Thursday, May 24, 2007

We Don't Torture, More Lies From Bush/Cheney

Here we go again, just when you thought it couldn't get any worse. Yesterday, The White House announced an Executive Order that would let the CIA resume what they refer to rapturously as “severe interrogation methods for questioning terrorism suspects in secret prisons overseas”.

Oh yeah, never mind that the Supreme Court ruled in 2006 that American prisoners should be treated according to Geneva Convention standards prohibiting torture. Heck I'm the decider. I'll just issue this executive order, take Scalia out for a drink and then off to get the colon washed out while Dick plans his Iran war.

We do not torture? Anyone believe anything shrubya says anymore?  This president is not to be believed about anything, under any circumstances and especially when it comes to denials that we torture.

It’s been proven beyond a reasonable doubt that during the last five years, the US has been torturing on a massive scale. Renditions, secret detention centers, routine torture of detainees, Bush and Cheney have just unilaterally and illegally stopped complying with the Geneva conventions on the treatment of prisoners of war and the United Nations convention against torture. The Bush policy can be summed up quite easily, America must not allow itself to be weakened by respect for human rights.

Torture was common practice at the military base in Bagram, Afghanistan, Abu Graib and Guantanamo as well as at many other secret gulags around the world. According to eyewitness accounts, prisoners were routinely beaten, sexually abused, humiliated,  kicked in the groin, slammed into walls, and had water forced into their mouths until they could not breathe. Many died.

Aside from being legally indefensible, abhorent and revolting, our torture of detainees has completely eviscerated what little moral standing we had left in the world.

Until the smirking chimp and Dr. Evil are gone and we regain our sanity and start acting like the moral country that we used to be, we will continue to be targeted and flounder dangerously in an increasingly perilous world.


Monday, May 21, 2007

Stop Junk Mail, Save Our Resources

Did you know more than 100 million trees are destroyed each year to produce junk mail? About 28 billion gallons of water are also wasted, and the energy used to produce and dispose of junk mail exceeds 2.8 million cars. One good one is 41 Pounds. For $41, they will do all the leg-work to reduce your junk mail by 80-95% for five years, and will donate $15 to StopGlobalWarming.org. There are many others you can find online. When you sign up,they will contact direct marketing organizations to remove your name from their lists. This includes credit card applications, coupon mailers, sweepstakes entries, magazine offers and insurance promotions, as well as any catalogs you specify. Save time! Save trees! Save the planet!Add to Technorati Favorites

The Truth About Reagan, Race And The GOP

The GOP’s difficulties attracting minority voters to their camp today is in large part rooted in the anti-minority policies espoused by Ronald Reagan.

Oscar Eason, Jr., former president of the Seattle branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People says,

During Reagan's administration, the issues and concerns of the Dixiecrats became principally those of the Republican Party. It was precisely at this juncture that the Republican Party ceased being the Party of Lincoln and evolved into what it is today to the vast majority of black America, almost racially exclusive and dedicated to protecting and maintaining the status quo.
Yet, it’s commonplace for the GOP presidential candidates to be in a perpetual state of reverential delirium, knocking each other over while frenetically stampeding to prostrate themselves drooling at the alter of Ronald Reagan. Each one claims to be the sole and rightful heir to the hallowed throne of the Gipper, the keeper of the conservative holy grail.

As each day goes by, the political canonization of Ronald Reagan becomes more indelibly etched into American political folklore. It has taken on an ethereal life of it’s own and has become one of the most reprehensible mischaracterizations and public relations scams in history. What’s particularly disturbing is not that the reactionary right embraces him as the second coming, to be expected, but that some Democrats and the media have also been sucked into buying the hallucinatory propaganda about Reagan as well. Oh, how nostalgic we are, he was just a harmless nice man who made everyone in the country feel good. Well, not everyone.