by Arianna Huffington
March 16, 2005
Arianna Online
I just got back from a trip to the Happiest Place on Earth. Didn't ride the Teacups, though. Because I wasn't in Disneyland but in Washington, D.C., where everyone is walking on air, swept away by the Beltway's latest consensus: President Bush was right on Iraq, and, as a result, Tomorrowland in the Middle East will feature an E-ticket ride on the Matterhorn of freedom and democracy.
The political and cultural establishment has gone positively Goofy over this notion. In the corridors of power, Republicans are high-fiving, and Democrats are nodding in agreement and patting themselves on the back for how graciously they've been able to accept the fact that they were wrong. The groupthink in the nation's capital would be the envy of Dear Leader Kim Jong Il.
…..
And can we really blame the Arab world for its skepticism about the Unites States' sudden commitment to freedom and democracy? After all, it wasn't that long ago that Dick Cheney was opposing the release of Nelson Mandela in South Africa; Donald Rumsfeld was cutting deals with Saddam Hussein; and the CIA was overthrowing Mohammed Mossadegh, the democratically elected leader of Iran, and installing the Shah. And President Bush continues to make nice with Mr. Putin, Gen. Musharraf and the House of Saud.
And I’ll add Haiti, 2004, to the list.
http://tmars.iwarp.com/guerrilla_campaign/newsletter/news050315_Haiti.html
The lack of logic, doesn't stop at Washington. It appears that supposedly a bit more than half of the people who voted in November, left their logic at home that day.
It is amazing that besides the contradictions of their positions, they also seem to be blinded to the fact that the media in the rest of the world are not quite as supine as the Consolidated Corporate Media of America (CCMA). And they also remember, along with the people of the rest of the world, again unlike, apparently, the American people.
Away from the fantasy land of Washington Arianna describes, many people do see that not one of the president bush initiatives have been designed to promote democracy, either overseas, or domestically. Quite the opposite. From his first tax cuts, through the pre-written Patriot Act, the invasion of Iraq, and even now, his recent appointments, and his obsession to privatize Social Security, his methods have been to divide the populace, each against the other, while lavishing the proceeds from his looting of the treasury on his cronies, and the aristocratic elite that he has called his base.
But poor little Georgie is delusional, he no longer walks in reality, and from what you write has brought the Washington elite into his delusion. Whether from ideology or greed, those who have succumbed have blinded themselves to reality also.
There is no amount of spin, wilful blindness, or silence about the consequences of some facts that is going to stop those consequences from occuring.
Our economy is in a shambles. The dollar continues its decline, and more and more of the world is beginning to look at it with skepticism. Our current costs are being financed by foreign investment, and loans to the government, adding to our already crushing debt. If any one of those governments and large investors decide to bite the bullet, and pull the plug on the US Treasury note, the dollar as money will cease to exist. With urban centers typically having only about three days supply of commodities like food, and no money to resupply themselves, most cities would erupt in riots unlike any seen in this country before. And in three months, the United States would cease to exist as a country and a dream.
We shamelessly, and obscenely, invaded a country that could not put up any more than a token defense against us, much less be a threat. Two years, and over 1500 American military deaths, over 150 other ‘coalition troops’, and over 100,000 Iraqi deaths, later, we’re still there. The CCMA touts the elections that the US was dragged kicking and screaming into allowing as the president bush’s ‘commitment to democracy’. As it turns out, what the Iraqis voted for, is not what they thought they were voting for. Sort of like our own 2004 elections. We set it up so that, unlike any other parliamentarian country in the world, a 60% majority is required to form a government. Is there any wonder that a government still hasn’t been formed? The continuing chaos and civil anarchy serves the bushistas agenda well, which has nothing to do with democracy, but rather, power and greed.
And, unless the US did have something to do with the assassination of the former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in Lebanon, then none of those ‘democratic stirrings’ were the result of anything that the president bush has done. It is an extreme leap of illogic, and arrogance, to entertain the thought that after witnessing his brutal invasion of Iraq, the people of the Middle East were suddenly transformed by the vision and wisdom of the Enlightened One, the president bush. If it wasn’t so pathetically tragic, it would be funny. Where do these people park their brains?
Everyone of those people who have died as a result of our actions have families and friends who have been irrevocably changed by their deaths. Do we really think that they’ll forget as soon as the next episode of American Idol rolls out? Are we so lost that we will continue to trust people who are so delusional with governing our country, or form our opinions?
The degradation of our ecosystem is already paying dividends in changes to our climate. Mount Kilimanjaro has lost it’s snow cover for the first time in 10,000 years. Too bad you didn’t get a picture of you with it in the background. Too late now. The arctic ice is melting, as well as glaciers worldwide. And we may be quickly approaching a point of no return. The US is the biggest offender.
Our polluted air has resulted in a surge of childhood asthma. The United States was 40th in infant mortality rate, with the lowest, Sweden, being number one, and 47th in life expectancy, with Andorra, the highest, being number one ( http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/3164.htm , I had to look it up. It’s between France and Spain ). [source: U.S. Bureau of the Census, International Data Base 2004] With all the money we spend on healthcare, I would have expected better results.
Did you know that the rest of the world can see all this? Apparently the Enlightened One and his acolytes don’t. They seem to have lost themselves in the cult of the president bush and soak up his delusions and remain blind to the consequences rushing up to meet them, while the rest of the world watches with trepidation, because they know they’ll be taking the ride with us.
And the most perverted thing of all: a very ugly war story--a bloody narrative we hear shockingly little about on our daily news with all its horrors and degradation and destruction and death, is being looked upon as being somehow right, and wise.
The political and cultural establishment has gone positively Goofy over this notion. In the corridors of power, Republicans are high-fiving, and Democrats are nodding in agreement and patting themselves on the back for how graciously they've been able to accept the fact that they were wrong. The groupthink in the nation's capital would be the envy of Dear Leader Kim Jong Il.
Ladies and gentlemen, these are very sick people.
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