C. K. Williams: We’ll never really know what drove them to have that war. All the reasons that were given we know are lies. There were no weapons of mass destruction. There was no terrorist connection between Hussein and terrorism. I think in some ways it was sheer arrogance. It was a sheer belief that if you have power you have to express it where you can express it and I think that that came out pretty clearly. We are the most powerful, we can do whatever we want, this is the next thing we’re going to do, and if Iraq had worked out there would have been a next thing, probably Iran, which they still might try to get away with. So I think there have been everything from psychoanalyzing Bush and his relationship with his father, which, sure, that may have had something to do with it, to Cheney’s-- Cheney obviously just had a sheer thirst, a ravishing-- ravous-- ravenous thirst for the expression of power. He still does. His great illuminating moment a few weeks ago was when someone said, “What about the fact that the American people are so against the war now?” And he said, “So?” That’s really the expression of power. It means I have so much power I don’t have to listen to even the American people. So I think that’s where the war started.
Discuss
Jaime Alberto Galarza on June 27, 2008, 8:36 PM
How refreshing to hear a lucid, a decent American who does not fear the power, the corrupting power coming out from Washington and its prostitute: the media. They are the ones who one day sat and, since they had all been begotten by the same monster, planned the Iraqi crime. They laughed in conversing about the technicalities to be overcome: the US Constitution for example. Cheney, for instance, said that "that paper" was absolutely obsolete. "The President", he said, "cannot be encumbered by such minutiae". In hearing that, the pet immediately jumped on the table and with a characteristic smirk in his face barked, "Yes, yes. I was told to say that, but it was my idea, it was my idea!" Cheney sent a meaningful look toward the lackeys from the Washington Post, the Wall Street, the NYT, CNN, Fox, etc, etc., and they knew what they were to do. The next day, everybody read: "The President courageously states that difficult times require difficult choices."
Jaime Alberto Galarza on June 28, 2008, 12:36 AM
How refreshing to hear a lucid, a decent American who does not fear the power, the corrupting power coming out from Washington and its prostitute: the media. They are the ones who one day sat and, since they had all been begotten by the same monster, planned the Iraqi crime. They laughed in conversing about the technicalities to be overcome: the US Constitution for example. Cheney, for instance, said that “that paper” was absolutely obsolete. “The President”, he said, “cannot be encumbered by such minutiae”. In hearing that, the pet immediately jumped on the table and with a characteristic smirk in his face barked, “Yes, yes. I was told to say that, but it was my idea, it was my idea!” Cheney sent a meaningful look toward the lackeys from the Washington Post, the Wall Street, the NYT, CNN, Fox, etc, etc., and they knew what they were to do. The next day, everybody read: “The President courageously states that difficult times require difficult choices.”
Big Thinker on July 1, 2008, 11:37 AM
We think you’re right…the media’s under enormous pressure – some outlets more than others. But isn’t C.K. Williams right that the NYTimes, for one, has found its reporters and editors mired in disputes with the government, as in the Valerie Plame case?
Theo Hummer on October 11, 2008, 3:21 PM
Being Cassandra (though, we hope, with better results) is one of a poet’s central purposes. We should listen to, and ask the opinions of, poets more often!
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