I WEEP FOR MY COUNTRY

I Weep For My Country

By Peter Fredson

January 20, 2006

Several years ago I was trying to find something on TV worth watching amidst all the commercial propaganda for cars, chapstick, sanitary napkins, and diet pills, when my attention was suddenly focused on the slight figure of a white-haired Senator, with a slight tremor, who was holding a palm-sized copy of our Constitution in his hand.

He said this phrase which has since come back to haunt me. “Today I weep for my country.” At the time I thought it was hyperbole, political exaggeration, but have come to realize that the Senator was telling it like it was. It was no exaggeration, but an accurate assessment of the villainous administration of neoconservatives whose stated goal is to dominate the world.

The speaker was Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia, who continued: “I have watched the events of recent months with a heavy, heavy heart. No more is the image of America one of strong, yet benevolent peacekeeper. The image of America has changed. Around the globe, our friends mistrust us, our word is disputed, and our intentions are questioned.”

I recommend re-reading this speech today, as it vividly brings up the specter of Bush tyranny and arrogance which surrounds us. Senator Byrd was ahead of most of his colleagues when he analyzed the motives, the intentions and the goals of the neoconservatives.

Arrogance of Power: Today, I Weep for my Country..., by US Senator Robert Byrd, March 19, 2003

Senator Byrd had foreseen the “go it alone” attitude of the Bush people and its consequences, by saying: “Instead of reasoning with those with whom we disagree, we demand obedience or threaten recrimination. Instead of isolating Saddam Hussein, we seem to have isolated ourselves. We proclaim a new doctrine of preemption which is understood by few and feared by many. We say that the United States has the right to turn its firepower on any corner of the globe which might be suspect in the war on terrorism. We assert that right without the sanction of any international body. As a result, the world has become a much more dangerous place.”

Senator Byrd rightfully made a serious charge against Bush: “The case this Administration tries to make to justify its fixation with war is tainted by charges of falsified documents and circumstantial evidence. We cannot convince the world of the necessity of this war for one simple reason. This is a war of choice. There is no credible information to connect Saddam Hussein to 9/11. The twin towers fell because a world-wide terrorist group, Al Qaeda, with cells in over 60 nations, struck at our wealth and our influence by turning our own planes into missiles, one of which would likely have slammed into the dome of this beautiful Capitol except for the brave sacrifice of the passengers on board. “

Senator Byrd also said: “A pall has fallen over the Senate Chamber. We avoid our solemn duty to debate the one topic on the minds of all Americans, even while scores of thousands of our sons and daughters faithfully do their duty in Iraq.”

“What is happening to our country? When did we become a nation which ignores and berates our friends? When did we decide to risk undermining international order by adopting a radical and doctrinaire approach to using our awesome military might? How can we abandon diplomatic efforts when the turmoil in the world cries out for diplomacy? Why can this President not seem to see that America’s true power lies not in its will to intimidate, but in its ability to inspire? “

For a year the entire Bush cabinet went preaching on TV to urge the necessity for immediate war. They manipulated information shamelessly to suit their goal of dominion. They conned the entire country into stampeding our armed forces to release their obscene Shock and Awe without warrant, reason, or logic.

When did we decide that bullets, tanks, cannon, and cruise missiles would become “The American Way?” When did Americans declare that Ashcroft and Bolton are ideals for all Americans to emulate?

When did Americans decide that the lies of little Condi Rice reflect any sort of reality?

Deception was the weapon the Bush people used: deception, lies, misinformation, and withholding proper information. Saddam was no immediate or tangible threat to our country. Condi Rice with her “mushroom clouds”, Bush with his Aluminum Tubes, Cheney with his Weapons of Mass Destruction everywhere spread terror to the public. Secrecy cloaked all the manipulations of the Bush people to seize Iraq and its resources. Any criticism of Bush strategy was deemed treachery. Bush had no strategy for entrance or exit into Iraq, still doesn’t.

At this point some reader will probably say: Ah, Peter is a political operative, a paid shill, a salaried propagandist for Democrats, an ignorant stooge left over from the Clinton period .. and proceed blithely to forget the entire dialog.

But I am not allied with any political party or politician, am not a member of any political group, receive no orders or communication from politicians, receive no pay, no compensation, no reward, not even praise for blasting the Bush record. I vote separately, independently.

My “agenda”, if there is any, is to blog Bush and his pirate crew out of office. I have no resources other than my computer and a small retirement income. So, what I write is motivated by the contempt and hatred I feel toward the Bush administration for imperiously shoving aside all constitutional guarantees, all legalities, which protect American democracy. These have all gone down the filthy drain of the fundamentalists, the corporate pirates, and the power-mad executives.

Indeed it is time to weep for our country.

I have plainly seen the desire of neoconservative corporate theocrats to rule the world by the advice of Leo Strauss. Aggression, preemption, deceit, lies, misinformation, spinning truth like whirling dervishes, ignoring any rule of law, committing grave abuses like indefinite detention, warrantless actions, ignoring the judiciary, secret jails, spies, drone planes blasting peasant villages to rubble, dependence on bullets rather than diplomats, abuse, torture, rendition, surreptitious violations of sovereignty, destabilization, vile propaganda, dirty tricks, paid-off “journalists”, shameless self-promotion, corruption, firing whistle-blowers, sly “leaks”, threats, packing our judicial system, sending cruise missiles as messengers of American Democracy, grave violations of civil rights, and destroying the credibility and honor of America the Beautiful by brutal actions of a petulant, irritable, careless, dry-drunk child of privilege whose ego-mania knows no bounds.

All those are grounds for weeping, impeachment or some sort of civil dissent.

The gravest action of all is the deliberate dismantling of our Constitutional Democracy by acting with extreme arrogance toward responsible government, and the imposition of superstition and religious dogma on the freedom of belief in America.

Leo Strauss has informed the neoconservatives that pity, compassion, kindness, dialog, concern for others, diplomacy, sympathy or contemplation of actions are useless for governing. Poverty is not to be tolerated as it perpetuates human garbage, particularly of the darker-skinned people of the world, and is punishment for past sins by the Supreme Creator of the Universe, whom it is alleged has given George Bush the Keys to the Kingdom and the power to punish Evil, wherever his whim strikes his fancy.

We must weep for what our Democracy has become. A corporate semi-fascist theocracy exclusively for the self-proclaimed elite of the world. The toy to play with for the rich and powerful people, whom God has anointed as those few who are entitled to enter the Gates of Heaven.

Probably the worst dagger-in-the-back comes from Republican Senators and Corporate executives who are accomplices of George Bush in the destruction of our Democracy. They either turn a blind eye toward what is happened to our country, secure in their privileges and pensions, or joyfully proceed to crown the next World Emperor, investing him with purple robes, halo and power without limitations.

They ignore their oath to protect and defend the Constitution, against all enemies, foreign or domestic. So they must all be voted out of office as being too careless about their high offices and the protection of civil rights.