FACT VS FICTION

I was watching C-Span on October 21, 2009. Big party at Union Station in Washington, DC. 20th Anniversary Dinner to name the new “ Keeper of the Flame.” Frank Gaffney, Founder and President of Center for Security Policy was speaking and he mentioned that Donald Rumsfeld and Sen. Jon Kyl had been awarded this dubious distinction in past years. This night Dick Cheney got the award and became the new “Keeper of the Flame”.

I listened as he tried to downgrade President Barack Obama (which is nothing new) because he was not accelerating the war in Afghanistan fast enough to suit him and the rest of the warmongers and referring to all the great things they did during their years in charge. Seems they want to keep the wars going with another big military buildup and are upset because President Obama wants to eliminate the nuclear arsenals.

Mr. Cheney is still trying to prove everything he and Bush did during their reign of terror was for the good of the American people. They are both still trying to build a legacy on a bunch of false statements. In fact the whole Republican Party is trying to keep their “Flame” alive. After listening to their stupidity and watching them stumble all over each other up on the little stage, I thought “20th anniversary”??? They must have started this little special club in 1989, after Reagan left office. Are they trying to keep alive the reign of Reagan, as the great savior of the Republican Party?

“Keeper of the Flame?” That sounded familiar----my mind started racing back through the years to where I had heard it before. Then it dawned on me---a movie in the 1940’s ---“Keeper of the Flame”. This was about a big American Icon who everyone admired and looked up too. Millions thought he was our greatest hero. He was a famous civic leader who, prior to his death, had secretly planned a coup d’etat against the government of the United States. A journalist planned on writing a flattering biography of the dead man, only to unearth a plot to cover up his true plans. This man was an industrialist who founded a wildly popular patriotic boys club known as the Forward American Association. The widow is the “keeper of the flame” honoring her husband’s memory, and is determined not to let anything damage her husbands reputation.

The Widow finally breaks down and tells the journalist that her husband was a fascist who was plotting with veterans’ organizations and the Forward America Association to overthrow the government of the United States. She had just found out the day before he died—accidently. The widow shows the journalist papers that revealed how her husband (backed by ultra-wealthy, power-hungry individuals) planned to use race hatred, anti-union feeling, ethnic hatred, and anti-Semitism to turn various groups against one another in the U.S. in order to create the chaos that would let him seize power. He died in an accident (he could have been saved by the people who really knew him--but they knew America would be better off with him dead) people came from all over to his hometown to mourn. The people involved with him were trying to keep his legacy as a great wonderful person alive. But it was discovered he really was a terrible person, a member of the fascist movement or party. (Fact and fiction are often very similar).

Many critics gave the film a positive slant like, “truly provocative in that it was one of Hollywood’s first forays into imagining the possibility of homegrown American Fascism and the crucial damage which can be done to individual rights when inhumane and tyrannical ideas sweep a society through a charismatic leader and clearly links wealth and fascism and points out the ways in which patriotism may far easily be turned toward fascist ends.

I had to go to the dictionary for a description of fascism and fascist: A totalitarian governmental system led by a dictator and emphasizing an aggressive nationalism, militarism and often racism--and has extreme right-wing views, a perfect, description of the majority of the Republican Party and definitely of Bush and Cheney. This is where a parallel of fact and fiction meet.

The ones that are no longer in office, like Bush I and II, Cheney, Gingrich, Armey, Gramm, DeLay, Thompson and their corporate buddies who would like to control the world one way or the other are out there trying to keep the flame of their fascist republican party shining bright. These people hate everyone that is different than they are. They are racist up to the hilt. They do not represent any of the citizens of this country that do not believe as they believe. People of their ilk have been conquered before and it is time to do it again. We need to get rid of all the old politicians that no longer believe in a government run for the people and by the people. The states need to get rid of the governor’s, that are running the states to suit themselves in lieu of running the states for the betterment of the citizens of that state. We also need to clean up our Supreme Court. They do not follow the constitution and they judge cases by what the people that put them in office believe and want. Dishonesty abounds in all facets of our government.

Dick Cheney now is the “Keeper of the Flame” for a year. I hope someone puts his fire out soon I’m tired of looking at him. When the Attorney General of the United States gets to show and published all the records from the last 8 years of the Bush Administrations reign of terror, then the citizens of this country will know what they are really like. Actually we know about Nixon but he and many friends tried to keep his façade going. A lot of bad things started with Reagan and Bush 1 (Iran-Contra, I remember it). The majority of all our politicians are dishonest, all parties.

I quote again what my husband said on March 20, 1994, “The worst enemy that the people of any country has, is its government and leaders.”