SCARY NIGHTS

[Guest guest]

Scary Nights

 

 

by _Karen Kwiatkowski_ (ksusiek)

by Karen Kwiatkowski

 

 

It is good that Halloween is finally arriving, because I'm not sure

I could

take much more of the run up from Washington.

 

Many professed Christians have a problem with Halloween. The idea of

false

powers and otherworldly challenges to the good and true is generally

resisted

every day by Christians, and most other people. Halloween as the

symbolic

unleashing of hell on earth is, perhaps, not to be celebrated. An

alternate

position is that in laughing in the face of danger, we overcome the

illusion of

false powers and conquer our fear.

 

Happily or horrifyingly, depending on your perspective, our

professed

Christian in the White House apparently adores Halloween.

 

In fact, it seems every day in power is Halloween for George W.

Bush.

 

The Bush Administration has delivered both tricks and treats,

depending on

what kind of neighborhood you live in, and whether you welcome him

(and his

John Ashcroft mask) with the appropriate level of submissive

toadiness and

demonstrative gratitude for all he has done for you (or to you).

 

And his tricks are the stuff of legends!

 

This President apparently has a sorcerer's power to make all kinds

of things

disappear. One day it could be a stable non-threatening nation, tens

of

thousands of its inhabitants, and almost _1,200 American servicemen

and women_

(http://antiwar.com/casualties/) . Another it might be the

_precarious

constitutional protections_ (http://www.bordc.org/) of individual

American freedoms

from a ravenous and fearful state. Just this week, we hear of _400

tons of

missing explosives_

(http://story.news./news?

tmpl=story & cid=540 & ncid=736 & e=3 & u=/ap/20041026/ap_on_re_mi_ea/nuclear_

agency_iraq) from Saddam's

coffers now being used against American troops. Probably just

another prank,

courtesy of the Bush/Cheney White House.

 

_Disappearing prisoners_

(http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A57363-

2004Oct23.html) seems to be child's play for this administration,

as is

the hiding of thousands of _crippled_

(http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/23/national/23injured.html?

ei=5059 & en=dc228824c3b478a8 & ex=1099195200 & partner=AOL & pagewant

ed=all & position) , _dysfunctional_

(http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=20040721-030507-2465r) and

_soon-to-be jobless_

(http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1413,36~6439~2490036,00.html)

veterans of Iraq. Making economic

opportunity go away is another well-practiced Administration trick.

Naomi Klein writes

about _the complex American economic agenda in Iraq,_

(http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article6930.htm) but the

loss of domestic jobs and

_crashing economic performance here at home_

(http://www.commondreams.org/views04/1022-26.htm) is nothing to

spit at, either.

 

_Hard evidence as to why we went into Iraq has also disappeared_

(http://www.johnkerry.com/pdf/pr_2004_0908a.pdf) , or was it all

really just an illusion

from the start, a mask designed to frighten us into to handing over

the

candy?

 

In terms of the American military, George W. Bush and his posse have

played

another trick, this one more creative than just making things go

away. Dr.

Frankensteins all, they've carefully transformed an overlarge but

generally

proud defense establishment into a grotesque caricature of a

patriot, a

Minuteman, a Marine. Its massive appendages consist of defense

industries and highly

paid contractors, covered with gluttonous yet jumpy Congressmen and

Senators

congregating like bloated misshapen dog ticks on Rex's backside.

 

Their five-sided monstrosity is no longer animated by the

touchstones of

duty, honor and country, but by a brain of _highly schooled yet

immoral

ignoramuses we call neoconservatives in the Bush administration_

(http://csmonitor.com/specials/neocon/) and their shrill, whorish,

yet increasingly exhausted

cheerleaders at the National Review, The Weekly Standard and Fox

News Channel.

This 21st century beast is energized only by the struggling shrunken

heart

and starved lungs of an under-trained, over-extended, and

increasingly ill-led

military that deserves far better from Washington.

 

The thrills never end for the Bush Administration, whether they are

printing

funny money to cover their expenses and reward their friends, or

telling

scary stories about wars on terrorism that we are winning, _but not

really, you

see_

(http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/politics/federal/20040830-1553-

cvn-bush.html) … And if the American household doesn't want to hand

over the good

stuff, then well, someone no doubt is going to have to pay for

disrespecting

the hoodlums. We'd call the sheriff, you see, except in this

interminable

Halloween season, he plays for the ghouls.

 

We have military recruiters with _government promoted access to

personal

information on our children_

(http://www.wagingpeace.org/menu/action/ongoing-actions/no-child/no-

child_fact-sheet.pdf) . We have a _never-say-draft military

Stop-Loss program_

(http://www.optruth.org/main.cfm?

actionId=globalShowStaticContent & screenKey=issues & htmlId=973) and

_reserve call-ups of 70-year-old

grandfathers. _

(http://www.ada.org/prof/resources/pubs/adanews/adanewsarticle.asp?

articleid=999) We suffer a centralized and co-opted coercion of

thought and

suppression of truth the politicos call patriotism. In what we

thought was the

land of the free, the Bush administration has seen fit to identify

and

cordon " free speech zones " and assume arrest and detention rights

over all those

not following the " rules. " In fact, under the Halloween rules of

engagement

the administration enjoys, _innocent young people may even be shot

and killed in

American cities_

(http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/playoffs2004/news/story?id=1906735)

with only an " I'm sorry " from the government, if you are lucky.

 

We have a _pillaging of the national pocketbook_

(http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/) that the Bush administration

considers not only their right, but

their sacred responsibility. To what or whom, God only knows. I

suspect it

isn't Him.

 

Following the rules of sociopathy, the George W. Bush

administration, as

have previous administrations operating under a " _Crisis

Constitution_

(http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=115) , "

obsessively insists that we

smile and nod while we empty our minds of logic, our hearts of a

sense of

justice, our wallets of cash.

 

Once this is done, we're still not finished. The garish and violent

crowd at

the front door demands that we open the doors to the rooms where our

children sleep, as we hope silently that they won't awaken, or be

too frightened.

After all, they are the ones who will pay and pay, and pay some more

for the

current freak show in Washington, with lives intellectually

constrained and

economically unfulfilled, weighed down by national debt and the

increasingly

centralized socialistic corporatism in America. Perhaps they will

follow in the

footsteps of our immediate era, sacrificing their lives and

livelihoods as

the empire pancakes.

 

The nightmarish overnight transformation of the George W. Bush from

libertarian-conservative presidential candidate to a

_neoconservative Caligula,_

(http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?pid=938) and the present-day

alternative

of a new, more deadly-appearing JFK has frankly provided enough

fright for a

lifetime.

 

Perhaps we can stay up till dawn, watchful and wise. When the sun

peeks over

the horizon, we might roll up our sleeves and clean up the yard.

We'll need

an early start. The cheerfully irrepressible goblins and ghouls have

left a

hellacious mess.

 

 

 

 

_Click here: WorkingForChange-Fiore presents: Campaign of fear_

(http://www.workingforchange.com/comic.cfm?itemid=17981)

 

 

October 27, 2004