Asleep all over America

by Helen & Harry Highwater, Unknown News

April 14, 2006

"If it's 10:AM in Casablanca what time is it in New York? ...
They're sleeping in New York... They're asleep all over America."
Humphrey Bogart, in Casablanca



Are you awake yet, America? I'm wide awake, and worried. Are you worried with me, wondering what's next? Are you terrified?

If you're not scared silly, that frightens me even more.


Some people are seriously suggesting that the Constitution should be ignored, because it puts people's rights above Presidential power. Can Americans truly be this stupid?

Do you know what it means when a government promises liberty and justice for all, and seriously tries to follow through on that goal? It means everything.

Do you know what government looks like, when people's rights are deemed un-important? That's the USSR. Communist China. North Korea. Are you ready to see that, to live that, right here in America?

The United States of America is not magically immune to totalitarianism, and we're flirting with it. It can happen here, and we're approaching the brink.

The only difference between freedom and tyranny is what leaders can get away with. And many Americans, it seems, are willing to let George W Bush get away with anything and everything he wants. You should shudder in fear, as I do, when Americans -- Americans! -- argue that their own rights are un-important, or that their leaders should be above the law.

It's amazing to me, how quickly so-called "patriots" are willing to surrender Amerca's freedom. You might as well piss on dead soldier's graves, if you're willing to hand over everything they fought and died for. Patriots don't meekly and obediently surrender the nation's liberty on demand.


* * * A wall along the Mexican border?

An alleged “war on Christianity”?

The gay agenda against heterosexuals?

These are not at all the real issues facing America, but such "issues" mysteriously arise from nowhere, suddenly monopolizing all the political talk shows and editorial pages.

It’s hard to know which issues are actual issues, which are lies, and which are smokescreens to distract us while Bush, Cheney, and the rest of these lying crooks pull another fast one on the Constitution.

Do we still have the rights you were once promised as American citizens?

Ask Attorney General Gonzales -- you know, the guy who wrote the torture memo, and now says “Warrants? We don’t need no steenking warrants.”



If you've been following American politics for longer than Bush has been President, you've noticed that everything has changed since he took office.

Just a few years ago, for example, scandals led to investigations. If some official or transaction was publicly known to have a hint of an ethical question, Congressional leaders would huff and puff and hold hearings. Or the media would be all over it, and within a few days or weeks or maybe months, heads would have to roll. Someone would resign or be fired.

Not so long ago, a nomination could be derailed for hiring an illegal alien as a nanny. Congressmen could be in very hot water for writing a few bad checks. A Vice President had to resign because of income tax evasion. Gerald Ford pardoned President Richard Nixon for his crimes -- a shadow of George Bush's crimes -- but at least Nixon was forced to resign. Those were the days when public officials would at least be slapped on the wrist for their ethical lapses.

That doesn't happen any more. Unless someone is actually indicted, like Lewis Libby, you get to keep your job even if you're the Secretary of Defense and you're lackadaisical about armoring the troops during wartime, even if your every war plan just makes the war go worse and worse. If you're a high-ranking intelligence official who's repeatedly caught off guard by utterly predictable developments like an Iraqi resistance to occupation, or a Hamas victory in Palestine, you don't lose your job -- au contraire, you get promoted to Secretary of State. You get to remain as Vice President -- or President -- even when it's obvious that you've blown a CIA agent's cover.

Shame doesn't happen any more, and the 'news' seems to spend inordinate time covering pretty white women's disappearances, or movie stars' marriages, or kittens stuck up a tree. Film at 11!

But when it comes to high-level misdeeds, incompetence, lies and malfeasance, it's increasingly rare to see any serious investigative journalism at all. And on those odd days where there is actual journalism, any questions asked are simply ignored or sidestepped with plain bull and balderdash, until the scandal is quickly forgotten.

Political leaders have always struggled with the truth, of course, and the truth was usually bruised. Now, though, the truth has been bludgeoned to death, and lies dominate the political landscape. The biggest, most implausible whoppers go virtually unchallenged, and nobody gets fired for telling lies, no matter how huge. Quite the contrary, in the Bush-Cheney administration, telling the truth seems to be the only misdeed that gets anyone fired.

It's obvious that American government at the highest level is now comprised entirely of world-class liars, yet no matter who lies and how often, the news media continues reporting what these government officials say, as if their word is credible. The nightly news is a quick summary of the lies of the day, unquestioned, and in lieu of an honest discussion of issues, the plainest of facts are treated as if they are matters of dispute.

Iraq, straight-faced liars tell us, is a happy place, and we only think it’s a hellhole because of lying journalists. Bush says this, and journalists report it without question.

Also, global warming is not happening. Calling for the troops to come home will sap their strength quicker than Samson’s haircut. Evolution is “just a theory.” God does hate homosexuals, 'cuz it's in the Bible. The economy is booming, because millionaires say it is. And Saddam Hussein did have weapons of mass destruction -- because Bush and Cheney said he did, and they’re good Christians.

For all intents and purposes, truth and ethics are on an extended holiday together, or gone forever. The Senate Ethics Committee has been all-but-officially shut down, and hasn't done any wrist-slapping at all, even as the news swirls daily with accounts of unethical Senators. The House Ethics Committee is almost as silent.

All the rules that US politics and government have played by, have
quietly disappeared. American politics and government is now, in essence, a game with no rules -- or a game where the most powerful players write the rules as they go, and break any rules they don’t like, with utter impunity.

Absent any rules, nobody knows what's coming next ... except that it's going to be worse.


* * *
It's impossible to have an informed debate on any issue, when every issue is defined by lies. On most issues, both sides have completely different 'facts'. An 'informed citizen' is anyone who's up to date on the latest lies, and when two lies are at odds a third lie smoothes the wrinkles. Whether we know it or not, most political discussion is just a battle of propaganda points. All common ground for reasonable debate has been dug away and replaced with lies, leaving no foothold for genuine political discourse.

A wall along the Mexican border? An alleged “war on Christianity”? The gay agenda against heterosexuals? These are not at all the real issues facing America, but such "issues" mysteriously arise from nowhere, suddenly monopolizing all the political talk shows and editorial pages. It’s hard to know which issues are actual issues, which are lies, and which are smokescreens to distract us while Bush, Cheney, and the rest of these lying crooks pull another fast one on the Constitution.

Do we still have the rights you were once promised as American citizens? Ask Attorney General Gonzales -- you know, the guy who wrote the torture memo, and now says “Warrants? We don’t need no steenking warrants.”

So are you scared? You ought to be. I’m having a hard time sleeping at night, because every morning when I wake up things have gotten a little worse, and the America I once knew seems more and more a memory.


* * *
So all the rules of American politics and government have been vaporized, lies are swallowed whole, and checks and balances are gone. Constitutional constraints on Presidential power are openly ignored, and the President brags about it. If you want American troops to come home alive and well you don't support the troops, and if you're reluctant to hand over your rights you're anti-American.

And now it's whispered that Bush's upcoming attack on Iran will include nuclear weapons.

With nuclear weapons, this administration can do for the entire Middle East what it's already accomplished in Iraq -- sheer bloody burning hell.

Are Bush and Cheney, Rumsfeld and Rice, nutty enough to do it? Are American military commanders brainwiped enough to follow such an order? If World War III is triggered, will Bush pump his fist in the air and say it "feels good," as he said when he launched the 2003 attack on Iraq?

Who can guess just how insane these people are? Perhaps the nuclear strategy is a Karl Rovian ploy, just more disinformation, so when the US attacks using "only" conventional bombs to rain death down on Tehran and the rest of Iran, Americans will be relieved instead of outraged.

Of course, even if Iran is attacked "only" with conventional weapons, that nation will be covered with America's radioactive "depleted uranium" munitions. Nukes or no nukes, Bush and Cheney aren't content to kill Iranians today; their intent is to continue killing with radiation, for generations. And of course, this is done with full knowledge that American soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines will also be sickened by the uranium.

The Bush-Cheney administration won't say any of this openly, of course. All this talk about war with Iran is just "wild speculation," the President said on Monday, but in five years in office, denials are the only reliable confirmation this White House has ever offered.

They haven't been honest and up front about anything. They've lied about big things -- Saddam Hussein's toppled statue -- and about the tiniest things you can imagine, from Roses are red, violets are blue to the weather. And when they're not lying, every aspect of this administration is shrouded in secrecy, executive orders, and Baryshnikov-level dancing past even the simplest of straight questions.

Yet they ask America to trust them. And most of us seem to say, OK.

We have a maniac in the White House, a clearly insane man who has surrounded himself with people far farther from sane than he is -- and Bush always takes their advice. The Bush-Cheney administration has the opposite of the Midas touch -- everything these people touch turns to crap: Iraq and New Orleans, the economy and the environment, national security and foreign policy. The mere hint that these boobs are ready for another war ought to keep you sleepless all night.


* * *
How many people have to die, before Americans wake up?