The Politics of Bullying

[Sapphire Blue]

Still relevant today... possibly more so, as more & more citizens are beginning to stand up and question this Administration; an excerpt...

The Politics Of Bullying
Paul Rogat Loeb
August 20, 2004

The United States is an experiment, one whose outcome can be in doubt on any given day. But when our leaders embrace the ethics of Don Corleone, they undermine the very terms of our democracy. Go back to Richard Nixon’s “Southern strategy,” where he deliberately used racially polarizing language and images to lure white southerners into the Republican Party. Or the Willie Horton ads overseen by Karl Rove’s mentor, Lee Atwater. Or the Iran-Contra scandal, when the first President Bush and key members of the current president’s administration, then working for Reagan, crafted and enacted secret foreign policies that defied the will of Congress—while collaborating with dictators and terrorists. Or the illegitimate purging, in the 2000 election, of 94,000 largely poor and minority voters from the Florida rolls. Recently, the same five Supreme Court justices who installed Bush prevailed by a single vote in upholding Tom DeLay’s midnight redistricting in Texas and Pennsylvania—where Republicans broke all conventional rules about redistricting only after a census, and instead gerrymandered as many Congressional seats as they could, just because they held the reins of power.

Whatever our party identifications or stands on particular issues—which, of course, will vary—we should be profoundly troubled by these developments. Since the United States was founded, neither major political party has exercised a monopoly on deceit, venality or political abuse. Dead people voted in Chicago. Lyndon Johnson closed an air base in a Congressional district that dared to vote against him. No administration since the World War I Palmer Raids, however, has so systematically attempted to silence its critics.

But just as a culture of silence is contagious, so is one of courage. And citizens are beginning to stand up and question—from Republican conservationists questioning Bush’s environmental policies, to career foreign service officers decrying the rift our unilateral actions are creating between us and the world, to cities across America challenging the USA PATRIOT Act.

http://www.tompaine.com/articles/the_politics_of_bullying.php?dateid=20050423

[GetTheRightVote]

1. I have been reading for hours on all the links, wow

:kick:

[applegrove]

2. What we need to hear & read now. I look forward to reading it. n/t