Is there a resemblance or is it just me?
I'm starting to wonder where it is that I live? I realize that most Americans live in an alternate reality in which things like malicious prosecution can be ignored out of existence, but apparently they do take place.
I just heard an interview on Democracynow with the former Governor of Alabama, Don Siegelman, regarding his prosecution and imprisonment, apparently at the hands of Karl Rove (why am I not surprised?) for bribery and corruption. This guy is not exactly a gifted speaker, but he's very impassioned about finding out what Rove did with the Justice Department to use it for political means.
I hope that someone, at least Gonzales, if not Rove himself, goes to prison over some of the things they did while in positions of power. I hope the message gets sent to their people that staying the course and following the Rove playbook will get them nothing but grief. I, however, think that if Barack Obama gets elected he'll likely have his hands so full with the mess they've left of this country he won't have time nor inclination to pursue and prosecute any of these people. It's fun to think that their puppet, George W. Bush would be left holding the bag, and he may be a lummox, but he's at least smart enough to have a fall guy at the ready. So, I doubt he'll ever go to jail where he belongs.
Regarding Siegelman's allegations toward Rove, Robert Luskin, Rove's attorney had this to say:
“There’s absolutely, positively, no truth to any of the allegations and literally no evidence for any of it."
I like that evidence part. It's so neo-con to say something like that when denying everything. "You can't prove it, neener, neenner, neener."
I'm not going to vouch for the innocence of Siegelman. God knows Democrats are just as corruptible as Republicans, but I will say that if Rove can be brought down, and the rest of that bunch with him, then it's worth holding him in contempt of Congress when he continually refuses to honor their subpoena. Siegelman may well be completely innocent, and I do hope he is, but if his righteous indignation keeps him motivated then go Don! It's not their party affiliation that I'm concerned about, it's their illegal and unconstitutional actions that need prosecuting.
I think what most of the people I know who are Republican are missing is that their party has been hijacked. It's been used as a pawn in a revolution and though it publicly espouses the values and virtues it formerly held, it shows us one thing with the left hand and what we're not watching is what the right hand is doing. I think the values of standing on your own and having less governmental involvement in your life are perfectly fine values to have. But that's not what's going on now, neither major party stands for what it did when my generation came of age to vote in the 1970's.
That was the time of Watergate, and that really did scare us all. We'd already been living with the notion for a while,that it's possible, and for a lot of us it was likely in our minds, and still is, that a conspiracy so vast as to be able to assassinate the President of the United States on television and make it stay together through all the possible unravelings was frightening enough.
But, then, there was the abuse of power that was so pervasive in the executive branch (and it was obvious that we'd elected a mad man to run the country) that we had no trust in what we were being told at all.
So, those of us currently passing into senior citizenship-ness come from a completely mistrustful place where government is concerned, and that ain't all bad.
I'll close with a photo I found yesterday. I think it was on ThoughtTheater.com, possibly queertoday.com, at any rate the photo gives us that microcosmic glimpse into the world of convention goers everywhere.
This is what they are doing while Rome is Burning:
AND it's September! I've neglected to post the new calendar, but I'm busy, sorry, I know you all await the arrival of this feature with baited breath, so here you go:
