living in a fantasy

Bush Won’t Address Parliament

You don’t even have to read between the lines. The message is simple: Bush won’t face reality. He’d rather run away from contrary opinion. It’s this kind of self-delusion that brings empires crashing down in decadent rot.

Imagine living in a country so deep in fear that the populace will allow this manipulative propaganda to be foisted on them. They’re even buying into it.

I’m reminded of how adversity in the face of massive opposition will unite otherwise independent thinkers. It’s a hackneyed Hollywood plot device. A bunch of totally different people are thrown into a survival situation and are forced into an alliance. The plane wreck. The cave-in. The alien occupation. The Alamo. This is what the US government has been trying to do with the whole terrorism scare.

What they’re missing is that it’s too transparent a ploy to work on everyone. So they’ve made the problem far worse than it was before. You’ve got globally-minded patriots saying that America should fix the problem and actually do some good instead of digging in and making more enemies. And on the other hand you’ve got the misguided patriots who would rather buy more guns and tell the world to fuck off. They’d rather let the government tell them what to think.

Both groups love their country very much. But only one group has any grasp on the long view, and what it really means to be great.

George, it must be pointed out, buys an awful lot of guns.

edit: and just so you don’t have to wonder how the massive conglomerates hold on to their corporate monopolies, Clear Channel spells it out.