Today's Issues

As I suspected yesterday, Clinton’s aggressive posture during Fox News Sunday was a shot across the bow and a clear signal to the rest of the party that the spineless Democrats need to come out swinging in the weeks prior to the election. Hilary stated as much yesterday, “"I just think that my husband did a great job in demonstrating that Democrats are not going to take this," she told Newsday on Monday.

An excellent place for the Dems to start flexing their muscle would be with the “compromise” bill on detainee detention proposed by the right wing republican Senators John McCain, John Warner and Lindsey Graham. It appears that on closer examination the compromise bill differs little from the one proposed by the White House insofar as its definition of an unlawful combatant. From The Daily Kos: “
“The definition applies to foreigners living inside or outside the United States and does not rule out the possibility of designating a U.S. citizen as an unlawful combatant. It is broader than that in last week's version of the bill, which resulted from lengthy, closed-door negotiations between senior administration officials and dissident Republican senators. That version incorporated a definition backed by the Senate dissidents: those "engaged in hostilities against the United States." Under a separate provision, those held by the CIA or the U.S. military as an unlawful enemy combatant would be barred from challenging their detention or the conditions of their treatment in U.S. courts unless they were first tried, convicted and appealed their conviction.”
I don’t really know what else to say about this bill. If you are an elected representative and you vote for this you should be indicted for treason. If you a re a Democrat you should be thrown out of the party all together.

For those that argue along the lines of “I don’t do anything illegal so I’m not going to worry about this stuff” I call your attention to an article on today’s metro section of the Times, reproduced here in part:

“Federal District Court in Manhattan has made public an affidavit from a plaintiff whose identity cannot be revealed. In the affidavit, he says he has to lie to those close to him to preserve the secrecy of a national security investigation that he believes is morally questionable.
The affidavit, which has been heavily censored, provides vivid details of an upside-down life. The plaintiff, identified only as John Doe, is a businessman who filed a lawsuit in 2004 challenging the constitutionality of federal demands for Internet and telephone records. He describes himself as the former president of an Internet access and consulting business.
Some time ago (the government will not allow him to say when), he received a so-called national security letter from the F.B.I., asking him to provide information about one of his clients in connection with “international terrorism or clandestine intelligence activities.” The letter also said he was prohibited from talking with anyone about the investigation.
“Since that time,” the John Doe affidavit says, “I have been subject to a gag order that has prevented me from disclosing, among many other things, that I initiated this lawsuit.”
Mr. Doe said he resisted the government’s demand because he did not want to violate the privacy of his clients. In April 2004, represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, he filed a lawsuit against the attorney general, John Ashcroft, and Robert S. Mueller, the director of the F.B.I. The government gained the right to demand customer information without a court order under a 1986 law, which was expanded by the U.S.A. Patriot Act of 2001 and amended further in March of this year.

In his affidavit, he described a world in which he has been “compelled to systematically deceive” his friends, his family and his girlfriend in order to preserve the secrecy of the investigation.
“The gag put me in a very compromising position, as I did not want to be dishonest in my communications,” yet at the same time, he said, he did not want to violate the order. He added: “I do not like the feeling of being conscripted to be a secret informer for the government, especially because I have doubts about the legitimacy of the underlying investigation.”

Scary stuff. Remember my friends, if you let the government pass repressive laws that take away our liberties in the name of fighting terrorism, history teaches us that it is only a matter of time before those laws are used against the people. As Americans we have become very complacent and docile; fat on our bounty and trusting of our government. This government does not have your interests at heart. The right-wing Christo-fascists in this Country have a very clear and outspoken desire to replace our secular institutions, which were formed in the crucible of enlightenment thinking, with a Christian literalist government who thinks that Jesus is about to soar in on a cloud and take care of things. A whopping 47% of Americans believe that Jesus will return in the next 100 years. Doesn’t that just scare the shit out of you? Why should the government care about secular institutions when Jesus is coming back to create his kingdom on earth?