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Pants on Fire: the Liars of the Bush Administration will take the world down in flames if we let them

by Open-Publishing - Monday 16 January 2006
8 comments

Edito Governments USA Daniel Patrick Welch

By Daniel Patrick Welch

Sam Alito is merely the latest liar on the block for Bush’s full spectrum dominance agenda. But the show-trial hearings on whether this proto-fascist ideologue should be allowed to shape US social and political development for a generation provide some nuggets of insight into how the corrupt junta’s pathological liars actually work.

The first order of amazement is that the process can actually take place. Shouldn’t precedence be given to hearings on impeaching and imprisoning the corporate cronies who lied us into war? Business As Usual, is, as usual, the most effective weapon in the arsenal of the criminal cabal that has seized control of the US. If it looks like a government, stands behind a podium with a government seal, wears a suit and speaks in an authoritative voice, then everything must be okay.

Ask any successful thief or terrorist what the key to the grift is: try to blend in. When I traveled in Europe in the ’80s, my friends and I were occasionally hasseled at borders because we "looked the part": sort-of-scruffy, beat up car, long hair, etc. My German friend scoffed: "Guys with bombs in the trunk are certainly wearing suits and driving Mercedes."

No cover works forever, and though many of us warned that the veneer was never very convincing to begin with, the paint seems to be chipping more and more on the right wing’s menagerie of talking dolls that is the Bush administration. Of course, Alito’s presence alone is evidence of the mask falling away. When Baby Doc Bush tried to appoint his own lawyer, his christofascist paymasters seethed with rage and responded with one voice: "You shut up, you dumb monkey, and remember why we put you in office in the first place." The swaggering phony cowboy (well, the Boy part is real at least) obediently caved, and Harriet Myers made way for Raymond, aka Sam Alito.

So here he sits, the klieg lights melting the carefully crafted Rovian image of a real honest-to-goodness judge. First line of defense is always the blatant lie, of course; and to their barely deserved credit, the Democrats on the panel let loose with a much deserved chorus—to paraphrase—of "Liar, liar, pants on fire!" Why was Alito so proud of his membership in the racist Concerned Alumni of Princeton, whose original goal was to keep blacks and women out of the Ivy League school? He had "no specific recollection." Thank you, Mr. Haldman-North-Dean-McNamara. Why did he agree with a case where a farm family was evicted at gunpoint? They may have had weapons. What about his well documented statements that there is no constitutional protection for abortion? That was then, this is now. His unabashed adulation of Robert Bork, whom he called the most qualified Supreme Court nominee in this century? Out of context.

For all their impotence, the Democratic minority managed to hone in on the real dangers that tipping the court might hasten: the final nail in the coffin of reproductive freedom, and an uberpresidency resting on unrestrained executive power. Not entirely to their credit, of course. Anyone who wasn’t awakened by the scandal of the NSA wiretapping is comatose. And those who hide behind "protecting Roe v. Wade" as the benchmark of protecting women’s rights are a few years too late. Casey is not the super-precedent that enshrines the 1972 Roe decision as untouchable: on the contrary, it is the open door that has invited states to impose restrictions on abortion, so that, at this date, 87% of the counties in the US have no health care providers who will perform abortion. Alito is merely the icing on the cake—the real fight is all but over, and the right wing has won. Anyone who doubts this should see the alarming Frontline documentary "The Last Abortion Clinic."

And the Democrats, by playing their scripted part, are slowly but surely sowing the seeds of their own demise. Since the parties largely eschew any activity outside the electoral arena—strikes, mass rallies, mobilizations—there is little for them to do "between cycles" but play the role. The peculiarities of the Senate do allow them to filibuster; but their complicity in the war and their addiction to propriety will probably prevent them from doing so. And their predicament can be summed up in the simple phrase "No filibuster—no future."

Simply sending Alito home sobbing (the meme currently being shopped by Fox News)isn’t enough. And as for that, Sammy, I’ll save my tears for some real victims, starting with the maimed and murdered children around the globe who are subject to the unrestrained authority of US presidents, past and present. Just beneath the mask, the ugliness of the agenda of these wackos is revealed by their own statements, in moments of clarity, and those of their heroes. Robert Bork, rightfully rejected as a radical nutbag, once said, in his dissent from a major case on the legality of contraception, that there is no explicit or implicit right to reproduction in the constitution. Yikes. This fits nicely with the theocracy Bush’s base would like to establish; but it’s a far cry from the mainstream.

That’s why it has to be covered by lies and hypocrisy so deep and so twisted that it blows our brains apart. The country that drenched southeast Asia in a warm bath of dioxin has the balls to talk about chemical weapons—Saddam’s most egregious crime, remember, was that he "gassed his own people," while the generations of deformed Agent Orange babies in Vietnam deserve no parallel treatment. "Useable" nukes will somehow help us prevent nuclear proliferation, even as other countries scared to death are scrambling to get nukes to avoid become the US’ next victim. Meanwhile, nuclear war is already here: the Persian Gulf has been saturated with depleted uranium munitions not once, but twice, with all the vigor of elites whose kids are not sent to war. More than half of the soldiers of the first Gulf War are on some form of disability, and the coming DU crisis will engulf US society as it has already done to Iraq. Widespread torture will keep us safe, and somehow quell the rage of those who oppose our policies. Spying on nonviolent peace groups will preserve our civi liberties. Quakers, for God’s sake! I thought everyone pretty much knew that Nixon was the only dangerous Quaker. No wonder a recent internet sendup claimed that George Orwell’s estate was suing the Bush Administration for stealing his ideas.

But lies, of course, can’t hurt without a complicit audience. Vichy Democrats don’t help themselves or the country by abetting the pretense that this band of corrupt thugs clinging to power is Business as Usual. The timid debate over the horrors of the Iraq war won’t ring true to the rest of the world until they include a war crimes tribunal, reparations to the invaded, and restructuring of the process that made the war hysteria possible. Instead, the drumbeat toward war on Iran is already ramping up—sound familiar?—without the visceral response one might expect from such a truly insane proposition, and one from which the US and the world will not recover. And the press, who would love the ratings, can be counted on to continue the Orwellian spin: Pope John Paul is mourned as a reformer and a man of progress; the Abramoff corruption scandal is a bipartisan affair; and Ariel Sharon is recast as a Man of Peace. Meanwhile, the march toward the abyss can’t be overstated, and is being eased into fast forward. Bush may be an ignorant puppet, but The League of Shadows around him is neither stupid nor benign. And with control over the bloated military, they have the very real power to accelerate the world toward nuclear war and environmental devastation. Resistance begins with calling them on their lies; otherwise we risk being drawn into the flames.

© 2006 Daniel Patrick Welch. Reprint permission granted with credit and link to http://danielpwelch.com Writer, singer, linguist and activist Daniel Patrick Welch lives and writes in Salem, Massachusetts, with his wife, Julia Nambalirwa-Lugudde. Together they run The Greenhouse School ( http://www.greenhouseschool.org ).

Translations of articles are available in up to 20 languages. Links to the website are appreciated at danielpwelch.com

Forum posts

  • Very crafty of Bush. Here we were all worried that he was putting a religious zealot on the court in order to praise Jesus, the Ten Commandments, the Pledge Under God, Bible Reading in School, etc. but it turns out that the real game was to grab power. Alito will give Bush any power he requests and will find clever rationalizations and legalizations to support it. Once he is on the Supreme Court...he, and Scalia, and Roberts and at least 2 others will let Bush become El Supremo, with no court to call him to account, no one to restrain him. He will be able to arrest, detain, hold, execute, torture, abuse anyone in this country or even kidnap anyone in any country of the world and put him into secret jails for his sadistic pleasure. So the fear that Harriet would turn out to praise Jesus has been replaced by a much greater fear that our democracy is in terrible danger of structural change by the neo-cons, the cowardly warhawks. From Frying Pan into the Fire. Either way, Bush has no one to stop him now and he can truly strut, swagger, smirk his way into the comic opera role of World Dictator, like Charlie Chaplin and Jack Oakie in THE GREAT DICTATOR. I kid you not. Death and destruction will follow.

  • Hey, look on the bright side.

    The CHIMP’S poll numbers are at 39% approval. That means that only 39% of Americans are still MORONS.

    We’re gaining ground!

    • Saddam’s lawyer plans to sue Bush, Blair for alleged crimes in Iraq

      Sinan Salaheddin, Canadian Press
      Published: Thursday, January 26, 2006

      BAGHDAD, Iraq — Saddam Hussein’s chief lawyer said Thursday that the deposed Iraqi president wants U.S. President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair tried on allegations of committing war crimes.

      Khalil al-Dulaimi said Saddam wants to sue both leaders, along with U.S. Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld for allegedly authorizing the use of weapons such as depleted uranium artillery shells, white phosphorous, napalm and cluster bombs. "We will sue Bush, Blair and Rumsfeld in The Hague for using such weapons of mass destruction," said al-Dulaimi in a telephone interview from Jordan.

      No complaint has been filed to the International Criminal Court in The Netherlands, but al-Dulaimi said Saddam’s foreign defence team will present it "very soon."

      "President Saddam intends to bring those criminals to justice for their mass killings of Iraqis in Baghdad, Ramadi, Fallujah and Qaim and abusing prisoners at Abu Ghraib," the lawyer added.

      Saddam also wants all Iraqis who have had relatives killed or had property damaged to receive at least $500,000 US each, he said.

      There have been several allegations that the United States used outlawed weapons, such as napalm, in the November, 2004 Fallujah offensive, but the Pentagon denied using it.

      In November, the Pentagon acknowledged that U.S. troops used white phosphorous shells as a weapon against insurgent strongholds in the same Fallujah battle, adding that they are a standard weapon and not banned by any international weapons convention to which the U.S. is a signatory.

      Use of white phosphorous is covered by Protocol III of the 1980 Convention on Conventional Weapons, which prohibits use of the substance as an incendiary weapon against civilian populations and in air attacks against military forces in civilian areas. The United States is not a signatory to the convention.

      U.S. soldiers have also claimed they have fallen ill to exposure to depleted uranium artillery shells in Iraq, but the Pentagon has said metal does not cause ailments.

      Depleted uranium is the hard, heavy metal created as a byproduct of enriching uranium for nuclear reactor fuel or weapons material.

      Most studies have indicated that depleted uranium exposure will not harm soldiers. But a 2002 study by Britain’s Royal Society said soldiers who ingest or inhale enough depleted uranium could suffer kidney damage. It cautioned that there were too many uncertainties in the study to draw reliable conclusions.

      Saddam, his half brother Barzan Ibrahim and six other defendants are on trial in the 1982 killing of more than 140 Shiite Muslims after an attempt on Saddam’s life in the northern town of Dujail. They could face death by hanging if convicted.

      But the trial, which started Oct. 19, has been complicated by the killings of two defence lawyers, courtroom brawls and Tuesday’s postponement amid the replacement of the tribunal’s top two judges. The case is set to resume Sunday.
      © The Canadian Press 2006

  • are natzi government is right on track for World War 3 The war mongers keep spreading the lies about Iran just like they did with Iraq. 9-11 was orchestrated by our government to launch World War so that they can usher in their natzi New World Order. Just like poppy Bush said in a speech on 9-11-91 where he called for a New World Order. The lunatics are running the asylum good luck America.

  • Something has turned out very bad: America is controlled by one party. How could you let this happen?
    The system of the separation of powers has been broken. Even if their is a correction in the houses in the midterm elections in November the congress and senate have only one option: impeachment of Bush and his General Attorney Gonzales. But that is unlikely to happen.
    Hard to imagine what happens if the Bush administration gains power in the midterms - may God be merciful from being that to happen.

  • Kurt Vonnegut was right about the Euphio Machine. He may have imagined only TV or possibly computers, could do this to our society. It took that and video games, MP3’s, movie theaters, DVD’s, cell phones, drugs, instant messaging, text messaging, computer internet, TV programming, cable, satelite, driving around in cars and recreation shopping to suck all thought from our brain while holding us hostage to their hypnotic influence.
    I guess it helps us to quit focusing on outsourced farming, fast food caused obesity, paying for two wars at one time, oil price inflation, poor health, loss of jobs and medical coverage, our lost hope, huge debts and realization that on a daily basis we lose our freedoms, potentials, and the American Dream.
    Then if that weren’t enough; our "Uniter" President and his cronies have pitted groups of people against one another, creating class wars based on religion, race, gender and age, using campaign issues: Medicare Prescription programs, Social Security Revisions, making Haves into Have Mores, debating Same Sex marriage, targeting a womans right to choose, party politics, NeoCon policies, supreme court justice nominations, unfunded No Child Left Behind, corporate welfare, inflation, illegal aliens, broken borders, mandates requiring national ID or passports. Adding to the confusion in our minds, our local governments have decided to tax us for sports stadiums, mass transit debacles, while we slug it out job hunting, lose job perks and benefits, live with forced overtime, and watch our leaders receive government entitlements for squandering taxpayer money.
    When I talk to my friends and coworkers about these governmental issues, offering that all of us should be writing letters to our representatives begging them to do all in their power to stop the insanity; people agree, then politely change the subject.
    Help!!! How do we get redemption from that smirking face with the wiseacre remarks and soundbites and the hand picked audiance sitting behind him during his speeches. That curling sarcastic mouth, pointy nose and widows peaks that are starting to look like budding horns. Is he a devil, is he an idiot, is he an underrated sociopath?
    What should we do? Who will stop this mess? We don’t hear advice from radio voices or the talking heads, because they know that ratings are not boosted by saying "have a nice day" and then not offer a solution that fits the problems.
    I don’t have ability to enforce a solution. Where are the watchdogs, the Kenneth Starrs, bared teeth, tort law, and knuckles to stop the abuses? Isn’t it obvious to our "elected officials" that they are supposed to take action and stop the violations?
    Could all Americans not think about our US citizens being sent to Iraq, Kuwait, Afganistan, the back door draft, or millions of children that haven’t had a military parent at home for over a year. Are we in denial when we hear of injured soldiers and their coping families while the VA closes down hospitals and denies them treatments? Not in America; surely we must be talking about some country that doesn’t have paved roads?
    Are we in denial about what we see happening in Iraq; barricaded roads, manned by foriegn police and military demanding ID, having their doors kicked down and their families living without safety and stability in their own country.
    How easily we all have forgotten that lengthy government shut-down on Clinton’s watch, good thing we had a robust economy or things would have been real, real bad.
    I remember Bush didn’t raise a hand in 2000 when Enron deliberately manipulated energy shortages and did price gauging, followed by the stock market scandal. 9-11 gave us a bombed out stock market and shut down air travel and stopped us from going to our deposit boxes, savings and stocks when the banks were closed. Our comfort zone was shaken.
    We have a constitution and rights that should not be suspended or altered for one set of circumstances or a "Patriot Act", "Homeland Security" or any cozy euphanism that is applied to help sell us on loss of personal freedoms. We don’t need or want criminals committing lawlessness, looting and assaults or to be abandoned by our police and military. A lot of us own guns and have bullets; we should be able to protect ourselves. Will the day come when we cannot?
    That’s why we have laws and put emergency planning within control of our government. Katrina people began to protest after becoming certain that help would not come. The Rodney King trial and Los Angeles rioting was caused because our society had eliminated a group of people from fair justice; including prosecuting abuse from police. WTO assaults on peaceful protestors took place because police were told to act against everyone instead of going after the extremist that began vandalizing business windows. Poor training or was it an anger management issue?
    Those events will be remembered as minor compared to living with devaulation of our money, loss of home equity and the loss of value of our savings and investments, while we suffer from shortages, inflation, high interest rates, economic depression, huge debts and become controlled by a foreign power.
    I can only believe that we care in a daytime Christian manner, you know: hugs, "love ya man", "see you tomorrow", out of the mind five minutes later type of behavior. We lose awareness that local TV news isn’t news as much as it is commercials, then tells us "for the rest of the story look at our website"? The newspapers are filled with sports, weather, fluff, inaccurate news headings that create more confusion added to biased information.
    We have silently allowed corporations and government to give away our industry, manufacturing and farming, eliminate costomer service and eliminate the quality and our say about our food chain. Next we will lose control over local water, air, electricity and gas supplies. I agree that nobody wants daily doses of that stuff.
    As long as some corporation is able to make a billion dollars on the backs of those who helped grow their business, who cares what they do? Shareholders will rejoice, the poor will pay.
    Rules, who needs rules, this is the the lack of ethics, big theft, car jacking, road raging, and hit and run 2000’s.
    We were outraged by Katrina and lack of FEMA responce, visualizing it happening to ourselves and how we would react if our community were being treated like a third world country. How quickly we believe the government lies that lead us to perceive that the money and help has fixed all of the pain. Look around, listen and you will find out that those things haven’t happened in the manner that we were told.
    Think about it, we don’t need NASA and Mars study, we need quality water, air, food, stability, education, cooperation and oportunity to take care of all people and the world we have already been blessed with.
    I miss Bill Clinton, at least I only had to explain to my grade school aged child why he was in trouble (Monica and Bill were caught smoking and they lied about it) and that our personal world and life was safe.
    Don’t sit around and take it for granted, thinking somebody is managing things on your behalf. I am beginning to understand how dictatorships work. Get mad, don’t let the selling of America happen.

  • ITS NOT ONLY BUSH WRECKING THE WORLD BUT CORPORATE WHORE D’S AS WELL WHO SIDE WITH HIM/THEM AS WELL! THEY ALL NEED TO GO AND NOW! HOW MANY MORE TIMES MUST WE BE SCREWED BY THEM SO CALLED D’S? AND THE ONLY REASON WHY KERRY AND HILLARY FILIBUSTERED ALITO WAS BECAUSE THEY KNEW THAT IT WOULDN’T WORK ANYWAY! SO THEY CAN SAY, SEE PROGRESSIVES WE TRIED! YET, THEY KNEW ALONG FILIBUSTER W0ULDN’T WORK! INCLUDING ASSHOLE, GUTLESS HARRY REID,TOO! IF REID WERE ANY KIND OF LEADER IN SENATE AND HOWARD DEAN TOO IN DNC, THEY BOTH WOULD HAVE PUT PRESSURE ON ALL D’S AND TOLD THEM EITHER YOU FILIBUSTER ALITO OR WE WILL NOT GIVE YOU ANY CAMPAIGN $$ FROM DNC PLUS TAKE YOU OFF ALL COMMITTEES, PERIOD! THAT IS WHAT SHOULD HAVE HAPPENED BUT DIDN’T AND AS USUAL THE CORPORATE WHORE D’S SIDED WITH BUSH AND CORPORATE WHORE R’S TO THE DETERMENT OF OUR NATION AND WORLD! THEN THE BASTARDS BITCH ABOUT BUSH WHILE VOTING WITH HIM ON ALL SORTS OF STUFF LIKE ALITO! UN FUCKING BELIEVABLE! WE NEED A REVOLUTION IN AMERICA AND WORLD TO FIGHT THESE TOTAL FASCISTS! AND NOW! THEY ALL SUCK MOST OF THEM, ONLY FEW GOOD ONES IN CONGRESS, MAJORITY SUCK AND ONLY REPRESENT TOP 5% OF AMERICANS, THE RICH AND CEO’S! THEY ARE NOT ONLY DESTROYING AMERICA AND OUR MIDDLE CLASS BUT THE WORLD AS WELL! SCREW THE WORTHLESS DLC DEMOCRATS! THEY SUCK TOO!

  • Surprise, surprise!

    "Alito Sides With Mo. Inmate on Death-Row

    New Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito split with the court’s conservatives Wednesday night, refusing to let Missouri execute a death-row inmate contesting lethal injection.

    Alito, handling his first case, sided with inmate Michael Taylor, who had won a stay from an appeals court earlier in the evening. Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas supported lifting the stay, but Alito joined the remaining five members in turning down Missouri’s last-minute request to allow a midnight execution.

    Earlier in the day, Alito was sworn in for a second time in a White House ceremony, where he was lauded by President Bush as a man of "steady demeanor, careful judgment and complete integrity."

    He was also was given his assignment for handling emergency appeals: Arkansas, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota and South Dakota. As a result, Missouri filed with Alito its request for the high court to void a stay and allow Taylor’s execution.

    The court’s split vote Wednesday night ended a frenzied day of filings. Missouri twice asked the justices to intervene and permit the execution, while Taylor’s lawyers filed two more appeals seeking delays.

    Reporters and witnesses had gathered at the state prison awaiting word from the high court on whether to go ahead with the execution.

    An appeals court will now review Taylor’s claim that lethal injection is cruel and unusual punishment, a claim also used by two Florida death-row inmates that won stays from the Supreme Court over the past week. The court has agreed to use one of the cases to clarify how inmates may bring last-minute challenges to the way they will be put to death.

    Alito replaced Sandra Day O’Connor, who had often been the swing vote in capital punishment cases. He was expected to side with prosecutors more often than O’Connor, although as an appeals court judge, his record in death penalty cases was mixed.

    Scalia and Thomas have consistently sided with states in death penalty cases and have been especially critical of long delays in carrying out executions.

    Taylor was convicted of killing 15-year-old Ann Harrison, who was waiting for a school bus when he and an accomplice kidnapped her in 1989. Taylor pleaded guilty and said he was high on crack cocaine at the time.

    Taylor’s legal team had pursued two challenges _ claiming that lethal injection is cruel and unusual punishment and that his constitutional rights were violated by a system tilted against black defendants.

    The court, acting without Alito, rejected Taylor’s appeal that argued that Missouri’s death penalty system is racist. Taylor is black and his victim was white. He filed the appeal on Tuesday, the day that Alito was confirmed by the Senate."

    © Copyright 2006 CSC Holdings, Inc.