Looking for truth

The American government lied to the native Americans for many, maannny years. And then President Clinton lied about a relationship - and everyone was surprised.... A little naive, I feel?...

...So, perjury, yeah...if you commit perjury, I don't care. I don't give a shit, and I don't think that you should. Because you "grade" murder - you have murder 1, murder 2 - you realize that there can be a difference in the level of murder. So there MUST be a difference in the level of perjury! Perjury-one is when you say there was no Holocaust, when ten million people have died in it; and perjury-nine is when you say you didn't shag someone when you really did.
(Comedian Eddie Izzard, from his Dressed to Kill video)

So here we are. We've finally heard in the press in the last several weeks what we kind-of knew, but hoped we were wrong about...

1. Yes, Virginia, the Iraq war really was all about oil. And that itsy, bitsy little article about no-bid contracts in Iraq for Exxon Mobil, Shell, Total, BP and the rest of the rapists and pillagers multi-national oil companies? Thanks to our free and independent sold-out-to-special-interests national media, that's all you'll hear about it. More than four thousand American lives, paid without a second thought, by a lying Executive Branch, to ensure that oil companies could get a sweetheart deal apiece in Iraq.
2. Yes, hunny-bunny, The Tyrant Who Would Pretend to Lead a Democracy does want to send you, your younger brother, younger sister, and all your friends to die in Iran, once your older brothers and sisters and their friends finish dying in Iraq and Afganistan. The nuclear war which will almost certainly follow any such attack won't last for more than a week or so, and will almost certainly be the end of the world as we know it. But don't worry, the National War Powers Commission is proposing rule changes that will mean that once King George announces that we've attacked Iran, there will be a whole list of Congress-critters on whom he'll be able to dump the blame, as he declares us in yet another undeclared war. Except only the cockroaches and crabgrass will be there to read the news...
   
3. And yes, my dear, people actually laughed at Dennis Kucinich when he introduced resolutions of impeachment against King George and the regent, Tricky Dicky the Second. And no, dearie, I don't understand what they found so funny, either. It sounded pretty damn sensible to me, too.
   

I'm sorry, but all kinds of apocalyptic images have been racing in my head. It's at times like this that I hate the fact of being fractionally well-read. I wish I could erase the image of the Apollo/Soyuz astronauts watching the progress of the final nuclear war in Lucifer's Hammer. Or the image of scientists on an orbiting asteroid watching total destruction raining down in Greg Bear's classic Eon. Or, perhaps the scariest image, that of the librarian Monks of St. Leibowitz climbing into a starship, headed to start a new world (and a new Church) on Alpha Centauri as nuclear destruction ends life on Earth in A Canticle for Leibowitz. Never mind that not-nearly-realistic-enough little bit of film called The Day After... set very near my former hometown, in Lawrence, Kansas...

There's so many similarities, it's scary beyond description.

What the hell is it going to take to get people of good heart to stand up and say, "I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it anymore!" ? When will people look beyond religious-knee-jerking and "us-versus-them" scare politics to realize that we are edging closer and closer to the brink?

I have always been a hopeful, optimistic man - believing that things can always get better. But recently, listening to the BBC and NPR programs like "On Point" have made me wonder whether believing as I have is nothing but self-delusion...

That's why I'm glad that Chris made me sit down and watch Second-Hand Lions, a classic feel-good movie that I'd never encountered before. This scene was worth the cost of the whole movie:


Call me a sap; call me a hopeless optimist; but I still believe like that, even though half-a-century of experience tells me otherwise, so much of the time. But I also know that the only thing necessary for Evil to triumph is for Good to do nothing.

So listen; read; protest; vote; do whatever you can. Do what it takes to let the world know that the Tyrant At 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and the various right-wing prophets do not speak for all of us. That America is better than that.

That we, as Americans, are better than that.

(Late edit: had to get some of my facts straight about which companies were involved in those wee little no-bid contracts...)