And Do It Now
The Must-Do List - New York Times
The Bush administration’s assault on some of the founding principles of American democracy marches onward despite the Democratic victory in the 2006 elections. The new Democratic majorities in Congress can block the sort of noxious measures that the Republican majority rubber-stamped. But preventing new assaults on civil liberties is not nearly enough.Our list starts with three fundamental tasks:
Five years of presidential overreaching and Congressional collaboration continue to exact a high toll in human lives, America’s global reputation and the architecture of democracy. Brutality toward prisoners, and the denial of their human rights, have been institutionalized; unlawful spying on Americans continues; and the courts are being closed to legal challenges of these practices.
- Restore Habeas Corpus
- Stop Illegal Spying
- Ban Torture, Really
Comments
Yeah, too bad the New York Times and the rest of the whore media has spent the last six years enabling these thugs and their non-stop gutting of our civil liberties. Thanks for the bloody list, ya fucking whores.
It's also worth noting that there is only one Democratic presidential candidate who has shown any real interest in restoring our forfeited civil liberties, and his name isn't Clinton, Edwards, or Obama.
http://kucinich.us/issues
Kucinich and actually...Ron Paul for 08 would be great.
go read Greenwald:
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/03/04/hearings/index.html
You begin with hearings.
Greenwald proves the adage that amateurs talk strategy, professionals talk logistics.
The two most important issues have been overlooked, here:
Without an informed public we are slaves. It's that simple. With corporate counting of the vote we are slaves. It's that simple.
Energy spent on impeachment legitimates the bastards -- and allows them to set the agenda.
As to the other three issues, these are supported by the majority of humans. Of course they are wrong -- and especially evil when the perpetrator is as overwhelmingly powerful as the U.S. Yet still, if you "know" someone has your daughter YOU will detain him (or her?), deprive him of due process, spy on him, and even torture him. Family trumps society every time -- it's a biological imperative. And it is the reason we require an impartial jury of peers.
Of course I can make this argument because I benefit from a secular education system that helped balance the fundamentalist dogma foisted on me by my family and my Indiana backwater town. That education system had been dismantled 12 years later when my younger sister followed. She's still "Christian", still in Indiana. Go figure.
Oh, and by the way, NYT, since you obviously haven't the benefit of a decent secular education:
Please, someone tell me what I am missing... Or why I should waste my time with the NYT...
mickleby, im sure the nyt realizes the president is currently breaking the law. i guess they could just replace most of the list with "make sure/force the president to follow the law" but that wouldnt be very informative now would it? are you really complaining that the times is being too specific? quite bizarre.
about the article, im a bit pessimistic about reform at this point. george bush is a tyrant (and i dont mean that to be provocative hyperbole, i mean he has given himself the powers of a tyrant). merely passing legislation against things the president is doing will have no real impact because the bush administration really believes that they are not limited by congress (for example, the nsa domestic spying is explicitly and obviously forbidden by fisa, an act of congress). therefore they could just ignore whatever legislation congress passes in the future. a confrontation of some sort might need to occur for progress to actually happen. even though theyve stopped that specific domestic spying program, they make no secret of the fact that they believe they have the right to start it (or something similar) up at any point, and without notifying anyone. they stopped that program for merely pragmatic reasons, to avoid confrontation, nothing fundamentally changed there. similarly, they changed jose padilla's status at the last minute in order to avoid confrontation with the courts. they dont want their rights to be limited, which is what would happen if these confrontations did occur. their concept of executive power is more important to them than whether jose padilla is an enemy combatant or not. its more important to me too, and the president should be forced to recognize the constitutional limits of executive power, its not nearly enough for him to simply stop his abuses.
i shouldve read that greenwald article before posting. let me amend my comment to just "go read the greenwald link".
So I slept on it to be sure I couldn't figure this out myself...
Bush wasn't elected. Not in 2000; not in 2004. That's clear, even to the NYT.
Bush is a rampant war criminal, guilty of countless crimes against humanity. The NYT describe it as lawless, but they can't deny it.
Laws already exist -- they are ignored -- nothing is done. What purpose is served by the charade that we have a functioning Constitutional government? More laws clearly are not needed.
The facts are evident. What will hearings prove? We know that Bush lost in 2000. And still the American people do not rise up. We know that torture is a crime against humanity. And still the people do not rise up. An American city was destroyed on national television. And still no revolt. What more can hearings possibly do?
Now some optimists may say that this is a political problem to be solved through political maneuvering. The election was not observed in 2000. But is this an overarching issue to the leading Democrats? Indeed, to which Dems is it on the radar? Not one likely to be "s-elected" by the U.S. elite in 2008. The Bush regime has radically undermined the education system in the U.S., but is this a Democratic rallying cry? Doesn't this show you that the Dems like the status quo? Don't you remember it was the Dems who brought us NAFTA and Telecomm deregulation? And for that matter what prominent Democrat came to California to clearly explain the energy deregulation that led ultimately to the overthrow of the elected Governor? Not one!
The NYT Editorial, even the Greenwald piece -- these are just a distraction and a way for the facilitator class to shrug off impotence and to deny indifference.
Kids need an education or they won't be able to string together the premises necessary to conclude that private tyrannies cannot be trusted to count the votes in a democracy. There is no more central issue.
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