Monday, February 28, 2005
The Iraq war has been reframed. Not that it matters much. It is obvious that Bush will not be held accountable for anything he or his administration has done. Has the press been so cowed, so intimidated that Bush would have to shoot the ailing Pope in cold blood on live TV while having sex with Rick Santorum’s son Jr. and simultaneously pull out Terri Schiavo's feeding tube in front of her parents, before they grow balls?
We know that mis-representing the facts before invading Iraq did not do it. Our media paraphrased White House doctrine for news when Bush, Cheney and Condi spoke urgently about mushroom clouds in our cities.
The media has again fallen in line with the administration and the occupation has now become a fight for "Iraq’s democracy”. Our soldiers were even referred to as poll watchers, and counting ballots actually overshadowed the Michael Jackson trial on the 6 p.m. news for a few days.
Unfortunately the Iraqi election will just be an oasis for America; it provided temporary relief and easy stories for Bush voters that desperately want to believe their leadership.
Behind the scenes of purple Republican thumbs, the bodies of soldiers continue their grim journey to their hometowns away from the general public without commentary and maimed soldiers with prosthetic limbs and surgical scars continue their quiet procession of broken bodies and minds as they limp into their homes with the horrific memories of war fresh in their minds.
Under the guise of patriotism the far right have found their champion Bush and fitted him with a Goebbels-inspired-Republican –propaganda machine. His cronies have proven that they could use our media to talk their way into people's homes, assault their daughters, steal their savings, burn their home down and still get a pat on the back as long as it is for George Bush.
The major media outlets are complicit in this American debacle. Whether it was fear over lost revenue or timidity does not matter. They splash the screen with spinning graphics and pour out ink-ladened fireplace tinder, which focuses the country's attention on Paris Hilton's hacked phone and lawsuits against gorillas.
America's steel workers are told that through clever manipulation of funds workers with 30 years of sucking in toxic fumes have no pensions. Investors who trusted in the stock market and the SEC lost their retirement funds to corrupt companies. Millions of workers and millions who can’t find work are pushed farther and farther away from the American dream.
Funding is slashed for middle and low-income students that hope to attend college. Many are now left with take-home video games from army recruiters who take up residence in their schools. High school students who are promised college money and high-tech skills are often placed in “vehicle repair” or behind the steering wheel of an armor-less truck in the Sunni triangle.
Our research universities and institutions are left high and dry as foreign-exchange medical, engineering and science students are now staying away in droves as the "Do Not Enter" signs are clearly in place at our borders. Chasing away these high-tech workers to more tolerant societies.
Our world-renown standard bearers of scientific study such as the FDA, EPA, USDA, NASA and the CDC have become infected with a disease which places political expediency and corporate greed above science regardless of the pain, suffering and even death of Americans.
The list of Bush assaults on our country and our democracy goes on and on.
The country is obviously satisfied with the steady diet of pablum and news shows with American flags waving in the background because there hasn’t been any public outcry, except by some bloggers. It seems that only bloggers get upset and who are they anyway?
While Democrats continue their trek through the wilderness, and our soldiers continue dying, bloggers may be the only hope our democracy has to reframe the issues and address the issue that really matters, reviving our democracy.
In support of the bloggers that search for truth, uphold the ideals presented in the Constitution and in the Bill of Rights, the following excerpt from a speech Lincoln used to consecrate a cemetery on November 19, 1863 seems appropriate right now:
“—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom; and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the Earth.”
