Wars
of the Laptop Bombers
Today's
Stories
January 26,
2005
Toni Solo
The
US and Latin America: a Not-So-Magical Reality
Eric Hobsbawm
Delusions
About Democracy
Scott Fleming
In Good Conscience: an Interview with Concientious Objector Aidan
Delgado
Alexander Cockburn
The CIA's New Campus Spies
January 25,
2005
Brian Cloughley
Iraq
as Disneyland
Mike Roselle
Satan is My Co-Pilot
Josh Frank
/ Merlin Chowkwanyun
The War on Civil Liberties
John Chuckman
Freedom on Steroids
Paul Craig
Roberts
A
Party Without Virtue
Dr. Teresa
Whitehurst
The
Intolerance of Christian Conservatives
James Petras
The
US / Colombia Plot Against Venezuela
Website of the Day
Lowbaggers for the Environment
January 24,
2005
Fred Gardner
Last
Monologue in Burbank
Lori Berenson
On the Politicization of My Case
Uri Avnery
King
George
January 22
/ 23, 2005
Jennifer Van
Bergen / Ray Del Papa
Nuclear
Incident in Montana
Alexander Cockburn
Prince
Harry's Travails
Jeffrey St. Clair
The Company That Runs the Empire: Lockheed and Loaded
Stan Goff
The Spectacle
Saul Landau
Nothing Succeeds Like Failure
Gary Leupp
Official Madness and the Coming War on Iran
Fred Gardner
Is GW Getting the Runaround?
Phil Gasper
Clemency Denied: the Politics of Death in California
Stanley Heller
A Kill-Happy Government: Connecticut Chooses Death
Greg Moses
The Heart of Texas: an Inauguration Day Betrayal on Civil Rights
Justin Taylor
The Folk-Histories of John Ross
Daniel Burton-Rose
One China; Many Problems
Elaine Cassel
Try a Little Tyranny: Questions While Watching the Inaugural
Mike Whitney
Failing Upwards: the Rise of Michael Chertoff
Mark L. Berenson
My Daughter Has Been Wrongly Imprisoned
Christopher
Brauchli
It Doesn't Compute: a $170 Million Mistake
Gilad Atzmon
Zionism and Other Marginal Thoughts
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Day of the Rats
Mark Donham
The Secret Messages of Rahm Emmanuel
Ben Tripp
Adventures in Online Dating
Walter Brasch
Hollywood's Patriots: Soulless Kooks, Mr. Bush?
Poets' Basement
Wuest, Landau, Ford, Albert & Drum
January 21,
2005
Dave Lindorff
A
Great American Journalist:
John L. Hess (1917-2005)
Sharon Smith
The
Anti-War Movement and the Iraqi Resistance
Don Santina
Baseball, Racism and Steroid Hysteria
Ron Jacobs
Locked Out and Pissed Off: Protesting the Bush Inauguration
Kurt Nimmo
The Problem with Mike Ruppert
Don Monkerud
Once They Were Cults: Bush's Faith-Based Social Services
Alan Farago
Swimming Home from the Galapagos
Derek Seidman
An
Interview with Army Medic and Anti-War Activist Patrick Resta
Read How the
Press & the CIA
Killed Gary Webb's Career
January 20,
2005
Paul Craig
Roberts
Dying
for Sycophants
William Cook
The
Bush Inauguration: A Mock Epic Fertility Rite
Joshua Frank
The Democrats and Iran: Look Who's Backing Bush's Next
Eric Ruder
Why Andres Raya Snapped: Another Casualty of Bush's War
Mike Whitney
Coronation in a Garrison State
Robert Jensen
A Citizens Oath of Office
Peter Rost
Bush Report on Drug Imports: Good Data, Bad Conclusions
David Underhill
Is It Torture Yet?: the Eclectic Fool Aid Torture Test
James Reiss
Adieu, Colin Powell: Pea Soup in Foggy Bottom
CounterPunch
Staff
Voices
from Abu Ghraib: the Injured Party
January 19,
2005
Marta Russell
Social
Security Privatization & Disability: 8 Million at Risk
Mike Ferner
Marines
Stretching Movement: Protesting Urban Warfare in Toledo
Nancy Oden
The
Nuremberg Principles, Iraq and Torture
Tony Paterson
A Catalogue of British Abuses in Iraq
Dave Lindorff
Bush's Divide-and-Conquer Plan to Destroy Social Security
Doug Giebel
BS and CBS: When 60 Minutes Helped Promote WMD Fantasies
Alexander Cockburn
Will
Bush Quit Iraq?
January 18,
2005
Paul Craig
Roberts
How
Americans Were Seduced by War: Empire and Militant Christianity
Jennifer Van
Bergen
Federal
Judge: Abu Ghraib Abuses Result of Decision to Ignore Geneva
Conventions
Douglas Lummis
It's a No Brainer; Send Graner: a Rap for Our Time
Ron Jacobs
Syria Back in the Crosshairs?
Seth DeLong
Enter the Dragon: Will Washington Tolerate a Venezuelan-Chinese
Oil Pact?
Lance Selfa
Stolen Election?: Most Democrats Didn't Even Bother to Inquire
Paul D. Johnson
Mystery Meat: a Right-to-Know About Food Origins
Elisa Salasin
An Open Letter to Jenna Bush, Future Teacher
January 17,
2005
Heather Gray
Misconceptions
About King's Methods for Social Change
Robert Fisk
Hotel Room Journalism: the US Press in Iraq
Dave Lindorff
What the NYT Death Chart Omitted: Civilians Slaughtered by US
Military
Jason Leopold
Sam Bodman's Smokestacks: Bush's Choice for Energy Czar is One
of Texas's Worst Polluters
Gary Leupp
A Message from the Iraqi Resistance
Douglas Valentine
An Act of State? the Execution of Martin Luther King
Harvey Arden
Welcome to Leavenworth: My First Encounter with Leonard Peltier
Greg Moses
King
and the Christian Left: Where Lip Service is Not an Option
January 15
/ 16, 2005
James Petras
The
Kidnapping of a Revolutionary
Robert Fisk
Flying Carpet Airlines: My Return to Baghdad
Ron Jacobs
Unfit for Military Service
Brian Cloughley
Smack Daddies of the Hindu Kush: Afghanistan's Drug Bonanza
Fred Gardner
The Allowable-Quantity Expert
Dr. Susan Block
The Counter-Inaugural Ball: Eros Day, 2005
John Ross
Zapatista Literary Llife
Suzan Mazur
Unspooking Frank Carlucci
M. Shahid Alam
America's New Civilizing Mission
Frederick B. Hudson
Jack Johnson's Real Opponent: "That I Was a Man"
Mike Whitney
Bush's Grand Plan: Incite Civil War in Iraq
Tom Crumpacker
A Constitutional Right to Travel to Cuba
Bob Burton
The Other Armstrong Williams Scandal
John Callender
La Conchita and the Indomitable 82-Year Old
Lila Rajiva
Christian Zionism
Saul Landau
An Imperial Portrait: a Visit to Hearst's Castle
Doug Soderstrom
A Touch of Evil: the Morality of Neoconservatism
Poets' Basement
Davies, Louise, Landau, Albert, Collins and Laymon
January 14,
2005
Robert Fisk
"The
Tent of Occupation"
Lee Sustar
Bush's Social Security Con Job
José
M. Tirado
The Christians I Know
Dave Zirin
The Legacy of Jack Johnson
Sheldon Rampton
Calling John Rendon: a True Tale of "Military Intelligence"
Tracy McLellan
Under the Influence
Yves Engler
The Dictatorship of Debt: the World Bank and Haiti
Tom Barry
Robert
Zoellick: a Bush Family Man
Website of
the Day
Ryan for the Nobel Prize?
January 13,
2005
Mark Chmiel
/ Andrew Wimmer
Hearts
and Minds, Revisited
Joe DeRaymond
The Salvador Option: Terror,
Elections and Democracy
Greg Moses
Every Hero a Killer?...Not
Dave Lindorff
The Great WMD Fraud: Time for an Accounting
Jorge Mariscal
Dr. Galarza v. Alberto Gonzales: Which Way for Latinos?
Christopher Brauchli
Gonzales and the Death Penalty: the Executioner Never Sleeps
Gary Leupp
"Fighting
for the Work of the Lord": Christian Fascism in America
January 12,
2005
Robert Fisk
Fear
Stalks Baghdad
Josh Frank
The
Farce of the DNC Contest
Jack Random
Casualties
of War: the Untold Stories
John Roosa
Aceh's Dual Disasters: the Tsunami and Military Rule
Carol Norris
In the Wake of the Tsunami
Mike Whitney
Pink Slips at CBS
Alan Farago
Can
the Everglades be Saved?
Paul Craig
Roberts
What's
Our Biggest Problem in Iraq...the Insurgency or Bush?
January 11,
2005
Tom Barry
The
US isn't "Stingy"; It's Strategic: Aid as a Weapon
of Foreign Policy
James Hodge
and Linda Cooper
Voice
of the Voiceless: Father Roy Bourgeois and the School of the
the Americas
Linda S. Heard
Farah Radio Break Down: Joseph Farah's Messages of Hate and Homophobia
Derrick O'Keefe
Electoral Gigolo?: Richard Gere and the Occupied Vote
Gila Svirsky
A Tale of Two Elections
Harry Browne
Irish
"Peace Process", RIP
January 10,
2005
Ramzy Baroud
Faith-Based
Disasters: Tsunami Aid and War Costs
Talli Nauman
Killing
Journalists: Mexico's War on a Free Press
Uri Avnery
Sharon's Monologue
Dave Lindorff
Tucker
Carlson's Idiot Wind
Dave Zirin
Randy
Moss's Moondance
Dave Silver
Left Illusions About the Democratic Party
Charles Demers
Plan Salvador for Iraq: Death Squads Come in Waves
William A.
Cook
Causes
and Consequences: Bush, Osama and Israel
January 8 /
9, 2005
Alexander Cockburn
Say,
Waiter, Where's the Blood in My Margarita Glass?
John H. Summers
Chomsky
and Academic History
Greg Moses
Getting Real About the Draft
Walter A. Davis
Bible Says: the Psychology of Christian Fundamentalism
Victor Kattan
The EU and Middle East Peace
John Bolender
The Plight of Iraq's Mandeans
Robert Fisk
The Politics of Lebanon
Fred Gardner
Situation NORML
Joe Bageant
The Politics of the Comfort Zone
Mickey Z.
I Want My DDT: Little Nicky Kristof Bugs Out
Ben Tripp
CounterClockwise Evolution
Ron Jacobs
Elvis and His Truck: Out on Highway 61
Saul Landau
Sex
and the Country
Rep. Cynthia McKinney
Time to End the Blackout
Ellen Cantarow
NPR's Distortions on Palestine
Richard Oxman
Bageantry Continued
Poets' Basement
Gaffney, Landau, Albert, Collins
January 7,
2005
Omar Barghouti
Slave
Sovereignty: Elections Under Occupation
Kent Paterson
The Framing of Felipe Arreaga: Another Mexican Environmentalist
Arrested
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Old
Vijay Merchant and the Tsunami
David Krieger
Cancel the Inauguration Parties
Gideon Levy
New Year, Old Story
Dave Lindorff
Ohio Protest: First Shot Fired by Congressional Progressives
Christopher
Brauchli
Privatizing the IRS
Roger Burbach
/ Paul Cantor
Bush,
the Pentagon and the Tsunami
January 6,
2005
Brian J. Foley
Gonzales:
Supporting Torture is not His Greatest Sin
Greg Moses
Boot
Up America!: Gen. Helmly's Memo Leaks New Bush Deal
Petras / Chomsky
An
Open Letter to Hugo Chavez
Alan Maass
The Decline of the Dollar
Dave Lindorff
Colin Powell's Selective Sense of Horror
Jenna Orkin
The EPA and a Dirty Bomb: 9/11's Disastrous Precedent
P. Sainath
The
Tsunami and India's Coastal Poor
January 5,
2005
Alan Farago
2004:
An Environmental Retrospective
Winslow T.
Wheeler
Oversight
Detected?: Sen. McCain and the Boeing Tanker Scam
Jean-Guy Allard
Gary Webb: a Cuban Perspective
Fred Gardner
Strutting, Smirking, As If The Mad Plan Was Working
David Swanson
Albert Parsons on the Gallows
Richard Oxman
The Joe Bageant Interview
Bruce Jackson
Death
on the Living Room Floor
January 4,
2005
Michael Ortiz
Hill
Mainlining
Apocalypse
Elaine Cassel
They
Say They Can Lock You Up for Life Without a Trial
Yoram Gat
The
Year in Torture
Martin Khor
Tragic
Tales and Urgent Tasks from the Tsunami Disaster
Gary Leupp
Death
and Life in the Andaman Islands
January 3,
2005
Ron Jacobs
The
War Hits Home
Dave Lindorff
Is
There a Single Senator Who Will Stand Up for Black Voters?
Mike Whitney
The Guantanamo Gulag
Joshua Frank
Greens and Republicans: Strange Bedfellows
Maria Tomchick
Playing Politics with Disaster Aid
Rhoda and Mark
Berenson
Our Daughter Lori: Another Year of Grave Injustice
David Swanson
The Media and the Ohio Recount
Kathleen Christison
Patronizing
the Palestinians
January 1 /
2, 2005
Gary Leupp
Earthquakes
and End Times, Past and Present
Rev. William
E. Alberts
On "Moral Values": Code Words for Emerging Authoritarian
Tendencies
M. Shahid Alam
Testing Free Speech in America
Stan Goff
A Period for Pedagogy
Brian Cloughley
Bush and the Tsunami: the Petty and the Petulant
Sylvia Tiwon
/ Ben Terrall
The Aftermath in Aceh
Ben Tripp
Requiem for 2004
Greg Moses
A Visible Future?
Steven Sherman
The 2004 Said Awards: Books Against Empire
Sean Donahue
The Erotics of Nonviolence
James T. Phillips
The Beast's Belly
David Krieger
When Will We Ever Learn
Poets' Basement
Soderstrom, Hamod, Louise and Albert
December 23,
2004
Chad Nagle
Report
from Kiev: Yushchenko's Not Quite Ready for Sainthood
David Smith-Ferri
The
Real UN Disgrace in Iraq
Bill Quigley
Death
Watch for Human Rights in Haiti
Mickey Z.
Crumbs
from Our Table
Christopher Brauchli
Merck's Merry X-mas
Greg Moses
When
No Law Means No Law
Alan Singer
An
Encounter with Sen. Schumer: a Very Dangerous Democrat
David Price
Social
Security Pump and Dump
Website of the Day
Gabbo Gets Laid
December 22,
2004
James Petras
An
Open Letter to Saramago: Nobel Laureate Suffers from a Bizarre
Historical Amnesia
Omar Barghouti
The Case for Boycotting Israel
Patrick Cockburn / Jeremy Redmond
They Were Waiting on Chicken Tenders When the Rounds Hit
Harry Browne
Northern Ireland: No Postcards from the Edge
Richard Oxman
On the Seventh Column
Kathleen Christison
Imagining
Palestine
Website of the Day
FBI Torture Memos
December 21,
2004
Greg Moses
The
New Zeus on the Block: Unplugging Al-Manar TV
Dave Lindorff
Losing
It in America: Bunker of the Skittish
Chad Nagle
The View from Donetsk
Dragon Pierces
Truth*
Concrete
Colossus vs. the River Dragon: Dislocation and Three Gorges Dam
Patrick Cockburn
"Things Always Get Worse"
Seth DeLong
Aiding Oppression in Haiti
Ahmad Faruqui
Pakistan and the 9/11 Commission's Report
Paul Craig
Roberts
America
Locked Up: a System of Injustice
Hot Stories
Alexander Cockburn
Behold,
the Head of a Neo-Con!
Subcomandante
Marcos
The
Death Train of the WTO
Norman Finkelstein
Hitchens
as Model Apostate
Steve Niva
Israel's
Assassination Policy: the Trigger for Suicide Bombings?
Dardagan,
Slobodo and Williams
CounterPunch Exclusive:
20,000 Wounded Iraqi Civilians
Steve
J.B.
Prison Bitch
Sheldon
Rampton and John Stauber
True Lies: the Use of Propaganda
in the Iraq War
Wendell
Berry
Small Destructions Add Up
CounterPunch
Wire
WMD: Who Said What When
Cindy
Corrie
A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter
I Can't Hear From
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
Click
Here for More Stories.
|
January 26, 2005
The Lost Ur-Version
Bush's
Second Inaugural Address
By
WILLIAM A. COOK
[Note on the text:
While roaming the Internet,
looking for a map that would guide me around Washington D.C.
during the Inaugural festivities, I came upon a blog that had
the following version of the PresidentÅfs Inaugural Address,
a version prepared apparently for delivery to the Skull and Bones
Society and invited guests who were major donors to the Bush
campaign; delivery took place after the January 20th Inauguration
where a shorter revised version was presented to the American
people. A careful reading of this document, found apparently
in the garbage cans outside the Skull and Bones edifice, will
attest to its faithfulness to the version delivered before the
cameras on Inaugural day, but reveals as well some disturbing
variations. I thought your readers might find it of interest
if not of curiosity.
Respectfully, William A. Cook]
On this day, prescribed by law, as is
true of the oath of office that I took the liberty to change,
and marked by ceremony costing 40 million dollars provided by
corporations that seek access to the President beyond that provided
to ordinary citizens, we celebrate the durable wisdom of our
Constitution, and recall the deep commitments that unite our
country, providing we forget the 79 years of slavery and 181
years of segregation that seemed divisive at the time. I am grateful
for the honor of this hour, mindful of the consequential times
in which we live, and determined to fulfill the oath that I have
sworn and you have witnessed, an oath that requires that I uphold
the principles upon which this nation was founded, principles
that unfortunately embraced a secular state providing only a
tolerance of religions and not, as I espouse, a Christian theocracy,
principles that respect the rights of individuals to determine
their own beliefs and governments not ones imposed by this nation,
a decided flaw in the thinking of our founders, and principles
that provide for freedom of speech and assembly among others,
all of which pose a threat to a government that must control
these freedoms if we are to control those who think differently
from us.
At this second gathering, our
duties are defined not by the words I use, words that have been
made fun of by my enemies thus casting aspersions on the Presidency
itself, but by the history we have seen together which, as all
of you now know, will mean more lies and deception, more illegal
wars, more amoral destruction of innocent human life, and more
corruption fostered in league with corporations that are profiting
from our war efforts and computer companies that provide us with
voting machines. For a half century, America defended our own
freedom by standing watch on distant borders, including the Mexican
border in 1846 when we fabricated a Mexican attack on our nation
in order to expand "freedom and democracy" to the land
we stole from Mexico, or when we falsely accused Spain of blowing
up the Maine giving us an excuse to create Guantanamo which,
you've noticed, is still in use ensuring freedom and democracy,
or when we lied about the attack in the Gulf of Tonkin to prevent
our enemies from gaining control over the oil in that region
while safeguarding freedom and democracy for those who supported
our efforts there, or, for that matter, when I lied about Iraq
having WMD and a connection to 9/11 as a means to bring freedom
and democracy to the mid-east in the same fashion as Israel has
brought freedom and democracy to the Palestinians. After the
shipwreck of communism came years of relative quiet when we had
no visible enemy to keep the coffers of our military industrial
complex humming, years of repose, years of sabbatical that required,
obviously, the creation of an enemy to give purpose to our government
and a false reason for our citizens to rally around the President
- and then there came a day of fire which provided the excuse
for the creation of an unending war, a war with no visible enemy,
no specific state or nation, a ghost-like mirage, a war against
an illusion that threatened America, a war against "Terror"
without addressing causes for that terror, only filling our people
with constant fear the better to ensure their freedom and democracy.
We have seen our vulnerability
and we have done our best to hide it through our lies and deception
by ignoring the causes for unrest against the United States -
and we have seen its deepest source, which we will never admit,
the extravagant abuse of natural resources and exploitation of
peoples around the world by this nationÅfs corporations
allowing our 5% of the world's population to wantonly waste the
limited resources that should be shared by all nations. For as
long as whole regions of the world simmer in resentment because
we use 40% to 60% of the world's resources and do nothing to
alter that reality, thus allowing the US to create cooperative
dictators who tyrannize their people on our behalf - tyrants
prone to ideologies that feed hatred and excuse murder like those
we support in Saudi Arabia and Israel - violence will gather,
and multiply in destructive power, and cross the most defended
borders, and raise a mortal threat to our corporate interests
that keep politicians like me in power. There is only one force
of history that can break the reign of hatred and resentment,
and expose the pretensions of tyrants, and reward the hopes of
the decent and tolerant, and that is the force of human freedom
asserted by the people as they move toward revolution against
our corporate government and replace it with a people's government,
a threat we obviously cannot tolerate.
We are led, by events and common
sense, to one conclusion:The survival of our corporate liberty
in this land increasingly depends on our success in planting
more and more US affiliated dictators of our brand of liberty
in other lands. The best hope for peace in our corporate world
is the expansion of Capitalistic freedom, meaning privatization
of all state resources in all countries so that they can become
the property of a few of us controlled through the IMF and the
WBO, as we've done through the exertions of Paul Bremer in Iraq,
and hope to achieve in Iran, North Korea, and Syria in the next
four years.
America's vital interests,
the continued expansion of our corporate power and the continued
belief by the people that outsourcing of their jobs is in their
best interests, are now one. From the day of our Founding, we
have proclaimed that every man and woman on this earth has rights,
and dignity, and matchless value, because they bear the image
of the Maker of Heaven and earth, and we have successfully imposed
that illusion on them with the unrelenting support of the myth
makers on TV and those in the pulpits of all the Zionist evangelical
churches who predict the coming of Armageddon.
Across the generations we have
proclaimed the imperative of self-government while denying it
to women for 135 years, and we have declared that no one is fit
to be a master, and no one deserves to be a slave as we proved
by fighting each other in a savage civil war in a vain effort
to keep that institution in place in Texas and throughout the
red neck states, and they still believe they govern themselves.
Advancing these ideals is the mission that created our Nation
and allowed us to ethnically cleanse the Native Americans from
their lands, steal northern Mexico from its rightful owners,
and provide us with precedent for invading Iraq and occupying
its land in the name of freedom and democracy. It is the honorable
achievement of our fathers, an achievement I intend to expand
upon in the coming years. Now it is the urgent requirement of
our corporations' security to have our people believe that the
poverty stricken nation of Iraq was a threat to us even though
they had nothing to do with 9/11, had no weapons of mass destruction,
and posed no threat to the US thus providing an opportunity for
America to safeguard Israel and control the energy sources in
Iraq and its neighbors for our own purposes; it is the calling
of our time.
So it is the policy of the
United States to seek and support the growth of global Capitalism
and institutions sympathetic to our interests in every nation
and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending true democracy
to ensure that corporate beneficence and wisdom controls the
world.
This is not primarily the task
of arms, though we will defend our corporate investments and
our friends by force of arms when necessary. Capitalistic freedom,
by its nature, must be chosen, and defended by citizens molded
to the purpose, and sustained by the rule of law, which we write
and legislate, pretending that all are protected including minorities,
indeed, all peoples of color. And when the soul of a nation finally
speaks, the institutions that arise may reflect customs and traditions
very different from our own, and this we must guard against lest
the founding principles of this nation be reasserted and turn
the people against us who rule. America will not impose its own
style of government on the unwilling, but we in corporate America
must impose our will on all nations. Our goal then is to mold
the voices of the people to express our voice, to attain our
understanding of freedom, and make them believe they have it
their way.
The great objective of ending
tyranny is the concentrated work of generations that creates
an illusion that it is opposed to it when in fact it creates
the means for tyranny to exist. The difficulty of the task is
no excuse for avoiding it. America's influence is not unlimited,
but fortunately for the oppressed, America's influence is considerable,
and we will abuse it confidently in Capitalistic freedom's cause.
My most solemn duty is to protect
the corporations that control this nation and their people against
further attacks and emerging threats. Some have unwisely chosen
to test my resolve, and have found it firm in supporting those
who support me and my administration.
We will persistently clarify
the choice before every ruler and every nation: The moral choice
between oppression, which is always wrong, unless done by this
administration, and freedom, which is eternally right, but hazardous
to Capitalistic enterprise, and, therefore, must be suppressed.
America will not pretend that jailed dissidents prefer their
chains, recognizing how difficult this is when we have unpatriotic
Americans releasing photos of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo, or that
women welcome humiliation and servitude, when Human Rights organizations
show what our corporations allow in the sweat shops of Mexico,
Indonesia, Cambodia, Vietnam, Malaysia, and China, or that any
human being aspires to live at the mercy of bullies, knowing
that we cannot keep the lid on our atrocities in places like
Fallujah.
We will encourage reform in
other governments by making clear that success in our relations
will require absolute control of their people so that our investments
can be stabilized and protected. America's belief in human dignity
will guide our policies on paper and through our talking heads
on TV regardless of how we behave in reality, yet rights must
be more than the grudging concessions of dictators, they must
be fabricated so that they are believable; they are secured by
apparent dissent and the participation of the governed. In the
long run, there is no justice without freedom as we and our Israeli
allies demonstrate in our extrajudicial killings, and there can
be no belief in human rights without a controlled press to make
it so.
Some, I know, have questioned
the global appeal of liberty, especially the kind that we offer
to the world - though this time in history, four decades defined
by the swiftest advance of Capitalistic freedom ever seen, is
an odd time for doubt, at least if we overlook the exploitation
of the poor, the failure of our privately owned health systems,
and the infliction of the worst civilian death toll in the history
of the planet. Americans, of all people, should never be surprised
by the power of our ideals. Eventually, the call of freedom comes
to every mind and every soul. We do not accept the existence
of permanent tyranny because we do not accept the possibility
of permanent slavery. Liberty will come to those who love it,
and this, my friends, is our only true threat in the near future.
Today, America speaks anew
to the peoples of the world: All who live in tyranny and hopelessness
can know: the United States will not ignore your oppression,
or excuse your oppressors, we will take their place or put those
who cooperate with us in place as we have done in Iraq and Palestine.
When you stand for our liberty, we will stand with you.
Capitalistic reformers facing
repression, prison, or exile can know: America sees you for who
you are: the future leaders of your free country under the military
protection of the US.
The rulers of outlaw regimes
can know that we still believe as Abraham Lincoln did: "Those
who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves; and,
under the rule of a just God, cannot long retain it." ItÅfs
comforting to know that Abe was talking about slavery in America,
not about the kind of economic slavery we impose around the world.
And since we are on a mission from God, His justice allows us
to impose this kind of slavery as part of His prophecy.
The leaders of governments
with long habits of control need to know as we do: To serve your
people you must learn to mold them. Start on this journey of
progress and justice, and America will walk at your side.
And all the corporate allies
of the United States can know: we honor your friendship, we rely
on your counsel, and we depend on your help. Division among free
Capitalistic nations is a primary goal of freedom's enemies.
The concerted effort of free nations to promote democracy is
a prelude to our corporate defeat.
Today, I also speak anew to
my fellow citizens: From all of you, I have asked patience in
the hard task of securing America, which you have granted in
good measure. Our country has accepted obligations that are difficult
to fulfill, and would be dishonorable to abandon and detrimental
to our corporate goals. Yet because we have acted in the great
liberating tradition of this nation, tens of millions have achieved
their freedom because we have said itÅfs so, as witness
the free Afghans, Iraqis, and Palestinians. And as hope kindles
hope, millions more will find it. By our efforts, we have lit
a fire as well - a fire in the minds of men. It warms those of
us who feel its power, it burns those who fight its progress,
and one day this controlled fire of Capitalistic freedom will
reach the darkest corners of our world.
A few Americans have accepted
the hardest duties in this cause - in the secret work of intelligence
and diplomacy ...the amoral work of helping raise up free governments
... the dangerous and necessary work of fighting our enemies.
Some have shown their devotion to our country in deaths that
honored their whole lives - and we will always honor their names
and their sacrifice.
All Americans have witnessed
this idealism, and some for the first time. I ask our youngest
citizens to believe the evidence not of your eyes, that told
you the Iraqis would welcome your efforts with flowers strewn
in the streets when in fact they want you out of their land,
but to believe in the words of your President that you are liberators
making safe the path of Capitalism that will provide the bread
of Heaven in this life. You have seen duty and allegiance in
the determined faces of our soldiers. You have seen that life
is fragile, and evil is real, and evil, not courage, triumphs.
Make the choice to serve in a cause larger than your wants, larger
than yourself - and in your days you will add not just to the
wealth of our country, certainly not to your own wealth as soldiers
fighting on behalf of our corporations, but to its consumer based
character.
America has need of idealism
and courage, because we have need of unthinking robots to bear
our weapons - the unfinished work of American free enterprise.
In a world moving toward Capitalistic liberty, we are determined
to show the meaning and promise of selfishness and consumer pride.
In America's ideal of freedom,
citizens find dignity and security in economic credit dependence,
instead of laboring on the edge of subsistence as a quarter of
our population does this very day . This is not the broader definition
of liberty that motivated the Homestead Act, the Social Security
Act, and the G.I. Bill of Rights. It is new and now we will extend
this vision by reforming great institutions to serve the needs
of our time. To give every American a stake in the promise and
future of our country, we will bring the highest standards to
our schools forcing the poorest out, and build an ownership society
for the few at the expense of the many. We will widen the ownership
of homes and businesses, retirement savings and health insurance
- preparing our people for the challenges of life in a free society
where greedy financial planners can hold out the promise of great
wealth while they steal the meager savings of the uninitiated.
By making every citizen an agent of his or her own destiny, we
will make our fellow Americans victims of predators that will
cheat them of economic freedom leaving them in want and fear,
while making the "haves" more prosperous and just and
equal.
In America's ideal of freedom,
the public interest depends on private character - on integrity,
and tolerance toward others, and the rule of conscience in our
own lives. Self-government relies, in the end, on the governing
of the self. That can be detrimental to our ends. That edifice
of character is built in families (which we have effectively
destroyed by forcing both parents to work in order to survive),
supported by communities with standards (which we have effectively
destroyed by creating divided communities), and sustained in
our national life by the truths of Sinai (which we exploit in
the products we produce that lure our people into sin), the Sermon
on the Mount (which we have downgraded since it encourages socialistic
programs), the words of the Koran (which we do not believe),
and the varied faiths of our people (which we do not tolerate).
Americans move forward in every generation by reaffirming all
that is good and true that came before, blind to the reality
that created a holocaust of Native Americans, the enslavement
of 1/5th of our population, discrimination against women, acceptance
of poverty, and, worse yet, acceptance of civilian death as a
"product" of war - ideals of justice and conduct that
are the same yesterday, today, and forever as we continue to
feast on these idealistic, yet totally illusion based beliefs.
In America's ideal of freedom,
the exercise of rights is ennobled by service, and mercy, and
a heart for the weak. Liberty for all does not mean independence
from one another. Our nation relies on men and women who look
after a neighbor and surround the lost with love. Americans,
at our best, value the life we see in one another, and must always
remember that even the unwanted have worth. And our country must
abandon all the habits of racism, because we cannot carry the
message of freedom and the baggage of bigotry at the same time.
We must encourage these ideals so that it appears that we want
to help, but discourage the belief that it is governmentÅfs
responsibility to cure them. Belief in the individual, belief
in an ownership society means "take care of yourself,"
donÅft be a burden on others. If we are to be strong, the
weak must be weeded out.
From the perspective of a single
day, including this day of dedication, the issues and questions
before our country are many. From the viewpoint of centuries,
the questions that come to us are narrowed and few. Did our generation
advance the cause of freedom? And did our character bring credit
to that cause? We need only look at our "democratically"
imposed dictator in Afghanistan, our puppet in Iraq, our newly
elected (with the help of Israeli controlled checkpoints and
walls) obsequious servant to Sharon, the duly elected Palestinian
replacement for Arafat, our cooperative leaders in Jordan and
Egypt, to know that we have controlled the Åeadvance of
freedom," our kind of freedom with the type of characters
that will ensure the spread of free markets to better the condition
of all peoples to answer that question positively.These questions
that judge us also unite us, because Americans of every party
and background, Americans by choice and by birth, are bound to
one another in the cause of freedom as we let them define it.
We have known divisions, which must be healed to move forward
in great purposes - and I will strive in good faith to heal them
which will require your support in money and control of the media.
Yet those divisions do not define America. We felt the unity
and fellowship of our nation when freedom came under attack,
and our response came like a single hand over a single heart.
We, the chosen few, must determine how that heart beats, and
we must determine what unity and pride means in America - what
is good and what is evil - and who are the victims to be given
hope, and who will encounter our extrajudicial justice, and who
will be set free.
We go forward with complete
confidence in the eventual triumph of Capitalistic freedom. Not
because history runs on the wheels of inevitability; it is human
choices that move events. Not because we consider ourselves a
chosen nation but because we are the chosen that moves and chooses.
We have confidence because our freedom is the permanent hope
of mankind, the hunger in dark places, the longing of the soul.
When our Founders declared a new order of the ages; when soldiers
died in wave upon wave for a union based on liberty; when citizens
marched in peaceful outrage under the banner "Freedom Now"
- they were acting on an ancient hope that is meant to be fulfilled.
We canÅft let that hope rise again or it will threaten
our cause and all we have worked for. History has an ebb and
flow of justice, but history also has a visible direction, set
by liberty and the Author of Liberty, and that is fine as long
as we determine what that liberty is and who that Author is..
When the Declaration of Independence
was first read in public and the Liberty Bell was sounded in
celebration, a witness said, "It rang as if it meant something."
In our time it means something still. We on behalf of America,
in this young century, proclaim Capitalistic liberty throughout
all the world, and to all the inhabitants thereof. Renewed in
our strength - tested, but not weary - we are ready for the greatest
achievements in the history of freedom.
May God bless you, and may
He watch over our United States of America.
William Cook is a professor of English at the University
of La Verne in southern California. His new book, Psalms
for the 21st Century, was published by Mellen
Press. He can be reached at: cookb@ULV.EDU
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