Avoiding the Abyss

The most infuriating thing about being an American - if you still have a working conscience - is the fact that our government is getting away with murder ... and torture ... and blatant lying ... and tyranny not seen since the Brits were in charge of the colonies. (Indeed, the situation is much worse today than the situation that provoked the American Revolution!) Worse than Bush and Cheney doing all of these things is the fact that the Democrats and the mass media are letting them do it!

That's worth saying again. What's worse than the monstrous things that this White House gang of war criminals are doing is the fact that the rest of the government and the Fourth Estate are permitting it and colluding in it.

Not only is this worse because it means that there are no "checks and balances" at work and any tyrant could get away with anything. It is also worse because it means that there is a rupture underway in the whole political system. It isn't just Bush and Cheney. It's the whole system.

It's not going to be resolved and made right, therefore, by a new administration taking office. The same forces that have allowed Bush and Cheney to do all that they have done are at work to ensure that the next president will carry out the fundamental tenets and precedents that Bush and Cheney have spearheaded.

Granted, some members of the press have raised complaints. The New York Times has editorialized in as strong language as I've ever seen them use against some of the more egregious acts of the Bush White House, roaring to the heavens, but concluding like a lamb: a wish and a hope that the next president will do better, rather than calling for the only logical thing: impeachment.

As I've written elsewhere the pretenders to the throne, the candidates still in the race for the presidency, are also refusing to call for impeachment and refusing to hold the Bush regime accountable for, good god, now admitting that they're choreographing click here TORTURE.

The fact that Bush was shamelessly lying for years, claiming that "We Do not Torture" http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9956644/," doesn't even merit comment by virtually the entire august media. The problem we face is dire and extreme.

It's as if a political thermonuclear bomb went off, the percussive impact felt in our ears across the country, and the entire political establishment and mass media act as if nothing has happened.

What is the heart of the problem?

The shortest way to answer this question is this: so long as the fundamental lie that provides this criminal government a rationale to continue on its vicious mission is not challenged directly, they will continue to get their way. They will continue to get anything and everything they want from the rest of the government and from a supine media.

What is that fundamental lie? "American lives are more valuable and more precious than other people's lives."

Forget the fact that Bush and Cheney's war on terror IS a fraud and that they want Osama Bin Laden around as their foil as much as OBL wants and needs Bush and Cheney for his own jihad.

Forget the fact that because it's a fraudulent war that Bush and Cheney's actual measures aren't designed to and aren't going to protect us against another attack.

Even if the war on terror wasn't a fraud and even if Bush and Cheney really did want to prevent another 9/11, the notion that anything can and should be done to protect American lives, including torturing others and committing mass murder, is the fundamental lie. It would inevitably, regardless of anyone's intentions, lead us to commit monstrous acts against humanity.

Consider this from Michael Ignatieff, Director of the Carr Center for Human Rights at Harvard, writing in the New York Times Magazine on May 2, 2004 in a piece entitled: "Could We Lose the War on Terror? Lesser Evils:"

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