I admire Arizona's own particular brand of conservatism. Some would rather have it called Libertarianism but whatever you call it, I don't think it goes far enough. To give license to any policeman to assume probable cause to stop and search and demand papers of anyone who looks foreign is all well and good, but if it's confined to Arizona it just ain't enough. We need to follow Arizona's lead and make it national policy and any cop from Athol Massachusetts to Zebulon Georgia should be able to stop and demand papers of anyone below a certain level of blondness.
Because of Arizona's proximity to sources of ethnic pollution all cars with AZ plates should be stopped and searched and all air passengers arriving from Phoenix should be shunted aside for special handling. If even one leaf blower wielding, dish washing, fruit picking, leprosy carrying insurgent is stopped, it's worth the minor inconvenience. Of course there are those who need to be exempted from the rule - take New Mexico Governor Richardson or former Attorney General Gonzalez. We could have RFID transponders injected under their skin to identify them as trusted members of suspicious races so no celebrities, lawyers or politicians will be Tasered, beaten or otherwise humiliated in the process.
Again, Arizona leads the way in demanding that all candidates for President must present proof of US birth to be on the AZ ballot. Libertarians who profess to be strict constitutionalists may find a problem here, but I'm sure that the gravity of the problem will change their minds. It's also very important to define the nature of the proof lest the candidate furnish a state certified certificate attested to by the governor and director of vital records and attempt to fool State officials with it. It will take some work, but it can be done. In fact the bill gives the Arizona Attorney General discretion in the matter. According to the bill passed by the Arizona House on Monday, partisan or racial or ethnic suspicion alone is probable cause to reject the candidate and keep him off the ballot. Fortunately, House Republicans were able to pass the bill before Tuesday so as not to give Liberal terrorist supporters (if you'll forgive the redundancy) a chance to say it was done in honor of Hitler's birthday.
There are some Hitler loving, Maoist Liberal heretics in Arizona however. It's hard to believe but Phoenix Democratic Representative Kyrsten Sinema thinks all this is making Arizona a laughing stock, but that's easily countered by a sustained barrage of hysterical accusations of Communism, Fascism and palling around with terrorists. Works every time. It's like shooting Liberals in a barrel.
Showing posts with label fascism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fascism. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Friday, April 02, 2010
Twilight of the Godwins
I have to credit the rhetorical craftiness of self-anointed conservatives who often get away with dismissing inevitable and even necessary comparisons by invoking Godwin's Law. Yes, it's inevitable that when discussing sudden transitions from civilized societies, the implosion of modern, liberal democratic, constitutional governments into to absolutist and racist tyrannies and the techniques employed, Hitler will come up. It's just as likely that Albert Einstein will come up in discussions of relativity or Tomas de Torquemada in studying the Inquisition. Just try to study the Bush administration and not think of Orwell. Try it, I dare you. Invoking Godwin as though it were more than a humorous observation is simply a tactical diversion and it seems to work by embarrassing the one who brought it up.
Barack Obama is hardly the first President to be accused absurdly of tyranny, fascism or of being a socialist, for that matter. Lincoln's assassin called him a tyrant, both Roosevelts were accused of being socialists long before the current president was born and in my day, anyone who didn't think it worth millions of lives to keep Vietnam from holding free elections was simply a Commie. Remember when Ho Chi Min wanted Humphrey to win so Happy Hubert was a Communist?
Hell, anybody who Joe McCarty didn't like for quoting the Constitution or really any reason at all was carrying that invisible card and his name was on the invisible list. Too bad there wasn't an easily produced "law" telling us that the longer a right wing apologia goes on, the more likely that Stalin or Mao will come up. Too bad there still isn't one, since people likely to make such transcendentally hyperbolic comparisons between the pragmatic, cautious Mr. Obama and absolute tyrants who caused tens of millions of deaths aren't likely to listen to arguments that are factual or too long to fit on a hand lettered cardboard sign. It would be nice to shut them off with Fogg's Law, wouldn't it?
As of late, discussions of the president begin with or are preceded by the rather airborne assumption that he's Mao Zedong, Joe Stalin, Adolph Hitler and Pol Pot rolled into some bearded bin Laden burrito, but then his father was black. Bill Clinton's father was only a white drinker and perhaps a philanderer so one usually had to wait for a sentence or two before the comparisons were dredged up -- and dredged up they always were. Yes, Bill was not only a murderer, not only going to "force health care down our throats" but going to give control of our armed forces to the UN. Bill, who murdered Vince Foster and ran a Coke smuggling operation out of Little Rock was planting nuclear weapons underneath our cities while indulging in Communist free love and of course his socialist tax increase was going to bankrupt our economy within months and destroy capitalism forever!
But no, it was terribly wrong to bring up fascism when his successor made that office the most powerful it had ever been, with the power to override congress and the courts and the Constitution. Terribly wrong when his propaganda machine began to scapegoat real and invented enemies, terribly wrong when he demanded and got special emergency powers by invoking threats that were substantially imaginary if not fraudulent. Smile and say Godwin and we're done.
Obama? Of course he's Communist and Fascist and never mind the contradiction. Of course he's a tyrant for the same reason Lincoln was a tyrant, the same reason Teddy Roosevelt was and FDR and don't you dare bring up Godwin this time!
Barack Obama is hardly the first President to be accused absurdly of tyranny, fascism or of being a socialist, for that matter. Lincoln's assassin called him a tyrant, both Roosevelts were accused of being socialists long before the current president was born and in my day, anyone who didn't think it worth millions of lives to keep Vietnam from holding free elections was simply a Commie. Remember when Ho Chi Min wanted Humphrey to win so Happy Hubert was a Communist?
Hell, anybody who Joe McCarty didn't like for quoting the Constitution or really any reason at all was carrying that invisible card and his name was on the invisible list. Too bad there wasn't an easily produced "law" telling us that the longer a right wing apologia goes on, the more likely that Stalin or Mao will come up. Too bad there still isn't one, since people likely to make such transcendentally hyperbolic comparisons between the pragmatic, cautious Mr. Obama and absolute tyrants who caused tens of millions of deaths aren't likely to listen to arguments that are factual or too long to fit on a hand lettered cardboard sign. It would be nice to shut them off with Fogg's Law, wouldn't it?
As of late, discussions of the president begin with or are preceded by the rather airborne assumption that he's Mao Zedong, Joe Stalin, Adolph Hitler and Pol Pot rolled into some bearded bin Laden burrito, but then his father was black. Bill Clinton's father was only a white drinker and perhaps a philanderer so one usually had to wait for a sentence or two before the comparisons were dredged up -- and dredged up they always were. Yes, Bill was not only a murderer, not only going to "force health care down our throats" but going to give control of our armed forces to the UN. Bill, who murdered Vince Foster and ran a Coke smuggling operation out of Little Rock was planting nuclear weapons underneath our cities while indulging in Communist free love and of course his socialist tax increase was going to bankrupt our economy within months and destroy capitalism forever!
But no, it was terribly wrong to bring up fascism when his successor made that office the most powerful it had ever been, with the power to override congress and the courts and the Constitution. Terribly wrong when his propaganda machine began to scapegoat real and invented enemies, terribly wrong when he demanded and got special emergency powers by invoking threats that were substantially imaginary if not fraudulent. Smile and say Godwin and we're done.
Obama? Of course he's Communist and Fascist and never mind the contradiction. Of course he's a tyrant for the same reason Lincoln was a tyrant, the same reason Teddy Roosevelt was and FDR and don't you dare bring up Godwin this time!
Friday, August 22, 2008
Liberty is a terrorist
The story goes like this: you're told you can no longer work at your current job and you can no longer find employment in your profession because your name is on a government list. The government won't confirm or deny it, so you can't go about demonstrating that you've been falsely put on it because you have no idea of what you've been accused of or why -- or even that the list exists. As far as you know the list is only there to keep you from working.
No, it's not a newly discovered Franz Kafka novella, it's the story of Erich Scherfen, a man who served honorably in the US military and during the Gulf War. He's currently employed as a regional airline pilot, but has been told that he can no longer fly because the TSA has him on a "terror" list -- a list that no one is allowed to see, not even to demonstrate that it's all a mistake.
But wait -- aren't we guaranteed the right to confront our accuser? Don't we get a day in court? Doesn't the government have to show we've committed a crime before taking our rights away? Hell, no, not in the Republican fascist hellhole full of apathetic consumers and mewling, cringing cowards that we used to call a free country. The "terror" list itself is the most terrifying thing about our pathetic pretend democracy and more pathetic for the fact that the only organization anywhere who will stand up for this man, the ACLU, is the favorite demon of the ruling party.
Of course they know why Scherfen is so terrifying and so do I -- he's a Muslim and his wife, an American citizen, was born in Pakistan and came here as a kid. His crime is flying while Muslim. Our crime is not giving a damn. Our crime is not storming the Bastille, dragging the bastards out of their offices and pillorying them. But we don't, we mumble about the Pledge and God on the money and them damn "Libs" in the ACLU and how John McCain will deal with "terror" much better while freedom itself is on the "terror list" and cannot fly.
Cross posted from The Reaction
No, it's not a newly discovered Franz Kafka novella, it's the story of Erich Scherfen, a man who served honorably in the US military and during the Gulf War. He's currently employed as a regional airline pilot, but has been told that he can no longer fly because the TSA has him on a "terror" list -- a list that no one is allowed to see, not even to demonstrate that it's all a mistake.
But wait -- aren't we guaranteed the right to confront our accuser? Don't we get a day in court? Doesn't the government have to show we've committed a crime before taking our rights away? Hell, no, not in the Republican fascist hellhole full of apathetic consumers and mewling, cringing cowards that we used to call a free country. The "terror" list itself is the most terrifying thing about our pathetic pretend democracy and more pathetic for the fact that the only organization anywhere who will stand up for this man, the ACLU, is the favorite demon of the ruling party.
Of course they know why Scherfen is so terrifying and so do I -- he's a Muslim and his wife, an American citizen, was born in Pakistan and came here as a kid. His crime is flying while Muslim. Our crime is not giving a damn. Our crime is not storming the Bastille, dragging the bastards out of their offices and pillorying them. But we don't, we mumble about the Pledge and God on the money and them damn "Libs" in the ACLU and how John McCain will deal with "terror" much better while freedom itself is on the "terror list" and cannot fly.
Cross posted from The Reaction
Monday, June 23, 2008
Chertoff's Iron curtain
Something there is that doesn't love a wall, said the poet. I think it's called freedom.
Say you have a nice ranch down near the Rio Grande. The view is fabulous, you use the water for your cattle, you have a little boat to fish with. The deer and the antelope play.
Say you enjoy the San Pedro river, the San Pedro Riparian National Conservation Area on the Arizona border. You can forget it; it's soon to be blocked by a huge corrugated iron curtain right out of the cold war era because we're all so desperately afraid of Mexicans who don't come in to the country on tourist visas, like most illegal immigrants do.
This isn't a diatribe on any racialist or economic basis for xenophobia or the grave danger of people with expired visas cutting your lawn, it's about big government getting away with unquestionable authority by declaring emergencies. It's about Michael Chertoff's Bush-given ability to overturn court rulings and ignore laws passed by Congress because - well just because the commander guy has commanded it. Our Republican Congress gave him the power to waive any laws he needed to to get this fence built and our Republican courts in all their activist glory have now backed him up today by upholding a lower court's ruling that giving Michael Chertoff authority to write and unwrite laws passed by congress does not violate the separation of powers set forth in the constitution. Michael Cherthoff can be the law and neither we nor our elected representatives can stop him sayeth the Bush Court.
Somehow the people who give us the Fatherland and the Motherland seem awfully similar to the people who changed National Security into Homeland Security.
Many people sincerely doubt that this wall will actually secure our border and protect us from undocumented dishwashers. The history of walls lends them some support, but of course when things get bad enough here, perhaps it will help keep us from fleeing to Mexico.
Cross posted from The Impolitic
Say you have a nice ranch down near the Rio Grande. The view is fabulous, you use the water for your cattle, you have a little boat to fish with. The deer and the antelope play.
Say you enjoy the San Pedro river, the San Pedro Riparian National Conservation Area on the Arizona border. You can forget it; it's soon to be blocked by a huge corrugated iron curtain right out of the cold war era because we're all so desperately afraid of Mexicans who don't come in to the country on tourist visas, like most illegal immigrants do.
This isn't a diatribe on any racialist or economic basis for xenophobia or the grave danger of people with expired visas cutting your lawn, it's about big government getting away with unquestionable authority by declaring emergencies. It's about Michael Chertoff's Bush-given ability to overturn court rulings and ignore laws passed by Congress because - well just because the commander guy has commanded it. Our Republican Congress gave him the power to waive any laws he needed to to get this fence built and our Republican courts in all their activist glory have now backed him up today by upholding a lower court's ruling that giving Michael Chertoff authority to write and unwrite laws passed by congress does not violate the separation of powers set forth in the constitution. Michael Cherthoff can be the law and neither we nor our elected representatives can stop him sayeth the Bush Court.
Somehow the people who give us the Fatherland and the Motherland seem awfully similar to the people who changed National Security into Homeland Security.
Many people sincerely doubt that this wall will actually secure our border and protect us from undocumented dishwashers. The history of walls lends them some support, but of course when things get bad enough here, perhaps it will help keep us from fleeing to Mexico.
Cross posted from The Impolitic
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
One less choice
Even though the month is barely half over, I think it's safe to award the Capt. Fogg Finger of Speech award for January to our Supreme Court, otherwise known as the judicial branch of the Republican Party and guardian of corporate and religious interests.
Without giving any explanation of their reasoning, the court decided yesterday that you or I have no right to try unapproved drugs even if we are terminally ill and have nothing to lose. It seems to me that such rights belong to anyone if one is to maintain, in keeping with law and precedent, that we are free people who own our selves, our lives, our bodies. Upholding a lower court's ruling that
Of course a doctor can sell you a gun or give it to you, I can buy rat poison without a license, I can use nicotine with a proven tendency to shorten my life, but not some drug that hasn't had years of testing and approval by the Government and yet offers some small degree of hope to me and no risk of harm to anyone else. Death can certainly be hastened by withholding a promising treatment and when death is otherwise inevitable, where is the justification, legal or moral, for black Robed Republicans to withhold hope?
Our guardians of the constitution have essentially removed one more right from a thinking adult that they would so dearly love to grant to a fertilized egg and so, amongst the vast throng of deserving applicants, I have to chose our Republican packed courts as the most worthy of the first monthly Fogg Finger of Speech.
Without giving any explanation of their reasoning, the court decided yesterday that you or I have no right to try unapproved drugs even if we are terminally ill and have nothing to lose. It seems to me that such rights belong to anyone if one is to maintain, in keeping with law and precedent, that we are free people who own our selves, our lives, our bodies. Upholding a lower court's ruling that
"Although terminally ill patients desperately need curative treatments ... their deaths can certainly be hastened by the use of a potentially toxic drug with no proven therapeutic benefit,"the Bush Court under God got out the rubber stamp and used it to establish that, the ninth amendment notwithstanding, we have no fundamental right to self preservation; no fundamental right to make decisions or take actions regarding our self preservation that put no one else at risk. This ruling easily reduces to absurdity. Depending on prayer rather than penicillin can kill you, why do we not force the proven treatment and deny the unproven in this case?
Of course a doctor can sell you a gun or give it to you, I can buy rat poison without a license, I can use nicotine with a proven tendency to shorten my life, but not some drug that hasn't had years of testing and approval by the Government and yet offers some small degree of hope to me and no risk of harm to anyone else. Death can certainly be hastened by withholding a promising treatment and when death is otherwise inevitable, where is the justification, legal or moral, for black Robed Republicans to withhold hope?
Our guardians of the constitution have essentially removed one more right from a thinking adult that they would so dearly love to grant to a fertilized egg and so, amongst the vast throng of deserving applicants, I have to chose our Republican packed courts as the most worthy of the first monthly Fogg Finger of Speech.
Wednesday, December 26, 2007
Blackwater Christmas - not just a dream
I don't know what the spectators at the Armed Forces Bowl this New Years Eve will think when they see Blackwater mercenaries parachuting into the stadium as they did December 1st during halftime at the Sand Diego State/BYU game. Indeed, what will the Air Force team think when they see that those aren't our guys in the black uniforms? Are they staging an armed takeover or just displaying the awesome power of a private military?
I'm sorry to contradict Reagan the Great, but when someone shows up to help, I prefer that it would be someone from the legitimate government rather than armed representatives from a country without borders, or laws or accountability. I don't think it will be long, for instance, before the Bushists privatize the "War on Drugs" by giving license to companies like Blackwater to do all the things we won't allow the government to do ( like start a war in Columbia or Mexico or pour water up your nose or worse) and make no mistake, Blackwater has the vehicles, the helicopters, the ships and the intelligence division to allow them to accomplish most any mission, foreign or domestic, our next rogue president might consider to be too touchy to approach in a legal fashion.
If the next rogue president should be Mitt Romney, we can be assured that Blackwater head, Cofer Black, his chief adviser on counterterrorism, will have a lot to say about military affairs and military conduct and indeed he already has had. Romney's decision not to comment on torture was made with the advice of Black. Of course I'm sure Cofer Black's private army will be happy to accept more and better no-bid contracts from whichever idiot the American people choose to make things worse.
As Jeremy Scahill writes in The Nation,
And what are the chances that this profitable enterprise will be brought down now that they have moved beyond the borders of brutal occupation and commercial espionage into retail sales of everything from 9mm pistols to baby clothes? Is the future a kind and degree of fascism unimaginable even in the Europe of the 1930's and 40's? Why not? With the country rallying behind thugs and idiots in blue pinstripes, what chance does freedom have?
I'm sorry to contradict Reagan the Great, but when someone shows up to help, I prefer that it would be someone from the legitimate government rather than armed representatives from a country without borders, or laws or accountability. I don't think it will be long, for instance, before the Bushists privatize the "War on Drugs" by giving license to companies like Blackwater to do all the things we won't allow the government to do ( like start a war in Columbia or Mexico or pour water up your nose or worse) and make no mistake, Blackwater has the vehicles, the helicopters, the ships and the intelligence division to allow them to accomplish most any mission, foreign or domestic, our next rogue president might consider to be too touchy to approach in a legal fashion.
If the next rogue president should be Mitt Romney, we can be assured that Blackwater head, Cofer Black, his chief adviser on counterterrorism, will have a lot to say about military affairs and military conduct and indeed he already has had. Romney's decision not to comment on torture was made with the advice of Black. Of course I'm sure Cofer Black's private army will be happy to accept more and better no-bid contracts from whichever idiot the American people choose to make things worse.
As Jeremy Scahill writes in The Nation,
"the Government is in the midst of the most radical privatization in history, and companies like Blackwater are becoming ever more deeply embedded in the war apparatus. Until this system is brought down, the world's the limit for Blackwater Worldwide. . ."
And what are the chances that this profitable enterprise will be brought down now that they have moved beyond the borders of brutal occupation and commercial espionage into retail sales of everything from 9mm pistols to baby clothes? Is the future a kind and degree of fascism unimaginable even in the Europe of the 1930's and 40's? Why not? With the country rallying behind thugs and idiots in blue pinstripes, what chance does freedom have?
Friday, December 21, 2007
Invasion of the Viking Women
A couple of readers* urged me to blog about this story yesterday, but it's one of those things that is so depressing, so horrifying and so disgusting to someone who once loved the United States that it's really hard to do anything but let you read about it yourself and weep. It seems like we're not only to suspect anyone sounding vaguely Islamic of harboring dreams of invading and conquering or subverting the US, but our new Immigration and Customs Enforcement people are worried about an invasion of Viking Women.
I've talked to Europeans who used to maintain vacation homes in the US and have sold them because of the outrageous harassment they get every time they enter the country, including fingerprinting and examination of financial records. I read recently the story of two English entrepreneurs who wanted to bring some capital and open a business here and essentially were thrown out by ICE with no reason given and I've read about people who because of visa irregularities have been held incommunicado and without charges for years without knowing why.
No, I'm not talking about "enemy combatants" I'm talking about tourists like Eva Ósk Arnardóttir, an Icelandic woman who overstayed her visa in 1995 and went home three weeks late. She's been back without any problems, but this time she's discovered the new America, the America of secret prisons, of jack-booted officers and dungeons where ordinary and harmless people are chained and shackled and interrogated and terrorized and poked and probed and intimidated and held without charges or benefit of legal help.
*My thanks to Crankyboy and Swampcracker
Cross posted from The Impolitic
I've talked to Europeans who used to maintain vacation homes in the US and have sold them because of the outrageous harassment they get every time they enter the country, including fingerprinting and examination of financial records. I read recently the story of two English entrepreneurs who wanted to bring some capital and open a business here and essentially were thrown out by ICE with no reason given and I've read about people who because of visa irregularities have been held incommunicado and without charges for years without knowing why.
No, I'm not talking about "enemy combatants" I'm talking about tourists like Eva Ósk Arnardóttir, an Icelandic woman who overstayed her visa in 1995 and went home three weeks late. She's been back without any problems, but this time she's discovered the new America, the America of secret prisons, of jack-booted officers and dungeons where ordinary and harmless people are chained and shackled and interrogated and terrorized and poked and probed and intimidated and held without charges or benefit of legal help.
*My thanks to Crankyboy and Swampcracker
Cross posted from The Impolitic
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
Look the other way
It was a little bit of '68. It was a little bit of passion play. It was a taste of the police state and the sheep-like mental state of generation XBox, who sat there by the hundreds doing nothing but take pictures with their imported camera phones while a student had the crap beat out of him while held to the floor by a pile of University of Florida rent-a-cops who tasered and tasered and tasered him again while he screamed "let me go and I'll walk out of here."
What did he do? He ran longer than his allotted time - speaker John Kerry had given him permission to ask the final question and said it was a question worth answering. He was bubbly with enthusiasm - perhaps a little insensitive. What was the crime? Apparently it was not instant obedience to the goon squad trying to interfere with his right to free speech and peaceful assembly. Apparently he was too young to know it's the cops' country, not ours.
39 years ago Walter Cronkite told us "the whole world is watching" and they were. Today we're asking if anyone is watching, if anyone gives a damn what happens as long as their umbilical is still firmly attacked to the entertainment supply. Today I'm asking why those Nazi animals weren't confronted by thousands of angry students and forced to relinquish their prisoner. I'm asking why they're still in uniform.
Damn them and damn everyone who lets them get away with it.
What did he do? He ran longer than his allotted time - speaker John Kerry had given him permission to ask the final question and said it was a question worth answering. He was bubbly with enthusiasm - perhaps a little insensitive. What was the crime? Apparently it was not instant obedience to the goon squad trying to interfere with his right to free speech and peaceful assembly. Apparently he was too young to know it's the cops' country, not ours.
39 years ago Walter Cronkite told us "the whole world is watching" and they were. Today we're asking if anyone is watching, if anyone gives a damn what happens as long as their umbilical is still firmly attacked to the entertainment supply. Today I'm asking why those Nazi animals weren't confronted by thousands of angry students and forced to relinquish their prisoner. I'm asking why they're still in uniform.
Damn them and damn everyone who lets them get away with it.
Monday, August 20, 2007
Rudy's Iron curtain
"Your papers please." It was always said with some kind of Hollywood Russian or German accent at some border crossing; some dingy alley with wet cobblestones in the dark of some Eastern European night. The Gestapo agent, or the Man from the Stasi or KGB in a leather trench coat would urge you into the back seat of a Lada or black Mercedes and you were off to some nameless cellar to be tortured and held forever without charges. I grew up in the years after WW II an
d movies were like that. We were so proud of being a free country and we called ourselves the Free World and the free world wasn't a place where everyone was watching you and an anonymous tip would cause you to disappear in the night.
The Reaction talks this morning about Rudy Guiliani's plan to require all visitors to the US to carry a card with photo and fingerprints and for which, if they fit the profile, they can be asked at any time. If they don't comply they can be "thrown out" of the country. That will sound great to those who view foreigners as swarthy, suspicious, sinister undesirables and will sound like a reason to shun the US by doctors, scientists, engineers, businessmen, journalists, artists, writers, students, tourists and people visiting their relatives who thought a passport was enough.
Perhaps I'm being touchy about the possibility of national ID cards for all Americans, but I don't think so. the SAFE card plan seems like only the first step. A citizen, after all, will have to prove he is not an alien without a card and for that he will need citizenship papers with him at all times, particularly if he has an accent or isn't European looking or has a good Florida tan and a beard, as I do. It's an idea that's been floated about since September of 2001 by fear mongers like Rudy who want to appear as though they are defending America by suggesting the indefensible. The United States of America never was i
ntended to be a police state, a place where you can be challenged, where you can be presumed guilty and spied upon and have your privacy invaded at the whim of anyone and your rights violated, your property confiscated and your head held under water without recourse to justice. It was never intended to be a place where someone can stop you on the street or kick your door down at midnight asking for papers. It was never intended to be led by people like Rudy Giuliani
Rudy, who looks as disgusting in his 9/11 hero costume as he does in drag, has a record of justifying means by their intended ends. He's the mayor after all, who tried to close the Brooklyn Museum and shut down the subway line because it contained a painting he erroneously thought was "blasphemous." Yes, indeed, requiring people to carry ID cards they way they do in China and requiring them to prove legal status at the whim of any policeman would be very useful in exercising total control. It's easy to sell a police state to frightened people and Benito - excuse me, Rudy - seems never to miss a chance to tell us how scary those foreign terrorists are.
No foreign saboteurs or terrorists can ever be more than a thorn in our side. Rudy Guiliani and the party of George Bush can be a knife in our heart.
d movies were like that. We were so proud of being a free country and we called ourselves the Free World and the free world wasn't a place where everyone was watching you and an anonymous tip would cause you to disappear in the night.The Reaction talks this morning about Rudy Guiliani's plan to require all visitors to the US to carry a card with photo and fingerprints and for which, if they fit the profile, they can be asked at any time. If they don't comply they can be "thrown out" of the country. That will sound great to those who view foreigners as swarthy, suspicious, sinister undesirables and will sound like a reason to shun the US by doctors, scientists, engineers, businessmen, journalists, artists, writers, students, tourists and people visiting their relatives who thought a passport was enough.
Perhaps I'm being touchy about the possibility of national ID cards for all Americans, but I don't think so. the SAFE card plan seems like only the first step. A citizen, after all, will have to prove he is not an alien without a card and for that he will need citizenship papers with him at all times, particularly if he has an accent or isn't European looking or has a good Florida tan and a beard, as I do. It's an idea that's been floated about since September of 2001 by fear mongers like Rudy who want to appear as though they are defending America by suggesting the indefensible. The United States of America never was i
ntended to be a police state, a place where you can be challenged, where you can be presumed guilty and spied upon and have your privacy invaded at the whim of anyone and your rights violated, your property confiscated and your head held under water without recourse to justice. It was never intended to be a place where someone can stop you on the street or kick your door down at midnight asking for papers. It was never intended to be led by people like Rudy GiulianiRudy, who looks as disgusting in his 9/11 hero costume as he does in drag, has a record of justifying means by their intended ends. He's the mayor after all, who tried to close the Brooklyn Museum and shut down the subway line because it contained a painting he erroneously thought was "blasphemous." Yes, indeed, requiring people to carry ID cards they way they do in China and requiring them to prove legal status at the whim of any policeman would be very useful in exercising total control. It's easy to sell a police state to frightened people and Benito - excuse me, Rudy - seems never to miss a chance to tell us how scary those foreign terrorists are.
No foreign saboteurs or terrorists can ever be more than a thorn in our side. Rudy Guiliani and the party of George Bush can be a knife in our heart.
Thursday, August 16, 2007
The best security of a free state
"A well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, being the best security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. . ."
James Madison. First draft of the second amendment.
Do you really think it can't happen here? A president who exercises his self granted powers to take personal control of all governmental and military functions and call out the troops to round up dissenters, confiscate their property and put them in internment camps? The mechanism is in place and there are only a couple of things that might make the decider reluctant to trade the Stetson for a Napoleon hat. Posse Comitatus is no longer a problem, the camps are available, the Presidential directives in place, but will the citizens stand for it and turn over their arms and their freedom? I hope we never find out, but it seems they've thought of that and there are plans to use a "Clergy Response Team" to soothe and cajole the faithful into submission just like the one they employed in New Orleans during hurricane Katrina when homeowners were forced to surrender the weapons they hoped would defend their homes against looters and criminal opportunists.
Sandy Davis, the director of the Caddo-Bossier Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness in Shreveport, LA says
James Madison. First draft of the second amendment.
Do you really think it can't happen here? A president who exercises his self granted powers to take personal control of all governmental and military functions and call out the troops to round up dissenters, confiscate their property and put them in internment camps? The mechanism is in place and there are only a couple of things that might make the decider reluctant to trade the Stetson for a Napoleon hat. Posse Comitatus is no longer a problem, the camps are available, the Presidential directives in place, but will the citizens stand for it and turn over their arms and their freedom? I hope we never find out, but it seems they've thought of that and there are plans to use a "Clergy Response Team" to soothe and cajole the faithful into submission just like the one they employed in New Orleans during hurricane Katrina when homeowners were forced to surrender the weapons they hoped would defend their homes against looters and criminal opportunists.
Sandy Davis, the director of the Caddo-Bossier Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness in Shreveport, LA says
"In a lot of cases, these clergy would already be known in the neighborhoods in which they're helping to diffuse that situation,"Dr. Durell Tuberville, chaplain for the Shreveport fire department and county Sheriff's office tells us that the Bible is a useful tool in the supression of civil liberty
"because the government's established by the Lord, you know. And, that's what we believe in the Christian faith. That's what's stated in the scripture."When the framers of the constitution mentioned a well regulated militia, I believe they envisioned it as something to stand between tyranny and the "body of the people" and perhaps between a standing army and the people. I'm not a Christian any more than they were and I have the same attitudes toward nations under God and rulers that claim divine authority as they did. If the Clergy Response team arrives at my house telling me not to worry and get in the box car they'd better be packing something other than Bibles.
Monday, August 06, 2007
But wait, there's more.
And Bush wants it. He still doesn't think he has enough power to do what he will about looking and listening and snooping and spying on anyone, anywhere, anytime. He wants more. He wants those who broke the law before he emasculated the Constitution protected from prosecution and of course as of July 23rd he's made new laws all by himself allowing him to seize the assets of anyone getting in the way - not that he will let anyone see the details. On May 9th he gave himself dictatorial powers and he wants more.
And the witch hunt begins. Since nothing he did in violation of the 4th amendment can now be considered illegal, it seems the administration now feels able to punish whoever exposed his massive and still mostly secret intelligence gathering, spying and data mining directed against US citizens without court approval. According to the August 13th edition of Newsweek, a secret warrant has been used to seize the computers and files of Thomas M. Tamm, who previously worked in the Justice Department's Office of Intelligence Policy and Review (OIPR)—the supersecret unit that oversees surveillance of terrorist and espionage targets.
Stalin would applaud and now Bush has nearly Stalinesque powers to punish someone who tried to expose the criminal administration in its criminal activities. Such things are not unprecedented, but they are unprecedented in America - and Bush wants more.
The man who said he didn't trust government but trusted the people now wants more secrecy, more power and more ability to punish those untrustworthy advocates of a government constrained by law and responsible to the elected representatives of the American people and to an independent judiciary.
It's hard to believe that a lame-duck president would press for such power and such protection from any checks and balances the law provides if he did not intent to stay in power beyond the November 2008 elections. I'm no longer embarrassed to say that I think he doesn't intend to leave and that I think his ambitions are dictatorial. I would however, be embarrassed to say that I'm a citizen of a country that allowed this to happen; a country that snickered about Liberals, obsessed about celebrities, numbed their brains with pop culture, sucked up lies and propaganda like Flavor-Aid in the hot Guyana jungle and allowed it to happen.
And the witch hunt begins. Since nothing he did in violation of the 4th amendment can now be considered illegal, it seems the administration now feels able to punish whoever exposed his massive and still mostly secret intelligence gathering, spying and data mining directed against US citizens without court approval. According to the August 13th edition of Newsweek, a secret warrant has been used to seize the computers and files of Thomas M. Tamm, who previously worked in the Justice Department's Office of Intelligence Policy and Review (OIPR)—the supersecret unit that oversees surveillance of terrorist and espionage targets.
Stalin would applaud and now Bush has nearly Stalinesque powers to punish someone who tried to expose the criminal administration in its criminal activities. Such things are not unprecedented, but they are unprecedented in America - and Bush wants more.
The man who said he didn't trust government but trusted the people now wants more secrecy, more power and more ability to punish those untrustworthy advocates of a government constrained by law and responsible to the elected representatives of the American people and to an independent judiciary.It's hard to believe that a lame-duck president would press for such power and such protection from any checks and balances the law provides if he did not intent to stay in power beyond the November 2008 elections. I'm no longer embarrassed to say that I think he doesn't intend to leave and that I think his ambitions are dictatorial. I would however, be embarrassed to say that I'm a citizen of a country that allowed this to happen; a country that snickered about Liberals, obsessed about celebrities, numbed their brains with pop culture, sucked up lies and propaganda like Flavor-Aid in the hot Guyana jungle and allowed it to happen.
Enemy within
J. Thomas Duffy at the Reaction calls it the night of the jackal. I hope someday if we're not forbidden by BB to discuss it, we don't look back and call it the night when freedom died. It's hard to get my mind off of the Congressional sellout that allows Bush unlimited power whenever he decides he needs it. It's hard not to associate it with the directives that allow him to seize your assets if you get in the way of his Iraq agenda and that allow him to declare himself supreme ruler for as long as he deems necessary. It's hard not to see liberty and justice slipping silently and invisibly away like water over polished marble slabs.
Remember when Bush told us he didn't trust government - he trusted the people? Perhaps as Duffy says, the lion sleeps tonight, but the lyin' never stops.
Still, it's important to remember that even if President Bush is the greatest enemy of our constitution since King George III of England, there are other enemies demented and domestic that pursue a relentless process of undermining what is left of the promise of liberty. They send me e-mail almost every day. Saturday evening brought me a very impassioned note showing a picture of the face of the Washington one dollar coin with the huge headline displayed in red letters:
Perhaps the outraged author is ignorant enough not to know that the initial appearance of 'In God we Trust' was on the two cent coin in 1864 and was part of the attempt to assign a religious mission to the Northern side in the Civil War. It was added at the behest of the Secretary of the Treasury Salmon P. Chase. Most people would probably fall for the fabrication:
Since it's nearly impossible for anyone to be quite as stupid as the writer of this e-mail appears to be, I can only conclude that it's another attempt by the Christianist Jihad to undermine truth, justice, the monetary system and the American Way. So perhaps by pointing to the correct history and by reading the overtly secularist constitution, I've become a politically correct secularist leader. I'm not actually sure what that means, but I do think it's better to be correct than incorrect with respect to the facts and better to tell the truth than to be a liar, even if it's a liar for the advancement of Christian supremacy.
Remember when Bush told us he didn't trust government - he trusted the people? Perhaps as Duffy says, the lion sleeps tonight, but the lyin' never stops.
Still, it's important to remember that even if President Bush is the greatest enemy of our constitution since King George III of England, there are other enemies demented and domestic that pursue a relentless process of undermining what is left of the promise of liberty. They send me e-mail almost every day. Saturday evening brought me a very impassioned note showing a picture of the face of the Washington one dollar coin with the huge headline displayed in red letters:
YOU GUESSED IT 'IN GOD WE TRUST' IS GONEAfter a fabricated story about having picked up some of these gold tone coins at the bank and the shock, the horror at discovering the omission of that Ten Commandment defying motto, I'm asked again in huge letters: "
"Who originally put In God We Trust onto our currency? My guess is that it was one of the presidents on these coins. All our US government has done is dishonor them, and disgust me!!! Together we can force them out of circulation. Please send to all on you [sic] e-mail list. I am personally offended and fed up with the denigration of God and Christianity in my country. I am certain George Washington would never haveOf course the guess is wrong and he may be certain but he's certainly wrong about Washington. He would have done no such thing, being a Deist and not a Christian believing in a personal or monetary God and having exhibited no particular urge to establish a religion in defiance of the Constitution during his lifetime and there not having been any religious message on any of our coinage prior to 1864. We can be sure he's not rolling in his grave at the moment. It's also a bit odd to say that faith is promoted (albeit in rampant defiance of the Bill of Rights and the stated intentions of those who wrote it) by slogans on money. But of course the whole thing is rendered hilariously moot by the fact that the motto does indeed appear around the edge of the coin. The perpetrator is of course lying for the Lord and at full throttle.agreed to his picture on the coin if it any way diminished faith in God. "
Perhaps the outraged author is ignorant enough not to know that the initial appearance of 'In God we Trust' was on the two cent coin in 1864 and was part of the attempt to assign a religious mission to the Northern side in the Civil War. It was added at the behest of the Secretary of the Treasury Salmon P. Chase. Most people would probably fall for the fabrication:
"The new George Washington $1.00 coin is the first money ever issued by the USA in modern history without the words "In God We Trust". By omitting these words, our politically correct, secularist leaders made a conscientious decision that either; 1) God does not exist, or 2) that God exists, but can no longer be trusted. "but fabrication it is. It was only from 1938 on that all coins bore the motto and the first paper money to bear it was issued in 1957.
Since it's nearly impossible for anyone to be quite as stupid as the writer of this e-mail appears to be, I can only conclude that it's another attempt by the Christianist Jihad to undermine truth, justice, the monetary system and the American Way. So perhaps by pointing to the correct history and by reading the overtly secularist constitution, I've become a politically correct secularist leader. I'm not actually sure what that means, but I do think it's better to be correct than incorrect with respect to the facts and better to tell the truth than to be a liar, even if it's a liar for the advancement of Christian supremacy.
Monday, July 30, 2007
Die Gedanken sind frei
There's an old German song I learned long ago in school. Written in the 16th century, it became popular again as the Nazis began to take over during the 1930's. It's called Die Gedanken sind frei: Thoughts are free. For most of history, one's inner thoughts were the only kind of freedom most people had.
Freedom of thought has always been a precious commodity and back when the United States meant something; back when people used to call it a free country, there weren't any government databases listing what each of us thought about politics and religion; about our sexual thoughts or about the things we have bought.
That was then. That was before the Commander Guy. Our department of Homeland Security is building a database of all airline passengers entering the United States whether they are American Citizens or not and it will include Race, Sexual orientation, political opinions, religious beliefs, credit card records and of course fingerprints.
"We're going to be able to connect the dots more quickly," says DHS's Russell Knocke adding that"it's a powerful tool that really can help to save lives." It can ruin them too. The information will be kept for 15 years although presumably if you fly within that time, it will be kept another 15.
Isn't it time we connected the dots? Bush is doing the same thing they did in Germany to terrify us into submission and to keep such good records that any enemies of the state can be identified and dealt with. Our stubborn belief that "we're the greatest country in the world" may be the deciding factor in our becoming another fascist police state with imperial ambitions and if we don't start looking at where the dotted line is pointing we surely will lose most of our freedom.
Freedom of thought has always been a precious commodity and back when the United States meant something; back when people used to call it a free country, there weren't any government databases listing what each of us thought about politics and religion; about our sexual thoughts or about the things we have bought.
That was then. That was before the Commander Guy. Our department of Homeland Security is building a database of all airline passengers entering the United States whether they are American Citizens or not and it will include Race, Sexual orientation, political opinions, religious beliefs, credit card records and of course fingerprints.
"We're going to be able to connect the dots more quickly," says DHS's Russell Knocke adding that"it's a powerful tool that really can help to save lives." It can ruin them too. The information will be kept for 15 years although presumably if you fly within that time, it will be kept another 15.
Isn't it time we connected the dots? Bush is doing the same thing they did in Germany to terrify us into submission and to keep such good records that any enemies of the state can be identified and dealt with. Our stubborn belief that "we're the greatest country in the world" may be the deciding factor in our becoming another fascist police state with imperial ambitions and if we don't start looking at where the dotted line is pointing we surely will lose most of our freedom.
The Constitution - best if sold by Bush - no preservatives
I've had it with these people. I'm packing, I'm pissed and I'm going to pistol whip the next nattering nitwit who says "Liberal Media" within my range of hearing - and that's only if I'm in a good mood.
The Associate Press issued this gem yesterday, just in time to spoil my breakfast. Appearing in the "Notoriously Liberal" Palm Beach Post and many other print and broadcast media, the headline reads "Bush Pushes Bill to adapt Surveillance Law to Tech Age." Apparently "Tech Age" means an age without protection from being spied upon at the unfettered whim of the President.
The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which at present provides the legal basis for Bush's enormous wiretapping program, says the article ". . .allows information about terrorists' communications to be collected without violating civil liberties." "This law is badly out of date."
Democrats, says the AP in passing, want to insure that any changes do not give the executive branch unfettered surveillance powers. Democrats; they mention Democrats as though two thirds of the nation didn't think Bush was stomping all over law and order and liberty with those shiny new two thousand dollar Lucchesi boots. It takes a certain kind of arrogance to marginalize the majority, to pretend the rarely equaled public distaste for a president gone wild is some insignificant product of a fringe minority's bias. It takes a Republican dominated, war mongering, freedom hating press.
Larded with the administration's rationalizations about why Bush needs unrestricted and extra-constitutional powers, along with repeated digs at the Democrats for being behind this unpatriotic obfuscation, the article concludes with a quote from John Boehner saying
The Associate Press issued this gem yesterday, just in time to spoil my breakfast. Appearing in the "Notoriously Liberal" Palm Beach Post and many other print and broadcast media, the headline reads "Bush Pushes Bill to adapt Surveillance Law to Tech Age." Apparently "Tech Age" means an age without protection from being spied upon at the unfettered whim of the President.
The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which at present provides the legal basis for Bush's enormous wiretapping program, says the article ". . .allows information about terrorists' communications to be collected without violating civil liberties." "This law is badly out of date."
Democrats, says the AP in passing, want to insure that any changes do not give the executive branch unfettered surveillance powers. Democrats; they mention Democrats as though two thirds of the nation didn't think Bush was stomping all over law and order and liberty with those shiny new two thousand dollar Lucchesi boots. It takes a certain kind of arrogance to marginalize the majority, to pretend the rarely equaled public distaste for a president gone wild is some insignificant product of a fringe minority's bias. It takes a Republican dominated, war mongering, freedom hating press.
Larded with the administration's rationalizations about why Bush needs unrestricted and extra-constitutional powers, along with repeated digs at the Democrats for being behind this unpatriotic obfuscation, the article concludes with a quote from John Boehner saying
"Rather than learning the lessons of September 11 - that we need to break down the bureaucratic impediments to intelligence collection and analysis - Democrats have stonewalled Republican attempts to modernize FISA and close the terrorist loophole."Apparently that loophole consists of the already slim protection you have against the random curiosity of the Government; against the abuse by a government who really has no reason to believe you're a "terrorist" but just wants to know and doesn't want to be bothered explaining to anyone as annoyingly unpatriotic as the courts why it's reading your e-mail.
Thursday, July 26, 2007
Bush secrets, Bush lies
Look at the long history of the Bush family and you see patterns. Disturbing and even horrifying patterns. It's no secret that the Bush family patriarch, Prescott Bush, was a Nazi sympathizer, involved in a New York bank that laundered money for Hitler. After a Herald Tribune story calling him "Hitler's Angel" exposed his bank as a de facto Nazi front organization, the Bush assets were seized under the Trading With The Enemy Act of 1941 . The media coverage was minimal and for over 60 years the story has been denied, but for anyone interested, the records are there and more are appearing.
The funds were returned after the war and Prescott went on to become a Senator from Connecticut using the laundered Nazi money. As Prescott's father Samuel Bush served during the First World War as a government official in charge of coordination and assistance to major weapons contractors, it's fair to say that the family tradition of profiting from war is at least of four generations standing.
Prescott Bush himself served in the military during the Great War and while he was in France, he wrote letters home bragging about his medals for bravery but had to retract the story when he was shown to be lying. He later claimed he had only been joking about his medals.
Prescott returned from the war and failed at several business ventures until his father in law got him a position as vice president of Harriman & Co which through a series of mergers became Brown Brothers Harriman & Co with Bush as a partner. This bank represented the interests of German companies including the interests of Fritz Thyssen, who had been an early financial backer of the Nazi party. Thyssen's deposits at the time were said to total aver 3 million - a very large sum at the time. Thyssen later authored the book I was Hitler's Banker.
But now for the really scary part. The BBC investigative program Document has revealed that during the Great Depression, Prescott Bush was involved in a plot which included prominent businessmen to overthrow the government of United States, replacing President Roosevelt with a fascist system like the ones they admired in Europe. He was also a supporter of Eugenics: the practice of sterilizing "inferior" people for the benefit of the "race."
I don't have to fill you in on the Bush family's continuing connection with the Military Industrial Complex, which includes Saudi arms companies and some shady deals, not to mention a very profitable war based on lies and forgeries, but you can see certain patterns in the Bush dynasty, including shady dealings with criminal governments, The use of dirty money to promote family enterprises, love of totalitarianism, lying, war profiteering and of course treason. No wonder the passion for secrecy runs so deep!
Think of impeachment not as ridding ourselves of a criminal administration, but as cutting off the head of a snake; a very big, long and dangerous snake.
The funds were returned after the war and Prescott went on to become a Senator from Connecticut using the laundered Nazi money. As Prescott's father Samuel Bush served during the First World War as a government official in charge of coordination and assistance to major weapons contractors, it's fair to say that the family tradition of profiting from war is at least of four generations standing.
Prescott Bush himself served in the military during the Great War and while he was in France, he wrote letters home bragging about his medals for bravery but had to retract the story when he was shown to be lying. He later claimed he had only been joking about his medals.
Prescott returned from the war and failed at several business ventures until his father in law got him a position as vice president of Harriman & Co which through a series of mergers became Brown Brothers Harriman & Co with Bush as a partner. This bank represented the interests of German companies including the interests of Fritz Thyssen, who had been an early financial backer of the Nazi party. Thyssen's deposits at the time were said to total aver 3 million - a very large sum at the time. Thyssen later authored the book I was Hitler's Banker.
But now for the really scary part. The BBC investigative program Document has revealed that during the Great Depression, Prescott Bush was involved in a plot which included prominent businessmen to overthrow the government of United States, replacing President Roosevelt with a fascist system like the ones they admired in Europe. He was also a supporter of Eugenics: the practice of sterilizing "inferior" people for the benefit of the "race."
I don't have to fill you in on the Bush family's continuing connection with the Military Industrial Complex, which includes Saudi arms companies and some shady deals, not to mention a very profitable war based on lies and forgeries, but you can see certain patterns in the Bush dynasty, including shady dealings with criminal governments, The use of dirty money to promote family enterprises, love of totalitarianism, lying, war profiteering and of course treason. No wonder the passion for secrecy runs so deep!
Think of impeachment not as ridding ourselves of a criminal administration, but as cutting off the head of a snake; a very big, long and dangerous snake.
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