I dunno if it’s so new. It kinda reminds me of the 50’s and McCarthyism. The big difference is that the forces opposed to the neofascists are so much weaker than before.

You remember that argument – it’s from ‘1984’.

A new kind of war? What the fuck is Condi on about now?

Oh, right. The same old twaddle she’s been getting away with for years.

I’m really pissed off about this because our own Canadian wingnuts have been emboldened for years now by this corrupt administration and are making life *here* considerably less pleasant.

I wish they’d all follow the examples of BLT (and Frum) and move to warmer climes (..and out of my face.)

The new kind of war is the kind that skips that annoying “Congress shall have the power to declare war” technicality.

You know, like the War on Drugs.

Let me tell you a little story that sums up what’s wrong with the progressives in America today:
So, last week Bush was in Philadelphia for a speech and there were some people protesting. The groups sorta broke down into two demogaphic groups, a cluster of younger folk and everyone else. The younger ones were chanting “1,2,3,4 we don’t need your fucking war!”

The older group of protesters were embarassed by this and decided to counter it by getting a 50-ish woman on a loudspeaker singing what one could eventually make out as the Bob Marley tune “Redemption Song,” in kind of a Joan Baez-ish folk singer way.

And now my analysis – one group is emptily chanting trite slogans with a kind of retro-kitsch appeal. The other is embarassed by it and appeals to a watered down 1960’s aesthetic that they’ve long since sold out from. The groups don’t talk to each other, they don’t address issues in a substatative manner, and they all equate showing up in the street to boo the most incompetent president in our history with doing something for change.

Not that the conservative part of the country is much in terms of coherence of message. But they do tend to organize and turn out to support candidates that will give them what they want, or a facimilie thereof.

Off topic and uninterestng, I know. I’m just feeling pessimistic today.

Well, it’s impossible for wingnuts to be embarrased, so they’ve got that working in their favour.

I pretty much decided in 2000 that this was only going to stop when the Bushies corruption was no longer just a rumour. Are we there yet, or do we actually have to see domestic kidnappings before it becomes clear?

Mmmmm–I “love” the smell of Bushshit in the morning!

Why beat around the subject?.just come out and say it?.we?ve installed a new kinda?cough?authoritarian?cough?republic?

Maybe, if you chant “9/11 changed everything” and “we’re fighting them over there so we don’t have to fight them at home” often enough and long enough, the “new kind of war” argument starts to make sense.

Well I can see why they’d skip the warrant process. Everything I know about the law I learned from Law & Order, and has anyone else noticed how much trouble and time and how many fiery hoops the well-meaning DA has to go through before those civil liberties-lovin’, criminal-coddling judges finally issue them?

mergenow: no, no it does not. unless you huffing paint at the same time.

Good Gawdamighty, have you seen the LGF comment thread about the NSA thing? (Technically, it’s about Bush’s speech about the news reports about the NSA thing.) I swear, those people are living in a completely different reality from the rest of us.

Wow, Dan, I don’t know how you can stand to read that garbage. I just read about the first fifty comments, and I can’t beleive that there are people who actually see the world that way.

I would love to ask them what they would think of President Hillary wielding those powers, but regsitration is closed.

Dan-FOR THE LOVE OF GOD MAN, STAY AWAY FROM THE LGF’ers! I can’t go to that site – makes my eyeballs bleed! Then I have to shower to get the slime off…

Shorter Condi:
Bush Almighty has met the enemy and in the words of Pogo, “they is us.”

‘Maybe, if you chant “9/11 changed everything” and “we’re fighting them over there so we don’t have to fight them at home” often enough and long enough, the “new kind of war” argument starts to make sense.’

Don’t forget “It’s a new paradigm!” and “It’s a watershed!”

i wouldn’t normally do this, but i found this exchange so horrifying that i wanted to really take a second to read it over…i’ve omitted the parts where Rice isn’t actively answering Russert’s question…

Russert: “What is the legal authority, what is the Constitutional authority, for the President to eavesdrop on American citizens without getting court approval?”

Rice: (talks about what the president has done for a while and how the president decided to act vis a vis the NSA)”The president is acting under his constitutional authority, under statutory authority?i’m not a lawyer, but the president has gone to great lengths to make certain that he is both living under his obligations to protect Americans from another attack but also to protect their civil liberties.” (goes on to talk about the many safeguards in the NSA program.)”The president is drawing on his constitutional authorities to protect the country.”

Russert: “The law is very clear that a person is guilty of an offence unless they get a court order before seeking to wiretap an American citizen. Why did the president not get a court order?”

Rice: (talks about FISA and how it was developed in the cold war and was geared towards state actors but not towards terrorists. FISA was not sufficient and therefore…)
“…the president has drawn on additional authorities that he has under the constitution and under other statutes.”

Russert: “What are the other authorities?”

Rice: “Tim, again, I’m not a lawyer but the president has constitutional authority and he has statutory authority.”

i am totally gobsmacked. these are not complex legal questions. although condi (by her own repeated admission) is not a lawyer, if there was something (anything!) she could cite that would give the president the authority he’s claiming, i’m sure someone in the white house could have explained it to her in five minutes. a logical person will thus conclude “THERE IS NO FUCKING AUTHORITY! HE’S BREAKING THE LAW!” we don’t need an election in ’08. we need another revolution.

Say that loud enough, a.j., and they’ll tap your phones and start reading your emails.

If you’re looking to liberal America to start a revolution, I sure hope you aren’t holding your breath. They’re all carrying Hillary Clinton’s water like she’s the second coming of the goddamned Christ child.

Half the country is convinced Hillary “flag desecration should be a crime, but voting for war in Iraq should be praised” Clinton is the living embodiment of what the left should be about, and the other half of the country wants to horsewhip and crucify her – because they think she’s the living embodiment of what the left is about.

My sentiments on the topic come nearer to mirroring Mercutio’s every day. A dog, a rat, a mouse, a cat indeed.

Jillian, I don’t know if you’ve been paying attention to the past year’s Democratic primary straw polls, but Clark, not Clinton, comes out the clear winner every time.

I thought it was pretty clear that everyone from center leftward in this country is pretty disillusioned with Hillary and the DLC, Republican-lite paradigm she represents. There’s a reason Dean is in charge of the DNC. There is a reason the party is rallying behind the likes of Murtha and Boxer, not Lieberman and Miller.

Now if only that spine transplant would fucking take, already…

points well taken, jillian. i’d LOVE to be considered subversive enough for a phone tap. do i think we need a monumental shift in our political system? sure. am i expecting anything like the from the american left? sadly…well, you know the rest.

I wish it were clear, teh, darling. If you really could convince me that mainstream democrats are embracing even the annoyingly limp liberal faux-leftists that populate the “extreme left” of the democratic party (every time I say “extreme” there, all I can hear is John Colbert saying “extreeeeeeeme” in that funny way he does) – if you really could convince me of that, I just might get so happy I’d have to start smooching people like it was V-J day in Times Sqaure or something.

As things stand right now, however, I’ve got a sixpack and a pizza on the Dems nominating a “liberal” like John Kerry for 2008.

Is Wes Clark honestly that much of an improvement over the Hill-meister? I swear to jebus I have nightmares over what happens to this country if the dems nominate her – I really do. Clark is probably an improvement over Hillary, but only in the same way that, say, Hannibal Lechter might be “improved” if he only killed people, instead of killing them and eating them.

And I seriously begin to suspect that a lot of the problem with the Democratic party isn’t the leadership, but the rank and file. They are the ones who are losing their nerve every four years and refusing to vote for the better candidate in the primaries.

I dunno what to tell you. I think America has just gone batshit crazy of late, and I don’t know what to do about it. If your Democrats prove me wrong in 2008, then the next round’s on me.

just now reading the transcript of bush’s speech on iraq…this jumped out…

“…it was right to remove Saddam Hussein from power. He was given an ultimatum — and he made his choice for war.”

i could be mistaken, but i thought that the ultimatum was for Saddam to disarm himself of WMDs by such and such a date. given the lack of WMDs, complience would have been rather difficult, no?

Don’t you know they hate us for our freedoms? So if we take away our freedoms, then they won’t hate us and won’t attack us anymore.

Then we’ll be free to divert more resources from securing alQaaQaa and those annoying weapons dumps to securing the Oil Ministry.

Mal de mer, you’ve been using my name in vain a lot lately. Something is driving this renewed inclination to bash all things BLT lately, isn’t it? You’re mad that Power Line has linked folks up to “That Saddam is Gone Christmas Song” of mine, aren’t you? Well, my fellow Canadian, don’t be mad, go over there, link to the song, sing along, and celebrate with the people of Iraq over their historically unprecedented election.

WHY CAN’T WE ALL JUST GET A SONG?

Speaking of Rodney King, and “getting a song,” and the whole discrimination issue, maybe this will help you folks to stop lynching Condi:

It Only Hurts When I Cry
(A Tribute to Martin Luther King Jr.)
words and music by Dr. BLT (c)2005
http://www.drblt.com/music/itonlyhurts.mp3

If you ignore him, he’ll get sad and go away.

Went to LGF and read a bunch of their posts- until my stomach hurt so bad that I had to stop. I now understand what happened in Germany circa 1930. Where has America gone?

“If you ignore him, he’ll get sad and go away.”

Aaron: That’s Myth #1 in Chapter Two (10 Myths of Troll Extermination) of my as-yet-unpublished-as-yet-unfinished manuscript of the book:

How To Make a Troll Just Go Away.

This is very simplistic, but think back. How would you have felt as a teenager if your parent spied on you, read your mail, listened to your phone conversations?

Now consider the fact you knew your parent loved you and you trusted them (at least until now).

This president is not your parent. He does not love you. By now you shouldn’t trust him.

Mal de mer, you’ve been using my name in vain a lot lately. Something is driving this renewed inclination to bash all things BLT lately, isn’t it?

“In vain” being the operative concept here.

Is it too early to start a “Draft Obama” campaign?

oldguy, hello! I wouldn’t want my parents spying on me, but I’d feel OK if someone in the neighborhood were plotting to kill me, and they spied on them.

Mal de mer, coming from you, I expected something with a little more bite to it. Are you turning into an old softy?

The trick with you, BLT is to keep you coming back for more without giving you too much to prompt actual, substantive dialogue, since you then revert to dreary, rightwing talking points (purple fingers, anyone?)

Anyway, you don’t spy on your children because that only encourages them to develop skills of low-cunning and deceit. You confront them when you have material reason to believe they are up to something they shouldn’t be. Laws with respect to search warrants and surveillance are intended to do the same thing.

You’ll have to move beyond your appalling sollipsism, BLT, to understand that those laws protect you, in case I decide, for whatever reasons I choose, that you’re up to no good. And maybe you should also learn the lessons that victims of totalitarianism all over the world have learned; sometimes being dead is better than living in a constant state of fear and mistrust.

It’s pretty clear that the reason Bushco didn’t seek warrants is they were trolling for keywords through the entire set of electronic communications in the US, by citizens and foreigners alike.

Ask yourself, would you feel “safer” if they searched every home in the US for evidence of Terra? I know I would!

And you wingnuts (with or without lettuce and tomato), can’t you just wait for President Hitlery to have the same unchecked authority? I know you just can’t!

If they’re going to be searching every home, all I ask is that they give me a little warning so I can tidy up a bit and get rid of all the freedom-hating dust bunnies under my fridge…and God forbid they should discover all my terror-enabling empty beer cans and used contraceptives.

More like this, Condi. It will quickly flush your chances for 2008.

If they’re only reading international e-mails, then I suggest we all e-mail a wingnut in another country…and see what happens.

Bushie is bankrupting the country and shipping jobs overseas. Add to this he’ll likely start WW3. Maybe someone should be going through his garbage instead of him listening in on others having steamy international phone sex.

You’ve all been much kinder and gentler with me, perhaps because it’s nearly Christmas. But, whatever the reason, God bless you for refraining from mental torture, intimidation and cruelty this holiday season. Santa may spare you that lump of coal after all.

Mal de mer, most of us don’t live in a “constant state of fear and mistrust,” unless we have something to hide. I’m not saying that you have something to hide. I don’t believe you do. But I also don’t believe that you live in a “constant state of fear and mistrust,” unless that state is not based on reason and common sense.

BLT – coal is a good thing. You better not screw up my coal shipment boyo.

Mal de mer, most of us don’t live in a “constant state of fear and mistrust,” unless we have something to hide. I’m not saying that you have something to hide. I don’t believe you do. But I also don’t believe that you live in a “constant state of fear and mistrust,” unless that state is not based on reason and common sense.

How do I know you have anything to hide? Why exactly did you decamp for the States there, BLT? Hmmm? Maybe my CSIS shadow (…hi there, operative 391…did you get the fruit basket I sent you?) knows something about this. Should I ask him?

Totalitarian tactics stifle dissent, which is essential for a healthy democracy. Every lucid democrat knows that, regardless if he’s liberal or conservative.

And thank you all, for patiently ignoring my expositions on my studied persecution complex.

This topic, the original topic, is what troubles me so of late.

You have shift supervisors, fromthe executive branch, taking the legislated role of the judiciary.

That is NOT AT ALL what the founding fathers meant.

That’s the sort of stuff that we’re overseas supposedly fighting AGAINST.

Isn’t it?

not having anything to hide is becoming less predictive as regards the interference in your life by the executive.

I shouldn’t be penned and arrested for simply ~attending~ a permitted rally on a public street.

I should be able to call my old housemate in india without concern that my government, even ‘for my own good’, is listening in.

the government, itself, is incapable of determining good and evil.

checks and balances.

there’s a check to inaction, also.

in 2006.

We need a constitutional amendment codifying our right to privacy, including on medical records and credit. I think such an amendment would be a good issue to run on in ’06, and that it would handily be ratified by the states.

Attention: fellow bloggers:

Mr. BLT is not me, but, rather, an apparent poser, Dr.-BLT-wannabe, who needs to go back to school to learn the difference between a true complex, and reality-based persecution.

Ah yes, BLT. Are you sure that you’re not making this disclaimer in furtherance of your aforesaid persecution complex? Should we believe that someone has feigned to be you, but was unable in the attempt, to rightly copy the moniker? Color me dubious.

The moniker is a referance to the Doc’s dislike of the technically inaccurate prefix “Mr.” when applied to his name.
It’s too childish and simplistic to be of the Doc’s tomfoolery, anyway.

Oh ye of little faith….

Meh- I find him entertaining, though I admit myself to be rather tuned to the reletively sane conservative’s humor bandwidth- most of my friends are to the right of the Kaiser (not a whole lot of choice in my part of the country) in the old fashioned, mostly harmless manner. I’m sure he’s nice enough in person (most people are, I find)- though the Doc is rather good at pissing people of with his antics, that’s the idea of trolling, ain’t it.

Merry Christmas/Other Holiday of Your Choice to all!