Tea Party Independent Movement

When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that my dear friend, is about the end of ANY nation. - Dr. Adrian Rogers

Remember back when it all began and the Tea Party was being hailed as this “new” independent movement that was going to change the face of politics in America? These average Americans were mad at everybody and no politician was safe regardless of party. Well, now that the primaries are over what have we learned about this new independent movement?

We have learned that they may dislike Dems, but they hate Republicans. They hate Republicans until they win I guess and then they are waiting in line for the hand-outs and infomercials they get to do on FOX. We have learned that these folks were the crazy cousins hiding in the attic of the Republican Party. We have learned that these folks are the reincarnation of the “Know Nothings, the Moral Majority, and the Christian Coalition. We have learned that they really aren’t independent nor or they grassroots. If the Tea Party were an independent movement why did all of their candidates run in Republican primaries? You would think that a third independent party would want to run on its own identity and not the failed brand of another party.

The Tea Party appears to be an attempt to push the Republican Party further to the right and not to advance any independent ideas or agenda. It’s almost laughable when I hear the Republican leadership talk about co-opting the teabaggers. Why would you need to co-opt a group that is already a wing of your party? I think this is just to give the impression that this is actually some new force in the political arena. The truth is that these folks are not new. Many of them are descendents of the same old cultural warriors from the past who are disguising their brand of intolerance behind fiscal responsibility. We hate them because they are spending too much money. Please ignore the fact that we say racist things, that we are anti-Muslim, and by the way anti-immigration too. Our real mission is reigning in the runaway spending and over reaching power of the Federal Government.

Obviously they have forgotten that the Feds gained most of their power of intrusion from the Bush years following 9/11. They have forgotten about the Patriot Act, the secret files, and the eavesdropping on millions of phone calls of Americans. I guess it is ok for the government to be able to spy on its citizens so long as the government doesn’t provide a safety net for its most vulnerable or protect all of its citizens from profit driven corporations. This really isn’t about the size or scope of government. The reality is this is about the loss of responsibility to one another. We are witnessing a major turn in our collective consciousness towards one another. We are no longer our brothers keeper; instead it has been replaced with every person for themselves.

For many years following the Great Depression and World War II we as nation made the decision that it was important to care for our less fortunate brothers and sisters. Since that time the wealthy through their wing-nut surrogates have been whittling away at that concept. Taxes have gone from a necessary and honorable duty to a transfer of wealth. My question is why don’t we hear about the transfer of wealth when corporations and the rich are receiving government handouts? No, government support is only bad when it is given to ordinary or impoverished people.

The teabaggers are not some new populist independent movement despite the stories to the contrary. They are the same rehashed groups that have always been a part of the Republican Party who every ten years or so come up with a new name. And as if on cue the media portrays them as some new movement worthy of deeper investigation. The only problem is that they don’t do any investigation. The media accepts the narrative of the front men that they are in fact different from other past groups. But if the media would only do their homework they would easily see that these shadowy groups are all connected at the hip to their past personifications.

Remember following the trouncing that the Republicans took after the last two elections the question was asked if America had grown tired of the old “culture wars” that the Republicans had used to their advantage? Well the wing-nuts were listening and rebranded themselves as fiscal conservatives no longer publically espoused their desire to control the behavior of their fellow citizens. It appears that depending on the mood of the electorate the wing-nuts will reinvent themselves in that image. The goal is not principled “pledges” or “contracts” the goal is power and whatever they have to become to gain that power they will become. Because of the anxiety over the economy they are now populist but make no mistake their agenda has not changed. Their goal is to move this country to the right.

In ten years they will rebrand themselves something else and we will go through this same process of how some new independent movement is shaking the country and in the end when the curtain is pulled back it will be the same old wing-nuts offering the same old failed policies under some new guise. You would think that we would be tired of this game, but as long as they can find these “regular” American hucksters who are willing to do and say anything for a dollar with the ability to cajole millions into these false arguments with their false remedies the dance continues. See you in ten years.

"Gay marriage is probably the biggest issue that will impact our state and our nation in the last, at least, thirty years. I AM NOT UNDERSTATING THAT." - Michelle Bachmann

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The Politics of Rage and Hate

In what is sure to become his last ditch effort to gain the Republican nomination Mr. Giuliani is pressing forward with the politics of rage and hate that has endeared his Party to so many Americans. Speaking at a campaign event in New Hampshire Mr. Giuliani proposed expanding the war in Afghanistan with his own variation of the “surge” strategy. Also, Mr. Giuliani has released a new television ad with all the usual suspects (Osama, WTC, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad) and he’s added a new one (Benazir Bhutto). In the ad Mr. Giuliani stresses the point that the world is in chaos and America needs a leader who is ready, ready for what it doesn’t say. Nor does the ad mention who has been the creator of most of this world’s chaos.

“I think it wouldn’t be unfair to describe us as the 9/11 generation, because how we handle this is going to say something about us in history,” Mr. Giuliani said in his speech.

The push comes as some of Mr. Giuliani’s Republican rivals are questioning how his background as mayor of New York City gives him national security or foreign policy experience — questions Mr. Giuliani may not have allayed Wednesday when he told reporters that the United States had some troops “under U.N. command” in Afghanistan (when in fact the United States has some troops there under NATO command).

Military officials said last month that the NATO-led security assistance mission in Afghanistan had about 40,000 troops, including 14,000 Americans. Separately, the United States military has 12,000 other troops conducting specialized counterterrorism missions. Charles Hill, Mr. Giuliani’s chief foreign policy adviser, said that it was the American-led troops that Mr. Giuliani wanted to double, but that the rise could be gradual.

Mr. Giuliani’s new campaign advertisement — which will be broadcast here and in Florida, as well as nationally on Fox News — contains images of Muslims with rifles; explosions; a bloody man; Benazir Bhutto, who was recently assassinated in Pakistan; and the president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.[1]

Will this guy stop at nothing to become President? Now we are the 9/11 generation, as if to say everything we do will be couched in 9/11. The sad part about it is that for too many of our fellow citizens this has been true and this has led to an assault on our personal freedoms, our constitutional rights, and the world community. How many of these crack pots do they think they can get elected with the politics of fear? After 8 years of Bush, do they really think that American is looking to elect another one of these “the sky is falling” nuts? If the best campaign slogan you can come up with is “Be very afraid”, I think maybe this isn’t your election and someday soon won’t be your country.

My hope is that the first thing the next President will do is to lower the US threat level. After 8 years of being on red, maybe it is time to dial it back a little. While I am not advocating returning to the lax standards of security pre-9/11, I am saying that we have allowed fear of the unknown to go unchecked for too long. We must wakeup from the nightmare and stop fearing every little thing that goes bump in the night. We will never be able to do this, if we allow our fears to be stoked by Mr. Giuliani and his ilk. This line of “You are in danger and I am the only one who can protect you” is the same logic he tried to use to extend his term as Mayor. If the choices are an America with Rudy Giuliani as President or the terrorists, I am not so sure I wouldn’t be better off with the terrorists. How painful can getting your head cut off be? As one famous patriot so eloquently stated, “Give me liberty or give me death”. If nothing else the last 8 years should have shown us that the way these clowns want to protect us is with cameras, wire-taps, and by shredding the constitution; no thanks fellas I prefer the following sentiment. “It is far better for a man to go wrong in freedom than to go right in chains.”[2]

Freedom like so many of life’s cherished gifts will not be missed until it has been lost. The greatest freedom one has is the freedom to decide what one is willing to die for. Mr. Giuliani may promise safety, but at what cost? I personally do not believe we as a nation are any safer today due to the policies of George Bush than we were seven years ago. Yet, despite approval ratings in the high twenties, Mr. Giuliani wants to out-Bush, George Bush. What is this guy smoking? The Mayor of 9/11 needs to go back to his rip-off consulting firm and allow America to get past the nightmare of 9/11 and move forward into a new day.

If the Iowa caucus taught me anything, it is that America is ready for change and in a big way. If you aren’t a part of that change I am afraid you will be left behind. I don’t know if there is enough sentiment to take the White House and government back, but it can no longer be ignored. The journey to take back America has begun. It is now time for all of us to decide. Do we continue to cling to fear and hatred of the past or do we get behind the change and move towards a better future? The choice is ours. I pray we choose wisely.

[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/03/us/politics/03giuliani.html
[2] http://thinkarete.com/quotes/by_teacher/Thomas%20H.%20Huxley

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Not Another Year in Review

Well, it’s another end of the year and with it comes the onslaught of year in review diaries and analysis. So, in keeping with the spirit of the times, I’d like to offer mine. Rather than review a litany of stories and issues that have developed over the past year, I thought I would do just one. I wanted to find the one story that stood out over all the others. Of course this is a formidable task considering the sheer volume of information we are bombarded with on any given day. More information does not necessarily translate into better information. As our sources of information are being reduced by mergers and media conglomerates, it is easy to get caught up in the hype of what others want us to know.

I wanted to review the year and pick out the story that troubled me the most during the past year and after thinking about it, it wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be. While there were plenty of candidates to choose from:

1. Virginia Tech Shootings
2. Mortgage Crisis
3. The Surge in Iraq
4. Soaring Gas Prices
5. Chinese Export Recalls
6. The Jena Six
7. Global Warming Debate
8. Presidential Campaign
9. Immigration Debate
10. US Torture
11. Iran Nukes

While all of these stories were compelling and could be worthy of the top story, in my mind only one of them marked a dramatic change in our nation and in our standing on the world stage. In my opinion the most troubling story of 2007 to us as a nation is the acknowledgment of torture and the destroying of the tapes depicting its use. To me this is a turning point in the direction of our nation on a massive scale, we have not only crossed a boundary against international law, but also against humanity. The real crime is not the news of torture, it is the public acknowledgement of it. By going public the US has now legitimized its usage throughout the world and further alienated us from the civilized world.

I am not so naïve to believe that the US has not engaged in torture in the past and that this public pronouncement is a new development in American policy. On the contrary, the US has a long storied history of using “enhanced interrogation” techniques. Not only have we been partakers, but for decades have been instructors in the fine art of torture. I find it hard to believe that torture needs to be taught, but there you go. In all the hoopla surrounding the current torture debate a little reported fact was that torture was indeed a part of the curriculum at The US Army School of the Americas, located at Ft. Benning, GA. Many of the worst atrocities committed in Central and South America were done by graduates of the SOA.

It's a history exhaustively documented in an avalanche of books, declassified documents, CIA training manuals, court records and truth commissions. In his forthcoming book, A Question of Torture, Alfred McCoy synthesises this evidence, producing a riveting account of how monstrous CIA-funded experiments on psychiatric patients and prisoners in the 1950s turned into a template for what he calls "no-touch torture", based on sensory deprivation and self-inflicted pain. McCoy traces how these methods were field-tested by CIA agents in Vietnam as part of the Phoenix programme and then imported to Latin America and Asia under the guise of police training.

Does it somehow lessen today's horrors to admit that this is not the first time the US government has used torture, that it has operated secret prisons before, that it has actively supported regimes that tried to erase the left by dropping students out of airplanes? That, closer to home, photographs of lynchings were traded and sold as trophies and warnings? Many seem to think so. On November 8, Democratic Congressman Jim McDermott made the astonishing claim to the House of Representatives that "America has never had a question about its moral integrity, until now".[1]

The question now becomes if torture has been an ongoing modis operandi of the CIA and US military why does it warrant the top story slot? The reason it is at the top of my list is not the fact that torture is and has been practiced by the US and its proxies. No, the reason it makes the top is our response to it. Not only we’re there no protests in the streets or massive campaigns to Congress and the White House, it became a part of the campaign debate and the debate around the dinner tables and cafes of America. There was no national repudiation and condemnation; there was debate about its effectiveness. There was debate about which detainees were eligible for it and which ones weren’t. The Congress confirmed a new Attorney General who did not have to give a legal opinion on the use of torture for God’s sake, this on the heels of his predecessor writing legal opinions condoning the use of torture.

One of these days this country will have to wake up from 9/11. The truth is that 9/11 did change everything, but it didn’t have to. The thing it changed the most is that it allowed the fear-mongers, power-grubbers, and empire builders to take over without protest. It allowed civil and human rights to be violated. It allowed torture to become en vogue. It allowed neighbor to spy on neighbor. It basically gave cover to all the dark forces that have always been in America, but were kept in the crevices by common sense and dignity for human life. The goal of terrorists is to inflict terror and judging from the past six years, mission accomplished. At some point the lies will be uncovered and the insanity of the war on terror will end, then what? Will we look back in horror at what we have become or we will “whitewash” our transgressions as we have done so often in the past?

[1] http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1664174,00.html

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Why Mitt Romney Should Not Be President

I normally do not make it a habit of coming out against a candidate, I have from time to time brought to light a candidate’s inconsistencies or outright lies but rarely have I made the case against a candidate. This will only be the second such case, the first was Rudy Giuliani because he is running on a misleading and often times false set of circumstances concerning 9/11 and his role in the Bernie Kerik fiasco. In the case of Mitt Romney I am willing to once again demonstrate a basic character flaw which is so entrenched in my opinion it should disqualify him from being elected President.

The deadly character flaw that Mitt Romney suffers from is a lack of courage to lead. America is at a crossroad and the last thing we need is a President without courage and leadership, because the direction and many of the steps we will need to take are not going to be popular and will not be consensus builders. For most of Mr. Romney’s adult life he has avoided the courage of leadership, eventhough he has been in leadership positions. It is one thing to be in charge, it is far different thing to be a leader. Someone in charge merely puts into place the positions and ideas of others, rarely venturing out of the box to express or enact any real change. Our country is in desperate need for real change, not someone who has made a life following and maintaining the status quo.

Civil rights became an even more insistent issue, when boycotts and violent protests over the university’s virtually all-white sports teams broke out at away games. The Mormon Church at the time excluded blacks from full membership, considering them spiritually unfit as results of a biblical curse on the descendants of Noah’s son Ham. (During their training, a fellow missionary of Mr. Romney took notes that read: “All men were created equal — No,” followed by “Sons of Ham. ”)

A handful of students and prominent Mormons — including the Arizona congressman Morris K. Udall and his brother Stewart, then secretary of the interior — called for an end to the doctrine. Some Mormons hoped the pressure would persuade the church to abandon its exclusion of blacks, just as it had stopped endorsing polygamy.

Mitt Romney had walked in civil rights marches with his father and said he shared his concern for racial equality. But neither publicly questioned the church’s teachings.[1]

During the earth-shattering struggles of his time, Mr. Romney repeatedly chose to remain on the sidelines while others took the lead and now he wants us to believe that he is a leader. Where was your leadership Mr. Romney when the country was going through the previous struggles that defined a nation and a generation? An example would be the exclusion of blacks from his Church, Mr. Romney would have us believe that he was against it, yet nowhere publically did he speak out against it, even though being the son of one of the most prominent Mormons in the country he had a platform to do so. But Mr. Romney chose to play it safe and go with flow supposedly secretly wanting the Church to change its doctrine of exclusion.

In this article that I cited Mr. Romney states that how things are done in his church is by God’s intervention, well that’s all fine and good Mr. Romney but you might consider when your “Church” violates a commanding principal of God to maybe join another church? If my church begins to teach the doctrine that women are not spiritually fit to become members it is the time that I as a member must make a decision, to follow God or to follow my church. In this case I am not given the choice of doing nothing, because doing nothing is a choice.

Most of the missionaries, though, were also relieved that their service meant a draft deferment. “I am sorry, but no one was excited to go and get killed in Vietnam,” Mr. Hansen said, acknowledging, “In hindsight, it is easy to be for the war when you don’t have to worry about going to Vietnam.”

Mr. Romney, though, said that he sometimes had wished he were in Vietnam instead of France. “There were surely times on my mission when I was having a particularly difficult time accomplishing very little when I would have longed for the chance to be serving in the military,” he said in an interview, “but that was not to be.”

While many Mormons — and eventually, some of his fellow missionaries — enlisted, Mr. Romney got a student deferment after returning from France. When the draft lottery was introduced in December 1969, he drew a high enough number — 300 — that he would never be called up.[2]

The other issue where Mr. Romney again showed a lack of courage was the question of the war in Vietnam. I’m sorry but I just have to ask; besides John McCain was there any Republican politician that went to defend the country they now hope to lead? So the best the Republicans can offer the country is another long list of chickenhawks, defenders of the war only because they or their ilk will never have to fight in it. What a sad state of affairs for our country. Mr. Romney not only chose to take a deferment, he again uses the disingenuous response of I really wanted to go, but. Mr. Romney if you really wanted to go there would have been nothing to stop you. Take for instances the former professional football player Pat Tillman, he really wanted to go and he went. He left all the comforts and privilege and chose to stand up for what he believed in. It eventually cost him his life, so don’t disgrace the memories of all those who did choose to go and fight with that weak kneed answer.

Mr. Romney has never shown the strength and courage of his convictions, even now on the campaign trail he has stood for something different from when he was a governor. Can our country afford another President who says one thing and does another; I for one do not think so. Courage is not something you get from your relatives, either you have it or you don’t and Mr. Romney does not seem to have it. If he does he has not shown it, which in my opinion makes him not qualified to be President.

[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/15/us/politics/15romney.html?pagewanted=3&hp
[2] http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/15/us/politics/15romney.html?pagewanted=3&hp

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The Terrorists Have Won

Since 9/11, America has lost not only the war on terror, but America itself. Before a shot was fired in Afghanistan or Iraq, the terrorists had won. The terrorists won when we allowed this administration and the Neo-Cons to hijack America and turn us into a tyrannical monster. I don’t know if it was by design or by happenstance, but when those planes hit with GW Bush in office it set forth a chain of events that caused our defeat. I know that we have the greatest military power in the world and in conventional tactics we could crush anyone, but we are a defeated nation when this happens.

The debate over how terrorism suspects should be held and questioned began shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, when the Bush administration adopted secret detention and coercive interrogation, both practices the United States had previously denounced when used by other countries. It adopted the new measures without public debate or Congressional vote, choosing to rely instead on the confidential legal advice of a handful of appointees.

The Bush administration had entered uncharted legal territory beginning in 2002, holding prisoners outside the scrutiny of the International Red Cross and subjecting them to harrowing pressure tactics. They included slaps to the head; hours held naked in a frigid cell; days and nights without sleep while battered by thundering rock music; long periods manacled in stress positions; or the ultimate, waterboarding.[1]

There will be those hawks, wing-nuts, and pundits that will claim the opposite that we are winning the war but once we crossed this line we lost. When we began spying on each other, disallowing habeas corpus, and torturing we lost. Many like Mr. Bush will claim that the ends justify the means; there have been no new attacks so it must be working. This is a false conclusion based on a false premise, the reason we defeated communism was not because of our military power, it was because of what we provided to the world.

What we provided to the world was a dream, a dream that no matter what your circumstances, your religion, or your status you could have a say in your life. Granted that dream was never fully realized and was tarnished for many, but it still existed as a light to walk towards. That light has been darkened by the Bush Administration. There are many things that this President has done that I have found personally reprehensible, but what he has done here is unforgivable. He has taken us across a line that no matter what the world was doing we would not cross, not because we couldn’t but because it was wrong. It was wrong in previous wars and it is wrong in this one.

The thing that troubles me the most is not that Mr. Bush did what he did; it was that we allowed him to. There were not enough principled and honorable people to stop this from happening, that good people went silent when we needed their voices the most. I have a hard time supporting any candidate for President, because they were all culpable in this transformation, to some degree. Worst yet are the Progressives, was there no one to articulate the dangerous waters we were swimming headlong into? Was there no sane voice of reason that could have turned the tsunami of 9/11 into an opportunity to demonstrate to the world what super power really means? I’m not sure it would have even mattered, but we owed it to our children to try.

Never in history had the United States authorized such tactics. While President Bush and C.I.A. officials would later insist that the harsh measures produced crucial intelligence, many veteran interrogators, psychologists and other experts say that less coercive methods are equally or more effective.

With virtually no experience in interrogations, the C.I.A. had constructed its program in a few harried months by consulting Egyptian and Saudi intelligence officials and copying Soviet interrogation methods long used in training American servicemen to withstand capture. The agency officers questioning prisoners constantly sought advice from lawyers thousands of miles away.[2]

The terrorists have won not because they were smarter, stronger, or even right in their beliefs; they won because we defeated ourselves. We used the tragedy to unleash our paranoia and righteous indignation against a world that was becoming less and less compliant to our demands. The world had to be taught a lesson, noses had to be bloodied as Mr. Friedman has said and it came at a cost not only that was prohibitive to the world but also to our freedom.

We are not safer today than we were on 9/10; we are only more closed up. Travel to the US is way down, the world does not like what we have allowed ourselves to become. We may think we’re safer, but so is the guy on a deserted island. If isolation is what it takes to be safer, is it worth it? If being cut-off from the world is the answer, then we are asking the wrong questions. The opinion of the US in the world has never been lower, not only in the Middle East but even amongst our allies. We have imprisoned ourselves and shut out the world, because of this the terrorists have won.

[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/04/washington/04interrogate.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin
[2] http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/04/washington/04interrogate.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

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What Is A Hero?

What defines a hero? Today we use the term so loosely; I think it has lost much of its luster. Dictionary.com the online dictionary has this definition - somebody who commits an act of remarkable bravery or who has shown an admirable quality such as great courage or strength of character.[1]

Today we use it to describe athletes, politicians, and movie stars based not on their deeds, but on our perceptions of their deeds or on the media hype. For some reason we are a country of hero worshippers, we punch out heroes like so many “Krispy Kreme” donuts. We crank them out with little regard for who or what they really are. They are made heroes not for their bravery or strength, but more for their marketing value. The funny thing though is that we are just as quick to knock them off the pedestal as we are to put them on. I think that is because they were never real heroes in the first place.

I am writing this post today to discuss the meaning of hero in America because there is a Republican running for President that is using the hero mantle and I wonder if it is deserved. The reason I question the merit of it in this case is because if we use it to define those who have not demonstrated the characteristics of a true hero, then we cheapen it for those who do rise to that level. The man that I am speaking of is former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani; Mr. Giuliani has created this image that he hopes to ride all the way to the White House. The question I think, is does this well crafted image accurately portray a hero?

Before we begin, let me give my definition of a hero. I do this because I refuse to allow the MSM or Madison Avenue to determine for me what heroism is. Remember at onetime O.J. was a hero. To me a hero is someone who is willing to stand up for what he believes in, even when it is unpopular to do so. A hero is willing to sacrifice his own well-being and maybe even his life for others. A hero does the right thing even when he is afraid. A hero is still a hero in the mundane common things of life. There are other qualities, but I think these will do for openers.

Let’s see how America’s Mayor stands up to the test. Before 9/11, Mr. Giuliani was not a popular mayor and his political fortunes were waning. He had been the author of some unpopular policies and had alienated many in the city through his callousness.

Mr. Giuliani’s eight-year mayoralty was a balloon deflating before Sept. 11.

He had stirred a racial tempest by tearing into the reputation of an unarmed black man who had been killed by an undercover police officer.

The mayor had an affair and announced at a press conference that he would seek a separation — without informing his wife.[2]

Prior to 9/11 Mr. Giuliani’s conduct hardly rises to the level of heroic. He had been an adulterer and had led a police crackdown that some felt had unfairly targeted Blacks and had led to increased police brutality. Then that faithful day arrived and suddenly he was transformed into a hero.

That walk north, the spareness of his words and his passion became the founding stones in the reconstruction of the mayor’s reputation, transforming him from a grouchy pol slip-sliding into irrelevancy to the Republican presidential candidate introduced as America’s mayor. The former mayor has made this day the centerpiece of his presidential campaign, aware that millions of Americans hold that heroic view in their collective mind’s eye.

Political leadership is an uncertain alchemy, an admixture of the symbolic and substantive and the visceral. In times of consuming trauma, psychologists and historians say, a leader must speak with a trusted voice and sketch honestly the painful steps to safety. A leader must weave a narrative of shared loss while acknowledging consuming anger.

All this Mr. Giuliani accomplished, mourning the dead, comforting the grieving and cheering the living even as the police and the National Guard moved in. His critics have lambasted the rescue failures at ground zero and argued that his inattention before 9/11 cost lives.

But his performance shone brighter for the implicit comparison with President George W. Bush, who initially appeared — fairly or not — frozen in his chair, listening to second graders read as a nation came under attack.[3]

While putting a face on the tragedy that was 9/11 was important and compared to the President his performance was admirable, but heroic? To me heroic were the guys who ran into a building where two planes had just crashed, heroic were those people who sacrificed themselves so others could reach safety. Standing calmly in front of a camera away from the danger in a dusty suit to me hardly rates heroic. Of course we have to contrast his performance to the deer caught in the headlights performance of George Bush and a desperate people might say it was heroic.

I would have probably let that one go, but then there was another side of Mr. Giuliani that emerged during the crisis that many do not know, he wanted to extend his term as mayor. He even got 2 of the three candidates to acquiesce to his demands. Rudy became drunk with power after 9/11, does that sound familiar? Granted it was a national emergency and suspending the election scheduled for that day was prudent, but to assume that you are the only one who can marshal the city through this crisis is the bane of Mr. Giuliani and that is his ego. Do we really want another ego-maniac in the White House, someone unable to see his own shortcomings?

But this fusion of personality with a wounded city had an underside. Mr. Giuliani became convinced that he was New York’s indispensable man. He tried to overturn term limits and run again. Failing that, Mr. Giuliani wanted to extend his term three months.

“It was a very dangerous idea,” said Mr. Schwarz, the former corporation counsel. “The knight on the white horse is always indispensable in his own mind.”[4]

All of us have our flaws and I would never for one minute assume that we will elect a flawless person to be President, but we have been down this road before. The fine staged-craft persona of a take charge leader and hero coming to the rescue. I didn’t like the original version, so I’m in no hurry to see the sequel. The world we will inherit from the first hero will be too dangerous and divided to elect another in that series of “bring it on” and “we are winning” from Republican type casting.

No, I don’t see a hero here. I see someone who has taken a tragedy and is trying to ride it for political gain. I don’t know what his qualifications for President are, but being a hero is not one of them…

[1] http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/hero
[2] http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/21/us/politics/21giuliani.html?hp
[3] Ibid.
[4] http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/21/us/politics/21giuliani.html?hp

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Not At Our Photo Op!

The President of Iran wanted to lay a wreath at the sight of the Twin Towers terrorists attacks on 9/11, affectionally referred to as “ground zero”. The Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is scheduled to address the UN General Assembly and wanted to express the condolences of the Iranian people. It appears that the sympathy of the Iranian people is not welcome here in America. We wonder why we are losing the hearts and minds of the Arab peoples of the world when we do things like this. This is an affront to Muslims everywhere and will be used for political gain by those who advocate more radical positions against America.

NEW YORK -- A request by Iran's president to lay a wreath at the World Trade Center site next week has been turned down by police and blasted by U.S. diplomats as an attempt to turn ground zero into a "photo op."[1]

Regardless of the political climate with Iran, to disrespect their people in this way is a slap in the face. To not accept the tribute of the Iranian people for the attacks, which they had nothing to do with is again grouping all Muslims together as being guilty for the attack, which many in this country continue to insist on doing.

I am not a big fan of the Iranian President, but in this capacity he is representing the people of Iran, who should be allowed to acknowledge their respect for the victims of the attack. How can we cultivate closer relations with the Arab world if we continue to treat them with disdain? It seems that the only Muslim countries we are interested in cultivating relationships with are the ones willing to do our bidding. Continuing to demonize and label those who disagree with us maybe good for internal consumption, but in the world community that strategy has not played well. There are many in the world who see us as the biggest threat to peace and not those we have labeled as such, so somewhere there has been a disconnect between what we are saying and what the world is believing.

If I remember correctly Iran was one of the Muslim countries that rallied behind the US after 9/11 and condemned the attacks, but obviously this administration still suffers from the same short-sightedness that led us to attack Iraq and lay the groundwork for attacking Iran.

The rationale for the denial of the request is that the Bush Administration did not want to allow Mr. Ahmadinejad an opportunity to have photos taken at the scene of the attacks. Here is the part that kills me, we don’t want to allow him the opportunity to exploit the victims, but yet we have allowed every American politician with a pulse to exploit them. There is a quote in the Bible the reads:

To the pure all things are pure,
But to those who are defiled and unbelieving nothing is pure
But even there mid and conscience are defiled.[2]

I quote this verse to say that if one’s motives are wrong, then they assume everyone’s motives are wrong. If I am a thief then I think that all people are thieves and act accordingly. If the Iranian President is looking to exploit this tragedy then that will be revealed and he will be treated accordingly, but to make that assumption, especially by the same people who arranged photo ops in Iraq, Ground Zero, and aboard an aircraft carrier is pathetic.

The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Zalmay Khalilzad, told reporters Wednesday that the United States would not support Iran's attempt to use the site for a "photo op."[3]

So, let’s keep the site of the attack clear of foreigners so that it can remain pristine for our pandering politician’s photo ops. Warning to the rest of the world’s politicians, we can use your countries memorials for photo ops, but don’t even think about trying that here.

[1] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/20/AR2007092000207.html
[2] Titus 1:15
[3] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/20/AR2007092000207.html

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The Crusade of George Bush

As I watch more and more of the intransigence of George Bush, I have been left with only one of two choices. Either the man is insane and stupid or he sees something that I don’t see. I use to believe the former and now I am beginning to believe the latter. I think that Mr. Bush believes that his divinely inspired destiny is found in his coming to the rescue of the Holy Land, even if that means unleashing apocalyptic chaos on the world.

In a meeting with the Palestinian leadership in June of 2003, Mr. Bush instructed the ministers that he believed that God had instructed him to do the following.


Nabil Shaath says: "President Bush said to all of us: 'I'm driven with a mission from God. God would tell me, "George, go and fight those terrorists in Afghanistan." And I did, and then God would tell me, "George, go and end the tyranny in Iraq …" And I did. And now, again, I feel God's words coming to me, "Go get the Palestinians their state and get the Israelis their security, and get peace in the Middle East." And by God I'm gonna do it.'"[1]

It is apparent that Mr. Bush believes that God has chosen him to smite the wicked infidels of the world and restore order. You would think that Mr. Bush invoking God and destiny would be frightening to most Americans, but strangely it is not. The reason being is that the majority of Americans have been raised with the belief that America is uniquely qualified to represent God in the world. That not only is America qualified but has been chosen by God to do so and that we are a nation that has been given special status and grace to do so.

By the nineteenth century, that new order was brazenly described as "our manifest destiny." President McKinley’s alleged explanation for conquering the Philip-pines in 1898 is an unequivocal example of this divinely-inspired imperialism. "I went down on my knees and prayed," McKinley dramatically explains, "and it came to me." It was our task to "civilize and Christianize them and by God’s grace do the very best we could by them." Senator Beveridge agreed that the Lord blessed this undertak-ing as he "has marked us as a chosen people." In reality, the Spanish-American war and the conquest of the Philippines accelerated the ascendancy of an expanding empire. Such crude goals are difficult to justify, but more easily digested if viewed as a fulfillment of God’s will.[2]

This manifest destiny came ashore with the first white settlers and continues to this very day. There are many in this country who believe that America has some special place endowed by God in the world and the rest of the world are less than and therefore can eat sh*t. This attitude is being trumpeted through the evangelicals across the country and has been for centuries. It is this attitude of special privilege from God that causes the world to call us arrogant and hypocrites. When an argument is couched in God’s will, who can resist it. We have allowed this belief to infiltrate our politics and our foreign policy; we have an undeclared war on the Muslim world. We refuse to accept the advice or authority of any other country, even the country we may be visiting or invading. We do not respect the cultures or customs of other nations that do not mimic our own. This thing with Bush is not only surprising but should have been expected. You look at the last few elections starting with the “Moral Majority” which was neither moral nor a majority, but they were promoted by the MSM as if they were speaking directly from God. There is a deep undercurrent in this country that believes that God particularly founded this nation and that we have a chosen role in the coming apocalypse.

After the trauma of September 11, President Bush breathed new life into this centuries-old imperial theology. The World Trade Center catastrophe revived religious vocabularies of superiority with increased vigor. Bush, who considers Jesus the philosopher who most influenced him, issued a "crusade" against the perpetrators. Advisers worried that talk of a crusade was too inflammatory, but they did not forsake religious metaphors. If September 11 did not constitute a crusade, it did ignite a "monumental struggle of good versus evil," and "good will prevail," the President informed us. Within hours of the attack, Bush instantly surmised that an epic conflict commenced. Here Bush mimics an Old Testament prophet, conjuring up the dichotomy of "us" versus "them" alongside the assumption that the United States is all that is good in the world. Equally revealing is Bush’s emphasis on an Armageddon-like battle, a "monumental struggle" against "evildoers." George W. Bush is the quintessence of the crusader motif.[3]

The tragedy of 9/11 only allowed what was always just barely under the surface to rise. No one cringed when Bush began to couch religious metaphors in his speeches. If anything it added to the righteous indignation, how could anyone have the nerve to attack God’s country? Newsflash – God does not have a country, God has people and they live all over the world and they may not talk or look like you, but that doesn’t make them any less valuable to God. We now have the results of this rhetoric and its hostile intent, we have invaded two countries (both Muslim) and we are talking trash to a third. How can the Muslim world not think this is another crusade?

The only problem with crusades is that eventually the crusaders go home and the natives are still there. So unless the strategy is to kill them all, it isn’t going to work. Let’s end the crusades of George Bush before any more people are slaughtered. It is time for Little Sir George to put on his pajamas and get into bed. Goodnight everyone from Camelot.

[1] http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/1007-03.htm
[2] http://www.unc.edu/depts/diplomat/archives_roll/2003_10-12/mirra_theol/mirra_theol.html
[3] http://www.unc.edu/depts/diplomat/archives_roll/2003_10-12/mirra_theol/mirra_theol.html

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Losing Is Winning?

I’m sorry but I am having a really hard time with the spin on the Iraq funding bill compromise. Now I see why politicians are politicians. I use to think that they were pretty much like you and me, except with very large egos. Now I am of the opinion that they are from another world entirely.

Once again the Congress has allowed this President to bully and coerce them into backing down. Failing to display the political courage and will that is necessary to end this fiasco. I know that politics is about compromise, but show me the compromise for the Congress. It appears that they have caved in on everything this President wanted. Political expediency has won out again over courage.

I don’t want to hear about moral victories, people are dying. Where is the moral victory in that? This congress had an opportunity to give a voice to those who have lost their voices, the dead from 9/11, Afghanistan, & Iraq. The country needed moral leadership and courage and received a dose of the same old thing. The sad thing is that by holding two votes the Congressional leaders are providing cover for both themselves and the Republicans.

Obviously, I am not a political guru, but I had assumed that kicking the Republicans out the last election was a signal by the people of this country for a new direction. That new direction included Iraq. It is time to quit playing politics with the lives of our soldiers. Let’s make this perfectly clear, the way you support the troops is by saving them from the killing machine that Iraq continues to degenerate into. The Congress has allowed this administration to frame the question and by doing so they have allowed them to limit their responses. By framing the discussion with the question of, “Do you support the troops?” the Republicans leave only 2 responses; yes or no. By the questions asked one can control the responses to come. Instead of the question being, “Do you support the troops?”, it should be do you support the mandate, policy, and handling of the war that our troops are in. What kind of question is, "Do you support the troops?" That is like asking me do I support California.

If I really supported the troops, I would want them out of Iraq. This thing isn’t about body armor or humvees, it is about a flawed policy. News Flash: no matter how much the military and some people want to believe, there will not be a casualty free war. We soothe ourselves by sending over body armor and steel plated humvees, but war by its very nature is violent and people are killed and maimed. No matter how the military tries to make it look like a video game, this is real. Maybe if we just send over enough super-duper equipment and technology we can defeat the enemy and none of our folks will be harmed. And the lottery check is in the mail.

It is time to stop letting the politics of fear override the knowledge of what is right. Each member of Congress must ask him or herself the following question, “Did I come to Washington to represent myself or to represent the people who sent me?” In other words am I here to be reelected or am I here to do what is right regardless of the consequences. I am not naïve; I realize that people are often motivated by self interest. Someone once said, “In a democracy, the people get the government they deserve.” If we continue to elect those people who do not represent our interest or will not enact what we want done, then we are getting the government that we deserve.

I would like to think that this will end prior to the end of the Bush presidency, but I doubt it. There just doesn’t seem to be the political will and courage necessary to overcome the fear. There are no victories today, not for the Congress, not for the White House, and especially not for our troops in Iraq. Oh by the way, “How’s that surge thing working out for you?”

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.- Martin Luther King

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We Don’t Need No Stinkin Lawyers

In an effort to continue to circumvent due process, this administration wants to limit access to the detainees in Guantanamo and their attorneys, attorneys which by the way they didn’t want them to have in the first place.

The Justice Department has asked a federal court to impose these tighter restrictions on the attorneys. They argue that it is a breach in security to have them meeting so much with their clients and also to be able to view classified documents. These classified documents are the ones being using to prove the status of the detainees. This is eerily similar to the run up to the war strategy. The strategy where the administration would plant a story in the media and then quote the story later as proof of their quote’s authenticity, better known as a circular argument and propaganda.

Imagine being on trial for your life and the judge saying, “You are meeting too often with your lawyer and he cannot see the evidence against you.” When did America stop being America? Was it September 11, 2001? If it was, then all those people died in vain and we have made a mockery of their memorial. While I personally consider lawyers one step up from earthworm on the food chain, if I were fighting for my life in a court of law, I would probably have one. Are not the fundamental rights of being a human being reserved for those people in our control, but outside of our borders as well? One wise American said that there are certain rights that are inalienable, they belong to everyone. The true test of a democracy is not how it treats its allies, but how it treats its enemies. The world is watching us to see if those noble words we espouse real or just something we put on cereal boxes.

If these men are who we say they are, then won’t that come out in a trial with or without attorneys? Can the attorneys make evidence disappear? Either justice works or it doesn’t and if it doesn’t then lets dispense with the formalities and start executing these men now. That would be more humane than what they are receiving now.

Let’s be clear, this isn’t about lawyers or national security risks. This new strategy is about keeping dirty laundry in the hamper. This administration does not want its ugly secrets to become public and by keeping these attorneys at bay they can hope to continue their campaign of terror. Some of these attorneys have brought to light much of the information we have of the deplorable conditions found at Guantanamo, exposing this dark place to the light of morality. By doing so, they have now become “enablers of the terrorists” and therefore security risks. This argument has just about worn thin, anyone who does not fall in and goose step to the administration’s beat is at best naïve and at worse a terrorist sympathizer. The exercise of our democratic rights should not come with questions of our patriotism or our feelings about terrorists. Torture or terrorists should not be the framework of the argument. One should be able to disagree with one and not be accepting of the other. This is not the 3^rd grade playground; we are adults who have the capacity to see the world in more shades than these. So, according to the Bush administration we don’t need no stinkin lawyers!

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McCarthyism Is Alive And Well

Last night I watched the Bill Moyers Journal[1] entitled, “Buying The War”. What this administration did in the run up to the war was criminal. They bullied, coerced, and lied throughout the whole process. What the media did was worse than criminal, it was cowardly. It merely points out the need for all of us to remain vigilant, because we no longer have any one willing to question the party line. The overriding sentiment expressed by reporter after reporter was a pervasive fear that they would be cast as unpatriotic if they questioned the information being put out by the administration. Does this sound familiar?

The main thing that troubles me is what will prevent this from happening again? None of the reporters whose job it was to investigate these claims has expressed any remorse concerning their behavior. They continually made excuses why they acquiesce to these false claims. I applaud the few reporters that were willing to risk their White House dinner privileges to tell the truth. They included Jonathan Landay, Warren Strobel, and Bob Simon. The insanity of it is that these men did not have to conduct secret investigations to get at the truth; they just called and talked to the people who knew about the issues being reported. What a novel concept. While the mainstream press was calling pundits, these guys were calling the real experts who were telling a different story than the one being reported. If I were a “so-called” journalist I would feel ashamed, because do to their lack of courage we have men and women in Iraq who are dying. This is not some fluff story that “just got away” this ladies and gentlemen was about life and death and the carnage that has ensued. How these people get up every day and go to work is a mystery to me knowing that they have blood on their hands.

Once again, this proves that hype and hysteria still carries the day in America. Over and over we heard, “this is a post 9/11 world” to justify the lies and deceit. As if 9/11 gave this administration the license to suspend democracy, the free press, and personal freedoms. It’s funny we decry what Putin and others do, yet when a crisis arises here we do the exact same thing. Just because you say it isn’t the same thing, doesn’t make it different.

For those too young to remember, McCarthyism characterized some of the darkest days in American democracy. It was named after a Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy, who through fear and intimidation made wild accusations and caused many people to be harmed in the name of democracy. It was during a time of fear of a communist plot to overthrow the government and infiltrators were considered to be everywhere.

McCarthyism is the term describing a period of intense anti-Communist suspicion in the United States that lasted roughly from the late 1940s to the late 1950s. This period is also referred to as the Second Red Scare, and coincided with increased fears about Communist influence on American institutions and espionage by Soviet agents. Originally coined to criticize the actions of U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy, "McCarthyism" later took on a more general meaning, not necessarily referring to the conduct of Joseph McCarthy alone.

During this time many thousands of Americans were accused of being Communists or communist sympathizers and became the subject of aggressive investigations and questioning before government or private-industry panels, committees and agencies. The primary targets of such suspicions were government employees, those in the entertainment industry, educators and union activists. Suspicions were often given credence despite inconclusive or questionable evidence, and the level of threat posed by a person's real or supposed leftist associations or beliefs was often greatly exaggerated. Many people suffered loss of employment, destruction of their careers, and even imprisonment. Most of these punishments came about through trial verdicts later overturned,^[1] laws that would be declared unconstitutional,^[2] dismissals for reasons later declared illegal^[3] or actionable,^[4] or extra-legal procedures that would come into general disrepute.

“Suspicions were often given credence despite inconclusive or questionable evidence”. Call me crazy but didn’t we also have a case that was presented as fact based on inconclusive and questionable evidence? The former Secretary of State Colin Powell stated before the United Nations that we had “irrefutable proof” to back the claims for war. He detailed item after item of how Saddam Hussien was in violation and deserved to be toppled and Iraq invaded. Mr. Powell was sacrificed to sell this war. He had credibility that none of the others had. When Colin Powell said it, you could take it to the bank. This administration is gaining notoriety for providing human sacrifices. Mr. Powell today couldn’t sell umbrellas in Seattle.

The thing that frightens me the most is that all those hacks or pundits who sold this war to us and help to stroke the flames of unpatriotic fear are still employed. They are still making the rounds of the talk shows and their opinions are still being quoted. Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me. We should be boycotting any shows that still parade these hacks as experts and let them know that their services will be no longer required. How can you now claim any objectivity or credibility after this debacle has been exposed? What this incident has shown was that politics trumped the people. It is a sad state of affairs when politics are more important than the nation itself. This policy continues to this day in the daily headlines concerning this administration.

Yes my friends, McCarthyism is alive and well and just like before it must be defeated and exposed for the malignancy on democracy that it is.

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[1] http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/btw/watch.html

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Are you smarter than a fifth grader?

Since 9/11 there has been much talk about the war on terror and on whether we are winning or losing. I submit that we are losing the war on terror.

How can I say we are losing after the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq? How can I say that when we have had no more terrorists attacks here at home? I believe that the war on terror cannot be gauged based on those criteria alone. The goal of terrorists is not to win militarily because usually they are a lesser force, no the goal of terrorist is to get us to change how we live. How we view ourselves and each other. The reason I say we are losing this war is not based on what the terrorist are doing, but based on what we have done in response to the terrorist threat. We now have more repressive legislation at home, we have resorted to torture and imprisonment without due process, and we use fear and paranoia to justify any and all activities.

Of course it would be easy to blame an administration that used the attack to enact its agenda and justify its world view. But these things could not have been done without our acquiesce. We live in a democracy that is supposed to have checks and balances. We are four years into a failed foreign policy and we just now want to institute oversight and review. I am far removed from the civics’ class of my youth, but even then we learned that in a democracy the people are the “deciders”, not one man no matter what the justification. Are you smarter than a fifth grader? When in a democracy is having a healthy debate about the path of this country’s foreign policy “aiding and abetting the terrorists”? When in a democracy are all the citizenry guilty until proven innocent. No my friends the terrorist are winning, because America is no longer America. In a democracy there will always be opportunities for terrorist to act, that is the price of having a free society. It is not the acts of the terrorist that defines us; it is our responses to those acts that define us; if we are truly a democracy. We can respond as we have with the politics of fear and divisiveness or we can respond as a true democracy and tell the terrorists of this world that we will not live in fear and attack each other. Of course there have always been those who have used our fears to promote hatred and division. I remember from my civics days a gentleman by the name of McCarthy who made quite a name for himself hyping the fears of others.

The next administration will need to heal this land and reunite us as a nation. This will not be an easy task considering all of the damage that has been done. The first thing will be to roll-back the imperial presidency and return this country to a healthy democracy. The democracy we learned about in the fifth grade; remember the one “of the people, by the people, for the people”. It will require letting the world know that we do not have imperial aspirations on other lands. It will require us to once again take our role in the world community not as a bully, but as a leader by example. We must be a beacon of hope and freedom that the downtrodden of the world can look up to; a respecter of international law and international cooperation, and above all a nation that believes in diplomacy for solving conflict and uses force as a last resort. I believe that John Edwards can and will embody this philosophy more than the others. It is now up to us to choose what type of country we want for our children; what type of democracy we want to give them. Are you smarter than a fifth grader?

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Defending the Indefensible

Here is an excerpt from one of the confessions of an “enemy combatant” that claimed to be tortured by US interrogators. Read it and then please consider how it makes you feel as an American, not a Republican or a Democrat, but just as an American.

“PRESIDENT (of the tribunal): Please describe the methods that were used.

DETAINEE: (CENSORED) What else do I want to say? (CENSORED) There were doing so many things. What else did they did? (CENSORED) After that another method of torture began. (CENSORED) They used to ask me questions and the investigator after that used to laugh. And, I used to answer the answer that I knew. And if I didn’t replay what I heard, he used to (CENSORED).”[1]

Officials defended this censorship by arguing that interrogation methods are so secret that they cannot be discussed, even by the prisoner. But they also said that Al Qaeda members are trained to claim torture and that Mr. Nashiri lied. If so, why censor the transcript? His answers can’t help Al Qaeda. Tragically, the most likely answer is to spare United States intelligence agents and their bosses, who could face charges if the Military Commissions Act is ever repealed or rewritten. The law gives a retroactive carte blanche to American interrogators for any abuse they may have committed.[2]

How can any person who respects the freedom and rights of humans defend this type of behavior? Have we become so afraid after 9/11 that we are willing to condone any type of behavior in the name of fighting terrorism? If we continue to follow this path; what will separate us from them? It is a slippery slope that we are on folks and I believe that once we start down this slope it will be difficult if not impossible to turn back.

While the loss of 2,973 Americans[3] is tragic and unjustified under any conditions, can we now justify holding 6.6 billion people hostage as a result? We have declared war not only on the terrorists but on the whole world as well. When we start using the language of “either you are with us or against us” we force the world and ourselves to either accept everything we do or “embolden the terrorists”. Life despite what some in this administration would like us to believe is never that black and white. By defining the struggle in those terms we declare war on ourselves and our democracy. No one said having a democracy would be easy, no one said defending a democracy would be easy either. Living in a democracy we put our beliefs to the test every day. Those beliefs include life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. We believe that these are unalienable rights granted by a beneficent Creator.

I do not believe that the way you defeat evil is with evil. I do not believe that the way you save a democracy is with a dictatorship. We have to kill the democracy to save it? I am not following that logic. As a democracy we have to maintain the high ground even when that high ground is difficult. I submit that it is when democracy is the toughest to defend, is when it must be defended the more. There are those who want to take shortcuts and easy outs to defeat this invisible enemy, but there are none. It is frustrating fighting a war without borders or an enemy with no state, but we will not defeat this enemy by might. We can only win this war by our ideals and our leadership, not by torture and injustice. This administration has lost the high ground in this war. By condoning torture and turning this into a war of cultures they have lowered our standing not just with our enemies, but with our allies as well. In the long run how we choose to defend our democracy will determine if we save our democracy. You will never know love, until the unlovable shows up. Anyone can love the cute kitten, but it is the wolf that truly tests our doctrine of love. Some people believe that democracy cannot survive terrorism; I believe that terrorism cannot survive a true democracy. One thing that the fall of communism should have taught us is that everyone wants to live in freedom. That freedom is defined in different ways by different people, but isn’t that what freedom is. We cannot expect everyone’s freedom to look like ours nor compel them to make it so. All that we can do is to promote an atmosphere where freedom in any form can flourish. That process though must begin at home with us, we must say no to those who want to lead us astray from democracy in the name of war. Torture can never be condoned under any circumstances in a democracy. By resorting to torture we are demonstrating to our enemies and our friends that democracy does not work or that our belief in it is not real. They can then tell their potential converts, “See we told you it was not genuine or that it will not work.” Our country has been the greatest experiment in human history. Can people from so many different backgrounds come together for a common cause and live in peace?

There is a principle in our system of justice that states it is better to let nine guilty men go free, than to punish one innocent man. We do not always live up to that ideal, but it is that goal that separates us from those who choose to attack us. The system of secret prisons, torture, and state sponsored kidnappings must end. Our continued use of places like Guantanamo and imprisonment without any redress undermines our democracy not only in the world, but at home as well. Our domestic policies that place everyone under the umbrella of suspicion are not the answer to terrorism. I say that it is these policies, not the questioning of them, which in fact are emboldening the terrorist. The more they can change our democracy into a fascist system the more they win. We must stop defending the indefensible.

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[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/06/opinion/06fri1.html

[2] Ibid

[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_11,_2001_attacks

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