What’s happening to this country?

Got up today and started looking at the world through the lens of my computer as I do each day, and came across two stories that just seem like madness to me.

The first one involved more revelations about the Plame outing and how much damage was really done there.
Here’s some video from a CBS interview for 60 Minutes….

What I came away with is that there may have been not only an intention to punish Joe Wilson, but also an intended/unintended (who knows, but they MUST have known what she was working on and what the effects would be) consequence to the program to keep Iran’s nuke program derailed.

Now that’s either criminal on it’s face, or at the very least criminally negligent AND stupid.

Unless there’s a future positive side to Iran’s nuke program moving forward, like creating a justification to bomb/invade them for it later?

But even without such a heinously evil interpretation of events….WHAT THE HELL WERE THESE GUYS DOING?

If it’s NOT treason to blow out an agent and all of their assets, especially for political revenge, then what the hell IS? Especially when it has real and measurable consequences that involve a country getting NUKES?

I’m stunned by the lack of repercussions about this…..

The other was the thing about the Canadian citizen who was snatched at an airport and then whisked off to a Torture camp in Syria, where he WAS tortured (duh) and then later found to be innocent.

A coupla thing here really bother me, and the first of them is that TORTURE DOES NOT WORK!

As the linked article mentions, you also raise the chances that your own troops will be abused this way, AND you lose the upper moral ground, which is one of the pillars of what we’re supposed to represent isn’t it?

So you get information that is suspect, you expose your own troops to torture, and you lose your “Angel Wings”?

Sounds like a really great idea…….

It’s really disturbing to me that this issue is even on the table, not to mention that it’s been passed and codified by Congress and that “our” president is so Gung Ho about it…..I’m stunned even now….

*UPDATE – 11/14/07*

Here’s a GREAT rant by Keith Olbermann on this subject, awesome in it’s justified outrage, intelligence, and lack of concern for what anyone thinks about it – AWESOME!

Is this possible, or even likely?

I’ve been going around saying for a while now that BushCo may not be done with us yet. These guys are in love with the job they’re doing for their corporate pals AND hastening Armageddon, (or maybe better this), so I’m a little dubious about how interested they are in giving up the driver’s seat.

But how would it be accomplished? It’s not like the American public is SO sold on him and his policies that they would stand for him pissing RIGHT on the Constitution in public, so what could make such a thing possible?

Indulge my Doomsday fetish for a second….

In order for BushCo. to pull this off, they would need the public to be knocked out of their complacency in a big way, something would have to scare them SO bad that they would see him staying in office and swaggering about like a drunk hillbilly at his sister’s (cousin’s, aunt’s, all the same person etc) as somehow a good thing.

So I’m thinking that letting (just not paying attention to intel that warns about) a small nuke or dirty bomb go off, pretty much anywhere in the country, that would probably do it.

As in 9/11, all questions about the Constitution, checks and balances, civil rights, Freedom of the Press, you know, all the things that define America, would all be shoved aside in this scenario, and the public would probably allow it or even embrace it in their fear, just as before.

So assuming that he gets away with this, (yes I know there’s a million reasons why he wouldn’t, but that’s what the public has always thought right before the cell door slammed on them), so now he’s the President who has postponed an election.

What’s the next step? If you’re smart (not Bush, don’t be silly, but Cheney probably is, Rove is for sure), then you need to keep people in this state of mind for awhile, at the same time making sure there aren’t any voices of reason and opposition trying to remind people what America actually means (kinda sounds like now eh?) and that the drumbeat for MORE war, retribution and state control bangs along unceasingly and LOUD.

So you start rounding up any media that isn’t playing ball, and any people speaking out publicly against your actions…..but you have to find some justification for this, so you rewrite the law leaving the definition of what is a terrorist or a terrorist act open to (your) interpretation. Then you make sure you can try these people (in private, since you’ve already given yourself the power to suspend habeas corpus), or not, maybe just throw them into a secret prison somewhere, and now you’ve got the stage all to yourself! If you think this is all bizarre so far, please note that a large part of all this is already in place as of this writing, really.

So onwards with our little fetish dance……

So who is going to do all this dirty work for you? Let’s make the historically tragically misinformed assumption that your own Armed Forces wouldn’t do such a thing, nor would your police forces, so who? How about your own private army, bought and paid for by the very public you plan to use it on? The founder of the company is right on board with your religious views, and a large percentage of the actual mercenaries are from other countries and could give a rat’s ass about shooting/beating/torturing American civilians, since most of them are from countries where they did the same thing to their own countrymen.

Blackwater was co-founded by former Navy Seal Erik Prince, a “billionaire right-wing fundamentalist Christian from a powerful Michigan Republican family. A major Republican campaign contributor, he interned in the White House of President George H.W. Bush and campaigned for Pat Buchanan in 1992. He founded the mercenary firm Blackwater USA in 1997 with Gary Jackson, another former Navy SEAL.”

Prince’s father, Edgar Prince, and Gary Bauer started the Family Research Council, where Prince interned. Prince’s sister, Betsy DeVos, is a former chair of the Michigan Republican Party.

And this from…

JEREMY SCAHILL: Blackwater’s man in Latin — well, he’s no longer their man in Latin America, but the man who has been working for Blackwater in Latin America is a guy named Jose Miguel Pizarro, and he’s a dual citizen of the US and Chile. And I actually got him to go on record with me and interviewed him for several hours. And Mr. Pizarro grew up in Pinochet’s Chile with dreams of serving in the Chilean military. And he’s a major defender of Augusto Pinochet and a defender of Pinochet’s record and says he lived in the military government for seventeen years and didn’t see any dictatorship and, you know, goes on and on. And I explain it in detail in the book how much of a fan he is of Pinochet.……

……

And eventually in February of 2004, Pizarro is up in Moyock, North Carolina, with his first batch of Chileans. And he says that he provided some 750 Chilean forces to Blackwater and other private military firms operating in Iraq. Those were the first international forces Blackwater admits to using. Gary Jackson, the guy who originally opposed it, was quoted then, after his Chileans arrived in Iraq, as saying, “We scoured the ends of the earth for professionals, and the Chileans fit well within the Blackwater system.”

So you’ve got your private soldiers to use on any insurgents (U.S. citizens), suspected terrorists (U.S. citizens) or people aiding and abetting terrorists (U.S. citizens).

So now you’re a de facto Dictator, but probably still flying the flags of Freedom, Democracy and the American Way as justifications for going out and pummeling to glass any country who dares to defy you, and the corporations you favor send you lots of gift baskets for Christmas.

Nuts….

So what got me thinking like this anyways? All this Doomsday shit and the return of the Third Reich on American soil?

Well, history for one. The kind of measures that have been and are being put in place always head to the same place, always. You’re not going to see the government, be it BushCo or others, EVER give up these powers, and I believe they will actually try to expand them, as we’ve seen since the first “Patriot” Act, and even though we’ve not seen another terrorist action here in this country…..so why expand it?

But maybe my reasons for feeling this way are really more about the kind of man Bush is. Anyone who can convince himself that going into Iraq was a good idea, that skewering the Constitution is a reasonable way to “save” America, that God is on his side, and that almost the entire American public is wrong, that’s someone who wants to drive, not sit shotgun.

So I’m not sure I see him giving this thing up just yet, and he’s gone a LONG way towards keeping the driver’s seat so far.

*UPDATE ADDITION – 10/25/07*

In the time since I wrote this, I’ve had a chance to read Naomi Wolf’s “The End of America”, which details the steps needed to usurp the Constitution and establish a basically fascist government along the lines of Mussolini and/or Hitler, and she outlines the parallels between what was done in those countries/times and what’s being done here and now in America.

What I was struck by was a series of “what if’s?” that she put together near the end of the book that basically track almost exactly what I’ve mentioned above……so in case you’re thinking I’m a nut case who’s let his imagination run wild here, I’m not alone……

And just to hammer the point home, here’s Bill Moyers talking about the exact same thing, look a few minutes in in Part 2 of this program (or here on YouTube) for a look at Moyers bringing up the same question, here’s the quote from the transcript –

BILL MOYERS: You know, I had a scary thought during the night as I was thinking about talking to you. And I know some people–

JEREMY SCAHILL: That happens to me a lot. (LAUGHTER)

BILL MOYERS: The thought was, you know, suppose we had a national emergency. Suppose the terrorists struck again. And a President, President Hillary Clinton, or President Barack Obama declared marshal law in order to try to deal with this threat. And there was a private army of twenty thousand soldiers that I could call upon to throw a ring around the capital and make sure that the Congress didn’t leave town or didn’t get back to the capital if– how far fetched is that?

I’m just saying….

*UPDATE ADDITION 1/13/08*

Here’s something Bush said that is relevant……of course it comes off as a joke, but it’s still interesting…

Reporter: Mr. President, following up on Vladimir Putin for a moment, he said recently that next year, when he has to step down according to the constitution, as the president, he may become prime minister; in effect keeping power and dashing any hopes for a genuine democratic transition there …

Bush: I’ve been planning that myself.

Of course I don’t think it means much on it’s own, but I think it’s true, he HAS been thinking about it.

Dixie Chicks Movie

It took me a minute to decide if this was politics or music, but I guess since what I’m pissed about is more in the political area – it’s going in politics….

I just finished watching “Shut up and Sing” which is a sorta documentary about the Dixie Chicks and what they went through when Natalie Maines made her comment about Bush being from Texas, and first off, I can recommend this movie on many levels.

It’s obviously on the face of it a very interesting look at what it’s like to be in the shoes of someone who a large number of people in this country hate (hate still?), but it’s also a great viewpoint to look at what happened in the country at that time, with the war starting, Powell at the UN, Bush on the carrier, country fans freaking out and basically attacking the D.C.’s etc etc….really interesting.

I ended up having more respect for and liking what they did even more than I did before. I must say that I had some of the same type of experiences after 9/11 and also when the war started ramping up, though obviously in a smaller way. But I had people kicking me off websites, threatening me, calling gigs where I was going to be playing and saying all kinda things about me, some people getting VERY aggressive when I would say my things about the war and what I thought about the criminals that started it etc etc etc…..so when I see them having those experiences, but at the enormous level that they were dealing with, to show the spunk and courage that they did really pleased me a lot, it’s good to know that not EVERYONE sells out, sometimes they do the thing that is right and that they believe in, and that’s not ALWAYS about the money.

And then they get the money ANYWAYS!!!

I couldn’t be more pleased….I know I went right out and bought the album BECAUSE of their stance, and it turns out I really like it too – BONUS!

I think there’s been another effect of their shoving back, and that’s to take some of the steam and the self-righteous “gang authority” that a wound up but ill-informed or just plain stupid public somehow got, because for a minute there it looked like they were gonna get away with this roasting they did to the D.C.’s, and that was just NOT America, no matter how many hateful fear-mongering sloganeering yahoos wanted to claim it was.

So anyway, if you haven’t seen it, give it a Netflix-ing, I think you’ll be fascinated by the view from inside, their courage, their musicality, and as my wife said watching it, their normalcy and coolness as people. Of course I don’t know them, (though I’ve met their live drummer Fred and he’s a very nice guy, especially considering I was hammered when I met him….), but you do get a sense of who they are.

You may also be interested in your own remembrance of what you thought about things at the time, how you were being treated if you were against the war, or maybe whether or not you’ve apologized for what you may have said to people who were against it and you were for it……hunh. Maybe you still are?

How that could be I’ll never know, but I know they’re out there somewhere….I know I haven’t received one apology from any of the many many online and real world people who vilified me, tried to hurt my career, and in several instances threatened me or even in one case followed me to my car after a gig (that person became less aggressive after I let him see the pipe I have in the back of my van – no I’m not kidding, it got that weird).

That was a weird time, and honestly it continues to be to me…..I’m just totally dismayed and confused by the continued aggressiveness of these people in the face of all fact and reason, and it just blows me away that we’re not impeaching Bush and all of his people that were in on this, and that we can’t seem to get ahold of this corporate feed trough that this war always was, no matter how many people make it clear they’re OVER IT!!

Why we aren’t seeing a massive landslide of really pointed and aggressive questioning of all the people involved, why the media isn’t just hounding them for answers, why the Democrats have wasted the opportunity to DO SOMETHING historic…it’s all just like being in the rabbit hole that never ends….

Check the movie out, you’ll like it.