On May 9th, 1970, in the predawn hours, President Richard Nixon decided to visit students protesting the Vietnam War at the Lincoln Memorial... with but his butler in hand. Tens of thousands of antiwar protesters were camped out that night in conjunction with an antiwar movement that today's antiwar folks could learn from. Nixon obviously was haunted by the fervor of this ever steady mindset that became a blight upon his administration. A troubled president walked amongst the students at the Lincoln Memorial, doing his best PR by offering conversation on the easiest topic for him: football.
"Where do you go to school?" Nixon asked one student, who replied, "Syracuse". "Oh", Nixon offered "Great football program. Too bad that star running back, what was his name, oh yes Ernie Davis, had to die so young..." and on and on.
Then from the crowd a young woman, perhaps 19 years old, challenged Nixon with "Why don't you stop the war?" Nixon began to offer a soliloquy as to how difficult it is to just stop it. He then made the famous reference to the system, comparing it to a Beast ... and the young student interrupted Nixon with the equally as famous line: "You can't stop it even if you wanted to!".* Before Nixon could finish answering her, his handlers had rushed into the memorial and quickly spirit him out. Richard Nixon had been in the middle of his answer, doing his best to explain just how difficult it is to stop, "Dancing with the Beast" to paraphrase.
This is what we have become in this nation of ours: Dancers with the beast of Empire. Our politicians and mainstream media lead the way in influencing a normally compliant and apathetic public. Sadly, most of us are so addicted to the narcotic of consumerism that we have no time to actually study the facts. This Empire diverts and subverts us from truth each and every day.
Take the Flint water crisis, which once again is back in the mainstream news... for but a "politicized while". The blame game by this two party con job makes great theater, but it fails to even come near to the truth. Yes, the government officials who oversaw the crisis failed. Yet, what really was the reprehensible hidden cause of Flint having lousy water pipes and polluted drinking water?
Well, in the old days our federal government would send a percentage of taxes collected from the cities and states back to those places in the form of Revenue Sharing, aka "Block Grants". These grants could be used by local municipalities for things like... Duh, replacing faulty water pipes and providing healthy drinking water. You see, over 50% of our federal taxes for discretionary spending goes for military spending, replete with phony wars and occupations and overkill weapons and systems. Uncle Sam cannot send any funds to stop the bleeding in Flint or anywhere else in the Homeland... the Beast of Empire needs to keep bleeding us dry!
A sad moment for this writer was when Mr. Khizr Khan, a Muslim American father of a US captain killed in Iraq, addressed the Democratic Convention. The mainstream media, and even some of the Democratic Party's controlled "alternative media", reported that not a dry eye could be seen after Mr. Khan spoke.
Well, Mr. Khan, anyone who hears that a father and mother lost their son, especially in a war zone (or actually a zone of illegal and immoral US occupation) has to feel empathy... and this writer does. However, Mr. Khan, you were being used by the Beast of Empire that controls both of the corrupt and disgraceful dominate political parties!
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