The Bush Zone (with Apologies to Rod Serling)
- by
John Cory as appearing on truthout.org,
January 14, 2005
There
is a fifth realm beyond known reality. It is
a realm as vast as space and timeless as infinity.
It is the middle ground of haze and shadow,
between science and superstition, and it lies
at the pit of man's fears. This is the realm
of the unimaginable. It is an area we call "The
Bush Zone."
Meet
Mr. and Mrs. America, faithful believers in
the one true nation. They arise each morning
and stand before the mirror reciting their daily
mantra: "It's a grand old flag! Leader of the
free world! We're no. 1!" Their iconic reflection
smiles back, a warm and homemade apple pie image
of the best of everything, the best medical
care, the most powerful military, and the best
political system of any country in the world.
The mirror never lies.
But
this morning, Mr. And Mrs. America, discover
a warped mirror that casts a disturbing and
twisted funhouse reflection of their former
selves. Daily slogans are powerless against
this distorted likeness, and all that they once
held sacred now ripples across the glass in
a deformed and misshapen wave of elongated ugliness.
Mr. And Mrs. America just stepped through the
looking glass and into the Bush Zone.
Submitted
for your consideration: citizens of the wealthiest
country in the world seek salvation via the
free-market system. They organize bake sales
and eBay auctions to raise money for medical
therapy not covered by their profit-driven corporate
HMOs, only to discover that some of that money
is also needed to purchase body armor the Pentagon
failed to provide to their sons and daughters
in Iraq. War is never cheap, but always profitable
in the Bush Zone.
Further
submitted for your consideration: a President
insists on free elections in his combat arena
despite the risk to life and limb for Iraqis,
even as his own political party strains the
boundaries of legality and decency to suppress
the vote of Americans at home. Democracy is
only for the righteous few required to guide
the many along the sacred path of destiny and
empire in the Bush Zone.
This
is Alberto Gonzales, lawyer on his way up, salt
of the earth, minority makes good story. He
is, as you have perceived, a purveyor of partisan
loyalty, one of a breed who substitutes smiles
for substance, venom for value, and noise for
nobility. His skill is the ability to turn the
objectionable into the tolerable, the illegal
into legal, and define it all with the phonetics
of patriotism. Mr. Gonzales sits before his
inquisitors, speaking in tongues while saying
nothing. He has no fear because he knows Democrats
are willing ghosts without power in the Bush
Zone.
Picture
of a campaign paid for by $600 million dollars
of private funds, a cacophonous symphony of
slander, mendacious media, and clanging garbage
cans of innuendo and falsehood. The prize? A
lavish gala held at the picturesque white house
residence of the owners of America. Attendance
is by invitation only.
The
Bush Zone hosts a cast of characters, who like
children's fertile imaginations, have no attachment
to reality. A surreal traveling Medicine Show
comprised of peddlers of faith and fear, sellers
of superstition, martyrs and moguls who line
their pockets with the lives of the innocent
and faithful, all united to market the elixirs
of corporate conformity and passivity, for the
price of one thin nickel plus your soul. No
waiting.
Picture
of a Nation gazing into a warped mirror, its
reflection, a blemished garden of atrophied
freedoms, the acne of cowered silence, and once
bright eyes dulled by corporate greed and the
focus group political entertainment of talk
television. In a little while, the face in the
mirror will be permanently etched into the glass
unless the Nation can avert its eyes from the
hypnotic glare and focus on its people, principles
and Constitution.
There
is a way out for all of us, albeit through a
locked door.
You
unlock this door with the key of democracy.
Beyond it is another dimension: a dimension
of peace and prosperity, a dimension of free
speech and civil rights, a dimension of tolerance
and enlightenment. You're moving out of the
land of haze and shadow, and into the wondrous
journey of the people, by the people and for
the people.
You've
just stepped out of - the Bush Zone.
That's
a signpost up ahead: your next stop: the real
America!
------
John Cory is a Vietnam veteran. He received
the Purple Heart and Bronze Star with V device,
1969 - 1970
