The Bush Administration is UnAmerican

Contents

• Introduction
• Impeach Bush!
• Taking Away Vital American Protections
• No Checks and Balances on Power
• Doesn't Appear to Believe in Democracy
• More To Come???

I've heard many things over time that have infuriated me about the current Bush Administration and it's head, George W. Bush, but lately it's just become too much to take.

He claims to be a Patriotic American of the best stripe, but his (and their) actions have been leading me more and more to believe that the Bush Administration doesn't want to include the deepest of core American values in it's vision of America.

Unlike their rhetoric saying you're UnAmerican if you don't blindly support them (which they are saying all the time, and infuriates me to no end), the true way to be UnAmerican is to take away our essential Constitutional protections in the name of "Security" and not to question leadership.

Checks and balances were put into the core of the American Constitution for a very very good reason, and the Administration and the Republican Party seem to want to throw them away.

I personally also feel the Bush Administration is actively trying to bankrupt the American people with the expensive and unnecessary war and other policies (including tax relief for the Rich and cutting social spending), but this page isn't primarily about it being a terrible presidency, but about where they crossed the line.

Actions and offhand statements speak louder than prepared words, Mr. President.

The time has come for the Bush Administration to be taken to task for their UnAmerican policies... this administration does not deserve to be in office.

I think this article, in a British newspaper, says it well. To sum it up, Oh My God the list below is long, and it appears to continue to grow... and Clinton was impeached for sleeping with someone? How can these Congressmen who participated in that live with themselves in light of the current scandals?

Bad Things are happening in the United States of America, and it needs to be corrected.

• Bush signed orders for secret spying on Americans with no oversight.

  Here's an Article of a staunch Bush supporter decrying this as an unsupportable excess.

  I very much hope that this will be formally declared illegal and stopped, but I don't think the Republican Party has the guts to stand up to Bush for this kind of behavior and impeach him as he deserves.

  Yes, I think he should be impeached and removed from office for this act alone.

• In addition to the order for secret spying, it is now coming out that there is another spying program not covered by the secret orders in the previous item. This one is being conducted between Americans, and there are no legal limits for how this may be applied. Who knows what this information is being used for? A relatively recent news item (early 2006) that AT&T is handing over all net traffic to the NSA strikes me as perhaps related.

• Warrantless Wiretapping conducted by the NSA against American Citizens. A recent article clearly states I'm not the only one who thinks NSA Warrantless Wiretapping is Illegal.

• The so-called "Patriot Act":

  The passing of the so-called "Patriot Act" in the first place started some of this trouble, and frankly the Democrats that went along with it are just as culpable.

  One shred of hope is here... when the news broke of the order for spying on Americans, the renewal of the Act going on at the same time has been stalled due to people worrying about where this might lead.

  BUT it looks like they still have no backbone, and passed it anyway after what looks like a cool-down period to get it out of the headlines. What are these people thinking?

  The whole point of laws in place to give individuals rights is for the government to not be allowed to view private information or take people into custody without due process and legal defense. The two arguments I commonly hear on this topic are easily refuted:

  • "you should have nothing to hide if you aren't breaking the law" - This one is is a Red Herring. It's not about what you are doing being illegal or not... the primary reason for privacy is because private things may not be viewed as reasonable by everyone, or you just may have internal thoughts, notes, etc. not meant for public consumption. Harassment or leakage of one kind of surveilance into a desire to punish for a crime it was not intended for can also happen if limits are not put in place and enforced. This is only the tip of the iceberg.
  • "come on, you can trust us not to misuse this information or power" - If that was true, then why were the limits on the powers of the government put on in the first place? This is Exactly what we Can't do, Trust in the Government to be Honorable. All Powers get abused. The only way to prevent it is to make sure there are limits and oversight to punish or prevent the abuse.

• The Secret Service is now allowed to declare "Free Speech" zones where people who protest the government are required to go, i.e. protest and dissent are now criminalized!!!

• Secret Tribunals: (I'll find a better article later) Commentary

• Bush Administration supports forms of Torture. They just make a narrow definition of what "Torture" is so they can say they aren't doing so. This is proven by the strenuous resistance of Vice-President Cheney to Anti-Torture provisions in proposed bills in Congress.

• Bush Administration's CIA involvement in secret prisons outside of the US to avoid US law.

• Bush Administration's nearly constant battle to reduce regulations that would impair the desires of any business, often to the detriment of anyone who was being protected by said regulations.

• Bush Administration stepping into major cases such as the Microsoft Anti-Trust case, and stripping the effectiveness of these cases, even when the parties are found guilty.

• Bush Administration signing into law the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005, denying habeas jurisdiction to anyone detained by the US military. The Bush Administration also states that the Geveva Conventions apply, since they are not prisoners of war. So, what are they, anyway?

Even worse, there seems to be active participation in some of the most scary policy creation.

The Republican Party doesn't seem to be questioning ANY of the crazy Bush policies, which is leading to seriously unbalanced government.

I will presume for the moment that there are honest members of the GOP, but they don't seem to have any mind for themselves.

List of largest abuses:

• The Bush Administration is putting out Pre-Packaged News, essentially faked news propaganda stories paid for by the American public to convince the public of the Administration's point of view. Here is another link. Not only is the administration performing questionable or even illegal acts, but it is actively using American Tax Dollars to sell it to the public using questionable techniques.

• Going to war with Iraq with no evidence:

  Most Americans supported invading Afghanistan, given it's role in the Sept. 11th attacks, but there was no direct justification for going to war with Iraq, and we all KNEW it.

  It appears the Bush Administration just WANTED to invade Iraq.

  They may have either lied to at least severely trumped up evidence on the Weapons of Mass-Destruction ("WMD") issue. Investigations into this is apparently continuing at a slow pace... it makes one think the political will to check into this isn't there.

  This would also be an impeachment offense if there is even a shred of proof, I would think.

• Trying to cripple Social Security by changing it to "Personal Accounts" would have added at least a Trillion dollars to the national debt, maybe 2 Trillion.

  At least this one has been defeated so far.

  To be clear, I think it's a stupid idea in general (removing Social Security/chaning it to "Personal Accounts" would get rid of the guarantees that have made it so successful... again, a political comment on my part), but it also makes no fiscal sense.

• Tax cuts when the national debt is rising and during the Massive War and Post-War expenditures. (The tax cuts were also only for the Rich, but that would be considered a political comment on my part and not about what should be universally agreed Bad Policy)

  As of March 2006, Congress had to Raise the National Debt Limit to the highest in history to account for this situation.

• Allegations of Bush Administration officials illegially outing CIA officials who are associated with those they don't like. This is the whole Libby-Cheney Scandal going on.

  Bush originally said "if anyone is involved I'd fire him immediately", then backpedalled when allegations came out about specific officials. He doesn't apparently follow through when it's tough on him.

• Direct connections to others with alleged illegal political activities. This is about the Abramoff scandal going on about political Lobbying with illegal "gifts" and other illegal influencing.

• In the name of helping Big Business strip the ability of the government to resist their desires, The Bush Administration is trying to make it illegal for States to be able to Set Standards for air or water quality: Here's some comments on it

  There is HUGE evidence that human-caused pollution is dangerous both to the environment and humanity itself (i.e. not just global warming, what about things like Mercury poisoning in the Eastern US due to coal-firing plants?), yet the Bush Administration wants to set back regulatory capabilities to pre-20th century levels.

• The Bush adminstration officials who have been trying to squash or suppress scientific debate about issues of grave importance to the whole world, such as Global Warming (which they claim doesn't exist), even going so far as to appoint a PR man to NASA who forced them to insist that anything from a non-religious basis is a "theory" in all external communications.

  They clearly don't believe that "independent" scientific analysis should be independent, or at least that it should always say what they want (then it'd be OK if it was independent...).

  Just the tip of the iceberg, topics include: Global Warming (as menioned just above), "Intelligent Design", Pollution regulation (also mentioned above a bit further).

• A new proposed Bill to Restrict Freedom of the Press by the Republican Congress and with a lot of support from the Bush Administration. This bill would make it illegal to disclose if you find out the President is breaking the law. How else will the American People find out if their government is engaging in criminal behavior?!? Here's an article talking about it.

  This seems squarely aimed at squashing the kind of negative press about the Bush Administration that happened after it became public that they authorized what appear to be illegal wiretaps on US Citizens in the US.

• The Bush Administration has actively been blocking suits against contractors in Iraq defrauding the American Government.

• The so-called PATRIOT Act has been used to dig out private details of citizens not even suspected of involvement in terrorism. In particular, check out this link. What many of us who understand the history of abusive government powers have feared is starting to happen. The same ultra-right-wing complainers that we shouldn't have facist or totalitarian governments are starting to push us in that direction.

They often call attempts to oppose their policies "unamerican", or "dangerous", and insist that people tote the party line or they are disloyal.

They are trying to get Supreme Court Judges appointed who will not strike down laws that are unconstitutional nor stop the President from taking illegal actions, i.e. trying to remove the ability of the rest of the government to dissent.

Insisting you follow the leader blindly in political circles (i.e. the leader is always right), even at times when their actions are questionable, is tentamount to Fascism, which is essentially a form of authoritarian regime.

I have come to the point of honestly thinking that they do not actually believe in Democracy.