Cory writes: �The air is rife with the flatulence of rancid sanctimonious political opportunism and self-serving patriotic indignation. Truth, fact, and morality be damned. None of this high drama and plastic fury is about Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl. Not really.�
Bowe Bergdahl prepares for graduation from basic training near Fort Benning in Georgia. (photo: Bergdahl Family/Rolling Stone)
The Empty Soul of GOP Politics
08 June 14
he air is rife with the flatulence of rancid sanctimonious political opportunism and self-serving patriotic indignation. Truth, fact, and morality be damned.
None of this high drama and plastic fury is about Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl.
Not really.
Sgt. Bergdahl was a prisoner of war and America does not leave POW�s behind. Ever. We don�t do it. It doesn�t matter if the POW walked off and got captured or if the POW collaborated with the enemy under duress and torture � doesn�t matter. We, America, bring them back.
No exceptions.
John McCain, of all people knows that.
This is not about Sgt. Bergdahl.
At the Fox News smear and fear machine, the on-air personalities are in full hate throttle with attacks against the president for putting his arms around Sgt. Bergdahl�s parents, and then there is that Taliban beard the father has, and then some sort of Fox News doctor said President Obama �doesn�t have Americanism in his soul� and that is why he arranged the prisoner swap, because he (Obama) wants out of America.
Over on the �one-true-liberal� channel, Chris Matthews has been in full spittle-sputter for several weeks now. First about Obama�s lack of appropriate anger over the VA scandal and not having fired Gen. Shinseki right away or not getting mad enough for TV and � something-something � veterans � USA! And now he is screeching about the five Taliban released from Gitmo who are going to attack and destroy America. We are doomed, I tell you, doomed! Be very afraid!
MSNBC has become as ridiculous and vacuous as Fox. From the giggling snark of Rachel Maddow, to the pompous Lawrence O�Donnell or any of the morning line up, MSNBC thinks its viewers are dumb little children in need of really hip infotainment by really hip celebrity pundits who also make regular appearances on really hip late night talk shows.
And over at CNN, they took their usual comic book news approach, making comparisons between Sgt. Bergdahl and Sgt. Nicholas Brody of the Showtime series, Homeland. That�s CNN � always a firm grip on reality.
If we had an honest media, or at least a media above the high school cool kids mentality, we might actually become well informed and capable of critical thought. But rest assured, we are in no danger of losing our current circus of inanity, outrage, and fear. The show must go on. Long live the show!
No, none of this is about Sgt. Bergdahl.
Let�s say Obama went to Congress and requested authorization for the POW swap of Sgt. Bergdahl for the five Taliban detainees. Do you think this obstructionist Congress that only a few months ago blocked funding for our veterans because they wanted to include sanctions against Iran and has blocked this president for years � do you really think they would have supported Obama?
Does anyone not think that this GOP would have used the full 30-day notice period to wage the exact smear and fear campaign that they are spewing right now, or that they would not have managed to leak sensitive info to block the deal and then blame Obama? This is the GOP that leaked the identity of an undercover CIA agent in order to discredit her husband�s revelations about the Niger yellowcake lie.
And what if Congress had not approved the prisoner swap? What if Sgt. Bergdahl ended up being killed by his captors or simply died from health issues? Who would have been blamed? Not Congress. Not the GOP. Lindsey Graham would have howled for impeachment � Oh wait, that�s what he�s doing now. Never mind.
Do you think that the media, complicit in all that led up to these wars, complicit in all the false equivalency memes that enable this extremism that drives the GOP, would have reported the true facts? Or even looked for the facts? Do you believe for a moment that this political stenography pool wouldn�t just simply have passed around whatever talking points they were handed on the D.C. cocktail party circuit? Please.
There are approximately 86 men held at Gitmo who have been determined to be innocent and eligible for release. They were judged so back in 2009. They remain imprisoned. Why? Why isn�t Lindsey Graham or John McCain ranting about them? Has the GOP objected to keeping innocent men in Guantanamo? Ever?
Did the GOP and John McCain raise a fuss when George Bush released over 500 enemy combatants from Gitmo? Anyone holler about impeaching George Bush then?
No.
This is not about Sgt. Bergdahl.
This is about small minds inflating themselves with the hot air of hypocrisy. This is about nasty little bullies who have never gotten over their rejection by the majority of the American people. This is about vicious self-aggrandizers, who spread hate and fear and willingly embrace spiteful diminutive men who appeal to bigotry in all its forms in order to control and profit off people.
Time magazine�s cover is of Sgt. Bergdahl with the question: Was He Worth It?
Did Time ask such a question when the Iraq War began? When the death toll climbed into the thousands? When all the lies became public knowledge? When the war in Afghanistan surged in even more death and sorrow?
No.
This is not about Sgt. Bergdahl.
This is about the current darkness of the American political heart.
This is about those who would excuse and cheer soldiers urinating on corpses but curse and smear Iraq and Afghanistan veterans who speak out against the wars, especially if they are named Pat Tillman or the Tillman family.
This is about empty souls seeking compassion and understanding for soldiers who killed an entire family and then dug the bullets out of the dead bodies in order to hide their sins; all presented as horrible but understandable due the pressures of combat. These are the same empty souls that so despicably trashed and soiled the Viet Nam service of Max Cleland and John Kerry and others for the basest of political gain.
This is about the viciousness of people like Allen West, a man the Army forced to resign or face court martial for allowing his men to beat and torture an Iraqi detainee and then joined in the abuse himself, now calling into question the patriotism of Representative Tammy Duckworth, a combat veteran and double amputee of the Iraq war.
This is about those Iran-Contra criminals so gainfully employed by the great noise machine that allows them to fling their fecal filth as moral judgment on this president and this POW and the whole of liberal America.
And all of the above, dutifully reported and analyzed by the media in that �he said-she said� both sides do it � OMG look, it�s a food fight! � modern objective journalism.
Let�s be honest.
This is about The Other � The One Not Like Us � The Obama.
The Kenyan-born secret Muslim socialist � the incompetent evil genius that is the sole destroyer of American greatness � the pal of terrorists, foreign and domestic � the husband of an angry black woman who was never proud of her country � the first black president who exemplifies post-racial America except for the racism he and his friends exhibit toward regular Americans.
And now this.
The release of a POW deemed unworthy by THEM because � Obama.
This should be about compassion.
But they have none.
This should be about decency and morality.
But they offer none.
No.
This is not about Sgt. Bergdahl.
This is about the empty soul of GOP politics.
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I think that as long as most of the people in the world are people we don't know personally, we will be playing the game.
I discussed this on the OWS chat last year with two anarchists. After drilling down into their core, we found that what they really want is person-to-perso n management of our daily affairs, not impersonal authority doing that for us.
I wish I could envision a just society composed of anything other than small self-governing villages and nomadic bands of hunter-gatherer s, but I can't. Not as long as we are who and what we are.
What I can hope for is a stable system of checks and balances of power. We have never had a perfectly functioning system, but we have had one that worked better than this one does. I believe that TV-driven politics and the environment of ignorance that nurtures it are the core of the problem.
Same here, but I'm watching now as violent anarchists (not part of the Occupy Movement) are smashing windows and causing chaos in Seattle amid what should be a non-violent strike.
These people are all dressed in black and hooded and masked, as usual, and once they finished bashing in things, they disperse and remove their coverings and meld into the crowd of peaceful Occupy protestors.
Unfortunately, their violent actions deflect from the valid purposes for the strike and the overarching reasons for the Occupy Movement.
Will the violence EVER end in the US? Or will it escalate, and use a righteous movement to perpetuate it?
This saddens me deeply.
N.
excellent point FireFly
- using the power of government to get things by force that one normally can't voluntarily get from others is a huge magnet for those who are dishonest and uncaring of others and have no problem lying and pretending like they care to get the power that they want.
Complete disconnect from reality - people across the globe can read and comment on this foolishness within moments and that hard fact totally escapes you casting a huge shadow of doubt when you do stumble across some actual truth.
But in no way should people let up. We need to be heard and as Patrick Leahy just said. "KEEP THE PRESSURE UP." NOT VOTING IS NOT A SOLUTION. And having a Rove puppet as president is not the answer either.
When the producers - those who have "exploited" you with their goods and services like iPhones, and polar fleeces, and their gasoline, and their computers, their medicines, their cars and their best services for the lowest cost and you have "exploited" them with your money -- when they are over taxed and over regulated to the point of economic failure and THEY go on strike -- you better be ready to take care of your greedy selfish selves for once.
OCCUPY OCCUPY OCCUPY !
Gandhi style:
Step 1: Sit down and get arrested
PEACEFULLY
Step 2: When released a few hours later,
repeat Step 1.
Overload the whole system.
Where will they put all these people?
Guantanamo?
Concentration Camps?
and show their true face.
(google Gandhi and see how he managed)
It reminded me of a magnificent point made by Trevor J. Saunders, in the essay with which he introduces his translation of Plato's "Laws," in the Penguin Classics series. Writing on the institution of slavery, which, we are disappointed to obsserve, many great-souled people in antiquity could never quite get beyond (cf. the recent movie "Agora," which turns on the troubled relationship between the brilliant mathematician Hypatia and her slave), Saunders writes, "We [moderns]reject [slavery] utterly; yet it was as completely taken for granted in the ancient world as the employer-employ ee relationship today (which may itself in time come to be regarded with as much distaste [!] as slavery is regarded now."
And yet, it will never be easy to overcome the systemic evil of competitiveness , since we are sexually reproducing animals and social primates. Competitiveness , and zero care for the suffering of outsiders, is our original sin. The strikers today maintain a hope that we may yet overcome that sin. And for that, I love them, admire them, and stand with them.
Correction: Was intended to be a reply to the comment posted 2012-05-01 10:45 by Martintfre, not directed at the article's author Mr. David.
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I am reminded of the 'ask a bitter man' skit of years past.
I submit that there is a different 'Complete disconnect from reality', maybe from being stuck behind a computer only connecting (or being paid to connect) on comment boards.
When speaking of greedy selfish selves, do you mean all of those people who became rich by striking?
Randian-speak at its finest.
I used to be unable to deal with any criticism, now I look at criticism as an opportunity to turn anyones criticism of me right back at them! So instead of anonymous thumbs down, what is your solution to injustice?
Why did Monarvchy change or fall? Why did Communism change or fall? Why will NWO USA change or fall?
Same answer.... it's the reverse of your thinking..not exist to expand....expan d to exist is the Robyn Hoood idea when it crosses the National borders in war to sell more everything at homw and rid populations to destroy things to make more labor jobs and force the richest to pay more to the machine than the machine pays to them.
Unindustrial revolution your need, out with GMO weedicides etc, back with weeders labor, out with Combine harvesters for rice, back with paddyworkers. Out with I-pad, Iphone, back with I can walk postie labor etc. Out with digital billing back with book keepers.