Most of the US's recent wars were launched by Democratic presidents. Why expect better of Kerry? The debate between US liberals and conservatives is a fake; Bush may be the lesser evil.
On 6 May last, the US House of Representatives passed a resolution which, in effect, authorised a "pre-emptive" attack on Iran. The vote was 376-3. Undeterred by the accelerating disaster in Iraq, Republicans and Democrats, wrote one commentator, "once again joined hands to assert the responsibilities of American power".
The joining of hands across America's illusory political divide has a long history. The native Americans were slaughtered, the Philippines laid to waste and Cuba and much of Latin America brought to heel with "bipartisan" backing. Wading through the blood, a new breed of popular historian, the journalist in the pay of rich newspaper owners, spun the heroic myths of a supersect called Americanism, which advertising and public relations in the 20th century formalised as an ideology, embracing both conservatism and liberalism.
In the modern era, most of America's wars have been launched by liberal Democratic presidents - Harry Truman in Korea, John F Kennedy and Lyndon B Johnson in Vietnam, Jimmy Carter in Afghanistan. The fictitious "missile gap" was invented by Kennedy's liberal New Frontiersmen as a rationale for keeping the cold war going. In 1964, a Democrat-dominated Congress gave President Johnson authority to attack Vietnam, a defenceless peasant nation offering no threat to the United States. Like the non-existent WMDs in Iraq, the justification was a non- existent "incident" in which, it was said, two North Vietnamese patrol boats had attacked an American warship. More than three million deaths and the ruin of a once bountiful land followed.
[snip]
Black Sabbath version of War Pigs:
Generals gathered in their masses
just like witches at black masses
evil minds that plot destruction
sorcerers of death's construction
In the fields the bodies burning
as the war machine keeps turning
death and hatred to mankind
poisoning their brain-washed minds
Oh Lord Yeah!Politicians hide themselves away
they only started the war
why should they go out to fight
they leave that role to the poorTime will tell on their powered minds
making war just for fun
treating people just like pawns in chess
wait till their judgement day comesNow in darkeness the world stops turning
as the war machine keeps burning
no more war pigs of the power
and as God has struck the hour
Day of judgement God is calling
on their knees the war pigs crawling
begging mercy for their sins
Satan laughing spreads his wings
All right now!
1 comments:
Mike: The Pigs of War item is powerful. For those of us who have lived with "los de abajo", the underdogs, in the third world, and know that their concerns are simply human survival, rather than some dogmatic agenda, the constantly distorted justifications of our government for siding with oppressors against the oppressed is cause for nausea and disgust. Sooner or later, it will come home to roost, as they say.
Hawk
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