"...the high office of the President has been used to forment a plot to destroy the American's freedom, and before I leave office, I must inform the citizens of this plight." John F. Kennedy (November 12, 1963, Columbia U, 10 days before his assassination)
I cannot recall a single day since Vulcans' Godfather James Baker sent his thuggish henchman John Bolton to Florida's Palm Beach County to screw up the vote count that has not been filled with horror, anger, shame -- despair. On Dec. 9, 2000 -- three days before the Florida deadline -- the US Republic shuddered on its axis when Bolton crashed through the doors of a Tallahassee library where Miami-Dade ballots were being recounted and shouted triumphantly -- "I'm with the Bush-Cheney team, and I'm here to stop the count!"
In that instant we lost most of what had taken more than two centuries to build. In one fell swoop, Americans were thrust into the mire of an Orwellian World spinning out of control on the other side of the Looking Glass. What a tragedy -- not that so many failed to realize their government had just been seized in a coup de'etat -- but that the few who did refused to acknowledge it.
The sudden unconstitutional decision by five unelected right-wing activist Supreme Court justices to blatantly steal an election for one of their own -- to stop the vote count so Bush would not be "embarassed" by losing -- was a frightening assault upon the separation of powers, the American people, and upon democracy itself.
Having upset the national equilibrium, George Bush and Dick Cheney hit the deck at a dead run, trashing everything in their path. Like a couple of deranged Benny Hills with "Yakety Sax" blaring in the background, they trashed treaties, insulted other world leaders, and undermined Constitutional restraints on everything that stood between them and their goal of worldwide corporate pillage and total executive power.
Those who dare to look back will be struck by the speed at which they resurrected the zombies of the Iran-Contra era, the tyrannical neo-Straussians, and the godless right-wing evangelical warmongers, Talk about an Axis! The stage was set for their long-planned crusade to gain control of not only the world and its resources but of space and cyberspace as well. The only thing lacking was an incident to catapault them into the war for which they lusted -- an incident of such magnitude that cries of dissent would be lost in the roar for war.
Their vision of global dominance supplied them with moral justification for the filthy lies that took us into two wars and is threatening a third. "It is ironic," writes Canadian author and professor Shadia Drury, "that American neoconservatives have decided to conquer the world in the name of liberty and democracy, when they have so little regard for either." Drury has written two books on the philosophy of Leo Strauss, and she writes that Strauss believed "religion and war -- perpetual war -- would lift the masses from the animality of bourgeois consumption and the pre-occupation with 'creature comforts'. Instead of personal happiness, they would live their lives in perpetual sacrifice to God and the nation."
Neoconservatives such as Paul Wolfowitz, Irving and Bill Kristol, Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, David Wurmser, John Negroponte, and many others, took from Strauss a doctrine of "all politics all the time" -- nasty, deceptive and repressive -- whatever it takes for the elite to exercise control over the vulgar unwashed. That would be you and me, fellow Americans, and Strauss said we could be inspired to rise above our "brutish existence only by fear of impending death or catastrophe." The lies they told, and continue to tell, according to Drury, are "noble lies for the consumption of the masses."
We are in the clutches of an evil, evil group of psychopaths -- warmongering moral cowards whose faux leader, George W. Bush, is a shallow, self-destructive little bully who deserted his military post during a time of war. Perhaps the most frightening of all is Michael Ledeen. Looking back, some might remember that Ledeen was Secretary of State Alexander Haig's advisor, a member of the National Security Council and a consultant for Ronald Reagan's Department of Defense. He played a central role in the Iran-Contra scandal. It was Ledeen who made the initial contact with Iranian arms dealers, which launched the arms-for-hostages affair and could have -- should have -- brought down the Reagan presidency.
Anyone reading Ledeen's book, Machiavelli on Modern Leadership, will recognize the Bush doctrine and know that the horror of 9-11 was a foregone conclusion -- a "done deal" -- the minute they seized the 2000 election. Ledeen wrote, "To be an effective leader, the most prudent method is to ensure that your people are afraid of you. To instill that fear, you must demonstrate that those who attack you will not survive."
On the evening of 9-11, Bush went before a paralyzed nation and, after a brief comment about praying, grieving and mourning for the 3,000 victims of that terrible day, he announced, "Thousands of lives were suddenly ended by evil." Then, warming to his subject, Bush rammed home what would become his mantra for the next six years -- "These acts shattered steel, but they cannot dent the steel of American resolve." He then assured the masses that he would make no distinction between the "terrorists" and the regimes that harbored them. Bush's vision for revenge was to chase them all over the world and kill them all...
But a vision is not a plan. Looking back, it appears that Bush's plan for perpetual war is sending Americans to their deaths, unequipped and untrained, while bellowing, "Support the Troops!" Bush's plan is destroying an entire nation, its culture, its infrastructure -- raping, torturing and slaughtering its people for no reason other than he can. It is creating a humanitarian crisis of mind-boggling proportions -- more than 3.9 million Iraqis have fled their homes to safer areas in Iraq and in neighboring countries.
For Americans, it is more than a momentary inconvenience that 3,302 of their sons and daughters have needlessly been killed, 40 just last week, and that more than 26,000 have been wounded, broken, maimed -- their lives and those of their loved ones utterly destroyed. Stretching our military with its proud and honorable tradition of protecting this country until it breaks and then outsourcing legions of mercenaries to do our dirty work of preemptive attacks and occupation of other countries is not a plan that Americans will support.
Bush reminds us on a daily basis that our world changed on "September the 11th." That is true. But we must dare to look back even further to that dark December day when five Supreme Court judges made the ghastly decision that spawned the horrors of not only 9-11, but of the carnage in which we are embroiled today.
Before that bleak day, I had never used the f-word nor uttered the Lord's name in vain. However, as this nation teeters on the cusp of spiritual, physical and political death, I can only pray that God will damn them. Every last fucking one of them. Please God. Damn them all.
Sheila Samples is an Oklahoma writer and a former civilian US Army Public Information Officer. She is a regular contributor for a variety of Internet sites.
When a religion gains political power, the first thing you have is war. Guaranteed. Just review the long history of European and middle east nations. OBL was nobody until he gained political power from his Afghan base supported by the Teliban government. He declared war immediately. Bush2 hit back at OBL as any president justifyably would. But Bush2 is not any president, certainly not as rational as Bush1. He is US's first religious president and sure enough, he started US's first holy war in Iraq. In the name of security. The population, ignorant of the complexity of the world, fell for it. Bush2 ultimate loyalty is not his country, but his God. He views his coming to power as destiny, with an agenda to wage global war, just like the Spanish Conquisitors waging wars of resource grab and religous conversion, authorized by the Pope, in the New World. Come to think of it, Hitler came to power similarily and we know what he did. History does repeat itself. Religious fanaticism guarantees that.
Amazingly, the US population today is ever more into religious fundamentalism, even more polarized, with the largest group of religious fanatics preaching the world. Their success in over-turning science has already gained national attention. Much of today's Islamic world, marred in backwardness, wants to return to the glory days of the 7th century via Islamic fundamentalism, spawning terrorism. It is indeed ironic that the US has chosen the same path of Christian fundamentalism in response.
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TomK (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 207 comments)
on Monday, April 16, 2007 at 2:17:54 PM
I know I haven't. I'm still waiting for the U.S. government to produce the evidence that has resulted in a war causing the deaths of thousands of innocent people in Afghanistan.
FYI, the Taliban offered to turn OBL over to a neutral country for trial if the U.S. presented some evidence. A reasonable offer, don't you think? Or at least, a far more reasonable position than anything the U.S. has ever offered in a similar situation.
BTW, I'm also still waiting to see what was on the pictures/videos the 5 dancing Jewish-supremacist agents took from Liberty Park on 9/11.
I'm also still waiting to see why the FBI is stonewalling on the "investigation" into the 9/11 related anthrax attacks...in fact I'd particularly like to know why they won't go near Jewish-supremacist agent Phil Zack.
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jpsmith123 (3 articles, 1 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 287 comments)
on Monday, April 16, 2007 at 10:13:15 PM
Can you pleae provide me with a copy of the full text and attribution for the Kennedy quote?
"...the high office of the President has been used to forment a plot to destroy the American's freedom, and before I leave office, I must inform the citizens of this plight." John F. Kennedy (November 12, 1963, Columbia U, 10 days before his assassination)
Thank you.
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Constance Lavender (47 articles, 0 quicklinks, 73 diaries, 167 comments)
on Tuesday, April 17, 2007 at 4:02:31 PM
You are dead right about this whole cabal of fascist morons who are totally about planetary hegemony and lining the pockets of the donor corporatocracy. I'd never heard of the Ledeen (?) guy but of the rest, Wolfowitz, Feith, Cheney are THE axis of evil. My take on Bush is that he's not all that bright, bored with politics, prefers to play with a chainsaw on his ranch. Consequently Cheney and his ilk are pretty much running the show. Shooting his friend in the face while drunk is a fair analogy for the whole rotten bunch.
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L. RETZACK (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 41 comments)
on Wednesday, April 18, 2007 at 1:45:09 AM
In my opinion, Michael Ledeen (Google him) and James Baker are the two most dangerous creatures in this cabal. Ledeen because he is also an intellectual, and has double citizenship -- Israel and United States -- and his first, and only, allegience is to Israel. Baker because he represents the military industrial complex, is the attorney for the Saudi family as well as the Arab Emiterates, is a founding partner of the Carlyle Group, and his Iraq Group was established to buy time and tamp down dissent until after the 2006 elections, and its purpose was to figure out a way to stay in Iraq (while politely mentioning getting out) until he could get the oil law passed for US oil corporations.
We're in deep kimche...
sheila
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Sheila Samples (50 articles, 3520 quicklinks, 42 diaries, 377 comments)
on Thursday, April 19, 2007 at 11:54:01 AM
