November 02, 2006


IMPEACH BUSH


IMPEACH CHENEY


THE ELECTION STAKES

In a rational world the upcoming election would be no contest. Democrats would sweep Republicans from office everywhere. But rationality didn't prevail in the past three elections. Republicans use every tactic under the sun to steal power, including rigging elections. Voters need to swarm the polls to vote for Democrats to prevent Republicans from stealing any races. The survival of our country and possibly our planet is dependent on getting these thugs out of office. This article by Robert Parry is at www.consortiumnews.com:

Continued Republican majorities in the House and Senate will amount to an endorsement of Bush’s assertion of “plenary” – or unlimited – powers as Commander in Chief for the duration of the “war on terror.”

The founding notion of the United States – that power rests in the hands of the citizens who possess unshakeable rights spelled out in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights – will have effectively come to an end.

Rather than citizens possessing “unalienable rights,” Bush will get to decide which rights are allotted to which Americans. After all, if Bush possesses unlimited “plenary” powers, that means other Americans only get to have the rights that he is willing to share, much like a Medieval monarch granting favors to his subjects.

That is the tradeoff of liberty for safety at the heart of Bush’s argument for a Republican victory. As Bush has stated repeatedly, he views the fundamental duty of the government as protecting Americans, rather than the traditionalist view that the primary responsibility of the President and other officials is to defend the Constitution.

SURVELLIANCE SOCIETY

You probably get notices in the mail all the time about the "privacy policy" of some big corporation with whom you done business. You've walked into banks or department stores and been on camera. When you go to an ATM you should smile and say "cheese" because you're on camera. Information about all of us gets passed around like birthday cake. A new study concludes that the United States is among the worst countries in the worst at protecting the privacy of citizens. This article by Bob Sullivan is at www.makethemaccountable.com:

U.S. privacy protections rank among the worst in the democratic world, a London-based privacy organization said Wednesday.

Privacy International ranked 36 nations around the globe, including all European Union nations and other major democracies, and determined that in categories such as enforcement of privacy laws, the U.S. is on par with countries like China, Russia and Malaysia.

Overall, the U.S. was determined to be an “extensive surveillance society,” the second-lowest rating in the study, which is available at Privacy International’s Web site.

The survey identified Malaysia, China and Russia as the world’s lowest-ranked countries in terms of privacy. It ranked Germany and Canada as those that best protect the privacy of their citizens.