Comments on: A tale of two countries. http://politicsandpress.com/2007/a-tale-of-two-countries/ The interaction of the press and politics; public diplomacy, and daily absurdities. Sun, 13 May 2012 14:48:10 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 By: Jeff http://politicsandpress.com/2007/a-tale-of-two-countries/comment-page-1/#comment-148 Jeff Fri, 02 Mar 2007 16:56:47 +0000 http://politicsandpress.com/2007/a-tale-of-two-countries/#comment-148 The 9/11 attacks occurred on Bush’s watch and the intelligence failure of then-National Security Officer Condoleezza Rice was instrumental in its success. That it turned out to be the event that allowed Bush to scare the beejesus out of the country has made the American people the architects of their own fortress. Life in this fortress is perhaps marginally safer although I wonder if anyone seriously thinks forcing billions of air travelers to remove their shoes is especially useful. Certainly every trip to the airport is a reinforcement of how silly this administration has been in its response to 9/11. Color-coded emergency alerts, no lip-gloss on airplanes, arrogant, not-too-bright, poorly-trained TSA bullies yelling at passengers, etc. But certainly increased power usurped by the administration and its removal of basic constitutional rights of its citizens is the more significant development and hardly worth an elusive benefit. That the American people have sat back and allowed this to happen is a symptom of the fear that Bush-Cheney has nurtured in order to give themselves the kind of power that Bush evidently envied in his buddy, President Putin. More importantly, members of the U.S. Congress have done their part in lying down and rolling over and only now, after the cost of giving so much power to nincompoops has become so blatant, is the congress weakly trying to find a way out of the fix in which they are so complicit. So how can we get the Mackenzie Brothers to come down south and help us put ourselves together again? The 9/11 attacks occurred on Bush’s watch and the intelligence failure of then-National Security Officer Condoleezza Rice was instrumental in its success. That it turned out to be the event that allowed Bush to scare the beejesus out of the country has made the American people the architects of their own fortress. Life in this fortress is perhaps marginally safer although I wonder if anyone seriously thinks forcing billions of air travelers to remove their shoes is especially useful. Certainly every trip to the airport is a reinforcement of how silly this administration has been in its response to 9/11. Color-coded emergency alerts, no lip-gloss on airplanes, arrogant, not-too-bright, poorly-trained TSA bullies yelling at passengers, etc.

But certainly increased power usurped by the administration and its removal of basic constitutional rights of its citizens is the more significant development and hardly worth an elusive benefit. That the American people have sat back and allowed this to happen is a symptom of the fear that Bush-Cheney has nurtured in order to give themselves the kind of power that Bush evidently envied in his buddy, President Putin. More importantly, members of the U.S. Congress have done their part in lying down and rolling over and only now, after the cost of giving so much power to nincompoops has become so blatant, is the congress weakly trying to find a way out of the fix in which they are so complicit.

So how can we get the Mackenzie Brothers to come down south and help us put ourselves together again?

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