Well, I was going to bitch about my fantasy football team. But this is much better:
"In any country, if you don't have countervailing institutions, the power of any one president is problematic for democratic development"
Now, let's think for a minute who said that.....any guesses? That's right. Good old Condi Rice. Token black mouthpiece of the current administration. This was her statement regarding the powers of the executive government in Russia.
It's incredible to me that such obvious bullshit should come from the mouth of someone who, on a daily basis, defends the biggest executive branch power grab in this country's history. Just so you know what I'm talking about, remember that our president has affirmed the following:
1) The use of torture on alleged criminals, going so far as to call them "enemy combatants" to keep them out of the normal judiciary courts.
2) Unwarranted wire-tapping of U.S. citizens.
3) Providing money to religious organizations (only "Christian" ones mind you)
4) A directive delivering power to the president and executive branch during "emergencies" (that can only be declared by the president) with no congressional or judicial oversight.
5) Granting fewer requests for information than any administration in history
6) The "Patriot" Act
7) Detention of suspects with no charges, no access to counsel, and suspension of habeus corpus.
Note that most of these have no oversight by any congressional, judicial, or civilian group, and the one that does (the "Patriot" Act) is more of a token gesture than any real power to stop abuses.
I could go on. Suffice it to say that Condi and this group of ultra-conservative right-wingers have absolutely no basis for discussing how another country's executive has stomped on democracy. As far as I can tell, at no point in the past seven years has this administration given two shits about democracy. In fact, they have stepped all over individual rights and set them back a good decade or more. Need we forget the way Bush came into office in the first place? The Supreme Court may or may not have acted within its jurisdiction or powers at the time. I don't know. What I mean to show is that, from the beginning, democracy has been on shaky ground with this group of assholes.
So shut the fuck up Condi. You've done nothing to protect the democratic process here, so you have no right to judge anyone else's country. Let the Russians deal with their own issues. You have enough problems at home that you don't need to worry about anyone else. Maybe you should be more concerned with your homophobic legislators that keep turning up gay. Or maybe you should return some of those powers you stole to the people you took them from. Then maybe we can discuss Russia.
2 comments:
I was totally going to rant about this until I saw you had beaten me to the chase. Let's rewind about 40 years-- the USSR and USA are on roughly equally ground and struggling constantly. Come back to present day-- the USSR no longer exists, and what is left (Russia) is a vague shadow of its former self. Meanwhile, the US has far more power on the global stage than any other government ever has at any point in world history.
And the Kremlin is really amassing too much power? Get the fuck back in the bullpen, Condi, we're sick of hearing your stank ass tell lies while your mouth backs a president so offensively bad that he makes Ulysses Grant look like Richard Simmons.
Don't worry. It doesn't count as a dictatorship if you get to pick which person takes away your rights.
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