Letters to the Editor
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The point
Ché, the point seems to be that it comforts people who have a need to be in control to believe that no information needed to remain in control can be hidden from them. It's a very expensive emotional crutch, and even better, we're paying for it, not them.
I normally hate cheesy pop culture references -- they seem so much less dignified than classical ones :-) -- but I'm reminded of Princess Lea's the more you tighten your grip, the more star systems will slip through your fingers.
Of course it's all bullshit. It won't stop terrorists, or keep anyone safe, but it will keep armies of apparatchiks employed, funnel money to GWB's buddies, and should anyone in particular seem to be straying from the reservation, it does allow all sorts of pressures to be applied. We know you look at kiddie porn isn't really all that different from We know where you live, Jew, is it?
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Karrsic
Wow. Just took an update look at your list.
What happened to the thug mantra team. Must have gone off for the holidays too soon and couldn't find time to consolidate the message.
Maybe they have developed a new strategy. Shotgun scatter so much stuff that is is too time consuming for us LLCLs to keep up. If we can't, how will the sheep followers? Oh, I forgot, they don't worry about facts or logic. Their job is to say three bags full.
Have you sent this link to the Dems in the justice and intelligence committees both enemies and friends?
Thanks for finding such a great way to spend your day yesterday.
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WT: "We know where you live, Jew..."
Exactly.
And Dirigo as well: It's on the Front Page of the WaPo, and that's the Point, too. Let everyone know: Big Brother is Watching You, knows where you are, knows what you do, knows what you know and who you know.
Yet another element of the Bushevik War on America that will remain in place no matter who is granted the White House next year.
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Another Thread
...has been started by Mr.G, and I have some work to do today. Bop, you're too much. Catch you later.
Thinking again of "performance issues" as I take my leave, I think you, RMP, and I should consider being the Three Stooges of this community. It's not classical, as WT is suggesting would be better, but I can do that also.
Bye for now ...
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Think about the introduction of new language since GW took office:
Homeland, enemy combattants,war on drugs, tsars,illegal aliens/immigrants....
Look also at the number of new prisons which were built (many I believe by Hall.)
Look also at the way Homeland security was setup now-so that all agencies-even state police-Chertoff has at his disposal to order covert arrests on.
This has already been done-and is not Orwellian prediction.In Operation Falcon a number in the tens of thousands of Mexican workers were rounded up under this very Chertoff direction.
So now with homeland security guiding state agencies-think about it-anyone whom the government decides is a threat to them-can be rounded up as "an enemy combattant-as opposed to the usual wording of POW (being war-specific).
Then we discover this adminstration tortures "enemy combattants" and can "rendition them to other countries".
Last week, the WH also made it legal for itself to kidnap anyone from foreign countries even-disregarding those countries' laws.
Chertoff, as I have been jumping up and down about SCREAMING on Glenn' posts-have outsourced many companies that do biz with telecoms (3rd party, billing...)to other countries,giving them the ability to spy also. Our own govt. can bypass its' own agencies to find info-and get it directly from foreign countries. Foreign countries which have their own interests first over the USs'. (I've read Microsoft has backdoor opportunity for spying...perhaps that is what the Govt case was about back in the late 80's-a method to strongarm Microsoft.)
A court a few weeks ago-threw out much of the Patriot Act declaring the wording too vague for the average American to be able to understand.
Of course I think it was meant to be vague-meant to confuse not only Americans-but other politicians as well.But instead of any politicians asking about clarification on the wording (Patriot Act, MTC Act, Wiretapp..)-they went by thier own interpretations-(which could be many).
I think it's high time politicians pulled the WH into a joint panel and ASK the WH to clarify and simplify the language on.
Should the WH continue to send bills up for passage-make them explain it-or make it "null & void" until they do.
Connect the dots about the big picture of what this WH is trying to do.
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Ché Pasa!
Congratulations on your blog! Bookmark has been added! Is that your picture at the top? Handsome devil.
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Teats on a boar hog
Another image came to me unbidden after I posted my last comment, Ché -- that great fortress of paranoia under the mountain in Colorado. The global command center on springs, by all accounts now as much a mouldering relic as the earlier congressional bolthole under the Greenbriar. These new data centers strike me as the same sort of beast, as useless in any real sense as the Hall of Mirrors in Versailles, or as the boar's extra accoutrements celebrated in that famous Southern proverb shown above.
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Privilage
Many mistakenly assume this adminstration is out to establish a new order based on executive privilage. No. They are out to establish a new order based on privilage- period.
The common thread that runs through all their efforts is advancing the interests of any powerful or privilaged person or institution: First world countries, oil companies, health care & drug industry, corporate management, shadowy intelligence organizations, wealthy militias, rich friends, developers, banks, blue bloods & WASPs, hunters, etc.. They pit themselves against some of the most vulnerable and powerless on earth, respectively: poor, defenseless nations, working class commuters, sick people and children, labor, unindicted prisoners, unarmed citizenary, middle class, first time home owners, borrowers, immigrants & minorities, deer, etc.
This may explain why not just their own partisans, but other privilaged entities, from elite media to powerful democrats find common cause with them
But the cherry on top of this disgrace is just who they found to lead this crusade againt the under-privilaged: a poster child of privilage, the son of a former president and grandson of a US Senator who went to an elite school he'd never ordinarily qualify for, beat legal raps he's never disputed, got out of fighting a war he supported, made money at businesses he knew nothing about, and presided over an office he never sqarely was elected to.