It is an accepted fact that the pretexts used to go to war with Iraq were lies.
It is an accepted fact that the incompetents and fools who planned the attack made no plans for after their easily assured success defeating an enemy known to have minimal defenses.
We know that the right wing Neocons were drooling for an excuse to begin a war and were probably thrilled that the 9/11 disaster provided the "Pearl Harbor" type event that gave the excuse for them to fulfill their despicable wet dream.
We know that Bush entered the presidency with a long history of failure in everything he touched, that only his father's connections provided him with his income and wealth.
We know that the right wing leadership has mindlessly, in lockstep, rubberstamp supported the failed Bush-Cheney Iraq policy.
We know that the right wing media-- Fox Noise, the dittoheads-- Limbaugh, Hannity, Beck, Savage, Coulter, Ingraham, O'Reilly-- have all maintained their loyalty to Bush and Cheney and their total failure in Iraq.
We know that these failures-- these losers-- keep talking about victory-- victory in Iraq.
But let's remember that these people are losers, not just your every day run of the mill losers. Bush is widely regarded as the worst president in history. Cheney is despised even more than Bush. The right wing legislators in congress who support these failures have supported and enabled them in their incompetent, possibly even evil swathe of damage and destruction.
These supporters of Bush's Iraq occupation talk about wanting to be winners. They call the realists, who, with open eyes are calling for the end to the prolongation of Bush's "war," perhaps the biggest folly in US history (remember "Seward's Folly?" Well Bush's folly will go down in history as the most stupid, foolish, stubborn, destructive folly in US history.
When fools support folly, they are part of that folly. When they keep supporting it for years, they are worse than fools. You have to consider their motivations. These fools-- Lieberman, McConnell, Graham, McCain-- they are invested in the war for different reasons.
I came to believe, years ago, that some of Bush supporters like him because of his tough talk and his willingness to kill people. They use Bush like they'd use Viagra, to feel more manly. Some of the Bush / Iraq Folly supporters know that these Viagra constituents, many of them angry men, impotent in some of the areas of their lives, hold on to the "war" like they do to a losing football team, wanting that "win for the gipper," ever loyal to the team.
Sorry. You don't get to spend trillions of dollars so you can keep rooting for "the team" and feeling like a man. Supporting the Iraq War is a lie. It is not a lie. It is an occupation. There will be no win. Bush and company have been trying to reframe, re-define what a win is so many times, it is a sad, pathetic joke. What's the latest? Stability? No further increase in deaths of civilians?
It is time for the Democrats in congress to fight back with tough spines, calling the losers who keep calling for victory the abject losing failures that they really are.
The right wingers who want to stay in Iraq, talking about defeat, seeking to be winners have a track record as losers, as failures, as incompetents who have mindlessly shown more loyalty to their party, to the worst president in history than to the troops. to the nation, even to sanity.
It is time the Democrats spell it out. General Petraeus may be an honest man, but he is serving a liar and a fool. He has compromised his principles. One might justify that he is doing the best job he can, doing what he can for the troops sake. But Petraeus didn't tell all of the truth the past few days. He stayed on message for Bush, but Republican John Warner asked the key question. "Will this make America safer?" Petraeus answered that he didn't know. Even Joe Scarborough says that Bush started the war saying that it would make us safer and that Petraeus' answer "isn't good enough."
Enough with the spineless dems running away from the names the losers are sure to spew.
Rob Kall is executive editor and publisher of OpEdNews.com, President of Futurehealth, Inc, inventor . He is also published regularly on the Huffingtonpost.com. He is a frequent Speaker on Politics, Impeachment, The art, science and power of story, heroes and the hero's journey, Positive Psychology, Stress, Biofeedback and a wide range of subjects. He is a campaign consultant specializing in tapping the power of stories for issue positioning, stump speeches and debates. He recently retired as organizer of several conferences, including StoryCon, the Summit Meeting on the Art, Science and Application of Story and The Winter Brain Meeting on neurofeedback, biofeedback, Optimal Functioning and Positive Psychology. See more of his articles here and, older ones, here.
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A few declarations.
-While I'm registered as a Democrat, I consider myself to be a dynamic critic of the Democratic party, just as, well, not quite as much, but almost as much as I am a critic of republicans.
-My articles express my personal opinion, not the opinion of this website.
I agree with you, but I am also certain after watching the hearings over the last 2 days that the Democrats are not getting enough feedback from voters.
If the Democrats received phone calls and emails from 1 in 10 Democrats over the next few days leading up to the march in Washington DC on Saturday, they would have the push they need to fight hard.
My guess is that they have heard from 1 in 1000 Democrats, maybe less. That means they have no idea what the other 999 Democrats per thousand think. Without more feedback, they are stuck in an information vacuum which is filled by the pro-war corporate media.
Many progressives, including you and me, have called for everyone to snap out of their complacency and call or write their representatives, but I don’t think it is working. My representatives have heard from me hundreds of times, but they have heard nothing from most other constituents, and therefore don’t know what they are thinking.
The Democrats in Congress will grow a spine as soon as 1 in 10 Democratic voters grows a spine, and starts bitching. Short of that, we, and especially the troops, are in a big trouble.
by
John R Moffett (80 articles, 14 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 610 comments)
on Wednesday, September 12, 2007 at 10:38:52 AM
Your interpretation rests on the assumption that the Dems
in Congress would respond to phone calls from voters. I wonder how you can possibly still believe that.
All the Dem presidential candidates, except the two that have no chance whatever of being nominated (Kucinich & Gravel), refuse to say the war is "wrong." Their positions consist of rejiggering current policy, for example by "re-deploying" troops, or re-defining who's a combat troop and who's merely some sort of "support" troop. NONE of them says the war & occupation are illegal and immoral (not to mention opposed by most Iraqis & most Americans), and therefore should be terminated.
There are polls done by major polling organizations, including a very recent one by ABC (jointly with the BBC & a Japanese news network). They show without exception that most Americans oppose the occupation & want to see it ended. Everyone knows the Dems were voted in, last November, solely because the population hoped they would end the war.
Yet you set forth an argument based entirely on the idea that more phone calls from antiwar constituents would turn things around. Surely (I assume) you don't think that calling the White House would change Bush & Cheney. Surely (I assume) you don't believe that calling Republican congressmen would make an iota of difference in their support for current policy. Therefore, what you really mean is that you believe that calling Democratic congresspersons would make a big difference in their positions.
Yet this is the party that announced, the moment they won in November, that impeachment was "off the table." This is the party that caved in last May and fully funded the war with NO STRINGS ATTACHED. This is the party whose leading presidential candidates all basically support current policy, & are only haggling about definitions & details. This is the party that caved last month on FISA & spying on Americans... the party that has refused to even try to end torture, or to restore habeas corpus.
Why would you refuse to consider the possibility that maybe, just maybe, the reason the Dems won't stand up to oppose the war, is that they're not really against it? On the face of it, that's certainly a lot more probable an interpretation, than the naive notion that they're secretly "against" it, but just too shy to show it, because they somehow "don't know" that the population hates the war. Why would you imagine that the Dems would be any more responsive to antiwar sentiment than the Republicans? It's absurd to think of the Democrats as an "antiwar" force. They've NEVER played that role in American politics. Their usual posture is to give lip service to opposing various wars, while in fact supporting the war policy.
by
Richard Mynick (2 articles, 3 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 1168 comments)
on Wednesday, September 12, 2007 at 1:23:21 PM
I suspect that voters are not getting in touch with their representatives to ensure that they are being represented at even the most basic level of having their representatives uphold their oath of office to them.
I suspect congressional representatives are not being asked how they square their oath to support and defend the constitution from all enemies foreign and domestic with sitting and waiting rather than imposing the constitution remedy.
My excuse - for not writing congress, I don't have a representative. I don't live in the country. I've been telling myself I have to work by proxy, through Americans that will listen to my arguments.
I wonder if I should write to some of the US Congress anyway though. Stating why I think they should impeach Bush in the interests of the rule of law and the civilized world. Arguing that what is at stake are much of the gains made by civilization since world war 11.
I think it would be a good idea if more people who say they've written their congressional representatives would post exerpts of what they have written and any replies. I think it would be a good idea if people who don't want to lose the right to protest establish now whilst they can a track record of free speech and principled political dissent.
If there was a database of each congress persons position on impeachment, who, which constituents had received that position and when, then that could be used by other constitents to join in the persuasion. It would give people who claim to be lobbying a chance to show that they are.
Too many citizens are still sitting this out and watching rather than participating this non-citizen thinks.
Democracies don't only get the governments they deserve they get the reactions to the government policies they deserve as well. Citizenship can't just be about rights and not responsibilities.
It would be quite an irony if next 9-11 (and of course there will be another it is impossible to stop people acting politically and using technology and their lives as tools) the world's attitude is that the so-called terrorists are making a valid point directed at the guilty seat of power - the recalcitrant people.
by
Brett Paatsch (0 articles, 2 quicklinks, 22 diaries, 1010 comments)
on Thursday, September 13, 2007 at 12:34:39 AM
Well-intentioned, but containing major conceptual errors.
First of all, these "losers" you're talking about (Bush/Cheney et al) are actually winning every single policy contest. They're in complete control of the US military machine, the US Treasury, the courts, etc. The Democrats rubberstamp their every initiative, no less than a Republican congress would do. There is realistically zero prospect that the Iraq war will end, as far as the eye can see. The next president, probably Hillary, will continue it. There will be huge US bases & troops in Iraq for years to come.
Your article is filled with phrases like "It is time for the Democrats in congress to fight back with tough spines..." and "It's time for the Democrats to find their spines and do their jobs." I sympathize with those sentiments at an emotional level -- but you are kidding yourself about the fundamental nature of the Democratic Party. Their problem is not that they are basically well-intentioned good guys who are unfortunately a bit short on vertebrae.
Rather, the Democrats' performance since taking control of Congress is a perfect demonstration of who they in fact are. They are not "opponents" of Bush in any meaningful sense. They are his partners. Their essential function in the US political system is to grandstand for the masses, pretending to represent what they know the masses want -- while at the same time remaining loyal to the wishes of the same corporate oligarchy that Bush works for. Their position is intrinsically two-faced. This is what they are.
The appearance of "spinelessness" is merely the inevitable result of their intrinsically two-faced role. They are not really spineless. They are behaving exactly as their real loyalties & motivations impel them to. They want US multinationals to get its paws on Iraq's oil just as much as the Republicans do.
Your entire conception of the Dems as "good guys" who are just a little short on nerve -- this is a huge mistake. The Dems feed on, and deliberately try to encourage, such misperceptions. In fact, it's their life blood; it's how they earn their keep.
Opponents of the war should regard the Democrats as just as much their enemies as Republicans. In some ways, the D's are even more dangerous enemies, precisely because they're so duplicitous. At least Bush/Cheney make no bones about being militarist fanatics -- in a strange way, they're very candid & honest about this. The D's are just as bad. The only difference is that they pretend not to be -- which actually makes them even worse.
by
Richard Mynick (2 articles, 3 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 1168 comments)
on Wednesday, September 12, 2007 at 11:37:26 AM
We have never been at war with Iraq. We unilaterally declared war on a nation that did not threaten our borders or our people. We (the government) lied to the U.N. (see Colin Powell’s Speech to the U.N. in Feb. of 2003) and then Bush used manipulated, cherry-picked and plain falsified intelligence to make a fallacious case for war to Congress and American citizens. This my friends, is treason!
This was in direct violation of the Geneva Convention, is an occupation of aggression, and is a war crime. It is just that simple.
Bush is a mass murderer, by some accounts murdering over one million people, and a war profiteer. (For those in doubt, send me your email address and I will show you dozens of authenticated pictures of what Iraqi children look like after they die from white phosphorous being dump on them by U.S. forces.)
Anyone who supports this illegal war of pre-emptive aggression is complicit in a war crime and should be prosecuted accordingly.
I have said it in the past and will say it again; you cannot claim to oppose this war, while supporting the troops, the same men and women who prosecute Bush’s war crime.
I don’t want to hear about duty, honor, oaths, or codes taken by these men and women. By now, every one of them knows our occupation of Iraq is wrong and internationally illegal – to say nothing of its violations of humanity – and are therefore either complicit or want to be there and kill, as Rob points out.
Those who are not in Iraq for the “sport of it” (how sad this exists) need to make a moral, conscience decision and refuse to kill any more innocent people and repudiate Bush. Every solider has the right to refuse illegal orders, as some have done, but many more need to step up. You cannot conduct a war without soldiers, and without soldiers, Bush is just another washed up tyrant and oppressor.
by
Frank J. Ranelli (66 articles, 143 quicklinks, 29 diaries, 378 comments)
on Wednesday, September 12, 2007 at 11:43:13 AM
Write my Congressman? What a joke! I do (have) written my Congressman and my Senators, and I get a form letter back telling me what he has done and what he will do, and then invites me to visit him when I'm in Washington. Frankly I don't any longer think it makes one damned bit of difference whether I write or not, they don't read their mail, their staff does. And they don't respond to mail any more because they know that certain organizations often urge their members to write and they are consequently inundated with mail, both email and snail mail. But it doesn't mean much to them. They patronize me and all the others dumb enough to waste time writing. They already know their constituentcies. That's how they got elected in the first place. My Congressman is Tim Johnson of IL. He is a product of the last IL Republican Governor's gerrymandering. So I am now included in a highly Republican district made up of mostly rich farmers. Johnson knows those rich farmers love those farm subsidies, that's how they got to be rich farmers. And he votes accordingly, right down the line. My two Senators are O'Bama and Durbin. Durbin I trust to vote the way I like and when it isn't the way I like, I trust him to have taken the way he truley thinks is right. He is a judicious man. O'Bama can be influenced more easily but mostly because he is running for national office. I like O'Bama but I feel uneasy about him. Frankly, I don't feel at ease with any of the Presidential candidates. My point is, I don't bother with writing anymore. Sometimes I call but I do that less and less. I am disgusted with my country.
by
bmobley (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 30 comments)
on Wednesday, September 12, 2007 at 11:44:50 AM
But the problem is that your friends and family members probably don’t write or call. My point was that too few Americans are complaining to their leaders. If 5% of adult Americans (~12 million) wrote or called Congress once a week and gave them an earful, it would make a huge difference.
Right now they are hearing from a tiny vocal fraction of liberals, and the rest of the country sounds like crickets chirping. I have been completely unable to get any of my friends and family to stop being crickets, and start screaming. If they don’t make themselves heard, I don’t understand how they think things will ever change.
by
John R Moffett (80 articles, 14 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 610 comments)
on Wednesday, September 12, 2007 at 12:24:08 PM
I have been completely unable to get any of my friends and family to stop being crickets, and start screaming.
Hi John,
Save for my wife, I have the same problem. They all shrug at me and say, “What do you want me to do?” I proceed to tell them, educate them, and even help them dial the phone, but they won’t budge. Signing even an internet petition is too taxing, they say.
By and large, my family’s attitude is as long as it is not in my backyard, then I don’t see why I should get involved. Another thinks impeachment, for any reason, levied against any president, is a show of weakness and we should take Article II, Section 4, out of the Constitution. (Blind nationalism at its worst.)
After a while, frustration and the feeling of “am I the only one” starts to creep in.
by
Frank J. Ranelli (66 articles, 143 quicklinks, 29 diaries, 378 comments)
on Wednesday, September 12, 2007 at 12:59:18 PM
An email from one of those "victory losers" and my reply
a guy who includes chickenhawk in his email address writes to me:
Do you realize how pathetic the subject of this email makes you look. You want to "confront" those who want "victory in Iraq"? Are you saying you don't advocate victory? You don't want us to win in Iraq? I would think that responsible bias on your part would at least hide your true intent of hopeful failure with a subject like "Time to Confront the Desperate Losers with A Different View of Victory In Iraq" or something similar. It's crap like this that keeps the liberals from getting our 2.5 million+ military votes.
I reply:
You are clearly one of the losers who don't get it that there is no victory to be gotten from an occupation.
I assume you are just fine with the deaths of 1000 more soldiers in Iraq in the next year. Why not just say it? "I don't mind having another 1000 soldiers killed so I can still root for victory."
There can be no victory, just another and another re-frame of a new interpretation of a compromise of a settliing for less than what was promised before. Remember those benchmarks BUSH came up with that were not met. Ahh, what's the point. You'll have 10,000 more troops so you can maintain your loyalty to liars and losers. Too bad for all those families of the kids who will be killed. Disgusting.
by
Rob Kall (807 articles, 3921 quicklinks, 332 diaries, 1702 comments)
on Wednesday, September 12, 2007 at 1:57:15 PM
In 1987-1988 I decided to emigrate from my country, Russia which I dearly loved. There were many reasons but there was one that was the primary one. In one of those years in the Azeri town of Sumgait the local pogromists pillaged, killed, raped, tortured and burned the Armenian people including women and children. It lasted for several days and the Almighty govt with nuclear weapons and enormous military did not do much. They did not even acknowledge that as a fact for a while, though in al fairness some local authorities and military performed heroically against all odds.
I was born and raised as an internationalist and any ethnic attack was and is inconceivable for me. I was expecting then all the people of my country to stand up in total outrage and offer the Armenians unconditional help and hospitality. I was expecting the govt to act swiftly and harshly and also to openly proclaim that any such action whenever would be met by deadly force. In vain. It was only a start but even then people did not react and did not stand up and what happened further was in fact partly the result of that apathy. Thew country I knew is gone. And miillions are dead.
I emigrated and took my family with me. Now I am here and it is happening again. This time I have nowhere to go. This time the line is drawn. May our love of this country give us strength and power to see the truth and to let it through. No, we do not have to explain that 'it will come to your backyard'. There will be no backyard! We are all facing a life/death situation and when someone asks you, ' What do you want me to do', you answer, 'Why won't you look around and see who is honest in his love and hate and who is not. Start from that.'
People are people and we cannot expect much from them, neither can we judge. But we must and we should seek the honest ones and promote them, help them, protect them. That does not mean to write to your congressman. That means finding who of them is honest and help him/her even if they are not from your district. And it also means to harm the chances of the ones who are dishonest. I am a consitituent of ( guess who!), Joe Lieberman. Whenever I talk about him I just say, ' Joe is nuts'. That works, funny as it sounds. Joe is nuts. Condi is stupid, Bushie is a moron and Cheney is a vampire. Say it! Shout it! It works!
by
Mark Sashine (50 articles, 19 quicklinks, 244 diaries, 3453 comments)
on Wednesday, September 12, 2007 at 2:17:58 PM
The problem is most Democrats aren't just cowards. That's the best case scenario. The worst case scenario is most Democrats are closet Republicans who WANT the war in Iraq, etc., etc. The problem isn't that they're gutless, the problem is that they are traitors. The problem is that we have a ONE party system absolutely under the control of American elites.
by
W. Christopher Epler (Bill) (231 articles, 44 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 537 comments)
on Wednesday, September 12, 2007 at 2:24:30 PM
...is yet another batch of hooey! While I agree with everything you wrote, at least as far as the reasons why the Great Impotentates of the right (DUBYA and Dick(LESS)) continue to follow a failed policy, to think that anything we are going to do is going to mean shit in the maelstrom of the Iraq war is completely wrong.
Don't forget you are talking about men who have had their privates exposed in movies like Fahrenheit 9/11, and HBO's Iraq For Sale, and in other media through various stories that have mercifully survived attempts to censor them. The "truth" is out there in abundant supply. And even though the mouthpieces of the right continue their unending tapestry of lies, people continue to hear the truth.
And yet they do nothing. Congress does nothing, when they know that there is something rotten in Fallujah, Tikrit, and Baghdad. Congress does nothing as evidence continues to mount that Halluburton, KBR, CACI, and other businesses are making criminal profits on the backs of the US military and the Iraqi civilians...all the while wasting money and lives like they are both going out of style.
The people do nothing. The average American is now convinced that the Iraq war is a sham, DUBYA and Dick(LESS) are liars, and we cannot win in Iraq, no matter how many bodies we throw into the jaws of the war machine. While there is still much in the way of misinformation being thrown about like shit in the monkey house, the average American is finally catching the clue bus that all is not well.
The players who know they did wrong do nothing. How many of the initial gang of DUBYA minions are left in power? Wolfowitz? Nope, he's gone, and not only is he gone, he has been disgraced yet again by being thrown out of the World Bank over a piece of ass. Colin Powell is disgraced. Dumbsfeld supposedly "stepped down" (translation, was thrown under the bus). Scooter Libby is history, even if he didn't get the ass fucking he so richly deserved. Shall I continue?
These malcontents and war mongers have been thrown out or quit in disgrace over the Iraq fiasco. Their highly public embarrassments seem to be of little or no consequence to anyone except those who refuse to sacrifice their intellect on the altar of the war pigs DUBYA and Dick(LESS). In other words, as we are told by The X Files, "the truth is out there." Unlike The X Files, the truth that's out there isn't hidden. It's out there in plain site for anyone with a brain that is more than an ear spacer to see or hear.
The RepuliKKKan smear machine has proved to be a formidable thing. It is apparent that the actions of this machine have struck fear into the hearts of everyone but the most courageous.
Therein lies the problem, there is no more courage left in this country. Everyone is so scared about saving their own pathetic backsides, they forget that there are other derriers that are getting close to roasting in the fires we ourselves set. What else could explain how the average American shakes in his or her boots over the actions of a coward who not only couldn't be bothered to support his country by fighting and dying in Vietnam, but he couldn't even bother to not go AWOL from the unit that was saving his pathetic ass? All this from a man who has more people's gaydar going off than Liberace at a bathhouse!
Americans are like the musophobic pachyderm that reels in fear of an approaching mouse. We are afraid of something that is easily rendered harmless. Apparently, nothing will break this fear.
Until such time as someone with nothing to lose, nothing to be smeared over, and true courage comes forward to do battle with the disgusting VERMIN that have usurped our country and its government, the situation will continue unabated.
Truly, we have met the enemy, and it is us!
Blessed be! Pappy
by
Pappy (61 articles, 0 quicklinks, 11 diaries, 860 comments)
on Wednesday, September 12, 2007 at 4:09:23 PM
The circumstances are already described by RichM and panurg and Epler and more names I fail at knowing. The D's are equally enemy as the R's, which means Congress is the enemy of we, the people. Which only makes sense, if the 'captions' are changed, as, 'Royalty' is the enemy of its 'Subjects.'
Consequently, I join Joel Hirshborn (?) in working to make ourselves a new Congress. The process, as I understand it, is to convene committees in each state, 'Constitutional Convention' meetings, draft a new US Consti2tion, merge them all in one, that then does 'Establish and Ordain these United States,' proscribes a Legislative, Executive, and Judicial partitioning of power, (maybe add a fourth branch of government, i.e. the 'nervous system' -- Media-izing), stand candidates, vote choices, swear and inaugurate, and so forth (taxing and spending), going from 'shadow' government to enacted by the people power. And just go on as the future, completely ignoring the cast-off husk of yesterday's 'Congress, etc.'
JohnMoffett, help me understand why more people shouting louder, seems to you, is going to 'change' any Dem's or 'instill courage' in any. Look what louder-ness got Gabriel, demonstrating around and blowing horns: The walls crumbled and fell. Meaning: Gabe and the gang had to build the walls all over, starting from rubble. It did NOT 'change' the walls, to permeable, and it did NOT 'reposition' to walls, to inclusiveness. This Congress, the D's, the R's, the 'Two-Party'-myth monolith, ALL we 'know familiarly' as government, can ONLY BE CRUMBLED. That's all we can do. And rebuild anew.
Yeah, that's going to be a lot of hard work. It's going to take an investment of our lives. Fortunes, and sacred honor. The only ones to benefit are our posterity, generations yet unborn, living in freedom years from now. For us, it can only be sacrificing our lives. John, when your friends ask, 'what do you want us to do?,' tell them: Give your life, that others may live. It is likely to be an easier sell than getting them to call Congress. Because it works, and calling Congress doesn't.
---
Rob, there is a tone (I forget the words) in your posting, which brings to my mind to bring to your attention this movie that appeared yesterday. I hope it is self-explanatory as being an answer for a 'questioning' your posting appeared (to me) to have in the 'blank staring space' between its lines. I can't detail it further, since I didn't review the details before getting into this Editor here.
I like this movie as exemplifying two key concepts. One: Like Art is supposed to be, each viewer can take a personal interpretation of what it means, what it is saying, how it applies. To them, the viewers, in their own worldview. To me, the most important point in the movie is the span of years it discusses, which shows that there was a 'paradigm shift' in the 1940s, labelled in shorthand as the 'CIA,' and policy and practice has gone on in this 'new' paradigm of 'USA'' for over 60 years, while 'public education' has indoctrinated all of us in the 'former' paradigm of colonists -to- Revolutionay War -to- Constitutional gov't. -to- Lincoln -to- FDR -to- 'freedom and justice for all' which just. ain't. happenin'. And no amount of looking at what is (going on), ever fits or ever can be fit into the model that we learned to think it is/was (going on).
In showing this real politick (paradigm) being in practice for 5 generations (70 years), it is answer in your implicit questioning of 'what's going on? where's the sense in what's happening?,' inasmuch as it says that the only satisfaction for your question is to forget the information your questioning is built using. That is, forget what you thought you knew about what 'USA' is and stands for. That's all malarkey, you've been programmed, starting back 70 years ago. (Very germane --> coincident with the advent of broadcasting, first radio 1930s, then television 1950s -- broadcasting: the instrument causing massmind and the delusion programming of massmind. No, duh! ) When you 'forget' all that, then it seems (to me) there is no question about what's going on.
The movie shows that the segregation of 'those in the know' (CIA) from 'the masses,' in which elitist vs. subordinate is started and which ended the 'old' government-by-representatives-of-us,ourselves model, dates back 7 decades. Along with advertising and psychologizing and distortion-mirrorizing.
The other key concept the movie demonstrates, as Art, is: Two: going 'over the heads of' Congress and government. (As Reagan used to say.) What one person can do: Take up our 'issues' with The People. And this is in my suggestion to JohnMoffett and all the rest of us frustrated in 'petitioning' Congress. Dispel them. Take our message 'over Congress's heads' To The People. It is kinda what all the 'Open Letter to __fill_in_the_blank__' articles appearing in OpEdNews is about. The intuitive knowing to talk directly to the people, us, ourselves, the masses. Forget Congress, etc.
A movie or a book or an exhibit, and such, is an appeal to Art to decide, as having more authority and influence than 'Congress,' i.e., 'representative' government. Everyone can address Art, putting messages in Art and getting messages out of Art. Art communicates.
We cannot put messages in(to) the modern televisionCongress. It is not a real representatives-of-us Congress, it only is figureheads portrayed as Congress, playing one on TV. TV, (or broadcasting), is a one-way medium. No one communicates with it, only it dispenses, or dispensates.
Another suggestion for JohnMoffett. When friends ask what you'd have them do. Say that you are very glad they are talking with you right that moment, and NOT watching TV. Then ask them questions: Would you like to make a movie together? Write a book together? Put up IMPEACH banners on the freeway overpasses togther? Make Art together?
Although it really is far from funny. Why Rob continues to beat the drum thinking the Democrats will awaken to find they have grown as spine is a mystery to me?
Rob, they will not do a damn thing and we better realise it pretty damn soon. It was obvious to anyone with a brain that the results of the '06 election were a reaction to this crappy war and our incompetent White House. It has become just as obvious that the Democrats are not going to do squat about it. What more proof do you need?
Impeachment off the table before a single vote was cast or a hearing held. Oil subsidies untouched despite the lie Pelosi spoke about slashing them in the face of record profits by the oil industry. The decision not to push for prosecution of those who went before Congress and lied through their teeth under oath. The continuance of funding the war..bah, we have no opposition party in Washington DC. If you want one vote Green do not continue to waste your time on a party that has betrayed you and will continue to do so.
by
ardee D. (6 articles, 4 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 2377 comments)
on Wednesday, September 12, 2007 at 5:07:28 PM
