Thank you Keith, for Speaking of the Unmentionable

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Thu May-15-08 10:04 PM
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Thank you Keith, for Speaking of the Unmentionable

A few months ago I posted an article on DU titled “Unmentionable Things in U.S. Politics”, in which I lamented the situation in our country today whereby many of the most important issues that face us are virtually unmentionable by mainstream politicians or journalists, lest they risk losing their jobs – or worse. The last paragraph of that article explains why I consider this to be a monumentally important subject:

When stolen presidential elections are unmentionable, the impetus to do something to prevent elections from being stolen is diminished; when a nation fails to admit to its immoral wars, the likelihood that U.S. presidents will continue to push us into those wars, in the absence of substantial resistance, is increased; and as long as it is taboo to attribute impure motives to our presidents or other top powerful leaders, the necessity of removing them from office will seldom seem to be urgent.

I mentioned some courageous examples of those who crossed the line to discuss unmentionable subjects, including: Barbara Boxer (objecting to the 2004 Presidential election); Dennis Kucinich (telling us the real reason for the Iraq War); Richard Durbin (exposing our use of torture); Cynthia McKinney (criticizing Bush’s handling of 9-11); John Edwards (poverty); and Keith Olbermann’s scathing Special Comments.

Well, I believe that with last night’s “Special Comment”, Keith out-did even himself in discussing unmentionable subjects, thereby doing our country a great service. I call what he did a great service to our country because, by talking about these things in the way he did, he makes it more possible for others to talk about them too. And these are all things that need a great deal more discussion in our country than what they’ve been getting. Here are some of the things that Keith Olbermann had to say to George W. Bush in his Special Comment of May 15, 2008:

You’re a murderer and a war criminal

Two of the three major unmentionable subjects that I brought up in my other post were “the immorality of U.S. military and covert actions” and “imputing bad motives to a U.S. President”. It’s ok (sometimes) to criticize a President for making a “mistake” in bringing us into an “ill-conceived” war. We can say (in retrospect) that our Vietnam War was a mistake or that our Iraq War was a mistake (since we are losing it). And we can say that George Bush made a mistake in getting us into war or that he has done a poor job of handling that war. But to say that one of our wars is immoral or that the President’s motives were impure in bringing us into war is virtually forbidden in our country.

Why are these things virtually unmentionable in our country? They are unmentionable because they starkly point out that our country is not always the “beacon of light” that many or most Americans make it out to be. Specifically, these unmentionable things point out that we as a nation are not living up to our great ideals, as expressed in our Declaration of Independence.

Well, Keith crossed both of those lines in last night’s Special Comment, first by calling George Bush a murderer and a war criminal:

Mr. Bush, at long last, has it not dawned on you that the America you have now created includes cold-blooded killers who will kill people to achieve their political objectives? They are those in, or formerly in, your employ, who may yet be charged some day with war crimes…. Do you still have no earthly clue that this nation has laid waste to Iraq to achieve your political objectives?

Perhaps one could argue that there is just a tint of subtlety in that statement, and that Keith is not clearly and obviously calling our President a war criminal and a murderer. But what else could it mean to say that he has “created… cold blooded killers” for the purpose of achieving his political objectives?

You don’t give a damn about our country or its people

There is not much worse that one could say about a U.S. President than that he doesn’t give a damn about his country. Keith turned back Bush’s own words on him, saying of the “ideological struggle” that Bush is so fond of talking about when justifying his “War on Terror”:

This ideological struggle, Mr. Bush, is taking place within this country. It is a struggle between Americans who cherish freedom – ours and everybody else’s – and Americans like you, sir, to whom freedom is just a brand name.

In other words, Mr. Bush, all your talk of freedom is nothing but the epitome of hypocrisy. Your actions speak much louder than your words, and your actions show that freedom for anyone but yourself and your cronies means nothing to you.

Iraqis are people – deserving of the same human rights that everyone else is

One of my greatest gripes about the national coverage of the Iraq War, by our politicians and our corporate news media, is that it makes Iraqis – those people for whom George Bush said our war would bring democracy – out to be some sort of subhuman species. The hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilian deaths are never mentioned. The four million Iraqi refugees that we’ve created are never mentioned. The massive destruction of their country’s infrastructure is never mentioned. In short, the immorality of our invasion and occupation of Iraq is never mentioned. Noam Chomsky, in his book “What we Say Goes”, hit the nail on the head:

The United States is an outlaw state, and it is accepted by the intellectual class here that it should be an outlaw state… There is no criticism of this… There is a huge debate about the invasion of Iraq, but no question about whether we have a justification to do it. Of course, we have the automatic justification to do it – because it’s us. We have a justification to do anything. In fact, if you look at the so-called debate about Iraq, it’s at approximately the level of a high school newspaper commenting on the local sports team. You don’t ask whether the team has a right to win, you just ask how they can win… The question of whether the United States has a right to win in Iraq is unthinkable.

Keith addressed the issue of our Iraq War a little more specifically than Chomsky’s above cited paragraph, if a little less starkly. He said to Bush:

Your government’s farcical post-invasion strategy of letting the societal infra-structure of Iraq dissolve, to be replaced by an American Vice-Royalty enforced by merciless mercenaries who shoot unarmed Iraqis and then evade prosecution in any country, by hiding behind your skirts, sir…

With that paragraph Keith addresses not only the mere facts of our killing of Iraqi civilians and destruction of their country, but also the fact that it was no accident. Much or most of it was done not as a necessity of war, but unnecessarily, for whatever sick purposes motivated George Bush. And so little does he think of the Iraqi people that when his mercenaries murder them in cold blood, his first priority is to protect his mercenaries against prosecution.

By discussing, even briefly, what George Bush’s war has done to the people of Iraq, Keith did something that is rarely done in our country today – he helped to humanize the Iraqi people with respect to the national discussion of our war. Demonizing or dehumanizing people, as our national politicians and journalists usually do with the Iraqis, sets the stage for more war. Humanizing them, by discussing them as the real people that they are, gives Americans an important reason to demand an end to war.

Your Iraq War is one gigantic fraud

Most Americans now know that George Bush’s excuse for the invasion of Iraq, that their (non-existent) weapons of mass destruction posed an imminent risk to our country, was factually incorrect. But still, you rarely hear a politician or journalist say that Bush actually lied to us to bring us into war. Keith had no qualms about saying that:

You, Mr. Bush, and your tragically know-it-all minions, threw out every piece of intelligence that suggested there were no such weapons. You, Mr. Bush, threw out every person who suggested that the sober, contradictory, reality-based intelligence needed to be listened to, fast… The fiasco of pre-war intelligence, sir, is your fiasco…

Mr. Bush – you destroyed the evidence that contradicted the resolution you jammed down the Congress’s throat, the way you jammed it down the nation’s throat. When required by law to verify that your evidence was accurate, you simply re-submitted it…

And as a final crash of self-indulgent nonsense, when the incontrovertible truth of your panoramic and murderous deceit…

Your purpose for this war was for no reason other than to profit your wealthy cronies

Closely related the to George Bush’s deceit in pushing us into war in Iraq are his real reasons for doing so. As Antonia Juhasz explains in her book, “http://www.google.com/search%3Fhl%3Den%26q%3D%2522the%2Bbush%2Bagenda%2522%2Bjuhasz%26btnG%3DGoogle%2BSearch&sa=X&oi=print&ct=title">The Bush Agenda – Invading the World, One Economy at a Time”, George Bush’s main agenda in leading us into war was to provide his cronies and supporters with a bonanza of opportunities for enriching themselves. Keith made the same point in his Special Comment last night, though very briefly:

The war in Iraq – your war, Mr. Bush – is about how you accomplished the derangement of two nations, and how you helped funnel billions of taxpayer dollars to lascivious and perennially thirsty corporations like Halliburton and Blackwater, and how you sent 4,000 Americans to their deaths – for nothing.

Thank you Keith!

One of the primary characteristics of a psychopath is that he never thinks or talks about the destructive and evil deeds that he commits, except in an attempt to spin them to make them appear what they are not. In so doing, he never has to feel guilty or uncomfortable about the destruction that he spreads. And thus, the psychopath turns away from the only potential opportunity to reform himself. One cannot reform aspects of one’s personality that one never honestly thinks or talks about.

As it is with individual people, so it is with a nation. With all our talk of terrorism, many or most people in the world today see George Bush and the country he leads as one of the greatest threats to world peace. As long as our nation’s misdeeds remain taboo subjects in our country, few people will discuss them. As long as we fail to discuss them we will not be able to learn from them, and we are not likely to change them.

Keith Olbermann is one of the few highly and widely visible people in our country today who has the courage to speak of unmentionable subjects that are in dire need of discussion. By doing this he makes it much easier for other Americans to talk and think about these things. If more national politicians and journalists were like that we would throw George Bush and Dick Cheney out of office, end the Iraq War, and then get on with the business of living up to our nation’s ideals.