The Bush administration has been diligently addressing some very important issues. Recently, articles in the Washington Post and the New York Times showed that the government was holding detainees illegally in foreign countries where they are tortured for information, and that the government was eavesdropping on telephone conversations without a warrant.
In a right-side up world, the government would now be arresting and charging those responsible for these criminal acts. If they were authorized by officials in the White House, they would have resigned and would be facing indictments. If the President himself authorized them, he would be facing impeachment.
Not this government. This government is arresting and charging those who told you that your government is breaking the law and that it is spying on you and torturing people.
It is totally weird that the mainstream press, and the Democrats, are not screaming bloody murder. The Bush administration has undertaken activities that are literally stunning in the depth and breadth of their violations of human rights and democratic principles. But, in a world that could only have been envisioned by Josef Goebbels
In my darker moments, the only conclusion I can draw is that all those flag-waving, patriotic, gun-toting Americans who sit there idly watching TV and not caring about these actions do not deserve democracy. In fact, they are no longer entitled to democracy. You have approved and accepted and embraced tyranny. Your government showed you a bogey man and said “boo” and you cried and wet your pants and said, please, oh please, stop them, I’ll let you do anything, I surrender all of my rights. It was that easy.
I never would have believed it. I grew up watching the Watergate scandal unfold, convinced that when Americans become aware of malfeasance by their own government, they react with disgust, they tell the pollsters that the government has no support, which empowers the loyal opposition — who are presently themselves timorously cowering in the corner–to take decisive action. Sadly, I believe that most Americans don’t care about Bush’s dictatorial powers because the word “terrorist” has become, in his mind, synonymous with “Arabic”.
If Mary O. McCarthy really is guilty of leaking information about the CIA’s illegal activities to the press, I hope some organization with guts announces that she will given a real “Medal of Freedom”. She is someone who has made a genuine sacrifice on behalf of democracy and civil liberties.
Did you know:
CIA employees are all required to take a “lie detector test” every five years.
The world is indeed very topsy turvey. Lie detectors don’t work. They never have and they probably never will. Doesn’t matter. Porter Gross over at the CIA looks like a fine hunter of leakers. That’s all that matters. His bosses think he’s a bloodhound. I cannot believe though that not a single CIA employee has yet taken his or her employer to court over the issue. I repeat– check this with objective analysts if you doubt me– the polygraph does not work. It never has. It probably never will. There is a good reason why results from a polygraph are not admissible in court. And anybody under suspicion of anything who would agree to take a polygraph is a fool.