I would not be an advocate of the secret covert armies but, as you point out Rana, I agree they'd be effective. MY VOTE, as I mentioned, would be to STOP WARS -- take the high ground. Stop killing. If we are a truly moral nation, we shouldn't be satisfied with "collateral damage" to the our own allies or innocent villagers. In the 60's, I was one of the marchers against the Vietnam war. I was one of the people that, using Thoreau's civil disobedience and nonviolence, took over the Army building on our college campus (luckily, I wasn't arrested). So, Susan, I have had experience saying "no."
The stock market, from what I've heard for years, loves a U.S. government to be half Republican and half Democrat because, in that ratio, less seems to be accomplished. That proverbial stalemate can prevent radical elements of either persuasion from gaining an upper hand. I share your fears and anger regarding the government spying on US. They tell us that there is not disclosure about who they spy on because of national security concerns. While I can understand that, I've pondered that the revelation of famous names (perhaps Barbra Streisand and Susan Sarandon?) being investigated could discredit the process. Herbert Hoover carried on such investigations during Democratic and Republican administrations in the sixties. I thought that the embarrassment that came about from those revelations would prevent future secretive spying wiretaps and searches. But, as I started and ended my previous post, FEAR can bring about things that aren't true to our traditional national nature.
Susan, at the beginning of your post, you posed the question, "Ask you self how far are you willing to let this country go into the abyss before we say no more? What does it take before we reach the point where something must be done?"
Congress, fearing its own re-election success chances, broke from the president and demanded the port deal be stopped. They, in essence (for not totally altruistic reasons), said, "no." And the president and leaders in Dubai backed down. What will it take to get the government to stop its internal U.S. spying? It's a bit tougher situation due to the 9-11 consequences of NOT spying. After we lost the twin towers, there was a nation of people demanding how our government could NOT know. What were they being paid to do? People demanded (as in the recent FEMA disaster in New Orleans, "Were the CIA and FBI asleep or so bogged down with bureaucracy that they were ineffectual against the plane-flying terrorists?" People stated on news channels that the CIA and FBI were "caught with "their pants down." Due to that perceived notion, the government probably flipped to the extreme of being "big brotherish" with secret wiretaps and investigations. But now, the public sentiment seems to be shifting, as Wall Street prefers, back to the middle. The presidential approval ratings are dropping and the Republicans don't want to be brought down with Mr. Bush. There are some that say that it's proof our system of government works better than many because the extremes always have a way of annoying the majority and, over time, the system self-corrects itself.
The dialogue going on here and in our country, to my mind, proves the validity of Jefferson's and Franklin's great "American experiment." Saying "no," I believe, is what's happening NOW, as we speak. If you're in doubt, tune into any non-Fox channel news station. People are, as screenwriter Padyevski wrote, "mad as hell and they're not going to take it anymore."
Teri Anne
