(DV) Engel: What?

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What?
by Adam Engel
www.dissidentvoice.org
February 24, 2004

Bush is an aberration . Unlike more skillful Republican front men — Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton – he does not know how to say one thing and do the other. He says what he means and means what he says. Which is terrifying. He believes in all that crap about God and Democracy etc, whereas Clinton -- a Republican by any definition of the term -- knew how to make the folks feel good, while prosecuting the grim business of Empire.

For instance, in the thoroughly illegal and counter productive bombing of Serbia , which confirmed his place as a murderer and war criminal (yawn), he played the media, the numbers (body counts, body-part counts; how many cleansed, how many totally wiped clean etc.) and the "good-intentioned yet hopelessly righteous” Boobus Americanus for all he was worth. Whereas Bush and his team don't care. “Bring ‘em on. Put ‘em down. Shock ‘em. Awe ‘em. Democratize ‘em. What are YOU gonna do about it?” Really, they just don’t care. Then again, why should they?

Clinton's "Effective Death Penalty and Anti-Terrorism Act" was the first sledgehammer blow to the Bill or Rights and paved the way for the USA PATRIOT ACT, yet it was subtler, and necessarily less dramatic if more far-seeing. Then again, Clinton hadn't had the luxury of the 9/11 hysteria, the greatest gift given to Bush since the Supreme Court handed him the Presidency itself.

Where were the Democrats then? It was their duty to fight tooth and nail for the people who voted for Gore, those patriotic voters who had to drive all the way to the local high school and push a button for the “candidate of their choice.” Coke, Pepsi or Nader Green Tea.

Similarly, where have the Democrats been for the past 3 years? With the exception of Kucinich, who was the only candidate I might have voted for without feeling I was contributing to the system's never-ending cycle of never ending, every candidate proposed by the Democrats -- the usual suspects, by the way; interesting, no? -- supported the Patriot Act, The War against Drugs, The War against Afghanistan, The War against Iraq, the War Against Tooth Decay and what not. Furthermore, them fightin’ Dems let their Republican colleagues give Bush unprecedented powers to instigate further ridiculous, useless, bloody and illegal wars in the future, not to mention supporting many of his pro-corporate, anti-environment, anti-cerebral cortex initiatives.

Wars have been going on for at least six thousand years, and so long as no one resorts to nukes again (like in Hiroshima), they probably won't affect the ultimate destiny of all life on the planet. The absolute destruction of the air, water, land, forests and other "biological necessities" on this planet by corporations whose “legal” duty is to ignore such damage in pursuit of profits for their share-holders, means that "we" and most of the other species alive today, won't make it another 100 years. But the Earth will be around for at least another 5 billion. In ten thousand years or so, the mess will be cleaned and the cities and stadiums buried and new life will grow.

Still, after months of “Kucinich is our only hope” followed by “Greens for Dean” and other SPAM flooding my IN BOX at a rate not even the best hacker Knights of Norton and Macaffee could contend with with, is it even interesting that after all the hoopla it turns out to be Skull-and-Bones Kerry, pre-selected long before Kucinich and Dean put on their little side-shows, who "won" the candidacy, or simply so predictable as to be merely ridiculous. Beyond ridiculous. Stupefying. One can only watch such long, pathetic spectacles play themselves out so many times before being reduced to spending days in one’s pajamas, uncleansed, ethnically or otherwise, unshaven, unkempt, muttering “what? What? What?”

I really can't see a way out of this. It will have to play itself out, like most historical follies. Waves, set in motion by the power elite, that eventually crash to the surf of the masses who take their hits like the good grains of sand that they are, have always been, and it seems, always will be.

Adam Engel lives in New York. He has written for many publications online and off (print). He just finished a book called Topiary. You should read it some time. Or publish it, if you have the means.