Can’t
Possibly Get Any Better
By Rand Clifford
11 August, 2007
Countercurrents.org
A
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/
[2] http://pewresearch.org/
[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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