During the early 80s Steve Martin joked, "I believe that Ronald Reagan can make this country what it once was--an Arctic region covered with ice." Ronald Ray-gun may have failed to realize the goal of utterly decimating the planet, but his vice president's son may do just that.
Back when Democrats had spine they warned about giving conservative nutjobs like Barry Goldwater access to the nuclear launch button. But Dems have been neutered and no one is sounding the alarm.
Except for bloggers like Billmon. There is a must-read Billmon blog entry about the threat of a "nucular" strike by the Cheney-Bush Oil Junta against Iran. The malaise that has engulfed the United States makes this possible for three key reasons that Billmon points out.
First, the media is asleep:
Idiots, of course, don't need a reason to be idiots. But to the extent there is a rational excuse for treating a nuclear strike on Iran as the journalistic equivalent of a seasonal story about people getting their cars washed, it must be the cynical conviction that the Cheneyites aren’t serious -- they're just doing their little Gen. Jack Ripper impression to let the Iranians know they really mean business.
This may seem plausible – that is, if you were in a catatonic stupor throughout 2002 and the early months of 2003 (which is just another way of saying: if you were a member in good standing of the corporate media elite.) But the rest of us have learned that when Dick Cheney starts muttering about precious bodily fluids, you better take him seriously. He really does mean business, and when Dick Cheney means business, people are likely to start dying in large numbers.
Second, it would be good domestic press for the junta, and good TV for corporate media whores:
Let's be honest about it: For both the corporate and the conservative media, as well as for their audiences, a air campaign against Iran would make for great TV -- a welcome return to the good old days of Desert Storm and Shock and Awe. All those jets soaring off into the desert twilight; the overexposed glare of cruise missiles streaking from their launch ships; the video game shots of exploding aircraft hangers and government buildings, the anti-aircraft tracers arcing into the night sky over Tehran -- it would be war just the way we like it, far removed from the dull brown dust, raw sewage and multiple amputees of the Iraqi quagmire.
Third, we are already ruled by war criminals, there is no evidence that they have been rehabilitated in the slightest, and all who point out these facts are marginalized:
We’ve already seen a lengthy list of war crimes and dictatorial power grabs sink into that electronic compost heap: the WMD disinformation campaign, Abu Ghraib, the torture memos, the de facto repeal of the 4th amendment. Again, why should a nuclear strike be any different? I can easily imagine the same rabid talk show hosts spouting the same jingoistic hate speech, the same bow-tied conservative pundits offering the same recycled talking points, and the same timid Beltway liberals complaining that while nuking Iran was the right thing to do, the White House went about it the wrong way. And I can already hear the same media critics chiding those of us in left Blogostan for blowing the whole thing out of proportion. It’s just a little bunker buster, after all.
Please, somebody! anybody!! stop these people!!!
posted by Boiling Mad at Wednesday, April 12, 2006
http://boilingmad.blogspot.com/2006/04/on-eve-of-destruction.html
