Jessica Lange Charges Bush “Traffics in Deadly Lies,” Cites “Master Plan” to Control Oil

Saturday's “anti-war” protest in Washington, DC featured a long list of little-known characters from a litany of far-left and even further out groups with an America-hating agenda. But amongst the speakers on the stage, as shown live by C-SPAN, was actress Jessica Lange. She denounced President Bush's “propensity to lie” and how he's “a man who traffics in deadly lies.” Lange argued that those behind the war want “a continuing military presence in the Middle East, control over the region, control over the oil. They have their eyes on the prize, the master plan.” Citing how “not one military funeral has been attended by George Bush or his Cabinet,” she charged that “this disregard for human life only reinforces the knowledge that this man has no heart.” Lange also maintained that “when I hear his empty words with phrases like 'armies of compassion' or 'culture of responsibility,' I understand how deep their mendacity runs: They are a lie.”

Back in 2002 in Spain, Lange claimed “the election was stolen by George Bush and we have been suffering ever since under this man’s leadership” and that “it is an embarrassing time to be an American. It really is. It’s humiliating.” That won her the “The I’m Not a Geopolitical Genius But I Play One on TV Award” at the MRC's DisHonors Awards. For a RealPlayer video clip.

Full transcript of her Saturday rant at the rally follows.

The MRC's Brad Wilmouth took down Lange's rant from a bit past 2pm EDT during the September 24 protest:

"Well, it's always an honor to be here with you. We're here again. And I understand George Bush is not here again. God forbid he should ever be anywhere where he could actually understand how the American people feel. However, I did read a quote of his. He did acknowledge our presence here today. He said, quote, 'I recognize their good intentions, but their position is wrong. [boos from audience] Withdrawing our troops would make the world more dangerous.' And yet, here he is with another example, another example of this man's propensity to lie. There have been twice as many terrorist attacks in the three years since 9/11 than in the three years preceding 9/11. All their reasons for waging war on Iraq have been proven to be manipulation of facts, untruths, and lies, lies and more lies. And then he dares accuse us of being guilty of wrong-thinking, a man who traffics in deadly lies, the front man for an administration who came into office with the intention of taking out Saddam and becoming an occupying force in Iraq.

“Members of the Project for the New American Century, who promote an ideology of U.S. domination through the use of force, who have imposed their politics of scorch-and-burn on the American people and made us complicit against their, against our will in their regime of shame. And who are these men? Who are these men? Let's talk for a minute about these masters of war, these same men that are sending our sons and our daughters, our brothers and sisters, our mothers and fathers, to fight an undeclared and unconstitutional and unwinnable war for them. Let's talk about their service records. Karl Rove did not serve, Paul Wolfowitz did not serve, Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, Eliott Abrams, Newt Gingrich did not serve. Jeb Bush did not serve. The list goes on and on, and we know George W. did not really serve. And yet, they expect the ultimate sacrifice from us -- more than 1,900 American soldiers dead; tens of thousands, a very low estimate, tens of thousand Iraqi deaths, mostly civilian, and in modern warfare 'civilian' meaning mostly women and children. They say there is no way to withdraw now.

“The truth is they never intend to withdraw. What they planned was a continuing military presence in the Middle East, control over the region, control over the oil. They have their eyes on the prize, the master plan. And what they want of the American people, to remain in the dark and to keep the American people unaware of the bloodshed, the torture and the devastation, and that is why there are never any official, why there is not an official, there is an official ban, Pentagon ban, on photographing the dead or the flag-draped coffins arriving home. They are determined not to repeat the same, as they see, the same policy mistakes that were made during the Vietnam War.

“Not one military funeral has been attended by George Bush or his Cabinet. [boos from audience] This disregard for human life only reinforces the knowledge that this man has no heart. So I read the names in the paper. That's all we can do. If you look in your local paper, there is the little column that lists the names of the dead. And I say them out loud and I read the towns where they come from, and know the names, their ages, and Bush continues to say that we must follow through with this mission to give their lives and deaths meaning. Could there be any more terrible cynicism than that? In truth, what we owe the dead is an end to the killing. [cheers from audience]

“So for all of us Americans -- the majority now -- who don't share this administration's scorched-earth brand of politics, who don't share their vision of a new America and their policies of shame, we must remain vigilant, and we will not be deterred because what it comes down to is a question of conscience. And that question is deeply patriotic. And we must hold them accountable and make sure words like peace and freedom and compassion retain their original and essential meaning and not become tag lines used by them to justify more atrocities, more killings. When I hear his empty words with phrases like 'armies of compassion' or 'culture of responsibility,' I understand how deep their mendacity runs: They are a lie. And they call us wrong. But I think we can be comforted because I believe that these monstrous men and the women who condone and support them are finally on their way out, that in this- [applause] that in their chosen isolation, they are diminished and defeated men because they do not embody the American spirit or encompass the American heart, and they do not represent the will of the people. So we must remain steadfast in our knowledge that they are wrong and we are right. And we must remain hopeful that for our children and our children's children that we are not a warring nation, but we will embrace and practice true compassion and honor the ideals of peace and freedom. And we will not give up. Peace! Peace!"