I recently attended a meeting set up by the ACLU. It included Carol Rose the head of the MA ACLU, William Delahunt, Democratic Rep for my area, and none of other than Bob Barr, former republican from Georgia.

The topic of the nights meeting was restoring the rule of law. It was an emergency town meeting, and the turn out was really good. Almost 200 Cape Cod residents showed up.

The panel covered the Bush administrations domestic spying without a warrant, the use of torture, and the use of renditions (moving a prisoner to another country to be tortured there.)

The evening progressed with a video laying out the basic lies the administration has used to cloud these issues, followed by the three panelists debunking these lies. I was very impressed with Carol Rose, she was on top of her shit, and really knew what she was talking about. She was to the point, and even took some hard questions at the end.

Bob and William, however, well … let’s just say that I was not as impressed with them. They are your typical politicians with typical politician answers. The day before Delahunt had just had 6 peacful protestors arrested, and then spends the evening talking about how our civil liberties and our freedoms are in danger from Bush. Mr. Pot meet Mr. Kettle. And Barr, don’t even get me started, he lead the fight to impeach Clinton for getting blow jobs…Hardly a moral compass to follow.

But I was happy with how aware and active the audience seemed to be, they were furious with our president, and they wanted to know why the hell Delahunt wasn’t doing anything about it. I was the first to ask a question during the question and answer section and I stood right up and asked Mr. Delahunt “If we are in such danger, why have you not introduced articles of impeachment” to which he basically said “It’s not a good time politically.” And while I can understand with the midterm elections coming up we don’t want to “fire up” the republicans base by making it seem like there president is in trouble, I was disappointed with the answer I got.

What I wanted to here was, “The Democrats are going to do it after we win the mid-term election” or “that’s the first thing we will do once we take back the senate” or “here are the three things we need to do in order for that to happen.” Instead I got some wishy washy answer about how it’s not the right time etc etc. I don’t want to hear about the motion getting burred in committee, or how you need a majority to pass these things or whatever, I know these things, I want to hear a plan of action about how we will achieve these goals. To all honest men and women in congress, please stop being punks and figure out something, anything that will fix this shit hole we find ourselves in. Make a plan, sell it to the American people, and then make it work.

Bob Barr talked a good talk, but he is no longer a politician, and everyone in the room seemed to have forgotten about his role in the impeachment of Clinton. Now that his political livelihood is not in jeopardy I guess he can say whatever he wants. It’s almost as if after reading the PATRIOT ACT he woke up and found religion. “Gosh this is a horrible rape of the American people’s freedoms; I should do something about this.” Only by then he was out of office and no longer influential. When Bob figures out that gay people should have the same rights as straight people, maybe then I will listen to what he has to say about civil rights, and freedoms. Delahunt on the other hand is a pretty ok guy. Other than the fact that he doesn’t support the Nantucket sound wind farm project, he really is not that bad.

The real star was Carol Rose, more than once I was highly impressed with her answers. A man in the audience asked about the ACLU’s defense of a NAMBLA member, and she was right on top of it. Explaining that the ACLU will defend all people’s whose rights are being stepped on, not just the ones that are popular. If everyone in office had half the guts and brains she did we would be fine.

It was an interesting night and I learned a little more than I knew about just how badly we are getting fucked over by the Bush machine. To the voting machines people (the ones that still use paper at least, the electronic ones are a bit iffey) we must vote for new, better candidates or we will have no one to blame but ourselves.