Two things are clearer now than ever; 1) the idea that we are fighting the terrorist in Iraq instead of here is an illusion that has already been broken for the British and that will soon be broken for US citizens, and 2) the idea that it was a good thing to get rid of evil, evil Saddam made the Iraq quagmire worth the thousands of american lives, tens of thousands of Iraqi lives and hundreds of billions of wasted dollars, when in fact, Saddam was totally without the WMDs Bush and friends lied about. Saddam was just another rich extremist muslim who gave money to terrorists. There are thousands of them. Do we attack all of them? Only if we are dumb, redneck gaping fools who don't have the capacity to understand the idea that there are consequences for impulsive, violent behavior. In chess, you have to plan three, four or five moves ahead. In this war, the leaders, including the centrist Democrats, failed to do so.
It is only a matter of time until the US experiences a similar attack, or series of attacks. The Bush Right Wing team of idiots who have taken over control of the nation's defenses have dumped hundreds of billions of dollars into Iraq and Afghanistan""protecting oil pipelines so the Chinese can buy the international companies they protected them for. And now, since those hundreds of billions have been thrown away, the USA is tragically open and vulnerable to a plethora of avenues of potential terrorist attack""our train stations, ports, highways, water resources, nuclear reactors, shopping centers"..
But do the American media cover this failure? No. We hear about the list missing white child, the latest celebrity debauchery, more about the missing girl in Aruba. The people in charge of programming for the mainstream media should be identified and characterized as the despicable media whores they are, and worse, as traitors and failures who have let the United States down. A little research shows that CNN hired Jonathan Klein in November 2004 to head US programming. Klein is a whore, who, in pursuit of better of ratings that compete with the penultimate media whore, Fox news, has weakened the quality of journalism, the strength of the fourth estate's ability to, by stirring up muck, keep politicians and policy makers honest.
Well what about the 100,000 innocent Iraqis your orders have led to the death of, you evil, heartless monster? If the terrorists who killed 45 and injured 1000 or more people in London are evil, what does that make you, George Bush, Satan's right hand man? And what does it make the hapless fools who have voted for you, believing that it was the right religious thing to do?
Where are the reporters who have the guts to comment on your vapid, hypocritical remarks, to point out the outrageous hypocritical bizarreness of your statement? They have been banished by cowardly, media sluts like CNN's Jonathan Klein and the programming directors for ALL the other mainstream TV media.
When (and it is a WHEN, not an IF) the US is victim to a major terrorist attack, our it is certain that our illustrious, though articulacy challenged Bush will make a similar pronouncement about evil-doers. The braindead news anchor whores will mindlessly and spinelessly follow the marching orders of their pimp programming and content managers as they zoom in on crying family members, scenes of destruction, images of rescue workers". while they fail to report the right wing extremist influenced and run administration's failure to do its job protecting the USA's infrastructure. They will not tie together the connection between the hundreds of billions flushed down the toilet that is the Iraq disaster.
And unfortunately, it is unlikely that the almost worthless Democrats in congress will do much better, except for the handful, such as John Conyers, Barbara Boxer and a few others, who have had the courage to speak truth to power.
It is time that we all face the reality that the politicians in Washington are unable to do what must be done""to stand up to the corporations that are corrupting the political and judicial systems and the media. We have to face the reality that we can't expect to vote these, at best, failures, at worst, traitors to America, out of office, since they control the vote counting. We have to look at history to identify what other similar trodden upon peoples have done to take back their nations and their rights. Failure to do so will mean we are giving up on the USA. I wonder sometimes, if our antiquated democratic system, with its archaic presidential election process that gives unequally excessive representation to a minority of people because of the electoral college process, will lead to the USA being eclipsed, as it allows itself to be controlled by corporations and extremist religious fanatics. There are newer democracies with better, more sensible representative systems""in the United Kingdom, Germany, Israel, where parliamentary elections offer much more effective ways of representing the wishes of the people. Perhaps, if we the people of the US, fail to take back America, the eclipse of the US as a major power, (as the USA loses the respect of the world, as its industries dwindle because the leaders chose international trade agreements that favor international corporations over US workers and industries, as our educational system is eroded by Christianist fundamentalists who want to destroy the educational system) will be its destiny.
I hope not. But it will take more than op-eds and peaceful protests. It will take a rejection of the Democratic party's recent trend to move towards the ever right-wing headed center. It will take focused, organized cooperation among diverse progressive, liberal, moderate groups, more cooperation than ever before, in spite of the fact that, as Al Sharpton described, for democrats to be more difficult to organize than herding cats.
We must put up more money that we gave in the last election cycle""but instead of giving money for Kerry and his band of centrist democrat losers, we must give the money for tough progressive policy promotion organizations""not think tanks, which are intellectual research organizations""but well funded organizations that develop progressive policies and robust, long and short term stragies for turning those policies into realities that are supported by major demographic centers. We must fund organizations that do the dirty work of digging up the skeletons in the closets of the right wing extremist who are corrupting and polluting our government. We must fun the muckrakers and media that our nation desperately must have, to replace the media whores that corporatists have put into power in the mainstream media. We're talking about needing to raise billions of dollars in a hurry and needing to create dozens of these policy promotion and investigative organizations. We have a handful now (Center for America's Progress, Institute for America's Future, Commonweal Institute, Rockridge Institute) and they need better funding. But we need many more such organizations and people to run them. We need tough new voices to replace the weak, accommodating voices dominant in the Democratic party (the ones who spinelessly attack Howard Dean, who, though a bit too centrist for me, at least has the balls to take on the issues with tough rhetoric.)
Now is a good time for new leaders to come forward. Moveon.org has shown that it has become a centrist-supporting disappointment to progressives. Even the Center for American Progress, while a valuable resource, is a bastion of centrist, Clintonian Democrats. Where will the new leaders come from? My bet is on the blogosphere and the alternative internet media, from progressive talk radio. (I'd vote for Thom Hartmann for president in a heartbeat. I'd get behind Markos Moulitsas of dailykos, Duncan Black of Eschaton/Atrios, Chris Aravosis, of Americablog, Robert Parry of consortiumnews.com as progressive policy promotion institute heads in a flash.
Here are some articles I've written about the need for progressive policy promotion organizations:
How To Take Back the Moral Turf from the Right 31 Ways to Take on the Neocon Think Tanks: A Progressive Policy and Position Promotion Think Tank Prospectus Understanding the Difference Between a Think Tank (TT) and a Right Wing Policy Promotion "Think Tank": Chaunce's Garden; Progressives Must Stop Tilling The Field with Spoons Starting a Progressive Counterpart to the Neocon's Most Powerful Weapon-- Where are the Real Patriots While Bush Rapes and Trashes America?
Why the left desperately needs to "get it" and create about five of them.
the Policy Creation and Advocacy Think Tank; Join the Grassroots Effort to Build One Rob Kall
