What can be said about the `real world' when the news reports look like an episode of the Soprano's on crack?
The continued safety of you and yours depends as much on the prosperity of your society as it does the prosperity of your neighbors.
You gotta do what you gotta do so when you gotta do it does a wave of anxiety sweep over you when you go to leave for work these days?
As you buckle up and head out of the driveway does some of that anxiety stick with you in the form of a traffic stop? Do you find yourself worried that you're a little too brown or too ethnic looking? Do you run through a mental checklist to make sure you don't have anything `incriminating' or `questionable' in the trunk, glove box or lying out on the back seat?
In these days of extraordinary rendition and enemy combatants do you sometimes ponder the chances that you could end up `disappeared' in a case of `mistaken identity?'
The rule of law only exists when those charged with enforcing the laws do everything in accordance with the law and respect the citizen's civil liberties. When those charged with upholding and enforcing the law start making arbitrary exceptions including spot judgements on who does or doesn't have rights then all bets are off.
It is no longer a republic but a dictatorship, the rule of law supplanted by the rule of a tyrant(s).
I'm certain someone diaried this About That Rebellion little gem from today's NY Times so I'll cut to the closing paragraph...
After 9/11, Mr. Bush created a network of prisons outside the American legal system so he could hold people indefinitely without any hearings. When the Supreme Court said twice that he was reaching beyond his powers, the Republicans in Congress were determined not to let this assault on the rule of law continue. So they rose as one, and legalized the president's actions. In case there was any confusion about its resolve, Congress told the courts that they could no longer rule on these matters. Mr. Bush got the message, loud and clear. He sent his lawyers right out to inform the judges, including the Supreme Court, that they had to drop all the cases that were already before them.
And all this does not even include the act of open rebellion by which the Senate is helping the White House cover up the hyping of intelligence on Iraq.
With rebels like these, who needs loyalists?
With that said, whosoever controls the laws controls you. Which is why in the real world we would have to admit the rule of law has been usurped by the rule of tyrants. We supposedly elected some of them who in turn appointed the rest...
The universality of the law is key. When laws apply to some but not to others it turns the rule of law into a sadistic joke.
Make no mistake about it, once the law ceases to be universal, the rule of law also ceases.
Nothing new here, even the litany of woe in the last paragraph of the Times piece is going on its third birthday...
Of all the things that have come to pass in the past five years the most improbable is how this criminal administration managed to get re-elected.
Some say the election was stolen while others say there wasn't enough difference between the two parties and it's honestly hard to say which of these two claims is more frightening.
Because either way we're screwed...from the standpoint of trying to use the system to fix the system...a system where those in power are free to change the rules to suit whatever outcome they desire.
This is tyranny...this is what Thomas Jefferson was warning us about.
With that warning came an admonition, an admonition regarding the necessity and willingness of the people to revolt...
Yet many equate the election process with revolution when this is not the case. Revolution means change thus changing who is in charge does not in any way alter a corrupt system.
It's not the politicians that have ruined our economy nor is there any way for them to fix it.
What do you suppose would happen if we did elect honest people that were determined to save our nation from economic collapse?
How would the owners of commerce react to an ultimatum demanding that they put US citizens back to work `or else'?
Once they stopped laughing would they offer to comply on the condition that the forty-hour workweek, minimum wage and overtime laws are repealed?
It's imperative that people recognize the political process is just a part and not the whole process. The laws of this nation protect ownership to the extent that the owner can do whatever they like with their property regardless of how it effects society.
Seeing that none of us exist in a bubble and resources are far from infinite this is just plain insane.
This is why a few prosper while many suffer. Those who came before are holding all the aces.
What does this mean to you and yours if we fail to alter the system itself? The few are aggressively moving to consolidate their power and as evidenced by the acts of this administration there is nothing we can (legally) do to stop them.
Even a total `progressive victory' at the polls will be powerless to stop them for those who own the nation, rule the nation.
Understand what this means to the prospects of their ever being a `progressive victory' at the polls.
The prospects are zip, zero, nada!
This is, after all, the `reality based' community, isn't it? Those who own the nation have no reason to bow to the will of those who don't.
With that in mind can you accept the `reality' that the electoral process is nothing more than the illusion of participation, window dressing for the masses?
You can take the following blurb from today's NY Times for what it's worth.
Some will recognize this as massive stupidity while others will take it as a sad indictment of the relentless pursuit of the almighty buck.
This and more of the same is what you're buying into if you fail to recognize the need to change the system itself in a very fundamental way.
Has it ever crossed any of your minds why it is we have no laws that specifically prohibit the exploitation of one human by any other?
Is honesty such a relative term that exploitation becomes too vague an issue to legislate? This is the world they have made for us, the world of sucker beware.
In as much as trust is the foundation of any society is it wise to let those who would cheat you continue to operate with a free hand?
I'll close with this little reality check for those kool-aid drinkers out there who think they have what it takes to beat the system...
Back to `reality'.
Those who own the nation are set to put the squeeze on their former hired help. The deliberate shredding of the Constitution and Bill of rights by this administration is in preparation for a staged economic downturn a la 1929 that will turn this country into a third world nation overnight.
It seems it's our `destiny' to be made into an example for the other first world nations. If the bankers of the world can turn the last remaining superpower into an economic desert without anyone putting up a fight what chance do `lesser' nations have against their power?
There's that `fight' thing again! People keep talking about the need to fight but no one has a clear idea how or when to act.
So, are you really `reality based?'
If you are then you already know how ludicrous the coming financial disaster really is. The world as we know it doesn't come from money but from labor.
There aren't any bankers working in power plants and most of them don't know a drill press from a milling machine. There aren't any bankers behind the wheel of a cab and you won't find them at the controls of a backhoe either.
They don't type their own letters, sling spatulas or serve you lunch. You won't find them loading trucks or driving them either so what are these bozo's trying to pull?
The bankers are the something for nothing crowd and we all know that you can't get anything for nothing so that is in fact what they have, nothing.
Nothing until the court steps in to enforce their papers.
Think I've already addressed the fact that the rule of law went out the window some time ago. Their papers are meaningless.
Let's put another face on this. If we demand they return the jobs they stole to the US, they'd laugh at us.
If they demand we pay them, what do you suppose we should do? I'd posit we should give the same response if they attempt to evict us from our homes.
It will be very obvious when it's time to act, it will be when the rug is pulled out from under us and the pile of debt they've heaped upon us comes home to roost...
They are number one after all and I think we all know which finger to use to acknowledge that fact.
In short, resist them the same way they have resisted us. Refuse to pay and tell them to go pound when they demand compliance.
United we will stand!
Thanks for letting me inside your head,
Gegner