Evolution of Consciousness

Some documentaries pack a punch. After watching Gasland (2010) I felt like the wind had been knocked out.

Briefly, for those who haven’t seen it, the movie pursues the story of natural gas extraction, which involves a process called hydraulic fracturing (or “fracking”), which is accomplished by pumping vast amounts of toxic chemicals deep into the earth. The movie focuses on where all that poison goes, after injection.

That sounds bad enough, but the beauty part is what has become known as the “Halliburton Loophole.” Cooked up in the corporate meth lab of Cheney/Bush, this 2005 bill exempts gas companies from the Safe Drinking Water Act, allows them to keep secret the contents of their toxic brew, and completely removes the Environmental Protection Agency from the picture. A greedy devil’s dream come true.

People who live near these wells enjoy showing the filmmaker how they can now light their tap water on fire. No one seems interested in drinking the stuff. How did we come to this? Are we so addicted to energy that we’re willing to sacrifice our ability to live?

After Fukushima, I was amazed to hear people scoff at the dangers of nuclear radiation. They want their electricity, and aren’t willing to consider any notion of possible limits in exchange for safety or sanity. We hear the same attitudes about oil consumption, essentially choosing power over life. Native Americans call this way of thinking the Death Path. Well named.

“Is Obama Even Worse Than Bush?” by David Swanson.

“This Shameful Abuse of Bradley Manning” by Daniel Ellsberg.

“U.S. Justice v. The World” by Glenn Greenwald.

On the other hand, and in a different part of the world, better news: “Bush Cancels Europe Trip Amid Calls for His Arrest” by Justin Elliot.

Ralph Nader’s thoughts on the little psychopath’s book tour: “Bush At Large.”

Earlier this month, when asked about investigating the crimes of the Bush Administration, Obama had some good things to say, but ended with the statement that he was more interested in looking forward than back. Give that line a try the next time you get pulled over…

Officer: “Do you know why I stopped you?”

Driver: “Interesting question, officer, but I’d rather look forward than back.”

It wouldn’t work, because bullshit is not tolerated in that particular real-life situation. Unfortunately, the world of politics has a much higher threshold.

Jane Mayer’s recent book The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How The War on Terror Turned into a War on American Ideals is a detailed exploration into the Bush Administration’s embrace of illegal detention and torture. It focuses on the secret legal gymnastics they went through to “justify” criminal acts. Why so secret? Because every time a decent, sane, law-abiding person saw what they were doing they reacted with disbelief, horror, and disgust. So the corrupt inner circle wrapped themselves in the flag, worked in the dark, and barked menacingly when anyone approached.

Dick Cheney was, of course, the heart of darkness. David Addington served as his junkyard dog, and John Yoo was their legal chihuahua. (By the way, shame on U.C. Berkeley for employing Yoo, and shame on Stanford for harboring Condi Rice. These institutions obviously have no moral standards.) Yoo and Addington, with their “creative” legal interpretations, paved the way for Cheney and Bush to steer the Executive Branch into dictator land. (To get a sense of how these two yahoos operate, look up coverage of Addington and Yoo’s contemptuous performance before the House Judiciary subcommittee last summer.)

Immediately after 9/11, one of the things that should have happened was an investigation, which would have revealed the incompetence and laziness of the CIA and Bush Administration which, sadly, allowed the hijackers to succeed. With some honest reflection, these institutions could have learned from their mistakes. But the reality was that the two Georges responsible, Tenet and Bush, quickly agreed that there would be no investigations (they knew what they would find). Instead, they pointed in other directions, and overreacted in some very destructive ways, stirring up lots of fear, hatred, and violence. Here’s a sampling from Mayer’s book:

“With little warning, a half-dozen masked men in black whisked two Egyptian asylum seekers, Muhammad Zery and Ahmed Agiza, into an empty office at Stockholm’s Bromma Airport. Working in swift, synchronized lockstep, the masked men cut off the Egyptians’ clothes with scissors and placed the shreds in bags. They forcibly administered sedatives by anal suppository, swaddled the prisoners in diapers, and dressed them in orange jumpsuits and hoods, with no cutouts for their eyes…the suspects were placed in handcuffs and leg irons and photographed.”

Let that sink in, figuratively speaking, for just a moment. Nice use of tax dollars, if you’re trying to win the hearts and minds of sadists around the world. And that’s just the initial apprehension. Snapshots from Abu Ghraib testify to some of the fun that followed. It’s illegal, unethical, immoral, inhumane, and should not be tolerated. As a human being, I’m appalled. As an American, I’m ashamed. We need a serious investigation to get to the bottom of what happened, and the people responsible need to be brought to justice. I’m not talking about the soldiers following orders as much as the chickenhawks giving the orders. We keep hearing platitudes like “no one is above the law,” but we keep seeing something entirely different play out, year after year, administration after administration. It’s time we got serious about following through on all these high ideals we like to spout.

Now I appreciate Obama’s desire to look forward. There are lots of challenges ahead that he needs to focus on. But he also needs to fully support Congress in their responsibility to investigate and prosecute the criminals that just vacated the White House.

Here’s the recent history lesson: America did not fully investigate and prosecute Iran-Contra, which was the Reagan Administration’s secret, illegal flouting of Congress and the Constitution. Many perpetrators and close observers of that crime came back to help run Bush’s latest round of lawbreaking and abuse of executive power. Until we stop this cycle, we will continue to suffer from it. That’s why the traffic cop usually ends up writing the ticket. People need consequences to correct their behavior. George W. Bush hasn’t encountered many consequences in his silver-spooned life. I think it’s time he got one.

Senator Pat Leahy is trying to build on the good foundational work of Representative John Conyers to shine some light on the many Bush crimes. You can support that effort at BushTruthCommission.com