The butcher's apron

The Republican Party has become the party of neoconservatives. Their operational plan is “A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm." It aligns the US with the foreign policy objectives of Israel's Likud Party. The focus is Balkanizing the Middle East, undermining Arab nationalism, installing US-Israeli client regimes, and controlling the region's prodigious natural resources. It is a straightforward strategy for regional hegemony.

This is the REAL split between the parties, not the comical Democrat-Republican labels. Presently, the traditional imperialists have taken the upper hand since the Bush bandwagon has swerved into the ditch. But that could change in the future. And, yes, there is some cross-pollinating between the two parties; the differences are not absolute. But this is a pretty accurate overview. What's important is that neither party has any intention of restoring the Bill of Rights, slowing the outsourcing of jobs, or abandoning the "war on terror." No way. That is not in their collective interests at all.

When civil liberties are stripped away; elections become pointless. Freedom has nothing to do with pushing a colored-nob on a touch-screen computer every four years. Its about containing the power of the state. Doesn't anyone grasp that? Freedom has become an empty sound bite that's sprinkled through presidential speeches or used to defend the latest bloody intervention in some foreign country. It's lost whatever meaning it had. We've forgotten that the Bill of Rights doesn't give us special, superhuman powers. It's merely a straitjacket for power-hungry politicians to ensure they comply with the law. That's all it is, a shackle on government. Now, all that's been lost. The basic rules of the game have changed. The social contract has been repealed. Even the flag, which once embodied the hopes and aspirations of the nation, has been raised over Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib and countless other black sites spread across the planet. What does the world see when they look at that flag now? Do they see a symbol of liberty and justice or the butcher's apron flapping lazily above some far-flung torture chamber.

Everything has changed. America has lost its way. Casting a ballot for one silver spoon CFR plutocrat over another is utterly meaningless. That's not democracy. It's a fraud.

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