Do we march to the barricades yet?

This is shaping up to be a pivotal year in our nation's history. Once again our—we the people's—right to freedom of speech will prevail. We are not cowards who huddle fearfully in silent groups on the periphery of politics. No, we jump into the fray when threatened.

Our elected leaders have been running around like a flock of frightened chickens, but that is because they are interested in advancing their careers, not in advancing our principles. I mean, what average person would have put up with the obscene bullying tactics of a Karl Rove for more than ten seconds?

You see, the political class is astounded that a person they call a "nobody" like Joe Wilson would stand up to them for pissing on his wife. They wouldn't stand up because it might hurt their career in politics. It's not strange to anyone in the real world that Wilson became angry about what they did to his wife to get back at him.

I mean, Karl Rove is an emotionally stunted bully who hides behind the power of his rich friend ... this is straight out of junior high schoolyard antics. The kids who always kissed butt to ride in the limo for graduation and get elected class officer, are now our elected leaders ... they just haven't grown up! (An aside: I believe it's because most politicians are lawyers and have never had to "work", instead using the levers of privilege and its power to get ahead.)

It is simply amazing that ANYONE has kowtowed to Rove, let alone anyone with any self-respect. God, what that says about our politicians and MSM (MainStream Media) "talking heads"!

Time and again it has been up to us, we the people, to assert our commitment to preserving our unalienable rights. It is time again.

"Short of having them taken away from us, there is probably no way to fully appreciate the wonder and the glory of our rights and liberties here in the United States, including the right to privacy.

"The Constitution and the elaborate system of checks and balances were meant to protect us against the possibility of a clownish gang of small men and women amassing excessive power and behaving like tyrants or kings. But the normal safeguards have not been working since the Bush crowd came to power, starting with the hijacked presidential election in 2000."

...

"The Bushies will tell you that it is dangerous and even against the law to inquire into these nefarious activities. We just have to trust the king.

"Well, I give you fair warning. This is a road map to totalitarianism. Hallmarks of totalitarian regimes have always included an excessive reliance on secrecy, the deliberate stoking of fear in the general population, a preference for military rather than diplomatic solutions in foreign policy, the promotion of blind patriotism, the denial of human rights, the curtailment of the rule of law, hostility to a free press and the systematic invasion of the privacy of ordinary people.

"There are not enough pretty words in all the world to cover up the damage that George W. Bush has done to his country. If the United States could look at itself in a mirror, it would be both alarmed and ashamed at what it saw."

- Bob Herbert
America the Fearful
NY Times, May 15, 2006

There is something else we can toss into the political grinder. We have the interesting juxtaposing of political power between the overreaching of the Neocons on one hand and, on the other, the Conservative Christians "warning that they will withhold their support [from Republicans] in the midterm elections unless Congress does more to oppose same-sex marriage, obscenity and abortion." (See Conservative Christians Criticize Republicans, by David D. Kirkpatrick, NY Times, May 15, 2006)

Hey, let's get it on! Mix it up! We have an election this fall.