Saturday, September 15, 2007

Status Quo Antebellum or What Did They Die For?


Long time gone I have been. Recalling the boycotts grounded in the battle for equality that punctuated the days of my youth in the 60s, I determined to withdraw from the social whirl for the duration of the reign of George II.

However, while paralyzed with fear for our nation's future, I was forced to watch this week as the nominal leader of the land begged us for another few years of a war already lost. Fear breeds fear as I now am barely ambulatory after having listened to a 20 minute run of non sequiturs that defy rational analysis. So, as you would a cripple crossing the car-laden lanes of a super-highway, HELP me.

Can it be true that Bush's plan is to continue with a surge, the purpose of which was to enforce a separate peace in the berubbled capital of Iraq so that the "democratically elected and constitutionally legitimized" Malachi government could gather its shit and govern. To assuage his congressional critics, Bush presented Malachi a number of modest benchmarks by which the success of the surge could be measured and America's continued support of the Iraqi government determined.

Nine months have passed. Americans gave W the time he requested and the troops so many bumper stickers honor have continued to suffer grievous injuries and death(alas, those who most "honor" America's troops refuse to pay for the war, care not a bit if the revered troops haven't the proper equipment; nay, not even a coherent goal for which to die have the much honored troops. Nine months--a gestation period if you will--and Malachi is at his most productive when he is soiling himself as he watches Halliburton colonize his land.

By all accounts--whether from conservatives or liberals--the Malachi government has not measured up, has not succeeded in meeting most of the benchmarks and has not made much of an effort to even appear competent. Malachi is at best an ineffectual "mayor" of the Green Zone, an area heavily defended by thousands of American troops but which despite their best efforts is unsafe for Iraqi citizens to walk about.

So, what does Bush offer? What directives to Malachi? What consequence for failure to govern? Bush is as constant as carbon decay. Stay this course! It has failed in the purpose Bush articulated (god, what a stretch required to visualize Bush articulating anything more complex than his middle initial) when he asked the nation for its support of his surge. He asked for 30,000 additional troops to effect these noble reforms. The warriors did what they could do and they died in their best efforts to give Malachi a fighting chance. Malachi failed. Iraq failed. Bush failed. So, what now? This is the part that you can help me with. Bush says that if we will support his call for a continuation of his failed policy---if we will keep the additional troops in Iraq until next Spring, America can then withdraw the surge troops and American troop levels will return to what they were prior to the influx of surge troops.

Help me. The Surge failed to jump-start the Iraqi government. Malachi is probably less effective today than yesterday or yesteryear. He shows no signs of an imminent will to power. But, we are to stay the course and then return to the status quo antebellum. What was it for?

Why have so many young men and women given their lives and limbs during this exercise of Bush's ego and intransigence? The status quo? Is that what people are dying for? When the Surge ends next Spring what will it have accomplished? Will Malachi change? Can he change? Does it matter a rat's ass if he changes? Help me.

If God talks to the Commander in Chief, why does he not give him a viable solution to this international fiasco? If God is directing the president, why is his plan a nearly complete failure? Bush is a self-serving, lying son of a bitch who has never been near combat. He lied about the reasons for invading Iraq. He has lied about the connections (that do not exist) between Iraq and 9/11, he has lied about the progress of the war and he is lying now.

Clinton stupidly lied about a stupid blow-job and he was impeached. Bush has lied about war and terror. He and his top aids are awash in scandal after scandal and Bush goes forward with no direction or purpose other than self-aggrandizement. Where are the calls for his impeachment? Why do the damned fundamentalists not express concern for Bush's elevation of deceit, dissimulation and dereliction of duty to the level of an art form? Why do his lies not matter to them? Why, for Christ's sake, do the fundamentalists rant like hatters about the literal truth of the Bible but completely ignore the demands of Jesus that we should love our enemies and turn the other cheek if attacked? When has anyone heard a fundamentalist use the Sermon on the Mount to justify one of their legislative goals? When did you ever hear Bush quote Jesus as he tells us what God wants him to do about the war?

Why do Americans, once a proud and free people, serve up their souls and their gonads to this petty, small minded, woefully inadequate man? Why is there no accountability? Why are Americans willing to send their children to an illegal war that they, the parents, refuse to pay for because they want their god-damned tax cuts? This is the first generation in America's short history which has not funded a war they are sending their kids to die in.

Will it be too late for us when Americans finally realize that the terrorists are not going to win the war against America by destroying our buildings and landmarks? We are the culprits in our own destruction. The terrorists score a victory each time Americans sit back and allow Bush to abrogate the Bill of Rights. Each time he reads our emails. Each time he sells our souls for Halliburton profits. To the extent Americans hand their fundamental freedoms over the Executive branch in the name of national security, the terrorists win.

America is, for the moment, the mightiest nation the world has ever known. America has the mightiest military. The terrorists cannot win in a military conflict with America. But, they can destroy us. They can watch as we rush to give up our freedoms so that the government can fight the terrorists. Why do we fight them? Because they are determined to destroy the American way of life. The American way of life is based in its Constitution--the Bill of Rights--the notion that no man is above the law and all people are equal under the law. America is a City on a Hill for just as long as we hold fast to our noble experiment in democracy--in constitutional government.

Americans are watching television and playing poker while Bush felates the most basic of our civil liberties. When did we become a nation of cowards, of idiots, of greed dominated citizens. When did we forget who we are? Come on you right to lifers. Come on and march in defense of the lives of innocent Iraqi civilians and the lives of our sons and daughters. Liberals, quit self-destructing and bumbling about like stoned 8th graders. Grow some balls. Reclaim your minds and reclaim our constitution and our government. Conservatives, read Alan Greenspan and recalim your true conservative heritage. Then realize it is bankrupt paradigm and join the progressives in formulating a viable, humanitarian, enlightened aganda for the new millenium. Fundamentalists, read the damned Sermon on the Mount, prostrate yourselves and beg your god's forgiveness and then go fuck yourselves instead of probagating more mouth-breathing, cousin humping Bush voters. Bush is the enemy. His supporters are implicitly guilty of treason. They are destroying America and we sit, dull-witted as sheep, doing nothing. The 21st century may well be the end of the American Experiment and the Bush reign will be noted by historians as the beginning of the end. It does not have to end this way.

All it takes for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing. Burke and Professor M

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