Not to quibble too much, but at least in the case of the detainees from other countries, the Constitution never guaranteed their rights. That would be the Geneva Convention, under which the bill attempts to wheedle out enough wiggle room to allow torture.

But it is telling about the minds of the administration that, while the Declaration of Independence, a founding document of our country, holds that all men are born with certain inalienable rights (later codified in the Constitution and Bill of Rights), they have no problem withholding them from others not born in this country. You'd think if we really chose to stand for freedom and against totalitarianism we'd extend those same rights to those we hold.

I must to have spoken with the same person in Senator Nelson's office. I also felt it necessary to send him email and snail mail. Particularly interesting, to me, is the fact that you can go to his website and you will find NO mention of this bill, the vote, or anything relating to "detainees" at all. Not even in the news section, which has headlines from the 26th through today.

Obviously, Senator Nelson is very proud of his position and wants visitors to his site to know all about it.

Also, Wil Wheaton is my hero.

I picture a rally of grand scale descending upon the Whitehouse that so terrifies them that we see an attempt to control the masses with violence ala Kent State and Tienanmen Square. I would love to say one day, nostalgically speaking, that I attended the rally that put an end to the Bush Dictatorship but barely got outside my doorsteps to join the masses gathering in DC that extended outwards for several states.

But then I think after the '06 elections little will change and after '08 with the democrats merely throwing Hilary up for humiliation that things will continue to get worse.

I am now reminded that I should fight this negativity with positive thinking. If we all worked together to imagine and idealize the USA as the place of peace, fairness, justice, prosperity, generosity, and Liberty that we claim it should be and avoid giving any negative attention to those whose behavior we deplore we might just enact the changes necessary to make it come true rather than fuel the fires of those who's actions we can only condemn with more negative energy. Think positively, constructively, with hope for a brighter tomorrow in spite of the ills of today.

To quote Cornell West:

amen.

It's not the most eloquent thing in the world, but here's what I sent my friends and family today just because I cannot remain silent. If it rings true to anyone, feel free to use all or portions!

Hello All,
Sorry for the preachy e-mail, but I feel the urgent need to write about what our government has just done. Yesterday was a sad day in U.S. history. When the Democrats rolled over for what they believed to be politically expedient reasons and helped pass the Bush administration's extraordinarily anti-American bill, our government essentially legalized torture, eliminated habeas corpus, and undermined the US Constitution. Bush has dealt a serious blow to the very principles upon which this country were founded.

I will be taking off work 10/5. I can't sit by any longer. Please see:

http://worldcantwait.net/index.php

This site comes off a bit radical, but at this point, I'm not sure that it matters. Liberals, pro-Constitution Republicans, anarchists, libertarians, Greens, religious and non-religious, can all agree on one thing: Bush has gone way overboard. I have a difficult time going to protests. It's easier to be with them in spirit than in body. Though these protests often bring out extremists of all flavors, they do represent true democracy and frankly, it is the inaction, the passive compliance of the middle that allows Bush to be Bush.

Maybe the Republicans lose mightily in November; maybe things settle down after Bush leaves in two years. But maybe not. I don't have a great deal of confidence in the Democrats either. Maybe, just maybe, this is a watershed moment.

In a letter sent to members of Congress this week, 609 law professors wrote:

"Taken together, the bill's provisions rewrite American law to evade the fundamental principles of separation of powers, due process, habeas corpus, fair trials, and the rule of law, principles that, together, prohibit state-sanctioned violence. If there is any fixed point in the historical understandings of constitutional freedom that help to define us as a people, it is that no one may be picked up and locked up by the American state in secret or at an unknown location, or without opportunity to petition an independent court for inspection of the lawfulness of the lockup and of the treatment handed out by the state to the person locked up, under legal standards from time to time defined by Congress. This core principle should apply with full force to all detentions by the American state, regardless of the citizenship of detainees."

The professors cite three specific objections to the legislation: its denial of habeas corpus review for detainees who aren't U.S. citizens; its empowering of the president to "to decide which techniques violate the Geneva Conventions for purposes of criminal sanction under the War Crimes Act, so long as they do not fall within the category of 'grave breaches'"; and its abandonment of "our longstanding constitutional protections against punishing people on the basis of coerced testimony and against denying individuals the opportunity to defend themselves through access to exculpatory evidence known to the government."
James Madison, in Federalist Papers No. 47: "The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny."

Well, as much as I am disgusted with the current trends in our government, I will not apologize for them. To apologize is to accept responsibility; that is to say that _I_, personally, had a hand in this current abomination of justice. As I did not, and in fact have fought diligently against it, I see no need to lessen the blame which should land squarly upon the heads of George W. Bush and the Neo-Cons by carrying it upon my own shoulders.

That being said, our country is in dire need of change and it is the responsibility of our citizens to recognize the danger in which we are currently in and take action. Being an optimist, I believe that we shall; the American people have always been slow to anger, but when awakened our fury is unmatched. I believe that the immortal Robert LaFollette summed up my personal view best when speaking about the Progressive Movement in 1924:

Mere passive citizenship is not enough. Men must be aggressive for what is right if government is to be saved from those who are aggressive for what is wrong. The nation has awakened somewhat slowly to a realization of its peril, but it has responded with gathering momentum. The Progressive movement now has the support of all the moral forces that the solution of a great problem can command. The outlook is hopeful. There is no room for pessimism.
--"Fightin' Bob" LaFollette Aug 11, 1924

Also, I can't wait for us to act on some bad intel gotten through torture... ugh.. so sickening.

Torture just puts us on the same level as the people we are trying to fight.

Ahh, but they are "evil doers" and we are righteous.

Wrong committed in the name of righteousness is right.

Welcome to Oceania.

Protests in your neighborhood 10/5
http://worldcantwait.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2418&_event=14

I've been revisiting Howard Zinn's Artists In Times of War... In it, he quotes Mark Twain from A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court...

"You see my kind of loyalty was loyalty to one's country, not to its institutions or its office holders. The country is the real thing, the eternal thing: it is the thing to watch over,and care for,and be loyal to; institutions are extraneous, they are its mere clothing, and clothing can wear out, become ragged, cease to be comfortable, cease to protect the body from winter, disease, and death. To be loyal to rags, to shout for rags, to worship rags, to die for rags - that is a loyalty of unreason, it is pure animal; it belongs to monarchy, was invented by monarchy; let monarchy keep it. I was from Connecticut, whose Constitution declares "that all political power is inherent in the people, and all free governments are founded on their authority and instituted for their benefit; and that they have at all times an undeniable and indefeasible right to alter their form of government in such a manner as they may think expedient"

not exactly Huck Finn there folks

Pretty sure we already have.

I would say that that is a safe assumption:

Leave it to Sen Chaffee to actually make me appreciate him. He stood up for the America I stood up for in the United States Marine Corps...and his father stood up for in the Senate as well. I know I"ve said allot of bad things about the guy..thats he's a RHINO this and that...but standing up to this bill puts things in persepctive..he tried to stop the Bush Empire and Unfortuintiy there weren't enough good men like him. I will defantily now Vote for his re-election. May God bless him and the American people.

I just hope now that Democrats control Congress again the saner members of the party will convince the spineless members to go along with a repeal of this torture law.

think twice, just in case.

at this point, these sorts of methods may be america's only choice to remain top dog.

i'm not defending it, i'm just saying - i think if you could get a truly honest poll, i think a lot of americans would be okay with whatever kept their gas prices low and their ira afloat.




that's why i hate america.