And Speaking of Dark Lords...

[catscradle]

No, there are no spolers to Harry Potter here, but I do wonder if there is where JKR gets her ideas for the Ministry of Magic...

Executive Order: Blocking Property of Certain Persons Who Threaten Stabilization Efforts in Iraq

I find it interesting that while there is a sense of urgency and freakout in this order because NATIONAL SECURITY, THEY'RE COMING TO GET US! There's no news coverage of this executive order. Or most executive orders where in civil liberities of citizens are chiseled away in the name of "security."

It seems as though who is difined as a "certian person threatening stabilization in Iraq" is specific, but really no. It's vague enough where just about anyone poo pooing Bush's policies can have their property confiscated.

I'm getting very nervous about what's going to happen in the next few months...

Comments

[catscradle.livejournal.com]

A lot of people here more or less gave up on the US when Bush got re-elected. The 2000 election is widely believed to have been fishy, but the 2004 one looked clean, so it was figured that you had to want someone we all thought was an incompetent marionette in the hands of people who turn the country into a police state. It's where a lot of the Anti-American sentiments come from

At think it's important to point out here that of the nearly 300 million Americans, about half of the voting population did not cast a vote for him. That's a lot of people to give up on. Also, it's very regional - most of the major metropolis areas did not vote for him and in fact did not vote for him by huge margins (Denver, for instance, had more than 70% of their votes cast for Kerry). The majority of Bush supporters are located in more suburban and rural parts of the country where you find a more religious/morally uptight % of the population.

Thankfully his support has slipped to 31% approval and this has trashed a Republican chance of winning an election in 2008. My guess is that this occured right after Katrina, since Bush nicely showed that we had far more to fear from him than from terrorists. After that, new developments in the lie he told on Iraq came out and support slipped more to the point where people totally want out of the war.

This is a huge reason, though, that it's feared there will be a staged attack to win back support...

[alighiera.livejournal.com]

It's a lot of people to give up on, as you say, but in combination with very little news on protests, it's tricky to figure out from the outside just how much support he has. With those approval rates of 70% or so that were bandied about not so long ago, it seemed quite obvious that the majority of the country stood behind him. Although that again ties in with "how much can you trust the media's figures".

I can't even express how glad I am every time I get reminded that not everybody supports the current government and the directions it's taking. The thing is that whatever the US does affects so many others, and we don't get a say in who is at the helm. Poking Putin into threatening with new rocket launch bases very close to the EU borders may not bother Bush and his supporters much, but that one certainly scared the hell out of Europeans, who then proceeded to blame him for such idiocy (and held his voters responsible). So all I can hope for is that the Republicans get thoroughly trounced at your next elections so you can get someone sensible in command. And that there are Republican attempts to blow up the country in order to avoid that.