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Subject: 
Re: Should we be concerned?
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.off-topic.debate
Date: 
Wed, 4 Jun 2003 13:48:04 GMT
Viewed: 
409 times
  
  
  
   Do I fear that the patriot act may infringe on my rights as a citizen? Yes, but that is an allowance that I make for safety, much like long airport lines.

“They that can trade essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.” -- Benjamin Franklin

    ”The things that will destroy America
    are prosperity at any price,
    peace at any price,
    safety first instead of duty first,
    and love of soft living and the
    get-rich-quick theory of life.”

                - Theodore Roosevelt.

The consolidation of power that has occurred since 9/11 sends a chill down my spine. Particularly because of the secrecy that protects the power structure today, barking either “national security” or “traitor” at anyone who would raise a voice of concern.

The fact that the U.S. government can lock any human being away in a cage on a remote island without revealing that person’s identity or allowing them to contact a lawyer is such a violation of human rights that it would make the Founding Fathers wretch. Even if we were to accept the notion that it is somehow OK to do this to non-US-citizens, how do we know that they will not use this power to lock up American citizens? They don’t have to tell you who they’ve got, and they don’t have to accuse them of a crime to do it.

George Orwell might have gotten the year wrong (or not!) but I think his writings may soon move from fiction to the history section.

   You know that Patriot Act was some serious legal work and mighty in size when submitted only a few days following the terror, makes you think that it had been on somebody’s agenda for a looonnngg time.

The ink sure wasn’t wet on that one when they pulled it out of the drawer.

   Bush, methinks, may have been just conveiniently corrupt and privy to all the agendas and agenda makers of his father’s and Regan’s era. It’s a dynasty thing.

I think this is exactly inside-out. It is the policy makers from the Reagan/Bush Sr. administration(s) who are privy to Dubya’s puppet strings. Shrub is either far too stupid to have gotten where he is today by himself, or else he is the craftiest politician and best actor ever to snort coke. The ones who really hold the power in America are the people who never leave Washington. The presidency itself is too fleeting to be the actual seat of power. Instead, the post has become a lightning rod for the real power brokers who operate behind the scenes. Notice how smoothly Dick Cheney maneuvered himself into the co-pilot’s seat? Do you think the minority of the American population who voted for Shrub even noticed who else was on the ticket? Yet who do you think makes the real decisions at the end of the day? It is The Club, and they’ve been establishing their control in Washington for a long, long time.

Why do you suppose the FBI allowed 9/11 to happen? They had all the clues sitting right there on their desks. Either they are completely inept or else they decided that 3,000 civilian lives lost was a small price to pay to advance their agenda of totalitarianism. In either case, I don’t see a good reason to give them more power to abuse or piss away. The “Patriot” Act is a shameless consolidation of police state power that is not needed to enforce my safety and security. It goes against the spirit of individual freedoms that this country was founded on. Of the thousands of invocations of the “Patriot” Act since it was enacted, only 50 were for terrorism-related investigations. They sell it to the American people as a necessary tool against terror, but they’ve been listening to your phone and reading your e-mail ever since. (By the way, guys, could you please not park the surveilance van on my flowers? Thx!)

The FCC’s relaxation of the rules governing ownership of media outlets is equally troubling to me. I remember, not long ago, when the radio stations in my city actually competed with each other for listeners. There were at least a dozen great stations trying their hardest to reel in those tuners, and it was hard to decide which station to listen to during the morning commute. Then the FCC tweaked ownership rules of radio stations and within 18 months, every station sounded exactly the same, with no effort to entertain or stand out. Even the former dance station now plays the same VH1 mix of pap as the former rock stations, and you never hear local bands any more. I am sad to say that I have stopped listening to radio.

I truly believe that the radio station rule change was the dry run for what the FCC is doing today. When the media is all owned by a handful of large corporations, it will become fat and lazy, and more to the point, irrelevant. A paranoid person might even say that this is a critical step in the gross consolidation of power that is taking place while we all hide underneath our desks, clutching our gas masks and duct tape.

   I do not believe that Bush will burn. He’s got too many generations of status quo, folks who learned from the Nixon Watergate era how to cover-up, and more than a few brain-washed scapegoats a la Ollie North to even feel the heat. That is what gets me. He will walk away untouched and those members of our Nation who hold long term positions of power (broad definition) will continue to manipulate what they can when they can.

Whether he burns does not matter. The president is just a figurehead who gets to go along for the ride for awhile if he’ll play ball with The Club. The dummer the bedder!!

   Just thank (insert your deity here) that there are folks trying to adhere to the principles and ideals of America as it was founded.

Where are these folks? (Probably sitting in cages at Guantanamo.) I see the most powerful government on the planet coming unrooted from the very people it is meant to serve, and following some warped, death-dealing path of its own. Other than the occasional anti-war protest, what is actually happening to keep our government in check?

A wise man once told me that I would one day become a cynic. I just thought I had a few more decades before it would happen.

- Chris.



Message has 1 Reply:
  Re: Should we be concerned?
 
(...) Exactly. This "with us, or against us" stuff is crazy. Why can't a person be wholly patriotic and still want a moment to figure out what might be the truly correct response to a crisis? (...) This is why I harp on people's apparent partisan (...) (21 years ago, 4-Jun-03, to lugnet.off-topic.debate, FTX)

Message is in Reply To:
  Re: Should we be concerned?
 
<snip> (...) Very good quote. Essentially saying let someone else think and act for me. There have got to be better ways to achieve anti-terrorism goals than promoting fear and division. I wonder how events would have played out post 9/11 had a less (...) (21 years ago, 4-Jun-03, to lugnet.off-topic.debate, FTX)

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