June 2, 2003
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I’ve been rather silent here for a few days, but its been rather eventful in meatland, so I haven’t been on the net much.
I lost my job on Friday. While I have all the standard concerns regarding buying food, paying mortgages, getting spending cash, etc., in general, this is pretty exciting. As the fortune at the bar on Friday afternoon said:
“No day holds as much future as today!”
Now I just have to decide how I’m going to shape that future.
The weekend was a weekend. I enjoyed Grand Old Days. I did get up a bit too late to make the first party I was going to go to with a bunch of the folks from YM (where I used to work), but I made it to Dan’s traditional party which, as always, was a blast.
I rolled out of there around 8-something to go down to 7th street entry and catch Apocalypse Theatre and All the Pretty Horses. I was wondering how on earth APOX was going to fit on that tiny stage, but they managed. A little mosh pit broke out towards the end of the ATPH show and something on someone ended up slicing my hand open a bit, but it was all worth it. It was a great show.
And, to continue my descent into punny hell, here’s another:
3. Two Eskimos sitting in a kayak were chilly, but when they lit a fire in the craft, it sank, proving once again that you can’t have your kayak and heat it, too.
Ouch. Don’t hurt me.
And for those who haven’t been paying attention, there are two growing news stories that should have people calling for the administration’s metaphorical heads.
First, the debt and tax cuts. We all know there was a huge tax cut for the rich. What came as a bit of a surprise is that the tax cut is on top of a predicted 44 trillion dollar deficit. A 44 trillion dollar deficit that was hidden until after the tax cut got passed. The strange black cat has been following that story, among others. It should be noted that among the steps taken to bury this was the December firing of former Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill who commissioned the paper making the prediction.
Second, the war on Iraq.
We were lied to.
I said it, the strange black cat said it, a lot of people said it, but now sources seem to be coming out of the woodwork.
There was one main reason given for the war. That reason was that we claimed that Iraq had “Weapons of Mass Destruction”. This was the reason it was pushed through congress. This was the reason we took to the UN. The holes in our proof and the options other than war that could have been pursued IF this was the reason for war were the reasons why France and Russia opposed it.
The proof was spun, and it was spun for political reasons to manipulate people. We all know it happens, but it is death to a democracy. And these particular lies resulted in us going to war.
We have a senate investigation, US spy agencies getting really ticked about how their work was misused to mislead people and drive policy, similar complaints about Rumsfeld from military sources. I seem to have lost the links, but I’ve also seen reports about Powell being pressured to report pretty much bullshit.
On top of that we have companies attached to the administration getting massive contracts for work in Iraq with no competitive bids and more effort being put into securing the oil fields than securing food, clean water, and safe streets for Iraqis. Additionally, potentially dangerous nuclear and biological sources that were known and not being used for WMD development have now disappeared in the looting in Iraq.
Beyond that, in the middle of our war on terror, we are not only allowing groups declared terrorists by the US to continue, we are allegedly talking about funding them.
The administration is not concerned about the truth. They are concerned about getting what they want.
What do they want?
My belief is that they want American Imperialism. Not a Roman style empire where kids in Bangladesh are saluting the American flag. An economic and sociological empire. Those kids don’t need to salute the flag – they need to eat at McDonalds, drink coke, listen to Clear Channel stations, watch Disney movies, bathe in privatized water owned by international corporations, eat Genetically Modified crops whose seeds are owned by Monsanto, and grow up to work at international conglomerates.
I believe they believe their vision to be positive. I believe they see this as the way to bring peace to the world, a way to end starvation, a way to end abuse and genocide. I believe it, in many ways, to be outlined by The Project For a New American Century.
So they are trying to build an empire of sorts in the belief that it will bring peace and stability to the world. What’s so bad about that?
1) Our government – supposedly by the people for the people – is lying to us about their agenda and why they’re doing what they are doing. Using these lies to spend our wealth and the lives of our soldiers in wars pushing these agendas. It is inherently undemocratic.
2) Speaking of Democracy, in a Pax Americana where our hyper power status is used to control and direct the world both socially and economically, you have a massive number of people being affected by decisions of a government they have no voice in. That is patently undemocratic.
3) Finally, environmentally, the world can not sustain 6 billion people living a “western lifestyle”. Therefore, massive inequity must be maintained via some methods – probably economically. It is either that or it will be necessarily unstable. Neither outcome will be good for 95% of the population.
Ok, there is one other option – Western nations could reduce their consumption to match the rest of the world in a sustainable lifestyle. While I could support that plan, I highly doubt it is in the playbook.
Here’s an interesting write up by Prof. Niall Ferguson, discussing that the United States is an “Empire in Denial”. A quote:
He told his audience that, with military bases in three-quarters of the countries of the world, and 31% of all wealth, America made the British empire at its zenith in 1920, when a quarter of the globe was pink, look “like a half-baked thing”.
His perspective is that since we are an empire, we should embrace it and act like one. Oh, another interesting quote:
He compared the “unique situation” the US felt it was in now in Iraq with a proclamation the British made on entering Baghdad in 1917: “Our armies do not come into your lands and your cities as conquerors, but as liberators…”
Prof Ferguson said the concept of “conquest as a form of liberation, of building an empire of democracy, is not new. Britain did it too in its liberal heyday. What we are looking at is a second Anglophonic empire similar in many ways to the first, and that has to be recognised.”Hrm.
