It Can't Happen Here

[Guest guest]

April 7, 2006

 

" It Can't Happen Here " Edition

http://www.davesweb.cnchost.com/nwsltr81.html

 

 

At the risk of offending anyone out there, I really

need to ask a question here: what the hell is the

matter with you people?

 

And by “you people,†I don’t

mean specifically the regular readers of these

newsletters, but rather the American people in

general.

So to all you John and Jane Q. Publics out

there, let me rephrase the question: what the hell

does it take to get a reaction out of you?

 

I realize, of course, that there has been a serious

dumbing-down of American society and culture over the

years.

And I realize that government operatives have

virtually complete control over the flow of

information, so that virtually every thing you read,

hear or see is, at best, an approximation of reality.

And I realize that you have been systematically

conditioned, over the course of many decades, to

revere the institutions of this society – the very

same institutions whose spokesmen are routinely called

upon to serve you up a nice steaming platter of lies.

 

None of that, however, fully explains the near

complete paralysis of the American people as a whole.

So let me ask the question once again: what the hell

does it take to get a reaction out of you? Let's

quickly run through a partial list of things that,

thus far, have failed to inspire you to summon your

inner Howard Beales: two consecutive stolen

presidential elections; back-to-back wars, both of

them unprovoked and brazenly illegal, with more on the

horizon; the deaths of well over two thousand of your

sons and daughters in Central Asia and the Middle

East, and the maiming and disfiguring of thousands

more; the ongoing slaughter of tens of thousands of

Afghans and Iraqis; countless corporate/political

scandals directly tied to the Bush mob; diligent

efforts by a veritable army of 9-11 skeptics

(including a growing list of people that some of you

might find more credible than us wacky Internet

'conspiracy theorists') to convince you that the

official story of the ‘terrorist’ attacks of September

11 is a nothing more than a fairy tale;

passage of the Patriot Act, and various other attacks

on your civil, privacy, and due process rights; the

entirely preventable deaths of an unknown number of

people in New Orleans;

military occupation of southern Louisiana;

sanctioning of secret military tribunals; revelations

of the widespread use of, and official sanction of,

various forms of torture; getting slapped in the face

with the Abu Ghraib photos;

indefinite, warrantless detentions without access to

legal counsel; illegal domestic surveillance; open

witch-hunting of ‘liberal’ members of academia

(though it is perfectly acceptable for a former

Phoenix Program assassin and torturer to educate your

children); gross invasions of your privacy – at

airports, at sporting events, when entering many

public buildings, even when sitting at home on your

computer; massive cuts in social spending,

even while hundreds of billions of dollars are spent

waging war and militarizing domestic law enforcement;

massive tax cuts that primarily benefit corporate

America; the steady erosion of the nation’s education

and healthcare systems; trashing of the environment

and environmental protections; the accumulation of an

almost unfathomable level of debt; and the act of

grand theft masquerading as Medicare ‘reform.'

 

Through all of this and more, you have sat silently

by. So again I must ask: what the hell will it take?

How much worse does it have to get?

How much worse will you allow it to get?

 

And if you continue to sit by and do nothing, who do

you think is going to save you from the increasingly

bleak future we face?

Who do you think is going to stop all the madness for

you?

 

Amazingly enough, some of you actually seem to believe

that a 'censure' resolution is the answer to the

nation's woes, as if a firm pronouncement of " Bad

George! " – perhaps coupled with a swat with a

rolled-up newspaper – will effect a drastic change in

the national landscape. Others seem to think that

impeachment proceedings will rid the country of its

diseased organs, but how you have convinced yourselves

of such a bizarre notion is beyond my level of

understanding.

I know that a lot of phony ‘progressive’ websites

regularly offer up such claims as some sort of

political pacifier, but that doesn’t mean that you

have to eagerly suckle that teat.

 

Who do you think is going to conduct impeachment

proceedings, or pass a censure resolution?

 

The venerable United States Congress?

The very same Congress that just overwhelmingly passed

an extension of the Patriot Act?

As I recall, when the act was first passed, you

dutifully bought into the lie that many of the

congressmen who voted " Aye " did so only because they

hadn’t had time to actually read the legislation.

Buying into that lie, of course, allowed you to

preserve your image of Congress as some sort of

effective counterbalance to the gang in the White

House.

But four years, one would think, should have been

adequate time for even the slowest readers among our

elected representatives to catch up on what it was

that they passed into law.

 

So I’m curious to know: what sort of mental gymnastics

are required to still view this Congress as a body

interested in, or capable of, reigning in this

administration?

 

What actions by this Congress give you hope for the

future?

The regular allocation of tens of billions in

additional dollars to fund an illegal war based on

fully-exposed lies?

The moves to retroactively legalize Bush’s illegal

domestic surveillance programs?

The Medicare ‘reform’ bill?

The bankruptcy ‘reform’ bill?

The sterling work done investigating the 9-11 attacks

and the unnatural disaster in New Orleans?

The routine rubber-stamping of reactionary political

appointees?

The fast-tracking of 'free trade' legislation,

predictably coupled with the wholesale 'outsourcing'

of jobs and widespread attacks on wages and benefits?

 

The fact that, for five years, this Congress has

marched in total lockstep with the Bush

administration, sparing King George the trouble of

having to veto a single piece of legislation?

 

Trust me when I say that I too would like to hold onto

a glimmer of hope that America's cancer can be excised

through normal political channels, so please tell me

what it is that I am missing?

 

What is it that you so desperately cling to?

Is it the occasional meaningless posturing by the

likes of Russ Feingold, John McCain, Ron Paul, and

Harry Reid?

Is it because there are occasionally a few token

dissenters in the crowd when Congress votes on a major

piece of legislation? Or is it because you think that

the midterm elections are going to magically usher in

a new Congress with a new mindset? Are you one of

those who hold out hope that elections are going to

fix things?

Have you convinced yourself that as long as you show

up at your polling place every two years, you are

doing your part to halt the headlong plunge into overt

fascism?

 

Some of you think we can just ride out these bad times

for a few more years, until the next presidential

election rolls around, when some great and wise

Democrat will take office and miraculously roll back

the landscape to the way it was before the bad men

came riding into town.

Of course, you held out that same hope leading up to

the 2004 elections, because you knew, with a

certainty, that the American people were not going to

confirm the appointment of this would-be president.

And you were right.

 

But guess what?

It didn’t matter, because it had already been

established that in the twenty-first century, election

results need not correlate with actual votes cast.

 

And so you watched it happen once again – after

patiently waiting for four years to deliver your

message to Washington, you watched passively as

another presidential election was stolen in broad

daylight – and now you sit back and wait once again.

You wait for Hillary Clinton to come and save the

day, because you see a Hillary presidency as a

backdoor way to get your hero, Bill Clinton, back in

the White House.

But as I noted just a few newsletters ago, it becomes

more obvious with each passing week that Bill and

Hillary are wearing Team Bush jerseys. Just weeks

after posting that newsletter, it was revealed (albeit

discretely) that your hero, Bill Clinton, was a key

player working behind the scenes to facilitate his

buddy George’s Dubai ports deal.

 

And yet still you hold out hope, just as you held out

hope that George’s Skull & Bones fraternity brother

(seen here cozying up to another kindred spirit, the

late Anton LaVey of the Church of Satan) would end the

madness.

You hold out hope even though all the Democratic

Party's potential presidential contenders have

demonstrated repeatedly that they will only attack

Bush from the political right. They will not question

the underlying legitimacy of the 'War on Terrorism,'

they will only assert that that 'war' is not being

waged aggressively enough. And they will not question

the legality of the war in Iraq, they will only

question how that war is being waged.

 

None of the outrages committed by this administration,

either individually or collectively, have awakened you

from your slumber, so I seriously doubt that there is

anything that I could reveal here that would provide

the necessary wake-up call. Nevertheless, I will give

it my best shot.

 

What if I were to tell you, for starters, that our

benevolent leaders have already got the ball rolling

on an ambitious plan to build concentration camps?

Right here on American soil! You would, of course,

laugh heartily as you dismissed such sensational

claims as the product of the overactive imagination of

some Internet crackpots – which is exactly why I'm not

going to tell you any such thing. Instead, I'm going

to let Halliburton break the news to you, in the form

of a press release issued on January 24, 2006. You can

read it for yourself if you like; it's posted on the

company's website. If you stop by for a visit, this is

what you'll find:

 

cont'd

http://davesweb.cnchost.com/nwsltr81.html