"Our actual safety doesn’t enter into the calculation."

What's really awful about that: If there's another attack on American soil, people will rally around Bush again, and we'll get another round of worthless but burdensome security measures*.

Sheesh.

* I can picture the planning meeting: "Let's put the National Guard troops that roam airport terminals in FULL BODY ARMOR and have them tote around 50 cal machine guns! Then people would KNOW we're serious about protecting them!"

This is good. I appreciate the insight in point 1 particularly.

One aspect of the entire Clarke affair that only struck me after it had time to sink in was when Leslie Stahl made a comment about how he was bringing down a smear campaign upon himself. Well, of course. We all know that, but the thing is, we've gotten desensitized to something we need to remain aware of. Isn't it an odd thing that it's a foregone conclusion now? I'm not sure when the turning point was, but I think it was in '96, when the GOP took the House, that we could pretty much count on anything that would outrage the Republican machine generating this kind of smear campaign.

I wouldn't call myself desensitized. Terrified, is more like it. The message they send is, "We won't just win the fight; we'll win it by any available means, fair or otherwise; and then we'll destroy you personally for having opposed us." I got scared sometime between the crushing of J. H. Hatfield, the South Carolina campaign that brought down John McCain, and the undisguised attack on the vote count in Florida that made it clear that these people don't expect to ever fall out of power. In all my life I've never been scared before in quite this way, and I resent it, and I can't shake it. Say what you will about any of the preceding presidents, but they counted us as fellow-citizens, and had an attachment to democracy that went beyond lip service.

Actually, it's even a little worse than what Stefan said.

If there's no attack between now and November then we should vote for Bush, because he has kept us safe. If there is an attack between now and November then we should vote for Bush, because the world is a dangerous place and we can't let the terrorists divert us from our course.

We're dealing with an updated version of Morton's Fork.

There must be something in the air, after reading a fair chunk of Persepolis I decided to rent Hand Maid's Tale tonight (you know, just in case I wasn't feeling bleak enough.) Is this how the women of Iran felt in the 70's? That surely everyone will see what maddness this is? That surely my fellow citizens will not fall for these lies? We are taught to view all change as forward progress, but will it all just turn out to be some later cultures' dark age?

Y'all, at the very outside, should have started hanging various members of the administration just as soon as the Attorney-General of the United States started holding prisoners incommunicado without charge.

(Anyone willing to make the Second Amendment 'defence against tyranny' argument should presently be asked why they haven't shot John Ashcroft. And no, legality is not an acceptable reason; that argument presumes extralegality of action is legitimate.)

It's still not too late, but don't kid yourselves that this lot recognize the legitimacy of voting, democratic institutions, or the rule of law.

They don't; they're the natural product of corporate autocracy, and the belief that someone else always pays and that they always profit which has been allowed to persist and extend itself throughout the business -- meaning default, common, daily -- culture of the Western world.

Farmers leavened with shopkeepers and professionals each have their own income, their own work and standing and status, along with heavy doses of reality in the form of weather; salaried employees have the necessity of obedience, while managers have -- at sufficiently high level -- the reliable option of expending employees to avoid personal responsibility.

It is not purely so, but that's the shape of the thing; capitalism becomes the iron boot of tyranny because that's what everyone is used to in their daily lives. It becomes as natural as breathing to submit and obey, to accept that one's life is intractably unjust, that others shall have the greater part of the profit of one's labour, and that the needs of faceless others are of inherently greater concern than your own good health and prosperity.

A farmer doesn't have to accept that; an employee does.

It need not be so; the slavers and the aristos insist that this is the only possible organization of an economy, into a hundred thousand petty tyrannies free of any moderation of law, but they are wrong. Organization is not required to beget tyranny; it's quite likely that the non-tyrannical forms work much better, not just as well.

I could wish I could believe there was a way from here to there that didn't involve a river of blood, but I don't.

Luster??

And here I thought that was an oil slick!

Scorpio
Eccentricity

This is why I know so many people who will vote for anyone likely to beat Bush. Of course, then there's the whole voting-machine thing going on...any way around that?

cassie: vote by absentee ballot. encourage other people to do so as well.

personally, i just signed up to be an election judge. i'm in minnesota, so i'm not sure how many democrat election judges they'll need... but i signed up!

What scares me is that I know some otherwise reasonable people who think that Bush really is protecting them. One childhood friend of mine even thinks that "scaring our allies" is a good thing, and doesn't mind if we wind up as a tyranny as long as fetuses are protected. And this is an educated man - he's only come into his radical thought system in the last couple of years. He also rejects any argument I might make because I'm a "Bush Hater." I can only hope that he's a rare bird.

I agree that this administration has little respect for democratic institutions - I only hope that we can turn them out of office using the tools that they disdian, truth and accurate ballot counting.

Graydon:

The USA has a Family Farm myth, that plays into stuff like Smallville. Reality is a lot different. Fewer than 3 percent of the population are involved in agriculture...

And generally regarding agriculture, consider e.g. ancient Rome and its agriculture, it was =not- based on Small Family Farms.... It had huge estate farms, with lots of slaves. WHen it became an empire it got most of the wheat from Egypt, where the farms had slaves, and had owners who often rented out the fields. They, too, used a lot of slaves. That doesn't sound like family freeholder no-management agriculture to me.

I had relatives who had a dairy farm with 200 cows back before there was a glut of milk and the federal government paid people to get out of the dairy business. It was a family farm, but had a number of employees, meaning that the farmers were managers. The farm a half mile away, which is pretty much the last one left in town, grows flowers and vegetables and fruit, and it has employees, and employes seasonal workers to pick fruit and vegetables. It's a family farm, but it has employees.

As for Bully Boy Bush and his Bunch of Bully Buddies [their actions very much remind me of schoolyard bullies, and I had eleven years of unwanted unpleasant association with the species], I don't have positive things to say.

Bush is NOT my idea of "human," the man is closer to what an old acquaintance calls "a paraliterate -- someone who can read and write but doesn't like to and prefers not to and wishes they couldn't." Bush does not read newspapers, he doesn't watch news on TV, he expects other people who do that to give him m/i/d/d/l/e s/c/h/o/o/l b/o/o/k reports and filter everything for him, telling him what they saw/read.

Hmm, he sounds like some sort perturbation on a classical 1950 stereotype Ideal Female, who lives her life through what her Husband does, she's at home being a homemakers while the husband is out interacting in the world, and she runs his life by remote control and lives vicariously through his achievements. Here we have a politician who has a clear resemblance to clay lumphood, sitting by intention isolated from what the hoi polloi see and read, limiting the input from anyone with opinions he doesn't want to have to pay attention to or whom his censors consider unworthy of having their opinions forwarded to the d/i/c/t/a/t/o/r Politician allegedly "leading"....

"Marat we're poor, and the poor stay poor...." doesn't quite apply, because bullies' policies have increase the percentage of poor in the country, are bankrupting people who were once "middle class" and are concentrating every-larger percentages of the wealth and resources and financial control of the country, into the hands of them and their associates like Lay, the Tycho looters, etc.

Paula--You wrote: "the Tycho looters" You mean they're on the Moon too?! God help us...

What's the "morton's fork" that Matt refers to?

US ports aren't secure? You're kidding, right? As a visa-holding non-USian I've had to be fingerprinted and photographed entering the US and as a result not only missed my connecting flight but every other connecting flight that day. So you're telling me that they can spend the money to inconvenience human beings who've already been searched up the wazoo, but they can't come up with a dime to make sure there are no nuclear weapons in inanimate container ships? That's insane.

I just finished rereading Vinge's _A Deepness in the Sky_, the one about the artfully translated Spiders, and I realized that Bush & Co. have improved it greatly since I read it last.

When I first read it in what, 1999, I thought Tomas Nau and the Emergency were cartoon villains, evil just for the sake of it, but this time through I saw the real life parallels.

In particular, there is one scene where the humans are in deep shit, it's about to get a lot worse, and Nau is already planning how the coming mass deaths on his watch can be used to consolidate his power.

Morton's Fork: Morton was Henry VII's Chancellor of the Exchequer: ie the man charged with raising money for the King.

He would visit nobles: if they entertained him well, obviously they were rich, and could pay lots of tax. If they entertained poorly, obviously they were saving everything and could pay lots of tax...

To pick a few at random: blowing up Chemical Ali’s house, rather than securing and searching it for records relating to presumed WMDs. Casually and needlessly alienating our potential allies and information sources.

Or not lifting a finger to secure any supposed suspected WMD sites. Letting local residents near one site (I forget the name -- all my Iraqi WMD knowledge has been replaced by more relevant stuff like the names of Shia clerics) take away some nice, useful, contaminated barrels. Letting anyone who may have been looking for nuclear, biological or chemical warfare materials to steal any quantities of same that may have existed. Etc, etc, etc.

Thank you, Tim.

US ports aren't secure? You're kidding, right?

Sadly no.
Homeland Security has spent a lot of money for splashy programs with a lot of sound and fury (and patronage) that look showy, but avoided some of the necessary fundamental changes that would really make us secure.

For all the expense on air travel, next to nothing has been done to examine or protect cargo containers at U.S. seaports. And that's a real vulnerability, antiterrorism experts acknowledge.

Since so far, Al Qaeda has rarely attacked the same way twice, we've just spent a lot of money on a Maginot line in the airports (and getting people accustomed to humiliating cattle car style searches) without protecting against what's coming in through shipping channels.

Teresa, I share your terror. I'm old enough to remember Nixon, and the more I found out about the Nixon Administration, the more scared I got. Even so, the current guys strike me as orders of magnitude worse.

What really worries me is this: I read a lot of political blogs and other commentary, particularly comment from the left side of things. All of these sites do a tremendous job of pointing out what's wrong with the way things are now, and explaining why the US (and nations like mine, Australia, that follows US policy to a worrying degree) has to change course. It's great stuff to read, and to know that there are people in the US who do have brains in their heads, who do care about the rule of law, and so forth.

But is it enough? Is it making a difference to anyone? Is it helping turn the tide against Bush and his minions? I don't know that it is. I would hate to see all this passionate, illuminating effort poured forth on tremendous websites across America, only for the bad guys to win again. I fear that if they do win again, then sometime around 2007 something Utterly Dreadful will happen that will cause the government to suspend the constitution and for Emperor Bush to start ruling by decree, elections put off until the crisis is over (more or less the way we're waiting until the War on Terror is "over").

So, yes. I'm freaking out over here. And feeling additionally disturbed that our prime minister, John Howard, just loves the special attention he's getting Bush and Co. He can't wait to implement US policy here, and to act as America's deputy in regional matters.

Then again, I guess I could be "just" one of those "Bush Haters", eh? And what would I, a mere Australian, know about anything?

That was a top post. Keep it up.

Teresa strongly prefers I not post what I drafted in response to Graydon's remarks above, so I won't.

I will only note that a lot of countries in the modern era have gone through periods of having their political life dominated and distorted by authoritarian oligarchs, and many of them have managed to struggle to (or re-achieve) something like democracy without "rivers of blood."

I also think that, while we're beating our breasts and wailing over our political misfortune, perhaps we should run to, oh, for instance, Vaclav Havel for sympathy. No, wait. Maybe we should wait until we've been clapped in jail for at least one year before we do that.

I don't mean to minimize the wickedness of the gang in charge. But I think their grip on power is still a lot more fragile, and we have a lot more options, than have been the case in many places and times elsewhere in the world's recent history.

What we face is a job. We have to beat these guys, and we have to re-establish something like normal politics. But it's doable. It would help, at this point in time, to put a cork on all the dramatic talk about hanging people and rivers of blood.

Here's another bit of paranoia to toss into the mix:

I used to travel about 50% of my workweek (one reason why I no longer work for that company). During one of the "security" spikes where "random" passengers get screened again during the boarding process, I noticed something a bit odd. The security screeners were two men and one woman. I handed over my bags to the two men, and was wand-searched by the woman. After getting my things back, I wondered what on Earth was nagging at me over this process (other than the obvious, "It's invasive and uncomfortable to have somebody paw through your stuff"). I looked back and watched the others who were screened, watched them get back into line (long delays are good for observation, if nothing else) and realized that out of a flight of 150 or so people, they had only chosen young-ish women traveling alone to screen.

So much for "random."

Those searches are often thorough enough where they rifle through your wallet, giving them a quick peek at your driver's licence. Any mystery writers are welcome to the plot - unraveling why serial killer chose various women as victim... eventually traced back to the same flight...

I hate feeling paranoid (not a normal occurrence) - does anyone else think that's creepy, or should I just don a tinfoil hat and get on with life?

Paula --

In, say, 1800, when the system was settling out, most people in the US with the vote were farmers; generally pretty cantankerous freeholders. Which is the period of 'farmers leavened with shopkeepers' that I meant, the one the form of government the US was meant to deal with. (Most of the careful power limitations are the wrong limitations for constraining large corporates.)

I'm not sure where you're connecting latifunda to my argument; the south had chattel slavery, but even there, most of the people -- the great majority of the people -- with a vote were freeholders. It's an important part of how the founders conceptualized voting.

One consequence of 'one citizen, one vote', and particularly finally starting to enforce that forty years ago so that non-white citizens had votes, is that it completely delegitimizes voting as an activity from the point of view of the cultural descendants of the Old South; they were already pre-disposed to have doubts about voting, but that clinched it. No system that could have the result could possibly be in accord with God's will, and they've been setting out to replace the system ever since.

There are two basic human cultural templates -- guardian and trader, to borrow the Jane Jacobs terms.

Guardian virtues are loyalty, xenophobia, prowess, and courage.

Trader virtues are reliability, xenophilia, adaptability, and pragmatism.

Your basic guys-on-big-horses, smiling-merchant split; essential to society to have both. (Farming can be run out of either set of tropes; it's better if it's Trader, though, because Guardian farms tend to be latifunda.)

If you get first-order mutations in the tropes, stuff starts to go wrong. Guardians with no requirement for prowess or courage turn into looters; traders with no requirement for adaptability turn into rent-seeking monopolists. Take Guardian tropes into trade and you get the Mafia; take Trader tropes into running a war and you get Robert McNamara or the Ross Rifle.

The current bunch running the US are trying to convincing everyone they're good Guardians; they're actually twisted traders, the same basic pattern as the company store. Say you're nice guys; loot through restricting economic choice to what you're selling, and keep it restricted with as much force as it takes.

Another angle to look at this from is the view of votes from the shareholders to confirm the board; pretty much anything is OK, so long as you get the rubber stamp.

That's the benefit of the doubt version for the Bush administration's view of voting. The real thing almost certainly includes worse things, starting with autocratic theocracy and heading off into militant racism.

"But is it enough? Is it making a difference to anyone? Is it helping turn the tide against Bush and his minions?"

Gee, I dunno, read any news from the ongoing election lately?

Kerry was a couple of points ahead in most polls for a week or two. Then there were several days of Bush being a notch ahead. Right now the picture is mixed.

This is hugely better than the picture a year ago, when Bush was crushing everyone in trial heats. Here in 50% America, the contest is now neck-and-neck, and liable to continue that way.

If you feel like you're not doing anything effective, there's a quick cure. Get out your plastic and give the Kerry campaign some money. I personally recommend $100. Then do the same for the DCCC and the DSCC.

Remember, the point isn't to build the new Jerusalem, crusade for utopia, or establish a libertarian paradise. The point is to get rid of these bastards and re-establish normal American politics, with all the usual compromises, dissemblings, backroom deals, and other moral misdemeanors that implies. All of which is one hell of an improvement on the rule of unfettered Might Makes Right, which is what we're on our way to right now.

So, yeah, I'm saying, give money to a bunch of moderate Democrats. Do it now, do it frequently, and do it all the way to November. As the great weblogger Billmon has observed, these are the kinds of times that call for the old-fashioned notion of a "Popular Front." We can fight all the other battles later.

And for what it's worth, I quite like Graydon's "guardians" and "traders" model.

Of course, as I was playfully suggesting in my most recent open thread, much of life can be mapped onto the dichotomy of your choice. See also Tappan King's observation that almost everybody is in some fundamental sense either a drug dealer or a spy. (Drug dealer, here.)

Regarding the failure to do diddly to protect containerized shipping: this is high on the list of reasons I'm convinced that the Bush Administration is fine with the idea of me being dead.

Patrick --

I'm the product of almost purely Guardian tropes, so I'm a really pessimistic planner.

In large part, many of these things come down to the willingness and ability of a government to kill its own citizens in pursuit of maintaining its grip on power.

The current US administration is entwined with a decades-long rhetorical effort to establish a climate of belief in which it is perceived as legitimate for them to do that; Dave Niewert's excellent articles documenting this are some of the most frightening reporting coming out of the United States just now, much more frightening (to me) than the evidence of the Bush Administration's general incompetence in governing.

In the late 1950s and early 1960s, the murder of civil rights workers removed a significant degree of legitimacy from the forces opposed to the civil rights movement. Those forces learnt from this; they're doing their well-funded damnedest to change it, so that the murder of 'liberals' is legitimate in the present political climate.

A core concern with progressive politics is the question of what the other side regards as losing, so that you can get them to agree that they've lost on a particular issue.

I'm certain you've seen far more of that in small organizations than I have, where someone will not stop -- they know they're right, so losing the vote doesn't matter; they know they're right, so disagreement doesn't matter; they know they're right, so your opposition to their position must spring from base motives.

This lot have already made it really, really clear that they hold all of those positions, in a complete disdain of empiricism; the only places they have to go from where they're standing is (further) off into 'I will hurt you until you obey' or into admitting that they're wrong.

They're also off into a reality map where nothing is evidence that they're doing something wrong, so nothing is a reason to stop trying to implement their policies. The growing disaster of Iraq, or the consequences of the tax cuts, are clear evidence for that.

So, yes, certainly there is at least a job of work; if that job of work succeeds as work, that shall be a very good thing.

And certainly I would like a reason to believe that the various reactionary forces involved will turn back from the brink, or will be prevented from any desire to impose by force what they cannot obtain by consent. It is perhaps a deficiency in my perception that I cannot see one.

Teresa, I share your terror. I'm old enough to remember Nixon, and the more I found out about the Nixon Administration, the more scared I got. Even so, the current guys strike me as orders of magnitude worse.

You're not the only one who feels that way.
Don't know if you heard, but John Dean has a new book coming out next month: Worse Than Watergate: The Secret Presidency of George W. Bush.

The Dean book is out. I saw it on the shelves at the Union Square Barnes & Noble last night -- the same store that was completely sold out of Richard Clarke's book. (We walked down to the Astor Place B&N, which had the Clarke book in stock.)

Graydon writes: "I would like a reason to believe that the various reactionary forces involved will turn back from the brink, or will be prevented from any desire to impose by force what they cannot obtain by consent."

Because things change. New generations have different needs. Outside forces act on situations in ways that can't be predicted. Powerful coalitions degrade as internal stresses build. If the opposition has its act together, it can take advantage of each of these, as they happen singly or together.

The fact is that frighteningly ruthless oligarchies "turn back from the brink" of full-scale horror all the time, arguably more often than they don't. What really needs to be examined is those instances (1930s Germany, the China of the "Cultural Revolution", the Rwandan calamity) where a society goes sailing over the brink. It's not actually all that common.

"It is perhaps a deficiency in my perception that I cannot see one."

Perhaps; perhaps not. What's definitely a "deficiency in your perception" is that you don't see how your constant harping serves primarily to frighten good people into terrified quiescence.

I long ago realized that one of the great enemies of environmental progress was the activist habit of couching every single environmental danger as an apocalypse in waiting. If you convince people that doom is inevitable, they'll just cocoon. I'm beginning to think that the same is true of the Present Emergency.

Graydon, I agree with you that business is all too apt to become petty tyranny, but I don't know what the way out is--people have tried to avoid having pointy-haired bosses, but such businesses don't seem to do as well as I'd expect them to even though pointy-haired bosses are very expensive. Perhaps banks are unwilling to lend to non-standard organizations?

My tentative take on the way out of the current mess is for people generally to have enough capital and information to start their own businesses so that they aren't trapped by the need for employment, but I don't know how to get from here to there.

Patrick, thanks for comments on not being near the "rivers of blood" stage. Nitpick: As Graydon said, Jane Jacobs came up with the Guardian/Trader distinction. It's in her _Systems of Survival_.

I am interested to see if the 9/11 commission is able to get Connie Rice to testify in public. The remarks I heard on NPR this morning were that they felt iof Richard Clarke was forced to testify in public under oath, then she should be held accountable in the same way.

I'll be paying attention to this one...

[Great thread, by the way!]

Going back to the whole question of whether the USA's ports are secure or not...

Not only are they not, it's hard to see how they could be. The amount of cargo coming into this country is *tremendous*. And unlike the movies, detecting Bad Stuff within a sealed container is dang near impossible. Something as simple as a beer bottle sealed with lead is effectively gas tight. Embed the whole thing in a block of wax, and you cut down even trace emissions by several more factors of magnitude.

Similarly, nuclear weapons are alpha emitters (mostly). A paper bag will block most of the radiation, and an inch of wood will block most of the rest. You'd have to ram a Geiger counter right against the casing of a nuke to even *hope* to detect it.

The "increased security measures" do effectively nothing to improve security-- they just *look* cool. Unfortunately, they're fantasticly expensive.

Stephan, what I heard was a strong recommendation to search 10% vs. the current 5%, in the belief that the additional 5% greatly enhances deterrence.

Colleen, it does seem bizarre, to put it no more strongly, to have the National Security Advis r first refuse to testify, then demand to not be required to testify under oath.

Nancy --

The traditional fix for keep the hair of bosses non-pointy is twofold; they have to come up through the business in that business (which has its own problems, but they do tend to know what they're doing) and they have compensation set by performance, rather than social class. (That's one of the things small business pretty much guarantees, after all.)

Non-hierarchical models, all the web-of-responsibility stuff from traditional Unix software team organization through several successful geek-controlled high tech firms through GE's best jet engine assembly plant, are known to work really well. The hard part is to keep the responsibility-shifting insecurity management models from crippling them, and that question of interfaces is certainly an outstanding one.

It would help a lot if the mandated models -- by banks and by the legislative definition of 'business' -- were not the hierarchical ones.

Okay. Stuff like this makes me feel very afraid.

But what makes me less afraid, more hopeful, and angry enough to act is that in our past we had a president who suspended the constitution--and then PUT IT BACK.

This isn't a one way street to hell. With care and concern, and a good view to the goals, we can put a bend in the road and steer back to freedom and apple pie. There's more normal moral democratic Americans than there are power mongering weirdos.

I made a rule for myself, about a year ago, when I kept reading things like this and got seriously depressed. My rule was this--I could only read news (or political blogs or whatever) if I then took some kind of action. Didn't have to be big--could be donating money to the Dems, could be signing a MoveOn petition, could be praying. Whatever. It helped a lot.

And I've voted in every silly municpal election--next week's is about road repair and polar bears. I'll be there with my voter card--because nothing scares W as much as my punching my voting ticket.

Come November, I have every faith that a new administration will come in and be in charge of hearings, investigations, and so on.

This just in--Condi to testify in public, under oath!

Patrick --

What's definitely a "deficiency in your perception" is that you don't see how your constant harping serves primarily to frighten good people into terrified quiescence.

Sometimes it's time to stand in the shield wall; sometimes you win, sometimes you yourself live through winning, along with your shoulder companions. Sometimes you all die together, but you make the job easier for the Ealdorman when he gets the muster there. Sometimes you leave a memory of deeds, and accomplish no more.

But when the day comes, it comes. There is no safety in submission.

That's all deeply axiomatic, so I see this set of issues (and the parallel issues in Canada) as a debate about whether or not it's time to stand in the shield wall. (For whatever value that metaphor currently appropriately has.)

It is not natural to me to see it in other terms; it would be closer to say that my ability to intellectually simulate other terms is sadly lacking.

Acquiescence is an acceptance of someone else's right to damage you arbitrarily. As a temporary escape from death, there's an argument for it, but heavy emphasis should be placed on 'temporary'. If it's not going to be temporary, time to do what you can to make the job easier for the next bunch on your side to get there, because the folks demanding submission are going to hurt you as much as they care to, irrespective of whether you acquiesce to their present demands or not.

Having said all that, I shall endeavour to refrain from harping henceforward.

Re: security at the ports:

I work for a London wine merchant, we regularly export (mostly French) wine to the US. Last year 'as part of the United Bioterrorism Response Act of 2002' we were required to register with the FDA. I had a few thoughts on this.

1) This doesn't make anyone any safer. In most cases no one from my company even sets eyes on the boxes we are exporting. They do, however pass through at least two warehouses/shipping agents. If the purpose of registration is to identify us with the suspect goods, the shipping paperwork has always had our name and address on it.

2) In order to register we had to find someone in the US to act as our agent. This is OK for established businesses, but it has to make it harder for new exporters to get US customers.

3) The US Government now has a handy database of all foreignors who sell food and drink to the US. I don't know what use this is to them, though.

So, the net result is that they looked like they were doing something to combat Bioterrorism, but what they were actually doing is collecting data (and making me do paperwork).

I repeat, this doesn't make anyone any safer.

I think there are plenty of reasons to think that the Bush administration doesn't care in the least about national security, that they're more like Tomas Nau and the Emergency (I'm glad I'm not the only person who thought of that analogy) than like serious public servents using means I disagree with in support of goals I share. The failure to protect ports is one obvious reason to think that. Other examples include: using the creation of the Department of Homeland Security solely as a short-term feint for weakening federal unions; failing to strengthen protections of chemical and nuclear plants; failing to investigate the anthrax letters (as Anna Russell might have asked: remember the anthrax?); abandoning Afghanistan for the third time; blowing the cover of a CIA agent (when did I start thinking of the CIA as the good guys?); and, just this week, openly manipulating the process of handling classified information whenever it's convenient for attacking their political enemies.

These aren't the actions of people who honestly believe they're defending a nation against foreign enemies.

made it clear that these people don't expect to ever fall out of power.

Oh, yes. The "aha" moment for me was the Texas re-redistricting fiasco (I live in Austin, walking distance to intersection where the city has been trifurcated into 3 congressional districts). I realized "these guys don't think the chickens will ever come home to roost."

They're wrong, of course.

I worry too about electronic voting being used to rig the outcome, but this is not a reason to despair, it's a reason to work, as Patrick would say. Elections are not handled on a national level, they're handled on a county and state level. How many states will experience "malfunctions" requiring "corrections"? If there is any tampering, we need to make sure they'll need to do a lot of it: the more they tamper, the more likely they are to screw up or get caught at it.

If there is any tampering, we need to make sure they'll need to do a lot of it: the more they tamper, the more likely they are to screw up or get caught at it.

So what?

Graydon realizes what the rest of you do not. You cannot beat a foe who will play outside the system if you insist on playing within the system.

When, not if, the House of Representatives or the Supreme Court declares George Bush to be reelected, regardless of what the popular or electoral vote is, what are you going to do?

Because, they will. You keep imagining that all you need to do is get more votes for Kerry, in both the popular and EC votes, and the nightmare will be over.

Dream on. When the GOP in the House, voting by party lines, refuses to accept California's EC votes, and awards the presidency to Bush, what are you going to do?

If you aren't willing to take up arms and fight, you've already lost. You can bet the other side is ready and willing, and they're at the endpoint of a decades long campaign to make violence, esp. viloence against "liberals", acceptible behavoir.

If they can just get the votes, they will. If they have to lie about the counts to win, they will. If that doesn't work, they'll just declare themselves the winners anyway -- and with a majority in the House and the SC, you *will* lose. It's against every principle of law. You enemy does not give a flying fuck about the principle of law. If it lets them win, it is legal. If it lets you win, it is not.

Quit assuming that you can win by following the rules. You will lose if you try.

Graydon's right. These people deserve to hang, and should have hung. We should have fought tooth, nail and blood before we let that man be sworn in as President.

We failed to do so. We lost *everything*.

And you think a "vote" will magically fix that?

When, not if, the House of Representatives or the Supreme Court declares George Bush to be reelected, regardless of what the popular or electoral vote is, what are you going to do?

Honestly, I've been giving serious thought to leaving the country. I've agreed that it's only reasonable to stay through the election to try to redefeat Bush, and even if Bush wins, I'm willing to stay if the Democrats break the GOP hold on Congress.

But if the Republicans retain control over the federal government... Well, I'm Jewish and the descendent of Holocaust survivors. I can't lie to myself that it can't happen here.

Dream on. When the GOP in the House, voting by party lines, refuses to accept California's EC votes, and awards the presidency to Bush, what are you going to do?

Erik, what evidence can you provide that something like this is even remotely likely to happen?

Erik -

You've gone off the deep end. There are so many things wrong with your post that I don't know where to begin.

So I'll just say that the whole thing was one big paranoid fantasy.

At the risk of being thought a terrorist, and having my house tossed, my liberty removed and my opportunity to speak to my loved one taken away... The reason I've not taken up arms (and I can make, if I'm am ever given a trial, the defense that I was engaged in upholding and defending the Constitution, "from all, enemies, foreign, and domestic," as my oath of enlistment demands. Might keep me from getting killed by the state, but I doubt it.

I suppose the reason I've not started shooting people is that I'm not the stuff that willing martyrs are made of (that's why I'm a salty sergeant, heading to crusty) and don't see that simply offing one man will make a difference.

I certainly don't think I can get enough of an airing of the issues to make public opinion come to my/our view of events. I would be seen as a lone whack-job and 1: the repressions I hope to abate through the death of evil men will become entrenched, 2: the ability of those who might need to actually rebel (as Jefferson expected to happen with some regularity, so much so that he advised those who suffered such not to punish the rebels to harshly, lest the grievances which caused the revolt become the more firmly emplaced) by virtue of more effective strictures.

Assaulting the Gov't by force of arms (which is what those who say they want guns to, "overthrow" a tyrannous state mean) requires that 1: all other means to gain redress of grievance have failed. At the risk of being more prolix than is my usual wont, I will quote from that Declaration, to clarify, I hope, my argument.

"...to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed."

A flash in the pan rebellion (no matter how briefly satisfactory it might be to know that some members of the current president's advisors were no longer among the quick) would not effect any good change.

So, I have no plan, nor any encouragement, to see any member of that administration killed.

In fact, because I want it to be overthrown, (nay smashed, destroyed, the walls torn from the foundations; rent asunder so that not one brick remains standing on another, the fragments dispersed and the ground sown with salt, their programs erased, their hopes and aspirations held up to obliquy and ridicule, an example to the nations of what shall not be done again and their names remebered for all time in the halls of shame and disgust, held to be Quislings, puppets of enemeies who saw their petty lusts and played them to gain their own fell ends at the price of liberty and freedom. I want to see the what they have done entered into the rolls of those things we must not forget, nor ever allow to be done again... but I digress) I want them to live an easy life, with nothing more than the peaceful defeat of their party, in an ovewhelming repudiation of them at the polls, then fading into oblivion as the doom and despair they will predict as they depart the stage fails to come to pass.

However, in the event that comes not to pass, I am keeping my powder dry.

Terry K

Patrick, can you explain the drug dealer vs. spy theory?

>But what makes me less afraid, more hopeful, and
>angry enough to act is that in our past we had a
>president who suspended the constitution--and
> then PUT IT BACK.

This caught me by surprise and inspired a brief round of googling. What I found was three items, none of which actually supports that belief:

a) Thomas Jefferson temporarily suspended all foreign trade during the War of 1812.

b) Abraham Lincoln temporarily suspended the right of habeus corpus during the Civil War. It was restored in 1866.

c) The most controversial claim -- FDR took unconstitutional powers in 1933, when he declared a national emergency. There's an interesting web discussion of this, which some of you may be familiar with, but which was new to me. The gist of it is a case that Roosevelt *violated* (not suspended) the Constitution, and that his National Emergency Act was not officially rescinded for 44 years. (Some people maintain that it still hasn't been rescinded.)

But, none of these constitutes a case of the President "suspending the Constitution and putting it back."

In re Erik's expansion of Graydon's fears. I don't put it past that crew to attempt to void the election if they aren't proclaimed the winners. But I don't see the case, yet, that they'll get away with it. (I have a greater fear that in a close election, they'll try to void it on the grounds of "electronic vote count problems" than that they'll simply have the Supreme Court declare Bush the winner.) I can manufacture as many nightmare scenarios in this vein as anyone, with wide-spread protests and resignations from men of conscience -- who are summarily dismissed as the current regime replaces them with flakier and flakier fundamentalists and corporate cat-killers.

But I'm not convinced they'll have the nerve to try it, yet. I definitely believe that the wider the visible popular and electoral vote totals for Kerry, the less likely it is to happen. So it still makes sense to campaign for as many Kerry votes as possible.

Thomas Jefferson temporarily suspended all foreign trade during the War of 1812.

I'm assuming you mean James Madison.

According to this site, Jefferson banned all British ships from U.S. ports in 1807, and the Embargo Act was also passed during his term. The trade war didn't turn into an officially-declared shooting war until Madison's term in 1812.

Jill:

Re: your travel paranoia - the reason that they stop youngish women traveling alone is that in 1986 a young Irish woman was given a bomb to take aboard an El Al flight (without her knowledge) by her boyfriend. Via BBC.

So it's much more likely to be profiling than something as prosaic as a mass-murderer.

Okay, since I made the statement about the consititution being suspended, I'll clarify. I was taught (admittedly by public schools) that Lincoln suspended civil law, habeus corpus, and also various rights that belonged to congress and that it all rolled up into suspending the constitution, which then was put back afterwards. "Suspending the constitution" was what showed up on my tests, way back when. I'm happy to cede to greater knowledge in this area--but I still think it's a series of historical events that allowed for a temporary grasp of power that was then handed back.

Larry:

*gulp.*

Is that supposed to make me feel better?

;-)

Jill - unless you think profiling is worse than being targeted by a serial killer, which I suppose is a position one could take - especially if one is an undercover serial-killer catcher.

If they're both unpleasant, do I have to choose only one to be freaked out by?

It wasn't so much the concept of getting profiled that was freaky, it was the notion of somebody slipping an Evil Thing into my suitcase.

Although the idea of profiling off of one incident (if in fact the profile was created due only to one incident in '86) is creepy in and of itself. How many of us fit into the category, "Looks like s/he might be in the same group as someone who once did something nasty"? I don't usually indulge in slippery slope arguments, but where does the line get drawn?

Pardon me, I have to don a disguise and go catch a serial-killer.... Be sure to rescue me in the penultimate chapter, for I'm sure to be in peril by then.

betsy: "personally, i just signed up to be an election judge."

What a great idea! I'm a wage slave, so I don't have the time (if I understand correctly how the election judge thing works), but my husband is a stay at home dad... I'll suggest this to him.

Elizabeth: "My rule was this--I could only read news (or political blogs or whatever) if I then took some kind of action."

Another excellent idea, and perhaps the impetus I need to get OFF MY ASS and do something.... shee-yah, right. Ah, well, a girl can dream.

I'm clearly on someone's list of potential terrorists. For the last couple of years, every single time I've gone through an American airport, I've been selected for the "random" extra-special search at the gate. Last time but one, the airline staff member at the ticket desk didn't quite manage to hide her reaction when she read whatever it was that came up on the screen after she'd scanned my ticket and passport.

Now, I can think of several reasons why I might be profiled, not least being that I was born in Belfast. But it's only *American* airports. Not British or Australian airports, or any of the points between. And occasionally I think paranoid thoughts about why that might be.

Erik sez, among other things: You cannot beat a foe who will play outside the system if you insist on playing within the system.

You can, if you overwhelm it. A slim margin, sure, maybe they can sneak some tactic in, but the more the scales are stacked against them, the more obvious their attempt to veto or violate the election will be, and the more ready people (I hope) will be to speak up against it. That's how a vote will magically fix that.

Also, shouldn't at least one side insist on abiding by the system? High ground, and so on.

Terry --

But can I at least give Dubbya a good strong poke in the eye with a sharpened stick? I promise not to actually kill him. :-)

Um. It's supposed to make me feel better that our government thinks that profiling on the basis of one opportunistic tactic (giving a bomb to your girlfriend -- I suppose a really nasty way to break up?) is a good way to profile? Why don't they profile on, I dunno, people with curly hair? Hyuck -- they used them damn curly-headed people back in aught-7, it's just how they think!

Morons.

And I'm pretty sure Jill's fear wasn't that the serial killer had chosen who to scan, but that an opportunistic serial killer could have taken advantage of such a profiling strategy. And she's right. Not that I think there's a really high risk of serial killers being employed as airport security, but it goes to show that a blind faith in the fallible humans chosen to implement the harebrained scheme du jour is a mistake.

Erik: yes, a vote will fix it. The only reason the assholes have gotten so far is that they can still present their actions as protection of America, and they can still present America's actions abroad as fitting the heroic model we so love. It's all a matter of sales, which is why they inadvertently referred to a "product introduction" in the lead-up to war.

But that will only go so far. For the last, oh, three months, they've lost control over the nation's discourse. The American Public, Mr. Joe Sixpack, doesn't like feeling he's been had. There are two ways that can go: he can pretend he wasn't, lalalala I can't hear you -- which has worked for a couple of years -- or he can just say, screw this, let's string the guy up. Figuratively speaking.

So while I do occasionally get the sense of living in science fiction (having looked up an old friend -- successfully -- last week on Google, without actually knowing what country she's living in now, for instance, that was pretty mind-boggling) I simply don't believe we're heading towards dystopia.

But what the hell do I know? I'm clearly a Trader. And if the shit hits the fan, I'll be posting from Europe.

Patrick -- a Google on '"Tappan King" drug dealer spy' brings back nothing. And if it ain't online, it don't exist. Right? Right.

I do indeed believe you're right that the Bushies don't care whether you live or die. In fact, I'm increasingly of the opinion that they were fine with a terrorist attack, as long as they personally weren't affected. The PNAC plan pretty clearly called for a Pearl Harbor (and they sure did call it a Pearl Harbor damned quickly, so you can bet that the PNAC plan was what they'd been reading that week). What I think *did* surprise them was that they didn't expect the towers to fall down. They expected a large fire, sure, and a couple hundred deaths, enough to really get that whole Reichstag thing going, but a gaping hole in Manhattan? A fluke.

I'm not expressing my thought very well, so I'm going to stop. But as low as my opinion of the Bush Gang has been since they took office, it seems to be slipping lower. I'm enjoying the Clarke thing immensely, of course. Can't wait to see how the story comes out.

As I don't often agree with Graydon, it's with some suprise I find I agree with almost everything in his first post except the hanging and the blood.

As an anarchocapitalist who despises the economic coercions of modern liberalism, I was prepared to cut the Bush administration a fair amount of slack, notwithstanding the extra-constitutional means by which it assumed power and despite the personal danger its social coercions pose to my rather-vigorously-excercised freedom of sexual expression.

Then the towers came down, and I knew we were in for it. When, as Graydon put it, "the Attorney-General of the United States started holding prisoners incommunicado without charge" it was merely confirmation, albeit a particularly bright-line confirmation that's hard to miss. I remain astounded by the ability of so many on the right to be untroubled by such an infamous hallmark of tyranny.

But what startled me was to find myself agreeing with:

"Capitalism becomes the iron boot of tyranny because that's what everyone is used to in their daily lives. It becomes as natural as breathing to submit and obey, to accept that one's life is intractably unjust, that others shall have the greater part of the profit of one's labour, and that the needs of faceless others are of inherently greater concern than your own good health and prosperity.

A farmer doesn't have to accept that; an employee does."

I've come to believe that being an employee is a highly undesireable state of affairs, precisely because it destroys freedom as Greydon describes. And I've taken strong measures (accepting semi-dire consequential economic results) to ensure that I'll never have to be an employee again.

I don't blame capitalism per se as Greydon does, and yet it's undeniably clear that being an employee in our culture-and-economy is not the matter of free choice it ought to be. It should be possible to demand the full measure of "the profit of one's labour" from one's employer, expecting it to take its profit from the productivity gains it creates through coordination of labor and capital on larger scales than an individual can manage.

In fact, that's not possible for most employees today. I blame regulation, not capitalism; but it's surely the case that corporate actors have unclean hands in this matter. Artificially restricting the economic opportunities of your employees lets you begin to tap into the profit of their labor and add it to your own honest profits. We see too much of that, and it truly does add up to tyranny.

But in the end, I don't think it takes rivers of blood to fix it. It simply takes people deciding to do what must be done to free themselves. Don't take a job unless it truly does pay you the full profits of your labor, plus a premium for putting up with your employeer's pointy-hairedness. If you can't find that job, find another way to live free without starving. Farming ain't what it used to be, but the world is full of opportunities if you'll think outside the box.

Screw the rivers of blood. Just find something better to do.

Umm, isn't the whole point of having "a system" that it be able to prevail over people who try to play outside it?

My feeling is that there are a lot of people who, for one reason or another, think the Bush bunch's flaws are less troubling than the their opponents'. The point of voting, participating as election judges, writing letters to the editor, and so on, is to highlight the flaws of the former group, and so tip the scales against them in the eyes of the undecided. Basically, keep people from being able to say "yeah, I voted for them because I wanted the tax breaks (or wanted to protect fetuses, or to fight excessive regulations, or whatever other interest Bush claims to support that month), and after all, I didn't know what crooks they were".

The trouble with military metaphors is that this is a life-long campaign; it's not just a matter of standing in the "shield wall" for a few hours, days, or even a few years of battle; we have to keep opposing the enemies of our democratic system for the rest of our lives.

The whole point to "a system", also known as civilization, is to make such long-running campaigns feasible.

Drama in a cause such as this can be inspiring, but an excess of drama can also be debilitating. As Patrick said, our immediate goal is not to make the world (or even our country) perfect; we're just trying to get rid of the bastards, so we can get back to our petty squabbles and compromises.

So far, my husband and I have met 2 Bush supporters who have reasons they can state.

The first, a roleplaying friend, says he believes that Bush "will do the best job of upholding of the Constitution."

Yes, I know. We're working on it. We don't, after all, want to make him feel stupid or betrayed.

The second is a co-worker of my husband's. Says he thinks Bush has done a good job so far. He also doesn't watch the news, read the newspaper, or read any online news sources.

My husband says this is encouraging. I just gave him one of those looks. I'm sure most of you know the one. The "how can you be so naive?" look.

But then, I'm pretty sure that's why I married him. That naivete is usually a breath of fresh air. Except when it looks like dumb optimism.

A good friend of mine is planning on voting for Bush right now on the grounds that his stupid ideas are less likely to make it past Congress and the courts than are Kerry's stupid ideas. This is at least plausible; the wild-card factor for me is that the next President is likely to be appointing one or two Supreme Court justices. Other damage can be fixed quickly; bad Supremes are a long-term Bad Thing.

Before this year, I'd never even considered the possibility of voting for a Democrat for President.... *sigh*

Dav2.718

A good friend of mine is planning on voting for Bush right now on the grounds that his stupid ideas are less likely to make it past Congress and the courts than are Kerry's stupid ideas. This is at least plausible

Why is it plausible. Since Congress and the president are both controlled by the same party, Bush's stupid ideas are being given free rein.

Jeremy --

The point to having a civilization is to be able to treat strangers as though they were from your village. You can trust them in business dealings, you can seek effective redress if they should wrong you, and you can collectively engage in all the kin-group, band-membership behaviours that are directly detrimental to one's immediate interest and indirectly beneficial to one's long term interest.

This works well if everyone belongs to the same system, the same civilization, but everyone doesn't. The usual examples are the folks (like migrant farm workers) who are excluded, the bottom of the social and economic strata, but that doesn't mean that you can't have either a competing civilization or a group that consciously don't believe they belong. (Which is true of many of the religiously motivated self-identifying elites, frex.)

So sometimes the other party to the dispute isn't part of, actively disdains and despises, the civilization you're part of.

That was true about the Light Danes and the Dark Danes attacking the Saxon Heptarchy; it's true about the thugs and the theocrats and the slavers for whom Mr. Bush is fronting.

Most of the time, partisan differences have no structural meaning at all. Things keep going. Life goes on. Populations and opinions receive political representation. Everyone is part of the same biggest thing.

This time, the folks holding power have already argued in a court of law that votes should not be counted because that might serve to obscure who had won the election.

That's not part of the same civilization.

Erik, you're my friend. Please reassure me that you're not calling for the violent overthrow of the United States government.

I have a lot more faith in the system than Erik does, apparently.

We're quite lucky in the U.S., that we early on established a precedent for the peaceful change of regimes. This was demonstrated most recently when George H.W. Bush quietly went home to Texas, after losing to a man that the military almost universally hated.

Think that would happen in Haiti?

Our military are sworn to uphold the constitution. The officers I've had a chance to talk to take that oath seriously. This subtle fact may prove to be the keystone of our liberty.

Before this year, I'd never even considered the possibility of voting for a Democrat for President.... *sigh*

Look at it this way, David: the Democrats have gotten more centrist over time. Perhaps there's hope for them yet.

Heh. There I was over there to Electrolite sturmin' & drangin' over the Clarke thing, and then I find all the Clarke Kids over here in Making Light! I'll never get this blog thing. I am a blog maroon. Say, where's the X-No-Archive bit, anyway?

Erik, you're my friend. Please reassure me that you're not calling for the violent overthrow of the United States government.

I am not.

The US Government that many pretend still operates under Consitutional rules, has already been overthrown, by a ruling so foul and devoid of lawful basis that the court that made the ruling refuses to bind itself by that ruling.

They won.

But, since I'm delusional, I'll just go back to my fantasy land, the one where the administration lies on a daily basis, and never gets called on it, the one where the administration rams through wide ranging measures of spying against the citizens it claims to protect, the administration that invades a country that did not attack us, the administration that snatches people off the fields of combat (for example, the arrival hall at Chicago O'Hare International Airport) and detains them without charge or due process.

My, what a paranoid fantasy I live in!

Funny, in the world I live in the administration gets called on its lies on a regular basis, the PATRIOT act was passed with widespread support among both parties with only one Senator voting against it (hardly "rammed through", eh?), and several cases regarding the government snatching people and holding them without due process are now before the Supreme Court.

I suspect the Court will overrule the administration and say that the government can't hold American citizens taken on American soil without due process.

As to Iraq, as much as I detest Bush lying about the WMDs, a large part of the American populace still (wrongly, IMO) supports that action. Blame the public as well as the Administration; the masses aren't exactly rising up in outrage.

So yes, I think you're being paranoid.

What a lot of bllsht on all sides.

Notwithstanding what Erik implies in his reply to her, Teresa never suggested he was "delusional." Nor would I say any such thing, either. In fact, notwithstanding David Bilek's imputations to the contrary, the things Erik is alarmed about are real things. If Bilek is going to start deploying the vocabulary of psychiatry to dismiss Erik's views, well, first, how very Soviet of him, and second, Bilek had better start in on me too, because in this I stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Erik, full stop.

While I object to Bilek's mischaracterization of Erik's views, I also object to Erik's mischaracterization of mine. "And you think a "vote" will magically fix that?" Why, no, I don't think a "vote" will magically fix everything, as I went to considerable fckng pains to explain, thank you very fckng much. And I am fckng unhappy that Erik seems to have fckng ignored what I went to a lot of fckng trouble to fckng say.

The point isn't that voting, or any other political action, amounts to a miracle cure. The point is that everything counts. Maybe we'll win and maybe we'll be ground into the dirt but gddmn t try everything. Most radically and dangerously, try hope.

Um, Patrick, maybe we should set up some big venting fans and send someone in (tied to a winch) to rescue you from the bullshit? I think the fumes might be going to your head...

(But, yes, I'm with you on the Everything Counts.)

"Paranoid" has long since stopped being simply the language of psychiatry and has become a perfectly ordinary non-clinical English word. Y'r smrt ngh t knw tht, nd sspct y d. Bt f crs y'd rthr scr pnts wth yr h-s-clvr "Svt" nvctv.

"Quit assuming that you can win by following the rules. You will lose if you try.

Graydon's right. These people deserve to hang, and should have hung. We should have fought tooth, nail and blood before we let that man be sworn in as President.

We failed to do so. We lost *everything*. "

This is over-the-top and paranoid, in the non-technical ordinary sense of the word. And it will be even if you decide to call me "Soviet" a few more times.

nd hr thght ppl wr xggrtng whn thy sd y fld snt s y cld gt n th bll plpt t pntfct whl cntrllng th dscrs. wll hv t plgz t thm.

Erik, the sentences you're responding to are not the sentences I wrote.

David Bilek, there are some tropes I won't put up with, no matter who they're being used on.

Wow. I am glad to see so many of my own thoughts reflected and voiced here, from the political idealist in me to the pragmatic liberal I try and be, right down to the tin-foil hat wearing wing-nut conspiracy voice. Excellent!

I am humbled by a prediction I made after the last election which was that at least with Bush we know what we're getting, and that I didn't think his handlers would let him go out on his own. I can admit when I'm wrong.

Frankly, the idea of this current administration getting a second term frightens me. I would have never expected them to be so grossly and blatantly dishonest, petty, and self-serving as a tactic to gain more power. Not that I expect sainthood from politicians as politics requires compromise, and that process today involves a degree of pettiness, dishonesty, and self-serving. But when an elected (however flawed the process may be) government in a democracy cannot compromise, when it harbors no dissent and can only resort to attacking the character and careers of those whom dare raise a voice against it, then it is no longer a democracy and those in power are no longer acting as elected officials but as proto-dictators, and are a hop, skip, and a emergency law away from destroying any vestigal traits of our Republic and the freedoms it should ideally afford us as citizens.

Meanwhile...

I been thinking of making a t-shirt which says "Gun Owning Liberal" on it, for fun, as I don't really have a desire to own a gun. I just think it would be a great thing to have at any protests or anything like that. Maybe with NRA hats, and membership cards too! Maybe, even as a liberal, I just enjoy razzing hippies too much.

And to think I used to work for Greenpeace :)

Okay, I also admit I scrolled over the bickering bits.

Patrick, and anybody out there who might know--

Patrick suggested that one of the best things I could do that would help bring about a change in the US government would be to donate money to the Democratic Party.

Okay, this sounds good. My question is this: I'm Australian. Can a foreign national like me donate to a US political party?

If not, what would be a good way to help for someone over here? I'd really like to know.

Thanks.

Adrian asks: Can a foreign national like me donate to a US political party?

No. It's against the law. You must be a US citizen or a permanent resident. (And it's a good thing that there is such a law -- just think of Sir Henry Deterding.)

Teresa: Yes they are. The three word response stands. 'I am not.'

My qualifier was simple. Graydon was right. We should have fought then, in 2000, and not let an illegal government be seated, or died trying. We didn't.

The problem I have with your position? You've done what they told you to do in 2000. You've gotten over it. You accepted George Bush as the lawful president of the United States.

What this does is simple. It tells your enemy that stealing elections works.

My question to you.

When (and, to grant a point, if) the election is ignored and Bush is made president, what are you going to do?

Get over it? Again?

That's what liberals have been doing for twenty years. That's why Nader did so well in 2000. That's why groups like "Earth First!" have come about. That's why we've *lost*.

We've gotten over it. And they remember that.

They're tired of getting over it. They're tired of thier supposed allies gracefully submitting over and over and over and over.

All of you think that, if we just get the truth out, if we spend lots of money, if we work really hard, we can beat Bush in the election.

I'm stating that you cannot -- because you, as decent human beings, who belive in such abstracts as "honor" and "justice" and "the principle of law" will follow the rules.

They will not. Example: Rice will testify under oath. Rice will lie. Rice won't care, because, if it ever came to a trail for perjury, it'll run up to the SCOTUS, who'll discover some amazing new constitutional property that make prosecuting her unconstitutional.

Another: Want to sue Bush? Go ahead -- the SCOTUS says you can. How much you want to bet that gets revisted and overturned the moment it reaches the court.

Another: It takes two senators to blue slip a judicial nominee if the president is Republican, one if the president is Democratic.

Another: We redistrict after the census. Unless you're Republican, in which case, you redistrict when you take over the state government.

The Democratic response. 1) Oh well, we lose again. 2) We won't sue unless it's really critical, that's just wrong otherwise. 2) Oh well, we lose again. 3) Dramatic gesture, cave, then, oh well, we lose again.

The proper response. 1) Sue until we're blue in the face, then bring up every justice, every day, who overturns that right. 2) Same thing. 3) Vapor lock the Senate until the one slip rule returns. Yes, Daschle has *finally* said he'll do that. Thanks for three and a half years of caving. How very Democratic of you. 4) Redistricted in every state we could, to make sure the GOP never, ever got a seat in those states again, peiod.

And every time you say "Oh well" -- every time you get over it, they win one more tool to use against you in the future. Furthermore, it's a tool that you renounce.

This is like playing spades, but saying that actually playing trump isn't fair. No, it's like playing spades, when the other side keeps coming up with the king of spades, trick after trick, and not fighting over the fact that the standard deck has only one king of spades.

How many more people need to die over this, before you realize that they'll never get over it? They'll fight you, with every trick they have. And, should you win, they'll change the rules so they win. And, if they can't, they'll just attack you until they win anyway.

As I said. You look at the news about the polls as good news. The bad guys only care about the polls if they're winning. If they aren't, they'll just do something else to win.

Why, for example, hasn't Kerry, heir apparent of the so-called opposition, been beating Bush night and day over the Clarke revalations?

Because he's gotten over it.

There's a reason I supported Dean, and only Dean. Dean's anger was making people stand up and be ready to fight, when and if the worst comes.

Now? "Oh, well, we lose again."

Adrian: yes, Reimer is correct.

Of course, what the Big Boys do -- you know, like The People's Thuggish Capitalism Republic of China (PTCRC) -- is find a friend who is a U.S. citizen and then they make an Innocent Gift to that friend. And then the friend makes a completely disconnected, public-spirited donation, coincidentally in that same amount, to a political entity that the PTCRC only *wishes* it could donate to.

That's what the Big Boys do. We shouldn't do what the Big Boys do. It would be Wrong.

I'm serious, actually. It would be wrong. Nevertheless, the Big Boys do it.

Um... I feel a little bit like the guy who was at Yankee Stadium the night it was announced that Steinbrenner had been kicked out of baseball. Which is, in fact, the guy I am, since I *was* there that night and it was glorious.

I had the privilege of being around and actually being politically sentient when the last really great home run was hit out of the park by the forces of the Political Good. It wasn't the moment Nixon resigned; it was the moment the House Judiciary Committee voted to recommend impeachment.

On the outside, I was all grave and solemn and moved by the majesty of the Constitution and all that. On the inside, I'm like:

WEEEE WILLLLL WEEEE WILLLLL ***ROCK*** YOU!!!!

We can't all be Richard Clarke on "60 Minutes", but we can all be Richard Clarke slaving away for years in the bowels of the bureaucracy trying until it breaks our hearts to make things right.

I dunno. Maybe every generation needs a moment like I had where they experience the Political Good hitting it out of the park. Maybe every generation needs to be sitting there in the stands and, after all that cheering, after all that desperate hoping, after all that despair, after all those hot dogs you ate, you get to actually see that ball sailing out over the left field wall. Just so you know that it *can* happen.

Trouble is, those moments don't *just* happen. You gotta go to the park. You gotta scream your lungs out. You gotta get the people sitting around to get up off their asses and cheer too.

And then when it's all over and you've won the World Series, it's just over, is all. And by next Spring nobody is champion anymore. You got to start all over. You got to do it all over again.

I'd say the times we are living in now are *ripe* for this political generation to hit their own grand slam. I just don't understand all this hopelessness and despair.

Gosh, Erik, maybe we’d better just slit our wrists now.

Gosh, David, if you aren't willing to fight, maybe you should.