The Barbarian at the Gate

The Barbarian at the Gate
By David Glenn Cox

This week’s edition of scandalthon 2000 takes us back again to the attorney generals office. Apparently Mr. Gonzales while issuing a public statements that torture would not be tolerated was at the same time issuing an internal documents that not only would torture be tolerated but that it was to be encouraged.

Was anyone surprised by this? Is it rage fatigue or is it benign acceptance? No one is surprised by anything this administration does anymore. Nuclear weapons loaded on a bomber headed towards the Middle East? Just a paper work snafu, yeah right, sure it was. What was once compelling fiction is now sad tawdry fact, Orwell’s novel is out of date not by calendar but by the less picturesque quality of the reality. Big Brother is indeed watching but he’s not just watching he’s teaching as well.

CNBC reporter Erin Burnett was taken to task by viewers over her comments about lead paint on Chinese made toys while claiming to apologize she maintained she still didn’t get it, a little lead paint so what? Last week on CNN’s The Situation Room while discussing the Gonzales torture memo a Washington Times reporter said, “I’m probably going to shock some of your viewers but I don’t have a problem with these interrogations, these people have information that we need to know about.”

Did you get that class? The debate evolves from the rightness or wrongness of torture to how much torture is acceptable if those people have information that we need to know about. Who is it that determines that these people have that information and what if they are wrong? Besides it’s just a little lead paint! Big Brother smiles as the argument is convoluted, class dismissed.

A Baptist minister friend of mine used to say, “The ministry and the boy scouts attract the wrong kind of people into their leadership.” That is my point precisely, this administration has attracted these type of people these aren’t accidents or mistakes. The signals come from the top down, we want the results we want and who ever provides us with the results we want will get ahead. The Scooters and Alberto’s are not renegades but good little soldiers; good little nazi’s just following orders.

The Governor who once held the record for the most executions is now the President who holds the record for most executions. The Fuehrer in Mien Kampf spelled out his plans for world dominance while the Project for the New American Century lays out their plans to do exactly the same thing. Whether you call him Chairman or Fuehrer or unitary executive the road always leads to the same destination.

By any gauge or milestone of humanity this administration is a failure except for in the area of savagery. No American administration has done more to promote brutality savagery and torture with its renditions water boarding and in fact no democratically elected government even comes close. They are alone with the Stalin’s and the Hitler’s and share their own vision of Huxley’s Brave New World. A world of economic Alpha’s and Beta and Delta’s to be used, as is expediant with no value other than economic.

A world to not see, not to look at, a world to look away from. We condemn the beatings of monks in Myanmar but why is it you think they would be treated any differently in this country? We have our own thought criminals! Those who wear offensive T-shirts or make anti government statements from stage or pulpit. The hundreds dragged and beaten by New York police during the Republican National convention. Anything that they would do to an alleged Al Quida operative today they will do to you tomorrow.

It’s inevitable that’s where this road leads. Thought criminals, loyalty oaths and flag pins on the lapels. You’re patriotic but are you patriotic enough? Then again, maybe you’re not patriotic enough? You were against the renditions and extreme interrogations weren’t you?

A rubber stamp duma for a legislative branch, a co-opted court system and only the military resists the hand of madness. Do you see the irony here? Those whose jobs it is to legislate follow orders blindly. Those whose job it is to seek justice take book advances from media barons and go on retreats with the Vice President. That only those whose job it is to follow orders resist the hand of madness and are cashiered at record rates. Those responsible for exposing the movement of nuclear weapons from North Dakota are heroes cut from the same cloth as the monks of Myanmar and you will see never see either one ever again.

Enemies of the state as suddenly the administration changes its plans to limited attacks on Iran’s republican guards. Now the nuclear facilities are suddenly off the table yet that was the whole issue in the first place. But without the big bombs that they have wanted so desperately to use they’ve change their plans entirely. Did they plan to nuke the facilities and blame the radioactive fall out on the Iranian’s themselves?

Without any moral compass of right or wrong this is where we go, this is the road map set out by the Project for a New American Century, a global hegemony enforced by force of arms. A Machiavellian society where the corrupt rise and the most corrupt rise the most. Profits over people and prerogative over principle fanaticism over all.

If I knew then what I know now is common lament for hindsight is indeed twenty twenty. Was it a knife that killed Caesar? Or was it unscrupulous men? As we look back down the road from where we started our sojourn to where we are now, what have we learned?

Through a blizzard of media bullshit of crackpot theories and apostolic apologists what is the one element that remains constant in the equation? Be it Wmd’s or towers of glass and steel of jets and bombs of box cutters and pilot lessons. Who told you who won the election and who told you who the terrorists are and who needs to be tortured? What have you learned about them in six years? The most damning evidence isn’t missiles mortar or flight paths but the footpaths of the authors themselves now so obvious.