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Winning the Hearts and Minds of Americans: The Battle for Democracy in Our Homeland
A BUZZFLASH EDITORIAL
First in a Series of BuzzFlash Editorials
Part I: The "Infallibility" of America's God King
He's done it again. The man who oversaw the launching of a war that is costing the lives of our soldiers and Iraqi civilians is escaping blame for undermining democracy at home and abroad.
Karl Rove and Ari Fleischer are already successfully disseminating the notion that Bush was misled about how quickly the war would be won. (See: http://www.charlotte.com/mld/observer/news/5510092.htm)
If Ronald Reagan was the Teflon coated president, George W. Bush is the God-coated president.
After all, one of his fundamentalist Christian armies of God has distributed leaflets to our soldiers in Iraq urging them to pray everyday not for themselves, but for their God-chosen leader, George W. Bush. (See: http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/s819685.htm)
Earlier in March, BuzzFlash posted a five-part series entitled, "Bombing His Way Into the Jaws of Armageddon." The central thesis to our editorial feature was that Bush -- and key figures in his placement on the throne such as Antonin Scalia -- sees himself as a divinely appointed ruler, similar to "God Kings" such as Louis IV. (See: http://www.buzzflash.com/editorial/03/03/12.html)
In this context, Bush is perceived as "infallible." That is why as our soldiers die and are wounded, they are asked to pray for HIM on a daily basis.
Already, initial blame for the stalled Iraq war is falling on Donald Rumsfeld. We heartily agree that he should be tarred and feathered for putting the lives of our soldiers unnecessarily at risk. (Although they will "win" this war eventually, probably by using some of those "tactical" nuclear weapons that they have bragged about.) But the key cheerleader for launching a war for political purposes has been the usurper sitting in the White House, the man who loves death too much, George W. Bush.
In
two BuzzFlash editorials, we've described how the
Bush Cartel is using the Iraq war to achieve a multiple
number of political objectives (See: http://www.buzzflash.com/editorial/03/03/27.html
and http://www.buzzflash.com/editorial/03/03/17.html)
We would like to reiterate a few of the key self-serving goals:
1) Create a new economic market (in colonial times called a "concession") for campaign contributors, who will then drop even more money in the GOP coffers.
2) Create conditions for more terrorism and upheaval in order to advance a radical agenda to occupy a large swath of the Middle East (See: http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2003/0304.marshall.html).
3) Ensure the Bush Cartel's election in 2004 by diverting attention from the domestic economic mess and social unrest created by two years of incompetent, extremist leadership.
4) Pass radical, fringe legislation under the cover of war when few Americans will notice.
5) Dismantle governmental programs for the elderly, veterans, middle class and the poor using the excuse that the money is needed to support wars to fight terrorism (and, in turn, give much of this money to campaign contributors in "privatized" military contracts).
6) Use the resultant terrorism and chaos that the endless wars unleash to further dismantle our sacred Constitutional freedoms and rights at home, thus moving our nation in the direction of a one-party dictatorship (See: http://www.buzzflash.com/analysis/2002/10/29_Dictator.html).
Yet, magically, as if by divine right, Bush is never held accountable for any of this. He has sent our young men to die in battle in Iraq, just as he and Dick Cheney let other young men die in their places in Vietnam while they enjoyed drinking binges at home. And he is going to let others take the heat for the Iraq fiasco.
Part of the problem is that Bush's staff plays a wily game of portraying Little Caesar as an involved CEO on the one hand, but then claiming he is a president who only involves himself in the major decisions, not the details, on the other hand. The second image is being trotted out now, with the White House claiming that Bush was never told about the true ability of Saddam's forces and that he didn't know that Rumsfeld cut back on the number of forces that we deployed in Iraq.
What idiocy. What nonsense.
George W. Bush is at the epicenter of the moral, ethical, and criminal corruption of this administration. If Clinton was hounded into impeachment over oral sex, how can Bush escape unscathed for betraying a nation and the world?
How did we ever come to enter this parallel universe where no one is willing to say that we have Fredo Corleone running our government and that crimes have been committed against this nation, including the ongoing use of strategically created terrorist alerts and duck-tape farces to cow Americans into submission? Isn't it a crime to scare a nation half-to-death to achieve political goals and launch a politically motivated war?
How did we get to the point that we have a media that daily bombards us with Orwellian dispatches and images that are crafted in the Pentagon and White House offices of disinformation?
How did we ever get to the point that the Democratic "Opposition" leadership has voluntarily had its tongue cut out about the true purposes of this war? This includes such luminaries as John Kerry and Hillary Clinton, who have joined the ranks of Stepford Wife supporters of Bush's multipurpose political Iraq attack?
How can the daily outpouring of lies from this administration, even when they are unmasked, make no dent on the image of Bush's "infallibility" nurtured by the White House and disseminated by the corporate press?
If Bush were a Democrat, he would have been impeached a year ago and then indicted, prosecuted and sent to jail.
So, why are we at a point where a disastrous war sold, packaged and launched on the basis of lies, disinformation, propaganda, greed, bullying, bribes and madness, should be continuing with the press and the Democrats not blaming the CEO of the criminal enterprise who has caused the deaths of our soldiers by putting them unnecessarily at risk?
The answer lies in a six-fold strategy championed by those individuals who have propped up the reign of the Madness of King George:
1) Disciplined control over the image of King George.
2) Control over television news through the status quo interests of the corporately owned media.
3) Unrelenting bullying, threats, smearing and intimidation of anyone who gets in their way.
4) Use of lies and truth as equally valid propaganda currencies.
5) Selling Bush and the war as "branded" products.
6) Understanding that the Democrats won't aggressively challenge their assault on democracy in America; in fact, they will generally support it because they are too cowed to speak out.
How has Karl Rove, the real most powerful man in America, accomplished this? How does Bush escape any blame for the daily lies, ongoing betrayal and being the front man for the most radical, extremist agenda this nation has ever seen? How does Bush get away with saying things that you would think were nutty if a drunk said them to you in a bar?
BuzzFlash will be exploring these and others questions in a series of editorials: "Winning the Hearts and Minds of Americans: The Battle for Democracy in Our Homeland."
We hope you get as much out of the series as we will in writing it.
A BUZZFLASH EDITORIAL
