When Did We Become the Bad
Guy?
By Edgar J. Steele
“You
mean...I’m the bad
guy?”
-- William Foster
(played by Michael Douglas),
in “Falling
Down,” Warner Bros., 1993
April 6, 2002
In
view of the heightening atrocity level in the
Middle East
the past several days, it seems trifling
to talk of anything else. But, how
to get through the mind-numbing propaganda blitz being laid down by the American
media? How to say anything without
sounding like another off-screen anti-government wacko?
Worse, by far, is the risk of being labeled anti-Semitic.
I’ll just say it: What is being
done – in the name of “democracy” and bought with my tax dollars – makes
me sick to my stomach.
Headlines over the past few days have trumpeted about
Israel
“Broadening the
Battle
Front,” “Increasing
Fighting Levels” and the like.
Look, let’s get really
clear about what is going on: The
world’s third-largest military power is wiping out a poor, indigenous
population unfortunate enough to be living next door.
As George Bailey might say, “Look, they do most of the working, living and
dying around here. Is
it asking too much that they be allowed to do all that working, living and dying in a couple of decent rooms
with a bath?”
The best picture I saw in the local papers was that of
several Palestinian youths facing down a US-made Israeli tank with nothing but
their bodies. Why was that very
thing such bravery when done by a Chinese student in Tianenman Square
a few years ago, but an unacceptable act of insurrection when done by
Arabs?
Why is the bulldozing
of homes and the indiscriminate shooting and strafing of Arab civilians
characterized as war, while a young girl blowing herself up just to take a few
Israelis with her is a terrorist act?
Why doesn’t watching
Israeli bulldozers (bought with American dollars) flatten your home or seeing
your mother shot through the front door by IDF soldiers (with American weapons)
qualify as terrorism?
Why is door-to-door
raping, murdering and beating being reported as “increased fighting levels?”
Since when does
the systematic butchering of Palestinians who have lived in the West Bank
for generations qualify as “broadening
the battle front?”
Bush is sending Powell over there next week and Israel has
stepped up the level of destruction to a fever pitch, anticipating having then
to broker a “cease fire.”
What’s
going on is nothing less than genocide…ethnic cleansing.
Let’s use a favorite term of the Chosen: Holocaust.
All that’s left is for Sharon (not known as the “Butcher of Sabra”
for nothing) to fire up the ovens and start feeding the mangled bodies of all
those women, children and old men down the conveyor chutes, in
order for him to take his place in history alongside other great
villains: Attila, Stalin, Hitler,
Sharon…
Look at the following two pictures and see for yourself in
graphic detail just what is meant by “fighting” in the Israeli lexicon:
This is a Palestinian youth in the custody of Israeli Defense
Force soldiers.
Notice how they simply took him around the corner and shot
him.
Notice, also, the American M16s used to kill this kid.
Your tax dollars paid for them.
They bought the IDF uniforms you see, as well.
Your tax dollars pay their salaries and bought the vehicles in which they rode
to this Palestinian town.
You helped kill
this kid and, likely, the rest of his family.
So did I. We did it by
allowing the criminal organization that
America
has become to prop up and aid madmen like Ariel Sharon. Without
America,
Israel
would have been overrun long ago and consigned to the ignominious
postscript reserved for it in the annals of history.
Robert Penn Warren wrote one of the best American novels ever
written, All the King’s Men, in 1946. I
first read it in about 1960, a time when I was still intensely proud of America. I
was a high-school freshman. Viet Nam
was just starting up. John F.
Kennedy had just been sworn in as President.
It seemed our best days lay before us.
All the King’s Men relates the rise and fall of Willie Stark,
populist politician modeled loosely on the life of Huey Long.
Aside from being immensely absorbing and entertaining, the book does the
best job of any I have ever seen of painting a man’s fall from grace.
At the end, I still had a great deal of sympathy for Willie; I genuinely
liked him even though he had become the very sort of monster he first set out to
vanquish. It was remarkable to realize that there was no single place
in the novel where Willie Stark crossed over from being good to bad.
When
did we become the bad guy?
-ed
"I didn't say it would be easy. I just said it
would be the truth."
- Morpheus
Copyright © Edgar J. Steele,
2002
Forward as you wish.
Permission is granted to circulate
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in full in all not-for-profit publications.
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all other rights, which are reserved.
Write to me at
Steele@ConspiracyPenPal.com
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