In today’s column in the San Francisco Chronicle, regarding the revelations about the Bush administration spying on American citizens in blatant and unashamed violation fo the Constitution, Jon Carroll writes:
….what I can’t get is the Bush administration’s hysterical reaction to the revelations. A presidential spokesman named Trent Duffy said, “The fact that al Qaeda’s playbook is not printed on Page One, and when America’s is, it has serious ramifications.”
(Al Qaeda’s playbook? Does it sometimes seem to you that the government is being run by retired athletic directors?)
But seriously, can you envision a terrorist picking up the New York Times and saying, “My God, men, the government may have been listening in to our telephone calls. Quick, let’s find another way to communicate.” I think probably they’ve figured that part out by now. I think the idea that the New York Times somehow leaked super-duper secrets to the enemy is ludicrous.
…
all the sports-metaphor moralizing has nothing to do with national security — it has to do with changing the subject. It ignores the biggest problem of all — that the Bush administration is just not very good at its job. It has mucked up the Iraq war, and it has attempted to silence all the generals and diplomats who have said so. It has imperiled the lives of Iraqis and Americans alike. It did manage to create the Halliburton full- employment initiative, but that does not seem like a large achievement.
The Sept. 11 commission, it will be recalled, issued its final report late last year. In it, it said that the administration had taken none of the steps recommended in its previous report. Beyond making passenger airplane travel safer, the Department of Homeland Security has done nothing useful. Laws designed to improve security have turned into engines by which midsize cities in the districts of elderly congressmen can buy shiny new fire engines.
…
The administration lives in a sort of fantasy world where petroleum consumption has no long-term consequences…. And the hurricane season would not have been as severe were it not for the changes brought about by global warming. The administration still treats global warming as some sort of zany hypothesis, when it has long since been accepted as fact by anyone really paying attention. And, lest we forget, the No. 1 cause of global warming is emissions from petroleum-burning machines.
Read the column here.
I – like Jon Carroll have always assumed that this kind of eavesdropping was going on and that data mining technology was being used domestically. That isn’t what bothers me. What bothers me is that in the conext of the revelation that this has been going on, the President has abruptly declared that he is no longer bound by acts of Congress signed into law. He made the same declaration when he signed the bill that contains the McCain amendement. Not even back when the Chicago Police were beating the heads of photographers outside the Democratic National Convention, did I ever imagine that our nation would descend to the point where the phrases “legalizing torture” and “extraordinary rendition” and “indefinite detention” would enter our ordinary discourse. But here we are!
All that shit we heard in the ’60s that I thought was paranoid turned out to be true.
Scary shit.
David:
Agree with you on the many deficiencies of the Bush administration and with the man himself. Thankfully, we’ll be done with him soon.
On the global warming stuff, you are correct in that the fact of global warming is not disputed by science. However, the causes of global warming and the EXTENT to which man’s activities are contributing to this situation have not been quantified and are still being debated by reasonable minds. So, it is not factually correct to conclude, at this juncture, that “the No. 1 cause of global warming is emissions from petroleum-burning machines.”
This may well turn out to be true, and I think we would do well to behave as if this were known as fact, and do everything reasonable to avoid burning oil. However, it’s not a scientific fact at this point…even though I wish it were!
What ever happened to checks and balances? The expansion of presidential power appears to be the real legacy of this administration. I would like to hope that we will look back on this period and remember the dark time of threat in the past. I have real fear that it is human nature not to ever want to give up power, once you have it. We may have to look back on this as the beginning of freedom’s demise. I hope we can still make a difference. I called my congressman to let him know how I feel.
Is Journalism totally dead? Or better yet, Journalism HAS been dead for at least twenty five years…
All this Media buzz about the evil eavesdrop. Picking up on Paul’s comment.. Does anybody think the NSA has ever followed the rules, Bush, or no Bush?
I was a young teen growing up in Chicago during the Democratic Convention, The Chicago Seven Trial and the SDS “Five Days of Rage”. It was a politically formative experience. A shock I might say. During the Convention I saw something quite ominous, that I later learned researching my Senior Thesis on the NSA, was related to a domestic NSA spying operation called the “Garden Plot”.
The NSA was conducting illegal surveillance of anti-war dissidents, but was it just surveillance? Were they prepared to
go further? During a daytime rally in Lincoln Park Jerry Rubin
was pumping up a large crowd on a baseball diamond in what is part of Chicago’s “Gold Coast” (Rich&Famous). I was a bystander
on the outer perimeter of this group when I happened to notice
two men in military uniforms on the roof a luxury high-rise apartment building. One held binoculars and the other a rifle.
Were those two National Guardsmen? Was the government interested in Jerry Rubin? If things got out of hand in that neighborhood (the rally was tear gassed) were snipers there for a reason? Was the NSA within the law?
Maybe somebody forgot to apply for a permit.