Exhibit 5a | Creative Disobedience

Last night I was watching Frontline, and the subject was Hurricane Katrina, six months later. It was truly chilling to hear members of the Department of Homeland Security, the Bush Administration and high-ranking cronies in the military and FEMA discussing the disaster. The most disturbing comments had to do with the excuses about why no help was sent to New Orleans in the aftermath of the tragedy. To a fault, each of these Bush appointed officials claimed that any attempt to help in New Orleans would have been a violation of state’s rights. Michael Jackson, the Deputy Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security said that having federally regulated evacuation standards would be “Orwellian.” In followup questions he said that other Federal regulations, such as the Clean Air Act was “heading down that road”, meaning towards a big brother type government.

This from an agency that has been spying on Americans and imprisoning them without charges for years.

I can’t decide which is scarier: the fact that these people have so completely corrupted our government to a point where we have a massive “security” organization that is so massive as to be nearly ineffective in every manner, or the fact that some of these men and women who are in a position of power actually belive they are doing the right thing.

Years ago, a friend of mine told me that he felt uncomfortable voting because there was potential that if he voted agains the losers, the govermnent would know how he voted and could cause him harm. I scoffed at the idea then, but now, given what we know about the Bush Administration, it doesn’t seem so far-fetched. From a bloated and ineffectual DHS to the South Dakota abortion ban to the domestic spying program…some days I really feel like our Democracy isn’t going to make it.