Empire of the Son
Hail Caesar and The Pax Americana

I remember just prior to Election Day 2000, I was talking to a friend about how Bush would probably get elected just because Gore was coming off as such an arrogant jerk. The presidency is a popularity contest, we joked. We also joked about where the first war would be. It was funny then. We never suspected that the war would start at home, or that it would primarily a battle for the paranoid mind of the American public.

After the first few tons of bombs had fallen on Afghanistan and they still hadn't nailed our new enemy, terrorism, we joked again that they'd try to link al Quaeda to Iraq. Again, this sounded preposterous enough at the time to be a little humorous. "Lookitchew now", as Tony Montana might say. Perhaps the most disturbing part of America's new war is its ethereal nature. We've declared war on an abstract noun , and declared that it's over when we say so. The problem here being that the more we do to battle the alleged problem, the more we anger the lunatic fringe that IS the problem. It doesn't take a genius to untangle this cycle and its roots. If you do even some superficial research, you'll start seeing the same names appearing in association with conflict around the world, and these same people are the ones who ultimately are the only people who benefit from war, terrorism, and international tensions. Who's at the center of this circle of lunacy? Well, in our cosmetically democratic two-party system, it's hard to separate the sycophants from the psychos, but we'll do our best.

The Madness of King George
...George's madness ultimately left the fate of the crown on his eldest son George....Prince George was put in the daunting position of attempting to govern according to the increasingly erratic will of his father....
(britannia.com)

There are more parallels between Georges 41 & 43 and Georges II & III than we like to think about. More disturbing than the bit of humour above is perhaps the following:

• HE has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the Tenure of their Offices, and the Amount and Payment of their Salaries.
• HE has erected a Multitude of new Offices, and sent hither Swarms of Officers to harass our People, and eat out their Substance.
• HE has kept among us, in Times of Peace, Standing Armies, without the consent of our Legislatures.
• HE has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.
• FOR depriving us, in many Cases, of the Benefits of Trial by Jury:
• FOR transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended Offences:
• HE has called together Legislative Bodies at Places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the Depository of their public Records, for the sole Purpose of fatiguing them into Compliance with his Measures.

Forgive us, but these protests outlined in the Declaration of Independence sound an awful lot like something one might say about George Bush today. A rather significant difference being the formal structure of royalty in America, vs. that of 18th century England. British Royalty not only possessed all the wealth and political power, they were assumed to be direct representatives of God Almighty. The Bushes may possess all the wealth & power in America, but they only ACT like direct representatives of God. Although the Bushes are clearly a very powerful expression of modern American royalty, their bizarre combination of Ivy League educations, Nazi affiliations, Big Oil & Defense interests, and down-home Texas patter do a good job of throwing one off this line of thinking. However, it doesn't take much digging to start seeing the connections.

Ignore That Man Behind the Curtain!
A great place to start is with some of the mission statements and manifestos at NewAmericanCentury.org --- this group outlined much of today's current political agenda back in 1992 before Bush Sr. blew re-election. They also nicely reinforce the analogy of the Bushes and the Caesars by using terms like "Pax Americana", insisting that American global rule is the only alternative for the Post Cold War world. As Washington rallied to dismantle Clinton's Legacy, these cats were at it again explaining, in baroque double-speak, how as the most powerful nation on Earth, we weren't powerful enough:

In one paragraph, they begin with:
"Paradoxically, as American power and influence are at their apogee, American military forces limp toward exhaustion, unable to meet the demands of their many and varied missions, including preparing for tomorrow's battlefield."
The next paragraph begins with:
"This is no paradox; it is the inevitable consequence of the failure to match military means to geopolitical ends."

In their "Core Missions", they also discuss plans for controlling outer space and your computer:
"CONTROL THE NEW 'INTERNATIONAL COMMONS' OF SPACE AND 'CYBERSPACE', and pave the way for the creation of a new military service - U.S. Space Forces - with the mission of space control."
Space control? Do these guys have any concept of how big "space" is?

If you actually read the various mission statements and letters at NewAmericanCentury.org , you'll get a disturbing overview of who is planning what, and if you're really paying attention, you'll lose any hope that the mainstream media in this country is much different than Pravda during the cold war. In the list of names at the bottom of their Statement of Principles page, dated June 3, 1997, you'll see names you might expect, like Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Wolfowitz, as well as pardoned or officially ignored criminals names, like Eliot Abrams & Jeb Bush, but you'll also see the names of lots of well known journalists and editors, who've clearly moved through an important new type of revolving door in Washington. Research these names and follow the trails of credible information, and you'll realize that this president, George W. Bush, may be the mouthpiece for an agenda, but couldn't possibly be the informed leader that one would hope for as one who holds the office of President of the United States. Nor could he even begin to stand for any of the values that most Americans would consider to be those of a good American. Virtually every key figure in the current administration can be connected with the oil or defense industries, and very few of them are first-generation politicians. Most are in fact either second or third generation, or are tied to banking or industry in a way that makes their lack of political title irrelevant.

Did you vote for President Bore?
If your answer was yes.... To slightly less than 50% of those reading this, if you're not rich, you're stupid. To slightly more than 50% of those reading this, if you think any presidential candidate who is a member of the two major political parties in America is not bought & sold by big business in America, you're not so bright yourself. When politicians rely entirely on polls and marketing strategies to define their platforms, politics becomes so centrist as to render the party system meaningless. America has for all practical purposes become an Oligarchic, perhaps even Monarchical Empire. It will be interesting indeed to see if the recent Republican election sweep will compel Liberal Democrats to actually define a message, or if they'll pursue the path suggested by Martin Frost: "I think that the party, to be successful, must speak to the broad center of the country". This is a classic. Much like the entertainment industry producing violent movies "because that's what the public demands". There is no "broad center", except in the washed out message coming from both parties since the 1980's. Clearly, current world events have much less to do with partisan politics than with social and financial class. The less-than wealthy can only hope that the unimpeded execution of the current administration's agenda will lead to a deeper wake up call in America, and that our country can return to what we do best, which is being peaceful, creative, and freedom-loving people.

(This article was originally going to be mildly parody-like in nature, but the more we researched, the less funny it seemed. Look for future articles that explore Democratic party corruption and more on the nature of the in-crowd that really rules our country.)

Additional Notes:

The Who's Who Of New American Century

Elliott Abrams
Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs under Ronald Reagan
Plead guilty to two counts of withholding information from Congress during the Iran-Contra Scandal.
Pardoned by exiting president George Bush in 1992

Gary Bauer
Director, White House Office of Policy Development under Ronald Reagan
Early dropout from 2000 presidential campaign.
A short guy often accused of either having affairs with young campaign workers or denying his homosexuality.

William J. Bennett
Secretary of Education under Ronald Reagan
"Drug Czar" Under George Bush

Jeb Bush
Loosely associated with numerous HUD HMO scandals in Florida throughout his career.
Never subpoenaed or directly implicated in a court of law due to CIA intervention.

Dick Cheney
Ironically, Cheney was trained by Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld in 1969.
Currently ignoring accusations that as CEO of Halliburton Energy he overstated profits of the company by $445,000,000.00.
Regardless of his innocence, Halliburton did several hundred million dollars worth of business with Iraq in the 1990's.

Eliot Cohen
Professor and Director of Strategic Studies, Johns Hopkins University
Served on the policy planning staff of the secretary of Defense and directed the U.S. Air Force's Gulf War Air Power Survey; former professor at Harvard University and the U.S. Naval War College; Ph.D., political science, Harvard University

Midge Decter
Has held various editor positions with such publications as Midstream, Commentary, and Harper's.
A Democratic Party turncoat in the 1970's, she appears to espouse anti-feminist, ardently conservative values.

Paula J. Dobriansky
Under Secretary, Global Affairs, George W. Bush administration.
As are many of these people, she has worked with the Council on Foreign Relations

Steve Forbes
Like GW Bush, dad made all the money, son just spends it
Like GW Bush, dodged the draft by joining the National Guard
Unlike GW Bush, he's failed to grab the GOP's favor

Aaron L. Friedberg
Professor of Politics and International Affairs at Princeton
Believes Sino-American Conflict is inevitable

Francis Fukuyama
Member GW Bush Council on Bioethics
Author "The End of History and the Last Man"

Frank Gaffney
CEO of Center for Security Policy
Deputy Asst. Secretary of Defense for Nuclear Forces and Arms Control Policy under Reagan
Staff Member on the Senate Armed Services Committee, chaired by John Tower

Fred C. Ikle
Senior scholar, Center for Strategic and International Studies
Undersecretary of Defense for Policy in Reagan administration

Zalmay Khalilzad
U.S. Special Envoy to Afghanistan
Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Planning in Bush Sr. administration
State Department Policy Planning Staff in Reagan administration

I. Lewis Libby
Chief of Staff to Vice President Dick Cheney
Assistant to the Vice President for National Security Affairs
1998: Legal Adviser to the Cox Committee
Former Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Policy
Cool. His initials spell I.L.L.!

Norman Podhoretz
Editor in Chief, Commentary magazine

Dan Quayle
Bad Spellerer, Youth Vote Value-Add for George Bush Sr.

Peter W. Rodman
Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs
State Department Policy Planning Staff under Reagan

Stephen P. Rosen
Director, Olin Institute of Strategic Studies at Harvard University

Henry S. Rowen
Asst Secretary of Defense for Intl. Security Affairs under Ford and Bush Sr.

Donald Rumsfeld
Secretary of Defense under several presidents.
Among other things...

Vin Weber
Chairman of the Board of Directors, National Endowment for Democracy
Vice Chairman of Empower America

George Weigel
John M. Olin Chair in Religion and American Democracy at Ethics and Public Policy Center
Former President, Ethics and Public Policy Center

Paul Wolfowitz
Deputy Secretary of Defense
Undersecretary of Defense for Policy in Bush Sr. administration
U.S. Ambassador to the Republic of Indonesia
Director of Policy Planning for the Department of State in Reagan administration