AMERICA, AMERICA
by Nathaniel Batchelder
September 8, 2005
Dear Friends,
America is being governed by people who see the world through the eyes of the 14 Families in El Salvador, the privileged Sultans of Brunei and Saudi Arabia, the elitist well-born raised to believe that their class deserves all the wealth they can accumulate. When impoverished masses suffer and die from preventable disease, malnutrition, famine or plague -- as the poor always do -- they shrug and say, "It's God's will. What are we supposed to do?"
They view government "of, for, and by the people" as evil, because such a government promotes policy for "the common good" and "the general welfare of all" which they consider wasteful or socialist. They have been systemmatically dismantling America's social programs for 35 years, passing huge tax cuts leaving government under-funded, shifting programs to the states which then must pass sales taxes and lotteries to make up the shortfall, regressive taxes which fall most heavily upon the poor and working classes.
FEMA was apparently a "social program" thus starved, thwarted, and redirected into "Homeland Security" such that, throughout the Hurricane Katrina catastrophe, FEMA has been criminally inept and dysfunctional ..... failing
itself to respond, and actually blocking other efforts to help.
And starving federal programs designed to help people may not be the worst of sins the neoconservative gang has foisted upon America and the world.
Regarding the 9/11 terrorist attack on America, information trickles in from various sources that the very intelligence agencies which might have prevented it had been taken off the job by this administration -- reassigned to patrolling North Korea's nuclear weapons programs, for example -- thus missing the developing attack plan. Memos about the possible attack plan forwarded to superiors were ignored or brushed aside. Air Force fighter jets which can be scrambled to intercept any rogue airliner or private jet in less than 20 minutes were otherwise engaged on 9/11, doing "practise exercises" simulating the very kind of attack that was actually taking place on 9/11. Air Force pilot transmissions included questions like, "Is this part of the exercise? Which planes are real?" Bush was off in Florida reading "The Pet Goat" with elementary school children. The first plane hit the tower before the President sat down with the kids. The message whispered into his ear, after which he sat for seven more minutes with the children, was that the SECOND plane had hit the SECOND tower, at which moment everyone in America knew that America was under attack.) President Bush and staff didn't know that their seven minutes
of inaction was being videotaped by a teacher. Information places Dick Cheney at that moment in the White House bunker.
It is profoundly troubling even to imagine that top officals in the US government might have participated in "allowing" the terrorist attack on 9/11 to take place ..... but the attack certainly provided the spark which justified
the War in Iraq which neoconservatives had wanted to pursue for years before GWBush was elected.
We have a government "of, for, and by" America's "Pharoahs" ... the wealthiest of the super-rich who would just as soon let the poorest 20% die or starve in neglect, even believing the country might be better off without them.
You have difficulty believing such people exist? A few years ago I participated in a delegation to lobby Senator Jim Inhofe's aides on a bill to extend support to alleviate poverty and disease in Africa. The aide we spoke with looked puzzled by our efforts and asked, "But, isn't Africa a sacrifice zone?" We were too stunned to pursue the conversation.
Of course, our legal right to vote is still ours. If Americans become sufficiently motivated the neocons can be thrown out of office. I believe they have demonstrated a willingness to lie, cheat, and mislead in order to "win"
elections, and -- frankly -- I believe that the voting rights of working and poor people were violated in Florida in 2000 and in Ohio in 2004 to "win." (Young Karl Rove entered politics working for Donald Segretti, director of the dirty tricks team which targetted Democrats for Richard Nixon. Calling themselves "Ratfuckers" this gang planted the story that Edmund Muskie's wife was alcoholic which resulted in the emotional news conference ending Muskie's
campaign.)
Our vision of America and the world is so profoundly different from theirs that I do not believe we can communicate with them. They care not whether a majority opposes or supports them so long as they keep winning. The only issue is whether we can stop them. Electoral defeat is the only remedy for getting such individuals and policies out of government. Maybe we can do it. Maybe we can't. Everything is on the table.
