The Ship Is Tilting And The Rats Are Getting Nervous

Well, it looks like the lies are beginning to catch up with Bush, Blair, Rumsfeld, Powell, Rice, and all the other rats. Now, it will be interesting to see whether the people will respond appropriately in the next election, or if they simply don't care, in which case we can hold two funerals. One for the country and another for the Truth. The Brits appear to be rather incensed at their boy. How 'bout that.

Meanwhile, at a convention of college Republicans in Washington back in July, which featured the likes of Karl Rove and Tom Delay addressing the young shock troops, besides peddling t-shirts and handbags emblazoned with Bush's smiling visage, they had bumper stickers for sale that said, "Bring Back The Blacklist," and "No Muslims=No Terrorists."

So along with openly embracing a return to McCarthyism, it appears the Neocons are now advocates of genocide. One would think either of those items alone, but certainly taken together, would be worth a banner headline on the front page of the New York Times. But so far, I haven't seen anything about it in the mainstream press. For the full story, unearthed by Copeland, see Michelle Goldberg.

The American Psychosis Writ Large by Copeland Morris

Dig down to the bottom of our American Psychosis and you will find that old bugbear of "Manifest Destiny" . It's not speaking out of turn to say that men who hear God telling them to invade certain countries are out of their freaking minds. The term "Providence" is a possibly delusional concept that was held by radically different Americans, prior to the Civil War. But former President Ulysses S. Grant wrote in his memoirs this warning: "Nations, like individuals, are punished for their transgressions".

Not long ago an old friend of mine startled me. He said that this unsavory crew in the White House made him "nostalgic for Richard Nixon". I laughed in his face, with the thought that he was joking, since my friend Grayson and I are old lefties and Vietnam War protesters. But he said he was serious: "at least down at the bottom of himself, Nixon had some kind of conscience. At least Nixon could be shamed. He could not bear it if people thought of him as a bad man. But the outlaws now in power are a different breed. Men like Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, John Ashcroft, George W. Bush: men like these are completely shameless. They cannot be shamed".

Who are Bush&Co?--who are these men? They are fundamentalists, true believers, who never question their assumptions.

ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST

Total Information Awareness was recently re-named Terrorist Information Awareness; but such an exercise in surrealism simply pales when compared to the brainchild of Pentagon DARPA chief, Adm. John Poindexter, the man who has caused such a ruckus for the past few weeks. The bureau under his supervision had begun to set up what is called the Policy Analysis Market, a subsidiary of of a division called, Futures Markets Applied to Prediction (FutureMAP). (A good description of this mechanism is found in a California weblog: Byrd's Brain). An online futures market would take bets on specific terrorist scenarios; it was meant to establish a speculative kind of game, based on probable currency of assassinations, regime changes, and a whole gamut of political violence. Poindexter's pet project would have been financed with $8 million of Pentagon money. "The Policy Analysis Market would work much like other financial markets, with investors buying 'futures' they think are likely to happen, and selling off futures as they believe events become less and less likely to happen"(Byrd). A CNN.com article also names private-sector partners in this enterprise: "Net Exchange, a market technologies company, and the Economist Intelligence Unit, the business information arm of The Economist magazine". Soon Poindexter began to feel a wave of derision, ridicule, and plain incredulity moving toward him. Both within and outside government, a consensus seemed to form. There was no question that Poindexter had gone off the rails, had left reality altogether. The uncertainty could only relate to exactly when this departure might have taken place.

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The full post of this article by Copeland Morris appeared August 04, 2003 in politx.

copeland morris SONG OF EXILE

Promise me exile if, as Camus says,
You slink to it. I am the better half
Myself, hooked up to wires in my own land.
And I am the lesser half and free in some way;
Well past the Pillars of Hercules I rival myself,
I read in the fine print that the borders are closed.

I quote my deliberate, foreign land.
The sky is flat, the scar is well hidden;
The shout of cicadas, the thirst of exile
Stranger than solitude or lopsided moons.
And cornered by Athena Nike in silence
I order coffee beside the old men.