Sunday, October 02, 2005

Confession

I know that I can get pretty snarky on this blog. But I am so very angry about what these people have done and continue to do to our country, and laughing keeps me from screaming or crying.

Tommi in particular just makes me furious. Besides Karl Rove, I don't think there is any one person more dangerous to our democracy than he is. Using every dirty trick in the book, he constructs a one-party state with no limitations on his power and greed. Illegaly redistricting - gerrymandering - Texas so as to shut out Democrats and grab a majority in Congress. And he gets away with it! Everybody goes, "Tsk-tsk - that wicked Tom DeLay!", but he gets away with it anyway. He takes over K Street and shuts out lobbyists who donate to the Democratic Party, and he gets away with it. He shuts out corporations who hire a Democrat to lobby for them. And he gets away with it. He shuts down any bill that threatens his corporate thievery - and he gets away with it! And then adds insult to injury by babbling on about his 'Christian' values. Sweatshops, forced prostitution, forced abortions (isn't that one a hoot!) are fine with Tommi in the Marianas, that shining example of free-market American business at its best. Everyone is shocked - shocked, but nobody stops it.

I for one am sick to death of it. I am so hungry for some justice, some honesty, some accountability. I'm so afraid for our soldiers, for the innocent people who are dying every day because of this administration's apocalyptic and venal worldview. The media is cowed into submission, so the average American, who deserves to know the truth, is left in the dark.

What do you think those First Amendment protections are for, anyway? Why does a 'journalist' like Judith Miller get to cloak herself in it? Because the press is supposed to challenge the powers that be, not suck up to them. That's what the First Amendment is for. And it is as much a protection for the people as it is for the journalists who are supposed to be exposing the workings of the government. The only people who have the time and the access to get at the facts are journalists. That is their job, not mine. The public has a right to know the truth, and that is why journalists and free speech in general are protected. That is the the privilege and the duty of the press. They are given these protections because their first duty is to the American people, not the government. But lately, it's been the other way around. The press operates at the behest of the government for fear of losing their jobs, their reputations, their access. But ordinary Americans are being asked to do a journalist's job as well as their own because the journalists won't do it. I can't go to Washington. I can't go to Iraq. I don't have the access to anyone in power. I can't find this stuff out first-hand; I am supposed to be able to rely on the press for that. It makes me sick. It seems as if we 'unpaid pundits' of the blogosphere have to take up the slack until the press can grow a set. The papers and the news networks need to support their writers and journalists and allow them the latitude to write and speak the truth without being smeared, discredited or ignored.

So, yes, I snark. And I rant. And I read. And I talk. And I listen. Because despair is not an option.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'll have switch parties now because the dems never would do such a thing. waa!!!;-(

Alicia Morgan said...

You are so correct, J_G! Welcome!

Daniel Levesque said...

While your outrage at gerrymandering is generally shared by everyone who gets affected every time it happens somewhere in the country it is important to note that this practice has been in place for something like a humdred years and the Democrats were the most active redistricters ever while they were in power.
Also, it would be a good idea to cite examples and/or links when you make accustaions like people supporting something as evil as forced abortions. Abortions of any kind bother me, but forcing one on an unwilling woman is worth a good butt-kicking followed by another butt-kicking, followed by another butt-kicking, followed by something at least as atrocious as forcing a woman to have an abortion. This is one reason I am usually outraged at the Chinese government and I will not tolerate in the US. So, please cite an example of actual support for this evil if one exists so I may know if I should be outraged.
Also, you speak of the shut-outs Tom Delay has done . . . he must have learning from the Democrats in the 50s-92. It is turnabout, and while it is not good it also has a long history in Washington.
As for the first amendment, why aren't you outraged at the way liberals have abridged free speech where religion is concerned? Teachers get fired for mentioning the word "God" without prosteletizing. Children get suspended from school for praying on school grounds or ministering to a freind. Religious displays on public property and ones on private property that are seen by a large segment of the public get banned or sued. Since when did free speech mean free to speak about anything but religion?
This is not to say that you don't have some valid complaints here. I just thought you might enjoy some perspective from someone who is a student of history/law/politics and so forth. It's how I became a conservative in the first place.

Anonymous said...

Thankfully, the Repubs are starting to lose their grip on the media and the minds of the public. This always happens to any party that stays in power for too long. They get greedy and arrogant and this leads to their downfall. This time is no different.

Daniel must have misread your comments about Delay and thought you meant someone supported forced abortions when you were saying that Delay is the one who makes this claim. Daniel chastises you for not providing supporting evidence and then in the next paragraph makes many claims about religion being censored without providing any supporting evidence. I find it very strange that the religious right thinks that relaxing the protections of the first amendment will somehow protect religion more than it does now. This is a position that I have never understood.

Alicia Morgan said...

There just has to be some kind of checks-and-balances, is all I'm saying. I'm not arrogant enough to think my opinion is the only one that matters, but when only one party controls everything, it's hard to rein in the hubris and excess. Daniel is right in saying that gerrymandering was used by Democrats also, but what's different about now is the lack of any restraint about it because the 'loyal opposition' can't do anything about it.

I have always maintained that the way the system is set up excludes the possibility of getting a truly principled person in office, because of the very nature of politics - the wheeling and dealing, the quid pro quo, the trading of money for influence. So how do you keep one side or the other from going hog-wild?

Daniel didn't misunderstand me about Tommi - I was the one who mentioned 'forced abortions'. What I mean by that is that women (from China or elsewhere) are told they can get American jobs if they pay 4 or 5000 dollars. When they get to Saipan, they're either working in the sweatshops, or 'dancing' in the bars, which really means prostitution. If they become pregnant, they are given the option of having an abortion or losing their jobs. They have no money to go home, so there really isn't an option.

Quote from an ABC report:

ABCNEWS Investigative Correspondent Brian Ross has found that legal loopholes allow foreign workers to be shipped in to face conditions that few Americans would tolerate.

Most of the workers are "young women from China who have been promised by recruiters that they are going to good jobs in America," Ross reported.

"Instead many find themselves kept behind barbed wire, in rat-infested labor camps, and put to work in huge Chinese- and Korean-owned garment factories--often under sweatshop conditions--making clothes for the American market," he said.

The clothes can legally be labeled "Made in the USA."


Here's the link, to the article if anyone is interested.