I've been reading a lot these past few days about Ron Suskind's book 'The Way of the World' and the death of Bruce Ivins, the bio-terror expert who worked for the Defense Dept. Thinking about the ramifications of both stories is enough to give someone a headache.
What's certainly true is that here we have more of the same old thing and whether we're talking about the Downing St Memo or Stephen Hatfill who just won a lawsuit against the FBI it matters little if the media continues to play these revelations as though they're purely partisan issues and therefore not seriously worthy of investigation.
There is a crudity to the machinations of the current regime that make it all too plausible that the White House (and I don't mean GW) really did forge a backdated letter in 2003 that would incriminate Saddam Hussein as having masterminded 9/11 AND having a nuclear weapons program. How convenient.
Next we have the alleged suicide of Bruce Ivins who, while under 24 hour surveillance in a mental hospital, somehow managed to get hold of enough drugs to kill himself. One can only imagine the conversation, 'Where is he now, Bob?' 'Well, he just came out of the pharmacy again but he looks okay to me'. The problem here is that the man is dead and there will never be a trial.
I can't help but think that nothing short of having live television coverage of George Bush and Dick Cheney molesting babies on the White House lawn would call down enough anger that an impeachment hearing would be demanded nationally. I'm afraid even that would be greeted by the talking heads as an opportunity for digression - 'We haven't heard the babies side of it yet, Jack, and we might just have to wait a few years until they learn to talk.' 'Why that's right, Bimbette. Let's get the famous child psychologist Dr. Jerkoff on the screen right after these messages from our sponsors'.
It's all broken.
(drawing by Aubrey Beardsley)
Aubrey Beardsley for president. America needs to have a decadence with more flair.
ReplyDeleteYou are, sadly, right. All these transgressions and crimes and thuggery are always viewed through the lens of partisanship. The Republicans fuel that by marching lockstep like Nazis - forgive me, Godwin! - behind their lunatic lobbyist paymasters, which the media gleefully latches on to because black/white, A vs. B is so much easier to air than the truth.
"Hey, this Ivins sure is a deranged nutball."
"You're right, plus he has all that access to anthrax."
"The other guy did it?"
"Yeah."
"What if it wasn't him?"
"We just won't do anything for seven years."
"Sounds like a plan!"
It truly is like living in bizarro world lately.
ReplyDeleteI guess one way to stay in power is to keep people so utterly unstable, they never quite know what you might do next.
Fear rules. Literally.
it's arrogance on the part of the white house. and its scary the american people let it happen. hopefully, the next president will be mindful of this beautiful country and its responsibility to freedom and fairness.
ReplyDeleteIt is incredulous to non Americans that the current administration has gotten away with so many things..but, as I'm 44 now I remember growing up as a teen that it was 'known' how biased and 'unjournalistic' the American media was. In Europe, you have the range from the apologists to the hard hitting media that gets read by more than just a few and the notion that a journalist would not be allowed access if she/he asked too many hard question would be unthinkable..it would be considered an admission of guilt of sorts..
ReplyDeleteIngrid
The list of transgressions committed by this administration is overwhelming; and yes, we do assassinate people. What really upsets me though, is that in general, as a nation, we are too fat, sassy and comfortable to really DO anything about it.
ReplyDeleteYes, comfortable, despite mortgage and banking woes; despite horrific fuel costs; despite rising food costs; despite staggering toward bankruptcy over health care costs; despite a foriegn (illegal) war or six.
Comfortable because we have our fast food, our "reality" tee-vee, our gossip rags which tell us every time the Cruise spawn burps or whether the newest addition to the Brangelina brood has poopy diapers.
We are numb. Numb is hard to change. It's a tragedy, but there you are.
randal - 'lunatic lobbyist paymasters'.. You got that right and it appears to me they're the most motivated and mobilized labor group in the country. 30,000 of them last time I saw a number quoted.
ReplyDeletedcup - 'We make our own reality and by the time you guys catch up we've changed it again.' That's a paraphrase of a statement made to Suskind 5-6 years ago by an anonymous member of Cheney's staff.
seraphine - It would be nice but I'm not going to hold my breath. It's almost like something has been set in motion that must play itself out.
ingrid - Being a non-American myself even though I've now spent half my life here I couldn't agree with you more.
divajood - What they've managed to do is develop the perfect carrot and stick system but the problem is the stick has got bigger and the carrot smaller in recent years. I wonder when we'll reach the tipping point. The other problem is that the country is so big you can't physically gather a large enough proportion in any one place to make a meaningful display.. and if a million people show up in DC to protest the media says there may have been 10 thousand and ignores them anyway.
susan, please forgive me for getting around to this post so late. You raise an excellent point about Bruce Ivins, made all the more poignant by the fact that (unknown to most of us, I'm sure) that he was under 24-hour surveillance. You've probably heard of the age-old adage "dead men don't tell tales." Count this among the many examples of living proof. It pains me to think of how inept most of the members of this Congress has been.
ReplyDeletespartacus - I'm especially irritated by the fact that every major government agency has been eviscerated by the current regime. What used to be non-partisan departments that operated with certain legal ground rules no matter what party was in power are currently no more to be trusted than the young Republicans who went to the Green Zone to reorganize the Iraqi stock market. We know how well that worked out.
ReplyDeleteWhat are you, anti-baby? Anti-family? Anti-VALUES? You heathen! Your opinion doesn't count because you're a fruity liberal.
ReplyDelete(sarcasm turned OFF now)
scarlet - Thanks for giving me a hint of troll. You take such good care of yours :-)
ReplyDelete