Feb

12

Our political system sucks (duh)

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I know no one is going to care about this, but the Senate today passed a bill that modifies the FISA law to, essentially, make legal the illegal, unethical, and downright scary spying the Bush administration, AT&T, Verizon, etc. was conducting on Americans. This was not a Republican bill, it was a Democratic bill.

Regarding the closing of “loopholes” (i.e. allowing the monitoring of communications within the United States on anyone with no judicial oversight whatsoever), I’m no security expert, so lets just assume that for a minute it’s a valid concern. Maybe my roommate is an Islamofascist Commie America hater who eats babies, wants to turn me gay, and kidnaps women and forces them to have abortions. Maybe giving our trustworthy government the right to monitor her calls to her mom in Napa, or her friends overseas will help bring her terrible activities to a halt. Who knows.

The problem is that when the NYT broke the story that the Bush administration monitored communications within the United States on anyone with no judicial oversight (i.e. warrantless wiretapping) everyone (Democrats in congress) was up in arms about it, talking about how terrible it was and how the Republicans were nasty, nasty people. The telecom companies threw their hands up and said “what could we do? the big bad Bush steamroller was bearing down on us?” And they collected huge gobs of money for it. The one company who refused until the government got a warrant? Denied federal government contracts and their people prosecuted (although the CEO wouldn’t be the first to be accused of insider trading, so his prosecution might be coincidental).

The Democratic response to this horrible crime? Make it legal and give amnesty to anyone who did it before it was legal, of course. So where is the leadership in congress to help us out with this? Obama can save us right? No, but he did make a statement how he didn’t support it. Clinton didn’t vote on it. Great. Thanks. That really helps. I’m really excited about change now.

I mean…come on…I’m not talking about Diane Feinnstein kicking down the Oval Office door and spraying the room with holy water and watching Cheney and Bush shrivel into beef jerky. How about starting with maybe not completely giving them exactly what they want when they want it? Huh. That might send a message.

Kudos to Chris Dodd, Russ Feingold, and Arlen Specter (the Republican) for having the chutzpah to actually try to do something about this. Everyone else can talk about change, things getting better, blah, blah, blah, but until they can actually take leadership in areas like this, they’re just part of the problem.

How are these people going to extricate the world from this mess:

glumbert - Inside the Surge

Dec

4

Could it be that sanity is returning to the US?

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Dare we venture to hope? In spite of today’s current statement by Bush the Ridiculous, it’s possible that the rest of our governmental infrastructure has returned to a state of relative sanity. That the NIE summarized what seemed to be the consensus around the world - that Iran does not have an active nuclear weapons program - is good news. It shows, I hope, that in spite of some of the most powerful people’s desire to go to war with Iran, the possibility of it happening is now dimming. I’m daring right now to hope that this is some sign of a return to a government which does not act in (complete) concert with one ultra-powerful constituency.

Hawkish leaders in Iran (as in many other countries) have been milking the reactionary behavior of the US Government for some time now, allowing the fear of the (very real) threat of military force by the US to shore up support. Without this fear, I often wonder how more moderate forces may have fared in Iran, especially given domestic policies which are repressive (to say the least), and questionable in their success at caring for the Iranian people (an assumption on my part, I have to admit, but not completely ill informed). Hmmm…a leader using fear to cover incompetence, disastrous domestic policies, contempt for the rule of law and civil liberties…sounds familiar…can’t quite place it, but I know I’ve heard that somewhere before.

Wow…I just used hope three times in a paragraph talking about the US Government. What the hell is going on with me? Maybe I’m just being sentimental. For some reason, The Mountain Goats always make me feel hopeful (for some inexplicable reason), and this post with free tracks coupled with the idea of a new album made me all wobbly inside. Who can tell about the weird inner workings of the human psyche.

Word of the Post

Acclivity: noun - An ascending slope

As in: “Spencer’s reckless acclivity of hope seemed to permeate his post”

Current video making me giggle like a 12 year old boy

glumbert - Everyday Normal Guy

Nov

7

Fucking Democratic Party

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Since I’m trying to blog more, it’s gonna have to include a couple of political rants.  I fucking hate the fact that the Democratic Party is our most viable choice for progressive change right now.  I mean, Diane Feinstein votes for Mukasey (because “he’s not Alberto Gonzales” - really…this is the basis of your principled stand), the entire fucking party in Congress basically hands our civil liberties away with the Protect America act (and all the other fucking Patriot Act nonsense), and they consider Bob Casey representative of the progressive mindset.  These are just the first few things that popped into my head.  I mean, people call me crazy for only finding Kucinich palatable in terms of a progressive candidate?

Ok…I need to go write for real now.  Loving streaming radio these days, especially WOXY

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