The compromise to which I am referring is the one made by Senators Warner, Graham, and McCain to the change of language in Common Article III of the Geneva Convention requested by GWB. Combine that with the recently passed additions to the Patriot Act, and our president seems to be holding all the cards. It wasn't much of a compromise, was it?
This issue is very clear cut. And the "compromise" more closely resembled the self-serving, ass-saving, slimy political maneuvering we have come to expect from our representatives. So why are there so many who can't see it? Don't get it? Won't get it? Why is this even an issue when as recently as two weeks ago, Americans could lay their heads on their pillows at night without giving it much of a thought? Because Constitutional freedoms have never been brought into question to this extent before, that's why.
Even when McCarthy was looking under the bed for communists, the Constitution and the Geneva Convention were left intact. Our historically shared and common belief in the limits of governmental power was, we thought, so tightly woven into the fabric of America, into being American, that it would hold forever like medieval chainmail.
Two hundred plus years beyond 1789 and we as a nation have forgotten that the thread of freedom was spun of delicate silk. It must be handled properly and periodically checked for moths. I think around 1980 we threw that silk in the back of the closet believing it would be just fine in there with the other consumer goods we just had to have and then grew bored with, discarded, and haven't looked at since.
Under the cover of closet darkness, Bush got his way with the extended Patriot Act and the rewritten Common Article III of the Geneva Convention, and thereby, he assumed total control over the rights of individuals. He not only broke the silken thread of freedom, he stuffed it in his pocket and walked away virtually unchallenged with the whole cloth. Now, you, or I, can be picked out of a crowd, labeled an enemy combatant, and waterboarded. One, two, three.
But like couch potatos who desperately needed to get out of the recliner long ago and hold a garage sale, I guess Americans grew so comfortable, complacent, and trusting that the closet was a safe place for what we hold dear that after years of protected freedoms, there are those among us who refuse to believe that the game has changed. This is, indeed, a sad day for America because there will be no hue and cry until a wealthy WASP or a popular middle-class citizen is plucked off the street for simply engaging in routine politics.
If we as a nation learned anything from watching Katrina victims sift through the remnants of their lives, it should be this: If you value grandma's silken cloak of freedom, you'd better keep it on your person when the storms come because once they have passed, you can't expect to find it still safe in the back of the closet.
Saturday, September 30, 2006
Wednesday, September 20, 2006
An Open Letter about Torture to Senators Graham, McCain, and Warner
Dear Senators Graham, McCain, and Warner:
I know you are busy whipping up a compromise to change Common Article III of the Geneva Convention, which may help avert our commander-in-chief from being viewed by the world as a war criminal. I hope during your busy day you, or one of your staff members, will have the chance to read the letter I sent to each of you this morning regarding the moral ambiguity involved in enacting such a change.
As I have great doubts that my letter, which came from my soul and the souls of many other Americans, will ever make it out of the bottom the your mailbag, I am posting it here. I think clothing and ideas aired in the light of day tend to smell better after some time in the sun.
Please excuse the lack of the "Sincerely yours," etc. Your comment forms aren't set up for formality.
Dear Senator
I am from Ohio and you are not one of my two Senators. Technically. However, in the spirit of representative government as intended by our forefathers, you are my Senator. Each of the one hundred members of the body of the Senate is my Senator. You speak for me, Jane Q. Public, when I am unable to speak for myself, or when I am unable to reach power with truth.
Rewriting Common Article III of the Geneva Convention to allow loopholes for the continuation of the practice of torture, to be carried out in the names of all Americans, is morally repugnant. No acceptable compromise exists to moral repugnance. First-degree murder is morally repugnant. Is there a compromise for it? Knocking down an old lady and stealing her handbag is morally repugnant. Is there a compromise for that?
Americans are waiting, suffering and waiting long, too long, for members of our national leadership to do the right thing just because it is the right thing to do. It is morally reprehensible and hypocritical for our leaders to tie themselves to fundamental Christian values for political purposes while engaging in self-serving and morally reprehensible acts or allowing them to be done in America’s name.
Common Article III, as a law against torture, already exists and has stood, uncompromised, since 1949 as a stone in the foundation of America’s moral face to the world. It is a stone that should not be rolled away or have its integrity compromised, even if that means leaving government wrong-doers exposed. Compromising the Geneva Convention depletes us as a nation. It suggests to the world that we, as a people, are morally feeble and accept and expect rogue-state behavior from our leaders.
I know you are busy whipping up a compromise to change Common Article III of the Geneva Convention, which may help avert our commander-in-chief from being viewed by the world as a war criminal. I hope during your busy day you, or one of your staff members, will have the chance to read the letter I sent to each of you this morning regarding the moral ambiguity involved in enacting such a change.
As I have great doubts that my letter, which came from my soul and the souls of many other Americans, will ever make it out of the bottom the your mailbag, I am posting it here. I think clothing and ideas aired in the light of day tend to smell better after some time in the sun.
Please excuse the lack of the "Sincerely yours," etc. Your comment forms aren't set up for formality.
Dear Senator
I am from Ohio and you are not one of my two Senators. Technically. However, in the spirit of representative government as intended by our forefathers, you are my Senator. Each of the one hundred members of the body of the Senate is my Senator. You speak for me, Jane Q. Public, when I am unable to speak for myself, or when I am unable to reach power with truth.
Rewriting Common Article III of the Geneva Convention to allow loopholes for the continuation of the practice of torture, to be carried out in the names of all Americans, is morally repugnant. No acceptable compromise exists to moral repugnance. First-degree murder is morally repugnant. Is there a compromise for it? Knocking down an old lady and stealing her handbag is morally repugnant. Is there a compromise for that?
Americans are waiting, suffering and waiting long, too long, for members of our national leadership to do the right thing just because it is the right thing to do. It is morally reprehensible and hypocritical for our leaders to tie themselves to fundamental Christian values for political purposes while engaging in self-serving and morally reprehensible acts or allowing them to be done in America’s name.
Common Article III, as a law against torture, already exists and has stood, uncompromised, since 1949 as a stone in the foundation of America’s moral face to the world. It is a stone that should not be rolled away or have its integrity compromised, even if that means leaving government wrong-doers exposed. Compromising the Geneva Convention depletes us as a nation. It suggests to the world that we, as a people, are morally feeble and accept and expect rogue-state behavior from our leaders.
Saturday, September 16, 2006
George W. Bush - The Thorn in the Nation's Rose Garden
President Bush, whom I believe bears all the traits of a total madman, threw a monumental temper tantrum yesterday in the White House Rose Garden, in front of the press and in front of America. His histrionics, unbearable to watch, demonstrated the same foot-stomping, hair-pulling sense of disbelief at being challenged that one might witness in the behavior of Saddam Hussein at his trial. And for the same reason. Each man has a tit, as grandma used to say, caught up tightly in a ringer.
As was the man he loves to hate, George W. Bush fears being accused of war crimes by virture, or the lack thereof, of his ordering or allowing the torture of enemy combatants, which is against Article III of the Geneva Convention. And some of those torturees, who have now been transferred from camps in Europe to Gitmo, are about to be interviewed by the Red Cross. Uh oh.
So, with a predictability we have come to expect from this administration when they haven't played by the rules, which is always, Bush now wants Congress to turn back the clock and make what he did yesterday legal today, which is the hallmark, if you will, of this administration's style of governance. Except that the word "hallmark" is often associated with something positive and this is nothing to be proud of. I call it the Wimpy strategy of governance, named after the character Wimpy on the Popeye cartoons. "I will gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today." Let me have what I want today, and I'll twist someone's arm to compensate for it later.
In six long, seemingly endless years, George Bush has broken every principle on which America was founded, short of being caught in a ski mask with his hand in a teller drawer at Bank One. Given his bratty tirade yesterday, I'm expecting that to be next. His tantrum has presented Americans with the most important choice they have had to make since deciding to break away from England. And breaking the will of Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Rove may prove to be as lengthy and as difficult.
The matter of Article III could be settled rather quickly and to the better nature of mankind, but it would require America's possessing a Congress that contained men and women as thoughtful and honorable as those of the Continental Congress. Thus far, the current American Congress, with the notable exception of a few--too few, has proven to have all the honor of Benedict Arnold and all the teeth of the president's lap dogs Barney and Beatrice.
Amidst the throes of Bush's Rose Garden tirade, David Gregory was effectively shushed when trying to get a straight answer to the $64,000 question in which he drew a parallel between America's torture of others and others' inevitable turn to torture us back. In essence Gregory was asking: If America allows its government to rewrite the Geneva Convention just to save the president's proverbial ass, how long, then, until another country does the same and redefines what they're allowed to do to us? I say, if military recruitment has been flailing of late, ditching Article III ought to finish it off.
http://www.aclu.org/natsec/gen/26714leg20060911.html
Gregory never got his straight answer. Instead, short of writhing on the ground, Bush snarlingly threatened the press, the Congress, and the American people by stating that if Article III was not amended to his liking, the whole program would stop. What program? What do we Americans call this program we're paying for? This administration has not been forthcoming about anything they do in the name of decent taxpaying Americans. Ever. So I say, go ahead. Stop the damned program. Maybe that will give us some breathing room to find out just what, roughly, this "program" has consisted of. Shouldn't we at least know since we will share the blame when our peerless leader gets caught at that teller drawer?
Awhile ago, when Americans failed to leave the mall and take to the streets to challenge the extended Patriot Act, we had already given our government the power to label any American an enemy combatant if it doesn't like what it hears or what it sees out of us. So this is maybe another good reason we should know more details of this damnable program--before one day they decide to use it on American citizens. Oh! Forgive my fuzzy memory. They already have.
Just where, exactly, is the line in the sand that Americans will not cross to be kept safe? Or is there one? I certainly hope, beyond all hope, that the line is here and the line is now. Torture by Americans is unacceptable. Torture of Americans is unacceptable. Rewriting the Geneva Convention to assuage the despot-in-chief's fears of legal repercussions against him and his minions is unacceptable. Congressional failure to stop this president from overturning the oaken table upon which rests the humanitarian foundations of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights is utterly unacceptable and opens the door even wider for the ultimate demise of a democratic America.
Just in case you've forgotten: Absolute power corrupts absolutely. So when the torturers come for you or me, or for your loved one or mine, as they eventually will, we won't find ourselves sitting in a rose garden on a sunny day. And there will be no press to hear our tantrum of protest and no Bill of Rights, Constitution, or Geneva Convention on which to base it.
Today. Right now. It's time for Americans to decide what they believe is humane and moral. It's time for both red and blue Americans to decide if the laws of humanity have meaning in their lives. And if they do, then it's time for Americans to let the lawmakers, whose salaries come from their pockets, to know it, too.
As with the Patriot Act, you can skip all the worry about Geneva Article III. But you fail to act at your own future peril.
http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm
As was the man he loves to hate, George W. Bush fears being accused of war crimes by virture, or the lack thereof, of his ordering or allowing the torture of enemy combatants, which is against Article III of the Geneva Convention. And some of those torturees, who have now been transferred from camps in Europe to Gitmo, are about to be interviewed by the Red Cross. Uh oh.
So, with a predictability we have come to expect from this administration when they haven't played by the rules, which is always, Bush now wants Congress to turn back the clock and make what he did yesterday legal today, which is the hallmark, if you will, of this administration's style of governance. Except that the word "hallmark" is often associated with something positive and this is nothing to be proud of. I call it the Wimpy strategy of governance, named after the character Wimpy on the Popeye cartoons. "I will gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today." Let me have what I want today, and I'll twist someone's arm to compensate for it later.
In six long, seemingly endless years, George Bush has broken every principle on which America was founded, short of being caught in a ski mask with his hand in a teller drawer at Bank One. Given his bratty tirade yesterday, I'm expecting that to be next. His tantrum has presented Americans with the most important choice they have had to make since deciding to break away from England. And breaking the will of Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Rove may prove to be as lengthy and as difficult.
The matter of Article III could be settled rather quickly and to the better nature of mankind, but it would require America's possessing a Congress that contained men and women as thoughtful and honorable as those of the Continental Congress. Thus far, the current American Congress, with the notable exception of a few--too few, has proven to have all the honor of Benedict Arnold and all the teeth of the president's lap dogs Barney and Beatrice.
Amidst the throes of Bush's Rose Garden tirade, David Gregory was effectively shushed when trying to get a straight answer to the $64,000 question in which he drew a parallel between America's torture of others and others' inevitable turn to torture us back. In essence Gregory was asking: If America allows its government to rewrite the Geneva Convention just to save the president's proverbial ass, how long, then, until another country does the same and redefines what they're allowed to do to us? I say, if military recruitment has been flailing of late, ditching Article III ought to finish it off.
http://www.aclu.org/natsec/gen/26714leg20060911.html
Gregory never got his straight answer. Instead, short of writhing on the ground, Bush snarlingly threatened the press, the Congress, and the American people by stating that if Article III was not amended to his liking, the whole program would stop. What program? What do we Americans call this program we're paying for? This administration has not been forthcoming about anything they do in the name of decent taxpaying Americans. Ever. So I say, go ahead. Stop the damned program. Maybe that will give us some breathing room to find out just what, roughly, this "program" has consisted of. Shouldn't we at least know since we will share the blame when our peerless leader gets caught at that teller drawer?
Awhile ago, when Americans failed to leave the mall and take to the streets to challenge the extended Patriot Act, we had already given our government the power to label any American an enemy combatant if it doesn't like what it hears or what it sees out of us. So this is maybe another good reason we should know more details of this damnable program--before one day they decide to use it on American citizens. Oh! Forgive my fuzzy memory. They already have.
Just where, exactly, is the line in the sand that Americans will not cross to be kept safe? Or is there one? I certainly hope, beyond all hope, that the line is here and the line is now. Torture by Americans is unacceptable. Torture of Americans is unacceptable. Rewriting the Geneva Convention to assuage the despot-in-chief's fears of legal repercussions against him and his minions is unacceptable. Congressional failure to stop this president from overturning the oaken table upon which rests the humanitarian foundations of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights is utterly unacceptable and opens the door even wider for the ultimate demise of a democratic America.
Just in case you've forgotten: Absolute power corrupts absolutely. So when the torturers come for you or me, or for your loved one or mine, as they eventually will, we won't find ourselves sitting in a rose garden on a sunny day. And there will be no press to hear our tantrum of protest and no Bill of Rights, Constitution, or Geneva Convention on which to base it.
Today. Right now. It's time for Americans to decide what they believe is humane and moral. It's time for both red and blue Americans to decide if the laws of humanity have meaning in their lives. And if they do, then it's time for Americans to let the lawmakers, whose salaries come from their pockets, to know it, too.
As with the Patriot Act, you can skip all the worry about Geneva Article III. But you fail to act at your own future peril.
http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm
Saturday, September 02, 2006
Of Planned Invasions and Stolen Elections
Twice within 48 hours, and from two separate soldiers stationed at bases on opposite sides of the country, I have heard the news that we are likely to invade Iran--in the very, very near future. Like, this Fall. Like, after the election, of course. (No sense in needlessly riling up the masses in November.)
Do these soldiers know what they are talking about? I can't guarantee it, but I do know enough about how slowly the military moves and how much advance prep they require for action to think that perhaps these guys may have a clue the rest of us don't.
Soldier One, a close family friend, relays to his mother that he will be begin a new deployment in early October. His mother asks, "Back to Iraq?" Soldier One responds, "No. They are talking about another country."
Soldier Two, spent the night in my home, a childhood friend of my son's. He tells me in the course of a conversation on how he's doing these days that he will be deployed again soon." I ask, "Back to Iraq?" Soldier Two responds, "No, probably Iran." He's special forces. Do you think he knows what he's talking about?
I can't guarantee that either is privvy to the last word in America's military strategy. But, based on Donald Rumsfeld's recent speech to the American Legion, I'd say Donald might be a little fuzzy on the details himself. It isn't what Rumsfeld says that matters anyway. It's all about what he and his cohorts do based on what they believe. It's also about what they're thinking of doing, and you don't honestly believe they're going to let the public in on that until they find a way to sell it or scare us into it, do you?
Bush and Co. dazzle us with terminology like Islamofascism, which according to Middle-East experts is a non-word and not remotely synonomous with the word terrorism. What are we being set up for this time? The idea, the likelihood of movement against Iran very soon is definitely on the lips of those who will be most affected. Why? Two soldiers who don't know one another and stationed on opposite sides of the country. Iran? They've gotten that idea from somebody in command.
So, assuming these soldiers are in the know, what does this say about the upcoming election? To me it smacks of cocksuredness on the part of the current Commander in Chief that today's status quo in Congress will still be the status quo in January. It would indicate that he see the November election as not even a speedbump in the road to achieving his goals. But are his goals Americans' goals?
April 6 of this year was the last time the U.S. House of Representatives took any action in committee on H.R. 550--a measure which, if made into law, would require a paper trail for electronic voting machines thus making all votes independently verifiable. I know this because I checked on our Reps progress on this matter. So, until pressured by citizens to enact some safeguards, once again the upcoming electronic election will be brought to you by that bastion of corporate Republicanism, the Diebold Corporation. I'm not feeling very comfortable about the health of our democracy right now. http://www.alternet.org/blogs/video/40755/
To date, it has been very well documented what the Bush neo-conservatives who control the Republican party believe, and if you are fool enough to think it's Christian, think again. They have demonstrated their beliefs by their actions or non-actions over and over. Remember Katrina?
Now their message to the world from America, from you and me, is Our neo-conservatist fascists can kick the asses of your brand of fascists. Well, that strategy has not worked out so well in Iraq, has it? So don't expect to hear me defend the war. It's not the war on terror. It's just a war, begun by a class of people who had something to gain and access to plenty of cannon fodder. Some of that fodder I happen to personally know and love. Now it appears they arrogantly may be thinking of starting another war because, if the 2004 election is any indication, they clearly don't fear any stupid citizens getting in their way. http://www.appliedresearch.us/sf/epdiscrep.htm
So, what do you believe, reader? I believe first and foremost in the Constitution of the United States of America and the Bill of Rights. I believe citizens have a non-negotiable responsibility to find out what their candidates and leaders believe in before choosing to support them. I believe that "one citizen equals one" vote should be set like stone in the mortar of our forefathers' sacrifices and never subject to the interpretation of an individual, a government, or a political party.
When our votes stop counting, then this country stops being Ameria. I think it is way, way past time for all Americans who love this nation to come together as patriots on this one issue and demand of our representatives that they take immediate action on H.R. 550. Time is running out, and I don't think we'll find any democracy for ourselves on the road to Iran.
Do these soldiers know what they are talking about? I can't guarantee it, but I do know enough about how slowly the military moves and how much advance prep they require for action to think that perhaps these guys may have a clue the rest of us don't.
Soldier One, a close family friend, relays to his mother that he will be begin a new deployment in early October. His mother asks, "Back to Iraq?" Soldier One responds, "No. They are talking about another country."
Soldier Two, spent the night in my home, a childhood friend of my son's. He tells me in the course of a conversation on how he's doing these days that he will be deployed again soon." I ask, "Back to Iraq?" Soldier Two responds, "No, probably Iran." He's special forces. Do you think he knows what he's talking about?
I can't guarantee that either is privvy to the last word in America's military strategy. But, based on Donald Rumsfeld's recent speech to the American Legion, I'd say Donald might be a little fuzzy on the details himself. It isn't what Rumsfeld says that matters anyway. It's all about what he and his cohorts do based on what they believe. It's also about what they're thinking of doing, and you don't honestly believe they're going to let the public in on that until they find a way to sell it or scare us into it, do you?
Bush and Co. dazzle us with terminology like Islamofascism, which according to Middle-East experts is a non-word and not remotely synonomous with the word terrorism. What are we being set up for this time? The idea, the likelihood of movement against Iran very soon is definitely on the lips of those who will be most affected. Why? Two soldiers who don't know one another and stationed on opposite sides of the country. Iran? They've gotten that idea from somebody in command.
So, assuming these soldiers are in the know, what does this say about the upcoming election? To me it smacks of cocksuredness on the part of the current Commander in Chief that today's status quo in Congress will still be the status quo in January. It would indicate that he see the November election as not even a speedbump in the road to achieving his goals. But are his goals Americans' goals?
April 6 of this year was the last time the U.S. House of Representatives took any action in committee on H.R. 550--a measure which, if made into law, would require a paper trail for electronic voting machines thus making all votes independently verifiable. I know this because I checked on our Reps progress on this matter. So, until pressured by citizens to enact some safeguards, once again the upcoming electronic election will be brought to you by that bastion of corporate Republicanism, the Diebold Corporation. I'm not feeling very comfortable about the health of our democracy right now. http://www.alternet.org/blogs/video/40755/
To date, it has been very well documented what the Bush neo-conservatives who control the Republican party believe, and if you are fool enough to think it's Christian, think again. They have demonstrated their beliefs by their actions or non-actions over and over. Remember Katrina?
Now their message to the world from America, from you and me, is Our neo-conservatist fascists can kick the asses of your brand of fascists. Well, that strategy has not worked out so well in Iraq, has it? So don't expect to hear me defend the war. It's not the war on terror. It's just a war, begun by a class of people who had something to gain and access to plenty of cannon fodder. Some of that fodder I happen to personally know and love. Now it appears they arrogantly may be thinking of starting another war because, if the 2004 election is any indication, they clearly don't fear any stupid citizens getting in their way. http://www.appliedresearch.us/sf/epdiscrep.htm
So, what do you believe, reader? I believe first and foremost in the Constitution of the United States of America and the Bill of Rights. I believe citizens have a non-negotiable responsibility to find out what their candidates and leaders believe in before choosing to support them. I believe that "one citizen equals one" vote should be set like stone in the mortar of our forefathers' sacrifices and never subject to the interpretation of an individual, a government, or a political party.
When our votes stop counting, then this country stops being Ameria. I think it is way, way past time for all Americans who love this nation to come together as patriots on this one issue and demand of our representatives that they take immediate action on H.R. 550. Time is running out, and I don't think we'll find any democracy for ourselves on the road to Iran.
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