The Purple Finger of Fate

My friend Andrea sent me a link to this article, with this message:

> Hi All,
> I liked this article. It made sense to me--unfortunately! Especially the
> line about the 'oil for women program' in the middle. -- Andrea

Personally, I had high hopes for the phrase "oil for women" -- I was ready to volunteer to help rub it in. Then I read the article, which is not funny at all.

Bernadette replied:

As an American, a liberal Democrat, and a citizen vehemently opposed to everything Bush stands for, including our foreign policy and the death toll continuing to pile up in Iraq and other parts of the Middle East, my comment to this article is: so?

Yes, apathy is my pervailing emotion. I feel as if I'd like to say directly to this reporter, "...thanks for getting some more facts published... what else would you like to tell us that we already know?" True, some of these facts I could not recite before, but the whole Iraqi debacle has been a elaborate scam to forward the interests of a relative few. I see my beloved country's government as an empirical power treating the people of the world's nations as pawns in a cruel game that just gives them literally something to do. I mean how much money do you really need? How much control in your lifetime is truly necessary? Who raised you to be so narrow-minded, short-sighted, and selfish?

Right now the biggest threat to the US is not a physical or ideological attack from another far-flung faction or state. The biggest threat is our economic instability, and it is clear that hijacking another country's riches, i.e. oil reserves, will not shore up our growing deficits.

Oh I could go on and on, but I am entirely too weary. My interest in world and political news has absolutely imploded since our election. I have very little faith in American policy-makers overall, and the American public. While world crisis issues loom over American's heads, our congress convenes to see whether or not there's a "problem" with the use of steroids in baseball! That's my tax money funding your little Capitol Hill brew-ha-ha folks!!! Meanwhile this nation can't even figure out basic health care policies like if abortion is OK or not! Hello, the whole Terry Schaivo right-to-die/life is really a precept for that issue.

I have a very dark outlook for America's future in the world. I see our standard of living decreasing and continued alienation by many countries, both economically and in terms of culture. I thought things were pretty horrible leading up to the last presidential election, but apparently conditions need to become much, much worse before any sort of change will occur. I believe it will take decades to extricate ourselves from them Middle East mess, and about the same amount of time with huge amounts of policy and fiscal discipline to regain the economic status that will truly make us a strong and great nation.

So in response to Ms Klein's article, good for you for connecting the dots; something that most people are taught in kindergarten but seem to forget by the time they're voting age. Maybe by yet again writing another piece about how f-'d up US-Iraq policy is people will see how narrow-minded and self-serving our national government truly is. And just maybe there will be a call to change our current regime... just maybe. If I ran across this headline in a newspaper or magazine I'd just skip over it. I could sum up the contents with my own concise headline: "The ________ in the _________ is a Scam to Serve The Intrests of a Powerful Few. This is Not Democracy." Go ahead and fill in the blanks with the word du jour be it Iraq, Iran, Middle East, North Korea; and war, election, economic policy, ect.