A question...
Here is a question. Read this article from Glenn Greenwald at Salon...and then explain this:
During most of the Clinton presidency, we heard from the "Wolverine" wannabes on the far right, based solely on what the right-wing noise machine was spewing, about how Clinton was going to suspend the Constitution and use military powers ("black helicopters", "jack-booted thugs", the "U.N. New World Order") to take away our rights...and turn America into some socialist utopia...
Now that we have a little space between us and the Clinto years, we can see that this was a rather absurd view to have.
But...during the Bush years, ALL those things were happening. According to reports coming out now, and memo's from the Executive Branch of the gov't, it appears that between the Whitehouse, the DoJ, and the DoD...that secret laws were enacted that allowed the Executive Branch to disregard the laws of our country, and specifically the Bill of Rights. Allowing them to:
-Create secret CIA prisons for the detention of people without trial or charges.
-Declaring the president has unlimited rights to suspend the Constitution when he sees fit.
-Neither the Courts nor the Congress could contradict him.
-Declaring that the U.S. military could be used for search and seizure operations within the U.S.
And during these 8 years, when those on the left were doing their best to oppose all this, and to inform the rest of us of what was going on (and being lambasted as unpatriotic or moonbats or whatever the right did to shout them down)...where were these self-described defenders of individual liberties and freedoms? Where is their outrage? Where were the civil libertarians that are supposed to make up the Republican right...and who were so willing to lay down their lives to preserve their freedoms from phantom boogie men...and yet lay quiet when the real monster came alone and did everything they claimed to fear?
I guess my questions is this...
...Is the cognitive dissonance so massive on the right wing of our society, that they don't even see the issue here?
Or are they so humbled from their own ignorance, that they are laying low?
I'm confused.
During most of the Clinton presidency, we heard from the "Wolverine" wannabes on the far right, based solely on what the right-wing noise machine was spewing, about how Clinton was going to suspend the Constitution and use military powers ("black helicopters", "jack-booted thugs", the "U.N. New World Order") to take away our rights...and turn America into some socialist utopia...
Now that we have a little space between us and the Clinto years, we can see that this was a rather absurd view to have.
But...during the Bush years, ALL those things were happening. According to reports coming out now, and memo's from the Executive Branch of the gov't, it appears that between the Whitehouse, the DoJ, and the DoD...that secret laws were enacted that allowed the Executive Branch to disregard the laws of our country, and specifically the Bill of Rights. Allowing them to:
-Create secret CIA prisons for the detention of people without trial or charges.
-Declaring the president has unlimited rights to suspend the Constitution when he sees fit.
-Neither the Courts nor the Congress could contradict him.
-Declaring that the U.S. military could be used for search and seizure operations within the U.S.
And during these 8 years, when those on the left were doing their best to oppose all this, and to inform the rest of us of what was going on (and being lambasted as unpatriotic or moonbats or whatever the right did to shout them down)...where were these self-described defenders of individual liberties and freedoms? Where is their outrage? Where were the civil libertarians that are supposed to make up the Republican right...and who were so willing to lay down their lives to preserve their freedoms from phantom boogie men...and yet lay quiet when the real monster came alone and did everything they claimed to fear?
I guess my questions is this...
...Is the cognitive dissonance so massive on the right wing of our society, that they don't even see the issue here?
Or are they so humbled from their own ignorance, that they are laying low?
I'm confused.