Hightower in Asheville last week

Last Thursday, Jim Hightower came to Asheville for a speech and book signing. I was there to represent Progressive Democrats of America and hand out HEALTHCARE NOT WARFARE flyers. I am currently the NC coordinator for PDA, but stepping down at the end of this month. I sent this short report to PDA national leaders:

“Jim Hightower was in town the other night and I gave everyone a handout on HEALTHCARE NOT WARFARE at the event. Hightower did mention PDA from the stage too, and recommended PDA as one way of working to make a change for the better. He also pointed out that the US House of Representatives did not have the spine to work for impeachment. I pointed out that two years ago the NC Democratic Party passed a resolution asking the NC House of Representatives to file articles of impeachment and they did nothing. Hightower glossed right over that. This was significant because our local NC Representative Susan Fisher (who is considered a progressive Democrat) is a friend of Hightower's and was sitting right there. I just don't know how so many people in this country can complain about what other people are not doing – when they are doing precious little themselves.”

Yes, many of us have the power to do more – but choose not to do so. And on a related note, a lot of the blogosphere, including Juan Cole, are talking about the NYT article that says that retired generals were acting as propaganda stooges for the Pentagon before and during the early years of the Iraq invasion and occupation. I pointed this out on his comment section:

Please note in the NYT article that they did not cover how the NYT acted as shrills for the Pentagon and the White House.

Also note this article, written in 2002:

The New York Times reported today that the Pentagon’s Office of Strategic Influence is “developing plans to provide news items, possibly even false ones, to foreign media organizations” in an effort “to influence public sentiment and policy makers in both friendly and unfriendly countries.”

The OSI was created shortly after September 11 to publicize the U.S. government’s perspective in Islamic countries and to generate support for the U.S.’s “war on terror.” This latest announcement raises grave concerns that far from being an honest effort to explain U.S. policy, the OSI may be a profoundly undemocratic program devoted to spreading disinformation and misleading the public, both at home and abroad. At the same time, involving reporters in Pentagon disinformation puts the lives of working journalists at risk.

"Despite the OSI’s multi-million-dollar budget and its mandate to propagandize throughout the Middle East, Asia and Western Europe, “even many senior Pentagon officials and Congressional military aides say they know almost nothing about its purpose and plans,” according to the Times. The Times reported that the OSI’s latest announcement has generated opposition within the Pentagon among those who fear that it will undermine the Defense Department’s credibility."

Now, in this country we have a majority who want impeachment investigations to go forward, and wanted that for years. We have ample evidence of wrong-doing, yet our elected officials DO NOTHING. Even on the state level they DO NOTHING. Democratic parties in several Democratic-controlled states have asked the state legislature to file articles of impeachment - this happened in North Carolina.

Yet nothing is done.

Can we really survive as a country when our Constitution is repeatedly undermined and criminals of vast hideous crimes are let off the hook or even set up as acceptable leaders? Now, most Americans know that something is vastly wrong, but if there is no action taken to address the wrongs and find justice for those who are responsible - will our country survive? Will voting be able to "fix" this, when the people we are voting for are complicit? All wars start with lies. The ones starting them are the liars. Therefore, every American should have been opposed to these wars on Iraq and Afghanistan - they were started on a pack of lies, strictly for fun and profit. Can we do this much evil and survive as a country?

Here is the LTE I sent to the NYT, which will never see print in their paper:

I just finished "Behind Analysts, the Pentagon's Hidden Hand" and I am wondering when you are going to do a story on how the NYT' carried the water for the Pentagon and the White House for the past six (almost seven) years? There certainly is plenty of material to work with, and the staff is right at hand.

Can we really get away with this? Can we really survive? Granted, beyond some ominous economic indicators, we see to be surviving just fine. People still drive to work, go about their lives, large numbers of them ignorant by design (of the media – the NYT has not come clean even a little bit) and by choice of what is going on. And of those who are not ignorant, they know something is very wrong, but they seem to think that the Democratic Party and our current structures will somehow make it okay again – if we just elected the “right” people.

But among those running for the US Presidency, all three are complicit. Obama speaks the most truth, but I don’t feel a whole lot of hope that “yes we can” change the direction this country is headed in. And on the state level, those who do have some power to change things choose not to do so. And on the local level, they have even less power. Can our country survive when our Constitution has been undermined so often for so long? And I am not just talking about the bush/cheney criminal regime – this rot started way back, at least with Nixon but probably before. How come no one protested his impeachment being pardoned? How come no one protested when the Iranian hostages were held until reagan was inaugurated? How come Americans did not shut down our government over the Iran-contra evil? How come Americans were stupid enough to buy into this latest war on Iraq?

Have we lost all ability for critical thinking? Are we so dumb-downed now that there is no hope? Can our country survive all this evil, all this lying, and all this (repeated) violation of our constitution?

I don’t know.

And the latest sign of US arrogance – they want the Iraqis to pay for their own occupation. We have gone from the idiocy of claiming that the US has to stay in Iraq until the “Iraqis stand up” to saying that the Iraqis will have to pay us to continue to destroy the place. And it looks like the American people will let this go on until all the Iraqi oil is gone.

Update: Here is an analysis of how far back this rot goes in the US press. This author is of the opinion that the US press cannot be reformed.