Is there anyone wondering really why the Patriot Act was passed? Was it to protect us or to go after Bush¹s political enemies?
That's why they avoid Congressional oversight in promoting Judiciary. That's why the 108th and 109th Congress hid provisions in the bill and presented it at the last possible second- provisions that would enable quick decisions in case a bomb went off in St Louis...or someone decided to investigate the misdeeds of a key Republican. That's why they don¹t want the Bill of Rights or the Constitution to get in the way of the capture and detention and torture of detainees. They want absolute power. This was a Junta, a Putsch, a coup. Call it what you will, but it is the creeping fascism that overtook Argentina, and poisoned Germany and Italy and Spain in the last century.
This wasn’t Germany 1938. It was Invasion of the Body Snatchers. The only exception being that the victims didn’t wake up stupid.
That¹s why the Republicans slipped a clause into the bill that says the president can hire or fire US attorneys without Congressional approval.
That¹s why a professor who speaks out against Bush is put on a no-fly list.
That's why they strong armed phone companies into releasing citizens phone records.
It’s why Bush has his own Blackwater SS/Skeletor.
That's why Bush spends millions of taxpayer's dollars on propaganda scaring us about terrorists and smearing their enemies.
That's why they can stop you and go into your home and car and find something to convict you with.
That's why you have to take an oath to Bush before becoming a park ranger.
This administration has always been about the power to stop political opponents, not terrorists. It has always been about the power to force its extreme right wing morality on you, not terrorism.
Before Bush, when was there ever a President who had people forbidden to show their placards at roadside?
Before Bush when were people thrown out of meetings because they wore an offensive t-shirt?
Come on. Who are they kidding?
Yellowstone National Park has printed material questioning Evolution.
The Government officially claims that AIDs can be contracted from tears band sweat.
You cannot hear a comedian who cusses at any prime time because the feds bleep it out. But you can hear Ann Coulter spew her racist bigoted garbage without filter at any hour of the day or night. THAT²S WHAT THE BUSHIES WANT. They want you to hear Ann Coulter and turn away when Janet Jackson¹s tits are showing.
News organizations can and do tell outright lies without any accountability. The Feds knocked down fair use and planted operatives into the FCC.
This takeover and reconfiguration of the machinery of government is why we are having pets poisoned and people made ill with E. Coli. The government wants the government to fail. They cut down the number of inspectors in the FDA from 500 to about 50. So there are not so many regulators threatening to cost businesses money. That's why FEMA sucks- they and the FDA and the EPA have been defunded and packed with political operatives.
That's why there is no federal money to educate against unwanted
pregnancies. No, instead we get our tax dollars spent on propaganda and lies and who cares if it doesn't work?
That’s why they have 1000 so called independent researchers all on the take out of your pockets a stipend to provide the "intellectual" underpinnings of why global warming is a hoax and that people and dinosaurs co-existed for centuries. There are people out there taking money to sell whatever inanity they want and our ratings addicted sheep like mainstream news thinks balance means an obligation to give a voice to the ramblings of unscientific wild eyed anti science enthusiasts.
This has been a carefully planned take over. They had their peole ready to go rewrite he intricate mutually agreed upon practises that protect Americans from corporate mischeif, and they did it all in private.
That's why John Bolten had to run inside in Palm Beach County and stop the vote. Everything relied on this. This was a secret invasion.
The 150 Christian University students with jobs in the administration despite their standing at the bottom of the legal school ladder, the partisan pollution of NPR, the decastration of the American Bar Association, the wholesale smearing of US heroes and veterans who were to be found on the wrong side of the Bush Administrations talking points, the fact that no one in the pentagon defended them, the Christianist movement that takes over the Air Force Academy, the stopped recounts, all of it was a massive right wing take over.
The Constitution means nothing to these people. In fact, the Patriot Act is the architecture of the Bush Reich. It is the un-Bill of Rights. All that’s left remind Bill Maher is You can carry a gun and the British can’t make you house soldiers to sleep whilst on patrol. That is what they want, a scared twilight zone town of people who’s fear makes them go crazy and kill each other and lock each other out of their bunkers. This is the Hobbesian world of the neo-cons who now score a commanding "F" in American Foreign Policy, and it is their sin, not the sin of Paul Bremer and Donald Rumsfeld, although even by Bushian standards they were egregiously stupid and ineffectual. It is the ideology of the right wing in general that rules while our economy falls behind the EU as the number one economy. Its is the policies of the right wing result in the Dollar falling behind the Euro as the number one currency in the world. It is the policies of the right wing that leaves one sixth of the population of the country not covered by health insurance, and one quarter just one medical emergency away from bankruptcy and thanks to the right wing that won’t help them either. It is the policies of the right wing that result in spending 43% of the Gross Domestic Product on weapons and STILL not be able to armor or train everyone before they are put into combat. It is the policies of the right wing that result in missiles that can find cities our kids have never heard of. It is the policies of the right wing that gives us smart bombs and uneducated kids.
It is the policies of the right wing that leave the Gulf Coast in shambles and veterans impoverished and allows bigotry to be legislated.
The Patriot Act was meant to give Bushies the power to shut you and me up. And it is not just me who should be scared. Every freeper should be scared too.
It is the policies of the right wing that leaves hundreds of thousands dead and millions displaced and yet calls this a liberation. It is the policies of the right wing that have left us weaker and unloved for the first time in decades.
It is the policies of the right wing that take loyal patriots, put them in harms way and then make him beg for his medicine they are hurt.
It is the policies of the right wing that creates millions of impoverished Americans and thousands more millionaires at the same time and calls this Christian.
It is the policies of the right wing that give public lands to a few billionaires and lets polluters off the hook.
The Patriot Act was meant to pave the way for this fascism. It is the coup de grace of the neo cons. It is a way to roll back the protections that now only exist with the help of slim Democratic investigative powers and Congressional Committee appointments. It is corporatism. Ayn Randism.
It is not coming. It is here. It came here in 2000. It is the Hell we all hoped to avoid.
The backers of this administration must know that all these powers can be used against them on January 9th 2009 if they are not repealed. Every Young Republican can be put on a no fly list. Bush and Cheney could be arrested and tried in a secret military court for war crimes. They were stupid about this, not seeing that eventually people would catch on. In the age of the Internet, Karl will need more than his vaunted Math.
Bush must be repudiated. His policies must end up in the dust bin of history. Or if I may paraphrase one of his propagandist speech writers- pre-emptive war, detaining without representation- torure- "will follow that path all the way, to where it ends: in history's unmarked grave of discarded lies."
Nora Ephorn on Huffington Post has a column up that says it beautifully:
Guantanamo Prison is now more than five years old, five years of our holding and torturing prisoners without bail and without the rights of habeus corpus. Of the 385 men detained at Guantanamo, only ten have been charged. How is this possible? In the United States of America? You can blame Bush/Cheney if you want; you can blame our justice system, which moves sluggishly through the Guantanamo cases, deferring to the legislative branch, which then does nothing. But what about us? What are we doing about Guantanamo? Nothing. And why not? It's simple. We're too busy.
What the hell ARE we doing?
How long before we end up in a prison? Or can't get a boarding pass? Or not be allowed to vote? Or give a speech? Or post a highly charged diary?
The Patriot Act doesn't exist to protect us. It is here to contain us.