There comes a time where the absolute certainty that things are not as they appear hits you in the head like an anvil.
This is yet again another one of those times.
Congress is remiss in its duty to the people. In a democratic republic that is founded on principles of government based in the belief that a government of, by and for the people will yield a strong and healthy nation, our people have never been left so much on their own to battle the incoming tides on the sea of Fate. Follow me below the fold for more information on this latest outrage.
Front paged on this morning’s Boston Sunday Globe was a curious little story by Susan Milligan: “Classified intelligence bills often are unread; Secret process can discourage House debate.” Here’s the opening:
WASHINGTON — Nearly all members of the House of Representatives opted out of a chance to read this year’s classified intelligence bill, and then voted on secret provisions they knew almost nothing about.
The bill, which passed by 327 to 96 in April, authorized the Bush administration’s plans for fighting the war on terrorism. Many members say they faced an untenable choice: Either consent to a review process so secretive that they could never mention anything about it in House debates, under the threat of prosecution, or vote on classified provisions they knew nothing about.
Most chose to know nothing.
OK — did you get that?
Most chose to know nothing.
“Why,” you might ask, “would anyone charged with doing the job of the people blindly sign bills into law, particularly in an era where executive abuse of power is at an all-time high and oversight authority of the Congress has been severely hampered?”
Glad you asked. According to the article,
“It’s a trap,” said Representative Russ Carnahan, Democrat of Missouri, referring to the rule that members must refrain from discussing items in the bill. “Either way, you’re flying blind.”
Oh. Well, then — that’s ok, right? Wrong! Again from the article, in the next paragraph:
The failure to read the bill, however, calls into question the vows of many House members to provide greater oversight of intelligence in the wake of pre-9/11 failures, mistakes about Iraq’s weapons capability, and revelations about spying on Americans.
This is not acceptable. Period.
Have you read DailyKos diary “Administration Finds a Sneaky way around Posse Comitatus” by Eckhart1234 yet? Perhaps you should. Here’s the first paragraph from after the fold, to whet your appetite:
It seems that buried in the National Defense Authorization Act H.R. 5631 there was put as provision that allows Bush to Federalize National Guard troops in the case of as the bill says a “a serious natural or manmade disaster, accident, or catastrophe”.
Do you want that sort of power in Bush’s hands?
I sure as hell don’t.
Here’s the thing that irks me the most: it’s not the constant lying and dissembling of the GOP leadership, and it’s not frightening unchecked attack on the Constitution, the balance of powers, our system of checks and balances and our civil rights. That’s part of it. It’s qualitative, measurable.
It’s the quantitative, subjective changes and alterations that are irking me the most. We can’t get “comfy” or adapt to these losses of freedom and liberty, because I want my children, their children and their children’s children to be able to remember what it was like when I was a child. Not by some type of mind-meld or trick of memory, but instead because they will have lived in a similar environment. With an actual environment to live in.
Here’s another reference to a DailyKos diary — “Remembering the Past, Guarding the Future” by Joy Busey. Again, go read it and show Joy some love. (Not that kind, you perverts! Mojo, dammit. Give her mojo, and rec if you feel so inclined.)
That’s my America, my “Good ol’ US of A” that is described. That’s where I plan to send my progeny. And I don’t want to have to use any kind of funky temporal displacement to get ’em there.
What do we have to give them instead? A fantasyland dreamed up by greedy, daffy, dapper-dandy pork-loving corrupted corporate elitists on quaaludes. At best.
Our current nation is the product of a myopic fever-dream invoked by love of unbridled greed and power, spawned within a time where logic and intelligence are in suspended animation and “accountability” appears to apply only to those who in trouble for not toeing the party line.
Take a look at this other DailyKos diary: “Connecticut “Insurgents” Newt is a Nutcase” by durrenm. This is but one example of where pundits and neoCabalists are using the language of treason and rebellion to attack bloggers, netroots, people-power and anyone who opposes them.
They are calling their opponents traitors and insurgents.
Their opponents — us — are closer to our Founding Father’s idea of a democratic republic than these fools. Yet, if they are successful in handing power to Bush, particularly by blind approvals of bills submitted to Congress due to a constrained system that makes review and debate all but impossible, then the greater power grabs will continue unabated.
And our rights to resist will blow away like so much dust in the wind.
Don’t let this happen. Call your Congresscritters. Write your local newspapers. Demand that any bill which cannot be questioned, which cannot be discussed, which cannot be debated be forever banned from submittal. Demand that Congress does the job it is appointed for.
Demand your country back. Before our out-of-hand executive takes any more of our rights and freedoms.