Oh Hector do you speak Turce? My the extent of your insurmountable annoying way to condescend to women, is it inbred or were you in a position at your job with a female as your superior that allows you to stop your repeated nagging as a bored, inactive activist that has nary a thing to do but bother people?
Perhaps a hobby? You would soar to high places as a journalist in a local paper as a 'Dear Abby' or 'Dear Abraham' in the advice area, then you could demean women without worries or per chance FOX News?????
Dear, what is your native languge? I tend to think it's Babble.
Thank you for your gesture to communicate, I appreciate such gestures of kindness.

'Capital Punishment' - what the citizens of the U.S. (or any western country) undergo in order to live under capitalism

elmeztisogordo stated"Capital punishment is a big part of the problem. No torture! No capital punishment!"

Actually, BushCo has led me to revise my opinion on capital punishment. Some crimes are so heinous that justice demands the ultimate punishment.

Peace demands Justice.

Capital punishment (killing someone bureaucratically in cold blood) is disgusting and hardens our hearts to brutality. Besides, quick death is too good for them.

This is my idea of justice: The current administration and their war profiteer friends should be convicted of war crimes and RICO by a jury of my peers. They should be put in prison for life without parole (in the US or perhaps after rendition to say Uzbekistan) and made to work in the laundry. Their houses, cars, stocks, bonds, savings and jewelry should be confiscated and the proceeds sent to veterans and their families and to Iraqi victims. If in the US, they should be allowed some work release, wearing orange jumpsuits and picking up trash on urban streets.

How did it get accepted that it was only done three times. At first they said it wasnt done at all, then they admit to three time. They arent secretly shipping people all over the world to serve them tea. I dont buy it.

24 HOURS WITH HILLARY CLINTON
CHECKS AND BALANCES

"She was asked about the "ticking time bomb" scenario, in which you've captured the terrorist and don't have time for a normal interrogation, and said that there is a place for what she called "severity," in a conversation that included mentioning water-boarding, hypothermia, and other techniques commonly described as torture.

"I have said that those are very rare but if they occur there has to be some lawful authority for pursuing that," she responded. "Again, I think the President has to take responsibility. There has to be some check and balance, some reporting. I don't mind if it's reporting in a top secret context. But that shouldn't be the tail that wags the dog, that should be the exception to the rule."

Asked again about these methods, she said:

"In those instances where we have sufficient basis to believe that there is something imminent, yeah, but then we've got to have a check and balance.""

The guy standing on a box wearing a hood with electrodes attached to his private parts must be the

BALANCE

Because I'm quite sure a munitions manufacturer wrote the

CHECK

O roe, perhaps we should converse in your own native language?

The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, He has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them.
-- George Orwell

http://www.quotedb.com/quotes/3945

It seems that many comments criticize Bush for their moral failings, and for not taking things like the law and the constitution seriously. I agree. Yet it's not so new, that a US president would haver serious moral failings, and do in secret the kind of things that the rest of us would find immoral, illegal, unconstitutional.

Bill Clinton wanted General Zinni to use US jet fighters provoke attacks from Iraqi air defenses, but Zinni required that, if Clinton wanted this, he needed official orders in writing, not a message sent through an intermediary. If Clinton had started the second Gulf war via some new Gulf of Tonkin-type event, would we have tolerated it any more?

Carter funded the Islamic forces in Afghanistan and provoked the Soviets. Carter was little help in El Salvador when Romero was in the hot seat.

We know about LBJ and Vietnam, about Nixon and Chile. We know that the US was war-weary after The Great War, and that FDR provoked Japan to attack Pearl Harbor, so as to orchestrate support for the war. James Polk had his general provoke the Mexicans at the start of the Mexican-American land-grab.

To some, none of this is very moral or constitutional.

At one extreme you have the voices for morality and law.

At another extreme, you find the idea that power is its own justification, and that, if you have power, you'd be foolish not to use it to your greatest advantage; that the constitution is fine if it serves to shore up an illusion and to keep people like us in line, while, behind the scenes, leaders pursue their covert provokations and dirty plans, which usually cost many people their lives, whether it's under Bush, Clinton, Carter, FDR.

It seems the main difference with Bush is that he's a caricature and amplification of many of the worst tendencies we've already seen in many of our leaders, Democrat or Republican.

If you're of the mind that power is its own justification, and that the constitution is just a piece of paper, useful only as rhetoric for certain patriotic fools, then torture is genius: Of course it yields unreliable results, but then you can use those unreliable results to justify the continued war on terror. As long as you can torture, you can get some people to confess to just about anything you want them to, and then get the fearful herd to follow.

Turning this kind of ship around is no easy task.

Bush again shows his personal disdain for the American people and especially American soldiers by exposing them to the worst practices of torture, given the U.S. support of torture.

Just as economically it is sociaslism for the rich and capitalism for the rest of us, in war, it is safety for the rich and torture for the rest of us.

If we don't respect ourselves enough to end this elite disrespect for Americans, then we well deserve how they treat us.

Lizard,

As ruthless and rotten Bush and Cheney are, I couldn't make one more exception for capital punishment. Put them in prison for the remainder of their lives and throw away the key. They'll have plenty of time reflecting on the crimes they commited.

I believe the only way to stop violent activity is not to partake of it.

CO MARC: Thank you for sharing the point about more persons realizing how much the shit has hit the fan, and coming into perhaps a new realization of what JUSTICE means.

SPARTACUS JONE: I can't reproduce the lyrical portrait rendered by James Carroll of the Boston Globe in his July 4 piece written almost 2 years ago, but the gist of it is that American HAS reached splendidly for ideals at various times. The Civil Rights movement, the amazing energy of the l960's, the Women's right's movement, the ecological movement. In other words, this stretching beyond the control by a small elite to spread benefits around has been a beacon to other nations.

I am not putting all blame on Bush as many in this forum have raised significant analogies to the policies of the Clintons. Basically DC has become a corporate haven since the l980's and Reagan. There were times when the US approached IDEALS and now all protests are placed like zoo animals into cages and thereby fully marginalized. What's going to break the body of the beast, as today's news about Bear-Stearns points out, is an implosion from within. When enough festering takes place, the fetid thing explodes on its own. WE are on that cusp.

WHYZOWL: A lot of people went the "inside job" route in the past 20-30 years and unfortunately, that opened the way for the rightwing think tanks and millionaires to buy out all routes of access, media in particular. One cannot have a real quality of life if the world around them is corrupt and collapsing. I believe in working on ourselves, but this should NEVER be a concern mutually exclusive to that of working on a just, sane, benevolent SOCIETY. These two principles and agendas must work in tandem. We have been conditioned by the "MARS RULES" mentality, in one way or another manifested as social darwinism, to think only of ourselves, as if it's just about that ME thing. Sure, as each soul awakens some ripple effect occurs; but again, a vacuum of sizable proportions occured when so many enlightened types went inward and worked on themselves. Then those individuals with a very different claim to power and a very different "vision" for this nation, got the keys to the candy store and hardly sweetened the deal for the rest of us. Now we face the struggle to find BALANCE... some self interest is inevitable, but so, too, must the championing of the greater good be held in all equations of decision making. What we've seen of late in BOTH parties is a complete capitulation to power as mammon... i.e. the corporate masters who could care less about the fate of nations, individuals or nature, the nest within which we live or die.

"Yes, these things have been done by various regimes over the course of time, but the fact the US stood for LIGHT and PROMISE and at one time seemed to move towards the global ideal of peace,..."

With all respect, when exactly was this?
When the US was slaughtering Indians?
Or trumping up phoney wars against, Mexico, Spain or.......

If you really want to know what somebody stands for, don't listen to what they say, watch what they do. I would submit that any reasonably objective analysis of history must result in the conclusion that the Mythical America --- of the people, by the people and for the people, with liberty & justice for all --- NEVER, in fact, existed except on paper, and sometimes not even then.
Our brightest moments have come, not from "America" but from individual Americans who were willing to buck the system and try to make that "American Dream" a reality.

I think, if we're ever going to bring the hope of liberty & justice to fruition, the first thing we have to do is abandon the silly notion that America was just fine until Bush showed up, and that we've just gotten "off-track" since then and need to get back to the Good Old America we once were.

You can't get where you want to go, unless you know where you're starting from.

Liberty & Justice,

SJ

www.spartacusjones.com

Make you a deal: I will support the execution of Cheney and Bush if you promise never to execute anybody ever again. They will be the last ones.

I have an idea for reminding the Dumbocrats in Congress about impeachment that will affect their pocketbooks. I don't know why I'm not seeing this advocated everywhere... Whenever they send me a request for money, I return the request with a penny or two taped to it. I tell them I'd have given more money to reelect them, but first I need them to uphold the Constitution and start impeachment proceedings. When they do, they'll get the rest of my contribution. I always put a stamp on the envelope, so at least I'm not costing them postage. If every patriotic Democrat did this, they'd have to do something. They need to know that we are out here. We are not wearing tin hats, we are using our logical, moral, and yes, patriotic brains to come to the conclusion that impeachment is ALWAYS on the table.

My intent was to agree with you and amplify your original comment, Siouxrose. Sorry if I didn't make that clear.

According to the law of karma on one level, isn't it true that the world-as-it-is is just as it has to be? Not that it cannot be improved, nor that we shouldn't act to try to improve it, but that perhaps the most effective thing we can do is change ourselves, and that thereby the world is changed? I mean REALLY changed.

The sad truth is that neither party is going to lift a finger to stop this destruction or they would have impeached a long time ago. Now it's up to the ICC.

Hector, well I suppose you met someone who felt the right, yes THE FIRST, do not doubt the integrity of his love and tears as well as his blood for this country.
So Sorry, Mr. Hector I insult your gentile way, I will and forever say as I wish regarding a human being in such horrific pain he is allowed by a PUTZ like you, man defends another man, so highly unlikely, echoes, try as you may, I will tell that person intentionally and with malice harm another, I will say, Hector STFU. This means Silence Touches Freaks of Utterances, Hector, still offended?????? OH STFU

The United Nations Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman
or Degrading Treatment or Punishment does not makes any distinction between hardened terrorists and captured soldiers. Indeed, torture is illegal and immoral when practiced against any human being. Why do we continue to let Bush et al. make this distinction as though it had meaning?

DOLKAR: Thank you for the enlightened posting on karma.

GHAWAR: I would support everything you said, but only wish there was a way to sift the soil of DU!

O ROE: Not sure what your apology references.

WHYZOWL: I never have said anything to support the WASP ethic. I am a firm advocate of the LAW of karma. Faith alone is NOT sufficient to clear one's slate on either individual or collective levels. What I am suggesting is that the social/cultural/political milieu encourages the WORST in people and we are beginning to see the wave of karmic blowback for this massive disaster, this failure to recognize what ALL the master teachers have painstakingly endeavored to reveal: that we are all connected and what is done to the least, will impact the whole.

FARGO: I, too, have noticed this wink at cops and other "law enforcement." AS a matter of fact, last night I watched a Law & Order episode where Jack McCoy, acting on police brutality is accused of being a liberal as if it's a dirty castigation... I have often felt that program reveals the issues of our day. It really showed where this pro-Bush, pro-conservative proof of fealty to the leader mentality is driving this nation. Witchhunts R' U.S.

Delighted that folks can see through the fog of Torture. We convicted Japanese of water boarding in WWII but now it's OK for this empire to use against all others...mostly of color.

Sowing the seeds of hate and fear will come back at us big time. Hegemony and Manifest Destiny dogma has begun to slap the smiles off the faces of the White power elite in the US of a. An elder said on a recently on a walk for Mother Earth that "When one hits a wall, sit down and have a party." www.longestwalk.org

We have hit a wall and folks of like mind will have a feast to celebrate the truth and resurrection of Turtle Island.

The Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment does not have an exception for suspected terrorists.

Great little article and what an important point. Embedded in the Geneva Convention is the crucial difference between civilized treatment and uncivilized treatment of prisoners. Civilized treatment disregards behavior, no matter how terrible. Of course, the Imperial Chimp and his network are unable to embrace civilized treatment. It's no surprise after watching the Imperial Chimp's behavior in the first few months after his selection by Reinquist, in the media headlines that quickly developed a portrait of a treaty and law breaker. There's little suprise that progressives have been calling for his impeachment since as early as mid 2003.

O roe writes at March 16th, 2008 11:42 a.m.:
"Publicola, you do NOT know willybill, so if could STFU! Thank You.That man forgot more than you dear sir shall ever know, hope to know, fear to know, lived the nightmare for you that, as well you'll never know." O roe, I think you're misreading Publica. Publica is in fact in agreement with willybill that Bush, Cheney and their cabal should not be able to deprive anyone of life, liberty or the pursuit of happiness by pointing a finger at them. She (or he) has misread willybill's comment (as I did, through the first paragraph) to say that "the terrorists" identified by Bush et al. deserved punishment. See my earlier comment responding to Publica at March 16th, 2008 10:43 a.m. In any event, nothing said by Publica seems to me an assault upon willybill's person, so whether she (or he) knows willybill or not seems not relevant. In any event, I don't see anything in Publica's comment that warrants being told to "STFU".

The key is that we can do better. The bad news is that this really isn't all that new to America. Torture and abuse have been a part of America for a long, long time.

Think anything from Vietnam to Central America to the School of the Americas manuals to Pinochet in Chile to anything goes because we are stopping godless communism to what we did in a very nasty, racist war against the evil Nips who attacked us at Pearl Harbor back to the Phillipines and McKinley's dirty war and what we did to the heathen Indians to slave punishments in the south. Heck, this country officially started with 'tar and feathering' of British colonial officers who wouldn't respect the American mob.

One difference is that this group is much more public and open about what they do.

The other difference is that it comes on the heels of an era when we seemed to be doing better. For awhile, from the Geneva Conventions to the sixties and seventies era reforms, it seemed like we were starting to become civilized and end this.

I think that's where we are today. Some people have started to learn and grow and understand that this is evil. Others still dream of the good ol days when white, male Americans could beat and torture anyone they wanted to.

Remember, more people today would believe this is wrong and evil than at any time I can think of before us. We just have to pick up and continue that effort and continue to grow. War crimes trials at the end of this era need to be a part of that process.

And at those war crimes trials, Bush is going to have a slam-dunk case against him with just this one signature on this veto document putting him firmly on record of being the man at the top who's authorized torture.

I wrote this when Bush's pole numbers were still high...around the 'Mission Accomplished; time. I guess America mostly favors wars for resources or of hyped revenge when things appear to be going well.

Now that support is down and Mc Cain is singing Barbara Ann bomb bomb Iran song?

Any hope? dolkar makes some good suggestions.

Stiffin Who
(Intro: A while back Dubya said: ' Saddam was stiffin the world')

Who did you say was stiffin the world Dubahyah?
Who did you say was stiffin the world? ….Dubahyah

Dubya doctrine is stiff allright
It's stiff and blue and tuff for you

Say,.. How many stiffs did your Daddy do?
With the help of Saddam too.

So yo-all stiffin more too?

Don't them poles they need more stiffs
For up you poll for …
For…up your poll for ever war
Ain't that just the kind of stuff
Sure to keep freedom from getting loose?

Hey don't you know terroism is a technique?
Not something you declare war against.

Hey Tuff love compassion it ain't enough,
Don't we need Corp world free to goose and stiff us all.

How many stiffs did your daddy do ?
With the help of Saddam too.

Forever war ain't that just the kind of stuff sure to keep freedom from getting loose?

Tuff love compassion just ain't enough,
Don't we need Corp world free to goose and stiff us all

Say, didn't you fly high with that Kenny Lay boy?
Then En and Ron got stiff
Hard to make a big Corp die
You stiffed us all
While rich boys got the pie

You stiffed us all
While rich boys got the pie

Hey didn't you fly high with that Lay boy
And your folks too
Spirited around in them gulfstreams
Must be kinda nice

Hey how many stiffs did your daddy do
With the help of Saddam too
For up your for up your pole
Ain't that just the kind of freedom you talking about setting loose?

Who did you say was stiffin the world Dubahyah

You stiffed us all while rich boys got the pie
Hey Enron stiffed the world while rich boys got the pie

Who did you say was stiffin the world?….dubahyah

Democracy is supposed to make people act like humans instead of like beasts. We have government by the highest bidding oil company and military contractor. We the People need to limit their money-power. That can't be done with Progressive taxation when the oligarchy is the final arbiter. The only way is to by-pass the oligarchy by direct democracy.

Demand from your representative that political issues be resolved by binding referendum. Pols are either ignorant of this method, or refuse to give up power to the people. In any case, resolving politically sensitive issues by referendum would give pols the advantage of staying uncommited. The public would be the decider, as it should be in a democracy.

The referendum has worked magnificently for the Swiss. It could work for us here too if we could convince our politicians to use it, often.

If We the People voted on the issue, would we be in Iraq?

hagori__ Good point about the changed attitudes in our country. It is really amazing how normal people that were at one time believers in a country that had some principles of how to treat others could be led astray so easily. The only hope is that they can be led back to what we always stood for if we can get some proper leadership.

I never thought I would live to see the day that the United States of America would support and use torture as a means of obtaining information. I was scanning the vast AM wastland the other day and came across a right wing talk show, of course, and a female caller was on parroting a list of things she/Bush support. When she said, "I support torture", it hit me like a ton of bricks as to just how far we've declined morally under Bush and the republicans. God help us all!

The author's larger point here is well taken. The Bushreich's ultimate target is the essential basis of human rights and post-Enlightenment limitations on the rights of monarchs, the Church, and the State: the idea that ALL men are "endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights." The Bush regime's rejoinder is, "You will enjoy only those "rights" we're willing to grant you, and we're not in a particularly generous mood."

This cop mentality currently being worshipped in America has got to go. I've had the fingers of these little people in my pockets twice outside my own home in the last month. Everywhere you go the cops are running wild. I attribute this to Bush's "wink" to the criminals (corporal punishment experts) and the drug war which gives local cops room to practice their sadistic tendencies. Wouldn't it be nice if the police didn't look at every citizen they are supposed to "protect" as an enemy? How about cops to protect citizens against cops? Those of you under American "protection" in other countries are just out of luck. You can kiss the baby.

"...is to realize that the depraved facets of human nature have been given cause to proliferate, while the kinder, gentler angels of our souls have been left to languish, if not die… for the promise of eventual spiritual resurrection."
..........
Good point here, Siouxrose, but let's not fail to give credit where credit is due. In the broad sense, I think it is Protestantism's lunatic notion that men are saved by faith alone, i.e., the separation of salvation from works, that serves in the West as the great enabler of every sin of man against man. If works matter, then you simply can't torture your brother or sister and still think you're going get into Heaven--period. The Bushreich doesn't torture to aquire "good, actionable intelligence;" it tortures to obtain the false pretexts it uses to justify its next war crime. Getting at the truth has nothing to do with it. In fact, "inconvenient" truths are discarded, and the lies extracted under duress are presented as "true." Now, perhaps, we get a deeper sense of what Alan Ginsberg meant when he said, "Man should not die ungodly in an armed madhouse."

5280.SO TRUE! But I disagree that it is hopeless.

willybilly,

I'm against the death penalty, and believe me, it's not an easy decision with this group of...use whatever expletives you desire, but I believe life in prison without any parole or pardon is a just punishment. No amenities or abuse by prison guards, etc. but keep them in solitary confinement with specific reading material with spiritual themes on getting along with fellow humans, the animal kingdom and ol' Mother Nature. They can read the books and maybe permeate their consciousness with words of wisdom or else they can reject the written word and sit quietly contemplating the reason/s for incarceration the rest of their lives.

WTF, Good picture. By the way, I have been censored again.

Overall, I think we can all agree the United States lacks a representative government of the people, by the people and for the people. Welcome to the new authorian dictatorship George Orwell wrote of.

This is just America at work. Its always been this way, it's just more obvious with the internet. It will always be this way. Its way too big for any candidate or any movement to stop --if people even wanted it to stop. America is little more than a co-op...a stop-over....a market for the earth's rich. We are simply the main infrastructure for war and financial interests. We are the worker bees. We are, at the end of the day, the perfect slaves.

"Bush is the first American President to use the veto power to preserve the right to torture"

He cannot preserve the right to commit a crime. Water Torture is TORTURE and a crime both internationally and within the USA.

The only thing missing is accountability...WHERE ARE THE DEMOCRATS TO IMPEACH THIS HORROR OF A HUMAN BEING?

IF THEY DONT HAVBE TIME ON THEIR BUSY SCHEDULE TO IMPEACH THIS BASTARD FOR WAR CRIMES AND TORTURE, NO ONE SHOULD HAVE TIME TO VOTE FOR THEM...PERIOD

Just more of the overwhelming evidence that we do not have a government running this country that I love, but a crime family (and that includes dems) that is a tool of the international bankers,oil cartels and the corporatocracy.They are guilty of the most egregious treason to America. The Constitution is just toilet paper to them.War is romantic! Sure sounds like 1984 to me!

The principals of the war of terror MUST be put on trial for all the world to see for the following two reasons:

1) Americans must see on their television sets how they were deceived and emotionally manipulated into committing crimes for the benefit of BushCo. The trials must be shown in full and they must be the main topic of news for a protracted period. The criminal trial of Bush et al. is one story that the media cannot ignore or spin, and there's no other way to force Americans to understand the criminal nature of their government or the crimes they have supported.

2) The prosecution of Bush et al. and Americans' acknowledgment of their crimes are essential to begin the rebuilding of the nation's honor and respect in the world, a process that will take at least a century. A total repudiation of the Republican Party and Bushism is essential to begin restoration of the nation's honor.

After the trials, I don't care what is done with Bush and Cheney - or for that matter the more than 500 congress members who I think should also be tried for treason.

As much money as possible should be recovered from the neocons' looting of the treasury. The whereabouts of that money - I estimate more than a trillion dollars in personal fortunes of the main suspects - should be obtained through any means that are currently legal.

I am against sending money to Iraq for rebuilding. That money is needed for infrastructure and education in the U.S. I think that the "troops" who destroyed Iraq should stay in Iraq or be returned to Iraq until they have repaired, under Islamic supervision, their destructions. That would include chemically sifting the soil of Iraq to remove DU. That is the extent of my support for the troops and the rebuilding of Iraq. The lives of Iraqis cannot be restored, and I think that that those Iraqis who remain living would be relieved just to see the U.S. leave.

Siouxrose, I apologize, that was so generous and humane towards all of us everywhere. I thank you, I hope I didn't disturb your prayer and hope its outcome is truth.

Publicola, you do NOT know willybill, so if could STFU! Thank You.
That man forgot more than you dear sir shall ever know, hope to know, fear to know, lived the nightmare for you that, as well you'll never know.

Off Topic, sorry, has anyone actually read this frigging 'FISA Amendments(notice the s)Act of 2008 along with H.R.3773 after the final vote count? Better do it, do it quick. SEC.(s) 405, 406 (1), 112 (e)and(b), 801. SEC.301, (d)(6)(7)
Then ask yourselves if they will ever stop any of it ever again. Torture, illegal wiretaps, forget about it if you are an undocumented 'alien'(indentured slave, servile 4ever, heretoforward refer to it as F$$KED)they use 'terrorist' with out saying what, by whom, when we are terrorists, like working in H R 1955 without worrys about Committees,your 'special rule', singular, for 'certain cases' plural???? Subpoenas, Agencies, it is so muddled, Rummy said "I don't do quagmires", maybe voodoo man rummy can tell me WTF this is exactly, they are going to walk away like water off a ducks back, MOTHERFxxkers, they are going to get away with it all. My 1st mother-in-law, Carmen, geez the Santaria she worked, could use a white dove please.
willybill, what?????????

Reread willybill's post carefully before commenting on it. He defines "they" in the latter part of his post.

I disagree on the punishment, they should be tried where their crimes occurred, and sentenced to chain gangs to clean up the mess they made.

The sad truth is that George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, having no human dignity, are therefore impervious to arguments in its defense. And the American people allowed these men to assume the highest offices in our land, not once, but twice. Our collective karma, when it ripens, will quite likely mean the end of this society as we know it. We're well on our way. The only way to change the karmic outcome of our collective wrong-doing is to dramatically change the karmic conditions - i.e. investigate and assess the damages done and systematically fix what can be fixed and correct what can be corrected. For the rest, we must engage in intensive purification (for instance, joining the world community in assisting the Iraqi people with the establishment of peace and the reconstruction of their society (fully funded by ourselves), elimination of our nuclear arsenal, demilitarization of our foreign policy, re-engagement of aid programs throughout the 3rd and developing worlds, taking leadership in confronting global warming (with all attendant "sacrifices") -- these are only examples, but perhaps it suggests the bigger picture. Hoping that karma doesn't exist or that it's theirs and not ours, is nowhere to hide. The good news is that there IS a path out of here (the bad news is, it will be very arduous).

Sunshine is often the best disinfectant.
We need to keep talking about this issue.

If Karma does exist, Dubya, Cheney, & Co. will be subject to "enhanced interrogation techniques" during the evidence gathering stage of their tribunals for treason against the American people. Unfortunately, it would give them a triumph of sorts, as it would continue their disgusting fascism beyond their reign in office, and thus a form of legitimacy. A not too pleasant "choice" under any circumstances.

I J FERNANDEZ: Good insight into the logistics of the "punitive state." It seems to me that the Bush cabal is mostly catering to an element that was seen to champion bloodletting in the Roman Arena. Sommerset Maughm referred to "Lives of quiet desperation." The same mentality that likes to watch a TV show like COPS seems to need to feel their desperate lives are better than those of some poor stiffs corraled for great crimes. It no longer seems to matter that there can be no crimes in a war based itself on fiction, just that the ACTION be delivered to those in the arena who are of the mentality that would preserve the felons in office. How low America has sunk.

Yes, these things have been done by various regimes over the course of time, but the fact the US stood for LIGHT and PROMISE and at one time seemed to move towards the global ideal of peace, only to see it all rewind to ultimate primitive headbanging games of macho conquest, is to realize that the depraved facets of human nature have been given cause to proliferate, while the kinder, gentler angels of our souls have been left to languish, if not die... for the promise of eventual spiritual resurrection.

Publicola writes at March 16th, 2008 10:30 a.m. that "The problem with willybill's logic, is that these people you are demonizing have not been tried and convicted of anything. Just because Bush, Cheney, or an Afghan warlord fingers someone doesn't mean they are guilty of anything, let alone heinous crimes that merit the death penalty."
I agree with the underlying sentiment of Publicola's words, as does, I feel confident, willybill. My sense is that when willybil refers to "these criminals" he refers to "Bush, Cheney and the entire cabal" who are, he states, "responsible for untold deaths and many yet to be counted". That is, he is not referring to anyone whom "Bush, Cheney, or an Afghan warlord fingers". It remains the case, as Publicola urges with regard to others, that Bush, Cheney and the entire cabal are also entitled to the same fair trial as are those "fingered" by Bush et al.

The problem with willybill's logic, is that these people you are demonizing have not been tried and convicted of anything. Just because Bush, Cheney, or an Afghan warlord fingers someone doesn't mean they are guilty of anything, let alone heinous crimes that merit the death penalty.

It is very easy to conjure up vicious, despicable bogey men, and the heroes like Jack Bower who saves the day against such "evio doers"; but the fact of the matter is that these kinds of torture have historically been used on dissidents, labor organizers, protestors, so-called communists, or whomever happens to be caught up in the net.

It is also a stupid way to win a war on anything. One man's freedom-fighter may not be another's terrorist, but the good old U.S. of A has surely done more than its share of terrorizing, but dropping atomic bombs or starving people with sanctions are pretty horrible too, even if we sing ourselves to bed believing that we're the good guys.

Wake up: the world is becoming more and more hateful and incensed by U.S. policies and the blowback will be a bitch.

and this will continue under a John W. McHagee administration.

I, too am against capital punishment. BUT, their are crimes so horrendous, so despicable, so evil, that somehow these criminals must be severed from society. Lock them up forever..I really care not! Just get them someplace where they cannot cause any more harm. Bush, Cheney and the entire cabal are responsible for untold deaths and many yet to be counted via DU. When you see legless 10 year olds now and deformed infants in the future, make your own decision.

'Hardened terrorists,' hardened criminals...it's all in the narrative. Sweep them up, bunch them all together in holding cells throughout the world, pay private corporations, the civil infrastructure, the armed forces to do the job and kiss their asses good by. Rehabilitation? That nasty word has left the detention lexicon decades ago. We have the largest per capita prison population in the world. Our education system is deteriorating at a frightening rate. We punish criminals, we punish terrorists, we punish Iraq, we punish Cuba, we punish our children, we punish...That is what we have become proficient in. The cost to society is enormous. The profits to the few is morally despicable.

Capital punishment is a big part of the problem. No torture! No capital punishment!

Bush=torture=international crime=indictment=conviction=hanging.

How simple can it be?