Imagination is Reality

If you're a Tea Partier, what now? Enjoy that the sun's a little sunnier and the air's a little airier now that the government's been taught a lesson in fiscal responsibility? I don't think so. This came in the email yesterday in a Tea Party newsletter:

What was meant as a defensive tool to protect our beloved nation may, in the wrong hands become a weapon of manipulation and Constitutional destruction? In the wake of the September 11th 2001 attacks the Bush administration recoiled with an all-encompassing doctrine of legislative action, commonly known as Homeland Security Presidential Directive-20.

Believe it or not, this directive grants broad sweeping power to not only the President of the United States, but also to those appointed to deal with a "Catastrophic Emergency." However, the concept of "Catastrophic Emergency" "Continuity of Government," "Continuity of Operations," while well-conceived, lacks in safe guards.

Consider this: Who decides what a "Catastrophic Emergency" is? What are the parameters and when will a "Catastrophic Emergency" come to an end? The concept of "Enduring Constitutional Government" becomes a moot point when interpreted in the light of the Liberal concepts of the present administration for if the Constitution is a living breathing document it will need enduring care indefinitely.

Just in case all those question marks left you confused, Bush enacted Homeland Security Presidential Directive-20 and the Tea Partiers are concerned that Obama will arbitrarily declare a catastrophic emergency and remake America, presumably as a Socialist Hell. What evidence do we have that the president who starts every negotiation by taking any faintly radical idea of the board will suddenly declare martial law and come for the Tea Partiers, their guns and their tax dollars? The possibility that it might happen. The scenario is absurdly unlikely, but the fact that they can imagine it seems to give the idea the power of certainty.

The Tea Party Needs Your Help To Stop The Obama Regime

Aren't regimes things that we overthrow? I don't understand Obama's desire to work with people who consider Democratic presidents illegitimate and possibly criminal (remember Rush's daily countdown during Clinton's presidency, declaring the number of days America was held hostage?).

In short, will Conservative actions meet the threshold of an open and known danger to the Continuance of Government if the definition of those actions challenge defined the ideals of a small group of powerful men with a socialist agenda?

Impossible, how about this: Will refusing to curb spending be interpreted as just as much of a threat to America as a terrorist or nuclear attack? Will Homeland Security jump into action when they perceive our nation is in danger if we refuse to balance our budget or perhaps if America stops printing money?

Astonishing isn't it? Are there no limits to the power of Homeland Security Presidential Directive-20? Would President Obama brandish such power in the name of saving America and restore U.S. financial institutions in a manner the government becomes the manager of ALL financial transactions?

Why not? The power is before him, why would he NOT grab the power of ultimate control and pronounce salvation by the use of Homeland Security Presidential Directive-20?

Then again, one would have to believe our government and the people who run it are power hungry, agenda driven and of course are willing use existing law to further their plans.

Ridiculous isn't it! Need proof?

Yes! That passage asks nine questions. It doesn't state that anything's actually happening or offer up even a shred of evidence to lend credence to the possibility that Obama will invoke Homeland Security Presidential Directive-20, but the absence of answers is to be taken as confirmation that the takeover is nigh. This is written as if the absence of answers proves the existence of a conspiracy that doesn't want you to know their foul, socialist agenda.

In fact, what we see is the Conservative tendency to imagine a loophole, then assume someone's going to use it because they can't imagine someone not doing so. Anchor babies? Not a problem, but some Republicans want to fight them because they can't understand why countless undocumented immigrants aren't taking advantage of this possibility. Homeland Security Presidential Directive-20 offers the opportunity to enact such sweeping change that they assume Obama must be looking for the pretext to use it because they can't see why anyone would leave such a powerful instrument untouched on the shelf.

One More 'One Last Time'

Maybe this will be my last post on GWBush. I hope so. I thought I'd sworn off chewing on him, but then I read Maureen Dowd this morning:

When W. admits the convoluted nature of his relationship with his father, diminishing a knowledgeable former president to the status of a blankie, you realize that, despite all the cocky swagger we’ve seen, this is not a confident man.

Like my most recent post on Bush, she's involved in the question we all take away from his presidency: How could one man get so many things so spectacularly wrong? She has her take, I have mine, and other amateur psychoanalysts around the world have theirs. I've put forward the religious nut theory, but that doesn't exactly say what I mean. I think of him as clinging to his faith like, well, an alcoholic in recovery, and Jesus is the last line of defense between him and a five-day bender.

But the Oedipal relationship thing carries a lot of explanatory weight as well. When he first chose optional war in Iraq, my take was that it was all about the rights of the ruling class, and that he took us to war because Saddam Hussein embarrassed his father. I don't see same insane sense of privilege in those around him, who saw oil fields and a pretext to create the new Cold War in Iraq - the dictator who stood up to your daddy and lived to tell was just the button they pushed to get the idea from thought to Baghdad.

One Last Kick ...

... Because he deserves it. President Bush went on television last night to parade his delusions in front of America one last time. There's no point in chewing on all of them because it's been done enough, but one last thought because it's a big one. He said:

The battles waged by our troops are part of a broader struggle between two dramatically different systems. Under one, a small band of fanatics demands total obedience to an oppressive ideology, condemns women to subservience, and marks unbelievers for murder. The other system is based on the conviction that freedom is the universal gift of Almighty God and that liberty and justice light the path to peace.

Beside the white hats/black hats mentality that has shaped all of his rhetoric, foreign and domestic, this is of interest because it's the final evidence we're going to get of what I've believed for the last eight years - that he's a religious extremist who has seen everything in terms of Holy War. Class, race and economic interests have all been folded into his war crimes, but it seems pretty clear that the vision that motivates him is one of the Holy Warrior. Frankly, it's a miracle we're not in a worse mess than we are.

Doesn't Consistency Count for Something?

To their credit - I suppose - Bush and Cheney are a) delusional, or b) denying-ass motherfuckers to the end. According to Bush, the low point of his presidency was being called a racist - the "N word" for white people in a way - and in tonight's interview with Jim Lehrer, Dick Cheney says of Iraq, "This was a terror-sponsoring state with access to weapons of mass destruction." And when asked about his abysmal approval rating, he says:

"I don't buy that. And I find, when I get out and talk to people, that that's not the unanimous view as you would have -- the things that count for me in terms of the people I want to make certain are with us are, for example, the American military -- the young men and women who serve, the folks who go out and put their lives on the line to carry out the policies we've decided upon.