An Welcome Solution

(Cartoon by Joel Pett/Lexington Herald-Leader (2/27/14) and featured at McClatchy DC.  Click on image to enlarge)

Another skirmish in the battle for human rights in this country is over, and this time the good guys won.  Arizona Governor Jan Brewer finally vetoed the bill which would give businesses the right to refuse service to gays on the basis of religious beliefs.  Given all of the ink and electrons spilled over the bill nationally, the veto came as no surprise.  What was a surprise was where the pressure to overturn the state legislature came from. 

I think Bill Dwyre got it right:

The issue had a number, SB (Senate Bill) 1062. It also had a label, the anti-gay bill. It was passed by the Arizona Legislature recently but vetoed by Gov. Jan Brewer on Wednesday night. As written, it said that for religious reasons a business person may legally withhold services from gays, lesbians and transsexuals.

It was, of course, a hot topic. Prominent people weighed in. It didn't seem to have any political lines, just across-the-board amazement that it was passed by the state Legislature and disgust that it took so long to veto.

Those opposing the bill seemed to merely be battling stupidity.

The biggest wedge seemed to come from the leverage of sports. The Super Bowl is scheduled here next year, and the NFL's stance seemed quite clear.  [Emphasis added]

While it is true that those other businesses which benefit from tourism were also against the bill (it might very well have cost them millions, if not billions), it was the veiled threats from the NFL and MLB (a lot of major league teams hold spring training in Arizona) that provided the capstone.

So, while the reasons for the veto may have been based in greed, the outcome was a victory for human rights.  And that was a welcome reminder that the boycott, even the threat of one, is still a handy tool for political change.

Mr. Droney

(Editorial cartoon by Jack Ohman / Sacramento Bee (February 14, 2013) and featured at McClatchy DC.  Click on image to enlarge and then please return.)

As I mentioned last week, President Obama's use of armed drones has had some unintended consequences, but all our senators were interested in talking about was their use against American citizens without some kind of check.  This week, the United Nations has decided to have a look-see and has issued a report on civilian deaths in Afghanistan caused by the use of drones.

The number of U.S. drone strikes in Afghanistan jumped 72 percent in 2012, killing at least 16 civilians in a sharp increase from the previous year, the U.N. said Tuesday in a sign of the changing mission as international forces prepare to withdraw combat forces in less than two years. ...

The U.N. mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) said 506 weapons were released by drones last year, compared with 294 in 2011. Five incidents resulted in casualties last year, with 16 civilians killed and three wounded, up from just one incident in 2011.

Even as drone attacks increased, the U.N. reported an overall decrease in civilian deaths by airstrikes with the U.S.-led coalition implementing stricter measures to prevent innocent people from being killed.

The U.N. said most of the civilian casualties from drone strikes appear to be the result of weapons aimed directly at insurgents but some may have been targeting errors.

It called for a review of tactical and operational policy on targeting to ensure compliance with international humanitarian law "with the expansion of the use of unmanned combat aerial vehicles" in Afghanistan. Drones are highly effective but have strained relations between the U.S. and Pakistan as well as other nations where the strikes are carried out because civilians are sometimes killed alongside targeted terrorists.    [Emphasis added]

Of course, we don't need no steenkin' interational humanitarian law.  We're the USA! USA! USA!

Also, of course, we are setting ourselves up for decades of retribution from those countries and/or groups who don't take kindly to being bombed from the sky at the whim and whimsy of our leaders.

And, also, of course, some of us don't particularly like the domestic use of drones for "surveillance".  Even those of us who are law-abiding find that a nasty attack on our right to privacy.

Just Helping Out

Some congress critters got quite an earful about US treatment of the Uighurs held at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp, according to this McClatchy DC article.

U.S. military personnel at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, actively helped Chinese interrogators question members of China's Uighur minority, including physically restraining them so they could be photographed against their will, according to testimony presented Thursday to a congressional subcommittee. ...

Human rights advocates have accused the U.S. of helping China gather information from the Uighurs for use against their friends and families back home, where tension between the predominantly Muslim Uighurs and the dominant Han Chinese frequently breaks into public protest and violence. [Emphasis added]

That assistance extended to "softening" the prisoners up in the days before the Chinese interrogators arrived and assisting the Chinese during the interrogations, which is bad enough. However, the military also handed over information gotten from the Uighurs after promising the information would be kept confidential:

Among the Uighurs' claims:

_ U.S. military personnel treated them harshly in the days before Chinese officials visited the Guantanamo Bay detention facility in an effort to soften them up for interrogation.

_ That harsh treatment included keeping the detainees awake, subjecting them to frigid temperatures, and keeping them isolated from one another and other prisoners. All of those techniques were approved for use on detainees by then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld.

_ U.S. soldiers followed Chinese officials' orders to restrain detainees they said weren't cooperating. One detainee testified that an American told him the harsh treatment he'd received after his interrogation had been at the direction of the Chinese. ...

The Uighurs also complained that information they'd given to Americans on the condition of confidentiality had been shared with the Chinese officials, who flaunted it during the interrogations.

Not only did the US complicity affect the Uighurs directly, it also extended to their family members and friends back in China. I think we can expect more violence in China with respect to the Uighurs, and the targets will be easier to locate thanks to the US assistance.

It's amazing the lengths a debtor nation will go to keep its creditors happy, eh? We'll even do their dirty work for them.

Shameful.

Rulings and Rhetoric

The issues that a Supreme Court decides are often put in terms of the issues of the underlying lawsuit, without acknowledging that the justices are deciding on how the law applies. When our laws included legislation deciding that miscegenation (interracial marriage), or integration, or abortion, was punishable, the Supreme Court ruled that the constitution prevented the laws against such non-crimes as those.

Now we have wingnuts who are committed to keeping women from the right to decide - under medical supervision - on matters related to their own reproduction and/or health. The wingnut mantra often includes an invocation to rid ourselves of 'activist judges', and sometimes the doctors who practice healing their ideology opposes.

The issues which are actually before the court are very different from the steamy accusations of the ignorant.

The presumption in a democracy is that the majority rules, and frustration results when unelected judges set aside the majority's rules. The frustration is tempered if the court bases its decision on clear-cut constitutional rights or if the explanation resonates at some basic level even among those who are disappointed in the outcome. But clear-cut cases are rare for the Supreme Court. If the Constitution's meaning in a case is clear, the case will probably be resolved by the lower courts.

So how should a Supreme Court justice go about resolving the constitutional issues that divide the court? That is the question the Senate will be exploring with Judge Sonia Sotomayor.

The questions will focus on specific issues -- whether, for example, the nominee agrees that the Constitution protects the right to choose an abortion. Concerns will be expressed, and assurances given, in familiar terms -- that the nominee is or is not a judicial activist or does or does not believe the court should make law or policy. The real debate, however, will be over who gets to decide the most controversial issues of the day -- elected representatives who are responsive to majority will or an independent judiciary that is (relatively) immune from public pressure.

Everyone has an opinion about abortion, same-sex marriage, gun control and affirmative action. But we should care as much about who decides these issues as we do about what decision is made. Calling something a "constitutional right" means that the court, not Congress or state legislatures, has the final word -- in every sense. Legislation is by its nature tentative. It can be revoked at any time for any reason. A constitutional decision by the Supreme Court, however, is for all time. It is a statement that a principle is so fundamental that it cannot be subject to majority rule, now or ever. That is what the Supreme Court is deciding when it declares something a matter of constitutional right. It is the kind of judgment that a justice must be confident enough to make at times, but modest enough not to make too eagerly.

Sanity would be a great improvement over the present level of argument about the nomination of Judge Sotomayor. This post has a great deal of sanity, and logic, so it is most likely to be ignored.

On a court that rendered judgment against a woman's right to choose, declaring that women can't bear that responsibility, a voice of reason is desperately needed.

Yesterday the existing court passed down a ruling that determined our existing laws are the problem with 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell'. While I see that equal rights for gays are constitutional, the majority on the court found that a decision must be made by the administration before the judicial branch can act.

The court sided with the administration, which had urged the justices not to hear the appeal against the policy, even though President Obama is on record as opposing it.

The court thus spared the administration from having to defend in court a policy that the president eventually wants to abolish pending a review by the Pentagon.
(snip)
According to a July 2008 Washington Post/ABC News poll, 75 percent of Americans favor allowing gays to serve openly in the services, compared with 44 percent in 1993.

Most citizens of the U.S. are of the same mind that I am, and that means that the court has decided contrary to public wishes, but on the side of existing law. While this article implies that the Supreme Court has considered political views in deciding the law, that should not be part of any decision. Only the legal issues should be before them.

Of course, if the membership of the court were changed, it obviously would be more in line with the constitution, and majority rule, when its existing decisions are reviewed.

The Cost of Bad Information

The media continues to represent the country's attitudes by thrusting immoderates into the limelight. On the Sunday news shows, the freaks like George Wills and Pat Buchanans are lined up beside Dr. Paul Krugman and Sen. Patrick Leahy, as if they had the weight and soundness of real intellects.

The results are dismally predictable. Craziness sounds like sanity, so the careless listener gives it credit. We get opinions that poll as if the entire constituency of the country were gaga. Today's AP poll results were released, and we who keep pounding out facts and trying to counterbalance the lies are discouraged.

What is the majority convinced of by bad information?

Torture is okay if it gives good results, even though (1) it's illegal and unconstitutional and (2) the results of torture are known to be unusable as actual intelligence.

Closing Gitmo is okay, but not if it's hard work.

Just over half of Americans say torture is at least sometimes justified to thwart terrorist attacks and are evenly divided over whether to close the Guantanamo Bay prison, according to a poll that underscores the challenges President Barack Obama faces in selling his terror-fighting policies.
(snip)
A novice commander in chief, Obama risks further defeat of his policies in Congress and disapproval of them abroad if he can't get the public on board. Thus, he's making a tough sell.

For now at least, the AP-GfK poll shows most Americans have faith in him, with 70 percent saying they are confident of Obama's ability to address terrorism. That's divided along party lines, with nearly all Democrats, two-thirds of independents and just over a third of Republicans expressing confidence.

Nearly eight years after terrorists struck on U.S. soil, more than a third of Americans say they worry about the chance that they or their relatives might fall victim to a terrorist attack — essentially unchanged from 35 percent five years ago.

While the total failures of the ideology that prevailed through disgusting tactics for eight years has had some effect of alienating the afflicted public, continuing media coverage of war criminals that erases their crimes works against their outright rejection.

Folks, we need to be clearer. Prosecution is going to have to follow crime, and the polls show it. While they knew they were being robbed, your average Joes/Janes are just not making the connection that the folks who were robbing them were the ones charged with enforcing the laws. We don't make the point until we actually do enforce them.

The media doesn't do its job until we give it no choice.

**************************************************************

The TX legislature adjourned without doing its basic job. A very good coverage of this is at jobsanger;

.....the Republicans spent a large part of the session trying to pass a voter suppression bill (which they called the Voter ID bill). The Republicans know the political winds are currently blowing against them. They have only two choices -- moderate their views and appeal to a broader range of voters or suppress as many votes as possible. These right-wing nuts chose voter suppression.

The voter suppression bill easily passed the Republican-dominated Senate, but was killed in the House (where there are 76 Repubs and 74 Dems). The only hope to revive the bill is to force the governor to call a "special session" of the legislature. That is why the Senate refused to pass the resolution to keep TxDOT alive for another two years. If they had passed it, there would be no reason for a special session to be called.

So don't be surprised when the governor calls for a special session to save TxDOT. And don't be surprised when a voter suppression bill is added to the special session agenda. That's what this whole mess is about.

We have a whole mess of recidivists in Austin keeping the government from protecting the citizens. It's gotten closer in numbers, the Democrats are close to balance now. We have to push harder.

Something Else To Worry About

The federal government has been very busy monitoring our emails, telephone calls, bank deposits, and library borrowings. Now they've added to their collection efforts. From the NY Times:

Until now, the federal government genetically tracked only convicts. But starting this month, the Federal Bureau of Investigation will join 15 states that collect DNA samples from those awaiting trial and will also collect DNA from detained immigrants — the vanguard of a growing class of genetic registrants.

The F.B.I., with a DNA database of 6.7 million profiles, expects to accelerate its rate of growth from 80,000 new entries a year to 1.2 million by 2012 — a 17-fold increase. F.B.I. officials say they expect DNA processing backlogs — which now stand at more than 500,000 cases — to increase.

Yes, that's right: the feds are going to start collecting DNA from people who have not been convicted of a crime, or who have committed penny-ante crimes such as check bouncing, or who are suspected of being in the country illegally. Constitutional? Probably not, but with this Supreme Court it's hard to tell.

We're supposed to accept this intrusion because it will save lives, or something, and besides, why should law-abiding citizens object? After all, they shouldn't have anything to hide.

Rock Harmon, a former prosecutor for Alameda County, Calif., and an adviser to crime laboratories, said DNA demographics reflected the criminal population. Even if an innocent man’s DNA was included in a genetic database, he said, it would come to nothing without a crime scene sample to match it. “If you haven’t done anything wrong, you have nothing to fear,” he said.

Yeah, right. An innocent person whose DNA is collected has about as much chance of getting the entry deleted as he or she does in getting their name off the "no-fly" list: zero to none.

And about that "nothing to fear" comment? How about fearing that the genetic information in that data base will fall into other hands, say, life and health insurance companies? We've had several stories come down the pike in the last month showing just how insecure the government's various computer systems are. And we've also seen stories about unscrupulous government employees who have peeked into passport and other records not germane to their duties and shared them with others.

No, this is just another violation of our right to privacy, only this violation is more appalling because it violates our personal integrity. I don't know whose idea this was, but the fact that it is being instituted during President Obama's watch is deeply troubling.

Those Killer Fields

The talks on agricultural subsidies just never get off the launching pad when world leaders get together. As we recently observed closely in G20 meetings where our new president showed great abilities for unifying the nations with a formerly offensive U.S. stance, leaders on parade need to stay responsive to their constituencies. Farming, and food, remain an area that is personal to constituencies everywhere.

The farmer has faded into our background in U.S. economic decisions, while still holding a strong sway in our imagination. Our policies are enriching large agricultural industries rather than the family farm, as a result. On the floor of congress, the speeches wax emotional about those idyllic rural institutions, but the effects of farm subsidies is mainly one of swill for the Bigtime hogs that are farming businesses.

A vastly different picture comes out of India, where small farmers are accumulating debts so overwhelming that suicides are epidemic as the only way to end the torment for family farmers. While it is almost easy to assume that the blame is with out promotion of our own agricultural economics, a closer look indicates that the world's lax regard when it comes to banking regulation has been more to blame than lobbying for support for farmers.

Each year before the harvest, the small farmers of Punjab, who make up nearly 85% of the state's farming community, borrow from local rural moneylenders at exorbitant interest rates to meet production costs, including fertilisers and electricity for irrigation.

"[Lakhbir] has a loan of more than 700,000 rupees ($15,000), which he cannot repay," says Ms Kaur.

Defaulting on payment increases the rates of interest and a farmer is publicly humiliated in the local panchayat (self-governing rural body) if he fails to pay up.

"His elder brother, my father, committed suicide more than a year ago, as his loan had accumulated up to $20,000," says 15-year-old Jasbir, who discovered her father's body.

"I do not think I can ever repay the whole amount," Lakhbir confesses.
(snip)
Another government report published in 2007 suggested that "about 12% of marginal and small farmers have left farming" over the past few years.

Among the reasons is the lack of access to credit, a facility denied by banks to farmers with no property.

"Bank loans to small farmers without collateral declined sharply as India introduced neo-liberal policies in the 1990s," says Bernard D'Mello, deputy editor of Economic and Political Weekly.

Farmers had to approach rural moneylenders who charge exorbitant rates.

Estimates of more than 200,000 farmers committing suicide since 1997 also attribute their plight to a growing surplus of crops, lowering prices for producer/farmers.

Farming in this country is usually attributed to a landowner, but that is not always the case. Many of our rural farming incomes come from 'croppers' who farm other people's large acreage. Often the elderly and land-poor (those who have large properties they can't farm for themselves) rely on those farmers who till several farms and share their returns - along with their failures. A bad year for sharecroppers is a bad year for the landowner too, even with crop insurance. In third world farming communities, returns are diminished by increasing productivity, ironically enough. While our governments are coddling financial innovations like credit default swaps, our actual wellbeing is going unattended to as productivity gets negative rewards.

In the Great Depression of the 30's, a characteristic sign of despair was of the broken investors on Wall Street leaping out of windows. In this depression, we are seeing the productive members of society reduced to such despair that we have an onslaught of shootings of their families and themselves in working communities, and last resort suicides in impoverished countries like India.

Our attention as a society needs redirection. Manipulating monies does not make us prosperous, and this country is in the position of losing businesses and jobs because our mogul horde has made real production costly instead of profitable.

This government needs to begin the overdue rewarding of workers, and turn away from its practice of stripping the rewards of labor away.

Return to Decency

The clearing out of the villainies of the past maladministration may take awhile to be completed, but it is a good beginning that the 'black' prisons are swept away. This is a great favor that the president and his functional executive branch has accomplished for us.

In a U-turn to George Bush's policies to deal with terror, the CIA has shut down its secret prisons where the US spy agency used to interrogate suspected terrorists using harsh techniques, including waterboarding.

In a letter to the agency's employees, CIA Director Leon Panetta has said that he informed the US Congress of its detention policies, following an executive order by President Barack Obama this January to close down the secret detention sites as well as the camp at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.

The US spy chief said in his letter, issued on Thursday, that the Central Intelligence Agency had discontinued "using contract employees to conduct interrogations" also.

"CIA no longer operates detention facilities or black sites and has proposed a plan to decommission the remaining sites. I have directed our agency personnel to take charge of the decommissioning process and have further directed that the contracts for site security be promptly terminated," he wrote.

The now-empty "black sites" in unidentified countries were used to detain suspects who were captured in the "war on terrorism" launched by former American President George W Bush after the September 11 attacks.

However, Panetta said that the CIA would continue to question suspects, using "a dialogue style of questioning that is fully consistent with interrogation approaches authorized and listed in the Army Field Manual" which bans harsh methods, the US media reported.

"CIA officers do not tolerate, and will continue to promptly report, any inappropriate behaviour or allegations of abuse. That holds true whether a suspect is in the custody of an American partner or a foreign liaison service," he said.

For a long time, it has been hard to be proud of this country. That capacity is returning with the onslaught of the housecleaning our government is due.

Thank you, Mr. President, for the great service to our country, and to the heritage we should be able to pass on to coming generations.

Tradition!

For anyone who hasn't seen Fiddler on the Roof, the word 'tradition' has particular meaning about the roles of the sexes in that play. Of course, there is no reason for roles that sex plays in determining one's role in a family, so it has been sloughed off on 'tradition'.

Wonderfully, in writing for the Supreme Court, Justice Scalia referred to that 'tradition' for attitudes regarding homosexuality. I wonder if he even considered the musical and its pointing out the absurdity of it, when he chose to ascribe homophobia to 'tradition'.

Representative Barney Frank yesterday defended his use of the term "homophobe" to describe Antonin Scalia, the conservative Supreme Court justice who has ruled in favor of limiting legal protections for gays.

"What a 'homophobe' means is someone who has prejudice about gay people," Frank told WBZ radio, arguing that Scalia's judicial writing "makes it very clear that he's angry, frankly, about the existence of gay people."

A Supreme Court spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment from Scalia.

In particular, Frank cited Scalia's opinion in the 2003 case in which the Supreme Court struck down state laws barring consensual acts of sodomy.

In his dissent, Scalia wrote that the 6-to-3 vote served to ratify an "agenda promoted by some homosexual activists directed at eliminating the moral opprobrium that has traditionally attached to homosexual conduct."

That he sees tradition as a reason for anything certainly puts Justice Scalia in the camp of practicers of baby-splitting. Justice Alito seems to cling to the same absurdity when he denies women the right to choose their own medical procedure.

Yes, I proposed splitting babies recently in conversation at eschaton's comments, and certainly impressed Moe, who parades a distaste for kids. It is a Mosaic, or at least biblical, tradition that it brought about peace to propose splitting a baby; that makes it something of a milestone in justice that we can easily say is best honored by avoidance.

The role of a justice on the Supreme Court calls for a much higher standard than has been exhibited by the majority. In his choice of the next Justice for our highest court, we expect President Obama to look much higher than a regrettable tradition of choosing ideologues that has been the practice of right wing presidents of our past.

Any practitioner of real justice will avoid using a standard other than fair treatment when deciding matters that determine our treatment of fellow citizens.

In Fiddler on the Roof, 'Tradition' denies a girl the partner of her choice because she comes from a poor family. That seems to be the court's modus operandi, under the right wing ideololgy that dominates it.

Kids Faring Badly

More fun for the kids in Texas - yesterday it was homelessness, today it's fight clubs for the institutionalized. Not long ago it was physical and sexual abuse in Texas Youth Commission jails. It's about time some one in this state took a hard look at protections for our kids. Legislation before the legislature suddenly got pushed into passage yesterday, because of the bad publicity. Last month, staff cuts had been recommended for budget reasons, at the very reform school most implicated in abuse of residents.

Governor Perry's office had been contacted by more than one person concerned at abuse in state facilities, it turned from investigations into the TYC abuses. Since then, he has been instrumental in privatizing the care of kids.

It also can certainly be said about homelessness that the governor has given it a boost. Much homelessness is caused by growing unemployment, a cause the governor has publicly and proudly denounced in refusing federal support for unemployed workers.

Today the governor's office loudly declared its support of the legislation that was passed so suddenly after the news of 'fight clubs' broke. This should be an interesting gubernatorial campaign indeed.

Responding to reports of abusive treatment and neglect at Texas' large homes for the mentally disabled, the state Senate approved safeguards Monday designed to improve care and oversight.

Still to come are debates about whether Texas should move toward closing some of the 13 institutions, but the 30-0 vote to boost investigative powers and provide better staff training and background checks was the first major step toward improving conditions for the nearly 5,000 residents, many of whom are severely disabled.

"They need our protection," said Sen. Jane Nelson, R-Flower Mound, who sponsored the Senate bill. "They need our oversight. And they need our compassion."

A 2008 federal report cited negligent and abusive care that violated residents' rights. It cited 53 deaths linked to preventable conditions at the institutions known as state schools.

The report also called hundreds of reports of abuse and injuries to patients "disturbingly high" and said more than half of state facilities are in danger of losing Medicaid funding because of care and safety problems.

In the discovery of the 'fight clubs' in Corpus Christi, kids found a proponent they had been missing. The press worked for them, reporting scandalous conditions that would have been given short shrift under normal conditions. Fortune usually wouldn't be so good; like economic crisis in the U.S., adults' bad behavior has become the force needed to get protection for kids.

"These people are charged with the care and custody of these clients, and they are exploiting (them)," he said.

Those involved will likely face charges of injury of a disabled person, Wilson said. The charge's severity can range up to a third-class felony, depending on the extent of a person's involvement, he said. The actual charges, however are left up to the Nueces County District Attorney, which is participating in the investigation along with the Texas Inspector General's Office, he said.
(snip)
"The fighting entails pushing, wrestling and some shoving," Wilson said. Police do not believe anyone was seriously injured, he said, but the investigation is ongoing.

"Four or five clients have been identified and at least five workers, possibly as many as 10," he said. "Some are more active in staging the fights, and some others passively stand around not doing anything."

Way to go, neanderthals. Having a bit of good old-fashioned abusive behavior on tape is a beginning for just the cure your kind need. The legislators got the shoving they needed to get some one watching over the kids. Lucky for the kids, the guards who got their kicks out of violence really helped out on this reform.

I'll turn over the recommendation for the "guardians'" treatment to you. Suggestions? and yes, that includes the governor who promoted this system.

Alice In Wonderland, Redux

I am certain that I wouldn't trust any security assessment of the chicken coop performed by a fox, so I'm not buying the Pentagon report on Guantanamo Bay and its compliance with the Geneva Conventions referenced by the Los Angeles Times.

The Pentagon has concluded that the military detention center at Guantanamo Bay meets the standards for humane treatment of detainees established in the Geneva Convention accords.

In a report for President Obama on conditions at Guantanamo, the Pentagon recommended some changes -- mainly providing some of the most troublesome inmates with more group recreation and opportunities for prayer -- said an administration official who read the report and spoke on condition of anonymity, citing its confidential nature.

Oh, please. Keeping humans in a cell for 23 out of 24 hours, isolated from all other humans save their jailers, is hardly good evidence of humane treatment, as the rights groups who have been screaming about this hell hole have noted for years.

"We strongly disagree with the government's basic conclusion that the conditions at Guantanamo comport with international standards for humane treatment," said Pardiss Kebriaei, a staff attorney with the Center for Constitutional Rights, which represents detainees. "That assessment is difficult to digest when our clients in Camps 5 and 6 are physically and psychologically breaking down because their conditions and isolation have become so unbearable."

For a more personal look at the effects of the captivity on these prisoners, check out Candace Gorman's report after her latest visit with two clients being held there.

Mr. Razak Ali is doing ok, he is the one in camp 4 and therefore his living arrangement is not too difficult. But it has been 7 years since he was taken captive by us and even the good natured Razak has grown weary. Mr. Al-Ghizzawi looks awful. He can no longer read and he had a difficult time understanding my words. Not because of the language problem, he does speak english, but because his brain is not quite working the way it should. Two plus years of solitary confinement has been too much for this man. I will provide more of an update when my notes are cleared.

But everything's hunky dory, according to the Pentagon report, which President Obama requested when he ordered plans be developed to close the Gitmo camp. Now, it seems to me that if I really wanted an honest assessment of conditions at Guantanamo Bay, I would select an outside auditor, one with a knowledge of the rules and laws governing prisoners of war and with a reputation for fairness and honesty. You know, a group such as the International Red Cross or a United Nations agency. I wouldn't have selected the one outfit who has been busy stuffing down any talk of torture or malfeasance by its own guards. This whole episode certainly doesn't bode well for those of us who really are expecting change from the new administration.

But wait! There's more. Back to the LAT article:

Meanwhile, the administration said Friday it was not ready to extend legal rights to the prisoners held at the U.S. air base in Bagram, Afghanistan. An administration lawyer told a judge reviewing the issue that the government, for now, "adheres to the previously articulated position" of the Bush administration.

Last year, the Supreme Court ruled that the prisoners held at Guantanamo had the right to challenge the case against them in a federal court. The justices said these prisoners had been held for years in a prison that is, for all practical purposes, part of U.S. territory.

It was not clear, however, whether this ruling was limited to Guantanamo detainees or could be extended to other long-term prisoners in the war against terrorism.

As the Mad Hatter would say, "Clean cups! Clean cups!"

There Is No Try, Only Do

That President Obama has announced approval for a 17,000 troop increase for Afghanistan was not particularly surprising. He had maintained throughout his campaign that while he thought the war in Iraq was stupid and unnecessary and he would withdraw forces as quickly as prudently possible, the war in Afghanistan was one one that must be fought if the US was to be free from future terrorist attacks by Al Qaeda. The war in Afghanistan, as I have previously stated, is now "his" war. He has adopted it. I may think his decision is wrongheaded and will lead to unnecessary death and suffering for both the US and Afghanistan, but at least I was warned.

That is not the case, however, when it comes to torture, renditions, and military commission "trials." Those he repudiated throughout the campaign and even after. Now that he is president, however, he appears to be backpedaling, and I am deeply troubled by that. If this editorial from Saturday's Los Angeles Times is any indication, I am not alone in that feeling.

It was widely assumed that under Obama, extraordinary renditions would be out of bounds. Yet an administration official told The Times' Greg Miller that if rendition is done "within certain parameters, it is an acceptable practice." At his confirmation hearings, Panetta promised that rendition to CIA prisons "will not take place because black sites will no longer exist." But Obama's order permits the agency to maintain "facilities used only to hold people on a short-term, transitory basis." This language must not become a loophole for abusive interrogations. As for renditions to foreign countries, Panetta said the administration will seek assurances that detainees "will not be treated inhumanely." But the Bush administration said it asked for the same assurances, apparently to little effect.

Under Obama's order, the CIA is now abiding by the Army Field Manual, which rules out interrogation tactics such as sexual humiliation, mock executions, the use of attack dogs and the withholding of food and medical care. But Obama also has convened a task force to determine whether requiring agencies outside the military to follow the manual is appropriate to "protect the nation." That raises the possibility of a retreat from a single standard of interrogation. ...

Finally, Obama rightly has suspended trials by military commissions at Guantanamo, pending a study of whether detainees accused of war crimes should be tried by civilian courts or by a revised commission system. Civilian courts have proved that they can effectively handle terrorism prosecutions, while even a retooled commission system would lack credibility. Affording due process to detainees accused of committing crimes in the past can be accomplished without releasing those considered to be dangerous in the future -- an option reserved by the Obama administration. But even "high-value" terrorists are entitled to have their status determined by a thorough, adversary process.

The continued use of euphemisms aside, all three processes are illegal in civilized countries which rely on the rule of law to promote justice. Enhanced interrogations are torture. Extraordinary renditions are kidnappings. Military commission trials are show trials without even the minimum of due process. We can no longer stand by and allow their continuance, not even by a well-intentioned man who promised us change. We must demand that President Obama stop irrevocably these crimes against humanity.

If we don't insist on this by a massive campaign at the congressional and White House level, then we will continue to be complicit in this horror. It's time to stop it, all of it.

Disregard For Life

Knowing that today the forces against women's rights are marching around D.C. and calling themselves pro-life, this strikes me as a good time to point out that of the many ways that people could improve the country, and the lives lived in this country, forcing women to have babies ranks - right alongside of waging war for peace - with having the opposite effect. Ideologues insisting they are able to judge other people's decisions affecting their own personal lives and families has defined the right wing as much as waging war on other countries. Of course, making childbearing medically treated instead of subject to hysteria greatly diminishes the need for backalley abortions, as well as giving women the capacity to make choices and decisions which advantage their families. The right wingers' several varieties of sickness, including a friendly culpability in torture, seems to be what is finally bringing about the welcome demise of the sway of ignorance. It is hardly suprising, then, that winger messages are flying around about President Obama's being a danger.

The election of President Obama is a direct revocation of the disgrace the wingers have brought to our country. The same forces are at work now in reaction to a disgrace in Gaza. We have just watched in horror as Israel wiped out thousands of civilians to bring about what they are calling a defeat of Hamas.

I am particularly appalled to hear our leaders talk about Hamas' failure to provide adequate living standards to the residents of Gaza. Of course, our 'Department of Justice' has waged a war against the residents of Gaza by its persecution of Muslim charities here for the past eight years. We cannot point at Hamas as failing to provide charity which our provocateurs were fighting here with the forces of U.S. law, labelling as terrorist what would have sustained a viable quality of life for Gazans. It is no wonder we have few friends in the Middle East, when we exhibit this attitude of indifference toward civilians. Our just ended maladministration showed no equivocation in the matter of favoritism, and stood staunchly for the Israeli wars against neighbors no matter what the cost in civilian lives.

From Juan Cole today, I am taking a description of the atrocities our government just defeated has approved to be committed.

The last Israeli troops left Gaza on Wednesday. The three week long shooting-fish-in-a-barrel exercise killed, on the Palestinian side, 280 children and minors, 111 women, and 503 male noncombatants. Gaza police accounted for 167 of the dead; can you just read off Gaza police as "Hamas militants"? Or were they traffic cops & etc.? The Palestinian Center for Human rights estimated that the Israelis killed 223 Hamas guerrillas. In other words, if this count is correct, the Israelis managed to kill more children than real militants.

So what is the outcome of this dirty little war?

The fundamentalist group Hamas is reasserting itself in Gaza as Israeli troops withdraw, and now has a new pretext to target members of the Fatah group, secular nationalists loyal to Palestine Authority president Mahmoud Abbas. So the Israelis may have actually politically strengthened Hamas and further weakened Fatah, which is already notorious for corruption, political repression, inefficiency, and, increasingly collaboration with Israel.

Although Israel claimed to have destroyed 60 percent of the tunnels whereby Gazans bring food, medicine, and sometimes explosives into the Strip via the Sinai Peninsula, reports Wednesday indicated that the tunnels were already active again. Even if only 40 percent of them are operational, it is hard to see what was achieved. The others can be redug, and anyway a lot of materiel can be brought in with the 40 percent surviving tunnels.
(snip)

UN Secretary-General Ban ki-Moon visited Gaza and was reported absolutely appalled at the scenes of human destruction he witnessed there. He demanded that nothing like the Gaza campaign ever be undertaken again (i.e. by Israel) and he said he would do what he could to establish accountability.

Amnesty International is accusing Israel of using white phosphorous in such a way that it constituted a war crime. The New York times clearly takes the charges seriously, underlining my thesis that what the government of Ehud Olmert disturbed many American Jews.

Aljazeera English reports on the aftermath of the Israeli assault on Gaza, including questions about the use of white phosphorous on densely populated civilian areas, producing burns and destroying food warehouses in the midst of a famine. Many Gaza civilians are camped on the rubble of their former homes, searching frantically for loved ones who may no longer be among the living.

We all would like to see peace arrive in the Middle East, and hate the bombardment of Gaza and from Gaza equally. The world has watched two war-making countries over the past eight years, and judges them as deficient in moral fiber.

The use of our Department of Justice to deprive civilians in Gaza is as repugnant as Israel's commission of that same act. The use of our Department of State to neutralize efforts of the U.N. to bring about a ceasefire is responsible for civilian deaths that we have been shamed by.

The government of the U.S. has no right to tell individuals that they have to follow rightwing dictates in their own decisions, not to tell civilians in the Middle East that they have to suffer and die if they do not follow the dictates of Israel. It is time for our nation to perform the functions government is empowered for, making the lives of its citizens better. It is past time to end the functions of favoritism toward the side of militants in the government of the U.S.

More Than A Kick in the Pants

Over the past couple of days, any number of times I have been annoyed to have commentators claim that the new president's inaugural address was all about the former cretin in chief. There is a lot of damage, but the repairs, not the recriminations, appeared to be the subject of all that I heard.

Last night I was wondering if everyone heard David Gregory declare that Obama's statement yesterday - that we were going to bring the U.S. back into power - 'was aimed straight at' the cretin no longer in chief.

Tom Brokaw this morning on his report said 'those were frontal attacks on presidential policies of the last four years' of the late unlamented occupant of the White House.

Dan Froomkin gives a number of cites from analyses that make the same claim, and even seems to think for himself that the inaugural was mainly directed toward the maladministration; I don't think so.

Obama, for his part, pulled no punches in his Inaugural Address, casting his presidency as a restorative to Bush's.

"Starting today, we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking America," Obama said.

Though he did not blame the smallness of our politics solely on his immediate predecessor, the message was clear: To Obama, the central meaning of the day was that it represented the long overdue end of an era to which Bush was the capstone.
(snip)
Maureen Dowd writes in her New York Times opinion column: "After thanking President Bush 'for his service to our nation,' Mr. Obama executed a high-level version of Stephen Colbert's share-the-stage smackdown of W. at the White House correspondents' dinner in 2006.
(snip)
George Packer blogs for the New Yorker: "The speech was, among other things, and in spite of the gracious gesture at its opening, a devastating repudiation of ex-President Bush, who seemed to be shrinking physically as well as historically whenever the camera found him, until, by the end, his unimportance was almost bewildering. Now he is gone."

At least one commentator who gets paid for his opinion pieces says what I insist, it was not about the past mistakes, it is about the public he is there for, and that chose him. David Marimiss is cited by Froomkin writing in WaPo:

"But more than that, it was about everyone out there in the crowds that stretched from the west side of the Capitol all the way to the Lincoln Memorial: every person with an individual story, a set of meanings and reference points for a moment that many thought would never happen in their lifetimes."

Just as he inveighed against the childishness we've been through, President Obama projected a message that went beyond recommitment to ideals that the past eight years trampled and cast aside. The message is about us, about the way forward and beyond the mire of all too recent a past.

The beginning of this new administration is casting a shadow because it has a lot to offer, not because it wants to wallow in the rotten smell of the past. We need to prosecute, in whatever manner, the crimes. We have a lot to do, a lot to offer, in redeeming a damaged economy, a neglected infrastructure, a rotted support system and functioning educational institutions.

The intention of this new president is not so simple as showing up the failures just past. The public interest has been despised, and now it is in the forefront. Without serving the public, President Obama would not be fulfilling his oath - however the Supremest mangled its form. The presidency is about the country's need for service, and I am looking forward to having a president worthy of the office, and the name of President.

We have done the casting off part, and the war criminals are out of the White House. Now we need to rout them in the rest of the executive branch, and do the work they've obstructed for all too long.

****************************************

Of course, it hasn't been all bad. Also from Froomkin:
Jon Stewart notes the end of an era. "The last eight years have been -- gosh -- just -- well, great for this show."

Celebrate The Day

Indeed President Obama, time to put off childish things. And thanks for the tribute to those who put this country on the right path, and recognized those duties to themselves, their nation and to humanity.

Yesterday I checked in on some of the pre-inaugural coverage on CSpan and saw film of several past inaugurations. Watching John F. Kennedy's proceedings, the luncheon afterwards was aired, and I got a great surprise. There in the luncheon, talking with poet Robert Frost, was my old boss, Senator Ralph W. Yarborough. He was smiling blissfully and proudly, so pleased that the candidate he'd chosen very early on as the best for the office of President, had won.

Since he was from Texas, you may have assumed he'd joined the forces behind Lyndon Baines Johnson, to attempt to boost his state's influence in D.C. You would have been wrong. Like so many principled legislators and other public servants, el Senador chose positions that often helped his principles and hurt his career. I am so hoping that the election of Barack Obama will give a boost to today's public servants, to make those hard choices again.

Today's inauguration may never have happened if earlier principled leaders had not stepped forward to support civil rights. Senator Yarborough was one of those. It is reported now as if it were a myth that southern legislators supporting civil rights knew they would lose their offices. The Democratic party did, as Lyndon Johnson predicted, lose the south for a generation. The individuals like Senator Yarborough who made that choice earned and deserve our gratitude.

When I went to work in his Capitol Hill office, it was 1966 and his career was winding down. As I recently had the pleasure of discussing with the son of President Johnson's last press secretary,John Christian, in Austin, there were advantages that had come out of being the last, principled, voter committing to put Civil Rights through the congress. The freedom he had because he really didn't need to run for office anymore was probably what gave him the courage to push through the Cold War G.I. Bill and the first legislation to give Federal protection to endangered species. As I came to the office in 1966, I had the rare privilege of working on that legislation.

Although I was marching outside the White House against the Vietnam War, I still want to give President Johnson full credit for the courage it took to stand, and fight firmly, for Civil Rights legislation. I know the sort of criticism he got from old friends, because I saw some of it come in to Senator Yarborough's office when I was there after that vote.

For the next few election cycles, only by committing to oppose civil rights could representatives from backwards areas (outside of Austin) get voted into office. There are still areas of this red state that require that kind of disgrace. I do believe that the transcendence of today's significance will make that tawdry aspect of politics here and in other areas of racist prejudice look ever more untenable. I do hope that the shining light of celebration for the soul will shrivel that kind of hate.

I wish pride to all of you who worked for better feelings and ideals. Congratulations.

Remember the courage of the ones who chose the right way to lead their lives even though they had to sacrifice their own careers to do it.

Sharing the Responsibility

As mentioned here before, the subject of taxes is getting a big pass from anyone in the highest offices of government. The Tax bugaboo is one that has been passionately embraced by many who give the greatest part of political donations, making it a hard one to tackle. The result is that you and I, and the other contributing members of society, pay for the welfare state the very rich enjoy.

This has been one of the great crimes of the soon departing worst administration in history. All of its extravagances, from unilateral war to enabling Wall Street crime, have been levied on the working citizens who it counts as worthless. Serfdom returned to the world in the years 2001-2008.

I may be courting an image of curmudgeonly doggedness in insisting that the tax system needs real attention, removing the burden of its expenses from those who in t5he eight years of right wing rule got the least from it. The New York Times editorialized this morning about taxes and the need to shift our tax burden back to equality for all income levels.

A delay is supported by the conventional wisdom that raising any taxes during a downturn is wrong.

That argument starts with the correct premise that a stalled economy needs all the juice it can get, hence the need for the roughly $800 billion recovery package to spur consumption and create jobs, taking shape in Congress and championed by Mr. Obama. But not all tax increases are damaging in a recession. An increase could help if it raised more in revenue than it subtracted in consumption and if that revenue was used for stimulus.

That sounds like the very definition of a tax increase for the richest Americans. The wealthy are unlikely to slow their consumption much if their income tax rates return — as Mr. Obama has proposed — to their pre-Bush levels (an increase from rates of 33 and 35 percent to 36 and 39.6 percent).

We know that higher taxes are never an easy sell politically — and would be especially difficult now, when Mr. Obama needs support from Republicans in Congress to quickly pass his recovery package.

We also acknowledge that a tax increase on the rich, though feasible, could backfire in these tense times. Because it is hard to explain and easy to demagogue, it could foster a confusing debate that might impair confidence just when confidence needs to be revived.

But even if he skips the income tax increase this year, Mr. Obama must press for increases in coming years. The fight for tax fairness — and for the practice of paying for government services rather than borrowing or printing money — must be a goal in itself, rather than becoming a perennial bargaining chip.

To that end, Mr. Obama should move forward in 2009 to close loopholes and make other long overdue changes in tax law. As promised during the campaign, he should push to alter the outmoded provision that has allowed private equity partners to pay about the lowest rate in the tax code on most of their multimillion-dollar earnings. He should also push for freezing the tax on multimillion-dollar estates at current levels, rather than letting the tax expire as scheduled in 2010.

The right wing opponents of taxes on the rich insist that shifting the burden back toward equality will send businesses overseas. This is of course ignoring that business presently is given tax breaks to remove employment from the very consumers they depend on to buy their products. Fine, and let them sell to the workers they are running after to make a few dollars a day, at best. License to sell to American consumers can be denied to those who choose to remove employment to less affluent shores.

The other threat, that taxes 'discourage innovation', tries to imply that the rich will hold their breath until they turn blue and not put out products we should have, and So There. If there is a crowd of cranky babies in the business world, let them just do that. A lot of more worthwhile sorts will get the chance to break through then, and do the jobs American consumers need done.

When taxes on business were bringing in a mere 20% of the total revenues, in 2001, the economic functioning in this country was far better, and jobs were plentiful. As business became coddled, and workers lost ground, the economy deteriorated. Now, in 2009, with all business and rich folks' pampering at a maximum, we have disaster.

The evidence is in. Treating the very rich like our most important product brings down the economy. Tax burdens should be shared, and the era of corporate welfare, government for the very rich, must end. Our country needs to be served, not preyed upon.

Seventeen more days.

Credit Where Due

When I have commented at this and some other sites, I have mentioned my belief that left leaning bloggers have kept the faith, and that while I am sure history will have a low view of the element that kept the war criminals in power, I think we need at least a chapter. Those of us who refused to accept, and have kept giving the lie to, the right wing, should get our due.

This morning, Avedon and Molly Ivors were saying that as well. So I thought I would go ahead and make a demand. You who are writing about this disgraceful period in American history, you can't throw us into that stew that created and perpetuated it.

The pressures we've been under just jumped out at me here, at the CNN Quick Vote:

Do you think the U.S. prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, should be closed?
Yes 57% 155334
No 43% 117041
Total Votes: 272375

Who are these 43% who have no moral compass? Some of them occupy the executive branch of government, some of them couldn't make it through the PBS documentary I posted about earlier this week, "Torturing Democracy", and some of them are deluded by the Bill Kristol's of the press. But 57% of us know better, and some of us speak out against the atrocities, constantly.

There is another chilling item to explain the sympathizers. That is a report on a study conducted recently, that shows once again that subjects would consciously torture other human beings if they were given directions to do so, in a good cause. This replicated Milgram's earlier study that shocked the world. I think all of us just put it aside thinking it had been a peculiarity, and probably conducted by a much too convincing professor. Not so.

His study's design imitated Milgram's, even using the same scripts for the experimenter and suffering learner, but the key difference was that this experiment stopped at 150 volts -- when the learner starts asking to leave. In Milgram's experiment, 79 percent of participants who got to that point went all the way to the maximum shock, he said.

To eliminate bias from the fame of Milgram's experiment, Burger ruled out anyone who had taken two or more college-level psychology classes, and anyone who expressed familiarity with it in the debriefing. The "teachers" in this recent experiment, conducted in 2006, also received several reminders that they could quit whenever they wanted, unlike in Milgram's study.

The new results correlate well with Milgram's: 70 percent of the 40 participants were willing to continue after 150 volts, compared with 82.5 percent in Milgram's study -- a difference that is not statistically significant, Burger said. (Emphasis added.)

There are your 43%. If they are told something is right, they will break basic rules of conduct even to the point of inflicting pain, for that which they are told is right.

My footnote in history is that of the left wing. We will not commit crimes because the forces in charge say it's okay, it's for the right cause. We will dig in our heels and say NO. And as Diane said in her previous post, we may be very busy for awhile yet.

Speaking Up On Warren Invocation

Another voice long known for intelligent leadership in extension of rights to all individuals, Kathryn Kolbert of People for the American Way, has spoken out about Rick Warren's giving the invocation at President-elect Barack Obama's inauguration.

The announcement that Pastor Rick Warren has been chosen to give the invocation at Barack Obama's inauguration ceremony landed with a thud in my inbox.

Many people who know Warren as the affable megachurch pastor and best-selling author may be confused about the anger and disappointment that his selection has generated among progressive activists who worked so hard to help elect Obama. Here's my explanation; you can find plenty of other voices online.

Warren enjoys a reputation as a bridge-building moderate based on his informal style and his church's engagement on issues like AIDS in Africa.

He took grief from some of his Religious Right colleagues when he invited then-Senator Obama to his church for a conference on AIDS a couple of years ago. And, in August he hosted presidential candidates Obama and McCain at his church.

Warren has worked hard to cultivate a moderate public personality but his views are very similar to those of traditional Religious Right leaders.In an email sent before the 2004 election he wrote a Falwell-esque message proclaiming that, for Christian voters, the issues of abortion, marriage for same-sex couples, stem cell research, cloning and euthanasia were "non-negotiable." In fact, he said, they are "not even debatable because God's word is clear on these issues."

And while some Religious Right leaders were nervous that Warren would give Obama a platform to talk about poverty and the environment at the August event, Warren thrilled them by eschewing those issues entirely in order to emphasize issues like abortion and marriage that worked to McCain's advantage with the evangelical audience.
(snip)
...Warren has been divisive and dishonest on the issues of marriage equality and religious freedom -- and on other issues important to many Obama supporters, as well.

I will repeat what I said this morning in comments at Eschaton:
Televangelists are the worst sort of vultures, using a pose of religiosity to rake in profits from the weakminded, always has been a particularly offensive sort, and to put one up at the inauguration is an insult to actual 'values'. There are a lot of real theologians of eminence in this country who ought to be letting Obama know that this demeans every real believer, every churchgoing person in the U.S.

Rick Warren Invokes Hate

Rick Warren stands for several things that are destructive of progressive goals. For me, televangelism is an evil, and one I have suffered directly. It diverts particularly those who are alone and confused, and turns them to the uses of a cult group. The hate it uses to activate fundraising has traditionally been turned against progressives, and has particularly hit on abortion/women's rights and gay rights as unifiers of the 'flock'. His recent activities to lead a drive for Proposition 8 is an insult to the real Jesus Christ.

Proposition 8 was about denying gays the rights they are entitled to as American citizens for the reason that they do not have everyday sexual inclinations. Anyone who espouses this kind of measure may make any kind of qualifying statement about personal beliefs, but qualifications are specious: this is espousal of hatred.

The pastor, known for having amicable relationships with people he disagrees with, explained that he is opposed to redefining marriage.

“For 5,000 years that term, marriage, has represented a man and a woman,” Warren said. “And so, even some of gay leaders like Al Rantel, KABC, and others, have said why would we redefine marriage?”

But everyone should be given respect regardless of their lifestyle, religious beliefs and any other beliefs, Warren added.

“I think we live in a pluralistic society where we have to get along with each other and show common grace to each other. But I just didn't believe in redefining marriage,” he said.

Of course marriage in the Bible often was between a man and a woman and another woman, and then maybe several other women, depending on the ability of the particular patriarch to support others in his tents. There is no exact definition of marriage in the Bible. This whole argument sounds to me like we ought to live in the desert because that's what the biblical figures lived in. Of course, that's what the West is rapidly turning into, so maybe the televangelist sees divine will working its way in climate change. When he says we 'have to get along' he re-enters the door he just closed, verbally separating his own circle from those he disagrees with.

Rightwing religions have made the issue of gay bashing a uniting one, and fought against their rights. Proposition 8 is yet another instance of this activity. The depiction of the gay community as evil has been an activity that has appealed to 'church' people as no good works ever has. Any leader who chooses to lead in this direction is diverting his 'flock' from the good they could be promoting. While it unifies the 'flock' by giving it a purpose to serve, even more it serves as a great fundraising gimmick. Rick Warren is visibly making that a major function of his 'church'. Those funds are hardly being used for good works when they are directed against gays. Anyone who can cite any passage of the Bible that calls for uniting to make gays be what they are not, please let me know.

Waking up, getting online, and finding out that some one promoting recidivism and making his personal fortune off of it is going to be a featured speaker at Obama';s inauguration makes me really annoyed. I was excited about the inauguration, volunteered to assist with staffing it, and would have already bought my ticket except that I am working on getting the price down. A lot of us who comment and get together under the eschatonian family tent were getting together, as well as some of The Seminal group, while I am in the D.C. area. I'm not sure about that, now.

I got on the Obama/Biden website this morning, began a blog, and made this entry:

Televangelist Warren
By Ruth Calvo - Dec 18th, 2008 at 7:21 am EST

I am someone who has watched an aging elderly relative be drawn into the trap of trusting the godliness of a wealth-directed televangelist, Pat Robertson. She was enticed into giving all her extra cash and listening only to telephone communications from the organizations, rejecting news, family, and reason on the grounds that only the voice of Satan would oppose the healing graces from tidewater Virginia. This is a degrading end, and that relative now lives in a house that is falling down around her, desperately trying to believe she has followed the voice of god when that is not so, obviously.

Rick Warren is an insult to anyone rational, and I will bring extra shoes with me on the off chance I can get a good angle to heave one at him.

I understand there are other opinions on this, and hopefully I will always be able to have an open mind in all things. I keep up a dialogue with those I disagree with. I do, however, condemn those who take advantage of and live off of the weakminded. And my work for the Obama campaign is sullied, that my support has been used to elevate the kind that work against progressives and human rights.

History As Quaint

The Constitution, that ol' Rule of Law, Geneva Conventions, oh, get over it. We now have the revised facts according to the occupied White House. In this new and updated version of history, the intelligence failure made us go to war with Iraq, and those dear folks who wanted to keep us safe from the GWOT are innocent of torture, since they did it for U n' Me.

The Gonzales memo which followed pressure on the executive branch to keep torture perpetrators from any penalty for their atrocities has now become credo for the Attorney General.

US Attorney General Michael Mukasey yesterday indicated that President George W. Bush would not be issuing pre-emptive pardons in the case of officials implicated in torture or other abuses in the "war on terror". If so, this is welcome news. Amnesty International was among a number of organizations that sent a joint letter to President Bush on 3 December opposing resort to any such pardons.1

Welcome though such news would be, the Attorney General's reasoning gives cause for concern. There is "absolutely no evidence", he said, that "anybody who rendered a legal opinion" on interrogation policies "did so for any reason other than to protect the security in the country and in the belief that he or she was doing something lawful. In those circumstances, there is no occasion to consider prosecution and there is no occasion to consider pardon."

Given what we now know about US conduct in the "war on terror", and the previously secret legal opinions, to accept the Attorney General's reasoning would be to allow the government to perpetrate human rights violations with impunity, so long as they are carried out in the name of national security and the perpetrators claim they did not realise what they were doing was unlawful. Arguments excusing gross human rights violations in the name of national security are historically familiar. Indeed, the inclusion in various treaties of the obligation to bring all perpetrators of torture and similar violations to justice was intended to reject such arguments categorically.

Further, ignorance of the law is generally no excuse or defence for criminal charges. After the incidents of torture and other detainee abuses became widely known, however, the administration and congress enacted a special statutory 'ignorance of the law' defence, seeking to immunize US personnel from the criminal responsibility they otherwise would have faced, to which the Attorney General was likely referring. Yet to the extent this defence further contributes to impunity for crimes under international law such as torture and certain other acts of ill-treatment of detainees, it constitutes a further violation of the USA's international obligations and must be immediately reversed.
(snip)
The USA is required by international law to respect and ensure human rights, to thoroughly investigate every violation of those rights, and to bring perpetrators to justice, no matter their level of office or former level of office. Victims of human rights violations have the right under international law to effective access to remedy and reparation. (Emphasis added.)

Sadly, there has been increasing familiarity with the crimes, to the point that some diminution has occurred. We need reminding that torture is not acceptable, and that excuses are not reasons. The Attorney General was put in a place where for awhile he can block the law, but he will never do away with it entirely. Legal manipulation and vocal quibbling is not adequate to erase crimes.

The feeling of being above the law has gained ground in this White House much as it did in the Nixon years, when the then executive declared that if he did it, it was not a crime. Documents relating to the war on Iraq have shown to have been altered and we can be sure those public documents destined for incarceration in the SMU Liebury will not be trustworthy, either.

Instead of the White House Web site maintaining an updated list while preserving copies of the old ones or issuing revised lists in addition to the original posts, the White House removed original documents, altered them and replaced them with backdated modifications that only appear to be originals.

The littlest minds that are presently at the helm in this country have deluded themselves into thinking they can choose their own facts, and when the facts don't serve their purposes make up some they like. The bubble is about to burst. Facts are still the same here in the real world.

Outrage and indignation are the only reaction possible to the horrors the occupied White House has committed. This bloody legacy should never be regarded with complaisance.