Mud, Fog, And Blackwater
By Rand Clifford
11 October, 2007
Countercurrents.orgDespite the muddy slurry streaming from mainstream corporate media (CorpoMedia), most Americans still seem to believe the indirection and untruth that washes out along with flecks of reality. Consider Iraq, a country we invaded to take control of their oil. Very simple, obviously true. But CorpoMedia gushed mud about weapons of mass destruction, mushroom clouds, shocking destructive powers of Saddam, freedom and democracy, liberators’ welcome, fighting terrorists over there so they won’t come and get us over here, Saddam’s role in 9-11?...on and on—and that’s all caked around the barest, simplest question of why did we invade? CorpoMedia even calls it a "war", this invasion and occupation for booty. And the mud is often joined with befuddling banks of emotional fog that frequently condense into flags and yellow ribbons, "I Support The Troops" magnetics, more flags, and white and blue and red ribbons.
Why do we still occupy Iraq with so many troops? Because the New Iraqi Oil Law is yet to be chiseled into legal stone. Simple as that. The New Oil Law awards to primarily American Big Oil 75% of Iraqi oil revenue for 30 years, putting Big Oil in control of Iraq’s lifeblood and denying them any chance of recovering from our crimes. Whenever mentioning the New Oil Law, CorpoMedia likes to stick it low on lists of "benchmarks" we have set for the (independent?) Iraqi government. But ultimately, there is only one benchmark: The New Oil law. The other benchmarks are just so many rags thrown over the naked truth. The New Oil Law might have made it into legal stone while its details were hidden from even the Parliament set to vote on it; but now, leaks of truth leave Iraqis with no choice but to fight the occupier because the New Oil Law would remove their only hope of getting a fair share of their resources. So what does CorpoMedia call these people fighting for their own oil, fighting for their country? It calls them insurgents, terrorists, al-Qaida.... Is it even possible to kill enough Iraqis to get whatever survivors to sign over their oil? Well over a million has not been enough.
In the current mudbath for president, Ron Paul is the only politico besides Dennis Kucinich who speaks candidly. Regarding our foreign policy, Paul stated, "We need to look at what we do from the perspective of what would happen if somebody else did it to us." He also cited the CIA’s own concept of "blowback", suggesting that terrorism coming at us could be provoked by our abuse of so many other countries over the last 60 years...not because of CorpoMedia fog including freedoms, democracy, and promiscuously-clothed young ladies. So shocking was Paul’s uncloaking of American politics’ "big taboo" that he might never be invited to another Republican presidential debate, joining truth and meaning on the black list.
So what if Iraq unleashed Shock and Awe upon the United States? What if they murdered over a million Americans simply to steal our...ahem, okay, we’ve already hogged most of our own oil—MUD ALERT! CorpoMedia has many anti-environmental "pundits" screeching that we still have plenty of our own oil, but the environmentalists won’t let us pump it.
Transcending oil, let’s say that Iraq invaded the U.S. to steal our celebrities. Wouldn’t we have the right to take up arms and fight the attackers to defend what God gave us? Wouldn’t we be patriots, or freedom fighters or righteous defenders with justice on our side, not insurgents, or terrorists?
Back to our occupation of Iraq, exactly what is it that could signal our victory? The closest we might come would involve the Iraqi Parliament finally chiseling into stone our new Iraqi Oil Law. And if we ever finally kill enough Iraqis for that, we’ll still need to heavily occupy Iraq to comprehensively police our plunder of their oil. Might CorpoMedia ever mention that long before we burn all that oil, the climate will be in such chaos that little else will matter? Naw, omission is their ace in the hole. If they don’t report it, did it really happen? Also, we already keep troops in nearly 130 nations, and have 702 foreign military bases. With our new embassy in Iraq larger than the Vatican, dazzling new no-bid, hyper-overpriced military bases, plus their ocean of easy-access oil, does it seem possible that we will ever leave? Sure, we’ll metastasize to Iran, and wherever else Israel might demand, but we don’t do the leaving thing.
In Iraq, corporate fleecing of American taxpayers is an enormous story in itself. CorpMedia loves to play their omission ace on this. Besides, with all the hot stuff about Paris and Britney and such, where is there room for boring economics? Because public conditioning has come to define CorpoMedia, does anything short of absolute boycott by The People seem appropriate? A very strong indicator of American character is there, perhaps—keep gulping the bullshit, or shut it off? We still have the right to shut it off, that’s one they haven’t taken away yet.
Another recent example of CorpoMedia mud under extra heavy fog was the furor over the "attacks" upon General David Petraeus, which actually provoked hugely bi-partisan Congressional condemnations of free speech. Editorial cartoons—and not just those of Michael Ramirez—are still ripping Democrats with a spine, and MoveOn.org for disrespect hurled at General Petraeus. So much has been made of the General’s credentials as assurances of honesty, integrity and patriotism...solid reasons for unquestioned faith and respect, that perhaps we should defer to someone with even greater credentials for reinforcement? General Petraeus’ commanding officer is Admiral William Fallon, chief of the Central Command (CENTCOM). Admiral Fallon, during his first meeting with General Petraeus in Baghdad last March, told Petraeus that he considered him an "ass kissing little chickenshit" and added, "I hate people like that."
Enmity between the Admiral and the General was actually reported in CorpoMedia on September 9, including a quote by a senior Pentagon official who referred to "bad relations" between the two as "the understatement of the century." The New York Times and the Washington Post both carried this story, proving that even CorpoMedia strays.
Admiral Fallon’s disgust has much to do with General Petraeus being front man for the Bush Administration’s efforts to sell its Iraq "surge" boondoggle. A veteran of 35 years, Admiral Fallon is known for his willingness to stand up to powerful figures, and independence from the White House—especially of late as it’s become the ultimate crucible of bad ideas.
Americans who get their "news" from CorpoMedia are on a diet of exactly what CorpoMedia wants their audience to believe. It’s the propaganda diet, and leaves too many Americans knowing so little about reality that they fall like lemmings into one of the core definitions of stupidity, which is: The clinging to powerful opinions regarding something one knows little or nothing about. Combine that with what people want to believe, such as that our government could never have been involved in 9-11, and expect the worst—meaning at least martial law, and mass detention of Americans in FEMA’s new forced-labor camps. (1) The list is growing so long...American imperialism, accelerating climate change, clean and renewable energies (exactly what nuclear is NOT!), electronic voting fraud, impending dollar crash and economic meltdown, 9-11, The War on Terror, 3 aircraft carrier battle groups in the Persian Gulf fishing for another Gulf of Tonkin incident, recent passage of the Lieberman-Kyl bill okaying attack on Iran, missing nuke from the Minot-to-Barksdale "non story".... Perhaps the ultimate non story is that America now belongs to trans-national corporations, the industrial military complex, and AIPAC. People, you’ve been sold out.
The People even seem hopeful that 13 more months of presidential election mudbath will somehow end up making things better. Certainly, it seems hard to imagine the exit of W not being an improvement (if he does exit—martial law is just the stroke of a pen away now). However, the controllers who subjected us to 8 years of W will choose someone to keep us on this same miserable path, where the rich will get richer, the growing numbers of poor will get even poorer, AIPAC will "surge" again, the Constitution will finally be laid to rest, and an individual’s vote in national elections will mean something only to the voter.
CorpoMedia is simply the propaganda arm of CorpoGov, who won’t stop until the realization of CorpoWorld. A privatized world where the essentials of life will be available only to those who can afford them, and the idea of commonwealth is safe, deep in some landfill patrolled by Blackwater. A two-class world where the elite own virtually everything, live in self-contained fortresses patrolled by Blackwater, and travel only with Blackwater escorts. What’s to stop them now, other than Mother Nature? For a sneak preview of sorts, research what has really happened in New Orleans. And those 800 new detention camps in FEMA’s Rex 84 program are all decked out with guards and cattle cars, waiting for dissenters.
CorpoMedia keeps playing more and more omission cards, making it seem less likely every day that The People will wake up before it’s too late.
Didn’t they just take away Britney’s kids?
(1) http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=
viewArticle&code=ROL20060820&articleId=3010Rand 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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