Our Cold Civil War...

It took me sometime to process the whole MoveOn.org controversy and I finally realized that something truly monumental has happened in our nation. While the coverage of the now world famous MoveOn.org ad has been wall to wall and spun and re-spun from every conceivable political and ethical angle, the most important developments of this whole story have entirely been missed.

In order to understand what has happened, really happened with the advertisement asking if General Petraeus was essentially acting as a Teflon vest for the Bush administration, we must first understand the context and the background.

Propaganda Presidency

The Bush administration has been using media outlets as cutouts for state sponsored propaganda since even before the unelected Bush was appointed to office by a politically motivated Supreme Court decision against the will of the people and the popular vote. The attacks of September 11, 2001 were not the singular, all-transforming event that changed everything. Rather, it was the Supreme Court decision of 2000 that changed everything, a consequence of that single monumental failure to protect the Constitution. It was in a more general way, really, the 2000 election cycle that showed us just how willing the corporate fourth estate bosses were to fabricate a myth of goodness and accomplishment out of a man so ill suited to be anywhere near government, let alone the presidency of the United States.

The robber barons needed their figurehead, and so their allied fourth estate bosses fixed the propaganda around the myth, creating substance where there was none. The propaganda worked to create an image of a war veteran candidate Bush with a stellar educational background, an experienced and successful businessman, and an honest Texan raised on a farm. Those lies led to more lies and since then, we have essentially been held hostage by an ever expanding parade of liars.

The most extreme example of this, of course, is Fox News, which is seen by all credible reporters as political porn, of the low grade variety at that, featuring D-listers in the news industry with the ethics of Debbie and her Dallas doers. Fox is laughable, and it is clearly a state run organ which hires official state reporters to report officially sanctioned news.

The Fox outfit is obvious propaganda, but it has played the foil to something far more insidious and sinister, and which in its sheer subtlety is far more dangerous. The mainstream press, as it is known, compared with Fox looks like left wing reportage, of course. In reality, however, the mainstream is neither left wing nor anything remotely resembling even a moderate or objective fourth estate.

Should you have doubt in this regard, I urge you to consider, as an example, the revelations from Dan Rather about what CBS did to curry favor with the White House.

Or the most criminal example of what can happen to a corporate owned, fully politicized, fourth estate: the Iraq war. These types of political propaganda practices used to be called Yellow Journalism. Now they are the standard, cleverly renamed "fair and balanced."

So it naturally follows that the robber barons and their fourth estate business partners should indeed benefit from the puppet they all worked so vigorously to enthrone.

Corporate Interests merged with State Interests

The corporate interests of America are now almost entirely at one with the political interests of America. The people are either relegated to the outskirts as unimportant bystanders or are caught in the cross-fire as casualties of a hostile corporate takeover by American and even foreign corporations. We "the people" do not matter in a country where corporate profits are tied to state policy, which then uses those same corporations to tell us what is real and what is fabricated, what is true and what is false.

Think about this for a moment.

A defense contractor pays heavily into the coffers of political candidates to get them elected to office. After they are elected, those same defense contractors get big contracts -- but for what? If there is no war, how will money already promised to these companies be justified?

The mechanism is of course propaganda, repackaged as news, sold to us to convince us to part with our hard earned money so that the few can profit and re-profit from a veritable buffet of free labor, free brand marketing, and easy money, and all under the banner of patriotism, something which no one will criticize easily or lightly.

You see, these same defense contractors also happen to either own (as with General Electric) or have business relationships with media giants, which makes the solution of creating a war much easier. If the news informs us, as it did prior to the Iraq war, that Saddam Hussein has built an entire arsenal of WMD's ready to kill us all, we believe it, and since dissenting views are excluded, what other choice or avenues of information can we turn to? What other arguments from what other "experts," and what other evidence from what other "independent" institutions, can we compare to the so called facts being put forth?

Do we have a choice then but to believe, if for no other reason than because we want to have faith that someone is telling us the truth? But it does not end there, just in case a few questioning minds might try to locate a pebble of truth outside of the pre-packaged, pre-approved, formally sanctioned propaganda we have been so meticulously fed. The same corporate and political interests have not only purchased the truth or manufactured their version of the truth, they have also purchased identities, created front groups, bought off churches and through them the souls of the congregants, to act as a secondary machine of disinformation and even - when needed - to be called upon to attack and destroy.

If a voice of dissent should manage to slip through the heavily corporatized and politicized public censors, as we saw happen in the case of Ambassador Joseph Wilson, a cadre of purchased truth tellers, reporters, and grassroots groups are ready in the wings to react swiftly, to silence and discredit back into the shadows not only the lone whistle-blower, but any other person considering coming forward.

This is not something that happens in a democracy. This type of political character assassination in which the assassins are so much of the mainstream does not happen in a democracy. It only happens in countries under the control of something other than the people, but not in a democracy.

In a nation where corporations control the government, the military, and every possible freedom that can be afforded to a people (voting rights, access to basic life sustaining resources, etc.), a thing such as "democracy" is merely another marketing strategy or product brand, worn like one might wear a tiny American flag on the lapel of a dinner jacket.

Such corporate control and merger with the government and military has been in modern times called fascism. In America, we call it "privatization," so that the jagged edges and unpleasant concepts of a nation where no choice is our own to make can be much more easily digested.

Some discontent began brewing in pockets across the nation shortly after the appointment of a corporate approved leadership. It was momentarily interrupted by the horrors of an attack on this nation, but it continued to grow again as the fear tactics of the state sponsored machine could no longer keep us all silent at the same time and for the same duration. Of course, the modern day printing press in the form of the Internet is something that cannot be emphasized enough as the single most important technological development of our modern era.

In America we now have designated areas where people may protest, conveniently far away from news cameras and the people they are protesting - so out of sight are the new Americans that they have been rendered largely invisible. The right to congregate, as with other constitutionally protected rights, would have been almost entirely dismantled by this administration if not for the Internet. So armed with a new printing press, a global printing press at that, it would not be long before the public awoke from the lies that led to the Iraq war.

And even when those lies were finally exposed, and we - the public knew that we were all being lied to, we watched is stunned horror as the corporate owned/state sponsored "news" outlets attempted to convince us that we simply did not understand the reasons given for the war in the first place. It was WMD; no, it was the spreading of Democracy; no, it was something or other; but whatever it was, it was always "we the people" who were at fault. We simply did not get it, is what we were told. The entire administration set off on a tour of the US hoping to convince us that we simply did not get it. What they did not realize, however, is that we simply no longer bought it.

And so we move into the Cold Civil War

It has slowly become more and more obvious that we are fighting a domestic war, as yet unnamed, but is palpable to any of us who pay attention. Although it is important today as ever that we hold the Bush administration accountable for cooking intelligence that led us into a war of choice against a nation posing no threat to us, the most immediately important questions surround the reasons for why we continue to be held hostage to that war.

Understanding the nature of the domestic battle can only lead to a single conclusion. Whatever the myriad of lies that have led us into Iraq in the first place, we now only continue to remain in Iraq as a distraction from the real war at home and likely for the worst kind of political abuses.

What possible motivations can continue to keep this administration focused on seeing through the worst policy decision ever to have been conceived, let alone carried out? It can't be the continued profiteering as the rape and pillage of Iraqi resources had already climaxed some time ago and the domestic pressure of Congressional investigations has already changed how US companies in Iraq are operating.

We can't be in Iraq because the people want to fight and win the war on terror as the majority of the nation does not believe this slogan anymore and also understands - despite the failings of the fourth estate - that Iraq had nothing to do with the attacks of 9/11. It can't be that we are in Iraq because our allies want continued war - although the House of Saud likely wants us to clean up the mess we have already made. In general, however, the international community certainly wants a political solution at this point.

What motive is left for keeping our nation embroiled in a civil war abroad? If we had men of honor in leadership, then I might believe the humanitarian concerns about the Iraqi refugees and so many displaced and so much destroyed as a possible motive. Yet could anyone call George W. Bush and Dick Cheney men of honor or say of them in earnest that they are truly concerned with the humanitarian nightmare that is now Iraq?

No. The reason we continue to remain in Iraq is that it is the only weapon left in the political arsenal of the corporate robber barons trying drastically and desperately to maintain their grip on domestic power. That fight for domestic power and the abuses of those who I would call the domestic villains in the saga is nothing short of a civil war, a cold civil war to be sure, but nevertheless a national struggle with the same stakes and the same motives. Although there are no geographical demarcations indicating enemy territory, there is no uniform identifying the adversary, and there is no bloodshed in the streets, it is still a war, a war for the foundation of this nation and the future of democracy. Even the villains are the same now as they were during the violent Civil War, although they do not all congregate along a particular geographical locale. They are the same villains who during the American Civil War wanted corporate power, slave labor, and control of government and national resources.

Yet those villains would have us believe we are fighting each other, a nation divided by its own political and social views. The same corporate interests who are robbing us blind would have us believe that we are a deeply divided nation: pro-choice vs. anti-abortion, taxes vs. no taxes, God vs. godlessness, gays vs. heterosexuals, and on and on it goes, pitting us against one another on the basis of every conceivable human attribute, position, and whatever differentiates any one person from another.

Does it not seem odd that differences that have for so long existed and co-existed, even with some tension, would suddenly now be strong enough to split this nation apart over the policies of George W. Bush? I have yet to meet a sane and rational person, regardless of political affiliation, who believes anything positive about Bush, Cheney, and the rest of their administration. When I talk to everyday people in everyday context, they don't bring up pro-choice vs. anti-abortion, nor do they bring up the mantra of gays taking over the country. No, everyday people I talk to are appalled, embarrassed, and frightened of this cabal.

Indeed, on the most important issues of our time and despite our many individual differences, the majority of us agree on the basics of what is currently wrong with this country and its leadership.

So why are we being constantly bombarded with the idea that we are a nation divided? And just who spending billions on propaganda to make us believe it?

The Corporate Confederacy

In our cold civil war, the enemy is not a part of the country called the "red states," as conveniently manufactured. Nor is the enemy a phantom right wing "wing-nut" or left wing "liberal loony," although there are some people who fall very much under those definitions. On the whole, however, there are simply not enough delusional and/or corrupt Americans to fill the manufactured stereotypes of the typical this or a typical that, even if the label is color-coded for political fear tactics.

The image of a divided nation at war with itself is a false one, as false as the reasons for this war and the general war on terror, which is more of a reign of terror than anything else. But who is it trying so hard to divide this nation and for what reason?

Perhaps the most obvious answer lies in that same question reworded thusly: Who benefits? Consider this question in yet another way: So long as we are standing face to face and not standing shoulder to shoulder, who is benefiting? The answer of course is the same corporations and their lackeys masquerading in the garb of government. They need to distract us, divide us, spend billions of dollars trying to convince us what we need, what we hate, what we love, who is evil, who is good and everything in between.

These authoritarians, more appropriately fascists, understand that dissent is to be treated like a virus. It has to be, because the spread of individual opinions might collapse a whole industry. The more you know, the more you question; the more you question, the more you infect others; and the more people there are asking questions, the more we become a nation that cannot be ruled or bullied. We are far too many, and if we are left to think for ourselves, we might not like what we find.

We are, therefore, a threat, a virus, a thing that must be entertained, distracted, confused, frightened, anything, but allowed the freedom to think for ourselves or express those views to one another. People standing shoulder to shoulder outnumber the few who have claimed the control of our nation for themselves and against our best interests. We outnumber them and we frighten them because should we stand together, they cannot stand for long.

Forcing the President to Answer...

This brings me to the MoveOn moment of history, not so much for the ad itself, which I actually found petty because of its title. No, the ad has become almost irrelevant to the aftermath and the series of events that followed. It is those events collectively that are historic in their meaning, and on many and important levels.

Remember, the majority of the American public - regardless of age, religion, and political leanings -- is opposed to the war in Iraq. MoveOn represents but a mere 3 million or so Americans out of this majority, but still a large delegation expressing a very mainstream and popular view. So what happened, then? What was the real issue that no one noticed or actually verbalized, but felt almost instantaneously? We all felt it. I felt it. You felt it. But what happened that we all felt?

One of the major accomplishments of the MoveOn ad is that it showed that a President who claims not to care about the poll numbers, and hence the opinion of the public he claims to represent, suddenly had to answer the gauntlet publicly thrown down. His arrogance demanded it and his opportunistic nature wanted to exploit it.

Imagine this. The President of the United States had to answer 3 million Americans because they placed an advertisement in a newspaper. One newspaper ad is all it took for the most arrogant and misanthropic failure of a President in US history to be forced to stand up on national television and face the public. That is fairly miraculous in my humble opinion, and had the public known that this would work earlier, they would likely have peppered every space within every newspaper with a constant assortment of expressions, judgments, demands, and so forth. That alone would be a victory, but it is not the only victory that came, in quick succession, one after the other.

When the President denounced the ad as disgusting, he also denounced the public opinion of most Americans and, without meaning to, actually united and energized the public. He energized the public against him and the corporate-political junta he represents. We all felt energized by the arrogance of a leader who would so insult his own constituents and in such a public forum. In reaction, it was as though everyone was pushed into the streets - like it or not - at the same time.

Forcing the Corporate Confederacy into a defensive posture...

Yet the President and his corporate owners were far too panicked to stop at that. They were downright terrified -- enough to actually condemn the majority of Americans, including active duty members of the military, in the public circus of a formal Senate rebuke.

Think about this for a moment. Here is a Congress which cannot or simply will not do what they have been elected to do. We do not want a law passed, and they pass it. We want to redress our grievances, and they ignore us. Yet they were able to muster up the energy and numbers to get together in a collective rebuke of us because of an advertisement?

I'm not a member of MoveOn and I likely and in all honesty would have ignored the ad. But I felt insulted, as did many other people who might have also ignored the ad. If the corporate-political mechanism had not so panicked and not so overreacted, this would have been but an advertisement placed in a paper by a so-called liberal group. Perhaps a few official opinion makers would have noted it as a bit petty, but it was nothing anyone really would have remembered in a society where information is processed only in short bursts and quickly forgotten.

But the corporate and political mechanism could not ignore this, would not ignore it, and by attacking and rebuking the very mainstream sentiments about this war, they inadvertently made each and every American who shares that view feel directly insulted.

The realization that in numbers comes strength...

Something happened here, something momentous, but it took me some time before I fully understood what it was that occurred. In the end, it was really not the ad itself that caused such shameless and desperate attempts to muzzle the public. No, the ad was simply a mechanism for a popular opinion. What really frightened the corporate owned and their masters is that roughly 3 million Americans realized that in pooling their resources and standing together, they could take on the big boys. That is to say, they realized that regardless of their differences, they could stand shoulder to shoulder and this sent a wave of panic inside America Inc.

Because what would happen if more and more people defied the propaganda of a nation divided in opinion about this war? What if more and more people joined the ranks and showed that that without doubt, the public is very much united against this war? Most importantly, what if the public realized that it is not just the war they are so fully united in opinion on? What if this spread to other industries, such as health care, or taxes, and so on?

That notion is far too dangerous for America Inc., and also for their employees in government. What would happen if Americans could be heard above the din of corporate lobbyists and opinion makers, and were able to directly invalidate the carefully produced message telling us who we are, what we like, what we hate, what we want, what we need, and everything in between? You see the danger in this for those who spend billions upon billions a year on "public relations" and "advertising" and "image-making," all in order to make us believe that we do not agree and therefore cannot be united?

The public demand for redress was swift and unexpected, it blindsided the state mechanism, and it delivered a direct hit using nothing but a slogan, a picture, and facts.

Those who have betrayed us identify themselves...

But there is one more reason why this was something of a historic moment in its collection of reactions and counter-reactions. It exposed those in government as representative of someone or something other than the American people.

Consider that the majority of the public shares the sentiment of MoveOn's ad, not in the petty title of it, but in its content. The majority of the public which shares this opinion is also the majority of the voting public to whom these politicians in office are beholden, right?

Yet the President held full court to denounce the public. The Senate Republicans and 20 Democrats held full court to rebuke the public. The paid propagandists ran out with pen in hand to reprimand the public. TV screens were filled from channel to channel by the mobilized shills all condemning the public. And the corporate owned "grassroots" organization called Freedom's Watch wasted no time in creating and distributing its own ad vilifying the public. Does this not strike anyone as strange?

If the majority of the public shares this sentiment, then who are all these people rushing forth to defend? Who is this highly organized, well funded condemnation of the American public for? The only conclusion that can be reached is that the people who voted to rebuke the American people do not represent the American people. It is that simple. Whoever the elected officials in office are beholden to, it is most certainly not the public.

For the Still Deluded Among You...

If you are still a card carrying Republican, then you likely believe that the President and his party represent you. In reality, for those of you "Conservatives" still imagining yourselves to be the "base," and somehow represented by this President and his cronies, I have news for you: You are not in that club either.

Take a moment to see for yourselves:

Do you see a single soldier or a family member of a soldier represented in the President's "base?" Do you see a church, a temple, or any other religious organization represented, or a religious object in any way displayed at this "base" dinner? Do you see your political party friends or associates here, dining on food most of you cannot even afford to look at? In fact, do any of these people appear to you to be anyone you know? Does this event resemble your dining experience in general or your access to our dear leader in particular?

The majority of us now know that we are no longer represented by those in elected office. What we did not know until the Senate resolution to rebuke the MoveOn ad is just which of our elected public officials were "with us" and which were most decidedly "with the President." On that point, there is no longer any doubt. Every elected official who voted for condemning roughly 3 million Americans for something so fundamentally protected by the Constitution as the freedom to disagree with the President - does not represent us. Whoever they represent, it is not us.

In the cold civil war in which we are now all fighting to free ourselves from the corporate confederacy, the MoveOn ad was the first direct hit against a monolithic machine thought impervious before.

Follow Larisa Alexandrovna on Twitter: www.twitter.com/larisa_a

Comments

[alyosha]

Bravo, Ms Alexandrovna, killer piece, best thing I've read in a while. Some pretty original thinking here.

[danielet]

Bush is NOT the problem. Neither are the neocons; both are just souls for sale. But after the "entrepreneurs"-- French word, contrary to what Bush claims, meaning "inbetween" and "taking"-- were allowed to parasitically exsanguinate America, all we have left is our sons to send to war to get "our" oil from Iraq and someday "our" dollars back from China. But the media is part of that. So no chance that it will ever allow people with a penant in the window, showing a son in Iraq and two SUVs parked in front of the house, to realize that they are supporting BOTH sides of the terror. The media could show that ending fossil feul dependency would end terrorism. But, just as it never let it be known that open doors to pilot's cabins invited 9/11 to happen, it will always serve what keeps the goose laying golden eggs. When the goose dies, then they'll lie, as ENRON did, that the goose is alive and well. When a country wants Bible-babble to replace science and math it must either put LSD in the water or lie, lie, lie.

[Northshoredude]

One of the best posts I have read in a while. It really lays it out on how we have all been duped and that we are just bystanders who have no say when it comes to the corporate controlled "MSM" and Faux news. We might as well have Pravda right here in the good ole US of A! In fact when I read Pravda ocassionally, they have much less propoganda than we do - how about that for a turn of events!

Ms. Alexandrovna - I wonder why you had such a problem with the title to the Moveon ad. Isn't what the general doing Betraying us? Bush built him up for months (after all the other generals were dissed prior to Betrayus) as the "saviour" spokesperson upon whom the whole future direction of the war would hinge.

Well, I have news for you - General Petraues did "Betray us" and the American people by being nothing more than a paid whore who spun the Bushit lies about Iraq.

Unfortunately, when people tell it like it is - people do not like to hear it. Too damn bad. The General did betray our trust and the Iraqi people who are living through the nightmare of this occupation. Anyway, other than that point - I think you article was excellent!!

[moderationsmuse]

Post script. I looked at the Youtube segment and can understand why a nice left wing girl like Larisa wouldn't understand it.

Well, Larisa, it's called making a "joke." It's something people who are not stuffed with self-importance do.

You might want to try it sometime.

[Larisa Alexandrovna - Huffpost Blogger]

Thank you for your kind assumption that I am in need of having the obvious pointed out to me. While I hate to disappoint you, because you are so obviously a deep thinker - clearly able to work through abstract thought and nuance quickly - the reality is I am well aware of it being a joke.

The question, however, which of course should be obvious to someone as astute as yourself is does this joke appear to be in good taste? I will leave you to ponder the answer, as I know you will at length.

On a side note, I am rather annoyed at you placing me so decidedly in a pre-packaged box of stereotypes, no doubt sold on wholesale by Fox to such fine mental all-stars as yourself. Be assured that I am not remotely nice or ensconced in a "wing" of anything. I am kind, which is not the same thing as nice and I am interested in human rights and basic principles outlined in the US Constitution, which I dare say is neither liberal or conservative, but entirely all-American.

[moderationsmuse]

Bravo, that you accept it's being a joke and the rule of jokes is their being funny. I thought Bush's was "cute." And am inclined not to read much more into it.

Otherwise, I'm glad we agree on the fundamentals. Stereotypes are not the path to solid argument. That the whole right/left "wing" thing is pretty simplistic (I guess I owe you an apology.) Mea culpa.

Glad to hear you're a proponent of kindness. Try to see the president in a more humane light. Not for the purpose of agreeing/d­isagreeing­, but to understand history.

And let's both rejoice that kindness preceded the Constitution and transcends national and temporal borders. We really can't get too much of it, as it builds bridges of understanding between people.

[snaggster]

Yeah, it's a joke all right. Who's the joke on?

[ScooterLiddy]

I love this smackdown. It is not about "wing" anything. It is about defending the Constitution. You are truly an "all-American". Thanks for your eloquent post.

[rhknott]

Moderationsmuse? It's a real thrill for me to reply to a post by one of the ancient Greek goddesses of literature and the arts. You present yourself as the Muse of "moderation" but comment on Larisa's failure to understand Dubya's wit in referring to his Republican party base (truth in jest!) -- not as Christian fundamentalists (alas) but -- as the "Have More's." I love it. I'm with you babe.

Are the readers of Larisa's blog supposed to infer from your post (since everyone knows there's no Muse of moderation) that they are reading a comment posted by the Muse of comedy, Thalia? There are nine of you goddesses, right? Thalia is the guiding spirit of comedy, so your decree in support of Dubya's sense of humor is meant to be authoritative, I presume. Right on sister! You go girl! Bush's comedic timing is great. I'm surprised his talent as a wit is not more widely recognized than it is. He puts Dr. Samuel Johnson to shame. He's much funnier than General Betraeus.

Keep up the good work. Yours always. I mean it.
R.H.

[drsivana99]

moderationsmuse, there are jokes and then there are jokes. If you think it is appropriate for the President of the United States to make remarks like that in ANY context, then you are stuffed with something other than self-importance.

[moderationsmuse]

I'll admit to not reading your entire, very long article. I was struck by and derailed by your rehash of the Gore/Bush election and the assertion that Bush was put into office against the will of the people. He obviously entered office against your will, but certainly not against mine. Independent newspaper investigations post-election (the Washington Post was one that investigated) actually supported the result by finding that a continued Florida recount of the kind Gore sought would NOT have found him the winner.

I notice that whenever the past is revisited, Democrats conveniently forget these particular facts, which unlike you I do not attribute to "lying" but simply to an unwillingness to acknowledge facts that displease you.

People of goodwill disagree about the Iraq war, about various 9/11 measures, about Bush's domestic agendas, but if he has brought about so many actions that you detest at least credit him with effectiveness. He may be slow, as a bumper sticker once said, but he's ahead of you.

I don't really care what Bush's grades were in school. He seems to have figured out rather complex questions on his watch. He has certainly taken the threat of Islamic fundamentalism more seriously than the Clinton administration did.

Was 9/11 not horrific enough for you? Well al Queda certainly has had more ambitious plans. I frankly think the Republicans are better judges of US national defense issues than Democrats whose core is all worked up over imagined Orwellian threats to their privacy. We had Clinton feeling our pain at every turn, but his inactions led to the real pain that was 9/11. He deserves some credit for our being caught sleeping while an enemy attacked.

Anyway, the whining is a little stale. Bush's term, for critics and fans alike, soon comes to a close. It's time as your Democratic special interest puts it to "move on." Time for everyone to get a life.

[rhknott]

Moderationsmuse: Great comment. I agree with your point about Dubya having "taken the threat of Islamic fundamentlism more seriously" than President Clinton. I mean, who could deny that? He got rid of Osama's buddy Saddam and has set up a democratic govt. in Iraq. What do these pinko atheist liberals want from him?

Dubya has struck back at the perpetrators of 9/11 in the most robust and devastating manner imaginable. I'd put him right up there with General Charles Gordon of Khartoum fame. I mean: he's taken up the "White Man's Burden" in magnificent fashion. Rudyard Kipling would be proud.

He's on Osama like "you know what" on "you know what!" He's brought honor, virtue (not to say honesty), and integrity back to this country after the disgrace of Vietnam. We'd still be in Vietnam if Dubya had been leading this country instead of cowardly weaklings like Nixon and Kissinger.

You're my type of woman moderationsmuse. Perhaps you could email me a photo of you in a bikini and note your measurements also. We could maybe hook up.
Yours always. I mean it.
R.H.

[moderationsmuse]

Your indulgence in caricature provides as good an example as any of the ways contemporary political discourse has become pointless. What are you trying to say? Ten clever ways to ridicule President Bush? Am I supposed to reply with satirical remarks about the other side? Tit for tat.

While I cannot support Clinton, Obama or Edwards, the possibility (and for me, honestly, the horror) that one of them could win means that their credentials, motives, their personalities as human beings does matter if one wishes to understand contemporary events.

Dubya has less power than your caricature allows. Taking just one issue, Ossama: read "Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terror," by stern Bush critic Michael Scheurer (recommended reading by Ossama himself) and read Dick Clarke's "Against All Enemies," and then we can talk.

Both men were/are experts and were key players in the US efforts to thwart al Queda prior to 9/11.

Their accounts read together demonstrate rather well how complex the real events are, how much experts can disagree, how much of US policy is shaped by professionals who work behind the scenes. Presidents make the big decisions and shape policy, but history has a texture that is more than the sum of your not so funny attempts at oneupmanship.

[plooger]

Briefly...

Re: 2000 Gore/Bush election... I believe your "a continued Florida recount" confirms Larisa's point, that the Supreme Court intervened in the election on Bush's behalf (Scalia's words), aborting the recount process on Saturday night and then ruling three days later that, no matter the inequality in voting and tabulation, no time remained for further counting.

As for your selective memory regarding the consortium's ballot review, only a single scenario resulted in a Bush victory, the very limited, initial recount requested by the Gore campaign. However, those who remember the actual events of that month will recall that the recount had been taken away from any campaign's selective approach and been placed in the hands of an impartial judge, Terry Lewis, who was moving towards a more comprehensive "count all the votes" review. The consortium review showed a clear victory for Gore in all aggregate reviews.

Effectively, the "Will of the People", Floridians *and* Americans, was thwarted via a judicial coup.

As for Bush's advanced thinking and response to the 9/11 tragedies, it is woefully selective to forget that Bush was in office for 8 months prior to the attacks and literally rejected the Clinton administration's, FBI's and CIA's advice, strategies and warnings regarding bin Laden and al Qaeda, and, instead, embarked on a historical Cold War era agenda of threatening nuclear escalation. al Qaeda wasn't even a back-burner issue for Bush.

As for post-9/11, reacting like a crazed, rampaging elephant does not equate to strength or well-reasoned response. Have we caught bin Laden? Why is al Qaeda stronger now than even before 9/11? Is the Middle East and the world more or less stable than before 9/11? The answers to all of these questions is obvious, and the fault lies *mainly* at the feet of George W. Bush.

[Gary50]

"The FBI has a dossier on you? Don't flatter yourself, they don't bother with chimpanzees!" Of course they do! One of them is president!
Great post Larisa. Thank you!

[Questioning]

"The attacks of September 11, 2001 were not the singular, all-transforming event that changed everything. Rather, it was the Supreme Court decision of 2000 that changed everything, a consequence of that single monumental failure to protect the Constitution. It was in a more general way, really, the 2000 election cycle that showed us just how willing the corporate fourth estate bosses were to fabricate a myth of goodness and accomplishment out of a man so ill suited to be anywhere near government, let alone the presidency of the United States."

ABSOLUTELY! Excellent point. The whole article
speaks the TRUTH. Thank you, Larisa Alexandrovna!

[Shanti]

Excellent article. The same old same old: divide and conquer. Red against blue,gay against straight,Patriotic Americans vs. unpatriotic Americans, liberal vs. conservative, ect.ect.ect.

[yurbud]

Thank you.

I wish my elected representatives had the courage to say this.

Two of them are people who do good things and probably have good intentions, Barbara Boxer and Henry Waxman, but one is one of the 20 Democrats who turned their back on America, Dianne Feinstein.

What will it take short of an actual civil war or revolution to get the other 70-80% of corporate owned politicians out of our government?

[sarge]

Wow, Larisa, that was thorough, and thoroughly enjoyable. I'm glad you didn't edit it down to 500 words as Wade Nelson suggested. You are HuffPo's very own 'Russian master' - a class act - love your stuff.

[Reddaddy]

I do not watch Fox, And President Select Bush is TV. I have 500 other channels to watch and a barf bag from a an airline. I just don't buy into it. I get my facts my from other places. I read Reuters, The Toronto Star. I use Fact Check. I also write to congress and my party leaders. I also support Move ON monthly. I am sick and tired people that just write on blogs and do not take action. I vote and march.

[FreeDem]

A most excellent article, but a few points of note.
They have been at war on their side for 20 years. Of course rather than call it "the war to install Fascism" they call it "the culture war".

Had the vote been different they were prepared to assault the system any way it turned out, this was reported on the web even before the election. They actually expected to get the majority but lose in the Electoral College.

A vast majority on the Web is seen, with some justification, as an elite minority that has the time, income, and inclination, to learn the facts. For most folks Kable Kabuki is the rule, if not just regular TV and radio, there is no other information source. As late as 2004 if I spoke of information that was commonplace on the web, I got stares like I had grown another head, and even now such awareness as there is is thin and fuzzy.

My personal bookmark list of important non-ephemeral data has a catalog of several hundred links that would take a dedicated reader months to digest (and took years to compile)that even laid out directly is quite daunting.

Even a very truncated list at my blog here http://freedemocrat.blogspot.com/ has more than 20 hours of video alone. And every link is not just worth a thousand words, but usually IS at least a thousand words.

Is it any wonder that Dem Politicians, who have a busy life, have not gotten a clue to the nature of the situation.

[rucognizant]

Freedem,
I have picked up on that, and I use the toll free number to the congress frequently to discuss issues.
I don't confine my talks to my own state.......If I see a Senator
or Congressman, ( on cspan)wrongly holding to the party line (propaganda/ "talking point") Mostly "those" Western" states, I call them ! Most of the Interns can't afford living costs AND cable or satallite TV, in Dc, so they miss all those great Documentaries on Link TV, ( I saw it almost a year before it hit the movie theaters.) They try to thank me and get off, but most of them are well e-raised and polite and I barrel right ahead with my talking points ( The Rush Limbaugh of the Congress Line?) I throw in some history too because I was a child during WWII and it was terrifying. BUT it also ended, unlike Vietnam or Iraq....... and these kids have no clue what it means to be a terrified child during a WAR, let alone honest history in school!
Most of them listen and ask questions.........
This is one of the reasons My Congressmen signed on to Kucinich's H Res 333 to impeach CHeney!
ANd Reddaddy I didn't even have to go march!
Alhough I have done that too.

[butonelife]

Back to your spider-hole, sorenmeetsdylan, you've smeared enough feces today.

[Oldchef]

Excellent post Ms. Alexandrovna. Articulate and well reasoned. Whoever sorenmeetsdylan is illustrates your points admirably by using rude personal attacks instead of addressing issues with facts and reason. I have been for some time now reminding my elected representatives that corporations may give them big money, but only people can vote and ignoring the will of the people will get you voted out of office. Please keep posting such honest truthtelling. The truth will indeed make us free, and informed voters will keep us free.

[pswill]

Hey, eggheaded, effused, espoused sorenmeetsdylan, check out the "ethemeral" video once again.