Cafferty: <<http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0512/16/sitroom.01.html>>
Who cares about whether the Patriot Act gets renewed? Want to abuse our civil liberties? Just do it. Who cares about the Geneva Conventions. Want to torture prisoners? Just do it. Who cares about rules concerning the identity of CIA agents. Want to reveal the name of a covert operative? Just do it. Who cares about whether the intelligence concerning WMDS is accurate. Want to invade Iraq? Just do it. Who cares about qualifications to serve on the nation's highest court. Want to nominate a personal friend with no qualifications? Just do it. And the latest outrage, which I read about in "The New York Times" this morning, who cares about needing a court order to eavesdrop on American citizens. Want to wiretap their phone conversations? Just do it. What a joke. A very cruel, very sad joke. ------- "What happened here was the gradual habituation of the people, little by little, to being governed by surprise; to receiving decisions deliberated in secret; to believing that the situation was so complicated that the government had to act on information which the people could not understand, or so dangerous that, even if he people could understand it, it could not be released because of national security. And their sense of identification with Hitler, their trust in him, made it easier to widen this gap and reassured those who would otherwise have worried about it. "This separation of government from people, this widening of the gap, took place so gradually and so insensibly, each step disguised (perhaps not even intentionally) as a temporary emergency measure or associated with true patriotic allegiance or with real social purposes. And all the crises and reforms (real reforms, too) so occupied the people that they did not see the slow motion underneath, of the whole process of government growing remoter and remoter." --They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45 --by Milton Mayer _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
