It's not just the right that's to blame [View All]

I'm prepared to get flamed for this, but this is the first time I've seen this article. If this has been discussed before I apologize.

I think this is extremely important, in light of comments discussed recently about Citigroup's expectations as to what they expect in '05, as well as what we all expect as a country after we elect a new President.

IMO we need to be very careful about how we expect to achieve our goals (a more fair society, ending the MIC's domination, moving towards a more democratic republic, etc.)


Black Tuesday
by Gore Vidal
Originally appearing in La Jornada of Mexico, on 9/19/2001. No US publication dared run it.

The Bush administration, despite its disturbing ineptitude in doing its work – except the primary task, which is to exempt the rich from taxes – has been capable of breaking treaties signed by civilized nations such as the Kyoto Protocol and a missile treaty with Russia. (. . .) But to be just, we can’t blame the occupant of the Oval Office for our own ignorance. Bush’s predecessors were assiduous servants of the one- percent that are the owners of the country and cast adrift the rest of the population. Bill Clinton is very guilty of this. If he was the most capable chief executive since FDR, in his frenetic search for election victories he constructed he triggered a kind of political state, that his successor – as I write this – merely has to push a button to start. Political state? What do I mean by that? In April 1996, a year after the events in Oklahoma, President Clinton signed an anti-terrorist law, a supposed consensus law, in which many, many trembling hands had a part, including Senate Majority Leader Robert Dole.

Although Clinton was to win the election, he did many opportunistic, but dim-witted things. He battled the opponents of the anti-terrorism law – which gave the attorney general the power to use the army against the civil population – by annulling the Posse Comitatus principle of 1878, which prohibited, under any circumstance, the use of the military against our people.

Habeas corpus, the heart of Anglo-American liberty, can remain suspended if there is a terrorist in the city. Upon being criticized by groups and individuals demanding respect for the Constitution, Clinton called them "unpatriotic." Then he waved the flag and, in true blockhead fashion, said: "No one can be patriotic or pretend to love his country and despise his government."

This is terrifying, since, from one moment to the next, it can include the majority of the people. I view this from another perspective. In 1939, could a German have considered unpatriotic for detesting Nazis? Black Tuesday is already exerting considerable pressure on our society, pushing it to become more militarized.
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