Tin Foil Hats And Tiaras For Everyone!

I’ve written before about why I think conspiracy theories abound with this administration in power. Because the Bush administration is so secretive in the way they do business, it is easy to believe that they may have been involved in a concerted effort to perpetrate fraud in the last election as well as had a hand in 9/11. Neither prospect is good and it hurts to even contemplate that such things could be true, but we know they don’t tell the truth, we know they distort the facts and we know they have classified more documents than any administration in history. That they could be capable of doing evil isn’t much of a stretch and that they could keep their evil deeds hidden from public view with a press that doesn’t care to investigate, seems downright likely.

I find it interesting that a new Scripps poll shows that a third of Americans think that 9/11 was an “inside job”. That is staggering. One out of three people think the Bush administration could very well have organized the deaths of 3,000 innocent Americans for the sole purpose of furthering their foreign policy objectives. In other words, a third of this country’s citizens believe that the Bush administration is a terrorist organization. How is it possible that impeachment isn’t even on the table if that many Americans think he’s a killer? Yes, it’s a rhetorical question and we can all say in unison, “it’s possible with the help of a lapdog press.”

Just imagine how that one third would swell to two thirds if there were actual investigative reporting by traditional media on the omissions and outright lies contained in the 9/11 Commission Report, not to mention a serious look into the 2004 election “anomalies” and “glitches” that defy logic. The skepticism is only contained with the help of a press receiving paychecks signed by defense contractors, right wing ideologues and mega media conglomerates, nothing scary about that at all. This is a problem not only when it comes to the lack of oversight of the Bush administration, but will continue to be a problem once there is a Democrat in the White House that will be over investigated the way Clinton was. Like the bumper sticker says, “The media are only as liberal as the conservative businesses that own them” and if their interests align with the Republican Party, expecting a fair and honest assessment of the facts, much less truth from the press is silly.

But a combination of alternative online news sources, the blogisphere and a handful of great thinkers, writers and citizen journalists with some access to traditional media, are catapulting the propaganda and getting the truth to more people every day. Robert Kennedy Jr. and Mike Papantonio have proudly put on their tin foil hats and have filed qui tam cases against the electronic voting machine companies (check out the interview with Papantonio on BradBlog). It will be interesting to see how these cases progress, the hope is that they will lead to discovery of more evidence of wrongdoing by the voting machine companies and maybe even a whistleblower or two willing to come forward. It’s not completely out of the question and it’s a process that can only be good for democracy, whether or not it resolves the issue on its own.

Any legal remedy to having organized criminals running the country will take time, even impeachment is a lengthy process, but it has to start somewhere (or preferably in multiple places at the same time). Bush may be able to hide the truth during his time in office, but I have to believe that all (or most) will eventually be revealed. Too many people in this country don’t trust him or his cabal of neo-con lunatics anymore. That won’t stop them from waging more war or from instilling fear in as much of the population as they can, but it will make it easier to get the facts out. The American public is much more receptive to the idea that this administration will do anything, legal or illegal, moral or immoral, right or wrong, to further their ideological goal of concentrating wealth and power. That’s a damn sight further down the road to recovery than we were a few years back. It’s not ideal, but at least what we’re doing is working. Now if we can just get the Democratic Party on track, we could really get this country moving. Once Lieberman is gone, we will likely pick up some speed on that front too, one less DINO to torpedo our progress and it will scare the hell out of the rest of them to boot. It's a start anyway.