A BRAVE, NEW BOBCAT WORLD

By Sheila Samples

"Preserving liberty may require the rule of a single leader -- a dictator -- willing to use those dreaded 'extraordinary measures,' which few know how, or are willing to employ."~~Michael Ledeen

Goodness gracious! Henny Penny! Since defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld and vice president Dick Cheney teamed up to lead the charge to create a New World Order, the whole universe has become untidy. Very untidy. My friend Bernie says Dick and Rummy's big plan to take over the world by waging continuous war is kinda like baptizing a bobcat -- ain't gonna happen.

You can't hold him," Bernie said. "You can't turn him loose. All you can do is jump up and down and run around in circles with your hands around his neck and hope you can choke him to death before he tears you to pieces."

And that's just in Iraq. We've got miles to go before we sleep in a brand New World. There we are, sandwiched between a gigantic Iran and a tiny Syria, both of whom have been warned that they're next on George Bush's list of countries to receive his gift of freedom and democracy. Will Iran president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad yell, "Hold the Mayo!" and take a bite out of Bush's ass, or will he back off in an effort to salvage his standing with the European Union that was badly damaged as a result of his "Wipe Israel off the map" comment?

I suspect the answer to that will be up to Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who appears to be Ahmadinejad's "Cheney," or controller, and who said shortly after the Israel remarks, "We will not commit aggression towards any nations..." Khamenei then added a veiled warning to the New Worlders -- "But if the power-seekers of the world - out of habit - want to infringe our nation's rights, it will not tolerate oppression by anyone or any powers."

Unfortunately, Bush doesn't respond well to warnings, threats, challenges, suggestions, or even questions. So, with more bobcats circling and all that blood splattering around, it's hard not to look back at the Old World Order with more than a bit of longing. But Bernie says it's too late for that. "The Old World is gone, and good riddance," he said. "It's a sore that began festering on Reagan's watch with behind-the-scenes atrocities, undercover drug trafficking, assassinations, death squads and the chipping away of the ethical foundation of our democracy. It's come to a head now, spewing out the same old Reagan-era mass murderers, and they don't intend to leave.

"This time around," Bernie said, "they're not working undercover. They've abandoned all pretense of morality. They're in our faces -- in every critical position in this government -- put in place to create the madness, cruelty, torture, and massive genocide that will form the foundation of their World. And destroy ours."

The New World Order looks good on paper, but it is based on the theory that leaders of nations throughout Europe, Asia and the Middle East will recognize the futility of challenging the massive power of the US military and will passively hand over their resources, their treasures, their governments, their cultures and their gods, and will eagerly accept the gift of freedom and democracy that comes with US control.

The New Worlders -- Cheney, Michael Ledeen who, ironically, sits in the "Freedom" chair at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI); William Kristol, idiot "intellectual" editor of the rabid right-wing Weekly Standard; Paul Wolfowitz, author of the Iraq war who now heads the World Bank; and Lewis Libby, recently indicted in the Valerie Plame CIA Leak investigation, among others, built their "grand vision" on a revolutionary 24-page document, "Defense Strategy for the 1990s: The Regional Defense Strategy," penned by Cheney in January 1993, which outlined a new foreign policy of pre-emption in order to gain -- and maintain -- US global dominance.

Most Americans are familiar with the phrase, "New World Order." It's been out there for so long it's almost passe. Besides, what's wrong with being Number One? What's a few regime changes between friends? Few realize that the "noble" cause for which 2,080 Americans have lost their lives is nothing but maximation of profits --a war for global financial and military industrial domination. As the incomparable Mary McGrory said, the United States "is the SUV of nations. It hogs the road and guzzles the gas and periodically has to run over something -- like another country -- to get to its Middle Eastern filling station."

Does no one ever wonder what life will be like in the New World Order? As far back as 1987, Republican Senator Jesse Helms was raising the alarm on the floor of the Senate -- "This campaign against the American people -- against traditional American culture and values -- is systematic psychologcal warfare," Helms said. He warned about insiders such as Wolfowitz and Richard Perle directing foreign policy..."The influence of establishment insiders over our foreign policy has become a fact of life in our time," Helms said. "...It is an influence which, if unchecked, could ultimately subvert our constitutional order." (Emphasis added)

There's nothing wrong with psychological operations (PSYOP). It's a weapon as old as war itself; a critical force multiplier that has been used throughout history to intimidate an enemy so that he will either surrender prior to conflict or throw in the towel before he is wiped out. But in the grotesque new world of Cheney and Rumsfeld, PSYOP is a savage, insensate world of chaos, anger and hate. It's a world of abuse, murder, degradation, assassination, secret hidden torture camps where PSYOP has mutated into full-blown "Psycho" operations. From Guantanamo Bay to Abu Ghraib to the remote mountains of Afghanistan, Rumsfeld's Psycho Raiders are on the move -- abusing, torturing, and murdering all those who dare resist occupation. Men, women, children -- it doesn't matter. If it pleads, it bleeds.

At the same time, the Bush administration and its complicit corporate media are using PSYCHO-OP with spectacular success against the American people by relying on fear to impel them to accept an increasingly fascist regime rather than physically beating them into submission.

We are entering a new world; one of informants and secret police and torture. It's a Machiavellian world where the end justifes the means. As Ledeen wrote in his 1999 book, Machiavelli on Modern Leadership: Why Machiavelli's Iron Rules Are as Timely and Important Today as Five Centuries Ago, "There are several circumstances in which good leaders are likely to have to enter into evil: whenever the very existence of the nation is threatened; when the state is first created or revolutionary change is to be accomplished; when removing an evil tyrant; and when the society becomes corrupt and must be restored to virtue..."

In Katherine Yurica's April 7, 2005 report, "Everything You Need to Know About Michael Ledeen," Yurica quotes Ledeen as he clearly lays out a roadmap denizens of the world will be compelled to follow in the new order. Ledeen, Karl Rove's full-time adviser and Pat Robertson's best friend, says the religion within that order will be that of evangelical Christianity.

"Good religion teaches men that politics is the most important enterprise in the eyes of God. Like Moses, Machiavelli wants the law of his state to be seen, and therefore obeyed, as divinely ordered," Ledeen wrote. "The combination of fear of God and fear of punishment -- duly carried out with good arms -- provides the necessary discipline for good government."

Bernie says Americans have been "psycho-opped" upside the head by guys like Ledeen, Cheney and Rumsfeld until we are senseless. "Somebody oughta tell that creepy Ledeen guy that this isn't Machiaveili's 'state,' and that love and compassion will trump politics in the eyes of God -- every time! Where are the freaking Christians?" Bernie bellowed as he headed for the door. Somebody oughta tell that bunch of jackals over at the Pentagon's Murder, Inc. that our founding fathers gave us the necessary discipline for good government -- the US Constitution..."

Bernie's right. We are the bobcats now. Cheney and Rumsfeld may ultimately force us into the madness of their world, but it will be after the race -- and then after the damndest fight they ever saw. Because in a sane world, only a crazy person would try to baptize a bobcat...

Sheila Samples is an Oklahoma writer and a former civilian US Army Public Information Officer. She is a regular contributor for a variety of Internet sites. Contact her at: rsamples@sirinet.net. © 2005 Sheila Samples

THE BIG LIE...

I often hear the blowhards on the right proclaim that democrats want a left-leaning Supreme Court because that is the only way they can accomplish their agenda. That, my friends, is a prime example of the "Big Lie" philosophy of the Gay Old Party - - tell it loud enough and often enough and sooner or later, the sheep will accept it as the truth.

Social Security, Old Age Assistance, Medicare, Medicaid, Child Labor Laws, 40-hour work week, Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), Rural Electricification Administration (REA), Minimum Wage, Civil Rights, Equal Employment Opportunity, Welfare, WIC, etc., etc.

Every damn one of these programs was initiated by democrats and was enacted by CONGRESS ! Not a single one is the product of the Supreme Court.

Royse Samples

I'M WITH BABS...

Barbra Streisand writes in a recent article on her website that if ever there was a time in history to impeach a President of the United States, it would be now. She wants to know, "If Not Now ... When?"

I'm with Babs on this one, and I agree that it's at least two years too late. Just think, if we had done what was right for this nation -- for the world -- back in 2003 when we learned that there were no WMD in Iraq and that every member of the Bush administration hit the airwaves; went to the United Nations, with endless lies and that Americans and Iraqis were being slaughtered for no good reason -- we could have prevented worldwide grief and anguish. We would not be the most hated nation in the world. And we might have saved our republic.

As Streisand says, "Why would you invade a country if there was still a chance for peace? Shouldn't war be an absolute last resort? We went to war because we were misled. And we should be angry because of the 2,000 American soldiers and the 200 armed coalition forces that have died. We should be livid because of the 15,000 American soldiers that have been horribly maimed and wounded. We should be disgusted because of the 30,000 innocent Iraqi civilians that have been killed and the 20,000 that are wounded after administration officials claimed that the US was going to liberate the Iraqi people.

"When does it stop? It stops with the indictment and impeachment of this corrupt, power-hungry, greedy group of incompetent leaders. How many more have to die before this happens?" Streisand asks. "We were clearly deceived by this administration and now we find ourselves fighting a war under false pretenses."

Streisand is correct when she says the Bush gang disregarded the facts because they wanted to wage war and, as the Downing Street memo clearly stated, were eagerly "fixing" the facts to fit their agenda.

She claims "This President will go down as the worst president in American history," and says the words of Harry Truman's famous statement keeps ringing in her brain -- "I wonder how many times you have to be hit on the head before you find out who's hitting you?"

I don't know about you, but I'm with Babs.

I'VE GOTCHA COVERED...

The following article written by the master of sanity and reason, Garrison Keillor, for the Star Tribune on Oct. 16, should make the evil and slimy Tom DeLay sleep much better at night. Or not.

DeLay had better keep an eye on his friends

By Garrison Keillor

October 16, 2005

My Dear Mr. DeLay:

I have been waiting two weeks for one Republican to leap to your defense and express outrage at a grand jury so callous as to indict a virtuous man, and nobody has. They've all been coy and cautious and whispering to the press that you are not their favorite guy in the whole world, so I am going to stand with you, sir, and cover your back. I don't like to see a man abandoned that way.

When you're a Jet and the spit hits the fan, you've got brothers around. You're a family man. I am an old liberal and if we had a Hammer, we would support him in the morning, and in the evening, all over this land. You are the greatest political fundraiser since William Marcy Tweed, sir, and that Texas grand jury is trying to referee a football game by the rules of badminton.

Corporate money not used for political campaigns? The thought is preposterous on its face. Any schoolchild knows that politics is not about highfalutin debates and policy papers; it is about putting the screws to the fat cats and squeezing them until they squeak and then hiring agents to level your hapless opponent with a barrage of rotten fruit and dead cats as you yourself stand above the fray, Bible in hand, your arm around some orphans, eyes upraised to Old Glory, your face nicely lit. And you win the race and go to work flogging your timid colleagues and raising truckloads of dough and building your war chest and scaring the bejeebers out of people. That's how it's done.

This country was not built by nervous nellies and Sunday school teachers but by bold marauders, dodgers, Sooners, buffalo hunters, forty-niners -- people who saw what they wanted and took it. You're one of them. Politics is about power. You grabbed hold of it and became King of the Republican Hill, a majority leader who knows that one can never have too much majority.

I am disappointed by your attempts to beautify yourself. It's pitiful, sir, and demeaning to blow-dry your hair and try to project warmth through those drill-sergeant eyes and belt-sander voice. You're the man, sir, who redrew the map of Texas to squeeze more Republican congressmen out of it, and got Indian tribes to pay for you and yours to fly to Scotland first-class and play golf, and who paid his wife as a consultant, etc., etc., etc. Personal warmth was not what got you to the dance. The rest of us tiptoe through the tulips, fearful of giving offense, but you, sir, are one brass monkey.

But politics is treacherous. Those Republicans who kiss your ring at prayer breakfasts and wave the flies away from your plate -- if they should sense that you are a wounded elephant, they will throw you out the window without blinking. Count on it, Mr. Leader. Behind those bland faces are neural synapses making intricate calculations. Don't worry about the Democrats, they are harmless, shaking their pointy heads and waving their small, plump hands. It's your friends who will do you in. Look at Julius Caesar. Look at Richard Nixon.

Mr. Nixon was done in by the ginks who forgot to burn the tapes, and so a great statesman suffered the ultimate humiliation of being quoted accurately when he was talking like a drunken bus driver about Jews and liberals. You, too, could be sandbagged by your pals, who may suddenly find it convenient to distance themselves from you as if you were not their daddy but just some stranger who came around every month and paid the bills and petted the dog.

Your best strategy is to Instill Fear among the Flock. Yes, you've done certain things that don't look good to grand juries and Unitarian schoolmarms and amateur birdwatchers, but so have your Fellow Republicans. They have shoved old ladies down the stairs and feathered their own nests, and you know it, and they know that you know it, and now you need to demonstrate that you will not bend one iota, no mea culpas and don't weep for me Argentina. You did not have sex with that woman, and you intend to go on Hammering, and if they let you down, you will sing like a canary and take those clowns with you.

Meanwhile, sir, I am at your side, your loyal pal and obedient servant.

Garrison Keillor's "A Prairie Home Companion" can be heard Saturday nights on public radio stations across the country. Tribune Media Services.