1. “Why Is Obama Adopting Bush’s Blustery Stance on Secret Documents about Rendition?
Now Obama, who has signed executive orders against torture and extraordinary rendition and who has vowed to improve relations with other countries, is simply following the bloody Bush script.
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“Hope is flickering,” said Anthony Romero, executive director of the ACLU. “The Obama Administration’s position is not change. It is more of the same. This represents a complete turn-around and undermining of the restoration of the rule of law.”
Romero added: “The latest revelation is completely at odds with President Obama’s executive orders that ban torture and end rendition, as well as his promise to restore the rule of law. . . . The policies of the Bush Administration have come back to haunt America.”
http://www.progressive.org/mag/wx020509.html
2. “Benjamin Netanyahu will apparently be Israel’s next prime minister. There is, however, something encouraging about that fact. Netanyahu’s election will free Israel from the burden of deception: If he can establish a right-wing government, the veil will be lifted and the nation’s true face revealed to its citizens and the rest of the world, including Arab countries. Together with the world, we will see which direction we are facing and who we really are. The masquerade that has gone on for several years will finally come to an end.
Netanyahu’s election is likely to bring the curtain down on the great fraud – the best show in town – the lie of “negotiations” and the injustice of the “peace process.” Israel consistently claimed these acts proved the nation was focused on peace and the end of the occupation. All the while, it did everything it could to further entrench the occupation and distance any chance of a potential agreement.
For 16 years, we have been enamored with the peace process. We talk and talk, babble and prattle, and generally feel great about ourselves; meanwhile the settlements expand endlessly and Israel turns to the use of force at every possible opportunity, aside from a unilateral disengagement which did nothing to advance the cause of peace.
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Netanyahu would offer something else. First, he is a faithful representative of an authentic “Israeli” view – an almost complete distrust of Arabs and the chance of reaching peace with them, mixed with condescension and dehumanization. Second, he will finally arouse the world’s rage towards us, including that of the new U.S. administration. Sadly, this may be the only chance for the kind of dramatic change that is needed.”
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1061736.html
3. “Fear Itself, and the Deadly Varieties of State Terrorism
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Feel the fear? Pass my plan, and pass it now, or — our new bold, transcendent leader tells us — the world as you know it will cease to exist in significant part.
One principle above all is crucial to remember here: whenever any individual is intent on making you act, and when he uses fear as the primary motivation to make you act in the particular way he demands, you should profoundly distrust him. It is almost certain that he is attempting to get you to do something that you might discover cannot be justified. But to discover that, you would need time and calm to consider the arguments, weigh the facts, and determine if different arguments and additional facts have been carefully omitted from those being used to pressure you so mercilessly.
But time and calm are precisely those conditions that such an individual will prohibit you from having, to the extent he can. He wants you to be like Barney Fife; he wants you to feel fear itself, and nothing else at all. That way, you are much more likely to do what he demands. In fact, you are almost certain to do it.“
http://powerofnarrative.blogspot.com/2009/02/fear-itself-and-deadly-varieties-of.html
4. “Obama fails his first test on civil liberties and accountability — resoundingly and disgracefully
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What makes this particularly appalling and inexcusable is that Senate Democrats had long vehemently opposed the use of the “state secrets” privilege in exactly the way that the Bush administration used it in this case, even sponsoring legislation to limits its use and scope. Yet here is Obama, the very first chance he gets, invoking exactly this doctrine in its most expansive and abusive form to prevent torture victims even from having their day in court, on the ground that national security will be jeopardized if courts examine the Bush administration’s rendition and torture programs — even though (a) the rendition and torture programs have been written about extensively in the public record; (b) numerous other countries have investigated exactly these allegations; and (c) other countries have provided judicial forums in which these same victims could obtain relief.
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Secrecy generally, and the state secrets privilege particularly, was the linchpin of the civil liberties abuses and constitutional radicalism of the last eight years.
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That the Obama DOJ – when faced with its first real test to determine what it intends to do in these areas (as opposed to engaging in symbolic rituals and issuing pretty words) — explicitly adopts exactly the Bush position is about as inauspicious a start in these areas as one can imagine.
I just spoke with Wizner about today’s court hearing. It’s really remarkable what happened. One of the judges on the three-judge panel explicitly asked the DOJ lawyer, Doug Letter, whether the change in administrations had any bearing on the Government’s position in this case. Letter emphatically said it did not. Instead, he told the court, the new administration — the new DOJ – had actively reviewed this case and vetted the Bush positions and decisively opted to embrace the same positions.
There’s no doubt about that. Wizner pointed out that after the interview he did with me 10 days ago, there was substantial press coverage of this matter. Both The New York Times and The Los Angeles Times wrote editorials in the last week demanding that the Obama administration adhere to its prior pledge and abandon the Bush administration’s reliance on “state secrets” in this case. Wizner said that reporters calling the DOJ were told that the case was under active review. This was an active, conscious decision made by the Obama DOJ to retain the same abusive, expansive view of “state secrets” as Bush adopted, and to do so for exactly the same purpose: to prevent any judicial accountability of any kind, to keep government behavior outside of and above the rule of law.
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What this is clearly about is shielding the U.S. Government and Bush officials from any accountability. Worse, by keeping Bush’s secrecy architecture in place, it ensures that any future President – Obama or any other — can continue to operate behind an impenetrable wall of secrecy, with no transparency or accountability even for blatantly criminal acts.“
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/
5. “In an article for the Journal of Psychopharmacology, a leading professor has pointed out that ecstasy-taking is much safer than horse riding as it “Has far fewer instances of neck injuries, doesn’t turn you into a chinless twat and has killed a lot less Superman actors.”
Professor David Knutt advises “Any youth wondering whether to enter a gymkhana or fuck their nut off in a field listening to 180 bpm gabba hardcore needs to be aware of the relative dangers.”
In a five year study, Professor Knutt monitored the relative injuries of two distinct groups – one set of inbred, horsey types with names such as ‘Tamara’ and “Ffion” and one set of saucer-eyed serotonin vampires called “Geeza” and “Woot”.
Common injuries amongst the first group were typically broken bones from horse falls, as well as minor ailments such as torn rectums from boarding school-related activities. Fatalities, though rare, were consistent with forcing a one-ton animal at a brick wall he’d much prefer not to jump over.
The latter group fared better, with only a handful of deaths. These were typically from over-hydration as ecstasy users often gulp water like a Gobi desert to avoid dehydration. Common minor ailments occurred from flying whistles, allergies to Vicks Vapo Rub and repetitive strain injuries to elbows from ‘Giving it up for the Essex massiiiiiive.”
“Despite the scare stories following the death of Leah Betts from one E tablet and a litre of vodka, regular consumption of the drug shows a far smaller risk of death than horse riding” concludes Dr Knutt in his report. “It’s not to say such behaviour is totally without risk. Tinnitus, inability to string sentences together and woeful record collections are all negative side effects.”
Yelping scare factory and Home Secretary Jacqui Smith has dismissed the professor’s report as “Dangerously grounded in research and facts.” In a press statement conducted while stroking a small doll with its eyes stabbed out, Smith stated “Once again I’ve ridden roughshod over the advice of an expert employed to give the government advice. If this surprises you, it’s only fair to warn you that the sun will rise tomorrow and Jude Law will continue to be an irreparable cunt.”
http://pushjelly.blogspot.com/2009/02/christopher-reeve-better-off-gurning.html
