Letters to the Editor
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Malek
I subscribed to Salon after reading your article. It is indicative of the kind of reporting I treasure in this news journal.
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Worse in some ways, better in others
While I personally am ashamed of our country for electing someone who rolled back civil rights enforcement, there is an important difference between the Civil Rights Division fiasco and the fired US attorneys. The Bush Administration's grudge against civil rights enforcement has more to do with disliking contemporary civil rights litigation (and lawyers) than it does promoting a permanent Republican majority.
True, less civil rights watchdogging makes it easier to get away with voting rights infringements. But the far bigger impact here is on other types of civil rights enforcement: defending affirmative action, investigating discrimination by states, and upholding the rights of prisoners.
What do these things have in common? That there is no secret that the Bush Administration is against them. The federal government submitted a brief AGAINST the University of Michigan's affirmative action policy. Against! The Bush Administration's core legal team -- guys like John Yoo, Jay Bybee, Ted Olson -- consists of noted states' rights scholars and advocates, who hate to see the federal government come after states. Do I even need to discuss their approach to prisoners?
I am appalled by the blunting of the Civil Rights Division. But we have to distinguish between the Bush Administration's political maneuvering and its carrying out the ideologies on which it was elected. I don't think it's fair to describe these actions as directed toward preserving a permanent majority.
As to those US Attorneys....
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This buffoon
Following the Iraq War, and shrugging and posing for a publicity photo with a guitar during Katrina instead of bothering to keep tabs on the hurricane, we shouldn't be surprised.
Following his performance during the 2000 election, during which he held very still and tried to avoid too much discussion about democracy, while the Supreme Court voted to stop the recounting of votes by a certain date, for no good reason whatsoever, we shouldn't be surprised.
Following this fool's leaving of office, after he's done his best to wreck as much of our representative form of government as he possibly can, I wouldn't be surprised to find that we'll need to construct a whole fresh political system here, completely anew. All of this has been done just to ensure that GOP candidates have the system rigged as much in their favor as possible. The DOJ Civil Rights Division turned into a GOP gerrymandering organ.
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Scary
This is scary, scary stuff.
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Federalist Society & ACLU
You people continue to do this. The ACLU and the Federalist Society take a much more philosophical approach than you think. The ACLU supports the civil rights of all Americans, even Republicans. The Federalist Society want to limit the scope of government in order to protect the freedom of all Americans, even Democrats. Their loyalty to ideology is far greater than their loyalty to party.
It is hardcore Democrats who demonize the Federalists, and the wingnut Republicans who demonize the ACLU. They do this for partisan benefit. Meanwhile, both parties are constantly pushing the bounds of government power and violating our civil liberties.
Don't be so foolish as to think that we can get rid of these groups. Doing that would give more power to the twin evils of the D and the R.
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ACLU vs Federalist Society
"You would find very few people who think that the ACLU is remotely non-partisan..."
-- Bill Sanford
Perhaps you can cite an example of a "partisan" civil liberty.
The point is that there is no comparison between the ACLU and the Federalist Society. The FS has a covert political agenda, the ACLU doesn't.
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No They Are Very Similar
The ACLU and the Federalist Society both seek the protection of the citizenry against Governemnt infringement. They seek protections in totally different ways, but that does not make them Democrat or Republican playthings.
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Federalist Society vs ACLU
"The Federalist Society want to limit the scope of government in order to protect the freedom of all Americans, even Democrats." - Eliteman
You may be buying the overt PR spin of the FS. On the covert side, they support every aspect of the so-called "unitary executive."
In practice they support torture, warrantless wiretaps and searches, suspension of habeas corpus -- all of which make a fiction of the concept of "limiting the scope of government."
The Federalist Society is the anti-ACLU.
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Too predictable, and lame.
This is the most laughable, steaming, stinking pile of b.s. I have ever read on Salon, which is saying a hell of a lot.
Thanks for the warning about your post, but I've read far more dishonest things you've written before, and you somehow got "read" and "written" mixed up. Understandable when defending the indefensible.
If the only thing to counter this is some hypothetical Hillary presidency, you're losing it. Assuming you had it to begin with. Keep supporting the president and his band of criminals; someone has to.
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I think it's time to begin the dismantling of the Republican Party
The headline says it all. Cheney and his cronies (including Bush) have systematically trampled the rights of Americans. I used to think that it was just them and not the Republican Party ... but I can no longer convince myself of that. It's time to turn things around and a good first step would be the dismantling of the party of Church and State.
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Jim Sanford
Anonymous here.
Apparently my post disturbed you, and you find it dangerous.
The sort of action I am talking about, that you find so threatening and dangerous is not a left wing conspiracy takeover as your paranoia makes you believe:
Comes form this: How can you expect justice if the Justices are in cahoots with the criminals?
How con you expect the law to protect you from crime if the ones that write the law are criminals, protecting themselves?
Who guards the guardians?
True democracy is more than a rigged vote every two years.
Confronting the threats to democracy, demands action. Active action,
far beyond that blogging and complaining.
far more than waiting for the next election.
There are very many ways a human being can assert her rights to act and dissent than "you got to convince enough people and run for office yourself" while chuckling a false smile with the knowledge that without the complicity of big money, nobody gets elected to any level of significant power.
We have the pwer to say.
We have the power to denounce
We have the power to think
We have the power to bash you/them into the shame of their/yours acts take them. . .
you know?
Mohandas Gandhi shamed the biggest imperial aggressor out of India by the strength of reason, and action.
So did MLK
I know why you are scared, Jim. . .
But it is important to ACT