a rant about politics and the pope

the farce of another multimillion dollar commission handpicked by a president of questionable legitimacy assembled to present the findings of a foregone conclusion compels the following long winded rant written in words to express the feeling of outrage against a government of war criminals which has become destructive to the rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

a bi-partisan panel declared that the invasion of iraq was based on faulty intelligence. the press printed the official story in order to create fact from fiction and fabricate reality based on a lie. if nothing else hussein was a despot who committed crimes against humanity. but our press conveniently forgets to mention that at the time hussein was in power he had our government’s direct and indirect support from a majority of both sides of the aisle.

but i remember reading that colin powell made a speech in egypt in 2001 claiming that saddam hussein did not pose any threat to us then. and i also remember george bush being on national television telling the public that the whole world believed iraq had weapons of mass destruction. i don’t remember scott ritter saying there were wmd in iraq and i don’t remember hans blix finding any wmd.

in my reality i believed scott ritter (why would he lie), and hans blix (he was there, george wasn’t) and i believed the international atomic energy agency (iaea) who debunked george bush’s claims, and i believed former ambassador joseph wilson who said there was no nuclear capacity and I still wonder why no one was or ever will be tried for treason by exposing his wife as a cia operative in retribution for his honesty. and in my reality i knew we weren’t the only ones who believed iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction but of the few that did believe, we were the only ones to violate international law and invade a sovereign nation. somebody knew our war was based on a lie and i suspect i’m not alone in such a perception of reality.

but then again i do remember ari fleischer acting as the president’s spokesperson telling the press and the public they should watch what they say i.e. exposing the lie would be considered dissent. and i remember the attorney general, john ashcroft, telling the public that dissent would aid the terrorists. things did change after 9/11.

i suppose the press got the message because i never did read a newspaper or listen to any nightly news anchor remind me that the iraq which now posed a threat to the world’s greatest military power was an iraq with an army decimated by the 1991 gulf war and financially supported by a population living in a country with a devastated infrastructure due to the subsequent sanctions from last the legally and morally questionable war on the cradle of civilization.

i know most of the public got the message because in the face of all the documented facts substantiated by a sufficient amount of evidence almost half of my fellow countrymen still believe iraq had weapons of mass destruction, still believe iraq had link with al-qaeda and were thus indirectly responsible for 9/11. although most americans are now against the war most of them are not demanding that those responsible for what pope john-paul called an unjust and immoral war should be held accountable for their war crimes.

it was one of life’s little absurdities when that the war criminals attended the funeral of a man who opposed their crimes against humanity i remain haunted by the fact that this supreme irony was ignored by a media which exercised it’s freedom of the press by censoring itself and participating in the crime.

the pope died. millions attended the funeral. even war criminals had front row seats to once again honor a religious man but ignore the message. forgotten in the eulogies were the words john-paul spoke against western materialism, conspicuous consumption, and his adamant opposition to the invasion of iraq as an unjust and immoral war. I remember reading a quote from josef stalin: “the pope? how many divisions does he have?” and thinking he had the same mind set as today’s leader of the free world .

over the weekend the vatican announced that the official mourning period for john-paul is over. while the vatican can now officially ignore the message without any shame i’m left with the nagging questions that perplex me this evening while I suspect nearly half of those who live in this country are participating in some sort of activity provided by our multi-million dollar entertainment industry who profit from creating fiction (movies). participating in a fiction (sports), etc . tell me - if any reader has a favorite team what’s in your paycheck when your team wins.

why did george bush believe the faulty intelligence rather than the factual evidence? did he know it was faulty intelligence? did he even care whether it was factual or not since it fit his preconceived plans described in pnac (project for a new american century – the neo-con blue print of a foreign policy based on war and not in the pursuit of peace) for a preemptive strike on iraq? after all he did say he would do it all over again even if the intelligence was faulty. doesn’t that in and of itself prove he is not fit to command or at the very least expose his complicity in this crime?

in essence it really didn’t matter whether or not the intelligence was factual or faulty – the leader of the free world was going to wage war for whatever reason or excuse. it was a fait accompli, no number of people at any number of demonstrations; no amount of protest, no volume of letters to your representatives was going to stop the shock and awe of death and destruction unleashed on iraq.

does the buck stop anywhere with this administration and it’s pompous cheerleader. the republican party of lincoln is controlled by the far right who claim a monopoly on values and a mandate from god, their god of course, to impose those values on the rest of the world and clearly here at home. the world can’t even accept the common ground of the world’s major religions that in different ways say “thou shall not kill”. and here at home
we claim to be a christian nation, that follows the christ child that said “love thy neighbor”. yet this christian taliban wants to impose their values, not christ’s, on america. i mean seriously can anyone really believe christ would support empire – roman or american or anything in-between.

i mean - where is the value in not taking responsibility for your actions and not being held accountable for your actions? and where is the value in rewarding those responsible for the flawed intelligence with promotions or medals?

although i am influenced by nietzsche’s observation that “there are no truths, merely moral interpretation of phenomena”, gandhi’s words “there is no higher form of god than truth”, and martin luther king’s voice saying that “the truth shall set you free” i am acutely aware that “the truth shall set you free” is inscribed on cia hq which permits the ominous observation that the truth was a casualty long before the “war on terrorism” was declared when reality was manufactured to secure a sufficient amount of consent to claim legitimacy. once the media spreads the word – the word is reality.

“reality” - the quality of being true. seems like the longer we prefer the comfortable lie to the uncomfortable truth the less time we have to overcome the ignorance which prevents us from the awareness required to decrease the suffering at home and abroad. while the american empire is based on “might makes right” the reality is that all such previous empires no longer exist.

a glance in the mirror would reveal that we have an incompetent government that rewards its failures, a complicit press that dares not mention the emperor wears no new cloths. an economy in decline with greater gaps between rich and poor, an increasing amount of individual debt, a consumerist society engaging in a decadence beyond marx’s wildest imagination, an egregious lack of regard for the world’s environment, and a large segment of our population which gives their tacit consent to the decay of our society with their silence.

if you believe the future is determined by what we do in the present how much longer do you think the american empire can endure the faulty intelligence of policies carried out by politicians who neither accept responsibility for their failures nor are they held accountable by the public. honor is rare amoung today’s politicians. and the sheeple still out number the people who have the courage of their convictions to express their outrage at this cancer of corruption that pervades our society?

and how much longer do you think this empire can remain in a state of decline before it becomes ripe for the next empire that needs to feed its expansionist tendencies based on this cause or that, this god or that and by whatever mean necessary - when our press spins a reality that will profit a few at the expense of the many who will suffer for the lie that there are no other paths to resolving conflict among men and among nations?

we are socialized, manipulated, and educated with standardized tests to conform to accept violence. we exist in sting’s lyrics about “being a statistic on a government chart.” we are having our own intelligence failure, it is our own ignorance that prevents us from fully grasping the concept “violence begets violence”. if we did we wouldn’t be engaging in the futility of waging wars to resolve conflict.

a rant that compels me to consider kafka’s observation that there is hope but not for us”. time to comfort myself with nietzsche’s aphorism “better to die than live in fear and hate”. time to remember heraclitis’ “life is in a constant state of flux”. time to realize that what we are now is a result of our actions in the past and what we will become will be based on what we do now. hear king’s voice preach “the truth shall set you free”. eventually the comfortable lie can no longer conceal the uncomfortable truth.