LIBERADIO(!)

Our last caller this morning couldn’t defend his position on the “treasonous” New York Times adeptly enough so he resorted to asking if we’ve ever thought about moving to Cuba. The game is: when in doubt, attack the patriotism of the one who disagrees with you. Tired, I know.

So here’s the New York Times article about the Bush administration sifting through bank records. And here is the same information printed (since 2001) on the White House’s web site. It is a secret that the terrorists already knew.

What we didn’t know, and what the NY Times thankfully clued us in on, is that as much as Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Snow want you to believe that the story is about the leaking of classified information, it is not. The story is that your government is circumventing the proper channels to get the information it wants.* It’s a power grab by an Executive branch who do not believe in the fundamental building blocks of our Republic – checks and balances. Are they looking for information about terrorists? About you? About the opposition party? Who knows?

If this doesn’t set off alarm bells, if you’re on the side that trusts the Bush administration to “do the right thing,” please read the NY Times article and in every place where the name “Bush” or “Cheney” appears, replace it with “Clinton” or “Gore.”

Now how do you feel about it?

*”The program, however, is a significant departure from typical practice in how the government acquires Americans’ financial records. Treasury officials did not seek individual court-approved warrants or subpoenas to examine specific transactions, instead relying on broad administrative subpoenas for millions of records from the cooperative, known as Swift.”

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“THESE are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated. Britain, with an army to enforce her tyranny, has declared that she has a right (not only to TAX) but “to BIND us in ALL CASES WHATSOEVER” and if being bound in that manner, is not slavery, then is there not such a thing as slavery upon earth. Even the expression is impious; for so unlimited a power can belong only to God.”

“Society in every state is a blessing, but Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one: for when we suffer, or are exposed to the same miseries BY A GOVERNMENT, which we might expect in a country WITHOUT GOVERNMENT, our calamity is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer. Government, like dress, is the badge of lost innocence; the palaces of kings are built upon the ruins of the bowers of paradise. For were the impulses of conscience clear, uniform and irresistibly obeyed, man would need no other lawgiver; but that not being the case, he finds it necessary to surrender up a part of his property to furnish means for the protection of the rest; and this he is induced to do by the same prudence which in every other case advises him, out of two evils to choose the least. Wherefore, security being the true design and end of government, it unanswerably follows that whatever form thereof appears most likely to ensure it to us, with the least expense and greatest benefit, is preferable to all others.”

Paul Harris in New York
Sunday July 2, 2006
The Observer
Full Article Text

Combat can change a life in a second. The snap of a sniper’s bullet or the blast of a bomb will instantly end it or turn a healthy body into a maimed wreck. But for US marine James Blake Miller what changed his life was the sudden shutter click of a war photographer’s camera.

On a rooftop in Falluja, Miller was captured in a picture that has become one of the enduring images of the Iraq war. It showed his wan face, streaked with mud and blood, in a moment of reflection. His eyes stared out, tired yet determined. From his lips drooped a cigarette, curling a wisp of thin pale smoke.

That moment saw Miller, an ordinary soldier from the hills of Kentucky, turn into Marlboro Man, an everyday American hero.

Marlboro Man is no longer an icon for the American warrior ethic. He is a symbol of pain and suffering and the enormous problems endured by veterans returning home. He has become the public face of shell-shock. No longer the victor, Miller has become one of the war’s victims.