HillWilliam's blog

With your indulgence, I'm using my blog-space today with some thoughts that aren't NC-specific, but ones that I hope will be shared with all citizens. Today is the 40th anniversary of Dr Martin Luther King's death. I remember the grief, shock and fear I felt that day when I first heard the news. Funny; forty years have past and that grief is still as strong today as it was then, but in the meantime, it has been tempered with words and actions.

Still, I long for A Voice that will unite people once again for justice, equality and human dignity. Perhaps, we are the ones we've been waiting for.

This atrocious news came across my desk a few minutes ago and I'd like to pass it on. It used to be that "conservative" meant being good stewards of the bounty our land had, its beauty and promise, to be able to hand down to our childen and grandchildren. By ample demonstration, the term has been co-opted by a few self-servatives whose greed and lack of concern over the consequences of their actions have soured the taste of the very word in the mouths of a growing majority.

Tonight, I suppose, more than any other in my life, do I feel the press of 300 years of American ancestry. Tonight, more than any other so far in my life, do I feel such an anxiety about what kind of world I'm soon (well, in the next score-or-so of years) to hand down.

It is with many an emotional and tearful redaction that I humbly offer this petition to you, my American brothers and sisters.

Nothing makes one evaluate one's legacy until some kinfolk with "grand" in their kinship arrives. We are most certainly closer to a constitutional crisis than ever before in American history, albeit in the scope of world history, a short, but colorful one.

This morning has brought some interesting posts to the DNC's Kicking Ass open thread. I posted a response that I hope will provoke some thought and (somewhere, somehow) promote thought and truth to action. Herewith:

The thread started with still-more shocked posts at the Sunday bobbleheads who are praising the still-dead Falwell. I had to respond: Falwell? A hero? A man who committed daily sedition, trained moles to infiltrate the government, emplaced them in the loving arms of the Bush administration for the sole purpose of overturning the Constitution, overthrowing our system of laws and replacing our government with a twisted, Moon-soaked theocracy at which, naturally, only he and is closest adherents would be at the top? Falwell is no hero to any patriotic American.

Just when you think the Republic Party just might grow a tiny bit of shame over their multiple macaca moments, they surprise ya yet again. Dang, that elephant hide is thick.

So, we've heard about the War Czar. The Resident wants to bring back the good old days of Reichs bureaucracy, further insulating himself from details (or blame). Today, I came across this tidbit:

"This is really more of a head cracker than a czar — a bureaucracy cracker," said Michael O'Hanlon, a foreign policy analyst for the Brookings Institution who likes the idea.

The mind boggles; I honestly didn't know where to stick myself after that one.

I'm still shaking my head in amazement from yesterday's passage of a bill that not only authorizes the use of torture, but abrogates over 200 years of settled Constitutional law.

When I volunteered for the military some thirtyish years back, I promised with G'd's help to protect, uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic. Not coincidentally, people elected to serve in the halls of Congress make nearly exactly the same oath. The first item to which one pledges absolute loyalty and defense is to the Constitution.

Because I gave my promise and asked G'd for His help to keep me true to that promise, I took it (and still do take it) very seriously. That promise was in honor of the men and women who sacrificed much (if not all) to create the United States and the Constitution that makes it the country that it is.

Destroy the Constitution and you destroy that which is in and of itself America.