Take away the war.
Anyone who does not know someone who cares about someone that is deployed abroad doesn’t really matter, They don’t get it, and they generally don’t give a fuck. Most of them are more sensitive to a sudden spike to their gasoline or heating costs than they are to the sudden revelation that they no longer have any fourth amendment rights.
Call me bitter, but I do get frustrated with the level of ignorance and apathy I encounter in my day-to-day life.
But there is someting else crawling up my ass. I want to know what changes the left-wing would impose upon the country if we suddenly took over all control of the government?
God forbid, we might impose universal health care on the nation. Just two nights ago I spent an hour with a man that thought the Democrats would make the nation weak, but who barely complained over a tooth he had to have pulled because he couldn’t afford a root canal when he had no dental insurance.
We might give the right, to gay couples, to establish the same financial and legal relationships that we allow straight people to make. Serial adulterers like Bob Barr and Newt Gingrich might have to explain why they can’t provide a upbringing as monogamous and as all-america apple pie wholesome as Rosie O’Donnell.
We might be soft on the racism associated with a political campaign designed to mobilize white male Protestant Americans against hispanic immigration.
We might hurt the quarterly estimates of any number of government contracters that depend on the Federal Government’s succor.
But will we threaten your right to free speeech, freedom of assembly, freedom from unreasonable search, freedom to hear the charges against you, freedom to a speedy trial?
No. We won’t. Democrats threaten no rights.
Republicans threaten a women’s right to choose, our right to be secure in our persons, and our whole constitutional system. The most rogue Democrats only threaten your disposable income.
As we try to come to grips with our worst paranoid ravings coming true, that the current administration has no repect for the Bill of Rights, we need to consider the nature of the assault.
Maybe Bill O’Reilly and Lou Dobbs have succeeded in making most of voting America think that they should be afraid of terrorists amd Central Americans, but the truth is that the most American’s standard of living is not very much threatened by Al-Qaeda or illegal Mexican immigration.
Actually, most American are not under threat. The threat is manifest. Tne threat is that we will shop for Holiday gifts while ChimpNero burns the Bill of Rights.
I was talking to some friends yesterday and used the same points. We must remember what we, as Democrats, stand for…we don’t need repetitve talking points, we need decisive actions.
…..and i say “as democrats” because i wasn’t one until 2000 (voted for nader – but it was in texas where his vote was not truly a lost vote), what is needed is to stand for principles.
i have thought since the inception (such as it was) of this administration that our future was in jeopardy. i must confess to truly not knowing the INCREDIBLY GRAND EXTENT to which it was. i hope that high school freshman still are required to read “1984”.
the extent to which this administration has eroded our freedoms and circumvented the constitution is unfathomable. it’s shamefull. it’s, we should all agree, un-American.
as democrats we should stand up for human and constitutional rights. our constitution is there for a purpose and has served the citizens of this nation for longer than any charter document in the history of humankind. that is no mistake.
although our constitution is a living document and subject to change and interpretation there is a mechanism for that and this administration seems not to care.
when an administration, butressed by congressional “leadership” diminishes the constitution of this great nation in such a way it is as if to say “screw you” thomas jefferson, “screw you” freedom and liberty. say hello to the new “truth”~~!
i become more sickened day by day. we can, we shall, we MUST overcome…..
righteousness is not about removing rights, it’s not about diminishing freedom. it’s about STANDING UP FOR rights. it’s about respecting humanity, and the planet. democrats must stand up for TRUE RIGHTEOUSNESS and BE PROUD OF IT!
We’re all under threat. Our children are under threat.
Our existence is now manifestly under threat.
The world will eventually unite against us if the emporer is given much more time to endanger and threaten them. Health care, taxes, affordable housing, and on and on, seem small items compared to our need to reverse our path to destruction that our history and appetite has us on. It’s not just Bush. He’s just the latest, albeit steroid fueled, exceptionalist.
Colleen Rowley wrote an op ed in our St. Paul paper today asking “Where have all the conservatives gone?” Its worth a read.
And just in case folks don’t know, Rowley is a Democratic candidate for Congress in Minnesota’s 2nd District.
She states it pretty well. A really radical agenda has siezed the party and yet for the most part, Republicans stay in lockstep.
Kristen Breitweiser has done an incredibly brave and brilliant thing. She has exposed the 9/11 lies in a way that most people can understand.
“The King’s Red Herring”. Please read.
Kristen should be in office somewhere. She is exactly the type of person we need in office. She has consistently known more than any person who as supposed to be informed in government.
We need an authorized citizen empaneled oversight board for our system.
pissing in.
If she were an elected official, she’d be subject to the “classification” and forced into silence.
Let the citizens arise and take back our country!
I have to disagree. Of course I can’t speak for her but I think her work would shatter the myth and deception of who and what al Queada are. It would help us identify the government-business-individual forces that have created this myth to achieve everything by control that we’re discussing today.
That’s why we need her outside the government.
The fact that the Family Steering Committee was made up of everyday people outside the political world, who had only one thing in common; – the loss of a loved one on 9/11 is what shook the mountain.
Didn’t move it, that work is still to be done.
Call me bitter, but I do get frustrated with the level of ignorance and apathy I encounter in my day-to-day life.
With you on that one Boo. As I sit here and watch the “Today Show” while reading this, I wonder what the hell people are thinking. Why isn’t all the news all the time about the crumbling of our democracy. Our president just said a giant FU to the constitution this weekend!!! He said (again, didn’t imply, but SAID) he’ll do anything he wants to do – and damn the constitution.
For the first time since Bush took office, I’m scared – not just angry – but scared.
I think about the years of 1968-1972. I was in high school and wrapped in a little bubble created by my right wing family. But as I looked back on the history of those years, I was impressed that our country survived them. Gave me hope in our democracy and all that. But now I wonder if we will survive this. Don’t mean to sound too defeatist – but I’m scared.
Scared is a big part of what I’m feeling too. We have a lawless sociopath in power in this country, backed by people who are so drunk with power they’d follow him over a cliff, and people just keep shopping like nothing’s wrong! Our local news reports the NSA civilian spying story like it’s nothing out of the ordinary, and keeps replaying Bush saying that the people who went public with the information are shameful and helping our enemies…
He is shameful and our biggest enemy, schoolyard bully that he is.
I’m scared too. I just finished a conversation here at the office with one of my older partners — Mr. D. Mr. D. is about 70 years old and has been a member of the Democratic party for years. He’s acted as treasurer in Democratic candidate campaigns and he’s a really good guy whom I respect. He just said that he thought this whole thing was a big “nothing”, that as long as Bush could cover himself in the cloak of authority by claiming that the resolution authorizing force gave him authority he would be fine. I told Mr. D. that I thought Bush had committed an impeachable offense (not that I believed for a moment he would be impeached) and that I thought this whole thing was HUGE. He said these things have gone on for years and as long as Joe Sixpack felt that the President was trying to protect him, the PResidendt was in no trouble. It was only the people in New York and California who worried about things like this. I was shocked that he wasn’t at all upset by this affair. And that scares me. Yes, President Johnson lied the country into a war. Yes, Richard Nixon wiretapped people. And in both cases the country survived. But I feel that this time — its different. I wish I could explain it to him better. But frankly in all matters he’s MUCH MUCH smarter than I am. So I can’t understand WHY he doesn’t get it.
My guess is the old “it can’t happen here” thinking. Americans think they are exceptional and that history doesn’t apply to them… and that Nixon is in the past. McCarthy is in the past. Hoover is in the past. etc. etc.
If there were ever a true emergency Bruce Willis or Ahnold would ride in on a white horse and set everything straight…
Sad statement but one I am coming to view as true.
The Germans didn’t think Hitler was that bad either… hence the “first they came for the homosexuals and I said nothing since I wasn’t a homosexual…”
BooMan,
I think this is one of your best posts ever. To the point and empassioned. Awesome!
THE WHITE HOUSE GOES LYING ALONG
(sung to the tune of “The Caissons Go Rolling Along”)
DIA, NSA,
All our rights are going away,
And the White House goes lying along.
The Repubs get their kicks
Watching us step on our dicks
And the White House goes lying along.
For it’s “Vote for me
And I will set you free”
Goopers are felons one and all!
For hower’ you vote,
They will win and gloat
And the White House goes lying along.
Bush is dumb, Rumsfeld’s sick,
And Ken Mehlman is a prick
And the White House goes lying along.
Osama’s still alive
And all we get’s shuck and jive
And the White House goes lying along.
Well, there’s no mandate
Bush has taught us how to hate
Straw men and lies in ev’ry speech
(Keep on lying!)
For wherer’ they go
People always know
That the White House goes lying along.
First, the media was actually talking and truly debating what the preznit did. This is such a rare thing that it deserves some thought. This was such a huge thing that it caused the media to drop its drawers and become what passes for human.
Two, even conservative repubs were taken aback. True there were the shills and the handmaidens of the preznit, but even Biden was almost back to being a true senator.
Then we have an idiot like Katie Couric who apparently told Tim Russet that this was a situation where constitutional scholars were debating legality while the ‘American public’ were only worried about being protected from another 9/11-and implying that the whole American public agreed with the President. Kinda like to know how she knows the whole american public seems to agree with the president?
at this particular place in history where our Liberty and Democracy have been challenged. I think that the people would have eventually turned it all around, but even my husband agrees that the Blogosphere brought about awarenesses and information much sooner than the people would have gotten there without them. Blog on Booman
I absolutely agree with you Tracy as more/more people do come to realize papers like the Times have caved in/not reported news/have journalists who’ve been paid off by government and so called reporters like Judith Miller….and forgot MSM.
The quality of bloggers and their attention to detail and sources is going to become more obvious to people…that bloggers with a voice and conscience are the wave of the future.
I second that!
It would be nice to have universal health care. I think it would be good not only for the average citizen but for businesses as well (one factor in General Motors possible bankruptcy is its burgeoning health care costs for retirees)–but the insurance industries make too much money from the current system. And really, who is talking about universal health coverage? Nobody of signficance in either party. As the Clintons found out in 1993, you have to lay the groundwork for such a radical change and can’t just spring it on people overnight.