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2001. But not with Bush, it was with the Catholic Church scandal. After 911, I read everything I could get my hands on about Islam, and what I read apalled me, as a self righteous catholic. I read that Mohammed (peace be upon him)was a pedophile, his last wife Iesha was like 9. I read the Q'uran over and over, highlighting it, footnoting it etc, pointing out all the discrepencies. I was a total Islam basher and I had pinned Mohammed as the anti-Christ.
But then, about two months later, the Boston Globe broke the Clergy abuse story. You know what they say when you point fingers? Well there it was, my Church, my infallible church, was corrupt and perverted and worst of all, hypocritical to the nth degree.
I was devestated. But it led me to other things. What other illusions do I have, I asked myself. After deciding that all organized religions are corrupt, what else is corrupt?
American history. Thanksgiving Day I listened to Pacifica radio and was astonished to hear that for the Indigenous peoples of America, Thanksgiving was a day of mourning. I looked into that, for about three weeks. History is written by the winners.
Then my friend who is a total organic food nut sent me a link on the BGH milk, normally I shrugged this stuff off, I always thought what I ate at the grocery store was perfectly fine. But not anymore. I did a google search on BGH and came up with Monsanto. Words cannot express my outrage when I learned about this corporation. I spent over a month researching Monsanto, GM foods and the like. Needless to say I now shop at whole foods. Monsanto is one of the most evil corporations in existence, and I don't say that casually. They are trying to PATENT the DNA of indigenous people as well as the world's food supply. Think about that for a moment. It's nothing less than diabolical.
That research led me to the FDA. What were they up to? Well, I learned that no matter the political party in power, former heads of corporations are appointed to Cabinet positions. Clinton allowed former Monsanto execs to head up the FDA. Great, they're all in it together. No conflict of interest, no, not here. Keep drving by folks, nothing to see here.
Now I 'm like totally beside myself. And by then, around the middle of 2002, I start hearing the drum beat for Iraq. Iraq?? What the fuck is in Iraq?? 911 and Sadam? Right and two and two is three. I'm may be slow, but I'm no dummy. So I started looking shit up. I found the motherlode in the PNAC. And keep in mind, this is long before I ever heard of DU. In fact, all I had known about online was Truthout and Nation and CounterPunch. When I read their statement on rebuilding America's defenses and archives of William Kristols columns in the weekly standard with titles like "Why we need to Attack Iraq Now" written in 1998 and "Attacking iraq is not Enough" 1999 I about shit in my pants, especially after I read the signatories on that little mission statement and the years of publications and then I see the present Cabinet appointees of Bush.
After all this I became so radical, and so hungry for information out of the mainstream that now I am completely jaded. This last election meant so much to me, I put so much effort into enlightening those around me, especially my three teen age children. The only good that has come out of this is that we can see through the bullshit, although we can't seem to keep it from coming. <sigh>
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