TRUE HISTORY:

THROUGH THE PRISM OF TIME
By Jack Random

I have a habit of replaying critical moments in history in a manner that more reflects the reality that unfolded in time.

I imagine our president in his hard hat, standing on the rubble of the World Trade Center, responding to the yell of a rescue worker: “I hear you! And a million innocent people will die for what happened here!”

I imagine mayor Rudy Giuliani informing New York’s finest that they were breathing toxic particles that would curse them with pulmonary illnesses the rest of their lives and saying to a colleague, spontaneous-like: “I can’t believe we have a dimwitted fool in the White House.”

Call me crude and insensitive but the truth has shed a painful light on the events of that fateful day.

 

I imagine the president in his annual state of the union address, announcing that we were attacked by Saudis but we were determined to decimate Afghanistan and move on to Iraq before the job was done. We would blame the Taliban for inheriting the mess we left them after the Soviet occupation. We would outsource our one best chance at getting Osama bin Laden before giving up the search.

I imagine him explaining that we were intent on discarding the principle of habeas corpus and shredding the bill of rights so that the terrorists would no longer hate us for our freedom.

I imagine the president, in front of the glimmering statue of Andrew Jackson in New Orleans, explaining that the loss, though tragic to jazz aficionados, would be mitigated by the fact that the poor people of the Ninth Ward were not contributing much to the economy anyway.

I imagine our commander-in-chief landing on the deck of an aircraft carrier, anchored off the port of San Diego, hitching his flight gear and announcing that this was only the first great victory in a war that would drag on for years and years.

I imagine attorney general Alberto Gonzalez defending the torture policy of Gitmo and Abu Ghraib: “America used to be the country that played by the rules, that upheld the rule of law, but not anymore. Now we are the hammer of god’s wrath and we will smite anyone who stands in our way!”

I imagine him addressing a congressional committee on the NSA surveillance scandal: “Until the war is over (and the war will never be over), everyone is a suspect. We have a dossier on every one of you. Before we’re finished, we’ll have a dossier on everything that breathes.”

In my mind’s eye, I see vice president Dick Cheney finally coming clean on who wrote the energy policy that precipitated the meltdown of California’s economy: “El Paso Gas, Reliant Energy, Enron, Exxon-Mobil, British Petroleum, all the usual suspects. Some may call it corruption, collusion and conspiracy; I call it an equitable redistribution of wealth from the blue states to the red. What did you think would happen when we took the White House?”

I imagine Cheney writing a guest editorial to the New York Times in response to former ambassador Joe Wilson’s expose of the phony Iraq-Niger uranium connection (“What I Didn’t Find in Africa”): “As the man behind the White House throne, I have the power to declassify documents and expose the identity of any secret agent I choose. I ordered the forgery of the yellowcake documents. I ordered the hit on Wilson. I would do it again. Who did you think had the power: the man reading children’s books in the Oval Office? Cross me and you pay a price. Hell, I went easy on the Wilsons. Next time, I’ll play hard ball.”

I imagine the president stating the obvious after the rebuke of the midterm elections: “I understand that the war is lost. I understand that the people no longer support me or the war but you have to understand that I’m the commander and I intend to drag it out for two more years, no matter the cost. It’s the only chance I have of blaming this mess on someone else.”

Sadly, as Hillary Clinton so often reflects, there are no do-overs in politics. If there were, Senator Clinton would have explained her vote to authorize the Iraq War differently: “I know it’s the wrong war at the wrong time against the wrong enemy and for the wrong reasons, but at a time when the people were burning for revenge, I needed political cover.”

The truth is a harsh and bitter light that is drawn to hypocrisy and lies.

Rest assured, it only grows brighter in time.

Jazz.

 

 

JACK RANDOM IS THE AUTHOR OF THE JAZZMAN CHRONICLES (CROW DOG PRESS) AND GHOST DANCE INSURRECTION (DRY BONES PRESS). THE CHRONICLES HAVE APPEARED ON THE ALBION MONITOR, PEACE-EARTH-JUSTICE, THE NATIONAL FREE PRESS, PACIFIC FREE PRESS, LEFTWARD, DISSIDENT VOICE AND COUNTERPUNCH. SEE RANDOM JACK: WWW.JAZZMANCHRONICLES.BLOGSPOT.COM

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