Yesterday I asked about Americans’ priorities, and then today, I open Yahoo and see that the problem is even worse. Yahoo features an article about Vick and his alleged dogfighting again with the question, “Does Vick Get It?”
Nevertheless, a couple of old white power-mongers can destroy 250 years of Constitutional jurisprudence, the entire basis of the Declaration of Independence, any remaining vestige of the US’s moral authority, and torture indescriminately with absolutely no judicial review while they also monitor your telephone calls, internet searches, mail and trash. I haven’t seen Yahoo or very many angry people asking whether Rumsfeld gets it? Whether Bush gets it? But an NFL Quarterback allegedly dogfighting? Now there’s a major incident that affects the very fiber of our society.
Oh, yeah, that’s right, it is now illegal by Executive Order to criticize the Bush Administration as it may undermine the war effort. Apparently, the seriousness eludes many people, and that is why they’re out of focus.
In July 17, an Executive Order entitled “Blocking Property of Certain Persons Who Threaten Stabilization Efforts in Iraq,” was issued and provides the President with the authority to confiscate the assets of “certain persons” who oppose the US led war in Iraq:
“I have issued an Executive Order blocking property of persons determined to have committed, or to pose a significant risk of committing, an act or acts of violence that have the purpose or effect of threatening the peace or stability of Iraq or the Government of Iraq or undermining efforts to promote economic reconstruction and political reform in Iraq or to provide humanitarian assistance to the Iraqi people.”
In substance, under this executive order, opposing the war becomes an illegal act.
Grave Error 
LMMFAOROTFL.
Although I’ll grant that Bush is treating Iraq in much the same manner as a personal principality, you are going to have to provide more than the quoted text to support that position.
What is stated is that seizure of property for actors of violence, impedance to peace, economics, humanitarian aid and stability will be lawful exchange for aforementioned acts.
There is nothing in the quoted text that states dissenting against/opposing the war is an unlawful act. Summarily, nothing.
You would serve yourself best by taking the time to visit; http://www.constitution.org/mac/disclivy1.htm#1:16, and learn from antiquity the nature of attempting to reclaim stability, in a foreign nation, after the fall/removal of a tyrannical prince.
What? Untenable proposition? I said nothing.
Dude, where’s my critical thinking?
In 1776 we used guerrilla tactics and acted as insurgents to fight the Brits.
The problem now has nothing to do with Sadam. It is simply that the US is seen as an intruder, as colonialists.
The EO allows the President to take property of US citizens in the US that it believes to be undermining the US’s efforts to win the war in Iraq. That sounds like any political protest against the war to me. Say for example, you want the US to pull out, then you got yourself a good case of not wanting us to win.
We got to look at the big picture here.
Exigency: persons determined to have committed, or to pose a significant risk of committing, an act or acts of violence
One who does not engage in violence would appear to have no concern with this EO.
Regardless, and as seems to happen so often, the Prince of Pragmatics, Niccolo Machiavelli, covered this in The Discourses: Bush will never be able to achieve control of Iraq, because “the material of the society was corrupted” before his attempt to create sovereign unity.
Iraq will either collapse, or stay in a state of fundamentalist chaos. Let him continue to hump the air, a fool never learns. He’s an illiterate and a fool, ergo, he’s twice removed from any chance of effective leadership.
Add to that the fact that any nation based upon fundamentalism, is corrupt, both in the material of its social members and social structure/institutions.
FTLOF, it would be nice to have one era in hominid existence where we actually paid attention to the lessons of the past ….
Hominids are f***ing banal and uninteresting in their cosmic stupidity. ::yawn::
This administration has frozen assets of a lot of people, businesses and charities who have committed no acts of violence. Not mention all of citizens the US gov’t is holding indefintiely as ‘material witnesses.’ And i am not referring to the Hamdis and Padillas of the world.
What did the Dude say in the Big Lebowski…. “he treats objects like women.” The US gov’t treats its own citizens like Michael Vick treats animals.
If proof of such, then Constitutional breach, is certainly sufficient grounds for impeachment, and incarceration ~ or preferably execution by firing squad.
That would be a very patriotic event, I’ll bring the roadkill …. errrrr, ummmmm … hotdogs, yeah, hotdogs is what I meant.
material witness:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A31438-2002Nov23
freezing assets:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A48156-2004Nov13?language=printer
http://www.ombwatch.org/article/articleview/2662/1/49?TopicID=2
Renditions:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khalid_El-Masri
(don’t forget to read the release part… they fucking dropped this guy off on a remote road in Albania in the middle of the night).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erroneous_rendition#.22Erroneous_rendition.22
Here is another nice story:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maher_Arar
Two things here CK:
1. Washington Post makes claims without proper evidentiary support given, and neither do they have traceable references; the end result being that although one could argue for soundness of argument, they fail under validity. Unreferenced facts, are of little value, and as an attorney, you should the Washington Post should suffer the vitriol that you serve to the government for dubious activities and specious claims.
2. Wikipedia is horrible for errors, and not in the uncommon sense, rather, in the most certain sense. If you take the time to visit my friend Agnos’ “Today in History” thread from my site, you’ll see just how often Wiki, is worthless.
http://fora.maliciousintellect.com/viewtopic.php?t=175
James,
The big problem right now is that the government’s information policy is “just trust us”. Everytime you see that the alert has gone to orange or red, or that another plot was foiled, all we can do is just believe them. They give no proof, and even if they do, how can we believe them? Like with the famous WMDs we showed to the UN and lied about?
We have secret prisons around the world and Guantanamo, and yet we don’t let any of the prisoners see lawyers. But, the government asks us to trust them. They know what they’re doing.
The problem is you can’t believe anybody these days. It’s all doctored, the news media is just a business selling you something, and the government is always selling you something. Right now, fear keeps these guys in power, and that’s all the have going for them.
I wouldn’t argue any of that cugino.
But judging from the language both you and your brother use, you both seem to work from positions of disgust and disbelief.
Not to engage any unnecessary hubris, but haven’t either of you ever read through history? History of Europe, Greece, Rome, Egypt? Then come back and reread the history of America.
What you will find is that this is all standard modus operandi. The exact same, exact to every detail, with the exception of culturally bound habituations of sociality, situation arises in the world repeatedly. All predicated upon the fact that humans are incapable of actual learning.
LMMFAOROTFL, we still have entire continents running around giving alms and auspices to secure favor with divinity and deities, committing atrocities in the names of these same deities, and then telling the whole world that it is their “right” to do so, because some deity told them so while they were busy stoning their wife and daughter, and hitting the lotus bong.
No reasonable, critically thinking, logical, discerning individual finds these scenarios surprising.
Humans want for a few things, but are more than willing to take the most depraved route to getting them: Power at any cost, recognition of their person as having uniquely indentifiable traits worthy of glory, the ability to sway the opinions of others … and tantamount to all of these, idleness.
Wisdom died long ago, with it went humility, Justice, responsibility and most notably, education towards understanding knowledge as a daily use item.
Both you and your brother are highly intelligent individuals. There is no reason this shouldn’t all be commonly understood by both of you ~ you both have two to three times my educational background.
James,
I didn’t know i was in court and needed admissible E.
I can’t speak for the validity of each fact in the links i sent and wikipedia can be altered by anyone. That being said, i have no doubt in my mind that the US is holding people indefinitely as material witnesses; freezing charities assets for alledged links to terrorism; using what they call ‘rendition,’ and other such tactics. In fact, the gov’t opening admits to doing all of this and much more, i just got you a few links that talked about a few cases. All of this stuff is now out in the open, everything from rendition, material witnesses, freezing assets, domestic snooping, etc. To be honest, most of this is old news (with the exception of the domestic spying stuff) this shit has been going for almost 6 years now. In 2002 I worked on several of these issues, including litigating against the FBI (Joint Terrorism Taskforce- JTF) when i represented a guy JTF labeled as a terrorist. If you are concerned about evidence, these guys would piss you off… at trial they submitted an affidavit (which is not admissible evidence in a trial- you need a body to get the document into evidence). Nevertheless, they judge let them get it in… and all the affidavit said was that the guy had ‘jihad materials,’ which turned out to be the koran. I also worked on case of guy who had his house and business raided and bank accounts frozen b/c he gave a large sum of money to a muslim charity. And I worked on a case of a US citizen studying in Egypt picked up by the CIA and taken to Saudi Arabia and placed in jail w/out a hearing or trial.
The point is that the gov’t is NOT ashamed of this and neither are the religious fundamentalists or isolationists. If listen to what the repubilican (and the democrats to a lesser extent) presidental debates- most of candidates (who are saying what they think the people want hear) talk about expanding Guantanamo and being more aggressive both via military action and curbing US citizens rights (of course they couch in anti-terrorism language). And if you talk to a fundamentalist or an isolationist (which seems to be the average American in 2007) they support this b/c they think that if they aren’t doing around what do they have to worry about.
Anyway
Yes, it’s all commonly understood, but it doesn’t mean it isn’t frustrating. As a matter of fact, when you say that there are entire continents justifying their atrocities in the name of their gods, well that is exactly what we’re all doing, especially our own US of A.
We refuse to fund certain development projects that would save lives because it might mean that people have access to condoms and will have pre-marital sex. Abstain abstain abstain. We are as much of a fundamentalist nation as any other. But, we hide it as best as we can. Then we preach our religion of democracy, but all we care about is what’s in it for us, the big $$$.
As yes, history has shown us how we can invent wars out of nothing like in the Gulf of Tonken and with the Maine in Cuba.
But, still it bothers me.
We are even told that we have to turn a blind eye to certain “religious beliefs” of democracy (like all of our Bill of Rights) because we are at war, and it’s for our own safety. It’s like an abusive parent who tells us that it’s all for own good. But as far as I know, we started one war and other one is going on because we are told that it is going on.
And you’re right, there is nothing new under the sun. It just sucks that twice a year at the same time, right when I get to go home, the alerts all turn to high, just to freak everyone out and increase the military spending — that we all pay for in every sense of the word.
Good stuff, you guys are great.
(You aren’t in court CK, but for intelligent persons in discourse, critical thinking and logic have a standing exigency of validity)
But, you’re doing it, and you are completely ignoring the elephant in the room.
“they” “they” “they” …..
No gentlemen, it is “we” “we” “we”. In our disregard for the lessons of history “we” are to blame. “We” do not take those lessons, and with open minds, accept the plain evidence that there is no objective truth, or physically qualifiable/quantifiable evidentiary support, for nascent human goodness. It is a “proof is in the pudding” sort of scenario, and at the moment that “we” stop putting the “ought” before the “is” … the light will come on.
Humans will act in accordance with the base principles of their being, individually, and more dangerously, socially. “We” allow politicians to become aristocrats, “we” allow corporate mongrels to become oligarchs, and then we sit around on the internet, complaining that “they” are doing the licentious and ignominious to “us”.
So, “we” have to ask ourselves an obective question: who is more to blame, the corrupted entity, or the enabler(s) of corruption?
If we desire a Constitution that flows from history to present with it’s properties firmly intact, as a true living document, spirit and intent, do we not have the responsibility, the purposeful obligation to actually be enablers to that end?
The other option, is to continue as “we” are now. A nation of snivelers on the internet, newspaper writers who only tell the side of the story that suits their personal agenda, lawyers who argue for the paycheck instead of the facts, the corporate worker who sits back and lets their company lie to the public with false presentations of charity and concern while putting our fellow nationals in the unemployment line … and the list goes on and on.
For my own person, I don’t believe in “they”, only “we” …. or the known future events, which history tells us, will most certainly come, in rather short order.
I’ll get back to you on the religious aspects Eric, in a bit. You are right, but the whole scenario has to be told, pragmatically.
James,
I agree w/ your last post. It is “we,” no doubt about it. And “we” need to make a change. I am ready, willing and trying (close to) my best.
And I think Eric’s original point was that “we” as a society, ‘don’t get it,’ in other words are outraged about the wrong issues.
Yes, it’s all commonly understood, but it doesn’t mean it isn’t frustrating. As a matter of fact, when you say that there are entire continents justifying their atrocities in the name of their gods, well that is exactly what we’re all doing, especially our own US of A.
Don’t mistake my stance cugino, my awareness of that particular item is no less than yours, although the perspective of its necessity is likely different.
We refuse to fund certain development projects that would save lives because it might mean that people have access to condoms and will have pre-marital sex. Abstain abstain abstain. We are as much of a fundamentalist nation as any other. But, we hide it as best as we can. Then we preach our religion of democracy, but all we care about is what’s in it for us, the big $$$.
Save whose life? How do we know, or is this another of those social concensus items? I’ve used condoms a number of times, and only once did one survive intact … dependent upon how “rigorous” or “active” one is during intercourse, condoms most often do not survive.
Granted, being fully aware of my own pubescent proclivities in making certain to get “free time” away from parental observation, abstainence is rather ludicrous as a policy.
As the violently minded father of a female child, I would like some rational policy to aid in securing her safety until she is of a “proper” age to make her own determinations. Please don’t turn this to umbrage, but as a non-parental individual, you have no idea how much concern or, (I hate this f***ing word), “stress” it causes. You aren’t being pragmatic about the situation at all … watch American T.V. with an objective eye, for about 12 hours, and count the innuendos and open sexual banter and display on virtually all channels, even those “made for kids”.
The corruption of the media is more to blame for policies such as this, than a Puritan fundamentalist government. It’s a social mechanism called “pendulum overswing”.
As yes, history has shown us how we can invent wars out of nothing like in the Gulf of Tonken and with the Maine in Cuba.
But, still it bothers me.
FTLOF, do you have any objectivity in your thinking?
Yes, America, “The Great Satan”, the only country to ever do wrong … your ass.
Obviously, you haven’t read history, or commentary such as that would never be put out. How about the beloved Spanish, and Christopher Columbus, (rapist, murderer, looter, pillager, biological terrorist, violent occupier, destroyer of culture, history, religion, and societies) … or hell, let’s take the whole Spanish Conquistador movement, destroying cultures in Guam, the Phillipines, all over the South Pacific and South America … enslaving, torturing, murdering, raping, looting, pillaging, destroying culture, history, religion and societies …
Wait, what about the Greeks? The Turks/Ottomans? The Romans? The Gauls? The Britons? The Egyptians? Nimrod and Babylon ring a bell?
How far back do you want to go? Even today France and Germany are using diplomacy and economic tactics in subversive movements to work at resource colonialism? What about Putin? He wants the whole world back in shackles under the Hammer and Sickle? What about Castro who is still torturing and murdering anyone for even saying anything negative about him? How about the wars in Latin America and South America still raging today? Ever heard of Sudan or Darfur? How about Iran, yeah, Iranian President Ahmedinajad isn’t an imperialist pig f***er on a fundamentalist mission and a typical Muslim puke? Pakistan? Saudi Arabia? Syria? I guess Kim Jong Il is just a misguided soul in need of some therapy?
What bothers me is to hear repeated complaints about this country, completely bereft of objectivity, while most of the rest of the world is a smoking shit hole, by their own leaders designs. Yet, no real complaints about those “others” ….
As far as religion being a base premise for legislative guidance … find a country where those belief structures are not used to write laws …
Machiavelli’s determinations in this instance are of the finest caliber: you cannot control the masses without religious institutions. He’s says that, and then clearly, with atomic precision, declares how it is the human mind is so in desperate need of something to believe in, and religion is the least evil of available choices. Even a feigning glance throughout the world will tell, the Prince wins again. He goes further to describe their eventual downfall, and the corruption it will create in society when this and other social institutions break down. (Hello, 1513 A.D. … 500 years ago … anyone there? Hello?)
We are even told that we have to turn a blind eye to certain “religious beliefs” of democracy (like all of our Bill of Rights) because we are at war, and it’s for our own safety. It’s like an abusive parent who tells us that it’s all for own good. But as far as I know, we started one war and other one is going on because we are told that it is going on.
That’s scary beyond all reason, that you would use an analogy like “abusive parent” to describe government corruption … wow, the simulacra owns your mind if you actually believe that tripe.
Governments, of unrestrained oligarchs and aristocrats; whereby the citizenry of the country is more involved with disseminating the tales of the neighbors depravities and indecencies, as opposed to active and dutiful citizenship; will find them doing engaging quite the library subterfuges to hide their less than virtuous activities …
And you’re right, there is nothing new under the sun. It just sucks that twice a year at the same time, right when I get to go home, the alerts all turn to high, just to freak everyone out and increase the military spending — that we all pay for in every sense of the word.
Here’s a bit of information you might like to consider, and it is of the sort, that even our elder generations do not really care to be apprised:
Standing military from forcible taxation: Socialism
Social Security from forcible taxation:
Socialism
Federal Reserve and National Treasury, who control all monies and values, from forcible taxation:
Socialism
Public Assistance Programs, from forcible taxation:
Socialism
Government controlled property, (Eminent Domain), received by means of improper state authority and forcible taxation:
Socialism
Government controlled religious policies, with forcible taxation for support:
Socialism
Let me know if you want me to continue the list, as I can go on for quite some time. In the interim, this is what you state you desire, yet, lo and behold, you seem to have more grievances than approbations? Strange.
The conclusion is as thus:
The human mind requires systems of created value judgments, ergo religious beliefs will forever taint our thinking. You cannot terminate beliefs, and even if you do for a short period, something else will rise to take its place, different name, same shit.
Hominid is, as hominid does. Your desires and wants for change of “human nature”, although understandable in context, are wasteful of energy.
The Republic died within 120 years of the inception of this country in formalised fashion.
With the onset of the Industrial Revolution, Democracy died within a quarter century.
We are a Representative Socialism, and neither will this avail us of the ills to come, or those still latent in our bowels from historicity.
CK:
You are absolutely correct. Neither those Americans here, nor abroad “get it”. When combining unfounded hubristic umbrage, with nugatory attention spans, and blatant self-inflicted idiocy on a societal level; “getting it” “ain’t” “gonna” “happen”
I’ll take the silence to equate to this:
Doğru soyleyen dokuz koyden kovular
Turkish Proverb