Tim Gatto

Things in this country have been there for a long, long, time. Every year the federal government constantly assails our rights under the Constitution. This didn't start with Bush, in fact, it started with Clinton. Now that Obama is in the White House we still see our rights eroding by the day. This president was elected on a platform of change. I'll don't see any change, in fact things are going from bad to worse. It's not just the Republicans that seem to be out after middle class it also Democrats or at least a majority of them. Obama has done nothing but placate an out of control Republican Party. I guess George Carlin was right on the mark when he said "Now they are coming for your social security'.

It isn't just Social Security and Medicare that are the prime targets of our political system. It's also things like the Bill of Rights and ideas such as habeas corpus. Now the president has the power to deem anyone whether foreign or domestic as a threat to the country and can authorize his or her assassination. This isn't a president this is a dictator. In fact, the whole country is fed up with both Congress, the executive branch, and the judiciary. That is our entire federal government as laid out by our Constitution.
I haven't been writing much lately because I feel that I've said everything that I could possibly say. Every time I write an article I write about same old things, the loss of our freedom, the government which is nothing but subservient to corporations and the rich political donors and the wars and interventions around the world that we can't seem to stop ourselves from delving into.

If I could sit down with Pres. Obama I believe that I could honestly convince him that the direction this country is taking is a downward spiral. I have been writing about the corporations controlling the government since 2005. I would like to put one of my articles that I wrote in 2006 into this article just to show how things haven't changed and in fact have gotten worse. Here is the article I wrote in 2005. It might not be the best article I've written but when, but when read in 2011, it sure makes a lot of sense.

Help Save America(Jan 26, 2006)

The news tonight was troubling. It usually is, but tonight it left me with more questions than answers. I heard about the Senate Judiciary Committee recommending the nomination of Judge Alito by a strict party line vote. I also heard that the nomination itself will be a win for The Republicans along Party lines, and Gloria Borger told Bob Schrieffer that politicians have told her in private that if they had the votes, that they would go for a filibuster, because they fear that the supreme court will beat back Roe Vs. Wade and the possible expansion of Presidential Authority.

Meanwhile, the nomination was not the only thing that was on the committee's mind today. At least on the Democratic member's minds. They were concerned about the NSA wiretapping ordered by the President. They were also questioning if the Supreme Court was indeed slipping to the right, and would that mean broader powers for the executive branch. I heard some fighting words today from Senators that are normally very conciliatory towards each other. I mean where is the drama coming from? What is the agenda here? That's what is on my mind most of all. What agenda are these right wing conservative politicians on? What is it that they want?

If you look at the rhetoric from both sides, take out half the threats and half the drama, and you can usually come out with the truth. In the case of this Congress, in this year, that doesn't hold water. The Republican right seems to be leading this country into a dictatorship of the executive branch. What other reason could possibly be the case? Time and time again, the Republican leadership in congress has defended a President that says and does whatever he wants to do. This is not just rhetoric. Let me point out exactly what he has done.

1. He has charged that a foreign government, with ties to Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda, had weapons of mass destruction and was preparing to use them against the United States. He and his cabinet and some of the military people in Washington, told us that Saddam Hussein had biological, nuclear, and chemical weapons, and that he was preparing to use them on American citizens in America, right after the Twin Towers attack in New York, and The Pentagon, and a number of other targets were attacked by citizens of Saudi Arabia that were connected to Osama Bin Laden. He asked for and received the Authority for The Use of Force, only after he promised Congress that he would do everything in his power to let the UN weapons inspectors finish their jobs and only after he conferred with the European Union and other governments around the world and only then would he use the force necessary to stop him from possessing, or using those weapons of mass destruction. Are we on the same page here? Have I left anything out? I said this was not going to be rhetoric, and I don't believe it is, this is solid fact. We all know what happened after he got that authority to use force. He used it, without proving that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, without letting the UN inspectors finish the job they were sent to do in Iraq, and he used force without a strong coalition of nations backing our decision, as he said he would do. Frankly, he lied to the Congress, and he lied to the American people. We all know that no weapons of mass destruction were found, and that many of the things that he claimed about Saddam Hussein having ties to Al Qaeda were falsifications. Yet, the American people were told that even though no WMD's were found that we still accomplished a good thing by getting "rid of an evil dictator". He celebrated "The End of Combat Operations" from the deck of an aircraft carrier and we went on to lose more than 2,213 men and women from our Armed Forces, over 16,000 admitted casualties in the ranks, and over 35,000 dead Iraqi's by the President's own estimation. Also, every time that a senior military officer disagreed with the administrations military policies in Iraq, they were retired or removed from staff positions, or positions of command. During this period which is still going on, we have tortured Iraqi prisoners and interred people without due process in direct violation of the Geneva Convention. Meanwhile, the President's political Party does nothing, or tries in any way, to get him to answer for his actions.

2. After the terrorist attacks of 9/11/2001, the President introduced the Patriot Act, and with that, does the largest reorganization of the Federal Government since the Roosevelt Administration in the Great Depression. He puts limits on personal freedoms that are granted by the Constitution, and says they are only temporary. Last month, he tried to make them more stringent and to make them permanent. It took a threatened filibuster and a crossing of party lines by five Republican Senators to stop him, and his administration from doing exactly what he promised not to do.

3. The President has authorized the National Security Agency to wiretap American citizens without a warrant, or notification to the secret FISA court within 72 hours. This court was set up do give the President the authority to wiretap without having to waste time in an emergency by having to get a warrant. The administration only had to notify the court after the wiretap. So why then, does the President believe that his executive privileges go beyond the court jurisdiction? What does he have to lose by obeying the law, unless there is something that this administration would rather hide? Why is there now a showdown with the Democratic leadership in the Senate over this abuse of power? What is so important, that he would rather face hearings and an investigation rather than inform a rubber stamp court of his administration activities?

4. Yesterday I posted an article on the Liberal Party of America Blog (which is linked on this site) about The United States offering the Palestinian political party Fatah, two million dollars to help them win an election against the Palestinian party Hamas. We also told the Palestinian authority that if Hamas was to win this election, that we would pull All-American foreign aid from the Palestinian Authority. At the same time, the Administration says it is fighting a war for Democracy in Iraq and chiding political elements in the Sunni Muslim sect for not embracing Democracy by staying out of the electoral process. Where does one type of Democratic Principles stop and where does another type of Democratic principal begin? What is this administration trying to convey to the rest of the world? Is the United States really supporting democratic principles or is it just using this as a pretext to continue to keep a presence in a country where we have savagely invaded their territory and killed their people and ruined their infrastructure in order that we could control their only resource which is oil? Why don't we support a democratic election in Palestine and support instead a one party rule by Fatah, an organization that ten years ago we called a terrorist organization? Where does this administration stand?

5. Today we received information that the Bureau of Homeland Defense told the White House at least two days before Katrina hit New Orleans, that this storm would hit as a category 4 hurricane, and that the entire city of New Orleans would be flooded and might not be habitable again for month, maybe years. Why did it take so long for the Federal Government to act on this national Disaster, even though they knew days beforehand that it was coming? Why did the President tell the American public the week after Katrina had struck New Orleans that the Federal Government had no way of knowing how bad that this catastrophe would be, when there is now proof that they did indeed know how bad it was going to be. Why was it that U.S. aid arrived after the earthquakes in Pakistan faster than aid arrived in New Orleans after the hurricane?

6. We have spent well over 236 BILLION Dollars on the war in Iraq. That amount of money could have fully funded The Global Anti-Hunger Effort for a full 9 years. It could also have just about rebuilt the city of New Orleans. Instead, we are no closer to a stable Iraq then we were the day after we invaded that nation.

There is more, I have just brought out the more glaring points of this administration. What direction are they taking us in? What is their objective? How many times does the President say one thing while he does another? Is the Republican right trying to eliminate the two party system in America by strengthening the executive branch so that this country will be run on the basis of executive privilege? What is happening to the American peoples Constitutional rights that we were given when we became a nation? What is the United States Government doing in the world by forcing its policies down the throats of other nations in the guise of fighting a war on terrorism? Where are the Democrats? Instead of hammering this message home to the American people who are the only ones that can really stop the wayward policies of this corrupt, befuddled administration, they offer few insights or options. It seems as if the Democratic Party in this country has only one major goal, and that is to get more people to contribute to the DNC. It doesn't understand that the American people have to become aware of what this right wing administration is doing to them before they will support the opposition. Most American's aren't that informed. The media has not done its job; it seems as if they are afraid to lay out what this administration is doing. People would be better informed if they got on their computers and read newspapers from abroad than what we call the media in the United States.

This country is in crisis. We are about to lose more than the war on terror. We are about to lose our fundamental rights that were given to us by our founding fathers, and there doesn't seem to be anyone or anything that will stop it. We have a runaway government and an opposition party that is afraid to tell the American people the way that it is. There is a country crying to be saved, and it is America.

If you read this whole article you'll know that I've been writing about the same thing since 2005. At this particular point I feel like a broken record and that I'm preaching to the choir. I have nothing more to say at this particular time. So I'll think I'll just sit on the sidelines and see what develops. This doesn't mean I'll stop writing if I feel something needs to be said.

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Tim Gatto can be reached at timgatto@hotmail.com