The False Patriotism of the Right Wing

It has recently been revealed that the Bush-Cheney (mis)Administration considered sending troops of the U.S. military into American cities to arrest suspected terrorists. According to the New York Times of July 25, 2009, administration officials, notably Dick Cheney, argued that the Constitution and the Posse Comitatus Act were irrelevant. Where is the outcry from the right wing?

It has been revealed over time that the last administration engaged in a systematic campaign of surveillance, wiretapping, email snooping and other forms of activity prohibited by the Constitution and other laws of this nation. Where is the outcry from the right wing and its so-called patriots when the nation's very values were being undermined?

When a Harvard professor was arrested in his own home by a policeman, there was not an uporoar of concern about the sanctity of one's home from the right wing. I thought they believed in the home as castle theory. Mormon polygamists suspected of child abuse raise the right wings' concern about the intrusion of government, but not a liberal black man in his home.

The right wing of Amerika has long viewed anyone who does not agree with their viewpoint as "un-American" and any other derogatory term that might stick. They are all for the symbols of the country. Claiming ownership of the flag and Constitution, all they really represent is a false patriotism that owes allegiance to their political leaders rather than to the well being of the nation.

The right wing tends towards an authoritarian viewpoint that is ultimately undemocratic. Although heir speech seems to champion the values of liberty and freedom their actions belie a different agenda. When it comes to actions, the right wing shows what it really wants. Control over the reproductive choices of women, state sponsored religion, censorship of art and literature, domestic spying on U.S. citizens, and a general suppression of individual liberty.

Demonstrating the self serving nature of the right wing and its willingness to distort language for their own advancement is the Tea Bagger Movement. The same people who sat by while their own party engineered the largest transfer of wealth from the public purse to the private sector, who watched out government give away the public wealth to cronies of Bush, Cheney and the other war criminals (can you say Halliburton), who complained not one bit while the deficit and debt exploded, now sing a different tune. Now that someone they didn't vote for is in office there is an urgent necessity for fiscal responsibility.

Then there are the Bonkers "Birthers". Accusing the State of Hawaii of engaging in a massive conspiracy, and believing in a plot so complex that birth announcements were inserted in Honolulu newspapers in 1961, all in an effort to falsify a birth record, these conspiracy theorists have already seceded from the world of rational thought.

Speaking of secession, why is it that all those advocating secession seem to be right wing conservatives who wrap themselves in the flag. Does advocating secession really mark one as a patriot.

For too long the right wing has held itself out as the purveyors of all that is right and good. But when it comes down to where the rubber meets the road they are just partisan authoritarians who believe only in their own political views and not the nation.

Where Were Our Leaders?

On the same day that it was revealed that the CIA had destroyed 92 tapes of interrogation of detainees, nine (9) secret legal opinions of the Bush (mis)Administration were revealed by the Justice Department. Taken together, these reveal a culture of lawlessness, and contempt for the Constitution and the basis of common law.

George Bush apparently claimed powers not seen since King John was forced to sign the Magna Carta in 1215. In addition, his administration's obstruction of justice and destruction of evidence made Nixon's men look like a bunch of schoolgirls.

First the destruction of evidence. The CIA's torture tapes have been the source of numerous lawsuits filed by the ACLU and other groups trying to penetrate the wall of secrecy of the Bush (mis)Administration. At first denied to exist, we now find that 92 of these tapes were destroyed. If the destruction of 92 pieces of evidence is not a sign of knowingly committing wrongdoing, what is?

More frightening than the destruction of evidence, are the purported legal opinions under which the Bush-ites operated. To catalog these rulings here would be prohibitive, but just this one quote is horrifying enough, "First Amendment speech and press rights may also be subordinated to the overriding need to wage war successfully." In other words, dissent would be suppressed. Other opinions swept aside the Posse Comitatus Act, suggested that Congress had no power to limit the president, justified warrant-less arrests and domestic spying. In essence, these rulings effectively suspended the U.S. Constitution.

To believe that no one in Congress, that no one in the Justice Department, that no one at all was aware of what was in these memos strains credulity. Everyone was informed. This was official operating policy. Where was the outcry? Members of Congress, such as Nancy Pelosi, are now hiding behind the idea that to have blown the whistle would have been a violation of national security.

Subversion of the Constitution is a violation of national security. Would that politicians were as interested in preserving the principles of our nation as they are at preserving their political careers. All those who knew and did nothing: treason would seem to be the appropriate charge.

And where were the Republicans in all this? Bush, after all, was a member of their own party. It was their duty, especially as the party in power at the time, to stop him. Instead, they acted with complicity. To hear some off them howl now that they are out of power that they are concerned about the Constitution is just sheer hypocrisy. Where were they when the country needed them?

This aggression must not stand. Leaders of this nation have committed crimes against WE, THE PEOPLE. Hearings and commissions are not enough. They must be held accountable. Otherwise, the Constitution must be viewed as it has become, a nice fiction that we once made real. What hath George Bush wrought?