On Feb 23, 2006, at 10:36 AM, d.brin wrote:
On October 19th, 2001, former Halliburton CEO and now current
sitting Vice President, Dick Cheney, christened a new term.
Describing the curtailment of civil rights taken for granted by
American citizens as the "New Normalcy," Mr. Cheney was notifying
Americans that constant surveillance, arrest without charge, secret
trials and military tribunals, were the order of the day. Moreover,
according to Cheney, "Many of the steps we have now been forced to
take will become permanent in American life."
See, if only all this increased surveillance was open-source and open-
access, we'd be heading for transparency... As it is, it's the
assumption of elitism and the entrenchment of America's class system,
backed by a worrying theocratic and anti-education/anti-
intellectualist bent that has pushed the States in a dangerous
direction.
Maybe a good time to restate a few important words...
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created
equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain
unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the
pursuit of Happiness. --That to secure these rights, Governments are
instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of
the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes
destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or
to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation
on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them
shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. "
Time to sort it out, Americans. "Institute new Government."
It will be a dark day if the world's first secular democracy fails
(or maybe it already has - Jefferson's vision hasn't been perfectly
enacted over the last coupla hundred years to put it mildly).
Charlie
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