Yesterday the New York Times had an editorial attacking the growing tyranny of the Bush administration called " Rushing Off a Cliff."
"Here's what happens when this irresponsible Congress railroads a profoundly important bill to serve the mindless politics of a midterm election: The Bush administration uses Republicans' fear of losing their majority to push through ghastly ideas about antiterrorism that will make American troops less safe and do lasting damage to our 217-year-old nation of laws - while actually doing nothing to protect the nation from terrorists. Democrats betray their principles to avoid last-minute attack ads. Our democracy is the big loser."
Immediately Chris Floyd wrote a response which expressed relief that perhaps the NYT was finally starting to "get it," but which also said it was too little too late.
"So the New York Times has finally roused itself and laid out the straight facts about the presidential tyranny that has been erected around the pathetic figure of George W. Bush: Rushing Off a Cliff The Times is to be lauded for this eloquent and powerful depiction of our degraded political state, and you should read it in full. But a few vital points must mitigate our praise of this otherwise remarkable editorial.
"First, and most importantly: it comes very, very late in the game - perhaps too late. All of the tyrannical powers enumerated by the editorial were claimed - and put into practice - by Bush and Cheney five years ago. "
"Second, the editorial, as strong as it is, doesn't go far enough: We not looking at 'our generation's version of the Alien and Sedition Acts' as the newspaper puts it; things are much farther gone than that. What we are looking at is the death knell of the constitutional republic of the United States of America.. Bush has long claimed dictatorial powers in secret; if Congress writes these liberty-gutting strictures into law, then the fundamental nature of the American state will be transformed. It will not be, in any sense - not even formally - a free country anymore. All of our rights and liberties will be the 'gift' of the President, who can bestow them - or revoke them - as he sees fit."
Maybe, indeed, people are starting to wake up. But is it too late? The congress is already dead, corrupted and blackmailed beyond all recognition. We can't vote them all out because the elections are now fully rigged and controlled by the caba, computer voting and the corporations. Aparently as long as the people have their television and beer they put up with anything, at least until they are being hauled off somewhere and by then it is definitely too late. Does anyone anywhere have any idea how to get out of this dictatorship nightmare?
Molly Ivans also writes about the torture bill just passed.
"With a smug stroke of his pen, President Bush is set to wipe out a safeguard against illegal imprisonment that has endured as a cornerstone of legal justice since the Magna Carta."
Death by torture by Americans was first reported in 2003 in a New York Times article by Carlotta Gall. The military had announced the prisoner died of a heart attack, but when Gall saw the death certificate, written in English and issued by the military, it said the cause of death was homicide. The "heart attack" came after he had been beaten so often on this legs that they had "basically been pulpified," according to the coroner.
The story of why and how it took the Times so long to print this information is in the current edition of the Columbia Journalism Review. The press in general has been late and slow in reporting torture, so very few Americans have any idea how far it has spread.
The congress and the president are basically telling the world: "You can torture our soldiers if you want to. That's okay with us."
Three basic pillars of our Republic have broken down. The congress is fully blackmailed and bribed. The free press is bought up by the cabal corporations and truth is forbidden. And the elections are taken over by hackable computer machines with no paper trail which were built by the corporations.
Ivins finishes her essay this way:
"Fellow citizens, this bill throws out legal and moral restraints as the president deems it necessary-these are fundamental principles of basic decency, as well as law. "I'd like those supporting this evil bill to spare me one affliction: Do not, please, pretend to be shocked by the consequences of this legislation. And do not pretend to be shocked when the world begins comparing us to the Nazis."
-###-
September 30, 2006 By Wolfram Grätz
