Re: OT: why USA is a regime

From: JF Mezei (jfmezei.spamnot_at_teksavvy.com)
Date: 10/25/04 

Date: Sun, 24 Oct 2004 19:57:06 -0400

Bill Todd wrote:
> I always hope that apparently fruitless discussions like this one might at
> least cause a bit of neural activity in silent observers whose brain cells
> haven't yet completely ossified, but lacking visible results it's often
> difficult to sustain the effort solely on faith.

Such discussions only re-enforce the belief that many americans simply refuse
to be informed of reality.

Economic mismanagement is expected from a government. It isn't a crime and you
expect some government to spin their tax changes into some made-in-heaven fix
for a country's economic problems when in the end, it won't have much of an impact.

Human rights violations domestically though should, especially in a country
like the USA, have caused massive complaints/uprisings from the electorate.

Considering that americans previously balked at even the concept of a national
identity card, it is absolutely amazing that today, they have become obediant
and don't even complain about the government wanting to monitor all their
purchases, travels and any other actitity in some large central database
without the USA having a proper modern data privacy act to first protect this
massive amount of data.

(Already, airline reservation data has been leaked many times , proving
mechanisms in place to protect data are ineffective , and last week, over a
million social security records were stolen in california from a university
doing some study on social security).

As a non-USA citizen, I can't complain about what the USA does domestically.
If it wants to monitor all USA transactions , then so be it. However I can
complain when the USA threathens other countries to also submit all those
transactions for the USA to play with, especially when this goes against a
country's national data privacy laws.

Visa, Mastercard and American Express may have to move their world
headquarters offshore if this continues, otherwise Visa/Mastercard member
banks outside the USA may setup their own transaction exchanges to bypass the
USA. If i buy a box of chocolates in belgium on a canadian credit card, there
is no reason that the USA government should have a copy of that transaction.
But under current programmes, that is exactly what the USA government will get.

But more importantly, as outsiders, we are witnesses to the brainwashing that
has occured in the USA under the guise of 9-11 after-effects and wonder with
amazement why americans aren't waking up and insist on keeping their heads in
the sand.

Why does this matter ?

Normally, democratic mechanisms would prevent a government from doing
something terribly wrong. But whatever mechanisms exist in the USA failed
because the government invaded Iraq, tortured people, has illegally kidnapped
people and kept them in dog cages at Gantanamo without due legal process and
yet americans still brag about the USA having the best legal system and human
righst in the world ? Normally, americans would have risen against the spectre
of a program called "Total information awareness", politicians would have
scrutinized some police state law called "Patriot Act" and been able to stand
up and vote "NO" despite the law's title.

It is appaling that US politicians voted for the Patriot Act without reading
it, just because it was the patrioting thing to do (voting for the "patriot" act).

In a parliamentary democracy, the head of state (which is not the prime
minister) has the power to block bills, and has the power to disolve a
government it judges to act against the constitution. It is very rare, but
there have been instances where head of state did intervene, and that is
exactly what the head of state is for. An apolitical final sanity check
mechanism.

In the USA, either the structures are wrong, or something happened, but there
was no last sanity check by someone empowered to stop a political leader from
abusing power. (Launching an unprovoked attack on a foreign country without
declaring war, and lying about having support of the UN when in fact this act
was illegal because it did not have UN approval).

Something is askew with checks and balances in the USA, and some rogue
government has gone on a rampage outside its own jurisdiction and has so far
gone unpunished.

> There would be some (though regrettably few, and regrettably minor)
> differences between a Bush and a Kerry administration, but which one is
> elected will say very little about the American people as a whole,

While domestically, the differences won't be that great (when you have such a
large deficit, any government's hands are tied), internationally, I think that
there will be a huge difference.

Bush is on record as wanting to continue its present course, unchanged
(internationally).
Kerry is on record as wanting to work with allies.

> it's already clear that *roughly* half of those who will bother to vote at
> all will be voting for Bush,

If there had been clear opposition to Bush in the USA, then you woudln't be
seeing such feedback from outside the USA since we would have convidence that
democracy would take care of Bush. It is exactly because the world sees so
many americans supporting someone who deserves a trial at the war crimes
tribunal that there is a lot of worry.

Ask yourself this: if the USA's actions outside its own jurisdiction were so
legal, why is Bush affraid of the ICC ?

Should the people of a country ask questions of their government when the
later refuses to submit itself and its military to international law ? How
come so many americans refuse to accept the concept of international law ? If
all US military actions outside the USA were legal/sanctioned, then the USA
wouldn't have to worry about having its leaders or military brough to the ICC

What the Bush regime failed to do is to transform the "superpower" into world
leadership. They instead decided to impose a unilateral USA world police that
has abused its power with total disregard for established international law.

As a result, the USA has lost credibility and its leadership role in the
world. Such can be restored in time if the offender only lasts one term. But
if re-elected, the rest of the world will build protections to restrain this
rogue superpower that acts like a renegade teenager from doing further damage.

Ask Bliar who he would prefer to be elected ? He has lost support of his
citizens over the Iraq lies and blind support of Bush. His re-election will be
much easier if Bush is kicked out and Kerry comes in since Bliar will no
longer be seen as Bush's puppet.

> So while you may believe that which one is elected actually matters

>From an outsider, what matters is that american citizens send the world a
clear message: they don't tolerate war criminals and will boot out Bush. Bush
has demonstrated that he is unacceptable internationally and stated he would
continue those unacceptable policies.

A vote for Bush along with lack of impeachement signifies that american
citizens condone war crimes and breaking of human rights and disregard for
international law. It tells the world that the USA has changed permanently and
this is not just some unfortunate glitch people will want forgotten.

> say that I do: I see Kerry as a bit of short-term relief that will likely
> make longer-term progress significantly more difficult,

As soon as Bush is ousted or impeached, I think that most of the americans
currently in denial about the mistakes of the Bush regime will open their eyes
since there will no lonfer be a motivation to keep eyes closed to protect Bush.

Leaving Bush in will make the zip explode instead of heal. Much more dramatic.
One should avoid such dramatic changes. Evolution, not revolution.

> would be if the margin of victory were large or a dramatic third-party
> turnout occurred illustrating the (very proper) disgust of the electorate

The Bush regime were selected with a very narrow margin helped by supreme
court. Yet, their mandate was executed as if they had been elected with a 90%
majority. So I don't think that margin of a win really matters past january 17th.

> lousy a choice he was over the next few years (4, or less if the Democratic
> party has the balls to make a serious effort at impeachment,

The problem with impeachement is that it might remove the Bush puppet, but not
the war lords behind him. Impeaching both Bush and Cheney would create quite a
disturbance in governance (is it the speaker of the house next in line ?). Can
one also impeach Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz ?

Impeachement should have occured prior to this election. Should Bush be
re-elected, impeachement should still occur, but I am not sure if the
democrats would want it. Would they benefit politically from it ?

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