Newsday’s Walt Handelsman, aided by Roy Furchgott, has a wonderful animated cartoon featuring singing spies. The cartoon is here.
This makes the National Security Agency wiretap issue so simple even a congressman might be able to get the point. Perhaps congressmen will respond by merely adding an amendment to a “spying legalization” bill to prohibit the feds from tapping the phones of congressmen, their children, and their mistresses and/or personal pages.
[hat tip to ace editor & libertarian truth-teller Sheldon Richman]
As a former Republican, every time I see the Republicans expanding the power of our government to dictatorial levels I can’t help but notice the usual cheerleaders, i.e. the America Hating Brownshirt talking heads: Hannity The Coward, Limbaugh The Dope Hypocrite, Coulter The Uncouth, and Smarmy Laura Ingram). No doubt they would rightly decry such abuse if it were being done by a Democrat but so long as it’s a Republican it suddenly becomes necessary, legitimate and even patriotic. What goose stepping swine they are.
Stupid.
Mr. Bovard,
Thanks for the link. It IS a great cartoon. Why, even the “decider” might be able to understand it.
It truth, I am sort of divided on this whole issue. One the one hand, either will do, my Constitutional rights are being infringed. As a veteran who swore an oath to defend the Constitution it is DISGUSTING. By the way, I cannot find any veteran of the American military who was ever asked to revoke that oath upon discharge from the military. Sort of makes the old oath a life long obligation to many of us.
OK, on the other hand, the one left over after the above choice, I really don’t give a flying crap if some idiot alphabet outfit is monitoring my very few phone calls, or even my high volume of emails and replie to article like this one. I am a disabled machinist. What could I possibly be communicating to ANYONE that might be of such great interest to the government? If they feel the need to monitor me, well, get ready for boredom folks. I am NOT very interesting! I am not very important either. My “routine” as it were consists of going to town for groceries and other needed household items including critter food (THE most important purcheses of each trip) and the odd doctor visit. With diesel still over $2.50 at nearly every station around, side trips (aka fun trips) are limited. Hell NSA, FBI, CIA,etc, disability don’t pay that bloody damned much. Give me a big enough pay increase and I MIGHT drive over by some “sensitive” targets. LOL
Poor people who monitor me might die of boredom. Holy crap! Then their family members might sue me for an unlawful death! Well, as our great “decider” has said; bring ’em on!
charlie ehlen,
Glenmora, LA
Excellent parody ala Wierd Al. I am averse to taxpayer money being wasted on this (and other) nonsense. I thought I had no life, but just think of the tedium of those overpaid, underworked civil servants who must suffer my ennui as well!
charlie ehlen’s attitude is just what the budding facist count on; “I have nothing to hide so it’s okay for them to spy on me and if you mind being spied on then you must have something to hide.”
This is what so many Americans have become, people who wont even stand up for their basic rights.
Great toon Jim thanks for posting it.
Sven,
A good description of Coulter, Hannity, et al as “brownshirts”. You won’t get Godwined by me. As a matter of fact I think a strong case can be made supporting the contention that the role played by SA street violence in National Socialist Germany in the early thirties is being taken over today by the very talk radio Nazis you’ve mentioned. And we have a Reich’s Church as well, with bishops Dobson, Land, Colson, Falwell, Neuhaus, Novak, and Weigel. There are even Einsatzgruppen, the ethnic cleansing proclivities of outside agitator Oberstgruppenpastor John Hagee and his Greater Isreal advocacy. Don’t believe ’em if they tell you it can’t happen here.
John Lowell
John – At least we still have the Washington Post to keep an eye open to protect our rights and liberties.
Thanks for the hat tip! My pleasure.
Jim,
🙂
John Lowell
If I was more disciplined, I would abstain from opening up the Post’s editorial pages until happy hour.
On the other hand, if the editorial writers drank more beer, perhaps they would spew less nonsense.
What I love about this whole debate is that it is a false choice. Prof. Lisa Jane Disch issued of U of Minn. issued a book a few years ago called “The Tyranny of the Two-Party System” Her research shown that America never has had a two party system nor was party membership ever the big deal that it is today. Parties fused their candidates/tickets and controlled the ballots. The Republicans got tired of the competition, so they put the elections under state control and banned fusions (ca. 1890), forcing all people to vote for candidates tied to parties who didn’t represent anyone’s viewpoints. If the government ended its monopoly on registering parties and elections tomorrow, the Republicratic party would collapse. This is why organizations like the Libertarian party have all the impact of snow on a brick wall.
The listening program is a near farce. I can imagine that it has only turned up the most bizarre, impertinent evidence in the “war on terror” This would have been laughed off the face of the earth, but Bush has acted as if there is a second Constitution written in invisible ink over the regular one, and only he can see it. I will refer anyone to Curtis'”Power of Nightmares” where he actually looked at the evidence used to convict the people in Britain and Lackawanna. The experts deliberately invented codes and connections to fit into a fantasy:Al Qaeda as an all-pervasive network. Let them listen all they want. The only sound they’ll hear is the wind blowing through a bunch of empty heads.
klyde,
You must have missed the first part of my reply. As a veteran I am DISGUSTED by this. As to the “nothing to hide”, that is up to the listeners to “decide”.
It IS a violation of our rights and I am against it. But it strikes me as funny that some “nobody” like myself coule be a “person of interest”. I was TRYING to be funny. Obviously I failed.
OK, so, I’ll go stand in my corner for a minute or three.
Geeez, no sense of humor out here any more?
Charlie,
You’re right about no sense of humor anymore. You should see the dirty looks I get when I wear my T-shirt that says “Where is Oswald when we need him the most?” It’s an oldie from the Nixon era, but nowadays, I could be arrested for committing an act of terrorism! Can I Gitmo laughs outta that one, please?