I don't say much about the Iraq war on this blog, because to me, it's a symptom of our dysfunctional government, not a first cause.
Our founding fathers knew that we cannot function as a democracy without a well-informed citizenry. Unfortunately for America, our media has consolidated into a giant Military-Industrial Complex-promoting propaganda machine, bent on spreading disinformation to improve its bottom line. Thus, in 1999, the machine chose George W. Bush over Al Gore for president, despite Bush's obvious unsuitability to run anything larger than a lemonade stand.
The machine relentlessly pounded Al's "earth tones", his "sighing", his "lack of authenticity". It called him wooden and elitist. It made up lies about him (most famously, that he claimed to have invented the Internet), then used its giant echo chamber to cement those lies in unsuspecting American minds.
Of course, the real reason the machine didn't like Big Al was because he was well-known to be a fierce advocate for non-petroleum-based energy sources; and unlike George Bush, Al was not interested in the neo-con foreign policy paradigm. Sure, his vice president-wannabe, Joe Lieberman, was a neo-con; but until Dick Cheney took over, the vice-president's job was mainly a presidential placeholder. The machine knew Lieberman would have no chance at converting Al Gore to his paranoid, militaristic worldview.
There would be no wars for oil in an Al Gore presidency; a disaster for the machine, for another eight or sixteen years of peace and prosperity could put the MIC out of business. Then, what would the multi-chinned captains of industry do with themselves? Certainly they could not compete in the free market without all the subsidies and no-bid contracts the government had given them for so many years. My heavens, what would the Pentagon do to justify its enormous budget?
Thus, the machine stifled all honest debate about the two candidates. Thus, George W. Bush, the "Texecutioner", future murderer of hundreds of thousands, was portrayed as a compassionate, down-to-earth man, and Al Gore, the man who wants to save the planet and promote a peaceful foreign policy, was portrayed as a sneering elitist. Thus, when the governor of Florida, Bush's brother, fixed the 2000 election, the machine showed no outrage and deemed all who recognized it to be conspiracy theorists. Thus, when the Supreme Court decided that the vote counting needed to stop in Florida, and that Bush was to be appointed President, the machine acted as though Bush had legitimacy as President. 9/11 gave it all the excuses it needed to worship Bush as a savior-daddy. And thus, when the case for war in Iraq was phonier than Bush's cowboy persona, the machine screamed and hollered about how Saddam was worse than Hitler and had nuclear warheads pointed at all of our heads. Besides, didn't Sadama bin Hussein attack us on 9/11? Hmmmmmmmmm?
For the past six years, thanks to our dysfunctional media, we have been stuck with the Bush-Cheney presidency, the most diabolical criminal organization to ever take charge of the levers of government. And Bush-Cheney have arrogated the powers of a dictator unto themselves, with the complicity of the machine and a supremely corrupt Republican majority in Congress.
But now the Democrats have finally gotten control of Congress (by a very slim, non-veto-proof majority, of course). How then, can we stop this cabal before they completely destroy our country?
I may be totally cynical, but I don't think Bush and Cheney can be stopped by either legislation or cutting off their funds. Bush's signing statements prove that he cares nothing for the law, and when they needed funds for the original invasion of Iraq, they simply stole it from the budget for the war in Afghanistan. The only answer is impeachment and removal from office.
I have recently heard from two different Washington insiders (
Richard Wolffe and
Brent Budowsky, on different sides of the political spectrum) that the Democrats plan to impeach Bush and Cheney in September, after General Petraeus gives his report to Congress.
Giant Green Lizard, make it so; the sooner the better.
