Can’t Possibly Get Any Better
By Rand Clifford
11 August, 2007
Countercurrents.orgA CorpoMedia masterpiece has recently been published by Michael Barone, senior writer for U.S. News and World Report. The title: New global study points to hope. [1] The study in reference is the Pew Global Attitudes Project’s poll of 47 nations. The Pew Resource Center, funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts, likes to call itself a Washington Fact Tank. [2]
Could it be that Barone is satisfied with his ad-hominem attacks on Al Gore having minimized the threat of global warming, so in this article at least, Barone felt compelled to feed Americans highly-pure CorpoMedia pap? "Most striking" is how he described the fact that only 1 out of 4 Americans are positive about the direction of the nation. An ensuing flourish of CorpoMedia bait-and-switch seasoned with indirection and omission assigns blame to the low job ratings of W, and congress. Partisanship is trotted out—Democrats are spoiling the party. Then The People get spanked with: "But when one considers that America has not suffered another Sept. 11 and that is has enjoyed a surging and prosperous economy, it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that citizens of this most blessed country are registering a verdict that is in tension with reality."
"Reality"? We "citizens of this most blessed country" are in tension with reality because 75 percent of us have some idea what is actually happening—because only 25 percent of us have swallowed more mindlessly the CorpoMedia propaganda?
Reality is something our illegitimate administration has profound contempt for, ("the reality thing") even while crowing about how great it is being the lone superpower because it affords creation of your own reality. The very term "Bush reality" is a kind of "nuculer" oxymoron.
Euphemisms are a CorpoMedia specialty. For example, after informing us that "We’ve been instructed by many sages that the rest of the world hates us and does not want to follow our example"...Barone states that "People around the world may oppose American intervention in Iraq, but they also want many of the things we do."
A euphemism in full glory, the term "intervention" used to describe our hideous, endless war crimes against Iraqis.
Packing a quiver stuffed with lies-for-every-contingency, America has shocked and awed and murdered over 600,000 innocent people while rendering millions more refugees. America has genetically doomed Iraqis virtually forever with radioactivity from "depleted" uranium (DU) projectiles. America destroyed the country’s infrastructure. Halliburton and Bechtell leading the contractors with no-bid contracts in their Christmas stockings, poised to perversely overcharge for rebuilding Iraq as we lop off the top 75% of Iraqi oil revenues for at least 30 years—all this while turning Iraq into our colossal military base for "intervening" in other energy-rich nations to slaughter their people and sack their resources. Reality renders it metastasis, but not superpower reality.
Since CorpoMedia calls it intervention, we might hope to never find out for what CorpoMedia is saving the terms "invade", "murder", "pillage" and "occupy". But with Iran in the cross hairs [3] perhaps those terms will leak out after the vaporizing with nuclear weapons of much of Iran while protecting the oil and gas fields? Or maybe not, with simple intervention sounding so benign and working just fine.
Barone’s crescendo chides Americans for believing 2 to1 that their children will be worse off than they are: "But what basis do Americans have to suppose that, for the first time in history, a younger generation will be worse off than their parents? Perhaps it’s just a feeling that things cannot possibly get any better."
Wow.
Contrast 75% of Americans being negative about the direction of the nation—with—CorpoMedia suggesting that "things cannot possibly get any better". Could a more profound example of the nature of CorpoMedia "journalism" be found?
For Americans still burdened with freethinking, decency and conscience, this might all seem totally bizarre because it is totally bizarre—CorpoMedia’s primary function of being cheerleader for CorpoGov. But through the bizarrity rings a truth bright and pure as the voice of a silver spoon: American elite really are plying the threshold of can’t-get-any-better, at least in terms of their definition of good.
But a dominant and growing problem: American People and the American elite are worlds apart. The Pew study involves The People; Barone’s article is for and about The People...yet reasons cited for getting "out of our national funk" are veered sharply toward the elite by reality.
Invasion and occupation of Iraq exquisitely delineates The People from the elite. The People are paid measly soldiers’ wages to risk their lives, too often losing their lives or coming home physically and/or mentally maimed only to be cheated in every way possible by CorpoGov. And the elite? Consider this example published by the Associated Press on 8-9-07, the title: Romney defends sons’ decision not to enlist. [4] Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney avoided Vietnam with his Mormon missionary work, and high draft lottery number. Last week, after delivering a speech in Bettendorf, Iowa, calling for a "surge of support" for our forces in Iraq, Romney was asked why none of his 5 sons had joined the military. "They are showing support for their nation," said Romney, "by helping me get elected because they think I’d be a great president." Romney’s net worth exceeds two hundred million dollars.
The People endure slashing of essential services only to see their tax dollars fund war crimes—a trillion dollars so far and still soaring. The elite, in addition to enjoying major tax reductions, are raking in astronomical profits from America’s war crimes. For them, war is the most profitable game going, especially if it is not actually war, but a simple sacking where nothing is really at stake but profits, lives of the poor, and foreigners.The list of things making life so rich for the elites while making things so poor for The People is growing so enormous, but it takes only a short list to touch upon some of the main things that could better the lives of The People:
If CorpoGov had not engineered the horror of 9-11, killing almost 3,000 of its own citizens to gain an excuse for attacking and sacking energy-rich nations—to get the "new Pearl Harbor" they have prayed for to accelerate America’s "benign global hegemony" (a euphemism for conquering the world) [5], and setting the industrial military complex out of control as a menace to The People, and the world.
If the Constitution of the United States of America were not debased. W’s oath to "preserve, protect and defend" the Constitution has so decayed that the Constitution is now considered by the President of the United States of America to be a simple "goddamned piece of paper" [6].
If the essentially unending pageant of lies and posturing leading up to "election" of a new President actually had anything to do with what The People want, and how they vote, instead of another elite selection of someone safe to their interests. When such a formerly crucial process is rendered such a farce as that which allowed this latest occupation of the White House by another of the Bush crime family, it infects the entire country but ultimately, hurts The People most.
If catastrophic effects of global warming, peak oil without adequate clean alternative energies, fresh-water crises, overpopulation, imminence of nuclear war...if not for virtually everything CorpoWorld, CorpoGov, and CorpoMedia are euphemizing into pap for the masses were appropriately addressed, instead of profit being the only priority...see why CorpoMedia is playing up the "attitudes" of people in the richest 47 countries, instead of talking about anything of substance, which implies reality?
Next time you read of reality in CorpoMedia, especially things being "...in tension with reality", perhaps the foremost thing to consider would be: Whose reality?
[1] http://www.spokesmanreview.com/
opinion/ www.spokesmanreview.com/opinion/[3 ] http://aep.typepad.com/american_
empire_project/2007/05/warships_warshi.html[4] http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory?id=3458904
[5] http://www.newamericancentury.org/
[6] http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/12/14/225310/24
Rand Clifford is a novelist and essayist living in Spokane, Washington, with his wife Mary Ann, and their Chesapeake Bay retriever, Mink. His novels CASTLING and TIMING are published by StarChief Press: http://www.starchiefpress.com
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