May 2nd, 2006
Jacob Hornberger, founder of The Future of Freedom Foundation, wrote an excellent commentary on April 26th and I wanted to share part of it:
… we now live in a nation in which the president has the omnipotent power to ignore all constitutional restraints on his power. That might not be the way the president and his legal advisors put it, but that is the practical effect of what they are saying to justify his powers. They effectively claim that the Constitution vests the president — as military commander in chief during the “war on terrorism” — with such extraordinary powers that he is able to ignore restraints on his powers imposed both by the Constitution and by Congress.
No restraints on declaring and waging war against other nations. No restraints on the power to secretly record telephone conversations of the American people. No restraints on the power to kidnap and send people into overseas concentration camps for the purpose of torture and even execution. No restraints on the power to take Americans into custody as “enemy combatants” and punish them — even torture and execute them — without due process of law and jury trials.
If all that isn’t dictatorship, what is?
“But President Bush is a good man. He’s trying to protect us. He’s waging war against the terrorists. He’s not evil like other dictators in history. He was elected. He can be trusted.”
People who say that are missing the point. The suggestion is not that Bush is an evil man. The point is simply that Bush now wields the same omnipotent, dictatorial powers that other dictators in history have wielded. That is not a small transformation in American life when it comes to freedom.
“Well, then, where are the mass round-ups, and where are the concentration camps?”
Again, people who ask that type of question are missing the point. The point is not whether Bush is exercising his omnipotent, dictatorial power to the maximum extent. It’s whether he now possesses omnipotent, dictatorial power, power that can be exercised whenever circumstances dictate it — for example, during another major terrorist attack on American soil, when Americans become overly frightened again.
Unless the American people figure out a way to reverse what has happened to their country — and have the will to do something about it — they will earn the mark of shame reserved for those people in history who voluntarily relinquished their freedom in exchange for the aura of security. Like all others in history who have chosen such a course, they will ultimately learn that they have lost both their freedom and their security. [“A Democratic Dictatoriship” (The Future of Freedom Foundation)]
I very much believe that the average American really wants to believe that the kind of abuses that Bush is actually claiming he has a right to and has actually been committing in the name of President of the United States of America simply can’t happen “here” in this country. This is America. We are the good guys. We are better than that. Our Leaders will protect us.
I’m sure that every other nation and people that found themselves lost and misled and trapped one day thought the same thing. That sort of thing couldn’t happen in their village, their country, their nation, their empire. They were invicible; they were great; they were blessed; they were the good guys. Their leaders were supposed to protect them.
I just don’t want to wake up in a police state some day because September 11th happened. It was a tragedy it happened. There are things we can do to fight back, to protect ourselves, but we don’t have to give up everything and destroy our freedoms and everything that made us a great nation, America, the good guys, just because it happened. That’s not going to make anything better.
Destroying ourselves so the bad guys can’t won’t solve the problem.
Tags: Democracy, dictatorship, George W. Bush, The Future of Freedom Foundation, Freedoms, 9/11
March 15th, 2006
This is a great post by The (liberal) Girl Next Door:
Someone recently told me that it’s not quite time to panic, that things in this country may be bad, but we haven’t yet reached the point of no return. So I’d just like to toss out the question. When is it time to panic? When does mere concern turn urgent, and will we all recognize the signs in time?
[…]
Or is it time to panic when, as Patricia Goldsmith suggests, there is no opposition left? It has long been the case that our two party system is nothing more than political theater. We have two political parties feeding from the same corporate troughs and serving the same corporate interests. If we continue to buy into the lies of either side and continue to separate from one another reducing public discourse to screaming at one another from opposite sides of the wedges driven between us, we give the only power we have left away to leaders who will only abuse it. If we willfully divide ourselves, we will be easily conquered.
I don’t want to panic before it is warranted, but I sometimes wonder if we will recognize the last straw. Don’t we remember that in Germany, the Nazis took control of government, not in a violent coup, but by passing laws that gave them increasing power and control over the people and the news they received? We keep hearing that it’s not time to panic just yet, but if history has a lesson for us right now, it’s that panicking too late won’t do a damn bit of good. Do we really, as a country, want to sit idly by watching evil become a way of life? Most of us judge the German people not as victims, but rather as willing accomplices. Will we judge ourselves the same?
I have been wary of using the Nazi comparison, but since Sandra Day O’Connor, the voice of reason on our high court for decades, feels comfortable warning of a dictatorship, I guess I feel justified. We are being fed propaganda, our government is becoming increasingly secretive, dissenting voices are routinely being silenced, and this administration appears to be accountable to no one. If it isn’t quite yet time to panic, I fear the time is fast approaching.
Read the whole well-thought-out post! I don’t know about you, but I’ve been feeling panicky for a while, but then I come by it naturally. I thought it was just me being paranoid. Apparently, I’m not alone. That’s somewhat comforting. I think.
Tags: politics, George W. Bush, Impeach, Freedoms, liberals, Sandra Day O'Connor, voice of reason, dictatorship, Nazi Germany, propaganda
August 5th, 2005
I know it’s wrong but a little Chinese food and this article on CNN.com cheered me up just a little.
A solid majority still see Bush as a strong and likable leader, though the poll indicates the president’s confidence is seen as arrogance by a growing number.
Approval of Bush’s handling of Iraq, which had been hovering in the low- to mid-40s most of the year, dipped to 38 percent. Midwesterners and young women and men with a high school education or less were most likely to disapprove of Bush on his handling of Iraq in the past six months.
If worries about Iraq continue, they could become a major issue in the 2006 midterm congressional races, and if the war is still going in 2008, they could be a factor in the presidential race.
Bush’s overall job approval was at 42 percent, with 55 percent disapproving. That is about where Bush’s approval has been all summer but slightly lower than at the beginning of the year.
The portion of respondents who consider Bush honest has dropped slightly from January, when 53 percent described him that way while 45 percent did not. Now, people are just about evenly split on that issue — with 48 percent saying he is honest and 50 percent saying he is not.
The drop in the number of people who see Bush as honest was largest among middle-aged Americans as well as suburban women, a key voting group in the 2004 election. A further erosion of trust could make it tougher for Bush to win support for his policies in Congress and internationally.
“The reason that trust is so important has to do with the long-standing belief that you could trust him, even if you don’t always agree with him and don’t understand what he’s doing,” said Bruce Buchanan, a political scientist at the University of Texas. “The honesty dip is partly caused by a loss of faith in his credibility on Iraq.”
Well, I certainly stopped trusting him the minute I didn’t understand with what he was doing in regards to what I didn’t agree with. I don’t understand why people kept clinging to these beliefs so blindly all this time.
But the portion of respondents who view his confidence as arrogance has increased from 49 percent in January to 56 percent now.
“This country is a monarchy,” said Charles Nuutinen, a 62-year-old independent from Greenville, Wisconsin. “He’s turning this country into Saudi Arabia. He does what he wants. He doesn’t care what the people want.”
Six in 10 surveyed said they think the country is headed down the wrong track, despite some encouraging economic news in recent weeks.
I feel like Harlan in Eight-Legged Freaks when frustrated, he asks if people have been paying attention to what he’s been saying all this time, warning them of impending danger. Hello?! President Bush is trying his very best to make this country a dictatorship, built on his own personal religious views or at least the religious views he claims to have. He doesn’t give a rats ass how he does it, he turns his nose up at the judicial system, he ignores requests from Congress. He’s a spoilled-rotton little boy who thinks he rules the world and won’t stop until women are secondary citizens and the homosexual community is rounded up into concentration camps.
Hmmmm…I’m all riled up now and my migraine’s coming back…but at least I feel like I got something off my chest.
Tags: CNN, poll, George W. Bush, Iraq, dictatorship
