Post by loupgarou on Dec 11, 2010 22:22:47 GMT -6
Are fiddling while Rome burns? There's the smell of smoke over the Capitol and White House. No, not Tea Party nonsense, or arguments over budgets or welfare or taxes. The real thing is coming.
The Constitution is on life support.
Guantanamo is still not closed, and the attorney general has declared that a man held for years at Guantanamo and subjected to an incredible number of waterboardings -- possibly to the point that his brain is damaged, if my speculations are correct -- will never be prosecuted. Untried and unconvicted, KSM is to remain in custody until death -- his or of the nation -- like a character in a 19th century novel by Alexandre Dumas.
The reason is that the government fears what the defense will put forward. The government knows that if KSM is tried under law, then under law he will be acquitted, not because of his own innocence but because of the government's misconduct.
Even the Soviets would bow to due process and stage a mock trial. This nation of Constitution and laws is not even going that far.
Our government -- and a Democratic administration to boot; one would expect this sort of thing from the Cheney-Bush crowd -- is dusting off one of the most oppressive laws ever employed in this country, the Espionage Act of 1917. The Patriot Act is a paltry piece of [deleted] compared to it. We're talking something like the Alien and Sedition Acts that in the Adams administration threatened to tear the country apart.
If it happen now, let it be so. Let us see what can be built from the ruins.
It is time once again to oil the guns and buy extra ammunition and get ready to take part in civil insurrection, if necessary. And to take up pencil and paper and computer keyboards, too.
And there is another revolt brewing in the internet. The senate website was taken down a few days ago. Forces are combing the net for the administration tool known as "The Jester," believed to have coordinated hits against Wikileaks. Will the movement falter? Will it prevail? One thing for sure: it is a loosely organized democratic movement, like those that gave rise to the American revolution and paved the way for a new nation. The opposition is an opposition of secrecy and repression and violation of the basic Rights of Man.
I am more than a little ticked off by current events. And henceforth I will be blogging at picadescorpion.blogspot.com/, until they close me down. I may mirror certain posts back here and elsewhere. Thanks to Wikileaks for the term "mirror" and for teaching the value of redundancy.
Long live the First Amendment!
The Constitution is on life support.
Guantanamo is still not closed, and the attorney general has declared that a man held for years at Guantanamo and subjected to an incredible number of waterboardings -- possibly to the point that his brain is damaged, if my speculations are correct -- will never be prosecuted. Untried and unconvicted, KSM is to remain in custody until death -- his or of the nation -- like a character in a 19th century novel by Alexandre Dumas.
The reason is that the government fears what the defense will put forward. The government knows that if KSM is tried under law, then under law he will be acquitted, not because of his own innocence but because of the government's misconduct.
Even the Soviets would bow to due process and stage a mock trial. This nation of Constitution and laws is not even going that far.
Our government -- and a Democratic administration to boot; one would expect this sort of thing from the Cheney-Bush crowd -- is dusting off one of the most oppressive laws ever employed in this country, the Espionage Act of 1917. The Patriot Act is a paltry piece of [deleted] compared to it. We're talking something like the Alien and Sedition Acts that in the Adams administration threatened to tear the country apart.
If it happen now, let it be so. Let us see what can be built from the ruins.
It is time once again to oil the guns and buy extra ammunition and get ready to take part in civil insurrection, if necessary. And to take up pencil and paper and computer keyboards, too.
And there is another revolt brewing in the internet. The senate website was taken down a few days ago. Forces are combing the net for the administration tool known as "The Jester," believed to have coordinated hits against Wikileaks. Will the movement falter? Will it prevail? One thing for sure: it is a loosely organized democratic movement, like those that gave rise to the American revolution and paved the way for a new nation. The opposition is an opposition of secrecy and repression and violation of the basic Rights of Man.
I am more than a little ticked off by current events. And henceforth I will be blogging at picadescorpion.blogspot.com/, until they close me down. I may mirror certain posts back here and elsewhere. Thanks to Wikileaks for the term "mirror" and for teaching the value of redundancy.
Long live the First Amendment!