THE WEATHERED WALL

by Malik Isasis
















If the Occupation of Iraq was going swimmingly, would Americans be against it? Are we against the occupation because we are losing it, or are we against it because the occupation is immoral?

Bush has boldly demanded $105 billion to keep funding the bloodletting in the Iraq Occupation—no strings attached. Earlier, the Democratic Party attached benchmarks such as time lines, training and equipment requirements for soldiers to the funding bill. However, the Republican Party blocked the requirements.

Bush then threatened a veto if the Democratic Party attached any benchmarks that would require troops to be properly equipped and trained before being shipped out to kill and occupy Iraqis.

Both the Democratic Party and the corporate media have been enablers who’ve allowed President Bush to gallop across the grassy hills on his white horse fighting imaginary windmills. Bush and Cheney’s misadventure has laid waste to hundred of thousands of lives, and for what? The security of Israel? Corporate Imperialism? Oil? What?

Why hasn’t the corporate media suggested that the politicians in the Republican Party are obstructionists? After all it is they who are blocking votes and filibustering legislation to protect Bush and the corporate raiders. The obstructionist tag was readily thrown around in the corporate media like a hot potato as reporters and pundits parroted Republican talking points against Democrats.

Democratic Party Illness

The Democratic Party leadership speaks with a fork-tongue about the Iraq occupation. The Democratic leaders are adding billions of dollars onto Bush’s war supplemental for brain injuries and post-traumatic stress disorder for returning soldiers. Either they support the war, or they do not. If the Democrats want to stop brain injuries and post traumatic stress disorder, they need to stop the occupation and its escalation and now is as good a time as ever. However, the Democrats don’t have the heart to stand up to the Republican hate machine. They can not bear being called unpatriotic and that they don’t support the troops.

In this bizzaro world, sending troops to get their heads and limbs blown off is actually, supporting them; spending trillions of dollars like monopoly money on an occupation while simultaneously giving billions in tax cuts is good for the American economy.

The full cost of September 11, 2001, will probably be most remembered by future historians for the mass delusion perpetrated on the U.S. citizenry by a small cult of neocons; and how the protective firewall, the Democratic Party, failed due to the inner-sickness of constantly needing Republican approval.

The Democratic Party has internalized Republican’s hatred of them, and this hatred by the Republicans has manifested itself in the Democrats as constantly seeking validation from Republicans. For example, Democrats often cite Republican politicians when they come out against the Iraq Occupation, to validate their position.

Republicans frame American values as exceptional and anything short of this view, is well, communism. Neocon political operative and wordsmith Frank Lutz, the man who gave us the slogan, “War on Terror” has told Republicans:

"Americans love being told we’re the best, that we’re number one. We will do anything—ANYTHING—to remain number one, and will oppose anything that undermines our superiority. It is essential in any discussion of trade to declare that we are 'the greatest economic power in the world' and that 'we will remain the greatest economic power in the world only so long as we continue to do business with other nations.'"

Even though the polling shows that Americans prefer the Democrats take a harder line against the Occupation of Iraq and against Bush and the Republicans, the internalized self-loathing triggers only paralysis.

We are stuck with a despotic Republican Party, and a Democratic Party who can not hold its self-loathing coalition together to be an effective oppositional force against a tyrannical executive branch.

The Republican Party is most definitely responsible for the Occupation of Iraq and the resulting massacre of lives, however, the Democratic Party’s paralysis is equivalent to their keeping the getaway car running, while the Republicans are robbing the bank.

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