Turn on the News

It's particularly depressing day in the pages of The Washington Post. Really heartbreaking all around, from the military to the U.S. legal system to health-care "reform" in America, and even two immensely talented, bright young brothers who tragically died in a car wreck a mere hour or two away from their home after a cross-country trip from school.

But guess who's ultimately responsible for the nexus of two of the initial three (and he certainly exacerbated the third)? The proud patriot freedom-fighters known as the George W. Bush administration.

You want the demoralizing troop increases in the sink hole of Afghanistan, the "graveyard of empires," where Barack Obama refuses to realize that military officials want to sink us further in this "valiant" effort to conquer whatever exactly we're trying to conquer there, with chilling human-less murder via Predator drones strikes on the border and indiscriminate raids in the southern end of the country, the most volatile? An area where President Obama had been, in my perception of things, unable to focus on with enough care due to one domestic fight (versus obstructionist conservatives in both parties in health-care reform), and another quasi-domestic quagmire (in the recession, where he gets no real foothold since he again refuses to truly "change" the culture and institute real regulation that protects people and not corporations, lobbies and the privileged few)? Here it is.

You want GOP Light, the "new Republicans" in Congress, who will almost single-handedly kill a real public option in the reform of health care? Who are the men (and a few women) more beholden to lobbies and the health insurance industry than the sick and in need in this country? The conservative "Blue Dog" Democrats in the House, more willing to lick the boot of the wealthy than help their constituents in need, all in the name of whatever is conservative, rural American values? Right over here.

You want a god-awful betrayal of the American legal system in which the United States of America, land of the free and home of the brave, in true Draconian, Orwellian fashion, locks other human beings up for years on end with absolutely no credible proof of evidence? It's entitled "indefinite detention," in the legally-ambiguous legal no-man-lands of Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and Bagram Air Force Base in Afghanistan. Where young men aged as young as 12 have been shuffled into a legal black hole reminiscent of the Soviet Union and the Khmer Rouge, in which the U.S. has their complete pick-and-choose of who will and who won't ever be heard of again, all on the word of despotic regimes and pure thugs around the world, mostly in the Middle East, that refer these men to the American authorities? Where, in the name of American "Homeland Security," these "enemy combatants" are proof positive that our proud leaders in the king's throne, now near equally power-thirsty as any other king in history, have complete control of your safety, and questioning your safety and the competence of the almighty government is heresy? Where Barack Obama, the supposed liberal crusader here to expose the trappings of American hegemony and bring a new era of transparency to the U.S. (Whatever happened to, "Sunlight is the most effective disinfectant," pledge he ran on?) has now embraced, and hinted at expanding on the worst of the Bush-Cheney corrupt, dishonest, crippling, contempt-ridden policies? Dig in.

Instead of media-driven racial flare-ups, America's press should act like true journalists (instead we get these whore, wanna-be-comedian hacks) and expose the corrosion of our country that has now been adopted by both parties with the co-opting of Mr. Obama. With the endorsement of Obama, the cohesion of Bush's America and Obama's fierce defenders could be near invincible. Who's to stand in the way anymore? Forget health care and the economy for a minute, who's going to stand in the way for our basic freedoms, a term that gets tossed around a lot but is used here with utmost sincerity?

Neither party seems interested in harnessing our imperial and corrosive policy, and the mainstream media is even more dismissive of ever shaking the balance of power in Washington. They have it best, quite possibly. Access and fame is much too important to ever gamble on the ugly, messy truth. And in their view, this country should never go through the "indignity and shame" of Watergate and Vietnam. To them, that kind of public embarrassment, in front of our world peers, is too much to bear in the post-9/11 world. It is their intention, in their subconscious, to do their part to keep this country spotless so the rest of the perceived chaotic, savage world can see us as that "shining city on a hill" that never wavers and is always correct. Some lines are too delicate to breach for our fragile American egos, they tell themselves.

That is the runaway train of vicious Nationalism. The blind, blunt force that isn't easily curtailed or reasoned with, like a rabies-laden puppy, always pampered and hailed, yet is convinced that escaping from the cage means lashing through any obstacle, no matter how sturdy and impossible.

I don't know who would ever attempt to slow the momentum down in this two-tiered legal system we've let run amok, the haves vs. the have-nots. If Bernie Madoff is scorned and sent to rot in prison, why not the architects of torture and global havoc? And why let slip their enablers and the willing inheritors of their ethically-void behavior, especially as they lied on this very subject to gain power?

This shouldn't be a partisan issue at all. But the media has made it so. And when our filter has turned on us, it's inconceivable that circumstances will ever really reverse. It will take a very catastrophic chain of events to whip us into involuntary submission at this point. If we don't take responsibility for the past and present on our own accord, this will not end well.

In addition (4:55 p.m.): We could continue with the shame and sadness in the form of Karl Rove's involvement in the U.S. attorney firings. This story shows he likely had more to do with these ousters than he previously let on. This is the one, if any of these stories, that has the best chance to not fade into this pattern of politicization of justice.