posted on June 28, 2002 04:21:26 AM new
What were the authors of the bill proposing the new Homeland Security Department thinking?
"A provision in the bill seeking to create a Homeland Security Department will exempt its employees from whistleblower protection", That's the law that helped expose the intelligence screwups leading to September 11.
"The department would not be required to release information under the Freedom of Information Act."
Huh? This would eliminate the agency's responsibility to answer questions from the public, and make the agency untouchable no matter what offensive or invasive programs it might initiate in your behalf.
Why would the bush administration propose this? Why, to cover their butts, of course. So that no matter how they devise to abuse power they will not be called on the carpet for it because their records will not be available to the public or to any other investigative arm which might be assigned by congress to oversee their activities. How nice for them, eh?
Right now the Senate Intelligence Committee is doing a little investigation of what happened on 9-11. They have heard from whistleblower Special Agent Colleen Rowley whose revelations about the FBI's actions and inactions concerning the 9-11 attack sparked a complete reorganization of the misguided FBI. Wouldn't you like to know more or have some assurance result from the investigation that such mistakes might not be repeated? I would, and I'm glad that the senate is able to look into it even though bush et all sends in the same fellow who did such a good job of obstructing the Senate investigation into the botched raid on a compound of religious loonies in Waco, Texas. You might recall, a lot of little kids were burned to death there. Kids that didn't have to die.
Sometimes government officials are dangerous. Sometimes they are just stupid or dishonest or incompetent. Sometimes we need to fire them. There is nothing new in that. At least in that case someone has to answer for the errors hopefully.
But this new plan will keep such investigations at bay, won't it?
We get secrecy and the never ending blitz of warnings about potential terrorist attacks. Terrorist scuba divers! Terrorist by land, sea and air! Somehow other countries have adapted to the fact of life that terrorism is part of the modern world. Do we do that? No, our Government officials want to use the situation to usurp powers in unprecedented ways and create a legal wall for the stupid, dishonest and incompetent among them to hide behind. That's the plan.
Is this the plan that the people want?
As long as we can be persuaded to think that we are going to be protected from "terrorism" we will do just about anything, even give
up the freedoms that our forefathers fought and died for. We are scared shitless. We are terrified. We are even further terrified by
pronouncements from Cheney, among others, that more terrorist attacks are inevitable.
Is the plan going to work or not? How will we know if it is working or not? If they can help it we won't.
But we don't care. We are terrified, right?
Are you really that scared? Are you that afraid of "terrorism" that you're willing to forgo the governmental safeguards built into the system to keep whacked out people like the Joe McCarthy types that people this administration at bay? They are taking away your ability to question, and for what? They've already shown that they can't keep you safe anyway.
posted on June 28, 2002 04:47:46 AM new
Well, at least Senator Leahy gets it:
Leahy voiced some of the toughest criticism yet, telling Ridge on
Wednesday, "I am concerned that the administration's proposal would
exempt the new department from many legal requirements that apply to
other agencies."
"The Freedom of Information Act would not apply. The conflicts of
interest and accountability rules for agency advisers would not apply," Leahy said.
He added, "The new department would have the right to suspend the Whistle-blower Protection Act,"
which shields from retribution federal workers who shed public light on government problems.
"In these respects, the administration is asking us to put this new department above the law and outside
checks and balances these laws are put there to ensure," Leahy said.
Sen. Charles Grassley, an Iowa Republican, voiced some of the same concerns, particularly about
"whistle-blowers," whom he called "an asset to government."
"We will work with you," Ridge replied. He vowed to revise the provision on whistle-blowers in Bush's
bill to create the Department of Homeland Security so it mirrored language on such protection at other
federal agencies.
"I think that's a pretty good answer," Grassley said.
At a second hearing later in the day on the proposed department, House of Representatives Judiciary
Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner, a Wisconsin Republican, told Ridge to expect plenty of
congressional scrutiny.
Rep. John Conyers of Michigan, the panel's top Democrat, added, "I'm concerned that the
department's lack of accountability threatens our nation's history as an open government."
With Bush demanding fast action on his proposed department, and lawmakers asking lots of questions,
more than a dozen congressional hearings on the subject are scheduled this week.
FBI Director Robert Mueller and CIA Director George Tenet are to appear on Thursday before the
Senate Governmental Affairs Committee ( news - web sites), which is examining how the two
intelligence agencies would work with the new department.
Bush wants the department to be a clearinghouse for information from those and other agencies to stop
the kinds of communication failures that may have been able to prevent the Sept. 11 attacks.
posted on June 28, 2002 05:00:43 AM new
This proposal undermines the essence of democracy much as Watergate did. I wonder how big a role Ashcroft had in this and who else comprises the secret society(SS)?
It's Good to know that the senate is paying attention to this effort to establish a Bush appointed secret police state accountable to nobody.
Rep. John Conyers of Michigan, the panel's top Democrat, added, "I'm concerned that the department's lack of accountability threatens our nations history as an open government.".......And our history began with this document....The Declaration of Independence.
"...Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness...Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just power from the consent of the governed--That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of the ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it…"
posted on June 28, 2002 08:21:29 AM new
ohborernorth- this thread was about a threat to the U.S. democratic system- if you would first wipe the residue off your monitor you might see the subject more clearly, as thinking more clearly is obviously out of the question. As though there is a PLO democracy that could be threatened, or were you once again failing miserably at trying to be funny?
posted on June 28, 2002 09:56:16 AM new
Between this and the Supremes ruling for school vouchers, I'm thinking it might be a good time for a hideout in the Negev. All RTers invited. You have the right to an informed opinion -Harlan Ellison
posted on July 13, 2002 08:31:46 AM new
From the article Helen links:
The response I generally hear is, “Well, duh!”For quite a while, folks have been complaining that they don’t understand the high poll ratings for Bush’s policies because no one they know supports them.
That's puzzled the hell out of me, too, since not long after 9/11, especially since this immediate area is what I would describe as moderately conservative and I hear opinion from a cross-section of people. Part of the problem with the poll results is that people don't know what the war on terrorism exactly means (who does?),but they know that they are opposed to terrorism. The two are, of course, not synonymous. I think that the administration itself has perpetuated a general state of confusion and ambiguity as a key strategy to push its political, or one could almost say, personal agenda, along with the measures to combat terrorism.
posted on July 13, 2002 08:42:21 AM new
I have to apoligize antiquary - don't take this personal - I have great respect for your posts and thinking - but I think you are making a basic false assumption. We are conditioned a certain amount - even the most skeptical of us - to trust certain institutions. Those trusts are starting to unravel.
You are dealing here today with people who will cook the books of corperations to commit massive fraud ripping the retirement from millions of people. They will steal elections and drag people off from their Star Chamber to oblivion. They use the Law agencies and military forces as their personal thugs for political control and commercial advancement.
Do you really think they would hesitate to subvert the polls if they need certain numbers to ease their rule? What better way to stifle disent than to make people feel they are on the fringe and going against the crowd when conformity is such a powerful social force? In the face of level of the other crimes it would be an amusing trick.
posted on July 13, 2002 09:23:18 AM new
Hey Gravid!
Oh your presenting an alternative possibility, or anyone else doing so, would never bother me in the least. Besides which I enjoy your posts and much more often than not agree with your point of view.
I have considered the possibility of polsters being suborned and haven't entirely dismissed that explanation. Since the Supreme Court's unprecedented nullification of the Florida Supreme Court's decision in the election, I don't totally discount much. Two reasons that I remain hesitant to make that assumption is that there are so many polls and though the results vary some, they don't vary that greatly. I think it unlikely that they could all be controlled. The other reason is that, given the ego and arrogance of this administration, I don't think that they would allow approval ratings to fall as far as they have. I do suspect, however, that organizations such as Gallup may manipulate the results a bit in the misguided belief that it would be patriotic to do so, much as the media has gone out of its way to try to make Bush look good.
But I agree that things are beginning to unravel. What happens in the next few months should give us some good additional insight into The Administration.
posted on July 13, 2002 11:05:57 AM new
Regarding retirement funds, there should be laws that prevent a pension fund from holding more than certain percentage of the fund's total market value in a single stock (and its related companies). I'm surprised there is not.
My company's pension fund always had internal rules to that effect. It's just prudent financial management.
Governments can easily control the content of pension funds by the eligibility rules for special tax treatment. In Canada for example, contributions to a retirement fund used to be ineligible for special tax treatment if more than 10% (recently changed to 20%) of the total assets of the fund were invested in non-Canadian companies.
posted on July 13, 2002 11:12:19 AM new
I've been reading a good book by Noam Chomsky, Media Control, in which he is discussing a form of self imposed totalitarianism with the bewildered herd distracted and terrified while they worship their leader.
He writes that "The bewildered herd is a problem. We've got to prevent their roar and trampling. We've got to distract them. They should be watching the Superbowl or sitcoms or violent movies. Every once in a while you call on them to chant meaningless slogans like "Support our troops." You've got to keep them pretty scared because unless they're properly scared and frightened of all kinds of devils that are going to destroy them from outside or inside or somewhere, they may start to think, which is very dangerous, because they're not competent to think. Therefore it's important to distract them and marginalize them."
So, the slogan, support our troops, which everyone accepts without question, should be, "Do you support our policy?".
I think that the herd is beginning to think about this question.
posted on July 13, 2002 01:10:38 PM new
From Helen's Link to the Statesman Journal, a well-established and respected newspaper here in Oregon:
"An associate reports from Kansas City that he made a sign saying, “Bush is lying about 9-11!!” and stood in the city center displaying it to passing traffic. He says, “In three hours, I was only flipped off once; 90 percent of the those who acknowledged me were cheering and honking and saying, ‘I knew it all along.’”
I just took my car in to have the breaks done. Even the mechanic is pizzed off at Bush and can't express in words what he thinks of the Office of Homeland Security and the Patriot Act, but the sour look on his face said it all. Folks, I think Americans are just about ready to exercise their American Heritage and start a full-fledged rebellion. If someone does, you can be sure that the vast majority of Americans will support such an act if it is non-violent. Active Resistance is starting to form up everywhere in America and Citizens are onlky looking for a leader to show them the way to express their outrage at the government's conduct and lawbreaking. It won't be too long now and Kommandant Busche will no longer be in office. I doubt the Democrats in office will survive it either. And I'd hate to be one of the Supreme Court Five right about now. As for the GOP? They better start making evacuation plans to foreign countries if they don't want to end up on the wrong side of a People's Tribunal. That's not me advocating it, I just report what I see and hear.
posted on July 13, 2002 01:58:16 PM new
Ah - force is always the rub. Government doesn't hesitate to use it against the individual. If you do not pay your taxs or buy permits and licenses they will send an armed officer to put you off your land and sell it and others will buy it.
Now if almost everyone stopped filling out tax forms and if almost all the officers refused to drag a man off his land and set his belonging on the curb what would they do? If they seized property and nobody would bid on it? What if people stopped using the recognized currency? But it takes a LOT to make most people engage in peaceful disobedience. They will I am sure use the military against the civilian population.
Ollie North did a study for the Fed. Emergency agency about how to set up camps and imprison large groups if there was popular resistance to a war. You can be sure they have such plans all updated and ready to roll at the signature of the Pres. declaring martial law. There is an act to prohibit such use of the military but that sort of thing doesn't seem to matter anymore. If they set a travel restriction and tell everyone to stay off the highway and stop travel state to state it would be pretty hard to resist NO?
posted on July 13, 2002 03:16:21 PM new
Name calling does not prove a point.
Actually I think Israel has a right to exist I just dont think they should have a blank check here and they damm well do.
posted on July 13, 2002 07:30:19 PM new
>>Now if almost everyone stopped filling out tax forms and if almost all the officers refused to drag a man off his land and set his belonging on the curb what would they do? If they seized property and nobody would bid on it? What if people stopped using the recognized currency? But it takes a LOT to make most people engage in peaceful disobedience.<<
I think about how I am a victim of taxation without representation a lot. Is there a way to refuse to pay, based on that?
It has been done in at least one form in the States of CT and NJ, if my recollection is correct. I think people simply refused to pay sales or state tax or both.
posted on July 13, 2002 07:39:03 PM new
IRS has taken many people to court for protesting by not filing out a return or by not signing it. Each time, the courts rule that the person is expressing their First Amenment right to Free Speech and recognize it as a valid form of protrst. mind you, I'm not telling anyone that they should do this.
posted on July 13, 2002 07:53:38 PM new
We lived across the hall from people that got involved with tax protestors. They desided to go head to head with the Feds on a number of points and refused to pay. The interesting thing was they were clearly correct in a number of things - such as the fact that an unbacked paper currency is unlawful. The constitution gives the government rights to coin money and set value for foreign coinage. However this is another area they just grab the power to install a huge array of agencies that create a fiat credit based system of money that makes "cash" from thin air and regulates the value of that credit based money. Try deciding from the documents which branch of government Greenspan works for and come back and tell me. See if you can keep a straight face.
I told them all that did not matter because no matter how right they are the courts control the men with the guns and they would come take away their happy home if they did not do as they were told.
Last I knew the activist they got involved with was serving 7 years and the couple were living in their car.
posted on July 13, 2002 08:47:44 PM newHowever this is another area they just grab the power to install a huge array of agencies that create a fiat credit based system of money that makes "cash" from thin air and regulates the value of that credit based money.
{{sigh}} I wish economics courses were mandatory in school. Gravid, when the U.S. was on the gold standard it also regulated the value of its currency i.e. US$35 per ounce of gold. It was a completely arbitrary figure. Shrewd investors in other countries happily bought gold at that artificially low price. Americans couldn't - it was illegal for them to own gold.
The free market and productivity of the U.S. (GNP) regulates the value of the U.S. dollar now. If too much money is created "from thin air", inflation results. People have more money to spend but each dollar buys less. They are no better off. Those in control of the money supply know that. Changing from the gold standard was no power grab political manoever. The gold standard had outlived its usefulness and wasn't working.
Irene
[ edited by stockticker on Jul 13, 2002 08:52 PM ]
posted on July 13, 2002 09:51:31 PM new
I'll second that notion!
What used to happen was that gold was set at a stationary value. When gold went up, every investor bought gold from the U.S. and then sold it for a profit on other markets. Therefoe, taxpayers purchased the gold to make the rich richer. Just like today, in fact.
An idea came forth that the price of gold could now be monitored at the exact selling price as the market. But to convince anyone to go back to the bad-old days of corruption, you just know that it would be another scheme for rich folks to get richer off the backs of the taxpayer some more.
posted on July 14, 2002 04:05:17 AM new
Decided to condense it and correct some errors - got tongue tied.
Yes there were abuses of the gold standard.
But the basic fact is the control of wealth was more in the hands of the public when there were material backings for money than today - it was also less stable and subject to interferance from other countries.
Once the metal floated in circulation and often there was not enough to perform the function of keeping a fluid market because it's physical scarcity interfered.
If you have a currency based on gold and own an ounce of Gold and the government says Gold will be worth $400 the ounce tomarrow instead of $200 what has happened? Has the dollar gone down in value because it will buy less gold or has the gold gone up in value because it will return more dollars? It used to be that physical scarcity determained the gold was limited and the money you could print all you want so the gold WAS the standard. The government hoarded the metal out of circulation to enforce that. It comes down to which is more desirable the goods or the money?
Now you have a reversed situation where the government controls the number of dollars available so they are telling us not what their dollars are worth for our goods but what our goods are worth for their dollars.
There is an almost unlimited supply of goods.
Things are easy to manufacture and food is grown much easier than in the past. These things should be so common that they would require very little of a medium of scarcity to aquire them - be cheap. The government has successfully transfered us from exchanging a physically limited standard to a politically limited standard. They could never completely control the gold. People would dig up more without any regard to the need to expand the money supply. Sometimes there was not enough to promote free exchange of values. That tempted government to cheat and issue more recipts for the metal than they had on hand. If they tried to adjust value the owners of the outstanding reciepts for the metal objected to any lowering of the value. There was no way to hide the change. Now the change comes automatically built in to the system. Each year all your markers are worth less and you expect it without objection. Inflation is only upsetting when is increases past what we are trained we have to accept and can't work hard enough to stay even.
However now they have complete control of the markers for the game - and since those dollars are limited in supply by the government they control what the things we own are worth as long as they are more valuable.
They enforce this by making barter illegal. You can't do business outside the dollar system.
If you do a transaction you still need to assign dollar value to it and be taxed on it in dollars that they control. You can't barter for a ton of copper and pay them with 100 pounds of copper for the tax.
Land is never owned here. It is leased from the government for the taxes set in their dollars.
They have their hand now on the throttle to control the economy instead of the people producing the goods driving the action. Sure they control things and try to steer the direction with special taxes - subsidies - tariffs. But they drive jerky and have not learned how to keep it on the road.
Tell me it is not true. They have switched over from one system to the other so well we can be allowed to own gold OK with no danger to the government because they have made it impossible to use it as money with the tax system.
Once you could accumalate wealth and sit on it and it kept value. Now they have it so everybody has to keep running in place just to stay even.
