The truly transcendental intellect firmly and intuitively grasps what we all secretly know to be true: "If voting really changed anything it would be illegal."

These fine young black men are doing all that they can do to effect true, real-world change, and by that of course I mean that they're fucking all the white women they can get their greedy little mitts on.

Keynesianism, socialism, whatever...we all see what the game is about: shielding the wealthy and powerful from the consequences of their socially reckless behavior, to the detriment of the citizenry and the larger economy.

This is nothing new at all. Look at the $12 billion bailout that the airlines got after 9/11. End welfare, right? Yeah, right. It's only a crime if you're spending your government handout on groceries or healthcare.

American political and economic policies seem increasingly designed to work in tandem towards a bizarre, two-tiered system of "socialized oligarchy," whereby the main function of the government is to subsidize the lifestyles and work ethic (or lack thereof) of America's "management class." Meanwhile, the actual blood cells of the economy--working citizens--are left to rot, if not actively persecuted. The median lane which used to be available as a conduit for merit-based oppourtunity and advancement from poor to wealthy--the middle class--is disappearing.

We've reached a dangerous point in history where far too many of us can plainly recognize this problem, which is actually a national catastrophe in the making, for what it is, yet we're still not doing anything serious to rectify it.

If Big Business is going to now be continually receiving obvious, blatant handouts of taxpayer dollars from the government every couple years, solely to prevent the latest economic "blood fever" from infecting the top 5% of income levels, then the major infrastructure industries such as energy, transportation, communication, etc. might as well be fully nationalized. I don't like the idea on principle, but this routine of America's elected officials representing nothing but to deflect accountability from corporate America is getting very tired, indeed.

...Lieberman voted for the Woodstock museum.

That's a pretty crucial issue, after all. The fact that our national treasury is fatally hemorrhaging into a catastrophic foreign policy? Not so much.

And the fact that our elected officials are slowly pulling from under their trench coats a massive police-state apparatus, aimed directly at each and every American citizen? Totally irrelevant.

Pay no attention to the men behind the curtain.

Right or wrong, like it or not, you cannot expect the average working American to grasp the nuance contained in this complicated legal subject and subsequently sympathize with the foreign nationals involved. I'm no flag-waving jingoist, but I still had trouble following the Byzantine narrative that was apparently intended to make me worry about Consitutional rights contained in this article. A couple of statements that jumped out at me from a cursory reading:

"the U.S. government charged Al-Buthe and Seda with tax fraud in connection with a $180,000 donation they made in 1999 to an Islamic charity in Chechnya."

Sorry, but I have to worry about paying my rent and buying groceries. No sympathy for Chechnyan rebels here.

"Al-Haramain's lawyers deny these charges, too, and have produced affidavits from the governments of Saudi Arabia and Russia explaining that the organization that received the donations was a legitimate charity. "

Well, if you can't trust affidavits from the governments of Saudi Arabia and Russia, what can you trust?

"(The steady stream of visitors was all male -- during my five days in Saudi Arabia, I didn't meet a single woman.) "

Natch. Women are barely considered human in Saudi Arabia. But let's just relegate that disconcerting fact to a quick parenthetical observation and breeze along, shall we?

"It was hard to imagine Al-Buthe as a terrorist. In conversation, he frequently denounces al-Qaida and expresses sorrow over the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington. "

This is a painfully naive statement.

"The powers were first used against individuals by President Clinton, when his National Security Council designated several Palestinian and Israeli opponents of the Camp David agreements as terrorist supporters."

Ah. I eagerly await the Salon article denouncing Bill Clinton's attack on civil liberties. After all, American partisan politics have nothing to do with any of this, right? We're all just worried about timeless concepts of civic justice. Riiight.

"Bauermeister looked out the window for a moment before adding, "This is a really dark era we're in right now." "

True indeed. I'm glad I live in America.