By Tim Gatto

I went to sleep at 1AM after catching up on two episodes of "Boardwalk Empire". I started to drift off to sleep and I went through some of the things that have been crawling through my mind for the last few days. One of the things I decided was that I will definitely boycott the Federal elections in November. I'll vote in the local elections and the Statewide elections, but Congress critters and Senators are out of the question. Why you may ask? The reason being is that there is just nobody I would like to vote for, and the reason for that is because there isn't much difference between Democrats and Republicans. Sure, there are "cosmetic" differences", gay marriage, women's rights, gun control and voter suppression, but in the long run, neither party does anything about those issues.

The big reason I won't vote for a Republican or a Democrat is because they all do the bidding of their corporate sponsors. I should have let it go at that and tried to fall asleep. No, not me, a phrase jumped out of my cerebellum that said "The lesser of two evils is still evil". That's what started the motor running. I should have gotten up at 2AM and just started writing. Now it's 4AM and I just sat down at the keyboard, my blood pressure is up and my head's swimming with thoughts I absolutely must put down or I'll never sleep.

Most of us know that between the Military Industrial Complex, the oil companies and Wall Street, our Federal government seem more like a puppy farm than a representation of the American People's political will. These politicians are chosen and financed by just about every facet of society working against the common citizenry in this country. "Special interests" defines these people that select politicians, just as you and I select a puppy from a puppy farm. Still, most people in this once great nation (if it really was once a great nation) just don't get it.

Many Americans still believe we have a choice about who represents us. Of course, most people reading this article understand that we have no choice. We get to choose between Frick and Frack, Pete and Re-Pete, a Bush, a Clinton or some other student and chief brown-noser of some PAC or think tank. They are thoroughly vetted to make sure they toe the line of their benefactors and if they step out of line, they have an "accident" or their district is eliminated. Frankly, this is why this nation finds itself in the position we are at in this particular juncture of history. The truth is, to quote Hillary Clinton, "we are ALL on the wrong side of history".

This didn't happen because we fell asleep at the switch. The truth of the matter is that the switch was stolen away from us and nobody noticed...well almost nobody. Occupy Wall Street noticed and so did people like Bradley (Chelsea) Manning, Eric Snowden and Julian Assange. Fat lot of good it did them. Noam Chomsky, Naomi Wolf and some others also noticed but they ended up preaching to the choir (like I'm doing now). The trouble with getting the word out to people is that unless you have a show on the mainstream media or you are a frequent guest on one of their "panels", you end up sporting a tinfoil hat and people believe you have conspiracies dancing around in your head.

Let's go over a few things that have come about in the last few months. I'm going to try and do a reality check to see if it is time to for me to get a check-up from the neck up. Just remember, I'm not new to this "smoke and mirrors" game. I've been doing this for a decade now and I believe that a reality check would be good for my sanity. Somebody recently said that people look at me like I have three heads and I answered them by saying very snidely that compared to most people, I feel like I have three heads to their one.

Try to bear with me. This will probably be a long article, but I have some points to make.

Let's start with Syria last year. Didn't our government explicitly state that if Syria used chemical weapons against its own people (or anyone else for that matter), that it would represent a "red line in the sand"? When we accused them of using nerve agents against children, wasn't it President Assad that invited the United Nations to come to Syria to check out the facts on the ground, and wasn't it the UN that found no conclusive proof that the Syrian government used those weapons and it was more than likely that the rebels had used them? Why is it that the MSM keeps mentioning that President Obama never acted against Assad over our allies objections?

This was also one of those rare times that the MSM couldn't suppress the facts. Millions of people started calling and writing Congress to stay out of Syria. The roar became so deafening that Obama decided to let Congress make the decision on getting involved. It never came to a vote. (Yes, Virginia, there IS a Santa Claus).

Now we hear this decision by Obama drove our fundamentalist Wahhabi friends (Saudi Arabia, UAE and others) absolutely crazy. Between cutting off the hands and heads of its citizens and stoning rape victims for adultery, they were frothing at the mouth. After all, didn't we owe them for supplying the hijackers that was the pretext for invading Iraq?

Wasn't that also the period when President Putin secured an agreement with Syria to get rid of their chemical weapons and then wrote a scathing Op-Ed in the New York Times telling us that by claiming to be an exceptional nation we were doing much the same thing that Germany did during the last century? He also said this:

"Mercenaries from Arab countries fighting there, and hundreds of militants from Western countries and even Russia, are an issue of our deep concern. Might they not return to our countries with experience acquired in Syria? After all, after fighting in Libya, extremists moved on to Mali. This threatens us all."

Well, we didn't listen to him then and it seems nobody wants to bring up the fact that he mentioned it at all. We can see today that calling the United States out in front of the World makes for some dire consequences. Anyone for another Cold War?

So let's move on to Ukraine. I won't bring up the fact that we bombed Libya back to the stone age or that we used drones by the hundreds in Yemen, Somalia and Pakistan. Let's just forget about the wedding parties that were smashed to smithereens or the two American citizens that received a lethal dose of Hellfire missiles. Let's look at Ukraine and Victoria Nuland's involvement in overthrowing their elected President just months before a new election. Only 5 Billion dollars for a regime change? That's cheap, especially when you can blame it on the Russians.

Again, that pesky Putin steps in and negotiates a cease-fire between the Eastern rebels and Kiev. So let's fast-forward to the present day and our new geopolitical crisis. This is the one that the government has been waiting for. This is the Granddaddy of scare tactics. It's no matter that President Putin warned us about this last year, this is all new and if you believe the puppy-mill, it has caught us by surprise. (Just like 9/11... PNAC's "New Pearl Harbor").

This situation is all the talking heads wish to speak about. According to all the pundits and panels, ISIS appeared out of nowhere and took half of Syria and Iraq. They cut off the heads of innocent people and slaughtered infidels by the thousands. They seem to have stolen Iraq's weapons and they are selling black-market oil to fund their operation. The whole nation is in lock-step in condemning them and demanding that President Obama gets off his butt and bomb them into oblivion.

The trouble with that particular scenario is that they have all of their "Command and Control" assents in Syria. Now THAT is convenient. Still, they are the #1 World threat. Lindsay Graham has publically stated that they are going to come to the United States and kill all of us. Jeepers, creepers. We have a coalition of France, England, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Kuwait and Qatar to deter them. We say we will do it with airstrikes but everyone has acknowledged that "mission creep" will probably set in and it will take "years" to defeat them. In fact, a divisional headquarters of the 1st Infantry Division (The Big Red One) has been set up in Iraq (not to worry though, it's just to oversee the "advisors").

I have a few questions about all of this. President Obama has told us that we must participate because we are the "indispensible" nation. We have the most powerful armed forces and the best led military "that the World has ever known". He says that it is up to us to lead the way. I'm wondering why Turkey, a nation with the largest military in NATO, doesn't get involved? Also, why not let the Iranians take in ISIS? Iran is Shia and ISIS are Sunni so wouldn't that be a logical step? We give Saudi Arabia 3 Billion dollars a year in military aid, where are they in the scheme of things? What about Egypt? Finally, where is Israel in all of this? Did they spend all of their munitions killing the people of Gaza?

Where are the people that are paid to ask these questions? Where is Bernie Sanders on this? He's great on income inequality, but when it comes to foreign policy, if he's not voting to support Israel's genocidal tendencies, he's mute. Congress can't seem to agree on what day of the week it is, but when it comes to war, they can't reach across the aisle fast enough. Doesn't that tell the American people something?

Where are the people that didn't want to bomb Syria last year? Just why is Assad the worst dictator since Saddam? He was OK when he took in 2 million displaced Iraqi's during the war there and he was good enough for us to have black op "renditions" and to torture suspects for us. What happened? Why doesn't anyone ask? There are scads of "bad guys" out in the World, why is taking him out so important? Do we want him out or are we doing Israel's bidding?

Here is a clip of MP George Galloway speaking to the British Parliament, he sums some things up nicely;

-###-

Tim Gatto's new book "Contempt to Outrage" available from Oliver Arts and Open Press.

By Timothy V. Gatto, a retired Army Sergeant and former Chairman of The Liberal Party of America. He can be reached at: timgatto@hotmail.com Read Tim's Book "Complicity to Contempt" and his Novel "Kimchee Days or Stoned Cold Warriors From Oliver Arts and Open Press and available on Amazon and all other online bookstores.