Tuesday, August 21, 2012

Watergate







The Watergate scandal broke 40 years ago this summer.  The discovery that the Nixon administration was behind a "third rate burglary" of Democratic Party offices would lead to the first and only Presidential resignation in American history.

What was the lesson learned?  The commentariat solemnly pontificates away about the rule of law and constitutional constraints, but the real lesson learned was "don't get caught."

The Iran-Contra scandal 14 years later was far more serious.  It was an act of high treason intended to circumvent Congress and the law in order to fund a right wing insurgency in left wing ruled Nicaragua by selling arms to the very hostile regime in Iran.  In another country in another age, all those responsible would have hanged.  In 1986, the whole affair was successfully "managed," a brilliant work of damage control that bullied Congress and law enforcement agencies into whimpering impotence and transformed Oliver North, a man who sold arms to our sworn enemies and destroyed evidence, into a national hero.  Success proved to be its own justification.

And now we live in a grotesque brutalized world where we are presented with a choice between two different kinds of savagery:  the nihilism of international market capitalism, or the tribalism of religious fundamentalism and ideological politics.  And while we all gleefully cut each others throats, those who fixed the game are quietly saying "dance puppets!"




3 comments:

JCF said...

I see your vay-cay mellowed you, Doug. ;-p

Right now, I'm getting too angry about "legitimate rape" distinguished from "forcible rape" distinguished from "false rape" to be able to SEE straight right now. The levels of misogyny are EXCRUCIATINGLY apparent.

I think I've figured it (the wingnuts) out:

There's a right-to-life from conception. But as human life---w/ bodily autonomy---for those conceived as XX, this human life CEASES at menarche (puberty). From then on, her life is determined by the contents of her uterus. And, being this lesser "Human, Female Subclass" status, her autonomy to give LACK of consent to sexual intercourse, is automatically suspect (hence "False Rape").*

*Unless she's white, and he's black. Then it's "Hang the Rapist High!"

Doesn't that really explain it?

Unknown said...

Those in power
are ONLY power hungry
and have zero common sense.

I no longer believe in our system,
because we cannot help but fall
into extremism pits that hurt, and kill
our population.

Audrey & Kitt said...

Kitt and I love the line about capitalism and tribalism. We printed this quote out and re-read it now and then to help us analyze current events and every day attocities.

Why can't you be on CNN instead of Andrew Sullivan?

We also came of age in the Watergate era, but your take on it is incredible! We love reading about Watergate!