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PREACHING DEMOCRACY WHILE DRIFTING TO AUTOCRACY
by Jim Hightower
3/17/2005
George W, our present preacher-in-chief, recently went on a highly-publicized moralizing mission to Russia, where he publicly scolded President Putin for imposing anti-democratic measures on that country. Fine Putin's autocratic tendencies are abominable.
Filled with moral piety, however, George continued his democracy lecture, saying: "I live in a country where decisions made by government are wide open." What an absurdly awkward thing for him to say, since Bush & Company are notorious for pushing a dangerous new culture of government secrecy in America. They have gone to court again and again to assert "executive privilege," insisting that they have the autocratic right to hide all information about their decisions. They also maintain secret "no fly" lists, they have unilaterally suspended the public's use of our right-to-know laws in case after case, they've doubled the number of government documents classified as secret, and they've claimed in several cases that not even congress or the courts can examine their decisions.
Of course, even under Bush, America is no where near as bad as Putin's Russia...yet.
http://www.jimhightower.com/air/read.asp?id=11627
by Jim Hightower
3/17/2005
George W, our present preacher-in-chief, recently went on a highly-publicized moralizing mission to Russia, where he publicly scolded President Putin for imposing anti-democratic measures on that country. Fine Putin's autocratic tendencies are abominable.
Filled with moral piety, however, George continued his democracy lecture, saying: "I live in a country where decisions made by government are wide open." What an absurdly awkward thing for him to say, since Bush & Company are notorious for pushing a dangerous new culture of government secrecy in America. They have gone to court again and again to assert "executive privilege," insisting that they have the autocratic right to hide all information about their decisions. They also maintain secret "no fly" lists, they have unilaterally suspended the public's use of our right-to-know laws in case after case, they've doubled the number of government documents classified as secret, and they've claimed in several cases that not even congress or the courts can examine their decisions.
Of course, even under Bush, America is no where near as bad as Putin's Russia...yet.
http://www.jimhightower.com/air/read.asp?id=11627
