Deprogramming for Democracy:
Continue to pity Paul O'Neill. Even as he backtracks like a crawdad chased by a mad Cajun, his bravery is making others come forward (albeit anonymously) to confirm his revelations about the lemming-like march to war and dispute the cruel rantings of Donald Rumsfeld. O'Neill may end up being a tragic figure in all of this, one who for a moment revealed light on the dark soul of the Bush Administration, but who was pressed into retraction, hedging, and, soon, to be sure, silence.

But as those who have betrayed cults before (see the January 12 entry) have learned, the price for showing the world that the glorious leader is a fraud is harsh, cruel, and will-breaking. Ask anyone who was put into the Box at Jonestown for dissenting with Jim Jones and the People's Temple. Oh, they will dangle your children over cliffs, threaten to kill your mother, anything to make sure you don't let the rest of the world know the truth: the blind man in the room of deaf people is actually, really, legitimately evil.

So perhaps there's an intervention needed here against the Cult of Bush. Who's its members? Is it just the Administration? Or is that just an inner circle and we are all members by choice or coercion? There's boxes enough at Guantanamo for each of us to either capitulate or be disappeared. Let's not go with the easy answer here: that an election is an intervention, that putting Dean into office will be enough to overcome all the years of waste, hopelessness, and despair. Let's do this thing for real.

It'll have to start with the weakest member still in the full throes of the cult. We'll have to capture Colin Powell, tie him to a chair, and begin. Let's follow all the rules of cult intervention and deprogramming. We'll tell him about his indoctrination- how his will was broken on things he knew were true: Iraq was no threat, it had no weapons. We'll show him how he knew his presentation to the U.N. was, to quote himself, "bullshit." We'll show him how he used to have a spine, how he used to be the next in line to be elected to the White House, how he used to have the respect of the world. We'll have to get him to re-live the repressed memories of his torture at the hands of leather-clad Dick Cheney and Paul Wolfowitz, how they used 15-inch strap-ons to rape him repeatedly, how they forced him to blow them, how they lashed him and made him forget that his name used to begin with "General." Oh, the damage they did, making him believe that his years of military experience were worthless at the altar of neocon and oil industry ideology. God, how he'll cry, how he'll remember the hot cum that he had to swallow- small, dusty amounts from Cheney - larger kosher ejaculate from Wolfowitz. Christ, it makes the Rude Pundit weep to think about the rape and torture that Powell was subjected to while Bush looked on with glee, thinking about his father while fondling himself, thinking, Yeah, look what I'm doin' to your boy, Dad, look what I'm doin' to your boy.

This will take days, weeks maybe, with lots of time spent assuring Powell that he is still worthy of respect (let's not bring up his behavior in Vietnam and Gulf War I), but that the Cult of Bush has denied him that. Let's assure him that if he goes public he will be welcomed with open arms and that there is life after the cult.

The Rude Pundit knows this may get harsh. But the good of the nation, nay, the world depends on it. And after Powell crumbles, sobbing, clinging desperately to his shit covered dress uniform and medals and stars, and after he admits he's been wronged and wants to move on, we'll go for the next one. Who would that be? Who the fuck knows? It may have to be done one citizen at a time. Let the deprogramming begin.