The Final Catch 22

It’s been 7 months. How long are we supposed to wait? We endured 8 years of The Bush Regime. It seems like all we got out of the last election was a charming erudite man who is continuing the Bush/Cheney policies.

If Obama has a secret plan to unwind the most horrendous policies of The Bush Regime … he’d better tell us about it pretty soon.

As General Turgidson in Dr. Strangelove said, “Mr. President, we are rapidly approaching a moment of truth both for ourselves as human beings and for the life of our nation.”

We either put the brakes on now or let the most savage aspects of The American Empire rage on.

U.S. Says Rendition to Continue, but With More Oversight

By David Johnston
Published: August 24, 2009

WASHINGTON – The Obama administration will continue the Bush administration’s practice of sending terrorism suspects to third countries for detention and interrogation, but pledges to closely monitor their treatment to ensure that they are not tortured, administration officials said Monday.

Human rights advocates condemned the decision, saying that continuing the practice, known as rendition, would still allow the transfer of prisoners to countries with a history of torture. They said that promises from other countries of humane treatment, called “diplomatic assurances,” were no protection against abuse.

“It is extremely disappointing that the Obama administration is continuing the Bush administration practice of relying on diplomatic assurances, which have been proven completely ineffective in preventing torture,” said Amrit Singh, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union, who tracked rendition cases under President George W. Bush.

… The task force has proposed a more vigorous monitoring of the treatment of prisoners sent to other countries, but Ms. Singh said the usual method of such monitoring — visits from American or allied consular officials — had been ineffective. A Canadian consular official visited Mr. Arar several times, but the prisoner was too frightened to tell him about the torture, a Canadian investigation found.

And what did Obama have to say about rendition in his pre-president days?

In an article in Foreign Affairs in the summer of 2007, Mr. Obama wrote, “To build a better, freer world, we must first behave in ways that reflect the decency and aspirations of the American people.”

Mr. Obama continued, “This means ending the practices of shipping away prisoners in the dead of night to be tortured in far-off countries, of detaining thousands without charge or trial, of maintaining a network of secret prisons to jail people beyond the reach of the law.” In January, the president ordered secret prisons run by the C.I.A. to be shut down.

As healthcare “reform” limps to the finish line and insurance companies lick their lips in anticipation of windfall profits from government subsidies …

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/healthcare/la-na-healthcare-insurers24-2009aug24,0,6925890.story

The half-dozen leading overhaul proposals circulating in Congress would require all citizens to have health insurance, which would guarantee insurers tens of millions of new customers — many of whom would get government subsidies to help pay the companies’ premiums.

I guess it’s almost time to throw in the towel and admit The Corporatocracy’s complete dominion over this country.

Suffering from terminal naiveté as I do, I still can’t figure out why The Corporatocracy, working through their Right Wing Media, is trying to destroy Obama the same way they destroyed Clinton.

Clinton gave them everything they wanted. A War. Globalization through GATT & NAFTA. The repeal of Glass-Stiegel. Clinton paved the way for The Corporatocracy to reap zillions. But they still did everything short of a bullet in the head to bring him down.

Why?

Obama certainly has been … um … cooperative. The wars are still going on … He went along with The Largest Transfer Of Wealth In Human History to Wall Street and The Banks. What’s their problem with Obama? What’s all this screeching about? Their team won. They own 99.9% of the media so there’s no real opposition. They own just about everything and they pretty much control everything else.

What’s Their Problem? They Won. Liberals Lost. Again.

Then I reread Catch-22.

I think I found a glimmer of an answer.

They want everyone to let them off the moral hook they’ve skewered themselves on. They want our complete capitulation. They want us to tell them that they’re OK. When we don’t … I think somewhere deep inside their filth-encrusted souls they know they’ve been bad little boys and girls and it makes them feel a twinge (teeny though it may be) of guilt.

And then they scream.

Limbaugh, O’Reilly, Beck, and Coulter scream at everything and anything … Liberal.

From http://human-nature.com/rmyoung/papers/heller.html

DEADLY UNCONSCIOUS LOGICS IN JOSEPH HELLER’S CATCH-22 by Robert M. Young

The final appearance of Catch-22 is when Yossarian finally refuses to fly any more missions. He is hauled up before Colonels Cathcart and Korn and told he will be court-martialed if he does not accept a deal they are proposing. It looks lovely. They are going to promote him, give him another medal and send him home as a hero to do morale-boosting campaigns and sell war bonds. He’ll get what he has always wanted – out. They begin by telling him that there’s a catch – Catch-22 … That’s the easiest part, they claim, but it’s the one thing which he eventually finds he cannot do. They want him to like them (p. 416).

I think that’s what “They” want “Us” to do … the one thing which we cannot do. They want us to like them. And We Won’t.

It drives them crazy.

We won’t let them off the hook. Even though they have the means … all the money, media, and power to do the rotten things they seemingly love to do … and they’re going to keep on doing them … We don’t like them.

Through their mouthpieces they scream, rant and rave because we somehow “thwarted” them. They want our imprimatur on the contract so they can say to themselves and their money-grubbing-power-hungry-anti-life-constitution-shredding cohorts,

“See? We might be the worst Mother-Bleeping Bastards of all time but at least the people we can’t stand … like us.”

We know The Corporatocracy wants everything. Winston Smith found out exactly what that meant.

They won’t leave us alone … until they own … the space between our ears.

Sign here ___________________

The Final Catch 22 August 28, 2009