Friday, April 13, 2007

Treason is such an ugly word. How about "just business"?

Bush and his supporters like to label those who disagree with them "traitors." You know, peaceniks and protesters, disapprovers of torture, whistleblowers, muckraking journalists, opponents of government spying on citizens without warrants, combat veterans converted to the cause of peace, questioners of the Halliburton bonanza, ordinary citizens wanting to avoid unnecessary wars - that kind of traitor.

Bush and his kool-aid-bearers characterize the "Democrat Party" as the "party of al Qaeda," or the "party of the enemy." Electing these people would "embolden the enemy."

The enemy this, the enemy that. I thought our enemies were bin Laden and the Sunni extremists who attacked the Twin Towers and the Pentagon. Turns out our enemies' enemies are also our enemies and we are now helping our Sunni enemies fight THEIR Shiite enemies... all on our dime, with our blood. But don't call it Civil War. Only treasonous liberals call it that. This war is a one-hundred-percent, absolutely not contrived, completely necessary war. A just war waged by God's own nation and representatives on Earth. And anyone who doesn't like it - traitors. "Emboldeners," if you will.

These are crude and not very sophisticated slanders; think of McCarthy, sweaty and deranged on black-and-white TV yelling into the cameras about commies in the State Department.

Yeah. Traitors, treason. The Party of al Qaeda.

The stupidity is breathtaking. The gall, too.

We know the opposite to be true, that al Qaeda's leadership prayed to Allah for the re-election of George Bush and the great gift he gave them in terms of publicity, recruitment, and their cause on the "Arab Street" and around the world. The Muslim radicals would love it if we stayed in Iraq forever and, with their best friend in the White House, we may yet do so. After all, with the money pouring in and defense industry stocks going through the roof, isn't this a great time for all?

Now listen. It is not treason to want our children to live. It is not treason to despise killing. The troops did not deploy themselves and there is no contradiction in wanting to support the troops AND bring them home.

So we know what treason isn't. What, then, is treason?

War profiteering.
Outing secret agents.
Destroying White House e-mails.
Spying on Americans without warrants.
Inventing facts to scare us into supporting illegal wars.

My advice remains the same: Watch those e-mails. It's all there, the devil in his underpants, so to speak.


"Another tax cut for the super-rich. That'll show bin Laden we mean business." - Kurt Vonnegut (1922-2007)

2 comments:

nomis said...

the issue with the emails is playing out exactly as you suggested.

Now we have White House counsel Fred Fielding asserting that apparently these RNC emails are protected by executive priviledge.

And they cant find the emails either.

"No you can't see the emails, and apparently they're lost. Even if we could find them, you cant see them. Pthpthtptpthtphtpt!!!!"

This to me sounds like:
"I have a right to the cookies in the cookie jar! and besides, there's no evidence... see, no cookies in my hands!"

Anonymous said...

From Andrew Sullivan's blog:

"As far as anti-war arguments go, why hasn't anyone simply stated that they're trying to protect the soldiers from President Bush, rather than the insurgents? Just saying we should end the war provides far too many opportunities for Bush & Co. to say, "the soldiers want to stay until they accomplish their mission" or "the soldiers want to stay and win."

Of course they do. We all want them to win. But the simple fact is that they can't win when they have the huge handicap Bush's leadership gives them. I just really wish someone in the opposition party would call the President's and war's defenders out on this, and simply say, "I'd love to win the war as well. But we have to protect the soldiers from our President's delusions." Make Bush out to be our soldiers' greatest threat, and force the supporters to prove he's competent.

Bush's rank incompetence has been the greatest threat to the troops - and to American security. I have no idea why the Democrats don't actually start accusing Bush of aiding terrorism by his ineptness. It's what the Republicans would do if Bush were a Democrat."

I guess the Democrats have trouble being quite so shameless- Rove has no similar problem.
I was talking with my moderate Fidelity-working brother about the Attorney's scandal, and he just isn't too worried about it- basically he just doesn't really believe that anyone in our democracy would be corrupt and depraved enough to use US attorneys to keep the majority in power through unequal use of the law. This is the task of the Dems: how can the American people in general be awakened to the Truth that is so shocking that it doesn't pass the Common Sense Test?