Presidential coordination?
Offline Being one among many here for skepticism and inquiry, I hope to direct your attention to a new directive issued in our own government. At the url, http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/05/20070509-12.html look under
Definitions
(2)
...
(e) "...cooperative effort among the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of the Federal Government, coordinated by the President..."
Does any one else have a problem with that word, "coordinated"? I'm quite leery of it. Sure, it reads further down below, about preserving our Constitution and everything, but even so, should so much be coordinated by any one person? Much less a president with such a track record? Look forward to reading from you on any comments, suggestions, etc...
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Ok, I just tried the link... there is an error page at the White House page. Ok, search for, "National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directive" under the base url; that should work. Sorry for the inconvenience, I'm still learning with posting. "National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directive"
The link should work now. When posting a link, make sure there are no extra spaces at the end.
As far as your concern over the wording, I am not much of a poli-sci fan but it is unlikely that the president would do any actual 'coordinating' and even if he/she did, as the Commander in Chief, it would fall under the president's authority anyway. But...as I said, I am not a poli-sci person. Perhaps you could share some of your thoughts as to how this could create potential problems?
{Oh, and bumping this out of curiosity for more posts}
Well, I'm not too much into political science myself, but I think everyone should be watchful of what our political leaders do. I'm just concerned that under negligent circumstances, "coordination" could translate into some variation of control. And I'm rather confident that the Judicial branch can make their own decisions, and I'm also sure that the Legislative branch can make their own decisions, without anyone (individual) having to 'coordinate', 'control', 'coach', or whatever, them. Even in times of crises, as kept vague in the same document.
That said, it does further outline in the same paragraph, that the said coordination will be in line with the Constitution. So I could just be a tad bit paranoid. Note, however, that this directive was passed during our current presidency.
Hopefully, that helps clarify things up.
It does and I think I understand where you are coming from - and you are right. We all need to be more vigilant in the wording of legistlation because it can end up biting all of us in the ass. Especially given the current presidency.
There are other threads started on presidential candidates, but things like this get passed through without so much as a blip on the media radar and the general public ends up clueless about it.
So here is a question...when something like this comes up and an observant person such as yourself notices it, what, if anything can be done at that point? Is it effective to notify representative, senators, etc.? Certainly getting the word out and making people aware of this is important, but could something like this have been stopped? (Ok, so that was more than one question. I'm curious, what can I say? LOL)
Those are good questions.
I would like to think that informational outlets, like C-SPAN, being free or at least more in view to the public and easier to discern i.e. interpret by laypeople, would make more people aware, but too many are more interested in things like MTV, sports, etc... And how far can a society push all that information in an info market without stepping bounds? Not to mention how boring that station seems to be - though I've never sat down to watch much of it.
Writing to congress and the like is also not a bad idea, and I should make an attempt to just send an email to as many as possible, not just my local representatives (I get distracted too easily).
I don't think something like this could easily have been stopped, not in today's political/social context. 17 and 1800's? More likely. But now, I don't feel people are keeping as much tabs on their government as they should, and don't have the motivation to, nor the understanding that they should.
What can American society do to change these mind sets? At the very least that's the kind of a question I feel might have been lingering on your mind, from the questions you did ask, I can only guess. Our school system really should teach critical thinking skills - rationalists, secularists, atheists, etc., contend this often for the sake of science, while it's also understood without mentioning that it's for the sake of other reasons - and I think that would be one effective tool in beginning to unravel the state of ignorance in our nation today. And it seems schools don't teach these skills, but laundry lists of facts - I could be wrong, or simplifying.
But beyond that, right now, I still haven't thought out any better answers, and I doubt I could do much better beyond this point. I feel that I may be underhanding you or anyone reading this post for that admittance, so I apologize for not bringing what might have been enough to the table. But keep pounding away, maybe some neurons will start to flare up.