by Democrats Ramshield
Tue Nov 20th, 2012 at 08:31:43 AM EST
(Written by an American expat living in the European Union)
The German mainstream magazine Der Spiegel has published an article entitled, Sex, Lies & the CIA. That title has inspired me to write this diary, as ours has become a land where betrayal of the trust that we put in public officials has not only become common place, it is in fact expected, as if it had become part of our American DNA, or national political genome, as part of the natural order of things in the modern day neo-feudalist America. Where we're told by the media, Americans punish honesty and reward betrayal, and therefore the media merely gives the American people what they want, which is 'happy talk.'
The media tells us that Americans accept betrayal by the political class willingly by their apathy, and therefore get the government they deserve.
In a clear case wherein the oaths of office and campaign promises of elected and appointed officials are generally disregarded, because their betrayal of us has become an accepted norm in America, which rarely if ever is punished. Therefore this makes the resignation of David Petraeus as spy master and chief over a sex scandal somewhat unique in modern American history.
THE DAVID PETRAEUS AFFAIR VS. THE GENERAL YOU HAVE BETRAYED US AFFAIR IN WASHINGTON
Yet amazingly we all seem shocked when it happens again. This diary isn't about the lurid details of the affair between Gen. David Petraeus and Paula Broadwell and the expanding investigation that included Gen. Allen and Jill Kelley, which caused David Petraeus to resign as director of the Central Intelligence Agency, when a leaked FBI investigation into alleged threatening emails sent to Jill Kelley, reportedly led to Paula Broadwell's email account, (which allegedly revealed an affair between David Petraeus and Paula Broadwell). This diary also isn't about alleged improper emails sent from General Allen to Jill Kelley.
It is instead about the betrayal of the public by its public officials and by the American press corps, whom have stopped covering real news of real importance to mainstream America in favor of profitable, gottcha tabloid journalism.
The media betrayed U.S.
This diary is about what happens to a country that has been sold out. A country where old style shoe leather investigative reporting is dead, as is the trust that the American people have in its public officials wherein we put our children, our faith and the future of our country in their hands, only to be sold out in favor of the K street lobbyists time and time again, and the for-profit American plutocrat owned media. In a clear case where elections like the 2 billion dollar virtually depoliticized election of 2012 that we just went through, are bought and paid for by private capital, primarily financial capital. This against the backdrop of an American society which has become increasingly atomized. In a clear case where the American public feels powerless and angry with millions no longer knowing the way out.
In a posture where 59 million people don't have any health insurance, 132 million are without dental insurance, 45 million are on food stamps. In what must be seen as the death of the working class American dream wherein one third of all mortgages are underwater. The student loan debt bubble stands at a billion dollars and then suddenly along comes the General Petraeus affair to remind us that we can't trust our public officials.
Has America truly become a land of puritan happy talk that punishes honesty and rewards expected betrayal?
Why did this happen? Certainly he could have divorced his wife and had a girlfriend, clearly that would have been more honest. No one in mainstream America would have ever expected him to resign over that. But the truth is as betrayal by our public officials in Washington of the trust of ordinary working class Americans has become so common place, so ingrained in Washington culture that we've come to expect it, some say demand it, to the point where honest people can't get elected or appointed to public office anymore.
So where oh where has America lost is way!
Let's examine for a moment the reality that we in America routinely for generations ever since the bonus march of World War I veterans on Washington have accepted as the norm the betrayal of our American veterans.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonus_march
When our veterans return to civilian life they are regularly cheated out of many of their veteran benefits (and medical care), leaving hundreds of thousands of American veterans in desperate shape unable to get needed medical care. This however isn't new. To reiterate it's all happened before and keeps happening. It happened again during the Vietnam War, where more veterans committed suicide than were actually killed by the so-called enemy and now the whole thing is happening all over to a new generation of young Americans. The Washington establishment and press corps for the most part don't care, that these veterans can't get the necessary medical and psychiatric care.
Both Army captains died on March 21, a continent apart. The next day, and the next day, and the next, more soldiers would die by their own hand, one every day on average, about as many as are dying on the battlefield. These are active-duty personnel, still under the military's control and protection. Among all veterans, a suicide occurs every 80 minutes, round the clock.
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2119337,00.html
But where I live in the European Union that doesn't happen because here they have socialized medicine which essentially covers 100% of the population from cradle to grave as a human right, but that doesn't matter to the American press corps with their for-profit orientation, because in America (unlike Europe) they don't have to compete with publicly owned media. That's why they're apart of the 'Betray us' affair. Likewise, half of our members of Congress are millionaires and they will not make their ilk, who are the ultra rich pay their fair share of the taxes and they therefore too have become part of the 'Betray us' affair.
America has the only purely for-profit medical system and according to a recent Harvard study, this causes 45,000 Americans to die prematurely each and every year. This too is a part of the 'Betray us' affair. When these Americans pass, even though their numbers far exceed the number of war dead in all the American wars combined, there are no monuments built to the memory of these fallen Americans who are victims of the class warfare conducted against ordinary working class people by the American plutocracy. To which this diary asks, aren't these victims human? Aren't they our fellow Americans? But this too is a part of the general 'betray us' affair and quite perversely our press corps instead of focusing on these issues, they focus on the affair of David Petraeus and Paula Broadwell. This to their eternal shame to which we should note that pigs can have no shame. That is if they're capitalist pigs, but it's more than just that isn't it?
"Only FOUR OUT OF 150 countries have more wealth inequality than US."
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/11/19-3
Aren't we betrayed by the national deficit?
When the deficitdue to the actions of the Wall Street banksters threatens to topple not only the American economy but to collapse the global economy, in what the German magazine Spiegel called 'a monumental insider bank robbery'. No one went to jail. Except for Bernie Madoff, because this too is a part of the general betray us affair. Now let's be clear that my heart bleeds peanut butter for the falling star of the darling of the GOP who is David Petraeus, but I note that the man (even if true) was trapped in a bad marriage should have been allowed to get a divorce and still keep his career. He shouldn't have been forced to feel that he had to carry on this subterfuge that led to this preventable scandal. That was forced by the fact that we are such a fine, moral, upstanding nation that we would force this man's resignation, while at the same time we don't force other public officials to step down who were responsible for the failures of 9/11, who are responsible for keeping a completely dysfunctional medical system going. Who exactly was it who had to resign because of the Wall Street crash in 2008. No one was forced to resign, no one goes to jail because we expect these people to betray us. In keeping with our site mission here if we're going to help elect better progressive politicians, then this must change.
PS:
(So it is now that we turn from this commercial interruption back to our regularly scheduled program to give us all of the salacious details (smile) in the thrust of the matter of the David Petraeus and Paula Broadwell affair, and how some yet to be named rogue FBI agent leaked the whole matter to the press after sending numerous (allegedly) unwanted topless photos of themselves to Paula Broadwell and...............(tongue in cheek)........)
