The Man Who Would Be King
Posted By Ardellis on December 21, 2005
George Bush, once upon a time, made a wisecrack about how much easier things would be if he were a dictator. A lot of people brushed that off as just being in poor taste. Now, as dear old Dubya tries to justify eavesdropping within the US without a warrant, I find myself wondering again just how funny that joke was supposed to be. Was it really just a quip that fell flat? Or was it perhaps a hint at what Cowboy George has really been thinking all along — that his job really would be easier if he didn’t have to obey the rules?
I honestly don’t think this administration has the least bit of respect for the American people, for the rule of law, or for the Constitution. George and his cronies are out for themselves and their goals and their friends, and they will do whatever they think they can get away with in order to get what they want.
I don’t agree with a lot of what PETA says or does, but I find it hard to believe that anyone would seriously consider them a terrorist threat. And how about Greenpeace? According to the ACLU, both of these groups have been under surveillance by the FBI. Remember when they were spying on the Quakers? Things haven’t changed. If you’re not toeing the GOP-approved, corporate-sponsored line, then the administration wants to intimidate you into shutting up.
Don’t do it. Don’t let them take away our right to say what we want, think as we please, and gather in public and protest if that’s what we think is right. Sure, they have a list of names. I’m pretty sure that several people I know are on it. I kind of hope I’m somewhere in there, too.
Well…although I agree that there is no reason for the government to necessarily classify them as ‘terrorists’ in the same sense as al Queda, but PETA are willing to break in places and cause all kinds of havok. I guess I consider this old-school criminal behavior, different from the way that ‘terrorist’ has come to be defined. They don’t want to scare anyone, they just want to free animals (many times they want this just a little too much.)
They’re terrorists. PETA and Greenpeace (or, at least in the case of PETA and the Animal Liberation Front) have either bombed or directly funded, aided, and supported bombers of various insufficiently “animal-loving” entities.
I’m certainly not saying there isn’t a wildly self-destructive paranoid streak in our intelligence agencies, but this isn’t a symptom. COINTELPRO (and the Quakers, admittedly) would be a better example.
Yes, PETA has been under surveillance that I know of for at least 10 years because of the ALF connection (and these folks do blow places up).
I think Greenpeace has been on the shit list for a lot longer than the Bush admin, as well, similar reasons (although they seem to disrupt things more than blow up).
I find the surveillance of various GLBT groups astonishing, though…
c’mon, fellas, these groups are just expressing the american way. c’mon, fellas, ……..
Fark, you, assholes….I will fight you to the death, I will fight you to defend the rights of nature and of people. How can they co-exist? Try or die, you arseholes
As an Australian I have to agree with PETA and Greenpeace being classed as “terrorist” organisations. The PETA protest against Australian wool has hurt has real bad just as we were starting to come back from the worst drought ever, and the matter being protested, mulesing, shows that they care more about their own sensibilities than the survival of the sheep. And Greenpeace’s stunt of stringing wire across Sydney Harbour to stop a frigate leaving put many lives at risk.
But I agree with you that these illegal wiretaps are the start of something very bad. Americans have died, and Australians have been put in deadly peril to remove a dictator with WMD (the fact that he didn’t is beside the point). The world does not need another dictator with WMD.