World News Trust: North Toward Home (Joe Bageant)

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From here in Central America, you can’t see America’s “shining city on the hill,” but you can smell the dead in Gaza.

Joe Bageant -- World News Trust

Jan. 24, 2009 -- HOPKINS VILLAGE, Belize -- I watched Obama’s inaugural speech over a plate of rice, beans and tortillas eaten with my fingers, in a thatch roofed joint in Belize. Which is organic and ethnic as hell, but I’d be the first to admit that a bucket of hot wings and a cold sixer would have been far preferable to this slob. And right along with the Garifunas, Mestizos and Creoles there watching Obama, I had my choked up moments. After all, I’m still an American -- albeit a reluctant one, and (despite the opinions of a couple of ex-wives) a human being.

But unlike most of the other villagers present, I also understood that I was watching a $40 million media production in which the highly paid meat puppets at the microphones spoke in a continuous tape loop… lip synching the lyrics of the national sing along, pointing out for the thousandth time that our new president is black, and going into detail about such things as Obama and Biden stepping out of their limos simultaneously. Wow! For the most part it was the Rose Bowl Parade, but with a speech and a dance party replacing the football game.

Obama, like any president, was fully aware he had to speak to all the people, not to mention the rest of the world, and his speech was about as good as it gets in that respect, with its necessary crimes of omission, such as mention of our longstanding global criminality both military and financial, and their remedy. But let’s face it, the subject of war reparations to Iraqi families is not a good opener for a guy about to pour most a trillion somolians into the pockets of the financial masters of failed American capitalism in order to buy a couple of years of public goodwill, so that he may (hopefully) accomplish something more substantial. For instance, he could provide free bread, water and toilet paper for every homeless street person. Don’t laugh. No American is guaranteed even that. Also we must remember that it doesn’t take much these days to be hailed as the new FDR. On the other hand, free asswipe for the homeless would automatically make him a Stalinist commie, according to the controlling corporate elites, that not-so-shadow government, who still own all the guns and money, regardless of who is elected. As an Irish friend recently wrote me: “No matter who you vote for, the government always gets in.”

Despite the comparisons to Martin Luther King, who never delivered a hypocritical speech or sermon in his life, Obama had his hypocritical moments. Such as, "We will not apologize for our way of life nor will we waver in its defense.” That can be construed at least a couple of ways: It could mean that, “As six percent of the planet’s population we will continue to use more than a quarter of the world’s resources to consume needless techno-junk and pay for Madonna’s liposuction.” Or that, “As a nation, we will continue to grow stupider, more provincial and more oblivious as a people, simply because we have the firepower to do so. Expect no apologies.”

Actually, when it comes to American apologies, certainly the Iraqi people are at the top of a very long list. But nations are essentially armed turf gangs and the most heavily armed -- America at the moment -- is no more likely to apologize to anyone than the LA Crips are for the latest drive-by shoot-up of a Blood Tupperware party.

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http://www.worldnewstrust.com/wnt-reports/commentary/north-toward-home-joe-bageant.html

[muriel_volestrangler]

1. An appropriate cartoon from Steve Bell:

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2. Bull's Eye

Steve Bell hits 'em out of the park sometimes.