Wednesday, October 19, 2005

The Illusion of Normality

Never in the 229 years of United States history has this government “of, by and for the people” been in greater peril. Not during the Civil War, not during the great depression, and not during the Second World War or the Cold War which followed.

Until today, gross incompetence, abuse of power, corruption, corporatocracy, and federal insolvency could be checked and reversed by balanced and separated governmental powers, and at the ballot box by a citizenry informed and provoked by an alert and independent media. Now all branches of government and the mainstream media are dominated by the wealthy elites in control of a single political party.

Can you believe this? If not, you are in the company of a majority of Americans who might respond to the above jeremiad with “Oh c’mon now, it can’t be as bad as all that! We’ve always had incompetence, corruption, waste, fraud and abuse in the federal government, and stolen elections are as old as the republic. It’s no different now.”

So long as that majority of Americans believes this, the rule of the Busheviks and its successor oligarch regimes will be secure. Thus Bush, Inc. and its obedient mainstream media are desperately endeavoring to nourish and sustain this “illusion of normality.”

The illusion has many facets.