kuniform

This article by Jack Balkin puts the whole Congressional uproar over separation of powers in perspective. The money quote:

Instead of being upset about the President spying on Americans without a warrant,and in violation of federal law, the members of the U.S. Congress are upset about the FBI searching a Congressman’s office with a legal warrant. Instead of being upset about the cruel, inhuman and degrading tactics of the CIA and military interrogators, members of the U.S. Congress are upset that a corrupt Congressman’s office has been disturbed. Instead of being upset about abuses of government contracting and incompetence that have cost the tax payers countless sums of money and sapped resources from our troops overseas, members of Congress are busy protecting corruption in the halls of Congress itself.

This Gilded Age redux has got to end. I am not affiliated with the Democrats or the Republicans—I am more interested in keeping our elected officials honest, since they cannot seem to do it themselves. More and more, the media does not seem interested in pursuing these stories. The next ten years are critical to our country, and to our future.

The ability of those in power to lie and cover up, regardless of political affiliation or role (government, industry, etc.), is diminishing with the rise of citizen reporting and the age of the Internet. However, as the mainstream media attacks the blogosphere as another enemy, it ends up siding with those who hate press coverage at all. The media is willingly complicit in this turn of events, as it tries to keep hold of notions like number of eyeballs or impressions, controlling access to those in power, and dictating the narrative of history. If the MSM wants to know why those in my generation and those behind us don’t read newspapers, it’s because kids don’t care to read propaganda.

They’re more concerned with American Idol than presidential elections because American Idol is inclusive and responsive. The presidential elections, well, they’re not as credible (2000 election) or direct (Electoral College). Former Republican Congressman John Kasich, now
surprisingly with Fox News, made that comparison to talk about what is wrong with the kids in this country. Um, John… What’s wrong is that people in power don’t want the kids involved. If they were involved they’d ask our leaders to do things like fix the environment, stop spying on our citizens, stop butchering people overseas, and be honest. And what’s the fun in being a leader if you have to do stuff like that?