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The previous two articles lay out the
agenda of the elites that most are now contending with, but this does not begin
to tell the story of the truth beneath the lies.
There have been enemies of this
attempted takeover and the global economy that seeks control of the world's
population by default. When one looks long and hard at what it means to have a
national leader of stature, the first thing, is that any prospective leader must
have an orderly mind. This is true because what we tend to trust in people is
the way they think, the way they construct their thoughts, and how those
concepts become actions in the first place.
We have had such leaders in the past.
Several have paid for their persuasive powers with their lives. Kennedy was one
such man. So was Martin Luther King. Also Robert Kennedy, and most recently Paul
Wellstone. Of course there have been many others, less well known, who have also
had to pay for what they tried to bring to this battle for the soul of a nation.
The one thing that all these people have in common is their active minds. They
were creative in that they could persuade with the power of their words. This
made them natural enemies of those who now seek to harness all the wealth and
all the power for themselves.
In addition to their prowess, most real
people have a love of everyday life, and of activities that revel in
competition, in spontaneous laughter, and in the celebrations that accompany
normal life. To dance, to sing, to revel in the quiet moments: Or to take up the
long and arduous task of laying out national policies that can right a wrong, or
strike a balance where there had only been divisions of the heart, deeply felt
for decades. These things are the measure of a leader. By contrast there is no
comparison between these individuals and the snarling, hate of swagger, or the
petty condescension that so clearly marks the Bandits that have hung their Jolly
Roger over all we say and do.
A leader is one who implicitly
understands the risks of failure and uses all the tools at his or her command to
alter or avert disaster, without the need for war. None of these people would
ever have been perfect, but many of them gave their all to try to leave this
nation better off, for their having been there, when they were needed most. That
cannot be said of anyone in office now. Kennedy blew it with Viet Nam, but did
not live to see it finished. MLK had his dream, but he too was murdered before
he had the chance to see the progress that it brought to people everywhere.
These individuals were successful because their lives were about more than just
personal desires, more than just how much money or fame they could amass - and
in this sense only - there was the hint of a kind of Camelot. Not in an earthly
reality but in the grandeur of what their reach attempted to accomplish. Partly
this was true because they not only outlined policies, they tried to plan for
ways to make them happen, in the real world. They did not simply issue decrees
without the money or the will to see the ideas through. The Barbarians of today
have no connection to those who stood so tall in history, primarily because
these creatures were never elected or even chosen in the first place.
The stand-in's for our leadership lack
all the skills and talents needed to live full and avid lives. They seem to know
nothing about personal intimacy, affection or remorse. The warmth and depth that
ordinary people know, as the bedrock needed for their lives, is as foreign as
the surface of Mars, to these self-appointed slaves to greed and arrogance. Most
people's lives contain a lot of ups and downs; it's the natural rhythm of the
way life works in healthy people. Yet that's not been the lot for these
overbearing imposters. Their course has been a back-alley game of
"gotcha;" played without scruples or ethics, and their deeds are
always hidden in the secrecy that serves as the bedrooms for their lives. They
know not of compassion, of love or understanding, and they know nothing of that
'purposeful intent' that will not be denied. They are empty vessels, always on
the hunt for every morsel of any hidden profit, in whatever scheme they might
concoct to steal yet more, of what they haven't earned.
This is what got us into all this
payback in Iraq. Under GWH Bush (41), there were several of these schemes afoot.
This began with the Iranian Hostage Crisis, when 41 was serving as Reagan's
number two. A deal was struck for the release of the American Embassy hostages
that had been imprisoned for 444 days. Ronnie's election owed its success at the
polls in 1980 to that deal. It was rumored that this had been affected by
trading arms for the hostages, but Bill Casey, the head of the CIA at the time,
died just before he could testify in that matter, and so it lies there in
history (sealed up in Reagan's and 41's presidential papers) just waiting for
someone to unseal those documents so that the full story can finally be known.
This was followed, over the ensuing
years by Manuel Noriega's nefarious dealings from Panama. At the time Central
and South America were receiving special attention; from the Reagan
administration who initiated death squads, and the scandal of CIA operations
(The Iran-Contra Affair) that was rumored to be running drugs in exchange for
arms supplied to the Contras, to overthrow some governments that had become
inconvenient, to USA inc. The effort involved many current administration
officials: John Negroponte, then our in-country Ambassador, more recently US
Ambassador to the UN, and now the US Ambassador to Iraq. There was also Richard
Armitage, Richard Perle, and a number of other odious Reagan luminaries who
rejoined this government under Bush 43.
By the time George W. arrived in the
Oval office, there was still the unfinished business left behind by Dubya's
Daddy, of Saddam Hussein. Evidence of what actually happened in the Reagan and
previous Bush administration, had been sealed (by GWB) at the beginning of
Dubya's watch. But with Saddam still very much alive, anything might still
happen to expose those long dark moments from the past. When 911 happened, the
first preference for American bombs (by Bush) was for Iraq, in order to begin to
finalize the last chapter in the saga of the Bush Dynasty. But cooler heads
prevailed and Afghanistan was finally settled on, to enable the signing of the
oil pipeline deal if nothing else. But once that was signed, the political heat
from the oval office began again to concentrate American military power on the
old business of Saddam. And this was done despite the fact that Bush did not
deliver on his promise to "get" Osama bin Laden, "Dead or
Alive" - what happened to that promise?
While the world watched the antics of
the boy president, and observed his impatience wearing thin, his plans were
being finalized. Cheney browbeat the CIA, and the White House set up its own
Intelligence Agency to oversee and edit what they got from other sources. There
was the waiting, the UN inspectors and finally the Powell performance that
contained not a single word of truth. Then at long last George finally got his
long awaited moment, to finish what his father had begun.
The problems were unrelenting, the
exposure of the lies about the weapons of mass destruction, then the lies about
the capabilities to strike within 45 minutes that could have devastated this
country (we blamed that one on the Brits). The repeated mentions of the nuclear
clouds that was never remotely possible. There was no evidence at all of WMD's,
once we got inside the country. Then the shoddy planning for the war itself was
exposed as threadbare, and chaotic. The 'war' was capped by a premature
declaration of "the end of major combat," but then the real war
started: All of this was heightened by Abu Ghraib, the prison abuse scandals and
the missing funds from Cheney's former company.
If lists were kept about how to judge a
presidency, then surely one must keep a record of failed accomplishments as well
as promises made and broken. In that regard, this administration has to hold the
worst position ever attained by any American administration, in all of history.
The war was rekindled and now the
official death toll is fast approaching nine times what it was at the end of
"major combat." You'll have to imagine what the numbers really are,
because they are a national secret. Not only did we not heed the lessons learned
in Viet Nam, but Bush has made an even worse disaster out of Iraq, than even
that national stain has left us with. Things haven't gone well for this gang
that cannot accomplish anything they try to do. Sharon has now ordered our
fearless leader to attack Iran before the November elections, so that we can get
back to clean quick wars again. But the seeds of fiscal policy are beginning to
reap the whirlwind, just before the elections, and the numbers are not looking
good for employment or for trade. This has not been a good year for the boys who
fly the Jolly Roger.
That hypothetical of Camelot that
marked the Kennedy years now four decades on, seems so much further back,
against these continued scandals that seem unending in their raging sea of lies.
The question usually asked at this time of year is "Are you better off now
than you were four years ago?" That seems so silly. Perhaps the question
ought to be "Is there anything that still remains for you, in this election
year?"
One thing is very clear: We have no
leader now, nor have we had one for the last four years. We have a liar and a
fraud, masquerading as commander-in-chief. We have his cabinet composed of
draft-dodgers, grifters and the like - but we have no leaders anymore. We have
only would-be opportunists, who are banking on a public that can no longer tell
the truth from all the lies that are so frequently recounted. Just review
Cheney's performance before the mindless mob at the republican convention.
The administration would have us
believe, that they are our last best hope for anything like the world we once
lived in, before they darkened all our days. That's just not true. They are the
ones who created all this terror, just as they are the ones who want to
perpetuate our ever fear. But the fear they generate is just a projection of
their own demise; it is they who should be fearful, and we who should be looking
to the future not the past. Nothing can be built on fear and paranoia except
more of the same. Free people will stand apart from intimidation and will demand
a return to sanity and an end to tyranny-so why not just do it!
End of Part Three
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