PATRIOT ACT II, electric boogaloo

After the Bush coup in 2000, there have been many horrible things happening in this country, brought about by our own leaders. Our civil liberties have been curtailed. Our tax system has skewed wildly in favor of the rich. Our health care research has been restricted based on the views of religious fundamentalists. Our foreign policy has centered around how many simultaneous wars we could fight, and with whom. Our (hidden) energy policy apparently has been centered around how much energy companies would be allowed to gouge the public.

We haven't really deserved all of the many other atrocities we've endured since then, (As The Onion observed, "They say you get the government you deserve, but I don't remember pistol-whipping a nun") but at least this is our problem. Since Afghanistan and now Iraq, though, we have been shipping our misery, ignorance, and death, out to the world, mostly to people much poorer than ourselves. Our moral responsibility grows with each passing day to help those less fortunate than ourselves, as they did not allow an unelected fraud to take control of their country (at least not _our_ unelected fraud).

The situation in Iraq has been very distracting, of course, as we launch a major, unnecessary, and immoral military action. But as we shall see, the undermining of our domestic situation has continued apace, with the help of this grand distraction.

Freedom Watch

The Justice Department, apparently very happy with the results of the ironically-named PATRIOT act, has been in high gear writing PATRIOT act II, the sequel, which will wipe out some more of the few remaining safeguards we have against a police state. PATRIOT II would allow the government to take away the citizenship of Americans who, by their actions, "imply" that they no longer want to be citizens. This could probably be interpreted as treasonable acts, like protesting Tipsy McStagger's adventures in Iraq. It would authorize secret arrests, create new death penalties, curtail oversight on governmental surveillance, create new "terrorist databases", etc. It's a beauty. You can read a bit about it (and also see the PDF of the draft legislation there). Bill Moyer's program NOW also has some documentation on PATRIOT II.

Iraq Watch

Yet another article explaining, slowly and carefully, to our bloodthirsty warhawks that there is not a connection between 9/11-Al Qaeda, and Iraq and Saddam.

Here's a bit of oilwellian activity by our government. You have probably heard that Picasso's famous mural Guernica, depicting the horrors of war, was covered so that Colin Powell would not be shown advocating war while standing in front of it (shades of Ashcroft covering Justice). Here is a nice summary of this lesson in NewThink, entitled "Guernica, 1937, Hidden from View So as Not to Offend the Perpetrators of Guernica, 2003".

Here's one about the great evidence and arguments the UK and US have put together supporting a war on Iraq. Turns out the Brits plagiarized a student's term paper for part of theirs, and most of the rest of it is a cut-and-paste job.

Class Warfare Watch

Here is an interesting article about how very regressive state and local taxes are. Again, this is useful when rich people start whining about their taxes.

Racial Profiling Watch

This article reminds us that not everyone who wants to do us harm is necessarily distinguishable by the way they look.

Election Watch

The smearing of John Kerry in the Boston Globe last week has launched a lot of letters to the author and editor. I thought they were amusing and worthwhile. You might enjoy reading them, too. If you have time, read the article and then write one of your own. We cannot let this kind of smear campaign happen again, unprotested.