Common Sense Democracy

Via The Huffington Post

And so, scared Democrats vote away our rights: fearing attack ads showing them as soft on terror, not recognizing that a posture of supine submission wins far fewer votes than a principled stand, even for a position voters might personally not hold.

Throughout the drug war, throughout the war on terror, inch by inch, we have given up our compassion and our freedom. Now we’re standing not on a slippery slope, but at the mouth of the abyss. The law President Bush will sign today legalizes torture and detention without appeal. Are Americans still American enough to recognize that we have become unrecognizable?

The Blog | Maia Szalavitz: How Torture Became Law, How Outrage Dies | The Huffington Post

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This issue just really fires me up. Let’s take it piece by piece.

Three leading high-profile Republican senators and former Secretary of State Colin Powell broke from the party loyalists and voted against the Bush administration’s proposal on the rules for interrogating wartime prisoners.

Bush held a news conference to discuss.

Questioning of suspected terrorists “won’t go forward” unless Congress clarifies a U.S. standard for the treatment and interrogation of wartime prisoners, President Bush warned on Friday.

Can you say…  bunch of crap?! This sounds like some spoiled kid on the playground who refuses to play on the swings until the other kids go away. Why can’t the intelligence officers, military personnel and other law enforcement officials play by the rules, just like they have for the last 50 years, and do their job as professionals. He makes it sound like everything will just come to a screeching halt if the new rules are passed. One of the things that differentiated American forces from other countries during World War II is that captured prisoners knew they would be treated fairly and humanely, even in most cases, better then their own governments. Often times the only way for enemy soldiers to live was to surrender to US forces, rather then face returning to their commands defeated.

“You cannot ask a young intelligence officer to violate the law,” Bush said. “If Congress passes a law that does not clarify the rules … the program is not going forward.”

So basically he’s saying, we want conduct interrogations in a certain way, which is currently against the law so please change the law so we can continue to do it without doing anything wrong. Just ingnore the fact that what they are doing is morally wrong.

“My job and the job of the people here in Washington, D.C., is to protect this country,” Bush said.

Um… yeah, but your job is also to uphold and defend the constitution of the United States. When did we, as a society, decide crimes against humanity was ok as long as we are protecting ourselves?

“I believe Americans want us to protect the country, to have clear standards for our law enforcement, intelligence officers, and give them the tools necessary to protect us within the law.”

There ARE clear standards. The President just doesn’t like the standards. He wants unobstructed power to interrogate prisoners any way our government sees fit. What is this “V for Vendetta”???

In spite of how terrible the terrorists are and how much vengence we want, we can’t allow ourselves to collectively sink to their levels, to levels of indecency where moral values and personal rights and liberties, even for prisoners, are cast aside in the blind pursuit of justice.

Article 3 prohibits nations engaged in combat not of “an international character” from, among other things, “violence to life and person, in particular murder of all kinds, mutilation, cruel treatment and torture” and “outrages upon personal dignity, in particular, humiliating and degrading treatment.”

Link to CNN.com - Bush: Without my plan, detainee questioning won’t continue - Sep 15, 2006

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VIA Democratic National Committee:

This is it: crunch time for getting the slanderous ABC television docudrama “The Path to 9/11″ yanked off the air. The network schedule has this slanderous attack on Democrats slated to start on Sunday night, September 10, at 8 o’clock — and as long as it stays on the schedule, we have work to do. Take a minute right now and tell Disney president Robert Iger to keep this right-wing propaganda off our airwaves:

http://www.democrats.org/pathto911

Here’s the good news: the suits at ABC and the Walt Disney Company have started panicking under pressure, thanks to your ferocious response to the outrageous decision to put this irresponsible miniseries on the air. But until Disney quits defending its plan to broadcast conservative propaganda — fraudulently presented to Americans as “based on the 9/11 Commission Report” — the company should plan to keep taking every bit of heat we dish out.

Here’s a quick catch-up on developments over the last 48 hours:

• President Clinton, through his attorney, rebuked ABC for producing a “factually and incontrovertibly inaccurate” miniseries — and walked the network through three make-believe scenes in the “the Path to 9/11″ that defame people and misrepresent events during his administration.
• Clinton’s spokesman later stepped up the pressure, condemning Disney as “despicable” for “airing a fictional version of what is a serious and emotional event for our country. No reputable organization,” he said, “should dramatize 9-11 for a profit at the expense of the truth.”
• The families of September 11 victims have weighed in on the controversy, telling “entertainers” not to “promote misleading or incorrect information as fact to the public.”
• House and Senate Democratic leaders hammered Disney president and CEO Robert Iger, in letters that questioned the company’s commitment to its “reputation … as a corporation worthy of the trust of the American people and the United States Congress.”
• Scholastic has pulled teaching materials off its website and has scrambled to adopt a plan to help teachers show students “the differences between factual reporting and a dramatization,” but is still encouraging teachers to show their students this propaganda.

We should all be deeply concerned and disappointed that ABC would air a film that has been proven to have factual inaccuracies about one of the most important events in our nation’s history. It’s particularly disturbing given that the producer of the piece is a well known conservative. It’s incomprehensible how something like this could even get on the air.

In a few hours, we deliver letters from over 150,000 outraged Democrats to ABC’s front doorstep. You still have time to make your feelings known. Join the thousands standing up for President Clinton and our party — tell Disney president Robert Iger to keep ABC’s right-wing propaganda off our airwaves:

http://www.democrats.org/pathto911

Thank you,
Tom

Tom McMahon
Executive Director
Democratic National Committee

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VIA Moveon.org.

In a little over 48 hours, ABC will air a five-hour “docudrama” on the 9/11 attacks. The movie was written and produced by a right-wing activist who fabricated key scenes to blame Democrats and defend Republicans.¹ It’s so partisan that even Rush Limbaugh was surprised ABC decided to air it.² And an FBI agent who was brought in to consult on the docudrama quit because, he said, “they were making things up.”³
Public outrage is mounting across the country, and Variety reports that ABC is now “mulling the idea of yanking the mini altogether.”⁴ But we only have a little time to act. We’ll start delivering this petition to ABC headquarters tomorrow at noon and continue as more signatures come in. So we’re looking for 200,000 signatures TODAY.

Can you sign? Click here:
http://pol.moveon.org/abcdoc?id=8721-4350126-tFp2HnX9kZRULZN758VWfA&t=4

Then please pass on this message to folks you know who can help.
The Path to 9/11 appears to be part of a coordinated push—including speeches by President Bush and millions of dollars in advertising—to exploit the five-year anniversary of 9/11 for political gain. That’s not acceptable from anyone—especially not a news organization like ABC.
It’s not just that ABC’s movie is slanted. Big parts of it are simply untrue. The producer himself even admitted to simply improvising a key scene which depicts the Clinton administration letting bin Laden go when they had him in their sights—a complete fabrication.⁵ Last night, the movie’s star, Harvey Keitel, said “It turned out not all the facts were correct.”⁶

It’s really pretty simple: ABC shouldn’t have any role in the political exploitation of 9/11. But this docudrama is designed to do just that—spreading a false message to millions of viewers across the country.
Sign the petition to tell ABC not to air partisan propaganda on 9/11. Click here:
http://pol.moveon.org/abcdoc?id=8721-4350126-tFp2HnX9kZRULZN758VWfA&t=5

Thank you for all you do.

–Nita, Eli, Carrie, Joan, Jennifer and the MoveOn.org Political Action Team
Friday, September 8th, 2006

P.S. For the most current information on the scandal involving this film, and for more information on the movie itself, please visit our friends at ThinkProgress:

http://www.thinkprogress.org

Sources:
1. “Writer of ABC’s 9/11 ‘Docudrama’ Is Avowed Conservative Activist,” ThinkProgress, September 1, 2006
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=2047&id=8721-4350126-tFp2HnX9kZRULZN758VWfA&t=6
2. “Clintonoids Prepare To Attack 9/11 Movie,” The Rush Limbaugh Show, August 30, 2006
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=2049&id=8721-4350126-tFp2HnX9kZRULZN758VWfA&t=7
3. “FBI Agent Who Consulted On Path to 9/11 Quit,” ThinkProgress, September 7, 2006
http://thinkprogress.org/2006/09/07/fbi-agent-quit/

4. “Under fire, ABC mulls yanking mini,” Variety, September 7, 2006
http://www.variety.com/VR1117949675.html

5. Greg Mitchell, Editor & Publisher, MSNBC appearance, September 7, 2006
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=2077&id=8721-4350126-tFp2HnX9kZRULZN758VWfA&t=8
6. “Harvey Keitel speaks out on Path to 9/11: ‘It turned out not all the facts were correct’”, Showbiz Tonight, September 7, 2006
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=2078&id=8721-4350126-tFp2HnX9kZRULZN758VWfA&t=9

PAID FOR BY MOVEON.ORG POLITICAL ACTION, http://pol.moveon.org/
Not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s committee.

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So… one question… If we don’t negotiate with terrorists and Hizbollah is in effect a terrorist organization… why is there a cease fire starting on Monday? Don’t get me wrong, I understand the people at the table are actually Israel and Lebanon… but what’s the point of agreeing to a cease fire if the other group fighting isn’t at the negotiating table? Where and what is Hizbollah doing after the “so called” cease fire happens? Lebanon may agree to the halting of hostilities, but will the terrorists and are we just going to be right back at the beginning all over again? Is there anyone trying to mediate a cease fire between the world and Al-Qaeda or are we just eliminating them at all cost.

I say again… do we negotiate with terrorists?

My 2 cents worths for the night. We’ll have to wait and see.

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