Today’s Topic: American’s Need to Quit Looking at the Past
As I normally peruse a number of newsprint and blogoshperes, I can’t help but notice that the one true thing Americans must do is move ahead.
I don’t want to say move on because that’s a Bushism. We need to be forward looking, projecting into our future what we want this nation to be or forecasting what this nation will become if we don't step in now and stop it.
Talk about your rogue states. Certainly the United States must be cast as the most audacious of the rogue states of the world. We have a lame duck President who ignores America like no other lame duck and holds more sway over Congress than any even reasonably intelligent president we’ve ever had.
I say it’s time to stop spouting history and start making history.
I recall running into a woman one day in 2003 whilst at the local pool supply store, and she was STILL trying to get petitions signed about the 2000 defeat of Vice President Gore. Now I admit there were more than enough problems that still need to be looked at for posterity’s sake, but the fact is it was time to get over it in 2003, and it’s time for all of us to get over what the facts are in this past 6 years of President George W. Bush.
What we need to do is be pro-active in terms of limiting this son of a bitch’s grasp for power. It might not hurt to legislatively take some of that power back as soon as possible, but we need to start now on deterence.
History is on the side of the legislature even if the Bush administration thinks they can continue to get away with lies, misrepresentations and national security threats. When President Reagan was supplying support to a repressive government in Central America, the legislature stopped funding. This has not happened once in Pakistan, but many times, always seemingly repealed by the Republicans.
Repressive governments are always where Republicans in power place their trust. Is it any wonder that America itself has become a place where "legal dissent" is practiced inside a cage miles away from presidential events? And what are the ramifications of standing behind those jail cell-like enclosures with the public? Perhaps two fold, one being that protesters should be in jail, and two, that those in jail are nothing but a bunch of whiners, therefore protesters are nothing but a bunch of whiners?
I think it’s easy to see how genuinely we are distracted when I can’t even write about being forward looking and pro-active about not allowing our power as the people to be usurped by a continually over-extending executive. If the Republicans win in 2008 one can expect an extenuation of this same power grab, and if a couple of Democrats win in 2008, we can expect them not to easily relinquish they power they inherited.
An editorial by Frank Rich in the New York Times yesterday, 13 Nov 2007 made a statement about America being in a clinical depression.
Good reading, Frank, as I had said the same thing on this blog two years ago, and prior to that I spoke of the fact that depression and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder was already being exhibited in Viet Nam veterans due to this war. And I spoke a couple of articles ago about how many WWII veterans were dying per day, and just two days ago, one of the last handful of remaining WWI veterans passed away.
Sixty and seventy year old Viet Nam vets are still pretty prevalent, but the lessons learned with them didn’t seem to help this administration prepare its all volunteer military for jumping into a war that might last for a decade or more. Little things like following the law such as requiring all military to have a current medical prior to being shipped into a combat zone. This was primarily so it was possible to tell whether a soldier was physically or mentally injured in war or had pre-existing conditions that should have precluded that person from being deployed.
It is a reasonable requirement as it does save the taxpayer money from supporting a soldier who wasn’t honestly disabled by the war. One has to admit though, that the likelihood of physical or psychological trauma isn’t going to be faked by all that many soldiers.
However, medical certification for combat readiness didn’t happen in the beginning of the Iraq war, and as far as I know the military has said the last physical of a soldier was what was required by law, not an immediate medical prior to shipping out. In the old days of the draft, the physical one took FOR THE DRAFT WAS the record for a soldier bound for Viet Nam, whether or not they were physically or mentally ready to fight a war.
So with this little back step (again) I have to say that forward looking is a requirement for the treatment of our returning troops. For return they will, regardless of what any White House says. We can positively look forward when we have full medical for war victims, including spouses and children, and when we vote to pay them back with the ability to better themselves through higher education via the new G. I. Bill.
We can look a little farther forward by formulating an encompassing bill for national health coverage and continuing to pass it up to the president until he or she signs it. No president can ignore a veto overriding passage of a bill.
We can stop the aggressive dialog with Iran by voting a "no confidence" resolution to be placed in the Congressional history books rather than kowtowing to the White House by including the recent resolution effectively declaring war on the Iranian Revolutionary Force by labeling them as terrorists.
We can be pro-active by voting in a resolution that PRECLUDES a president from attacking any sovereign country preemptively. If the Supreme Court rules that the legislative cannot dictate policy with law, then the legislative has the right to declare they will not fund any preemptive actions.
Congress has the money belt and once continuing funds run out the executive cannot do anything without breaking the law, as was seen in the Reagan years when Iran-Contra was bilking taxpayers of hundreds of millions of dollars and the S&L bailout was just a year away, bilking taxpayers out of billions of additional dollars.
I know, the latter was not a funding issue, but a deregulation issue and I certainly agree.
But to be forward looking we have to look at the past. We cannot allow the continued and unbridled efforts to steal the treasure of the United States by people who obviously are willing to continue stealing. This means that a current president cannot borrow on our descendant’s futures to wage war today. Without the ability to borrow money for war, there can be no war. And there can be no semi-clandestine "no bid" contracts for supporting a war unapproved by the American people.
You have no choice but, as a legislative branch with the power to write laws, to put a stop to no accountability in contracting, spending and borrowing, and highly monitor situations whereby the executive claims national security issues without informing ALL pertinent members of Congress. Oversight Secret clearance must be granted to all members of Congress of committee level. It is not the executive’s right to define whom is allowed to see secret information in the legislative branch, but it is their right to limit that information to the entirety of the appropriate oversight committee. No Chairman and Vice-Chairman situation, but a truly inclusive briefing of all committee members at the same time.
Pro-actively I’d have to say we need to determine and establish a plan for the future of America and it’s interrelationships with other nations. When Ronald Reagan established the policy of never negotiating with terrorists, well, we know now that he did so whilst speaking out of the other side of his mouth to the American public prior to his being elected.
We have to start establishing a basis for the rest of the world to trust us again. This is the paramount problem we have today. The concept of reestablishing trust overshadows all that America can and will do in the next one hundred years. It is not possible to continue to lie to the world or the American public because we have too many avenues of information available to us. As discerning individuals our knowledge has come hard won, and the availability has been under assault for 6 years now. And for those who didn’t know, no, it was not 9/11 that brought the first type of eavesdropping on Americans since the time of Richard Nixon, but only one month after George W. Bush came to office. That’s right. In February of 2001 George W. Bush already wanted to know who you knew and what you talked about.
Gee, nice guy George isn’t really such a nice guy at all is he?
Being pro-active isn’t what the Republicans are griping about. They choose to couch the subject in terms of judges, 55% of whom are Republicans, voting in ways they don’t like. Being pro-active means doing exactly the same things today as our Founding Fathers did when they designed the Constitution. They chose to allow each branch of government to try to govern by their own methods, but used the other two branches to expose the fallacies and bring about a much higher form of government by those checks and balances.
Americans can provide leadership by contacting their Congressional representatives and telling them we will not allow such things to be done in our names, the such being supporting a dictator in Pakistan or any government who doesn’t support the ideals of elective democracy.
However it may be that the best method is to have Congress pass laws that expressly forbid any president to initiate covert or overt military support or spending with repressive regimes. If that fails the Supreme Court test, again, simply bind Congress from releasing funds in the future. The Supreme Court can only rule on a law passed based on its Constitutionality, not if it suppresses Congress’ ability to provide funds for Presidential elective wars. Congress defines their own rules of operation. By limiting the possibility of a declaration of war from any Body of government but themselves, Americans are best served. By playing to strict party politics only Americans suffer.
Hey, if you hire someone to work on your house, you want your house the want you want it, right? So why put people into power that want your house different than you want?
I know, it sounds weird, but the fact is that Congress has given their power to declare war a number of times by accepting the War Powers Act, which gives the President the right to strike anywhere in the world to protect America’s national security interests, but these actions have to be reported to a full Congress each 90 days.
The Act actually says "to Congress" but that is the entire legislative branch and individuals don’t make up the entire Congress. Most presidents have ignored this concept and chosen the individuals they wished to brief, thus violating an existing law.
It is kind of like when Alberto Gonzales said "no expressed right of habeas corpus is given in the Constitution". Well, yeah, that’s true, but when we have a passage which expressly forbids "habeas corpus" from being taken away from the "any person" described in the 5th Amendment, then we have habeas corpus established. If one cannot take a right away, the right is given.
For this to not be the case would be like saying "thou shall not kill" in the Bible means that you can’t actually kill someone, but you are able to have someone killed. American law both federal and state already says this isn’t true. The right for someone to live is expressly given, whilst death by your hand or some other’s hand in your name is expressly forbidden. This is but one question for the Pro-Lifers and how they can accept the death penalty.
Obviously it makes no sense to continually "re-define" laws or previous interpretations of law in an effort to overshadow existing law. New law has to be established that supercedes previous law and takes America back from the hands of any president in power who chooses to ignore the plain message in the people’s votes.
Pro-active measures in both houses of Congress can make clear the end of the divide of our nation by those who would cause you to fear the loss of your child if they didn’t torture prisoners or listen into Grandpa’s conversation with little Sara. Or those who buy your trust with tax breaks as they barter off parts of America to those with the money they wish to borrow. Those who tell you it is fine to dissent in America but then put you behind bars from which you must spit your words onto an invisible public.
Pro-active measures mean voting out those who do not express your ideals in Congress, or worse, substitute their own. Pro-active means bringing America back to its senses. We do not have to continue the path of greater and deeper grasps for power that lead to loss of civil rights guaranteed by the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. We need not fear losing anything American if we adhere to those words so adeptly written by Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence. We are honor bound to make those words the ideals of WHY we have the Constitution. They are all linked in our history and define our ideas, but we must maintain control of those who would try to adversely redefine America.
12:09:21 PM 
|
