A Bit of a rant ~ Forgive me while I get this off of my chest, eh?

Back in February I wrote a diary asking the simple question about our Presidential candidates Who speaks for me? and I never did get a good answer...I did get a lot of snark from this community, and I expect I will again with this one...

But after watching over the past few months, I am still looking for SOMEONE to bring up the Constitutional prohibition of "Religious Tests" for public office... And yet neither of our presumptive candidates has even brought this up...neither has said, "My faith is private"....

Why is that?

I've not been able to get to my translation/adaptation of Othello, I should be able to complete Act 2, Scene 1 tonight.

For now, I just wanted to write a letter to Granny Crackpot.

This is her blog: http://www.roseanneworld.com/...

Whodda thunk that Pakistan has a more vibrant democracy than the good ol' USA?  Perhaps there's a slight angle to this argument, but consider the roles of Bush 'the Guardian of Democracy' & Musharraf 'The Generalismo'.  Now, consider the following:

1.  Pakistan actually sees demonstrations that aren't composed of vapid demonstrators simply wanting personal attention.  In Pakistan the attention often comes from suicide bombers or zealot policemen, yet the heroic lawyers protest on!  When's the last time you saw a group of 1000 climbing fences and sucking tear gas in America - other than spoiled brat (F)anarchists?

2.  The protests actually mean something, as witnessed by the resignation of Musharraf on charges that he violated the constitution.  Charges?  Back in the good ol' USA the we have legislation (FISA again) which officially acknowledges wrongdoing, but there's nary a twitch on the protest line.  

Combine the above with news about the dismal state of American electorate involvement and ability and it suggests that we need a kick in the pants.  Hmmm...Musharraf '08?

More hmmms...HS civics students graded on protest involvement?  Civil disobedience arrests as pre-req for Polisci degrees?

The hypocrisy of the so-called strict constructionists of the Constitution in the Republican Party, is their current abuse of god and religion in the context of interpreting the intent of the framers of the Constitution.  Any objective reading of the Constitution coupled with reading the Declaration of Independence and the Federalist Papers can lead only to the conclusion that the framers feared any references to god and religion and they specifically provided the "establishment clause" of the 1st Amendment to prevent the merging of god and religion into our form of government.  Jefferson crossed out "god" and replaced it with "their creator" to precede "...life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness..." in the final draft of the Declaration.  He also replaced "property" with "happiness" in the pursuit of their inalienable rights.  

Please review these reports for background and context: Original report and First Update

Martial law has been expanded in Helena Arkansas to include the ENTIRE town.

Over the past few weeks, various members of the online liberal/progressive community, that included quite a few Kossaks, worked together in a democratic fashion to create the Netroots Platform  

For those of you who have just joined us, check out DemocracyLover in NYC mothership diary http://www.dailykos.com/... , to get the whole picture.  For the Civil and Human Rights Plank, we had a whopping 67 Contributors.  Join me over the fold to read the final version

A 24 hour curfew more or less means martial law, yes? House arrest for everybody?

The siege there is already a week old and just now seeing a little news.

Update on the utter madness in Helena on the flip.

Martial law has been declared in an Arkansas town.

The 24/7 curfew permits residents to leave their homes only if they have a reason good enough to satisfy the armed police patrols. The measure is a clear violation of the 4th Amendment.

THIS IS AN ACTION DIARY. If you haven't read Thurman Hart's diary on this topic, please do so now, and rec it up. Then we need to start doing everything we can to get the word out on this. Go below the fold for links to Digg that diary and several other related stories that have been posted to Digg. Write to the corporate media news people. E-mail your friends. Talk this up.

We need to take our country back!

The voters need to understand the shameful point at which we have arrived, as a logical extension of the Bush/Cheney Crime Family's contempt for our Constitution.

Well, since the federal government is reading this, I just wanted it to know the following was dropped in the mail today.

Story: http://www.dailykos.com/...
Pictures: http://www.dailykos.com/...

Sorry to interrupt the puritanical Ken Starr-like scolding going on, but something more important than John Edwards’ sex life happened today.

Or to be exact, 34 years ago today: Richard Nixon resigned the presidency over the threat of certain impeachment for violating the 4th Amendment, among other crimes.

The War in Iraq
The War in Afghanistan
The Iranian Crisis
The Destabilization of Pakistan
The Outbreak of War Between Russia and Georgia*
The Health Care Crisis
The Real Estate Meltdown
The Mortgage Crisis
The Banking Crisis
The Bear Market
The Continuing Rise in Unemployment
The Recession
The Big Three US Automaker's Collapse
The Destruction of the US Middle Class
The Destruction of the First Amendment
The Destruction of the Fourth Amendment
The Destruction of the Fifth Amendment
The Destruction of the Sixth Amendment
The Destruction of the Eight Amendment
The Destruction of the Fifteenth Amendment
The Destruction of the Twenty Fourth Amendment
The Abdication of Article One
The Destruction of the Geneva Conventions
The Evisceration of International Law

Global Warming
Collapsing Fisheries
A Polluted Food Chain
Rainforest Destruction

A Presidential Election

*(Note to Freepers from the Peach State: Relax, it's not about you.)

Today, August 8, is the day Richard Nixon resigned the Presidency of the United States in 1974 to avoid impeachment and conviction for high crimes and misdemeanors.  Today is the day that Holy Joe Lieberman was driven from the Democratic Party.

Today is also the day the Strangebedfellows Moneybomb is set to go off.  Back in June-July when the FISA fight was roiling, pissed-off civil libertarians raised over $300,000 to run ads targeting Democrats such as Steny Hoyer who colluded with Congressional Republicans, the White House, and the telecoms to pass the corrupt and dangerous 2008 "FISA Amendments Act."  The Strangebedfellows aim to continue and broaden that campaign, and they need our help.

I happened across a copy of Leni Reifenstahl's epic Nazi propaganda piece, 'Triumph Of The Will' the other day.

As I was watching it, I became aware of the similarities between the political frame of reference of the Nazi leaders and the Neocons, who have perpetrated upon us President Bush.

Keep in mind that I am not saying that the Neocon's actions or public policies are anything like the Fascist German state, just that their fundamaental political frameworks have some very similar characteristics.

For those who have read The Constitution of The United States of America, it will come as no surprise that the Federal Government has limited powers. Of course, I mean only that The Constitution establishes a federal government and defines what that government may and, in some cases, may not do. Consider the ninth and tenth amendments:

Amendment IX

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

Amendment X

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

So let us consider how, with your very own money, the Federal Government of the United States of America has effectively eliminated the ninth and tenth amendments of the Bill of Rights.

There is something very, very wrong with a society that thinks it is acceptable for police to violently kick down the door to a private family's home, shoot the family dogs and physically restrain the family while they conduct a search for drug dealer materials or other incriminating evidence, all because a large package of cannabis sativa was discovered in the postal system with their address on it.

No matter how strong the evidence presented by the Justice Department -- and at first blush, it appears damning -- it is an ex parte presentation and will never be subject to the scrutiny and challenge of the other side.

Such evidence, even when seemingly overwhelming and conclusive, is the very sort of circumstantial argument that pegged Richard Jewell as the Atlanta bomber, that linked Oregon attorney Brandon Mayfield to the Madrid bombings, that fingered Los Alamos scientist Wen Ho Lee as a spy, and that cast biodefense expert Steven Hatfill as the original anthrax suspect. In each of those investigations, the news media were largely complicit, conveying incriminating details of the government's case as if they were the gospel.

  The words are those of Ted Gup, a journalism professor at Case Western Reserve University and author of Nation of Secrets, and they appear today in a Washington Post op ed entitled The Anthrax Case: Solved(?) But Unresolved  I want to use the quoted words as an illustration of the broader issue of whether we can trust our government.

The mainstream media has been co-opted by the government to such an extraordinary extent over the past seven years, and appear to be concealing the facts of so many state sponsored arguments, they should be called 'the Governments' Media'. ABC News, preparing a TV special in the Fall of 2001 about the anonymous ongoing anthrax attacks taking place at that time, seems especially complicit.

Ron Neitzke, noblest of American diplomats, handing me his excoriation of the U.S. government and State Department for "repeatedly and gratuitously dishonoring the Bosnians in the very hour of their genocide" and urging future Foreign Service officers to be "guided by the belief that a policy fundamentally at odds with our national conscience cannot endure indefinitely — if that conscience is well and truthfully informed."

As I write it is late Tuesday afternoon.  The quote, from which my title is taken, comes from a column by Roger Cohen about which I wrote July 24, in I am so tempted to violate copyright  

Our traditional media has failed miserably in informing the American public about policy fundamentally at odds with our national conscience and so such policies have endured.  Today I propose to remind myself, and those who choose to read this diary, of policies fundamentally at odds with our national conscience.  That is, they should be, because if they are not, if they are acceptable, then we are lost already and there is no point in our being here.