There's a call to action at the end . . .
![the all-seeing eye](http://pro.imagehost.biz/ims/pictes/364297.jpg)
(via Liberal Avenger, at the Daou Report)
Just Between Strangersmusings tossed into the void . . . |
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In today's decision, Green said the hearings, called Combatant Status Review Tribunals, are stacked against the detainees, and deny them crucial rights. She said some detainees may indeed be guilty and pose a danger to the United States, but the government must first give them a lawful hearing on the evidence against them.This isn't the end of the story, as there have been conflicting rulings in a number of related cases, so expect to see the Supremes weighing in, whether or not they'd like to get involved.
. . .
Green also criticized the military for using an illogically broad definition of "enemy combatant" in deciding to hold Muslim men from dozens of countries for as long as three years. She said after reviewing classified material for the detainees, she saw many cases in which the military presented no evidence that individuals were ever engaged in actual combat or terrorist crimes.
We too have our thaws. They come to our January moods, when our ice cracks, and our sluices break loose. Thought that was frozen up under stern experience gushes forth in feeling and expression. There is a freshet which carries away dams of accumulated ice.Many are the thoughts and directions of Democrats and unaffiliated progressives looking right now for new ways to influence our nation's politics. I suspect that they will start to set their courses and roll in the coming month or two . . .
United States officials were surprised and heartened today at the size of turnout in South Vietnam's presidential election despite a Vietcong terrorist campaign to disrupt the voting.Yeah, thanks for the cheerful thought.
Gates's concern that widening U.S. budget and trade deficits are undermining the dollar was echoed in Davos by policymakers including European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder.Gee, what are they so nervous about? Don't they know that we're the primary purveyors of wealth and freedom in the world?
The dollar fell 21 percent against a basket of six major currencies from the start of 2002 to the end of last year. The trade deficit swelled to a record $609.3 billion last year and total U.S. government debt rose 8.7 percent to $7.62 trillion in the past 12 months.
The U.S. budget shortfall is "the No. 1 risk, disregarding geopolitical risks" to the global economy, German Deputy Finance Minister Caio Koch-Weser said in a Jan. 27 interview in Davos. He urged Bush to present a "credible" plan for getting the deficit under control.I'm sure a credible plan will be immediately forthcoming. As soon as we finish sketching out our strategy for spreading our military involvements into Iran... ($billions more needed? what billions??)
A decade ago, American triumphalists mocked those who argued that the world was becoming multipolar, rather than unipolar. Where was the evidence of balancing against the US, they asked. Today the evidence of foreign co-operation to reduce American primacy is everywhere -- from the increasing importance of regional trade blocs that exclude the US to international space projects and military exercises in which the US is conspicuous by its absence.I guess it's just more for the list of eventual regrets. I can hardly keep up.
. . .
In recent memory, nothing could be done without the US. Today, however, practically all new international institution-building of any long-term importance in global diplomacy and trade occurs without American participation.
As the prime legal architect for the policy of torture adopted by the Bush Administration, Gonzales's advice led directly to the abandonment of longstanding federal laws, the Geneva Conventions, and the United States Constitution itself. Our country, in following Gonzales's legal opinions, has forsaken its commitment to human rights and the rule of law and shamed itself before the world with our conduct at Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib. The United States, a nation founded on respect for law and human rights, should not have as its Attorney General the architect of the law's undoing.
. . .
Michael Posner of Human Rights First observed: "After the horrific images from Abu Ghraib became public last year, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld insisted that the world should 'judge us by our actions [and] watch how a democracy deals with the wrongdoing and with scandal and the pain of acknowledging and correcting our own mistakes.'" We agree. It is because of this that we believe the only proper course of action is for the Senate to reject Alberto Gonzales's nomination for Attorney General. As Posner notes, "[t]he world is indeed watching." Will the Senate condone torture? Will the Senate condone the rejection of the rule of law?
Iraqi authorities routinely torture prisoners, a leading human rights group [Human Rights Watch] said on Tuesday, citing examples of abuse which will sound all too familiar to those who suffered under Saddam Hussein.Starvation, electrocution, all the favorites. As kos says, "why did we invade again?" One supposed reason after another slips from under our feet . . .
This finding is ironic, since nearly half of all users say they would stop using search engines if they thought engines were not being clear about how they presented paid results.I wondered whether the survey findings would differ with age; i.e., are the younger generation of Internet-native users more savvy about potential marketing-driven manipulations? Younger users (under 30) are described as "more active searchers" and "more comfortable with the existance sponsored results," but also more trusting in the results they get; is that because they filter the sponsored links, or because they don't know their own blind-spots?
It's easy to take the current state of reproductive control for granted, but we must not do so.“We can’t go back; we cannot go back,” she implores. “We’ve seen what happens to women when they don’t have the option to control their own fertility. We’ve seen them die. We can’t let that happen. We might end up with a constitutional amendment banning all forms of abortion. That could happen if the people of this country don’t stand up to be counted and say that we will not permit rights for reproductive care of any kind to be taken away.”
In New York City, the horn is used not for emergencies but to express aggravation or to tell pedestrians to get out of the way. When you blast your horn, you're basically shouting "fuck you" at 70 decibels in the middle of a crowded street. Horn-blasting is profoundly anti-social behavior.
The organisation alleges violations of German legislation which outlaws war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide independent of the place of crime or origin of the accused.Many aspects of this strike me as bizarre yet apt...
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The organization said it had turned to German prosecutors "as a court of last resort" because the US government "is unwilling to open an independent investigation" and had "refused to join the International Criminal Court".
In reckless extravagance he outdid the prodigals of all times in ingenuity . . .The quotes are short and to the point.and set before his guests loaves and meats of gold, declaring that a man ought either to be frugal or be Caesar.
- Suetonius
Life of Caligula
110 AD
Logisitic troops make up the vast majority of military personnel (somebody probably has the figure, but it's like 8-1 or 9-1 support to combat forces). The proposal would dramatically increase the number of fighting forces (though many of soldiers in support jobs will have no business being in the front lines), and the Haliburtons of the world would clean up taking over support functions.Great. This worked really well for the supply chain, right?
And then in the wake of 9/11, instead of redoubling what is our traditional export of hope and optimism we exported our fear and our anger. And presented a very intense and angry face to the world. I regret that a lot.Yeah, me too. Almost every day.
Today, that dream of control is fully realized. Republicans routinely bully any reporter or organization that doesn't play ball while they feed lots of juicy propaganda to their bought and paid for media like FOX, Rush, Drudge and The NY Post knowing that the story will work its way into the mainstream anyway.Make all the claims of "liberal media bias" that you want, but there just isn't anything to equal this on the left, and I'm not sure we'd have the stomach for really building it (crazy humanists that we tend to be). This just ruined my lunch.They created an entertainment model for news in which entertainment values superceded civic values and it attracted a different kind of person to the field. Over time, fewer and fewer reporters wouldn't play ball because those that refused were weeded out in a form of (un)natural selection. In the end, the survivors don't even know they are biased. They are so enmeshed in this system of celebrity punishment and rewards that their own self esteem is now drawn from their acceptability to the (Republican) establishment. And each and every day the partisan right wing media pushes the discourse a few inches further to the right.
Six weeks after her brush with Homeland Security, Cox told The Oregonian she is still bewildered by the experience. "Aren't there any terrorists out there?" she said.(via This Modern World)
The United States has been conducting secret reconnaissance missions inside Iran to help identify potential nuclear, chemical and missile targets, The New Yorker magazine reported Sunday.Are we actually on a reverse learning program? Sure, we've turned Iraq into a hotbed for terrorism, why not do some more!!!
The article, by award-winning reporter Seymour Hersh, said the secret missions have been going on at least since last summer with the goal of identifying target information for three dozen or more suspected sites.
I speak as a citizen of the world, for the world as it stands aghast at the path we have taken. I speak as one who loves America, to the leaders of our nation: The great initiative in this war is our; the initiative to stop it must be ours.
(from "Beyond Vietnam," April, 1967)
A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.
(ibid.)
I knew that I could never raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today: my own government.
(ibid.)
Operation Breadbasket has a very simple program, but a powerful one. It simply says, "If you respect my dollar, you must respect my person." It simply says that we will no longer spend our money where we cannot get substantial jobs.
(from "Where Do We Go From Here?" August, 1967)
The ghetto is a domestic colony that's constantly drained without being replaced.
(ibid.)
Power properly understood is nothing but the ability to achieve purpose.
(ibid.)
Five years ago [John F. Kennedy] said, "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." Increasingly, by choice or by accident, this is the role our nation has taken, the role of those who make peaceful revolution impossible by refusing to give up the privileges and the pleasures that come from the immense profits of overseas investments. I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society.
(from "Beyond Vietnam")
I refuse to accept despair as the final response to the ambiguities of history.Enjoy the holiday, whether or not you've been granted time off from work. A holiday for somebody younger than most of our parents!
I refuse to accept the idea that the "is-ness" of man's present nature makes him morally incapable of reaching up for the eternal "ought-ness" that forever confronts him.
I refuse to accept the idea that man is mere flotsam and jetsam in the river of life, unable to influence the unvolding events which surround him. ...
I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant.
(from his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech, December, 1964)
Some people, according to The Incredibles, are just born better than the rest of us. This superiority is innate and inherited: superheroes make up a kind of master race. The movie doesn't just suggest that it's destructive to stifle talented people; it also derides the notion that everyone has talents that should be celebrated, and it raises and dismisses the idea that ordinary people could make their way into the elect. You don't choose to be a superhero; you can't earn it through ingenuity or hard work. You're either born super or you're not.Fascinating, as is her snide comment about the aptitude of such a philosophy in a time/place where the situationally elite (but intellectually encumbered) are running the world...
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This movie says that powerful, hereditary elites are good for society not because they're more talented but because they're more moral. It's a nineteenth or even eighteenth-century version of how society should be ordered: it's a celebration of natural aristocracy and the concept of knowing your place.
[T]he Iraq Debacle is NOW about the War on Terror because of the tremendous harm caused to the United States' fight against terror: the recruitment bonanza; the spike in anti-American Arab sentiment; the fraying of our alliances; the degrading of our armed forces; and the development of Iraq as a training and proving ground for terrorists (no the insurgency in Iraq is not Al Qaida, but terrorism is a part of the resistance to the U.S. occupation).Only everybody with any foresight foresaw this, but now even government reports are up to speed (see the link for an NYT article on same).
Scientists, several of whom testified in the case, say the sticker confuses the scientific term "theory" with the word's common usage and inappropriately combines science with personal religious belief.(For a prior humorous rant about the Georgia stickers, see this, and for a discussion of Intelligent Design and science as a way of viewing the world, start here.)
The school district just north of Atlanta approved the stickers after more than 2,000 parents complained the textbooks presented evolution as fact, without mentioning rival ideas about the beginnings of life.Just another battle in the ongoing Fundamentalism Wars taking place in countries around the globe. In Europe (most notably France and The Netherlands), this seems to be taking the form of debates about Muslim girls who want to wear the veil, but here in the US our fundies are home-grown, so it seems to be about whether we pass along to the next generation our current best understanding of the natural world.
In an attempt to defend his decision to accept $240,000 from the Bush administration in return for promoting the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) education law, Armstrong Williams has claimed that he always supported the policy. But in 2001, he strongly criticized the administration's decision to drop private school vouchers from NCLB, even touting this criticism on television and going so far as to write in his nationally syndicated column that by dropping the voucher provision, Bush had "scooped out" the legislation's "soul."
Rosenberg isn't in this game to push the party one way or another ideologically. He's in it to rebuild and modernize. He's seen what the Right has done to control the levers of power, and he wants Democrats to level the playing field.
And ironically enough, considering that America is on the verge of copying Britain’s mistake, most experts seek reform in the direction of a more generous, and simpler, basic state pension -- one similar in design, in other words, to America’s Social Security program.Interestingly, one of the aspects of our SS program that they envy is the efficiencies of scale which are possible only with such large quantities of money being managed...
The orders specifically stated: "this unit is being deployed to operation Iraq freedom in support of the attacks on the world trade center and the pentagon".Um, grammar quibbles aside ("in support of" ?!), shouldn't the government eventually be required to acknowledge status of reality?
[In the early 1980s], faced with a losing war against Salvadoran rebels, the U.S. government funded or supported 'nationalist' forces that allegedly included so-called death squads directed to hunt down and kill rebel leaders and sympathizers. Eventually the insurgency was quelled, and many U.S. conservatives consider the policy to have been a success-despite the deaths of innocent civilians and the subsequent Iran-Contra arms-for-hostages scandal.Ah, there's nothing like a death squad. Civilians, be damned!
Let's be clear, "death squads" are terrorists. Their goal is not simply to catch/kill suspected bad guys, but to frighten populations into submission. It's collective punishment of an entire population.As Yglesias says, "This isn't much of a way to run a humanitarian intervention" . . .
In my bad novel, apologists for the administration will charge foreign policy critics with anti-Semitism. But they will be silent when a prominent conservative declares that "Hollywood is controlled by secular Jews who hate Christianity in general and Catholicism in particular."(requires NYT registration, sorry)
In my bad novel the administration will use the slogan "support the troops" to suppress criticism of its war policy. But it will ignore repeated complaints that the troops lack armor. ...
Last but not least, in my bad novel the president, who portrays himself as the defender of good against evil, will preside over the widespread use of torture.
MR. GONZALES: Senator, I do believe there may come an occasion when the Congress might pass a statute that the president may view as unconstitutional. And that is a position and a view not just of this president, but many, many presidents from both sides of the aisle.Armando at kos comments (reflecting my reaction):
One more time - WTF? The President will decide if he will comply with a duly enacted law. Well Gawddamn - and here I thought it was the Supreme Court that determined the Constitutionality of laws.There was also some unnerving discussion of the Patriot Act, in which Gonzales seemed not to know the difference between contesting a search after it happens and requiring due process in advance (i.e., reasonable grounds, a warrant, or some semblance of a veriable basis). And this guy is to be our chief national lawyer? Help.
It struck me that Specter was a bit shocked by Gonzales' ignorance. Frankly, so was I.I recommend that you read Armando's whole summary if you value the future of your civil rights or law enforcement in this country.
There is rising concern amongst senior officials that President Bush does not grasp the increasingly grim reality of the security situation in Iraq because he refuses to listen to that type of information. Our sources say that attempts to brief Bush on various grim realities have been personally rebuffed by the President, who actually says that he does not want to hear "bad news."This isn't the first time we've heard this, but it sounds like it's getting worse as Bush gets more confidant (and one can picture the positive feedback loop there!). How anybody can hope to direct complicated policies when not able/willing to find out whether things work is beyond me, crazy reality-based entity that I am...
...
Our sources are firm in that they conclude this "good news only" directive comes from Bush himself; that is, it is not a trap or cocoon thrown around the President by National Security Advisor Rice, Vice President Cheney, and DOD Secretary Rumsfeld. In any event, whether self-imposed, or due to manipulation by irresponsible subordinates, the information/intelligence vacuum at the highest levels of the White House increasingly frightens those officials interested in objective assessment, and not just selling a political message.
(quote via A.W.A.D.)Knowing ignorance is strength; ignoring knowledge is sickness.
- -- Lao-Tzu,
philosopher (6th century BCE)
My very clear impression of the rank-and-file American right is that many if not most of them, at the behest of their leaders, now believe that opposing George W. Bush and the Iraq War, as well as his handling of the War on Terror, is an act of genuine treason worthy of the ultimate social condemnation, including incarceration and execution. They feel not only vindicated but profoundly empowered by the election result, empowered to silence their opposition, by force if need be.
Mr. Klein said he wanted to move CNN away from what he called "head-butting debate shows," which have become the staple of much of all-news television in the prime-time hours, especially at the top-rated Fox News Channel.First to go? Crossfire. Don't underestimate the contribution of recent dust-ups:
Mr. Klein specifically cited the criticism that the comedian Jon Stewart leveled at "Crossfire" when he was a guest on the program during the presidential campaign. Mr. Stewart said that ranting partisan political shows on cable were "hurting America."[Well, really, viewers are interested in celebrity scandal, but still, what the nation needs is more rational input.]
Mr. Klein said last night, "I agree wholeheartedly with Jon Stewart's overall premise." He said he believed that especially after the terror attacks on 9/11, viewers are interested in information, not opinion.
We don't need to turn out our base, we need to enlarge it. We need to make liberalism safe and attractive, and we need more Americans to demand more progressivism in their candidate.We've already got plenty of values, so let's make sure people know about it!
(poem via A Mindful Life)It is difficult to know what to do with so much happiness.
- So Much Happiness
With sadness there is something to rub against,
a wound to tend with lotion and cloth.
When the world falls in around you, you have pieces to
pick up,
something to hold in your hands, like ticket stubs,
or change.
But happiness floats.
It doesn't need you to hold it down.
It doesn't need anything.
Happiness lands on the roof of the next house, singing,
and disappears when it wants to.
You are happy either way.
Even the fact that you once lived in a peaceful tree house
and now live over a quarry of noise and dust
cannot make you unhappy.
Everything has a life of its own,
it too could wake up filled with possibilities
of coffee cake and ripe peaches,
and love even the floor which needs to be swept,
the soiled linens and scratched records...
Since there is no place large enough
to contain so much happiness,
you shrug, you raise your hands, and it flows out of you
into everything you touch. You are not responsible.
You take no credit, as the night sky takes no credit
for the moon, but continues to hold it, and share it,
and in that way, be known.
- --Naomi Shihab Nye
As pretty much all the sensible articles on Social Security have made clear, to the extent that we have a problem, it is not a Social Security problem, but an accumulated national debt problemDon't be taken in by the talk of imminent collapse; the main problem is that the government has been borrowing from SS to pay its other debts, and the current Administration just doesn't want to pay us back.
A reported U.S. plan to keep some suspected terrorists imprisoned for a lifetime even if the government lacks evidence to charge them in courts was swiftly condemned on Sunday as a "bad idea" by a leading Republican senator.Boy, those Senators don't miss a trick. Beacon for human rights, our country . . .
Belief, as I use the word here, is the insistence that the truth is what one would "lief" or wish it to be. The believer will open his mind to the truth on condition that it fits in with his preconceived ideas and wishes. Faith, on the other hand, is an unreserved opening of the mind to the truth, whatever it may turn out to be. Faith has no preconceptions; it is a plunge into the unknown. Belief clings, but faith lets go.![]()
- --Alan Watts,
The Wisdom of Insecurity
I have no use for people who have learned the limits of the possible.
- --Leonard of Quirm,
in "The Last Hero" by Terry Pratchett
In a chilling reversal of Henry Ford's strategy, which was to pay his workers amply so they could buy Ford cars, Wal-Mart's stingy compensation policies -- workers make, on average, just over $8 an hour, and if they want health insurance, they must pay more than a third of the premium -- contribute to an economy in which, increasingly, workers can afford to shop only at Wal-Mart.Happy #$%@! New Year, America!
Interested in local politics of Philadelphia and/or PA? Check out A Smoke-Filled Room
The regional heavyweights are summarized at