Letter to Salon: Habeus Corpus

[bobquasit]

I'm really pretty speechless.

What now?
There's really nothing I can say that doesn't sound ridiculous. This is just so hard to believe...Congress has given Bush the LEGAL power to imprison for life and torture to death anyone he wants, including any American citizen. It's surreal.

And my party stood by. They cast their little "Nay" votes, knowing damned well that the bill would pass and that a man who has shown that he absolutely cannot be trusted with ANY power - a man who is already responsible for tens of thousands of deaths, including well over 3,000 US citizens - they have given him a power that most KINGS didn't have for the past 700 years.

And my own party - my own party stood by in complicity. Any ONE of them could have filibustered. They didn't. And why? Because the Republicans would attack them.

AS IF THEY WOULDN'T ATTACK THEM ANYWAY!!! And of course they already are. As anyone who isn't totally brain-dead would have anticipated.

I don't see how I can continue as a Democrat any more. I really don't.

This is nothing, a pathetic, meaningless pittance, but I'm going to change my registration from Democrat to independent. The Democrats are dead, and I'm not interested in climbing into the grave with them.

It's like a nightmare. It really is.

Follow-up: I just looked it up, and in order to leave the Democratic Party I have to fill out a disaffiliation form. That's available from the local board of canvassers; I called them, and they're mailing two of them out to me right away (just in case Teri feels like leaving the party, too). It wasn't hard to find them; I just Googled "Woonsocket" and "Board of Canvassers".

I know it doesn't mean anything. I know that the Democrats won't care - they've made that more than obvious. But I have to do something.

Comments

[gimmick.livejournal.com]

I know that as a shameful American, I still have no idea what's going on with the Constition and all that jazz ("What's America? Durrr.."), but yeah, that is quite insane to let him have such power. This is reminding me of the case of Julius Caesar...

I mean, I have a feeling that Bush, as a person, is a very good man at heart, but I also think that he misunderstands some problems, or makes the most horrible decisions ever. I won't be surprised to see him trying to make life easier for others in his crazily idealized world, by punishing some of his own civillians.

[bobquasit.livejournal.com]

The amazing thing to me is that I mentioned the issue to three fairly intelligent and involved Democrats at the office...and not one of them had heard anything about it before.

[tonysalieri.livejournal.com]

I think I may perhaps follow your example, in regards to dropping out of the party. This is just insane. Absolutely insane.

[(Anonymous)]

Tonysalieri wrote:
"I think I may perhaps follow your example, in regards to dropping out of the party. This is just insane. Absolutely insane."

No, it's not insane. It makes sense, perfect sense. The Bush faction is doing it, because they can. They would be the insane ones, if they didn't exploit the opportunity handed to them on a silver plater by the weak democrats. In my country there is an old saying: "Ei se ole hullu joka pyytää, vaan se joka maksaa". It means: It is not the crazy one who asks (an exorbitant price), but the one who pays (it).

[goddessgrrrrl.livejournal.com]

I disenrolled, too.

I'm now and "independant."

Guess I'll start voting for Libertarians, or something.

[klyfix.livejournal.com]

Well, I've never been a registered Democrat (I've voted in a couple of Demo primaries, but you can do that in Massachusetts if you're an independent). I'll make the observation that there were not enough votes to prevent cloture so an attempt at a filibuster would have been pointless, actually, and it is possible (although I don't know if this is the case) that for these votes there may have been preset limits on debate. Remember that the filibuster is just a twisting of the debate rules of the Senate; it's not any kind of right and there really is nothing preventing the Senate from eliminating it other than tradition and the desire to preserve it in the event one's party finds itself in the opposition. I'm not terribly fond of the boycott type actions; it pretty much is cutting off one's nose to spite one's face. Leaving the Democrat Party in the US (unlike a political party in other nations where membership actually means something) accomplishes basically nothing, and abandoning the only meaningful opposition party (even though it is flawed), if it means not voting for their candidates and maybe other stuff, is pretty much the same thing for practical purposes as supporting the GOP. To steal from Rumsfield and paraphrase, "You go into an election with the party you have, not the party you want."

Most interesting view on this, perhaps is here. Tristero suggests that the reality is Bush will do as he damn well pleases so not passing a bill more or less to the design of the White House would have shown to the world just how powerless Congress really is. It's an interesting notion, and should control of Congress (even one house) go to the Democrats things might get really interesting. At this point, I'd love to see a "Constitutional Crisis" even if it meant a collapse of the current political system.