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; Group Mail Message
; Date created: 2/7/2004 8:51:55 AM
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ATTACHMENTS:
GROUP: mer
DATE: 2/7/2004 8:51:55 AM
FROM: MERL@MiddleEast.Org (MER - Washington Scene)
SUBJECT: Whitewash, Coverup - The Ways of Washington
PRIORITY: 1
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MESSAGE: _______ ____ ______
/ |/ / /___/ / /_ // M I D - E A S T R E A L I T I E S
/ /|_/ / /_/_ / /\\ Making Sense of the Middle East
/_/ /_/ /___/ /_/ \\ www.MiddleEast.Org 2-07-04
WASHINGTON SCENE:
BUSH COMMISSION - Whitewash and Coverup
President George W. Bush appears for the first time on NBC's 'Meet The Press' Sunday. Washington insider and host, Tim Russert, goes to the White House today to tape the program from the Oval Office for broadcast tomorrow.
Let's be very clear about this. The Bush Commission appointed yesterday is nothing more than diversion, deception, window-dressing and delay-through-the-election tactics. It's a big-time coverup and whitewash and should not be trusted for a moment either by the American people or by people throughout the world.
Interestingly yesterday as well one of Canada's major magazines, Maclean's, ran a cover article that rather amazingly just 15% of Canadians want to see Bush re-elected. ABB (which stands for "anybody but Bush") -- they want just about anyone else as do most Europeans and most people throughout the world in fact.
But the Americans are a peculiarly self-righteous, naive, and violence-prone gun-happy polity. It all has deep roots in the old 'Wild Wild West', the slaughter of the Indians, Puritanism and Christian Fundamentalism, and the "World War" victories in the last century. And now the Americans have an increasingly dangerous, crusading, worldwide 'manifest destiny' complex; all simplistically masked with the deceptive and hypocritical rhetoric of "freedom" and "democracy".
With Bush's huge money war-chest, with his powerful friends in the military-industrial-corporate-media complex, and with the now empowered Israeli-centric neo-con operatives who will go all-out to keep them in and any challenger out, George W. and Dick Cheney may well manage to keep power for another term.
This weekend, "live" (but on tape) from the White House, a TV network owned by one of the largest defense contractors, and a single moderator known for his insider status and relationships in Washington, will give the American President lots of prime time to further propagandize the American people. And the powerful and multifaceted propaganda institutions of the U.S. government and associated corporate and media interests are already working on overtime to double spin things their way.
Tim Russert will ask a few semi-pointed questions of course, that's all part of the Washington game these days. But like a carefully prepped high-school debater, George W. already has all his answers to whatever he is asked carefully scripted.
So it will be up to others, especially those away from American shores, to keep poking and digging and when called for defying, the American Empire and its crusading 'manifest destiny' ways.