An Indictment against the Mainstream Media (Reprise)

Beneath the Spin * Eric L. Wattree

An Indictment against the Mainstream Media (Reprise)

On September 15, 2002 - six months and four days prior to the Iraqi invasion - I published an article entitled "Would Bush's Saber Rattle as Loudly Against China?" in the Portland Independent Media Center (no one else would publish it at the time) that said the following:

Now that we've reached the anniversary of 9-11, I am consumed by one thought - in light of what I've seen over the past year I find myself much more afraid of Bush, Cheney, and Ashcroft than I am the Al Qaeda. While I understand that terrorists strike without warning to destroy life and property to promote their own agenda, it has become increasingly clear that Bush and his cohorts threaten to be even more destructive by attacking life, liberty, and the very foundation of this nation in the promotion of theirs.

Over the past year these conservative war mongers have been playing the American people like a fiddle. Now they want to sacrifice American lives for nothing more than their own political advantage. Just ask yourself, what does Saddam Hussain have to do with 9-11? Absolutely nothing. Evidence of that can be found in the fact that if Saddam had been involved in 9-11 the administration would have gone after him initially. So why is it suddenly so imperative that we invade Iraq now? I'll tell you why. Since Bush was unable to produce the head of Osama Bin Laden, he now needs another villain to take Bin Laden's place in order to keep his numbers up in the polls - and if that means having to sacrifice a few American lives and ignite even more terrorist activity on American soil in the process, so be it.

It is a well known political fact that the American people tend to rally around the president when the country's at war. That's why the Bush Administration fell all over themselves after 9-11 to declare "a war against terrorism." And the American people reacted just as planed - Bush's numbers immediately went up in the polls. But now with the mystery surrounding the fate of Osama Bin Laden, the administration has found itself without a war to sustain those numbers, so now they have to create one.

While I'm not prepared to say that the Bush Administration allowed 9-11 to take place, it is clear that the timing of the 9-11 tragedy was without a doubt the best thing that could ever happened to Bush's presidency. Bush was a lame duck the minute he was sworn in. It seems that as soon as Bush entered The Oval Office the stock market began to falter and the economy started to weaken. And whenever he spoke, the next day's news was not so much what he said, but whether or not he got through the speech without falling on his face. In addition, his big tax cut that was touted as the key to boosting the economy turned out to be a bust, and he was so inept in dealing with congress that a Republican senator changed parties costing Bush control of the senate. As a result, when 9-11 took place, it was embraced by conservatives more like it was a football rally than the sober occasion that it was - thus, all the flag waving, ceremonies, and strutting about.

But where was all that bluster prior to 9-11? ABC News reported on May 16th of this year that the Bush Administration acknowledged that U.S. Intelligence officials informed President Bush weeks before 9-11 that Osama Bin Laden's terrorists might try to hijack a plane. It was also reported that Bush privately alerted transportation officials and security agencies, but other than that, he simply sat on the information. The administration claims that the information they received was non-specific, but one would think that even if they couldn't determine exactly when and where the attack was going to take place, at the very least they could have warned the American people. If they had, maybe some of the people who died would have chosen not to fly - or possibly, chosen to leave their children behind. But no, this president who now claims to be so concerned with protecting our welfare that he feels compelled to launch an unprovoked attack against Iraq, was at that time more interested in the impact that warning us would have on the airline industry.

What the American people needs to understand is that the power elite in this country doesn't view the United States in the same way as its citizens. They see the United States as a huge corporation, with its various industries as its subsidiaries. They see American citizens, particularly the lower and middle class, as simply pawns to be cajoled and manipulated in whatever way is necessary to meet the goals of the corporation. Therefore, they didn't view the tragedy of 9-11 in the same patriotic way as the average American citizen. After the initial shock, they saw 9-11 in terms of dollars and cents. Ultimately, it was viewed as an assault on their corporate superstructure. Later they recognized that the incident could be used as a distraction for the American people, and still later, an opportunity to move on Middle Eastern oil interests.

So let there be no doubt, all of the flag waving, ceremonies, and patriotic speeches have nothing to do with 9-11; they are designed to whip the American people into such a frenzy that they're blinded to Bush's actual agenda. And that agenda includes the following.

1).Committing America (and American lives) to a war in order to get himself reelected.
2).Taking control of Iraqi oil fields to benefit his friends in big business.
3).Keeping the American voter distracted from considering the ramifications of the recent corporate scandals.
4).Keeping the American people from recognizing how inept he is as president.

The rest of the world sees Bush's agenda for what it is, and the American people would too if they'd stop waving their flags long enough to consider the flag's true meaning. The American flag represents freedom and justice, not trying to dictate who should lead other countries. It represents the open debate of issues, not intolerance to any and everyone who disagrees with your point of view. It represents the guarantee of personal freedom, not the suspension of the Bill of Rights. If the American people would just stop to consider these facts, it would become clear that even while Bush and his conservative cohorts are frantically waving our flag, they are simultaneously waging war against the very values that the flag and this great country represents.

These issues can, and will, be debated ad nauseam, but the American people need only ask themselves two questions to put all of the administration's nonsense into perspective. First, would the administration be so anxious to go to war if we were talking about China as opposed to Iraq? And secondly, do we think that invading Iraq will make us more, or less safe from terrorist attacks? If we answer those questions honestly, it becomes clear that the administration is being disingenuous at best.***

So what I'd like to know is this - if a shade tree journalist sitting up in his den in the heart of a Los Angeles ghetto could see what was going on, why couldn't the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, CNN and all of the other media networks; why couldn't Harvard, Yale, and all of the various and sundry Ph.D.s from America's great institutions of learning; and why couldn't the nation's so called "think tanks," all of the nation's political scientists, and the United States Congress figure it out?

The answer is, they had, but they simply turned their backs and allowed young patriotic Americans to march off to their deaths. The most irrefutable evidence of that? None of their children died. 

Now, in Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, New Jersey, Florida, etc., the corporate media, with notable exceptions, is turning a blind eye and allowing the same thing to happen again, but this time, to America as a whole.

God help us.


Eric L. Wattree
http://wattree.blogspot.com/
Ewattree@Gmail.com
Citizens Against Reckless Middle-Class Abuse (CARMA)

Religious bigotry: It's not that I hate everyone who doesn't look, think, and act like me - it's just that God does.

Sphere: Related Content

This Bears Repeating

Beneath the Spin * Eric L. Wattree

An Indictment against the Mainstream Media

I'd like to start by tipping my hat to Markos Moulitsas, founder and spiritual leader of the very popular website, Daily Kos, for setting that gasbag, Chris Matthews, straight. He also put Tom Tancredo in his place several weeks earlier, so I guess he's becoming something of a soft-spoken dragon slayer - What was wrong with pointing out that chicken hawk Tancredo claimed to be "too depressed" to fight for his country in Vietnam?

More recently - last week, in fact - Chris Matthews made the remark on his show, Hardball, that "I don't consider them [progressive bloggers] Democrats. I consider them Netroots. And if I see they vote in every election, or most elections, then I'll be worried. But I'm not sure they're regular, grown-up Democrats. I think a lot of these people are troublemakers who love to sit in the back seat and complain. They're not interested in governing this country. They never ran for office, they're not interested in working for someone in public office. They get their giggles out of sitting in the back seat and bitching."

So let's see, people who have never run for office, or are not interested in working for someone in public office are not grown-up Democrats. They're trouble makers who get their giggles out of sitting in the back seat bitching, and it worries him when he see them vote. What an arrogant and closed-minded, Washington beltway idiot. That pompus idiot casually sat there and wrote off most of America as children who bitch too much.

The irony is, the unmitigated arrogance of that statement is exactly what makes netroots and blogging sites like KOS and TPM so vitally important to America. Due to the many self-centered and closed-minded hacks like himself, the mainstream media has become all but irrelevant, and Moulitsas pointed that out, very adroitly, and much more diplomatically than I ever could have. He's the one who came off looking like an adult, responding to the immature and irresponsible rantings of a child.

Instead of indulging in insulting characterizations and name-calling (like I probably would have), Moulitsas, very calmly made his point through example. He pointed out that the following:

"In 2003, when Bush landed his plane in the aircraft carrier, and spoke in front of the banner that said, 'Mission Accomplished,' Chris Matthews had an entire show based on that event, and he said everybody knows that we won the war, except a few critics." Moulitsas went on to say, "Well, I was one of those few critics. People like me in the Netroots were some of those critics. And it turns out that we were right and the Beltway conventional wisdom was wrong. And once again, we're in a situation where people like Chris Matthews don't learn from these mistakes. They're trapped in this bubble and they think that they know better."

Bingo! That said it all, and he didn't raise his voice once. And he handled Tom Tancredo several weeks earlier with the very finesse. He literally ran Tancredo off the Ed Show, and again, without busting so much as a sweat bubble. The reason he doesn't have to raise his voice, is because he's confronting Washington hypocrisy with facts and courage - something that the mainstream media seems to have lost.

They've degenerated into cheerleaders with an unspoken agreement not to step outside the approved parameters of the status quo. Then Moulitsas is that guy who shows up at the dinner party with a crude but unyielding truth: "No, that's not a bad egg - somebody farted." That's who bloggers and are, and that's exactly what America needs.

On September 15, 2002–six months and four days prior to the Iraqi invasion--I published an article entitled "Would Bush's Saber Rattle as Loudly Against China?" in the Portland Independent Media Center (no one else would publish it at the time) that said the following:

"Would Bush's Saber Rattle as Loudly Against China?"

Now that we've reached the anniversary of 9-11, I am consumed by one thought--in light of what I've seen over the past year I find myself much more afraid of Bush, Cheney, and Ashcroft than I am the al-Qaeda. While I understand that terrorists strike without warning to destroy life and property to promote their own agenda, it has become increasingly clear that Bush and his cohorts threaten to be even more destructive by attacking life, liberty, and the very foundation of this nation in the promotion of theirs.

Over the past year these conservative war mongers have been playing the American people like a fiddle. Now they want to sacrifice American lives for nothing more than their own political advantage. Just ask yourself, what does Saddam Hussain have to do with 9-11? Absolutely nothing. Evidence of that can be found in the fact that if Saddam had been involved in 9-11 the administration would have gone after him initially. So why is it suddenly so imperative that we invade Iraq now? I'll tell you why. Since Bush was unable to produce the head of Osama Bin Laden, he now needs another villain to take Bin Laden's place in order to keep his numbers up in the polls-- and if that means having to sacrifice a few American lives and ignite even more terrorist activity on American soil in the process, so be it.

It is a well known political fact that the American people tend to rally around the president when the country's at war. That's why the Bush Administration fell all over themselves after 9-11 to declare "a war against terrorism." And the American people reacted just as planed-Bush's numbers immediately went up in the polls. But now with the mystery surrounding the fate of Osama Bin Laden, the administration has found itself without a war to sustain those numbers, so now they have to create one.

While I'm not prepared to say that the Bush Administration allowed 9-11 to take place, it is clear that the timing of the 9-11 tragedy was without a doubt the best thing that could ever happened to Bush's presidency. Bush was a lame duck the minute he was sworn in. It seems that as soon as Bush entered The Oval Office the stock market began to falter and the economy started to weaken. And whenever he spoke, the next day's news was not so much what he said, but whether or not he got through the speech without falling on his face. In addition, his big tax cut that was touted as the key to boosting the economy turned out to be a bust, and he was so inept in dealing with congress that a Republican senator changed parties costing Bush control of the senate. As a result, when 9-11 took place, it was embraced by conservatives more like it was a football rally than the sober occasion that it was--thus, all the flag waving, ceremonies, and strutting about.

But where was all that bluster prior to 9-11? ABC News reported on May 16th of this year that the Bush Administration acknowledged that U.S. Intelligence officials informed President Bush weeks before 9-11 that Osama Bin Laden's terrorists might try to hijack a plane. It was also reported that Bush privately alerted transportation officials and security agencies, but other than that, simply sat on the information. The administration claims that the information they received was non-specific, but one would think that even if they couldn't determine exactly when and where the attack was going to take place, at the very least they could have warned the American people. If they had, maybe some of the people who died would have chosen not to fly-or possibly, chosen to leave their children behind. But no, this president who now claims to be so concerned with protecting our welfare that he feels compelled to launch an unprovoked attack against Iraq, was at that time more interested in the impact that warning us would have on the airline industry.

What the American people needs to understand is that the power elite in this country doesn't view the United States in the same way as its citizens. They see the United States as a huge corporation, with its various industries as its subsidiaries. They see American citizens, particularly the lower and middle class, as simply pawns to be cajoled and manipulated in whatever way is necessary to meet the goals of the corporation. Therefore, they didn't view the tragedy of 9-11 in the same patriotic way as the average American citizen. After the initial shock, they saw 9-11 in terms of dollars and cents. Ultimately, it was viewed as an assault on their corporate superstructure. Later they recognized that the incident could be used as a distraction for the American people, and still later, an opportunity to move on Middle Eastern oil interests.

So let there be no doubt, all of the flag waving, ceremonies, and patriotic speeches have nothing to do with 9-11; they are designed to whip the American people into such a frenzy that they're blinded to Bush's actual agenda. And that agenda includes the following.

1).Committing America (and American lives) to a war in order to get himself re-elected.

2).Taking control of Iraqi oil fields to benefit his friends in big business.

3).Keeping the American voter distracted from considering the ramifications of the recent corporate scandals.

4).Keeping the American people from recognizing how inept he is as president.

The rest of the world sees Bush's agenda for what it is, and the American people would too if they'd stop waving their flags long enough to consider the flag's true meaning. The American flag represents freedom and justice, not trying to dictate who should lead other countries. It represents the open debate of issues, not intolerance to any and everyone who disagrees with your point of view. It represents the guarantee of personal freedom, not the suspension of the Bill of Rights. If the American people would just stop to consider these facts, it would become clear that even while Bush and his conservative cohorts are frantically waving our flag, they are simultaneously waging war against the very values that the flag and this great country represents.

These issues can, and will, be debated ad nauseam, but the American people need only ask themselves two questions to put all of the administration's nonsense into perspective. First, would the administration be so anxious to go to war if we were talking about China as opposed to Iraq? And secondly, do we think that invading Iraq will make us more, or less safe from terrorist attacks? If we answer those questions honestly, it becomes clear that the administration is being disingenuous at best.***

Where was the mainstream media?  If a shade tree journalist sitting up in his den in the heart of a Los Angeles ghetto could see what was going on, why couldn't the New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, CNN and all of the networks; Harvard, Yale, and all of the various and sundry Ph.D.s from America's great institutions of learning? Why couldn't the nation's think tanks, all of the nation's political scientists, and the United States Congress figure it out? The answer is, they had, then simply turned their backs and allowed our young people to march off to their deaths. The most irrefutable evidence of that? None of their children died.

Eric L. Wattree

wattree.blogspot.com

Religious bigotry: It's not that I hate everybody who doesn't look, think, and act like me - it's just that God does.

Sphere: Related Content

An Indictment against the Mainstream Media

Beneath the Spin * Eric L. Wattree An Indictment against the Mainstream Media . On September 15, 2002–six months and four days prior to the Iraqi invasion--I published an article entitled "Would Bush's Saber Rattle as Loudly Against China?"in the Portland Independent Media Center (no one else would publish it at the time) that said the following: . Now that we've reached the anniversary of 9-11, I am consumed by one thought--in light of what I've seen over the past year I find myself much more afraid of Bush, Cheney, and Ashcroft than I am the al-Qaeda. While I understand that terrorists strike without warning to destroy life and property to promote their own agenda, it has become increasingly clear that Bush and his cohorts threaten to be even more destructive by attacking life, liberty, and the very foundation of this nation in the promotion of theirs. . Over the past year these conservative war mongers have been playing the American people like a fiddle. Now they want to sacrifice American lives for nothing more than their own political advantage. Just ask yourself, what does Saddam Hussain have to do with 9-11? Absolutely nothing. Evidence of that can be found in the fact that if Saddam had been involved in 9-11 the administration would have gone after him initially. So why is it suddenly so imperative that we invade Iraq now? I'll tell you why. Since Bush was unable to produce the head of Osama Bin Laden, he now needs another villain to take Bin Laden's place in order to keep his numbers up in the polls-- and if that means having to sacrifice a few American lives and ignite even more terrorist activity on American soil in the process, so be it. . It is a well known political fact that the American people tend to rally around the president when the country's at war. That's why the Bush Administration fell all over themselves after 9-11 to declare "a war against terrorism." And the American people reacted just as planed-Bush's numbers immediately went up in the polls. But now with the mystery surrounding the fate of Osama Bin Laden, the administration has found itself without a war to sustain those numbers, so now they have to create one. . While I'm not prepared to say that the Bush Administration allowed 9-11 to take place, it is clear that the timing of the 9-11 tragedy was without a doubt the best thing that could ever happened to Bush's presidency. Bush was a lame duck the minute he was sworn in. It seems that as soon as Bush entered The Oval Office the stock market began to falter and the economy started to weaken. And whenever he spoke, the next day's news was not so much what he said, but whether or not he got through the speech without falling on his face. In addition, his big tax cut that was touted as the key to boosting the economy turned out to be a bust, and he was so inept in dealing with congress that a Republican senator changed parties costing Bush control of the senate. As a result, when 9-11 took place, it was embraced by conservatives more like it was a football rally than the sober occasion that it was--thus, all the flag waving, ceremonies, and strutting about. . But where was all that bluster prior to 9-11? ABC News reported on May 16th of this year that the Bush Administration acknowledged that U.S. Intelligence officials informed President Bush weeks before 9-11 that Osama Bin Laden's terrorists might try to hijack a plane. It was also reported that Bush privately alerted transportation officials and security agencies, but other than that, simply sat on the information. The administration claims that the information they received was non-specific, but one would think that even if they couldn't determine exactly when and where the attack was going to take place, at the very least they could have warned the American people. If they had, maybe some of the people who died would have chosen not to fly-or possibly, chosen to leave their children behind. But no, this president who now claims to be so concerned with protecting our welfare that he feels compelled to launch an unprovoked attack against Iraq, was at that time more interested in the impact that warning us would have on the airline industry. . What the American people needs to understand is that the power elite in this country doesn't view the United States in the same way as its citizens. They see the United States as a huge corporation, with its various industries as its subsidiaries. They see American citizens, particularly the lower and middle class, as simply pawns to be cajoled and manipulated in whatever way is necessary to meet the goals of the corporation. Therefore, they didn't view the tragedy of 9-11 in the same patriotic way as the average American citizen. After the initial shock, they saw 9-11 in terms of dollars and cents. Ultimately, it was viewed as an assault on their corporate superstructure. Later they recognized that the incident could be used as a distraction for the American people, and still later, an opportunity to move on Middle Eastern oil interests. . So let there be no doubt, all of the flag waving, ceremonies, and patriotic speeches have nothing to do with 9-11; they are designed to whip the American people into such a frenzy that they're blinded to Bush's actual agenda. And that agenda includes the following. 1).Committing America (and American lives) to a war in order to get himself re-elected. 2).Taking control of Iraqi oil fields to benefit his friends in big business. 3).Keeping the American voter distracted from considering the ramifications of the recent corporate scandals. 4).Keeping the American people from recognizing how inept he is as president. The rest of the world sees Bush's agenda for what it is, and the American people would too if they'd stop waving their flags long enough to consider the flag's true meaning. The American flag represents freedom and justice, not trying to dictate who should lead other countries. It represents the open debate of issues, not intolerance to any and everyone who disagree with your point of view. It represents the guarantee of personal freedom, not the suspension of the Bill of Rights. .  If the American people would just stop to consider these facts, it would become clear that even while Bush and his conservative cohorts are frantically waving our flag, they are simultaneously waging war against the very values that the flag and this great country represent. . These issues can, and will, be debated ad nauseam, but the American people need only ask themselves two questions to put all of the administration's nonsense into perspective. First, would the administration be so anxious to go to war if we were talking about China as opposed to Iraq? And secondly, do we think that invading Iraq will make us more, or less safe from terrorist attacks? If we answer those questions honestly, it becomes clear that the administration is being disingenuous at best.*** . So what I'd like to know is this--if a shade tree journalist sitting up in his den in the heart of a Los Angeles ghetto could see what was going on, why couldn't the New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, CNN and all of the networks; Harvard, Yale, and all of the various and sundry Ph.D.s from America's great institutions of learning? And why couldn't the nation's think tanks, all of the nation's political scientists, and the United States Congress figure it out? The answer is, they had, then simply turned their backs and allowed our youth to march off to their deaths. The most irrefutable evidence of that? None of their children died. . Eric L. Wattree wattree.blogspot.com Religious bigotry: It's not that I hate everybody who doesn't look, think, and act like me - it's just that God does.

Sphere: Related Content

Accountability: America’s Moral Responsibility to Humanity

BENEATH THE SPIN • ERIC L. WATTREE Accountability: America's Moral Responsibility to Humanity Eight years of Republican "leadership" has left America both economically devastated, and globally humiliated. Yet, far from apologizing for the damage that they've done to the stability and image of this great nation, instead, they've circled their wagons and gone into damage control mode–not to control the damage that they've done to the nation, but in an attempt to rewrite history in order to control the damage that they've done to themselves. So now, as President Obama goes about the business of desperately trying to return America to its former position of economic stability at home, and respect, admiration, and moral authority abroad, the GOP leadership seems to be completely oblivious to the nation's desperate and immediate need for a concerted effort in that regard. They're like clueless children who find it impossible to see the big picture. Thus, at this point it has become abundantly clear that their primary concern is not with restoring America to a sound footing in the world, but rather, simply restoring themselves to power at any cost. This situation points out the wisdom of always seeking to draw something of value from every adversity, and in this case, we should seek enlightenment. In spite of the fact that virtually everyone in the Bush administration managed to avoid serving this nation in uniform (Bush went AWOL, and Cheney obtained five (5) deferments), the GOP has somehow managed to pre-empt and wrap themselves in the glorious vestments of patriotism. But this current situation should teach us a valuable lesson in that regard–never go by what people say; always go by what they do. And what are they doing--while the American people are experiencing the kind of suffering that this country hasn't seen since the Great Depression, and the United States has become the "Dick Cheney" of the world, the GOP's one and only concern is how they can regain power. Is that patriotism? I don't think so. There's only one word to describe this current batch of Republican wingnuts--and you have to go outside the English language to find it--hutzpah. They've left this nation's global standing at its lowest ebb ever, and they've also left us much less safe. But in spite of that, Sean Hannity and FOX news have seen fit to trot out Dick Cheney to lecture President Obama on national governance and world affairs. What Makes these people think that anyone is interested in listening to anything this guy has to say? The vice president of the Crips has a higher approval rating than Dick Cheney, so they can have but one motive--to create division and disseminate propaganda. But Hannity's time would have been better spent holding a seance, then conjuring up the spirit of John Wayne Gacy to give us a lecture on child rearing. It couldn't have been any less productive, but at least there would have been an entertainment factor involved. Then you have Karl Rove trying to imply that President Obama is turning America into a banana republic. When I first heard him, the word "stupid" immediately came to mind. Either Rove is stupid, or he thinks the American people are complete fools. Now, think about it. Wasn't Karl Rove a major part of the very administration that lied us into war, illegally invaded a sovereign state, sent our troops off to war without the proper equipment to keep themselves alive, then made them pay for their own meals while lying wounded in the hospital, then looted the nation's treasury and resources, setup no-bid contracts to enrich their cronies, spied on their own citizens, and as we speak, are now trying to convince America that torture and all of the things listed above are ok, so that Bush, Cheney–and their entire crowd-- won't be prosecuted for war crimes, defrauding the American people, and the senseless waste of human life for personal gain? If I'm not mistaken, I think Karl Rove was indeed a major part of all that. So who looks, sounds, and behaves more like tinhorn dictators? Thus, before Rove starts pointing his finger at President Obama, he needs to smell it first. As a direct result of the greed, poor judgment, and self-service of these people, instead of focusing our efforts on the Pakistan/Afghanistan border where Osama Bin Laden and the others who planned and executed the Nine-Eleven attack on America were in hiding, they went to Iraq and began to tortured innocent detainees–not to protect America, but in an attempt to justify the lies they were telling the American people in order to steal Iraqi oil, enrich themselves, and loot this nation of the necessary resources to fund the New Deal programs that they couldn't attack legislatively. Now, as a direct result of that flawed judgment, we have the Taliban a mere sixty miles away from a nuclear armed Pakistan. So I don't know about the rest of America, but to me, Dick Cheney and Karl Rove's claim of keeping us safe is sounding pretty ridiculous about now. Thus, to even consider "moving on" without prosecuting these people is out of the question. If we simply turned the page on this matter, we become accessories to their war crimes. In addition, we cannot allow them to just walk away from placing the survival of this nation–and indeed, the world--in serious jeopardy. And further, if we are fortunate enough to survive this unmitigated episode of irresponsibility, we need to send an unmistakably graphic message to the next group of budding demagogues, who they've undoubtedly planted throughout the government. If Nixon had gone to prison for Watergate, and Reagan had become his cellmate for selling arms to Iran, we wouldn't be going through what we're going through right now. And finally, we have a moral responsibility to the world. A nation cannot just turn the page after its leaders have committed war crimes and are responsible for the slaughter and/or displacement of a million people. That page won't turn without the offending nation engaging in aggressive corrective action. If it were any other nation, the United States would demand accountability, so we can demand nothing less of ourselves. I know--they're simply wingnut Republiclowns, but their behavior in office was much more than a meaningless prank. Just because we put up with them, doesn't mean that the world should have to. After all, we even carry a pooper scooper for our pets. Trying to walk away from the atrocities of the past seven years would be like defecating and then trying to walk away without cleaning ourselves. We'd have to walk wide-legged and very uncomfortably, throughout the rest of history. Eric L. Wattree wattree.blogspot.com A moderate is one who embraces truth over ideology, and reason over conflict.

Sphere: Related Content