July 6, 2003
Bush's America: Stressed and Sexless
The featured story on Newsweek's June 30 cover says "No Sex Please, We're Married: Are Stress, Kids and Work Killing Romance?" It's an anecdotal rundown of the stories of various baby boomer couples with big posed portraits telling the world how the the sex is gone from their marriages. For Newsweek, it's one of those "evergreen" stories they keep around for summer's inevitable "slow news weeks". It's mental popcorn even more than Newsweek is when it tries to be serious. But even taken at that level, there may be more here than Newsweek is willing to dig into. This is symptomatic of the kind of country America has become: frustrated, anxious, unsexy and unfun.There are no statistics to back this up, the article admits, people tell researchers everything is fine, they have sex once or twice a week just like the 1953 Kinsey report said they should. But what people tell researchers about their sex lives is highly suspect.
"Marriage experts tell us there is no single reason we are suddenly so unhappy with our sex lives. May of us are depressed; last year Americans filled more than 200 million prescriptions for antidepressants." Then there is the fact that Americans are working harder than they have in recent memory just to keep afloat, and that includes both partners in most couples. Americans have less vacation time than most other industrialized countries.
The world's wealthiest nation is full of extremely unhappy people. From the look of the political landscape, it would appear that the wealthy are absolutely obsessed with becoming wealthier and driving as many others to poverty as possible. If the Bush administration really does represent the wealthy -- and the richest 5% is clearly its chosen constituency -- the rich don't care if the whole planet turns into a giant cinder, as long as they have more money in their bank account next week than last.
Americans are struggling to support a massive defense establishment and a huge corporate welfare elite that forgot entirely how to run profitable companies without buying off congresspeople who help them steal from the national treasury. America's massive wealth has been reduced to a tool in the hands of a cabal of madmen obsessed with an unachievable dream of world domination. It's all running down the tubes in debacles like Afghanistan and Iraq, and whichever country will be next: Iran, Syria, Liberia, North Korea, not to mention all the countries like the Phillipines and Colombia in which the U.S. maintains a large military presence.
Now the fools running America have thumbed their noses at everyone so much that any country can see America's clock ticking on its ability to maintain all the military commitments it has blustered itself into. Any potential enemy can bide its time, America is becoming increasingly overextended and weakened by the squandering of its national resources through its bullying strategy.
Meanwhile a country run by madmen like Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, and swinging John Ashcroft is not a very nice place to live. Daily life is colored by the knowiedge that behind the glitzy entertainment used to distract the public, the American government is the agent of more death and misery in the world than any other entity. Thousands are being killed, exploited, dominated around the world just to make Bush's friends richer. Increasingly the victims are at home in the U.S. An increasing number of American are on the wrong end of the administration's swift sword.
The radical Republican clique that tried to run Bill Clinton out of Washington with their $50 million investigation into his sex life and kept him preoccupied with defending himself against what amounted to a frivolous attack instead of attending to running the government is now in charge and this is the America of its vision. This weird amalgam of religious right, corporate greed and military madness has created an America increasingly in its own image.
The Republicans now control all three branches of government, the media, the capital, the voting machines and are moving swiftly to consolidate even tighter control. And Americans are still in the grip of the media brainwashing machine that renders them paralyzed and unable to resist. But the pressure is showing more and more. Something has got to give. What will it be?
According to Michael Ruppert on his site From the Wilderness, the real power players behind the scenes have already decided that Bush has to go. However, they will try to assure that the transition one in which their power is not disrupted, as occurred during the fall of Nixon. Then Gerald Ford pardoned Nixon, insuring that most the crimes of his administration would remain largely hidden from public view. If Bush is pushed aside we will still be left in a situation in which the Patriot Act, Homeland Security and Total Information Awareness still stands, the messy engagements in Afghanistan and Iraq remain, the voting machine fraud is still in place and the truth of 911 is still hidden. Ruppert urges looking beyond a simple change in faces. Removing Bush would be a tremendous relief, but it's important not to get swindled in the process and left in a situation that looks a little different on the surface, but is little changed in its depth. The British government ready to fight for British citizens that have been designated enemy compatants by Bush and will therefore lose their rights to due process. See Yahoo. Never underestimate a librarian. Jim Hightower says librarians are heroes in defense of liberty against Bush administration tyrants and the ironically titled Patriot Act. See also The Financial Times. New World Orderoids are developing new technological devices for controlling crowds. See LA Weekly Steve Gilliard writing in the Daily Kos shows that the problems of the US in Iraq are worse than they appear to be. It's simple math. In spite of Bush's bluster, America doesn't have the forces it needs to take on all the countries it is in the process of engaging. The PNAC strategy is failing. With an election coming up, even with rigged voting machines and massive erasure of people from the voting rolls a la Florida, there is danger in arousing the public by instituting a new draft to supply the military with the manpower it needs to satisfy the mighty apetites of the Bush-corporate cabal. There is trouble a-brewing. Tom Paine, the original, said we have a chance to "begin the world over again." See tompaine.com.