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The sad decline of Michael Mukasey
His reputation for integrity was meant to restore credibility to the Justice Department. Instead, his remarks on waterboarding show that he, like Alberto Gonzales, has let the White House call the shots.
By Sidney Blumenthal [2007-11-01]

  • Time for new language...and a new civics?

    Sidney Blumenthal writes:

    While Mukasey espouses conservative views upholding an expansive interpretation of the executive, and argues that warrantless domestic surveillance is therefore justified...

    Really? Is that what Real Conservativism is? In spite of the facts, i.e. people who are nominally "conservatives" who put forward overly authoritarian, totalitarian interpretations of the American Way, I think that THAT is NOT really "conservative"... It's a radicalized position headed towards, if not already arrived at an American Fascism.

    If so called "conservatives" are hiding their radical, activist positions and machinations under the "Conservative" rubric, I think that it's time to stop being polite and use some more accurate and descriptive language to expose them for what they actually are... How else do you deal with liars, cheats, thiefs and murderers?

    To continue to allow radicalized activist "neo-cons" to lay claim to the title "Conservative" with it's powerful, positive connotations (and don't kid yourself, they ARE powerful as well as positive to many if not most fellow citizens) is to be played by the proto-facists masquerading as "Conservatives" and to have lost the language game before you've started to play.

    Naming and definition is half the battle...The pen is greater than the sword. Use your words...But use them better and better.

    I know that immoderate use of language is easily dismissed or perhaps worse, turned on us... But that shouldn't back us into the corner of polite, ambiguous and ineffective wordings either. It's a very hard high-wire act that Mr. Blumenthal does very well...I always look forward to his pieces. It's just that this morning I saw it a different way and wondered if the "high road" really works. Is our democracy strong enough to weather this crisis? Or is the threat overwhelming?

    What more can we do to strengthen the bonds of community and fend off inimacable principals and forces? Defense of our Constitution and the Nation it allows is much too important and vital a task to simply leave to the current occupant of the White House. Perhaps we should each and every one of us make a promise, take a solemn oath to "Protect the Constitution" and "Serve the Nation"... in our own, humble ways the best we can, no?

    Is it time for a new Civility and a renewed American Civics?

    -- Emyth
    [Read Emyth's other letters]
    Thursday, November 1, 2007 03:42 AM
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