Sir Arthur C. B. E. Wholeflaffers A.S.A. <nospam@newsranger.com> wrote in message news:<N7Sab.21090$cJ5.2923@www.newsranger.com>...

Buy One, Get One Free By Arundhati Roy

In these times, when we have to race to keep abreast of the speed at which our
freedoms are being snatched from us, and when few can afford the luxury of
retreating from the streets for a while in order to return with an exquisite,
fully formed political thesis replete with footnotes and references, what
profound gift can I offer you tonight? 

As we lurch from crisis to crisis, beamed directly into our brains by satellite
TV, we have to think on our feet. On the move. We enter histories through the
rubble of war. Ruined cities, parched fields, shrinking forests, and dying
rivers are our archives. Craters left by daisy cutters, our libraries. 

So what can I offer you tonight? Some uncomfortable thoughts about money, war,
empire, racism, and democracy. Some worries that flit around my brain like a
family of persistent moths that keep me awake at night. 

Some of you will think it bad manners for a person like me, officially entered
in the Big Book of Modern Nations as an "Indian citizen," to come here and
criticize the U.S. government. Speaking for myself, I'm no flag-waver, no
patriot, and am fully aware that venality, brutality, and hypocrisy are
imprinted on the leaden soul of every state. But when a country ceases to be
merely a country and becomes an empire, then the scale of operations changes
dramatically. So may I clarify that tonight I speak as a subject of the American
Empire? I speak as a slave who presumes to criticize her king. 

Since lectures must be called something, mine tonight is called: Instant-Mix
Imperial Democracy (Buy One, Get One Free). 

Way back in 1988, on the 3rd of July, the U.S.S. Vincennes, a missile cruiser
stationed in the Persian Gulf, accidentally shot down an Iranian airliner and
killed 290 civilian passengers. George Bush the First, who was at the time on
his presidential campaign, was asked to comment on the incident. He said quite
subtly, "I will never apologize for the United States. I don't care what the
facts are." 

I don't care what the facts are. What a perfect maxim for the New American
Empire. Perhaps a slight variation on the theme would be more apposite: The
facts can be whatever we want them to be. 

Hmmmmmm.........

Undaunted by all this, on the 2nd of May Bush the Lesser launched his 2004
campaign hoping to be finally elected U.S. President. In what probably
constitutes the shortest flight in history, a military jet landed on an aircraft
carrier, the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln, which was so close to shore that, according
to the Associated Press, administration officials acknowledged "positioning the
massive ship to provide the best TV angle for Bush's speech, with the sea as his
background instead of the San Diego coastline." 

Ummmm, a coastline is not visible from a ship when you are 39 miles
offshore, it's below the horizon. Even if it was visible in the
background, all he had to do was have his press conference on the
other side of the ship so that he's the one facing shore, with the sea
to his back, and the cameras have San Diego behind them.



President Bush, who never served

his term in the military, emerged from the cockpit in fancy dress - a U.S.
military bomber jacket, combat boots, flying goggles, helmet. 

It's called a flight suit and it's required wear for safety reasons.