Here are some interesting words from George W. Bush’s statement on Russia’s actions in and against its neighboring state and former posession Georgia:
"It now appears that an effort may be underway to depose Georgia’s duly elected government. Russia has invaded a sovereign neighboring state and threatens a democratic government elected by its people. Such an action is unacceptable in the 21st century."
If Americans did not live in a corporate-totalitarian political culture and if the U.S. possessed a remotely critical and democratc media, leading U.S. reporters and commentators would be heaping ridicule on this language, asking the White House:
What century was it, Master, when the Bush administration supported an atttempted coup against the democratically elected government of Hugo Chavez (in 2002)?
And what century was it, oh Masters, when the U.S. criminally and immorally invaded and occupied the formerly sovereign states of Afghanistan (October t 2001-present) and Iraq (March 2003-?) – the latter invasion having brought about a veritable Holocaust in Mesopotamia?
But no, our dutiful anchor men and women delivered the story of "the president"’s (their president, not mine) absurdly Orwellian statement with perfectly straight faces. I have yet to hear any leading Democrats, including Barack Obama (who believes that the U.S. invaded Iraq with an excess of "good intentions" and needs to stop spending so much money "trying to put Iraq back together") calling Bush or his "mainstream" media enablers on the supremely dangerous arch-authoritarian madness of it all.
It can’t happen here? It’s happening as I write today. It may have happened already. Wake up, America and pull your head out of the maddening ass of the masters’ latest paralyzing quadrennial corporate-crafted electoral extravaganza.
I totally agree with Mumia Abu Jamal, who recently said the following:
If TV channels are any measure, the U.S. presidential elections, now less than 4 months away, are the permanent stuff of headlines.
If candidate A sneezes, it’s breaking news; if candidate B hiccups, it’s film at eleven.
It’s hardly worthy of headlines, but the beast [the media] must be fed.
For far too many people this news overdose on the elections has bred a kind of passivity among millions, as they wait in front of TV screens and computers, like deer caught in headlights.
What happened to anti-war protests?
What happened to housing rights protestors?
What happened to anti-FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) activists?
People are dulled by the almost sure expectation that the Democrats will prevail in the next election due to the low ratings of the Republican Party, and its lame duck President George W. Bush.
And those dull expectations are based upon the totally unfounded faith that a Democratic win of the White House really means an end to the war. (We might ask, which war?)
Millions have apparently forgotten the bitter lessons from the 2006 mid term election, when Democrats prevailed in congressional elections, formed a slight majority in both houses, and proceeded to do – nothing.
Peace in Iraq? Off the table. Instead, like lemmings leaping off a cliff they voted for more and more billions for war.
And what of the recently renewed FISA bill, which legalized the law-breaking of the Bush Administration – and gave retroactive protection to phone and communications companies which violated prior law?
FISA – signed, sealed and delivered: and even the Democratic candidate (Sen. Barack Obama, D.IL), who blasted the measure, put his John Hancock on it, voting ‘yes.’
The great abolitionist (and women’s right supporter), Frederick Douglass, supported Abraham Lincoln, yet that didn’t stop him from protesting against him, when he moved too slowly, or not at all. Reading his criticisms are still biting, even though over a century has passed. And yet, his teaching remains just as relevant, for Douglass said, "Power concedes nothing without demand."
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