Burn down the House

The country is in the advanced stages of moral decay. The Military Commissions Act is not a law at all; it is an expression of Congress’ intention to carry out war crimes against defenseless victims in their charge. The men who supported this bill should be held accountable for its inevitable and appalling consequences. - Mike Whitney

My jaw dropped when I saw the vote of the "detainee" bill just passed by both the House and the Senate, especially the scurrilous votes by the turncoat Democrats, especially Fuerher-worshiping Sen. Joe Lieberman.

It was only to be expected, I suppose, as the Democrats have basically disappeared on every issue that involves defending the Bill of Rights, from allowing Paleolithic judicial appointments to this present mockery of the Constitution with its arbitrary suspension of habeas corpus. Senator Arlen Specter (R-PA)- who first pretended to oppose the bill, then turned around and voted for it - issued a mealy-mouthed statement claiming that the Supreme Court would excise the "bad" parts later. Well, asshole, instead of leaving it to the other guys, why didn't you excise the bad parts when you had the chance?

Tom Paine and Patrick Henry aren't spinning in their graves, they're pounding on their coffin lids. Timothy McVeigh, of course, has already made his opinion known, but sadly, I see no burning torches or outraged citizens in the streets.

Now - and this is no consolation - if you had been paying any attention at all, you would know that this has been coming for a long time. It's just the latest installment of the softening up process leading to the utter subjugation of the American people (with the help of the bought and paid for ignoramouses we keep electing), who are obviously not America's real leaders:

David Ray Griffin says: "Part of the reason we call the Nazi and Stalinist regimes evil, of course, is that many of their victims were killed deliberately. Do American leaders realize what they are doing?

"There is evidence that they do. For example, in 1947, George Kennan, who was Director of the Policy Planning Staff in the U.S. State Department, said in a "top secret" memo:

"We have about 50% of the world's wealth, but only 6.3% of its population . . . In this situation, we cannot fail to be the object of envy and resentment. Our real task in the coming period is to devise a pattern of relationships which will permit us to maintain this position of disparity without positive detriment to our national security."*

Reading between the lines, as Plato encouraged the elites to do, a disinterested observer might regard this as an evil statement. George Kennan - speaking from his catbird seat as an advisor to the Eastern Establishment authoritarian oligarchy - no doubt thought his statements quite reasonable. Kennan wasn't referring to you and me, though; he was referring to the 2% of Americans who now hold 90% of America's wealth, and it is their security he's referring to.

The escalation techniques of tyranny are quite old and well known - it's just that the American people have suffered from an abysmal educational system for too long, and stullified themselves with material luxury for so long, and most of our citizens are a generation or more removed from the immigrants who had first-hand experience of political oppression, including torture, indefinite confinement, and assassination, for them to understand what is happening to their country right now, today.

At this rate, they'll be experiencing the results of the suspension of habeas corpus, with no-knock, warrantless searches, and subsequent waterboarding first hand and all too soon.

So, at this point I say, forget about voting this November 6th; let's just burn down the fucking House.

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*George F. Kennan, "PPS/23: Review of Current Trends in U.S. Foreign Policy." First published in Foreign Relations of the United States, 1948, Vol. 1, 509-529, it has been reprinted in Thomas H. Entzold and John Lewis Gaddis, eds., Documents on American Policy and Strategy, 1945-1950 (New York: Columbia University Press), 226-28; the quoted passage is at 226-27.