America Never Was America to Me

And of course, it was a shell game. A protection racket of the highest order. So convinced were you that you were powerless that you surrendered your spirits to these jackals. To Krauthammer, an American conservative born in Uruguay. To a President willing to let a Canadian carpetbagger write those three words — Axis of Evil — that he will not outlive. Bush as cover for machinations so obvious that they cry out to be named.

But no one can name them in polite society. Look how they got Scott Ritter, planting barrettes and N-Sync compact discs in the front seat of his vehicle, practically. Was it a sixteen-year-old at the Home of the Whopper, or a taunting nymphet under the golden arches? Those Happy Meals seem like unhappy affairs now, huh? No longer can Mr. Ritter appear on MSNBC without the danger of having ACCUSED PEDOPHILE appear under his name.

Ritter’s predilections — whether he holds them or not — have no bearing on his arguments. But that doesn’t matter. One of the most suspicious phenomena of 2002 actually was the amount of play given to Ritter and his positions. He was portrayed as a serious, high-profile critic of US invasion of Iraq at a time when so much of the media seemed devoted to advancing the idea that no criticism of US action mattered. Now it’s clear why. There was dirt on Ritter, and that dirt was a matter of common knowledge in certain circles. Ritter got a run of token offense in, raging against the war machine, serving as our proxy. A rock-ribbed, square-jawed ex-Marine. And look at him now. I mean, if you can find him. Don’t expect Phil Donahue to have him back on the show anytime soon to lay the smack down on Ken Adelman. No sir, seems Mr. Ritter has problems of his own now.

And, to think, there were those who wanted him to run a primary challenge against W in 2004. Never has a Whopper tasted so much like decayed flesh.

Many things are common knowledge about the wars on tap for 2003 and beyond. They will probably be about oil, either the direct control of the commodity itself or simply the ability to fix its price. The defense of Israel is about as important as the defense of the US itself. Charges that Saddam Hussein makes that actions against his country are part of a Zionist conspiracy must be discounted, as Hussein is an evil man who gasses his own people, and who holds political prisoners. Since only about one in every 34 Americans is entrapped by the criminal justice apparatus, it is clear to everyone in the world that the US leadership is radically different than that of Saddam Hussein. No one-party state here!

Since everything in the last paragraph is “known”, perhaps we should consider alternative interpretations as to why the US plans multi-front wars for the foreseeable future. Take what Shelton Hull has to say about the increasingly perilous condition of the US economy:

The nation’s economy. . . assailed by forces both internal (like crooked CFOs) and external (like organized Islamic banking which only does business with those adhering to shari’a law). The dollar’s main opponents for what amounts to home-field advantage in the grand game of international finance are the Euro and gold. Whomever has control of whatever the main “settlement currency” is at any moment can screw with the entire world economy through simple internal manipulation, which isn’t nearly as bad for the home team as the visitors. But now more Islamic nations are beginning to peg their currencies to gold, a commodity which they have massive supplies of. Upward spikes like we’ve seen in 2002 (25%) heighten the disparity between what their money buys them from us and the reciprocal, which is a big problem because we want to control them. Control needs ontrol to control, and it starts with the money supply.

The chickens, coming home to roost. Or better still, the bill collectors at the door and ringing your phone while you try to sleep. Since the mid 1930’s, there has been a concentrated campaign underway to bamboozle the American body politic. To convince them that men so far from their home bases have love for anything but their own power, that there is wisdom in allowing a Kissinger or a Martin Indyk to have any say-so in American foreign policy decisions. To make them believe that the military-industrial complex could somehow pull off the loaves and fishes miracle.

Sure, once upon a time there were loaves and there were fishes. The reward for establishing the US military occupation and control of Europe that has existed since 1945 was the GI Bill, and the Greatest Generation ? got over more than any generation since. But the free food was no longer quite so forthcoming after stalemate actions in Korea and Vietnam. The US government realized that it could never fully subjugate a people quite so well as its own. Its tired, its poor, its debtor prison white trash, its drunken Injuns, its Irish travelers, its refugees of all hues, all crying, all damned. And so that government turned its guns on the people who supposedly ran it.

Lose Vietnam, get a War on Drugs that exists only as an end in itself, a police action every bit as disgusting as what the IDF does to the Palestinians. Your car gets flashlight searched during a purportedly random seatbelt check. Get out of your car and spread ’em. You’re not from around here, are you boy? What’s in that bag on the front seat?

Lose Vietnam, get a bunch of corporate liberals, gussied-up corpses with eighty dollar haircuts. All of these Democrats feel the need to run their own campaigns for the Presidency. Lieberman pimped his on the Israeli Home Shopping Network, practically. But no need for divisive language here, because they all found common ground just this week. At the behest of NARAL, six Democratic candidates for the 2004 Presidential nomination found themselves extolling the wisdom undergirding Roe V Wade. Fitting, that Sharpton, Gephardt, Holy Joe, and all the rest could come together to see that the state protects the right to commit preemptive infanticide. And they say the Democrats lack a cohesive message.

ANTHONY GANCARSKI, author of Unfortunate Incidents [Diversity Inc, 2001], welcomes comments at Anthony.Gancarski@attbi.com. Rumors that he is considering a bid for the US House in 2004 cannot be addressed at this time.

 

ANTHONY GANCARSKI is a regular CounterPunch columnist. He can be reached at Anthony.Gancarski@attbi.com