(2 pm, per budhy – promoted by ek hornbeck)
Kagro X has a very important post up over at The Great Orange Satan.
What is “law,” anyway? Is it the stuff that Congress passes in public and that you can read in order to be able to obey it? Or is it just anything that can in practice frighten you into obeying? If you can be sent to jail, or immunized from suit, or whatever, based on a secret showing that you relied in “good faith” on a memo an “administration” official gives you (and literally nothing more — and perhaps even a lot less), you really have to ask yourself that question. What. Is. Law?
I’ve given my reaction to it in comments, but perhaps you’re not as comfortable as I am being comment 450 of 600 waiting for the troll patrol to slap you down for clapping insufficiently hard to bring Tinkerbell back to life.
I expect this will be a little lower traffic than that, in a place where ratings mean nothing.
So sock puppet all you want. Tell me what you really think without damage to your main account and don’t worry about simulating community approval.
I’ll leave you with the big wind up-
And if nobody knows what “law” is, one might just as well ask what the point of being in Congress is. After all, it’s purported in our Constitution that Congress has the prerogative to make the laws. But now it’s making laws that say things other than what it passes can substitute for law — specifically anything the White House puts on in a memo, or whispers to you in a meeting.
That’s a gut punch directly to the very foundation of western civilization. And we worry whether talking about it will jeopardize our chances in the next election.
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I’ll take my lumps.
in the next slot.
A very important post from Kagro.
Crossroads time, indeed.
are you railing against the troll patrol at dKos? are you inviting the disgruntled to let loose here? i’m not sure what you want…
and what i really think? we really have to get over the fact that we’ve been lied to and duped by the pols and start figuring out ways to push-the-fuck-back
blocs formed via blogging… organizing actions here… not thousands of things… let’s pick one BIG thing people can do without leaving home…
got any ideas? and we don’t need the whole world… let’s just start with a few hundred of us here and see if it will grow
got any ideas?
… what I have been thinking about for a long, long time.
Of course my beat is social justice — so to me it really is about equal protection under the law — if laws only protect the privileged (Scooter) who are never then punished under those laws (Scooter, telecoms, blackwater, etc.), then the only way one can look at the laws is that we need to obey them out of fear — that it is really power operating here, not laws at all.
Whose ass should I kick? Just tell me, ek.
Meanwhile, I’ve been thinking about this latest FISA thing for days and days. My take is different than everyone’s.
I agree with the nazis that all communications inside and outside of America should be monitored — at least until I get out.
Everybody wants blood revenge against the United States and it will not end in your lifetime. Bush and the Neocons ruined your nation and its security forever — and now living here requires full survelliance of everyone at all times. They are not just paranoid. They KNOW which way the wind blows.
Why fret over FISA? It’s your only hope.
That’s why it’s playing out this way.
EK, thanks for the mirth!
I see you’re enjoying junior high school o’er there at least as much as I am.
I certainly applaud you (went through ad nauseum to uprate your every comment) for standing up against… well… the scions and benefactors of systematized genocide – that globalized war profiteering scheme which puts the food on the tables anymore – making wisecracks about same said genocide. Talk about fattening the heart in a day of slaughter…
Also haven’t told you how much I appreciate your news roundup although when we’re rich in stone I tend to get out the door early to mud up and don’t always see anything until there’s permafrost on your newsthread. Thank you, great work.
OK just had me a peep at the great orange junior high auditorium (worst years of my life were junior high, and my alumni did not much evolve from there…) and I’m here to invest you in what I would call logic, which would be called tinfoil at the pep rally…
Bomb Iran and the world economic system will crash, the first major jolt within hours.
Think they’re dumping dollars now? Dollar hegemony will become like that rudely interrupted dream you vainly wish to recall. Smack, right now. A freeway pile-up of Titanics screeching suddenly into a twisted, smoking ruin. Global economic collapse.
Now. They are evil, Congress, but this is not to say they’re stupid. They know this. It’s not a secret the US has been using its status as preferred international reserve currency as a giant, global corporate credit card, and they know what international response will be to – especially – a nuclear attack on anyone. They know it better than anyone.
Therefore, should you see an attack on Iran, if you don’t want to be dead center in the cheap seats in a totalitarian lockdown – martial law – when they set up the new, globalized currency system after the (“ooops!”) great economic “accident”… run.
This is why I hope to Heaven the Iran thing is nothing but bluster.
Oh, law? Hey, there’s plenty of law. Martial law, all set up. I will leave you with a souvenir about all of that.
You asked, I told you. They’re playing dumb like foxes. Looks to me like they’re busy preparing for martial law after attacking Iran. After all, dollar hegemony is falling apart like a cheap suit right now. Gotta do something with the new, globalized US economy, right?
famous last details: