Sometimes Irony Bums Me Out
Posted on June 20th, 2013 in Uncategorized | 7 Comments »
Yesterday Barack Obama was in Berlin, and he said:
….the fate of this city came down to a simple question: Will we live free or in chains? Under governments that uphold our universal rights, or regimes that suppress them? In open societies that respect the sanctity of the individual and our free will, or in closed societies that suffocate the soul?
As I listened to the president deliver these words, I couldn’t help but note that today it is the U.S. government, not the East German, that is spying on its citizens with a capacity—as Harry Lewis points out in his blog, the capacity to record every moment of every phone call made in the U.S.—that is far more powerful than was the ability of the East German government to spy on its citizens.
And speaking of walls… Today, the NYT reports that Republican senators are advocating a plan in which, in exchange for supporting immigration reform, the United States government will build another 700 miles of wall along our border with Mexico.
And this from a party which reveres a former president who once urged, to great effect, the tearing down of a wall.
As Tommy Lee Jones said to me when I interviewed him for 02138 magazine a few years back,
It’s a predatory approach to democracy by those who would instill fear and then propose themselves as a solution. It’s very destructive. Very, very destructive. And it’s the perfectly wrong thing to do.
First of all, it won’t work. You can’t build a fence that I cannot get over, through, or under if I want to go to Mexico. In that [border] country, you cannot do it. It’s a complete folly. Ecologically, it’s a complete disaster, and sociologically, it’s a complete disaster. It’s an act of fascist madness.
Yeah. It is. And yet Republicans are latching on to this idea as if it’s the greatest thing since nacho cheese Doritos.
“We’ve had a really good day,” Mr. Corker said Wednesday. “I feel good about where we are.”
This is a very, very dangerous group.
7 Responses
6/20/2013 8:12 pm
I wonder, when the Republicans talk about the “takers” and building fences, whether they have looked at things like the list of valedictorians from Boston high schools:
http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2013/06/16/valedictorian/CwokHyMYq2i672rzaP1YBM/story.html
Not quite half born outside the US, but it looks like a fair number of the USA-born are the children of immigrants. Those people are taking valedictorian slots away from hard working Americans! Better build that wall.
Nice to stand shoulder to shoulder with my H’68 classmate TLJ here, 45 years on!
6/20/2013 8:23 pm
CORRECTION: Silly me. Tommy Lee Jones was ’69 of course.
6/20/2013 11:00 pm
Of course, forsooth, Harry.
6/21/2013 6:06 am
Because how could he have played in the H-Y 1968 29-29 game if he was class of ’68? Forsooth indeed.
6/21/2013 7:58 am
Ah, right. I knew that.
6/22/2013 6:50 am
I’m not sure of the details, but my understanding at this point is that the metadata is being gathered under a ‘business records’ warrant, because it is data the phone companies have and keep. Unless the phone companies themselves are recording calls routinely, then, recordings are not subject to the dragnet. The government still needs a warrant in advance to get a recording.
Voicemails may be a different matter.
Congress voted for all this crap, of course. If we want to fix it we have to elect a different kind of Congress, or elect a President willing to take the risk of massive public blame for a terrorism attack after he does less than the law allows to prevent one.
Count me as one vote for the overhauled Congress with different people in it.
6/22/2013 6:52 am
Of course, as Harry points out, “the law” includes the Fourthh Amendment. Standing doctrine must not prevent a court test somewhere. But of course the FISA judges understand the Constitution too, even if the process isn’t properly adversarial…..