"I am determined to prove a villain"

[sabotabby]

It might be because I enjoy (and write) fiction where villains have complex and even sympathetic motivations, but I prefer not to imagine the Bush twirling his Snidely Whiplash mustache and committing evil acts for the sake of evil. Cardboard bad guys make for uninteresting stories and even worse politics.



Except that when I read about this, I just pictured him rubbing his hands together and cackling, maniacally: "All your political processes are now belong to me."

Comments

[sadie-sabot.livejournal.com]

any chance of getting a synopsis of what you linked to? my attention span is miniscule and my deduction skills are shot. Me no haf smart today.

[chickenfeet2003.livejournal.com]

In the event Shrub decides there is an emergency, to protect the Constitution, Shrub has empowered himself to assume all the powers of the legislative and judicial branches. For their own good of course.

[sabotabby]

"The directive establishes under the office of the president a new national continuity coordinator whose job is to make plans for “National Essential Functions” of all federal, state, local, territorial and tribal governments, as well as private sector organizations to continue functioning under the president’s directives in the event of a national emergency." -- from Pandagon.

[sadie-sabot.livejournal.com]

thank you both for the thumbnail sketch. So, where do we find a definition of "national emergency?"

[sabotabby]

""Catastrophic Emergency" means any incident, regardless of location, that results in extraordinary levels of mass casualties, damage, or disruption severely affecting the U.S. population, infrastructure, environment, economy, or government functions;"

Among other things, that would include a general strike, I think.

[sadie-sabot.livejournal.com]

LOL, oh, yeah, no doubt, but mentioning the possibility of a general strike in the us of a is a quick way to make me want a beer to cry in!

[sabotabby]

White Americans are too passive, but look at what immigrants did last year for May Day.

Oh, and someone in the Pandagon thread also mentioned resistance by indigenous groups—this law could be used to seize land and resources and crush tribal governments.

[sadie-sabot.livejournal.com]

Good points. any kind of massive uprising is certainly going to find it's leadership and it's heart in oppressed communities in the US. But about 70% of the population of the US is white. So ain't nothing gonna happen unless and until somehow a majority of white people fnd a way to stand on the side of justice.

and i love my people, but the right has a much better strategy and practice of recruiting them than we have, hence, the beer.

The potential use of the law on indigenous communities is chilling.

[febrile.livejournal.com]

I was commenting on this on someone else's journal....

The whole "emergency constitution" isn't such a new idea -- it's been talked about at least since the Soviets got the bomb. I don't know if I necessarily think it's a bad idea. If DC gets nuked while Congress is in session, we're not going to want to wait until we can elect a quorum of legislators before dealing with it.

I do wish that it had been passed as an act of Congress -- that whole Article I of the Constitution seems to indicate, you know, that they're the ones who get to make legislation, which is what this is. Between Executive Orders and signing statements, this administration is completely beyond the bounds of what they're allowed to do by more than 200 years of jurisprudence. But the idea itself isn't something I have a problem with.

[chickenfeet2003.livejournal.com]

That's rather the point isn't it? It would be legitimate for Congress to legislate that, under certain exceptional circumstances, the President would be granted exceptional powers. It's not legitimate for the President to declare that he can assume unlimited power whenever he claims that there are exceptional circumstances.

[nom-de-grr.livejournal.com]

I once made a Snidely Whiplash post with that same picture! Hooray for twirling mustaches evilly!

[sabotabby]

All my good ideas are stolen from you. ;)

If I was a dude, I'd totally grow a sweet mustache like that.

[rohmie.livejournal.com]

I presume you are already familiar with this community.

[sabotabby]

I just found out about it.

[elgordochico.livejournal.com]

That's hilarious on two counts.

First is my fault. I misread your statement as "when I read this." Seeing as "this" just happens to be a wordy memorandum from Bush, it led me on an amusing stroll in which I saw you sipping fine wine and reading "this" document, and you were having a change of heart about Bush. Then, you started typing a post admitting a secret infatuation with George W. Bush, and this led to a riot, yada yada yada, and somehow you ended up rescuing him from an angry mob in your hover car. Of course, all this didn't make sense about an almost mustache-twirlingly evil man, but who am I to argue with imagination?

Second count is your fault. This post comes just in time. As it so happens, I was picturing Bush almost exactly in this way. He nuked Iran before lunch, post-lunch he suspended habeas corpus, and by dinner he was having a stagasaurus burger with Barney and--for some reason I cannot fathom--he was shouting yaba daba doo and wielding a dinosaur bone like a club in defense of an injured T-Rex, who was being viciously attacked by Adam and Eve.

Funny thing that imagination...

[sabotabby]

Your imagination nearly cost me my keyboard. Though I suppose it's partially my fault for reading your comment whilst drinking my morning coffee.

[lopukhov.livejournal.com]

Ohhhh, that's probably why I started seeing fucktion, where I should have seen function.

Why is there so much continuity in the text?