Letters to the Editor
-
We're number 53! We're number 53!
Somehow, that's a cheer that I don't think even Festus will be able to take to the streets. As far as I know, only foreign journalists have been detained, and only from foreign sites. When will the first citizen journalist be detained? When will a journalist be grabbed on US soil?
As the world spirals further and further out of control, it's difficult to point to the biggest single risk. Personal privacy is gone and when retroactive immunity is stripped from FISA this week, we will lose our last, best chance to correct it through the court system.
Torture is being institutionalized, and when Mukasey is confirmed, we will lose a promising opening we had for banning it.
Today's NYTimes quotes Pakistani officials as claiming that the US administration would rather see restriction of a few rights than the country fall to extremists:
“They would rather have a stable Pakistan — albeit with some restrictive norms — than have more democracy prone to fall in the hands of extremists,” said Tariq Azim Khan, the minister of state for information. “Given the choice, I know what our friends would choose.”
Of course, preventing extremists taking control is why Supreme Court justices, attorneys and secular politicians need to be arrested and placed under house arrest.
In all of these cases, we continue to see the erosion of humanity through the abolition of human rights, and all in the name of security against those who would harm us. In Pakistan, it now is crystal clear that the real reason for the abolition of rights is to keep Musharraf in power. When will Americans wake up to the fact that abolition of rights here is aimed at keeping neocons in power?
Despite all of these various fronts for concern today, I can't stop worrying about the fate of Pakistan's nuclear weapons. I've already seen one suggestion of house arrest for Musharraf. How long will his government stand? What will happen to those weapons when he falls? What will happen to our rights when it becomes known that the weapons are in the hands of extremists?
Of course, this concern could have been avoided through responsible actions of the Bush Administration. By supplying over $10 billion to the Musharraf regime since 9/11, Bush could have made this a good investment by insisting that Pakistan hand over or destroy their nuclear weapons. Of course, that would have prevented the upcoming "opportunity" to declare a state of emergency over here because they are in one over there.
-
The hopes that the founders had for us.
As I mentioned in the last thread, the founders had plenty of high hopes, but they also had a whole slew of legitimate fears.
Pretty much every word in our founding documents was put there in order to try to prevent what's currently happening.
That they needed to be there , says much about our basic human nature.
-
House Committee on Unamerican Activities
Funny you should mention that, if you go over to Powerline's comments, they want that committe to be brought back. They're eager for it and want Ellison to be broguth before it.
They also don't seem to understand that reporter that is on a hunger strike is being force fed so are making fun of him as a fraud.
I love that they think liberals are "bedwetters" as they go on about the scary people that are out to get us everywhere and how we need to give up more rights to protect ourselves.
-
They've invested their entire egos into George Bush
and restrictions on HIS power is a theft from them...
-
The point being
The words "due process of law" say it all.
It is a process, run by the government, to secure your rights.
The neoconservatives believe that government doesn't work efficiently, and then go to prove that it is the case.
Why should the safeguarding of our rights be any different for them?
-
The modern conservative movement
and its supporters in government, business and the media, have become so numerous that they no longer have to pay lip service to principles plainly spelled out in the Constitution. They are confident that their antidemocratic ideas will go unchallenged by our media, because they are held by the most powerful leaders in our country. The Republican party now advocates torture, indefinite detention, government secrecy and unlimited presidential power. These ideas are no longer considered radical in our public discourse. It's the same on CNN, MSNBC, the Washington Post or NPR. People who promote these ideas are rarely challenged, and they continue to be given space in print and on the air to promote their undemocratic beliefs.
How this country has changed over the course of my lifetime.
-
Misspelling
In the first paragraph, it says "al-Zajeera"
-
Ellison's voice in the wilderness
Ellison will remain an exceptional lonely voice in the House, and will remain the butt of completely insane speculation by the likes of Beck. This is because a controlling majority of the congress--republican and democratic alike, have no more respect for process and the rule of law than does this administration.
I have finally received a reply from my liberal congressman regarding impeachment, and I believe it illustrates the world our lawmakers inhabit today. He wrote:
But on the question of how best to deal with this wrongdoing, I agree with my friend, Rep. Barney Frank who said, "In an ironic way it [impeachment] does George Bush a favor. He is losing the national debate on most issues, he is losing support among Republicans, and impeachment would almost certainly allow him to rally lots of Republicans." Impeachment certainly satisfies our shared desire to repudiate all that disgusts us about this Administration, but I believe this is not the way to allocate our limited resources and narrow majority in the final year of Bush-Cheney.
Issues of torture, rendition, abrogation of treaties, abridgment of constitutional rights are not issues of law and process. They are elements of political debate. If you are the unfortunate one who happens to be locked up in Gitmo, that's your problem. But know that your illegal torture and incarceration are helping the democrats to "win the debate, and that you are helping the congress to wisely "allocate their limited resources".
Limited resources indeed. So limited one can't help but wonder if they exist.