You fight dirty? We fight dirty.

I think I still have a Zippo lighter with that motto engraved on it somewhere.

If I had my way, I would put all fights behind me and never have to fight again. I've had my fill of fighting, both in the organized military sense and the less organized, but perhaps more critical, defence against political/legal/corporate assaults on human rights and freedom.

The latter fight, I remind myself, (and others), is not something that can be set aside. The rights and freedoms I enjoy today came as a result of many before me who were willing to continue the fight, sometimes against overwhelming odds. Defending those rights and freedoms is not optional. Without fighting to defend them someone, attempting to advance some warped agenda, will try to remove them.

Without fighting, the inequality which still exists today would not be redressed. Because those who would prevent the advancement of human rights, freedom and equality, usually founded in some corrupted religious belief, will use any tactic they deem fit to achieve their goal of dominion over others. Such tactics include lying, obfuscating, physically harassing and killing their opponents. And that list is hardly exhaustive.

And now, there is a feeble plea that this side of the fight, my side, engage the other side with some "civility". We should not "offend" those who are forwarding an agenda of oppression.

Well, let me put it to the dominionists, the regressionists, the religious proselytizers and, particularly, the anti-woman crowd (since that tends to be all of those afore mentioned groups) in the most succinct way possible:

Fuck you and the horse you rode in on.

You want civility? NO. It's not even up for negotiation. You don't like the term "Fetus Fetishist", or any of the other terms used here and elsewere? Tough. Fucking. Bananas.

Do you find the terms offensive? Good. I'm not inclined in the slightest to be civil to the freaks who would subjugate women or any other group of people they would choose to make targets for discrimination. I'm not going to change their minds, but I'm not going to cast them in some light which suggests they are "civil". And the suggestion by some, anyone, that we all find middle ground so as to "discuss" issues is little more than an attempt to have the side which is not bent on human subjugation give ground to those who are - as some gesture of reduced enmity.

That would be disingenuous.

I don't like the people who would impose their superstition-driven false morality on others. I find them repulsive. I am not going to make nice with them.

To suggest that I, or more appropriately we, achieve nothing through the use of inflammatory language and the occasional use of vulgarity is to ignore the gross obscenity of those we target. If the worst I do is provide a literary kick in the nuts to some warped zealots out to impose their will on others, I haven't come close to the abominable behaviour they are willing allow themselves in the name of their self-described righteousness.

If you supposedly find yourself in the middle I would suggest you take a closer look. The anti-choicers, anti-abortionists, fetus fetishists, whatever you want to call them, employ tactics and language far more odious than anything you will ever read here.

When I see you taking them on, and I mean really taking them on, I might be inclined to listen to the "civility" plea. But don't count on it. To put it bluntly, I don't intend to surrender one fucking inch of ground - ever.

The fetus fetishists don't simply oppose legal, safe abortions. They oppose anything to do with giving women dominion over their own bodies. The arguments they put forth are camouflage. The same foundation groups opposing a woman's right to choose to remain pregnant or not are also opposed to a woman's right to prevent pregnancy through contraception.

And it's not just them. Anyone who believes they have the right to limit human freedom based on cultural, religious, racial or sexual differences is the same kind of repugnant asshole.

I have no intention of trying to find middle-ground with them. There is no reason to compromise or negotiate. There is, however, a good reason to keep fighting. And if they don't like that people actually fight back, tough. Let them howl.

And the next time someone suggests that we "kiss and make-up" with a bunch of flaming anti-choice lunatics, I would offer that you should get them to do it first. When they're done, tell them to wipe the shit off their lips.

Update: Mattt tosses the scabbard and bares the blade.

Note: The original post which served as the catalyst for this post is not linked. There are sufficient links to that post through others in this post.

As they crawl further into the bunker

And so, the Executive Order issued by George Bush requiring that all government entities that are a part of the Executive Branch to submit to oversight on the handling of classified information has produced yet another crease in the wrinkled fabric of Bush administration wrong-doing.

First we have Vice President Dick Cheney deciding that he is not actually a part of the Executive Branch and not subject to the order.

Now, Bush himself has decided that his office is not subject to his own direction.

The White House said Friday that, like Vice President Dick Cheney's office, President Bush's office is not allowing an independent federal watchdog to oversee its handling of classified national security information. An executive order that Bush issued in March 2003 — amending an existing order — requires all government agencies that are part of the executive branch to submit to oversight. Although it doesn't specifically say so, Bush's order was not meant to apply to the vice president's office or the president's office, a White House spokesman said. [...] "Our democratic principles require that the American people be informed of the activities of their government," the executive order said. But from the start, Bush considered his office and Cheney's exempt from the reporting requirements, White House spokesman Tony Fratto said in an interview Friday.

Let's get something clear. When an order is issued to include an entire organization or functional body, it includes all elements of that organization, unless specifically exempted. If Bush's Executive Order 13292 was written with the intention that the offices of the President and Vice President would be exempted from such oversight, it would have been a simple matter to add, perhaps right at the end, words to the effect, "The office of President and the office of Vice President are exempted from the provisions of this order."

Bush, and of course Cheney, are making it up as they go along.

J. William Leonard of the National Archives asked Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to have the Justice Department, Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) solve the impasse that had developed with Cheney. This last Friday, Justice Department spokesman Erik Ablin said, "This matter is currently under review in the department.”

Really?

Steven Aftergood, a researcher who tracks government secrecy for the Federation of American Scientists discovered the truth. It appears Gonzales has been ignoring the issue.

Why didn't Gonzales act on Leonard's request? His aides assured reporters that Leonard's letter has been "under review" for the past five months—by Justice's Office of Legal Counsel (OLC). But on June 4, an OLC lawyer denied a Freedom of Information Act request about the Cheney dispute asserting that OLC had "no documents" on the matter, according to a copy of the letter obtained by NEWSWEEK. Steve Aftergood, the Federation of American Scientists researcher who filed the request, said he found the denial letter "puzzling and inexplicable"—especially since Leonard had copied OLC chief Steve Bradbury on his original letter to Gonzales. The FOIA response has piqued the interest of congressional investigators, who note Bradbury is the same official in charge of vetting all document requests from Congress about the U.S. attorneys flap.

So now Gonzales enters the picture as being party to an attempt to prevent oversight.

While all that was happening Bush's White House spokes-people were trying to erect a smokescreen which MSNBC's Keith Olbermann took on. Olbermann dispatched the original assertion that an exemption existed for Cheney because of the language on page 18 of the EO. No such exemption exists, and when Olbermann pointed this out, the White House sent him to two other references in the EO, both of which made no mention of the Vice President's office at all.

In short, it would appear that, aside from trying minimize the magnitude of the constitutional violation, Bush and, in particular, Cheney, are desperately attempting to hide something extremely damaging to their administration.

Like a dog with a bone House Government Reform Committee chair Rep. Henry Waxman has no intention of letting any of this go unchallenged and has stated his intentions to investigate Cheney and Gonzales.

Waxman told NEWSWEEK he now plans to investigate the handling of the issue by Justice as well as Cheney's refusal to comply with the executive order, which he called part of a "pattern" of stonewalling by the veep.

That has been met with this kind of response from both Cheney and Bush spokes-people.

Cheney spokeswoman Lea Anne McBride said, "We're confident we are conducting the office properly under the law." She also pointed to comments by White House Deputy Press Secretary Dana Perino, who said that Bush, not the National Archives, was the "sole enforcer" of the executive order relating to classified information.

Umm... No. Part 5 of Bush's Executive Order 13292 delegates enforcement, including the issuing of reports leading to sanctions, to the Archivist and the Director of the Information Security Oversight Office. Bush is not the "sole enforcer". He handed that job off to somebody else.

These guys are trying to hide something.



Why do I always get the sense that PNAC's great American Century and the working and machinations of the Bush administration are based on this?