William Rivers Pitt for President
http://truthout.org/docs_03/031903A.shtml
I know that my presidential picks are fickle, but there are so many good potential candidates out there.
I just hope Mr. Pitt is not psychic. In this piece (Into the Darkness), he's describing a terrifying potential scenario unfolding from this war. I'm afraid he might be dead on.
Below this piece, there are a number of links to others by the same author. I clicked on "The Other American Dream."
http://truthout.com/docs_02/09.01A.wrp.am.drm.htm
It took me back around the circle to my previous post below. What will the neocons do next? Mr. Pitt is standing on the higher ground:
The American Dream has come to mean a variety of things pertaining to ownership. Having your own home is part of the American Dream, as is owning a car, having a job, and the pursuit of monetary wealth. This is all well and good, for we live in a capitalist society so large that it would make Adam Smith faint dead away. Through it all, however, runs the pulsing heartbeat of those three simple concepts.
Of course, we have never achieved the lofty goals set by the Founders in this regard; liberty is still denied to many, and the pursuit of happiness is impossible for citizens treated unequally. Yet the American Dream, at bottom, is bent towards the creation of that more perfect union, where wrongs are made right and happiness is well within reach.
This is the American Dream we speak of openly, in daylight, when the children gather to learn about the land they call home. This is what we tell the immigrants when they raise their hands to take the pledge and become citizens. This is what we tell ourselves when we feel the need to be convinced that this nation is indeed good and great.
There is another American Dream which lurks in shadow, and speaks only in whispers of its designs. This other American Dream runs dark and silent, on rails lubricated by oil, blood and power. It works at all hours of the day and night to achieve its goals. It does not sleep. The existence of this other American Dream places the first one, the real one, the true one, in terrible peril. If this other American Dream is allowed to blossom into its intended potential, the American Dream we speak of to our children will cease completely to exist.
The proponents of this other American Dream look at the world in terms of empire. They seek to achieve hegemony over great swaths of strategically-important territory, and will do whatever is necessary to gain this control. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, they see America as the first truly global superpower. With the use of economic and military might, they seek to gain absolute dominion in the space opened by the fall of our former rival. The term "Globalization" encapsulates only a fraction of the plan.
For many years, the proponents of this other American Dream lingered in neo-conservative think tanks, like the Committee on the Present Danger, where they could only snipe from the fringes. With the rise to power of George W. Bush, in an election that denied him even the pretense of a mandate, these neo-conservative strategists suddenly found themselves walking the halls of power, because Bush was forced in the absence of a mandate to fall back upon his neo-conservative base for support. The other American Dream, alive for so long only in white papers within these think tanks, has become the central framework of American policy.
Go to the link to read the rest, and check out Pitt's other writings.
1:02:04 PM
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