Arkansas Blog

Amen.

And not the smallest group has gathered in the streets to burn a flag or draft card or a brazierre. I guess we gather on the web, vent, sign off, and go home to supper.

Much of the blame for this sorry mess belongs at the door of Newt Gingrich when he took over the leadership of the Republican house and made the party more important than principles. Seniority for committee chairs was thrown out and only those who met with Newt's approval and toed to their standards could hold those positions. This shackled independent thinking and gave the despots the foothold they needed to slip through the door.
Just like in Nazi Germany, the leadership gave way to the party and the wishes of an elite few. The German people fell victim to the propaganda and had no will to stop their horrible fate and atrocious actions.
We stand poised on the cusp of losing our nation to these fear-mongering, value-deficient monsters. The moment has arrived for us to rid our nation of these vipers and show the world that America has been made safe for democracy.
As my uncle used to say, "Vote the rascals out!!"
Do it before it's too late. It's time for a second American Revolution to free us from tyranny. Use your voice and your vote to win that freedom.

What is there to add?

At what point did the tide turn against McCarthy?

How far are we from that point now? It surely can't be much farther, or can it?

How long into the future will it be before people look back at these actions in disbelief and say (just as we did about McCarthy), surely that can't happen now because we have learned from their mistakes?

Will this attack on civil liberties fail just as the Sedition Act was repealed and the Black Listing of communists did finally end under McCarthy?

How much further can we allow this before irreparable harm is done?

Like waterboarding, how long can we hold the Bill of Rights underwater without them actually drowning?

Human beings can be held by the US gov't without charges without a time limit.

NO OVERSITE!
NO CHECK OR BALANCE!

This is textbook proof that power corrupts & absolute power corrupts absolutely.

What is absolutely crazy is that the paranoid conspiracy theorists are marching right along, unconcerned.

I always figured that consiracy nuts would be our canaries in the coal mine and alert us to gov't abuse. I guess I as wrong.

"None of the men and women who voted for this bill has any right to speak in public about the rule of law anymore, or to take a high moral view of the Third Reich, or to wax poetic about the American Ideal. Mark their names. Any institution of higher learning that grants honorary degrees to these people forfeits its honor...."

"Mark" their names, indeed! Note this, you Arkies: MARK PRYOR's name appears thereafter.

Garrison says it would have killed Goldwater-- I can't help but think that it moved DAVID Pryor to get his will in order....

I believe the news may be even worse than Garrison allows: Most analysts who've read the bill, including a federal judge who wrote in to NPR this week, interpret the bill's language to say that this horrific legislation is NOT limited to non-citizens. They claim that the law will authorize the president to designate ANY OF US as an "enemy combatant" and thereby strip him/her of the protections of citizenship.

This truly appears to be the warm-up for the Fourth Reich, folks!

Jake,

I believe that the Nazi comparison will not aid our cause because most Americans think we are better than the Germans and we are for Truth, Justice, and the American Way.

We should all point to American insider attacks on American rights to show that we must protect our rights from enemies from within.

Many neocons will just scream "There they go calling us Nazis AGAIN!"

We need to remind our fellow citizens that we have tended to improve our human rights record in the past. Free the Slaves, extend voting rights to women, ban the poll tax, etc.

The founders had great thoughts but fell short on enacting them but we have SLOWLY corrected many abuses.

But the past 220+ years we have generally moved toward greater rights instead of the current erosion.

Call Pryor now and tell him he has fallen down on the job we gave him and we are ashamed and will work to bring his sorry ass home in shame.

Well,
Mark Pryor voted for this torture bill and he and Blanche Lincoln have supported torture policies and wiretapping and all those Bush things...so why not give them a taste of their own medicine?

I think we should ask to open up investigations into their private lives. Are they connected to the current scandals? Perhaps not, but shouldn't we INVESTIGATE just to be sure?

That'll teach Pryor and Lincoln to drown the Bill of Rights.

Point taken Citizen1.

I'll refrain in the future from such comparisons. Still, that lesson and others need to be heeded by us. We live in dangerous times until these wicked laws can be eliminated.
Much needs to be examined in the way our country is being run and ruined. Hopefully, the corrections needed will come soon. This era of Hype and Hypocrisy needs to be brought to a swift and final end.

"Why be a hero when you can be fairly sure that the court will dispose of this piece of garbage."

Ya know, I'm not so sure about that.... After all, it was the Supreme Court itself that said, "We wash our hands of this. Let Congress decide."

Yes, I heard the NPR analysis this morning that said this could be used by a President to arrest domestic enemies (US citizens) and disappear them.

I am stunned. I am shaken, and I feel helpless to do anything about it.

I'm half-seriously considering how I would get my family out of this country if we continue down the road we're currently following.

All because we wet our pants over a couple of terrorist attacks. We're acting like cowards by reacting the way we have to those events of over 5 years ago.

Enough already. Why does America talk so tough and act so terrorist-ified?

To be a citizen of the United States used to be something we held with pride, and I don't mean the ugly American pride. Now we are shamed among the nations of the earth. Indeed, those people in Dallas should be, but they will never be because they know no better. It takes a fellow citizen like Keillor to outline the obvious. He and others like him should be in Congress. Just another example of how we must take money out of politicial races. They are mostly weak people who run and therefore owe their allegiance not to the values of a democratic republic, but to the monied class who put them there.
I will not stay in the United States if the Supremes do not overturn this fall into fascisim. As Keillor says, this is not the country I grew up in.

I dare say I believe this subject deserves the Nazi label. We have not built any gas chambers as far as I know, but this is most surely the foundation being laid that could lead to 4th Reich gas chambers in the future.

Mark Pryor helped us lower ourselves to Nazi level and I hope his skin burns when he reads his name on Garrison list of the lowest of the low. How bad of an American do you have to be to earn Garrison Keillor's disgust? What rewards has Mark been promised by the hand he licks today?

Opening the torture door, doing away with habeas corpus, allowing the President to decide who's the bad guy and how he will be dealt with, and how we, the United States interprets the Geneva Convention to suit ourselves, actually to suit our President, is dastardly. It is the beginning of the end of our nation. It earns us the scorn of the world. It brings shame upon us all.

So it's Nazi Lite at this point? What will be next year and what will it be in 2009 when we have new people in the White House? When the lines of law are moveable, there is no law to speak of. My family and yours and all the rest in other parts of the world are in no more danger than when the law means nothing and is set by the whim of a dictator, US or otherwise! I am ashamed. Be afraid.

Jake said that much of the blame for this sad state of affairs can be laid at the door of Newt Gingrich.

How true Jake.

When the Republicans paraded a bunch of ignorant wimps up on the steps and ceremoniously presented their Contract for America, they were destroying one of the most important principles of The Republic.

I was aghast. I had been taught that that was unAmerican. Today we should call it pandering.

Long, long ago, I used to hear my Congressman speaking at my school and to various local groups. One of the points he made often was that he would discuss all ideas freely, but he would make up his mind during the debates.

It may sound naive and archaic today, but my Congressman actually listened to the debates on the issues. We were taught in school that this was what American Democracy was all about -- checks and balances -- compromise in the interest of the common good.

The speeches went something like this (paraphrased) "I believe the voters want me to use my best judgement in their behalf. I promise to consider all the merits of every issue." And then he would freely discuss the issues as he understood them at that time.

He was never defeated. He retired after many years in the House of Representatives He was my friend.

I would vote for such a person today. If you know one, show her to me.

--Quo Fata Vocant.

Why do you continue to love terrorists?

Our president would never use his powers against anyone who, in his best Presidential judgement, wasn't a threat to our Freedom.

I don't care what other countries do, because I'm never leaving this one. There's something slightly suspicious about anyone who would.

Yagotta's first post is pure insight.

We are a nation of venters and haters of what we perceive as evil. We may be "right" but all we care about is being "right," when we should be organizing activist groups and, indeed, lobbying for reform and change, if not actually marching in the street.

It is VIRTUAL reality to vent opinion, sign off, and think you have accomplished anything. This is a kind of societal insanity, ain't it?

It's another form of apathy. After all, it's the editorialists' job to present opinion, and the journalists' job to present facts, investigative and otherwise.

What is the citizens' job?

Logging on and off?

This is more scary than what's going on in the highest offices in the country.

Thank you, yagotta, for reminding me to get off my behind and investigate which activist group or groups I might want to serve with my energy and my concern.

I don't need any more opinions. I don't need to READ any more opinions. I need to roll up my sleeves and get to work.

My 'inner futurist" tells me in 10 to 15 years given the current rate of disintegration "Our Republic" will simply be a formality, akin to the Royal Family in England. Corporations will be in complete control which is close to happening with the marriage of rwing corporatacracy and churchianity. That was the strategy of the Third Reich and all good citizens of the Fatherland supported it. Those who didn't were given plenty of work to do like cleaning out the ovens and polishing mortar shells.

At least Blanche and Mark won't be cleaning out ovens.
_

Roland,

Your accusation that we love terrorists is way out of line and uncalled for. Equally bad is your naive, blind trust of the president. Worst yet, is the idea that we have to quit living up to our ideals of justice in order to survive them.
And the rottenest blow to any American's credentials is that he thinks giving up his Constitutiional rights will make this country a batter and safer place. Men and women have fought and died that we might have those rights. With one stroke of the pen you want to give the President a weapon that can also be turned on you and all you can say is we got to trust him?
You really don't know your history. Fighting for your country doesn't necessarily mean taking on foes who attack you from without, it also means taking on those who weaken it from within.
Just remember this: those nations which became a threat to the world were taken over from within first and many a citizen made the mistake of trusting them.
I wonder if your nose hurts. Why? Anyone who has a ring in his nose that is attached to this president is going to get it yanked damned hard.

P.S.
I've been alive for almost a fourth of this country's existence and I know this: many a president with his hand over his heart also has his fingers crossed behind his back.

I wish to clarify on behalf of the millions of members of the United Methodist Church that it is not by any means "George Bushes (sic) Church". In Fact the United Methodist Book of Discipline states the following about war. "We believe war is incompatible with the teachings and example of Jesus Christ. We therefore reject war as an instrument of national foreign policy and insist that the first moral duty of all nations is to resolve by peaceful means evey dispute that arises between or among them..."
There are many more things that George Bush has done which are specifically opposed to the social principles of the United Methodist Church. He may be a member but they'll take anybody. They took me.

Roland,
Your accusation that we love terrorists is way out of line and uncalled for. Equally bad is your naive, blind trust of the president.

Though I've been wrong a few times on things like this, I'll go out on a limb here and say that Roland was being facetious in his post.

I'll second that Spirit. I think it was Roland demonstrating why he major's in snark.

Well, looking at what Roland posted elsewhere, I'm also inclined to believe he was mimicking our foes. I offer him my apologies for assuming otherwise.
Still, he did a good enough job in copying a typical Anonymous harangue that it set me off on a tear.
As the guy on the steamroller said, "I hope that smooths things out."

P.S.

Guys, just make sure I'm aimed in the right direction next time. I don't won't to pull a Dick Cheney.

Somehow ATURDo latched onto the handle "Max Brantley" last night. Maybe he latched onto "Roland."
Can you clarify, Max?
And how the hell did Art do that anyway?

The typekey log in is kinda like buying domain names on the internet--first come, first served. Warwick, you'd better claim the lower case "warwick sabin" before someone at the Anonymous Desk gets hold of it.

"And how the hell did Art do that anyway?
Posted by: BlueRidge"

I discovered weeks ago that you can log out on this board, go to TypeKey, log in, and change your screen name to anything you want. Your user name...the one that appears when you click the little man with the balloon box...remains the same but you can change the "Posted by" screen name to anything you want.

Then you come back here and post under the new screen name. Then repeat the process to change back to your old name.

When you join TypeKey it won't let you pick a User Name used by anybody else, but it will let you use any screen name you want, even if someone else uses it too.

So, still a few bugs in the system.

Spirit! You're aiding and abetting blog terrorists! You were supposed to eat and swallow that memo as soon as you were done reading it. yikes!