Dancing with the Beast

[dropcap]I[/dropcap]n Oliver Stone's brilliant film Nixon there is one scene that underlines the whole prism of this Military Industrial Empire. In this scene, we see thousands of young Americans camping out at the Lincoln Memorial to protest our involvement in Vietnam. Nixon cannot sleep, and actually gets his valet to drive him over to the Memorial. Nixon begins to engage some of the students in conversation, using his knowledge of college football to disarm them. It fails. One young woman confronts him on the war. Nixon, using his previous skills as a college debater, begins a mini monologue on the current situation. Suddenly the young woman interrupts him saying " You can't stop it even if you wanted to!" Nixon then explains how this entire system that we live under is like a Beast that has a life of its own. Even he as president can only attempt to ' control ' it, this Beast.

NBC careerist Lester Holt—his betrayal all the more repugnant for being a Black American.

Since WW2 our nation has lived under the auspices of this Military Industrial Empire and its Beast. Every single president has worked for this Beast in one way or another, regardless of being a Republican or Democrat. Imperialism is our national tonic, and all who serve this empire drink it. That goes for politicians and mainstream media members of all stripes. Even many academics still carry the water for this Beast, regardless of calling themselves conservative or liberal/progressive. Look at C-Span for a minute. Brian Lamb, its founder, worked for the Nixon White House. He appears to be so ' grandfatherly' and open minded, but in reality C-Span makes sure true 'anti imperialists ' and true ' socialists ' rarely are seen or covered. When they are covered it is either late at night or on a Sunday early morning. Recently, C-Span covered a class lecture by Prof. Margaret O'Mara at the University of Washington on the 1968 political year. She explains to her students how we were fighting in Vietnam to stop a ' Communist insurgency' orchestrated by the Soviet Union and Red China. Never did she explain to the students that this was a Civil War, since Vietnam was originally ONE nation divided by the colonial French with US aid. Never did she raise the question of what right did our country have to even be involved there in the first place! Doesn't this echo what happened in 2003 regarding Iraq? What right did we have in attacking another sovereign nation, and then occupying it?  This writer recalls the almost obscene cheerleading by our entire mainstream media as we carpet bombed Baghdad.  Little Katie Couric of NBC yelled out her famous ' Marines Rock ' to millions of viewers. Lester Holt of MSNBC (owned by defense contractor General Electric) described the invasion force on steroids as if it was the Normandy landings on D-Day. Of course, a few years later Lester got his promotion to evening news anchor... and host of one of the 2016 presidential debates.

This writer recalls one C-Span show soon after 9/11 when they had Prof. Alan Dershowitz as a guest. Good old Alan actually was lobbying for a National Identity Card. After he was off air, this writer called into the show and actually got on air. I said that Dershowitz's ancestors and their friends, some of whom may have been burned in the Holocaust flames, would now be ' turning over in their graves '. I then added, using a German accent,  " Are you visiting Germany or are you staying here" and with that the host cut me off. Dear Alan, who serves the Beast so well, disguises himself as a ' Liberal ' as he defends 90% of what Israel does, and never once will speak out against US imperialist wars and occupations. He hides behind debating the Constitution whenever it serves him (or the Beast )and gets his books published and makes a small fortune. His newest book, with a joke of a title " The Case Against Impeaching Trump" is another attempt to circumvent the real reasons why Trump is so dangerous to all of us working stiffs. I mean, people like Dershowitz, a mega millionaire, will never contradict the ' free market ' and the right to earn mega bucks while so many of us are two or three paychecks from being on the street.

So long as so many working stiffs continue to drink this empire's Kool Aid, the Beast will ask them to dance... until ' Death do they part'.