I become more and more convinced every day: there are only three issues at stake in the upcoming elections. Everything else? Everything else is just camping out…
…oh, right, there IS this: the complete and UTTER failure of any of the branches of our government (including Democrats therein) to uphold their oath of office to protect this covenant:
We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
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originally posted at dKos Aug 2007
Three things:
- Outsourcing the functions of the United States government (most urgently, army and intel)
| The government exercises sovereign powers. When those powers are delegated to outsiders, the capacity to govern is undermined. From Paul R. Verkuil’s book, Outsourcing Sovereignty, which is on my pile to read. |
- Ability to control the message and media markets: 1996 Telecommunications Act
| Warren J. Sirota’s prescient commentary is recommended. |
- Trade agreements modeled after NAFTA
| It’s alll about the hidden impact of NAFTA on sovereignty |
Don’t notice health care or Iraq on that list, do you? Or racism. Or gay marriage. Women’s rights? Abortion? Or the economy? Not even global warming? No. These issues are meaningless unless we expose the implementation of policies that, imho, have destabilized the functionality of our government and, thereby, the ability to uphold our Constitution.
Does it make sense to outsource our military to build up PRIVATE armies? To whom do they answer? Civilians with ample black market opportunites under cover of chaos in places like Iraq? Think about it, and this: privateers and mercenaries do not swear an oath to protect us or our Constitution. How can the defense of a nation be driven by companies driven by profit? I mean, there are some things you just can NOT do on the cheap…
Does it make sense for our government to outsource intelligence gathering or data mining? Shouldn’t these be functions of departments within the federal government, all of which are subject to Constitutional, congressional, judicial, and public oversight? How does this connect to our government’s push to have unchecked, unregulated power to spy on its citizens? One of xrepublican’s dKos diaries has some interesting perspectives on this. As well, I completely recommend reading drational’s dKos diaries on FISA or lukery’s dKos diaries on Sibel Edmonds.
The Telecommunications Act of 1996 had unintended consequences according to this study done by Common Cause. I wonder if that includes controlling media markets and the message and reality we hear every day? Could that be it??? It makes me hold Bill Clinton’s signing of this law (and its backfiring on citizens and the strangling of our democracy) up to NAFTA.
Ah, NAFTA. Bill Moyers makes a compelling case that we are Trading Democracy for global corporate dominance. Is NAFTA another unintended consequence, given its ability to undermine America’s sovereignty? And without parity for workers’ rights, pay, or regulation of how products are made or environmental impact, public citizen analyzes who who loses under NAFTA.
Was NAFTA another FISA? Signed by a bunch of boobs who didn’t bother to read the fine print?
Now that would be rich… some of the cornerstones in undermining our governmental structure, its Constitutional infrastructure, all signed away because NOBODY FUCKING READ THE FINE PRINT?
We need to push-the-fuck-back. That’s my slogan… not very elegant or ladylike, but who has time for the niceties… there’s too much fine print to read. And you need to ask your candidate this: are they reading the fine print? Will they reverse outsourcing? Invoke anti-trust laws to break up Rupert Murdoch’s media empire? How will they handle trade agreements?
Who’s running the show if it’s all outsourced? How strong is our government if it can be undermined by trade agreements or manipulated by civilian owners of mega media outlets?
Can the Constitution be upheld without restoring the functionality of our government? Where do those who legislate and govern get the tools to ADVOCATE for us, the citizens, without the infrastructure of government?
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cause balance is always uneven
…I will think about it, when the radio in the malquiladora stops playing Rush so loudly…
The private armies per se don’t freak me out as badly as the sheer financial size of the war; it’s hard to imagine it stopping for anything but an economic crash.