Freedom isn't on the march - an attempt at synthesis and a tough question

[BelgianMadCow]

I want to share agin with DU the re-awakening I felt tonight.
Allow me to recapitulate in my own words some recent History first.
Old-time Duers – you can skip straight to my questions at the end.

WHAT REALLY HAPPENED?

In december 2000, the election would have gone to Al Gore had all the votes in Florida been counted. The counting of votes,the basis of a democracy, was stopped by the US Supreme Court.

Al Gore, in his role as outgoing VP and president of the senate, had to affirm Bush as the president elect. During that session of congress, many members of the Black Congressional Caucus protested fiercely against the injustice that was being done and wanted to challenge the result as many thousands of voters in Florida They did not have the support of even ONE senator. The outpooring of raw emotion from these representatives of the people can only be likened to all the people of colour screaming, crying and pleading for help after Katrina. They, too, were ignored.

On the 20th of January, Bush’s inauguration parade turned into a mass protest. Protesters lined the streets the president drove by, egging his car and eventually causing the president to flee and cut short on the traditional white house lawn walk. A day that will live in infamy.

In the months after his inauguration and during the summer, Bush spent 42 % of his time on holiday. We now know that Richard Clarke, a true patriot and the top counterterrorism advisor to four administrations, had a burning desire to inform the new government of the threat Al-Quaeda posed, now that it was known they were behind the Cole bombing.
But he was demoted and ignored, no longer worthy to stay a member of the principals meeting. CIA director George Tenet’s “code red” briefing about Al-Quaeda to Condoleeza Rice in July 2001 probably caused John Ashcroft to stop flying commercial planes, and the threat from planes in the sky used against buildings was grave enough for Bush to sleep on a carrier during a G8 summit in Genua. But no comprehensive actions were taken by th Bush administration. The warnings were ignored. As Will said, it was no accident. It was policy. Ashcroft, responsible for law enforcement as Attorney General, of course was too busy covering statues with nude breasts and “did not want to hear anymore of terrorist warnings”.

Of all those who were warned, only one has apologized. "I have failed you, and this nation". Richard Clarke.

Obviously, Bush was also aware of the threat, as the august 6 2001 presidential daily briefing was titled “Bin Laden determined to strike in US”. The title was uttered by Rice in the 9/11 commission as if it was a run of the mill pdb title. The 9/11 widows knew better. This was why the White House had tried for ages to keep it a secret. This was also the worst piece of lying and theatre about such a grave matter in my lifetime.

What exactly happens next, is hard to say. I can only guess at what Bush was thinking while he stays reading My Pet Goat after he was told a second plane had hit. Or why he said "that’s one bad pilot” was his first reaction when he heard what happened. This, from someone who received the Pdb and slept on a carrier because of such a threat? One need only watch Symbolman’s An American Requiem on www.takebackthemedia.org to know that to this day, many questions remain unanswered.

Is Richard Clarke summoned at once? Yes, to try and establish a link between 9/11 and Iraq. That is where Bush and Rumsfeld wanted to go immediately. He is not asked about Al-Quaeda.

Heavens forbid that the country would take a long hard look at those who commited the attacks, mostly Saudis and members of a network headed by Osama Bin Laden. Hell no, America is owned to a considerable degree by Saudi-Arabia (Citigroup, AOL, Carlyle group, … 6 to 7 % of US investment comes form them). The Saudis have played guardian angel investor to several of Bush’s failing business ventures as well. GHW Bush, on the board of the Carlyle group (see here), was in a meeting with a Bin Laden (also an investor) on the morning of 9/11. Ah, and who helped the Taliban to grow? The US, when they were sponsoring them against the Soviet occupation.

So instead, while the entire country is grounded, the Bin Ladens are flown out without being questioned. After all, Prince Bandar is not called Bandar Bush for nothing, he is a friend of the family.
That’s one thing that happened FAST.

Of course, there was also an investigation. The congressional one came out with 28 pages redacted out. These pages are supposed to deal with the money trail and the Saudi involvment. Wouldn’t wanna let that little thingie come out, would we.

There was another investigation into the biggest attack on american soil since Pearl Harbor. The administration only agreed to it, once again, after public pressure. Who can have anything against an investigation in God’s name? And why? It was alloted a budget of only 14 Million, and was designed to be a whitewash from the beginning. The facts about the July 2001 threat meeting between Rice and Tenet that have come out in Woodward’s book State of Denial, and the admission that these were left OUT of the commission report, prove this beyond a doubt.

A patriot act was written, taking away liberties at an unprecented rate. No more egging for the Boy in the Bubble, here come the free-speech zones! Freedom is on the march! Somewhere around this time, the government starts wiretapping without warrants and torturing people (albeit in secret prisons outside of the US). The legal justification is based on the power of the unitary executive. “Things would be a heckuva lot easier if I was a dictator”.

And the Taliban and Al-Quaeda? Oh, they were attacked al right. It did take two months before boots were on the ground, and eventually they let OBL escape at Tora Bora.

Bush went around proclaiming “we are at war for civilisation” and said “OBL is just one face, I really don’t spend that much time about him”. After all, the UNOCAL pipeline deal that was being negotiated in the beginning of 2001 had finally gotten the green light from Hamid Kharzai (newly installed leader of Afghanistan and a former UNOCAL advisor).

He had other plans in mind (PNAC, 1998). The political capital of 9/11 was not to be wasted. But as the intelligence community was not really cooperating all that well to come up with a link between Iraq and Al Quaeda, not even when pressured by Cheney, they had to make up new intelligence “agencies” run by political hacks who operated without oversight, such as the Office of Special Plans (OSP). After all, “fixing the facts around the policy” as the Bristsh Downing Street Memo said the US was doing, is hard work. And, lo and behold, a case for war was made, presented to the people in the US in the State of The Union and to the UN in a speeech that Colin Poweel himself thought was "Rubbish".

The people of the US, still understandably shell shocked, were scared out of their minds with terror alerts who have suspiciously politically expedient timing and are often made of thin air or proven to be a lie. It turns out fake terralerts can even be used to close down a polling station! How cool is that!

And so, the case for war was made.Iraq was gonna be able to launch WMDs in 45 minutes! It was sold by strongly concentrated media. But is was not bought by the americans or the world, as the massive prewar demostrations showed. Ow sorry, “focus groups” is what Bush called us. He only cares about focus groups that are called Abramoff, you know, the haves and have-mores, the elite. “I call you…my base”.

The doctrine of preemptive war was born.

That war was reported on by “embedded journalists”, a term that won “Best Euphemism for Propaganda Goebbels Award” for 2003. Journalists like “my” Rudi Vranckx who did not go to embed with US soldiers were threatened, shot at and practically unable to get insurance. Nobody was gonna have images of true war come and spoil this party like they did in Vietnam.

Hell no, there were HUGH profits to be made in no-bid uncapped “cost-plus” contracts during the war and the rebuilding. Halliburton anyone? You know, the company Cheney was CEO of before becoming VP?

When the war does not go as planned, and the flowerthrowing goes the IED way, the returning coffins are hidden from the public. Bush says “to those who think attacking us will make us question our goal, I say Bring 'em on”.

2 comma 753 more have been brought home.

“You cannot kill another person and not kill a little part of yourself”, said a young soldier in Iraq, with hollow eyes, in Fahrenheit 9/11. But as long as there are black or poor neighbourhoods left in the US, and free trade is taking excellent care of that, Army recruiters still find new cannon fodder.

Now, it is reported that 600 thousand Iraqis have died that would not have without the war. Bush says the figure (from the Lancet no less) has no credibility. But they decided “they weren’t gonna do body counts”!
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Imagine all that blood, and carnage, and mental damage done. All the families torn. All the hatred that automaticaly ensues.

Oh, I pay lip service to the just cause. I post in the pleasant echo chamber/unspin forum that is DU, and am wiser for it. In a very limited way, I try to spread that wisdom. Is that enough?

While wondering HOW all of this could happen the way it did, I came up with three reasons :

1) People just “didn’t know” – can be explained, defense has worked before for the germans. I don’t hate them anymore.
2) Most poor and middle class people simply do not have the time or energy to get informed and involved. Struggle for survival.
3) All the rest of us are complacent consumers.

I wondered where did my outrage go. And yours? And ours?

I have decided that I belong in the third category and plan to stop my mindless walking along in the rat race.

Freedom isn’t on the march people. It’s being drummed in a corner. And talking amongst ourselves isn’t gonna cut it.

[shadowknows69]

1. k+r

see my sig for my comment.

[Mythsaje]

2. Time for another protest march

that they can ignore and/or downplay.

It may SEEM like we're accomplishing nothing, but our pin-pricks are having an effect, albeit slowly. We've helped give certain stories traction, and taken some of the things we've learned here into the wide world. We've became a cheering section for Olbermann, who dares to say it how it is, and it's prompting people like that guy Shuster today to step up and hammer a Republican too.

Our most effective weapon is our freedom of speech. Nothing else we have will make a dent in what's going on. I understand the frustration as much as anyone, but there are NO silver bullets here. The Presidential campaign is purely in the hands of the party bosses and the corporate media and very little that we say makes any difference to THEM.

Congress and the party as a whole seems fairly content to sideline us, to banish us to the "fringes" even though there's at least some evidence to suggest we're not nearly as "fringe" as they'd like us to believe.

You think we can make a dent by not buying stuff? Well, I'm already on track with that. I didn't ask for anything for my birthday because I'm content with what I already have. I don't need anything new. My car stereo was stolen months ago and I never bothered to replace it because I can get by without it. My ipod shuffle was traded for another prize my wife won in a contest at work, and her own shuffle was another contest win. We go out on gift cards she gets from other contests--so, basically, restaurants pay US to eat out. When we DO splurge and go out to eat on our own money, we frequent local establishments for the most part.

The last chunk of money I spent on anything was the purchase of supplies to install new gutters on my hosue because our insurance company was threatening to drop us if we didn't.

I'd like to know WHAT more we're supposed to be doing than we already are. Aside from engaging in criminally stupid activities, that is.