No Exit

Ted Kennedy's "The Dream Will Never Die" Speech from 1980

2009-08-27T20:24:00.000-07:00

Ted Kennedy's "The Dream Will Never Die" Speech from 1980

My fellow Democrats and my fellow Americans, I have come here tonight not to argue as a candidate but to affirm a cause.

I'm asking you -- I am asking you to renew the commitment of the Democratic Party to economic justice.

I am asking you to renew our commitment to a fair and lasting prosperity that can put America back to work.

This is the cause that brought me into the campaign and that sustained me for nine months across a 100,000 miles in 40 different states. We had our losses, but the pain of our defeats is far, far less than the pain of the people that I have met.

We have learned that it is important to take issues seriously, but never to take ourselves too seriously.

The serious issue before us tonight is the cause for which the Democratic Party has stood in its finest hours, the cause that keeps our Party young and makes it, in the second century of its age, the largest political Party in this republic and the longest lasting political Party on this planet.

Our cause has been, since the days of Thomas Jefferson, the cause of the common man and the common woman.

Our commitment has been, since the days of Andrew Jackson, to all those he called "the humble members of society -- the farmers, mechanics, and laborers." On this foundation we have defined our values, refined our policies, and refreshed our faith.

Now I take the unusual step of carrying the cause and the commitment of my campaign personally to our national convention. I speak out of a deep sense of urgency about the anguish and anxiety I have seen across America.

I speak out of a deep belief in the ideals of the Democratic Party, and in the potential of that Party and of a President to make a difference. And I speak out of a deep trust in our capacity to proceed with boldness and a common vision that will feel and heal the suffering of our time and the divisions of our Party.

The economic plank of this platform on its face concerns only material things, but it is also a moral issue that I raise tonight. It has taken many forms over many years. In this campaign and in this country that we seek to lead, the challenge in 1980 is to give our voice and our vote for these fundamental democratic principles.

Let us pledge that we will never misuse unemployment, high interest rates, and human misery as false weapons against inflation.

Let us pledge that employment will be the first priority of our economic policy.

Let us pledge that there will be security for all those who are now at work, and let us pledge that there will be jobs for all who are out of work; and we will not compromise on the issues of jobs.

These are not simplistic pledges. Simply put, they are the heart of our tradition, and they have been the soul of our Party across the generations. It is the glory and the greatness of our tradition to speak for those who have no voice, to remember those who are forgotten, to respond to the frustrations and fulfill the aspirations of all Americans seeking a better life in a better land.

We dare not forsake that tradition.

We cannot let the great purposes of the Democratic Party become the bygone passages of history.

We must not permit the Republicans to seize and run on the slogans of prosperity. We heard the orators at their convention all trying to talk like Democrats. They proved that even Republican nominees can quote Franklin Roosevelt to their own purpose.

The Grand Old Party thinks it has found a great new trick, but 40 years ago an earlier generation of Republicans attempted the same trick. And Franklin Roosevelt himself replied, "Most Republican leaders have bitterly fought and blocked the forward surge of average men and women in their pursuit of happiness. Let us not be deluded that overnight those leaders have suddenly become the friends of average men and women."

"You know," he continued, "very few of us are that gullible." And four years later when the Republicans tried that trick again, Franklin Roosevelt asked, "Can the Old Guard pass itself off as the New Deal? I think not. We have all seen many marvelous stunts in the circus, but no performing elephant could turn a handspring without falling flat on its back."

The 1980 Republican convention was awash with crocodile tears for our economic distress, but it is by their long record and not their recent words that you shall know them.

The same Republicans who are talking about the crisis of unemployment have nominated a man who once said, and I quote, "Unemployment insurance is a prepaid vacation plan for freeloaders." And that nominee is no friend of labor.

The same Republicans who are talking about the problems of the inner cities have nominated a man who said, and I quote, "I have included in my morning and evening prayers every day the prayer that the Federal Government not bail out New York." And that nominee is no friend of this city and our great urban centers across this nation.

The same Republicans who are talking about security for the elderly have nominated a man who said just four years ago that "Participation in social security should be made voluntary." And that nominee is no friend of the senior citizens of this nation.

The same Republicans who are talking about preserving the environment have nominated a man who last year made the preposterous statement, and I quote, "Eighty percent of our air pollution comes from plants and trees." And that nominee is no friend of the environment.

And the same Republicans who are invoking Franklin Roosevelt have nominated a man who said in 1976, and these are his exact words, "Fascism was really the basis of the New Deal." And that nominee whose name is Ronald Reagan has no right to quote Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

The great adventures which our opponents offer is a voyage into the past. Progress is our heritage, not theirs. What is right for us as Democrats is also the right way for Democrats to win.

The commitment I seek is not to outworn views but to old values that will never wear out. Programs may sometimes become obsolete, but the ideal of fairness always endures. Circumstances may change, but the work of compassion must continue. It is surely correct that we cannot solve problems by throwing money at them, but it is also correct that we dare not throw out our national problems onto a scrap heap of inattention and indifference. The poor may be out of political fashion, but they are not without human needs. The middle class may be angry, but they have not lost the dream that all Americans can advance together.

The demand of our people in 1980 is not for smaller government or bigger government but for better government. Some say that government is always bad and that spending for basic social programs is the root of our economic evils. But we reply: The present inflation and recession cost our economy 200 billion dollars a year. We reply: Inflation and unemployment are the biggest spenders of all.

The task of leadership in 1980 is not to parade scapegoats or to seek refuge in reaction, but to match our power to the possibilities of progress. While others talked of free enterprise, it was the Democratic Party that acted and we ended excessive regulation in the airline and trucking industry, and we restored competition to the marketplace. And I take some satisfaction that this deregulation legislation that I sponsored and passed in the Congress of the United States.

As Democrats we recognize that each generation of Americans has a rendezvous with a different reality. The answers of one generation become the questions of the next generation. But there is a guiding star in the American firmament. It is as old as the revolutionary belief that all people are created equal, and as clear as the contemporary condition of Liberty City and the South Bronx. Again and again Democratic leaders have followed that star and they have given new meaning to the old values of liberty and justice for all.

We are the Party -- We are the Party of the New Freedom, the New Deal, and the New Frontier. We have always been the Party of hope. So this year let us offer new hope, new hope to an America uncertain about the present, but unsurpassed in its potential for the future.

To all those who are idle in the cities and industries of America let us provide new hope for the dignity of useful work. Democrats have always believed that a basic civil right of all Americans is that their right to earn their own way. The Party of the people must always be the Party of full employment.

To all those who doubt the future of our economy, let us provide new hope for the reindustrialization of America. And let our vision reach beyond the next election or the next year to a new generation of prosperity. If we could rebuild Germany and Japan after World War II, then surely we can reindustrialize our own nation and revive our inner cities in the 1980's.

To all those who work hard for a living wage let us provide new hope that their price of their employment shall not be an unsafe workplace and a death at an earlier age.

To all those who inhabit our land from California to the New York Island, from the Redwood Forest to the Gulf stream waters, let us provide new hope that prosperity shall not be purchased by poisoning the air, the rivers, and the natural resources that are the greatest gift of this continent. We must insist that our children and our grandchildren shall inherit a land which they can truly call America the beautiful.

To all those who see the worth of their work and their savings taken by inflation, let us offer new hope for a stable economy. We must meet the pressures of the present by invoking the full power of government to master increasing prices. In candor, we must say that the Federal budget can be balanced only by policies that bring us to a balanced prosperity of full employment and price restraint.

And to all those overburdened by an unfair tax structure, let us provide new hope for real tax reform. Instead of shutting down classrooms, let us shut off tax shelters. Instead of cutting out school lunches, let us cut off tax subsidies for expensive business lunches that are nothing more than food stamps for the rich.

The tax cut of our Republican opponents takes the name of tax reform in vain. It is a wonderfully Republican idea that would redistribute income in the wrong direction. It's good news for any of you with incomes over 200,000 dollars a year. For the few of you, it offers a pot of gold worth 14,000 dollars. But the Republican tax cut is bad news for the middle income families. For the many of you, they plan a pittance of 200 dollars a year, and that is not what the Democratic Party means when we say tax reform.

The vast majority of Americans cannot afford this panacea from a Republican nominee who has denounced the progressive income tax as the invention of Karl Marx. I am afraid he has confused Karl Marx with Theodore Roosevelt -- that obscure Republican president who sought and fought for a tax system based on ability to pay. Theodore Roosevelt was not Karl Marx, and the Republican tax scheme is not tax reform.

Finally, we cannot have a fair prosperity in isolation from a fair society. So I will continue to stand for a national health insurance. We must -- We must not surrender -- We must not surrender to the relentless medical inflation that can bankrupt almost anyone and that may soon break the budgets of government at every level. Let us insist on real controls over what doctors and hospitals can charge, and let us resolve that the state of a family's health shall never depend on the size of a family's wealth.

The President, the Vice President, the members of Congress have a medical plan that meets their needs in full, and whenever senators and representatives catch a little cold, the Capitol physician will see them immediately, treat them promptly, fill a prescription on the spot. We do not get a bill even if we ask for it, and when do you think was the last time a member of Congress asked for a bill from the Federal Government? And I say again, as I have before, if health insurance is good enough for the President, the Vice President, the Congress of the United States, then it's good enough for you and every family in America.

There were some -- There were some who said we should be silent about our differences on issues during this convention, but the heritage of the Democratic Party has been a history of democracy. We fight hard because we care deeply about our principles and purposes. We did not flee this struggle. We welcome the contrast with the empty and expedient spectacle last month in Detroit where no nomination was contested, no question was debated, and no one dared to raise any doubt or dissent.

Democrats can be proud that we chose a different course and a different platform.

We can be proud that our Party stands for investment in safe energy, instead of a nuclear future that may threaten the future itself. We must not permit the neighborhoods of America to be permanently shadowed by the fear of another Three Mile Island.

We can be proud that our Party stands for a fair housing law to unlock the doors of discrimination once and for all. The American house will be divided against itself so long as there is prejudice against any American buying or renting a home.

And we can be proud that our Party stands plainly and publicly and persistently for the ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment.

Women hold their rightful place at our convention, and women must have their rightful place in the Constitution of the United States. On this issue we will not yield; we will not equivocate; we will not rationalize, explain, or excuse. We will stand for E.R.A. and for the recognition at long last that our nation was made up of founding mothers as well as founding fathers.

A fair prosperity and a just society are within our vision and our grasp, and we do not have every answer. There are questions not yet asked, waiting for us in the recesses of the future. But of this much we can be certain because it is the lesson of all of our history: Together a President and the people can make a difference. I have found that faith still alive wherever I have traveled across this land. So let us reject the counsel of retreat and the call to reaction. Let us go forward in the knowledge that history only helps those who help themselves.

There will be setbacks and sacrifices in the years ahead; but I am convinced that we as a people are ready to give something back to our country in return for all it has given to us.

Let this -- Let this be our commitment: Whatever sacrifices must be made will be shared and shared fairly. And let this be our confidence: At the end of our journey and always before us shines that ideal of liberty and justice for all.

In closing, let me say a few words to all those that I have met and to all those who have supported me at this convention and across the country. There were hard hours on our journey, and often we sailed against the wind. But always we kept our rudder true, and there were so many of you who stayed the course and shared our hope. You gave your help; but even more, you gave your hearts.

And because of you, this has been a happy campaign. You welcomed Joan, me, and our family into your homes and neighborhoods, your churches, your campuses, your union halls. And when I think back of all the miles and all the months and all the memories, I think of you. And I recall the poet's words, and I say: "What golden friends I had."

Among you, my golden friends across this land, I have listened and learned.

I have listened to Kenny Dubois, a glassblower in Charleston, West Virginia, who has ten children to support but has lost his job after 35 years, just three years short of qualifying for his pension.

I have listened to the Trachta family who farm in Iowa and who wonder whether they can pass the good life and the good earth on to their children.

I have listened to the grandmother in East Oakland who no longer has a phone to call her grandchildren because she gave it up to pay the rent on her small apartment.

I have listened to young workers out of work, to students without the tuition for college, and to families without the chance to own a home.

I have seen the closed factories and the stalled assembly lines of Anderson, Indiana and South Gate, California, and I have seen too many, far too many idle men and women desperate to work.

I have seen too many, far too many working families desperate to protect the value of their wages from the ravages of inflation.

Yet I have also sensed a yearning for a new hope among the people in every state where I have been.

And I have felt it in their handshakes, I saw it in their faces, and I shall never forget the mothers who carried children to our rallies.

I shall always remember the elderly who have lived in an America of high purpose and who believe that it can all happen again.

Tonight, in their name, I have come here to speak for them. And for their sake, I ask you to stand with them. On their behalf I ask you to restate and reaffirm the timeless truth of our Party.

I congratulate President Carter on his victory here.

I am -- I am confident that the Democratic Party will reunite on the basis of Democratic principles, and that together we will march towards a Democratic victory in 1980.

And someday, long after this convention, long after the signs come down and the crowds stop cheering, and the bands stop playing, may it be said of our campaign that we kept the faith.

May it be said of our Party in 1980 that we found our faith again.

And may it be said of us, both in dark passages and in bright days, in the words of Tennyson that my brothers quoted and loved, and that have special meaning for me now:

"I am a part of all that I have met
To [Tho] much is taken, much abides
That which we are, we are --
One equal temper of heroic hearts
Strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield."

For me, a few hours ago, this campaign came to an end.

For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die.

A wiki history of the bill of rights and the 9th Amendment... and another reason the texualists and Scalia are Wrong...

2009-08-27T20:06:00.000-07:00

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

The actual text of the 9th Amendment of the Constitution of the United States

When the U.S. Constitution was sent to the states for ratification after being signed on September 17, 1787, Anti-Federalists argued that a Bill of Rights should be added. One argument of Federalists against the addition of a Bill of Rights, during the debates about ratification of the Constitution, was that a listing of rights could problematically enlarge the powers specified in Article One, Section 8 of the new Constitution, by implication. For example, in Federalist 84, Alexander Hamilton asked, "Why declare that things shall not be done which there is no power to do?"

Likewise, James Madison explained to Thomas Jefferson, "I conceive that in a certain degree ... the rights in question are reserved by the manner in which the federal powers are granted" in Article One, Section 8 of the Constitution. The Anti-Federalists persisted in favor of a Bill of Rights during the ratification debates, but also were against ratification, and consequently several of the state ratification conventions gave their assent with accompanying resolutions proposing amendments to be added. In 1788, the Virginia Ratifying Convention attempted to solve the problem that Hamilton and the Federalists had identified by proposing a constitutional amendment specifying:

That those clauses which declare that Congress shall not exercise certain powers be not interpreted in any manner whatsoever to extend the powers of Congress. But that they may be construed either as making exceptions to the specified powers where this shall be the case, or otherwise as inserted merely for greater caution.

This proposal ultimately led to the Ninth Amendment. In 1789, while introducing to the House of Representatives nineteen draft Amendments, James Madison addressed what would become the Ninth Amendment as follows:

It has been objected also against a Bill of Rights, that, by enumerating particular exceptions to the grant of power, it would disparage those rights which were not placed in that enumeration; and it might follow by implication, that those rights which were not singled out, were intended to be assigned into the hands of the General Government, and were consequently insecure. This is one of the most plausible arguments I have ever heard against the admission of a bill of rights into this system; but, I conceive, that it may be guarded against. I have attempted it, as gentlemen may see by turning to the last clause of the fourth resolution.

Like Alexander Hamilton, Madison was concerned that enumerating various rights could "enlarge the powers delegated by the constitution." Here is the draft of the Ninth Amendment that Madison submitted to Congress in order to solve this problem:

The exceptions here or elsewhere in the constitution, made in favor of particular rights, shall not be so construed as to diminish the just importance of other rights retained by the people; or as to enlarge the powers delegated by the constitution; but either as actual limitations of such powers, or as inserted merely for greater caution.

This was an intermediate form of the Ninth Amendment that borrowed language from the Virginia proposal, while foreshadowing the final version. Like Madison's draft, the final text of the Ninth Amendment speaks of other rights than those enumerated in the Constitution. The character of those other rights was indicated by Madison in his speech introducing the Bill of Rights:

It has been said, by way of objection to a bill of rights....that in the Federal Government they are unnecessary, because the powers are enumerated, and it follows, that all that are not granted by the constitution are retained; that the constitution is a bill of powers, the great residuum being the rights of the people; and, therefore, a bill of rights cannot be so necessary as if the residuum was thrown into the hands of the Government. I admit that these arguments are not entirely without foundation, but they are not as conclusive to the extent it has been proposed. It is true the powers of the general government are circumscribed; they are directed to particular objects; but even if government keeps within those limits, it has certain discretionary powers with respect to the means, which may admit of abuse.

The First through Eighth Amendments address the means by which the federal government exercises its enumerated powers, while the Ninth Amendment addresses a "great residuum" of rights that have not been "thrown into the hands of the government," as Madison put it. The Ninth Amendment became part of the Constitution on December 15, 1791 upon ratification by three-fourths of the states.

It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his job depends on not understanding it.

2009-08-25T12:32:00.000-07:00

Must be something about the times that sent me looking for this quote the other day.

Upton Sinclair.

Other great quotes;

The private control of credit is the modern form of slavery.

The American People will take Socialism, but they won't take the label...Running on the Socialist ticket I got 60,000 votes, and running on the slogan to 'End Poverty in California' I got 879,000. I think we simply have to recognize the fact that our enemies have succeeded in spreading the Big Lie. There is no use attacking it by a front attack, it is much better to out-flank them.

Fascism is capitalism plus murder.

The methods by which the "Empire of Business" maintains its control over journalism are four: First, ownership of the papers; second, ownership of the owners; third, advertising subsidies; and fourth, direct bribery. By these methods there exists in America a control of news and of current comment more absolute than any monopoly in any other industry.

Seems perfectly relevant today...

"[W]e have the unfortunate system where we have to run campaigns and raise money for those campaigns."

-- Rep. Henry Waxman on Democracy Now (August 4, 2009)

The health insurance industry is dumping money left and right into this thing trying to convince a skeptical public that they're better off with what they've got while simultaneously trying to game the system. They don't need to run ads. Fox news and the rest of the msm already shill for them 24/7. Does anyone really believe they're holding back? They've got six lobbyists for every congress person and they're calling in all their chips. So far it seems as if the democratic strategy is to bribe the industry with a regulatory scheme designed to give them even more money, and hoping thereby to be forgiven for passing anything at all. Rahm gets week kneed when moveon runs one anti blue dog ad. Pharma's threatening to fund their next opponent to the tune of six, seven figures. Whatever it takes when your a corporation only worried about your bottom line.

Part of the reason I find this whole healthcare reform debate so addictive is that I can't believe that with all of the stars in alignment, minus the economy, which only makes this even more necessary, corporate interests have so bought congress that they can't pass a healthcare reform bill that infringes on corporate profit. The republicans haven't even the courtesy to come up with a plan. They are simply opposed, most likely thinking that's what their donors wanted, and, of course they were probably right... at first. The dems have now one upped them by telling them they'll make even more money under their plan, mandates and subsidies that guarantee they'll make more money. Look for Heath Inc. to be dragged kicking, screaming and laughing all the way to the bank if we don't see some form of public option.

Health Inc. may not be running ads, but, they're paying an awful lot of money to lobbyists. A congressmens' favorite post-congressional job should they ever be so unforunate as to suffer the indignity of needing one. How much does Billy Tauzin make a year and just what exactly is it that he's selling?

People are paying attention though because they actually care about healthcare. All of this is taking place more or less out in the open. We know how much baucus takes in industry money. Grassley, Snowe, blue dogs... all the other whores reps who are trying to find some way to make their refusal to make needed reforms and bring this country the same level of healthcare enjoyed by every other first world country aren't stupid. They just don't have their constituents best interests at heart. They've allowed themselves to be persuaded that their interests and core convictions just happen to align with those of an industry that gives them a lot of money.

The so called bankruptcy reform act, deregulation of banking and subsequent bailout, and on, and on, I mean this list is almost as long as it is depressing and after eight years of this shit all too familiar.

We've had two landslide democratic elections and elected a relative new comer explicitly on the basis of changing the way washington works. bush's financial crimes on behalf of the wealthy and corporations were also repudiated and yet here we are watching our bought and paid for congress folks try to pull one over on us. Ralph Nader was right. There is precious little difference between the two parties right now in terms of whose interests they're serving.

If we can't get this done, then we've pretty much lost any right to claim we are a democracy of and by the people and we should replace the stars with dollar signs and hoist the jolly roger.

God Knows I'm Good

2009-08-08T16:10:00.000-07:00

Justice Black Dissenting from the Idea that Corporations Deserve Corporate Rights

2009-08-06T12:15:00.000-07:00

I do not believe the word 'person' in the Fourteenth Amendment includes corporations. 'The doctrine of stare decisis, however appropriate and even necessary at times, has only a limited application in the field of constitutional law.' 9 This Court has many times changed its interpretations of the Constitution when the conclusion was reached that an improper construction had been adopted. 10 Only recently the case of West Coast Hotel Company v. Parrish, 300 U.S. 379 , 57 S.Ct. 578, 108 A.L.R. 1330, expressly overruled a previous interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment which had long blocked state minimum wage legislation. When a statute is declared by this Court to be unconstitutional, the decision until reversed stands as a barrier against the adoption of similar legislation. A constitutional interpretation that is wrong should not stand. I believe this Court should now overrule previous decisions which interpreted the Fourteenth Amendment to include corporations.

Neither the history nor the language of the Fourteenth Amendment justifies the belief that corporations are included within its protection. The historical purpose of the Fourteenth Amendment was clearly set forth when first considered by this Court in the Slaughter House Cases, 16 Wall. 36, decided April, 1873-less than five years after the proclamation of its adoption. Mr. Justice Miller, speaking for the Court, said:

'Among the first acts of legislation adopted by several of the States in the legislative bodies which claimed to be in their normal relaions with the Federal government, were laws which imposed upon the colored race onerous disabilities and burdens, and curtailed their rights in the pursuit of life, liberty, and property to such an extent that their freedom was of little value, while they had lost the protection which they had received from their former owners from motives both of interest and humanity. ...

'These circumstances, whatever of falsehood or misconception may have been mingled with their presentation, forced ... the conviction that something more was necessary in the way of constitutional protection to the unfortunate race who had suffered so much. (Congressional leaders) accordingly passed through Congress the proposition for the fourteenth amendment, and ... declined to treat as restored to their full participation in the government of the Union the States which had been in insurrection, until they ratified that article by a formal vote of their legislative bodies.' 16 Wall. 36, at page 70.

Certainly, when the Fourteenth Amendment was submitted for approval, the people were not told that the states of the South were to be denied their normal relationship with the Federal Government unless they ratified an amendment granting new and revolutionary rights to corporations. This Court, when the Slaughter House Cases were decided in 1873, had apparnetly discovered no such purpose. The records of the time can be searched in vain for evidence that this amendment was adopted for the benefit of corporations. It is true [303 U.S. 77, 87] that in 1882, twelve years after its adoption, and ten years after the Slaughter House Cases, supra, an argument was made in this Court that a journal of the joint Congressional Committee which framed the amendment, secret and undisclosed up to that date, indicated the committee's desire to protect corporations by the use of the word 'person.' 11 Four years later, in 1886, this Court in the case of Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad, 118 U.S. 394 , 6 S.Ct. 1132, decided for the first time that the word 'person' in the amendment did in some instances include corporations. A secret purpose on the part of the members of the committee, even if such be the fact, however, would not be sufficient to justify any such construction. The history of the amendment proves that the people were told that its purpose was to protect weak and helpless human beings and were not told that it was intended to remove corporations in any fashion from the control of state governments. The Fourteenth Amendment followed the freedom of a race from slavery. Jusice Swayne said in the Slaughter Houses Cases, supra, that: 'By 'any person' was meant all persons within the jurisdiction of the State. No distinction is intimated on account of race or color.' Corporations have neither race nor color. He knew the amendment was intended to protect the life, liberty, and property of human beings.

The language of the amendment itself does not support the theory that it was passed for the benefit of corporations.

The first clause of section 1 of the amendment reads: 'All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.' Certainly a corporation cannot be naturalized and 'persons' here is not broad enough to include 'corporations.'

The first clause of the second sentence of section 1 reads: 'No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States.' While efforts have been made to persuade this Court to allow corporations to claim the protection of his clause, these efforts have not been successful. 12

The next clause of the second sentence reads: 'Nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.' It has not been decided that this clause prohibits a state from depriving a corporation of 'life.' This Court has expressly held that 'the liberty guaranteed by the 14th Amendment against deprivation without due process of law is the liberty of natural, not artificial persons.' 13 Thus, the words 'life' and 'liberty' do not apply to corporations, and of course they could not have been so intended to apply. However, the decisions of this Court which the majority follow hold that corporations are included in this clause in so far as the word 'property' is concerned. In other words, this clause is construed to mean as follows:

'Nor shall any State deprive any human being of life, liberty or property without due process of law; nor shall any State deprive any corporation of property without due process of law.'

The last clause of this second sentence of section 1 reads: 'Nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal prtoection of the laws.' As used here, 'person' has been construed to include corporations. 14 [303 U.S. 77, 89] Both Congress and the people were familiar with the meaning of the word 'corporation' at the time the Fourteenth Amendment was submitted and adopted. The judicial inclusion of the word 'corporation' in the Fourteenth Amendment has had a revolutionary effect on our form of government. The states did not adopt the amendment with knowledge of its sweeping meaning under its present construction. No section of the amendment gave notice to the people that, if adopted, it would subject every state law and municipal ordinance, affecting corporations, (and all administrative actions under them) to censorship of the United States courts. No word in all this amendment gave any hint that its adoption would deprive the states of their long-recognized power to regulate corporations.

The second section of the amendment informed the people that representatives would be apportioned among the several states 'according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed.' No citizen could gather the impression here that while the word 'persons' in the second section applied to human beings, the word 'persons' in the first section in some instances applied to corporations. Section 3 of the amendment said that 'no person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress,' (who 'engaged in insurrection'). There was no intimation here that the word 'person' in the first section in some instances included corporations.

This amendment sought to prevent discrimination by the states against classes or races. We are aware of this from words spoken in this Court within five years after its adoption, when the people and the courts were personally familiar with the historical background of the amendment. 'We doubt very much whether any action of a State not directed by way of discrimination against the negroes as a class, or on account of their race, will ever be held to come within the purview of this provision.' 15 Yet, of the cases in this Court in which the Fourteenth Amendment was applied during the first fifty years after its adoption, less than one-half of 1 per cent. invoked it in protection of the negro race, and more than 50 per cent. asked that its benefits be extended to corporations. 16

If the people of this nation wish to deprive the states of their sovereign rights to determine what is a fair and just tax upon corporations doing a purely local business within their own state boundaries, there is a way provided by the Constitution to accomplish this purpose. That way does not lie along the course of judicial amendment to that fundamental charter. An amendment having that purpose could be submitted by Congress as provided by the Constitution. I do not believe that the Fourteenth Amendment had that purpose, nor that the people believed it had that purpose, nor that it should be construed as having that purpose.

No System of Justice Can Rise Above the Ethics of Those Who Administer It.

2009-08-05T12:33:00.001-07:00

No System of Justice Can Rise Above the Ethics of Those Who Administer It.

Fits in rather nicely with the current thought that if we can't get healthcare done now, with all of the majority advantages, we have to ask ourselves, who is administering our laws? Are our elected officials bought and paid for by special interest groups?

If so, then we know who is administering our system of justice and we shouldn't be surprised when the product reflects the ethics of single-minded devotion to the pursuit of a buck.

Congress was happy to pass bankruptcy reform which turns the Federal Courts into collection agencies for creditors, bailouts and bonuses, tax cuts for the wealthy, off-shoring labor, off-shoring profits, a prescription drug bill that showered millions more on big pharma, media consolidation, deregulation of everything...

It's easy to see that Big Business has no problem getting Congressional or Presidential doors to open for it's army of lobbyists and then getting exactly the type of justice it wants administered.

Singlepayer. Off the table from the get go. A total non-starter. Why? Because it would have put medical insurers out of business over night. No more gaming the system with safe bets on healthy people or "Vulture of the Year" awards for denying claims. Never mind the fact that medicare/medicaid rates higher in "customer" satisfaction than the insurance companies. Ignore the imbecile who decried perceived attempts by the government to regulate his Medicaid.

The VA is another government run healthcare plan that achieves high marks for standard of care and patient satisfaction. True that reputation has been tarnished due to it's inabilityto handle rapid, wholesale changes in it's patients needs, due itself in large part to underfunding and underplanning by the Bush administration when it decided to begin generating a lot more veterans. With time, funding and planning, there is no reason to believe it won't reclaim its prior excellence.

Fact: big business killed single payer to protect a valuable income stream earned off of a captive audience in need of healthcare and they were able to kill it because they own too much of congress to be denied.

With single payer a non-starter for our elected officials, can we get a public option? The fear is this will slowly phase out medical insurers unless they can actually deliver something of greater value than a government plan devoid of their mark-ups, committed to insuring all comers at a reasonable cost and supplemented if necessary by public tax dollars. My guess and theirs is they can't. Either way they will fight it.

If public option is truly killed it is hard to come to any other conclusion than the world we live in does reflect the ethics of those who administer our system and they are the ethics of the corporation.

So thoroughly does our system of justice reflect the values and ethics of the corporation that the Supreme Court has asked for more briefs to be filed in assisting them in answering whether or not a longstanding limit on corporate donations to candidates running for office should be overturned. Does anyone doubt how the STAR (scalia/thomas/alito/roberts) Chamber bloc wants to vote? Heaven forbid Wal-Mart is prevented from purchasing favors from candidates.

On an up note, it does appear as if large numbers of people are paying attention. There's been a sea change in support for Democratic ideals vs. Republican ideals. After 8 years of Bush proving daily that the Republican party existed to serve big business and themselves, and not necessarily in that order, they were turned out. Hopefully, the democrats can take the hint that the people are demanding representation and expect something more than the corporate ethic.

The trick is to demand it.

Down and Dirty Pictures... Books I've Just Read

2009-08-03T20:37:00.000-07:00

In the prevailing zeitgeist of spin, spin, spin... I read this book. That's what makes this inteview so funny. More to the point, revealing. The premise of the book, among several, is that Harvey Weinstein ran the indie universe including a stable of "auteurs," employees and media "members" who will spin and kiss... his you know what.

I just finished the book and I can't imagine the book is poorly sourced. First there's a huge amount of footnotes, plus, in depth, on the record quotes from Kevin Smith, Ben Affleck, Matt Damon and many, many, others...

Chambers exhibits exactly the type of ass-kissing sycophancy that Biskind describes in Down and Dirty...

I liked the Billy Bob quotes and thought, here's a man who may sound like a hill billy, but is NOT an idiot. transaltion: i made the picture for me. fuck you.

it sounds just as great in vernacular as it does in plain english.

Chambers is right about one thing. It's a compulsive read and I recommend it.

"Miramax, Sundance, and the Rise of Independent Film," the subtitle of Peter Biskind's latest slipshod industry exposé Down and Dirty Pictures, ought to be reworded "The Rise of the Miramax and Sundance Independent Film." An extremely narrow-focused chronicle of the indie landscape after it was made procreant by Steven Soderbergh's sex, lies, and videotape, the book, in a manner not unlike Soderbergh's Traffic (whose making is touched on therein), alternates passages retracing Miramax's long journey up its own ass, Sundance's peaking, and October Films' head Bingham Ray's consummation of self-fulfilling prophecies. It's a hastily published tome--you can smell the ink drying in the preface, which brings up the recutting of the Christmas 2003 release Bad Santa--at a loss for an ending, what with Miramax and Sundance proving ultimately unassailable, however much Biskind mourns their metamorphoses into more commercially-minded enterprises. This seems the most efficient way to damn the hyperbole of Biskind's prose, seeing as how Down and Dirty Pictures charts a course for an Apocalypse that fails to materialize, at least with any tragic weight.

You've heard that the book is embarrassingly poorly proofed, I'm sure, and while culpability for this falls squarely on the shoulders of Simon & Schuster, from the horrendous amount of typos (actress Julie Delpy is referred to as "Julie Delpie," screenwriter Melissa Mathison "Melissa Mathiesson") and colloquialisms ("She called her on her cell phone"), it appears the author avoided an editor altogether, perhaps in paranoid response to writing about a man, Miramax head Harvey Weinstein, who takes pride in tampering with another person's vision. (If we're to believe Biskind, the nickname "Harvey Scissorhands" is one of the few things that doesn't upset Weinstein.) This wouldn't be so bad if Biskind weren't "[sic]"-happy when excerpting various memos and interoffice exchanges.

Biskind meanwhile honours Billy Bob Thornton's dirt-poor roots by quoting the hyphenate phonetically, making him sound like Goofy's retarded brother at every turn. ("Ah don't give a sheet. Ah made the movie fo' me, not fo' anyone else, ah've seen and ah've enjoyed it and fuck yuh." It's annoying to read besides, you can imagine.) As no other quotee is disrespected in quite this manner, Biskind succeeds not in belitting Thornton but in betraying his own classist position. (Recreating the day that Mike Nichols' deposited Ted Tally's adaptation of All the Pretty Horses on Thornton's lap, our tour guide feels compelled to add that Thornton is "no great reader" and surely would not have been familiar with the Cormac McCarthy novel on which the screenplay was based.) In fact, everybody in the Miramax registrar gets a cursory biography, and yet Biskind will neglect to mention things more immediately relevant to the conversation than what so-and-so's father did for a living, such as Kate & Leopold director James Mangold's marriage to former Miramax exec Cathy Konrad, both of whom are extensively profiled.

Make no mistake, Down and Dirty Pictures is insatiably read (just like Biskind's dubious Easy Riders, Raging Bulls), but that's because the author had unprecedented access to talent, including, in a mini-coup, Harvey W., who is asked to rationalize almost every nugget of incriminating behaviour that Biskind has dredged up. (On the other hand, Biskind flatters himself least of all by bunching anti-Harvey stories together with a fanatical zeal. I found myself thinking of Miramax as Moby Dick and, more importantly, Biskind as Ahab.) One can't help but be amused by Harvey's side of the Wide Awake story, which finds him offering to restore M. Night Shyamalan's much-finessed Rosie O'Donnell vehicle to the director's original and apparently incompetent vision in the aftermath of The 6th Sense's success (Shyamalan, maybe the only person in Hollywood with less humility than the Weinsteins, suddenly stopped beating the "Miramax screwed me" drum), or by David O. Russell's observation that Confessions of a Dangerous Mind is about "a guy who likes to fuck girls and say he shoots people in the head," his motive for passing on the project.

That said, Biskind's bourgeois taste in movies (he dismisses the haunting Sling Blade as "bleeding heart" while calling the questionable Boys Don't Cry a "stunning cross-dressing tragedy") can inadvertently hang an interviewee out to dry: applauding Russell for shoving Three Kings, a film with a so-called indie sensibility that Biskind lauds, through the studio system, he goes on to print Russell's lament against Jonathan Demme for eating up $50M of a tacit artist's reserve on the box-office dud The Truth About Charlie. But Three Kings (which cost $48M, a fact unmentioned) is, as William Goldman opined, Hollywood horseshit through and through, less corrosive than even The Truth About Charlie--what else do you call a film in which four soldiers determine that stealing gold would be redundant, since that's what their hearts are made of? (Curiously, the Coen Brothers are absent from this mavericks dialogue.) As a compendium of quotations, Down and Dirty Pictures gets high--top--marks, but because everything in it requires a pre-digestion of a grain of salt, it's bound to give you high blood pressure.-Bill Chambers

David Frakt's Closing Argument in Defense of Jawad in front of a Military Commission

2009-08-02T09:24:00.001-07:00

Major David J. R. Frakt’s Closing Argument in Favor of Dismissal of the Case Against Mohammad Jawad (6/19/2008)

On Feb 7, 2002, President Bush issued an order. The order stated, in pertinent part “I accept the legal conclusion of the Department of Justice and determine that Common Article 3 of Geneva does not apply to either al Qaeda or Taliban detainees.”

“I determine that the Taliban detainees do not qualify as prisoners of war…al Qaeda detainees also do not qualify as prisoners of war.”

“Our values as a nation, values that we share with many nations in the world, call for us to treat detainees humanely, including those who are not legally entitled to such treatment… As a matter of policy the United States Armed Forces shall continue to treat detainees humanely, and to the extent appropriate and consistent with military necessity, in a manner consistent with the principles of Geneva.”

With these fateful and ill-advised words, President Bush, our Commander-in-Chief, perhaps unwittingly, perhaps not, started the U.S. down a slippery slope, a path that quickly descended, stopping briefly in the dark, Machiavellian world of “the ends justify the means,” before plummeting further into the bleak underworld of barbarism and cruelty, of “anything goes,” of torture. It was a path that led inexorably to the events that brings us here today, the pointless and sadistic treatment of Mohammad Jawad, a suicidal teenager.

President Bush’s words were important, and deserve special attention. For those of us in the military who have faithfully attended our annual Law of Armed Conflict training, or in my case, have given the training many times, the Geneva Conventions and humane treatment were synonymous, they were one and the same. The Geneva Conventions represented the baseline, they embodied the determination of the world to make war a more humane enterprise, to prevent a descent into wholesale barbarity, as had occurred during the Second World War. But now we were being told that humane meant something else, something less, than the Geneva Conventions. And we were being told that we could act inconsistently with the Geneva Conventions, when military necessity demanded it. Those of us who were familiar with the Geneva Conventions, whose job it was to know them, were puzzled and deeply troubled by the President’s order and had serious forebodings about the implications of such a decision. We understood that there were no gaps in Geneva, there were was no one who fell outside their protection, that Common Article 3 applied to everyone.

But the civilian political appointees of this administration intentionally cut out the real experts on the law of armed conflict, the uniformed military lawyers, the JAGs, were out of the loop, for fear that their devotion to the Geneva Conventions might pose an obstacle to their intended course of action. The State Department, led by Colin Powell, tried to raise a red flag, but to no avail. Instead, the administration chose to rely on the infamous torture memos by John Yoo, Robert Delahunty and Jay Bybee. These secret memos attempted to redefine torture for the purpose of providing legal cover for administration officials who approved the use of patently unlawful tactics. These legal opinions, now disgraced, disavowed, and relegated to the scrapheap of history where they belong, laid the groundwork for the wholesale and systematic abuse of detainees which ultimately ensnared my client, Mohammad Jawad.

I’m sure that all of these people, the President included, thought they were doing what was best. But what sometimes appears to be in the interests of America at first glance, upon further reflection reveals itself not to be. Interning Japanese-Americans during World War II perhaps seemed like a good idea at the time, but in hindsight we can see that it was a terrible injustice, inconsistent with American ideals and utterly unconstitutional. It is a shameful episode in our history, a xenophobic overreaction. The conscious, deliberate decision to abandon the Geneva Conventions and the entire fiasco that is Guantanamo will undoubtedly be viewed by historians as an even more disgraceful chapter in our history.

The Feb 7, 2002, order of President Bush invited the rule of law to be circumvented. Even though the President paid lip service to humane treatment, by stating that detainees were not legally entitled to be treated humanely, and by his qualification of “to the extent appropriate and consistent with military necessity” the implication was clear — it was only policy to be humane, not a legal requirement, and there would be no legal consequences to those who didn’t treat detainees humanely, if there was some military justification for it. Of course, during a “global war,” it is possible to rationalize almost anything under the general rubric of military necessity. After all, if there is even a slight possibility that some military advantage might be gained by some course of action, don’t we owe it to our troops to do it? If there is even a minute chance that some sliver of intelligence might be gleaned about an impending terrorist attack, don’t we owe it to the American people to do everything in our power to extract it? The obvious answer to most of those working in detainee operations at Guantanamo and elsewhere was “Yes.”

Adding to the pervasive atmosphere of lawlessness in the early days of Guantanamo was the administration’s assertion that the detainees could be held indefinitely without charge, without access to counsel, without any recourse to challenge their detention. The administration asserted that the detainees were beyond the reach of any federal court and were not eligible for habeas corpus, a hallowed right guaranteed by the founding fathers of this great country. In effect, the administration created a legal black hole at Guantanamo, a policy universally decried by our even our staunchest allies in the war on terror, but steadfastly defended by the administration.

If there was any doubt that the President intended unlawful tactics to be used, all doubt was erased when Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld authorized, on Dec 2, 2002, numerous extra-legal special interrogation techniques. These techniques and how they were developed and utilized were the subject of hearings before the Senate Armed Service Committee yesterday and are described in detail in the book Torture Team, which I have attached to this motion. I’m sure Phillipe Sands would be honored to have his book included in the record of this commission.

Eventually, cooler and wiser heads started to inject some rationality into the treatment of the Guantanamo detainees. Unsung heroes like Alberto Mora, Navy General Counsel, and Admiral Jane Dalton, and the service TJAGs Gen Rives, Gen Romig, fought vigorously for the restoration of Geneva. But it ultimately took the intervention of the Supreme Court to restore the rule of law to Guantanamo. The Court intervened and made it clear that the Geneva Conventions did apply to detainees at Guantanamo, and that they did have the right to habeas corpus, a right that Congress has twice, unsuccessfully, attempted to take away. This fight to restore the rule of law took time, years in fact, in which the detainees of Guantanamo continued to suffer indignity and inhumanity. It was not until July 2006 when the Deputy Secretary of Defense Gordon England issued a memorandum stating that “common Article 3 of the Geneva Convention applies as a matter of law“ to the treatment of detainees held by the Department of Defense, and that the “humane treatment [is] the overarching requirement of Common Article 3.” Unfortunately, by then, the damage had already been done, both to the detainees and to the reputation of the United States as a law-abiding country.

America is a nation founded on a reverence for the rule of law. We should never forget that when we take an oath to enlist or be commissioned as an officer in the United States Armed Forces, we do not swear to defend the United States, we swear “to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.” The Oath of Office for the President contains similar words: “I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.” Tragically, under the undeniably heavy pressure to defend Americans from terrorist attack, some of our military and civilian leaders lost sight of their obligation to defend the Constitution as well.

Under the Constitution all men are created equal, and all are entitled to be treated with dignity. No one is “undeserving” of humane treatment. It is an unmistakable lesson of history that when one group of people starts to see another group of people as “other” or as “different,” as “undeserving” as “inferior,” ill-treatment inevitably follows. In the Global War on Terror generally and in the detention camps of Guantanamo especially, the detainees were seen as “terrorists,” as “the worst of the worst” something less than human, and were treated accordingly. After six and a half years, we now know the truth about the detainees at Guantanamo: some of them are terrorists, some of them are foot soldiers, and some of them were just innocent people, caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. But the detainees at Guantanamo have one thing in common — with each other, and with us — they are all human beings, and they are all worthy of humane treatment. We should also never forget that no one in Guantanamo has been convicted of a single crime and that even in these deeply flawed military commissions, they are entitled to a presumption of innocence.

Throughout the Global War on Terror we have heard repeatedly from our military and civilian leaders that this was a new kind of war, a war that requires new methods, new ideas, “thinking outside the box.” So that is what the highly creative and motivated people at Guantanamo did, they abandoned the tried and true and lawful methods of Army Field Manual 34-52 and wrote a new playbook, a playbook that included intimidation with dogs, sexual humiliation, and sleep deprivation. These and other methods were employed at Guantanamo and, as the Schlesinger report put it, migrated to Abu Ghraib, where they resulted in the shocking conduct portrayed in the infamous photographs. The Secretary of Defense said “take the gloves off” and the soldiers and sailors of Guantanamo saluted smartly and said, “Yes, Sir!” In fact, many of the illegal and abusive “enhanced” interrogation techniques were personally approved for use by the Secretary of Defense; other techniques, like the frequent flyer program, were simply invented on the fly.

The public revelation of the events at Abu Ghraib on 60 Minutes II in late April 2004, caused the Department of Defense to go into full damage control mode. As part of the damage assessment, Secretary Rumsfeld dispatched the Navy Inspector General, Vice Admiral Church, to Guantanamo to evaluate the treatment of detainees there. He visited Guantanamo from May 5 to May 7, 2004, and reported back to the Secretary and to the press that there was virtually no detainee abuse at Guantanamo, and that everything was in order. Gen Hood was running a tight ship. Detainees received great treatment. Incredibly, the very day that Admiral Church was investigating conditions at Guantanamo and finding the treatment of detainees to be so wonderful, detention officials at Guantanamo ordered the initiation of the frequent flyer program on Mohammad Jawad. Before the wheels of Admiral Church’s plane were even off the Guantanamo runway, Mohammad Jawad’s arms and legs were being shackled in preparation for the first of 112 moves up and down the hall of L Block, every 3 hours for the next 14 days. While Jawad was being shackled for the first of these moves, back on Capitol Hill, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld was testifying before the Senate and House Armed Services Committees, reassuring the nation that the abuse at Abu Ghraib was isolated to a few rogue guards. When Secretary Rumsfeld testified before the HASC on May 7, 2004, the day the torture of Mohammad Jawad commenced, he told Congress, in reference to those detainees who had been abused at Abu Ghraib, Quote “I am seeking a way to provide appropriate compensation to those detainees who suffered such grievous and brutal abuse and cruelty at the hands of a few members of the U.S. military. It’s the right thing to do.” Today, the government takes a decidedly different tack. They deny the suffering of Mr. Jawad, accusing him of being weak. And they are attempting to reward him by pressing forward with the first war crimes trial against a child soldier in the history of the civilized world.

Major General Hood the JTF-GTMO Commander who took command in March 2004, states that he ordered the frequent flyer program stopped in late March 2004. He says he did not authorize and would not have authorized the program to be administered to Mohammad Jawad. Gen James T. Hill, the Southcom Commander, the person to whom Maj Gen Hood reported directly, states that he did not authorize the frequent flyer program, did not know about it, and that is was contrary to his orders which required prior approval for sleep deprivation and limited it to four days. The Joint Detention Group Commander, Maj Gen Cannon disavows any knowledge of Mr. Jawad’s treatment, in fact, MG Cannon seems to have developed a very convenient case of amnesia. The Joint Intelligence Group Director, Esteban Rodriguez, doesn’t know about Jawad’s treatment specifically, but states that there was a second, unauthorized frequent flyer program carried out by the Joint Detention Group used as a form of disciplinary measure. He said, as did Maj Gen Hood, that there was no special effort to collect intelligence from Mr. Jawad, that he was not believed to possess any valuable intelligence. This is borne out by the fact, at least based on the information provided to me by the government, that no interrogations of Mr. Jawad took place at or near the time that he was being tortured. Thus, the most likely scenario is that they simply decided to torture Mr. Jawad for sport, to teach him a lesson, perhaps to make an example of him to others. Whatever the reason, it was a direct violation of MG Hood’s orders, and a grave breach of the Geneva Convention and the Convention against Torture.

According to MG Hood, the first he learned of this is when I informed him a couple of weeks ago. He was provided the DIMS report, the motion, and the spreadsheet that I prepared. What was his reaction? A resounding thud of indifference. In fact, it took an order from you, your honor, to even get him to talk me about it. Here was a Major General in the Army who has just learned that a detainee was subjected to grave abuse, on his watch, in direct violation of his orders. One would have expected him to go through the roof, to order heads to roll, to launch an immediate investigation and he couldn’t even be bothered. Quite a contrast from the way General Hartmann reacted when he thought his orders weren’t being followed.

As for MG Cannon, he was similarly apathetic, if not more so about the plight of Mohammad Jawad. It is an absolute disgrace that this officer has been promoted twice after allowing a suicidal teenager to be subjected to this kind of abuse in his detention facility. It is my recommendation that charges be preferred against MG Cannon under the UCMJ for cruelty, maltreatment and abuse, dereliction of duty, and violation of a lawful order at the earliest opportunity. He was the Commander of the Detention Group. He completely and utterly failed to prevent the flagrant abuse of a detainee under his protection. It is high time that someone in a position of authority be held accountable, and not just the guards who were carrying out orders this time.

Why was Mohammad Jawad tortured? Why did military officials choose a teenage boy who had attempted suicide in his cell less than 5 months earlier to be the subject of this sadistic sleep deprivation experiment? Not that anything would justify such treatment, of course, but at least in the case of the other detainees known to have been subjected to sleep deprivation, they were believed to possess critical intelligence that might save American lives. Unfortunately, we may never know. I’ve asked to speak to the guards who actually carried out the program, and I’ve been denied. In the absence of information to the contrary, which the government would surely provide if it existed, we are left to conclude that it was simply gratuitous cruelty.

The government admits that Mohammad Jawad was treated “improperly,” but offers no remedy. We won’t use any evidence derived from this maltreatment, they say, but they know that there was no evidence derived from it because the government didn’t even bother to interrogate him after they tortured him. Exclusion of non-existent evidence is not a remedy. Dismissal is a severe sanction, but it is the only sanction that might conceivably deter such conduct in the future.

February 7, 2002. America lost a little of its greatness that day. We lost our position as the world’s leading defender of human rights, as the champion of justice and fairness and the rule of law. But it is a testament to the continuing greatness of this nation, that I, a lowly Air Force Reserve Major, can stand here before you today, with the world watching, without fear of retribution, retaliation or reprisal, and speak truth to power. I can call a spade a spade, and I can call torture, torture.

Today, Your Honor, you have an opportunity to restore a bit of America’s lost luster, to bring back some small measure of the greatness that was lost on Feb 7, 2002, to set us back on a path that leads to an America which once again stands at the forefront of the community of nations in the arena of human rights.

Sadly, this military commission has no power to do anything to the enablers of torture such as John Yoo, Jay Bybee, Robert Delahunty, Alberto Gonzales, Douglas Feith, David Addington, William Haynes, Vice President Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, for the jurisdiction of military commissions is strictly and carefully limited to foreign war criminals, not the home-grown variety. All you can do is to try to send a message, a clear and unmistakable message that the U.S. really doesn’t torture, and when we do, we own up to it, and we try to make it right.

I have provided you with legal authority for the proposition that you have the power to dismiss these charges. I can’t stand before you and say that you are legally required to do so. But I can say that that it is a moral imperative to do so, and I ask that you do so.

To New Beginnings...

2009-08-01T00:25:00.000-07:00

Simply because I like it...

Come down off your throne and leave your body alone.
Somebody must change.
You are the reason Ive been waiting so long.
Somebody holds the key.

But Im near the end and I just aint got the time
And Im wasted and I cant find my way home.

Come down on your own and leave your body alone.
Somebody must change.
You are the reason Ive been waiting all these years.
Somebody holds the key.

Chorus

But I cant find my way home.
But I cant find my way home.
But I cant find my way home.
But I cant find my way home.
Still I cant find my way home,
And I aint done nothing wrong,
But I cant find my way home.

Let's Slip Back in to the Slipstream...

2009-08-01T00:02:00.000-07:00

Dear Mister Fantasy play us a tune
Something to make us all happy
Do anything take us out of this gloom
Sing a song, play guitar
Make it snappy
You are the one who can make us all laugh
But doing that you break out in tears
Please don't be sad if it was a straight mind you had
We wouldn't have known you all these years
Oooo Ahhhhh
Oooo Ahhhhh
Oooo Ahhhhh
Oooo Ahhhhh Ahhhhh

Dear Mister Fantasy play us a tune
Something to make us all happy
Do anything take us out of this gloom
Sing a song, play guitar
Make it snappy
Yeah, yeah

[Instrumental]

Dear Mister Fantasy play us a tune
Something to make us all happy
Do anything take us out of this gloom
Sing a song, play guitar
Make it snappy
You are the one who can make us all laugh
But doing that you break out in tears
Please don't be sad if it was a straight mind you had
We wouldn't have known you all these years

On Hiatus... Be good.

2009-05-27T12:26:00.000-07:00

Chuck Schumer Says Listen to Tubing On Sundays With the Brain...

2009-03-11T16:29:00.001-07:00

87.9fm Pirate Cat Radio

Sunday; 1-3pm (PST)

Iraqi Police Get A Pep Talk

2009-03-05T16:16:00.000-08:00

Winning hearts and minds one at a time.

Bobby Jindal - Americans Can Do Anything

2009-02-25T09:02:00.000-08:00

Obama gave a great speech. Jindall... not so much. Even Brooks and Halperin on Lehrer were brutal.

Coming after Obama's stunning speech it was just childish.

American's can do anything was the theme, despite the fact that Obama had just spent an hour detailing all the things millions of Americans can't do right now...

pay their mortgage.

find a job.

get health insurance.

pay for their children's education.

but in Jindall's words, Americans can do anything.

well i guess i'll just shit myself a gold brick and solve all my problems.

Nixon Goes to China, Et tu Allen?

2009-02-17T18:20:00.000-08:00

The US government may have to nationalise some banks on a temporary basis to fix the financial system and restore the flow of credit, Alan Greenspan, the former Federal Reserve chairman has told the Financial Times.

In an interview with the FT Mr Greenspan, who for decades was regarded as the high priest of laisser-faire capitalism, said nationalisation could be the least bad option left for policymakers.

It may be necessary to temporarily nationalise some banks in order to facilitate a swift and orderly restructuring,” he said. “I understand that once in a hundred years this is what you do.”

Mr Greenspan’s comments capped a frenetic day in which policymakers across the political spectrum appeared to be moving towards accepting some form of bank nationalisation.

“We should be focusing on what works,” Lindsey Graham, a Republican senator from South Carolina, told the FT. “We cannot keep pouring good money after bad.” He added, “If nationalisation is what works, then we should do it.”

Speaking to the FT ahead of his speech to the Economic Club of New York last night, Mr Greenspan said that “in some cases, the least bad solution is for the government to take temporary control” of troubled banks either through the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation or some other mechanism.

BUT, By all means, don't screw the investors who happened to have invested in this crapola...

The former Fed chairman said temporary government ownership would ”allow the government to transfer toxic assets to a bad bank without the problem of how to price them.”

But he cautioned that holders of senior debt - bonds that would be paid off before other claims - might have to be protected even in the event of nationalisation.

”You would have to be very careful about imposing any loss on senior creditors of any bank taken under government control because it could impact the senior debt of all other banks,” he said. “This is a credit crisis and it is essential to preserve an anchor for the financing of the system. That anchor is the senior debt.”

Inherit the Wind - More Spencer Tracy Friday

2009-01-30T13:16:00.001-08:00

Judgment at Nuremberg - Well Worth Seeing

2009-01-30T12:47:00.000-08:00

The trial conducted before this Tribunal began over eight months ago. The record of evidence is more than ten thousand pages long, and final arguments of counsel have been concluded.

Simple murders and atrocities do not constitute the gravamen of the charges in this indictment. Rather, the charge is that of conscious participation in a nationwide, government organized system of cruelty and injustice in violation of every moral and legal principle known to all civilized nations. The Tribunal has carefully studied the record and found therein abundant evidence to support beyond a reasonable doubt the charges against these defendants.

Heir Rolfe, in his very skillful defense, has asserted that there are others who must share the ultimate responsibility for what happened here in Germany. There is truth in this. The real complaining party at the bar in this courtroom is civilization. But the Tribunal does say that the men in the dock are responsible for their actions, men who sat in black robes in judgment on other men, men who took part in the enactment of laws and decrees, the purpose of which was the extermination of humans beings, men who in executive positions actively participated in the enforcement of these laws -- illegal even under German law. The principle of criminal law in every civilized society has this in common: Any person who sways another to commit murder, any person who furnishes the lethal weapon for the purpose of the crime, any person who is an accessory to the crime -- is guilty.

Heir Rolfe further asserts that the defendant, Janning, was an extraordinary jurist and acted in what he thought was the best interest of this country. There is truth in this also. Janning, to be sure, is a tragic figure. We believe he loathed the evil he did. But compassion for the present torture of his soul must not beget forgetfulness of the torture and the death of millions by the Government of which he was a part. Janning's record and his fate illuminate the most shattering truth that has emerged from this trial: If he and all of the other defendants had been degraded perverts, if all of the leaders of the Third Reich had been sadistic monsters and maniacs, then these events would have no more moral significance than an earthquake, or any other natural catastrophe. But this trial has shown that under a national crisis, ordinary -- even able and extraordinary -- men can delude themselves into the commission of crimes so vast and heinous that they beggar the imagination. No one who has sat at through trial can ever forget them: men sterilized because of political belief; a mockery made of friendship and faith; the murder of children. How easily it can happen.

There are those in our own country too who today speak of the "protection of country" -- of "survival." A decision must be made in the life of every nation at the very moment when the grasp of the enemy is at its throat. Then, it seems that the only way to survive is to use the means of the enemy, to rest survival upon what is expedient -- to look the other way.

Well, the answer to that is "survival as what?" A country isn't a rock. It's not an extension of one's self. It's what it stands for. It's what it stands for when standing for something is the most difficult!

Before the people of the world, let it now be noted that here, in our decision, this is what we stand for: justice, truth, and the value of a single human being.

War Crimes Tribunals on Pay Per View

2009-01-30T12:30:00.000-08:00

I realize that most pundits, professors and otherwise knowledgable people believe that Bush Administration officials will not be prosecuted. And, yet, how can they not be? The have admitted it! I believe Obama will move slowly, but, the case will build itself with an inexorable logic. The longer this goes on, the more irresistable will be the obligation to prosecute.

This need not be an expensive proposition for the American taxpayer. As with the inauguration, the Obama administration can sell the broadcast rights to HBO with the provision, of course, that it be freely available in real time, in order to fund the cost to the government. Perhaps pay per view for a live feed, with copies made available later and clips allowed. Press, photographers and observers would be allowed attendance, but we could sell HBO the exclusive re-broadcast rights in some negotiated fashion that didn't completely forestall a public record of it. Limited copyright or some such.

Anyway, think of the lesson to future generations if the american public were to consume an american nuremberg trial a la oj simpson. talk about must see tv. it'd be a talking heads all you can eat buffet of sound bites and analysis.

the obama administration can walk and chew gum at the same time. it is important that this criminal chapter be exposed, prosecuted and reflected upon. while currently there seems to be little apptetite for prosecutions, there is even less appetite for sweeping the matter under the rug. eventually, we will develop an appetite for prosecution and come up with a plan to pay for it.

It's Been A Slow Train Coming...

2009-01-27T20:27:00.000-08:00

President Obama is making all the right moves. Ah Loves This.

Holder is gonna prosecute.

WAR CRIMES ARE ON THE TABLE.

Climate change is on the table.

SCIENCE is on the table.

Contraceptives may be off the table which is unfortunate.

Justice.

Common Sense.

No more date rape bi-partisanship.

Sunshine in public records.

A belief in the fact that government should ACTUALLY work.

GOD-DAMN.

optimism is the word of the day.

Bush Spied on Journalists and News Organizations

2009-01-22T10:54:00.000-08:00

There it is. Live on TV. First hand, eye witness testimony about another Bush lie concerning yet more illegal acts committed by his criminal administration.

Fire up the subpoena's.

Israel IDF Officers Warned Against Travel to Europe

2009-01-22T10:31:00.000-08:00

IDF officers intending to travel to Europe, whether for business or pleasure, have been advised to contact the Judge Advocate General's Office prior to leaving Israel; and some may be instructed not to leave the country.

The advisory has been issued following Israel's concern that international arrest warrants may be issued against officers who were involved in the Israeli offensive in Gaza, on charges of war crimes.

Jerusalem has reportedly received several reports suggesting international human rights groups are in the process of gathering evidence in the form of photos and testimonials, with the intent of filing suits both with the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague and in local European courts.

"As far as the international arena is concerned, Israel is entering what is probably its darkest era," a Jerusalem source told Yedioth Ahronoth. "The Palestinian and their friends will try to make Israel look like a leper, like China looked after the Tiananmen Square massacre (of 1989), or like Serbia did under (former President Slobodan) Milosevic.

"They intend of mounting a legal front against IDF officers, ministers, Knesset members and Israeli diplomats. They will go after them with arrest warrants all over the world."

According to political sources, the situation may take another turn for the worst after the foreign media will be allowed back into Gaza Strip, and the devastation in Gaza becomes more evident.

The Israelis claim that Hamas has been using women and children as human shields never really took, said a source. Whenever it was used the response was the same: If you know that there a women and children there – hold your fire.

Tova Tzimuki Published: 01.19.09, 18:05 / Israel News

Mark Twain on Lincoln, or is it Obama....

2009-01-21T20:44:00.000-08:00

It was no accident that planted Lincoln on a Kentucky farm, half way between the lakes and the Gulf. The association there had substance in it. Lincoln belonged just where he was put. If the Union was to be saved, it had to be a man of such an origin that should save it. No wintry New England Brahmin could have done it, or any torrid cotton planter, regarding the distant Yankee as a species of obnoxious foreigner. It needed a man of the border, where civil war meant the grapple of brother and brother and disunion a raw and gaping wound. It needed one who knew slavery not from books only, but as a living thing, knew the good that was mixed with its evil, and knew the evil not merely as it affected the negroes, but in its hardly less baneful influence upon the poor whites.

It needed one who knew how human all the parties to the quarrel were, how much alike they were at bottom, who saw them all reflected in himself, and felt their dissensions like the tearing apart of his own soul. When the war came Georgia sent an army in gray and Massachusetts an army in blue, but Kentucky raised armies for both sides. And this man, sprung from Southern poor whites, born on a Kentucky farm and transplanted to an Illinois village, this man, in whose heart knowledge and charity had left no room for malice, was marked by Providence as the one to "bind up the Nation's wounds."

- quoted in New York Times, January 13, 1907

Hercules and the Augean Stables

2009-01-21T16:46:00.000-08:00

This is a retelling of the fifth of twelve labors the Greek hero Hercules performed for Eurystheus.

Hercules was next instructed to perform a smelly service that would benefit mankind in general, but especially King Augeas of Elis, son of Poseidon.

King Augeas was cheap, and while he was rich enough to own many, many herds of cattle, he had never been willing to pay for the services of someone to clean their mess. The mess has become proverbial. Augean stables is now synonymous with "Herculean task," which is itself the equivalent of saying something is all but humanly impossible.

As we've seen, Hercules enjoyed the finer, costly things in life, including a large meat meal like the one the unfortunate Pholus provided him. Seeing all the cattle Augeas wasn't taking care of, Hercules got greedy. He asked the king to pay him a tenth of his herd if he could clean the stables in one day.

The king didn't believe it was possible, and so agreed to Hercules' demands, but when Hercules diverted the neighboring river and used its force to cleanse the stables, King Augeas reneged on his deal. (He would eventually rue the day he thwarted Hercules as Hercules would later overthrow his kingdom and install his son.) In his defense, Augeas had an excuse. Between the time he made the bargain and the time Hercules delivered the goods, Augeas had learned that Hercules had been ordered to perform the labor by King Eurystheus, and that Hercules wasn't really offering the services of a man free to make such bargains -- or at least that is how he justified keeping his cattle.

When Eurystheus learned that Hercules had offered to work for King Augeas for pay, he denied the labor as one of the ten.

United Nations to Obama - Prosecute War Crimes Now

2009-01-21T10:48:00.000-08:00

Some Straight Talk from Scott Horton at No Comment. This news is indicative of what civilised nations expect us to do in light of our legal obligations. I hope and fully expect our Congress and President Obama to investigate and then fulfill our obligations under the law.

In an interview on Tuesday evening with the German television program “Frontal21,” on channel ZDF Professor Manfred Nowak, the United Nations Rapporteur responsible for torture, stated that with George W. Bush’s head of state immunity now terminated, the new government of Barack Obama was obligated by international law to commence a criminal investigation into Bush’s torture practices.

“The evidence is sitting on the table,” he stated. “There is no avoiding the fact that this was torture.” He pointed to the U.S. undertakings under the Convention Against Torture in which the country committed that it would criminally prosecute anyone who tortured, or extradite the person to a state that would prosecute him. “The government of the United States is required to take all necessary steps to bring George W. Bush and Donald Rumsfeld before a court,” Nowak said.

Manfred Nowak, an internationally renowned law professor at the University of Vienna, currently serves as an independent expert for the United Nations looking at allegations of torture affecting member states. In 2006, he undertook a special investigation of conditions at the U.S. detention facilities at Guantánamo in which he concluded that practices approved by the Bush Administration violated human rights norms, including the prohibition against torture.

On the Closing of the Order of the Shrill or the Passing of Bush Derangement Syndrome

2009-01-21T09:43:00.000-08:00

Bush being booed at Obama's inauguration courtesy of YouTube! *

And, of course, there's this gem,

The crowd cheered when Colin Powell appeared on the Jumbotron, and a loud boo erupted through parts of the National Mall when Joe Lieberman was shown entering the Inaugural platform.

And Politico's Andie Coller reports that the crowd booed Clarence Thomas when he was shown on the big screen.

In all fairness, the man deserves boos and worse for the conduct of his criminal administration, but, I find myself feeling much as I did about the protests over Rick Warren's inclusion in the ceremony. That it is time to restore some civility and some dialogue to our nations discourse and, finally, restore rational thought as our guiding principle. In order for this to happen, we must be willing to speak with the Rick Warren's of the world, or anyone in fact, who is truly interested in dialogue and with whom we can find common ground. While Bush's administration needs to be investigated and, most likely prosecuted, yesterday's demonstration seemed rude. As a nation, we are better than that or so I'd like to believe. I am comforted by the fact that the booes were not overwhelming or particularly venomous, more a reflexive reaction of disgust to the mere sight of the worst president in our nation's history.

Another encouraging sign is the positivity on the part of most of the blogosphere and blogopundits. Aside from the very few influential right wing sites, the internet coverage has been for the most part approving of Obama's conduct so far. I am confident that as we move forward and make the hard decisions of which Obama so pointedly reminded us, that Brad Delong can disband his Order of the Shrill and that Bush Derangement Syndrome will go the way of polio and small pox, virtually stamped out except for infrequent outbreaks occasioned by particular spasms of disgust as the sordid tale that was his presidency finally unravels.

I think it does not go too far to compare Obama's administration to the arrival of the Enlightenment after a long Dark Ages. Reason replaces religion. Hope replaces fear and prosperity conquers poverty.

I sure hope so.

* Update: Apparently, not only was the crowd booing, but one rather large section was singing Hey, Hey, Hey, Goodbye. So rude, but so funny.