Wow. A highly improbable (250 million-to-one against) election result favoring Bush in Ohio. Torture at Abu Ghraib. Torture at secret CIA prisons outside the U.S. Indefinite imprisonment for those thought — not proven to be, not even charged with being, merely thought to be — terrorists. The FBI spying on groups to the left of the neocons. And now, wiretaps against Americans, without seeking the required warrants from a court that has declined this request only a handful of times in the past 30 years, a fake court in which such permission could be granted retroactively. Not much in the way of either oversight or checks and balances. And Bush lied about it, outright lied, on camera, with that condescending and profoundly irritating grin he puts on when explaining a position, speaking to a roomfull of White House journalists as though talking to second-graders.
I wonder, now, whether we're entering the post-American era.
Wow. A highly improbable (250 million-to-one against) election result favoring Bush in Ohio. Torture at Abu Ghraib. Torture at secret CIA prisons outside the U.S. Indefinite imprisonment for those thought — not proven to be, not even charged with being, merely thought to be — terrorists. The FBI spying on groups to the left of the neocons. And now, wiretaps against Americans, without seeking the required warrants from a court that has declined this request only a handful of times in the past 30 years, a fake court in which such permission could be granted retroactively. Not much in the way of either oversight or checks and balances. And Bush lied about it, outright lied, on camera, with that condescending and profoundly irritating grin he puts on when explaining a position, speaking to a roomfull of White House journalists as though talking to second-graders.
I wonder, now, whether we're entering the post-American era. This Orwellian state of affairs is certainly nothing like what the Founding Fathers envisioned when they risked their lives to escape the absolute, crushing power of King George. (Ironic, that: A country founded in opposition to one King George, now soiled by the criminal actions of another one.) Bush let Cheney insinuate himself into the vice presidency because Bush either knew no better or simply did not care. That's the choice we have with judging Reagan's reign: Was he a diabolical, evil man, or did he simply not care that his strings were being pulled by others? Now an out of touch, impatient, aloof, unitelligent, incurious, and arrogant man who tells his staff specifically not to bring him bad news (!!!) and who does not watch the news and who does not seem to mind being the puppet whose strings are pulled by monsters such as Cheney and Karl Rove, and who had to be dragged out of his power-drunk indifference to even notice what was happening in New Orleans in the aftermath of Katrina tells us to simply trust him. He's only using this un-Constitutional power, this law-breaking, Big-Brother-esque surveillance, this Soviet-Era, KGB-like, unlimited, do-whatever-we-want, totalitarian rule to spy on a LesBiGay anti-"Don't Ask Don't Tell" kiss in, the Pentagon labelling it a credible terrorist threat. They watch vegans. They call the Catholic Workers neo-communist, and watch them, too.
Think it's worth it? Heed the words of Benjamin Franklin:
"People who are willing to give up freedom for the sake of short term security, deserve neither freedom nor security."
Is this the end? This certainly isn't the America I learned about growing up; certainly not the one I honored in Cub Scouts and, later, Boy Scouts; certainly not the America my uncles served in Vietnam, nor the America my grandfathers served in World War II to protect. It seems, instead, to be beginning to resemble to totalitarian regimes we have so often railed against, as a nation. But that was then.
I keep wondering why the neocons don't mind the loss of our freedoms. I keep wondering why they don't mind being lied to so obviously and so frequently. Clear Skies Initiative, an Orwellian name for legislation that allowed MORE air pollution. No-warrant wiretapping of Americans, conducted exclusively within the Executive Branch. The judge who was supposed to be the Judicial Branch's oversight in that affair resigned in protest, because the Bush Administration wasn't even trying retroactively to get court approval. That means that the Executive Branch is now in conflict with both the Legislative Branch (Congress, for breaking laws, ignoring the Constitution, and refusing to consult with them on this issue), and the Judicial, for thumbing its nose at even the pretense of consultation with that branch. This is a Constitutional Crisis Bush-Cheney have foisted upon us, and I wonder just how bad things will get.