Friday, February 02, 2007

Measuring Madness by the Calendar


This picture was taken by Olaf on Saturday, January 23, 2003, in San Francisco, at the protest against war in Iraq before the invasion. That was now over four years ago.

And how long has it taken the naysayers, Dems and Repubs alike, to even begin to come around to see that we were right? How many dollars wasted? How many lives destroyed? Yet still they hesitate lest their political ambitions be thwarted.

The people must lead, or they will be cast into the cauldron by those who have the arrogance to take their lead from them through ignorance, fear, and suppression of reason.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

And he wants billions and billions more now. Where does it end?

Anonymous said...

This is the anon from the last thread. You will get no debate from me regarding the Iraq war. It is a freaking train wreck. I am curious as to your ideas on how we proceed from here.

Olaf said...

It doesn't. It started in 1947 with the idea of a permanent national security state that, to his credit, Dwight D. Eisenhower warned us about before he left office in 1961. Since then, the military-industrial-oil complex has largely influenced or even controlled our foreign and domestic policy. Why else wouldn't we have freed ourselves from the need for foreign oil forty years ago? It's something well within the capabilities of a country as rich and powerful as ours, and yet we have persisted in a policy that makes the insanity of the Middle East our concern because that's where so much of our drug of choice--oil--comes from.

And don't you worry--with all the dough that is made in the defense and petroleum industries, we'll be demonizing our way through death and destruction for a long time to come, and always doing it in the name of our "national interests."

Anonymous said...

Sorry Olaf, but you completely dodged the question. I didn't ask about past failed policy. What do we do now?

Olaf said...

Actually, my response was to the first Anonymous' "Where does it end," but the second Anonymous (why don't you use names? They don't have to be real) threaded in between the two.

Where do we go from here? Well, I would hope to see a public clamor for impeachment, removal from office, indictment for crimes committed in office, with subsequent conviction and imprisonment for Cheney, Bush, and associates. I would like there to be a near-complete turnover in the legislature, removing all collaborators of both parties. I would want to see a national declaration of clean air, clean water, health care, and employment as rights for all in this country, with genuine followthrough, including an overhaul of the tax system that does not necessarily penalize high earned income, but discourages accumulation of capital in fewer and fewer hands.

Oh, and more foreign films in local theatres. And venti vanilla no-foam lattes for all!