[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 22 (Tuesday, March 5, 2002)]
[House]
[Page H676]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[[Page H676]]
      THE TWILIGHT ZONE, OTHERWISE KNOWN AS GEORGE BUSH'S AMERICA

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentlewoman from Georgia (Ms. McKinney) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Ms. McKINNEY. Mr. Speaker, I am worried about what is happening to 
our great country today. I fear that many of us cannot see what is 
happening here. Maybe we are too close. Maybe there are even people who 
do not want us to see; but our friends and allies in Europe and 
elsewhere are reporting that they are seeing disturbing developments in 
our country, like the fading of our fundamental constitutional rights, 
the creation of a war machine that threatens world peace, the spending 
of a generation of Americans on this war on terrorism, and even an 
attack on truth in government by forming the Office of Strategic 
Influence to lie to us and to the rest of the world. The President even 
asked Hollywood to make these developments palatable to the American 
people.
  With this as a backdrop, I would just like to ask that Members close 
their eyes and imagine being drawn deeper and deeper into black space. 
If Members keep their eyes closed and if they close them good and 
tight, they will be able to imagine themselves going faster and faster 
and deeper and deeper into a black unknown.
  All of a sudden we see a bright light at a distance far away, but 
faster and faster and closer and closer it becomes brighter and 
brighter; and in one instant, with one grand motion, we can cross from 
the darkness into the light. But just before we make the crossing, a 
huge booming voice coming from nowhere, and at the same time coming 
from everywhere, booms all around us: You unlock this door with the key 
of understanding. Beyond it is another dimension, a dimension of 
hearing that which is not spoken, a dimension of seeing that which is 
invisible, a dimension of reading that which is not written.
  We are moving into a land of both shadow and substance, of things and 
ideas. Welcome. We just crossed over into the Twilight Zone, otherwise 
known as George Bush's America. For it is here and only here that the 
White House could receive warning after warning of massive attacks that 
were going to take place on American soil, the attack happens, and both 
the President and the Vice President, in separate phone calls to Tom 
Daschle, ask that Congress not investigate what happened and why. That 
could only happen in the Twilight Zone.
  Or that an administration battling worldwide perception, as well as a 
domestic one having come to power in circumstances like Zambia's or 
Kenya's, could form a shadow government inside the selected government, 
with no one in the real government knowing about the shadow government 
except the shadow leaders in it. That could only happen in the Twilight 
Zone.
  Or that this President could propose the biggest hike in defense 
spending, where his dad stands to make a mint, as long as increased 
spending does not get lost wherever the $2.3 trillion is that the 
Pentagon has already lost, and the Secretary of Defense, Donald 
Rumsfeld, says we can afford it. That could only happen in the Twilight 
Zone.
  Or that Arthur Andersen, who kept Enron's books, could still have 
contracts to keep the books over at FBI, DOJ, and the Pentagon. That 
could only happen in the Twilight Zone.
  Wake up, America. We are not only in the Twilight Zone, we have 
crossed the threshold into George Bush's America.

                          ____________________