(November 2005) In case you haven't been paying attention to Bush's illegal NSA wiretaps: article two of the three articles of impeachment against Nixon states that the president committed a crime
by directing or authorizing [intelligence] agencies or personnel to conduct or continue electronic surveillance or other investigations for purposes unrelated to national security, the enforcement of laws, or any other lawful function of his office.
So the Pentagon has been spying on Americans at the insistence of the president—a man who, when told that his wiretapping order violates the US Constitution, replied that it’s “just a goddamn piece of paper” and waaa waaa waaa baby wants what baby wants and he’s perfectly willing to kill 30 thousand Iraqis and your sons and daughters and to stamp out Democracy to get it.
Maybe Nixon said this too before he was impeached (and knowing Nixon, he probably said it afterwards too, since he blamed everyone else for his failures).
Frankly, I want a president who treasures the Constitution more than his fucking LIFE or any short-term goals that he and the lobbyists who define their platform might have.
I want her to value public service over private interests PERIOD.
I want her to consider this belief holy, a calling.
I want Gregory Peck in To Kill a Mockingbird, or the female equivalent, guiding our country—someone who will stand up to powerful interests and insist on policies that are good for ALL the people, not just the few with deep pockets and persuasive lobbyists.
I mean let’s face it, our Constitution is bigger than any one over-privileged cowboy who probably wouldn’t have even passed high-school grammar without Daddy’s connections
(and he damn well better be glad that Barbara Jordan ain’t around today or he’d already be impeached).
And let me just say that my southern Baptist mother and plenty of other fundamentalists must be aghast to know that this so-called Christian man uttered the phrase god damn out loud—bu we always knew he was an opportunistic poseur, right?
Meanwhile inquiring minds want to know what enemy so threatens national security that we must bypass customary procedures that routinely grant permission to wiretap phones with 4 hours’ notice anyway.
Is it those terrorists that the FBI warned Condi and George about? Those spies with their fingers on a nuclear bomb?
Why no. It’s those scary Quaker anti-war activist terrorists, that’s who.
Run Dick run! Better move us to red alert!!
(You’d think it’d be obvious to anyone who knows anything about Quakers that they are opposed to violence, but maybe the chickenhawks consider opposition to the war to be our greatest national threat [to coin a Vietnam phrase].)
Our president lies blatantly about weapons of mass destruction, about torture, about votes. No wonder we’re all jaded.
Meanwhile, my trunk is loaded down with gifts (which may not be unrelated); my stockings are overflowing and my suitcase is too, so I will leave you with a quote:
For now I am in a holiday humour.—Shakespeare
And, since I may not be online again before New Year’s, here’s another one:
AND NOW let us believe in a long year that is given to us, new, untouched, full of things that have never been, full of work that has never been done, full of tasks, claims, and demands; and let us see that we learn to take it without letting fall too much of what it has to bestow upon those who demand of it necessary, serious and great things.—Rainer Maria Rilke
READING: “It is unconstitutional to teach [so-called intelligent design] as an alternative to evolution in a public school science classroom. ... We find that the secular purposes claimed by the [School] Board amount to a pretext for the Board's real purpose, which was to promote religion in the public school classroom."
So wrote the judge in his 139-page opinion in the PA evolution case.
LISTENING TO: silver bells
BEST-OF SELECT SPAM: MASTERDICK! Do you know . . . I love you?
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