There is so much pain and death in this world. So many people with evil intent in their heart. The worst thing though, is there are so many people of good intentions, who willingly help them. Good intentions as they say pave the road to hell.
With each passing day I see more vile attacks upon a grieving mother, more roadside bombs killing our children. More death and the celebration of death. People with agendas saying the mother of a dead soldier is the one with an agenda. When their alleged grassroots efforts are exposed as being the public relations work of a GOP firm, they send out people to accuse the grieving mother of being backed by a PR firm. People on the right have called this grieving mother a "crackpot" and because people in the anti-war movement wanted to support the grieving mother, they denounce her for somehow being "affiliated" with these sources. They label the sources as "extremists", despite the fact that the majority of Americans agree with them.
Then the more extreme people have accused the grieving mother of making it all up. Not content with that, they call her a traitor. Do you get that America? The mother, who lost a child in this war, is being called a traitor by a mouthpiece that never served in the military at all. It just does not end. People who support death want you to continue to support death. They make outlandish claims, pretend to speak for the dead soldier, and try to make you feel guilty if you do not lockstep with them. Mind you, they will not pick up a weapon and defend this country, nor have they ever. But they will demand your child's life, for their ignoble cause.
I have learned that the media is no longer on the side of the people. If they had just attacked the lies that started this war with the fervor they have attacked Cindy Sheehan, Bush would be impeached already. It is a sad statement when the only show that truly hits the hard news stories is on Comedy Central. When they wish to distract us, they will push nonsense as news for weeks on end. A missing girl in Aruba suddenly becomes the spotlight. The Jackson trial becomes the most important story in America. The Scott Peterson trial is more important that our children dying in a war they should not be in. And we buy it, over and over again.
By doing constant news analysis, I began to see the web of the right wing media. I see the talk show hosts who start the lying process. I see the cable shows run guests out there to skew the news. I see infomercials for the administration be passed off as news "exclusives". Sometimes it starts to feel as if this was all shouting into the wind of a country that is too busy watching American Idol, to worry about the deaths of their own children. It is very sad.
I learned that anything can be buried when you own the media. There have been stories in the past year and a half that would have led to the impeachment of the president if he was named Clinton. Votergate 2004 came and went. People just accepted the fact that another election was stolen, oh well no big deal. Suddenly exit polling reliable for decades became flawed when it exposed the theft of democracy. Next up was a male prostitute infiltrating the White House press pool to serve up softball questions to the president and his staff. Jeff Gannon should have been this administration's Monica Lewinsky. Records reveal he actually slept over the White House. Instead, he is celebrated. Lately, it has been the dual stories of the Downing Street Memos and the Valerie Plame investigation that provides a glimmer of hope to the truth hunters. The eerie silence however over the past few weeks, gives cause for concern. Will anything come of the truth now that we know it?
I have found out how pervasive the graft game is. Everyone seems to be for sale. Big Pharma buries proof that mercury preservatives in vaccines have caused the autism explosion, no one seems to care. Our lust for greed has caused an entire generation of autistic children, and we all look the other way. Legislators pass laws to benefit corporate sectors, and then they leave government and go to work for those sectors, as lobbyists. Conflict of interest is the norm. So much so that people are actually defending John Roberts decision to rule on a case involving the president, while he was interviewing with the president for the Supreme Court vacancy. You start to see this stuff so much and you just get numb. Tony Blair has a 30 million dollar job lined up with the Carlyle Group whenever he is done leading a generation of Great Britain's kids to the killing fields of Iraq. People just look at that and say, oh well. MBNA and the credit card lobby gives millions to both parties and next thing we have is the debt slavery act for America. It just never ends. Do you realize that three well thought out amendments to that act were offered and rejected? One would have exempted people who have to declare bankruptcy because of a major medical problem which caused the loss of employment. The second would have exempted people who had to declare because of loss of employment due to the economy. The last would have exempted returning soldiers from Iraq. All three were defeated by your representatives because of the millions they pocketed from the credit card lobby.
Evil is repackaged and presented with catchy names and feel-good connotations. You want to gut the environmental air laws? Call it the "Clear Skies Initiative. You want to allow the timber industry to have free reign to destroy our national forests? You call it the "Healthy Forests Initiative." You want to control the media; you call it "deregulation." You want to get rid of the Estate Tax so the filthiest rich can save untold billions, you start calling it the "Death Tax." You want to dismantle Social Security; you call it "reform." You want to undermine the UN; you call it "reform." You want to pass the most egregious offensive against civil liberties in the history of this country; you call it the "Patriot Act." You want to get rid of a tax system that taxes the rich more; you call it "tax code simplification." You want to support war with no end and death; you say you are just "supporting the troops."
You want to deflect the criticism of a grieving mother, you send your people out to demean her, debase her, and use her own dead son against her. You do it without shame. I do not know Cindy Sheehan and neither do the people who would seem to think they can speak for her dead son. But they go ahead anyway and we let them. It just adds up after awhile and makes me wonder if any good at all is coming of any of the efforts made to expose the truth. If the people in this country truly care anymore about what is decent and right in this world or if they are just content to watch the decline of civilization around them.
Maybe tomorrow I will feel differently. Maybe tomorrow I will not wake up and see another story about someone on the right attacking a grieving mother because they have no sense of decency anymore. Maybe I will not see another story about Iraq, Afghanistan, bin Laden (remember him!), Zarqawi, roadside bombs, stay the course, honor the sacrifice, Iraq setting up a theocracy, lies about Iraq and 911, lies about Iraq and al Qaeda, lies about Iraq and WMD, the non-threat that is Iran, the devaluing of the dollar, the housing bubble, the petroeuro and how that is really what is fueling (pun intended) these wars, enemy combatants, police acting like thugs, the secret energy task force meetings, Tom Delay, Randy Cunningham, no-bid contracts to Halliburton, untold billions missing from Iraq, the US hiring mercenaries, Abu Ghraib, Gitmo, the US not only condoning torture, but outsourcing it, over charging the US taxpayer being rewarded with more no-bid contracts, the AIPAC spy scandal, wiretapping the UN, the President thinking he does not need to be checked by the judiciary, the President refusing court orders to try prisoners and release more torture photos, 23 billion wasted in pork to Boeing, purposefully underestimating the Medicare bill by 150 billion dollars, the GOP paying Sproul and Associates millions of dollars to undermine the votes of democratic voters in this country, why isn't Kenneth Blackwell in jail?, why is Katherine Harris rewarded for screwing democracy?, fake news, Armstrong Williams, Maggie Gallagher and any other whore who sold their opinions for cash, Fox (Faux) News, Valerie Plame, five weeks of vacation while America's kids die, talking about sacrifice without conceptually understanding what it means, Weapons of Mass Destruction, Anthrax, Botulism Toxin, Ricin, the lie that was Jessica Lynch, the continued destruction of our environment, Darfur, tax cuts for the rich, Jeff Gannon, Jim Guckert, Karl Rove and why he still has a job, Judith Miller and why she is still in jail, the missing documents on John Roberts, let's assassinate Hugo Chavez, bypassing the will of the people and installing Bolton to dismantle the UN, "fixing" the intelligence, the Office of Special Plans, blame Clinton, the fake unemployment rate, $3.00 for a gallon of gas, My Pet Goat, Sibel Edmonds, Chalabi, fake uranium fantasies, outsourcing, Terri Schiavo and the Sun Hudson hypocrisy, kids without healthcare, adults without jobs, and a country without hope.
People ask me what I want from all of this, why I go on. I tell them I believe the truth is worth fighting for. I believe that in a world that is fallen, in a society that embraces a culture of misdirection that someone should still stand up for the truth. I believe that there still are decent people in this country desperately trying to hang on to the sliver of truth that still comes through unfiltered. With each passing day though, that sliver becomes less and less tangible. With each cumulative lie that erodes the foundation of this country, we see our worst fears realized. Not just that our civilization is declining, but that we do not care, do not see, or cannot tell the difference between good and evil, right and wrong, or lies and truth.
