Friday, December 12, 2003
Rot: Surface or Systemic?
AlterNet: The Age of Oil Is Over0 comments
This article was sent to me by a friend. The "end of oil on earth" is an interesting concept, if true. But, it leaves us merely with the "things of power," the trappings of it, which most of us can agree on, while we're fighting over them. But there's so much more to this administration.
So, this post is about the administration's true philisophical motivator.
Is it:
Power? or World View?
Power, because it feels so good personally and we all understand the "things of power" and want them, so we immediately recognize who has them—and who doesn't?
-or-
The total retro-fitting of the globe to fit the confines of a particular viewpoint? Because it's ONLY RIGHT to do it that way, and nothing else is comprehensible.
This article would make a modicum of sense if we're talking about Shadow President Dick Cheney and the operation working out of his bunker with him. Greed, power and privilege are major motivators there in the bunker.
However, it misses a major element of where we find ourselves today.
When we get to the Pentagon, and the Neo-Cons who have encamped there, we step through the Looking Glass.
National punditry has tried valiantly to figure out just what goes through the minds of the Neo-Cons who have seized the core of power here in the U.S.
Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, the philosophical mastermind behind all things Neo-Connish; Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas J. Feith, the department's No. 3 official, and Wolfowitz's Mr. Two; and Neo-Con gadfly and Influence Peddler Extraordinare Richard Perle, strike me as being above petty concerns with actual "things"—like oil or money or power. They are "True Believers." They have "a vision"—one often backed by God—and are, thereby, infinitely more dangerous to the interests and well being of the United States.
Also, have you experienced recurring whiplash from reading quotes, where one of these three is saying the EXACT SAME THING they said three years ago as if it's new, although it's long since been widely refuted, discredited and forgotten? It's Groundhog Day with these men. The world never disagrees with them, and fully embraces their world view. Always. Just like the zombies in another rip-off of a George Romero movie, they NEVER stop. They can't be killed. As I wrote months ago, we are all on the set of "The Night of the Living Neo-Con." If a powerful, major fixer like James Baker can't kill them, we may all be doomed.
You can take cameras away from National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice and, most likely, she would disappear from human consciousness. Take the podium away from Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and he's just another charming blowhard at the cocktail party. Take power away from Cheney and he slides back into being another work-a-day, self-important CEO bully.
But the engine for the whole Wolfowitz machinery runs on ideas. Ideas which have been allowed to take hold. As such, they will be much harder to uproot than any other aspect of this group.
These other Senior Administration Officials will all wander off, melting back into their smaller areas of influence when George Bush's term is finally over.
The Wolfowitz Believers will only go covert.
Republicans continue to look to find ways to capture hearts and minds.
The Neo-Cons, blood dripping from their chins, can only blindly chant: "MORE BRAINS... ."
posted by Gotham 12:15 PM
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