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have trouble penetrating the thick, putrid clouds of propaganda from the corporate news monopolies, and some live in fear of its toxicity, as well as fear of spying, blackmail, dirty tricks and worse by Bush-controlled agencies or private hit squads. The Bush Cartel is no different from the Uribe Cartel (former Medellin Cartel). The Bush Cartel are gangsters writ large, with all the powers of the U.S. government at their command, to punish and control potential opponents. The Uribe gang are a mini-version of the Bush Cartel, equally toxic and lethal within their sphere of crime and power.
I pity our leaders rather than hate them. We don't live with bull's eye targets on our backs, as they do. (At least most of us don't.) Some are very corrupt. Others compromise, to hang on to a bit of power, believing that they are doing some good. A few are honest and courageous. It's not easy to sort them out, and understand what is really going on. Pelosi is an interesting example. She may have traded no impeachment for no attack on Iran. I think this is a good possibility, and this would make her something of a hero, from an imperial point of view (given that our country is not really a democracy any more, but a fascist empire). That was a peculiar series of events--her being catapulted into the Speakership by the voters' revolt in '06, then announcing THE NEXT DAY that "impeachment is off the table," then Rumsfeld abruptly resigning, and her going to Syria in the midst of the Iran-British sailors crisis.
We are reduced to reading entrails, trying to figure out what's going on. That's wrong, and extremely undemocratic, but that's the way it is. We're looking at a list of high crimes and misdemeanors by the Bush Junta that is so long it could circle the earth. How could impeachment be "off the table"? (For one thing, it is unconstitutional to put it off the table--it must always be ON the table.) Well, it can be "off the table" if a deal was made with people who have the power to shoot you and yours, and get away with it. It doesn't take much thinking to realize that the Bush Junta has that power. So, anyway, it's possible that Pelosi got the best deal she could--with vicious powermongers who cold squish her like a bug. She promised them they would not be seriously investigated and would not be driven from office, if they refrained from nuking Iran--and she may have had this bargaining power because the military was loathe to do it. We open government loving democrats with a small d may despise such machinations, and deals with the devil, but we shouldn't live in a dream world.
We live, not in democracy, but in an empire that has suffered a fascist coup. So our powers--the powers of "we the people"--are very limited. We are not the rulers here. We are ruled. And those who rule us feel no obligation to obtain our consent. We should be glad that they still feel an obligation to propagandize us. They at least have that much fear of what the people might do. My guess about Pelosi may be wrong, and she's in on the coup. Her silence about the rigged voting machines--and the almost universal silence of the Democratic Party leadership on this vital matter--is evidence that every goddamned one of them are traitors. But we really can't know for sure. One of the main e-voting corporations, ES&S, has close ties to far, far rightwing causes--really nutso 'christian' extremists who probably have their own death squads. Its brethren corp, Diebold, was headed by a Bush-Cheney campaign chair. These are not nice business people. They now control the results of our elections with "trade secret" programming code. And there is a lot of evidence that they have the power to ruin the careers of election officials who oppose them. (It happened to a former CA Sec of State, who sued Diebold six months before the 2004 election--he was driven from office on entirely bogus corruption charges). Are our Democratic leaders scared or collusive? It's very hard to know, and to sort them out. (All of the Democratic Senators in the Anthrax Congress voted FOR "trade secret" voting counting by rightwing Bushite corporations, with two exceptions--Hillary Clinton and Charles Schumer--and the Bushites did not pressure New York to go electronic, though they pressured every other state in the union. Figure that one out! I'm still cogitating on it. Theory: They wanted to avoid alarming New York voters, who might have pressured the New York news media to report of the subject, thus alerting the rest of us poor suckers, in the hinterlands, that our right to vote was being taken away? I dunno. It's an interesting theory.)
Now turn to the Colombian "trade deal." There is a contingent of pro-labor Democrats in Congress who have blockaded this deal, because of the short life spans of union leaders in Colombia. It's just about the only thing on which the Democrats in Congress have shown any spine. Pelosi has postponed the deal--possibly in a cagey move, in her dance with devil Bush, to kill this dreadful trade deal, possibly in a collusive move to get it approved later, with some kind of lame labor protections in it--i.e., Colombia promises to be good from now on, and not to chainsaw union leaders any more and throw their body parts into mass graves. The deal is VERY important to corporations like Monsanto (corporate biofuel production), to Drummmond Coal and Chiquita (both of whom have paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to death squads to take care of their "labor problem"), to various oil giants (both re Colombia's oil, and also Venezuela's and Ecuador's), to U.S. ag interests and others who want to dump U.S. goods on Colombian markets, to "war on drugs" military profiteers, and to major cocaine and weapons traffickers (possibly Bush Cartel, but certainly Uribe Cartel). BILLIONS and BILLIONS of dollars are at issue. Just for starters: $5.5 BILLION in military aid to Colombia (our tax dollars) through Bushite fingers. That money is intended to buy something--a U.S. corporate wedge into South America, which has otherwise been swept by an awesome, peaceful, democratic, leftist revolution, the goals of which are social justice and SELF-DETERMINATION (freedom from U.S./corporate domination).
Is Pelosi really willing and able to buck this kind of global corporate predator interest, or is she just buying them time, to weather the bad publicity coming out of Colombia? It's very hard to tell. We know where the Bushites stand. They adore death squads. They probably get their rocks off on the torture and death of union leaders. But I don't believe that of Pelosi. The Democrats are more complicated people, sometimes with blinders on, sometimes with their conscience emerging, sometimes gripped with fear (and maybe loathing?), some of them hopelessly corrupt, others not so much. But the fact is that they stopped this deal--just about their only accomplishment as a supposed Democratic Congress. (They have an approval rating lower than Bush's!) And this means that they feel somewhat more obliged to listen to the people than Bushites do (none!). When Pelosi turns around and calls Chavez a "dictator," she may be just covering her back, as to the corporate news monopoly career ruination machine, or she may be disinformed, or she may mean it. I really can't tell. I want to yell at her, too--and consign her to the fires of hell. It's so unjust. It's such a lie. And we know that the Bushites have tried to assassinate him, and want to chainsaw his supporters--the people of Venezuela. How can she contribute to their vile schemes, even for cover?
All I'm saying is that she lives in a different world than we do. The realm of BAD power. And she and everyone else that operates in that realm--Bushites aside--are not necessarily entirely evil themselves. They are mixed bags. We, the people, have almost no access to that realm. We can't know what is going on. We can only guess. This is a very bad situation, but it is the reality. Thus, we cannot make easy judgments--as we should be able to, in a democracy--about the characters and motives of the people who supposedly represent us. Pelosi may have prevented the quick death of planet earth, by trading no impeachment for no nuking of Iran. We can't know for sure. And if she did, then the issue of impeachment takes a back seat. It's not right, from the point of view of democracy, but we are not a democracy--we are an extremely dangerous, nuclear-armed rogue state!
And there is evidence now, by the way, that Obama has made a peace overture to Chavez--by sending Bill Richardson to meet with him. That is interesting. That may mean a tectonic shift in U.S. policy in regard to South America. Richardson first visited Uribe, apparently got nowhere as to his ostensible mission (getting Uribe to negotiate with the FARC for the release of U.S. military contractor hostages), and so he's turning to Chavez (who has recently succeeded in getting other hostages released, despite Bushite efforts to sabotage it). That's as far as the news reports go. But what is his real mission? Richardson also operates in the realm of BAD power. But even if his motive (and Obama's) is to clear the way for more corporate profiteering in South America, but with a better attitude toward the sovereignty and rights of the people of South America, that's far better than assassination, destabilization, toppling of democracies and war--a war that the Bushites can't win, and that will result in the complete alienation between our two continents. What we should be doing is forming a Common Market with them on terms of equality and fairness, and mutual respect. But at the very least we need to cease the hostilities--items like the Bushites trying to start a war between Colombia and Ecuador/Venezuela. God that was foul! And the South Americans know it. In any case, we hear the Democrats calling Chavez a "dictator" one day, and the next they're asking for Chavez's help on something (and probably a whole range of things--possibly including what to do about Uribe and the Colombian civil war).
Just "reading the entrails" here...and seeing some signs and omens of hope.
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