...But It's Getting There

Sham and Shame

We're in for days of it now, as we go on being racked by Iraq and never told the truth: it's a for-profit war that the profiteers are going to keep in business as long as they can, by any means necessary, including fear-mongering, posturing, lies, half-truths and the kind of p.r. spin on selected bits of pseudo-information that got us into the war in the first place.

Maybe this time the Democrats will stand up to this, but in the end it's hard to see how it will matter---one of them will get stuck with the mess and probably the blame. Bush will soon announce that some troops are coming home, a very small number but enough to fool those who aren't listening. On the war itself the American people aren't fooled--several polls (including one from Bushcorps) affirm this--although they may listen to general betrayus, since they still believe in military leaders. Meanwhile, the suffering in Iraqnam hell continues, as does the shame of what our country and our tax dollars are doing--something like $2 billion a week. The longer this goes on, while ignoring the real needs of our people and our economy, will only make the pain of getting out of this war economy worse.

What all this does, besides poisoning the political air we breathe, is drive out even any recollection of the things we need to be thinking about, and focusing on, actively, for the future.

So while this awful, tragic, shameful sham goes on this week, I'm going to stick with quotations for the future, many of them from Paul Shepard. It's not exactly a cure for heartsickness, but it helps the hope for sanity---mine anyway.