For those content with living superficial lives, perhaps not much has changed in America. American Idol is going strong; Paris, Lindsay and Britney continue to distract and amuse; sports mania roars on unabated with our games having not missed a beat; most people can still afford to fill up their SUVs; there is still food in the grocery stores; our televisions continue to mollify, mislead, and sedate; we still have ‘the right to vote’ though most people don’t bother and our votes are arguably meaningless these days anyway; most of us don’t personally know anyone whose children have been killed by American bombs, or who have been tortured by US troops or allies, or kidnapped by CIA agents, or who are being held incommunicado in secret prisons around the world without any rights at all...all in the name of the United States of America and the American people.
It is still possible to live in America while ignoring the reality of it. Sadly, far too many people do.
That half or more Americans think Iraq was involved in the 9/11 attack -- perhaps the most media-covered event in our history -- stands as a horrific indictment of U.S. media today. Such levels of ignorance can't be found in other countries.
Americans who are fundamentally misinformed about 9/11 provide the bulk of those tallied in polls as supporting Bush and the Iraq war. Subtract them from polls and Bush is an unpopular president -- widely seen as having accomplished a bait and switch, redirecting U.S. anger and vengeance toward a country that did not attack us.
Bush and Iraq: Mass Media, Mass Ignorance
Many if not most Americans don’t have a clue as to what all has been lost by passage of the Orwellian ‘Patriot Act’, the Military Commissions Act, or by the Bush administration’s naked grab for Executive power, the underhanded use of Presidential ‘signing statements’, or by the Democrats’ craven capitulation to the 28% President.
Most people don’t have any idea how many billions of taxpayer dollars have been stolen, misappropriated, or carelessly pissed away. It is not commonly understood what a free ride corporations and the super rich have received at the expense of all the rest of us, or how many Americans have been put out of work or condemned to perpetual underemployment by outsourcing or the flagrant abuse of the various non-immigrant visa programs such as H1-B.
You’d have a tough time convincing most folks that all these wars are unnecessary, that terrorism is only a minor threat and was mostly our fault to begin with, or that tyranny looms large in our present and our future. The subversion of American democracy, the perversion of American principles, and the economic enslavement of the poor and middleclass are lost on the masses. With the collusion of the MSM and the Democrats (many of them if not most), the nefarious criminal neocons have seized control of our country in a hostile takeover and have kept it under the radar of average citizens. It has been a brilliant but heartbreaking feat, a stunning coup d’etat, and a devastating loss to us all.
Never has there been an administration so disciplined in secrecy, so precisely in lockstep in keeping information from the people at large and – in defiance of the Constitution – from their representatives in Congress. Never has the so powerful a media oligopoly – the word is Barry Diller’s, not mine – been so unabashed in reaching like Caesar for still more wealth and power. Never have hand and glove fitted together so comfortably to manipulate free political debate, sow contempt for the idea of government itself, and trivialize the people’s need to know. When the journalist-historian Richard Reeves was once asked by a college student to define "real news", he answered: "The news you and I need to keep our freedoms." When journalism throws in with power that’s the first news marched by censors to the guillotine. The greatest moments in the history of the press came not when journalists made common cause with the state but when they stood fearlessly independent of it.
Bill Moyers’ Keynote Address to the National Conference on Media Reform
It turns out that Hillary, for all her faults, was right about the vast rightwing conspiracy. If anything, she vastly underestimated it. Ironically, I would now lump her in with the Democratic Bush enablers. She and Bill got too comfortable with wealth and power it seems. They have tragically lost touch with the rest of us.
So between the clueless, the complicit and the corrupt we have all been sold down the river. Normally we would look to the Democrats to help us in such circumstances - normally.
Where are the Democrats?
Wherever they are, they should be feeling the shame of their inaction and their collusion at this point. Even rightwingers are now raising the alarm and calling for corrective action.
Ex-Nixon Aide John Dean Tells Bill Moyers that Bush Should Be Impeached
Tonight on NOW with Bill Moyers , former counsel to President Nixon John Dean tells Bill Moyers that he believes the Bush Administration's secrecy and deception over the war with Iraq should result in impeachment.
"Clearly, it is an impeachable offense," he says. "I think the case is overwhelming that these people presented false information to the Congress and to the American people."
It is Dean's first television interview about his new book Worse than Watergate: The Secret Presidency of George W. Bush.
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And a former Bush insider, Victor Gold is raising the alarm now too.
Victor Gold is a veteran GOP campaign operative who worked closely with George H.W. Bush on his presidential campaign and also co-wrote his autobiography. He was also tasked with writing the profiles for Dick and Lynn Cheney for the official Inauguration program in 2001.
In his new book, Invasion of the Party Snatchers: How the Neo-Cons and Holy Rollers Destroyed the GOP, Gold slams the current administration and exposes their zeal for creating a pretext for a war that was planned many years in advance.
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Just recently we heard from Former associate editor of the Wall Street Journal and former Assistant Secretary of the US Treasury Dr. Paul Craig Roberts.
Paul Craig Roberts said that the US government is in the hands of dangerous psychopaths who are a disgrace to the human race and who should be arrested as war criminals and turned over to the Hague.
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Former associate editor of the Wall Street Journal and former Assistant Secretary of the US Treasury Dr. Paul Craig Roberts expressed his dire warning that the US government has fallen into the hands of Neo-Con psychopaths.
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Roberts went further than he has ever gone before in stating that the Neo-Cons were worse than Hitler and Stalin because they publicly embrace torture and pre-emptive war, something that past despots at least tried to hide.
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Dr. Roberts also correctly states that Bush\Cheney are more evil than Hitler\Stalin and that the followers of the NEO-CONS have a mentality that is "like that of the brown shirts that followed Hitler".
Tip of the hat to redstatehatemonitor for this excellent diary, Bush should be tried as a war criminal after impeachment says former Reagan official
Dangerous psychopaths who are a disgrace to the human race...couldn’t have said it better myself.
And then we have this from conservative Republican Lee Iacocca, ex-CEO of Chrysler.
Am I the only guy in this country who's fed up with what's happening? Where the hell is our outrage? We should be screaming bloody murder. We've got a gang of clueless bozos steering our ship of state right over a cliff, we've got corporate gangsters stealing us blind, and we can't even clean up after a hurricane much less build a hybrid car. But instead of getting mad, everyone sits around and nods their heads when the politicians say, "Stay the course."
Stay the course? You've got to be kidding. This is America, not the damned Titanic. I'll give you a sound bite: Throw the bums out!
You might think I'm getting senile, that I've gone off my rocker, and maybe I have. But someone has to speak up. I hardly recognize this country anymore. The President of the United States is given a free pass to ignore the Constitution, tap our phones, and lead us to war on a pack of lies. Congress responds to record deficits by passing a huge tax cut for the wealthy (thanks, but I don't need it). The most famous business leaders are not the innovators but the guys in handcuffs. While we're fiddling in Iraq, the Middle East is burning and nobody seems to know what to do. And the press is waving pom-poms instead of asking hard questions. That's not the promise of America my parents and yours traveled across the ocean for. I've had enough. How about you?
I'll go a step further. You can't call yourself a patriot if you're not outraged. This is a fight I'm ready and willing to have.
~ Lee Iacocca
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I too have had enough Mr. Iacocca! And I absolutely agree that, "You can't call yourself a patriot if you're not outraged."
Where is the outrage? Where are the Democrats? And where are all these apologists and enablers coming from? (I acknowledge that some of them may be innocently misguided.)
It is my considered opinion that to argue against impeachment at this point in history, innocently or not, is to argue against freedom and democracy for America and amounts to an implicit endorsement of tyranny.
America needs de-Nazification, or so says our friend George Soros.
Right on George! I, for one, couldn’t agree more.
If we fail to impeach and prosecute these criminal thugs, we will fail our nation, each other, and the world – and it will be a catastrophic failure from which we will never recover and an unspeakable tragedy for all humankind.
I urge you to join the impeachment movement today and to do everything you possibly can to make it happen ASAP!
I further urge you to boycott Democratic fundraisers until they wake TF up and do the right thing.
Send your cards and letters demanding impeachment to:
Chairman John Conyers
House Judiciary Committee
2138 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
202.225.3951
Madame Speaker Pelosi
Office of the Speaker
H-232, US Capitol
Washington, DC 20515
202.225.0100
Impeachment mail should be sent to Conyers and Pelosi, in their respective official House capacities.