PittsburghThoughts

Guns and butter, 

The newest attack on our privacy Bank Data Is Sifted by U.S. in Secret to Block Terror - New York Times or any of a number of old attacks wouldn't be so bad, may even tolerable or necessary if Bush went to congress and presented an argument why they were needed and whether laws should be amended or changed to suit. But, like everything he does, it's been done with his dictatorial, imperial writ mentality.

On the other hand, congress has a deplorable record of protecting American's rights and privacy and has shown an astounding proclivity to yield to the president, passing bills without even reading them (the Patriot Act stands out as the prime example) or just letting industry write the bills for them (the Medicare bill and our current energy policy, if you could call what we have, a policy).

So in practical terms it's immaterial whether our unduly, un-elected president goes to a rubber stamp congress or not and I'm afraid it's unclear to many, possibly most Americans that congress has shown little or no interest in doing it's job as counter balance to the executive. Without apathy, we'd be one hell of a nation.

I don't know who said it first, I've heard different sources claim originality but it's true, we are no longer a nation of citizens, we are a nation of consumers. That's our job and we do it with alacrity, however, it's one thing to have possessions and another to allow possessions to have you.

I find myself guilty as well as America at large. Who doesn't love a nice car, food in the refrigerator, bills paid up ahead of time? Struggle, is the name of the game all across the board, for: legacy, democracy, health, wealth, sanity and survival but the game is fixed. We've sat down to play with a card shark with monies garnered from a loan shark and we can't even walk away from the game. It's time to lay a big fat gun on the table. The war has come home to roost.  Gene