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Another day of distractions
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by Helen & Harry Highwater, Unknown News
June 13, 2006
A pickpocket's success depends on distraction. You'll notice being bumped in the crowd, but while you're shaken at the shoulder or jostled at the elbow, you're less likely to notice what's being gently removed from your pocket.
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Name a real problem, any political problem, and Bush and Cheney have either ignored or increased it.
And by creating phantom issues as a distraction, they have dismantled the Constitution, the document that once defined what America was.
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Have we all seen the slightly-muffled face of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi? He doesn't look like someone who was inside a building flattened by two 500-pound bombs, but we're told he was, so he was. We're told he was vile, so he was vile, and now we're told he's dead, told it's a great victory, so it must be true.
Surely Zarqawi's death marks the last throes of the insurgency, a turning point we haven't seen since Saddam Hussein was captured, or any of the ceaseless parade of al Qaeda Number Three guys.
And even in death, Zarqawi's death toll goes up, up, and away. In initial radio reports of his death, Zarqawi was responsible for seven hundred murders in Iraq, but within hours another reporter said it was twelve hundred people. The US Ambassador to Iraq says Zarqawi was responsible for the deaths of thousands of people. Give it a few weeks, it'll be tens of thousands. Whatever the scorecard, Zarqawi was a villain indeed, but it's hard to celebrate this victory when it is so clearly cloaked in lies or exaggeration.
In commenting on Zarqawi's death, America's Secretary of Defense for Life Donald Rumsfeld said:"I think arguably over the last several years, no single person on this planet has had the blood of more innocent men, women and children on his hands than Zarqawi." That's a succulent slice of hubris, coming from Mr Rumsfeld -- who has supervised two American wars and has far more innocent blood on his hands than the wildest overestimate of Zarqawi's corpses.
I also noticed that when President Bush held his happy press conference celebrating Zarqawi's death, the United States became "thuh U-nite-erred-stiyts" as his artificial Texas twang became so thick he sounded like a bad parody of himself on Saturday Night Live.
Like everything else about George W Bush, the Texas accent is a lie. He's from Connecticut. When he tries to sound all Texas it's just a vocal codpiece, strapped on to present the illusion of manhood.
And so it goes, with the pretend presidency of George W Bush. Obviously the president is Dick Cheney, but Bush plays president on TV. Everything about their administration is artifice, phony through and through. In lieu of honesty, we get lies about honesty. Instead of Christian values, we get charlatans. Instead of leadership we get deceivership, where the lies only make sense if other lies are accepted at face value.
They have stolen elections, and gotten away with it. They have created an illegal war out of nothingness, and there's no demand for an explanation, or even an apology. They have exported America's jobs, leaving most of us worse off than we've ever been, and instead of an apology they've bragged of a mythical, rejuvenated economy. They have crafted an ongoing parade of tax cuts for the fabulously wealthy, leaving deficits that most mortals literally cannot comprehend.
With local, state, and federal officeholders, there is always an expectation of minor improprieties, influence peddling, and rule-bending. Such scandals have always been embarrassing, but this administration cannot be embarrassed -- embarrassment requires some modicum of human decency, and since human decency can’t be stolen these men simply have none.
Name a real problem, any political problem, and Bush and Cheney have either ignored or increased it. And by creating phantom issues as a distraction, they have dismantled the Constitution, the document that once defined what America was.
Does the name José Padilla ring a bell? An American, held in prison for years without trial, without charges, while the Bush-Cheney White House argued openly that Americans could be secretly arrested and imprisoned without trial, solely on the President's say-so.
What rousing comment can I add after that? The Bush White House has argued openly that Americans can be secretly arrested and imprisoned without trial, solely on the President's say-so.
The American media has reported it, and reported dozens of others abuses of power just as frightful, but the reports are always filed in the same blasé, indifferent tone that delivers news of house fires and sports scores. Elected officials have made their speeches on Bush-Cheney's unConstitutional acts, and a few of the speeches have been pretty good, but after the speeches the subject is forgotten.
America's leaders and media are not outraged, and instead prattle about relatively un-important matters. The average American's brain is jostled, his or her attention is diverted by, say, an immigration crisis that pops up out of nowhere at the Mexican border. Or by the urgent danger of gay men who want to get married. Or by the imagined slaughter of fetuses (an issue that emerges only around election time, and is then forgotten until the next election).
Bush-Cheney's bit-by-bit destruction of the Constitution is mentioned amidst the distractions, but never in so many words, only in passing, and only surrounded by such equally weighty issues as the controversies behind the scenes at American Idol.
* * *
So most Americans go about their business, utterly unaware of what's really happening, as government of the people, for the people, by the people is quietly stolen.
© by the author.
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I can't afford therapy, but boy do I need it. So as an affordable alternative, I pound my anger into a weekly column here.
Fair warning: My parents were repressed -- using any bad words would get my mouth washed out with soap, literally. I still remember the sickly flavor of DoveTM. So as an adult, vulgarity helps with the healing. If naughty language offends you, beat the rush and get offended now.
This page is for my own good, not yours, so you may not like it, but I don't care.
About the authors
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Helen and Harry Highwater have published Unknown News since 1997. We're a married couple sharing a byline à la Lennon and McCartney, and "I" can be either of us, or both of us. If you're consumed by curiosity, it's safe to assume the more boisterous and aggressive bits come from Helen, and anything ladylike or demure is probably Harry's work.
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The average American's brain is jostled, his or her attention is diverted by, say, an immigration crisis that pops up out of nowhere at the Mexican border.
Or by the urgent danger of gay men who want to get married.
Or by the imagined slaughter of fetuses (an issue that emerges only around election time, and is then forgotten until the next election).
Bush-Cheney's bit-by-bit destruction of the Constitution is mentioned amidst the distractions, but never in so many words, only in passing, and only surrounded by such equally weighty issues as the controversies behind the scenes at American Idol.
So most Americans go about their business, utterly unaware of what's really happening, as government of the people, for the people, by the people is quietly stolen.
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There's much more than this at Unknown News.
Previous articles by Helen & Harry Highwater:
Judge Judy, George Bush, and nineteen nutballs with boxcutters
by Helen & Harry Highwater
Cutbacks coming
by Helen & Harry Highwater
Asleep all over America
by Helen & Harry Highwater
Comparing Bush and Hitler, and the monsters behind the curtain
by Helen & Harry Highwater
CNN is committing treason
by Helen & Harry Highwater
Is the President an adult?
by Helen & Harry Highwater
We interrupt the bad news for a brief pep talk
by Helen & Harry Highwater
Stand up for something, damn it
by Helen & Harry Highwater
What kind of 'patriot' supports a tyrant?
by Helen & Harry Highwater
Time to oppose the phony opposition
by Helen & Harry Highwater
President Charles Manson
by Helen & Harry Highwater
What's for dinner at the Hanoi Hilton?
by Helen & Harry Highwater
The bully at the bully pulpit
by Helen & Harry Highwater
Truth or dare, America
by Helen & Harry Highwater
Bush administration spying targets reporters, activists
by Helen & Harry Highwater
No, Virginia,
we're not libertarians
by Helen & Harry Highwater
Letter to the editor
by Proud American, with a response from Helen & Harry Highwater
A whisper of optimism
by Helen & Harry Highwater
Muhammad Ali is a scumbag
by Helen & Harry Highwater
On behalf of God Himself, I endorse Alito for Supreme Court
by Helen & Harry Highwater, as Jerry Falwell
The old guy in a sweatshirt
by Helen & Harry Highwater
The emperor wears no mental clothes
by Helen & Harry Highwater
I'm filing bankruptcy
by Helen Highwater
Our long national nightmare is just beginning
by Helen & Harry Highwater
"Mission accomplished" for FEMA
by Harry Highwater
Police roadblock freedom in America
by Helen & Harry Highwater
Our phone number
by Helen & Harry Highwater
Fuck you, George W. Bush
by Helen & Harry Highwater
A forgotten man, one of many
by Helen & Harry Highwater
The daily compromise
by Helen & Harry Highwater
Are you for freedom, or against it?
by Helen & Harry Highwater
The unspoken subtext of Karl Rove's treason:
Support your local CIA
by Helen & Harry Highwater
Cabbages don't count
by Helen & Harry Highwater
Back to basics: Question authority
by Helen & Harry Highwater
Anatomy of another lie
by Helen & Harry Highwater
Constipated and liquefied logic
by Helen & Harry Highwater
Be careful crossing the street, ya damn kids!
by Helen & Harry Highwater
Monsters in America,
from Deep Throat to James Watt to Christopher Cox
by Helen & Harry Highwater
Mainstream media:
Completely on board with Bush administration lies
by Helen & Harry Highwater
A Pope to be ashamed of
by Helen & Harry Highwater
What can we do about the stolen election?
by Atomicktom and
Helen & Harry Highwater
The President who cried "wolf!"
by Helen & Harry Highwater
Defeating terrorists without wars
by Helen & Harry Highwater
If you're not for Bush, you're French ... or al Qaeda
by Helen & Harry Highwater
Rescuing America from tyranny
by Helen & Harry Highwater
Separation of church and state
by Helen & Harry Highwater
Who would Jesus vote for?
by Helen & Harry Highwater
Godless hippie scumbag
traitors who hate the troops
by Helen & Harry Highwater
To tell the truth
by Helen & Harry Highwater
What kind of bloody savages
would kill people and drag
their corpses along the road?
by Helen & Harry Highwater
Our serial killer nation
by Helen & Harry Highwater
Judging Judging Amy
by Helen & Harry Highwater
An apology and an endorsement
by Helen & Harry Highwater
Rights, responsibilities, and acknowledgement
by Peace-Thru-Reason and
Helen & Harry Highwater
Los Angeles Times memo orders reporters to fudge the truth
by Helen & Harry Highwater
Our perspective on Terri Schiavo
by Helen & Harry Highwater
Who deserves freedom of speech? And who doesn't?
by Helen & Harry Highwater
Two years of lies about Sept. 11
The new Warren Commission
by Helen & Harry Highwater
Criticizing Israel
by Helen & Harry Highwater
Is it terrorism to be a patriot?
Or is it just like Red Dawn, only with turbans?
by Helen & Harry Highwater
Bush knocks on Armageddon's back door
by Helen & Harry Highwater
Why I won't be at the victory parade
by Helen & Harry Highwater
Company fined $6,000 for
answering customer's questions
by Helen & Harry Highwater
Clint Eastwood, and US foreign policy
by Helen & Harry Highwater
Do you love America? Do you?
by Helen & Harry Highwater
Google refuses our ad
by Helen & Harry Highwater
Reasonable deaths in a nonsense war
by Helen & Harry Highwater
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