And
The Empire Mourned….
By Jason Miller
30 December, 2006
Countercurrents.org
“If we ever pass
out as a great nation we ought to put on our tombstone 'America died
from a delusion that she had moral leadership'.”
---Will Rogers
"It is only in folk
tales, children's stories, and the journals of intellectual opinion
that power is used wisely and well to destroy evil. The real world teaches
very different lessons, and it takes willful and dedicated ignorance
to fail to perceive them."
--Noam Chomsky
With
the intensity of Dale Earnhardt, Jr vying for victory in the Daytona
500, America’s mainstream media outlets have been racing furiously
to imbue the citizenry of the Empire with unusually large doses of heavily
choreographed agitprop.
Another unindicted US war
criminal has casually ridden off into a peaceful crimson sunset. In
response, pundits, talking heads, reporters and various other infotainment
personnel are working feverishly to perpetuate America’s collective
delusion that we embody integrity, decency, and enlightened values.
Like virtually all of his
predecessors and successors in the White House (regardless of their
party affiliation), Gerald Ford was guilty of a host of egregious offenses
against the human race. But the Big Lie must not die.
So in the wake of the United
States’ recent facilitation of Saddam Hussein’s hanging,
we in the self-proclaimed “bastion of human rights” are
in the midst of six days of mourning for a man would have swung from
the gallows long ago had he been judged by the same standards as Saddam.
In apparent deference to
Ford’s tireless efforts to advance America’s savage brand
of Capitalism, both the New York Stock Exchange and the NASDAQ will
be closed on Tuesday. Federal employees and postal service workers will
also take the day off to mourn the loss of the 38th president (1).
Despite the deeply hypocritical
show of reverence for one so maleficent, it is fitting that a military
escort will deliver Ford’s casket to the Capitol’s Rotunda
for viewing. Why wouldn’t soldiers bear the body of the former
leader of a fascist state replete with rampant corporatism, militarism,
and pathological nationalism? And why wouldn’t he lie in state
in the Capitol’s Rotunda? After all, Congress has been deeply
complicit in creating and preserving the nightmare some refer to as
Pax Americana.
Since much of the Empire’s
strength is derived from its stable base of obedient workers and consumers,
preserving their illusions of the United States’ inherent “goodness”
is crucial. Toward that end, consider a sampling of some of the mainstream
media’s recent “Ford-lore”.
On 12/27, Newsweek published
a piece by Barry Werth. Genuflecting to his corporate paymasters, Barry
asserted:
Gerald Ford assumed the presidency
when his government was sundering, qualifying him as one of history's
bravest leaders.
As Werth continued with his
seemingly benign discourse, it is highly likely that his facial appendage
began to resemble Pinocchio’s:
Many of those people who
originally deplored the (Nixon) pardon for short-circuiting history
and eroding the notion that no one, not even the president, is above
the law, came around to agree that it was best for the country.
The Washington Post eulogized
Ford with a favorable comparison to another perpetrator of wanton slaughter,
a man who was responsible for the deaths of over 200,000 Japanese civilians:
Truman, Ford used to say,
"had guts, he was plain-talking, he had no illusions about being
a great intellectual, but he seemed to make the right decisions."
Many would say the same of
Gerald Rudolph Ford.
The New York Times, the mainstream
media’s “bulwark of liberalism” fueled America’s
collective delusion with these choice quotes and observations:
….“He assumed
power in a period of great division and turmoil,” President George
W. Bush said in a statement broadcast early this morning. “For
a nation that needed healing, and for an office that needed a calm and
steady hand, Gerald Ford came along when we need him most. During his
time in office, the American people came to know President Ford as a
man of complete integrity who led our country with common sense and
kind instincts.”….
….After a decade of
division over Vietnam and two years of trauma over the Watergate scandals,
Jerry Ford, as he called himself, radiated a soothing familiarity. He
might have been the nice guy down the street suddenly put in charge
of the nation, and if he seemed a bit predictable, he was also safe,
reliable and reassuring. He placed no intolerable intellectual or psychological
burdens on a weary land, and he lived out a modest philosophy. “The
harder you work, the luckier you are,” he said once in summarizing
his career. “I worked like hell.”….
(Author’s Note: Citizens
of the American Empire needed soothing reassurance of their greatness
after the humiliating results of the imperial invasion of Vietnam. And
like the mainstream media, “Jerry” put no “intolerable
intellectual or psychological burdens” on them).
….The pardon, intensely
unpopular at the time, came to be generally viewed as correct. In May
2001, Mr. Ford was honored with a “Profile in Courage” Award
at the John F. Kennedy Library in Boston. Senator Edward M. Kennedy
spoke and said he had originally opposed the pardon. “But time
has a way of clarifying past events,” he said, “and now
we see that President Ford was right.”….
….His basic philosophy
involved fiscal prudence, strong national defense, suspicion of alien
lands and a belief that citizens should earn a living rather than be
given one…..
(Author’s Translation:
Ford believed in slashing federal spending on programs benefiting humanity
to enable increased military spending, was xenophobic, and was opposed
to using public funds to aid the poor).
Now that you have perused
samples of the rubbish our oligarch overlords are attempting to burnish
into the minds of their unsuspecting plebeian underlings, consider how
the affable “Jerry” enabled or caused the deaths of hundreds
of thousands of human beings and ensured that the ruling elite in the
United States would reclaim the power they had begrudgingly ceded to
the masses in the face of economic upheaval, civil unrest, and powerful
progressive movements.
Like our current unitary
executive, Ford did not get into the Oval Office by winning an election.
Also like Bush, in spite of the fact that the people did not vote him
into office, Ford brazenly defied the will of the American public on
an issue of great magnitude. Exercising the integrity of the mythologized
Ford, “Jerry” fulfilled his end of the bargain he had made
with Alexander Haig (3). In exchange for his ascendancy to the Empire’s
throne, he shielded Richard Nixon from facing consequences for his multiple
grievous transgressions of international and domestic laws.
Paving the way for Reagan
and his successors to marginalize America’s poor, minorities,
and working class and to gut our Constitution, Ford pardoned Richard
Nixon, chose to keep habitual war criminal Henry Kissinger(4) on as
his Secretary of State, and elevated future mass murderers, Donald Rumsfeld
and Dick Cheney to key White House positions.
Letting Nixon off the hook
was a particularly sinister act in at least two ways. Ford, an unelected
president in a purported constitutional republic, absolved a fellow
patrician of grave violations of international law, the public trust,
and the US Constitution. Thus Ford became Nixon’s accomplice.
At the same time, he landed a crushing blow for the moneyed class in
their persistent assault on the republic envisioned by men like Thomas
Jefferson and Thomas Paine.
Bear in mind that Ford pardoned
a man who was responsible for the deaths of at least 600,000 innocent
civilians. During the invasion and occupation of Vietnam, Nixon ordered
secret bombings of neighboring Cambodia. The goal was to strike North
Vietnamese supply and transit routes, but unfortunately for the Cambodian
people, the B-52 carpet bombings did not distinguish the nationalities
of victims(5).
Nixon’s use of illegal
wire-taps was such a flagrant abuse of executive authority that Congress
passed the FISA Law in 1978 to prevent similar breaches of Constitutional
law (6). In the wake of Nixon’s immunity from prosecution, the
Bush Regime has subsequently ignored the FISA Laws and run roughshod
over the Constitution, without consequence. Thank you for setting the
precedent, “Jerry”.
Ford also enabled Nixon to
evade prosecution for obstruction of justice, perjury and possible income
tax evasion (7). The IRS eventually ordered Nixon to pay $467,000, a
relative pittance for a man of his means.
Despite the damage and suffering
they left in their wake, Nixon and Ford both lived in security and wealth
until their mortality finally caught up with them. Saddam met his maker
as he dangled from the end of a rope.
Like his predecessor, Ford
was quite enamored with Henry Kissinger. He once summarized him with
this quip: “wonderful person. Dear friend. First-class Secretary
of State. But Henry always protected his own flanks.”
Once Ford assumed the Empire’s
helm, he wasted little time before collaborating with Kissinger in another
imperial escapade. Consider the US role in Indonesia’s genocide
that killed over 200,000 East Timorese:
"Jakarta Godfathers"
by John Pilger, Guardian, 7 September, 1999:
"No help came, because
the western democracies were secret partners in a crime as great and
enduring as any this century; proportionally, not even Pol Pot matched
Suharto's spree. Air Force One, carrying President Ford and his secretary
of state Henry Kissinger, climbed out of Indonesian airspace the day
the bloodbath began. "They came and gave Suharto the green light,"
Philip Liechty, the CIA desk officer in Jakarta at the time, told me.
"The invasion was delayed two days so they could get the hell out.
We were ordered to give the Indonesian military everything they wanted.
I saw all the hard intelligence; the place was a free-fire zone. Women
and children were herded into school buildings that were set alight
- and all because we didn't want some little country being neutral or
leftist at the United Nations." And all because western capital
regarded Indonesia as a "prize"."
Declassified in 2001, several
US government documents (8) clearly demonstrate that “Jerry”
and Kissinger gave Suharto, Indonesia’s leader, their blessing
to do as he wished with East Timor. Shortly thereafter Suharto launched
a wave of US-supported state-sponsored terrorism (9) that lasted until
1999.
Obviously, Gerald Ford was
far more shrewd and Machiavellian than the mainstream media’s
recent wave of white-washing would indicate. Aside from his complicity
in Nixon’s crimes (for which our Ministry of Truth has exculpated
Ford by concluding that the pardon was necessary to “heal the
nation”), and his role in the carnage in East Timor, he also aligned
himself closely with J. Edgar Hoover. Ford played a pivotal role in
the Warren Commission’s affirmation of Hoover’s “lone-assassin
theory”. As a member of the Warren Commission, Ford convinced
the group to alter the final version of their report to conclude that
the same bullet killed Kennedy and severely wounded Texas Governor Connally.
Robert Morningstar, who has researched the Kennedy assassination extensively,
stated that the Ford revision was “the most significant lie in
the whole Warren Commission report."(10)
Admittedly, some of the positive
qualities and deeds the corporatized Fourth Estate has recently been
attributing to Gerald Ford are true. However, their apotheosis of a
man who harmed far more people than those whom the US state and federal
governments murder each year (in open defiance of the Eighth Amendment)
reveals the truly deceitful and malignant nature of the mainstream media
in the United States.
Ostensibly, our society in
the United States is based on democratic principles. In such a society,
the purpose of the press would be to act as an independent check on
the government’s power. However, our evolution into a corporate-dominated
fascist state has obliterated the media’s independence. A handful
of colossal corporations owns or controls over 90% of the mainstream
media outlets in the United States.
As a result of this incestuous
relationship, the Washington Post, CNN, and a mélange of others
are but mouthpieces of the government singing a seductive chorus that
engenders and sustains the Big Lie. Occasionally they bleat feeble opposition
to imperialism and our rapid regression into a nation resembling a banana
republic, but most of the time they beat the drums of war, promote the
interests of the wealthy, manipulate the hoi polloi with fear, and perpetuate
the myths of America’s virtue. Ethical journalists have little
or no opportunity to ply their craft in such an environment.
Those who remain captive
to the Big Lie will spend the next few days mourning the passing of
a man who was fortunate to escape the death penalty with which his country
is so infatuated. Those same comforting delusions of superiority, entitlement,
and invincibility that enable men like Gerald Ford to act with impunity
will entice many Americans to continue wearing the intellectual manacles
of the Empire.
As frightening as it may
be, it is spiritually and mentally liberating to realize and admit that
one of “our own”--an Eagle Scout, a football hero, a Christian,
a White heterosexual male, a Capitalist, and an “American”--was
capable of the savagery and lawlessness that minds shackled by the Big
Lie can only ascribe to “terrorists” like Saddam Hussein.
Despite its tendency to inflict
pain, the truth will indeed set you free.
Sources and Further Reading:
(1) http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16393733/
(2) http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/
content/article/2006/12/27/AR2006122700528.html
(3) http://www.wsws.org/articles/2006/dec2006/ford-d28.shtml
(4) http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/
Kissinger/Preface_TOHK.html
(5) http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/
American_Empire/Nixon_Cambodia_LFE.html
(6) http://www.alternet.org/story/30350/
(7) http://www.albionmonitor.com/9901b/
copyright/nixontax.html
(8) http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB62/
(9) http://www.commondreams.org/headlines01/1206-03.htm
(10) http://www.crimemagazine.com/06/ford-jfk,1111-06.htm
Jason Miller is a wage slave of the American Empire who has freed himself
intellectually and spiritually. He writes prolifically, his essays have
appeared widely on the Internet, and he volunteers at homeless shelters.
He welcomes constructive correspondence at [email protected]
or via his blog, Thomas Paine's Corner, at http://civillibertarian.blogspot.com/
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