Mourning in America
I am overwhelmed with anger and despair today. I can find no words to adequately say what I must say. Therefore, as before, I will call upon others to speak in my stead.
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What we are living through is not theater, it isn’t some everyday adjustment of goverment to be shrugged off as a routine act as the utterly corrupt media has done. What the Senate did, especially in its attack on habeas corpus and judicial review, placed imperial power in the hands of George W. Bush. The parallels to the death of the Roman Republic have been made in a number of places; it isn’t a personal conceit, it is an obvious fact.
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With the law passed on September 28th by Congress, we have become the Republic of torture.
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For all its manifold faults, for all its history steeped in racism and genocide, for all its wars of empire and Know-Nothing heritage, this country was manifestly founded on the notion that a just government bases its authority in the consent of the governed. Now the Bush administration has declared that the interests of this country are coincident with, and limited to, the short-term interests of the administration and its corporate backers, and the most basic, most essential Constitutional rights of the citizenry be damned, not by the odious exceptionalism of privilege that marred this country’s history, but across the board. All of us are three-fifths of a person now, granted the privilege of full protection only if we do nothing that requires protection, unless we are unlucky enough to be falsely accused. And I withdraw my consent. ....
The Bush administration claims that all those who oppose it, though they think themselves loyal citizens sworn to defend the US Constitution, are enemies. I have opposed the Bush administration since before it began. The conclusion is a simple matter of logic.
I am an enemy combatant.
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And for those who prefer "historical perspectives" to current opinion, I present the following:
"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross." -Sinclair Lewis
"People willing to trade their freedom for temporary security deserve neither and will lose both." -attributed to Benjamin Franklin
“Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains or slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take -- but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!” -Patrick Henry
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
What we are living through is not theater, it isn’t some everyday adjustment of goverment to be shrugged off as a routine act as the utterly corrupt media has done. What the Senate did, especially in its attack on habeas corpus and judicial review, placed imperial power in the hands of George W. Bush. The parallels to the death of the Roman Republic have been made in a number of places; it isn’t a personal conceit, it is an obvious fact.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
With the law passed on September 28th by Congress, we have become the Republic of torture.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
For all its manifold faults, for all its history steeped in racism and genocide, for all its wars of empire and Know-Nothing heritage, this country was manifestly founded on the notion that a just government bases its authority in the consent of the governed. Now the Bush administration has declared that the interests of this country are coincident with, and limited to, the short-term interests of the administration and its corporate backers, and the most basic, most essential Constitutional rights of the citizenry be damned, not by the odious exceptionalism of privilege that marred this country’s history, but across the board. All of us are three-fifths of a person now, granted the privilege of full protection only if we do nothing that requires protection, unless we are unlucky enough to be falsely accused. And I withdraw my consent. ....
The Bush administration claims that all those who oppose it, though they think themselves loyal citizens sworn to defend the US Constitution, are enemies. I have opposed the Bush administration since before it began. The conclusion is a simple matter of logic.
I am an enemy combatant.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
And for those who prefer "historical perspectives" to current opinion, I present the following:
"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross." -Sinclair Lewis
"People willing to trade their freedom for temporary security deserve neither and will lose both." -attributed to Benjamin Franklin
“Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains or slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take -- but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!” -Patrick Henry