The Emperor Has Been Exposed, But Not to All, and Not Enough

[bemildred]

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It is not enough to ask if the president is an idiot. We must ask why the Congress and mainstream media have cheered the idiocy on so long, and actively contributed to it. They’re like the townspeople in Hans Christian Anderson’s tale, praising the new clothes of the butt-naked king. But in the story, once the little boy calls out, “The emperor has no clothes!” the individuals in the crowd, having been frightened into thinking only idiots couldn’t see the monarch’s elegant new attire, come to their senses and realize they’ve been hoodwinked. The word’s been out on the street for a long time that this president is an idiot -- surrounded by shysters as cunning as the tailors in the Anderson tale. MSNBC could have told us that some years ago. Instead the political class and the media have maintained a united front in support of the idiotic proposition that 9-11 justifies U.S.-forced regime change in any country that Washington decides to call “terrorist.” If it’s an Islamic country targeted by AIPAC, the roar of approval is deafening.

So on the one hand, the task of exposure is done. Those who understand can talk until we’re blue in the face reiterating what is for us the obvious. But there are so many out there, so exasperatingly dumb, at the mercy of loud-mouthed media buttheads and low-life political disinformation artists such as the congressmen insisting both that Iraqi WMD have been found and that Iran poses a real “strategic threat” to the U.S.

There are some in the crowd who see the naked emperor but suffering from delusions actually believe he’s well-dressed. They need help. Therapy, even. Those of us who see -- or at least think we see -- clearly, must guard against complacency as we notice the new, welcome, belated mainstream recognition of objective reality. We can’t underestimate the obstinate power of delusions as manipulated by the administration’s propaganda-disinformation apparatus. The neocons know (but probably don’t much care) that the majority of Americans now understand they were taken for a ride on Iraq. “Let’s just move on,” the hoax perpetrators say. “Why dwell on that historical issue?” They must take heart at the above-mentioned poll. Fully 73% of the American crowd looks on at their disinformation parade and thinks Iran is a national security threat to the U.S. Over half anticipate a war with Iran within five years!

Plainly many people who understand that Bush is a fool, and that they were lied to about Iraq, are unable yet to see that all these regime-changing projects in the Middle East are part of a broad plan to refashion the region in the interests of U.S. imperialism -- as interpreted by the Cheney-Rumsfeld neocon cabal -- by the end of Bush’s second term. Those who see it should argue it, relentlessly, even as we watch with horror that which we fear unfold.


Gary Leupp is a Professor of History, and Adjunct Professor of Comparative Religion, at Tufts University and author of numerous works on Japanese history.

Dissident Voice

[C_U_L8R]

1. The president's tailors continue to spin

that "magical" cloth of lies and deception.

For the full effect... we all need to be laughing at em.

[LibDemAlways]

2. That PNAC isn't common knowledge is the

fault of the corporate media whores who have plenty of time for a delusional kook falsely confessing to a decade-old murder, but can't seem to find a few minutes to expose the delusional - and dangerous - nutcases running the country into the ground through lies, deceit, and unworkable pie-in-the-sky "let's pretend we can force our version of 'democracy' onto an uncooperative Middle East" fantasies.

If the printing presses suddenly stopped and the airwaves went dead, the American people would be no worse off and uninformed than they already are.