18 July 2013
What if No One Cares What You Think?
I began this posting in 2008. Observing how Congress continues to rot, how the Administration seems locked into the financial ideology of Milton Friedman, and how zealotry infects religious expressions of opinion, I decided to update it as a plaint of 2013.
We the voters have let the following happen:
- President Bush broke at least one federal law [FISA 1978] several times.
- Vice President Cheney and other heads of federal departments ignore Congressional subpoenas.
- Senator Barak Obama votes amnesty for telecom companies who broke the 1978 FISA law.
- Nancy Pelosi takes impeachment "off the table."
- Congress gives Bush another $162 billion for continuing the Iraqi occupation.
- Four of the nine Associate Justices of the Supreme Court are against restoring Habeus corpus to Constitutional rights accorded to non-citizens within U. S. jurisdictional authority.
- Members of the Republican Party, in control of Congress from 1984 to 2006, chide every proposal to change spending priorities within the Federal Budget as deficit spending, as basis for new taxes.
- President Obama continues operating Guantanamo.
- President Obama continues and expands the super-secret NSA data gathering on all electronic activity without oversight.
- President Obama assumed the authority to kill two American citizens without due process, legislative permission or judicial oversight.
- President Obama has expanded the use of unmanned drones in warfare and for surveillance by intelligence agencies without sufficient Congressional or Judicial oversight and control.
I am feeling so alienated from the sources of power in this country that I wonder if part of my wanting to emigrate is a desire to remain ignorant of the actions of government, hypocritical politicians, speculations by public media due to unfamiliarity with the language and to having no personal role in its formation and perpetuation.
When I think about these things, my brain speaks like Noam Chomsky's disheartened ramblings about 'truth' and 'ignorance' of the American populace about our social and political environment. Here is an interesting example: http://http://www.fixmacs.net/appleblog/2008/07/do-people-matter.html
If popular opinion thinks that illegal aliens are a major problem or, as Chomsky notes, voting procedures are paramount Constitutional disorders, then Big Commerce has won. 'Big Commerce' is the avatar for Western civilization. Big Commerce controls the economy, the social norms, the politics and the ethics of the United States and of those nations who aspire to imitate it. Anyone who differs with Big Commerce is an alien legal or not, so the public opinion poles that differ from Big Commerce's motivations and actions, by result, form an alien-ation. Which cartoon character is Big Commerce? Which one is Lex Luther and who is Spiderman? Perspective matters when making your choice. Insurgent/terrorist/patriot/freedom fighter/force for Good/force for Evil/criminal/morally innocent. I could go on demonstrating how one's perspective and willingness to consider alternative descriptions of the linguistic dichotomy of opposites, one sanctioned by Authority and the other representing anarchy or instability.
Have we become today's Roman Empire, after the Roman Republic succumbed to tyranny of the Emperor? Are we the American Empire, having offered up Constitutional powers to the President? The emperors who tried to restore the Republic were assassinated by their equivalent of Big Commerce. Public opinion and support was bought then; today shows the same methods at work.
How many cities think new sports stadiums (coliseums) will keep popular support for Big Commerce? How long are the compliance deadlines written into law by Congress so not to offend Big Commerce? How many military operations protect existing and anticipated resources of Big Commerce?
Raise your hand if you have a plan to regenerate the republic.
Sherfdog
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