RULING THE WORLD

RULING THE WORLD

A Satirical Exposition

By Peter Fredson

November 8, 2007

I just finished a long compilation of reasons why Bush invaded Iraq, using several thousand files from the past 5 years. Many reasons have been alleged for the invasion, some humorous, and others reaching the edge of criminality. The reasons seemed to shift and multiply as the administration gradually realized things were not going as well as it had hoped. Then a fellow blogger asked me to identify the reason I thought was “really” in the back of the complicated group mind of George Bush and his co-conspirators.

Using some shaman’s animal bones, an eye of a newt, and several hundred patriotic speeches by Bush cabinet members, I reached some conclusions regarding “real” reasons that Bush declared war on Iraq. To get to the bottom of the reasons, I first had to realize that there was NO bottom.

The scene is murky, with shifting dark shapes lurking within, and endless imaginative space on all sides wherein a dismayed president can take refuge. There is enough mud to blur even the finest vision in night goggles. Best of all, the images are like quicksilver that shimmer as if to give light but then evaporate at the slightest touch.

A firm milestone is the Project for the New American Century, which delighted fratboys with its declaration of measured aggressivity for rich adolescents growing to partial manhood. Bullying is not just for lower grades in neighborhood schools, with whining schoolboys, but can be cultivated and grow into world domination. Blood can be shed copiously by others, while the perpetrators go unscathed, tender skins unscratched.

Wealth can be acquired by persistent psychological domination. This suits cowardly war hawks marvelously. The first part of any domination is to have other people suffer for your lust for power, and if you can get someone to give their life for your idle pleasure and profit, then praise the Lord, and smirk.

Another part of domination is to gain eager supporters, by offering them their fondest dreams of success. Give the lobbyists full access to wealth by erasing legalities and restrictions. Give the military-industrialists all the money they can ever hope for by making an endless assembly line of tanks, guns, planes and ammo to expend generously so that ever more is needed.

Give the White Christian Supremacists full reign in public schools, to public arenas, and make a chapel out of the Oval Office, with incessant prayer to substitute for penicillin. Let them post their commandments in every courthouse and school room, show statues of Jesus, endless rows of crosses, maudlin and endless public sermons, and take control of many TV, Radio and News media. Tell the televangelist hordes that all their fondest dreams of theocracy will come true.

As for the neo-cons themselves, fat-head fat-butt executives, offer them a lavish part in the imperial show of purple robes, ever-flowing treasure chest, and enormous satisfaction at getting medals or giving orders to lesser humans.

These lazy unlovely characters also need to love, and they intend to buy whatever is necessary. Their stock in trade is persiflage, folderol and balderdash, linguistic confusion, in mellifluous tones. See their corpulent bodies bumping their way through the halls of government, issuing slogans and clichés as they stink and scam their way through life.

Now about half the country has been promised a showy part in the reign of an imperial president. They have been gulled, suckered, and can suck their thumbs in delirious anticipation of some glorious apocalypse or rapture.

Another nice touch is needed. Claim to be authorized by the Supreme Lord of the Entire Universe as a sort of Junior Savior to destroy evil on this planet. Pick some passages from a sacred book to place into legislation to make the adoring public shout huzzahs and hallelujah.

Now you are the anointed, the Chosen One, the Deliverer, the One Who Speaks to God. Now you have the full support of 140,000 evangelists, charismatics, reconstructionists, dominionists, and even Army of Goddists.

Now you are unbeatable, and any word from your mouth is like a sacred chant. Cash will flow to you like water going downhill, votes will be pro-forma because to vote against you will become a grave sin, and you can propose any stupidity to receive waves of media praise and congressional approval.

You are now immune to laws, regulations, restrictions, civility, diplomacy, protocol, and can strut and swagger like a mighty conqueror, complete with cod-piece. Church bells can ring at your passing, and everyone will kneel to show obeisance to your divine commands. Martial music and drum-beats give the background noises for patriotic fervor.

You control all force. You have your finger on the nuclear button. You can threaten without hindrance. You can send out your Black Angel of Death to inform countries of your demands or suffer regime change. You have consolidated all powers under your thumb, executive, legislative and judicial. But you still feel the need for ever greater adoration, so you have the media laud you, praise you, report only your eternal words, and print no criticism, do no investigation, allow full corruption.

Yes, egomania is a demanding master. But it’s all “worth it.”

Oh, what was it all “really” about? Power, wealth, resources. The stuff from which neocon dreams are made.