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AFTER THE GOLDEN AGE for 02/17/2003
Volume 2, #67
Last week I wrote about my creation of Bizarro way back in 1958. This week, I find myself writing about another Bizarro, writing in anger and anguish over what has happened to my country. For it is now in the hands of Bizarro-Bush who has turned everything upside down, who even arrived upside down through a subversion of the Supreme Court which handed him the election in the first place. From that dark twist to the electoral process, we have seen the rapid shift of everything America stood for- Remember that man? "I'm a uniter. Not a divider."?
He was right. He didn't divide anything. He simply made a wholesale shift, turning the USA from a democracy to an oligarchy, where more than ever the power of money determines the rules and sets the values and standards of the way our tax system works, the way our legal system works, the way our value system works.
After the horrors of Sept 11, which won the sympathy of the entire world, that dreadful event was subverted into a springboard that destroyed our democracy. We have watched the military grow beyond all measure and all sense, if we also include the billions set aside for an unworkable anti-missile system. We have seen this built on the abrogation of international treaties; we have seen unilateralism carried to such an extreme that in the most paranoid possible fashion, this nation has refused to participate in the World Court; we have seen Bush-Bizarro swiftly destroy the constitutional division of powers, reducing congress (and attempting to reduce our courts) to an arm of the presidency. Even something as precious as habeas corpus is under attack. And we have witnessed an inexorable march to war-not the necessary one in Afghanistan-but the one rejected by the entire world-in Iraq. At the same time, with millions opposing that particular war, since Iraq can clearly be rendered harmless and isolated by other means-the same Bizarro Bush has somehow sedulously avoided the real confrontation with the real danger of a nuclear equipped North Korea. Every policy of importance to this nation and the world has been turned upside down. After watching the collapse of the entire mega-financial economy that Bush-Bizarro has been financed by and tied to, after noting that the Vice President whose early planning with these same mega-financiers has been sedulously kept from the public eye and congress by a series of court actions (in fact, this is the most secretive, underground and furtive administration in modern history)-and observed bloody Ashcroft screaming for more death penalties in capital cases, and noted how, following September 11th, Bush-Bizarro has used his Homeland Defense department to ratchet up public fears to such an absurd degree that they finally had to back off because of a nationwide shortage of duct tape.
So financially, the tax cuts for the wealthy, the starvation of the states, the continuing efforts to reduce the entitlements of the elderly and the sick and the poor-have wiped out for decades to come any possibility that this great power-of-money, in gathering all to itself, will allow us ever to see a surplus for those things so essential to a vibrant democracy-everything from head-start, to environment, to health, to affordable housing. All gone. In one stroke. Bizarro Bush has accomplished in two years what no enemy could have done in double that time. And instead of weakening Al Queda, Bizarro-Bush has so turned the world against us, that Al Queda now enjoys a better than ever chance to injure this nation.
Consider the latest Bin Laden ploy-the taped offer of support from Bin -Laden to Saddam.
Never has there been a better or simpler example of the "let's you and him fight" strategy, the old Wimpy strategy from the old comic strip, Thimble Theater. And good ole Colin goes for it hook line and sinker-trying to prove to the United Nations and the world that this PROVES Al Queda and Iraq are partners. How absurd, how Bizarro-ish has the whole Bush team become?
Okay, Rumpy-er-Rumpelstiltskin- our secretary of Defense-well, he's just playing himself. Just the straight stuff. Very entertaining too. Goes especially well with Bizarro-Bush. Especially the multi-billion mega-missile business. Hey-is the ghost of PT Barnum listening anywhere?
But suddenly, yesterday, from New York to Timbuctu, millions of people show up and declare they're not buying Bizarro-Bush's war against Iraq.Ê
A dilemma?
You bet. You can't amass 200,000 soldiers to start a war and then march them back down again. So what is Bizarro Bush going to do? Besides, that screws up Bizarro Bush's ingenious plan to win this "easy one" against Saddam the monster, so that by becoming a hero as a result, he's sure to walk away with a second term. Do you realize that was the plan all the time? Not oil, as I thought at first. Not even water, as some have suggested since.
Re-election! What an easy way to guarantee it. But now-there's a big fly in the ointment. A very big fly. The whole world isn't buying it.
In the meantime-where in hell are the democrats? What do we have to do to wake them up? Is it true that they're now such a bunch of wimps they're afraid to make a decision on principle. Because they might be wrong?Ê
Hey, you guys. Wake up.
The whole store is being stolen. What could possibly be more humiliating than being outfoxed by Bizarro-Bush? So get with it. This country needs saving!
Alvin
<< 02/10/2003 | 02/17/2003 | 02/24/2003 >>
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