Sand Blasting: Throwing Grit in the Gears of the Machine
Written by Chris Floyd
Tuesday, 18 December 2007
It's very good that this week's filibuster by Senator Chris Dodd forced Democratic "leader" Harry Reid to withdraw -- temporarily -- the Cheney-written amnesty for telecom companies who worked with the Bush Regime to blatantly break the laws against spying on Americans in exchange for fat government contracts worth tens of millions of dollars in taxpayer money. For the moment, I'll skip the obvious caveats that bristle all around this minor victory, and just make this observation: look how very little it takes to throw some sand in the wheels of the vast authoritarian machine created by Bush and his very willing Democratic partners (and predecessors). All it took to turn aside the seemingly unstoppable juggernaut of the amnesty bill was a single senator who refused, this once, to go along for the ride, and the slightest bit of heat on Reid for his deceitful kowtowing to the presidential tyrant.
Yes, the bill will be back. It may well be even more virulent when it returns. And those who supported Dodd -- and Dodd himself -- will doubtless be subjected to savage attack by the Regime's apparatchiks (including backroom backstabbing from embarrassed Democratic "leaders"). An amnesty bill absolving the telecoms' bribe-givers and bootlickers may yet be forced through, taking us even further down the lawless roads.
But even so, that doesn't alter the sand-throwing significance of this episode. It not only shows how little it actually takes to gum up the works for the poltroons -- it also shows, heartbreakingly, how completely supine and complicit the "opposition" has been all these years (including Dodd). Where were the filibusters before now? On the Military Commissions Act, for example, which essentially ended even the semblance of a republic in the country and acknowledged the virtually unlimited power of the "unitary executive" to act as he sees fit? Where were the filibusters and holds and all the other parliamentary maneuvers to stop or delay the nomination of the torture-enabling minion Alberto Gonzales, to take just one of literally hundreds of examples? Where are the "holds" and filibusters on the spending bills for the war crime in Iraq? (Or on the "Authorization to Use Military Force" in the first place, for God's sake?) Where are the impeachment bills? >>>cont
LinkHere
Tuesday, 18 December 2007
It's very good that this week's filibuster by Senator Chris Dodd forced Democratic "leader" Harry Reid to withdraw -- temporarily -- the Cheney-written amnesty for telecom companies who worked with the Bush Regime to blatantly break the laws against spying on Americans in exchange for fat government contracts worth tens of millions of dollars in taxpayer money. For the moment, I'll skip the obvious caveats that bristle all around this minor victory, and just make this observation: look how very little it takes to throw some sand in the wheels of the vast authoritarian machine created by Bush and his very willing Democratic partners (and predecessors). All it took to turn aside the seemingly unstoppable juggernaut of the amnesty bill was a single senator who refused, this once, to go along for the ride, and the slightest bit of heat on Reid for his deceitful kowtowing to the presidential tyrant.
Yes, the bill will be back. It may well be even more virulent when it returns. And those who supported Dodd -- and Dodd himself -- will doubtless be subjected to savage attack by the Regime's apparatchiks (including backroom backstabbing from embarrassed Democratic "leaders"). An amnesty bill absolving the telecoms' bribe-givers and bootlickers may yet be forced through, taking us even further down the lawless roads.
But even so, that doesn't alter the sand-throwing significance of this episode. It not only shows how little it actually takes to gum up the works for the poltroons -- it also shows, heartbreakingly, how completely supine and complicit the "opposition" has been all these years (including Dodd). Where were the filibusters before now? On the Military Commissions Act, for example, which essentially ended even the semblance of a republic in the country and acknowledged the virtually unlimited power of the "unitary executive" to act as he sees fit? Where were the filibusters and holds and all the other parliamentary maneuvers to stop or delay the nomination of the torture-enabling minion Alberto Gonzales, to take just one of literally hundreds of examples? Where are the "holds" and filibusters on the spending bills for the war crime in Iraq? (Or on the "Authorization to Use Military Force" in the first place, for God's sake?) Where are the impeachment bills? >>>cont
LinkHere
posted by Kangaroo Brisbane Australia at 3:03 AM
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