From a clinical standpoint, a rational observer may be convinced that the US governent is crazy and afflicted with multiple-personality disorder. If the government actually were a person, they would definately be displaying the symptoms. How else could you explain the say-one-thing-do-another behavior that’s business as usual in Washington, DC? (I know you could say the government is partial to “carefully crafted lies and miscellaneous B.S. designed to keep the self-perpetuating system in order,” but that would be no fun.)
Two-facedness is nothing new to US politics, but the last five years of BushCo have upped the ante. Bush apologists (amongst others) would be quick to bring up Slick Willy’s bj-on-the-sly and there is certainly good reason for doing so. But this is a post-9/11 world (as any good Republican will tell you) and the political landscape is vastly different.
Clinton wasn’t doing handling his Oval Office business while the stakes were so high. The Global War on Terrorism (aka The Global War Against American Opposition hadn’t yet begun). How has Bush responded to this challenge? By re-naming the war to the “global struggle against violent extremism” for one. Sure that lame name only lasted for like 12 days, but it’s interesting to note that pre-emptive and unilateral war against a soverign nation is both violent and extreme in nature. It sounds crazy to say that we’re fighting against ourselves, but look at public enemies # 1 and 2, reveals otherwise.
Yep. The two biggest boogeymen in modern American history, Saddam and bin Laden, were both militarily supported by the United States. While US support of Iraq was public, bin Laden and thousands of other jihadists were trained in Afghanistan by the CIA in the late 70s to help fight the Soviet Union in one of the largest covert operations in US History. If the consequences weren’t so tragic, this might be funny. If it were, it might go something like this: “US foreign policy walks into a bar and says: ‘The enemy of my enemy is my friend. But only until he becomes my enemy. Then I’ll need a new friend’.”
The US Government consistently errs on the side of violence. Because we’re an economic super-power, we can choose to fight “proxy wars” by funding our favorite side while never having to deploy troops. Whether or not its actually in the best interests of the country is irrelevant. Whether or not it actually makes the world safer is irrelevant. Hell, it doesn’t really matter if civilians (and not military personnel) do the majority of your war planning. War is Peace.
Even when generals actually running the Iraq war say our presence is part of the problem it doesn’t matter. War is Peace.
If no one’s going to hold you accountable, your actions aren’t constrained by your words and you can do whatever you want. If your constituency is paralyzed in fear, you can say up is down and that that mice eat cats.
You can cut taxes during a war. You can claim to be compassionate but attempt to add discrimination to the constitution. You can give anti-environmental initiatives cool, misleading names like “Healthy Forests” and “Clear Skies.” You can publicly claim to be against torture, but privately lobby for it. You can claim to support the troops, then send them off to war without adequate armor. Hell, you can even claim to be “conservative”, but really be revolutionary (both economically and militarily).
It’s easy to have a dual personality and serve in public office because voters typically only see and vote for one of them. The US corporate media establishment is fully aware of this, yet they don’t enlighten the populace. Although we’re in the information age, I feel like we’re still stuck in the dark ages. I also feel like I’m taking crazy pills.