By Sheila Samples
"...the high office of the President has been used to ferment 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.
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. Contact her at: rsamples@sirinet.net
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