It's all a big scam. It's a big scam that's aimed right at the 300 million or so Americans that don't see it coming.
What is the scam? Well, here's a piece of it. We now have a "Civil Liberties Protection Officer" who will no doubt be just as effective as the "Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board" that was formed in response to the September 11th Commission.
Oh wait - that board has yet to meet even once according to the Los Angeles Times.
Clearly, the government is all about going through the motions, but in reality is hiring the fox to guard the hen house. How can a "Civil Liberties Protection Officer" be expected to actually protect civil liberties when he reports to the Director of National Intelligence? He reports to the guy that he's supposed to be watching over!
It's also curious that if the administration is so concerned with civil liberties that they would be awarding yet more contracts to 'effing Halliburton to build "immigrant detention centers." Is it just me, or does setting up puppet committees and building detention centers smack a bit too much of something that happened in Europe around 1937?
Let's play "guess the author" real quick with a couple quotes:
Quote #1
"The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country."
Who said this wonderfully slimy quote? Let's do multiple choice:
A. Adolf Hitler
B. Hermann Goering
C. George W. Bush
D. John Ashcroft
Quote #2
"To those who scare peace-loving people with phantoms of lost liberty, my message is this: Your tactics only aid terrorists, for they erode our national unity and diminish our resolve."
Go ahead and take a guess who belongs to this one:
A. Adolf Hitler
B. Hermann Goering
C. George W. Bush
D. John Ashcroft
Quote #1 came from Hermann Goering - Hitler's right hand sleazeball. Pay attention to how the US Government has been acting ever since September of 2001 - they had their Reichstag Fire in lower Manhattan, and just like the Nazis, they used it to scare the public into going along with their plans to consolidate power.
Quote #2 comes from no other than John Ashcroft, during the campaign to pass the Patriot Act. Notice how he's doing exactly what Goering says works everywhere - denouncing the people that don't want to fall in line as being unpatriotic, and being soft on terrorism.
I'm not here suggesting that the current administration schemed to cause the events of September 11. Don't even suggest that. I am saying that they are using those events to the fullest advantage to advance their agenda - put lots of money into the good ol' boys' big business pockets that got them there in the first place. After all, Halliburton and ExxonMobile just posted up record profits, which I'm sure has absolutely nothing to do with the no-bid government contracts, and the volatile price of crude oil due to ongoing war and uncertainty in the middle east.
It's unfortunate that in order to do so, they are bending the Constitution that they swore to defend almost to the breaking point. Oh, and then there's the killing people thing, but that's a different rant.
So here's an idea, you douchebags - leave our friggin rights alone. Stop listening in on phone conversations without judicial approval. Stop imprisoning people with no arrest warrant, no lawyer, and no charges as "material witnesses" and letting them rot in a Federal prison for god knows how long. Stop monitoring what people are reading at the library - it's none of your 'effing business. Stop with your "sneak and peek" searches of people's residences that you don't even have to inform them of. Stop sending The Man to do investigations of people for exercising their First Amendment rights by posting an opinion contrary to yours on the Internet, or god forbid writing a letter to the local newspaper editor.
Stop spying on your own god damn citizens, and instead do some good in the world, like stopping the proliferation of nuclear arms into the hands of unstable totalitarian murderous fuckers, which you seem to have been totally inept at thus far.
I'm done.
