Blue Notebooks

Blue Notebooks

What Message is Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales Sending to Our Children? Anarchy is Acceptable if it Protects Americans.

By Jacqueline Marcus

George W. Bush swore by oath that he would uphold the laws of the land. A federal judge reminded Bush and Gonzales that they clearly violated the law. Judge Taylor ruled that the National Security Agency’s program to wiretap citizens without a warrant is unconstitutional. As reported in the New York Times, Judge Anna Diggs Taylor of United States District Court in Detroit rejected almost every administration argument.

Indeed, the Bush administration has violated countless laws! Constitutional laws, regarding torture and public health-environmental laws, that inconveniently interfere with their intentions are either completely violated or quickly revised to suit their needs.

What message is this administration sending to teenagers? Are they telling them that laws are meaningless? Because if that’s the message, then take a good, long look at what the Bush administration did to Iraq. Look hard at the anarchy, the chaos, the lawlessness, death and destruction. When Americans see that their leaders have no respect for the laws, anarchy is sure to follow.

Q. Mr. Attorney General? If citizen Y breaks into a gun shop, steals a bunch of guns and then argues in a court of law that he broke the law to protect Americans from terrorists, why shouldn’t that defense work by using your own defense for breaking the law?

This notion that the Bush administrators can break laws in order to protect Americans is not only absurd, it’s dangerous. It paves the way to anarchy. Mr. Bush has said that “we live in different times,” referring to terrorism. That’s no excuse for breaking the law. A warrant can be easily attained, and it assures citizens that our government officials are not abusing their power or unlawfully arresting innocent citizens. In other words, there must be evidence before a government can spy on individuals. A warrant is that guarantee that there is, indeed, evidence.

Perhaps what Gonzales and Bush are saying is that laws will be fully enforced against ordinary citizens, but the Bush administration is exempt from all laws. We know that corporate oil executives and their stock holders can violate environmental laws at will, AND the Bush administration will even assist oil executives by watering down those laws that were written to protect the public’s health so that they can pollute as much as they like. If the Bush administration were so concerned about protecting Americans, why do they put our health at risk by exposing us to more toxins and pollution?

Spying unlawfully on Americans, violating environmental laws, lying about WMD so he can go to war in Iraq, a country that never harmed Americans—when does it stop? I suppose if Bush were caught lying about having an affair with an intern, THEN he’d be impeached. Otherwise, he can use pre-emptive attacks against any country he deems “evil,” he can order Iraqis to be tortured, he can tell the CIA to spy on every American, but if he lies about a silly sex affair then he’ll deserve impeachment! Am I missing something here?

If the President can break laws, then what’s to stop defense attorneys from using the same argument to defend criminals for willfully breaking laws? Y. broke the law for national security reasons.

Are we to conclude that the laws of the land apply to ordinary citizens but they do not apply to Bush, Cheney or Gonzales?

Q. Who’s to blame for allowing an administration to have such excessive power without checks or balances?

I blame the network media for turning a blind eye, for not reporting these violations with the same intensity they used in reporting Clinton’s silly affair. Now that we’re facing a REAL, historical crisis viz. Abuse of Executive Power, the media has rendered Bush’s impeachable offenses to a mere one-minute footnote. Paris Hilton receives more air time.

If our own leaders cannot obey and respect the laws of the land, then what is to prevent others from doing the same? This is the message Alberto Gonzales is sending to our children.

Diebold Cheating Machines in California: Letter to Bruce McPherson

Dear Secretary of State, Bruce McPherson,

"There's only one voter in this country: His name is Diebold."--Ken Pobo

At a time when voters across the nation are struggling to eliminate the use of Diebold's electronic machines, after all the information that emerged on how our election was stolen in 2004, compliments of Republicans' Diebold cheating machines, and the anger and frustration that has resulted from the use of the Diebold machines -- YOU want to wheel them into the state of California! Gee, I wonder why? California is the one state where Bush and Republicans couldn't cheat because there were no Diebold machines. It looks awfully suspicious. This move will severely damage your reputation, politically, ethically and morally!

No one wants to use the DIEBOLD CHEATING MACHINES!! We will not stand for it. We will NOT use them! Stick with the scantron machines with paper ballots that can be verified. We use them at schools and colleges and they work just fine. We've used them in CA all these years without any problems. Why do you need Diebold? Why? For cheating, of course.

Feeling the Pain from the Bush-Cheney Oil Dependency Policies

When our Supreme Court Judges chose George W. Bush for President instead of Vice-President Al Gore on that cold winter day, it meant a difference of energy policies that are worlds apart: Gore saw the demise of the industrial age oil resources. Bush, on the other hand, came from the oil industry with intentions of making America entirely dependent on oil for energy.

No doubt, we are accustomed to having electricity and gasoline at affordable rates. But in 2000, Americans concluded with Gore that we must move on to new alternative energy plans because oil is running out.

We supported Al Gore’s goal to initiate the new high-tech paradigm shift, a necessary shift of survival. For we all realize that oil is on short supply. Experts in the field have assessed that oil will be depleted in 20 years, more or less, and that includes Middle Eastern resources.

Nearly everyone in the Bush administration is from the oil industries. They, of course, could not possibly conceive of a world without oil. The stakes were high: they banked our entire national savings, our economy, on the invasion of Iraq. They essentially forced us to depend on oil for our energy sources. And now we’re stuck with this fate.

America, under the Bush administration’s failed energy policies, is trillions of dollars in debt and now we’re consumed with Bush’s horrific invasion of Iraq – more from desperation for oil than anything else.

In 2000, Gore was ready to implement high tech solutions. There are new alternative energy plans that have been on line, ready to go, for years. But thanks to the Bush administration, all those clean and environmentally friendly technologies were shoved to the back burner, which meant the loss of thousand of new jobs as well.

We are told that though it was a mistake to invade Iraq, we have to “stay the course.” Cindy Sheehan keeps asking Bush why this is a “noble cause.” He can’t answer, Cindy. If he told the truth—that would mean that thousands of our soldiers, thousands of Iraqis, thousands of our men and women lost their lives, faces, arms and legs for oil, a commodity that we were forced to depend on.

Excessively high oil prices will spin this country so deep into poverty that either this administration possesses Iraq’s oil, as morally wrong as that is, or expect to see a lot of suffering in this country for a very long time. For example, farmers can’t afford the high cost of diesel to run their equipment and truck drivers, distributing the food, cannot afford $3.00 a gallon. With the prospect of gas prices going up even higher, this country could be facing serious food shortages.

This is the truth that George W. Bush will not reveal because Rumsfeld and the Bush administration realize that honorable men and women like her son, Casey, will not sacrifice their lives for oil or for maintaining the standard of living most Americans have grown accustomed to.

It looks like this administration’s Iraqi oil mission has failed. Now what? We need to pick up where Gore left off. We have no other choice but to turn to high tech energy alternatives. Currently, under the leadership of Oregon’s legislature, Oregonians have decided to ignore this administration’s bad energy policies. They’ve opted to obey the Kyoto Treaty. Oregon is saving thousands and thousands of dollars by conserving energy with new high tech solutions. Governor Schwarzenegger, to his credit, has also invested in solar, wind and tax incentives for buying hybrid-electric cars; and he lowered CO2 emissions for California.

If Federal laws are bad for the people, the environment and the economy, then each state will have to establish its own laws independently from Federal regulations. Right now, California is telling the Bush administration to take a hike: We don’t want their dirty oil drills polluting our beautiful coastal shores. Thus, the California Coastal Commission and Governor Schwarzenegger will challenge them in the courts. I, for one, am glad that the Terminator is on our side and long to hear his notorious farewell directed at Bush and Cheney: “Haesta luego, baby.”

Jacqueline Marcus’ editorials and letters have appeared in the Washington Post, Salon, Slate, CommonDreams.org, New Times, (San Luis Obispo, CA Cover story: “The Politics of Restraint”). Her poems have appeared in national university journals, The Kenyon Review, The Ohio Review, The Antioch Review and many more periodicals. Her book of poems, Close to the Shore, was published by Michigan State University Press. She teaches philosophy at Cuesta College and is the editor of ForPoetry.com