Reply #61: Those without cable might appreciate this 5/17 piece by Chalmers Johnson from Asia Times

[Bozita]

Rodeodance posted this in the Editorial forum here at DU:

Long but worth it to read.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/IE17Ak04.html

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DISPATCHES FROM AMERICA
The case for imperial liquidation
By Chalmers Johnson
........
.........Promoting lies, demoting democracy

Without question, the Bush administration's catastrophic war in Iraq is the single overarching issue that has convinced a large majority of Americans that their country is "heading in the wrong direction". But the war itself is the outcome of an imperial presidency and the abject failure of Congress to perform its constitutional duty of oversight. Had the government been working as the authors of the US constitution intended, the war could not have occurred. Even now, the Democratic majority remains reluctant to use its power of the purse to cut off funding for the war, thereby ending the US occupation of Iraq and starting to curtail the ever-growing power of the military-industrial complex.

One major problem of the US social and political system is the failure of the press, especially television news, to inform the public about the true breadth of the unconstitutional activities of the executive branch. As Frederick A O Schwarz and Aziz Z Huq, the authors of Unchecked and Unbalanced: Presidential Power in a Time of Terror, observe, "For the public to play its proper checking role at the ballot box, citizens must know what is done by the government in their names."

Instead of uncovering Bush administration lies and manipulations, the US media actively promoted them. Yet the First Amendment to the US constitution protects the press precisely so it can penetrate the secrecy that is the bureaucrat's most powerful, self-protective weapon. As a result of this failure, democratic oversight of the government by an actively engaged citizenry did not - and could not - occur. The people of the United States became mere spectators as an array of ideological extremists, vested interests and foreign operatives - including domestic neo-conservatives, Ahmad Chalabi and his Iraqi exiles, the Israel lobby, the petroleum and automobile industries, warmongers and profiteers allied with the military-industrial complex, and the entrenched interests of the professional military establishment - in essence hijacked the government.

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