[Editor's Note: This is an interesting article and hits upon many valid
points, but notice how cleverly the author laces in the anit-gun message
about halfway into the story. I'm seeing this same subtefuge with film
maker Michael Moore and the touting of his latest movie: 'If only
we had gun control, there wouldn't have been a sniper' BS. The 'sniper',
of course, was more than likely a CIA hit team and not a single individual.
The 'evidence' that they will somehow manufacture against the two patsies
who were arrested and charged will likely make the Richard Jewel affair
(the Atlanta Olympics 'bomber'-remember?) look like a sophisticated prosecutorial
case. This is Illuminati deception at work, whether it comes from the Right
or the Left. Be leary of this tired old game, the democrats versus republicans
nonsense. The democrats, such as Illuminati insiders like Robert Byrd and
Ted Kennedy, pretend to be the defenders of Constitution today railing
against Illuminati puppet George Bush Jr. , while their boy, Illuminati
puppet Bill Clinton was in office, steadily betrayed the Constitution and
the American people by signing one traitorous Executive Order/Directive
after another, for eight years running. Be weary of the Hegelian
Game...Ken Adachi]
By Harvey Wasserman
http://educate-yourself.org/cn/imminentdeathdemocracy26oct02.shtml
Oct. 24, 2002
Two hundred years of American democracy could definitively end November
5, starting in Missouri.
No matter what happens in the overall election, the race for the US
Senate seat from Missouri will determine who controls the Congress on November
6.
Should incumbent Democrat Jean Carnahan lose, the Republicans will
immediately take control of the US Senate. They could then use a lame duck
session to destroy the last vestiges of the American system of checks and
balances. They are confident this will happen, and are spending millions
to make sure it does.
The upper chamber is now divided between 50 Democrats, 49 Republicans
and one brave independent. Elected as a Republican, Vermont's Jim Jeffords
chose independence in the face of the Bush blitzkreig. His profile in courage
is stamped on the last check and balance in American government.
With a ruthless hard-right cabal in charge of the Executive Branch,
the Republicans have moved to complete their definitive conquest of the
judiciary and the media.
The US court system is now thoroughly dominated by conservative Republicans.
Their Supreme Court installed Bush in the White House after the disputed
2000 election, which Bush lost by more than 500,000 votes nationwide.
Another horde of prospective right wing judges is now poised to finish
transforming the judiciary from the civil liberties safety net it was just
a few decades ago to a hollow rubber stamp for executive privilege.
The national media is a mirror image. Dominated by six major corporations,
the major print, television and radio outlets convey a ceaseless barrage
of right-wing bloviators. What minor balance remains comes through the
internet and a few isolated talk radio shows.
There have been times in US history, particularly during the Civil
War and World Wars I & II, when executive power has been close to absolute.
In each case the public understood the problem to be temporary. And so
it was. But today's GOP has declared as permanent its "anti-terrorist"
assault on individual freedoms. The US PATRIOT Act has extinguished the
Bill of Rights that gave American democracy its birth.
The Administration holds sacred only the Second Amendment, which guarantees
the right of the sniper now terrorizing the nation's capital to bear arms.
Bush's commitment to other traditional American liberties is expressed
by mass "anti-terror" imprisonments in Cuba and elsewhere without identifying
the victims, charging them or allowing them legal counsel.
The Administration's relentless attack on traditional American freedoms
has been somewhat slowed by the Democrats' razor-thin Senate majority.
They've controlled the committees, the majority leadership and thus the
Senate's basic agenda.
But that could end on election day. If Carnahan loses to Republican
former Rep. James M. Talent, Talent will immediately take her seat. On
November 6, the Senate would be comprised of 50 Republicans and 49 Democrats,
plus Jeffords. The tie-breaking vote would be owned Vice President Dick
Cheney.
Republican activists can barely contain themselves. Ironically, the
seat was contested in 2000 by John Ashcroft, the current hard-right Attorney-General.
Ashcroft lost to Mel Carhanan, the Democratic ex-governor who died in a
plane crash shortly before the election. Jean Carnahan was then appointed
to fill the seat on an interim basis.
Should she lose November 5, the Republicans will immediately call a
lame duck session. The push for right-wing judiciary appointments would
proceed. So would new tax cuts for the very rich and severe restrictions
on liability lawsuits by victims of corporate negligence. Also on the docket
might be an energy bill including major subsidies for nuclear power and
fossil fuels, drilling in the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge and other
anti-planetary assaults.
The lame duck agenda would technically be subject to filibuster.
In today's Senate, it takes 60 votes to get cloture and pass any legislation.
But the Republicans could use their regained committee control to force
stalled right-wing appointments onto the floor of the Senate. Filibustering
could block their final approval in the lame duck session. But holding
them back in the future would not be easy. And with control of the both
houses of Congress, even for a relatively brief lame duck session, the
Republicans will hold absolute power over the American government.
Already, the Republican rout of the feeble Daschle-Gephardt leadership
is virtually complete. The Democrats' unwillingness to support Sen. Robert
Byrd's filibuster against Bush's Iraqi war powers sealed that victory,
as did the Dems' failure to investigate Bush-Cheney stock abuses at Harken
and Halliburton. Bush's ruthless
mastery of the Iraqi war card shut the collapse of the American
economy out of the 2002 election debate, protecting the GOP from the usual
mid-term gains of the opposition party. This year, the anemic Democrats
will be lucky to hold their own.
Whether Bush actually attacks Iraq remains to be seen. At very least,
he's helped re-ignite a global anti-war movement.
But the Democrats have already handed him a blank check to make war
on whoever he wants to abroad, and against the Constitution at home. If
Jean Carnahan loses in Missouri November 5, the last vestige of American
democracy will be gone.
Harvey Wasserman
Harvey Wasserman is author of THE LAST ENERGY WAR: THE BATTLE OVER
UTILITY DEREGULATION (Seven Stories Press).
All information posted on this web site is
the opinion of the author and is provided for educational purposes only.
It is not to be construed as medical advice. Only a licensed medical doctor
can legally offer medical advice in the United States. Consult the healer
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