face removal and imprisonment. A 1950s-era chess move in Iran resulted in the 1979 Islamic revolution and the daily humiliation of America by masked gunmen pointing rifles at blindfolded hostages.
The Soviet empire had invaded Afghanistan. The CIA, long the sharp saber of American foreign policy, was broken by the Church Committee. Gasoline became brutally expensive and the American economy struck yet another reef. The American populace, by and large, fell into what could be called a mass depression, described by the last president of the second stage as 'malaise.'
It is difficult to pinpoint exactly when the third stage came into being, but a hockey game will suffice as a marker. On February 2, 1980, the American Olympic hockey team came from nowhere to defeat the unbeatable Soviet squad in Lake Placid. The subsequent eruption of nationalistic fervor, augmented by the American squad's victory over Finland in the final round to capture the gold medal, led to an outpouring of public emotion that no sporting event had ever created.
It was at Lake Placid that the now-familiar chant of "U.S.A.! U.S.A.!" was born. The American people had been well-trained during the second empire to expect being on top, and the years prior to Lake Placid had been hard. Something so simple as a win on that ice was enough to strike sparks again, to ignite the long fuse that has been this third American empire. The American people were mesmerized by the vision of their flag rising next to but just a little higher than the red Soviet banner. It was their first taste of what would become a long and uninterrupted stretch of total global dominance.
The central aspect of this third stage has been the rise of the 'movement conservative.' Not to be confused with the breed of conservative that included Nixon and Rockefeller, the movement conservatives held American nationalism and evangelical Christianity as a dual-headed state religion. They spurned concepts of détente and international cooperation. They were and remain radicals in every sense of the word, seeking to deconstruct the American social state that had been in place since the days of FDR.
Ronald Reagan, the first president of this third stage, was the avatar of these movement conservatives, who first began to become an organized entity in American politics during the campaign of Barry Goldwater. Reagan was their perfect man: Confident to a fault, dedicated to the enrichment of the wealthy corporate class while deconstructing Roosevelt's social safety net by any means necessary.
Reagan established the forked-tongue policy talk adopted by the present administration: Speak about the end of large government, gut entitlement programs wherever they can be found, while simultaneously cutting against the grain of the 'small government' ideal by vastly increasing the military and intelligence apparatus of government with trillions of dollars of taxpayer monies.
This cash, as it did during the rise of the first and second stages, vastly increased the power and reach of the military/industrial/petroleum combine. The movement conservatives, funded by this combine, pushed for the deregulation by government of business in every aspect of commerce, none more pointedly than within the media. Over the course of this third stage, that combine purchased 99% of the news media, ensuring that an uninterrupted commercial advocating for empire would be broadcast 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. Competing messages were all but shut out.
When the Berlin Wall finally fell, when the Soviet empire finally imploded, the banner for this third stage was unfurled for all to see. For the first time in history since the apex of Roman rule, one nation and one government and one military ruled supreme over the known world. The movement conservatives, having lost communism as the main target for their energies and ire, turned inward and laid siege to their fellow citizens. The ultimate goal of this was to purge from debate and consideration anyone who did not approve of empire, and anyone who did not fit the Christian Reconstructionist mold they wished to build American society around.
The rise of George W. Bush, leader of the evangelical/political wing of American Christianity since 1996, to the office of the president has been the fulfillment of the dreams of movement conservatives. September 11 cemented their ascendancy. Now, permanent war and rule by fear are accepted without question. Now, the news media owned by the combine opens the public dialogue to these radicals while painting them as moderate, rational Americans. Now, the dominance of the military/industrial/petroleum combine is unquestioned. Now, the idea that America is engaged in a holy war has been widely disseminated.
There are several cracks in the veneer, however, many of which began during the second stage. The conventional weapons disbursed across the planet during the Cold War are now being pointed at us. Many of our former client states such as Iraq and Saudi Arabia, which served us so well during the Cold War, have now become profoundly debilitating problems that have exposed our vaunted national security system and military forces as less than adequate to the tasks of empire. The dollar is failing slowly but surely, and new power combines between nations like China, Russia and Iran threaten to destabilize American dominance. Oil, the true coin of this realm, is also becoming scarce. The extremism that always comes when one overwhelming force spreads its wings has passed the point of management, and has itself become both organized and well-funded.
It seems all too clear that this third American empire is threatening to collapse under its own ponderous weight. The movement conservatives cannot contain the forces that have been unleashed against them. The American military is proving itself to be incapable of sustaining the unreasonable demands being placed upon it. The ghosts from the second empire loom large, in Europe and Africa and the Middle East and Central Asia. The American economy, sustained for sixty years by petroleum and war, stands at grave risk of being subsumed by both.
Perhaps, someday, a powerful society will rise that understands the lessons of history. Empires fall, always. They consume themselves, slowly at first, but then with ever-increasing speed as military solutions fail to resolve threats and drain the resources of the core. Perhaps, someday.
And with that...
There have been three stages of American empire since the creation of this nation. Each has fed the other, and each has been established and fortified by war. More importantly, each has been fortified by the vast profits derived by the few in the making of war. The first two stages did not collapse, so much as they were absorbed by the next iteration, carrying over all circumstances and attendant difficulties. We exist today within the third stage of empire, one that is sick at the core.
The first stage of this American empire began with the Mexican-American war, but began to flourish at the conclusion of the Civil War. All the states east of the Mississippi River had been brought by force back under the rule of the federal government, a national taxation system had been established to provide revenues to that government, and the nascent outlines of what Eisenhower described as 'the military/industrial complex' had been built by the lucrative contracts handed out to arm, clothe and feed the military.
For many years prior, Americans had been pushing into the western lands occupied by native peoples. Under the banner of Manifest Destiny, the military/economic machine created to fight the Confederacy pushed its way to the Pacific Ocean. In the process, the vast majority of Native Americans were erased from the book of history, a book that is always written by the victors.
The boundaries of this first stage were limited to the 48 continental states, but did not long remain this way. By the time Woodrow Wilson assumed the presidency, the first stage had expanded to include Cuba, Guam, Puerto Rico and the Philippines. Imperial footholds had been established in South America and East Asia. While other global empires were on the wane – the Spanish empire was essentially dissolved with the signing of the Treaty of Paris in 1898, while the French and British empires were being attacked and slowly rolled back – this American empire became more muscular with each passing day.
The transition between the first and second stages began on April 2nd, 1917, when newly re-elected President Wilson reversed his campaign theme of staying out of the European conflict and asked congress for a declaration of war against Germany. Previously, Americans had defined themselves in no small part by being separated from the troubles of the 'Old World.' When the doughboys shipped out, however, that line of demarcation was crossed.
Despite the eventual victory in Europe, the second stage took many more years to flower and flourish. American armies and navies were essentially dismantled in the aftermath of the 'War to End All Wars,' and the 1930s saw the near-collapse of the American economic system. The advent of and eventual victory in World War II not only cemented the second stage, but resurrected and forever changed the fundamental underpinnings of the American economy. From that victory to now, the American economy has been based centrally on preparation for and fighting of wars.
By the end of World War II, the influence of the American empire stretched throughout Europe to the borders of the new foe, the Soviet empire. Strongholds of the second stage could be likewise found in Africa, the Japanese mainland and many Pacific islands and, with the creation of the state of Israel, the strategically-vital Middle East. American corporations that had built the victorious war machine swam in an ocean of profits. The 'military/industrial complex' was about to become the dominant force in domestic and global commerce, conflict and social structure.
The central reality of the second stage was the Cold War, a death struggle between two competing empires waged across the width and breadth of the planet. The icy staring contest at Checkpoint Charlie in Berlin stood a grim counterpoint to the hot blood spilled in proxy wars fought in Korea, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Angola, the Sinai Peninsula and elsewhere. American and Soviet arms dealers salted the world with millions of conventional weapons to aid these proxy fights.
All the while, larger and more powerful nuclear weaponry was developed by both sides, deployed across the globe, and aimed with deadly intent. On several occasions, most prominently during the Cuban Missile Crisis, these dragons came within inches of slipping the leash. The production of these weapons left uncounted tons of waste behind.
The roots of the third stage were planted deep in this time. At home, the populace became accustomed to existing in a perpetual state of war. The establishment of the Truman Doctrine by men like Paul Nitze created the foundations for an enduring reality: Americans are most easily governed when they are made to fear the strangers 'over there' across the horizon.
Profits from contracts for the development and deployment of weaponry became profitable on an epic scale. The military/industrial complex came to own whole swaths of the American political spectrum on both sides of the aisle, and attached itself umbilically to the petroleum industry as a matter of basic expediency. One cannot fight wars without an abundance of oil and gasoline, and after a fashion, the means and the ends became indistinguishable.
The transition from the second stage to the third stage of American empire came slowly. Millions of Americans took to the streets to protest the large-scale death empire required. The Vietnam War ended with images of Americans fleeing from rooftops in helicopters. A president was required to resign his office or face removal and imprisonment. A 1950s-era chess move in Iran resulted in the 1979 Islamic revolution and the daily humiliation of America by masked gunmen pointing rifles at blindfolded hostages.
The Soviet empire had invaded Afghanistan. The CIA, long the sharp saber of American foreign policy, was broken by the Church Committee. Gasoline became brutally expensive and the American economy struck yet another reef. The American populace, by and large, fell into what could be called a mass depression, described by the last president of the second stage as 'malaise.'
It is difficult to pinpoint exactly when the third stage came into being, but a hockey game will suffice as a marker. On February 2, 1980, the American Olympic hockey team came from nowhere to defeat the unbeatable Soviet squad in Lake Placid. The subsequent eruption of nationalistic fervor, augmented by the American squad's victory over Finland in the final round to capture the gold medal, led to an outpouring of public emotion that no sporting event had ever created.
It was at Lake Placid that the now-familiar chant of "U.S.A.! U.S.A.!" was born. The American people had been well-trained during the second empire to expect being on top, and the years prior to Lake Placid had been hard. Something so simple as a win on that ice was enough to strike sparks again, to ignite the long fuse that has been this third American empire. The American people were mesmerized by the vision of their flag rising next to but just a little higher than the red Soviet banner. It was their first taste of what would become a long and uninterrupted stretch of total global dominance.
The central aspect of this third stage has been the rise of the 'movement conservative.' Not to be confused with the breed of conservative that included Nixon and Rockefeller, the movement conservatives held American nationalism and evangelical Christianity as a dual-headed state religion. They spurned concepts of détente and international cooperation. They were and remain radicals in every sense of the word, seeking to deconstruct the American social state that had been in place since the days of FDR.
Ronald Reagan, the first president of this third stage, was the avatar of these movement conservatives, who first began to become an organized entity in American politics during the campaign of Barry Goldwater. Reagan was their perfect man: Confident to a fault, dedicated to the enrichment of the wealthy corporate class while deconstructing Roosevelt's social safety net by any means necessary.
Reagan established the forked-tongue policy talk adopted by the present administration: Speak about the end of large government, gut entitlement programs wherever they can be found, while simultaneously cutting against the grain of the 'small government' ideal by vastly increasing the military and intelligence apparatus of government with trillions of dollars of taxpayer monies.
This cash, as it did during the rise of the first and second stages, vastly increased the power and reach of the military/industrial/petroleum combine. The movement conservatives, funded by this combine, pushed for the deregulation by government of business in every aspect of commerce, none more pointedly than within the media. Over the course of this third stage, that combine purchased 99% of the news media, ensuring that an uninterrupted commercial advocating for empire would be broadcast 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. Competing messages were all but shut out.
When the Berlin Wall finally fell, when the Soviet empire finally imploded, the banner for this third stage was unfurled for all to see. For the first time in history since the apex of Roman rule, one nation and one government and one military ruled supreme over the known world. The movement conservatives, having lost communism as the main target for their energies and ire, turned inward and laid siege to their fellow citizens. The ultimate goal of this was to purge from debate and consideration anyone who did not approve of empire, and anyone who did not fit the Christian Reconstructionist mold they wished to build American society around.
The rise of George W. Bush, leader of the evangelical/political wing of American Christianity since 1996, to the office of the president has been the fulfillment of the dreams of movement conservatives. September 11 cemented their ascendancy. Now, permanent war and rule by fear are accepted without question. Now, the news media owned by the combine opens the public dialogue to these radicals while painting them as moderate, rational Americans. Now, the dominance of the military/industrial/petroleum combine is unquestioned. Now, the idea that America is engaged in a holy war has been widely disseminated.
There are several cracks in the veneer, however, many of which began during the second stage. The conventional weapons disbursed across the planet during the Cold War are now being pointed at us. Many of our former client states such as Iraq and Saudi Arabia, which served us so well during the Cold War, have now become profoundly debilitating problems that have exposed our vaunted national security system and military forces as less than adequate to the tasks of empire. The dollar is failing slowly but surely, and new power combines between nations like China, Russia and Iran threaten to destabilize American dominance. Oil, the true coin of this realm, is also becoming scarce. The extremism that always comes when one overwhelming force spreads its wings has passed the point of management, and has itself become both organized and well-funded.
It seems all too clear that this third American empire is threatening to collapse under its own ponderous weight. The movement conservatives cannot contain the forces that have been unleashed against them. The American military is proving itself to be incapable of sustaining the unreasonable demands being placed upon it. The ghosts from the second empire loom large, in Europe and Africa and the Middle East and Central Asia. The American economy, sustained for sixty years by petroleum and war, stands at grave risk of being subsumed by both.
Perhaps, someday, a powerful society will rise that understands the lessons of history. Empires fall, always. They consume themselves, slowly at first, but then with ever-increasing speed as military solutions fail to resolve threats and drain the resources of the core. Perhaps, someday.
And with that...
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