Friday, September 29, 2006

 
so while prancing around the blogosphere, tiptoeing through the tulips of Belledame and Kactus (hi, you guys!), I came across Glenn Greenwald, where I learned the disturbing, but not at all surprising, news that Sen. Lieberman voted FOR the Reversal of The Constitution Act of 2006.

ew. Seriously? ew.

Normally, I don't comment on politics, not only because I don't want to offend folks but because frankly I Just Don't Get It. I don't understand any of it deeply enough to actually be offensive to anyone (well, maybe offensively ignorant...).

And this issue is no different - I just don't understand how any individual who survived 8th grade civics could possibly see this as a good idea. Does nobody read Sinclair Lewis anymore?

I feel like someone told an elaborately dirty joke but all I heard was the punchline, a little too late and wildly out of context.

"No more habeas FUCKING corpus! get it? Bwa-hahahaha!"

Huh? Idungeddit.

I need help with this. Normally in cases where I don't understand the controversy over something I do one of two things -

1)I research all the pros and cons and lefts and rights and all the opinions from all sides of the story (even the truth). I look very carefully and thoroughly into the position of the viewpoint I oppose, and try my very hardest to see the Other Side of the Story, as objectively and reasonably and fairly as I can, with all the civility and rationality I can muster. Because I can't understand my own point of view completely unless I also understand the other guy.

OR

2)I ignore it all completely.

Now this issue seems to demand a third option, which I can't seem to grasp at the moment.

any thoughts?

Comments:
3) alcohol. lots of it.

Lieberman doesn't surprise me at all.
 
I second what she said. Weekend coming on in a few hours, you might as well. :)

(I took the handle because there are a lot of things in this life that make me say exactly what you posted in my comments. Cheers!)
 
not tonight...don't want a hangover to spoil tomorrow's great adventure...

Sen. Fuckstain is apparently up in the polls lately. how does that happen?
 
welcome, interrobang!
rock on with your punctuation!
 
As a former resident of CT I can identify. A lot of my friends are voting for Lamont. And this should really chill all Americans...
link here

Bruce Ackerman, a critic of the administration and a professor of law and political science at Yale University, sharply criticized the bill but agreed that it strengthened the White House position. “The president walked away with a lot more than most people thought,” Mr. Ackerman said. He said the bill “further entrenches presidential power” and allows the administration to declare even an American citizen an unlawful combatant subject to indefinite detention.
 
I would say embrace despair. It's easy. You can go about your business that way and just kill time until the bombs drop.

I've been trying to lose all hope for some time, but I can't pull it off because I have a brilliant son and a number of beautiful and brilliant students.

The jerks.

And you women--you and belle and gandhi and kristin--in that picture GR posted at her site. That gives me hope too.

That and Jose Quervo.

TS
 
I sat down with my daughter and tried to explain to her, in terms that she would understand, that when she gets old enough she should try to leave the country. I told her not to trust the media or politicians to be truthful, but to educate her own self about the evil that's taken over our country. She's heard enough of my ranting over the last few years to know that it's getting extremely serious. She knows that if I could I would take her and flee, and I'm not exaggerating one bit.

At the risk of sounding melodramatic, I think I know what the good german people were going through in those years leading up to WW2. It's not an overnight shock to the system, but a steady, demoralizing erosion, until you can't clearly remember what true liberty felt like.
 
Kactus~ I have to say that's extremely discouraging. As a mom, I get it. Truly, I hear you. Having seen other parts of the world that are in better or worse shape than we are, I hear you. And being fed the fuck up, sad, sorry and disillusioned, I still hear you. But there is no way on God's green earth I am ever going to give up on the people I see here. We have come too far. We have managed more since this country's inception than almost any other country on the globe by way of revolution, reform, advance and political change. Very little of this was at the hands of the government. It came from the demands and persistence of the people to see these bills enacted, to change the way we are regarded, to get something better for ourselves. You are exactly the kind of person that's needed because you're willing to say FUCK NO. Give that to your daughter. It's applicable in a lot more situations than citizenship. I won't be bullied out. God help me, but I believe in 'We the People'. I've had this classic punk song stuck in my head for the longest time. Only now am I realizing that I'm scoring the political climate, putting music to what I read and see and think about what's going on in this country.

When they kick out your front door
How you gonna come?
With your hands on your head
Or on the trigger of your gun

You can crush us
You can bruise us
But you'll have to answer to
Oh- the guns of Brixton

So maybe the Clash isn't the most articulate way to discuss the intricacies of polisci and the realities it presents: Don't fucking care. I am at leisure to say whatever I please, whenever I please. My country gave me that and I'm giving it right back to them - both barrels.
 
Go, Kristin! thanks, I needed that this morning.
 
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