Aquarian Weekly 7/23/03
REALITY CHECK

A SOBER VIEW FROM THE TRENCHES

The President of the United States lied to the American people about the extent of an enemy threat to our borders to perpetuate a war. And so now George W. Bush joins every other man who has held his office while faced with the same stretch of history. Look it up. I only have so much space.

And that last line is specially packaged for those of you who think that a thousand words on a jabbering cunt like Ann Coulter was not enough. Some of you assume I had to fill forty pages with a lecture on American history to educate the masses on the crimes of McCarthyism.

Fuck off.

Put down the video game and turn off the porn for five minutes and read a goddamn book.

Let's face it; you need history lessons from me like you need MTV babysitting your kids.

Of course the White House and the CIA, and whatever else culling a paycheck from your taxes to keep this government running lied to you about the war. That is what they do. That is what they have always done. And not just this government, but governments across the globe for eons.

You don't like it, chief? Ready your muskets.

But I would give that some serious thought. I too believed in anarchy once, but that was before I enjoyed the trappings of running water, utilities, traffic lights and civil servants to summon when the crazed neighbor starts shooting off his baby canon over the lake at midnight.

But I digress.

Sure the government lied, the media lied, I lied. This is what happens during war, Churchill and all that "first casualty" stuff. It is a moral imperative. Fish swim. Trees grow. Governments lie before, during, and most definitely after war.

Where the fuck have you been?

Are we only dealing with dumbstruck hippies, Madison Avenue shrills and Bible waving freakazoids now? Is that all that is left us?

Those of us in the trenches see things far more clearly. We examine Paul Simon's writings "on the subway walls", and you can damn well be sure we keep our ears peeled for the sounds of silence. And those sounds could not give a fairy fart whether George Walker Bush tells Congress he invented Scrabble or composed the Star Spangled Banner. Down here in the mud, you learn to forgive mouthpieces for the flawed machine. It's a tough ride, like that yawping loon straddling the A-Bomb at the end of that Kubric film.

You think this president could ever tell you anything binding about uranium in Africa? This is a man who's own campaign czars tried to keep out of foreign policy debates like it was political cyanide for sixteen months of stumping.

In the face of that, I think the man's done a pretty good job on the foreign stage. He was only in office for nine months when New York City burned. What did he know? He must have gotten bad intelligence for that one too.

Sure, the world thinks us half-mad, arrogant warmongers, but that was long before Captain Shoe-In got the key to the missile silos.

Iraq was Daddy's fault. Everyone knew that. The other George Bush has to take the hit for irking those maniacs, with an assist from the Sleeping Clinton Brigade, who thought it wise to pussyfoot with homicidal goons for eight years.

The festering boil of the Arabian Sea had to go. Period. Who cares why anymore?

What those of us in manning the front lines do care about is this horrific budget deficit, escalated now to an historic level of $450 billion and rising 50% higher than estimated last Christmas, and the piss-poor abortion of an economy that the current administration has stood watch over for nearly three years now.

There is something for your outrage. Why don't you crank up some of the righteous indignation over that nugget?

Lying about war? That's a given.

Weapons of mass destruction? Maybe. Maybe not.

That's a debate for those who believe continued negotiating with murderous thugs and suicidal fanatics makes sense. The trench dwellers don't. And neither do the sounds.

There are clear reasons why Saddam Hussein was in uniform for every picture and video you saw of him. He was a soldier, a fighting man, and he wanted to fight. Our president wears a suit. He can't get dirty with that kind of nonsense. He's the CEO of America Enterprises, and right now its going belly up.

The executive branch of the current system we employ here in America has to answer for two things eventually; domestic policy and the strength of the economy. This is not always fair, but it is fact. Look that up too, junior. And what is left of ours will likely decide his reelection, and seal his legacy.

Right now it is in the shit can and my pal Georgetown tells me many steadfast conservative Republicans in Congress think the Bush people have gone around the bend in spending, and no one inside the Beltway has the slightest idea what kind of financial strain rebuilding Iraq and funding Tom Ridge's folly will do to cripple the nation in the next twelve months.

And these are key months for a first term president planning on keeping the gig.

But the rat pack the Democrats are lining up for slaughter right now couldn't best Hermann Goering in a race for dogcatcher. And that is not particularly good for the national debate or a balanced election, no matter what side of the infernal fence you reside.

But make no mistake, riling up the troops for battle with anything from questionable innuendo to bold faced lies is a president's duty.

This is not news.

As usual, it is nothing more than a minor distraction from real problems.

Sounds of Silence, indeed.

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