As I hope you know, the Republicans unilaterally shut down a Committee hearing on the dangerous Patriot Act because the Democrats insisted on hearing from witnesses who said things the neocons don't want you to hear. This outrage had Randi Rhodes shouting so loudly I could hear her without a radio. For details, see this Indymedia compendium and the always reliable Bradblog.
As Brad notes, House Judiciary Chairman James Sensenbrenner -- the point man for this Stalinist outburst -- had recently said of his Democratic opponents: "These attacks are contrary to the passionate -- but respectful -- political debate the public deserves." Do you find the word "hypocrisy" hard to spell? Here's a simple synonym: G.O.P.
1 comment:
can you believe this crap? actually, it's becoming increasingly predictable.
here's an email i sent to the nonsense senator sensenbrenner (his email is listed in bradblog's piece on this; everyone should send one!):
Subject: Patriot Acts??
Dear Representative Sensenbrenner,
As a citizen of these United States, I must count your undemocratic and unpatriotic actions today in the House Judiciary Hearing as ranking among the top of the list of most destructive moments in our Congress. Disturbingly, most of the others on that list have occurred in the past four years, and for the House, in the past decade.
As if your actions did not stand in strong enough contradiction to the principles of our Republic, your comments literally dripped in hypocrisy. Specifically, you penned a letter to DNC Chairman Howard Dean just this week, calling him out for describing the Republican party as the “white Christian party” (surely you are aware that your ranks are 80% such, so he was hardly inaccurate). The hypocrisy comes in your judgment of Dean’s “attacks,” and I quote your own words:
“These attacks are contrary to the passionate – but respectful – political debate the public deserves.”
The public deserves for Democrats to be respectful to Republicans, but Republicans are free to dispense with House rules and pull mic plugs and walk out in a snit, terminating the “political debate the public deserves”??
Mr. Sensenbrenner, I have not witnessed such tyrannical and regressive behavior since Mr. Kruschev banged his shoe upon the UN table! You upbraided Amnesty International for calling American detention centers the “modern gulag,” and yet your own actions betray the truth in matching actions of this Republican administration to Soviet tyranny.
It is tyranny that kills democracy, Mr. Sensenbrenner, whether in a prison, a police station, a courtroom, a press room, a classroom, a hallowed hall of state, or on the world stage.
Tyranny comes in all stripes, as does goodness; no party or religion or country or people hold the monopoly on either. Calling oneself a good patriot does not make it so, only your actions can prove your principles.
And your actions have proved you have none, at least none that serve our Constitution.
Your actions have proved you fear the truth, so much you abuse your position of power to silence it.
Sadly,
lll, Ph.D.
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