I See Zombies - Democratic Underground

FightingIrish

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Sun Sep-23-07 01:51 PM
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I See Zombies

For several years I have been haunted by the nightmarish perception that I am walking among the living dead. I’m not talking about traditional zombies. What horrifies me are the ordinary Americans whose lives go on unchanged, their brains apparently dead to the reality of how shabbily our nation has been misled by the Bush administration.

Nothing brings this home like the steadfast adherents of our disastrous misadventure in Iraq. They talk about victory and defeat as though this was a legal war with winnable objectives. To the extent that there were winnable objectives, we "won" that war in 2003. Everything since then has been collateral damage on a massive scale. To hear them speak, it is obvious they do not realize or admit that our illegal invasion has killed over a million Iraqis and driven four times that many from their homes. They see the nearly four thousand wasted America lives as some kind of noble sacrifice made in their honor and for the protection of their right to have their lives unaffected by the world we are driving toward total chaos.

I certainly don’t expect everyone to share my opinion. It is the absolute denial of the facts that causes me to see the citizen zombies around me. You don’t have to travel to the war zones of the world to appreciate the devastation our leaders have wrought, whether it was intended or just the result of sheer incompetence. Take away the shiny coat of spin and the haze of misinformation and anyone can see that we are living in the ruins of a once great democracy. Most measures of American greatness have plummeted as steadily as Bush's near terminal approval rating.

Even the most cynical Americans must have some appreciation that this government has nearly succeeded in destroying our middle class. Even though our children will pick up the check, this war with no intended end is the most effective means possible for transferring wealth from the many to an elite few. Whether it is no-bid contracts for Bush cronies or just dumping tons of the taxpayers’ cash off the back of a truck in Baghdad, it is clear that our privileged masters have nothing but contempt for the hard working Americans whose daily sacrifice funds this massive fraud. Can we take some solace in knowing that the dollars they are taking from us under the guise of patriotism are becoming more worthless every day?

Although the American media have failed us in so many ways, they have left us with iconic reminders of the myriad failures that not too many years ago would have brought a government down. From the hooded victims of Abu Ghraib to the black corpses floating in Katrina’s wake we retain powerful images that will haunt us as long as we live. Even the flag-draped coffins that we are not supposed to see have been indelibly imprinted on our national conscience. The lame duck president has himself become an international icon of failure and yet more than one fourth of our presumably rational fellow citizens continue to rally behind him, oblivious to how badly our nation has been damaged by his duplicity and incompetence.

The greatest nightmare is the legion of zombies walking the halls of Congress. Our sighs of relief last November have turned to gasps of horror as those we sent to right the ship have floundered ineffectively or joined the ranks of the Bush corporatocracy. It seems even our constitution cannot save us if those we send to defend it lack the courage to wield its power.

I have no fear of the terrorist bogeyman or the wave of unwashed immigrants swarming to our shores, but frankly, all these zombies scare the hell out of me.