From: marilyn again
Date: 9/19/2005
Time: 11:21:08 AM
Remote Name: 192.168.7.18
Just want to continue with the thread of this particular post. I understand that "Doing without" is open to any subject, so let me make some salient points. And I am wondering how much longer our open forums will be tolerated by creeping fascist tendencies of the Bush regime.......OK, having vented, let me go on--Rosa Clemente, an African-American journalist, was the messenger of bad tidings paraphrased in yesterday's long post. She was frightened by the implications she witnessed at an evacuee holding site (think it was just outside N.O.) where she said the detainees seemed uneasy with their less than warm reception. The guards were armed and the rifles were pointed generally at them. She made the analogy of the sundering of the black family units, seen so often under slave conditions in the American South of yore. Just as Naomi Kline sensed the parallels between what is happening to indigenous peoples in areas devastated by last year's South Asian tsunami, what is happening in Iraq (and might I extrapolate to include Afghanistan?), and what is playing out in New Orleans, LA, USA. Rosa is black but Naomi is Canadian--white and I would assume a Socialist-Democrat who is outraged at how we are bullying and bombing our way across the planet. I know these issues take us far afield of Iago's statement of purpose; however, as I have so often stated here and on all boards on which I have posted since 1999, when I first set fingers to a compouter keyboard: "nothing evolves in a vacuum; in the final analysis, all things are connected." And as such, we, too are all connected and must act in concert to address the causes and effects of our government policies. George W. Bush speaks for us and we are implicated, responsible for our president, his cabinet, his appointees, our duly-elected congress and even indirectly for the judicial system put into place by those elected officials. Friday, I sent e-mails to both of my senators to reject the nomination of Judge John Roberts for Chief Justice of our highest court. This man is clearly a shill for neo-conservative agendas; he is smart and knows how to play the system; he was so finely tuned for his Senate hearings this past week that even his most ardent detractors came away from the experience of q and a's undecided; he was charming, savvy, calm, unflappable, telegentic...and he was coached to the inth degree on the political tack of evasion. He dared not answer questions directly because his hidden views are so out of sync with what the American people want and need, his responses would have revealed the duplicity. He wants to roll back all the gains in social progress achieved since the days of the New Deal... that means equal rights for women and minorities, protection for labor, rights of privacy, the primacy of the public good over private corporatioins. If allowed free rein, he could be an important adjunct to the overturning of the Voting Rights Act, Roe vs. Wade and who knows what all. That is where we are at this moment in our history. With an escalating financial burdern--now mounting into the trillions (China, Japan and the Saudis own enough of our T Bonds to come over and seize all of our property in payment of debt, I understand, if it suited their purpose if we default on interest payments. Our personal burden of this debt is $30,000 per head). We are borrowing to finance the war and will borrow to finance the Gulf Coast reconstruction. Who will end up owning our prized beach fronts? The EU? And still the 'Cumma Giva Me' frat boys are in charge. And STILL 40% of Americans polled give George W. unqualified support. Go figure! marilyn (Thanks for listening...:)