As Congress voted to grant telecoms immunity, I ask myself… what does this mean, in the larger sense?
That means if you have power and money and lobbyists, you are above the law.
That means that America is a place where the rule of law does not apply to the President or his advisors. It is a place where the Attorney General of the United States says he will not enforce Congressional subpoenas. Because the President of the United States says he doesn’t have to obey the law. Actually, he can make shit up on the fly.
The funny thing is that Congress barely flinches. Robert Wexler gets 16 signatures for impeachment and he makes a big deal about the AG’s statement and sends a letter to Conyers… a moment of relief that something big and right will happen. That someone in our government will force accountability. But I can’t stop the bad thoughts… that this is nothing more than another ploy to seduce us. Just an inexpensive trick to keep us on the hook. I checked Wexler’s list. 17 names as Congress votes to give telecom immunity. Funny too. All the big names voted against it. And n00bs like McCaskill and Webb voted for it. For all the hoopla, Clinton didn’t vote. Cowardice.
And Webb handing Bush a victory??? Congressional Dems give Bush a victory after Bush and Mukasey demean Congress and its role by refusing to comply/enforce subpoenas.
And you hand Bush a victory here??? Is anybody else thinking this is fucking crazy? 67 to 31 they voted. It doesn’t make any sense to me.
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I WANT ACCOUNTABILITY. I WANT THE CONSTITUTION ENFORCED.
Where are Obama and Clinton? Where are their outraged voices? Where are their calls for accountability?
There are no Republicans or Democrats. I’m telling you. There are politicians who have divvied up the audience. And they play to each segment. Including the Evangelicals, who also got screwed by Bush.
Wake-the-fuck-up. We are the consumers driving and creating the economy. How do we influence it to hurt these bastards?
How do we reach out to others who are ready to face reality: citizens have NO representation in Washington.
i don’t want anymore nice words, small gestures, and bullshit results.
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ACCOUNTABILITY… demand it!
… that Clinton and Obama are swanning around the country campaigning while huge crimes are being committed right before our eyes in the highest places of power in the US.
They are not providing any leadership, as Senators, and we ought to look to them as leaders if they become President?
meh
We’re mad as hell and we’re not going to take it anymore
How many more nails in our coffin before the rest of the
country wakes up??
🙁
The Illuminati Plan to Destroy America.
…but here’s what keeps bugging me (you knew the jessical comment was going to be gruntly little exceptions, no?). This is not the first thing, or the tenth, to express rank injustice and disregard for law as anything other than a mechanism of control. I don’t understand what that means, yet, for myself…but I’m pretty sure it means something. “Wake Up!” is a moving target, the little band of shadow between those who still feel like enfranchised members of the system, and those who are sitting in the dark going “oh, shit”.
The other news this morning, as chilling in it’s way, was that the EU is about to start fingerprinting and doing facial biometrics on travelers, a partial tit-for-tat for the abusive and demeaning US entry system. The whole package of control and priviledge is getting stronger, and the democrats are largely in agreement. Spying on people, scaring them, and weeding out the “bad” ones is good business. I hope that yelling like hell can change something, but what it feels like — just very solidly — is that hatred and fear are a self sustaining vortex, that will keep going until it hits something bigger.
since November 2006, Democrats have made all the right noises, (well, enough right noises anyway) to keep the message flooding the media and beaming into peoples living rooms when they get home from work too tired to think past superficialities about how much different and better they are than republicans.
And everytime they’ve quietly slipped the knife in while the country is sleeping.
Everytime.
But… but… but… they’re better, goddammit!
on the back of a cashier’s check for $2,500 and a pledge to bundle even more funds, I would get a different answer. Maybe the check has to be bigger, I have no idea. But I can tell you this: email and/or telephone unaccompanied by money or the promise of money or the ability to provide money or the ability to mobilize huge numbers of voters is just not very convincing to these people who represent us. To put a fine point on it, they don’t give a
shithoot about what we’re saying if we cannot give them $ or remove them.I want accountability too. The accountability we have right now is the disclosures of how much $$ these people have gotten and from whom. That speaks volumes about how they’re voting.
This gets to something important. Look around you at all the stuff you own. All the stuff you buy. Your car. Your house. Your computer. The dishes you eat on. The food you eat. The chairs you sit on. Pencils. Paper. Music. Watches. Light bulbs. Even the news you read.
Take away everything that’s manufactured by large corporations and what are you left with? You think you could build your house without all those nails? All the lumber? The concrete? The miles of electrical wiring? The water pipes?
How do you get to work without taking a vehicle of any sort? (Who do you think makes bicycles? For that matter, who makes your shoes? Your socks? Your clothes?) And how about maintaining those roads? And sidewalks? Where does all that pavement come from? And before you say you could use public transportation, consider who makes the buses and trains and subways. And who does your city contract out to to provide those services? Who’s going to pick up your garbage? Your recyclables?
And what about medical services? Can we do without all the equipment and drugs? Ambulances? Helicopters?
My point is this: There are things that we, as a modern society, have to have. Sure, as a species we can survive without them, but we will also lose a couple hundred years of advancements that are important to our individual survival and growth as a species. I happen to be alive thanks to those advancements (scalpels and other surgical tools), so I’m a bit predisposed toward wanting to keep them around along with the people who are knowledgeable in how to use them properly.
The reality is, if you want to “hurt these bastards” through influencing the economy, you have to take yourself off the grid. Completely. No internet. No phone. No electricity. No running water. You make your own tools, build your own home, grow your own food. And then you have to convince a few million other people to do the same. That might begin to have an impact. Maybe.
Or you can try to hold a general strike. Get everyone to walk out. Shut down all businesses. But people still need to eat, and that means stores need to be open. If stores are open, those people need to be working. Food still needs to be delivered. Shipping companies still have to be operating so they can schedule deliveries. And on and on.
There’s little redundancy in our economy. That’s what happens when there’s consolidation. Take out one link and everyone suffers.
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and love the name: Guerrilla News
will chew on this… and like all the ideas!
with two minor branches. This party serves American corporate interests above all else. Much of what little opposition we see is a charade. In the end the democrats always cave. They are not lacking backbones. They are simply and purely complicit. They do not oppose the Bush agenda. How many times does this have to happen before the public can see this?
If I understand correctly Obama voted no. HC was absent for recent FISA the vote.
HC is the establishment candidate with big money contributions from the MIC, big oil, big pharma and Wall Street. I’ve said long ago she will be the nominee for that reason. She has the power and influence behind her. I’d really like to be proven wrong about this. Time will tell.
With her running against McCain, or whichever other nutcase from the Rep side, the corporatocracy wins either way. In the end we’re left with only the choice for voting for the lesser of two evils. With Obama, we might have a chance but I’m sure members of the higher circle will have a nice long chat with him.