Home > Cut and Run or Gut and Ruin?

Cut and Run or Gut and Ruin?

by Open-Publishing - Thursday 22 June 2006
5 comments

Wars and conflicts Governments USA

Imagination is more robust in proportion as reasoning power is weak.
Giambattista Vico

In the latest polls, Bush rose four percent. Is there anyone knowledgeable enough out there who would explain the mercurial rise, fall, and then rise again of an irrefutably failed Administration? How is it that one morning Joe Six Pack gets up and decides, yes by God I’m now positive about the President’s performance? Did he hear a nugget of talk-radio chatter that changed his mind? Was it one of Bush’s beautiful blue ties that turned the tide? Or maybe it was John McCain’s plea to Stay the Course. Or how about that unexpected hike in the markets? You know what they say about a fat wallet.

How could Mr. Six Pack imagine that progress is being made in the War on Terror? How can he expect a nation riddled with decades of sectarian strife, Baathist brutality, Shia restrictiveness, and Kurdish separatism to become truly democratic, or even remain a nation for that matter? Does he really believe, as Bush promised, that New Orleans will be rebuilt via the federal government? Is he convinced that the economy - and not just the welfare of corporations - is doing well? Is he truly content that the bill to hike the minimum wage was defeated? Does he believe that the federal government is generally being run as competently as it should be? Is he happy with the minuscule tax return that allowed him to buy a new cell phone and a carton of cigarettes? Apparently, the answer’s yes.

Five more points and Bush’ll be over 40%. It’s mind boggling. And indicative that this country has a far deeper problem than a woeful Administration on its hands. For example, Republicans are now relying on a talking-points guidebook, a text obviously composed based on the premise, you can fool most of the people most of the time.

You can now hear the main talking point - Cut and Run - echo over the valleys and through the villages. Oh no, the logic goes, we don’t want to Cut and Run, that would be horrible - something only cowards do. We’ve got to stay, and what? Build up more resentment? Kill more civilians? Create more martyrs? Bomb more sacred sites? Escalate the animosities? Create unease for Turkey? Tilt the region’s balance toward the Shia? Institutionalize a theocracy and call it a democracy as if people are never going to find out just what happened? Create a friendly neighbor for Iran and a breeding ground for terrorists who will one day be assigned to cross the Atlantic?

How is it possible that the leaders and politicians supporting this tragedy imagine that history isn’t going to reveal the record of events clearly for all to see? Or do they also have a guidebook explaining to them that Joe Six Pack doesn’t really give a damn? Apparently, they’re operating according to the presumption that the War on Terror can be sold like soap, e.g., New and Improved = Cut and Run. Why? Because American society does not comprehensively and profoundly examine its place in the world. And unfortunately, in this milieu, Mr. Six Pack and friends, as well as many educated people who should know better, including many politicians "discussing" this war now, have enough political clout to cling to a superficial slogan - Cut and Run - as if it really means anything substantial.

This kind of pathetic sloganeering has transmuted the power of positive thinking from a traditional American custom appealing to the best in people to a specifically targeted campaign to prompt society’s most unreflective constituents to blindly go along with essentially unexamined policies. What’s now positive in this type of pandering is the act of seeking approval from the unknowing, uncaring, and the unconcerned in order to further the neoconservative agenda. It’s the Nearly All Thinking Left Behind Policy that now carries this Administration’s ethically bankrupt policies forward in the world.

And, yes, though Mr. Six Pack and friends are in a self-induced stupor, they are responsible for these activities, particularly when they’re expressing their approval of this Administration. But those educated individuals who can see through the shallow sloganeering, whether Republican or Democrat, and nonetheless perpetuate this madness - they have blood on their hands. And as time goes on, history is not going to let them forget it. Indeed, if they were wise, they would Cut and Run from this folly they’re pursuing - Gut and Ruin - and the stupid lies they’re telling themselves in order to believe in its merits.

Forum posts

  • Mr. Joe Sixpack is only interested in his porn...when the internet cost everyone $100.00 per month (its about to happen after the election) and they can no longer log on to some free porn, they will get interested. Until then, the only thing they really care about is that Fred doesn’t screw Ted or call themselves "married"...and that their Colors Don’t Run sticker on their truck makes them look macho. Mr. Sixpack only cares about three things Porn, beer, and God.

    • Well, by "God", you mean a nasty, overbearing, uncaring, wicked Creator who is in the image of Mr. Sixpack and loves Mr. Sixpack and his killing society and leadership, then yes, I would agree.

      But my "God" is not in the image of Mr. Sixpack and is not nasty or uncaring or wicked.

  • The leaders of a country are a reflection of that country.

  • The (made in China)U.S. flag waving bush saluting Joe Sixpacks and people like him who believe that “cutting and running” from Iraq amounts to cowardice and treason and letting the “terrorists win” just “dont get it” and are probably too ignorant to understand that they are emulating the very same mindset that the citizens of germany(those who supported Hitler and his illegal and immoral war activities that is) probably also held concerning the belief that any talk of cutting and running from Poland/Czechoslovakia/France amounted to cowardice and treason and “letting the terrorists win”.
    Then again, Joe Sixpack and his ilk are history impaired and exhibit a hypocritical world view that is typical of their kind-that aggression against other nations and occupation of conquered people is evil and must be fought against when they are perpetrated by other nations-but is a good and righteous thing to do if it is done by their own.
    The French resistance is widely seen in america as an heroic struggle against malevolent nazi occupation.
    The american founding fathers resistance is viewed with an air of reverence as a courageous and moral act of defiance against the brutal tyranny of british colonialism.
    But now that the roles are reversed and america under bush has become the invader and occupier of conquered nations and peoples, the resistance activities of the Afghani and Iraqi people are classified as “terrorism” and the resistance fighters as “terrorists” who are agents of evil out to destroy any chances of “freedom and democracy” being brought to their nations by america.
    The officially stated goal of “bringing freedom and democracy” to Iraq in addition to being simple minded to the point of retardation and trite was also a monstrous lie spewed from bush’s “ministry of truth” to hide the authentic reason-to acquire and control the oil and territory and murder the Afghani/Iraqi people-from the american people.
    All the rhetoric of “bringing freedom and democracy” to Iraqis and eliminating WMDs and “nukular bombs” was bait used to lure the fear saturated and revenge obsessed american people into giving their permission to bush to start a war that had no legitimate justification and no exit strategy-because bush was the catalyst of a new cold war born from the ashes of the old one.
    The incredible waste of lives and resources in wars are routine occurrences where the main objective is to generate as much profits and power for the war architects as possible and anything (such as troop withdrawals or cease fires for example) that are geared towards diminishing or terminating hostilities are treated as dire threats to their financial and political aggrandizements that must be neutralized.
    Wars should be seen for what they really are-ultimate hostile takeovers of other peoples resources and territories to fatten the bank accounts of people who already possess more money than they can spend in several lifetimes and gain power of such magnitude that they think of themselves as gods.
    And the rest of us who make up the bulk of humanity (soldiers/non-combatants) are nothing more than expendable game pieces that they move around on the game board and sacrifice every so often when it is considered necessary to win the game .
    When bush and his crew of terrorists denigrate the idea of exiting Iraq and its proponents by claiming that it would be sending the wrongmessage to the “terrorists” in Iraq that americans are weak and cowardly and that “staying the course” is the only acceptable course, what he is really saying is that he does not want to leave the gravy train that Iraq represents for him and his masters.
    What bush and the GOP and their vapid supporters sneeringly call “cutting and running”, is what more rational and sane people would call “exercising the better part of discretion” and ending a criminal occupation.
    There is no honor or courage in participating in the act of fighting/killing/dying in gigantic mafia hit operations instigated by the worst sorts of criminal gangsters in existence-only meaningless deaths and lifelong crippling injuries and shattered hopes and dreams and justice not served.
    Has it not always been the case that the naive and gullible are tricked into doing the dirty and illegal work that the criminals didn’t want to do themselves and suffered the dire consequences while the criminals enjoyed the spoils?
    Sadly, most victims do not realize until too late that they had been nothing more than “throw away” dupes and their lessons unfortunately are not handed down and taken to heart by other potential victims to break the vicious cycle.
    It has become institutionalized to the point where those rejecting their role in state sanctioned criminality are looked upon as criminals acting criminally.
    In societies ruled by criminal dominated governments, the criminals reap the praise and promotiona and rewards and the innocent and honest are punished.
    Staying the course in Iraq will send the wrong message to the “terrorists” in the white house and pentagon that americans are cowardly and weak and will let them win.