Letters to the Editor
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Re Remember the Santa Clara
As long as we're considering a Constitutional amendment to undo the damage of Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Co., how about one to undo the 1976 Burger Court decision making money a form of political speech?
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Corporate Personhood
As long as we're considering a Constitutional amendment to undo the damage of Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Co., how about one to undo the 1976 Burger Court decision making money a form of political speech?
More simply, an ammendment that says that no Corporation has unalienable rights - and that all people, everywhere, do.
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Creating Economic Impact as a Counterweight
@grcorre
I think many of us here appreciate the generation of ideas, tactics, and strategies to counter the craziness and insanity that has overtaken this country. From such brainstorming arise productive modes of action and response. While I agree that shaking the economic tree sends a powerful message to the political and corporate elite alike (and, oh my, are they alike), your suggestion that Americans stop paying primary debts is too wide (and too unsettling) a net to attract enough supporters.
When someone up-thread mentioned Ghandi, I flashed to his general strike against paying the salt tax imposed by the British. Singular focus, fundamental need, symbolic of the potential enormous power that motivated and outraged people could bring to bear on the centers of power. This methodology brings to light that the people possess the motivation and will to act and that the consequences, far-reaching and potentially devastating, strike at the foundation of the established order.
What that focus could be is not clear to me now, but whatever it is must be an action that all can participate in, that everyone utilizes as a real necessity in their lives, and that the impact is immediate, severe and ongoing. While no act of its kind succeeds with devastating force upon initial institution, the incessant hammering over a longer period of time raises consciousness, generates active and intense debate, calls out supporters and detractors alike to act directly, and generates public measurements of success or failure.
As biogirl stated clearly about her husband’s level of awareness,
“As we talked, I realized that he was not even aware of the program of extraordinary rendition or of the CIA black sites. I was shocked”
We must not confuse our own heightened consciousness here at Salon and on other blogs of its type with what happens elsewhere; the nuances and subtleties of what has transpired in this country in general do not exist on “the street”. The Republicans in power and their supporters know this, I believe, much better than we admit on these pages. We can rant and rave—and have done so, here and elsewhere, with astonishing passion and clarity—but without mass action we increase our collective impotence by the day.
To begin the discussion (or feel free to slash at it as you will), here are a few areas I believe might work:
1. An incremental reduction in the use of gasoline and oil (action days)
2. Refusal to shop on selective days (perhaps twice a
week);
3. Vastly reduce air travel (targeting holidays as days to implement)
4. Limit or eliminate unnecessary telephone usage by reducing texting, long distance calling; change or significantly reduce the phone plan you currently use
(damn those telecom monoliths!)
I don’t pretend to believe that somehow significant numbers of American consumers are going to change their behaviors overnight (if at all); the idea is to get them to raise their heads to say, “what’s all this fuss about?” MoveOn got it right: you have to shock sensibilities to begin changing them. Attacking profit margins is an act that Republicans clearly understand.
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Denn wo Begriffe fehlen, da stellt ein Wort zur rechten Zeit sich ein (Mephisto)
It is the president's duty to faithfully execute the law(s).
Bush probably borrowed Scalia's dictionary and came to the conclusion that it means "to put to death the law with religious fervour".
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View from a distance
Viewed objectively and from a proper if hypothetical distance (say, a half-century off), it's not surprising to see a political elite gather protectively around an extreme part of it.
Say you're a royal family, with few real obligations to the state. Under what circumstances would you serve up a cousin to be crucified?
1) Desperation. The army has deserted, the peasants are in the palaces, the king and queen are in the Bastille. Save your own skin---literally.
2) The cousin is a threat to your legitimacy. If he lives, you may lose everything---your future.
3) He's become a millstone to your political fortunes. The peasants and the nobles are about to revolt if you don't disavow him. Make it look like an accident, or frame him with treason.
Recall what happened to the Roman Senate---they allowed themselves to be executed/banished en masse by the Second Triumvirate. Why should ours revolt before a president threatens their lives, fortunes, or political futures? As long as he does things they secretly long to do themselves, thus expanding the theoretical limits of their own powers, they will remain spectators.
We've been fat and happy since the end of the Second World War. We let this happen. We let ourselves feel safe, and now we have awakened to find we have an aristocracy.
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Normalizing the Unthinkable
Glenn writes:
"One does not expect an (American) administration to imprison US citizens with no due process or to proclaim explicitly the right to break the law, or to systematically adopt policies of torture."
Indeed one doesn't. Equally, foolishly, one does not expect an American administration to do the same & in fact, much worse to non-US citizens, including those of close, Coalition of the Willing, allies. David Hicks, an Australian citizen, captured in Afghanistan by the Northern Alliance & sold to US authorities, is a particularly telling case in point. Hicks was brutalized, tortured, rendered, sodomized, interrogated, drugged, humiliated, isolated & imprisoned in solitary confinement, without charge, for over 5 years at Guantanomo Bay. With no thanks to the complicit Australian Government, and enormous credit to his Marine JAG lawyer, Major Michael Mori, Hicks was eventually this year charged & sentenced to 9 months in prison which he's currently completing here in Australia. (9 months!) Unlike the universally admired Mori, Hicks' status as a rallying figure for anti-American sentiment, among the citizenry of a longstanding US ally, is extremely difficult to overstate. Glenn writes:
"We all know what has happened to our standing in the world, to our national character & our core political values, as a result of the previously unthinkable policies the Bush administration has relentlessly pursued."
I wonder if that's actually true. I wonder if most Americans genuinely "know" how enormously destructive this administration's policies & practices, regarding habeas corpus, torture, rendition etc. have been to their nation's perceived moral standing in the world. In Australia, a close & consistent ally, opinion's of American policy & its' current administration have never been worse & continue, inexorably, to plummet. Among the citizenry of our near neighbour, Indonesia (a moderate democracy & the world's largest Muslim nation/ pop 220 million) opinion of the US has reached a virulence unheard of in living memory. If America intended to exacerbate global, & particularly Islamic, hatred for itself & its citizenry, it's hard to imagine how they could have done so more effectively than following the current administration's policies. Glenn writes:
"Bush policies become increasingly normalized, increasingly the symbol not only of Bush-ism, but America"
Therein lies the rub. Unless these policies & practices are thoroughly repudiated by current candidates & the next administration the unprecedented deterioration of American international standing will continue to plummet at a rate beyond even the vaguest comprehension of its' citizenry.