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I heard about this on, where else, the Thom Hartmann show. He discussed Democratic Underground's look at Family Security Matters. This bunch of sickos (apologies to Michael Moore) advocates that Bush should be our permanent president and that there should be no more democracy. Democracy is bad. Kings are good.
Who's on their advisory board? Reagan era remnants abound. Here are some names that Hartmann tossed out: Barbara Comstock, Laura Ingraham, Frank Gaffney, James Woolsey, and...drum roll...Dick Cheney. Oh, and by the way, it's the same Gaffney who goes on CNN with talk of aggression against Iran. That Frank Gaffney.
This is part of the article (thanks for preserving it, Digby) that has resulted in the Family Security Foundation scrubbing their site of nearly every trace of Phillip Atkinsion
By elevating popular fancy over truth, Democracy is clearly an enemy of not just truth, but duty and justice, which makes it the worst form of government. President Bush must overcome not just the situation in Iraq, but democratic government.
However, President Bush has a valuable historical example that he could choose to follow.
When the ancient Roman general Julius Caesar was struggling to conquer ancient Gaul, he not only had to defeat the Gauls, but he also had to defeat his political enemies in Rome who would destroy him the moment his tenure as consul (president) ended.
Caesar pacified Gaul by mass slaughter; he then used his successful army to crush all political opposition at home and establish himself as permanent ruler of ancient Rome. This brilliant action not only ended the personal threat to Caesar, but ended the civil chaos that was threatening anarchy in ancient Rome – thus marking the start of the ancient Roman Empire that gave peace and prosperity to the known world.
If President Bush copied Julius Caesar by ordering his army to empty Iraq of Arabs and repopulate the country with Americans, he would achieve immediate results: popularity with his military; enrichment of America by converting an Arabian Iraq into an American Iraq (therefore turning it from a liability to an asset); and boost American prestiege while terrifying American enemies.
He could then follow Caesar's example and use his newfound popularity with the military to wield military power to become the first permanent president of America, and end the civil chaos caused by the continually squabbling Congress and the out-of-control Supreme Court.
President Bush can fail in his duty to himself, his country, and his God, by becoming “ex-president” Bush or he can become “President-for-Life” Bush: the conqueror of Iraq, who brings sense to the Congress and sanity to the Supreme Court. Then who would be able to stop Bush from emulating Augustus Caesar and becoming ruler of the world? For only an America united under one ruler has the power to save humanity from the threat of a new Dark Age wrought by terrorists armed with nuclear weapons.
Much has been made of this, of course. Comments here and there accurately refer to it as "sedition" But as true as that is, it may not matter; not if the sedition is committed by those who are in charge of the nation. And "Family Security Matters" is part and parcel of all that, and as tempting as it is to dismiss this as sheer lunacy - it is the shared lunacy of some very highly placed and well-connected lunitics.
At first, I assumed this must be one of those Landover Baptist style parody sites, but if it is, it's a pretty convincing one. They're apparently a front group for the creepy DC think tank, Center for Security Policy, and they've been on Fox News.
...
UPDATE: According to this, Family Security Matters isn't only a front group for the Center for Security Policy/National Security Advisory Council. The CSP/NSAC actually picks up the phone at the FSM's contact number. And please read through the list of people affiliated. There are lots of high ranking members of the Bush administration, not the least of which is Dick Cheney.
True, as far as I'm aware, Dick Cheney did not actually write the article calling for a Bush dictatorship. But Dick Cheney and many other members of this administration are part of the organization that published an article calling for a Bush dictatorship. And that's scary, no matter how you look at it.
I took a closer look at Atkinson, who was listed at the time of the original publication as a Contributing Editor, and who could be found at ourcivilisation.com.
It's instructive to consider his views on the proper raising of children into "good citizens."
Unquestioning Obedience Of Authority An Essential Lesson
Even after the age of seven years of age, when the child can reason, instruction must be continued without explanation, as unquestioning obedience to authority is one of the requirements of a dutiful citizen.
Continuation Of Tradition
The basic values and knowledge that are the foundation of Tradition—those beliefs that are implicit in the customs, manners, language, and laws of the community—must be taught in the same unexplained way; not just to reinforce the notion of the need for unquestioning obedience, but also because these beliefs are an essential part of communal understanding and so must be adopted by all citizens. Observe, these beliefs were created by the genius of communal understanding, which is superior to each citizen's comprehension, so disqualifying any individual from being able to properly judge the reasons behind such beliefs. Hence it is not just the child's duty to adopt these beliefs without question, but it is the parent's duty to impose them without explanation.
Brings some insight into the alleged thinking behind "No Child Left Behind," eh? But this is not the first time Atkinson has suggested a return to Monarchy:
Only The Concern Of A King
If a community is to succeed, its decisions must benefit the long-term interests of the whole group, so those involved in the process must
Always place their private interest second to that of the group.
Possess sufficient ability to be able to recognise what is in the best interests of the whole group.
Such a combination of qualities is rare, which makes it unlikely to ever be the majority character of any group that takes a vote. Which in turn almost guarantees that the decision made by a vote will not be in the best interests of the community as a whole. There is only one individual who is qualified for the role of group decision maker, and that is the person whose private interests coincide with public interests; the one person who feels the community is their property to be tended and guarded with utmost care. Only a monarch can adopt such an attitude.
The Worst Form Of Rule
Western Civilization has embraced rule by popular choice, unhindered by obedience to a monarch or church, since the French Revolution, which marked the beginning of its decline. The onset of our decay is inevitable because of the completely selfish nature of western, or pure, democracy, which is explained by an English contemporary of the French revolution, Edmund Burke, in his essay "Reflections On The Revolution In France".
But Atkinson - in all his writings - is guilty of the worst sort of ignorance about the nature of our political system. His criticisms of Democracy, while vile, and biased, are not without substance - and the Founders were equally, if more rationally concerned about the problems of even an indirect democracy.
This Is why, when asked what sort of Government we now had, Ben Franklin famously said "A Republic, Madame, if you can keep it."
Many are now wondering aloud what to do if martial law is declared and the Constitution is suspended, as seems to be the desire of Bush supporters. I am afraid that there is no comfortable answer to that question. What must be done - if you wish to support the Constitution and retain your rights - is to take up arms and oppose those who try to impose martial law on some pretext.
And I can assure you, it WILL be a pretext.
But ultimately, whatever faces appear in Washington are irrelevant. It's the people that put them in power and who benefit from them remaining in power that are the true culprits. Those persons must be held accountable, or any civil war will go on endlessly - as they continue to profit.
When you get to the end of the line - ensure a just and appropriate outcome by Constitutionally appropriate means, as defined by the Constitution in regards to acts of treason. For that is what a war against the American people and the Constitution surely is.
For "Constitutionally Appropriate Means," refer to the Bill of Rights - the first two Amendments.
Ok, folks, it should be clear to anyone of any philosophical or political persuasion that politics no longer apply to the question of whether George Bush should continue in office. Self-preservation trumps politics in all rational beings.
But by all reports, President Bush is more convinced than ever of his righteousness.
Friends of his from Texas were shocked recently to find him nearly wild-eyed, thumping himself on the chest three times while he repeated “I am the president!” He also made it clear he was setting Iraq up so his successor could not get out of “our country’s destiny.”"
It seems increasingly apparent to me that "our country's destiny" in the eyes of George Bush is some Dispensationalist twaddle, where, after the rivers run red with blood and nuclear and biological Armageddon sweep the world clean of both civilization and sanity, Jesus returns, on a "just in time basis," courtesy of a Heavenly FedEx Skylift.
In Violation of Federal Law, Ohio's 2004 Presidential Election Records Are Destroyed or Missing
In 56 of Ohio's 88 counties, ballots and election records from 2004 have been "accidentally" destroyed, despite a federal order to preserve them -- it was crucial evidence which would have revealed whether the election was stolen.
"The missing records reveal where the fraud occurred," said Arnebeck. "You take as an example, Warren County. It is well documented that there was a phony homeland security alert and that was the excuse for excluding the public and the press from observing what was going on during Election Day. So the missing unused ballots would suggest that ballots were remade to fit the desired result."
In this case I think the lack of evidence is pretty much all the proof we need.
A succinct roundup of the very apolitical reasons why George Bush, Dick Cheney and Alberto Gonzolez must go, and why the "political leadership" risk THEIR offices in refusing to allow the question to come to the table.
The 74-year-old retired mathematician who is fighting Kensington officials over his right to sell buttons urging President Bush's impeachment was arrested yesterday at a farmers market and charged with trespassing.
Alan McConnell, who had been selling his "Impeach Him" buttons at the Howard Avenue market for about a half-hour without a permit, lay down on the pavement after Montgomery County police asked him to come with them. After McConnell failed to respond to a request that he "please stand up," four officers each grabbed one of his limbs and carried him to the front seat of a squad car.
Now, many have dismissed this as a non-issue from a common-sense viewpoint. These people were speaking from the perspective of organizers of public events in public spaces that require permitting and juried vendor selection.
I'm totally in favor of impeachment, but this is a manufactured grievance. As an organizer of a long-running (and *very* progressive) event that relies on both city permitting and juried vendor selection, I recognize that what this guy is doing is jumping the line.
If he wants a booth from which to reach the patrons brought in by the market's organizers, he can go through the same process all the other vendors did. If the event's organizers choose not to give him a booth (which they won't, since what he's selling is not produce) he has every right to reach the same number of potential buyers by standing on the adjacent sidewalk, offering his buttons to people as they come and go from the farmer's market.
But to insist on his alleged right to do business within the permit area without having gone through the process is simply stealing access to an audience built by someone else for another purpose — and that would be true even if he were not aggressive about it.
It's not about free speech. If he were giving the buttons away free, he *might* have a case…but maybe not. The Sixth Circuit just decided a case two years ago that gave ballot petitioners the right to circulate in crowds gathered by permit holders in public parks, but AFAIK event permit holders still have the right to ask anyone who is even giving away materials to do so outside the permit area.
And that's as it should be. Imagine how you would feel if, having spent months or years building an audience and organizing a political or cultural evvent designed to raise money for good folks who cooperated in your process, some corporation decided to bring in a squad of salesmen to disrupt traffic flow and siphon off the interest of your cutomers.
Permitting of public spaces is one of the few areas where public policy actually works for the common good. Please rethink the knee-jerk reaction that assumes this well-intentioned man was wronged. Considering how many times he was asked to take his business outside the area, it should be clear that he was seeking this confrontation. Noisy self-made martyrs do our common cause no real good. There are plenty of actual free speech violations going unheeded. This isn't one of them.
But according to one supporter also commenting further down-thread, that's not the case with the Kensington Farmer's Market.
As a Kensington resident I supported Alan's efforts and the demonstration on Saturday. Alan did not need a permit. There are no rules for the Kensington Market. I know this becuase I asked the person in charge of the market at the Town of Kensington who admitted they do not have rules written down. So they make them up as they go. Alan has been selling buttons at the market for over a year!
He is also not in people's faces, he simply asks passers-by if they would like a button. No more aggrssive then those who man booth at the mall.
So, if that is the case, the question returns to whether this is selective enforcement of arbitrary rules. Again, IF so, that's definitely an issue that is worth dramatizing in order to resolve in court. Furthermore, it appears that the conflict is between the Mayor of Kensington and McConnell.
Three weeks ago, McConnell was issued a trespassing warning after being asked to leave the market. McConnell has said that he sold the buttons at the market for months without a license. Last week, Fosselman canceled the market because he was concerned that McConnell's "potentially aggressive" supporters might endanger the safety of customers. On Thursday, two Montgomery County police officers issued McConnell an updated trespassing warning, while a Kensington official gave him a citation for selling at the market without a permit. That ticket carries a possible $500 fine.
McConnell got another of those citations yesterday before his arrest, but he continued to sell his buttons for $1 apiece even as Kensington code enforcement officer Louise Hamilton filled out the ticket. Hamilton said the mayor requested that she come to the market to see whether McConnell was selling his buttons without a license.
Meanwhile, those who oppose holding Bush accountable for his constitutional vandalism are weighing in.
You and those like you are misguided and un-American. I support your being watched and, if deemed necessary, rounded up and either imprisoned or deported.
Ya know, buddy, if this were Stalinist Russia, Communist China or Cuba, you'd be right. That would be the "patriotic" thing to do. Me, I support the vicious mockery of any such would-be Stalinist until they do something unfortunate enough to permit us to round them up and imprison them, with the option of voluntarily renouncing their citizenship in favor of emigration to a country that better supports their authoritarian point of view.
But most folks, commenting on various sites, simply said "get a permit." The question is, though, CAN you get a permit? Is it reasonably priced? Is the process itself designed to discourage First Amendment activity? Remember, commercial speech is still protected speech. Indeed, we must ask, has the permitting process become politicized? Seeing that this conflict seems to have become a personal power-struggle between the Mayor and the elderly McConnel, it seems to me something worth investigating.
In particular, the canecellation of the market because of concerns that McConnel's supporters were "potentialy aggressive" sets off my bullshit alarm. It strikes me more as potentially being ploy to pressure other venders into supporting the mayor's agenda.
Just because a town is left-leaning, it does not follow that it's government is, especially within unelected positions. The intent of infiltrating local government by stealth in order to monkey-wrench liberal agendas is something Ralph Reed has spoken about at length to his Christianist-Conservative supporters. More on that here.
And remember what these buttons say. "Impeach Him." It IS a loaded issue, and it does make some folks hot under the collar. Including, say, Mayors and Permiting enforcement officials.
The fact that McConnel was arrested for trespassing tends to suggest to me the possiblity that they prefer to try him for a technical violation, rather than the one they were really upset about. Indeed, I wonder about the charge itself,
If you can control the permitting and licensing process, you can bankrupt people who disagree with your political views in a nearly invisible way, so this is a question that needs to be asked. Now, thanks to the good professor, is likely to be a matter of fact to be determined in a court of law.
Even if that is not true, it's the height of sloppiness to simply assume that it would have been possible to simply apply for and get a permit to sell buttons. If nothing else, the possibility of pure administrative indifference and/or incompetence should have crossed some minds.
While I'm not a constitutional scholar, it strikes me as extremely dubious that such a venue could exclude the sale of political materials without running afoul of the Constitution in some way, if the venue is administered directly by the town of Kensington. Were it simply the venue organizers, perhaps it would pass the constitutional sniff test, but once any government becomes involved, it's an iffy proposition.
The other thing that disturbs me about this story is the lack of attribution. "Some people said" he was being "too aggressive." Really? Who? And what, by chance, would this person's political viewpoint be? Note that he's been doing this very thing for months and months. Surely, if the matter is as serious as the arrest would seem to imply, it's serious enough for the facts of the "offense" to be clearly communicated to the media - and on to us. But I feel less informed now than when I was completely ignorant of the entire matter, an hour or so ago.
In the final analysis, when there are conflicts between public policy in public spaces and the rights of free speech, free press and freedom of assembly, the letter of the law should not impede the spirit of constitutional intent. Any restrictions on individual liberty need to be narrowly drawn, with unassailable public policy grounds for such restrictions.
And remember also that the McCain-Fiengold campaign finance reform bill was struck down by the Supremes as an unreasonable limitation on PAID political speech - so if it's true for a few hundred thousand dollar television ad, it should also be true for the choice to buy a one dollar button.
BAGHDAD - Nearly half of the foreign detainees held in Iraq are Saudi citizens, and lists of their names were given to Saudi officials during a recent visit by an Iraqi delegation, national security adviser Mouwaffak al-Rubaie said in remarks aired Monday.
Last week, al-Rubaie said before leaving for Saudi Arabia that the majority of the suicide bombers and "those who drive the vehicles to blow up our innocent civilians, Iraqis, are Saudis." Al-Rubaie, who headed the delegation, said then "we need to stop the flow of suicide bombers, we need to stop the fatwas (religious edicts) coming from Saudis to justify the killings of innocent Iraqis."
In the interview with Saudi-owned Al-Arabiya, al-Rubaie said that he raised the issue of fatwas with officials in the kingdom and "we heard very good news." He did not elaborate.
I think that really should ring some alarm bells about who is behind this war, and who’s going to benefit by it. Seeing as the 9/11 hijackers were Saudi, Bin Ladin is Saudi, Al-Queda is Saudi funded - and Bush wants to attack their mortal cultural and religious enemy, Iran? People have gone to the gallows on thinner evidence. The Rosenburgs, the "Haymarket Martyrs" - and just a whole lot of Texans while Bush was Governor.
I think at the very least, Bush should have to go to the Senate to defend himself against impeachment. While Al Gore's argument against impeachment is persuasive IF you are looking at this as the malfeasance of one man, it is in fact about the subversion of our Republic by a coterie of conspirators over a period of 50 years. Bush is their sock-puppet, no more, but someone has to be the fall guy, to be held accountable for the desecration of the Constitution. If there "is no consensus" about Bush, per se, I think that as testomony illuminates under the slimy rocks that composes his power base, that a consensus will emerge.
However, even if it does not, and literally divides the country in two, that might not be such a bad thing. If there are those who truly prefer tyranny, let them go in peace to explore that path.
If there is no such purge, no such broad cleansing of the government, no widespread dismissal and ultimately prosecution of those involved, no return to the Constitution and the rule of law, there can be no credible government. With all due respect to Al Gore, that leaves us in a position where violent revolution is not merely possible, but the exact situation that caused our Founders to "cross the Rubicon" themselves.
Should we consider ourselves lesser men? Do Democrats and Republicans alike presume we have all been neutered?
Without some sign to the contrary, I must presume that Democrats are all in favor of this handy new concept of a "Unitary Executive" and an impotent, irrelevant Congress. I must further presume that Democrats, as well as Republicans, consider the Constitution a "quaint" and inconvenient limitation on the power and scope of magesterial authority. In short, we will be ruled by a King, with fewer checks upon him than King George III.
I don't believe I can stand for that. How about you?
Bill Moyers Journal . Tough Talk on Impeachment | PBS: "Bill Moyers gets perspective on the role of impeachment in American political life from Constitutional scholar Bruce Fein, who wrote the first article of impeachment against President Bill Clinton, and THE NATION's John Nichols, author of THE GENIUS OF IMPEACHMENT."
This is actually a huge resource, with a ton of related stories and a link to video of the program, and transcribts for those who prefer text.
Have you blogged about impeachment today? Don't you think you should?
Russia withdraws from arms treaty - CNN.com: "President Vladimir Putin signed a decree suspending Russia's participation in the Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty due to 'extraordinary circumstances ... which affect the security of the Russian Federation and require immediate measures,' the Kremlin said in a statement.
Putin has in the past threatened to freeze his country's compliance with the treaty, accusing the United States and its NATO partners of undermining regional stability with U.S. plans for a missile defense system in former Soviet bloc countries in Eastern Europe."
Yep, with all the potential fallout of the Cuban Missile Crisis. If you won't impeach Bush because he has committed illegal acts, how about impeaching him for deliberately, stupidly and willfully endangering our national security?
It's ironic that it takes this sort of provocation to issue a "Contempt of Congress" citation. That contempt has been made manifest with every stonewall, every executive order, every dismissive remark by our Misleader.
Perhaps it's come to the point that Congress realizes that so many of them HAVE been blackmailed and pressured (I speculate, of course) via illegal means that people will tend to overlook the smaller sins due to outrage at the greater.
It will be interesting to see what happens if the Supremes stonewall this. Perhaps impeachment for the last two appointments? Or perhaps Alitio will convert to Constitutionalism, after re-reading the Federalist papers and checking the wind.
The gravity of this issue is impossible to overestimate. Deliberately provoking a Constitutional crisis in the name of upholding the principle of the "Unitary Executive" with an undercurrent of "I have the guns and you don't" is a good way to provoke Civil War.
It will be interesting to see if Bush tries to have Congress intimidated with tanks and artillery. Interesting in the Chinese sense. And it will be interesting to see if Rumsfield and his successor have managed to "restrutcture" the military to the degree that it will willingly fire on American Citizens.
No one was all that surprised when the Bush administration announced Thursday that it would not cooperate with congressional demands for documents and testimony
The best way to enforce the rule of law is by issuing a Contempt of Congress citation
The issuance of a Contempt of Congress citation would provoke the sort of Constitutional showdown that it now appears will be required if this administration is to be held to account for its abuses of power. In such a showdown between the legislative and executive branches, the third branch of the federal government, the judiciary, would be asked to decide whether the White House has a right to assert, as White House counsel Fred Fielding did in a letter telling the committee chairs that their demands would not be met.
"Increasingly," says Leahy, "the president and vice president feel they are above the law -- in America no one is above law."
Americans celebrate July 4 as a day of patriotism, but the true spirit of July 4 has been lost. After all, July 4, 1776 was the day our Founding Fathers declared the American Revolution against King George.
So let's use this July 4 to declare our independence from King George W - and let's make some noise!
Local impeachment activists report great success holding signs at busy intersections that say "HONK TO IMPEACH!" Most of the drivers who pass these signs are delighted to honk - which makes them happy and makes our activists happy too. Best of all, the drivers and pedestrians discover how much support there is for impeachment - something they never knew because the Corporate Media won't tell them or even conduct a poll. Here's a great report from Bob Feuer of Great Barrington, Mass: http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/honktoimpeach-1
July 4 is an excellent day to "HONK TO IMPEACH" because there's already lots of noise from fireworks and people are relaxed. So here's our plan:
Check your local community calendar for the fireworks celebration near you, and note the time and main parking location.
Pick an intersection outside the entrance where all the cars will come and go. Visit that intersection if you can to see how the traffic flows and pick the safest spot to stand.
Add a marker for your intersection's location to our ImpeachMap at http://www.communitywalk.com/impeach. Be sure to include the time, exact location, and your contact info in your marker description, and use the category "Honk to Impeach"
Click the Share/Export link on the ImpeachMap to e-mail it to your friends, get a link to it, or embed it in your blog, website, or profile.
Bring signs that say "HONK TO IMPEACH" and "Text IMPEACH to 30644" (see below) and bring extra sign paper and magic markers if more activists show up. Or make a large banner like the one in this video. Or bring the big I-M-P-E-A-C-H letters you used on A28. Bring wooden stakes and staples to make carrying easier. Bring American flags and Uncle Sam outfits to capture the July 4 spirit. Try this sign: "BE A PATRIOT: HONK TO IMPEACH CHENEY AND BUSH"
Keep building our nationwide movement by scheduling a weekly "HONK TO IMPEACH" in front of your local media outlets and Congressional district offices, and post it to our ImpeachMap at http://www.communitywalk.com/impeach
Why hold a sign saying "Text IMPEACH to 30644"? Because we've invented a great new way to enlist more impeachment activists, especially younger people who use their cellphones for text messaging. When they text "IMPEACH" to 30644 they are prompted to enter their e-mail addresses so we can connect them with all the impeachment work we're doing, both nationally and locally. This way the HONK TO IMPEACH events will actually grow the movement.
July 4 will be the launch of the HONK TO IMPEACH movement nationwide this summer. People who have already tried it report a great deal of enthusiasm and excitement and we encourage you to make this a regular (e.g. weekly) event. If you decide to do so, please update your markers on the ImpeachMap following July 4 with whatever location and time you choose for your weekly honkathon. If you need any help, just e-mail me at jacob@a28.org.
The wheels are coming off the Democratic machine, with angry voters starting to lose patience with the Party's chronic inability to act decisively on any of the key issues of public concern.
In a Reuters dispatch on June 18, Democratic leaders in Congress concede that voters are angry with them for not doing enough to end the Iraq War. They might have added that voters are also angry at them for not impeaching the president or even for moving on Rep. Dennis Kucinich's bill to impeach Vice President Dick Cheney (H Res. 333).
"I understand their disappointment. We raised the bar too high," bleats Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid (D-NV).
Lindorff presents an elegant, passionate rebuttal to the excuses presented for their spineless refusal to obey the people's mandate. While you should read it yourself, the sum of it is simple and our leadership deserves no more polite response than this: BULLSHIT!
Dear Harry and Nancy: "Lead, follow or get the hell out of the way." Those are your only viable political alternatives.
Hugh Hefner with Girlfriend and "Girl Next Door" Kendra
I happen to think that Hugh Hefner demonstrates better morals and is a better example of a socially-concious, patriotic Citizen than any any randomly selected politician or pulpet-pounder you are likely to come up with as a counterexample. Why? Actions speak louder than words.
Lets's start this out with a quote from Tibor R. Machan, Co-Founder of Reason Magazine.
..when someone advocates a disagreeable idea, no one's rights are being violated; when someone engages in self-destructive conduct, once again the culprit isn't violating any rights; when someone sells dope to a willing adult buyer, once again no rights are being violated. Consensual interaction can not be rights violating.
But what, you might ask, about vulnerable folks, with weak wills? Here is where the complications arise, which is why the matter isn't amenable to being treated briefly. If ordinary citizens, human beings, do have free will, as morality and the criminal law assume, they are able, even if with some difficulty, to resist temptations and inducements from others to do what can hurt them. If they refuse to resist, if they decide to take up a bad habit-smoking dope, gambling excessively, hiring hookers-and even get addicted, this is their responsibility to handle. Others may be morally blameworthy for attempting to induce them, tempting them, promoting the bad behavior, but no one has violated their rights in doing this. I can influence others, perhaps, with fancy words, with charisma, and the like but none of this forcibly imposes anything on them, none of it amounts to violating their rights. Even if they are unusually vulnerable, they have the freedom to take measures to protect themselves from my bad influence-they can avoid me, form a support group to keep away from tempting literature I might send their way, and so forth.
Indeed, it is both insulting and presumptuous to assume that others ARE "acting irresponsibly" or subject to "bad influences," and to interfere with their rights, associations and chosen supports, friends and even chemical crutches on that basis is both unethical and immoral. If they wish your advice, they may ask. And of course, to complain of their choices imposes the moral obligation upon you to provide choices that are objectively better than theirs.
..within the framework of the American political and legal tradition, animated by the principles laid out in the Declaration of Independence, victimless crimes simply are no proper crimes at all. The people "committing" them may be vicious, evil, acting immorally, and so forth but their doing so does not suffice, in a free society, to make them criminals.
My thoughts, below the fold. There's more... As I've said many times and in many ways, morality is not the proper concern of government, it is the proper province of religion and religious leaders, for the very reasons related above.
For religion to become government, or government to become religious is to degrade the legitimate authority of each, with the price of a bastard entity that has less social utility than either separate entity, much less the combined force of each. Don't take my word for this, read some history. It's utterly lousy with examples, from Phillip of Spain to Constantine to the Holy Inquisition.
Government, ideally speaking, places few, and only necessary limitations upon the liberty of individuals in order to protect the interests of all. For instance, driver's licenses and speed regulations.
Aside from having the force of law, speed limits are based on the far more immutable laws of physics - stopping distance, limits of visibility and the like. In other words, aside from the law and it's role in determining accountability should you screw up, it is also doing it's higher duty of providing you with information so that you do NOT screw up in a way potentially harmful to others.
But, ultimately, how fast you drive is your choice, and speed limits (as well as most other traffic laws) are obviously considered advisory by many people. We all put up with the consequences of that with every single commute, yet while it's technically feasible and probably cost effective, you aren't seeing "smart roads" springing up, so that all high-speed traffic is computer controlled. Individual liberty is worth some calculated risks and many inconveniences.
I think it obvious that a single person in their own vehicle under conditions that do not exceed their ability, with no other person's life at risk without consent should have the right to make such calculated risks. I have no problem with that. Nor will you see the highway patrol in any state wasting much time patrolling lonely roads to protect people from miscalculations.
The question as to whether you have the moral right to put yourself at risk is quite another matter - and the answer varies greatly due to the religion. Some would bypass that by saying that you have the moral obligation to obey all laws, so as not to be a bad example to others.
I personally reject that arguement, for it precludes responsible civil disobedience. Worse yet it makes "respect for authority" a moral imperative, irrespective of it's competence or consequences. There is a place for social disobedience as a statement of personal, moral and ethical integrity, with consequences that are no more avoidable for being largely un-addressed in law.
Separation of church and state is not for the benefit of the unchurched, nor is it for the benefit of an "amoral" government. Our government has a Constitution, which is it's particular "morality;" it's legal and ethical boundaries set in stone. It quite properly leaves the moral dimension of individual actions to those with the moral responsibility to handle those choices. For those that have difficulty with making good moral and ethical choices, we have separate institutions, as Machan notes above; churches, AA, Masonic orders and the Rotary Club that each deal with various aspects and dimensions of personal and professional ethics, moral choice and individual responsibility.
Should their advice become law, whatever spiritual benefit that may accrue from making the "right" choices comes rightfully into question, as does the necessity for the institution itself.
Worse yet, these ultimate questions of ethics become identified with particular political viewpoints, economic interests and doctrinal associations. And to the extent that one or another congregation of interest "wins" a point, individual liberty is always diminished, at the expense of both the individual and the consequent life-lesson.
If I avoid "occasions of sin" because consequences for such "sins" have been inflated to the point of absurdity, what need have I for a church? The government will suffice, and then all that is not forbidden is permitted. Conversely, if all "sins" recognized by government are known by their draconian punishments, it becomes far more possible to shrug off the ordinary consequences of mistakes ("sin" means just that, "mistake") that are not deemed illegal.
I humbly suggest that we already see the consequences of this sort of thinking - and most dramatically within the folds of the very strictest denominations themselves. The crusade against "moral relativism" is in fact just this - an attempt to extinguish the idea that a particular action may have particular consequences under particular circumstances that make it specifically a sin for that person in that case - but not in another. This, of course, requires individual judgment informed by specific understandings of ethics and moral choice, a realization that would put a large number of professional moralists out of work.
But if "moral relativism" is so dangerous, we should look at the success rate for "Moral Absolutism, " the choice of dominionists and fundamentalists of most religions.
The metrics for divorce are higher in states dominated by the "big box churches", for example, by significant margins. This is one of many indicators that suggest to me that the conservative churches of America, in focusing on the sins of those outside their congregation and insisting on the general at the expense of the specific have failed their duties to the flock within. That duty is not to the group as a whole, much less to the nation as a whole - it is to each and every separate individual faced with their own individual challenges.
When Jesus said "feed my sheep," it was within a culture quite used to tripping over the damn things. Sheep are harmless unless they fall on you, inoffensive and have an amazing capacity for innocently wandering into death traps, stepping on feet and crapping indiscriminately. Furthermore, if not taken to where they are literally up to their ankles in food, they will helplessly starve while bleating pathetically. Jesus was a realist, and he was not complementing the flock, nor conveying power with out duty.
"Feeding the sheep" is a chore. A duty. An obligation of those capable of recognizing that for one reason or another, praise Goddess, they are NOT sheep.
I use the word Goddess to underline the fact that the duty is inescapable by simply choosing to become something other than Christian. Indeed, from my perspective, the ethics of the matter are clear enough that I'd be saying the same thing as an atheist.
Government is wholesale. Religion - and it's secular equivalents - are retail. By seeking to become major secular powers, influencing governments the various churches have both currently and historically become whores TO government, or become governments themselves.
But the shepherd does not get to choose which sheep they have a duty toward - they run after any sheep in trouble . The dogs may attend to the flock as a whole. And yes, we may indeed use that as a metaphor for Law.
The law is implacable, and for that reason alone it must be as minimal a restriction on individual liberty as possible, so that it does not interfere with our individual rights and responsibilities.
For instance, while it's Unconstitutional (a fact, though it's an often inconvenient fact in the face of the utter failure of our churches to do their rightful tasks) to forcibly take money from Peter to feed Paul, I see no constitutional impediment to it establishing mechanisms whereby Paul can choose to feed Peter.
It would certainly be Constitutional for it to invest in a universal insurance scheme that did not depend on borrowing from the future. Better yet, it could simply serve as a conduit for such schemes, to amortize risk, minimize overhead and serve to ensure that such services did not become schemes for profit or power.
No government - nor for that matter, religion - is truly wise and all-seeing enough to truly know what any of us need to meet our responsibilities, or even directly determine what our needs are and meet them. Were it possible to know, such knowledge would be so totally invasive as to completely strip us of all human dignity.
Therefore, state and church exist in separate, immiscable capacities to advise, and with our consent, provide information, resources and human contacts to help with those most personal and non-transferable duties. Nor may any entity, person, religion, corporation or government claim to be wise enough to know for certain that in the face of a poor outcome, their choices would have been better on behalf of any particular individual.
First attempt define what "better" would be for every single affected person with inarguable accuracy first, with absolute reliability from the viewpoint of those in need and you will see my point. Even the most obvious-seeming judgments rely on assumptions based on your informed guess as to what would be best for most people, with "most" being ultimately defined as "people you know."
Therefore, "judge not, lest you be judged also." It's not a prediction of future consequence, it's an observation of very immediate human reaction. The moment you make assumptions about individuals based on your assumptions about what people "should" do or be able to do, you reveal your own personal inability to accept realities and people outside of your understanding.
To you Christians out there who nonetheless refuse to feed Paul for various transparently false rationalizations - the Bible says that if someone comes to your town and is hungry, and he is not fed, clothed and given refuge, then they may take what he needs from the altar of the Temple. As I recall, it would ordinarily be a lesser offense under the Levitical Code you are all so fond of for them to steal from you.
The Constitution will not force you to act morally, ethically or even responsibly. It does not demand that you "hold up your end," nor will it force others to compensate for your lack. It will not protect you from the consequences of pretending you are when you are not. Nor is there any legitimate religion, system of ethics or morality that will pretend otherwise. Not even Satanism. What the Constitution does is to attempt to limit Government from interfering with your rights - and empowering it to protect your individual rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness from the encroachment of others.
If you are genuinely unable by temperament, mental state, or circumstances to act responsibly in all things, then it is your responsibility to seek out help, just as it is your duty to help when called on by those in genuine need. There is a reciprocal responsibility to be helpful, and where government can legitimately make help from over here available over there it must - as our designated agent and adviser.
It's just that simple, and no, you really don't get to pick and choose between the "deserving and undeserving;" not as a Christian, and certainly not as a Deist, a Humanist or indeed, an irreligious, self-centered couch-potato. Refusing to recognize an ethical necessity does not make it go away.
As I study the Constitution, I realize more and more that it deliberately denies the People the comfortable apathy of a state that exists to "take care" of them. Even the sheep have the the minimum responsibility of finding a trustworthy shepherd. Those of you claiming to be shepherds, but who are but shills for the slaughterhouse - well, sooner or later the smell of blood will betray you.
With such examples of "Christianity" in positions of power, it is deeply and damnably ironic to hear comparable asshats intone that "This Is A Christian Nation." With Pharisees in charge, it's time to consult a Samaritan.
Yes, that links to Playboy's "The Girls Next Door." And yes, Hefner has all three of them underfoot. And yes, I'm sure the relationship is mutually satisfactory, sexually and financially.
But the point is, it's not a relationship Hefner has any obvious financial need to have and watching the show is evidence enough that there are some significant downsides. Hef chose to care for three girls who are... erm... well, they are prettier than sheep but not a whole lot smarter.
My wife - the special educator - became fascinated by the show. Kendra is her favorite. She says it gives her hope for some of her students.
You see, responsibility need not be fulfilled out of pure altruism, nor are you expected to be of help where you cannot. Such bizarre ideas lead inevitably to abuse, exploitation and burnout.
Those particular three women would drive me completely, stark raving mad, even were I financially capable of padding life's corners for them as Hefner has. Furthermore, by giving each of them responsibilities commensurate to their talents, such as this show, he is also giving them an individual dignity that few others could.
The show itself makes one smile. That was something I simply did not expect. I thought it would be primarily about cleavage and jiggle, but oddly, it's mostly not. Or rather, cleavage and jiggle is so pervasive it becomes invisible, even when they are wandering around as blissfully naked as happy toddlers. (I actually find the FCC-required blur troubling, it transforms the nudity into a sexualized nakedness that simply doesn't exist without it.)
That's really how they come across, as happy innocents who really do not get what all the fuss is about being naked in the sunshine. It makes one question whether in "knowing better," one is really choosing something that is, in fact "better."
I grudgingly admit that it's forced me to reassess my own prejudices regarding stereotypical "blond bimbos," even as my wife's love for dogs made me reassess dogs in the light of her love and acceptance of the nature of dogs.
Dogs are dogs, and no amount of therapy or exhortation will make them into cats or caterpillars, so one may as well enjoy them for what they are, rather than condemning them for what they are not. As one who has much need to claim such indulgences - I find myself embarrassed that I had un-noticed reservation in giving equal charity to others.
Being factually more intelligent than any of the girls does not make me a better person, and certainly not a less inherently annoying person.
What makes me a better person is being accepted for who and what I am, without shame or embarrassment, and being aided (by my lovely wife) to leverage my abilities to our mutual pleasure, advantage and satisfaction.
In my own unique way, I can exhibit stupidities to rival those of any of those three - and without being nearly as decorative. But under Hef's gentle rule, they flourish, and manage to rise to meet his own, rather unusual needs. I'm not talking sex, per se. Hefner seems to have a need for a degree of isolation from "the real world" that exceeds even mine - and so he has dedicated his whole life toward creating his own private Xanadu. He makes it possible by sharing his idea of beauty open-handedly. There is a price of admission, of course, but one must pay the staff.
And, interestingly enough, the staff does things for Hefner on a routine basis that I cannot imagine that most bosses could expect in their wildest dreams. There's something about Hef that is truly sweet and innocent, that makes one want to keep him safe from the sharp corners of the world.
The result is that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts - most of which would be pretty dysfunctional without the whole. And yet there are many who would cheerfully "save" these girls from sin, and smash Hef's whole empire out of a moral superiority that obviously blinds them to evident fact.
This is why growups refuse to let the morality of others get in the way of one's own ethics, and such also is the advantage of refusing to be bound by the disapproval of those who would certainly refuse to do the right thing themselves on "moral" grounds. Were these girls to have been in Ireland as little as ten years ago, they could easily have been "helped" by being forced into a Magdeline Laundry.
Such is the "charity" of our churches who would consider that preferable to being safely and well employed being an instructive "occasion of sin" to bluenoses and moralists.
As a Libertarian, I accept the principle that charity is not the province of government. That does not make the duty to be charitable and neighborly, decent and civilized go away - as so many of my fellow Libs and certainly the vocal right wing preach and practice. Charity is OUR duty.
"Charity" such as the Magdeline Laundries, and all other such joyless, cheerless and oppressive substitutes for the plain obligations we have to one another are the result of the religious acting towards others as if they were a government.
Clearly, they do this no better than Governments On Crusade Against The Heathen.
But neither can become such abominations of desolation without our permission and tacit support. Only by abandoning our duty can they achieve such power over the "others" we see as being "the problem." This of course grants them power over us they neither need, deserve nor handle well.
It's time for us to join together in demanding that our government govern constitutionally and our religions and other such groups return to the duties they have long abandoned, which ultimately is to aid each individual who asks in governing themselves and fulfilling their own duties as best they can.
We can make an immediate start by doing two simple things: first, take back our government by impeaching those who have taken and misused that power. Second, we must take back our own moral agency from those who have willfully abused our trust by telling us that we should support this most damnable, immoral, unchristian war.
Not just Christians - groups and supposed "authority" of all stripes that have encouraged us to "trust" this administration, to trust in their good intentions against all evidence and against all principles of just law, just war and the teachings of every scripture and source of wise and tested moral and practical wisdom must suffer correction at your hands.
Shake the dust from your feet. LEAVE your big-box church. TURN the dial on your radio. Reclaim your moral agency and never again suppress your doubts or hold back sharing your reproof for those who's words from the pulpit encourage moral apathy, complacency or seek to make you fearful of the consequences of questioning authority and seeking to know the truth for yourself.
Everything George Bush has said and done, he has done in your name. Everything that Pat Robertson, Sun Myung Moon, James Dobson and others have been able to achieve, socially and politically is because you choose to fund and support them in the face of overwhelming evidence that their alliances, motives and beliefs rendered them untrustworthy by definition.
Are you comfortable with the results you see? Are you happy with the consequences of your misplaced trust? Indeed, have you even bothered to check for yourself? Whether or not you know, whatever you believe to be true, whatever you wish to be the truth is irrelevant.
You are accountable for the consequences of YOUR choices to other actual individuals. "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." Not just because it's RIGHT, because that's exactly what they will do.
Empowering others to make moral choices and act against the interests of others in your name does not absolve you from any consequences at all, no matter whether you believe in God, Provenance, random chance or merely human nature. Right now, your choice is to stand up and hold yourself accountable for your mistakes - or accept the fact that others will. Because they do, and have every right to do so.
The fact that most Americans oppose the war in Iraq, and want the president impeached, is testimony to the native intelligence and common sense of the citizens of this nation.
It sure isn't thanks to the quality of the news we're getting here in America.!
Here are some of the things you don't know if you just depend on the corporate media for your information:
The author, Dave Lindorffgoes on to bullet point ten critical stories you never heard about from the mainstream media. YOU probably know about one or more, but your neighbor probably does NOT know about any of them. Go read them for yourself and then forward this link to every friend you have. Why this link? Well, because I have some terribly subversive ideas.
Now that you know about this, you see, as either a Citizen of the United States or as someone with a legitimate concern about what sort of threat this nation could become in the hands of an overt dictatorship, you have an affirmative duty to do something. Therefore, the question, "but what can I do" arises.
The thing that needs to be done is to get these truths off the net and into the wild, bypassing corporate, mainstream media. It could be as simple as printing out a hundred copies of the original story and pinning it to every bulletin board in town, or stuffing a copy under the door of every neighbor in your apartment complex.
You could do something as simple as wearing a T-Shirt, and being willing and able to answer the questions it provokes. To help with that, you could print out business or index cards with the URLS of reliable news sources on the web. (You might tape said cards to libarary terminals and leave bunches at your local cybercafe.) It's good to wear any relevant T-Shirt, but it's better to make your own for this issue.
Why? Because that's a sneaky way of getting the message out there. The MORE t-shirts out there with the same general keywords, and the more services they appear on, the better. You are addressing a whole group of people online who may not think much about politics in the ordinary run - but if an idea hits the front page of a T-shrt site, some small fraction of them WILL start thinking about it.
The same statistical approach applies to wearing that shirt. Hundreds of people will see it if you live, work and play in an urban area; perhaps even more. And, should you be somehow harassed in a newsworthy way for wearing it, that's pure gold - something like that probably WILL be covered in local and even national media.
You could go to zazzle.com, (link to my store) create a postcard or note-card with all the information you'd like, order ten or so, and start passing them out or mailing them to friends. Each one would have the url so that people could buy more to pass out or send to all the snail-mail addresses they have. (I'll add an example later - but if you have any artistic or writing talent, you should create your own. Once you have, please blog about it and link back to this article)
I've got a small selection of free-for-use images you could grab right away and use to make shirts and I'll be putting together a few more. and linking to them here. The one you see here links to the set and, just incidentally, works pretty well for items like buttons and cards.
This Memorial Day, remember the Constitution, and the flag for which it stands. Then TAKE a stand - before the first disappears and the second becomes mere patriotic bunting.
The authoritarian reflex to a failed policy is not to examine the policy, but to assume that those entrusted with the implementation were not "up to the task." The answer is always more power, concentrated more densely, with fewer checks upon the authority in question.
Now, the idea of a "War Czar" empowered to do the job right with the authority to make militarily sensible decisions based on the reality of the situation is appealing, even to this anti-authoritarian. I'm not really so much opposed to the idea of authoritative people having power as the opposite, the assumption that the power to enforce one's authority grants one the magical ability to make wise and prudent decisions. And I see that this idea comes from the latter school of authoritarianism - if only we give the right person enough power, they will be able to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.
But the response of people who are qualified for the position have all demonstrated their qualifications by refusing the job.
"The very fundamental issue is, they don't know where the hell they're going," said retired Marine Gen. John J. "Jack" Sheehan, a former top NATO commander who was among those rejecting the job. Sheehan said he believes that Vice President Cheney and his hawkish allies remain more powerful within the administration than pragmatists looking for a way out of Iraq. "So rather than go over there, develop an ulcer and eventually leave, I said, 'No, thanks,' " he said.
Yep, some vague concept of what "victory" would look like is important. More significantly, it would have to be a victory on the terms of the American People as a whole, not just the cheerleaders of war. It would have to be significant, meaningful and tangible - not merely a symbolic moment.
Most importantly, it would have to achieve lasting, positive change. I do my philosophical opponents the credit of believing all of these things were not just possible, but inevitable at the start of the war. Frankly, I suspected myself that while the results would be less positive than the cheerleaders suspected, they would nonetheless be a net positive, given what I understood about rational war-planning and preparation. In other words, I made certain reasonable assumptions about what sane people and competent military organizations do before they "cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war."
I, along with everyone else, was betrayed in that assumption. There appears to have been no planning, no precautions, no allowances made for "the fog of war," no preparations made for casualties and consequences and most damning of all, no thought toward what victory would look like, and because of that most fundamental flaw - nobody has been able to plot a course toward it.
Some administration critics said the ideas miss the point. "An individual can't fix a failed policy," said Carlos Pascual, former State Department coordinator of Iraq reconstruction, who is now a vice president at the Brookings Institution. "So the key thing is to figure out where the policy is wrong."
And this is the lesson that we must take from the situation; that there are policies that are so deeply flawed, so fundamentally erroneous and unethical that no-one with the character, competence and moral stature to lead soldiers will take it on.
One of the great unstated consequences of this war - emblematic as it is of what happens to Bushite policies when they are implemented - is a broad loss of confidence in the competence of leadership. The greatest test of leadership is how you react to unanticipated problems - and the second greatest is how many problems inherent in your policies you anticipate and forestall.
While the Bush administration has clearly done everything it could to avoid anything resembling prudence and preparation, it was not sufficiently opposed by those who's very careers were supposedly based on knowing better. And those who were in a position to know better, should have known better as soon as the directives hit their desks. They must have known that the troop levels were insufficient, that training times given were insufficient, that the equipment mix and logistical trains were unprepared and that - most critically - they were woefully short of reliable intelligence and translation resources.
And yet - better to keep their jobs than to act in the interest of the men and women they were responsible to, and in proper deference to the office of Commander In Chief.
Authoritarianism is a lot like Communism - there are specific circumstances where it works, and works very well indeed - but it does not generalize to larger, more complex situations; for their inherent problems are identical - trust. People in either situation donate a portion of their liberty, their resources and personal power to people they can trust, and if there is no basis for trust, the appearance and reality will be two entirely different things - leading to a system divided against itself and effectively serving only the self-delusions of those seemingly in charge of the entire mess.
This leads me, and millions of others, to come to the conclusion that there is no way out of this current mess that resembles "politics as usual." Those trying to avoid political fallout, and who are aiming at political victory in 2008 are betting that Bush will not do something elementally stupid between then and now. I don't think that's a bet that's worth the prize. Indeed, Democrats should be looking at the question of "if we win in 2008, what will we have won?"
We do not need politics as usual; we need statesmanship. And we need to impeach the miserable failure, purge our government of his taint, and I would strongly suggest going so far as to impeach those members of the Supreme Court that selected him in the first place.
Keith Olbermann lists all the various reasons and excuses Bush has used to justify the Iraq war.
I had a roommate once who was a total sociopath, and it took me less than a month to realize that all his "reasons" were really excuses. In fact, he did what he did because he wanted to do it and gave whatever excuse he thought would work that moment. He really had no clue that sane people keep track of these things.
It's been clear for a long, long time that whatever reason exists in George Bush's mind for the war - if any mind or reason exists in any commonly understood sense - it probably isn't one of his utterly disposable excuses.
I stopped keeping score long ago, so I hadn't realized how very damming the sum of his lies had become. But it is truly damning, and indicative of someone utterly incapable of being responsible for the consequences of his decisions. Whether he's a sociopath, a dry drunk, or simply too stupid and isolated to comprehend the issues on his desk does not matter to me, any more than his statements about his political philosophy or his "deep, Christian faith."
He's as inconsistent in those areas as he is in the context of the war, so I conclude that these positions are just as momentarily convenient as any other.
Some of his statements are particularly revealing of an incapacity to deal with the reality of other people, and the idea that his actions give legitimate cause for offense. The latest example is his dismissive reaction to Matthiew Dowd in particular and all parents of service members in harm's way as being "too emotional" to have a valid opinion.
It's pretty easy to demonstrate a widespread skepticism about our misleader.
Then, of course, there was his amazingly insensitive and inept handling of Cindy Sheehan. Whatever you think of her,she's a nightmare of his own making, a visible symbol illustrating his contempt for and impatience with an increasingly critical citizenry.
It has long since become impossible for me to have any respect for the man - and if I am to maintain respect for the office of the President of these United States, I must continue to loudly call for his immediate resignation. If he will not do that, he must be impeached.
Meanwhile, whatever he wants of Congress, and whatever he says to justify his demands must be presumed to be as disingenuous as all his previous interactions with that body, and, I must add, with people representing all parties. I would strongly suggest that various members get together and compare notes on what he has said to them to justify particular votes. I'd bet money that these stories will neither add up nor bear any great resemblance. And I'd be stunned if he's delivered on promises made to secure votes, even with solid supporters such as our own Sen. Ensign.
Congress - and particularly the Republican members - had best realized that the supporters of a liar and a fool are likely to be associated with the lies and foolishness in the public mind. People cannot help but wonder, in the face of overwhelming evidence of his willful, callus and incompetent leadership and contempt for the citizenry, whether that support is the result of blackmail, gullibility or corruption.
More to the point, they probably don't care. They just know that loyalty to a miserable failure is placed above loyalty to their constituents, and there can be no good reason for that.
I'm no fan of big government, so the siren song of Thatcherism seduced me for a while - back when the Iron Lady was still in office and Ronald Reagan was best buddies with her and "Lyin' Brian" Mulroney of Canada.
Both Commonwealth leaders were allowed to give both nations a solid dose of Conservative medicine and then shown the door. They did not achieve the cult status Regan has, and yet, I believe both will be shown in the historical view to have done more for their nations - and for less personal reward - than Reagen or any of his intellectual heirs. And I don't mean individually; I mean, in toto.
The Parliamentary tradition has certain strengths - and one of those is sort of a genetic memory of why it came to be and in the United Kingdom, especially, what happens when it is set aside in the name of expediency and a "Strong Executive."
All governments are a system of checks and balances, and one of it's most important roles is to serve as a check on the powerful, both those who have great power, and those who would like to have great power. It is a means of guiding and advising those who desire to wield power, to keep them in check and working for the benefit of all, rather than establishing their own little individual warring fiefdoms.
In our particular form of government, the tradition - though somewhat inchoate - is for citizens to seek out those who, like George Bush and Dick Cheney need power like they need air, and then hold them accountable for using it well by means well short of violence. while explicitly stipulating that the citizens hold that ultimate right at need. That's your Second Amendment, right there.
Those who try to subvert those checks in the name of some sort of "victory" are like those riverboat captains who'd put a brick on the safety valve in order to win a race. Sometimes the boiler will hold and sometimes it won't, leading to the conversion of a transitory victory into a permanent last place finish.
When the boiler of the ship of state is starting to spit rivets, prudent passengers seek to remove the brick.
Our system of checks and balances was set up to ensure that no single person was likely able to concentrate enough power to overcome the interests of competitors seeking to concentrate power, so that, in order to maintain their basis of power and defend it against the encroachments of others, they must perforce actually do their jobs and do them well.
The admiration I have for the cynical wisdom of our Founders seems to increase every day. And it is a system that, by and large, worked well enough until the unholy alliance of neocon and theocon emerged to subvert the government itself in the name of concentrating power for the sake of ... well, on that, I suspect there are significant disagreements, set aside "for later."
But what has emerged from both neocon and theocon philosophies put into action is a vast contempt for government, clad in a desire for limited government. It's easy to be fooled by this, for everyone has an idea about how government might be vastly improved with a bit of pruning. But the mechanisms of government, the number of people and the dollars spent have not decreased, and these institutions have become more intrusive and less respectful of the citizenry.
Tom Teepen: Contempt for government - sacbee.com: "Item: A meeting was set up by the staff of Karl Rove, Bush's political enforcer, to point out to contractors who do business with the General Services Administration, just which Republican House and Senate seats look especially needy in the run-up to the elections next year. A suspicious mind might wonder if the administration was perhaps, just maybe, trying to shake down the contractors on behalf of the only endangered species this White House cares about."
Tip o' the hat to reader John for this one, and it's just one of many examples given in this editorial.
One hopes that those GSA contractors think hard about the maxim about "Danegeld." If you pay it, you can never get rid of the Dane.
It's not government the Republican leadership objects to, so long as they are doing the governing. It's the aspect of accountability for the means of gaining power and the usage of that power that they find odious, as well as the idea that with great power comes great responsibility.
It's like drunk drivers, who used to have the expectation that being drunk was actually a defense against charges of vehicular manslaughter.
What they object to any expectation of self-government on their part. If one wishes to illustrate this, it's simple enough to point to any of hundreds and thousands of Bushies and fellow travelers who are all in favor of laws and regulations and restrictions on other people - so long as there's no expectation that any such restrictions are mutual.
There is a sense of arrogant entitlement to the "right" to act and speak in ways offensive and indeed harmful to others without accountability, and this is the antithesis of all Libertarian and classic conservative thought, where great weight is placed on personal responsibility and personal ethical behavior even when the cameras are pointed at someone else.
This ethos is vital to small and effective government - indeed, it's vital to any efficient system. Just ask Warren Buffet; it's how he runs his business. He hires trustworthy people and then trusts them, rewarding them according to their performance. It's not exactly a novel idea, but of course, it requires a certain measure of self-respect. In order to trust others, I have found, first one has to be trustworthy.
Those who are not trustworthy cannot imagine that those who can be trusted could be anything other than fools to be exploited. As a result, they waste time and resources armoring the system against - well, themselves while concealing their own systemic abuses, consequently making it unresponsive to anyone seeking honest, transparent access to it.
I am a Libertarian and my beliefs require me to be responsible for any aspect of my life and individual liberty I'm unwilling to delegate. At the same time I embrace my right and responsibility of myself and others to donate any amount of power they are incapable of or unwilling to use responsibly and well - with the expectation of a fair return on that investment.
The rules for money are the same as for any other form of power, for money is simply a means of moving economic power from here to there, as well as a reasonably efficient means of converting one form of power to another.
Yes, this is a seemingly selfish metric - but it also embraces the idea that every other donor has an equal right of concern, and has every right to different ideas of what their fraction of donated power should be used for, as well as recognition that individuals can and do differ remarkably on what they consider to be just compensation. It's also a recognition of reality - that nobody can afford to be altruistic at the expense of their own survival, much less the survival of the people and ideals they most value.
Therefore, any government that expects people to avoid the shortest path between need and gratification had best make the detour worthwhile - and what those in power think about those who would otherwise take the shortest path is immaterial. No amounts of "shoulds and shouldents" and no amount of laws passed in the name of those moral imperatives will change that behavior, nor will those laws ensnare those who are neither unlucky nor unintelligent in their mindful and willful refusal to comply.
Should I dislike the outcome of the balance of all the competing interests government must serve - or the performance based on promises - I have the right to either delegate another representative, or wield my power in my own name - just as I can choose to, say, self-insure against the possibility of a disastrous flood.
Whether or not that's a prudent choice depends a great deal on where you live and how much you have at stake - and the various social priorities and choices made by various states clearly illustrates that. The necessity to reasonably govern the population you have - rather than the population you wish you had - is the reason the Constitution places the states ahead of the Fed. It's not so much that a strong central government should not exist, it's rather that it cannot exist without inherently violating and suppressing entirely legitimate local interests. By restricting it's scope to those things that were clearly of overriding common concern, the Founders hoped to avoid our exact current situation.
However, in rediscovering this essential principle, our noses are rubbed in things that are of overriding common concern that can be addressed centrally, and indeed, probably can only be addressed centrally in any sort of cost-effective way and without serious impacts on essential liberties such as freedom of movement. I am speaking, of course, of social safety-net issues such as universal access to health care.
The issue of "who pays" is not nearly so critical as the idea that everyone, no matter who, no matter what their circumstances is able to access health-care at need, long before it becomes a matter of critical and unavoidable urgency, in recognition of the fact that what happens to individuals who do not have health care actually and unavoidably affects everyone in their community - via disease, bankruptcy, loss of productivity, loss of disposable income and even in loss of community participation. Nor should the systemic cost of widespread stress on the productivity and health of the population be discounted. It has a cost that can only be roughly estimated, but in any estimation has to be "very, very large."
My view is that a government that makes it easier to make wise choices, and which makes a broader range of choices meaningfully available to people is doing it's job. When it starts making choices on my behalf and trying to enforce them against MY judgment, it has become my adversary.
At that point I don't much care what the ideology behind it's choices are - once it's intruded into my life without invitation or compensation, it's excuses for doing so are meaningless. Because by definition, such blanket choices will be at the expense of many who will not benefit from them and may actually be harmed by them, far out of proportion to individual or collective gains.
That is where the abuse of power starts; when government becomes insensitive to the wishes, desires and even the guiding ethos of those it governs. When it demonstrates active contempt for entire swaths of the population, "choosing sides," as it were, it's not only just for those so abused to withdraw their consent, it's pretty much inevitable.
Therefore, open contempt for the electorate is a pretty sure signpost to the end of a dynasty. And any dynasty - and the Bushes surely consider themselves a dynasty - that thinks they can govern without the consent of a majority, much less at the expense of a majority, is not long for this world.
It's apparent that one reason eight prosecutors were fired is because that, despite having identified themselves as Republicans, they nonetheless were willing to enforce the law without regard to the political advantage of fellow Republicans, at the expense of the interests of districts they were appointed to guard and serve.
The really stunning part of this is that those advocating even more widespread firings - such as Harriet Myers - seem to be honestly blind to the inherent corruption contained in the idea. It's as if the core support of the Bush Administration sees everything in terms of partisan advantage, every program, every policy, every agenda, every word - and none of it needs have any real purpose or indeed, achieve anything more than a momentary positive blip in the polls to be legitimate.
This behavior is - aside from being probably illegal, certainly irresponsible and absolutely wrong - is a clear symptom of cancerous self-delusion permeating the entire administration, a delusion that leads them to overvalue their own judgment, not realizing how badly their addiction to unchecked power has effected it. Those who use power wisely and well do so in full understanding of and in service to the legitimate needs of those they serve, and do not confuse legitimate needs with popular whims, which if served at all, are served in small portions as dessert.
But this government does not serve, it alternately panders and bullies; expressing in it's governance the inability of those holding power to govern themselves or even casually adhere in their own lives to the values they would impose by fiat on the rest of us.
But at some point, they will find themselves in the dock, and the judge and jury will not be impressed by the argument that being drunk on power justifies the casual horrors committed in the name of being drunk at the wheel of an entire nation.
The three big Bush stories of 2007--the decision to "surge" in Iraq, the scandalous treatment of wounded veterans at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center and the firing of eight U.S. Attorneys for tawdry political reasons--precisely illuminate the three qualities that make this Administration one of the worst in American history: arrogance (the surge), incompetence (Walter Reed) and cynicism (the U.S. Attorneys).
That's brutally unqualified language; criticism that is as accurate as it is surprising, considering the source and given what effect it may have on the access of Time reporters to the Administration. Perhaps they have realized that source is only useful in a geothermal sense.
Time Magazine has always been center - right with an reflex toward conservatism, dispute rumors to the contrary - though of course it IS to the left of places such as Newsbusters, which seems to have fallen of the edge of the spectrum, a reality that is underlined by increased defections by former "hard core" supporters such as Matthew Dowd and the reaction of the echo chamber.
And despite what the echo chambers reverberate, I don't think coming out against the administration is evidence of a "shift to the left," save in the Colbertian sense, that "reality has a well-known Liberal bias." In a truly Conservative, classically Republican world-view, results count more than words. And the Administration's record on delivering any promised reality has been dismal.
Traditionally, Conservatives are fonder of facts on the ground than pie in the sky, of established and proven procedure to grand and glorious socio-economic theory. The caveat is that you must not confuse "Conservatism" with "Social Conservatism," a mindset which is much more accurately described as "reactionary" or "radical," depending upon the issue.
Read the comments - and indeed, the article itself. It's revealing of the very mindset that did in fact lead to the administration's collapse. First, a complete inability to recognize reality, a callus disregard for the feelings and indeed, the well-being of people who disagree, and of course, a stunning arrogance based upon willful ignorance.
As many actual Conservatives have come to belatedly realize, there is a huge amount of karma waiting around the corner with brazen knuckles, intending to extract a long-term payback for short term strategies. While those strategies were effective, far too many were making good livings furthering them, and too many winning elections and contracts based upon the polices of fear and loathing (as set forth in this Salon article.)
[Matthew] Dowd had been central in formulating the 2002 midterm campaign that zeroed in on the Democrats' patriotism. In 2004, he and Rove crafted the negative attack on Kerry as a "flip-flopper." Asked about the TV ads ripping Kerry, Dowd said on Sept. 22, 2004, on CNN, "I think it's totally tasteful. And the American public is going to be fine with it." He also blithely defended the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth defamation of Kerry's sterling Vietnam War record. "I think the Swift boat ads were part of that dialogue," he said in a 2005 PBS "Frontline" documentary, "but it was more important in that they pointed out something about John Kerry, which is, all this guy's talking about is his Vietnam record. What does that have to do with the war on terror?"
Dowd believed he was designing a permanent Republican majority, but, working alongside Rove, his short-term winning tactics built enormous pressure that produced an implosion. During the 2006 midterm campaign that lost the Republicans control of Congress, Dowd worked as a consultant for California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican running as a virtual liberal Democrat. "I think we should design campaigns that appeal not to 51 percent of the people," Dowd told the Times, "but bring the country together as a whole."
But Dowd neither detailed nor did the Times mention his consulting work in the campaign last year of Richard DeVos, billionaire heir of the Amway fortune, for governor of Michigan. DeVos is a zealous follower of and major donor to the most extreme organizations of the religious right. His campaign against incumbent Democratic Gov. Jennifer Granholm was marked by nasty ads falsely stating: "Under Governor Granholm's administration, you can stay on welfare as long as you want." These weren't a new paradigm but old racial code words.
Despite having won - so to speak - two elections and having near absolute control of the nation and it's policies for six years, there are no fruits of victory - no achievements to commemorate the triumph. And all that "Republican Revolutionary Spirit," all the fruits of the Gipper; all have resolved with seeming inevitability, into one massive, miserable and undeniable failure.
To the surprise of no-one at all, mercenary opportunists such as Dowd will be the first "dedicated supporters" to discover that - to their astonishment - George Bush has committed impeachable offenses, not so much due to a crisis of conscience - though that may indeed play a role, but due to the fact that calling for the blood of the leader may have the effect of shielding the followers from accountability as well as possibly preserving a shred or two of self-respect.
With the sheer number of Nixon and Regan retreads in this administration, the strategy is probably obvious to everyone.
So once again, the usual suspects will be "shocked, shocked to find that there is gambling in this establishment!" And once again, the real lesson of the price of stupid, precipitous and unethical conduct will be lost. We teach our kids in T-Ball and Pop Warner that winners never cheat because cheaters cannot win. Maybe the Mommy and Daddy Parties should remember that simple, kindergarten lesson in practical ethics.
Meet George Bush's "Monica," just the sort of shiny-eyed, blond and Bushie-tailed fanatic loyalist that you'd need to help you betray your country. And after a few years of "all Monica, all the time," is the irony not palpable?
"[W]hat were the Pat Robertson' U grad Monica Goodling's primary qualifications before joining the Department of Justice? She worked with Barbara Comstock and Timothy Griffin (the US Attorney from Arkansas who Rove pushed through under the patriot act) at the Bush Cheney oppo research department in 2000.
It doesn't automatically make her a criminal, but it sure stinks of unethical politicization of the Justice Department.
I heard Orrin Hatch filibuster for what seemed like hours this morning on Meet the Press about how there wasn't a 'shred of evidence' that there was any wrongdoing. Well, except for the totally unethical phone calls by Domenichi and Iglesias and the US Attorneys' publicly stated suspicion that they were let go for partisan political reasons, I suppose not. But they need to lay off the tequila if they actually expect to get the benefit of the doubt about their good intentions after they populated the Justice Department with dirty tricksters in extremely sensitive jobs.
Many of us were told to pipe down when we complained that the Justice Department and the NSA had been involved in spying on Americans with no oversight. But now that we know that Barbara Comstock, Monica Goodling and Tim Griffin, Karl Rove's personal smear artists, were promoted to the highest reaches of the federal police agencies with access to records on their political opponents and every other American, then it's clear that we weren't suspicious enough. At this point, I think we have to assume that with these people in charge and having the use of all the new powers of the Patriot Act, there have been no limits at all on the partisan, political use of the government's investigative powers.
I am no longer confused about why Monica Goodling took the fifth. I have little doubt that there are many crimes that took place and she's not taking any chances. This is bigger than the US Attorney scandal."
Clearly, when asked if she would do "anything" for the President, she didn't even have to be asked in person, and - in MY personal opinion - "oppo research" that is intended to be used to smear, defame and denigrate opponents is one HELL of a lot more of a moral compromise than oral sex between consenting adults, a usage I'd consider it immensely more degrading than being used to moisten a cigar, which is, after all, not actually a "Big Ten" no-no.
However, Ms. Goodling seems untroubled by having started her career in government as a professional "bearer of false witness," something the Bible frowns upon rather more harshly than more literal forms of whoredom, professional or amateur.
I mean, being used as a cigar moistener might be somewhat embarrassing (we shall not be so rude as to say "tasteless") but it's not something one needs to plead the fifth about. One pleads the fifth when there is a more than reasonable chance that some portions of one's actions might be seen as being, well, illegal.
From her Law.com Bio: Goodling graduated in 1995 with a degree in communications and a minor in politics, then started law school at American University. But she quickly transferred to Regent University in Virginia Beach, Va., a school founded by Pat Robertson. (The motto: "Christian Leadership to Change the World.") There, she enrolled in a joint public policy master's and law degree program. The school, which was accredited by the American Bar Association in 1996, has a standard law school curriculum, but also encourages students to talk and think about how law interacts with their faith and values.
From the public record, I believe that discerning Christians and Lawyers may come to rather damning conclusions about the substance of those discussions and their effect upon faith, values and graduate's respect for the Law.
Drowning the EPA in a bathtub causes toxic blowback.
When Grover Norquist famously said "My goal is to cut government in half in 25 years, to get it down to the size where we can drown it in a bathtub." few thought to ask "who's half?"
According to numerous accounts collected in the inquiry, Ms. MacDonald has terrorized low-level biologists and other employees for years, often yelling and even swearing at them. One official characterized her as an "attack dog." Much of this bullying, the report suggests, was aimed at diluting the scientific conclusions and recommendations of government biologists and at favoring industry and land interests. Ms. MacDonald's subordinates said she has trenchantly resisted both designating new species as endangered and protecting imperiled animals' habitats. She defended her interventions in an interview with the inspector general's staff, saying that she kept Interior's scientists accountable, according to the report. But the evidence available suggests she was at the least too aggressive.
H. Dale Hall, director of the Fish and Wildlife Service, recounted a battle he had with Ms. MacDonald over the Southwest willow flycatcher, an endangered bird. Biologists in the field concluded that the bird's nesting range, which determines how much land the government should protect as habitat for the species, was 2.1 miles. Mr. Hall claims that Ms. MacDonald insisted on lowering that to 1.8 miles so that the nesting range would not extend into California, where her husband maintained a family ranch. The inspector general noted that she has no formal training in biology.
In a few instances, federal judges have overturned decisions that MacDonald had influenced. After she declared that the endangered Santa Barbara and Sonoma salamanders were no longer "distinct populations" entitled to protection, William Alsup, a judge on the U.S. District Court for Northern California, ruled that MacDonald had arbitrarily instructed Fish and Wildlife scientists to downgrade the two species even though an agency scientist concluded that "genetics state otherwise."
"This is not to suggest that the Secretary of Interior has no role in the ultimate decision," Alsup wrote. "If the Secretary wants to re-assess the evidence, he may choose to do so, but, in doing so, he must set forth a discernible rationale."
Discernible and defensible, I would add, as well as being an accurate statement of the genuine rationale. This is all oldish news for those who deal with EPA related concerns, but it parallels similar shenanigans at the FDA, The Justice Department and of course, the Department of Homeland Security.In the most blunt and obvious ways, it has become clear that no amount of reality, scientific evidence, Constitutional checks or the legitimate concerns of constituents donating less than 50,000 dollars concerns this administration. It is all of a piece - a complete subversion of our government processes to serve the most selfish, vicious and predatory members of the far right - and in that, they have not just betrayed our nation, but the greatest value of Conservatism - prudence.
The widespread ideological dismissal of everything that has been set up to put checks upon greed, rash actions and intrusions upon the privacy and liberty of the people is - aside from unethical with scattered clouds of evil - imprudent.
And I mean, "Imprudent from the perspective of anyone wishing to ever serve at the pleasure of the American people, ever again."
I mean "Imprudent, if you wish to avoid civil liability if not actual criminal prosecution,"
I mean "Imprudent, if you wish to not bear the brunt of the outrage of a bitterly disappointed and betrayed American People.
For in their arrogance and contempt for all arms and aims of government that do not immediately and slavishly conform to their kleptocratic ideology, they have gone so far as to dismiss the idea that they can be held accountable for anything - even things that are not merely wrong, not just evil, not just expressly forbidden by law, treaty and constitution, but things that are explicitly treasonable;
Actual, mindful, deliberate betrayals of National Security Assets in the name of political payback. This is not a matter of opinion - it's a matter of established fact.
The CIA leak case is about the obsession and ideology that disrespects facts, and disrespects truth, and declares Mafia-like vendettas against those who make good faith and professional efforts to ascertain them. The CIA leak case is about using partisan and political pressure to distort and pervert the search for truth, which is what good intelligence is all about, and the CIA leak case is about what goes wrong when these cardinal principles, time honored for every intelligence service on earth, are violated.
I want to be very, very clear here. The American people are impatient. They are not willing to "wait and see" what investigations may bring, when there are already enough damning facts in evidence to warrant decisive action. There are more than enough reasons to impeach the president. Anyone, of any party in the House or Senate that wishes a political future had best adapt to that reality. For, if it becomes yet more clear that there is no circumstance in which the members of the House and Senate feel that Constitution and Law trump political advantage, there is no reason to continue paying their salaries.
For now, more than any time before in American history, the American people have the capacity to judge the issues for themselves and come to their own conclusions. If those conclusions are at substantial variance with their representatives, they WILL seek more faithful representation.
If Congress will not execute it's Constitutional duties in such a manifest crisis of law and confidence, the people have every right to call a Constitutional Convention and establish a new Congress that will. The mechanisms for this are well understood by everyone involved, that "Government exists due to the will of the people."
This government - in particular, this Administration, but the list of offenses goes back at least fifty years - has come perilously close to becoming the "won't" of the people. That is a line that if crossed, cannot be uncrossed, nor is it a battle that the rich and powerful can win.
Never mind violent opposition; I'm speaking of widespread, general lack of co-operation. I'm speaking of entire states rejecting federal mandates. I'm speaking of entire law-enforcement bodies refusing to co-operate in any way with federal authorities, including the refusal to recognize credentials. I'm speaking of large numbers of individuals choosing to hold their savings in gold or offshore currencies, taking whatever means are needed to evade federal regulations and oversight of funds. I'm speaking of large numbers of people choosing to go "off the grid," with no visible credit, energy usage or "legitimate" jobs that require any reporting. I'm talking about a huge, passive refusal to comply with the control-freaks in DC.
In other words, I'm speaking of the internal collapse of The United States, because those in charge of maintaining it's unity cannot be trusted. The first signs of this are already clear. New York City has it's own Foreign Intelligence division, with it's own agents and foreign assets. That is what is known. I'd warrant that there's much in New York City that is unknown to the state or the federal government, and that is at the choice of the Mayor and responsible department heads.
I'd be stunned if California had not taken similar, subtle steps to ensure it's own security, particularly in the energy sector, after the state was nearly bankrupted by the manipulation of it's energy markets by the Bush Cronies at Enron. It's pretty clear that that no Blue states will get any priority in emergency or terrorist attacks when the Red gulf states were denied any real aid post Katrina.
All of this is more expensive than a working central government - but far LESS so than one that charges twice what it's worth, and does less than half of what it concienciously should. So the Federal Government should be on notice - and especially it's political leadership. You CAN be replaced. And if you are, you can fairly much assume that your career of public service is at an end. Indeed, the results might be more comprehensive than that; there was a reason for the large emigration of Tories to Canada after the Revolutionary war.
However, I do note that in this instance, Canada is less likely to welcome such refugees, save perhaps on behalf of The Hague.
What I care most about is America and her soul! I care more for this than any maneuvers to guarantee power. If this President is left unchecked, then we become a land without the base respect and enforcement of our laws to the highest levels of our representative government, then what do we have left to be proud of? Not a democracy. Not "America the Beautiful," but something much less than America, and much more like the former USSR.
Standing firmly without care for strategy, and with immense power for the protection of this union from the hands of an out of control executive is the United States Constitution, and upon swearing an oath to this sacred decree, our representatives are charged with a duty to this country and this founding document.
What our legislature is charged with is a legal responsibility to hold the executive branch in check if it should break the rules of law, no matter the cause or the reason. It is one of the greatest responsibilities of that legislative body, and not something that should be toyed with, abused, or contemplated as a political tool of strategy.
It is my contention, outside of all contingencies, that President Bush and all those who have aided him in his war on Iraq, the truth, and our Constitution should be held accountable for their various and many crimes against America; not to mention laws violated or ignored at home and abroad.
Amen. And allow me to add that this reluctance is making me wonder if our democratic representatives are cut of any different cloth than the members of the Party of the Rubber Stamp. Politics and consequences be damned! The rule of law and justice demand impeachment.
Mike the Mad Biologist snorts at the rightward idea that there is insufficient wonkishness in Left Blogastan. (And really, he should know.) He quotes Matt Stoller, as do I, because Matt goes to the heart of the issue.
To put it in context, Kevin Drum's column was written prior to the 2006 election, and was something of an "if we win, then what" sort of piece.
I'm not going to go into details, but wonkery is at this point counterproductive because the essence of wonkery is an assumption of good faith. If you write a policy in wonk-land, it's assumed it will be carried out, the law will be respected, the money will be appropriated, etc. The Bush administration has broken that basic compact. They lie. All the time. They approach arguments in utter bad faith from the get-go. They abuse the process, everything from budget battles to conference committees. If you approach people like this in good faith, you lose...
Now, I do want things from Congress. And there are great discussions about the policies that we want, from Effect Measure to Boingboing to The Washington Note.But I'm not going to pretend like any of these are feasible without working out the systemic rot that has infected our discourse and political system. I want to see the law be reestablished as law, policy battles return to good faith terrain, and facts established as the basis for policy-making - and then we can discuss policy. [Emphasis Mine - and I wish I could use the blink tag-BK]
So, that is my suggestion for a policy. A general housecleaning. A return to good faith discourse and good faith politics. THEN we can discuss and argue about things that are not immediately obvious necessities to those unblinded by the delusions of the radical Right.
I say "a return," because much of this situation evolved (heh) from the Dominionist Christian efforts to infiltrate the political process, and they are quite expressly trained, advised and counseled to conceal their intentions, which are frankly to turn this nation into a theocracy not unlike that of the Taliban.
How George W. Bush became the head of the new American Dominionist Church/State by Katherine Yurica
Most Americans have been aware that religious right Republicans have become extremely active politically in the last twenty years. But because we're Americans and we're mostly tolerant of other people's religious beliefs, their rise to power hasn't really troubled us. We should be troubled. There is now overwhelming evidence that conservative Christians set out to takeover the government of the United States and impose their culture and values upon all Americans. This article is not a theory--it is factual and historic. The proof is in this essay. Dont miss this one.
Whatever dominionists say for public consumption, the real goal is what drives them. It's a policy that has brought them some success over the last 20 years, though it's unraveling as their actual agendas become obvious. But meanwhile, their tactics have obviously spread throughout the Right Wing, because in some senses, they have become the spiritual advisers to the Right - and because their tactics work.
For a while.
But as P.T. Barnum so famously observed, you can't fool all of the people, all of the time. The problem for the Right is just that - in order to continue all their overt and covert policies, they DO have to fool all of the people, all of the time. Worse yet, they have to start with themselves. This sort of willful suspension of a skeptical review of policy and ideological faith - and the loud derision of facts in evidence is bound to lead to a bruising collision with reality at some point.
In our case, we have Iraq, a president apparently willing to nuke Iran for reasons we can only speculate upon as his justifications are hardly worthy of the name, a looming energy crisis AND global warming, two linked issues that we should have started seriously addressing in the late seventies.
The right-wing "skepticism" about global warming is presented on the same intellectual level and possesses the same degree of intellectual honesty as it's "skepticism" about evolution and the human and environmental impact of - well, pretty much what any large corporate donor wishes to do.
The leaders of the various right wing factions - and there are many, with growing fissures between them - much prefer blind faith to measured and judicious support of their agendas based on skeptical discussion and review. It's a rather seductive proposition, it makes the job of wielding power ever so much easier and it creates a temporary illusion of juggernaut-like effectiveness.
But the problem of faith is that sooner or later that faith must be expressed in works. Faith - in God, in economic theory, in the merits of a military-industrial oligarchy - must bring a pudding to be proven.
And all we have gotten is repeated, rude figgings.
The cure for this starts with impeachment. Then it goes to a general cleansing of the government of "bushies," those who's success has depended more on loyalty and ideological purity than an honest day's work doing something related to their job description.
For instance, Homeland Security should have some relationship to actually securing our homes and our lands. And isn't that OUR job, Constitutionally speaking? Second Amendment? Well-Regulated Militia? (Volenteer fire departments are good examples of "well-regulated militias;" well-equipped and well-trained community members who are the "first responders" to many emergencies.
FEMA should manage emergencies that are too overwhelming for local responders. The Coast Guard should be guarding our coasts. Immigration and Naturalization should be doing things related to managing a coherent, fair and managable immigration policy. The FBI should investigate federal interstate crimes - which include both terrorism and treason. The CIA should centralize foreign intelligence. And we should have a foreign policy that does not make success in these efforts difficult to impossible to achieve.
This is common sense, of course - and since it is common sense, there's still a general reluctance to admit what a very, very poor job these agencies do when they do anything.
The only sane human reaction these days is to hide when a government agent approaches, for there can be no assumption of either good faith or the ability to do anything to make any human situation more bearable.
So let us start at the top, with impeachment. Then let us be rid of both those who are ideological incompetents and those who decided to play politics in preference to doing the right thing. In this I include many elected representatives of all parties who were in a position to know better, and either chose not to or were too focused on politics to remember that politics is a means, not an end in itself.
Let us restock our government with seasoned, apolitical professionals at the senior levels and task them with clearing out the underbrush.
The job of the government - first, last, always - is the regulation of the commons. Our common markets and our common access to them, our common resources, such as air, water, watersheds and green spaces that we all have an individual and equal survival-level interest in, regardless of wealth or position. Our common systems of transportation that make freedom of movement and access to markets more than just a fine-sounding pronouncement. This concept extends to some rather abstract-seeming things - like the broadcast spectrum, access to information, education and space exploration - but these are all things that we, as citizens of this nation, benefit or suffer from as individuals regardless of wealth, power or position.
Besides, even if you can buy access to power, bribe your way into markets denied the common man, it doesn't follow that you should have to, or that these "protected" markets are therefore superior in any way. Indeed, you've likely bought access to the shark pond, chum.
I have seen this situation coming since 1980. I've seen the promises, and I've seen the reality. This is a poorer nation than it was then, poorer intellectually, poorer financially, poorer spiritually and poorer in every other way relating to the graces and benefits of a civil and civilized society.
This nation has become greedy, mean-spirited, intolerant and - not to put too fine a point on it - stupefied.
The only policy that can be discussed is to rid ourselves of those who created those conditions and replace their policies with those that have been demonstrated to work in civilized nations, in accordance with our Constitution and with regard to it's enlightened intent of maximizing individual liberty.
I believe that a faith in things that work is the essence of Conservatism, and so I appeal to Congress; impeach. Impeachthe President now. You are either with those of us who wish to live again in a decent, civilized nation that is well regarded by the world - or you are on the losing side, and the rest of us will be well-rid of you.
In reference to Seymour M. Hersh's New Yorker article, "The Redirection." Tom Engelhardt wonders where the media reaction is to something that looks like Iran-Contra, seems as naive and inept as Iran-Contra and likely to create far more problems than Iran-Contra ever did.
"Iran-Contra alumni in the Bush administration at one time or another included former Reagan National Security Advisor John Poindexter, Otto Reich, John Negroponte (who, Hersh claims, recently left his post as Director of National Intelligence in order to avoid the twenty-first century version of Iran-Contra -- "No way. I'm not going down that road again, with the N.S.C. [National Security Council] running operations off the books, with no [presidential] finding."),"
Negroponte - that old cold warrier and worse - scared of blowback from a repeat of his "glory days?" What the hell does he know that Hersh has NOT found out? And dare we wait to know?
"In this country, it's a no-brainer that the Iranians have no right whatsoever to put their people, overtly or covertly, into neighboring Iraq, a country which, back in the 1980s, invaded Iran and fought a bitter eight-year war with it, resulting in perhaps a million casualties; but it's just normal behavior for the Pentagon to have traveled halfway across the planet to dominate the Iraqi military, garrison Iraq with a string of vast permanent bases, build the largest embassy on the planet in Baghdad's Green Zone, and send special-operations teams (and undoubtedly CIA teams as well) across the Iranian border, or to insert them in Iran to do 'reconnaissance' or even to foment unrest among its minorities. This is the definition of an imperial worldview."
Hersh's story amounts to this - there is a huge, complicated and frankly idiotic "black" operation run out of the Vice President's office with "black" funds (possibly stolen Iraqi oil dollars) to engineer a Sunni-Shia rift, civil war within Iran and God only knows what else. And they apparently think they can ride this whirlwind!
It seems like we here in the US are living on the wrong side of Mordor's gate.
I keep finding more evidence of treason, fairly obvious and widespread, and it keeps getting uglier and uglier. Yesterday, in chasing down the threads of this, I ran into the Sibel Edmunds story, which I'd be completely unaware of, as was evidently The Whole Idea. But Lukery of Wot is it Good 4 has started a blog specific to the case.
Sibel Edmonds is the most gagged person in US history. The government has repeatedly invoked the State Secrets Privilege in her case - not for reasons of 'national security' but to hide ongoing criminal activity. Please call Waxman and Conyers' offices this week and demand public open hearings into Edmonds' case and the State Secrets Privilege. Links to the petition, action items and phone numbers will remain in the post on top.
Thom Hartmann on Air America Radio did an angry ten minute segment on the illegal, FISA-abusing, spying on "high-profile U.S. public officials" as exposed by Sibel and the NSWBC on March 5th.
Hartmann thinks that the Democrats should "raise some hell." I agree.
This post gives both background and current info on the issues.
It has been almost five years now since former FBI translator Sibel Edmonds first contacted the Senate Judiciary Committee to reveal the shocking tale of Turkish bribery of high-level U.S. officials. In that time span, Edmonds has been misled by members of Congress on several occasions: Numerous promises have been made to the whistleblower by the Senate Judiciary Committee that her allegations would be exposed in public hearings. Those promises have rung hollow.
Unlike the numerous Iraq War investigations that Waxman and other Democrats in Congress are planning, the issues brought up by Sibel Edmonds may tarnish the images not just of the Bush Administration, but also of certain elements of the Clinton Administration. Further complicating matters is that members of both political parties in Congress were also allegedly the recipient of Turkish gratuities: When a country like Turkey decides to engage in illegal espionage and lobbying, it spreads its funds generously. And though Edmonds' case involves the nuclear black market, not even the potential of a nuke reaching American soil is guaranteed to motivate our public servants, especially when they fear some of the muck might splatter on their own Party.
I have long wondered why leading Democrats have behaved as the have done - for instance, Harry Reid's inexplicable failure to support Jack Carter's run in Nevada against John Ensign - a man who is no more than a rubber stamp for the White House and his treasured Focus on the Family allies. The statement by Nancy Pelosi that "Impeachment was of the table" when already there was enough information to make hearings fairly much a formality.
And then there is Lieberman. Oy.
The specter that three or more leading Democrats are compromised either through corruption, blackmail or both is not a shade anyone should be comfortable with, but it certainly does explain a great deal about many things - such as the passage of the Patriot Act and the rubber stamping of the AUMF that seem, in a way, more plausible than what I've always thought to be rather weak excuses.
The thought of blackmail has crossed my mind before, but the "what" of it eluded me. This could be yet another smoking gun, and one more data-point suggesting that my gut feeling that it would be unwise to support Hillary is worth mentioning aloud LONG before I'm really ready. But at this point, I'm not willing to support her until she's cleared of involvement in - whatever it is that we do not yet know, and any lack of enthusiasm on her part in pursuing all these issues should be taken as confirmation that she's unfit for office.
That, of course, applies to all serving members of the House and Senate, of either party.
Now here's stuff from other sources relating to Plamegate.
Vice President Dick Cheney can be forgiven for feeling provoked. The Times, having been led by Cheney and others down a garden path littered with weapons of mass destruction that were not really there, did some retaliation of its own with the snide title it gave Wilson's op-ed: "What I Did Not Find in Africa."
Adding insult to injury, Wilson chose to tell Washington Post reporters, also on July 6, in language that rarely escapes an ambassador's lips, the bogus report regarding Iraq obtaining uranium from Niger "begs the question regarding what else they are lying about."
That threw down the gauntlet, and Cheney had to worry that others who knew about the lies might feel it safe to go to the press and spill the beans. Retaliation had to be swift and as unambiguous as possible.
Ray McGovern was a CIA analyst for 27 years and is on the Steering Group of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS). His e-mail is rrmcgovern@aol.com.
But in retaliating swiftly and unambiguously, Cheney blew a real "NOC" operative, an entire deep cover intelligence network and critically damaged our capability to monitor and deal with nuclear proliferation in the middle east and elsewhere, possibly contributing, along with other, equally brainless White House policies, to North Korea developing an offensive nuclear capability.
Nobody in our intelligence community - or any other - was unaware of the consequences of Cheney's act, as this 2003 article clearly shows.
Security agencies all over the world are now quietly running Plame's name through their data banks, immigration records and computer hard drives as the White House leak scandal continues to percolate. Officials with two foreign governments told TIME that their spy catchers are quietly checking on whether Plame had worked on their soil and, if so, what she had done there. Which means if one theme of the Administration leak scandal concerns political vengeance — did the White House reveal Plame's identity in order to punish Wilson for his public criticism of the case for war with Iraq?--another theme is about damage. What has been lost, and who has been compromised because of the leak of one spy's name? And who, if anyone, will pay for that disclosure?
There is no polite euphemism for this. It was, and it remains a conscious act of treason, in furtherance of a treasonous effort to subvert our nation and transform it into the servant of his own ambitions.
As for George Bush, who promised that he'd fire anyone who was responsible for the leak; well, he either knew who was responsible at the time or became aware soon afterward. Either way, that rises to the level of conspiracy to commit treason, or conspiracy after the fact. To say that either is an impeachable offense is the most British of understatements.
This is probably the most significant post related to this issue:
"My question then, given that the egadmin spent 2 months planning the leak of her name, is it more likely that they did it to: a) discredit Wilson (which failed spectacularly, and could never have succeeded), or b) shine the light on BrewsterJennings (which succeeded spectacularly, and could never have failed)?
[snip]
Surely the maladministration knew the implications, exactly - they'd been thinking obsessing about it for months, and they went out of their way to cover their tracks. Not only did they know that it was illegal to do what they were doing, they surely also knew that BrewsterJennings would be exposed - surely we need to consider that the purpose of the outing was to out BJ, rather than some silly attempt to undermine Joe Wilson. In fact, given the extent to which they devised elaborate cover stories, surely we should at least consider the possibility that the 'get wilson' story is really just another level of cover..."
the rest of the post tries to rescue just about everyone from the apparently universal idiocy that Plame was outed to get at Wilson, and more specifically, that the long-set-in-stone idea that the Plame leak was "Clearly... meant purely and simply for revenge" - as reported in the 'blockbuster' Sep29 front-pager in the WaPo.
The question, of course is "why." But on the other hand, aside from aiding in the process of rounding up all the treasonous bastards - it doesn't matter. Because there are no excuses.
The United States will not seek a seat on the UN Human Rights Council, senior officials said Tuesday, asserting the body had lost its credibility with repeated attacks on Israel and a failure to confront other rights abusers
Ridicule can be deadly in politics. It's deadly accurate when the target is ridiculous. Karl Rove gets the treatment in this Emnem - styled music video by AndyCobbonUTube.
I found via comments at InTheDark, about this post about the WaPo story about the Libby conviction. I'd intended to talk about this anyway, so two birds, one great hook. Rove is, of course, one of very many "unindigted co-conspiritors" in this case. And as I understand, Libby was not convicted on the basis of a conspiracy to defraud the public into war, but rather lying about part of the effort to discredit Valerie Plame and her husband, who knew better.
The jury is in and (righties like Howie will never agree) they have found Vice President Dick Cheney and Special Assistant to the President Carl Rove guilty of leaking the name of a covert CIA agent -- Valerie Plame -- to the press.
The jurors who huddled around two pushed-together conference tables for 10 days, meticulously filling 34 pages of facts from the trial on a large flip chart, believed that Vice President Cheney's former chief of staff had been "pilloried" for a CIA leak that other top White House aides had committed along with him, according to one member of the panel.
"We're not saying that we didn't think Mr. Libby was guilty of the things we found him guilty of," said the juror, Denis Collins. "But it seemed like he was . . . the fall guy."
You don't say? Wow. What a shock that piece of news is. The fall guy, though, for whom?
During the jury's days of methodical deliberations, "it was said a number of times, 'What are we doing with this guy here?' " Collins told reporters on the steps outside the federal courthouse. "Where's Rove, where's -- you know, where are these other guys?" Collins said, referring to Karl Rove, Bush's top political adviser, and Richard L. Armitage, a former deputy chief of staff who testimony showed had been the first person to leak Plame's name.
Moreover, Collins said, jurors believed that Libby had been carrying out a directive by his immediate boss, Cheney, to "go out and talk to reporters" to tarnish Wilson's reputation. But Collins said jurors stopped short of discussing whether the vice president specifically urged Libby to tell journalists about Plame's CIA job.
In The Dark is the work of Peter K. Fallon, Ph.D. of Chicago, and Assistant Professor of Journalism at Roosevelt University. As 23 year veteran of the television industry, 18 years with NBC News' "Today" program, I think we can stipulate that he knows a news story when he sees one - even if it's one largely untold.
Of course, this "fall guy" should fall. But this must be the start, not the finish.
Let us not forget that in outing Plame, an entire intelligence network dealing directly with the proliferation of atomic weaponry and technology, reputedly with good contacts in Iran, Iraq and Pakistan was blown. The proper outcome for such a willful compromise of vital national security assets is a lifetime making little ones out of big ones at Levenworth. Not to put too fine a point on it, such an act is, quite literally, unambiguously treason; in furtherance of other acts which are in themselves frauds upon the American People, Contempt of Congress, conspiracy to defraud the American people by means of an illegal war and perhaps more. The illegal wire-tapping alone is more than sufficient grounds for George Bush to be removed from office. In defending it publicly, George Bush, in the words of former Watergate celeb, John Dean, became "the first President to publicly admit to an impeachable offense."
Indeed, there are so many reasons why impeachment should be Job One, it's difficult to comprehend why the process is not already underway.
I'm particularly baffled as to why Nancy Pelosi is saying "impeachment is off the table," especially in the light of a flood of individual petitions and now state resolutions. Perhaps it was part of her political calculation to not appear too eager to become interim President - but at this point, it's starting to look more like she is shirking her plain duty.
Impeach! Or be faced with the looming suspicion that powerful Democrats have as much to hide in these matters as powerful Republicans.
I'm proud to have grown up in Aberdeen, Washington,
Impeachment: Breaking the Dam in Olympia, Washington | BaltimoreChronicle.com: "If the state of Washington ends up passing a joint legislative resolution next month calling on the US House of Representatives to initiate impeachment proceedings against President Bush and Vice President Cheney, it will because 900 people who crammed into Olympia’s Center for the Performing Arts last Tuesday evening, and countless others across the state, pushed them into it."
We (as in the democratic party) just don't get it. We're so wrapped up in party politics and being on the "right side" of every itty-bitty issue that comes up so as to remain in good standing with the cool kids that we completely forget who it was we were supposed to want to represent. Let me remind you. It was regular people. Not party hacks, not wanna-be blogging mega-stars, not just the all-important and ever snarky Las Vegas pundits and definitely not the ultra-rich and uber-cool folks in Pacific Palisades who do not give a rats ass about Nevadans even on a good day.
A big amen chorus to that - and let's send that out to the Republicans, Libertarians and Greens too. SCREW your ideology! Take those knee-jerk special interest "litmus test" issues off the table. All politics are local, so let us not beat folks up for serving their constituents first and their party second. Most importantly, let us get back to basic, bread-and-butter politics. Tell me what's in it for me, that I should vote for you.
I do care about a woman's right to choose. But that concern is overridden by MY right to choose what is important to me.
I don't happen to be a womb-bearing American, so I'm not even sure I have a right to a vote on this one, assuming one ever comes up. But I've been listening to these arguments since Roe v. Wade and they have not changed a whit on either side; which tells me one thing for sure. Whatever is being argued about, it ain't the issues either side is apparently arguing.
Since that's clearly the case, either talk about what you are really trying to achieve, or shut UP already. The way forward here is less doctrine, more positive and practical outcomes to individual Americans, WHATEVER their political beliefs.
You want universal access to family planning - good idea. YOU want (ideally) no abortions, because Abortion is Bad. I have a hard time arguing that an abortion is anything other than a "least worst" outcome, so I'm all for doing everything possible to provide superior choices to abortion and ideally, no need to consider that final choice at all.
And if the Abortion Debate were actually about abortion, instead of an argument as to who gets to commit an act of social engineering upon which class of despised persons, the debate would have ended at that point of commonality.
I think that this issue illustrates the ethic I wish to speak of better than any other. Good governments exist to expand choices, opportunities and liberties. Bad ones exist to restrict options, compel obedience and restrict liberties. If the only options presented are to change who is oppressed every four to eight years, any actual liberty, any "right to choose" OR "right to life" is conditional and therefore a despicable illusion.
If this current government were a restaurant, it would have only one menu option - the "Family Values Meal," it would cost three hundred bucks, and it would be peanut based, because "average Americans" aren't allergic to peanuts. (The price of your meal would cover the complementary epinephrine injections to those who might request them.)
We have had far too much of our economy, our personal freedoms and our individual dignity sacrificed at the altar of ideology, despite the constant failure of that ideology to produce anything resembling the results it predicts. And we have to be very sure that we do not replace one set of ideologues with another, equally clueless set of beltway commandos.
I'm a Libertarian, but I'm a realist first. We have governments because we cannot do without them, they do things that cannot be done efficiently or fairly by any other means.
This is not to say that our current government IS efficient, fair, or does anything like what it should be doing as well as it should. It isn't. But then, that's what elections are all about.
I believe that if there is to be a government, it ought to do something useful and beneficial for the people it taxes and governs. I hardly think that to be a controversial idea, either. I've spent a lifetime putting up with being treated disrespectfully by governments, kept waiting in line, being judged on my "worthiness" for benefits, access or even consideration. I have learned - as has every other American - that the less you have to interact with government, the better off you will be.
And yet we pay for the privilege of this system of indignity.
Do you think it's reasonable that you or I have a harder time getting meaningful access to my government than, say, Paris Hilton? For that matter, do you think it reasonable that ANY elected official or functionary realistically has to give such a vapid twit priority over actual tax-payers? Does it seem to you like that's a good use of their expensive time on your dime?
But I'm not saying she should not be heard. I'm saying we all deserve the same respectful consideration as taxpayers that she, as a rich twit with the financial capacity to make some officials life hell, gets because they cannot afford to piss on her Pradas.
I passionately believe that the government that governs least governs best, but there are people and groups, cultures and subcultures, marketplaces and crossroads that need to be lightly, fairly and evenhandedly governed.
Let's not confuse that with "administered" or even "policed." Those might be the means, but they aren't the ends, and a lot of folks confuse the two.
Don't.
There are lots of ways to govern situations that do not depend on saying no and backing that up with force and compulsion. Those should be tools kept in the "sharps" drawer for special occasions.
The best way to govern is to concentrate on outcomes, and then consider the best way - here and now, in this particular community - to get there. That means increasing options, not restricting them. It means putting decision making power in the hands of the consumer of services as much as possible, and if not possible, as close to them, physically and hierarchically as possible.
As I write, I'm listening to re-runs of the Carson City Speachification on CNN and everyone I've heard has had good things to say. Of course, after years of listening to Clinton, Gore, Bush and Kerry, Tickle me Elmo would be a relief. It was nice to see some people throwing down and using words like "wrong" and "mistake" and "morality" and suchlike.
But I'm yet to be convinced that these are more than words.
Everyone there wanted out of Iraq. But few spoke about "Then what?"
But they are all on point about energy independence, universal health care, un-assing from Baghdad, at the very least and fixing education so that it prepares kids to work in the 21st century instead of the 19th.
This seems like a plan and about all I could expect in a few minutes, but I expect specifics in the next couple weeks, although Joe Biden gave us some good stuff on Iraq and education.
I missed Obama's bit, and I'm disappointed at that. I am convinced of two things; I will not be supporting Hillary Clinton or Dennis Kuchinich. One other candidate - and I misremember which - made a very serious point; the next president will have ZERO margin for error and I think both are predisposed to make some serious, ideological mistakes and diplomatic gaffes. I don't think Clinton realizes that this is not just more politics as usual - and more importantly, I think she's needed more in the Senate, and can do more there better and longer than she could as a highly controversial President.
Kucinich - well, he came across as a smug jackass; I found myself offended by his "no strings" stunting, because, well, he DOES have strings. And any politician who forgets he's beholden to them what brought him to the party ain't the sort of person who's got the judgment to be president.
Besides, it would be a waste of a perfectly good rabble-rousing ringtailed sumbitch. I want him in a position where he can kick ass, take names and not worry about being Mr. Popularity. I think he's my choice for Energy Czar, because I think he's probably not as vital to the senate as Sen. Clinton. On the other hand, he's a committee chair in the process of kicking ass and taking names, so maybe I should rethink that thought.
But it's not just the big names that are interesting. It's the small candidates that bring some of the more interesting ideas to the party. For instance, I was a little stunned when hard-line Liberal and dark horse candidate Mike Gravel came out with a proposal to eliminate the IRS and replace the IRS with a sales tax and a "prebate" covering the necessities of life.
It's not a bad idea, actually, and it's hardly original - but it's just so not socialist; it's a minarchist solution - if you grant that there is a need for social spending and non-Straussian views of poverty and welfare.
I happen to feel that's painfully obvious. But solution that just happens, with no ear-flappers or administrivia involved? No review committees? No preferences? No paperwork? Where's the socialism?
He's also an advocate of Direct Democracy. I'm not sure what I think of this yet - I need to read it instead of just skimming but while the man IS a flaming liberal and gloriously unapologetic about it, he's not a moonbat. Again, not presidential timber - too old, and we need two terms for sure. But definitely worth thinking of as cabinet material. And I'm starting to change my mind about this two year-long election cycle, because I'm sure glad I tripped over him.
Anyway, while I cringe at the idea of two years of unabated politics, THIS time, we have a LOT of thinking aloud to do as a nation and a people. I'm starting to thing that in these exceptional circumstances, two years is barely enough, and I suppose I must resign myself to doing my duty as a citizen. Indeed, so long as a single American is at risk due to the irresponsible choice of this as yet unimpeached president, I can do no less.
The court-martial of Lt. Ehren Watada has been ruled a mistrial because of a dispute over a pretrial agreement. Watada’s attorney, Eric Seitz, called the ruling a “significantly positive event,” and said he hoped it would put an end to the case.
First Lieutenant Ehren Watada still refuses Iraq deployment orders, calling the war illegal. A six-year prison term could result. His preliminary hearing was yesterday; trial commences Febuary 5th.
"WATADA: Certainly. I think that when we take an oath we, as soldiers and officers, swear to protect the constitution — with our lives as necessary — and those constitutional values and laws that make us free and make us a democracy. And when we have one branch of government that intentionally deceives another branch of government in order to authorize war, and intentionally deceives the people in order to gain that public support, that is a grave breach of our constitutional values, our laws, our checks and balances, and separation of power."
A lot of people think of this young man as a "coward" for refusing to "do his duty." It's true that in nearly every other military, there would be absolutely no room to argue that he is refusing to do his duty. But the United States is an exception; unlike every other military power I'm aware of, the oath is to the Constitution, not to the Crown or to Civil Authority, and that makes a huge and sometimes awkward difference.
It is ordinarily assumed that superior officers ARE obeying their oaths and issuing legitimate orders. When circumstances arise that make that assumption unreasonable or impossible, an officer has a higher loyalty - to their oath. And there is a procedure to test and resolve such questions, because the alternative is to give orders he's reasonably certain to be illegal.
Therefore, when a commissioned officer says to a superior, "I request and require written orders to that effect, Sir." the challenged officer knows that is a means of perpetuating evidence for the eventual court-martial. Since the orders in question have to do with the legitimacy of the war itself, he's got both the duty and the right to refuse unfounded orders until the matter is resolved in just such a court-martial.
Watada has questioned the validity of an order under the terms of the Constitution. The conditionality and legality of the order now becomes a matter of fact to be determined. The shock and awe comes in when we realize the scope; he is questioning the validity and legality of the President's orders in his military capacity as Commander in Chief.
Watada must be well aware that this is career suicide and likely to dog him throughout civilian life. Indeed, he may well have to leave the country after facing whatever legal consequences may ensue. So the consequences he faces are as grave as those any other officer of his rank in combat. Different, but no less severe.
He is not facing a mere slap on the wrist and a dishonorable discharge. The stated charges carry a maximum of six years hard time and a dishonorable discharge. However, military courts have wide latitude and the charges he's facing are in all likelihood "placeholders" while the prosecution attempts to build a strong case on unassailable grounds that will see him in Leavenworth for the greater part of his life. Indeed, it would be no less than the proper duty of the prosecution to make every effort to see him dance at the end of a rope.
This is a legal No-Man's land and there's not a single person involved who will have a single clue about the outcome, except that it's some variety of "bad for Lt. Watata." He is staking "His life, his fortune and his sacred honor" on this matter.
I'm certain Judge Advocate Generals office has offered him some sort of plea, probably a rather attractive plea, that anyone looking for a "way out" due to cowardice would have jumped at. I can't imagine any sane reaction from SecDef other than "make this go away!"
Instead, he is choosing to face the full might of an angry Defense Department and Administration, who accurately see him as personally challenging their basis of legitimate authority.
But those questions have been politely asked and brusquely dismissed. We have been lied to, we have seen organized campains to discredit civilians who ask, we have found out that our government wants the ability to simply disappear people without question, and we cannot help but wonder if "asking questions" will be considered a good reason for indefinite detention without trial.
WATADA: The constitution was established, and our laws are established, to protect human rights, to protect equal rights and constitutional civil liberties. And I think we have people in power who say that those laws, or those principles, do not apply to them — that they are above the law and can do whatever it takes to manipulate or create laws that enable them to do whatever they please. And that is a danger in our country, and I think the war in Iraq is just one symptom of this agenda. And I think as soldiers, as American people, we need to recognize this, and we need to put a stop to it before it's too late.
There are a lot of things you could call him, but I think that "Coward" ain't one of 'em. Please take a moment and consider why some folks might want you to think he is a coward and trying to escape his duty, rather than an officer who is trying to fulfil it. And then ask yourself, if there is the slightest question as to whether or not he's right, don't you want to see that sorted out?
Whether or not you agree or disagree with the Lieutenant's stand, it's impossible to understate the potential social and legal consequences here. The Army, the Defense Department, the President, and indeed Congress and the entire government are as much on trial here as one young first Lieutenant.
And if he prevails in either a legal or moral sense - this war, and all the further conflicts and military involvements the "global war on terror" surely implies will face increasing skeptical review. Given the stakes, it's a review that EVERY American needs to make, if only because every NON-American has been keeping their reviews current since at least '03.
It will surely bring increased Congressional oversight and it certainly will add fuel to those questing for grounds to impeach the President. Indeed, if the Lieutenant is permitted to call in his defense witnesses he should obviously call, it will in fact be preliminary hearings to that effect.
If Lt. Wataba is willing to stake his future and reputation upon the legality of orders he might find himself giving - is it not reasonable to ask George Bush, Commander in Chief of all American Forces to stake his future and reputation upon them as well?
As a matter of record I will state this; any trial that is legimately attempting to establish the facts of this case and which does not have George Bush on the stand under oath is not to be taken seriously and no verdict should be considered less than a badge of honor.
Republican senators are now turning their rhetorical guns away from Democrats and toward one another. A few conservative Republican senators, whose votes usually cheer me up during bleak political times, are actually accusing Virginia’s senior senator, John Warner, of providing comfort to terrorists. The White House even got involved in the name calling when Tony Snow suggested Warner’s actions could embolden the likes of Osama Bin Laden. Story continues below ↓ advertisement The message from the Bush administration seems to be this: “Thanks for carrying our water on this miserable war for four years. Now we’re going accuse you of helping terrorists.”
How pathetic.
The entire strategy of the Bush Administration - from day ONE - has been to vilify critics rather than to engage them - and by "critics," I mean anyone who disagrees to the slightest extent. Joe Scarborough places himself squarely in the terrorist/liberal/peacenik camp with the following accurate observation:
Even if you agree with me that this war was worth fighting as long as we believed Saddam Hussein had WMD’s aimed at America, at some point you have to face the facts: the Bush administration was wrong about those weapons, wrong about the nuclear program, wrong about their refusal to quell rioting early, wrong about Bremer’s gutting of the Iraqi army and police force, wrong about refusing to kill or capture al Sadr in 2003, wrong to tell the generals not speak of the coming insurgency, wrong to stubbornly refuse to give generals the troops they needed to win this war, wrong to make the “Mission Accomplished” declaration, wrong for the VP to claim that the insurgency was in its death throes and wrong to push a surge plan that the president’s top generals opposed.
The list could continue for pages but I will be generous to the White House and leave it at that.
At some point, GOP senators and congressmen need to understand that this war is no longer a battle between Republican war heroes and Democratic 60s hippie freaks. The lines have now been blurred by Bush’s bungling war strategy. Now we find ourselves in a fight between war heroes and war heroes. Former secretaries of Navy and former Vietnam POWs. Conservative Republicans and protectors of the president.
And as I recall observing on my radio show Saturday, Download wma file even if you agree with the "Project for a New American Century's" "Rebuilding America's Defenses", there is a right way and a wrong way to go about creating an American Empire. It was not the Legion's might that established and maintained that empire; it was good roads, reliable commerce and general prosperity that made it's more oppressive aspects tolerable to most folks.
In order to build and maintain an empire that is more than fleeting, one has to be clearly superior to the alternative. In that we have failed utterly.
I of course oppose the idea of empire - the time for empires is long gone. They bring no benefits to the table that are not better achieved in simpler, less expensive and far less violent ways. In point of fact, there is no great profit in supporting an empire - and a great deal of both tangible and intangible wealth to lose.
This stark reality overcomes all else; if more than 70 percent of the privileged citizens of the Empire's heart disapprove of it's running, then I'd say that the rest of the world has every reason to be skeptical about joining up. And I would add that should we be so foolish as to continue, the empire might become manifest - but the capital might well be in Europe, South America or China.
We cannot win a war of attrition in the Middle East. - Hagel
Why are we fighting a war of attrition in the Middle East? Perhaps because the bastards want to grind us down.
Chuck Hagel is getting a lot of press right now for speaking the obvious to the oblivious; in this case Condi Rice who's academic credentials are more than adequate for her to have come to the same conclusion. There are many, MANY reasons why we cannot get to what she would like to what she and the rest of the Bushites would like to call "victory," but this is the most fundamental. To quote Andrew Jackson - also a Commander in Chief in his day - battles (and hence, wars) are won by "who gets thar fustest with the mostest."
We succeeded spectacularly in the first phase of the war because we did that. We proceeded to lose from that point on because we no longer had control of the field of battle - which was NOT, repeat, NOT primarily one that could be controlled with force. In the battle of hearts and minds, we got our asses kicked by violating the primary dictum of both war and peace - KNOW your enemy and why they are fighting. The problem - as Dr. Rice could easily explain, if she were speaking of ANY other situation than one she helped create - is that recognizing the reality and addressing it effectively would have required two things that were politically impossible - an admission of the real strategic goals and rationale for the war, AND reassessing the foundational geo-political principles it was intended to forward - as outlined in "Project for a New American Century's" "Rebuilding America's Defenses"
One of the key assumptions was that it would be easy to topple regimes in areas of critical American interest and that that would liberate an expression of massive popular support for our benevolent oversight into an "American style" democratic nation aligned with us and sharing strong social, diplomatic and economic ties.
It is relatively easy, given our military and economic clout, to topple a regime or cripple a nation. When it's served our interest, we have done both, though I would argue that such examples as Chile and Iran have created long term problems larger than any short-term advantage we may have gained. Our attempts to intervene in domestic affairs of other nations do not always work so well in the short term. Our tendency to pick the interests of the big guy over the little guy has started to backfire more and more, and is increasingly turned against us by leaders such as Hugo Chavez of Venezuela.
Propaganda is far more powerful when it's foundation is set firmly in the concrete of personal experience and easily verified truths. It may be possible to "spin" gold from straw - and Tony Snow seems to be able to spin fairy-gold from air - but if you already have some gold and a great deal of straw - one can clothe one's chosen political metaphors quite regally.
That is all the motivation needed to come up with lots more people to shoot at us than we can ever kill. That situation in Baghdad is what Sen. Hagel means when he speaks of "attritional warfare." While an American trooper is easily worth ten Iraqis on any battlefield of our choosing, we have chosen instead to fight on their home turf; in an urban environment. Generously, that cuts our advantage in manpower in half, while at least doubling theirs. And even if it did not, they have not just ten, but ten more, and ten more after that. We do not.
Worse than that, we've created conditions where most would prefer to die fighting than be captured. We are operating in a situation even more hostile than the Warsaw Ghetto, against a variety of well-armed militias, former military and paramilitaries with apparently copious and secure lines of supply. It's a situation that even a French general would never consider entering in the first place, but the President still seems to think we can "win."
We have given our enemies EVERY advantage against us in the war of hearts and minds, we have allowed them to maintain their lines of communication and supply and allowed them to choose the battleground. Meanwhile, we have bombed civilians, killed civilians wholesale at checkpoints, tortured civilians and in the process of a doing all this, completely wrecked the civilian infrastructure - giving lots more people the time and motivation to explore Humvee hunting as a recreational activity. The fact that it's easier to find explosives than a job or an intact classroom with a working toilet has got to be a factor in this.
In the process, we have lost all diplomatic, military and moral credibility, and that is why we have lost this war, and will lose in further adventures in third world babysitting we might have had in mind, because our greatest enemy is, well, us.
And by "us," I do not mean Chuck Hegel, who's simply speaking the truth to someone who hates hearing it as much as George W. Bush. I mean we have handed victory to anyone we choose to oppose militarily or diplomatically on a platter, and this situation will continue until we remember that "we", the American people, are morally and ethically accountable for what is done in our names.
Winning the war on terror begins at home. Stop being terrified, and start prosecuting those who have been jerking our chains for six years. START listening to people - like Hegel, and Gore, and Murtha, who really know what they are talking about. It may feel nicer and more secure to have smoke blown up your ass, but in order to enjoy that warm and friendly sensation, you have to drop your pants - and that makes it real easy to pick your pocket and screw you over.
This "war on terror" has been prosecuted in such a way as to ensure failure from the first. What if that is the goal?
If you pick any single administrative decision point from 9/11 on, you will find the wrong thing being done from any expert perspective, starting with the decision to go in with light forces who were unequipped for an urban battlefield. Even then, had we the sense to withdraw from the urban areas and establish secure nodes, we could have effectively secured and controlled the countryside - and interdicted terrorist and insurgent lines of supply - while allowing Iraqis to secure the urban environment, offering air support and intelligence. Baghdad is vital to Iraq and Iraqis - but it was no part of OUR command and control. Any competent military commander would advise against engaging in urban warfare given ANY viable alternative - and the above is a bog-standard, off the shelf "viable alternative."
I'm wondering aloud here if the administration's strategy is to maximize casualties and termination of service within the civilian forces, particularly among the front line Guards and Reserve officer corps. Because that's the effect.
That's simply one example. Another disastrous example is composed of the unholy policies represented by Gitmo, Abu Gahrab and the spirited defense of torture from the very highest levels of our administration. This broad policy was established from the Oval Office against extensive advice from real world experts that it was counterproductive, that it would not produce usable intelligence and that it would provide enormous motivation to opposition forces, once the truth got out - as it inevitably would.
Or, let us look at the rational responses to 9/11. KNOWING that Osama Bin Ladin was almost certainly involved, would you as a rational individual, not want to ask a few questions of the Bin Ladin family members who happened to be in the United States at the time? I sure would. The FBI sure did. Instead, they were whisked out of US jurisdiction with clearance from the highest levels. That makes me intensely interested in what they might have had to say, particularly the close, even intimate contacts and entanglements the President has with the Bin Ladin family in particular and the Saudi Royals in general.
It's standard operating procedure when examining a crime to preserve the critical evidence, at least until it's examined. Instead - hundreds of tons (representing millions of dollars in salvage value) were dumped at sea without any in-depth structural analysis.
There are dozens, perhaps hundreds of such decisions that make absolutely no sense at all from the perspective of an administration acting to protect our national interests and personal security. They are not consistent with mere incompetence, nor does stupidity does not account for being so consistently wrong and so consistent in the frustration of any effort to do the correct thing in a presumed climate of enhanced terrorist activity. One only has to point to the Administration effort to turn over our ports to a Dubai firm to show a disconnect between the supposed situation and the administration's policy.
Furthermore, whatever you or I might wish to believe, with the possible exception of the titualar head of government, the Whige House is NOT staffed by the ignorant or the unintelligent. Notably, Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, Condi Rice, Paul Wolfowitz et al, these are the very sharpest crayons picked from a box of sharp crayons. In other words, almost nobody there is stupid enough to have allowed these things to come to pass by accident, and when things came to pass due to incompetence, it was because very smart people put incompetant but obediant people in positions of power. Let us do them the courtesy of assuming they knew PRECISELY what they were doing, and that the outcome was fairly much within the range of their expectations, such as the depopulation and diaspora of the former black citizens of New Orleans and the Gulf coast. New Orleans is essentially depopulated and available for development. "Heckuva job, Brownie."
There is a military dictum that should be quoted here: "Once is happenstance, twice coincidence; three times is enemy action."
We have far more than three examples of administration decisions that go completely counter to any reasonable, constitutional action in support of our national interest and national security, from even the most rabidly conservative perspective. I might add that I'm using only well-known, very questionable examples.
The net effect of six years of misrule has been a widespread attack on the middle class, a degradation of individual civil liberties, innumerable subversions and attempts to subvert the constitution, the erosion of the military - and particularly the military capabilities of the individual States. Furthermore, the President has tried to assert personal authority over the various state Guards units, historically the prerogative of the various Governors.
Little of this makes any great sense if aimed at an external threat. It makes a great deal of sense if it's aimed at you and me.
We should start investigating the possibility that a person or persons within the White House are acting as agents of a foreign power or, a concentration of powers who have deep interests in control, power, oil, and lack of oversight by a well-informed, well-armed and vigilant citizenry.
Actually, I suggest we need not wait to wonder too deeply about why, or indeed precisely who. When you are clearly being shot at, you don't argue about the caliber of the weapon or the motives of the shooter. First you duck, then you return fire. Those are the essentials; the rest is for the after-action report, and after-action reports are written by the survivors.
I suggest to all US citizens to re-familiarize themselves with the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights. If you feel that your interests and your honor lie with defending it, I hope that you will do as I have done today, and reaffirm my wholehearted commitment to "Uphold and defend the constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic."
...we were told, was that he didn't overthink things. That he wasn't wishy-washy or flippy-floppy, and by God would not second guess decisions he'd made once he made them.
Bush: 'We're Going Forward' - washingtonpost.com: "'I began to think, well, if failure is not an option and we've got to succeed, how best to do so? And that's how I came up with the plan I did,' Bush said."
Still, at one time, a few years back, say; around 2002, 2003, there was a general, bipartisan feeling that he must actually think.
Left, right and center, we disputed the presumed basis of his thinking, argued the merits of evidence we assumed decisions were based upon, and again, left, right and center, made rational predictions as to the way forward or back based upon the best information we could come up with and our best understanding of our own ideological premises and those of our dissenting colleagues.
All of us have found ourselves looking like fools after presuming in public that whatever we thought of the President and his stated policies and beliefs, that he was sincere, the best informed person on the globe, and capable of putting two and two together to arrive eventually at four.
We were all wrong to the extent that we assumed his thinking was based upon noble goals, nefarious agendas, resource imperialism, the spreading of democracy, concern for human rights or even the desire to enslave every human being on the globe.
All of those goals - though ranging from silly to blackest evil - are based in some sort of sanity. The problem here is that we relied on a weak reed - and he snapped on 9/11. He was never the sharpest crayon in the box, Lord knows. Not the most incisive thinker, but we always presumed that he was amplifying his brains with the very impressive cerebellae that any President has at their beck and call. It never occurred to us that he was literally too stupid, mad or delusional to make sense of the advice given him, and we, in our need to have a good leader in such a time of crisis, turned a blind eye to the evidence of a man who's mind had gone - or was never there to begin with.
This whole situation boils down to his particular form of madness; an incapacity to take "no" for an answer or accept any limitations on his actions compounded with a complete inability to take real responsibility for the messes and mistakes he's made.
Even his most recent "assumption of responsibility" boiled down to "I got bad advice from The State Department."
You know, I generally work by the premise that you attack the position, not the person. I usually reject Ad Hominum attacks as invalid by definition.
But this is based on the unspoken assumption that the person HAS an argument based in a valid thought process that can be attacked or defended upon it's merits. This assumption has proven to be deadly. We have wasted six years believing there was a functioning, sane, rational brain attached to the hand upon the tiller. We have been governed and guided by the tics and twitches of an "intellectually challenged" madman surrounded by people with competing agendas and no leadership, trying desperately to rationalize his decisions after the fact.
From a perspective of principle and justice, I have favored impeaching the President - but now that I realize that he would have a legitimate defense of "diminished capacity," I realize this is a job that falls within the authority of the Surgeon General, not the Speaker of the House.
Those who are truly guilty are those who mindfully took advantage of a weak man - and that charge falls unerringly in Dick Cheney's lap. As do the consequences - to him personally and to the nation as a whole. As a nation and as a people, we have to come to terms with the fact that the good among us - and there are good amoung us of every political stripe - have done nothing useful to prevent evil from flourishing, because we have been seduced by partisanship and supposedly competing idiologies.
The saddest thing about this is that George W. Bush had all the advantages and experiences that make truly great presidents. He had personal contacts that are literally of strategic value. He had a family with unspeakable clout and experience. He had a Yale education and an inside track with both friends and foes. Most importantly, he'd been blessed with enough personal demons and occasions of failures to learn the many otherwise unteachable lessons truly great leaders need.
As philosophically partisan as I am and as little as I care for the "strict father" model of leadership that my philosophical opposites work from, I'd never say that it precludes good leadership, nor would I say it to be incomparable with coincidence or ethics. I just say that my way is inherently better, believing that sincerely to be arguably true.
What IS inarguable is that the strict father model requires far better, far wiser and far better informed leaders and followers than we have been given to rely upon. We are led by those who believe that Authority is both sacred and infallible.
As Dr. Phil would say: "How's that been workin' out for ya?"
"Where mistakes have been made, the responsibility rests with me," he told the nation. "It is clear that we need to change our strategy in Iraq."
The White House released a chart of Bush's "mistakes," (reproduced with the story) none of which addressed the most fundamental errors of policy, integrity and intelligence; such as invading a sovereign nation against the best foreign policy and military advice. It did not address the "mistake" of lying to congress and the American people about Weapons of Mass Distruction. Actually, it seems to be an exercise in blaming the victim. All of his "mistakes" seem to amount to depending too much on the Worthy Oriental Gentlemen of Iraq. (My Wog reference should remind history buffs of earlier and equally unsatisfactory imperial adventures into that region.)
Iraqis just ain't as easy to jerk around as Mexicans, are they, George?
Still, the president's admissions were calculated to advance his current political aims and came with significant limitations. He offered no regret for the March 2003 invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein and still argued for staying in Iraq until the job is done. His tone was sober but came without apology or contrition. As one aide put it, "This is not a speech being given on bended knee."
Allow me to sum this up: Bush is admitting past mistakes in order to gain support for entirely new ones. At some point, you have to cut an addict off. Bush's drug is power - and he can't handle this drug any better than cocaine or alcohol.
"He's pretty much alone on this," said William S. Cohen, [in the WaPo story] a former Republican senator from Maine who served as defense secretary under President Bill Clinton. Bush had an opportunity to draw Democrats in by embracing at least some recommendations of the Congressionally chartered Iraq Study Group, Cohen said: "It would buy you bipartisanship for five or six months. . . . By simply ignoring it and allowing it to die in the crib, so to speak, Democrats are now free agents."
And what might they do with their free agency? Well, Nancy Pelosi seems to be given to subtle hints, perhaps too subtle, and certainly deniable... but in regards to a threatened Presidential Veto of the overwhelmingly popular Stem Cell Research Bill:
"There is nothing wrong with this bill," said Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.). "We should pass this bill again and again and again and again, until we get a president who will sign it."
One way or another. One way or another. Pelosi is clearly hoping that she won't have to lead a charge for impeachment, but rather be in the position to reluctantly accede to the Will of the People. Smart politics, that - never interfere with an enemy who's busy destroying himself.
Should Bush veto stem-cell research for a second time, against the clear mandate and will of the people, in the name of maintaining the sacredness of saving the pre-born while at the same time insisting on further prosecuting a war that costs the lives of many, many more "post-birth" individuals, a lot more people are going to start waking up and smelling the hypocrisy.
It's a lot easier to notice hypocrisy if it's intended to advance unpopular causes, but these days I'll take what I can get.
The ethics of power and personal responsibility.
Truth Hurts; Treasure the Thorns
"Make yourself at home, you can spit on the mat and call the cat a bastard." - Lazerous Long
About Me
Name: Bob King
Location: Reno, Nevada, United States
Bob King is a multiple personality straddling the Autistic Spectrum and a blogger who supports his passions by designing and selling t-shirts and other materials that showcase his art and design skills. He's learned a bit about blogging, human nature and marketing along the way.
By elevating popular fancy over truth, Democracy is clearly an enemy of not just truth, but duty and justice, which makes it the worst form of government. President Bush must overcome not just the situation in Iraq, but democratic government.
As a Kensington resident I supported Alan's efforts and the demonstration on Saturday. Alan did not need a permit. There are no rules for the Kensington Market. I know this becuase I asked the person in charge of the market at the Town of Kensington who admitted they do not have rules written down. So they make them up as they go. Alan has been selling buttons at the market for over a year!
He is also not in people's faces, he simply asks passers-by if they would like a button. No more aggrssive then those who man booth at the mall.
Comment by Pam — July 23, 2007 @ 8:58 am