After years of no communication whatsoever other than when my mother died a couple of months back, my stepdad calls me out of the blue. Now I have known this man for close to 40 years and we have had a pretty good relationship in the past. In fact, he was always more of a father to me than my own flesh and blood father. But when me and Mom had our fall out three and a half years ago, my stepdad, my brothers and the rest of the family gave me the silent treatment and refused to answer my phone calls or to return any of them. They live half way across the country in Idaho, so just dropping by the house on a Sunday afternoon for a visit was never an option.
But now Mom is gone and Stepdad is lonely. He's reaching out to me and asking me to come home to visit. I love this man and I've never really ever had any kind of beef with him, but I don't understand why he could never just pick up the phone to call me or return my calls to him.
I thought I was through with these people and had put all of this behind me, but I guess I haven't. I'll probably end up making the trek back up to Idaho next year when the weather warms, to revisit the place of my birth, the home of my family and see if I can at least try to begin to understand what the hell happened. I'll take Maxx with me so he can see where I grew up and where my happiest childhood memories and some of my saddest occurred. I know the place hasn't changed much over the years -- little towns like that don't really ever change much over time. It is the place my ancestors, as pioneers, settled after making the very long trek West, along the Oregon Trail and the beautiful Snake River. The people there are a part of who I am and forever will be, whether I like it or not. I am probably more like them than I care to admit.
Still, I am anxious. I am confused. My heart still aches and I am still angry at Mom, at my brothers and even my stepdad, although he has helped to heal some of that or at least take the rough edges off. I told him I would come home if he could get my brothers to quit being pissy with me. We'll see what happens...
Peace,
Amy
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Thursday, October 25, 2007
Memories and Thoughts
Yesterday, as I watched the news of the wildfires in California and FEMA coming to the rescue, I was reminded of my own experience with FEMA about five years or so ago. At the time my husband and I had just moved to a place called Canyon Lake, Texas, nestled in the Hill Country north of San Antonio and south of Austin. It's a nice place, really, where people go to retire or have summer vacation homes to escape city life. It's a tourist place without all the usual trappings of a tourist town and, at least when we lived there, there were very few chain restaurants or businesses. A traffic jam was more than three cars waiting at one of the few lights around the lake.
It's the kind of place where, if you are driving down the road and come up on someone who is going slower than you, the slower driver will pull over onto the shoulder and let you pass, waving as you go by. Life is different there. In the summer time the tourists come out to camp along the Guadalupe River downstream from the dam, rent inner tubes, and float down the river all day long. Young and old alike do this and enjoy the heck out of themselves. People come out to the lake with their boats and swim, fish and just relax.
Maxx and I moved there to escape the city life and to open a business of our own building custom cabinetry, hoping to get in on all the new home construction and some of the remodeling of the older homes in the area. There was a whole lot of that going on, though you wouldn't see it just on a drive through of the area. You really have to get off the main roads to find the new home construction or homes of any kind. We had opened the doors to our business in May and were having some success, though it was slow. We had expected that much and were prepared for it.
Then in July it started raining. It rained for days on end dumping at least three feet of rain in the region, most of it upstream from the dam, which could not hold the water. The water eventually went over the spillway creating a whole new gorge, destroyed hundreds of homes, and flooded the Guadalupe River downstream. On CNN we watched houses floating down the river as they were torn from their foundations. Almost all of the roads going in and out of Canyone Lake were flooded and the bridges were washed out.
Thank goodness we were safe, though it was close. We had flood water within one hundred feet of our shop, located on River Road near the river and just a mile from the canyon. The day the water went over the spillway, the volunteer emergency crews evacuated their little building in Sattler, which is the nearest town to the dam, saying they knew the water was going to go over the spillway and did not have any idea if it would flood the town or not, so they were getting out. That was pretty scary.
Everything we had was in that business we had opened. All of Maxx's equipment was in our little shop right there by the river. We had invested everything in this business and now it was in danger. We spent all day on the 4th of July, with the help of some good friends who lived nearby, moving anything and everything we could find and lift up into the rafters and on top of the office and bathroom in that shop, trying to get it out of the way of the expected flood waters. Then we sat and waited and watched.
Like I said, we did not get flooded, thank goodness. We did not loose anything directly to the flood. But it was the beginning of a nightmare that would last a good long time.
After the flood, FEMA showed up. They were really good about some things. They handed out water and food and blankets to the families left homeless out there. They were excellent at finding the news camera crews and reporters to let them know they were on the scene. The National Guard came out as well, to keep people out of the most severely flooded neighborhoods until the water resided.
After the emergency was over and the water started to recede, they told the business owners in the area that we could apply for loans and grants to help maintain our businesses and keep them going. We applied for a loan and grants to help us and were turned down because we did not have any money sitting in the bank as collateral, as were many, many other business owners out there who eventually just closed up shop, like us, and moved on.
Now you would think that with all those flooded homes there would have been many opportunities for us to get work and help out. But that was not the case. FEMA had a list of "approved" contractors -- most of whom did not even come from the area or even Texas at all -- for people to use. We were not among their "approved" contractors and they would not give information as to how to be added to that list. Also, many of the homes there were underinsured, but that didn't matter, either. As long as the homeowners had some kind of insurance, no matter how much or how little, they were not helped. That means that many homeowners did not have the money to rebuild or to restore their homes. The work was just not available.
The tourist season was gone for that year because of the severe flooding along the river, and that is the mainstay for the local economy out there. No tourists, no money and no economy. The roads and bridges that were flooded out had to be rebuilt and repaired. For many months afterwards, on drives around the area where the flooding had occurred, we saw strange things high up in the trees, like the pink hot tub hanging from one tree about 30 feet up in the air. There were clothes and ironing boards, dog houses and whole sections of fencing hanging from the trees. It was all very surreal.
We eventually lost our apartment, sold what we could in garage sales just to get money for food, and moved into our little shop. There was no hot water, no shower, no kitchen. We did have a sink and a toilet with running water. We used the water hose out back to wash our hair in the summer. The work trickled in, slowly, but there wasn't much. Jobs were scarce unless we wanted and could make the 40 mile drive one way into town, which was not feasible. We lost one of our vehicles, so we were down to only the work truck.
There was no money and we went bankrupt. For entertainment, we would sit in folding chairs in front of our shop at night and watch the bats flying around in the sky. The skies were gorgeous!
And, after a year and a half in Canyon Lake, we closed up shop and moved back to Houston using the money from a tax return and a job I was finally able to get that paid $7.50 an hour.
I hope FEMA is doing a better job and is helping people better now. I don't have much faith in that, though, after watching their response to Katrina. But I don't know... I have not had any contact with them since we left Canyon Lake, thank goodness.
It's the kind of place where, if you are driving down the road and come up on someone who is going slower than you, the slower driver will pull over onto the shoulder and let you pass, waving as you go by. Life is different there. In the summer time the tourists come out to camp along the Guadalupe River downstream from the dam, rent inner tubes, and float down the river all day long. Young and old alike do this and enjoy the heck out of themselves. People come out to the lake with their boats and swim, fish and just relax.
Maxx and I moved there to escape the city life and to open a business of our own building custom cabinetry, hoping to get in on all the new home construction and some of the remodeling of the older homes in the area. There was a whole lot of that going on, though you wouldn't see it just on a drive through of the area. You really have to get off the main roads to find the new home construction or homes of any kind. We had opened the doors to our business in May and were having some success, though it was slow. We had expected that much and were prepared for it.
Then in July it started raining. It rained for days on end dumping at least three feet of rain in the region, most of it upstream from the dam, which could not hold the water. The water eventually went over the spillway creating a whole new gorge, destroyed hundreds of homes, and flooded the Guadalupe River downstream. On CNN we watched houses floating down the river as they were torn from their foundations. Almost all of the roads going in and out of Canyone Lake were flooded and the bridges were washed out.
Thank goodness we were safe, though it was close. We had flood water within one hundred feet of our shop, located on River Road near the river and just a mile from the canyon. The day the water went over the spillway, the volunteer emergency crews evacuated their little building in Sattler, which is the nearest town to the dam, saying they knew the water was going to go over the spillway and did not have any idea if it would flood the town or not, so they were getting out. That was pretty scary.
Everything we had was in that business we had opened. All of Maxx's equipment was in our little shop right there by the river. We had invested everything in this business and now it was in danger. We spent all day on the 4th of July, with the help of some good friends who lived nearby, moving anything and everything we could find and lift up into the rafters and on top of the office and bathroom in that shop, trying to get it out of the way of the expected flood waters. Then we sat and waited and watched.
Like I said, we did not get flooded, thank goodness. We did not loose anything directly to the flood. But it was the beginning of a nightmare that would last a good long time.
After the flood, FEMA showed up. They were really good about some things. They handed out water and food and blankets to the families left homeless out there. They were excellent at finding the news camera crews and reporters to let them know they were on the scene. The National Guard came out as well, to keep people out of the most severely flooded neighborhoods until the water resided.
After the emergency was over and the water started to recede, they told the business owners in the area that we could apply for loans and grants to help maintain our businesses and keep them going. We applied for a loan and grants to help us and were turned down because we did not have any money sitting in the bank as collateral, as were many, many other business owners out there who eventually just closed up shop, like us, and moved on.
Now you would think that with all those flooded homes there would have been many opportunities for us to get work and help out. But that was not the case. FEMA had a list of "approved" contractors -- most of whom did not even come from the area or even Texas at all -- for people to use. We were not among their "approved" contractors and they would not give information as to how to be added to that list. Also, many of the homes there were underinsured, but that didn't matter, either. As long as the homeowners had some kind of insurance, no matter how much or how little, they were not helped. That means that many homeowners did not have the money to rebuild or to restore their homes. The work was just not available.
The tourist season was gone for that year because of the severe flooding along the river, and that is the mainstay for the local economy out there. No tourists, no money and no economy. The roads and bridges that were flooded out had to be rebuilt and repaired. For many months afterwards, on drives around the area where the flooding had occurred, we saw strange things high up in the trees, like the pink hot tub hanging from one tree about 30 feet up in the air. There were clothes and ironing boards, dog houses and whole sections of fencing hanging from the trees. It was all very surreal.
We eventually lost our apartment, sold what we could in garage sales just to get money for food, and moved into our little shop. There was no hot water, no shower, no kitchen. We did have a sink and a toilet with running water. We used the water hose out back to wash our hair in the summer. The work trickled in, slowly, but there wasn't much. Jobs were scarce unless we wanted and could make the 40 mile drive one way into town, which was not feasible. We lost one of our vehicles, so we were down to only the work truck.
There was no money and we went bankrupt. For entertainment, we would sit in folding chairs in front of our shop at night and watch the bats flying around in the sky. The skies were gorgeous!
And, after a year and a half in Canyon Lake, we closed up shop and moved back to Houston using the money from a tax return and a job I was finally able to get that paid $7.50 an hour.
I hope FEMA is doing a better job and is helping people better now. I don't have much faith in that, though, after watching their response to Katrina. But I don't know... I have not had any contact with them since we left Canyon Lake, thank goodness.
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
Protester Confronts Condi Rice
Protester Desiree Farooz confronts Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in a photograph taken today by Charles Dharapak of the Associated Press.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - An anti-war protester waved blood-colored hands in U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's face at a congressional hearing on Wednesday and shouted "war criminal!", but was pushed away and detained by police.
Rice, an architect of President George W. Bush's Iraq policy, appeared unfazed by the incident, which occurred when she entered a House of Representatives meeting room to testify at a hearing on U.S. Middle East policy.
"Out!," shouted the chairman of the Foreign Relations committee, Rep. Tom Lantos, as police moved in to hustle the woman protester away.
Lantos, a California Democrat, also demanded the removal of several other demonstrators from the Code Pink organization, an anti-war group that often disrupts hearings on Capitol Hill.
"What are you doing, what are you doing?" the protesters screamed as police dragged them away.
Capitol Police said later three people were arrested and charged with disruption of Congress.
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Is A Presidential Coup Under Way?
By Jim Hightower, Hightower Lowdown
http://www.alternet.org/story/65450
Where is Congress? It's way past time for members to stand up. Historic matters are at stake. The Constitution is being trampled, the very form of our government is being perverted, and nothing less than American democracy itself is endangered -- a presidential coup is taking place. I think of Barbara Jordan, the late congresswoman from Houston. On July 25, 1974, this powerful thinker and member of the House Judiciary Committee took her turn to speak during the Nixon impeachment inquiry.
"My faith in the Constitution is whole; it is complete; it is total," she declared in her thundering voice. "And I am not going to sit here and be an idle spectator to the diminution, the subversion, the destruction, of the Constitution."Where are the likes of Barbara Jordan in today's Congress? While the BushCheney regime continues to establish a supreme, arrogant, autocratic presidency in flagrant violation of the Constitution, members of Congress largely sit there as idle spectators -- or worse, as abettors of Bush's usurpation of their own congressional authority.
Why it matters
Separation of powers. Rule of law. Checks and balances. These may seem to us moderns to be little more than a set of dry, legal precepts that we had to memorize in high-school history class but need not concern us now. After all, the founders (bless their wigged heads!) established these principles for us back in 17-something-or-other, so we don't really have to worry about them in 2007. Think again. These are not merely arcane phrases of constitutional law, but the very keystones of our democracy, essential to sustaining our ideal of being a self-governing people, free of tyrants who would govern us on their own whim. The founders knew about tyranny. The monarch of the time, King George III, routinely denied colonists basic liberties, spied on them and entered their homes at will, seized their property, jailed anyone he wanted without charges, rounded up and killed dissidents, and generally ruled with an iron fist. He was both the law and above the law, operating on the twin doctrines of "the divine rule of kings" and "the king can do no wrong."
(Alert: Ready or not, the following is a high-school refresher course on American government. There will be a test.) At the front of the founders' minds was the necessity of breaking up the authority of their new government in order to avoid re-creating the autocracy they had just defeated. The genius of their structure was that legislating, administering, and judging were to be done by three separate but coequal branches, each with powers to check the other two, and none able to aggregate all three functions into its own hands (a result that James Madison called the very definition of tyranny). Just as important, to deter government by whim, all members of the three branches were to be subject to the laws of the land (starting with the Constitution and Bill of Rights), with no one above the law. As Thomas Paine said, "The law is king."
These were not legal niceties but core restraints designed to protect citizens from power grabs by ambitious autocrats. Such restrictions also make our country stronger by vetting policies through three entities rather than one. This balanced authority helps avoid many serious policy mistakes (or at least offers a chance to correct them later), and it is intended to prevent the one mistake that's fatal to democracy -- allowing one branch to seize the power to rule unilaterally.
Of course, sound schemes are oft screwed up by unsound leaders, and we've had some horrible hiccups over the years. John Adams went astray early in our democratic experiment by claiming the unilateral authority to imprison his political enemies; Abe Lincoln took it upon himself to suspend habeas corpus during the Civil War; Woodrow Wilson launched his notorious Palmer Raids; FDR rounded up and imprisoned Japanese-Americans; J. Edgar Hoover and the infamous COINTEL program spied on and arrested thousands in the Vietnam War years; and Ronnie Reagan ran his own illegal, secret war out of the White House basement.
In all these cases of executive excess and abuse, however, outrage flowed from the public, courts stood up to the White House, congressional investigations ensued, and the American system regained its balance relatively quickly. As Jefferson put it when he succeeded Adams and repealed the Alien and Sedition Acts, "Should we wander [from the essential principles of our government] in moments of error or alarm, let us hasten to retrace our steps and regain the road which alone leads to peace, liberty, and safety."
This time is different
Now, however, come two arrogant autocrats like we've never seen in the White House. George W and his snarling enabler, Dick Cheney, are making a power grab so unprecedented, so audacious, so broad and deep, so secretive, so stupefying, and so un-American that it has not yet been comprehended by the media, Congress, or the public. The dictionary defines "coup" not just as an armed takeover in some Third World country, but as "a sudden and decisive action in politics, especially one affecting a change of government illegally or by force."
Constantly waving the bloody flag of 9/11 and swaggering around in commander-in-chief garb, the BushCheney duo are usurping authority from Congress, the courts, and the people, while also asserting arbitrary power that does not belong to the presidency. Their coup is changing our form of government, rewriting the genius of the founders by imposing a supreme executive that functions in secret and insists that it is above the law, unaccountable either to congressional oversight or to judicial review.
As Al Gore pointed out in a powerful speech he gave last year (read it here), the BushCheney push for imperial power is much more dangerous and far-reaching than other presidential excesses for a couple of big reasons. First, the Bushites make no pretension that they want these powers only temporarily, instead contending that a super-powerful presidency is necessary to cope with a terrorist threat that they say will last "for the rest of our lives." Second, they are not merely pushing executive supremacy as a response to an outside threat, but as an ideological, right-wing theory of what they allege the Constitution actually meant to say.
Called the "unitary executive theory," this perverse, antidemocratic construct begs us to believe that the president has inherent executive powers that cannot be reviewed, questioned, or altered by the other branches. Bush himself has asserted that his executive power "must be unilateral and unchecked." Must? Extremist theorists aside, this effectively establishes an executive with arbitrary power over us. It creates the anti-America.
The list of Bushite excesses is long...and growing:
Their sweeping, secret program of warrantless spying on Americans -- in direct violation of a long-standing federal law intended to forestall such flagrant intrusions into people's privacy.
The usurpation of legislative authority by attaching "signing statements" to laws passed by Congress, openly asserting Bush's intention to disobey or simply ignore the laws. He has used this artifice to challenge over 1,150laws, even though the Constitution and the founders never conceived of such a dodge (signing statements were concocted by Ed Meese, Reagan's attorney general, and were pushed at that time by a young Reaganite lawyer who is now ensconced for life on the Supreme Court, Sam Alito).
Suspension of habeas corpus for anyone whom Bush deems to be an "enemy combatant"-allowing innocent people to be detained indefinitely in prison without charges or civil trial, subjected to abuse and even torture, and denied access to judicial review of their incarceration (thus usurping the power of the courts). The routine and illegal assertion of "executive privilege" to stonewall Congress's legitimate efforts to perform its constitutional obligation of executive oversight and to prevent the questioning of top officials engaged in outright violations of American law.
The assertion of a "state secrets" doctrine to prevent citizens and judges from pursuing legitimate lawsuits on the spurious grounds that even to have the executive's actions brought before the court would endanger national security and infringe on executive authority.
An ever-expanding grab bag of autocratic actions, including using "national security letters" to sidestep the courts and spy on American political groups and individuals with no connection at all to terrorism; censoring executive-branch employees and government information for political purposes and using federal officials and tax dollars to push the regime's political agenda; and, of course, outright lying to Congress and the public, including lying for the most despicable purpose of all -- putting our troops, our public treasury, and our nation's good name into a war based on nothing but hubris, oil, and ideological fantasies (including Bush's latest blatant lie that "progress" in Iraq warrants the killing and maiming of additional thousands of American troops -- none of whom comes from his family).
Democratic capitulation
What we have is a lawless presidency. But our problem is not Bush. He is who he is -- a bonehead. He won't change, and why should he? He's getting away with his power grab! So he has no reason to step back, and every reason to keep pushing and to keep trying to institutionalize his coup.
Rather, our problem is those weaselly, wimpy, feckless members of Congress who have failed to confront the runaway executive, who have sat silent or (astonishingly) cheered and assisted as their own constitutional powers have been taken and their once-proud, coequal branch has been made subservient to the executive.
In the first six years of BushCheney, the Republican Congress operated as no more than a rubber stamp for the accretion of presidential power, shamelessly surrendering its own autonomy in a burst of mindless partisan zeal. Too many Democrats just went along, either buying the lies or being cowed by the unrelenting politics of fear and intimidation whipped up by Bush and Cheney. (The Bushites are still using these bullying tactics, as when they demanded this past summer that Congress legalize their illegal domestic spy program and CIA chief Mike McConnell warned publicly that "Americans are going to die" if Democrats failed to pass it.)
Which brings us to the new Congress run by Democrats. Where are they? Yes, I know they have only slim majorities and that the GOP uses veto threats, filibusters, and demagogic lies to fight them -- but, come on, suck it up! At least stop voting for "the diminution, the subversion, the destruction, of the Constitution." For example, the party now in charge did indeed cave in to Bush's summer demand that it legalize his warrantless spying on Americans (a Lowdowner sent an email to me saying he hopes Bush gets caught smoking pot, because then the Democrats will immediately legalize it).
The founders would be stunned that Congress has failed to assert itself. They saw checks and balances not as an option but as an obligation, a fundamental responsibility that goes to the very heart of each lawmaker's oath faithfully to support and defend the Constitution.
It's important to note that Congress is not a weak institution. It has powerful muscles to flex, including control of the purse, which Congress used in 1973 to tell Nixon, "No, we will not provide money for you to extend the Vietnam War into Laos and Cambodia." Nixon had to back off. Legislators also have clear constitutional mandates to oversee, probe, and expose presidential actions (remember the extensive Fulbright hearings in the '60s and the Church investigations of the '70s, for example). Members of Congress have wide-ranging subpoena power, as well as something called "inherent contempt" power to make their own charges against outlaw executive officials and to hold their own trials. And, of course, they have impeachment power -- which the founders saw not only as a way to remove an outlaw president (or veep or cabinet officer), but also as a means to compel a recidivist constitutional violator to come before the bar of Congress and to be held accountable. The process itself, even if it does not lead to conviction in the Senate, is educational and chastening, putting the executive branch back in its place.
None of this is about making a partisan attack on BushCheney. It's really not about them at all. Rather, Congress must find its backbone because our democracy cannot function without a vigilant legislative branch. Outlaw presidents must finally leave office, but their precedents live beyond them if left unchecked. As historian Arthur Schlesinger wrote of the power-grabbing Nixon administration, "If the Nixon White House escaped the legal consequences of its illegal behavior, why would future presidents not suppose themselves entitled to do [the same]?"
Bang pots and pans
Sam Adams, the organizer of the Boston Tea Party, knew that it is the citizenry itself that ultimately has to do the heavy lifting of democracy building. "If ever a time should come when vain and aspiring men shall possess the highest seats of government," he declared, "our country will stand in need of its experienced patriots to prevent its ruin."
That's us. And now is that time.
What can we do? We can do what millions have been doing-only more of it, more insistently, more loudly, more creatively. Our friend Molly Ivins, just before she died this year, urged us to start "banging pots and pans" to make the bastards hear us. Raise a ruckus through street demonstrations, peace actions, visits (and/or confrontations) with lawmakers, political campaigns, alliances with military families, religious ceremonies, coalitions with constitutional conservatives, outreach to young people, and grassroots media action, including blogs, email blasts, call-in radio, letters to editors, op-eds, bumperstickers, and whatever you've got. Make a mighty noise.
Don't forget our friends in office. Such Democrats as John Conyers, Henry Waxman, Barbara Lee, Lynn Woolsey, Russ Feingold, Pat Leahy, and Dennis Kucinich are all over Bush and Cheney with investigations, subpoenas, censure motions, impeachment bills, and exposes -- not only on the war, but most emphatically on constitutional abuses. Thank them, find out what you can do to help them, demand that your own Congress critter join them.
And here's a creative idea from Garret Keizer. I have no idea who he is, but he wrote a punchy piece in the October issue of Harper's Magazine (read it here) that I like and that Lowdowners might want to embrace. He's calling for a general strike. Not by unions, but by us-you and me. As a symbolically appropriate day, he suggests the first Tuesday of November, the traditional date for our elections -- this year, Nov. 6. He dubs it "The Feast of the Hanging Chads."
A general strike means that We The People, as many of us as possible, would disobey the inept, corrupt, undemocratic (add your own adjective here) system by withholding our presence at for least one day. Don't go to work. Stay home. Better yet, take some political action. Also, don't go to the mall, the supermarket, or the bank; don't use your credit card or make any commercial transaction. This would be the ultimate affront to the corporate president who so pathetically told us after 9/11 that our highest patriotic response to the attack was to "go shopping." So don't fly, use your cell phone (hard, I know), watch TV, or otherwise participate. Sometimes, silence is the loudest sound of all. As Keizer says, "As long as we're willing to go on with our business, Bush and Cheney will feel free to go on with their coup."
On one level, the strike is against the war, against Bush thumbing his nose at the American majority that has already emphatically said -- OUT! -- and against the Democratic leadership that can't seem to muster the will to rein in the Bush administration. On another level, however, this is a strike for the Constitution, a strike against the betrayal of the rule of law and our democratic ideals. It's a strike for the America we thought this was. It's an affirmation that the people are the only "larger force" that can stop the BushCheney coup and make America whole again.
From "The Hightower Lowdown," edited by Jim Hightower and Phillip Frazer, October 2007. Jim Hightower is a national radio commentator, writer, public speaker and author of Thieves In High Places: They've Stolen Our Country and It's Time to Take It Back.
http://www.alternet.org/story/65450
Where is Congress? It's way past time for members to stand up. Historic matters are at stake. The Constitution is being trampled, the very form of our government is being perverted, and nothing less than American democracy itself is endangered -- a presidential coup is taking place. I think of Barbara Jordan, the late congresswoman from Houston. On July 25, 1974, this powerful thinker and member of the House Judiciary Committee took her turn to speak during the Nixon impeachment inquiry.
"My faith in the Constitution is whole; it is complete; it is total," she declared in her thundering voice. "And I am not going to sit here and be an idle spectator to the diminution, the subversion, the destruction, of the Constitution."Where are the likes of Barbara Jordan in today's Congress? While the BushCheney regime continues to establish a supreme, arrogant, autocratic presidency in flagrant violation of the Constitution, members of Congress largely sit there as idle spectators -- or worse, as abettors of Bush's usurpation of their own congressional authority.
Why it matters
Separation of powers. Rule of law. Checks and balances. These may seem to us moderns to be little more than a set of dry, legal precepts that we had to memorize in high-school history class but need not concern us now. After all, the founders (bless their wigged heads!) established these principles for us back in 17-something-or-other, so we don't really have to worry about them in 2007. Think again. These are not merely arcane phrases of constitutional law, but the very keystones of our democracy, essential to sustaining our ideal of being a self-governing people, free of tyrants who would govern us on their own whim. The founders knew about tyranny. The monarch of the time, King George III, routinely denied colonists basic liberties, spied on them and entered their homes at will, seized their property, jailed anyone he wanted without charges, rounded up and killed dissidents, and generally ruled with an iron fist. He was both the law and above the law, operating on the twin doctrines of "the divine rule of kings" and "the king can do no wrong."
(Alert: Ready or not, the following is a high-school refresher course on American government. There will be a test.) At the front of the founders' minds was the necessity of breaking up the authority of their new government in order to avoid re-creating the autocracy they had just defeated. The genius of their structure was that legislating, administering, and judging were to be done by three separate but coequal branches, each with powers to check the other two, and none able to aggregate all three functions into its own hands (a result that James Madison called the very definition of tyranny). Just as important, to deter government by whim, all members of the three branches were to be subject to the laws of the land (starting with the Constitution and Bill of Rights), with no one above the law. As Thomas Paine said, "The law is king."
These were not legal niceties but core restraints designed to protect citizens from power grabs by ambitious autocrats. Such restrictions also make our country stronger by vetting policies through three entities rather than one. This balanced authority helps avoid many serious policy mistakes (or at least offers a chance to correct them later), and it is intended to prevent the one mistake that's fatal to democracy -- allowing one branch to seize the power to rule unilaterally.
Of course, sound schemes are oft screwed up by unsound leaders, and we've had some horrible hiccups over the years. John Adams went astray early in our democratic experiment by claiming the unilateral authority to imprison his political enemies; Abe Lincoln took it upon himself to suspend habeas corpus during the Civil War; Woodrow Wilson launched his notorious Palmer Raids; FDR rounded up and imprisoned Japanese-Americans; J. Edgar Hoover and the infamous COINTEL program spied on and arrested thousands in the Vietnam War years; and Ronnie Reagan ran his own illegal, secret war out of the White House basement.
In all these cases of executive excess and abuse, however, outrage flowed from the public, courts stood up to the White House, congressional investigations ensued, and the American system regained its balance relatively quickly. As Jefferson put it when he succeeded Adams and repealed the Alien and Sedition Acts, "Should we wander [from the essential principles of our government] in moments of error or alarm, let us hasten to retrace our steps and regain the road which alone leads to peace, liberty, and safety."
This time is different
Now, however, come two arrogant autocrats like we've never seen in the White House. George W and his snarling enabler, Dick Cheney, are making a power grab so unprecedented, so audacious, so broad and deep, so secretive, so stupefying, and so un-American that it has not yet been comprehended by the media, Congress, or the public. The dictionary defines "coup" not just as an armed takeover in some Third World country, but as "a sudden and decisive action in politics, especially one affecting a change of government illegally or by force."
Constantly waving the bloody flag of 9/11 and swaggering around in commander-in-chief garb, the BushCheney duo are usurping authority from Congress, the courts, and the people, while also asserting arbitrary power that does not belong to the presidency. Their coup is changing our form of government, rewriting the genius of the founders by imposing a supreme executive that functions in secret and insists that it is above the law, unaccountable either to congressional oversight or to judicial review.
As Al Gore pointed out in a powerful speech he gave last year (read it here), the BushCheney push for imperial power is much more dangerous and far-reaching than other presidential excesses for a couple of big reasons. First, the Bushites make no pretension that they want these powers only temporarily, instead contending that a super-powerful presidency is necessary to cope with a terrorist threat that they say will last "for the rest of our lives." Second, they are not merely pushing executive supremacy as a response to an outside threat, but as an ideological, right-wing theory of what they allege the Constitution actually meant to say.
Called the "unitary executive theory," this perverse, antidemocratic construct begs us to believe that the president has inherent executive powers that cannot be reviewed, questioned, or altered by the other branches. Bush himself has asserted that his executive power "must be unilateral and unchecked." Must? Extremist theorists aside, this effectively establishes an executive with arbitrary power over us. It creates the anti-America.
The list of Bushite excesses is long...and growing:
Their sweeping, secret program of warrantless spying on Americans -- in direct violation of a long-standing federal law intended to forestall such flagrant intrusions into people's privacy.
The usurpation of legislative authority by attaching "signing statements" to laws passed by Congress, openly asserting Bush's intention to disobey or simply ignore the laws. He has used this artifice to challenge over 1,150laws, even though the Constitution and the founders never conceived of such a dodge (signing statements were concocted by Ed Meese, Reagan's attorney general, and were pushed at that time by a young Reaganite lawyer who is now ensconced for life on the Supreme Court, Sam Alito).
Suspension of habeas corpus for anyone whom Bush deems to be an "enemy combatant"-allowing innocent people to be detained indefinitely in prison without charges or civil trial, subjected to abuse and even torture, and denied access to judicial review of their incarceration (thus usurping the power of the courts). The routine and illegal assertion of "executive privilege" to stonewall Congress's legitimate efforts to perform its constitutional obligation of executive oversight and to prevent the questioning of top officials engaged in outright violations of American law.
The assertion of a "state secrets" doctrine to prevent citizens and judges from pursuing legitimate lawsuits on the spurious grounds that even to have the executive's actions brought before the court would endanger national security and infringe on executive authority.
An ever-expanding grab bag of autocratic actions, including using "national security letters" to sidestep the courts and spy on American political groups and individuals with no connection at all to terrorism; censoring executive-branch employees and government information for political purposes and using federal officials and tax dollars to push the regime's political agenda; and, of course, outright lying to Congress and the public, including lying for the most despicable purpose of all -- putting our troops, our public treasury, and our nation's good name into a war based on nothing but hubris, oil, and ideological fantasies (including Bush's latest blatant lie that "progress" in Iraq warrants the killing and maiming of additional thousands of American troops -- none of whom comes from his family).
Democratic capitulation
What we have is a lawless presidency. But our problem is not Bush. He is who he is -- a bonehead. He won't change, and why should he? He's getting away with his power grab! So he has no reason to step back, and every reason to keep pushing and to keep trying to institutionalize his coup.
Rather, our problem is those weaselly, wimpy, feckless members of Congress who have failed to confront the runaway executive, who have sat silent or (astonishingly) cheered and assisted as their own constitutional powers have been taken and their once-proud, coequal branch has been made subservient to the executive.
In the first six years of BushCheney, the Republican Congress operated as no more than a rubber stamp for the accretion of presidential power, shamelessly surrendering its own autonomy in a burst of mindless partisan zeal. Too many Democrats just went along, either buying the lies or being cowed by the unrelenting politics of fear and intimidation whipped up by Bush and Cheney. (The Bushites are still using these bullying tactics, as when they demanded this past summer that Congress legalize their illegal domestic spy program and CIA chief Mike McConnell warned publicly that "Americans are going to die" if Democrats failed to pass it.)
Which brings us to the new Congress run by Democrats. Where are they? Yes, I know they have only slim majorities and that the GOP uses veto threats, filibusters, and demagogic lies to fight them -- but, come on, suck it up! At least stop voting for "the diminution, the subversion, the destruction, of the Constitution." For example, the party now in charge did indeed cave in to Bush's summer demand that it legalize his warrantless spying on Americans (a Lowdowner sent an email to me saying he hopes Bush gets caught smoking pot, because then the Democrats will immediately legalize it).
The founders would be stunned that Congress has failed to assert itself. They saw checks and balances not as an option but as an obligation, a fundamental responsibility that goes to the very heart of each lawmaker's oath faithfully to support and defend the Constitution.
It's important to note that Congress is not a weak institution. It has powerful muscles to flex, including control of the purse, which Congress used in 1973 to tell Nixon, "No, we will not provide money for you to extend the Vietnam War into Laos and Cambodia." Nixon had to back off. Legislators also have clear constitutional mandates to oversee, probe, and expose presidential actions (remember the extensive Fulbright hearings in the '60s and the Church investigations of the '70s, for example). Members of Congress have wide-ranging subpoena power, as well as something called "inherent contempt" power to make their own charges against outlaw executive officials and to hold their own trials. And, of course, they have impeachment power -- which the founders saw not only as a way to remove an outlaw president (or veep or cabinet officer), but also as a means to compel a recidivist constitutional violator to come before the bar of Congress and to be held accountable. The process itself, even if it does not lead to conviction in the Senate, is educational and chastening, putting the executive branch back in its place.
None of this is about making a partisan attack on BushCheney. It's really not about them at all. Rather, Congress must find its backbone because our democracy cannot function without a vigilant legislative branch. Outlaw presidents must finally leave office, but their precedents live beyond them if left unchecked. As historian Arthur Schlesinger wrote of the power-grabbing Nixon administration, "If the Nixon White House escaped the legal consequences of its illegal behavior, why would future presidents not suppose themselves entitled to do [the same]?"
Bang pots and pans
Sam Adams, the organizer of the Boston Tea Party, knew that it is the citizenry itself that ultimately has to do the heavy lifting of democracy building. "If ever a time should come when vain and aspiring men shall possess the highest seats of government," he declared, "our country will stand in need of its experienced patriots to prevent its ruin."
That's us. And now is that time.
What can we do? We can do what millions have been doing-only more of it, more insistently, more loudly, more creatively. Our friend Molly Ivins, just before she died this year, urged us to start "banging pots and pans" to make the bastards hear us. Raise a ruckus through street demonstrations, peace actions, visits (and/or confrontations) with lawmakers, political campaigns, alliances with military families, religious ceremonies, coalitions with constitutional conservatives, outreach to young people, and grassroots media action, including blogs, email blasts, call-in radio, letters to editors, op-eds, bumperstickers, and whatever you've got. Make a mighty noise.
Don't forget our friends in office. Such Democrats as John Conyers, Henry Waxman, Barbara Lee, Lynn Woolsey, Russ Feingold, Pat Leahy, and Dennis Kucinich are all over Bush and Cheney with investigations, subpoenas, censure motions, impeachment bills, and exposes -- not only on the war, but most emphatically on constitutional abuses. Thank them, find out what you can do to help them, demand that your own Congress critter join them.
And here's a creative idea from Garret Keizer. I have no idea who he is, but he wrote a punchy piece in the October issue of Harper's Magazine (read it here) that I like and that Lowdowners might want to embrace. He's calling for a general strike. Not by unions, but by us-you and me. As a symbolically appropriate day, he suggests the first Tuesday of November, the traditional date for our elections -- this year, Nov. 6. He dubs it "The Feast of the Hanging Chads."
A general strike means that We The People, as many of us as possible, would disobey the inept, corrupt, undemocratic (add your own adjective here) system by withholding our presence at for least one day. Don't go to work. Stay home. Better yet, take some political action. Also, don't go to the mall, the supermarket, or the bank; don't use your credit card or make any commercial transaction. This would be the ultimate affront to the corporate president who so pathetically told us after 9/11 that our highest patriotic response to the attack was to "go shopping." So don't fly, use your cell phone (hard, I know), watch TV, or otherwise participate. Sometimes, silence is the loudest sound of all. As Keizer says, "As long as we're willing to go on with our business, Bush and Cheney will feel free to go on with their coup."
On one level, the strike is against the war, against Bush thumbing his nose at the American majority that has already emphatically said -- OUT! -- and against the Democratic leadership that can't seem to muster the will to rein in the Bush administration. On another level, however, this is a strike for the Constitution, a strike against the betrayal of the rule of law and our democratic ideals. It's a strike for the America we thought this was. It's an affirmation that the people are the only "larger force" that can stop the BushCheney coup and make America whole again.
From "The Hightower Lowdown," edited by Jim Hightower and Phillip Frazer, October 2007. Jim Hightower is a national radio commentator, writer, public speaker and author of Thieves In High Places: They've Stolen Our Country and It's Time to Take It Back.
9/11 Responder to Lose His Home
Many offer aid to Barnegat man who assisted at ground-zero
An emergency medical technician, whose medical and financial troubles following his work at the World Trade Center site have left him set to lose his Barnegat home at the end of this month, said he has been bombarded with calls and e-mails seeking to help him and his family.
Charlie Giles, 39, was working for Citywide Emergency Medical Services in New York City when he assisted at the World Trade Center after the attack in 2001. He moved to Barnegat in 2002. His health has since declined. His medical expenses and inability to work left him behind on his mortgage and his home went into foreclosure by March 2007. A sheriff's auction is scheduled for Oct. 30.
Private citizens and organizations including the FDNY EMS Retirees Association have contacted The Press of Atlantic City, which published Saturday a story about the upcoming sale, wanting to help Giles.
Strangers, businesses and media outlets from as far away as Florida apparently have reached out to Giles to give money or provide exposure in hopes of "shaming Wachovia into not taking his house," said John Feal.
Feal founded The FealGood Foundation, a New York-based nonprofit that helps Sept. 11 responders struggling to meet their financial and medical needs.
Producers for the Star Jones Show confirmed Giles is scheduled to appear on today's program at 3 p.m. on Court TV.
Feal, also a Sept. 11 responder, said media attention has helped the causes of other clients and hopes it will do the same for Giles.
"We can't raise (enough) money by Friday to save that guy's life," Feal said. "We just care."
Giles has appealed the auction of his home and obtained three delays from Ocean County.
Giles pays about $1,000 each month to pay for prescriptions and doctor's visits. He estimated the community has raised about $5,000 before a Saturday fundraiser, where he received nearly $2,000 in donations, according to event organizer Tom King of Shamrock and Thistle, the Ocean County bag pipe band that hosted the soiree.
Feal has arranged a press conference and fundraiser for Giles 7:45 p.m. Friday at the Pinewoods Estates Firehouse, where Giles serves on the executive board.
To e-mail Emily Previti at The Press:
EPreviti@pressofac.com
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Monday, October 22, 2007
What you WILL NOT hear about on MSM today...
Happening NOW in Washington D.C.
Roads throughout the city are shut down and entrances to several buildings blocked by young people, Iraq war vets, and others who are protesting the war, global warming and other issues. Hundreds reported arrested.
Go to http://www.democracycellproject.net/blog/archives/2007/10/live_blog_score.html for more information.
Friday, October 19, 2007
Here's a Good Reason NOT to vote for Hillary...
I'm sure you can find others. A big factor in deciding who I will vote for is who contributes to the candidates. Big defense industry contributions? Big business contributions? In my mind, the candidate is being bought out and the candidate will be loyal to those who contributed the most. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Clinton Bucks Trend, Rakes in Cash From Weapons Industry
By Leonard Doyle
The Independent UK
Friday 19 October 2007
The US arms industry is backing Hillary Clinton for President and has all but abandoned its traditional allies in the Republican party. Mrs Clinton has also emerged as Wall Street's favourite. Investment bankers have opened their wallets in unprecedented numbers for the New York senator over the past three months and, in the process, dumped their earlier favourite, Barack Obama.
Mrs Clinton's wooing of the defence industry is all the more remarkable given the frosty relations between Bill Clinton and the military during his presidency. An analysis of campaign contributions shows senior defence industry employees are pouring money into her war chest in the belief that their generosity will be repaid many times over with future defence contracts.
Employees of the top five US arms manufacturers - Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Northrop-Grumman, General Dynamics and Raytheon - gave Democratic presidential candidates $103,900, with only $86,800 going to the Republicans. "The contributions clearly suggest the arms industry has reached the conclusion that Democratic prospects for 2008 are very good indeed," said Thomas Edsall, an academic at Columbia University in New York.
Republican administrations are by tradition much stronger supporters of US armaments programmes and Pentagon spending plans than Democratic governments. Relations between the arms industry and Bill Clinton soured when he slimmed down the military after the end of the Cold War. His wife, however, has been careful not to make the same mistake.
After her election to the Senate, she became the first New York senator on the armed services committee, where she revealed her hawkish tendencies by supporting the invasion of Iraq. Although she now favours a withdrawal of US troops, her position on Iran is among the most warlike of all the candidates - Democrat or Republican.
This week, she said that, if elected president, she would not rule out military strikes to destroy Tehran's nuclear weapons facilities. While on the armed services committee, Mrs Clinton has befriended key generals and has won the endorsement of General Wesley Clarke, who ran Nato's war in Kosovo. A former presidential candidate himself, he is spoken of as a potential vice-presidential running mate.
Mrs Clinton has been a regular visitor to Iraq and Afghanistan and is careful to focus her criticisms of the Iraq war on President Bush, rather than the military. The arms industry has duly taken note.
So far, Mrs Clinton has received $52,600 in contributions from individual arms industry employees. That is more than half the sum given to all Democrats and 60 per cent of the total going to Republican candidates. Election fundraising laws ban individuals from donating more than $4,600 but contributions are often "bundled" to obtain influence over a candidate.
The arms industry has even deserted the biggest supporter of the Iraq war, Senator John McCain, who is also a member of the armed services committee and a decorated Vietnam War veteran. He has been only $19,200. Weapons-makers are equally unimpressed by the former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani. Despite a campaign built largely around the need for an aggressive US military and a determination to stay the course in Iraq, he is behind Mrs Clinton in the affections of arms executives. Mr Giuliani may be suffering because of his strong association with the failed policies of President Bush and the fact he is he is known as a social liberal.
Mrs Clinton's closest competitor in raising cash from the arms industry is the former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, who raised just $32,000.
"Arms industry profits are so heavily dependent on government contracts that companies in this field want to be sure they do not have hostile relations with the White House," added Mr Edsall.
The industry's strong support for Mrs Clinton indicates that she is their firm favourite to win the Democratic nomination in the spring and the presidential election in November 2008. In the last presidential race, George Bush raised more than $800,000 - twice the sum collected by his Democratic rival John Kerry.
Mr Edsall's analysis of the figures reveals that, over the past 10 years, the defence industry has favoured Republicans over Democrats by a 3-2 margin, making Mrs Clinton's position even more remarkable.
Clinton Bucks Trend, Rakes in Cash From Weapons Industry
By Leonard Doyle
The Independent UK
Friday 19 October 2007
The US arms industry is backing Hillary Clinton for President and has all but abandoned its traditional allies in the Republican party. Mrs Clinton has also emerged as Wall Street's favourite. Investment bankers have opened their wallets in unprecedented numbers for the New York senator over the past three months and, in the process, dumped their earlier favourite, Barack Obama.
Mrs Clinton's wooing of the defence industry is all the more remarkable given the frosty relations between Bill Clinton and the military during his presidency. An analysis of campaign contributions shows senior defence industry employees are pouring money into her war chest in the belief that their generosity will be repaid many times over with future defence contracts.
Employees of the top five US arms manufacturers - Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Northrop-Grumman, General Dynamics and Raytheon - gave Democratic presidential candidates $103,900, with only $86,800 going to the Republicans. "The contributions clearly suggest the arms industry has reached the conclusion that Democratic prospects for 2008 are very good indeed," said Thomas Edsall, an academic at Columbia University in New York.
Republican administrations are by tradition much stronger supporters of US armaments programmes and Pentagon spending plans than Democratic governments. Relations between the arms industry and Bill Clinton soured when he slimmed down the military after the end of the Cold War. His wife, however, has been careful not to make the same mistake.
After her election to the Senate, she became the first New York senator on the armed services committee, where she revealed her hawkish tendencies by supporting the invasion of Iraq. Although she now favours a withdrawal of US troops, her position on Iran is among the most warlike of all the candidates - Democrat or Republican.
This week, she said that, if elected president, she would not rule out military strikes to destroy Tehran's nuclear weapons facilities. While on the armed services committee, Mrs Clinton has befriended key generals and has won the endorsement of General Wesley Clarke, who ran Nato's war in Kosovo. A former presidential candidate himself, he is spoken of as a potential vice-presidential running mate.
Mrs Clinton has been a regular visitor to Iraq and Afghanistan and is careful to focus her criticisms of the Iraq war on President Bush, rather than the military. The arms industry has duly taken note.
So far, Mrs Clinton has received $52,600 in contributions from individual arms industry employees. That is more than half the sum given to all Democrats and 60 per cent of the total going to Republican candidates. Election fundraising laws ban individuals from donating more than $4,600 but contributions are often "bundled" to obtain influence over a candidate.
The arms industry has even deserted the biggest supporter of the Iraq war, Senator John McCain, who is also a member of the armed services committee and a decorated Vietnam War veteran. He has been only $19,200. Weapons-makers are equally unimpressed by the former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani. Despite a campaign built largely around the need for an aggressive US military and a determination to stay the course in Iraq, he is behind Mrs Clinton in the affections of arms executives. Mr Giuliani may be suffering because of his strong association with the failed policies of President Bush and the fact he is he is known as a social liberal.
Mrs Clinton's closest competitor in raising cash from the arms industry is the former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, who raised just $32,000.
"Arms industry profits are so heavily dependent on government contracts that companies in this field want to be sure they do not have hostile relations with the White House," added Mr Edsall.
The industry's strong support for Mrs Clinton indicates that she is their firm favourite to win the Democratic nomination in the spring and the presidential election in November 2008. In the last presidential race, George Bush raised more than $800,000 - twice the sum collected by his Democratic rival John Kerry.
Mr Edsall's analysis of the figures reveals that, over the past 10 years, the defence industry has favoured Republicans over Democrats by a 3-2 margin, making Mrs Clinton's position even more remarkable.
Thursday, October 18, 2007
I Don't Get It
Here's something that I just don't "get"...
Recently there has been a lot of talk on both sides of the political aisle about SCHIP. One side has brought out a couple of families whose children have benefitted greatly from the program and the other side has completely trashed these families.
First there was the story of Graeme Frost and his sister who had been in an accident and needed a lot of medical treatment and physical therapy that their parents couldn't afford. The so-called "right" didn't like it and they immediately proceeded to trash the hell out of the family and even came out with unsubstantiated stories of how much money this family had and even went so far as to publish this family's home address and personal information on the internet. They said that the family (and the children) were not deserving of the help they got.
Next is the Wilkerson family whose little girl, Bethany, was born with a heart defect and had to have surgery to keep her alive. This family has been smeared all over the place because the mother quit a job where she had insurance four years before she ever conceived Bethany. It is said that these parents are irresponsible, among many other things.
I'm not going to go into all of the terrible things said about these families, you can google them and find out for yourself.
Here is what I don't get... The ultra-conservative Republican right wing of our country, those who call themselves Christian and are not supposed to judge others (according to their very own Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ) says, do not use birth control, practice abstinence and no abortions. Okay, so where does that leave people who do not adhere to their practices and ways? Let's say a couple does have an "oops" baby and they are poor and don't have medical insurance. Where does that leave them? Should they go ahead and have the baby but adopt it out to some other family who does have money and insurance? Really, what options are out there, according to these conservative idiots?
Or how about a young woman who makes a mistake and gets pregnant because she is sexually active? I mean, come on people, these things DO happen because we are human beings. What alternatives does a woman have? To practice abstinence is to deny our own biology and is an unrealistic expectation. I'm not saying that everyone should be shagging everyone else all the time, but there is some kind of happy medium in the mix somewhere. Birth control pills, condoms, and other various and sundry items allow us to have safe, protected, responsible sex -- but the far right wing doesn't want that, either. And if you do somehow end up pregnant, the far right doesn't want a woman to have an abortion because, well, they KNOW when life begins and that must be protected at all costs.
But they don't want to help you if you get yourself into a position where you have created a life (that is so very, very sacred to them). Let these children be born into poverty and the expectation is, I guess, that if you do this, you're supposed to give your child up for adoption to some rich family that can spend money on it.
Yeah, that life is precious while it's in the womb to the prolifers. Once that baby emerges from its mother's womb, it is no longer precious to them. Let that baby suffer and go hungry for the rest of its life, they don't care.
I think this is hypocrisy in its highest form. The religious conservatives should practice what they preach, and if they are going to follow Jesus, they need to read again what he said: Suffer the children to come unto Me. In as much as you have done it to the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me. Love One Another. Judge not that ye be not judged.
I freely and openly admit that I am not a follower of Christ and I do have somewhat hedonistic tendencies from time to time. That's probably why I just do not understand the absolute hypocrisy I see in all of this and why it all seems so inconsistent with the teachings of their religion.
I just don't "get" it...
Peace,
Amy
Recently there has been a lot of talk on both sides of the political aisle about SCHIP. One side has brought out a couple of families whose children have benefitted greatly from the program and the other side has completely trashed these families.
First there was the story of Graeme Frost and his sister who had been in an accident and needed a lot of medical treatment and physical therapy that their parents couldn't afford. The so-called "right" didn't like it and they immediately proceeded to trash the hell out of the family and even came out with unsubstantiated stories of how much money this family had and even went so far as to publish this family's home address and personal information on the internet. They said that the family (and the children) were not deserving of the help they got.
Next is the Wilkerson family whose little girl, Bethany, was born with a heart defect and had to have surgery to keep her alive. This family has been smeared all over the place because the mother quit a job where she had insurance four years before she ever conceived Bethany. It is said that these parents are irresponsible, among many other things.
I'm not going to go into all of the terrible things said about these families, you can google them and find out for yourself.
Here is what I don't get... The ultra-conservative Republican right wing of our country, those who call themselves Christian and are not supposed to judge others (according to their very own Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ) says, do not use birth control, practice abstinence and no abortions. Okay, so where does that leave people who do not adhere to their practices and ways? Let's say a couple does have an "oops" baby and they are poor and don't have medical insurance. Where does that leave them? Should they go ahead and have the baby but adopt it out to some other family who does have money and insurance? Really, what options are out there, according to these conservative idiots?
Or how about a young woman who makes a mistake and gets pregnant because she is sexually active? I mean, come on people, these things DO happen because we are human beings. What alternatives does a woman have? To practice abstinence is to deny our own biology and is an unrealistic expectation. I'm not saying that everyone should be shagging everyone else all the time, but there is some kind of happy medium in the mix somewhere. Birth control pills, condoms, and other various and sundry items allow us to have safe, protected, responsible sex -- but the far right wing doesn't want that, either. And if you do somehow end up pregnant, the far right doesn't want a woman to have an abortion because, well, they KNOW when life begins and that must be protected at all costs.
But they don't want to help you if you get yourself into a position where you have created a life (that is so very, very sacred to them). Let these children be born into poverty and the expectation is, I guess, that if you do this, you're supposed to give your child up for adoption to some rich family that can spend money on it.
Yeah, that life is precious while it's in the womb to the prolifers. Once that baby emerges from its mother's womb, it is no longer precious to them. Let that baby suffer and go hungry for the rest of its life, they don't care.
I think this is hypocrisy in its highest form. The religious conservatives should practice what they preach, and if they are going to follow Jesus, they need to read again what he said: Suffer the children to come unto Me. In as much as you have done it to the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me. Love One Another. Judge not that ye be not judged.
I freely and openly admit that I am not a follower of Christ and I do have somewhat hedonistic tendencies from time to time. That's probably why I just do not understand the absolute hypocrisy I see in all of this and why it all seems so inconsistent with the teachings of their religion.
I just don't "get" it...
Peace,
Amy
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
Ten Things I Would LIke to Ask the Presidential Candidates
If I had the chance, here are the questions I would ask, the things that are important to me:
1. What are you going to do about restoring habeus corpus? Right now the President can declare anyone an “enemy combatant” and they can be held indefinitely without charge or trial.
2. What are you going to do about the illegal wiretapping and spying on American citizens? I hear now that this extends also to our banking and internet records.
3. What are you going to do about American’s budget deficit? Add to this question, how will you help the middle and lower class in this country? What are you trade policies with other countries?
4. What are your plans as far as changing our healthcare system? I’m not talking about making health insurance mandatory – that makes just about as much sense as a hole in my head.
5. When will you end the war/illegal occupation of Iraq?
6. How soon do you plan to close Guantanamo Bay?
7. What are you going to do about the illegal rendition and torture of terrorism suspects?
8. How will you fight the so-called Global War on Terror?
9. What will you do to reunify this country?
10. What will you do about Global Warming?
I’m sure there are many other questions. But note, while I do care about gay rights and marriage, while I do care about a woman’s right to have an abortion, I do not think these are things that should make or break a Presidential candidate. Those are things that should be left to the choice of the individual. I want to know what a Presidential Candidate is going to do to help this country in the long run because the next President will make or break this country for good.
Peace,
Amy
1. What are you going to do about restoring habeus corpus? Right now the President can declare anyone an “enemy combatant” and they can be held indefinitely without charge or trial.
2. What are you going to do about the illegal wiretapping and spying on American citizens? I hear now that this extends also to our banking and internet records.
3. What are you going to do about American’s budget deficit? Add to this question, how will you help the middle and lower class in this country? What are you trade policies with other countries?
4. What are your plans as far as changing our healthcare system? I’m not talking about making health insurance mandatory – that makes just about as much sense as a hole in my head.
5. When will you end the war/illegal occupation of Iraq?
6. How soon do you plan to close Guantanamo Bay?
7. What are you going to do about the illegal rendition and torture of terrorism suspects?
8. How will you fight the so-called Global War on Terror?
9. What will you do to reunify this country?
10. What will you do about Global Warming?
I’m sure there are many other questions. But note, while I do care about gay rights and marriage, while I do care about a woman’s right to have an abortion, I do not think these are things that should make or break a Presidential candidate. Those are things that should be left to the choice of the individual. I want to know what a Presidential Candidate is going to do to help this country in the long run because the next President will make or break this country for good.
Peace,
Amy
Sunday, October 14, 2007
Perfect Moments
Have you ever had a perfect moment? It's one of those fleeting places in time and space where everything is perfect -- the right place, the right time, the right people and you are calm, relaxed and happy. They can last a minute or two or they can last for a few hours. But they are just, well, perfect.
Last night I had one of those brief moments. It had been a tough day. The car broke down in Tomball and we were stranded. Several hours later we got that all straightened out. Dani had come to spend the day with us and once we got home, got the truck, and went back to get the car, Dani drove the car while Maxx drove the truck and towed the car. I was sick all day with a nasty cough and sinus headache.
Afterward we went to the local Saturday night car show at a Kroger's parking lot where people take their old hot rods and other antique cars to show them off. There are hundreds of them and it's free. It was a perfect Texas October night. We had fun.
Then we had dinner and came home to watch the OU football game that we had recorded earlier. That was when the perfect moment came. Just sitting there in my frontroom with my husband and my daughter, watching the game and relaxing from the day. It was good, very, very good.
Those perfect moments come so rarely. I treasure them with all my heart. When they come along, I know I am exactly where I need to be in my life.
May you be blessed many perfect moments in your life. They are what makes life so special.
Peace!
Amy
Last night I had one of those brief moments. It had been a tough day. The car broke down in Tomball and we were stranded. Several hours later we got that all straightened out. Dani had come to spend the day with us and once we got home, got the truck, and went back to get the car, Dani drove the car while Maxx drove the truck and towed the car. I was sick all day with a nasty cough and sinus headache.
Afterward we went to the local Saturday night car show at a Kroger's parking lot where people take their old hot rods and other antique cars to show them off. There are hundreds of them and it's free. It was a perfect Texas October night. We had fun.
Then we had dinner and came home to watch the OU football game that we had recorded earlier. That was when the perfect moment came. Just sitting there in my frontroom with my husband and my daughter, watching the game and relaxing from the day. It was good, very, very good.
Those perfect moments come so rarely. I treasure them with all my heart. When they come along, I know I am exactly where I need to be in my life.
May you be blessed many perfect moments in your life. They are what makes life so special.
Peace!
Amy
Tuesday, October 09, 2007
Sunday, October 07, 2007
America Went Shopping
While our Constitution Slowly Burned…
What will be said about Americans in the future when history looks back at our time? What will I tell my grandchildren and my great grandchildren when they ask what happened to America? It is not just this President and his administration that will be judged by them and by time. It will also be the American people.
Nero fiddled while Rome burned. Sound familiar? Okay, so Nero probably didn’t really play a fiddle while Rome was burning, but it is a great analogy for the behavior of the American public at large right now.
Right after the horrific tragedy of 9/11, Americans were glued to their television sets. We couldn’t believe we had been attacked on our own soil and we were outraged. We mourned and we cried. We learned that it was terrorists who attacked us, specifically, al Qaeda. Shortly thereafter, the President declared war on al Qaeda.
Good American citizens across the country wanted to know what they could do to help. Go shopping, the President told us. Travel, and do the things you have always done. Don’t change your lives. Don’t let the terrorists win.
So, we went shopping in droves. We bought up gas guzzling SUV’s and RV’s, went to Wal-Mart en masse to buy up cheap goods from China, and we traveled the country. We continued to take our kids to soccer and baseball practice, went to movies and football games and did what we in America do best. We spent money. We bought homes and got mortgages we couldn’t really afford and the housing industry went through the roof.
We shopped until we dropped. We did this for years. We ran up our credit card debt and spent every penny we had to pay our bills. Savings went down and spending went up. But, we were being good little patriotic citizens to win our war on terror. We couldn’t let the terrorists change our lives. And we didn’t.
The average American citizen did not go to war and did not see it. There was no draft. Our military men and women, America’s sons and daughters, were called upon time and time again to go to Iraq for longer and longer periods of time. And the government would not give them equal time at home with their families. Veteran’s benefits were cut and those who returned home with PTSD and other disabilities were not helped and cared for as they should have been. Our military was broken.
We were to mind-numbed and shopping happy to see that our Constitution was being disassembled piece by piece. The enemy of freedom and democracy was not a foreign terrorist – although they do exist and are a threat. The enemy was our own government.
Behind the scenes, in the name of the Great War on Terror, people were being quietly picked up around the world and flown to secret bases and tortured for information – policies that are strictly forbidden in the Geneva Convention. This is called Rendition. We put hundreds of men and young boys into Guantanimo Bay and held them without charge for years on end, away from their country and their family and all they hold dear.
American citizens were spied on, had their phone calls listened to and emails read without the benefit of warrants and the FISA court.
In the name of the Great War on Terror and all Americans, prisoners at Abu Ghraib were tortured in the most hideous of ways and further humiliated by having their pictures taken by their torturers.
The mainstream media was bought by the government and did not report the facts, the truth. We did not question their reporting when, after we attacked and moved into Afghanistan, the build up for war in Iraq began. The leaders of this country used fear and terror to sell this war, with threats of mushroom clouds, biochemical attacks and the great evil one, Saddam Hussein. Never mind that the UN Weapons Inspectors told the leaders of this country and the world that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction and hadn’t had them for years. We were flat out lied to by President and his administration.
A private mercenary Army was created by Blackwater that moved into Iraq and did the jobs our soldiers used to do with more money – from a no-bid contrast. Halliburton and KBR also won no-bid contracts in Iraq and in the United States. New Orleans was destroyed when the levees failed, and the poor neighborhoods were not rebuilt. FEMA trailers meant to help those who were left homeless were left standing empty in fields full of useless metal that is rusted and useless.
Huge detention centers were quietly built (by Halliburton and paid for with no-bid contracts) beyond the sight of the public eye meant to hold hundreds of thousands of people “in the event of a national emergency”. Many dissenters fear they were built to hold us.
The leaders of this government have tried to quell of freedom of speech, dissent and democracy in general. The right of Habeas Corpus was taken away by the President, who declared himself the Decider. He gave himself the power to decide who was an enemy combatant and who was not. He declared that anyone who opposed the war could be called an enemy combatant.
Our jobs were sent overseas to China and India. Immigrants from Mexico poured over our borders freely.
Our national debt leaped in just a few years to several trillion, yes TRILLION dollars, much of it borrowed from China.
Children’s healthcare was denied but money was approved to continue a war that most Americans eventually came to disagree with. Citizens marched in the hundreds of thousands on Washington to demonstrate the public outcry against the war, but the media did not report it. We lobbied Congress day after day after day for years, yet they paid little more than lip service to us.
The Republicans ignored us. The Democrats told us, get us elected and we will help you. We got them elected and they turned their backs on the American People.
Our President wanted to be a War President. He believed the Constitution was nothing more than “a goddamn piece of paper” and the Vice President ran a shadow government. They believed themselves, and apparently rightly so, above the law. The President claimed that God talked to him personally.
Good Christian people went to church and listened to their preachers tell them to support the President. Some were told that it was a sin if they voted for anyone other than the President when it came time for re-election, so the college frat boy who failed at just about everything he touched in his life once again was elected President – some believe via a stolen election for the second time.
All of this while we Americans consumed goods in mass quantities and woke in the morning with the hang over of debt and worry. Our jobs were going and we started losing our homes.
And then they told us about Global Warming, Darfur and mass refugee camps. We began to hear the same rhetoric that was spewed about Iraq used to build the case for war with Iran. This, when our military was broken.
But we shopped. We did our duty to our country to keep our economy going and strong. The rich grew richer, the poor grew poorer, the middle class began to disappear, and We the People, will be paying for our blindness and stupidity for generations to come.
I ask you, who is the real enemy of Freedom and Democracy? Is it not the responsibility of every American citizen to see to it that our elected Representatives and Officials keep their oath of office to uphold and protect the Constitution of our country? This is their sacred duty.
Amy Branham
Gold Star Mother for Peace
Mother of Sgt. Jeremy R. Smith
Nov. 1981 – Feb. 2004
abranham@houston.rr.com
What will be said about Americans in the future when history looks back at our time? What will I tell my grandchildren and my great grandchildren when they ask what happened to America? It is not just this President and his administration that will be judged by them and by time. It will also be the American people.
Nero fiddled while Rome burned. Sound familiar? Okay, so Nero probably didn’t really play a fiddle while Rome was burning, but it is a great analogy for the behavior of the American public at large right now.
Right after the horrific tragedy of 9/11, Americans were glued to their television sets. We couldn’t believe we had been attacked on our own soil and we were outraged. We mourned and we cried. We learned that it was terrorists who attacked us, specifically, al Qaeda. Shortly thereafter, the President declared war on al Qaeda.
Good American citizens across the country wanted to know what they could do to help. Go shopping, the President told us. Travel, and do the things you have always done. Don’t change your lives. Don’t let the terrorists win.
So, we went shopping in droves. We bought up gas guzzling SUV’s and RV’s, went to Wal-Mart en masse to buy up cheap goods from China, and we traveled the country. We continued to take our kids to soccer and baseball practice, went to movies and football games and did what we in America do best. We spent money. We bought homes and got mortgages we couldn’t really afford and the housing industry went through the roof.
We shopped until we dropped. We did this for years. We ran up our credit card debt and spent every penny we had to pay our bills. Savings went down and spending went up. But, we were being good little patriotic citizens to win our war on terror. We couldn’t let the terrorists change our lives. And we didn’t.
The average American citizen did not go to war and did not see it. There was no draft. Our military men and women, America’s sons and daughters, were called upon time and time again to go to Iraq for longer and longer periods of time. And the government would not give them equal time at home with their families. Veteran’s benefits were cut and those who returned home with PTSD and other disabilities were not helped and cared for as they should have been. Our military was broken.
We were to mind-numbed and shopping happy to see that our Constitution was being disassembled piece by piece. The enemy of freedom and democracy was not a foreign terrorist – although they do exist and are a threat. The enemy was our own government.
Behind the scenes, in the name of the Great War on Terror, people were being quietly picked up around the world and flown to secret bases and tortured for information – policies that are strictly forbidden in the Geneva Convention. This is called Rendition. We put hundreds of men and young boys into Guantanimo Bay and held them without charge for years on end, away from their country and their family and all they hold dear.
American citizens were spied on, had their phone calls listened to and emails read without the benefit of warrants and the FISA court.
In the name of the Great War on Terror and all Americans, prisoners at Abu Ghraib were tortured in the most hideous of ways and further humiliated by having their pictures taken by their torturers.
The mainstream media was bought by the government and did not report the facts, the truth. We did not question their reporting when, after we attacked and moved into Afghanistan, the build up for war in Iraq began. The leaders of this country used fear and terror to sell this war, with threats of mushroom clouds, biochemical attacks and the great evil one, Saddam Hussein. Never mind that the UN Weapons Inspectors told the leaders of this country and the world that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction and hadn’t had them for years. We were flat out lied to by President and his administration.
A private mercenary Army was created by Blackwater that moved into Iraq and did the jobs our soldiers used to do with more money – from a no-bid contrast. Halliburton and KBR also won no-bid contracts in Iraq and in the United States. New Orleans was destroyed when the levees failed, and the poor neighborhoods were not rebuilt. FEMA trailers meant to help those who were left homeless were left standing empty in fields full of useless metal that is rusted and useless.
Huge detention centers were quietly built (by Halliburton and paid for with no-bid contracts) beyond the sight of the public eye meant to hold hundreds of thousands of people “in the event of a national emergency”. Many dissenters fear they were built to hold us.
The leaders of this government have tried to quell of freedom of speech, dissent and democracy in general. The right of Habeas Corpus was taken away by the President, who declared himself the Decider. He gave himself the power to decide who was an enemy combatant and who was not. He declared that anyone who opposed the war could be called an enemy combatant.
Our jobs were sent overseas to China and India. Immigrants from Mexico poured over our borders freely.
Our national debt leaped in just a few years to several trillion, yes TRILLION dollars, much of it borrowed from China.
Children’s healthcare was denied but money was approved to continue a war that most Americans eventually came to disagree with. Citizens marched in the hundreds of thousands on Washington to demonstrate the public outcry against the war, but the media did not report it. We lobbied Congress day after day after day for years, yet they paid little more than lip service to us.
The Republicans ignored us. The Democrats told us, get us elected and we will help you. We got them elected and they turned their backs on the American People.
Our President wanted to be a War President. He believed the Constitution was nothing more than “a goddamn piece of paper” and the Vice President ran a shadow government. They believed themselves, and apparently rightly so, above the law. The President claimed that God talked to him personally.
Good Christian people went to church and listened to their preachers tell them to support the President. Some were told that it was a sin if they voted for anyone other than the President when it came time for re-election, so the college frat boy who failed at just about everything he touched in his life once again was elected President – some believe via a stolen election for the second time.
All of this while we Americans consumed goods in mass quantities and woke in the morning with the hang over of debt and worry. Our jobs were going and we started losing our homes.
And then they told us about Global Warming, Darfur and mass refugee camps. We began to hear the same rhetoric that was spewed about Iraq used to build the case for war with Iran. This, when our military was broken.
But we shopped. We did our duty to our country to keep our economy going and strong. The rich grew richer, the poor grew poorer, the middle class began to disappear, and We the People, will be paying for our blindness and stupidity for generations to come.
I ask you, who is the real enemy of Freedom and Democracy? Is it not the responsibility of every American citizen to see to it that our elected Representatives and Officials keep their oath of office to uphold and protect the Constitution of our country? This is their sacred duty.
Amy Branham
Gold Star Mother for Peace
Mother of Sgt. Jeremy R. Smith
Nov. 1981 – Feb. 2004
abranham@houston.rr.com
Saturday, October 06, 2007
Anonymous Millionaire donates building to a Gold Star Mom for Veteran's Sanctuary
A redwood sanctuary
By Jennifer Wadsworth / Tracy Press
An anonymous millionaire donated a building near the Russian River so Nadia McCaffrey can create a retreat for troubled veterans who return from Iraq.
Nestled in the Redwoods, overlooking a vineyard on one side and the Russian River on the other, the four-story veterans retreat looks exactly like the restful getaway Tracy activist Nadia McCaffrey envisioned.
For three years since her son Sgt. Patrick McCaffrey died on a special mission in Iraq, McCaffrey has traveled cross-country to raise awareness and money to help veterans re-enter civilian life. Her mission is to help soldiers returning from combat with injuries – whether physical or mental, like post traumatic stress disorder — recover peacefully, instead of relying on limited treatment from government clinics.
McCaffrey was unaware that behind her back, a wealthy philanthropist, a veteran himself, had been constructing a retreat specifically to house her first veteran village.
She nearly cried when she found out last week that the property just outside of the small town of Guerneville was all hers. She pledged last January that she’d have at least one center open before the end of the year — so the news came at a perfect time, she said.
The anonymous millionaire who had attended a few of McCaffrey’s speaking engagements gave her the building, saying he wanted to help translate her vision into reality.
“It’s the first step, and it’s only the beginning,” McCaffrey said. “I think that once I have the center up and running, it’ll really show people what this is all about, instead of always explaining it to them.”
The entire staff of therapists, counselors and other workers will be paid through grants and donations from the building’s owner. Others will volunteer.
McCaffrey plans to have it open and occupied by 14 veterans by the end of November.
“I’m really rushing to get everything together,” she said. “I’ve waited and waited for this, and to have it thrust on me so suddenly is truly amazing.”
In addition to living quarters, the retreat will have a conference center, a therapy center, a recreation and art center, an art gallery, a restaurant, and a common dining area, McCaffrey said.
“I want it to feel like family,” she said, adding that she plans to live with them during the week and spend her weekends in Tracy, where she’d eventually like to open something similar.
“I’m just a mother, after all, and they’re like my children. They call me right now at 3 in the morning — I’m always there for them.”
Already, McCaffrey has a waiting list of veterans ready to begin their stay.
The treatment will typically last two weeks to a month. Veterans who exit the weeks-long therapy will qualify for scholarships McCaffrey plans to supply through grant money.
She said she wants the retreat to be both therapeutic and practical, with both meditative, art- or nature-centered therapy and job training.
But the center will not be equipped to treat soldiers with severe disabilities or conditions that require constant care. In fact, McCaffrey’s focus is more psychological than physiological.
“I plan for this to be one of many like it,” she said.
Already a few exist.
Navy veteran Stephen Ledwell founded his New Hampshire farm retreat in 2004, and said he couldn’t be happier with the success of it.
He treats veterans who struggle with substance abuse and mental disorders, helping them learn to live independently once they graduate.
Ledwell will fly out to California soon to help McCaffrey get her own retreat started.
“Hopefully this won’t be like wars in the past, where we let our veterans fall between the cracks,” Ledwell said. “Hopefully (veterans) can come straight from their duty stations and right to us, and not fall in the gap. We won’t let that happen.”
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This really renews my faith in humanity... Congratulations Nadia!
Peace,
Amy
Thursday, October 04, 2007
SCHIP
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Aiden, on his 2nd birthday, who is much healthier and happier since his surgery.
Yesterday our President vetoed a Bill that would have helped millions of children in America who do not have health insurance. Imagine that, a President who calls himself a born again Christian, a religion that teaches its followers to take care of one another, decided NOT to help those among us who are the least able to help themselves! SCHIP, a children’s healthcare program, is an invaluable asset to many families who cannot afford insurance for their families.
This is, simply put, an outrage. Instead of spending billions and billions of dollars for this war, we should be helping our own children. The investment in their health and their lives would pay off in the long run. But no, this President cannot see beyond the nose on his face.
Let me tell you the story of a little boy who has benefited from this program. He is my grandson, Aiden. His mother cannot afford health insurance because she doesn’t make enough money. She works for a non-profit company that runs daycare centers for families that can’t afford to pay for daycare while they work. The children she works with also benefit from SCHIP every day.
Aiden is two years old now. During his short life time he has been sick a lot with multiple ear infections, respiratory infections, and numerous other things. He cried a lot when he was a baby. As Aiden got older his crying got worse and when he was really frustrated, he started to bang his head – on the floor, on the wall, on the side of his bed. At the beginning of this year, 2007, Jaime was finally able to take Aiden to an ear, nose and throat specialist who did some testing on Aiden. He was several months behind on his speech. He was able to determine that Aiden could not hear very well due to all of the ear infections he has had that probably never entirely cleared up. Aiden had been living with chronic pain in his ears and we did not know because he couldn’t tell us. That’s why he was banging his head.
In February the little guy underwent day surgery to have his adenoids removed and tubes inserted in his little ears. It was a simple procedure that only took about an hour or so, done on an outpatient basis. Since that time Aiden has thrived. His speech has improved at a rapid rate and he actually hears things now. He doesn’t bang his head from the pain anymore. He doesn’t get frustrated as easy and he communicates very well.
If he hadn’t been covered under SCHIP, Aiden would not have been able to have that surgery and he probably would have eventually been completely deaf. It would have affected him the whole rest of his life in numerous ways.
There are millions of Aidens in this country who would and should benefit from SCHIP. I think they should have that chance for help. It disgusts me that healthcare in this country is such a low priority for the politicians and especially the man who is supposed to be leading this country. He’s leading it alright, right down the rabbit hole. We are on the fast track to becoming a third world country especially in regard to our healthcare and education for children, those who are least able to take care of themselves and depend on us to help them. It truly is a national disgrace.
Shame on you, Mr. President.
Tuesday, October 02, 2007
Leading Americans Ask U.S. Military to Refuse Orders to Attack Iran
Country music legend Willie Nelson, literary icon Gore Vidal, Gold Star Mother Cindy Sheehan, Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg, retired U.S. Army Colonel Ann Wright, former Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, former federal prosecutor Elizabeth de la Vega, author and radio host Thom Hartmann, Rabbi Michael Lerner, Rabbi Steven Jacobs, and dozens of other prominent Americans have signed a letter asking the Joint Chiefs of Staff and all U.S. military personnel to refuse orders to launch an aggressive war on Iran.
The letter has been posted as a petition for others to sign at http://www.dontattackiran.org
The text of the letter follows:
ATTENTION: Joint Chiefs of Staff and all U.S. Military Personnel:
Do not attack Iran.
Any preemptive U.S. attack on Iran would be illegal.
Any preemptive U.S. attack on Iran would be criminal.
We, the citizens of the United States, respectfully urge you, courageous men and women of our military, to refuse any order to preemptively attack Iran, a nation that represents no serious or immediate threat to the United States. To attack Iran, a sovereign nation of 70-million people, would be a crime of the highest magnitude.
Legal basis for our Request – Do not attack Iran:
The Nuremberg Principles, which are part of US law, provide that all military personnel have the obligation not to obey illegal orders. The Army Field Manual 27-10, sec. 609 and UCMJ, art. 92, incorporate this principle. Article 92 says: "A general order or regulation is lawful unless it is contrary to the Constitution, the law of the United States …"
Any provision of an international treaty ratified by the United States becomes the law of the United States. The United States is a party and signatory to the United Nations Charter, of which Article II, Section 4 states, "All members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state…" As Iran has not attacked the United States, and as the U.S. is a party and signatory to the Charter, any attack on Iran by the U.S. would be illegal under not only international law but under the U.S. Constitution which recognizes our treaties as the Supreme Law of the Land. When you joined the military, you took an oath to defend our Constitution.
Following the orders of your government or superior does not relieve you from responsibility under international law. Under the Principles of International Law recognized in the Charter of the Nuremberg Tribunal, complicity in the commission of war crime is a crime under international law.
Background:
The Bush Administration's charges against Iran have not been proven. Neither the development of nuclear weapons, nor providing assistance to Iraq would, if proven, constitute justification for an illegal war.
An attack on Iran might prompt the formidable Iranian military to attack U.S. troops stationed in Iraq. Thousands of our soldiers might be killed or captured as prisoners of war. A U.S. attack against Iranian nuclear facilities could also mean the deaths, from radiation poisoning, of tens of thousands of innocent Iranian civilians. The people of Iran have little control over their government, yet would suffer tremendously should the U.S. attack. Bombing raids would amount to collective punishment, a violation of the Geneva Convention, and would surely sow the seeds of hatred for generations to come. Children make up a quarter of Iran's population.
Above all, we ask you to look at the record of our actions in Iraq, which U.S. intelligence admits is “a cause celebre for jihadists” – a situation that did not exist before we attacked. We must face the fact that our rash use of military solutions has created more enemies, and made American families less safe. Diplomacy, not war, is the answer.
Know the Risks Involved in Refusing an Illegal Order or Signing This Statement:
We knowingly and willingly make this plea, aware of the risk that, in violation of our First Amendment rights, we could be charged under remaining sections of the unconstitutional Espionage Act or other unconstitutional statute, and that we could be fined, imprisoned, or barred from government employment.
We make this plea, also aware that you have no easy options. If you obey an illegal order to participate in an aggressive attack on Iran, you could potentially be charged with war crimes. If you heed our call and disobey an illegal order you could be falsely charged with crimes including treason. You could be falsely court martialed. You could be imprisoned. (To talk to a lawyer or to learn more about possible consequences, contact The Central Committee for Conscientious Objectors, Courage to Resist, Center on Conscience and War, Military Law Task Force of the National Lawyers Guild 415-566-3732, or the GI Rights Hotline at 877-447-4487.) **
Final request:
Our leaders often say that military force should be a last resort. We beg you to make that policy a reality, and refuse illegal orders to attack Iran. We promise to support you for protecting the American public and innocent civilians abroad.
Our future, the future of our children and their children, rests in your hands.
You know the horrors of war. You can stop the next one.
Sincerely,
Daniel Ellsberg, Thom Hartmann, Rabbi Michael Lerner, Rabbi Steven Jacobs, Cynthia McKinney, Willie Nelson, Cindy Sheehan, Norman Solomon, Elizabeth de la Vega, Gore Vidal, Ann Wright,
James Abourezk, former U.S. Senator, (D) South Dakota
Stacy Bannerman, Author, "When the War Came Home", Military Families Speak Out Charter Board member
John Bonifaz, constitutional attorney and author of "Warrior-King: The Case for Impeaching George W. Bush."
Amy Branham, Gold Star Mother of
Sgt. Jeremy R. Smith, US Army Reserves, Nov. 1981-Feb. 2004
Blase Bonpane, Ph.d, Director OFFICE OF THE AMERICAS
David Clennon, Actor/activist
Tim Carpenter, Executive Director, Progressive Democrats of America
Daniel Ellsberg, author of "Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers."
David Cobb, 2004 Green Party Presidential Candidate
Jeff Cohen, author/media critic
Elizabeth de la Vega, former federal prosecutor and author of U.S. v. George W. Bush
Karen Dolan, Director, Cities for Progress/Cities for Peace
Anne Feeney, activist/folksinger or Local 1000, AFM
Mike Ferner, Navy corpsman; Secretary, Veterans for Peace
Bob Fertik, President Democrats.com
Laura Flanders, Radio Host on Air America
Bruce K. Gagnon, Coordinator Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space
Lila Garrett, KPFK Host of “Connect the Dots”
Liberty Godshall, writer, Defenders of Wildlife, Natural Resources Defense Council
Hon. Jackie Goldberg, California Assembly Member (AD 45), retired.
Kevin Alexander Gray, writer, and organizer with the Harriet Tubman Freedom House Project
Representative Betty Hall, Hillsborough District 5, New Hampshire General Court
David L. Harris, MD
Tom Hayden
Thom Hartmann, author and Air America radio host
Valerie Heinonen, o.s.u., Ursulines of Tildonk for Justice and Peace
Jenny Heinz , member of CodePink, member of Granny Peace Brigade Rabbi Steven Jacobs, Los Angeles
Michael Jay, Steering Committee, Progressive Democrats of Los Angeles
Charles Jenks, co-founder and editor of traprockpeace.org
Justice Through Music
Antonia Juhasz, author, The Bush Agenda: Invading the World, One Economy at a Time
Jerry Kass, playwright and professor at Columbia University
Dr, Nazir Khaja ,Chairman, Islamic Information Service, Los Angeles, CA.
Mimi Kennedy, National Chair, Progressive Democrats of America
Rabbi Michael Lerner, Editor, Tikkun and Chair, the Network of Spiritual Progressives
Summer Lipford, Gold Star Mother,NC 28677
David Lindorff, Author, The Case for Impeachment
Alice Lynn, Delegate, California Democratic Party (41st AD)
Ben Manski, Executive Director, Liberty Tree
Ray McGovern, Army infantry/intelligence officer, 1962-64; CIA analyst 1964-90.
Cynthia Mckinney, former Congresswoman
Barbara Mills-Bria, Be The Change-USA
Bill Moyer, Executive Director, Backbone Campaign
Willie Nelson, Entertainer, Peace Activist Annie Nelson, Sustainable Biodiesel/Peace Activist
Honorable Eric Oemig – Washington State Senator
Geov Parrish, Executive Director Peace Action of Washington
Jacob Park, Founder, A28.
Brad Parker, Officer of the Progressive Caucus of the California Democratic Party
Bill Perry, Director, Delaware Valley Veterans For America
Gareth Porter, investigative journalist and historian
Marcus Raskin, member of National Security Council Staff under President Kennedy
Dorothy Reik, President, Progressive Democrats of the Santa Monica Mountains
Coleen Rowley, retired FBI Agent and former Chief Division Counsel of Minneapolis Division of the FBI
Bill Scheurer, Editor, PeaceMajority Report
Randi Scheurer, IL-Dist. 8, Congressional Candidate
Cindy Sheehan, Gold Star Families for Peace
Alice Slater, Abolition 2000 New York
Norman Solomon, Author and syndicated columnist
David Swanson, Afterdowningstreet.org
John Stauber, Co-author, "Weapons of Mass Deception: The Uses of Propaganda in Bush's War on Iraq"
Jonathan Tasini, PDA NY
Ethel Tobach, Ph. D., member of Psychologists for Social Responsibility
Tina Richards CEO Grassroots Americaredith, Gold Star Mother, Proud Mom of Lt Ken Ballard- KIA 5.30.04
Gore Vidal, Author
Marcy Winograd, President, Progressive Democrats of Los Angeles
Ann Wright, US Army Colonel (Retired) and US diplomat who resigned in March, 2003 in opposition to the Iraq war.
Kevin Zeese on behalf of Voters for Peace and Democracy Rising
Velvet Revolution
** These resources are publicly available, and our offering them does not indicate that these organizations support this petition
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