Will the US Electorate Lay Down in the Poppy Field Sowed by Right-Wing Propagandists & Tilled by the Corporatist Media?
By Richard Power
So will the US electorate lay down in the poppy field sowed by right-wing propagandists and tilled so dutifully by the corporatist media?
Well, what do you think? How does it feel? What does recent history tell you? What do our present circumstances foretell?
In Berlin, Barack Obama single-heartedly re-connected the US psyche with the psyche of the planet as a whole, and our European allies in particular. In Berlin, Barack Obama single-heartedly re-aligned US aspirations with those of the civilized world.
But within 72 hours, Steve Schmidt, the Rove acolyte in control of McCain's message, had succeeded in not just distracting the public with Paris Hilton and Brittany Spears but insinuating them into the campaign itself.
It is time to get out your list, and start reading it aloud in the town square.
Yes, you have a list.
All of us in the progressive blogosphere and on progressive talk radio have our own version of the list.
Here is a partial iteration of mine --
There will not be much of a future for US democratic institutions if the electorate forgets that the slaughter of the innocents on 9/11 is likely the direct result of criminal negligence in the White House.
There will not be much of a future for US democratic institutions if the electorate forgets that the invasion of Iraq, and all of the carnage and chaos that followed -- including thousands of US military deaths, and perhaps one million Iraqi deaths, not to mention the trillion dollar cost of this ongoing debacle -- was unnecessary and predicated on lies.
There will not be much of a future for US democratic institutions if the electorate forgets where Bush and McCain were as New Orleans was destroyed in the deluge.
There will not be much of a future for US democratic institutions if the electorate forgets what happened to the Bill of Rights, the Geneva Accords, FOIA, FISA, and the meaning and power of Congressional subpoenas.
There will not be much of a future for US democratic institutions if the electorate forgets that the Bush-Cheney regime was illegitimate from its inception, and that unprecedented (and unconstitutional) executive power was offered up to men who were sworn into office under false pretenses. (Florida was stolen in 2000, and Ohio was stolen in 2004.)
There will not be much of a future for US democratic institutions if the electorate forgets the firing of the DoJ attorneys, the persecution and imprisonment of Alabama Governor Don Siegelman, or the betrayal of CIA agent Valerie Plame's identity.
There is so much to remember, but it all boils down to one word -- catastrophe.
And McCain has embraced this catastrophe every step of the way.
If the electorate embraces him, it embraces even greater catastrophe.
And it looks as if the electorate is indeed capable of it.
Here is some important accompanying documentation:
Seven August 6ths ago, Mr. Bush was on his month-long at Crawford, Texas when he was given a report that which he either did not read, did not understand or did not believe.
It‘s first paragraph mentioned, “His followers would the example of the World Trade Center bomber, about bring the fighting to America.” Its second paragraph referred to the individual profiled in the report as one, quote, “to retaliate in Washington.” Its 10th paragraph detailed sensational but uncorroborated threat reporting, including that the individual wanted to hijack a U.S. aircraft.
Its 11th notes “patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks including recent surveillance of federal buildings in New York.” And its 12th and final paragraph mentions, “A call to our embassy in the UAE in May, saying that a group of bin Laden supporters was in the U.S. planning attacks with explosives.”
The president‘s daily briefing seven years ago today, August 6th, 2001, entitled “Bin Laden determined to strike in U.S.” mentions bringing the fight into America, retaliating in Washington, wanting to hijack a U.S. aircraft, preparations for hijackings, surveillance done in New York, groups of supporters in the U.S. planning attacks”—all the information you could have wanted. All of it in George Bush‘s hands, seven years ago, today, with 36 days left to interrupt or alter 9/11.
So, when you rhetorically ask, as Mr. Posner did in his exceptional book, “Why America Slept,” the answer is actually a correction. America did not sleep, George Bush slept. Keith Olbermann, MSNBC Countdown, 8-6-08
Speaking at the Campus Progress journalism conference earlier this month, Seymour Hersh — a Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist for The New Yorker — revealed that Bush administration officials held a meeting recently in the Vice President’s office to discuss ways to provoke a war with Iran.
In Hersh’s most recent article, he reports that this meeting occurred in the wake of the overblown incident in the Strait of Hormuz, when a U.S. carrier almost shot at a few small Iranian speedboats. The “meeting took place in the Vice-President’s office. ‘The subject was how to create a casus belli between Tehran and Washington,’” according to one of Hersh’s sources.
During the journalism conference event, I asked Hersh specifically about this meeting and if he could elaborate on what occurred. Hersh explained that, during the meeting in Cheney’s office, an idea was considered to dress up Navy Seals as Iranians, put them on fake Iranian speedboats, and shoot at them. This idea, intended to provoke an Iran war, was ultimately rejected ... Think Progress, 7-31-08
A forged letter linking Saddam Hussein to the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks was ordered on White House stationery and probably came from the office of Vice President Dick Cheney, according to a new transcript of a conversation with the Central Intelligence Agency's former Deputy Chief of Clandestine Operations Robert Richer.
The transcript was posted Friday by author Ron Suskind of an interview conducted in June. It comes on the heels of denials by both the White House and Richer of a claim Suskind made in his new book, The Way of The World. ... Raw Story, 8-8-08
In the immediate aftermath of the 2001 anthrax attacks, White House officials repeatedly pressed FBI Director Robert Mueller to prove it was a second-wave assault by Al Qaeda, but investigators ruled that out, the Daily News has learned.
After the Oct. 5, 2001, death from anthrax exposure of Sun photo editor Robert Stevens, Mueller was "beaten up" during President Bush's morning intelligence briefings for not producing proof the killer spores were the handiwork of terrorist mastermind Osama Bin Laden, according to a former aide.
"They really wanted to blame somebody in the Middle East," the retired senior FBI official told The News. NY Daily News, 8-2-08
In his book, "Lawless World," author Philippe Sands writes that the purpose of the meeting was focused on the need to "identify evidence that Saddam had committed a material breach of his obligations under the existing UN Resolution 1441."
"I think no one would be surprised at the idea that the use of spy-planes to review what is going on would be considered. What is surprising is the idea that they would be used painted in the colours of the United Nations in order to provoke an attack which could then be used to justify material breach. Now that plainly looks as if it is deception, and it raises some fundamental questions of legality, both in terms of domestic law and international law." Christian Science Monitor, 2-3-06
Richard Power's Left-Handed Security: Overcoming Fear, Greed & Ignorance in This Era of Global Crisis is available now! Click here for more information.
For an archive of Words of Power posts on Campaign '08, click here.
For Words of Power's archive of posts on Corporate News Media Complicity, Power of Alternative Media, Propaganda & Freedom, click here.
For an archive of Words of Power posts on 9/11, Terrorism, etc., click here.
Barack Obama, Valerie Plame, Steve Schmidt, Don Siegelman, DoJ, 9/11 Iran IraqRichard Power, Words of Power
