Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Action Alert!

One of the truly exasperating aspects of the Bush administration (just one, mind you) is the ever-growing certainty that these crooks are going to ride off into the sunset into happy retirement and the speakers circuit where they will continue to bask in the adoration of their neanderthal fans. It galls me no end that they have not been held accountable for their blatant in-your-face lawbreaking, and that, for the most part, Democrats have been woefully unable to answer this challenge. Investigations are fine, but we are desperate for true principled leadership that will produce SOME kind of meaningful action - you know, along the lines of The Emperor Has No Clothes!

Enter Chris Dodd. Bless his heart, he doesn't have a snowball's chance in hell of getting the Democratic presidential nomination, and maybe that has freed him to act more boldly, but whatever - He has taken a stand and deserves our support. Furthermore, we really must press the Clinton and Obama campaigns to show a little spine and support him also. This is with regard to the bill currently oozing its way through Congress that would give retroactive immunity to telecom companies that deliberately and knowingly broke the law in support of the Bush administration's spying on American citizens. Please. It doesn't get any clearer than this: The Bush administration broke the law, with the full compliance of telecom companies, and they are PAYING CONGRESS to pass a law that will get them off the hook for this. I urge you to read Glenn Greenwald on this subject, and follow his lead in calling these numbers:

* Clinton Presidential: (703) 469-2008

* Clinton Senate: (202) 224-4451

* Obama Presidential: (866) 675-2008

* Obama Senate: (202) 224-2854

Clinton and Obama need to hear from us. Now.

2 comments:

Mike Thomas said...

I'm going to play devil's advocate here and argue why I don't think it is terribly fair to nail the telecoms too hard. I think if anyone needs to be nailed here, it is the Bush administration. But in attacking the telecoms - while not blameless - will only result in innocent workers getting hurt at some point.
Let's start with an analogy. Say you are driving down the street and suddenly the chief of police flags you down and jumps in your car. He tells you to speed down the road, running stops signs and breaking traffic rules, because it is an emergency. Do you do so?
Later, you get nailed with a wad of traffic fines because the courts determined that there really wasn't an emergency. Is that fair?
The telecoms could legitimately argue that they broke the law at the urging of the Bush administration because they said it was an emergency.
Furthermore, if you do nail the telecoms with fines or what have you... who ultimately gets hurt? The corporate bigwigs? Or the little guys and the working stiffs who get the pink slips?

OK, enough of that. Politically, I'm happy with what Chris Dodd is doing and I wouldn't mind if Hillary and Obama were to add a little heat to the fire too. But as a practical matter I can't see the issue going much further than that. I think most of the fire needs to stay concentrated on the Bush administration and their Republican enablers.

AnnPW said...

LOL! I see your point, Mike, but I think your analogy has a few flaws. First of all, these issues are already being debated in court, thanks to suits that are IN PROGRESS - and the telecoms are losing, and they know it. I think it is fair to say that, in all probability, there was precious little resistance from the telecoms to the Bush administration. I think that if there had been an actual emergency, or even a credible threat of one (as in your "chief of police" analogy - that would certainly be construed as a credible threat) then they wouldn't be losing in court and they wouldn't be scurrying so desperately for a get-out-of-jail-free card. I really believe that our courts allow for actions taken in reasonable circumstances, and so far, the telecoms are losing that argument IN COURT. I agree that I don't want people to lose jobs, but I also think that the rule of law is what is at stake here, and the undermining of that is ultimately more destructive than a temporary financial setback to the telecom industry.

OTOH, I couldn't agree with you more that the main focus needs to be on the Bush administration. This is but one way to get to them, and time is running short. Granting immunity to the telecoms would just make it that much harder to try to hold the Bush administration accountable.