The Sporadic Curmudgeon

Yesterday, September 28, 2006 is the date that your representatives gave the President of the United States immunity from criminal prosecution.

Yesterday, September 28, 2006 is the date that your representatives gave the President of the United States the power to torture prisoners.

Yesterday, September 28, 2006 is the date that your representatives gave the President of the United States the power to suspend habeus corpus, meaning he can lock up anyone he wishes without any legal oversight whatsoever.

That is the definition of a dictatorship.

This is the Congressional Oath of Office, which every Member of the House and Senate must take upon assuming their duties:

I, Loyal Citizen of the Republic, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.

Our Constitution is now essentially null and void, unless the Supreme Court steps in. Pardon me while I laugh bitterly. The American Republic has fallen to treason.

This has been the longest time between posts to Atomic Deathray in several years. Why? Well, for one, I’ve been busy working, worrying and making preparations to move cross-country. But a large part of it has been that I simply don’t know what to say.

Yes, the Bush administration has finally managed to stoop so low as to render me speechless.

What can you say about someone that adamantly defends torture, but is too cowardly to call a spade a spade? Is anyone fooled by the phrase “Alternative Interrogation Techniques?” Bush is demanding exemption from the Geneva Convention.

I suggest you take a few minutes to read the Convention for yourself:

Geneva Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War

This is a document that protects our own troops from torture. Bush wants to throw it away.

Bush claims that it is “too vague.” Let’s be clear: the only possible way the Geneva Convention is “too vague” is if you are looking for a loophole that will allow torture. But then, Bush has always been someone who gets his rocks off watching the suffering of others.

The Republican “opposition” to this monstrous policy has collapsed, as it was designed to. It was only meant to provide political cover for a bunch of brutal sadists.

Our country is fundamentally broken, and I’m beginning to suspect that it may be too late to put it right. The press has abdicated its responsibility as watchdog. Congress does reacharounds for the administration at every turn, going so far as to draft laws immunizing Bush from criminal penalties (a tacit admission that Bush has committed criminal acts, by the way). More and more evidence is piling up that the election machines are rigged, and Karl Rove is hinting darkly to his fellow Republicans that there there is an “October Surprise” in the works that will allow them to maintain control of the House of Representatives. I’m betting on another conveniently-timed “terrorist” attack.

This is not America. This is what America used to fight against. Is it any wonder we are so reviled?

no bath in two days
underwear makes a sound like
a packing-tape roll