God's Gonna Cut You Down

The new Johnny Cash CD is out. The man in black is back from the dead. I once wrote a poem about whether or not Ezra Pound would appreciate Johnny Cash; I ended it by quoting Lonesome Whistle. I sure can appreciate Johnny Cash…

Here are some of his lyrics from this song…God’s Gonna Cut You Down.

Well you may throw your rock and hide your hand
Workin' in the dark against your fellow man
But as sure as God made black and white
What's down in the dark will be brought to the light

It isn’t a song as haunting as Hurt was; but I find its apocalyptic irony curious to some of the excitement about the banking story published by The New York Times, The Los Anglos Times and The Wall Street Journal.

It seems mostly that the Secretary of the Treasury was most concerned about the banks becoming embarrassed that they are being compliant. It also seems that pressure from the American government has kept skeptical institutions playing ball. It is also a safe conclusion to come to that the administration is less concerned about the cat being out of the bag as much as that all the pressure they have provided will collapse because the institutions involved will pull out.

I have two concerns from the article Bank Data Is Sifted by US in Secret to Block Terror

1. “…officials did not seek individual court-approved warrants or subpoenas to examine specific transactions, instead relying on broad administrative subpoenas for millions of records from the cooperative, known as Swift.”

2. “Treasury officials said Swift was exempt from American laws restricting government access to private financial records because the cooperative was considered a messaging service, not a bank or financial institution.”

The result being positive in reaching corners of the globe that may or may not have been available to us for the asking…yes, good stuff. The negative is that we promised to do this as a temporary program to affect the immediate results of fast captures of terrorists. After five years of service this program has yielded minimal results.

A glaring point is that there seems to be absolutely no oversight and the only reason why some folks on the hill even found out about it is because these institutions and administrators started talking about it because; they too were worried about it’s fairness and legitimism.

This Administration can jump on the back of the New York Times; they have big shoulders and can withstand the pressure. The obfuscation is that type of game that is politics at its lowest denominator not objective reality; reporting the news is as American as apple pie. Personally I think it is disgraceful that we continue failed rhetoric rather than talk the truth about circumstances. We are enabling a habitat that helps the unaccountable continue to pull us into a hole.

In the end will we resolve to move that mountain and defeat the double talk and come to terms with our addictions of believing in paper hangers? Will we find out that we must reach rock bottom before we open our hearts and minds enough to see we have allowed ourselves to fall into the muddled moral clarity, fallen for the rose colored glasses and believed that these overgrown children will lead us out of the wilderness.

It’s only in hindsight will we say how young and foolish we were in those days…

Do we really think that we will find Osama by a triangulation of his ATM receipts? We have the effort of this program to pressure countries into letting us get access to information that we are not going to gain access to without qualified blackmail because guns and money are the only brains we got.

And for the record, I have long said that Osama is at his father’s palace in Saudi Arabia and that the ambassador to the House of Saud insured his safety early on when he visited George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush shortly after 9/11. He is safe and warm; not at all a hunted dog like the rest of the clan.

Here is the link to open letter editorial that the NYT published.

Here is a Fox News fair and balanced opinion... offered to me by Crazy Legs.

Here is some Journalistic viewpoint assembled by Howard Kurtz and more from Dan Froomkin.

Also since the Flag Amendment failed… so we can pursue this legislation.

And if you are looking for any good news about Iraq…the latest Iraq Index…

I’ll wrap up my thoughts. I believe the fuss about this latest finding published about secret government programs that are clearly suspiciously close to violating privacy rights, civil rights of American citizens is extremely misplaced. I don’t feel that this Administration deserves Cart Blanc when it comes to so called national security. The track record at this point leaves us little assurance that our best interests are being considered. I believe that they should be cut off and need to start to justify what they have standardized so far.

I also can’t believe that for the most part the NYT has been singled out and the other papers have gotten a free ride. I think the industry itself needs to stand up and defend its ability and right to print accountable information. I also don’t believe that this was something that the administration didn’t want out. I think they saw this as an opportunity to change the focus on bullheaded conservatism to commentary on straw man liberalism Harvey the Rabbit style. Funny things seem to happen when the poll numbers stay down…for such a long time. The base rally has begun in earnest get ready for the roller coaster.

Again; I implore you: Pay Attention to how things are being said…and what seems to be repeated over and over again like a broken record. Will you have the courage to stand up for the real fight for freedom? Are we so generous to forsake our basic principals for short sightedness and not the panoramic points of view?

Anymore I am more concerned about the people in charge and the blind faith and charity we are providing to the administration because we are so frightened we don’t think we could actually defend ourselves say a real threat snuck up on us and said Boo! …don’t let God cut you down.

…bully…

oh and there about New Orleans and Katrina

To GroupThink Or Not To GroupThink

When the gods finally come to scold the human race…I’ll be amused; if not astonished at how fast the tide will turn…

The effort that is being made to tell American’s that they shouldn’t believe what they see and that this fist pounding-totalitarian-me-first-administration is tragically undernourished on conventional wisdom and curiosity.

I was first reading this article in TPM and then went to this link at NewsMax.com. I haven’t laughed so hard in my life. I especially found the quote they gave to Al Gore in the article titled Al Gore’s Green Investments.

I then had to sit back and wonder if we really do stop and think about anything real?

I happen to like a good conspiracy theory; but I play to human nature a little more than I do to suspicions.

I watched Anatomy Of A Murder last night and Jimmy Stewart’s character said he believes that people aren’t all good or all bad but that they are a lot of things. This characterization I can live with. I have known sincere believers who were as capable as anyone to do the wrong thing. As well as I give little charity to myself when it comes to scruples; but…are we as a society so succumbed?

I beg the question.

And for Stansfield I’ll include the ACLU. I’ll get verification before I put words in his mouth. For me I’ll include FAIR, which includes Democracy Now. Nope Stansfield says it is NEA. I add these so I can use both sides of the coin.

What jumped out at me from the NewsMax folks was the poll they were taking and how in every single one of these polls is the question…4) Are you willing to give up, even partially, your civil liberties to help stop terrorism? I find that question astonishing because of the implications and that we are still asking this question.

Are you Brainwashed? Are you willing to give up, even partially, your brain to help stop conventional wisdom? Where’s my egg and frying pan…

Gravy…

The Facts Are…we used to start off saying. UGH.

So we want to stay in Iraq for the next one hundred years or so unless of course it will do the electorate some good by sending 20 or 40K home for a month long furlough in October.

We’re building a fence because we can’t keep the immigrants out. That’s right we can’t keep them out and they might even start bringing in bombs to help them terrorists out. Let us not worry about the people who hire illegal workers; why are you so against small business?

I hear this stuff and I think to myself; Ollie North is he still around? We forget how he turned a blind eye while Crack cocaine infiltrated the gangs of LA and we were protecting that drug lord. (my long standing conspiracy)

Ah the 80’s that Big Boon for the rehab industry and Dr. Tim LaHaye. I can’t wait until he is busted for child pornography.

Well that worked out for everybody…finally all that crack that America smoked is paying off.

That Flag Amendment is coming along…inflation is up…but it won’t last is what the story was in NewsMax. The Fed’s gonna lower rates next year; when all that debt starts going down because of those tax cuts. In the meantime it’s a field day for the credit card company’s and short term lenders. …fill ‘er up boys!!!

Yes, yes America, keep nodding on that you are doing well. Pay your 20% interest rates, interest only home loans…huge energy bills…etc. At least you don’t have to change your cell phone number or dial 1…grrrr. You don’t have a student loan do you???

Don’t worry about that minimum wage…why worry about a civil rights bill if we are losing our civil liberties on a daily basis? Funny thing how we want to give favors in a business friendly immigration bill…what is wrong with exceptions???

Draw conclusions! Finish thoughts to their natural end! Listen! Listen to how they say it! Compare and contrast what you might do in any given situation. Think about why and how we can improve situations.

What if: IT IS YOUR PROBLEM? and they are saying G-d really does hate you…and Wal-Mart is out of plastic sheeting and duct tape?

“don’t follow leaders, watch your parking meters”

…bully…