Historically, "the Jig Is Up" for the U.S. - History Will Never Believe We Didn't Know.

Having engaged in debate on many and various websites here on the Internet, I have gathered volumes of data for a prospective doctoral thesis having to do with the state of the nation’s public discourse. In a certain manner, the data has also to do with the state of the public’s intellect, and I have also written often and a great deal about the staggering realization any such researcher must come to, that the people of the United States have simply grown too stupid to remain free. What is more, few of our citizens have any idea of the effect of their stupidity on our progeny and their lives.

I never see one of the little people without reflecting upon the evil being worked upon them by their elders and this insouciant society. What a rotten thing we are doing to our children and their children.

Examples and proof of my contention abound, but evidence of the nation’s mental incompetence has become so overwhelming, so insurmountable, as to be prohibitive where any proof or proving is concerned. There’s no point in demonstrating to a jackass that he’s stupid. He’s too stupid to have any way to learn that.

All, therefore, that remains for those intelligent enough to realize what is happening is to prepare for the worst. A number of my friends are doing that, and one, a veteran of Iraq, came to town last night to pay a visit and discuss our nation’s dismal straits. He brought with him a friend retired now from SEAL Team One, and the conversation among old warriors was brisk, and interesting. We are agreed, suffice it to say, that strength born of the certain ability to survive in the wilderness, and to teach others the same, will be critical when the fabric of our society begins to tear. This isn’t going to be pretty.

With all of the people at the table possessed of postgraduate degrees or the equivalent, the conversation was scientific, and went deeply into causes. What explains best our precipitous decline, especially regarding the effectiveness of the electorate vis a vis federal government? Many possibilities were put forward, but among the most likely, especially from an historical perspective was the historically unequalled selfishness of the American people. There’s never been anything like it, and the spectacle of a myriad of pressure groups demanding largely imagined rights fills the television screen nightly.

There seems little that the U.S. Constitution doesn’t “protect.” Again, examples of this ignorant nonsense abound, but a sign carried by an illegal alien Mexican at a recent protest demonstration speaks louder than the words there. “There is no such thing as illegal,” the sign blazoned. Another sign said, “Everyone, Hispanics, too, have a right to an education.”

Really? Show me where in the Constitution it says that. Show me in the Mexican Constitution where it says that.

But now I’ve spoken about illegal immigration from Mexico, a subject too tiresome, so totally imbued with irrational nonsense, that . . . Well, anyone who deigns to argue with a jackass labels himself a jackass. The illegal alien standing in our street waving a Mexican flag over an inverted U.S. flag shouts a message so thunderous concerning our shameful fecklessness as a nation as to put the proverbial handwriting on the wall for anyone smarter than a monkey.

I choose, then, to speak of something else as exemplary of our situation, the public’s total loss of control over their corrupt Congress. As I type here, the conspiracy of criminals on the Potomac continues their hand-wringing charade concerning the war in Iraq. And, as the owner and manage of our local Firestone store observed in bringing me home when I had dropped off Rita’s car for service, the young men and women who honor us all by serving in the armed forces of our country as did my friends of last night and this mornings discussions are made up mostly – overwhelmingly, again – of the poor. When I remarked that in a recent “blog” I had said the same, and added that it was unreasonable – stupid, even – to believe or expect patricians like those risen to power in our nation to have any real concern for the war or the soldiers fighting it, my companion nodded agreement vigorously.

Where the Congress is concerned, our national malaise isn’t about stupidity. It’s about disdain. Having preyed upon the poor to reach ascendancy over them, the patrician feels no compunction whatever when he persists in that practice. My benefactor this morning, it happens, is Hispanic – as was the buddy veteran of Iraq I mentioned – and most of my friends here in South Texas are of the same culture. I speak Spanish, moreover, so – at least in that way – I am Hispanic. When he pointed out that he had declined a U.S. Navy request to put a recruiting poster in his business window, my friend showed more courage and integrity than the Congress of which I speak here.

That Congress dithers on the matter of illegal immigration for the same reason it dithers on Iraq. It’s all about recruiting, enlisting the poor to do the patricians’ dirty work. Whether they work in the fields doing stoop labor, or brave IEDs in Baghdad, that’s what it’s about. Not long ago, in fact, a nationally-syndicated columnist “stumped” in his column for a program whereby illegal aliens would be permitted to enlist in the military in order to so earn citizenship – provided, of course, they survived to apply.

But I promised to forego talk of illegal aliens. The issues and questions that prompt the congressional criminal collective to behave in such a disgustingly egregious manner have more to do with a reflexive tendency to avoid any controversy that might disrupt the status quo ante regarding representative-constituent relations (read “re-election”) than with any intellectual debate about doing the right thing. This, moreover, is bipartisan in nature, even if the Democrat Party, people who obtained their majority from an electorate thereby expressing dissatisfaction with the progress of the war in Iraq through their votes, are behaving particularly shamelessly. What a pack they are!

Once more, we have the stinking with decay of age, smoke-and-mirrors chicanery we see where nearly every issue or trouble is concerned. Flailing about, bloviating like Bullmoose (Al Capp? - What’s good for Bullmoose is good for America!”), the putrescence of politicians on the Potomac creates the appearance of much ado while doing for all practical purposes nothing.

Meanwhile, and with the situation and circumstances in Iraq worsening daily - twelve this weekend, with three captured and almost certainly being tortured to death - the media has unleashed a barrage of diversionary political info-tainment rivaling any before it. Feigning what surely must be as close to unprecedented partisan infighting as possible, left and right wing are laying about them in every direction, creating a hurricane of noise designed to distract the fatuous public from the hideous truth. Apparently locked in the worse kind of partisan selfishness and self service, Democrats and Republicans are in fact cooperating as never before. Worse, the public falls for the meretricious masquerade, in effect standing idly by to indulge the politicos their unconscionable fraud.

Meanwhile, industrial military complex profits exceed by multiples anything before in history. Halliburton may, indeed, purchase Kuwait, rather than just move operations there.

But as I’ve intimated, I’ve grown suspicious of the public’s motives, too. Three dollar plastic yellow ribbons stuck on a car, and ranting “blogs” like this one are cheap enough. Waving the flag in the front yard is much easier than wearing the nation’s uniform in combat. I’ve already pointed out – with, I can assure you, rueful, agonized (I really thought god was on our side) pain - the feckless stupidity of most Americans. It’s true, and there’s no doubt about it. There must be, then, a tremendous number of our citizens either too ignorant or too incurious (or a combination of the two) to judge for themselves the efficacy of congressional behavior toward Iraq. Incredibly for my group of friends last night or myself, Congress pretends to be searching for a solution to Iraq, and Americans ignore the obvious in order accept that this is this case.

Too easy – nobody’s that stupid. The truth, I fear, is that it’s pass the buck time all around. It’s become “un-American” to accept responsibility for anything. Insurance contracts in the U.S. deny liability coverage for policyholders who admit fault. “Don’t get involved,” the motto of the sixties, has pejorated to “It’s not my affair,” and that has become, in turn, the national mantra. This is not only the stupidest public every having inflicted itself on the nation, is it the most selfish. It’s somebody else’s husband, daughter, or son – now, even mother - being killed – so what do I really care?!

And, then, there are other reasons I doubt our sincerity. Listen, look, where we are, what’s we’re doing! My god, people, we seem to listen like sheep to the most incredible nonsense. We are trying in Iraq, just for instance, to do the logically impossible – solve a problem that hasn’t been defined. Tell me how you play and win a game without knowing how it is that you score. I simply don’t believe anyone can be that stupid. Not even indoctrinated by relentless propaganda as we are.

We – the media, congress, the president - speak of “surges,” “stability” and “funding” as if those rhetorical terms actually – real world, now - address real problems like – among many others - Iraq. I don’t buy it. I think we’re corrupt. I think we’re satisfied by the status quo because we don’t really believe it affects us. That’s worse than stupidity. It’s scrofulous morals.

I pause parenthetically here to point out that I am trying to reason with you, and to myself recognize that I am doing what I scorned as I began – to reason with someone (with all due respect), no longer capable of reason. This is like trying to explain sex to a ten year old.

Let me try to simplify enough to prove useful. Even people as enslaved to their own greed and lust as members of the U.S. Congress are capable of recognizing that Iraq was at best – the alternative was monstrous evil - a staggeringly stupid thing to do. It was nothing short of an attempt to persuade – or force – an entire religion, Islam, to change its fundamental doctrine.

But Americans don’t seem to know that. They almost desperately don’t seem to know that. And how convenient it all is. We all sound like Hillary Clinton: “Sure, I wanted the war, but I was deceived by the president.”

Sure. BULL! Oh, I know we’re stupid, all right. Tons and tons of data show that. Jay Leno and his “Jaywalking” segment show that. “Americans” – in that peculiarly unique stupidity of ours – know everything – and are willing to argue vehemently – about subjects they almost invariably flunk when tested concerning actual, real, knowledge. There isn’t anything remotely like it in behavioral history, and – I think – it is at the heart of what amounts to a national psychosis.

As he does with fifty other “issues,” an American will nod his head knowingly when one utters the words Sunni, Shiite, or Kurd. Ask a few questions, you invariably realize – and you prove – that he doesn’t have the faintest idea what he’s talking about. Why? Could it be a matter of convenience? Is he hiding the fact that he knows there is no way for anyone stupid to solve any problem he knows nothing of? I think so.

A couple of weeks ago, a congressman, Rep. Silvestre Reyes, the newly appointed chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, failed a quiz when journalist Jeff Stein asked him to differentiate between Sunni and Shiite. Reyes may have become the poster boy for congressional stupidity, but at least he IS representative of his constituency in that regard. Reyes isn’t alone – damned few of our sleaze of representatives could pass a similar test.

They’re representative, all right. No? Okay, try the test borrowed from the news story: Explain the relationship between the Iraqi cities of Karbala and Baghdad as they impact the coexistence of Iraq’s Shiite and Sunni populations. The question is crucial, the sine qua non, of tactics and “winning” in Iraq. Explain to yourself how you can offer any intelligent commentary on the question, knowing what you do.

I’ll put the history of the two factions here later, but answer me this: if you really give a damn about Iraq, how is it that you haven’t taken the time to learn even that much about the tactics and strategy that should surround any such undertaking? As I write this, I am finishing former CIA Director George Tenet’s book “At the Center of the Storm, My Years at the CIA.” The book is a classic example of what was once known as “CIA Writing,” the obfuscatory publication of deceptive material in turn known as “limited hangout.”

Parenthetically, for those not familiar with what I have written before here (and for more information, go to my website coup d’etat page), the CIA hires writers to publish novels, biographies, news articles, editorials, and the like designed to mislead or distract the public. Tom Clancy is a notable example. “Limited Hangout,” additionally, is the practice of admitting publicly a smaller and less damaging error or fault, in order to cover a bigger one. In his book, Tenet admits mistakes which made 9-11 possible for al Qa’ida. He also tells us that cuts in spending for the CIA lay the agency and the nation open for the destruction of the World Trade Center (that always amazes me; six hundred billions a year, and every time there’s a repetition of government typically FUBAR, there’s somebody federal or military talking as it they were “underfunded” poor boys!).

That’s the limited hangout, the little admission. The “bigger” one - the one being covered by all the distracting uproar from the media – my god, they’ve resurrected (pardon the expression), the Natalee Holloway Affair again! - is the historically devastating – to G.W. Bush and his presidency, among other things – admission of having known what was going to happen and done nothing, then having followed “the dog that didn’t bark” scenario with the lie its result “necessitated,” that of “weapons of mass destruction” in Iraq and an Iraq connection with the terrorist attack.

That’ll take some Hollywood “special effects” and state of the art propaganda in Brobdingnagian proportions, and, if you watch television, you’re seeing it. In order to order to raise the public’s awareness of Tenet’s book to a level as high as possible, famed “analysts” like Ann Coulter, Sean Hannity, Glen Beck and their frothing-at-the-mouth ilk have lampooned it furiously, that on the ground – surprise! - that it impugns their demigod, our pusillanimous president. Several of television’s version of Dickens’ Uriah Heap have called for Tenet to return the medial of Freedom curiously awarded him by their hero.

Meanwhile, the former CIA Director tours the television circuit, stumping in order to market his defector work. Anyone who can’t see through all this high-school-level dramatization . . . well, as I said – nobody’s that stupid.

“Storm” is an interesting book, indeed – more interesting in what it doesn’t tell than what it does. like the major – and minor, for that matter – national news media, not once in his book does the former Director of the CIA mention KH-13 and KH-14, “Keyhole” – why do you imagine they have that sobriquet? - satellite surveillance of Iraq, relentless spy and other aircraft over-flights, or literally hundreds of special forces insertions into the country prior to invasion. Not once.

Come on, folks – this is like trying to tell the cops you didn’t notice that your kid was hiding a stolen elephant in his room. I don’t buy it, and neither will history, your kids and their kids. When the government gets away with this – and, thanks to all of us, they will - and your progeny pay the hideous price, they’ll know who it was who was really responsible. Like you don’t fool anyone when you complain about the oil companies and gas prices, yet continue sycophantly to drive everywhere and at ninety miles an hour, you won’t fool anybody about Congress and the Bush Administration, either.

History and your children will, indeed, to quote again Benjamin Franklin here, “piss on your graves.”