Fantasy Vs. Reality in America

FANTASY VS REALITY

By Peter Fredson

January 10, 2006

I hold no grudges against fantasy. As a teen-ager I had a stack of paper-backs on science-fiction, many books on mythology and religion, and some of the most lurid horror magazines of the 1940’s, not to mention an equally large stack of magazines of the Far West, outlaws, gun-slingers, etc. When I went off to war my mother threw all that “junk” away, which I still mourn as many would now be exceedingly valuable and would provide many a winter night’s reading.

I never confused fantasy fiction with reality, although later when I watched the moon-landing I thought “what took us so long?” I had already explored the Planet Mars, fought space pirates in some distant galaxy, and rockets through space a million miles away. I never considered John Kennedy’s promise to land on the moon as anything unusual.

Several friends became obsessed with exploring the reality of fiction and actually went “out West” to become cowboys, another became a Buddhist monk in Tibet, and several more became pilots in order to cruise the deep blue sky. I know of many people who became entertainers, dancers, actors, stand-up comedians, due to their childhood fantasy of entertaining relatives in the parlor. Different strokes for different folks.

So I do not sneer at people who delight in any branch of fiction. The difficulty comes when people find it difficult to glimpse the line separating fact from fancy, real from imaginary and right from wrong. Some people cannot sense the difference between lies and imagination as both merge into a continuous narrative. It is especially difficult for someone with narcissism or strong ego-mania, once convinced that they are favored by destiny or gods, to see themselves as other than heroic, glorious warriors, or with some super-human power.

George W. Bush is such a person. He feels he is favored by the Supreme Creator of the Entire Universe to do great deeds of derring-do. Some of his followers believe he is some sort of Messiah, who has come to help the Apocalypse or Rapture materialize. Bush himself says he speaks to his Creator, which generally by Christians, is considered to be prayer, but Bush asserts that the Creator also replies to him.

In one instance he alleged that this was THE reason why he invaded Iraq. His God asked him to do it. Case Closed. Enough people believed his story, plus his diatribes against gays, sexual sin and EVIL, to elect him as President of a great nation. Fact and fancy indeed merged to forge a new reality for the conspiratorial conservatives.

There were no considerations of his competence or ability to run a country, no lofty discussions of constitutional principals, no discussion of his record as a roué, drunkard, AWOL soldier, simply a religious Hallelujah for a new Messiah who could bring the Millennium to a crashing end, after which all the proper people would go to some eternal but vague destination, and the rest to an unspeakably unpleasant territory where they will scream their lungs out to delight the Christians looking down from above. A simple story propagated by complex people.

What is amazing is not that indoctrinated fundamentalists would believe that story but the subject of such adoration would actually believe it himself. This is definitely crossing the line into a subdivision of lunacy.

In the case of George Bush he was indoctrinated into the greatest display of fictional imagination by the most exploitive system this planet has ever produced, staffed by professionals who dedicate their entire lives to propagating and proselytizing their beliefs and rituals, known as religion. This planet has experienced thousands of invisible intangible entities divided into many thousands of religions, shilled by untold thousands of people for the purpose of providing a secure livelihood and outstanding benefits for themselves, all resting upon imagination and persuasion, often described as “brain-washing.”

Another explanation is that Bush is exploiting the beliefs, dogma and traditions of his followers to assume regal authority supposedly derived from invisible intangible entities in order to attain his quest (and that of his Leo Straussian cronies) to dominate the world.

The fact is that Bush was a wastrel, carefree, son of a very powerful politician who was “captured” by equally powerful fundamentalist religionists who indoctrinated this shallow, incurious, slightly dumb frat-boy into their system of Methodist-Baptist beliefs and dogma as a gullible poster-boy to advance their own religious-political agenda.

The combination of conservative politicians with ultra-conservative religionists, backed by people of great corporate wealth and influence, proved to have astonishing success. The petulant, irritable, gullible, but personable Bush was swiftly moved into positions of power by many propaganda professionals who felt they had Silly Putty to work with.

He simply had to agree to advance some fundamentalist favorite causes: eradicate the separation of church and state, make the Christian sacred book obligatory in all affairs of legislation and education, add the word “God” wherever possible in adages, slogans and pledges, declare prayer to be a national concern, pronounce some Christian “commandments” to be the origin of all morals and legislation, pack the courts with people who passed the Christian religious advocacy test, attack anyone concerned with abortion, homosexuality, untraditional marriage, or advocating other systems of religion. He kept his promise.

All this was complicated by his peculiar attachment to cowardly warhawks who nevertheless harbored thoughts of dominating the world by stealth, deception, misinformation, preemption, spying, destabilization, dirty tricks and similar tactics carried out without pity, concern, or care.

Although not relishing the shedding of their own blood, they had no concern about shedding that of anyone else who disagreed with them. All Bush had to promise them was unlimited access to wealth and power, and ease up any restrictions that they felt were obstructing their path to billions of dollars. He kept his promise.

They swiftly captured the entire Republican Party, which for five years never disagreed with the immortal leader, never voted against any legislation regardless of its stupidity quotient, made life much easier for wealthy corporate associates and made life a living hell for blue-collar workers, by shipping their jobs to foreign countries where wage slaves abounded and made “minimum wage” and “safety standards” obsolete.

Bush decided to privatize the government, and convert its assets into wealth for the neo-conservatives, for the corrupt politicians. Fortunately his blandishments and seduction of taxpayers regarding turning Social Security over to Financial Advisors was seen as a sly attempt to rob the treasury and leave retirees without pensions, money or homes.

His attempts to bribe taxpayers by returning some of their tax-money to them, without consequences in deficits for generations is still being shilled by Bush with endless speeches, squint-eyed stares at cameras, nodding of his head, and gestures designed to soothe taxpayers. Some people indeed see him as a scoundrel without any compunction regarding truth, honesty or sincerity.

Bush made the Oval Office a fundamentalist chapel with “non-obligatory” daily prayer, paid chaplains, dozens of priestly advisors and finally opened the treasury vaults to “faith-based” organizations of his choosing. Any vow he may had uttered, regarding not inflicting his religion on anyone, soon was forgotten with a flurry of executive orders declaring BIBLE READING, National days, weeks or months of Prayer, Pledges Under God, etc. of prime emergency status. Everywhere the fundamentalists stealthily intruded their beliefs and practices, all the while proclaiming they were being martyred.

Now we find George Bush assuming an imperial robe. Using 9/11 as his only leverage, repeated endlessly and daily, he asserts that he is above any law that hampers him in his “fight” against terror.

He disregards the fact that he promoted, disseminated, and advanced terror wherever he went. He blithely disregards that fact that he invade Iraq by lies, by deception, by manipulating information, and that he is in Iraq illicitly, illegally, and has violated international norms regarding warfare, the Geneva Convention, torture, abuse, CIA kidnappings and surreptitious flights, secret jails, wire tapping, spying on his own citizens, reading their mail, listening to their conversations, etc.

He claims that he can interpret any law to suit his convenience. His major surprise was that he said that The Constitution, on which our country is based, is a god dammed piece of paper, and that he does not want it thrown in his face. He waves flags at every occasion thinking to fool the public, but if our Constitution is just a piece of paper, then our flag is just a stick with a rag on it. He might as well ring church bells and wave crosses, perhaps have a statue of Jesus on the cross behind him to show his devotion to religion. He has no respect for any tradition except cold hard cash and oil.

But many people are not fooled by this exploitation of patriotism and religion. They see Bush as a consummate con-artist using every emotion to perpetuate himself in power and enrich his comrades.

He has committed felonies in his Ashcroft, Gonzales, operations. He must be brought to account. Impeachment is now necessary to save America from the pack of thugs now ruling it. All he needs is just one more justice on the Supreme Court and he can make himself President-for-Life.