Welcome To America's Nightmare
By Timothy V. Gatto
29 September,
2008
Countercurrents.org
The last few weeks have truly
illustrated just how corrupt and mismanaged this country has become.
I have been keeping a low profile so to speak, because of what I have
heard about the “secret”
session of Congress last March. That session of Congress
was about the collapse of the US economy in late September, and the
financial collapse of the US Government in October. The Congress was
briefed on how the Federal government was prepared to stop civil unrest
by rounding up those that are considered “dissidents”,
ostensibly to prevent large scale demonstrations and possibly a coup.
The Army, which was recently given the power to ignore “Posse
Comitatus” (which forbids the use of Federal troops for law
enforcement in the United States) in the John Warner Defense Bill
(the revamped Insurrection Act).
I don’t know if that session of Congress was truly about the things I just mentioned because it was a secret session. These details managed to slip out, but of course we have no way to verify this information. Still, the fact that there was a secret session of Congress, where information has been kept away from American citizens, is unto itself, a cause for alarm. The President can sign Executive Order 51 (The continuity of Government Executive Order), and keep portions of it secret from Congress no matter how high the security clearance of Congressional members are, but now they are trusting members of Congress to keep secrets from the people!
The way the government has behaved in the last few weeks is nothing short of surreal. When the behavior of our elected officials is taken together with the so-called “debate” between the two corporate politicians, one must question the motivations of the people in the highest reaches of the Federal Government. I read an article by Rob Kall, the publisher of OpEdNews.com that at one time was an independent thinking website. What I read today was just another example of how far so-called “progressive’s” will go to obfuscate reality to ensure that the two-party corporate system stays in place. The part of the article that bothered me was when Mr. Kall mentioned the fact that Obama failed to “get tough” with McCain during the debate. He said this; “Why can't Barack get tough now? I'll tell you why, weak handlers and advisors.” What? Now its his advisor’s fault? This gives Obama a free pass to cave on just about anything. Like Kerry and Gore before that, the blame can be shifted onto the shoulders of anyone save the candidates. The real reason why Obama can’t get tough on McCain is because he doesn’t see anything wrong with McCain’s views! This would devastate someone like Kall and other phony “progressive’s”, to actually admit that Obama is just a mirror-image of the Republican corporate candidate. This much too hard to accept, so people like Kall must substitute a different reality to replace the one they were presented with. To be fair to Rob Kall, he is not the only one that tries to explain Obama’s lack of intestinal fortitude away, just about every critic of the recent debate tries to explain Obama’s lack of conviction. What they fail to notice is that Obama isn’t being timid, the convictions they believe Senator Obama has just aren’t there!
From this bailout of the corporate interests to the call for more war, both candidates are indistinguahible from each other. Is it any wonder why people are calling for drastic measures to right the glaring wrongs that are happening? If I hear another “Wall Street to Main Street” analogy again, I think I shall start screaming. I don’t know what Main Street these pundits and politicians are talking about, but it isn’t the Main Street in my town they are referring to. This bailout isn’t going to help out anyone I know. It may help the financial supporters of the two corporate-led political parties, but it won’t stop the banks that are foreclosing on your house. The truth is that there are banks writing mortgages today! All the banks are not going under!
The truth is that Goldman-Sach’s is the largest political campaign donor in America today! Washington Mutual’s lobbyists’ helped write the bankruptcy laws that Congress passed. The facts are that most of the legislation that Congress passes is written by corporations that have a vested interest in the legislation! This is not speculation, but fact. If the American people were told the truth, I can predict that most Americans would turn their backs on the Democrats and the Republicans in a heartbeat.
I have been reading that former Vice-President Gore has been calling for civil disobedience to take coal out of the clean energy debate. The fact is that coal is not clean, nor will it ever be clean! . Yet Americans are bombarded by pictures of “clean coal plants” that have never been built because we don’t have the technology to build them!. It’s a lie that is perpetrated by the two corporate-led political parties. The fact that most of the bad mortgages are refinanced mortgages will not be common knowledge, it’s just too damning to the effort to refinance the banks that made these mortgages!
Facts like Georgia started the war in the Caucuses are being bandied about while Obama and McCain claim that it was Russia that “invaded” Georgia. Even when most Americans know the truth, not one pundit or interviewer asks why they keep telling the same lie over and over again. My anger doesn’t stem from one lie; the truth is that I’m concerned about all the lies. I see that the truth, like anything else, is expendable. This especially holds true when the truth is tied to money. Above the doorway to the Capitol Building there should be a sign that says; Check Your Principles and Convictions at the Door. They are not needed or are they wanted on the floor of the Senate or the House.
There are a few things that I would like to bring up in this article. As long as I’m writing about the truth here, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention a few of my favorite lies and distortions that are told on a regular basis by our elected officials. The first one is that Israel is armed to the teeth because of all the terrorist attacks on it’s people, and that we must put ourselves in their place to understand why they treat the Palestinians’ and other Arabs the way that they do.
Looking at the facts, the truth is that more Israeli citizens are killed and injured in automobile accidents than in terrorist attacks.
http://www.simpletoremember.com/vitals/safety-in-israel.htm
“Let's compare first with the risk of death from motor vehicle accidents in Israel, since one thing tourists do is travel around. Again, excluding the West Bank and Gaza, Israel's Central Bureau of Statistics reports 461 traffic fatalities during the 2000 calendar year. This adds up to an annual personal risk of 73 per one million, which is nearly four times higher than the risk of death from terrorism.”
Politicians use the prospect of Iran developing a nuclear weapon to bolster their policy of sanctions and possible military intervention against that country. They do not mention the fact that any country who signs the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty also has the right to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes. The United States tries its best to portray nuclear enrichment as a prelude to nuclear weapons and hints that enrichment is illegal. Nuclear enrichment can also be used for peaceful purposes such as develping fuel for electricity. While it is true that Iran could buy enriched fuel from nuclear countries, the largest supplier of such fuel is the United States. If the United States initiates a boycott of nuclear fuel to Iran, the nuclear plants they build would be worthless. Could Iran trust this country not to use sanctions against them? Also, why is it acceptable for Israel to have hundreds of nuclear warheads and delivery systems for them? Wouldn’t a good start toward talks on the banning of nuclear weapons in the Middle East be the scrapping of Israel’s nukes? Why is this not even discussed?
The involvement of our country in the affairs of Latin America is something we hardly ever read about. Evo Morales, the President of Bolivia has watched the United States give millions of dollars to the five prefects in Bolivia that have called for succession. These prefects (states) have huge reserves of natural gas and are predominantly from European ancestry, unlike the rest of the country which is predominantly indigenous people with no natural resources. This has led President Morales to expel the US Ambassador in protest, yet the mainstream media seems to ignore this. The United States also portrays the President of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, as a dictator. This is done even though Chavez was elected under the watchful eye of Former President Jimmy Carter. The only “crime” that Chavez is guilty of is standing up to the military power of America and diverting the nation’s oil wealth from the wealthy aristocracy to the people of Venezuela. This was the reason that the United States poured millions of dollars into an unsuccessful coup in 2002.
These are some of the lies that we hear on a daily basis. This corporate bailout isn’t for you and me; it’s for the corporations and the politicians that do their dirty work. So welcome to our collective nightmare.
