(As Roger Waters put it in "The Wall"...)
Evdence is mounting up and becoming clearer every day amongst those of us who keep one eye on international relations and the reputation and import of the United States of America and its policies that this particular President and administration have conducted themselves in a manner which has gone far beyond the norms, in terms of adherence to our Constitution and rule of law. It is high time that it be recognized for its high crimes and assaults on the Constitution and the public and that it be held accountable for its actions, words, deeds, and intents.
Richard Nixon, at least, had some highly evolved sense of shame, and resigned the office before he could be tried, but the articles against him were already being drawn up, and impeachment was inevitable. Only his inner recognition of the role he played in the Watergate burglary and coverup led to his timely departure. The impeachment case against William J. Clinton was an entirely different matter- a henny-penny morality play in which dubious "morals" charges were confused with crimes- sex between consenting adults not being a federal crime- adultery may be morally abhorrent, but does not qualify a priori as a crime. While the Clinton impeachment attempt was a hilariously partisan move, and no doubt, many will see any attempt to impeach this president as more of the same, what ought to trouble this current one is that there are plenty of people like myself in favor of such a process going forward- what's worse- the blowback of those who'd never have voted for you to begin with, or that from those without whose support you could never have been elected in the first place?
However you frame it, this particular President has shown full contempt for the oath of office, to protect the Constitution "from all enemies foreign and domestic" and has- even by Nixonian standards- gone far beyond what is, or ought to be, acceptable to the American people. Targeted assassination of innocent citizens, approval of indefinite detention, abrogating his own pledge to hold the Bush era torturers and renderers accountable for their war crimes, overseeing the underpinnings of a police state capability of which even Josef Stalin and Erich Honecker might only have dreamed, and had he had such, which Adolf Hitler might have used to a more fully successful capacity in his campaign to rid Europe of every last Jew... This thuggish, boorish administration has the gall to unilaterally decide with whom our nation wages war and why... Only the will of the public kept the crazies from sending missiles into Syria. Exactly who, or what, was to be the target? The chemical weapons? Wouldn't blowing canisters of sarin to smithereens disperse that nerve-agent most fully into the environment, causing the deaths of even more innocents? How about US involvement in the death of Col. Qaddaffi, who had only recently a number of years before been pronounced as "reformed" by the DC establishment? And whose nation (like Syria) had done absolutely nothing in terms of any actions calling for a need for American "self-defense". Unilateral exercise of military powers seem to be endemic, among those who ebulliently style themselves "Commander In Chief".
But this is an administration which only seeks to put lipstick-on-a-pig in terms of its respect for the lives of innocent civilians. Deaths-by-drones are up about 300% over what they ever were in the Bush years. And it seems that, for each "Al Qaeda militant" destroyed, another six to fifteen bystanders are blown to shrapnel and smithers along with them. But you wouldn't know, because the program is officially a secret, acknowledged only grudgingly, and the figures regularly fudged and massaged by even its "Congressional overseers" such as California Senator Dianne Feinstein.
To what end and for what purposes is the National Security Agency putting all the telephone content and metadata it has been collecting? Apparently only a total omniscience over all internet activity will satisfy these creatures. If not for some future roundup of some as yet unnamed out-group, why is it so important that all this be stored for five years (or longer?) And what is to stop some future administration from drawing up its own lists, and sending out the Black Marias and their goon squads after midnight, to collect the enemies of the state, and banish them to the night and fog? The machinery to do so is already there.
Where, even, were the partisan objections of "liberal" Democrats when this president appointed former Bush appointees to head the CIA and FBI? Missing in Action. Nothing to see here. Business as usual. Move along! "Distinguished public servants" and bla, bla, bla, and bla. Those very people who had begun the programs which this President objected to while a candidate, are now in charge of the surveillance-state hen-house. And no one questions his judgement, oh no, as he regains his smug composure, folds his hands at the lectern, and looks upon the masses with a most self-satisfied, serene, and completely self-convinced expression. As though by his word he hath pronounced law. I think it's well time to knock things back a little bit. There are reasons enough to believe that this president serves not the public interest but the interests of the very same corporate, military industrial elite which have cheerled every war since Dwight Eisenhower's time, and the disconnects between what this president said he would do, once he gained office, and what he has done, appear to be no less than 180 degrees of lying, hypocrisy, and outright repugnancy. For every " but, but, Bush did it first!" there are the facts that show "Barry's done yet more, and worse."
Evdence is mounting up and becoming clearer every day amongst those of us who keep one eye on international relations and the reputation and import of the United States of America and its policies that this particular President and administration have conducted themselves in a manner which has gone far beyond the norms, in terms of adherence to our Constitution and rule of law. It is high time that it be recognized for its high crimes and assaults on the Constitution and the public and that it be held accountable for its actions, words, deeds, and intents.
Richard Nixon, at least, had some highly evolved sense of shame, and resigned the office before he could be tried, but the articles against him were already being drawn up, and impeachment was inevitable. Only his inner recognition of the role he played in the Watergate burglary and coverup led to his timely departure. The impeachment case against William J. Clinton was an entirely different matter- a henny-penny morality play in which dubious "morals" charges were confused with crimes- sex between consenting adults not being a federal crime- adultery may be morally abhorrent, but does not qualify a priori as a crime. While the Clinton impeachment attempt was a hilariously partisan move, and no doubt, many will see any attempt to impeach this president as more of the same, what ought to trouble this current one is that there are plenty of people like myself in favor of such a process going forward- what's worse- the blowback of those who'd never have voted for you to begin with, or that from those without whose support you could never have been elected in the first place?
However you frame it, this particular President has shown full contempt for the oath of office, to protect the Constitution "from all enemies foreign and domestic" and has- even by Nixonian standards- gone far beyond what is, or ought to be, acceptable to the American people. Targeted assassination of innocent citizens, approval of indefinite detention, abrogating his own pledge to hold the Bush era torturers and renderers accountable for their war crimes, overseeing the underpinnings of a police state capability of which even Josef Stalin and Erich Honecker might only have dreamed, and had he had such, which Adolf Hitler might have used to a more fully successful capacity in his campaign to rid Europe of every last Jew... This thuggish, boorish administration has the gall to unilaterally decide with whom our nation wages war and why... Only the will of the public kept the crazies from sending missiles into Syria. Exactly who, or what, was to be the target? The chemical weapons? Wouldn't blowing canisters of sarin to smithereens disperse that nerve-agent most fully into the environment, causing the deaths of even more innocents? How about US involvement in the death of Col. Qaddaffi, who had only recently a number of years before been pronounced as "reformed" by the DC establishment? And whose nation (like Syria) had done absolutely nothing in terms of any actions calling for a need for American "self-defense". Unilateral exercise of military powers seem to be endemic, among those who ebulliently style themselves "Commander In Chief".
But this is an administration which only seeks to put lipstick-on-a-pig in terms of its respect for the lives of innocent civilians. Deaths-by-drones are up about 300% over what they ever were in the Bush years. And it seems that, for each "Al Qaeda militant" destroyed, another six to fifteen bystanders are blown to shrapnel and smithers along with them. But you wouldn't know, because the program is officially a secret, acknowledged only grudgingly, and the figures regularly fudged and massaged by even its "Congressional overseers" such as California Senator Dianne Feinstein.
To what end and for what purposes is the National Security Agency putting all the telephone content and metadata it has been collecting? Apparently only a total omniscience over all internet activity will satisfy these creatures. If not for some future roundup of some as yet unnamed out-group, why is it so important that all this be stored for five years (or longer?) And what is to stop some future administration from drawing up its own lists, and sending out the Black Marias and their goon squads after midnight, to collect the enemies of the state, and banish them to the night and fog? The machinery to do so is already there.
Where, even, were the partisan objections of "liberal" Democrats when this president appointed former Bush appointees to head the CIA and FBI? Missing in Action. Nothing to see here. Business as usual. Move along! "Distinguished public servants" and bla, bla, bla, and bla. Those very people who had begun the programs which this President objected to while a candidate, are now in charge of the surveillance-state hen-house. And no one questions his judgement, oh no, as he regains his smug composure, folds his hands at the lectern, and looks upon the masses with a most self-satisfied, serene, and completely self-convinced expression. As though by his word he hath pronounced law. I think it's well time to knock things back a little bit. There are reasons enough to believe that this president serves not the public interest but the interests of the very same corporate, military industrial elite which have cheerled every war since Dwight Eisenhower's time, and the disconnects between what this president said he would do, once he gained office, and what he has done, appear to be no less than 180 degrees of lying, hypocrisy, and outright repugnancy. For every " but, but, Bush did it first!" there are the facts that show "Barry's done yet more, and worse."
Being President of the United States of America means never having to say you're sorry:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/18/opinion/the-drone-that-killed-my-grandson.html?_r=0
All the better to haunt Hif Majeftie forever:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/23/naming-the-dead-pakistan-drone-strike-victims_n_3976505.html?utm_hp_ref=world
All the better to haunt Hif Majeftie forever:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/23/naming-the-dead-pakistan-drone-strike-victims_n_3976505.html?utm_hp_ref=world
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