the need to know, reoccupation, and corruption dies...

"let the people know the facts and the country will be safe." - abraham lincoln

republicans love to spout how they aren't now becoming a party of fascist theocracy because abraham lincoln led the party 150 years ago...but they do not hold to any of the ideals he once held dear. here is yet another example...government secrecy destroys the very foundation of a democracy...the only way our system can properly work is if the citizenry know what the hell the government is up to. how does one hold elected officials accountable if they are not aware of what those officials are doing? this is why i applaud the papers around the country that have finally had the balls to stand up to this imperial presidency and tell the administration "enough is enough, we have allowed the executive to destroy this country long enough...and we aren't going to take it anymore."

this is not a republican or democrat issue...it is an ongoing problem with the office of the presidency and it's ties to the pentagon and the american intelligence community. politicians like to spout about the need to know vs. the right to know...and tell us that just because we may have a right to know does not mean we need to know. i say bullshit...we have the right to know because it is information we need to know. any doubt that the american people need to know what their government is up to were dispelled when 3,000 people perished on american soil...when the rest of the world becomes so fed up with the bullshit america pulls to the point that we find thousands dead within our borders we need to know what our government has been up to...otherwise we wind up with the country we have now, too full of mindless sheep running around wondering why "they" hate us...a question that would be all too easily answered if the pentagon and the intelligence community didn't keep it's actions hidden from you.

the executive branch has too long abused the privilege of secrecy in the name of national security. the actions it has taken in secrecy have bred hatred, fear and disdain in the rest of the world. if they are willing to except blowback...they should at least have the courtesy to let the american people know it is coming. it is time to make the entire budget completely transparent...especially any program associated with the pentagon or the intelligence community. go ahead and try and tell me it will mean "they" will know how to get away. if you honestly believe they are unaware of tactics which the american intelligence community and law enforcement community are using...you are an idiot. their leaders were trained by our intelligence officers...hunting down bank records has been used openly against organized crime for a century...bugging phones was such a novel idea...besides, if they are as crazy as you want me to believe, then it won't matter if they know.

the second you and i became targets our right to know became our need to know.

on a slightly related note...israel is reoccupying gaza. all it took was a single soldier being "kidnapped" (notice, when we hold them it is a "war" and they are "illegal combatants"...when we or our friends hold them it is criminal acts and they are "kidnapping"...gee, i wonder how the credibility of the united states hit the shits?) for israel to begin taking over settlements they claimed to have abandoned in an effort to move towards peace. bullshit...israel never expected to give palestine a viable state...when they left they only gave over fragmented and unconnected parts. the israeli army is going in with attack helicopters, tanks, and guns blazing...weapons supplied by the united states. and once again the violence will escalate...and the palestinian people will be left in squalor (those that aren't confined to wheelchairs and run over by the tanks) and israel and the united states will bitch about a single missing soldier as justification for murdering hundreds, if not thousands. there's a rogue nation in the middle east...it has nuclear weapons and it has launched aggressive wars in the past and ignored nearly 70 united nations resolutions...it's our closest ally on the planet. and THAT is why "they" hate us.

ken lay conveniently collapsed and died of a heart attack a few months before he was to be sentenced. here is the kicker...he was at his lakefront vacation home when it happened. how wonderful to be filthy rich, have destroyed thousands of people's lives...and be at your vacation home while awaiting sentencing. yet the guy caught with a single rock on the street never sees the outside of a prison wall again.

i'm pining for the moon...