The Pay of Bigs Operation

We’re fresh from our triumphant whatever in the Middle East (Victory? Occupation? Nation Building?). Now that effort has been taken away from the DOD and put in the hands of piano playing chickenhen, Condelezza Rice. So DOD has some time on its hands, I guess. Hola, before you can say “Libre!” the Administration has now decided to take our eyes off the prize and launch a new front…on Cuba.

Fidel stinks, OK. But I must have missed the whole, “Cuba has weapons of mass destruction and could strike us in just minutes,” part of the rationale. Doesn’t matter, clearly. Doesn't matter for Iraq anymore, does it? Perhaps Cuba is threatening the security of those non-charged enemy combatants in Gitmo. They could be over the wall and free those terrorists in minutes, after all. To paraphrase Jack Nicholson in A Few Good Men: I just can’t handle the truth.

At least we'll have plenty of native language speakers, already in the military this time, to help with the interrogations.

But turning seriously to this latest, craven play to ensure that the Cuban vote in Florida stays with the Republicans in 2004, President Bush has now speechified about the open arms with which we plan to greet all Cubans fleeing the dictator Castro. Things are pretty lousy in Mexico and most of Central and South American, but our arms appear resolutely shut to desperate liberation seekers from those countries.

In fact, we are preparing to rush humanitarian aid to Cuba in the event that the government finally collapses. I can only wonder how many billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars will line the bottomless pockets of the likes of Halliburton and the “consultants” who peddle access up and down K street (“peddling access” is the domestic equivalent of taking bribes to get things done, a practice we decry when done by those corrupt evil-doers in foreign countries). I can also only wonder, along with more radio shows beamed to Castro’s Cuba, how many stingers we’ll be sending, just like we did in Afghanistan, to the Taliban, but a few short years ago.

In other words, what with all the profits to be had from war mongering and war profiteering, our leadership class is in the pay of the bigs. The rich, as usual, are employing the elected.

And along with the profits, our same engines of industry (owned and operated by the rich) are rushing to send our decent paying middle class jobs to countries that have no human rights, let along OSHA or the EPA. Sending jobs to countries that employ slave labor policies, like China, really means that we have reincorporated slavery back into our economy. It means that we have found a way to work around that pesky prohibition against slavery in the U.S. (like when you buy sneakers made there). It means that when we finish freeing Cuba, that country’s citizens will be free at last to work in sweatshops at slave wages with no hope of getting out from under the grinding economic wheel.

After all, that’s what Nafta has wrought for Mexicans, among others. That’s why they’re rushing our borders in droves. In fact, if the illegal immigrants from Mexico, Central and South America had any sense, they would get phony documents that made them Cubans. Or sneak into Cuba first and then flee to Miami from there. That way they would be greeted with open arms by the Bushies, embraced and instantly given green cards. Go figure.

Cuba? One of our first exploited colonies is now in the cross hairs again. By the time we finish, the people there will probably still be exploited and bad off, the U.S. taxpayer will be even deeper in debt and the war-profiteers colluding with the White House will be even fatter cats than they are now.

And speaking of fat cats, hats off to Rush Limbaugh for fessing up that he’s a junkie ”I am no role model,” he said. My heart goes out to him. Really. I’ve always advocated treatment not jail for junkies.

For his sake, I can only hope he is not treated as harshly as he has for so long advocated junkies, like him, be treated. Otherwise he’s looking at a long jolt in a tough prison. But hey, those weak-minded liberals have probably forced the prison he’d wind up in to waste some money on a rehabilitation program.

Maybe they’ve got a prison radio station. That way he can while away his stretch broadcasting his “get tough on crime” preacheries. It’ll give him something to do, since they probably won’t be offering him decent drug treatment options, thanks to efforts of conservatives like him. ¶ 4:37 PM