Fuck apologies

So, Pete Stark, a man who has the guts to admit he doesn't believe in a god, didn't have the guts to stand by his statements against an imperialistic President who has sent Americans to their death in what basically amounts to imperialistic oil deal.

Fuck that.

There were several great posts and articles today that highlighted the inanity of American political discourse. First, there's the reason why we're in Iraq - the oil. From Jim Holt in London Review of Books:

Iraq has 115 billion barrels of known oil reserves. That is more than five times the total in the United States. And, because of its long isolation, it is the least explored of the world’s oil-rich nations. A mere two thousand wells have been drilled across the entire country; in Texas alone there are a million. It has been estimated, by the Council on Foreign Relations, that Iraq may have a further 220 billion barrels of undiscovered oil; another study puts the figure at 300 billion. If these estimates are anywhere close to the mark, US forces are now sitting on one quarter of the world’s oil resources. The value of Iraqi oil, largely light crude with low production costs, would be of the order of $30 trillion at today’s prices. For purposes of comparison, the projected total cost of the US invasion/occupation is around $1 trillion.

Who will get Iraq’s oil? One of the Bush administration’s ‘benchmarks’ for the Iraqi government is the passage of a law to distribute oil revenues.

In commenting on Holt's piece, here's what Moonbat at Mahablog has to say: "What’s galling to me is that it’s been obvious from day one that getting the oil was a huge reason behind Operation Iraqi Liberation, and yet this is the elephant in the dining room, that no one dares talk about."

One would think that at this point, only a complete idiot, or mindless right-wing fanatic would argue that Iraq has anything to do with fighting terrorism. It doesn't. It never did. It had to do with taking over Iraq, and taking its oil. Period. But, as Arthur Silber points out, we aren't allowed to speak about that, because truth is no longer a part of the national discourse:

For this is where we are in the United States, nearing the end of the Year of Our Lord 2007: the truth is not merely unpleasant, an uninvited guest who makes conversation difficult and awkward. Truth is the enemy; truth is to be destroyed. To attempt to speak the truth on any subject of importance requires a deep reserve of determination, for to speak the truth requires that one first sweep away an infinite number of rationalizations, false alternatives, and numerous other failures of logic and the most rudimentary forms of thought — as well as the endless lies. On that single occasion in a thousand or a million when a person overcomes these barriers and speaks the truth, he or she discovers an additional, terrible truth: almost no one wants to hear it.

So while the truth is out there, the political discourse forces us to look the other way. And the truth is extremely loud, especially when it comes to the thirst for oil and conquest of this administration. Because they have no plans on ever leaving Iraq, not without the oil, at least. And they are working overtime to create another supervillian in Iran, so the U.S. can further its empire in the Middle East, as well.

Because somehow, we're now supposed to believe that Iran poses an existential threat to the entire globe, and it's up to the U.S. to stop them. Newsweek's Fareed Zakaria points out the lie of that:

The American discussion about Iran has lost all connection to reality. Norman Podhoretz, the neoconservative ideologist whom Bush has consulted on this topic, has written that Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is "like Hitler … a revolutionary whose objective is to overturn the going international system and to replace it in the fullness of time with a new order dominated by Iran and ruled by the religio-political culture of Islamofascism." For this staggering proposition Podhoretz provides not a scintilla of evidence.

Here is the reality. Iran has an economy the size of Finland's and an annual defense budget of around $4.8 billion. It has not invaded a country since the late 18th century. The United States has a GDP that is 68 times larger and defense expenditures that are 110 times greater. Israel and every Arab country (except Syria and Iraq) are quietly or actively allied against Iran. And yet we are to believe that Tehran is about to overturn the international system and replace it with an Islamo-fascist order? What planet are we on?

I have a great sense of trepidation about the 2008 elections. There seems to be this feeling amongst progressives - mostly unsaid - that if we can hold on until 2008, Democrats will get a stranglehold on Congress and take over the Presidency and sanity will return. But for one, that just isn't a given. Americans have seen now that democracy in the U.S. has reached a hit-and-miss, gray area. Maybe it will be a landslide. But maybe the results will leave us mortified.

And two, even if the Democrats take over everything, who's to say that the course will be corrected? The U.S. will still be fighting to maintain its occupation of Iraq, and could very well be fighting to overthrow Iran. Or worse. And it's not like oil will suddenly stop being relevant.

Today was one of those days that these issues, these truths, struck me hard and left me feeling sad and powerless. We are a nation at the tipping point. A nation where the economy, the constitution, freedom and its very existence are hanging in the balance. We are a nation that scoffs at international law, implements torture, unleashes armies of mercenaries, spies on its own citizens, takes away health insurance from its own children while mocking them, and a whole boatload of other atrocities and scandals that would make the Founding Fathers wonder why they went to all the trouble.

Basically, the current U.S. position on foreign affairs - and domestic affairs, for that matter - is that we want to take over the world's oil supply by force. And that's going to end badly. Yet the House of Representatives is voting on resolutions because of the faux outrage syndrome seemingly perfected by the right, because Pete Stark said what he felt. In fact, he said what the majority of Americans felt.

And he apologized for it.

Fuck that.

--WKW