The Blank Check

Posted on July 19, 2002 in Accountability Human Rights

I wrote briefly about TIPS on the main page of this ezine a few days ago, just before it hit the American media. The Australians wrote about it first. I’m discovering if you want to get the lowdown on American corruption in time to head something off, you need to read the overseas papers. When I mentioned the program on the Dalnet #politics channel there was disbelief. People wanted “more proof”. GWB gave it to them shortly after my announcement.

I got mad enough about this that I told a chatter who called himself “USMarine” that he was a disgrace to the uniform for not opposing this Bush League scheme.

Among the loudest defenders of TIPS at Dalnet #politics is a white woman who fled South Africa after it became a democratic, non-segregated nation. Of course as the one time beneficiary of a police state’s surveillance, she would not see the harm.

This is the response I wrote to Cinnamon’s terrified account of what TIPS means at Did You Know?…

It’s disturbing to me that there are actually defenders of this program out there. I hang around Dalnet #politics. You would think that all the people who have been railing against “political correctness” as a form of thought policing (“they’re taking away my right to say ‘n*gger’! Fascism!”) would be more up in arms about this. But “it’s a precaution”, they say now that their man is doing it.

I feel betrayed. Betrayed mostly by the wishy washy middle and libertarians who dumped on people like me when we moved to change a few words in our laws and introduce a little fairness and impartiality into public discourse. They voted for the current administration and they applauded while it stole the Florida election. And now, in the country’s worst hour of economic and social panic that I have seen in my life time (born 1958), they applaud this arrant police state.

With today’s dip in the stock market, a few of them may change. Just as many so-called liberals turned into rabid reactionaries following 9-11, some of the “conservatives” will start thinking more socialisticaly. I still worry. Right after 9-11 I was called a “terrorist lover” because I told people to go slow, be cautious. “Don’t give George Bush a blank check!” I said.

And they signed anyways.

Kids sometimes ask “What was wrong with Nixon?” They grew up too late to watch the Watergate Hearings, to see how Tricky Dick’s secret police invaded the privacy of the likes of Bill Cosby and the other few hundred “White House enemies” his henchmen compiled. Look to this, I say to them now. This is what was wrong with Nixon. Stop it before it gets too far.