HIDING IN PLAIN SIGHT
It is fun to watch people with blood on their hands blend back into the general population. Hiding in plain sight are those Bush supporters, Bush apologists, and Bush beneficiaries who knew that, upon pulling the lever for the Man from Midland, they could now buy a fancy car, or a yacht, or a mansion, or a family dynasty passing on its wealth for generations -- all from their new-found tax windfalls. People whose principles were guided by money. We're talking about a sizable chunk of the American electorate.
At the time the concentration camps of Auschwitz, Buchenwald, Sobibor, Birkenau and Treblinka were liberated, generals Eisenhower, Patton, and Bradley ordered citizens from surrounding towns to view the piles of corpses that had greeted the liberators. Feigning ignorance, the villagers claimed to have no idea how such mass murder -- on such an industrial scale -- could have occurred right underneath their noses. Beneath their noses now was the stench of tens of thousands of rotting, green corpses that the black-and-white footage of 1944 could not possibly capture.
All these villagers wanted to do was blend back into the population and hope history would forget the six million dead. The bankers, the boxcar builders, the chemical suppliers, the systems engineers, the gas merchants, the lard renderers who melted fat from the bodies for use in bullet casings, and the precious metal recovery teams who melted down the teeth and wedding rings, all viewed in horror at what the
"others" had done.
Of course, blinded by their tax breaks, Bush voters in 2004 had no idea that their candidate was a ticking time bomb. And those Bush voters not riding the Bush gravy train could claim ignorance, or argue that they were deceived. But anyone who could read knew Iraq possessed no weapons of mass destruction. United Nations inspectors as well as our own top arms experts, inspectors, and ambassadors (i.e.: Richard C. Clarke, Hans Blix, and Joseph Wilson) had dispelled any reasonable notion of an Iraqi threat long before the US invasion of 2003.
Even before the election of 2000, anyone who could read knew George W. Bush had serious psychological problems. They knew he had bought the election with their own avarice. And unlike the German and Nazi-occupied populaces, the Americans didn't have guns pointed at their heads.
Now, these so-called conservatives, flush with cash -- "found-money" from the Republican Gold Rush -- are slinking into the shadows, hoping to "launder" their tax refunds; marked bills tainted by 3000 American and countless Iraqi lives. Like Joe Keller in Arthur Miller's play, All My Sons, no one wants to live believing he or she was knowingly, or unknowingly, a war profiteer.
So, conservative commentators like Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson, Robert Novak, and other influential news personalities are backing away from their tortured, pro-Bush positions, hoping to walk away from the carnage their positions had precipitated. Meanwhile, the unrepentant Bill O'Reilly's and Rush Limbaugh's of Right-Wing broadcasting have chosen to go down with the ship.
As the GOP train leaves the tracks, the Tom Delays of the Congress are keeping a low profile. And Republican business beneficiaries and Bush backers now struggle to distance themselves from the MBA president. It is fun to watch.
At the same time, the "Patriot Pastors," like Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell -- who only sought to make America a Christian theocracy, now find themselves backing away from their own religious right-wing McCarthyism, and distancing themselves from the most disastrous presidency in American history. It is fun to watch.
Our moral guardians, like Bill Bennett, James Dobson and Ann Coulter are stammering, clambering to defend their most profitable embrace of our most evil leader. It is fun to watch.
And looking down on us all is Dwight D. Eisenhower, concentration camp liberator, wiping the tears from his eyes. The greed of Americans had realized his greatest fear: That, in the hands of the wrong leader, the Military Industrial Complex would prove to be America's downfall.
It is fun to watch people with blood on their hands blend back into the general population. Hiding in plain sight are those Bush supporters, Bush apologists, and Bush beneficiaries who knew that, upon pulling the lever for the Man from Midland, they could now buy a fancy car, or a yacht, or a mansion, or a family dynasty passing on its wealth for generations -- all from their new-found tax windfalls. People whose principles were guided by money. We're talking about a sizable chunk of the American electorate.
At the time the concentration camps of Auschwitz, Buchenwald, Sobibor, Birkenau and Treblinka were liberated, generals Eisenhower, Patton, and Bradley ordered citizens from surrounding towns to view the piles of corpses that had greeted the liberators. Feigning ignorance, the villagers claimed to have no idea how such mass murder -- on such an industrial scale -- could have occurred right underneath their noses. Beneath their noses now was the stench of tens of thousands of rotting, green corpses that the black-and-white footage of 1944 could not possibly capture.
All these villagers wanted to do was blend back into the population and hope history would forget the six million dead. The bankers, the boxcar builders, the chemical suppliers, the systems engineers, the gas merchants, the lard renderers who melted fat from the bodies for use in bullet casings, and the precious metal recovery teams who melted down the teeth and wedding rings, all viewed in horror at what the
"others" had done.
Of course, blinded by their tax breaks, Bush voters in 2004 had no idea that their candidate was a ticking time bomb. And those Bush voters not riding the Bush gravy train could claim ignorance, or argue that they were deceived. But anyone who could read knew Iraq possessed no weapons of mass destruction. United Nations inspectors as well as our own top arms experts, inspectors, and ambassadors (i.e.: Richard C. Clarke, Hans Blix, and Joseph Wilson) had dispelled any reasonable notion of an Iraqi threat long before the US invasion of 2003.
Even before the election of 2000, anyone who could read knew George W. Bush had serious psychological problems. They knew he had bought the election with their own avarice. And unlike the German and Nazi-occupied populaces, the Americans didn't have guns pointed at their heads.
Now, these so-called conservatives, flush with cash -- "found-money" from the Republican Gold Rush -- are slinking into the shadows, hoping to "launder" their tax refunds; marked bills tainted by 3000 American and countless Iraqi lives. Like Joe Keller in Arthur Miller's play, All My Sons, no one wants to live believing he or she was knowingly, or unknowingly, a war profiteer.
So, conservative commentators like Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson, Robert Novak, and other influential news personalities are backing away from their tortured, pro-Bush positions, hoping to walk away from the carnage their positions had precipitated. Meanwhile, the unrepentant Bill O'Reilly's and Rush Limbaugh's of Right-Wing broadcasting have chosen to go down with the ship.
As the GOP train leaves the tracks, the Tom Delays of the Congress are keeping a low profile. And Republican business beneficiaries and Bush backers now struggle to distance themselves from the MBA president. It is fun to watch.
At the same time, the "Patriot Pastors," like Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell -- who only sought to make America a Christian theocracy, now find themselves backing away from their own religious right-wing McCarthyism, and distancing themselves from the most disastrous presidency in American history. It is fun to watch.
Our moral guardians, like Bill Bennett, James Dobson and Ann Coulter are stammering, clambering to defend their most profitable embrace of our most evil leader. It is fun to watch.
And looking down on us all is Dwight D. Eisenhower, concentration camp liberator, wiping the tears from his eyes. The greed of Americans had realized his greatest fear: That, in the hands of the wrong leader, the Military Industrial Complex would prove to be America's downfall.
posted by R. Reynolds at 10:26 AM
7 Comments:
Nice piece. Very disturbing.
PNN minces no words. There were more benign motivations behind Bush votes than listed here, but the shame of the individuals and groups cited is certainly real.
pnn: you left more wiggle room than i would have for those who claim money played no part in their political persuasion. interesting column.
It should be noted that many Democrats fit this description of war profiteer. Choosing a president is serious business -- not the casual enterprise many TV watching, tabloid reading Americans make it out to be.
jm
i watched a tv program on the history channel a few months ago that described adolph hitler's personality, insecurities, his addiction to drugs and his fascination with the occult. the program also discussed the methods used by hitler's nazi party to come to power. i was terrified when i realized that "the bush" and hitler were so alike in their goals and how the republican party used tactics virtually the same as the nazis (minus the blood) to get control of congress. scary shit.
h
I am thoroughly disappointed.
I thought that Ann Couture was just another one of your clever "solipsisms."
I should have known.
To h: Try a tinfoil helmet.
Mr. Martini is one of those Bush apologists struggling with having been tragically wrong. Why he thinks arrogance is the antidote to error is a mystery. Then again, if he came out of denial, he'd be despondent.
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