What Did Americans Buy This Year? Who knows?
Since this is a really important issue, I'm going to take a little time to mull it over. Bush and his administration have been badmouthing the Internet, web sites and the blogosphere for some time now. Remember Rumsfeld?
Now that the country has turned against this administration it's apparent that Bush and Company are bemoaning the good old days when all one had to do was intimidate a few journalists or networks in order to shape public opinion about their failures. So, Bush decides to summon all of the far right extremist bloggers to his defense, tells them what sorts of hatful, fearful things they should be saying, but apparently had fewer takers than he would have wished. So then he decides to try to enlist a bunch of computer hackers, but likely found that they weren't so stupid either as to join with the losing team.
How do you feel knowing that your Internet activities could be construed (or purposely misconstrued) as being phone call activity with foreigners? You know, some guy in Australia is posting on a bulletin board to some guy in England, and now as an American you're part of the dialog. You become fair game, sort of.
And what about all of those claims that speaking out about Bush's misbegotten war is a dangerous activity, a threat to national security. As if war crimes aren't? The real threat to this administration is free speech, and a free press. God bless our founding fathers for their foresightedness. Freedom of speech, freedom of the press, begin, of course, with freedom of thought. Which means that we should, as Americans, be free from propaganda and cover ups. We should be free to think for ourselves.
The problem that this very small minority of very rich people have with our freedoms is that when we use them it's tantamount to majority rule. Of course, since the vast majority of we the people aren't rich, that would work in our favor, not theirs. They seem to want to make America itself a gated community for the very wealthy.
Consider this, that when they refuse to disclose how our intelligence dollars are spent, we have what is, in effect, taxation without representation. We can't represent ourselves in matters about which we aren't allowed to know any details whatsoever. We do have elected representatives who are supposed to represent us, but as far as anyone can tell they aren't listening to the public who elected them about the war, about civil rights violations, or about Bush and Company. We still have the right to protest, we still have our free speech. But until we have the details about a thing, how do we know what to make of it? And when did our opinions begin to not count? You know, the majority. Remember us?
If you were part of the business world and somebody handed you a bill but didn't itemize it, would you pay, or would you ask why the bill was for so much? Would you reserve the right to not pay the bill until you knew what it was for? What if it included monies for spying on you, your families, your friends, your fellow citizens? Americans shouldn't have to pay taxes unless they know how they're being spent. For all we know, those taxes may be lining pockets or being used to overthrow our elected government.
Let's get real, America. In order for majority rule to mean anything at all we need government that is both transparent and held accountable. Do you want your tax dollars spent to pay torturers? On criminal wars? Do you want them spent in such ways that "America the beautiful" becomes known world wide as "America the cruel to you"?
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