I'm Afraid of Americans

The Cartoons Say It All...

Two cartoons above touch on some of the more ridiculous (IMHO) things going on in Washington these Days. (Both Cartoons pulled from one my Favorite Weekly Newspapers, The Village Voice)

The first cartoon refers to the Downing Street Memo and the hoopla associated with it. I am one of those people that thinks this a fairly big deal. If you have not heard about this little document, or don't really feel like reading the linked text here is a rundown ( See this article also, from the Village Voice. Something tells me the professionals may write a better article than I). In 2002 while the American Administration tried to convince everyone and their mothers that we needed to strike hard and fast at Iraq because they had WMD's, they were at the same time trying to find international support for the war. Tony Blair, the British PM came to the aid of the President. After having a multi-day conference with the President and the current administration and after a meeting with his own advisors he said that he would lend any support necessary in this war on terror (the memo is really about what was said in this conference).

Many Americans (including myself) bought into the reasons for the war. We were scared after 9/11 and left with a feeling of vulnerability. This war seemed like a good way to gain our footing back and let people know we were still America and we could still kick ass (not like that was even in question, but that is another discussion). However, while we were all chanting "Get Saddam outta there" many Americans were on the other side of the coin and saw all this talk against Iraq as nothing more than a smoke screen by the government. They suspected that the whole reasoning for the war was pretty much made up and that the POTUS had decided to attack Iraq right after the 9/11 attacks and was looking for reasoning to back up this attack as he presented his case for war to the American public as well as the rest of the world.

Until now that last argument has been mostly speculative, what right wingers were calling left wing conspiracy theories. As much as people were willing to believe this "shoot first then make up a story explaining why we shot later" theory, it was nothing more than that, as far as the general public was concerned. That is until this little memo was released. The thing is that these documents came into the public light approximately 4 weeks ago in Britain, it was covered by the British Press extensively. Another story that was covered by the international press was the absolute non-coverage that the memo's received by the big American Press corps. It took about 2-3 weeks after the memo was in the British Press for any real word of it to make it to the states (The number of newspapers carrying the story initially could be counted on one hand).

Now that it (the memo) is pretty much public knowledge, many are not outraged as so many British citizens were. In fact, most people are asking the question "What's the big deal?". Some of the American press is even stating "Oh, well we already knew that, this isn't news". This is absolutely ridiculous reasoning. What's the big deal?! Only that we now know that the President lied to us. This was not faulty intelligence or faulty collaboration between intelligence agencies. This was straight up lying, there is now shroud to put over this to make it better. The down playing and control of news dissemination in America has become so abysmal that when something actually does break, such as this story, excuses like "We Knew that already" are used to explain it away. If you knew the President was lying and made up reasons to go to war, why wasn't it covered when this knowledge was first given to you. Why didn't the American people know that they were being hoodwinked when it was actually happening? More importantly, Why isn't anyone taking this more seriously?

When was the last time a President lied and was caught in it, and what was the lie about? It was Billy Clinton and the lies surrounding the bj from Monica. He was impeached because he lied about a sexual act he committed in Private (albeit in the Oval office) that really had no effect on his ability to do his job or his day to day decisions, and most certainly did not involve foreign sovereign powers. In fact most of the world laughed off the incident, calling the American public uptight and illogical (paraphrased international opinion). So the current President lies to the American public and the world and plunges us into an unjust war that has cost hundreds of thousands of lives and does not really have an end in sight. What happens to him? His approval rating, which was already low for any incumbent President to begin with, gets a little lower. He still has a lot of support from his Right wing, conservative Christian base. He still operates this country with all the finesse of a retarded monkey, and has really done nothing notable in his time of presidency besides taking the most vacation days in the first quarter of a Presidential term than any president before him. This country is made up of Fat idiots, and you have to look no further than this story to see it.

The second cartoon deals with the government funding of the public broadcast networks PBS and NPR (television and radio respectively). I am not quite sure about all the facts that surround this issue, whether the Government is cutting funding because it believes the station may be taking on too much of a right wing agenda or whether the right wing government is cutting funding because they believe the networks have a liberal bias. Whatever it is, the cartoon is funny (It suggests the first of the two arguments is the correct one). More info on it can be found at the New York Times online (among other news sources). Follow this link (free registration required) for a pretty decent story on this. Enjoy your weekend.