Please take the time to read this.
I know many of you on my friends list can't stand the sound of politics and feel a deep sense of cynicism about our government.
I am asking you to set that aside.
I know some of you find the subject incomprehensible and utterly boring.
I am asking you to try, out of any respect for me that you may have, to read and think about this subject carefully.
A few days ago, Al Gore (and I know many of you may have preconceived notions of the man, but i'm asking that you PLEASE set them aside and consider the words here alone) gave a speech about Bush's wiretapping. This speech is already being dismissed out of hand by republican sources. Some of you may think that it's no big deal. Or that it really doesn't matter what we do, the government has always been doing these things. This is not reality speaking, it is our cynicism, cynicism inured within you for the sole purpose of eliminating you from the process and equatons of our government. Set it all aside, and simply read the excerpts below:
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"As we begin this new year, the Executive Branch of our government has been caught eavesdropping on huge numbers of American citizens and has brazenly declared that it has the unilateral right to continue without regard to the established law enacted by Congress to prevent such abuses."
"A president who breaks the law is a threat to the very structure of our government. Our Founding Fathers were adamant that they had established a government of laws and not men. Indeed, they recognized that the structure of government they had enshrined in our Constitution - our system of checks and balances - was designed with a central purpose of ensuring that it would govern through the rule of law. As John Adams said: "The executive shall never exercise the legislative and judicial powers, or either of them, to the end that it may be a government of laws and not of men."
"Thomas Paine, whose pamphlet, "On Common Sense" ignited the American Revolution, succinctly described America's alternative. Here, he said, we intended to make certain that "the law is king."
"When President Bush failed to convince Congress to give him all the power he wanted when they passed the AUMF, he secretly assumed that power anyway, as if congressional authorization was a useless bother."
"For example, the President has also declared that he has a heretofore unrecognized inherent power to seize and imprison any American citizen that he alone determines to be a threat to our nation, and that, notwithstanding his American citizenship, the person imprisoned has no right to talk with a lawyer-even to argue that the President or his appointees have made a mistake and imprisoned the wrong person."
"The President claims that he can imprison American citizens indefinitely for the rest of their lives without an arrest warrant, without notifying them about what charges have been filed against them, and without informing their families that they have been imprisoned."
"At the same time, the Executive Branch has claimed a previously unrecognized authority to mistreat prisoners in its custody in ways that plainly constitute torture in a pattern that has now been documented in U.S. facilities located in several countries around the world."
"The President has also claimed that he has the authority to kidnap individuals in foreign countries and deliver them for imprisonment and interrogation on our behalf by autocratic regimes in nations that are infamous for the cruelty of their techniques for torture."
"If the President has the inherent authority to eavesdrop, imprison citizens on his own declaration, kidnap and torture, then what can't he do?"
You can get the full speech here:
http://www.drudgereportarchives.com/data/2006/01/17/20060117_001800_flash1g.htm
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The President has broken the law. He is justifying these actions through an assertion that these wiretaps protect the country as he is empowered to do as commander in chief. I'll ask you the following:
Is anyone out there comfortable with the thought of the US Army monitoring your phone conversations?
Not happy with this? Call your congressman. Especially if you have a republican congressman. Make sure whoever is on the other end of the line understands that this is the first time you've ever made a call like this. That you don't usually follow politics. That you could care less bout replicans or democrats. And that you simply cannot understand why Congress is allowing the president to break the law.
If you need the number let me know and i'll get it for you. If you need a phone to make the call, let me know. I'll gladly come to where you are and let you use mine.
It'll make a difference. I promise you.
I am asking you to set that aside.
I know some of you find the subject incomprehensible and utterly boring.
I am asking you to try, out of any respect for me that you may have, to read and think about this subject carefully.
A few days ago, Al Gore (and I know many of you may have preconceived notions of the man, but i'm asking that you PLEASE set them aside and consider the words here alone) gave a speech about Bush's wiretapping. This speech is already being dismissed out of hand by republican sources. Some of you may think that it's no big deal. Or that it really doesn't matter what we do, the government has always been doing these things. This is not reality speaking, it is our cynicism, cynicism inured within you for the sole purpose of eliminating you from the process and equatons of our government. Set it all aside, and simply read the excerpts below:
-----------------------------------------------
"As we begin this new year, the Executive Branch of our government has been caught eavesdropping on huge numbers of American citizens and has brazenly declared that it has the unilateral right to continue without regard to the established law enacted by Congress to prevent such abuses."
"A president who breaks the law is a threat to the very structure of our government. Our Founding Fathers were adamant that they had established a government of laws and not men. Indeed, they recognized that the structure of government they had enshrined in our Constitution - our system of checks and balances - was designed with a central purpose of ensuring that it would govern through the rule of law. As John Adams said: "The executive shall never exercise the legislative and judicial powers, or either of them, to the end that it may be a government of laws and not of men."
"Thomas Paine, whose pamphlet, "On Common Sense" ignited the American Revolution, succinctly described America's alternative. Here, he said, we intended to make certain that "the law is king."
"When President Bush failed to convince Congress to give him all the power he wanted when they passed the AUMF, he secretly assumed that power anyway, as if congressional authorization was a useless bother."
"For example, the President has also declared that he has a heretofore unrecognized inherent power to seize and imprison any American citizen that he alone determines to be a threat to our nation, and that, notwithstanding his American citizenship, the person imprisoned has no right to talk with a lawyer-even to argue that the President or his appointees have made a mistake and imprisoned the wrong person."
"The President claims that he can imprison American citizens indefinitely for the rest of their lives without an arrest warrant, without notifying them about what charges have been filed against them, and without informing their families that they have been imprisoned."
"At the same time, the Executive Branch has claimed a previously unrecognized authority to mistreat prisoners in its custody in ways that plainly constitute torture in a pattern that has now been documented in U.S. facilities located in several countries around the world."
"The President has also claimed that he has the authority to kidnap individuals in foreign countries and deliver them for imprisonment and interrogation on our behalf by autocratic regimes in nations that are infamous for the cruelty of their techniques for torture."
"If the President has the inherent authority to eavesdrop, imprison citizens on his own declaration, kidnap and torture, then what can't he do?"
You can get the full speech here:
http://www.drudgereportarchives.com/data/2006/01/17/20060117_001800_flash1g.htm
---------------------------------------------
The President has broken the law. He is justifying these actions through an assertion that these wiretaps protect the country as he is empowered to do as commander in chief. I'll ask you the following:
Is anyone out there comfortable with the thought of the US Army monitoring your phone conversations?
Not happy with this? Call your congressman. Especially if you have a republican congressman. Make sure whoever is on the other end of the line understands that this is the first time you've ever made a call like this. That you don't usually follow politics. That you could care less bout replicans or democrats. And that you simply cannot understand why Congress is allowing the president to break the law.
If you need the number let me know and i'll get it for you. If you need a phone to make the call, let me know. I'll gladly come to where you are and let you use mine.
It'll make a difference. I promise you.