Don't Start the Revolution Without Me! - Jesse Ventura [121]
In the wake of the Patriot Act, there’s also a national database and ID system waiting to happen. All the easier for “Big Brother” to keep track of you. Not a surprising development in a world where John Ashcroft could say he wanted the power to take away constitutional rights from U.S. citizens and even be able to place them as “enemy combatants” in internment camps.
Such camps, by the way, are already in place. Saying these kinds of things, sometimes I wonder if one of the bunks might already have my name on it. In October 2006, when the Republicans still controlled Congress, Bush signed a bill weakening two laws that have been around for well over a century. One of them was the Posse Comitatus Act, first enacted after the Civil War to maintain a line between civil and military government. The other was the Insurrection Act of 1807, which limited how far a president could go in using the military to enforce the laws. Without any hearings or public debate, without consulting a single governor, the revised laws make it a whole lot easier for Bush—or any future president—to override local control and declare martial law. Basically, the military can now be used as a domestic police force to respond to a terrorist attack, a natural disaster, an outbreak of infectious disease, or any “other condition.”
Didn’t our forefathers rebel against much milder forms of oppression than this?
Everyone should read the minority report The Constitution in Crisis, written under Congressman Conyers, when the Republicans still controlled both houses. It’s out in paperback, and it’s a review of all the constitutional violations that have occurred under the Bush administration. Many of these pertain to the lead-up to the Iraq War. Did you know we started bombing Iraq long before the invasion, when the excuse was that Iraq was supposedly violating “no-fly zones?” The report details how many pounds of bombs we dropped.
George Bush violated the Constitution by going to war under false premises. He and others in his administration did everything they could to ensure that the American people were misled. What are the Democrats going to do now, nothing? For fear of being called unpatriotic?
What’s gone down here is ten times worse than happened between Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky. Yet the Republican House successfully impeached Clinton over his personal conduct. I want to know whether, if George Bush cheated on Laura and then lied to Congress about it, that would rise to the impeachment level. Yet sending the country into war under false premises does not?
By the time he leaves office, Bush will have spent more than a trillion dollars on his military adventures. While more than twenty retired American generals have come out strongly opposed to what we’re doing in Iraq, our veterans are receiving shameful treatment. In the course of this war, more than 20,000 soldiers have been discharged with so-called “personality disorder,” meaning that they’re often being denied disability and medical benefits.
Now I ask you: Who are the real dysfunctional personalities here? Maybe a president who thinks he’s getting messages straight from God? Or a vice president so delusional he believes we can “bunker-bust” Iran’s supposed nuclear sites without opening up a whole new front in this madness?
George Bush came into office with a balanced budget and a manageable national debt. In his first six-plus years, he virtually bankrupted the country, and now we’re nine trillion bucks in hock. That may not be an impeachable offense, but it sure seems like a committable one. And I think you can guess where the man ought to be committed.
CHAPTER 15
Musing in Baja on Changing the System
“In a time of universal deceit,