Is it your opinion that Clinton, with his frequent wars of distraction, was an improvement?
Practically any previous president would be an improvement.
Certainly Clinton didn't antagonize Islamist terrorism with "Crusade" talk and threaten preemptive anti-Soverign strikes with secret claims. Other presidents have not claimed Divine authority to collect all civilian information for domestic espionage, or create tribunals using secret information and "sneak and peek" laws, threaten to jail librarians for disclosing book lists.
We citizens have no representation
And just where has that been achieved? All gov'ts and all bureaucracies try tout successes and hide failures. There is nothing new here.
What is "new" is the size of the all-powerful central government, and the lies presented by its officials. Since WWII the level of secrecy and deception has gotten worse, and it's at an all-time high.
It to the point where the president has become almost the perfect contrarian indicator - take whatever is said, and the opposite is the truth, whether it be
- the reason for war in Iraq,
- the reason for letting North Korea off the hook
- battles against terrorism
- news releases about "dirty bombers" and "unfolding incidents"
- the search for Osama bin Laden and "the real killers"
- the health of the economy
- investigation into Enron and Ken Lay's connection to Bush
- connections of the energy industry to Cheney
- personal freedoms of American citizens
- the federal budget estimate over any time period (1,5,10 years)
- the health of the economy
- Social Security accounting
- honesty among members of the administration
- investigation into 9/11's unanswered questions
- reports from the CIA and other intelligence agencies,
- reasons for dealing with the Saudis,
- gun legislation,
- tariffs
- racism...
... you name it. All are "positions" purely for effect, none are principles, and any can be vacated at any time to suit the 'message of the day'.
A democracy that cannot withstand lying and distortion on the part of the gov't has no chance.
Now, that's an interesting position to take.
If you think that through you'll soon be demanding ACCOUNTABILITY AND TRANSPARENCY as well.
All of the above problems are resolvable, provided there is full and open disclosure of all public information in realtime, full accountability and transparency, with the only exception of bona-fide military secrets, of which FOIA shows there are almost none.
The disease of this government has been around since Nixon -- it's called "national security to cover my arse and allow me to create criminal enterprises and political influence without answering to the American people"
Someday, it will be a felony for unaccountable covert government funds to be used in any way to influence political campaigns. It is already prohibited by the 1947 National Security Act -- however that Act is secret, there are no penalties, the Executive Branch, if so inclined, can do anything it wishes. Until that happens, we will continue to be led down the garden path. Taxes will rise without limit (in the guise of "debt" and "inflation"), freedoms will disappear (in the name of "security"), terrorism will increase, de-facto martial law will appear, elections will be ceremonial, and our country will be like Israel is today. And we'll be told, like Rumsfeld has already, that "we can live with that".
That is the natural course of events, when governments are not accountable to the people -- the insiders fill the power vacuum and take total control. |
