Jedi Mind Control - Originally published 8-08

The whole world watched in 2002 as Bush tried different ways to justify an attack on Iraq. Remember how he kept demanding that Saddam Hussein submit to inspections? And how Saddam would stall until the last minute and then comply? Remember?

Cause if you do, you're resisting the revisionist history. A few months after the Iraqi invasion, the US ruling class started asserting that the reason the US invaded Iraq was that Hussein refused to allow inspections! I was amazed at the gall of those who believed that they could impudently reverse the truth that so many had witnessed!

But this week has been even more amazing. Georgia's attack on South Ossetia, killing thousands of civilians and Russian soldiers, and the Russian response was turned in 2 days into an unprovoked attack by Russia on Georgia.

And I watched it happen on CNN. Friday night my co-worker's husband called, very upset, telling us that Georgia had invaded South Ossetia. Saturday morning I turned the TV on to see what was happening. There was a reporter talking with the US puppet Saakashvili. Saakashvili, like a focused, if buffoonish, Jedi master, simply repeated to every question, "Russia attacked my country, Georgia." The reporter tried to get him to admit that Georgia had attacked South Ossetia first, but Saakashvili stuck to his talking point. And it worked. The first reporter fell away during a commercial, and the next reporter seamlessly fell into the approved line "Russia attacked Georgia". And the entire US corporate media has stayed on message since.

The Jedi could only control one being at a time. Our masters can control the minds of millions! And the truth can be reversed in 2 days. On Monday I went to work and mentioned to my co-worker that the script had changed. "No!" he said "Russia attacked Georgia". I was like "Don't you remember your husband calling Friday night? Don't you remember who attacked whom?" Finally he admitted that that phone call had happened, but his husband never did. He was the one who was so upset that he called at work (which he never did) but in 2 days of propaganda the whole episode was down the Memory Hole and he repeated the official propaganda.

Some on the left are sternly poxing both houses. "Why didn't Russia go to the Security Council?" they say.

How can something one week ago already be down the memory hole? Russia did go to the Security Council, early Friday morning. The US and Georgia refused to agree to a ceasefire, prefering to issue statements to the press calling for peace to actually pursuing it.

Bush, Rice and McCain have all denounced the invasion of a soverign country as unacceptable in the 21st century, while intelligent people gasp at the brazenness of imperial invaders pointing fingers at others. They have no shame.

Well, I have enough shame for them all. I am ashamed of the power of the corporate media and the evil ends for which it is used. I am ashamed of my country and what it is doing to destroy the possibilities for peace and justice on this planet. I am ashamed of the misery and death that we are bringing to so many people and animals. I am ashamed of the lies that are told and the hypocrisy that reigns supreme.