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TechnoratiMocking Constitutional Rights
On the third day of the Republican National Convention, GOP vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin mocked Barack Obama for believing that individuals accused of terrorism actually have rights under the law.
"Al-Qaeda terrorists still plot to inflict catastrophic harm on America," Palin said, "and he's worried that someone won't read them their rights."
The implication was that those suspected of being terrorists have no rights under domestic or international law. The line elicited thunderous approval from the party faithful gathered in St. Paul, Minnesota.
As the GOP delegates cheered, civil libertarians were reminded of the contempt that the Bush administration has shown to basic legal principles in its prosecution of the "war on terror," and the resounding approval these policies have gotten from the Republican Party as a whole.
Perhaps viewers at home even nodded in agreement when thinking of the "catastrophic harm" that some individuals would like to inflict on America, and how important it is to keep America safe at all costs.
But just outside the convention hall, police offered a stark reminder of how important those rights are, especially considering how broadly the term "terrorism" can be applied to just about anyone who speaks out against government policies.
Over several days of the convention, primarily peaceful Americans protesting the war in Iraq and the broader Republican agenda were targeted by aggressive police decked out in full riot gear and armed with Tasers, pepper spray, rubber bullets and tear gas.
An activist convergence center was raided, as were the homes of several protest organizers, and demonstrators were attacked, manhandled and arrested. [See Consortiumnews.com's "Storm Troopers at the RNC."]
In the jails, protesters were mistreated and even tortured, some claim.
A 19-year-old protester named Elliot Hughes alleged at a press conference that he had been beaten unconscious by police, who then banged his head against the floor to wake him up. They then moved him to a separate cell where they put a hood over his head with a gag and used pain-compliance holds on him for about an hour and a half.
His injuries were severe enough that he checked himself into a hospital after being released from jail.
Journalists Arrested
Several independent journalists were also arrested and manhandled, including Pacifica's Amy Goodman, the host of "Democracy Now!"
As Goodman describes what happened to her and two of her colleagues, "I was at the Xcel Center on the convention floor, interviewing delegates. I had just made it to the Minnesota delegation when I got a call on my cell phone with news that Sharif (Abdel Kouddous) and Nicole (Salazar) were being bloody arrested, in every sense.
"Filmmaker Rick Rowley of Big Noise Films and I raced on foot to the scene. Out of breath, we arrived at the parking lot. I went up to the line of riot police and asked to speak to a commanding officer, saying that they had arrested accredited journalists.
"Within seconds, they grabbed me, pulled me behind the police line and forcibly twisted my arms behind my back and handcuffed me, the rigid plastic cuffs digging into my wrists. I saw Sharif, his arm bloody, his credentials hanging from his neck.
"I repeated we were accredited journalists, whereupon a Secret Service agent came over and ripped my convention credential from my neck. I was taken to the St. Paul police garage where cages were set up for protesters. I was charged with obstruction of a peace officer. Nicole and Sharif were taken to jail, facing riot charges."
While what happened to Amy Goodman was no doubt deplorable as was the abuse that protesters endured in jail, what could be perhaps more chilling to the average American is the fact that other participants in the RNC protests are actually facing terrorism charges - on little to no actual evidence.
'Furthering Terrorism'
On the same day that Palin gave her speech mocking the rights of terror suspects, eight alleged leaders of an anti-authoritarian activist group called the RNC Welcoming Committee were formally charged with "Conspiracy to Riot in Furtherance of Terrorism."
The eight are being prosecuted under a 2002 Minnesota state law modeled on the USA Patriot Act. They now face up to over seven years in prison under the terrorism enhancement charge, with the only evidence against them apparently the testimony of law enforcement officials who infiltrated their organization.
Under the 2002 state law, a crime is considered to "further terrorism" if it is "intended" to "terrorize, intimidate, or coerce a considerable number of members of the public in addition to the direct victims of the act."
If accused of "furthering terrorism," individuals face a 50 percent increase in the maximum penalty they would receive for committing similar crimes (such as vandalism) that are not "intended" to "coerce" the public.
The language of the Minnesota law is eerily similar to the original Patriot Act, passed hastily in the aftermath of 9/11. Section 802 of the Patriot Act defines domestic terrorism as "activities that (A) involve acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the U.S. or any state; (B) appear to be intended (i) to influence policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or (ii) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping; and (C) occur primarily within the territorial jurisdiction of the U.S. ..."
Groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union and the American Bar Association have long objected to this definition, particularly the provision of (B)(i). The prohibition against seeking to influence government policy by "intimidation" is so vague and so subjective that virtually any act of civil disobedience or confrontational protest could fit under the definition, the critics have said.
Now it is clear that these concerns were valid.
While there have been other cases in which activists have been investigated by the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force and otherwise treated as "terrorists," the arrest of these eight individuals clearly marks an escalation of what some have called "the criminalization of dissent," and what others see as the merger of domestic law enforcement and the larger "global war on terror."
RNC 8
The case of the "RNC 8" reminds those engaged in protest activities that they need not actually commit a crime to be accused of terrorism.
As the National Lawyers Guild points out, "The criminal complaints filed by the Ramsey County Attorney do not allege that any of the defendants personally have engaged in any act of violence or damage to property. The complaints list all of [the] alleged violations of law during the last few days of the RNC ... and seeks to hold the eight defendants responsible for acts committed by other individuals."
In other words, without a shred of physical evidence, and based solely on the testimony of police officers who infiltrated the RNC Welcoming Committee, these individuals are being held responsible for the alleged criminal actions of others simply because they were involved with a group that advocated disrupting the RNC with confrontational acts of protest.
At best, it can be considered guilt by association.
But if Sarah Palin and the Republican Party were to have their way, these individuals would not even have the ability to challenge these charges in court.
After all, they are accused of terrorism, and as the Republicans have made clear, those accused of terrorism don't have any rights - not even the right to habeas corpus, a centuries-old legal tradition that affords the accused the right to face their accuser and challenge their detention in a court of law.
This is a point that Barack Obama actually made as a follow-up to Palin's comment at the RNC. Obama, who used to teach constitutional law at the University of Chicago, said on Sept. 8 that captured terror suspects deserve at least the right to file writs of habeas corpus challenging their detention.
Calling it "the foundation of Anglo-American law," he said the principle of habeas corpus "says very simply: If the government grabs you, then you have the right to at least ask, ‘Why was I grabbed?' And say, ‘Maybe you've got the wrong person.'"
In the case of the RNC 8, the principle may be even more fundamental than that. Without the right of habeas corpus, these individuals would never be able to face their accusers and see the evidence against them - which, according to their lawyers is nothing more than the accusations of police officers who infiltrated their organization.
But considering the direction that law enforcement has been heading, and the ever-growing equation of protest activism with "terrorism," it is not inconceivable that someday defendants such as the RNC 8 may not even have the chance to defend themselves in court.
It is especially chilling how enthusiastically Sarah Palin's mockery of Americans' constitutional rights was received in St. Paul by the convention delegates.
And with the relative silence that the story of RNC protests and police abuse has received in the mainstream media, it is doubtful many would even notice if constitutional rights continue to be rolled back.
116 Comments so far
Show AllIncredibly inciteful/insightful and important article. I'll have to read it at least a third time.
Most of the above comments also were helpful. Read them all.
On the question/issue of Fascism, I was describing Dubya as a Fascist before he took office. Later, Matthew Rothschild, Editor of The Progressive magazine, dared to be so bold as to refer to Bush tactics as "McCarthyist." Two people, The Rosenbergs, died as the direct result of McCarthyism. At a minimum, hundreds of thousands have died as a direct result of Dubya as President. And half the Middle East has been displaced. (So have half the American Middle Class!)
Despots practice on their conquests then bring the lessons home. Isn't that why we have Christianity? Or was Constantine an aberration?
-30-
Nat Parry is a typical Democratic Party apologist employing standard spin-doctoring techniques that are a staple of CD. The spin involves implying that Obama is opposed to what we are becoming which is an oligarchy/police state.
A good ploy used by DPAs is to try and paint Democrats as polar opposites of the despised Republicans instead of their enablers. By describing how corrupt and evil the Pugs are you are supposed to assume Democrats are different offer opposition to Pug policies which is hogwash. If Dems were an opposition party Bush won't be sitting in the White House, he'd be impeached and thrown in jail for being a war criminal.
If Obama is supposed to be a champion of our rights why did he vote to trample upon them instead of protect them. It is a damning fact that Obama was a professor of constitutional law because he should have know better than to vote for the FISA amendment that granted Bush and the Telecoms immunizing for illegally spying on us.
Come on, we are supposed to believe that Obama represents "change" and he isn't part of the establishment and he is our shining knight in corporate armor? What a load of pig crap.
Great comments: Metal (4:56 AM), Serious Professor, Iowa Blackbird, and others.
Thank you, Siouxrose. I hope that I've moved you to take another look at Orwell's essay. I love the line, "the fascist octopus has sung its swan song."
Enough chit-chat: go DO something. We need to let the city of St. Paul know that we don't appreciate their recent orgy of lawlessness. You can call or e-mail the mayor and city council; but guess who REALLY counts? The Chamber of Commerce!
And what would they really care about? No business: a boycott against visits or conventions in the Twin Cities. Their phone #: 612-370-9100. My friend talked with their director, but that won't happen once I post the number, so be prepared with a recordable message.
Oregoncharles
How many can tell you what just half of the 10 first Amendments
to the US Constitution says?? How many know that, under Art 1, Section 8 of the US Constitution, only the Congress can declare war?? What do YOU think Jefferson and Washington and John Adams would say when they looked at America today?? The USA is in serious decline. It did not have to be this way. This country lost its way when it abandoned the concept of AMERICA FIRST.
Yeah, apparently Crocker and (I think) Petraus don't know who can declare war either. Ask Ron Paul :-)
The basic theme of this article is correct: We live in a police state. Most people are in front of the TV set, so they just don't know it.
The militarization of the police happened long ago. It was true during the Democratic National Convention of 2000 in Los Angeles, where massive arbitrary arrests were carried out by the LAPD. Spies (undercover sheriff deputies) were let loose - perhaps as agent provocateurs.
The massive amount of money poured into this operation was apparent back then. Police clad in brand-new riot gear filled the streets. At the 2000 DNC, the police appeared to outnumber protesters.
Of course, the security presence was disproportionate to the "threat": that is, peaceful protesters on the street.
While I appreciate this author's theme, it's not just the Republicans who've approved this oppression. Both parties supported the PATRIOT Act, which strips us of our "inalienable" Constitutional rights. Obama, without any dissention, approved the FISA bill, which provided immunity to the telecom companies for violating Americans' Fourth Amendment rights.
At both the RNC and DNC, you found the same exclusion - the same protest cages. The cops had the same truncheons, tear gas and tactics. The conventions had the same scripting, where everything was predecided.
It's clear that the Republicans don't believe in the "rule of law." They can't shut up about it. Democratic lawmakers, by contrast, just seem mute - they violate the law by agreeing with Republicans.
I'd love to think that Democrats would change things. But they've been in power, and they simply haven't done so. As a bunch, they haven't even complained.
If the law is meaningless, it's only a matter of time. We have the numbers, even though most people seem witless about the state of things.
-TIA
Conservatives/Liberals the terms are outmoded. Governors are less interested in the governed than they are about Re-election. Would *"Native Criminal Class", be a better Descriptor? *Gore Vidal
Very good debating guys.
I like everything that you're posting here.
I can believe the arrogance/disconnect/disrespect that I read in the article above but it's the outrage that I'm having a problem with.
We are supposed to protest when we feel that our point is being ignored.
The degree that our governmental leaders are separating themselves from opposition and protest is what I feel is the problem here.
This is off the subject a little but if you'll indulge me a moment I'll make my point, Thanks.
When I turned 18 in 1978, I thought a lot about the role of America's Army's (all of the branches and the reserves), since I was naturally concerned about the recent actions in SE Asia (both legally and illegally).
I didn't read until years later in news stories and in military (history) books about the extent that the armed services were involved in the other theatres of interest around the world (pick a continent).
The State Department and the many branches of our government all contibuted to this level of involvement and the successes and the failures have helped us to get to this level of responsibility for the politics that we see around us.
Today our role has changed in the world in so many ways that only a constitutional debate would help us to define these expressions at all.
For example I mean this discussion about the meaning of the word "terrorist".
The State Department's views of the nations of the world has been both the "creature of", and in some ways the "master", that shapes our current views.
It's absolutely correct to describe anyone who resists the rule of law as a terrorist but, only with a guiding set of laws can we arrest and prosecute the accused.
I might be off here, but I think that the discussion started with a description of how these "laws" were being applied unevenly and that's the point that we are all expressing with this many different views.
Good work by everyone here except for a few sniping remarks that don't help to answer anyone or anything.
hman
Thanks for your thoughtful and intelligent contribution. And yes I agree with your observation about the small minded and nasty remarks made by a few here. Its unfortunate.
TruthTeller September 10th, 2008 11:26 pm,
actually we could be living in the gulag of the mind, where consumption and pop culture trumps any awareness of the 'police state'. maybe if you've achieved a certain economic status you can blot out the reality of the police state - say w/ prescription drugs or tv.
but for many who are too tired, from being poor in america, to have that advantage - they do live in a police state (look at rates of incarceration amongst the poor and the incredibly disproportionate amount of african americans who spend some part of their life in prison).
perhaps they couldn't afford competent legal representation, also a disproportionate amount of 'policing' occurs in poor neighborhoods. the nyt's and other papers do report these statistics - but the people ignore them, instead focusing on what britney spears wore to the mtv awards, or which new prescription drugs they feel compelled to try next week.
(as the corporate media - including the newspapers are beholden to).
as the middle class continues to disintegrate, more people will experience the police state, this time w/out the support of independent journalist (beaten, jailed) and organized resistance (possibly soon to be imprisoned by new anti terror legislation).
it's both 'brave new world' and '1984' - mind control and drugs, in gated communities for the managers / ghettos filled w/ the working poor - heavily policed and monitored. any dissent from a manager results in swift retribution...
-------------------------------
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brave_New_World
{.....Comparisons with George Orwell's 1984
Social critic Neil Postman contrasts the worlds of 1984 and Brave New World in the foreword of his 1986 book Amusing Ourselves to Death. He writes:
What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy. As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny "failed to take into account man's almost infinite appetite for distractions." In 1984, Orwell added, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short, Orwell feared that what we fear will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we desire will ruin us.
Journalist Christopher Hitchens, who has himself published several articles on Huxley and a book on Orwell, notes the difference between the two texts in the introduction to his 1999 article "Why Americans Are Not Taught History":
We dwell in a present-tense culture that somehow, significantly, decided to employ the telling expression "You're history" as a choice reprobation or insult, and thus elected to speak forgotten volumes about itself. By that standard, the forbidding dystopia of George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four already belongs, both as a text and as a date, with Ur and Mycenae, while the hedonist nihilism of Huxley still beckons toward a painless, amusement-sodden, and stress-free consensus. Orwell's was a house of horrors. He seemed to strain credulity because he posited a regime that would go to any lengths to own and possess history, to rewrite and construct it, and to inculcate it by means of coercion. Whereas Huxley ... rightly foresaw that any such regime could break but could not bend. In 1988, four years after 1984, the Soviet Union scrapped its official history curriculum and announced that a newly authorized version was somewhere in the works. This was the precise moment when the regime conceded its own extinction. For true blissed-out and vacant servitude, though, you need an otherwise sophisticated society where no serious history is taught.[8]......}
------------------------
however, i also smell the wretch of atwood's christo/patriarchal fascism wafting through the air... the possibilities of the evolution of our adolescent police state are endless. i agree w/ you that the detention of independent journalist (en mass) and the muting of venues where critics can communicate, would be 2 signs of an all out military regime.
...peace...
iowablackbird -- Excellent points. The nature and specific details "of the evolution of our adolescent police state" are crucial to understand.
I believe that one of the "strengths" of our particular managed society is that technology (coupled with the techniques of manipulation that have evolved with it) is unprecedented in the ability to keep the population needed to sustain itself in a self-referential cocoon.
Some time ago I was on a road trip and was surfing the television channels in the motel room. The entertainment, the news...almost everything (there were a few exceptions) was only of interest and only understandable as references to a very simple story line - that of corporate "success". Basically, it was not much different from the propaganda of any totalitarian society, but was much more sophisticated. The "success" is depicted as so complete and the magnet of attraction so powerful that even cultural opposition can be brought into line and become just another reference to "success".
I believe this mode of social control can be discerned everywhere... smiling faces on billboards, the covering up of aging, disease and anger and the processes by which we receive the necessities and luxuries of life. Even when we have to get out of the house, we have to "keep our eyes on the road" as we go from one parking lot or parking place to another. (Real, uncomfortable things are out there. Get by them quickly.) The wilderness and wildlife have become stars and celebrities rather than deep oceans of renewal and natural criticisms of our "way of life".
So, when something refuses to "refer" to elements of the closed system in which great numbers of people spend their lives, the reaction is shock leading to a lashing out to get rid of the intruder...a reaction we've seen in the case much public reaction to the events outside of the convention center in St. Paul. (The political campaigns of the corporatist parties are, of course, similar celebrations of "success" and illustrate the story line that everything can be brought into the fold.)
Nevertheless, I personally believe that the whole ediface of illusion is weak and built on water. It has existed in its present form for just a moment in history. I think its own overweening arrogance affects how we perceive it.
The future will be, IMO, either a more primitive kind of totalitarianism with the necessity of using fear much more widely or a decentralized culture that has preserved elements of rich meaning, life, and community.
How many here support our second ammendment rights? It is all or nothing, you cannot pick and choose from the bill of rights. The right is hipocritical about this, will the left be too?
I used to be fairly anti-gun too...I've never felt I needed one for safety, and I think hunting is simply cruel (especially sicne there's too little animals for all people to hunt for food anyway) but after everything that's been going on, I'm glad the right is there.
I used to be a supporter of gun control, but realize that a well-armed militia of Progressives could have a chance fighting people like those cheering for Palin at the RNC. You know they have guns, and they might have much of the "authorities" on their side should and if a shooting civil war break out in this country. Of course those chances are greater with another stolen election by the Repugs, or four more years of McBush, when mostly young people with no hope of a decent life will have had enough.
I'm sure people in Yugoslavia in the mid-80's, during the time of the Winter Olympics in Sarajevo, never thought their country would go through a civil war, an "it can't happen here" sort of thing. This country is as divided now on economic, political, religion, and even racial lines as Croats, Bosnians, and Serbs were divided by alphabet, region, and religion, which really were the only things dividing those people, unless you want to consider who or who didn't side with the Nazis in World War Two.
By the way, read Sinclair Lewis' book "It Can't Happen Here" because it will chill your spine, as much of what happens in that novel is happening now, not in the 30's as the story is set!
Fight back or get out of the way!
Republican pressure to crack down has its origins with the Neo-Cons from about 1970. People like Ben Wattenberg sought law and order in America. ("Ben Wattenberg is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and moderator and host of the PBS series Think Tank. He also writes a weekly newspaper column syndicated by United Media.")
What we see today is the backlash against the rebellion of African Americans, Women's Rights, and the youth movement for Peace in Vietnam.
It seems that as Howard Zinn said on September 9, 2008 about American decline, " I think all of this may very well build up into a movement of rebellion.
We have seen movements of rebellion in the past: The labour movement, the civil rights movement, the movement against the war in Vietnam.
I think we may well see, if the United States keeps heading in the same direction, a new popular movement. That is the only hope for the United States.
Grappa
What do you expect from a constitution that allowed some people to be considered 3/5th of a person! They were inslaved and brought to these shores in chains for their labor , so what has changed? The people that run this country share the same DNA with those that invested in such activities. How about the rape of the earth by the money people ,those that took the land from the indigious peoples and plundered the resorces there in. These are takers and not givers. Welcome to America.
There are *a lot* of reasons to hold another constitutional convention of the people (lobbyists and corporations not allowed.)
But don't forget about those who have struggled against the ruling class throughout our history. They are part of the nation, too - the best part.
[BTW, bless me Father for I have some of that DNA. Yes, folks, I'm 7th cousin or some damn thing to Dubya himself. (I am happy to report I'm much more closely related to Emerson.) But the Scottish barbarians, Irish moonshiners, and German peasants have inundated that old DNA and I am not conflicted...)
Heil McCain!
Samson, that was very eloquently put and very well said. The analogy with the steam kettle is perfect. As history has shown time, and time, and time again, in ANY and ALL authoritarian societies (which the US basically is, now, and becoming moreso daily) those in power eventually fall, when their abuse of power and stifling of dissent and civil liberties gets out of hand. The populace always rises up. Always - no exceptions. Read your history books.
The same will eventually happen in the US, as the constitution continues to be shredded and shit on by those in power, and the populace continues to have fewer and fewer rights. As the government ammasses more and more power over the citizens - as exemplified so starkly in St. Paul and Denver - and reads their emails, listens in on thier phone calls, raids their homes with no probable cause, calls dissenters "terrorists," denies them habeas corpus, etc, etc - it WILL cause that steam valve Samson so eloquently described to blow.
No authoritarian society ever lasts long. Ever. Period. The Rethuglicans' latest ongoing experiment in this type of government will blow up in their faces eventually. I hope I live to see it. And when it does, the name "Republican" will have the same negative connotation as "Nazi" does to this day, associated with it for all of time.
"The only thing required for evil to flourish is that good men do nothing."
We are in a POLICE STATE now! Most people just don't know it.
Let's just say a police state mold is being lowered into place and is beginning to fill.
That is because we are not.
Or have they sent the editorial staff of the NY and LA Times, as well as the Washington Post and San Francisco Chronicle, as well as a lot of more radical publications off to the gulag without my noticing it? If they have, who is writing those anti-Bush editorials?
Who is running this site? SHouldn't he/she be in the Gulag too?
Well as we know history repeats it's self as time moves in circles rather than the straight line we have attempted to conform it to as a panacea to the preceding fact.
Compassion as the recently learned, opposite and preferred first act to terrorism seems to be a recent historical lesson that is about to be exhausted, if it has not already occurred in the last eight years. Especially when a woman representing the Christian faith does not espouse it but instead mocks it in her administration.
But just like compassion, terrorism has no face, just like cancer, terrorism can be found within any human ethnicity.
We should all pray that if we are ever the one's expecting compassion over terrorism, that we may never find ourselves as the enemy of another terroristic group, within their power to use terrorism as a first means of treatment.
As our society falls further into it's own corruption, our security crumbles, and their are indeed ethnicities a plenty that carry terrorism, where there is no justice to temper their treatment and are conspiring to use our corruption as a weakness to undermine us with.
We might soon understand why Mocking compassion or choosing leaders to defend us who mock compassion will be the worst mistake in modern day history.
We might have to learn again first hand why compassion was a historical lesson we did not want to forget.
Oh, please. Now Sarah Palin is the meanie who got protestors beat up in Minnesota? How about the ones in Denver? Sarah was given a speech already written out, and coached on how to deliver it. The police were militarized long ago. Remember Waco? The original attack when GHW Bush was president? Then, liberal Bill Clinton was sworn in, and 85 people were incinerated after a tank assault. Tweedle-dum, tweedle-dee.
Established rules of armed conflict Snow Wolf? Do you know how silly that sounds? Only a fool thinks that an armed conflict has meaningful rules.
I agree with you---nobody is going to win an argument with you.
Of course there are established rules of armed conflict. If you are one of the America is evil and only does bad brigade, don't bother looking it up. I believe you are a bit more realistic than that though.
You are, of course, correct. But where is the rule about flying a black helicoper across a border into a sovereign nation in the dead of night, sneaking up to a village, kicking in the doors and machine gunning everyone in the house, women and children included?
Heck of a rule that!
We see things, not as they are, but as we are.
Anais Nin
It's called a Presidential Finding, a legal document signed by the president that is required for covert action. Which means, Bush knows every covert operation done by his administration.
I have always thought that having rules for war civilized the whole ugly business too much. Having rules for war made it all seem like a big, acceptable game. Why not make war totally unregulated? Raping women and enslaving children? Legal. Torturing and killing prisoners? Legal. Using poison gas? Legal. Nuclear weapons? All legal. My idea was to make the idea of war so repugnant that no one would ever resort to it.
Now I'm not so sure. It seems parties on every side are perfectly willing to make unregulated war the norm. Maybe humanity has no actual humanity, and we are just snarling beasts protecting our territory based on some hard-wired primal instinct we don't understand and can't change.
do a little research....
During Josef Stalin's purges that claimed as many as 20 million lives beginning in 1935 until his death in 1953, most victims were accused of "terrorism." Those who are in the most powerful positions of our nation doubtless are aware of these methods to weed out "traitors." Bush and Cheney (enabled by sellout Democrats in Congress) have set up the infrastructure for similar purges in the USA in the Patriot Act, the Military Commissions Act and FISA).
Under Karl Rove's scheme to elect George W. Bush president, the Republican leadership adopted Adolph Hitler's propoaganda minister, Dr. Joseph Goebble's "Big Lie" strategy. The "Big Lie" strategy is simple: Repeat the most ridiculous, unbelievable whoppers over and over again until the citizenry accepts them as truth (i.e. "Swiftboating").
Call me paranoid if you will, but the comparisons between the current regime and the above are striking and frightening.
If you are not paranoid; then you simply have not been paying attention to what is happening to the country I love!
and we all remember what good that did Hitler in the long run, don't we?
Leea: "and we all remember what good that did Hitler in the long run, don't we?"
If you're minimizing the evil that Hitler accomplished, you should consider the 10 million jews and other "undesireables" exterminated during the Third Reich. If you think these atrocities can't happen again, you're seriously unaware of history.
no not minimizing it at all.....just pointing out that his imbalanced approach to government had it's natural and predictable demise.
"and he's worried that someone won't read them their rights."
This is the same "Rovian Scam" method used by The Bush Reich after the Neo-Con manufactured 9/11 attacks. For weeks after 9/11 Bush traveled daily to 3 or 4 cities spewing this line: "I guess the terrorist thought we'd just file a lawsuit."
Do any of you remember that? The cable news predator's were showing every speech even tho identical to the one he gave 2 hours before and that line was always there.
Wake up America! Wake up! This administration had its talking points at the ready designed to criticise the Democrat's immediately after the attack that they themselves orchestrated.
Call me Silly but I've never believed that United States Constitutional rights apply to anyone but Citizens of the United States...
International Law would apply to all, as would the Law of Armed Conflict. But not Constitutional Rights when the Individuals are not citizens and not IN the U.S.
Go read at the Center for Constitutional Rights or Marjorie Cohn's website.
SnowWolf re-read the declaration of independence, and then consider what kind of belief system those who founded this nation where pushing towards.
Hey SnowWolf: This is a bit off topic but I know a great place for you... It's for people with right-leaning views, yet oppose the government abuses... http://www.restoretherepublic.net
I bet you'd find yourself right at home there. This isn't meant as an insult or anything... but you'd find many like-minded people there...
I come here for debate...some of you are stone dumb...but quite a few are intelligent and articulate...
(The ones who resort to personal attack when they don't have a counterpoint tickle me most)
but you are guilty of exactly that, many times in fact.
We see things, not as they are, but as we are.
Anais Nin
I may be Guilty of Sarcasm ..but I try not to attack personally...but I will try and be more careful...thank you
“I've never believed that United States Constitutional rights apply”
Does “all men are created equal” and “inalianable rights” ring a bell?
Where do you think US constitutional concepts flow from? A cereal box?
Does the US constitution say “everyone is equal, unless McCain/Obama say they are not”?
Does it say you are born with inalienable rights, unless the president says you are not?
It is classic Bush thinking to play the game of putting foreigners snatched from far away lands on trial for breaking imaginary ex post facto US created extra-territorial laws, while at the same time giving the US government the ability to rob citizens and non citizens alike of their human rights by declaring them enemy combatant sub-humans.
As usual they want it both ways; unchecked power world wide to prosecute prisoners or entire wars and then when they are challenged they claim that no law, not even their own constitution, applies, not even to themselves.
oh, looks like you beat me to this jlocke.....I concur.
"Does “all men are created equal” and “inalianable rights” ring a bell?"
That's from the Declaration of Independence, which isn't law.
“That's from the Declaration of Independence, which isn't law”
the declaration of independence isn’t law? Is the Constitution law? Is the constitution built on the declaration? If the constitution is a gd piece of paper, what does John Yoo make of the declaration?
If none of these documents had been written, would it be ok to conquer, rape and pillage?
"the declaration of independence isn’t law?"
Correct. It simply disavowed British control.
"Is the Constitution law?"
Yes, technically it is the basic statutory law of the land.
No The Declaration of Independence is not Law
The Constitution is not Law...it is a Document that RECOGNIZES your rights...our Laws are written to be within the scope of the Constitution
Snowwolf:
Article VI (from that Constitution thing)
...
This Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land...
The document itself declares it is a law, not a recognition.
we could split hairs on this all day...The Constitution is official recognition of YOUR Rights ...notice it says "And the laws of the United States"
So Technically...Yes...you're right to the extent that TOGETHER they are the law of the land
is there a Constitutional Scholar in the House?...I'm not sure I'm articulating this well
I'll go with davidpeace on this. The Constitution is the law, all our other laws are derived from it. It is the law of the land and applies to all USD citizens though some rights are extended to non citizens. Thats my understanding.
Example...an illegal alien or non cotizens has the right to ask our courts to consider their case under some circumstances.
I thought I had a pretty good definition there...but ok
(Somehow I think Arguing the Constitution with you might not be a good thing for me to try...*g*)
Um...but it IS "The Bill of RIGHTS" not the "Bill of Laws"...*LOL*
That big picture gets more obscured every day..\
If the Constitution is not Law then why is a violation thereof an impeachable offense...?
We see things, not as they are, but as we are.
Anais Nin
I have heard it said "The Constitution was written by Geniuses to Govern Idiots"
so perhaps you're right...
first lesson in law; it is grey. Second lesson in law, it rests on precedent and interpretation.
It has been my contention for several years that the reason that the Dems did not start impeachment proceedings, or bring up the violations of the US Constitution and Bill of Rights is because they intend to inherit this illegal government to use for their own ends, which I fear are very little different from the current gang.
Think about it. This illegal government has gone on, piling one unconstitutional act after another with little or no action by the Legislative or Judicial branches. That is eight years of legal precedent that there was no wrongdoing!
I can see the future, where the people try to call the fascist regime of the moment to heel.
"What are you arguing about? This has gone on for years. Have there been any trials? No. Any impeachments? No. Any censures? No. If this has gone on for almost a decade with no legal question, then that sets the precedent. The current government must be legal."
"Since it is now illegal under the Homegrown Terrorist Act to question the government, you are hereby remanded to the nearest correctional facility for the rest of your natural life or until the time of your execution."
"Next."
Did we give the Germans and Japanese Constitutional Rights?...I don't think so
Has a Sovereign Nation EVER given the Enemy full legal standing in a Wartime situation?....not on this Planet (Maybe in your little world)
in fact my understanding of international law says you do not have to accept the surrender of a Terrorist in the first place so we are already giving them more than we have to...
Jose Padilla was an American citizen, little man. Where were his rights protected?
We see things, not as they are, but as we are.
Anais Nin
You might be shocked to know I agree with you...Padilla is a scumbag traitor who should be taken out and shot but he was a U.S. Citizen
I guess the Justice Department looked at it like...hmmm....Commit treason and then demand your Constitutional Rights
...and he was convicted of what, Wolfie? This is your big picture huh, lies and bullshit. Dorian Grey had a big picture too, it wasnt good for him and yours is bad for you.
If we refuse to believe in a judicial system, in all its ramifications, then what else about our democracy is less than sacred? You are damn lucky that Thom Paine isnt around any more. He'd reject your phoney patriotism in a flash.
We see things, not as they are, but as we are.
Anais Nin
I think you're a little behind the curve on this one, ardee. The crazy right has already demonstrated that they believe they can ignore any law just by calling it "quaint." Our former Attorney General did exactly that.
Belief in a judicial system? That's for the suckers in the "reality-based community," according to the neocon taxonomy.
"...then what else about our democracy is less than sacred?"
The Bill of Rights, the integrity of the vote, separation of powers, and generally every citizen inclined to disagree out loud with the thugs in power.
Silly me.....old fashioned as all get out.
We see things, not as they are, but as we are.
Anais Nin
...nope, after pearl harbor we rounded them up and put them in concentration camps right here in the good old USA(United States of America) potentially to become USAK (United States of Alaska) oh, I'm getting off subject. But after Sept 11, we rounded up those in the Islamic culture and put them in prisons overseas and that was a big embarrassing fiasco. I guess we've changed a little.
"in fact my understanding of international law says you do not have to accept the surrender of a Terrorist in the first place so we are already giving them more than we have to..."
So SnowWolf, what exactly IS a terrorist in your mind?
its not an in my mind definition...I know exactly what a Terrorist is
A Terrorist is a member of a Para-Military Organization that wages War outside of the established rules of armed conflict to advance some idiological or political goal
They Primarliy Target Civilians or the otherwise defenseless...do not wear Uniforms or Identifying insignia.(Normally)do not carry their Arms Openly and hide among the general Populace...
WTC Attack was Terrorism..USS Cole Bombing was not
Dude...I have 30 years Military Experience...you are not going to win a debate with me on this subject
Admit it, any who disagree with your ideology are terrorists. You are one who uses the constitution , including the bill of rights, as so much toilet paper.
It isnt your supposed years of military service that makes you believe noone can win a debate with you, it is your arrogance and your blind loyalty to traitors like Dick Cheney and his sock puppet Georgie.
We see things, not as they are, but as we are.
Anais Nin
I'll acknowledge the arrogance part...yes..you're right
Blind Loyalty?...nah...I think I just see the big picture
nonsense...you can disagree with me and I don't think you're a Terrorist...but if you start saying the LIHOP/MIHOP line or Bush=Hitler to me in your argument I will think you're a Dumbass
The definition seems to have changed a little in the thirty years since you were indoctrinated.
American Protesters are now defined as terrorists.
Thats because your anarchist friends behave like them....
THIS American protester doesn't behave like them. I resent your steriotype! Welcome to AmeriKKKa!!!
Then I salute you for NOT behaving like them...they hurt your cause immeasurably
SnowWolf consistently leaves his turds in the snow then watches as the gullible line up and discuss his sh#t. Why?
It's hard to not get distracted with the Snow Wolf nonsense but I think it's best to avoid his right-wing, pro-imperialist, pro-militarist, we have a RIGHT to dominate the planet, subjugate everyone that disagrees with us, drop 500lb bombs on wedding parties by mistake (that's ok) and that he spent 30 years out in the wilderness battling "terrorists" to protect out freedoms, Big Business and Big Oil's profits, backward and unenlightened views.
Personally, I think I'll ignore the fool, cannon fodder and stooge of the imperialist powers that be.
Who are you calling gullible? I looked it up in the dictionary and dude, it's in there!
Ok... so considering one of the prerequisites of being a "terrorist" is the purposeful targeting of civilians, that would seem to imply that US troops overseas are fair game, correct?
Exactly. In one of my first International Terrorism classes here at school we were asked the question that went something like this:
A U.S. Army Chinook helicopter carrying troops out of their base to head back to the United States for recreation with their waiting families was shot down by insurgents and everyone on board was killed. Is this terrorism?
The answer is no, they are uniformed combatants in a war zone...that makes them legitimate military targets. There was an article on here about a month ago, pointing out the bias of the NYT in calling civilians who resisted the Russian occupation in Georgia heroes, while calling the civilians who resisted occupation in Baghdad terrorists. Should be in the archives from early to mid August.
Yes...
They are "Combatants"...when you put on the Uniform you assume the risk
your question is rather weird
"Dude...I have 30 years Military Experience...you are not going to win a debate with me on this subject..."
Yeah, I guess we're at a real disadvantage up against that kind of experience in spreading disinformation...
Difficult discussing freedom with someone who has experienced very little of it for 30 years.
Well I certainly earned my freedom...while you have done nothing to earn or protect it
but thats OK...Much better people than you will keep protecting it for you
It's debatable whether anything needed militarily protecting at all in the last 30 years. Thanks for your sacrifice.
This would make the American Revolutionaries 'terrorists' by your definition. Correct?
Um...No
The Continental Army Wore Uniforms ...even the Militia's Carried their Arms Openly and fought within the established rules
I can recommend some books for you (and frankly...I think you need them)
IIRC, they surprised the British with guerrilla tactics breaking many established 'rules' of warfare. (Hiding in trees, camouflage, no discernible formations)
Recommend away. Can always benefit from a broader spread of material when reading any history.
and that is perfectly OK when fighting a Guerrilla war...look what the Filipino people did against the Japanese...thats a good example of Good Guerilla Tactics...
Nathan Bedford Forrest would be a good example of how one is NOT supposed to conduct a campaign like that...although he was successful he was breaking just about every rule there was...including Massacre
in fact its not a stretch to define Bedford Forrest as a Terrorist
Who makes your “established rules”? Yeah I thought so.
How many more civilians have died in Iraq than military members? What was that you said about primarily targeting civilians?
“you are not going to win a debate with me”-Newsflash from earth:he already has “dude” ;)
What part of We Don't primarily TARGET Civilians don't you get?...
it is a Courts Martial Offense to Target Civilians...not to mention a War Crime under International Law
Let me put this in terms even you can understand....
you need to Bomb a Baby Formula Factory in an unnamed Country that is making Anthrax Spores on the side....it is full of ordinary workers making baby formula...well I hope the workers make it out ok...they are not the Target..
George W. Bush and his Republicans fit your definition of being terrorists with some minor modifications like being chicken hawk civilians that evaded combat instead of paramilitary.
By the way, anybody (US) cavalierly and carelessly dropping 500lb bombs on innocent men, women and children fits my definition of a terrorist whether they were the primary target or not.
"Did we give the Germans and Japanese Constitutional Rights?"
No, not constitutional rights as such... but habeas corpus, Yes.
Thank you...I didn't know if it was Strictly Geneva
but that makes sense as they were legitimate Military Combatants
Under the 2002 state law, a crime is considered to "further terrorism" if it is ... coerce a considerable number of members of the public in addition to the direct victims of the act."
Covers just about any politician, doesn't it.
From the Newspeak Dictionary:
crimethink - To even consider any thought not in line with the principles of Ingsoc. Doubting any of the principles of Ingsoc. All crimes begin with a thought. So, if you control thought, you can control crime. "Thoughtcrime is death. Thoughtcrime does not entail death, Thoughtcrime is death.... The essential crime that contains all others in itself."
crimethinker - One who engages in crimethink.
Orwell was not a novelist, he was a prophet. The Thought Police are alive and well in America.
Orwell WAS a Prophet...
Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty Four are critiques of the Left...Not the Right
When I see what is Happening in the UK with Political Correctness run amok and the imposition of the Nanny State (Big Brother) I see he was a Visionary and a Prophet
and he hit the nail on the head
You are incorrect.
Extremists of all kinds were the targets of Orwell's work.
Also, Big Brother is certainly not confined to right-wing versions of the "nanny state."
Have you even read Orwell? It doesn't appear so.
Cicero: "Freedom is participation in power."
Once again SnowWolf spews forth with hogwash pretending to food color it as "debate." He/she clearly knows nothing about George Orwell's personal history, let the nature of his political critiques.
George Orwell fought in the Spanish Civil War against the Right-wing fascists under Franco but was also ideologically anti-Communist--because he was against Totalitarianism. Between 1943 and l945, Orwell wrote a regular column for the Tribune, a British Left-wing weekly, entitled "As I Please" featuring his observations about British life during WWII. The British Right-wing tried numerous times to claim him as one of their own to his supreme disdain.
Orwell believed that if the working class and the educated middle-class Left could successfully cohere they would be an unbeatable political force. He constructively criticized Leftist intellectuals against the bad habit of allowing flaccid, sloganistic, evasive or gutless language to undermine policy ideas that supported democracy, equality and freedom. He felt that Leftist intellectuals were often out of touch with the working masses for whom they professed to speak and he was concerned that such speakers would scare ordinary working class voters away from the Left.
"Bad political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable and give the appearance of solidity to pure wind."
Orwell felt that middle-class orators for the Left should not live in ivory towers but should go out and live amongst and work with the working class long enough to understand and connect with them--something he did himself. He was suspicious of any partisan ideology. He rejected orthodoxies of ALL kinds. He preferred to critique society regardless of the Party currently in power so long as society remained unjust. He believed in the fearless pursuit of truth and in the power of the truth to educate a better electorate. He did not believe in letting any political faction tell one what to think or how to vote.
In Orwell's time the British Right was the bastion of a still inflexible class system with landed aristocracy at the top. Mainly because of demographic changes created by "free trade" globalism the British class system is looking more like Swiss cheese these days, though still very anal retentive and top-heavy with wealth and power. [In fact, after 30 years of Right-ward drift by both major Parties in the U.S., Amurka has less upward class mobility for the first time under Duhhbya than many places in Europe and the U.K.]
But in terms of the British politics of Orwell's day, he wanted to forge an electoral majority out of the British Labour Party and the Independent Labour Party (also Leftist) to implement democratic socialist policies that would revolutionize Britain and sweep away the old class system that he viewed as imperially regressive. These were the days when many Brits and Americans still knew enough about Socialism to see it more as a loose ideology of degree--not an absolute Totalitarian/Machiavellian doctrine like Marxist-Leninist Communism or Nazi Fascism.
Orwell knew the difference between true patriotism (which is a love of country, people, ideals and values) and nationalism (which is aggressive for the sake of macho posturing at the individual level and illegal resource theft at the national level, inherently cynical and manipulative). On this particular topic I will add this: I have nothing but contempt for the sort of thug-life militarism-equals-patriotism evinced by pro-Bush members of our armed forces since the day Bush baited-and-switched his "war on terrorism" from Afghanistan to Iraq--a move straight out of Orwell's 1984. And I'm not alone by orders of millions of Americans, many of whom have served in other wars and do not recognize the current Iraq occupation as a just war by ANY warped Right-wing definition or lie. Bush's war/occupation in Iraq never has and never will have ANYTHING to do with "protecting" America or Americans from anything. In point of fact, it has only multiplied the threat of terrorism at least six-fold according to the U.S. State Dept.'s own annual figures going back to 2003.
If Orwell were alive today he would tell America's Left and DLC Democrats to fearlessly confront the propaganda storms and fear-mongering of the Right with the truth; to never dumb down the message for the sake of the least common political denominator, but to educate and inform about what we have in common as human beings that makes us all worthy of having enough economic, environmental and Constitutional wherewithal to live decent lives as a free people.
Bingo, except, I suppose, for thinking that the DLC is an opponent of the right.
There follows a short bit from Orwell's 1946 essay, "Politics and the English Language."
---------------------------------
In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defence of the indefensible. Things like the continuance of British rule in India, the Russian purges and deportations, the dropping of the atom bombs on Japan, can indeed be defended, but only by arguments which are too brutal for most people to face, and which do not square with the professed aims of the political parties. Thus political language has to consist largely of euphemism, question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness. Defenceless villages are bombarded from the air, the inhabitants driven out into the countryside, the cattle machine-gunned, the huts set on fire with incendiary bullets: this is called pacification. Millions of peasants are robbed of their farms and sent trudging along the roads with no more than they can carry: this is called transfer of population or rectification of frontiers. People are imprisoned for years without trial, or shot in the back of the neck or sent to die of scurvy in Arctic lumber camps: this is called elimination of unreliable elements. Such phraseology is needed if one wants to name things without calling up mental pictures of them. Consider for instance some comfortable English professor defending Russian totalitarianism. He cannot say outright, ‘I believe in killing off your opponents when you can get good results by doing so’. Probably, therefore, he will say something like this:
‘While freely conceding that the Soviet regime exhibits certain features which the humanitarian may be inclined to deplore, we must, I think, agree that a certain curtailment of the right to political opposition is an unavoidable concomitant of transitional periods, and that the rigors which the Russian people have been called upon to undergo have been amply justified in the sphere of concrete achievement.’
The inflated style itself is a kind of euphemism. A mass of Latin words falls upon the facts like soft snow, blurring the outline and covering up all the details. The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one's real and one's declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish spurting out ink. In our age there is no such thing as ‘keeping out of politics’. All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred, and schizophrenia. When the general atmosphere is bad, language must suffer. I should expect to find — this is a guess which I have not sufficient knowledge to verify — that the German, Russian and Italian languages have all deteriorated in the last ten or fifteen years, as a result of dictatorship.
The statement that the "DLC is an opponent of the Right" is a generality in which I neither believe nor disbelieve. The DLC are the epitome of flip-flopping opportunists.
The DLC does SOMETIMES oppose the Republican Right because they must appear, for the sake of partisan legacy--pretending to identify with pre-1980 Democratic Party core constituencies--to oppose the GOP during campaigns and in some other political and media-related situations. If a DLC member's base is not dependent on a particular corporate lobby for campaign money they will occasionally show a glimpse of vertebrae, but they are generally cowards when facing the business press and the GOP. They have to be pushed to show more legislative courage by those to the Left of them. The belated trend toward fielding more progressive opponents to run against people like Nancy Pelosi and Joe Liebermann is long overdue, as is a unified Progressive Party. But that is no excuse in the meantime not to pressure the DLC to move Left.
There you go again, Wolfie...By the by, your absence was appreciated. Your absolute closemindedness is appalling, frankly, and as has already been mentioned, those books are indictments of all totalitarian thinking. You know, like thinking only one side in a war tells lies when it is obvious that the first casualty of war is the truth.
You are a peculiar little fellow and you undoubtedly fail utterly to understand how your blind loyalties and refusal to see beyond your ideology harms this nation you pretend to love.
We see things, not as they are, but as we are.
Anais Nin
when was I absent?
"when was I absent?"
When the topic was dead Afghan children.
nope...I said if it turns out they did it...I will have a heaping helping of Crow...I also said the Army has re-opened the investigation...and there was a News Crew embedded with the unit and they turned over their film to the investigators
Lets see what the investigation says...
The problem is this type of smear article gets front page coverage if it is against Americans...but if it turns out the Taliban had some mortar rounds fall short and killed those kids the correction is a 1" square on page A35
You missed this one:
Published on Monday, September 8, 2008 by Associated Press
"Videos Show Dead Afghan Children After US Raid"
by Fisnik Abrashi
Implying our government's actions are no worse than the terrorists lowers us to their level. Blaming the media for pointing out our government's failures is counterproductive to a free society. It is not OK if we don't know about it - Abu Graib would not have been OK, Guantanamo Bay would not have been OK, the razing of Fallujah would not have been OK, the bombing of Iraq weddings would not have been OK.
So many official reports have been in error, whitewashed, or intentionally false that waiting for the "investigation" is not a solution. Ending the "war" is the only solution.
...and he's gone again! Cockroaches scuttle from the light, neocons from the truth.
We see things, not as they are, but as we are.
Anais Nin
What makes you think the UK is 'left?'
Orwell may have based Oceania upon the USSR, but it is equally valid to read his work in the context of any Totalitarian political colouring.
-"Al-Qaeda terrorists still plot to inflict catastrophic harm on America," Palin said, "and he's worried that someone won't read them their rights."
Palin is dead wrong. She should be mocking Obama for his aquescence in the rounding up of peacefull political demonstrators and media members. His hypocracy flies in the face of his avowed belief in civil rights for “terrorists”. If he can’t stand up for Amy Goodman’s rights, why should anyone believe he would stand up for the rights of anyone else?
Actually he's worried that the Republicans won't get his jokes right.
THANK YOU for your comment ! Where is Obama's outrage ????
Given the Republican Party's disdain for human rights, no one should be shocked about torture and abuse at Abu Ghraib and Gitmo. Palin's people are fascists through and through.
One key thing to remember is that what you saw on the convention floor is not the majority of Americans. And I'd doubt that the Republicans are unified on this. So, its probably better to view it as a influential minority of maybe 20% of the populace. They manage to drag along others with their rhetoric. But that support can be rather soft.
There is an old tradition amongst Republicans where 'small government' means opposition to exactly this sort of police powers. Remember how upset Republicans were at the Clinton Administration's use of the FBI for example. That undercurrent is still there. There are probably a lot of Republicans that might cheer a line in a partisan speech, but if push really came to shove, would not approve of this sort of elimination of civil liberties.
Of course, one problem is since the Democrats also accept this, they never push back, so push never really does come to shove on these issues. If the Democrats made a strong case as to why this should not be, they'd find a lot of support.
Which goes to the other problem. In general, the Democrats and Republicans are doing what they want and they don't seem to care about public opinion.
----------------------------
"To know, and not to do, is not to know"
www.samsonsworld.blogspot.com
Just to underscore my point about Dems and Repugs, notice that the Dems never did anything serious about stopping the abuses at either Abu Ghraib or Gitmo. A few grandstanding statements, but never any serious opposition. And remember, all the top Democrats in the congressional leadership and the intel committees are briefed by the White House on all of this. They know what's going on, and they don't object.
The point was even more clear in the streets of Denver. A Democratic mayor used very much the same principles to quash protest against the Dem convention. Maybe not quite as extreme. But, as the police here met any protest with hundreds of riot police, as they raided the convergence center here, as they spied on and infiltrated the groups organizing here, as they closed the park that was trying to host a 'Festival of Democracy', it becomes clear that the difference is only a matter of degree. Focusing only on Republicans as the cause of the problem is a mistake.
----------------------------
"To know, and not to do, is not to know"
www.samsonsworld.blogspot.com
What dissent is allowed? At what point are the people allowed to challenge power?
According to the high school civics text books, the people can do this through the political process. Yet, should they try they find a political process that is blocked. We have a two party monopoly that excludes any other candidates. Only the candidates picked by the two party machines can participate. We have a political process where money has been made the prime determiner of who can compete and who can win.
So, citizens are likely to find the political process blocked. We see this in seeing overwhelming numbers of Americans who say we should end our wars and come home, but the two major parties won't provide a candidate with those views. And any other candidates who might advocate that are blocked from the airwaves, from the debates, and in some cases even from the ballot.
Thus, the next step is protest and civil disobedience. This is the avenue that has been traditionally available to groups who find the political process blocked. They can use these peaceful methods to raise public awareness of their cause. Perhaps the most prominent example of this in the last half decade is the civil rights movement.
But, what's key in the article is that this is now being blocked. When a group gets together and plans civil disobedience, ie, the commission of minor offenses like an unpermitted march or blocking a sidewalk, what we see now is that the police are infiltrating these groups, and then trying to lay conspiracy or in this case 'terrorism' charges on people.
One key point is that the punishment should fit the crime. The punishment should not change if there is a political motive involved. So, if you either don't arrest or just give a jaywalking ticket to someone who illegally walks in the street, then that should be the same penalty when a protesters illegally marches in the street. If blocking a sidewalk is at best a ticket normally, then that should be the ticket when a political group does this.
The big problem is this. A healthy society needs ways that the people can espouse the causes that are important to them. A healthy society needs to be able to correct itself when its leaders start making bad mistakes. In the US, the political system has largely been blocked by the corporate parties and their candidates. Now it appears the police want to shut down any ability to protest or to do civil disobedience.
This is the equivalent of plugging the relief valve on a steam kettle. Yes, it cuts out that annoying noise. But, the pressure still builds up, and if it doesn't have a way to release, it will just continue to build up until it blows. In the short term, the police state types might be proud of themselves for stopping that annoying noise. In the long term, they will likely realize someday that this was a major mistake.
----------------------------
"To know, and not to do, is not to know"
www.samsonsworld.blogspot.com
If peaceful avenues for empowerment are blocked, it will lead to violence. It's that simple.
What samson didn't say, but I'm sure understands, is that the boiling point will come when the masses realize that their basic human needs can no longer be fulfilled. The last century provided ample proof of people allowing incredible atrocities to happen but not doing anything to hold their governmant responsible for its actions, simply because their basic needs were being met: they had food on the table (even if not enough of it at times), a roof over their head, and something to do to occupy their free time, such as a job. Around the world, food is becoming scarce or spiking in prices so as to be almost unattainable. Here in America, we are still shipping more and more jobs overseas. And finally, foreclosures are up, thus making hundreds to thousands of more people homeless. With time on our hands, and major grievances, like not having enough to eat, how much longer will it be before the proverbial s--- hits the fan? It is such as these that revolutions are made.