Keeping an Eye on Things

 Sorry folks, I’ve been a little off this week. I’ve been fighting a cold that’s taken some zing out of my stinger and I’ve been running around after work a bit lately. It doesn’t mean I’ve given up being outraged and disgusted, but my body has been permitting a little less outrage these past few days.

With the help of Michael Moore and some other members of the Hollywood set, Julian Assange was granted bail yesterday, yet he continues to sit in prison so the government can appeal the judges ruling. So it goes.  If that poor bastard gets out of prison before the US Government indicts him and hauls him off to Gitmo he should consider himself lucky. Meanwhile, Wikileaks keeps churning out the hits. Cable after cable proving that the cynical leftists were essentially right about, well, almost everything. Yet the administration is pissed off because someone turned over their rock and shined a light on the snakes underneath. Amazing. This government has extended the Bush administration’s full frontal assault on civil liberties without apology. Wikileaks is just their big fat chicken flying home to roost for the holidays. Michael Moore in his letter explaining why he contributed to Assange’s bail fund said, “Openness, transparency -- these are among the few weapons the citizenry has to protect itself from the powerful and the corrupt.” Is it any surprise that the powerful and corrupt are calling for show trials and executions? Nah.

Moore goes on to aptly describe what I think is the real benefit to having Wikileaks out there firing rhetorical missiles into the heartland-the possibility for future government restraint.

“Might WikiLeaks cause some unintended harm to diplomatic negotiations and U.S. interests around the world? Perhaps. But that's the price you pay when you and your government take us into a war based on a lie. Your punishment for misbehaving is that someone has to turn on all the lights in the room so that we can see what you're up to. You simply can't be trusted. So every cable, every email you write is now fair game. Sorry, but you brought this upon yourself. No one can hide from the truth now. No one can plot the next Big Lie if they know that they might be exposed.”

I agree that the government needs to be exposed, but unlike Moore I’m not entirely convinced that they’ll change their ways overnight, certainly not without a constant parade of Private Mannings and Julian Assanges holding the torch up to their misdeeds. Repressive governments are like vampires. Once you turn the lights out they’ll come slinking back in the dark to resume sucking your blood. They can’t help it. It’s their nature, the poor dears.

Remember people, whether you accept the paradigm or not, there is a class war going on in this country. It’s the wealthy and powerful against the rest of us, just like it’s always been. You don’t have to take my word for it.  Here’s the unvarnished opinion of the incoming chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, Spencer Bachus, R-Ala., who told the Birmingham news that "in Washington, the view is that the banks are to be regulated, and my view is that Washington and the regulators are there to serve the banks."

At least he's intellectually honest. That must count for something.