Looking Past The Obvious
Main Entry: meme
Pronunciation: 'mEm
Function: noun
Etymology: alteration of mimeme, from mim- (as in mimesis) + -eme
Date: 1976
: an idea, behavior, style, or usage that spreads from person to person within a culture
"The Rule Of Law." Beyond the civics classroom or occasional judicial decision, this wasn't a phrase we heard much of until 1999 when it became a Republican meme used in conjunction with "high crimes and misdemeanors" referring, of course, to executive fellatio.
"Nine eleven changed everything." Used to explain away everything from our newfound love of torture to invading sovereign nations solely because that's what the King wants, to our collective agreement that civil rights were never "rights" at all, but luxuries extended to us from our benevolent government.
We subscribe to a lot of things as a nation, but "rule of law" isn't one of them in George W. Bush's America. Rule of law no longer depends on that outdated old rag we used to revere, The Constitution, but is now almost wholely dependent on ideology. One needn't look much further than the judicial record of Priscilla Owen or any of the other extremists nominated by the King to federal bench, to say nothing of the insane legislation proposed day after day in the United States Congress.
Many believe we turned this corner because "Nine eleven changed everything," but they're wrong. The corner was turned when five justices of the United States Supreme Court took it upon themselves to install George W. Bush as president against the wishes of voters, leaving legally cast ballots to be forever uncounted as votes. From there, we've been in a freefall as we embrace a full-blown oligarchy untethered to pesky ideals such as the rule of law.
Who needs the rule of law when we have an infallible demigod like George W. Bush, that personification of all things neocon; he who - according to the bizarre interpretation by the Christian Dominionist Right - is the closest thing to Jesus Christ since, well, Jesus Christ. We don't need silly artificial constructs like the rule of law when we have the divine King Bush and the no-longer-invisible hand of the free market lording over us like a shepherd tending to his sheep. Oh, sure, there are a few holdouts stubbornly clinging to the anachronism of constitutional law, but they'll be dying off soon enough and we can all get on with the conservative revolution, that utopian nightmare built on a solid foundation of irrational fear, shameless greed and gleeful avarice.
International law? Please. Lest anyone forget Vietnam, we only subscribed to it when it leaned in our favor (ring a bell?). So let's be done with that, too, once and for all.
What better way to demonstrate the absurdity of international law than to consider the criminality of parading an underwear-clad Saddam Hussein before the world via Rupert Murdoch's media empire, and, subsequently, the rest of Mediaville.
I am struck by the naivete of those on The Left in reponding to this incident. The prevailing opinion is this another one of those bad apple stories in which - with no prodding from the intelligence community - some greedy enlisted twerp obtained and then peddled Fruit of the Loom Saddam pics to Mr. Murdoch.
Well, pardon me for saying so out loud, but did the Left just fall off the turnip truck? I'm well accustomed to the whole spectrum of the Fascist Right building their sand castles of reality entirely around their personal prejudices, but I expect more than gullibility from self-described "reality-based" liberals. Alas, I often expect too much.
Liberals have become so afraid of being called "conspiracy theorists" that we no longer acknowledge the fact conspiracies actually exist. Given the crimes committed every day before our very eyes - crimes rubber-stamped by rabid Republicans and tepid, trembling Democrats - I don't feel the need to go searching out conspiracies to indict our unindictable government, but that doesn't mean I don't recognize one when it takes a seat at the dinner table.
Compare this:
... with this:
"I don't think a photo inspires murderers," Bush said.
Notice a disconnect there? Looking at his body language, inflection and the quote itself, it is obvious The King seems rather ambivalent, at best.
Which begs the question: Who benefits from the national conversation (screw the international one because, hey, they're all a bunch of know-nothing socialist foreigners and we don't care what they think, anway) triggered by the display of Saddam in his tighty whiteys?
The perpetrators of torture and murder, that's who. Those who set the policy. Those who - in a sane world in which international heads of state demonstrate courage instead of deferrence to the American dollar and the bully who holds it - would actually prosecute King Bush and his minions for violating the Geneva Conventions. Those who would have us believe "the rule of law" on the international stage - just like at home - is an irrelevancy which has outlived its original use. And just what is it that lies at the heart of this argument? Simple. "Nine eleven changed everything."
Nine eleven, of course, did not change everything. It merely expedited the path on which we had already set course. And, apparently, it made an awful lot of Lefties forget just why it is we have a CIA.
See also: The Surveillance Saddam
Pronunciation: 'mEm
Function: noun
Etymology: alteration of mimeme, from mim- (as in mimesis) + -eme
Date: 1976
: an idea, behavior, style, or usage that spreads from person to person within a culture
"The Rule Of Law." Beyond the civics classroom or occasional judicial decision, this wasn't a phrase we heard much of until 1999 when it became a Republican meme used in conjunction with "high crimes and misdemeanors" referring, of course, to executive fellatio.
"Nine eleven changed everything." Used to explain away everything from our newfound love of torture to invading sovereign nations solely because that's what the King wants, to our collective agreement that civil rights were never "rights" at all, but luxuries extended to us from our benevolent government.
We subscribe to a lot of things as a nation, but "rule of law" isn't one of them in George W. Bush's America. Rule of law no longer depends on that outdated old rag we used to revere, The Constitution, but is now almost wholely dependent on ideology. One needn't look much further than the judicial record of Priscilla Owen or any of the other extremists nominated by the King to federal bench, to say nothing of the insane legislation proposed day after day in the United States Congress.
Many believe we turned this corner because "Nine eleven changed everything," but they're wrong. The corner was turned when five justices of the United States Supreme Court took it upon themselves to install George W. Bush as president against the wishes of voters, leaving legally cast ballots to be forever uncounted as votes. From there, we've been in a freefall as we embrace a full-blown oligarchy untethered to pesky ideals such as the rule of law.
Who needs the rule of law when we have an infallible demigod like George W. Bush, that personification of all things neocon; he who - according to the bizarre interpretation by the Christian Dominionist Right - is the closest thing to Jesus Christ since, well, Jesus Christ. We don't need silly artificial constructs like the rule of law when we have the divine King Bush and the no-longer-invisible hand of the free market lording over us like a shepherd tending to his sheep. Oh, sure, there are a few holdouts stubbornly clinging to the anachronism of constitutional law, but they'll be dying off soon enough and we can all get on with the conservative revolution, that utopian nightmare built on a solid foundation of irrational fear, shameless greed and gleeful avarice.
International law? Please. Lest anyone forget Vietnam, we only subscribed to it when it leaned in our favor (ring a bell?). So let's be done with that, too, once and for all.
What better way to demonstrate the absurdity of international law than to consider the criminality of parading an underwear-clad Saddam Hussein before the world via Rupert Murdoch's media empire, and, subsequently, the rest of Mediaville.
I am struck by the naivete of those on The Left in reponding to this incident. The prevailing opinion is this another one of those bad apple stories in which - with no prodding from the intelligence community - some greedy enlisted twerp obtained and then peddled Fruit of the Loom Saddam pics to Mr. Murdoch.
Well, pardon me for saying so out loud, but did the Left just fall off the turnip truck? I'm well accustomed to the whole spectrum of the Fascist Right building their sand castles of reality entirely around their personal prejudices, but I expect more than gullibility from self-described "reality-based" liberals. Alas, I often expect too much.
Liberals have become so afraid of being called "conspiracy theorists" that we no longer acknowledge the fact conspiracies actually exist. Given the crimes committed every day before our very eyes - crimes rubber-stamped by rabid Republicans and tepid, trembling Democrats - I don't feel the need to go searching out conspiracies to indict our unindictable government, but that doesn't mean I don't recognize one when it takes a seat at the dinner table.
Compare this:
... with this:
Notice a disconnect there? Looking at his body language, inflection and the quote itself, it is obvious The King seems rather ambivalent, at best.
Which begs the question: Who benefits from the national conversation (screw the international one because, hey, they're all a bunch of know-nothing socialist foreigners and we don't care what they think, anway) triggered by the display of Saddam in his tighty whiteys?
The perpetrators of torture and murder, that's who. Those who set the policy. Those who - in a sane world in which international heads of state demonstrate courage instead of deferrence to the American dollar and the bully who holds it - would actually prosecute King Bush and his minions for violating the Geneva Conventions. Those who would have us believe "the rule of law" on the international stage - just like at home - is an irrelevancy which has outlived its original use. And just what is it that lies at the heart of this argument? Simple. "Nine eleven changed everything."
Nine eleven, of course, did not change everything. It merely expedited the path on which we had already set course. And, apparently, it made an awful lot of Lefties forget just why it is we have a CIA.
See also: The Surveillance Saddam
posted by Arvin Hill at 5/22/2005 11:38:00 AM
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