Iran
I just got done watching a story on CNN describing the Bush administration’s claims about IAEA claims about of a particular type of uranium-enrichment centrifuge in Iran. I’m sorry, but the U.S. has been down this road before, and I for one can’t tolerate another stupid, senseless, war for oil.
Of course, the worst part was not the assertions or the loaded taglines that show up under the commentators (“Iran Claims XYZ” v. “IAEA discovers XYZ” — technically, both Iran and the IAEA are “claiming” something, and until I actually see one of the damn centrifuges on TV with a nuclear engineer describing in the non-nonsense method of engineers, “yeah, they’re not full of shit…”, I’m not believing either claim). The worst part about this isn’t even the fact that if the Bush administration is not lying, the technology came from Pakistan, an ‘ally’ of the U.S. in the War on Anybody They Can Invade To Control Energy Reserves Terror.
No, the worst part was the vulture-like demeanor when the anchor asked the reporter: “So do you think the U.S. is likely to engage in unilateral military action?” Translated from media-speak, this means “Will there be another war which will send our ratings through the roof?”
See, Fox News likes war because they are sociopathic. While I am continually enraged and disgusted by Fox, it’s because I’m enraged and disgusted by people who like killing and death. CNN, on the other hand, likes war for what it’ll do for the reporters’ careers. Propaganda v. Profits — that’s the difference between Fox and CNN.
The Dems
Ahh, The Democrats and The Unions, where would the term “sellout” be without the Democratic Party and the AFL-CIO to pick up the slack.
We have the same policy on trade, exactly the same policy. He voted for the China Trade Agreement; so did I. And we both want to have labor agreements and environment agreements as part of any trade deal. So it’s the exact same policy.John Kerry in Dayton Ohio, talking about John Edwards
Kerry’s going to D.C. to accept the AFL-CIO endorsement. While I respect Kerry for calling Bush out on his bullshit, I’ve got to question how Kerry would change the situation we’re in now? Pro-globalization. Pro-corporation. Wealthy family connections (the Forbes). Not going to leave Iraq until democracy is ‘installed’ (or at least until a reliable client state is in charge and the profits are flowing freely). The only major difference is that another 4 years of Bush would change things for the worse.
And this is the fundamental bullshit of the one-party state masquerading as two-party state: The insanity of the Republicans is necessary to make the greed of the Democrats the lesser of two evils for regular people who are educated on the issues to play ball. Same story as CNN v. Fox, but with different players. Whereas a rebellion was brewing by the end of the Clinton administration (the anti-IMF protests scheduled for 2001-09-27 were expected to top 50,000 people — that’s a lot of anti-capitalists [or at least Americans pissed off at the U.S. government’s behavior around the world] to be running around two blocks from a Bush-occupied White House), now even radicals like myself look back at the 1990s with a sense of fondness.
The trick, of course, is to get Bush out of office to stop the downward spiral and not take the “wait and see” attitude with whoever does take his place. IOW, it’s not enough to stop getting worse, you’ve got to get better, and that requires people stand up to whichever Democrat who replaces Bush.