As If Bush Owned The World

[bigtree]

September 21, 2006


"A prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a people who mean to be free." -- Thomas Jefferson


The way Hugo Chavez spoke about Bush's appearance before the U.N. General Assembly was chillingly on target. He spoke aloud what the majority of the international body gathered must have already been thinking.

He was, "talking as if he owned the world . . ." Chavez said, "Truly. As the owner of the world."

He echoed the words of the Iranian president who, earlier, cast the U.S. as an imperialistic warmonger bent on oppression. "By causing war and conflict," Ahmadinejad said to the assembly, "some are fast expanding their domination, accumulating greater wealth and usurping all the resources, while others endure the resulting poverty, suffering and misery.

"Some seek to rule the world," he continued, "relying on weapons and threats, while others live in perpetual insecurity and danger. Some occupy the homeland of others thousands of kilometers away from their borders, interfere in their affairs, and control their oil and other resources and strategic routes, while others are bombarded daily in their own homes, their children murdered in the streets and alleys of their own country, and their homes reduced to rubble.

"Is it Iranian forces that have occupied countries neighboring the United States, or is it American forces that are occupying countries neighboring Iran?" Ahmadinejad asked NBC's Brian Williams in an interview.

It's frustrating to watch these leaders who Bush has so thoroughly demonized - who have their own problems with their own seemingly autocratic regimes - posturing against our country, and suffer the realization that our own despotic leader has yet to be deposed for his crimes against Americans. Problem is, the world sees a wimp with a big mouth when Bush swaggers around like he did in his address to the assembly, ordering their affairs, and we're left to defend against the blow-back. There could be economic isolation, political isolation, or outright hostility involving more attacks on the nation, in reaction and response to Bush's reckless muckraking. The American people are left to pick up the pieces of our democracy that Bush so willingly hurls around the world out of his dictatorial carpetbag.

Bush and his warmongering supporters are dangerous for America. Anyone can pick fights, as Bush seems obsessed with doing. The question for America is, are we ready to fight more of Bush's battles for him? The leaders of the world are lining up against him/us. Only blundering idiots would allow Bush to turn the world into his personal fight club. We're the ones who are going to end up defending ourselves as we defend against his blundering interference in so many other nation's affairs. His manufactured mandate is supported less by the will of the American people than by his corrupt exercise of the awesome strength of our military, and the sacrifices of those who do all of the fighting and the dying.

That's why seeking impeachment proceedings against Bush and Cheney is such an imperative for Americans. The ideological battle that we should be waging is not against contrived, faceless enemies of our country, as they insist, but against the Bush regime's hijacking of our country and the crashing of our democracy into the Iraqi desert and elsewhere around the world. They asked yesterday for more bodies to fuel their dual-occupations as they plot yet another assault on yet another sovereign nation. It's clear that Bush won't pull back from his military slap-fights around the globe with eyes closed unless he's forced to by the American people through the action of our representatives. We have to demand that they step up and hold him accountable, or face removal and censure for their own complicity in the imperious charade.

It's not enough to satisfy ourselves that there are others pointing out that our country has spawned the likeness of the Devil. The majority of Americans, and those who we intended to lead us, merely stood aside and deferred to his manufactured mandate to conquer. It's amazing how Americans dismiss the aspirations and pride of these 'lesser' nations that Bush would dictate to as either a threat or an insignificance. Yet, we are very much past any point of grace that would allow the world to separate the responsibility for Bush's illegitimate crusades from our own intentions. Citizens of countries all over the world regularly rise up en masse against their own corrupt, despoiled regimes.

We in the U.S. pride ourselves in our original struggles for freedom and liberty at our country's founding; likewise celebrating the struggle for the freedom and liberty of those pitiful citizens our nation once so oppressed. Yet, most of us are timid about challenging our government to continue to live up to and uphold those very ideals as they arrogantly engage our resources and our soldier's lives abroad for interests that they alone decide are in our interest. The majority of Americans have long opposed the Iraq occupation, yet Bush persists in behaving as if our democracy allows him to be the ultimate 'decider.'

Thomas Jefferson had no sympathy for a federal government which had violated its compact with the governed. After he assumed office, President Jefferson, faced with the prosecutions of scores of Americans under the censorship of the Alien and Sedition Laws, released those charged and pardoned them. Writing in opposition to the Alien and Sedition act, Jefferson wrote that, ". . . whensoever the general government assumes un-delegated powers, its acts are un-authoritative, void and of no effect."

Jefferson asserted that, "The several states composing the United States of America are not united on the principle of unlimited submission to their general government; but that, by compact, under the style and title of the Constitution of the United States, and of certain amendments thereto, they constituted a general government for general purposes, delegated to that government certain powers." Later Jefferson would describe his ascendance to office, and liberation of those prosecuted for speaking out against the government, as, "in its form; not effected indeed by the sword, as that, but by the rational and peaceable instrument of reform, the suffrage of the people." He also had a caution about the remedy of impeachment (of his Judiciary) that should merit our attention.

"It should be remembered, as an axiom of eternal truth in politics," Jefferson wrote, "that whatever power in any government is independent, is absolute also; in theory only, at first, while the spirit of the people is up, but in practice, as fast as that relaxes. Independence can be trusted nowhere but with the people in mass."

And, so it is that the future direction of our republic rests with our own responsibility to vigilance against the abuses and actions of those we intend to lead us; effective with our votes, our advocacy, and our involvement in every instigation of democracy that confronts us. In order to get our leaders to present America to the world as a reliable, responsible neighbor, instead of an aggressor and an adversary, we need to challenge them to live up to their responsibility to hold the Executive accountable.

We need to speak and act as if we own the country. As a matter of fact, we do.


by, Ron Fullwood

http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_ron_full_060921_as_if_bush_owned_the.htm

[malaise]

1. Give thanks for blogs

At last a rational discussion on the content of Chavez' speech. MSM is clueless.

[bigtree]

3. They are afraid of being seen as un-American

But, they know the score. Chickenshits.

[kiki]

2. Cool article, but...

...I love the use of the word "cast". It's spot-on, if by "cast" you mean "correctly identified as".

"Scientists have cast the sun as a big ball of burning gas in space, but the jury is still out."

[bigtree]

5. or, (loosely)

To assign a certain role to (an actor): cast him as a moran.

Your definition definitely bailed me out, though. :hi:

[RethugAssKicker]

4. Excellent !

[bigtree]

6. thanks for reading

and, thanks for the precious kick!

[Peace Patriot]

7. Good post on the whole! Guess who owns this country? The sovereign

people! The voters. The citizens. And it is that very sovereignty that is under serious assault, with Bush saber-rattling at Iran, and as yet entirely unaccountable for the slaughter of at least 100,000 innocent Iraqis, the torture of prisoners, spying on Americans, ripping up the Constitution, spitting on international law, destroying our emergency response capability, and much else.

Bush and Cheney both confidently predicted Bushite victory in November. Gee, I wonder where such hubris comes from? Are they just nuts? Or is it the electronic voting coup, during the 2002-2004 period, when extremely insecure and insider hackable voting machines and central tabulators run on TRADE SECRET, PROPRIETARY programming code, owned and controlled by Bushite corporations, were fast-tracked into place all over the country?

I hesitate to endorse any political analysis that does not mention this overwhelmingly important fact.

The other hole in this analysis is the writer's superficial acceptance of corporate news monopoly 'memes' about the leaders he is quoting.

"It's frustrating to watch these leaders who Bush has so thoroughly demonized - who have their own problems with their own seemingly autocratic regimes - posturing against our country."

Let me start with Chavez, since that is the most egregious slander. Autocratic regime? Where does he get this from? There is NO EVIDENCE--ZERO! ZILCH!--that Chavez is an "autocrat." And there is voluminous evidence of the exact opposite. He is the VALIDLY ELECTED, very popular president of a THRIVING DEMOCRACY--indeed, a country where the entire corporate news establishment daily vilifies him--and even openly supported the violent military coup attempt against him--and who have suffered NO retaliation by Chavez or his government. They criticize him FREELY--and mercilessly. Further, the Venezuelan elections have been the MOST highly monitored elections in history--and ALL the monitors, hundreds of them (from the Carter Center, the OAS, and EU election groups) have deemed those elections honest and aboveboard. Chavez and his supporters (60% to 70% of the country) revere the Venezuelan Constitution. They hand out tiny blue miniature copies of it to all and sundry. Recently, when a leftist mayor went too far, and tried to confiscate two country clubs/golf courses for low cost housing, the Chavez government stopped him, because Venezuela's Constitution PROTECTS PRIVATE PROPERTY. With Chavez's election as president, for the first time in Venezuela's history, the vast poor and brown population (by far the majority of the country) now have representation in government and in the political life of the country. How is this "autocratic"?

There is NO TRUTH to this allegation--seen everywhere in the US corporate press--that Chavez is a "dictator" or anything even vaguely resembling a "dictator." It is a TOTAL LIE. It never appears in quotes--with a named person saying it. It always goes like this, "According to his critics..." (--"...Chavez is becoming increasingly authoritarian"--or some such wording). I finally tracked it down to a Roman Catholic Cardinal (Carrillo Lara), a very old rightwing fascist who spent his career in the Vatican finance office, and was expelled from that office in the fascist banking scandals of the 1980s (--and the Vatican doesn't often expel its servants). He often rants against Chavez (and is an embarrassment to the more moderate and liberal church leaders). HE said that Chavez is "increasingly authoritarian" (in some obscure statement I read somewhere--I don't have the url handy). Is THIS who AP, and the Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post, and the New York Times, and the rest of the corporate news monopolies, are consulting about Chavez? It sure looks like it. No doubt there are OTHER fascists in Venezuela's tiny rich oil elite who would say (or have said) the same thing--but they are never quoted in these articles.

What the fascists don't like in Venezuela is that the MAJORITY is ruling! The poor and the brown! Those who have been neglected and brutalized and oppressed. They've finally come into their own as a political force, thanks to TRANSPARENT elections. And the fascist elite, who are used to lording it over everybody, and hoarding wealth, DON'T LIKE IT. They think it's "dictatorial" to have fair taxation, and to have the country's oil profits used for schools and medical clinics for the poor.

You can gage a political commentator's level of real knowledge of the world--and their over-dependence on the corporate news monopoly press, and lack of critical reading skills--almost in exact proportion to their acceptance of this corporate MYTH about Chavez (that he is "increasingly authoritarian," or dictator or an autocrat).

This writer, thankfully, at least uses the word "seemingly" ("their own seemingly autocratic regimes"). Seemingly to WHOM, I wonder--in the case of Chavez? But at least it's a hedge. He doesn't really know. He's picked up this corporate news monopoly "meme" unconsciously, and if he were challenged, would have no facts to back it up. Because there aren't any.

The Iranian president, Ahmadinejad, is different story. Iran's government can justly be called autocratic--or, more accurately, authoritarian. Ahmadinejad himself is not a dictator ("autocrat" means rule by one person, one dictator). He is the hand-picked spokesman and representative of the Islamic rulerS--plural--the Ayatollah and the mullahs. He has said some rash things ("death to Israel" type statements), and is something of a demagogue. Chavez, on the other hand, is a showman, for sure, and a very funny man (I mean, "smelling the sulfur"--THAT was funny!)--but he is not a demagogue, that is, a leader who uses impassioned DECEIT to further his own ends. Chavez was speaking genuinely, on behalf of billions of people--the whole world, really--and in furtherance of his own political goals as well as those of Venezuela and Latin America. That is his right. He was GENUINELY elected, and is GENUINELY supported by millions of Latin Americans and others around the world. But neither Ahmadinejad nor the mullahs behind him were elected. The Ayatollah deleted "unacceptable" candidates from the recent elections, and interferes in many ways--directly and indirectly--in Iranian politics. He is the ultimate leader. The mullahs are not exactly "dictators," though. They rule by general consensus of Islamic men (who knows what the women think? --probably a lot of silent dissent there.) And WHY that has occurred--an Islamic fundamentalist religious regime, in a country that has the MOST potential for progressive policy in all of the countries surrounding Israel--is the story that our corporate news monopolies LEAVE OUT--never reference, never explain--in all the fulminations against Ahmadinejad and Iran.

In 1954, the US and Israel colluded to destroy Iran's democracy, and to inflict the Iranian people with 25 years of torture and oppression under the horrible Shah of Iran. WE drove the Iranians into the arms of the mullahs! WE did it! And they have had a visceral fear and distrust of us ever since--and a damn reasonable one. So, when you read "death to Israel" from a politician like Ahmadinejad, you are hearing a demagogue appeal to that SENSIBLE fear, similar to hearing Bush cite "the war terror" and "9/11, 9/11, 9/11," as justification for all his outrages. Ahmadinejad cannot directly refer back to their fabled democracy, because neither he nor the mullahs WANT democracy. They want religious control and power. But the Iranian people remember. And they are enduring the current Islamic religious rule because it's SAFER than having the CIA and Mossad freely operating in an open and democratic country. In short: Israel helped destroy what they had, so a demagogic appeal like "death to Israel" sounds just to people whose democracy was destroyed. And when they see what Israel has done to the Palestinians, their anxieties are reinforced, because that's exactly what Israel (and its Big Brother, the Bush Junta) would do to THEM, if they were to emerge from their insular Islamic fundamentalist shell.

Ahmadinejad is not such a demagogue, though, when he speaks of the geo-political situation--that the Bushites invaded, destroyed and are occupying a direct neighbor of Iran (Iraq), and Iran has done no such thing. Who is the aggressor? Who should be condemned, and subjected to boycotts and sanctions? Who has slaughtered tens of thousands of innocent people? (Who is to be trusted with nuclear weapons?) He has a rather good point.

Iran is more complicated than the outright lie that our corporate news monopolies are telling about Chavez. But these are complications that the American people NEED TO KNOW. The US and Iran is not a simple story, but it is vital to know what we did to Iran, in evaluating the Bush Junta's demonization of Iran. And Chavez was right--WE are the demons (or rather the Bush Junta is)! The Iranian people are mostly just SCARED--scared of us and our bombs, and what we've done to Iraq, and scared of Israel and their nukes, and what they've done to the Palestinians. They KNOW what we did to their country (even if Americans are oblivious to this history--and quite deliberately kept ignorant of it). This more complicated situation (the history of the US, Israel and western powers in Iran) is ALSO important to understanding Chavez's outreach to Iran. Part of that is, of course, their mutual membership in OPEC--and their common fate as Bushite "demons." But more than that, I think Chavez must be aware of this history, and of the POTENTIAL of Iran as a progressive, democratic country. He is doing what our president SHOULD BE DOING--engaging in diplomacy and encouraging trade. He is helping them to feel safe and part of the world community. Having followed Chavez's career, and developments in Venezuela and Latin America, quite closely, I can't imagine that Chavez approves of Islamic religious rule, or aggression against Israel. (The Jewish community in Venezuela is supportive of Chavez, by the way.) But you don't solve those problems by demonizing and isolating Iran--a country that has not harmed anyone--and contributing to Iranian paranoia. You do it with outreach, just as Chavez is doing. He IS a peacemaker, from what I can see. And what will be the impact on Iranians of exposure to this DEMOCRATIC friend? It could have profound impacts for the good.

I want to say once again that I applaud most of this article by Ron Fullwood. He is right on the money in his perception that WE have a despotic leader, and his embarrassment at the humiliation that Bush has inflicted on us and our democracy worldwide. I would just say that he doesn't seem to understand HOW a despot like Bush could STILL be in power here (electronic voting machines controlled by his buds at Diebold and ES&S), and he fails to grasp that Chavez speaks from a platform of LEGITIMATE democratic power (as opposed to both Bush and Ahmadinejad).

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Edit: minor typos.

[bigtree]

8. great post Peace Patriot

Thanks for the info and props!

:patriot:

[Annces]

9. You really have extraordinay knowledge and write well too

Clap, clap, clap.

[bigtree]

10. kick trick

:kick:

[bigtree]

11. kickety