Satire Considered Redundant
Submitted by Bill St. Clair on Wed, 01 May 2002 14:09:22 GMT
The subject tonight is Love
And for tomorrow night as well.
As a matter of fact,
I know of no better topic
For us to discuss
Until we all
Die!
(
From kaba:
I grow weary of our elected leaders selling our future away for short term immediate gain. If they are going to be whores, they should at least wear the proper attire when they campaign. -- Mark Mulcahy
Arthur Hirsch at The Albany (NY) Times Union - This time, the last laugh is on satirists - the news has become its own satire, so the Association of American Satirists is closing up shop. Hehe.
It is with difficulty and only after many hours of deliberation that I write to inform you that the board of directors and I have decided to cease organizational operations immediately. Recent events bring us to the inescapable conclusion that America no longer needs satire. The news is more than enough. Any attempts to lampoon by exaggeration would force us to rename the organization the Association of American Redundancy.
...
...George W. Bush, leader of the free world, was spotted at Ford's Theatre waving to a performer on stage at a presidential gala. The performer was Stevie Wonder, who did not return the wave.
Ron Paul at LewRockwell.com - Get Out of the Middle East - Stop funding both sides of this ancient conflict. Help them diplomatically if they want, but no more money. [trt-ny]
Respect for self-determination really is the cornerstone of a sensible foreign policy, yet many Americans who strongly support U.S. sovereigntyadvocate interventionist policies that deny other nations that same right. The interventionist approach that has dominated American foreign policy since World War I hasproduced an unmitigated series of disasters. From Korea to Vietnam to Kosovo to the Middle East, American military and economic meddling has made numerous conflicts worse, not better. Washington and Jefferson had it right when they warned against entangling alliances, and the history of the 20th century proves their point. The simple truth is that we cannot resolve every human conflict across the globe, and there will always be violence somewhere on earth. If we care about the self-determination of the Israeli and Palestinian people, and if we care about the Constitution, we must adopt a neutral, diplomatic role in the conflict and stop funding both sides.
Joseph Sobran at LewRockwell.com - Can This War Be Won? - no. [trt-ny]
The principle of terrorism is simple. All social life depends on our implicit trust that strangers won't harm us without a reason. Terrorism is violence calculated to destroy that trust. Anyone, even a lone individual, can do that. It's absurd even to speak of a "war on terrorism."
...
If Bush's aim were to save American lives, rather than to preserve American empire, he might take these steps: call off the war, close U.S. military bases abroad, bring American military personnel home, and ask for an end to U.S. support for foreign regimes, particularly Israel.
For additional safety, he might also announce his conversion to Islam. That would be no more improbable than the other steps, would it?
Cryptome - Shit Goes Down in Bethlehem - some reports from the "holy" city. The Israelis are firing on unarmed civilians. [grabbe]
Roderick T. Beaman at Liberty for All - Demeaning of the Constitution - how the ACLU has twisted the constitution to their communist intent. [kaba]
The constitutional debate has raged for years, now. There are the original intent people on one side who maintain that we should only interpret the Constitution to mean what The Founding Fathers meant. On the other side are the proponents of a living document who maintain that the Constitution has to change with the times. Of course, it always seems to be only themselves whom they entrust to determine the way it's supposed to change.
The Constitution was a contract between thirteen independent nation-states. A contract is a prior agreement between parties. It's not elastic. Lawyers may argue over the exact meaning of a document but through the words themselves. They'll argue for hours sometimes over the placement of a comma but their goal is always to discover the original intent of the parties. Sometimes the parties will sue to dissolve the agreement but the meaning of the contract remains and is the guideline for all subsequent decisions.
...
Most of the founders of the ACLU, were communists. As communism gained adherents in America in the 1920s, they gathered together to find ways to shield themselves from prosecution. One method they explored was the use of the Constitution. It was diabolically clever of them to use the very document whose principles they were trying to destroy to protect them while they were doing it. The organization had many successes and many of the plotters avoided jail time through crafty invocations of the Fifth Amendment and other parts of the Constitution. In an interesting epilogue, Roger Baldwin, one of the founders, later endorsed Senator Joseph McCarthy's hearings into communist infiltration of the federal government.
Today, the ACLU is no longer infested to the same degree that it once was by communists but its Leftist orientation remains.
Kathryn A. Graham at Authors Den - Come the Revolution! - Not revolutionary. Just good common sense. Then again, that's pretty revolutionary these days, unfortunately. [kaba]
I have finally recognized the true value of the Second Amendment. Self defense is a good thing. Prevention of crime is a good thing. But the real value of the Second Amendment does not lie in these things.
We must stop acting like spoiled children and looking to our government nannies to do the impossible. Only a well-armed and trained populace can protect America from terror. It is the mere thought of a well-armed populace that has protected us from tyranny for more than two hundred years, and that thought will continue to protect us from unscrupulous leaders.
So I am doing my part to arm my country.
Will you stand with me?
Jennifer Van Bergen at truthout - Repeal the USA Patriot Act - introduction and part 1 of 6 on why this recent load of legislative excrement must be completely eliminated. Part II covers the Alien & Sedition Acts, two earlier laws that were similarly unconstitutional and disgusting. Part III "discusses the recent emergence of troubling evidence of violations of civil rights under the USA Patriot Act, and looks at the disturbing possibility of torture." Part IV, tomorrow, "will look at how the Patriot Act affects U.S. citizens." [kaba]
There is no way that the USA Patriot Act came into existence solely in response to September 11th. In fact, it is clear from prior legislative and case history that law enforcement and intelligence have been trying for many years to obtain these powers. It is only the unreasoning "bunker mentality" that followed September 11th that allowed its planners to pass it.
Indeed, one might question whether Congress could sincerely have intended this Act, given that portions of it are re-enactments of the 1996 anti-terrorism laws which had been repeatedly ruled unconstitutional by federal courts. One must wonder whether congress- persons were in their right minds. If they were not, this law cannot be valid.
Most troubling is that most of these powers do little to increase the ability of law enforcement or intelligence to bring terrorists to justice -- but, they do much to undermine the Constitution and violate the rights of both immigrants and American citizens alike.
...
The Attorney General can essentially throw anyone in jail he wants. All he has to do is point his finger at someone and say the magic words, "terrorist," or "threat to national security," and the suspect is detained. The Attorney General need give no reasons or explanations. He can do this on "evidence" he never reveals. Such evidence could be mere implication or hearsay without proof or corroboration.
As the ACLU has said, this sort of "'trust us, we're the government' solution ... is entirely unacceptable."
...
The existence of police brutality unfortunately no longer surprises most people, because the cases come out in the media. They come out in the media because victims are Americans who have constitutional rights that have been violated.
But, federal agent brutality is unknown to us because, where it does take place, it only does so in the deepest shadows of overseas covert ops in cooperation with sleazy and abusive foreign governments, and is only directed at foreign nationals. Our government can thus maintain deniability by laying the blame on foreign governments for the torture, and no one has to worry about the rights of the suspect who will be tried in our courts (but who may not yet have even been charged with a crime).
