The American Insurgency Amassing in Texas and Typically Cynical European Disregard

Posted by Matthew Crouch at 12:11

Here at the Experiencing Belgium desk from where I wearily keep my eye on the few pieces of this crazy planet I know I’ve been observing how much Camp Casey and Cindy Sheehan’s stand against the perpetually vacationing Junior Bush regime has been in the news. Thanks to my Google news alert service I can follow this unique piece of American history as it is reported back home. The odd thing is none of this has made it onto the European news networks I follow. If it has then I have somehow by only the odd chance missed it but really if it has been in the news then it hasn’t been very much or I would have seen or heard it. Meanwhile true to its global agenda the BBC world service radio has been on non-stop full reports about the Gaza “pull-out” shamelessly covering the story with blatant non-Palestinian sympathies – I want to hear about the Palestinians side of these stories we are hearing daily. It's time we hear the Palestinian stories that aren’t making it into the media. Lets face it those settlers have a pretty sweet deal and perhaps if they hadn’t taken all those literal and figurative pot shots at pedestrians in Gaza with their guns then most likely they would have been welcome to stay and be a part of the neighborhood. As it seems they were bad neighbors but we never hear about that side of the story at least from the Beeb. I mean I am in Belgium and I’m not a Belgian but then I didn’t kick out some previous generation of Belgians from their family homes to make room for myself. But the sport shooting from the settlements in Gaza is the kind of story you won’t hear served up on the Beeb. Yeah well perhaps this isn’t headline news but perhaps it should be – it is after all another one of the state of Israel’s growing list of dirty little secrets.

This transmission, however, is not about the suffering of Palestine, we are gathered here today to examine why Cindy Sheehan is not in the news in Belgium or in general anywhere for that matter in Europe… Neither is it news yet at the BBC, so far as I can tell the Beeb hasn’t been covering Camp Casey. The new little woman who started that great big war of resistance – like a modern day Harriet Beecher Stowe – and there is no insinuation here that junior Bush is akin to Lincoln by way of referencing what that real Republican Lincoln had to say about Ms. Stowe way back when. I mean Bush and his henchman are a very different kind of Republican than Lincoln -Republican’s in name only for these new Republicans go to war for oil rights and enslave good American people at Wal-Mart where the less fortunate eat, shop and work in one vicious circle of modern day capitalistic slavery tread mill without benefits.

The reason Cindy Sheehan and Camp Casey are not news in Europe at least at this point is either because the sophisticated and highly educated journalists over here are just clueless or this whole idea that there are actually a handful of American’s who oppose the Bush regime and their egotistical and unjustified war are not conforming to European ideas of what the average American is all about. It is easier to demonize a nation by thinking that the few hundred million Americans are all the same and are of one mind and all totally in favor of the Bushies pet war. Perhaps Camp Casey will make it in the news here when there are enough Americans there to constitute protesting the Bush administration in quantifiable masses of angry stone throwing Americans. Perhaps something by way of sheer human numbers in attendance will get the attention the next time Mr. and Mrs. Bush junior drive by obliviously half asleep while drinking cocktails from the back of a limousine en route back and forth to their fake dude ranch vacation. It’s looking like another episode of the Muppet show from Crawford country again. I can hear that Muppet show jingle already in the back of my head but what are those two cranky men in the balcony saying about all this I wonder? Well you can be damned sure they aren’t saying anything nice about the first family and their wicked and heartless administration. I mean my God the Muppet show wasn’t even as choreographed as this vacationing president!

Perhaps some Belgian journalists stationed in the states will get out of their stupor of American capitalism and park their friggin SUV’s and start doing some real journalistic work with decent middle Americans taking a stand. Perhaps if the one or two Belgian journalists in the states turn off their air conditioning and their TV which is most certainly turned into to the likes of the deplorable Fox network then maybe they can resume their critical analysis of life in the US. Maybe some European journalists will venture down with some camping gear to Crawford, fucking hot as hell this time of year, Texas and do some real work in the trenches of the American uprising against the tyrannical Bush regime. Obviously the Europeans got suckered in hook, line and sinker by the game of privilege and class entitlement that the Bush Administration uses to play with journalists. Anyway just think if you’re a European journalist on a long term assignment in say Washington you have a pretty sweet deal – why go risking a comfortable job in a comfortable place? Why stop hob knobbing with foreign diplomats at champagne dinners – I mean why risk all that to be a good journalist following one’s heart and conscience? Why risk your career by getting your hands dirty in the Texan dust, sweat and heat by camping out with the pilgrims there for that will in this day and age get you on the Bushies black list. You won’t get invited to the ball Cinderella for befriending the likes of a Mother who lost her sons or daughters to the Bushies death machine in Iraq. I say fuck that! If it is a journalists priority to stay on good terms with the Bush administration they might as well just get a job at fucking Fox. European journalists were once extraordinary and credible journalists who wouldn’t get suckered into the diplomats games of enticement and petty privilege. Journalists should be the cool rogue whistle blowers with truth from observation not off playing with people who subscribe in this day and age to petite bourgeois nineteenth century colonialist ideals such as diplomatic immunity. Will the bright journalistic minds from Europe stationed in the states please get off the golden golf course of luxury and get back to work with the real Americans? There is a rebellious left leaning side of American insurgents in the states not being reported on over here from the other side of the North Atlantic.