Daytime TV Legend Phil Donahue joined Piers Morgan on CNN Thursday evening raising serious questions about ongoing fear-mongering tactics used to sell continual war to the American people.
Although he may be regretting it now, Piers Morgan made the fatal mistake of getting into politics and asking Donahue about his opinion of Rick Santorum following the Iowa Caucuses. What followed, and basically continued for the rest of the interview, was Donahue lashing out at the government, the majority of the presidential candidates, and the national media for using fear as a tool to sell more war to the public at large, specifically now with a potential Iran conflict looming.
While answering the initial question, Donahue made dramatically biting remarks toward Santorum’s pro-attack stance on Iran saying, “You can hear the [war] drums beating, he really wants to go after Iran, but how many wars do you want to have in your lifetime and how many bombs do you want to drop?”
He sat there seemingly astonished by what seems to be a ‘total-war at all costs’ US foreign policy that’s constantly echoed by the establishment, its media, and all the candidates, “except for Ron Paul.”
Using Ron Paul’s foreign policy as the example of common sense foundational US principals, Donahue vehemently disagreed with the recent Newt Gingrich assertion that Ron Paul’s non-interventional policies are “dangerous” by saying it seemed obvious and common sense that war-mongering and pre-emptive militarization is actually what’s dangerous instead.
What was even more interesting was seeing the typically pro-establishment leaning Piers Morgan start to agree with Donahue’s take on the situation, mentioning an interview he had with Ron Paul the day before. Morgan thought it was “impressive” Ron Paul always says he supports the constitution. “It’s very strange people are calling Ron Paul crazy,” he said, “for taking a generally constitutional based position.” He then went on to solidify his pro-Ron Paul position by stating, “I don’t even have a horse in the race, because I’m British, but here’s a guy who repeatedly says ‘I support the US constitution’ and everyone calls him kranky.” Donahue immediately agreed saying, “Yes, everything is turned upside down here.”
The interview continued with Donahue going even farther down the rabbit hole alluding to current war policies as being careless and inhumane, calling the US a “warrior nation.” Torching US policies he stated, “We are dropping bombs on women and children while they’re sleeping at night.” He went even farther mentioning the fact that it’s become very hard to dissent as an anti-war, anti-big government activist. The premise that the public is made to feel unpatriotic for wanting peace, and the realization that the establishment’s take is that the only anti-war candidate in the race is the crazy one, was something very tough to believe.
It didn’t take much longer before Piers decided to take the conversation in a different direction, but before the interview was over Donahue made sure to get a few final statements in before his time expired. You could almost see him waiting for the moment to take it the distance when just before Piers decided to cut the interview he made sure to mention the fact that he didn’t feel we still had a legitimate administration. He stated that with Habius Corpus now gone people need to realize “this is a nation of law, unless we’re all scared.” Then adding, “It’s amazing how fear just powerfully influences human behavior.”
Of the final things he was able to say before piers pulled the plug on the interview, one was giving the example of George Bush specifically as someone who, “Exercised the strategy of fear in leading the entire nation into the Iraq War.” With bugged out eyes and in a sarcastically frightened voice he continued to say, “Saddam is coming, he’s under your bed, ahhhh, ahhhhh!” As if the war mongering establishment was treating the American People like they were 3 years old, teasing them about the boogey man.
The interview was finally cut short however when Donahue started to sum his points up by saying that America’s provocation and war-mongering policies around the world have the US on the verge of more war, and he believed there was an agenda to keep the wheels of perpetual war spinning by using the fear of terrorism as the selling point. “It looks like we’ve got the guns out now because the Iranians are blocking the Strait of Hormuz," Donahue stated, "but instead of talking about it, Rick Santorum can’t wait to go in there and show how tough he is. That’s how you get elected, and that’s how we keep getting into war after war.”
The final straw on the interview however came immediately afterward when Donahue raised his hands exclaiming, “This is maddening, and this is tragic!” That’s when the people at CNN decided to cut the interview short. Piers immediately stuck out his hand for a handshake and said, “Phil, it’s been a real pleasure, thank you so much.”
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