Whats it gonna take to open the eyes of Americans in denial?

Frank Rich scratches that surface, in his Sunday Op-ed, What We Don't Know Will Hurt Us, and all that's clear is that its all unclear.

No one knows, of course, but a bigger question may be whether we really want to know. One of the most persistent cultural tics of the early 21st century is Americans’ reluctance to absorb, let alone prepare for, bad news. We are plugged into more information sources than anyone could have imagined even 15 years ago. The cruel ambush of 9/11 supposedly “changed everything,” slapping us back to reality. Yet we are constantly shocked, shocked by the foreseeable. Obama’s toughest political problem may not be coping with the increasingly marginalized G.O.P. but with an America-in-denial that must hear warning signs repeatedly, for months and sometimes years, before believing the wolf is actually at the door.

Its starting to sound to me like Americans are slowly backing towards the real rude awakening, and no matter how many years of warnings there have been, the evidence laid out on the table in the hard light of day, and our crushing need, need, need to hold on to the dreams and possibilities; the American Dream, with all of its boring stability, yet promise of how things could change with one lottery ticket or game show win, the reality of the situation is so bad that even considering the alternative of a normal life of making ends meet causes many to cling hopelessly to the chance rather than live in the reality. Its not the safety from the terra that we really want, its our 15 minutes of fame! That's because we're special! I don't know if we know what we want, really. With all that information out there, it seems that we have become more provincial in our tastes than ever. Maybe the menu is too big.

Rich talks about our "cultural pattern of denial," as if it just came about on its own and wasn't born of a system that purely and clearly doesn't work. Yeah, I'm talking about capitalism; the unregulated brand. American Dream Capitalism can only flourish, and then temporarily, in a world where credit companies go hand in hand with advertisers, hand in hand with retailers, paying less and less to workers, who then need more credit to fulfill what the advertisers tell them to want. The media claims that they are just giving the American people what they want, but I don't think that its possible to know what you want with no clear idea of whats out there, relatively, in a world full of differences and possibilities. Its all a big manipulation for which each generation will blame the one before it, but clearly, we have a skewed world view anyway, so infighting isn't going to help. The truth may be that the sham of the American Dream is that its not really enough because we are so spoiled that even if we don't personally need that fame, we need to watch others gaining and losing it on our large screen TV.

The fear that we are traipsing down the path to socialism is very real to many for whom capitalism has done little. Why is that?
We are, in fact, a semi-socialist country with what little that really works here being part of that redistribution thing that is so hated. Most people knee jerk about keeping the money they earn and yet pay private insurance companies a premium level premium only to have to do battle when push comes to shove, and live at the mercy of which doctor takes which.

I'm not against everyone making a fair or comfortable living, but its clear to me that if regulation stopped the money up top from all traveling upwards, like we used to have a rule of thumb to put a certain amount of profits back into the business, and then pay back into the workers, community, society, and the infrastructure, maybe we all would be a little safer and happier.


The problem is really more of a sociological phenomenon in which rather than being angry at the rich, we direct our anger towards the poor for taking up our resources with their neediness. The truth of this is far from whats disseminated and somehow billions more in corporate welfare is OK, but feeding children is not. Its taken so many, many years of this manipulation for the tables to finally turn. It's taken home movies of gold fixtures and multi million dollar birthday parties, empty accounts where hedge funds were supposed to be, and no bid contracts, carried out by crony companies with ties to the government, (to put it mildly;)...companies that carried out their duties so negligently as to feed tainted water bottles to our soldiers fighting their war of profit, build buildings in which pipes burst and shit dripped from ceilings, and that managed to lose truckloads of cash...truckloads...all of this with evidence in front of the American face. Evidence like videos, documents, drawings, and testimony, and all anyone had to do was to dangle the carrot or the threat of losing the carrot that you don't really own, and we went right back in line.

My big disappointment in the past 8 years has been less the crooks that would steal their own country blind and walk away able to sleep at night, because there are some bad people and absolute power corrupts, etc... but that half the American people went along with it because of some shiny, shiny, and a vial of white powder, to lazy to do the research or even open their eyes.

Its probably not that all of those people are bad, but more a sort of cognitive dissonance, where what is accepted societal behavior becomes corrupted by what is the line from the propaganda team, and the actions following go so against what one stands for that the opposition of the two creates a mental vacuum. It becomes a matter of accepting the unacceptable behavior or admission that one has played a part in something that is criminal or wrong. The wrong becomes the new truth and the person clings to it as if it was the gospel truth because the alternative of having been so wrong and acted on it is too much.

Americans are not raised to look at their reality under the light, lest we become dissatisfied with our position in the order of things, so we cling tighter to the truth that we have come to believe, based in fear or denial, and the slightest possibility of joining the monied classes and the belief that they should be able to keep what they have earned. Every successful American CEO has stood on the shoulders of this entire society to get where he or she is, and a society that allows success even one tiny bit as big as many of them have achieved, deserves a kickback into society's pot; not a tax loophole and an offshore account to try to keep the money that they have earned. The regular American, as well as the poor American is expected to kick back in, but its accepted that the loopholes for the rich exist because they somehow deserve them. This is the group that has benefited the most from the Bush years and their tax cuts. Now some of those guys actually sunk their businesses, took bailout money from taxpayers, and managed to give themselves their huge bonuses at the end of last year. What are we supposed to do with that? Let them get away and we've reinforced the helplessness of law abiding citizens everywhere. Rock the boat too much and the corporate influenced government ceases to move forward.

So, yes Obama is up against it, and he may be the one we need right now in that, as much as he skirts around the truth in the interest of not overwhelming the undereducated masses and offending the cronys, he will state the truth, and he will do what has to be done. I believe that because I have to. I believe that because there is nothing else, except that the specter of families with babies on the street and on the soup line may not hit home until that family is your neighbor...or you...and until the post apocalyptic country starts to look too much like a Mad Max scene that even the Reaganomics of the 80's couldn't fully carry out in NYC. That NYC was where I stepped over the AIDS ravaged homeless and the broken glass of car windows every day for years, shouting at a deaf government, and it was heartbreaking. This is much worse, but we no longer have a government with its fingers in its ears and humming.

How bad does it have to get before we take action? It has to come right to the front door and maybe inside the house! Its gotta take a camera into the Willowbrook asylum and drop a microphone down the well so that we can hear the stuck baby wailing. Its beyond 9-11, obviously and way past Katrina....Being out of work may the the thing that creates time for Americans to reassess whats been happening and to get back to basics.

The same people who very gravely told me in the past 2 presidential elections "I'm not sure if your guy can keep us safe," have to realize that this is not something that any individual can figure out, but rather a broad policy of base belief that got us into or is gonna get us out of the current can o' worms; that base belief should probably start with at least following the constitution and laws, and then turn to how our neighbors are treated. If we give up our base beliefs out of fear, then we have nothing.

Rather, what I was seeing in those frightened voters was the wielding of the power of the vote in the direction of the possibility of winning the lotto and joining the Halliburton class, or remembering some Pearl Harbor memory of America as the Hero, in the right, which was just laughable in its gravity and sincerity, considering what was going on in the world and how we were acting. The same people who wouldn't know a Thief from a Socialist if they hit them in the bank account, thought that they were influencing the halls of power with their belief in a Bush or a McCain or a Palin as a way to stay safe and right; because if the simplistic neocon view of things could keep us safe, then any working stiff espousing at the local bar could make it big, and there is a certain leveling in that bluster, as much as its totally nonsensical.

Americans may need to be slowly led into the harsh reality of what lies ahead. But hopefully it will be done before its too late in a world of tipping points. We may see Obama nationalize the banks and we may see a "socialist" turn to how things are done in this country. The alternative has been tried and it doesn't work, so get ready for something new and maybe even a little familiar.
If its not dawning on the other half by now, then it may never. That doest stop the necessity of moving forward before things get worse.

If in light of the bailouts already put out there, the executives at the huge corporations and banks cant see the path ahead, then they have to go; and not with their golden parachutes either! If the credit companies are only using the bailouts and reorganization to put the screws to their customers rather than stop offering up new credit at every turn and make a sane way to get out of debt, then they will go too, and along the way they will see many more Americans in straight default, rather than honestly trying to pay their debt down.

The real point of this illustrated lesson for the American people and the world is that the dream that you were promised is earned, not promised, and you were bamboozled into a position where you can't earn, beg, borrow, or steal it anymore...its dead! and no matter what anyone says, you cant get anything for free. If the credit industry had to fold and stop offering credit to individuals, how would we live? well, we'd learn. If that effected the world economy horribly and the CEO couldn't get the corporate jet he wanted this year along with his 20 million dollar bonus, well, we would go on and dig out. What we are seeing may be the collapse of unregulated capitalism, and surely, if America doesn't hold those responsible accountable right up to the top, then we are doomed to repeat our mistakes over and over. Laws are no good if they are only for the rabble, especially if everyone right up to the president and his VP get away with murder.

Industry in this country may be based at this point on the vinyl to CD, CD to MP3 player model, just as the digitization of the television signal, (our airwaves,) serves to force new equipment onto Americans credit cards at a time when people just don't have the money to pay that debt back. But at some point, the camel's back breaks; especially when the paying jobs to make that new equipment are long gone to other countries that have entered their own cycle of Americanized mistakes.

So I look forward to hearing a little hard truth. As I said, frank Rich barely scratched the surface of the problem here. Its a problem of growing up and getting with a reality based model, and having the government carry that out in regulating how much these companies can lie to us and entice us to get in too deep, while they stab us in the back, and blame us for being negligent for not reading the print so fine as to serve the smaller denizens of the doll house world. I'd like to see simple terms in normal layman's print, and I'd like to see the country get back on a track that is livable and from which we can recover to a sensible level of realistic living where everyone has a chance and the worker is once again valued as much as the CEO.
c/p RIP Coco

Labels: bank bailout, denial, Frank Rich, liars

Today Frank Rich covers the mind bending Reverend John Hagee and his ongoing endorsement of John McCain. The fact that this man can even find followers is a testament to the level of desperation out there in the search for meaning in the wasteland of American life. How low does one have to go to find oneself adhering to a life plan set forth by the likes of this twisted man preaching hate from a television screen, and getting rich doing it?



Watching this video makes one wonder how its possible that Presidential contender John McCain could not only welcome his endorsement but continue to welcome it, with little notice of whatever inflammatory statements he has made along the way. Jon Stewart weighed in on McCain...and if you really couldn't make this stuff up, why does it take only our Jon Stewart to deliver it thusly?:



Today Chris Matthews chuckled with his panel about the other pastor in the M$M's religious endorsement wars being the crazy uncle in the attic who pops out to say odd things. The panelists discussed Obama's every action and reaction to the mistake that was the handling of the Jeremiah Wright debacle and unbelievably, thats it.... Its all just a little hard to watch, and honestly, Ive been turning it off lately; all of it. This primary is basically over. If its not for some reason, then I don't know what thats going to mean, because the truth is that this country has a huge emotional problem, and it may take some sort of huge disaster to get us back to some semblance of what were were supposed to be about.

Meanwhile, over at the Old Grey Lady, Frank Rich managed to lay out something that is so urgent and damaging to our country as to make Obama's passive pew/fence sitting during Wright's inflammatory,(if largely correct content-wise,) sermons, seem mild. The truth of McCain and Hagee is that McCain pursued the twisted fuck for his endorsement and that, even in light of having the possibility of standing on a stage next to the next possible President, Hagee consistently repeats his insane claims. And no matter how it has been approached on the kid-gloves-Sunday-shows, McCain refuses to acknowledge how insane the guy really is. Included in the morass of ideas by Hagee , are such gems as his belief that Hurricane Katrina was sent by God because of homosexuality in New Orleans, that a war in Iran should be started immediately as a "Holy War," and that the Catholic church is "The Great Whore," that is drinking Jewish blood. This is only part of the venom that this man spews regularly, and McCain is still happy to have his endorsement.

McCain claims that he does not accept "anti-anything" statements by Hagee, and dismisses any implication that there is a problem with Hagee's outrageous statements. Its unclear if McCain even is aware of what Hagee is saying, but he clearly seems to think that he can disassociate himself from some things that Hagee says and embrace the fact that the guy is religious at all. There has been incredibly little media coverage of McCain and his relationship to Hagee, but for some reason the media has seen fit to cover Obama and Wright ad nauseum, until watching political programming has become nearly impossible. As Rich notes:

I wonder if Mr. McCain would have given the same answer had Mr. Stephanopoulos confronted him with the graphic video of the pastor in full “Great Whore” glory. But Mr. McCain didn’t have to fear so rude a transgression. Mr. Hagee’s videos have never had the same circulation on television as Mr. Wright’s. A sonorous white preacher spouting venom just doesn’t have the telegenic zing of a theatrical black man.

And I would go further than that, in that what gets wall to wall coverage is transparently aimed at shaping the dialog in this country, and in fact to shape the race itself. Rich's point is that black transgressions get more air time and press than similar white transgressions. In support of this he notes Falwell and Robertson and their wacky take on the reasons for 9-11, and the Giuliani priest, among others. But is this merely a matter of racist coverage rather than pure favoritism towards a party, a candidate, or the status quo? Could it be just this simple, or maybe should we try to look at the fact that the outlets are all owned by large corporations that stand to benefit from the preservation of the status quo, represented by a Clinton or a McCain Presidency.

The press certainly loves McCain, and regularly accepts barbecue from him, which could be considered to be a bit of a conflict. There is a dearth of real reporting going on anymore, and the specter of Tim Russert or Matthews hosting another McCain lovefest is sickening. When does Rich call his colleagues in reporting on their behavior? Why is this as simple as a racial issue?

Obama sat for years in church and, if you believe his claims, he didn't much pay close attention to what was being said. That is not what anyone would call unusual in churchgoing Americans, though I would expect more of Obama, considering that he is a pretty deep and spiritual guy with a long term plan. John McCain was tickled to have Hagee endorse him over Huckabee, and continued to seek him out and welcome his endorsement even as the incredible sound bytes came out. ...and Obama is the one deserving of scrutiny? Perhaps that is racial, but there is also a programming angle to it that I see as having a much stronger influence on this thing than any white fear of the coming race war.

So, as much as I was happy to see Frank Rich cover this story, I wish he had gone deeper with it. Perhaps one can speculate about the racial thing easier than one can about actual entities making decisions. But this thing being driven by race would indicate that there are ratings being considered, just like when a blond girl goes missing in the Caribbean, and so doesn't that also indicate a decision by management? The question is, who is willing to take responsibility for what is going on? In the long run its easier to blame the ratings, the shareholders, and ultimately capitalism, than to own up to being part of the problem.

So, why is Obama still being questioned about Jeremiah Wright? Oh, its because crazy black preachers are much more Jerry Springer Show than white ones....right? In other words, its our fault.




c/p RIPCoco

Labels: Barack Obama, Frank Rich, John McCain, Religious Intolerance

Sam Seder will be covering for Randi Rhodes on Air America Radio on Monday, January 28th...The Maron V. Seder Vodcast will be broadcast on live Tuesday, January 29th, and there is a possibility of a live Sammy Cam session to chat our way through the State of the Union Speech...or a possible Young Turk-a-thon (not my favorite thing, but desperate times call for desperate measures!) All this and more at Sam's Blog. Check back often for updates on all the stuff that's going on! He's busy!

So, CNN is advertising a special report, after the debate on Thursday, that is being billed as SANJAY GUPTA Reportsssss...Health Care in America: Broken Government!
Anyone with Medicare or Medicaid knows that the government healthcare programs work very well. They are probably the least broken parts of this screwed up country...Though one big problem with them is that when people like Rudy Giulliani are cutting the budgets of their fiefdoms, a good way of cutting bottom line services that should be immovable is by making social programs more difficult to find, fill out forms for, provide proper documentation for, and re-cert over and over, until people just leave the fief for a kinder and gentler state where one can sleep outside more comfortably, or a place that is more friendly to the poor. If you can get on them, the government programs are the most accepted, by law (and Medicaid needs some work in that area,) and pay providers pretty fairly. They operate with tiny overheads, compared to private insurance companies, and run rather smoothly, considering that they are part of the government bureaucracy.

I'm trying to find the commercial on CNN's website about Sanjay and his Gupta reportage, but since its not up yet, I'd like to suggest a rephrasing of that tag line. How about Broken Insurance Industry, (or how about,

This is what you get from outsourcing, you idiots!!

) Because I know from the commercial, its all about horrible medical crisis' that could have been prevented if only the Government wasn't Broken!Whats broken here is that we cant all get on Medicare and pay what we can. Its just that simple and will provide jobs, even as the insurance industry loses jobs.
This is not the first time that Gupta has used an inflammatory tag line and made sweeping generalizations about medical issues that he is not really qualified to speak to. He is an MD, not a political scholar. And its questionable how smart of an MD he is too. But, I'm all ears, Sanjay...have at it!

The difference between me and Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg is one of having faith in human nature and hope that the American system and/or the American people are strong enough, at this point in history, to fall behind an idealistic young candidate and go through with what will be necessary to turn this ship around before it hits ground. I keep imagining the moment that, in the midst of a terra alert, we put McCain or Romney into office just to be "safe." Hey, Its happened before! Don't rule it out!

I don't know what rosy colored glasses the Kennedy's look through to maintain their hope in the face of tragedy, and as political insiders who have seen their share of the gruesome details, but its sort of heartening and lovely in a way...and a little unreal. I also think that it has something to do with being raised in an extended family of public servants who are steeped in being able to promote change. They are told this from the moment they hit the ground running, and they have the support, even in trauma and dysfunction, of their extended family and religion to keep going. They also are from money; not that they all have riches beyond compare, because there are so many of them, but operating from a platform of upper classiness, they are educated and prepped for a life of great privilege, and a life of service to balance it. Religion has something to do with it too. They are Catholics, and it seems that having a higher reason behind what the aim is, helps with all those questions of why.
A coy Obama as much as admitted that Teddy Kennedy is on board as well. Breaking News: Tomorrow comes the endorsement.
Do they know the real think when they see it just because they are Kennedy's? Because everything about Obama seems to rely more on the feeling that he gives people than actual substance. I'd like to see more substance and less positioning.

Granted, I would be the virtual Woody Allen neurotic New Yorker to any Kennedy hope filled spiel about this young candidate being of the flesh and the body of the father. It must be nice to feel like you've found the reincarnation of hope, but I'm not quite there yet, to be honest, I'm doubtful about the whole thing. America does not have a very good track record at successfully letting hopeful leaders make their way into office. Surely, if Barak Obama is going to be brave enough to throw himself out there, I'm willing to listen, but it took me four years and an in person meeting to make me start to think that John Edwards really means what he says, and I have some very concrete reasons why I like him.

Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg's reasoning about Obama had less to do with the specifics of what Obama might do, than with things that people have told her about how he reminds them of her father. See, she doesn't really remember her father, but I'm sure that she knows everything he ever did, and the concrete reasoning behind it all, so why this wishy-washy endorsement? It sounds to me like " He moves the American people and makes them feel good.." and people say that he reminds them of my father, so lets trust him to try to dig us out of the worst hole we've been in, maybe ever?

Whoever gets the job is bound to look bad pretty quickly if not right away. There is just too much to clean up, and even the most experienced politician is gonna have to get their hands really dirty, offending alot of people along the way, meanwhile trying to fix the diplomatic mess that they are going to be left with. I think that whoever is the winner of this contest is going to end up with the short end of the stick, and the war is going to be his/her's, thanks to the democratic majority's inability to get itself to act, even in the interest of getting some information on the record to protect the next president.

I've been a little shocked at the reaction of a few people in the blogosphere to Edwards not dropping out of the race when he didn't win South Carolina.
I see no reason for him to drop out, and in fact, I urge him to stay in...I sent him money, and will send more after the 1st of the month. I guess that the best thing about this race has been the discourse. Some of it has been insane and some of it has been upsetting, but mostly, it's been good to see everyone allowed to talk out loud about whats been going on for these years in what seemed like a virtual gulag, as the terra alerts went from yellow to red, and we were told the best way to duct tape ourselves into a room in case of attack. Remember all that? Some woman around here actually killed herself and her kid because she sealed them into a room too tightly at a time when they had to use a generator or heater or something.

Remember not being able to buy duct tape because that asshole director of homeland security, Tom Ridge, said that all Americans should have these things...and survival food...doesn't it seem like a fucking dream? How did they successfully carry out all of the lies? How is it that they wont have to pay somehow? And isn't it crazy that any of these fools wants the job at all?

Yeah, you have to be pretty sure of yourself to think that you might be able to fix this mess up...even with a full staff of advisers, I cant imagine that anyone wouldn't have some trepidation. And I guess that I don't feel like Obama has the experience to run the entire country ...but I'd prefer to take a chance with him than to go with what I know will be business as usual with Billary. One way or another, we're bound to take a bit of a dip before we start to rebound. The dip might last what seems like a long time in our short sightedness, but historically it will be a blip. It's what we deserve for getting too lazy to pay attention and vote, and the turnout speaks loudly to the fact that its going to be a long time before people become that complacent again.

Frank Rich wrote in the New York Times today about the dangers of a Hillary Clinton general election. He pretty much warned that while Hillary may consider herself vetted, Bill has not been vetted on whats happened since he left the White House. Apparently there is much there to make hay of, and if Hillary is running against McCain, a swift boating or even an attack grounded in fact could land us with a President McCain. The sudden heavy use of Bill Clinton to pull Hillary's numbers up could have a devastating effect on this country if he has not been squeaky clean over the last 8 years. Surely there is a danger in just the perception of going back to the same old water carrying that was a huge part of how we got here.

For the Republicans, that means not just a double dose of the one steroid, Clinton hatred, that might yet restore their party’s unity but also two fat targets. Mrs. Clinton repeatedly talks of how she’s been “vetted” and that “there are no surprises” left to be mined by her opponents. On the “Today” show Friday, she joked that the Republican attacks “are just so old.” So far. Now that Mr. Clinton is ubiquitous, not only is his past back on the table but his post-presidency must be vetted as well. To get a taste of what surprises may be in store, you need merely revisit the Bill Clinton questions that Hillary Clinton has avoided to date.

Rich seems to think that Obama is a contender...more than Hillary is anyway. When he writes like this it is usually because he knows something, and the only way to figure it out is to try to catch him on the TV machine, as he no doubt will be appearing here and there this week, (or so I hope.) What seems clear is that polls at Real Clear Politics already show Hillary running neck and neck with McCain in the general. They also project the rest of the democratic field the same with McCain. I don't know about you, but I'm not gonna make it through another tight race in which we have questionable vote counting. Make no mistake, the aim of this thing as to be to win, and we can only hope that the Republican nominee isn't old John McCain, because he seems to have some legs in this thing. Where are the fundies when you need 'em?

Labels: Barack Obama, Frank Rich, Hillary Clinton, John Edwards

I think it's possible that our unwanted basement tenant, which we have pretty much decided is a squirrel, may be deceased. This of course brings an entirely new set of problems, and I have a call into an animal control guy (as opposed to an exterminator) to evaluate the extent of the other rodent problem.

But since so far the cats are alive, there are no mice on the main living level, and there's nothing much I can do at this point, let's go back to the real world and Frank Rich's bloodcurdling column in yesterday's New York Times.

Highlights:

The ratings rise of “24” has stalled as audiences defect from the downer of terrorists to the supernatural uplift of “Heroes.” Cable surfers have tuned out Iraq for a war with laughs: the battle over Anna Nicole’s decomposing corpse. Set this cultural backdrop against last week’s terrifying but little-heeded front-page Times account of American “intelligence and counterterrorism officials” leaking urgent warnings about Al Qaeda’s comeback, and ask yourself: Haven’t we been here before?

If so, that would be the summer of 2001, when America pigged out on a 24/7 buffet of Gary Condit and shark attacks. The intelligence and counterterrorism officials back then were privately sounding urgent warnings like those in last week’s Times, culminating in the President’s Daily Brief titled “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.” The system “was blinking red,” as the C.I.A. chief George Tenet would later tell the 9/11 commission. But no one, from the White House on down, wanted to hear it.

The White House doesn’t want to hear it now, either. That’s why terrorism experts are trying to get its attention by going public, and not just through The Times. Michael Scheuer, the former head of the C.I.A. bin Laden unit, told MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann last week that the Taliban and Al Qaeda, having regrouped in Afghanistan and Pakistan, “are going to detonate a nuclear device inside the United States” (the real United States, that is, not the fictional stand-in where this same scenario can be found on “24”). Al Qaeda is “on the march” rather than on the run, the Georgetown University and West Point terrorism expert Bruce Hoffman told Congress.

[snip]

The surge supporters who accuse the Iraq war’s critics of emboldening the enemy are trying to deflect attention from their own complicity in losing a bigger battle: the one against the enemy that actually did attack us on 9/11. Who lost Iraq? is but a distraction from the more damning question, Who is losing the war on terrorism?

The record so far suggests that this White House has done so twice. The first defeat, of course, began in early December 2001, when we lost Osama bin Laden in Tora Bora. The public would not learn about that failure until April 2002 (when it was uncovered by The Washington Post), but it’s revealing that the administration started its bait-and-switch trick to relocate the enemy in Iraq just as bin Laden slipped away. It was on Dec. 9, 2001, that Dick Cheney first floated the idea on “Meet the Press” that Saddam had something to do with 9/11. It was “pretty well confirmed,” he said (though it was not), that bin Laden’s operative Mohamed Atta had met with an Iraqi intelligence officer in Prague months before Atta flew a hijacked plane into the World Trade Center.

In the Scooter Libby trial, Mr. Cheney’s former communications aide, Catherine Martin, said that delivering a message on “Meet the Press” was “a tactic we often used.” No kidding. That mention of the nonexistent Prague meeting was the first of five times that the vice president would imply an Iraq-Qaeda collaboration on that NBC show before the war began in March 2003. This bogus innuendo was an essential tool for selling the war precisely because we had lost bin Laden in Afghanistan.

[snip]

It is precisely by pouring still more of our finite military and intelligence resources down the drain in Iraq that we are tragically ignoring the lessons of 9/11. Instead of showing resolve, as Mr. Bush supposes, his botch of the Iraq war has revealed American weakness. Our catastrophic occupation spawned terrorists in a country where they didn’t used to be, and to pretend that Iraq is now their central front only adds to the disaster. As Mr. Scheuer, the former C.I.A. official, reiterated last week: “Al Qaeda is in Afghanistan and Pakistan. If you want to address the threat to America, that’s where it is.” It’s typical of Mr. Bush’s self-righteousness, however, that he would rather punt on that threat than own up to a mistake.

[snip]

Yet Mr. Bush still denies reality. Ten days ago he told the American Enterprise Institute that “the Taliban have been driven from power” and proposed that America help stabilize the Pakistan border by setting up “Reconstruction Opportunity Zones” (remember that “Gulf Opportunity Zone” he promised after Katrina?) to “give residents the chance to export locally made products to the United States, duty-free.” In other words, let’s fight terrorism not by shifting America’s focus from Iraq to the central front, but by shopping for Taliban souvenirs!

Five years after 9/11, the terrorists would seem to have us just where they want us — asleep — even as the system is blinking red once again.

I disagree with Rich on just one point -- that Americans are asleep or obsessing about Anna Nicole Smith's corpse. I think that Americans have begun to despair that anything can be done to end the relentless march to ruin on which this Administration has embarked. We had an election last November that seemed to promise change, and yet all we've seen is a House that passes legislation which in turn gets bogged down in the Senate. The Senate, deadlocked between ineffectual and cowardly Democrats, Republicans who put their own careers and party loyalty ahead of the good of the country, and Joe Lieberman, who will gladly fuck whichever party gives him the most bling.

And now, as we look ahead to a presidential election, what do we see? The presumed Democratic front-runner, Hillary Clinton, whining because a Hollywood mogul is giving money to someone else.

This is leadership?

The Democrats have been unable and unwilling to take on this Administration in the forceful way that's required because to do so requires that one admit what no one wants to admit: that the terrorism threat which met this Administration at its inception; the threat it "ignored", the threat that continues because this so-called "tough on terror" administration has instead fertilized and watered and cultivated terror not to end the threat, but to make it worse. And why would they do this? Is it sheer ineptitude? Well, that's the kindest interpretation. But when you look at Bush Administration policy in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, and you ask "Who benefitted from the attacks?", there is only one answer that you can come up with, and that is administration complicity in some form with an attack on the United States. It doesn't have to mean that the attacks were some sort of psyops exercise, and that the people supposedly killed are living under assumed names in Argentina. What it does mean is that a cost/benefit analysis indicating potential gains for an administration already in trouble in the summer of 2001, with the added benefit of huge financial gains for the Vice President and the duo's campaign contributors and cronies, resulted in the attacks playing out.

I don't believe that the Bush Junta banked on the World Trade Center collapsing, but I don't think they shed a whole lot of tears for it either. But if you look at who gained from the attacks, you have:

George W. Bush -- his presidency saved, his re-election in 2004, and for a long time, skyrocketing approval ratings at the same time as he gutted environmental and consumer protection laws and gave huge tax cuts to those who needed them least.

Dick Cheney -- huge financial rewards from his continued investment in Halliburton.

The oil industry -- skyrocketing fuel prices, and now the biggest prize of all -- 75% of the profits from Iraqi oil.

PNAC -- Its empire agenda proceeding according to plan

The defense industry -- huge contracts from a war in Iraq with little to no accountability for costs or quality.

Add to the equation a frightened population willing to give all of its Constitutionally-guaranteed freedoms to this bunch in return for the delusion of safety, and you can't deny that whether it was ineptitude or deliberately turning the other way and allowing the attacks to play out, it certainly worked for the Administration.

And now, once again, we have an administration on the ropes and a Republican party in disarray, poised to lose power for a generation unless something drastic is done. Yesterday, Frank Rich outlined just how eerily similar this winter is to the summer of 2001. Those in the intelligence community who are free to speak are appearing on those talk shows that will have them, with their proverbial hair on fire. And the Bush Administration continues to tell us that we're winning the Iraq war, that the Taliban and al-Qaeda are on the run, and worst of all, that Osama bin Laden just isn't that important.

Only now the situation is worse, because we no longer have allies. In the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, even the French said "We are all Americans." No longer. The next time the U.S. is attacked, you can count on all the allies we snubbed, all the allies that this president brushed off as if they were pesky flies, will stand by and watch. And it will be no less than this president deserves.

The problem is that he's taking the rest of us along with him.

Labels: 9/11, al-Qaeda, Frank Rich, George W. Bush