What’s up is a system that is so hellbent on extending and preserving its empire that a police state that tortures is the program of the whole lot of them. That’s why the Democrats grandstand and garner political advantage over Gonzales’s resignation but have not and will not oppose the essence of his program.
And it is why the people must.
We do not have to -- nor should we want to -- live under a system that enforces its rule through waterboarding (near-drowning) and locking people away without charge or trial. A system that sets this as its norms is one that cries out for revolutionary change!
Far from being defanged, George Bush is still commander in chief and he is still pushing forward new horrors by the day. The Democrats -- the majority in Congress and the line up of viable presidential contenders: Hillary, Barack and Edwards -- are not challenging his fascist program in any of its essential features.
Gonzales called the Geneva Convention ban on torture -- a crime against humanity!! -- "quaint" and is rightly hated for this. But the Democrats and Republicans in Congress came together to approve the Military Commission Act last October giving George Bush the right to decide when the Geneva Conventions apply. This came after the photos of Abu Ghraib. This came after the conscience of the world was shocked by the photos of human beings stripped naked, stacked up in pyramids, terrorized by dogs, raped and forced to perform sexual acts on each other, religiously violated. These photos were snapped with the sportsmanship and brazenness of southern Good Ol’ Boys who knew the law would never come for them -- and for good reason. Even Hitler never came out and openly admitted, and made legal, torture!
In a recent New Yorker, Jane Mayer quotes an expert familiar with C.I.A. interrogation protocol, "It’s one of the most sophisticated, refined programs of torture ever… At every stage, there was a rigid attention to detail. Procedure was adhered to almost to the letter. There was top-down quality control, and such a set routine that you get to the point where you know what each detainee is going to say, because you’ve heard it before. It was almost automated. People were utterly dehumanized. People fell apart. It was the intentional and systematic infliction of great suffering masquerading as a legal process. It is just chilling."
Gonzales is leaving, but this torture continues as you read, and will continue until the people drive out the Bush regime. If you’re against this, you’ve got to visibly Declare It Now by wearing orange -- spreading loud, visible, resistance to the Bush regime's program.
Gonzales lied about Bush’s illegal wiretapping and is rightly hated for this. But the Democratic majority in Congress and the Republicans came together recently to change the laws to make intrusive, unwarranted wiretapping -- and likely much more -- perfectly legal. Chuck Schumer and other Democrats can try to claim Gonzales’s resignation as a victory -- but surely this cannot be counted as a victory for those who don’t want a police state!
Think about it: the President was caught not only breaking the law by spying on people without warrants, but also LYING repeatedly about it. So was the Attorney General. But rather than impeaching and removing the whole batch of liars -- the Democrats changed the laws, made such spying legal and now call it a victory because they get to be the ones presiding over the whole criminal affair! Further, the new domestic spying law is so expansive that headlines last week suggest it probably includes the right of the government to conduct physical searches!
Gonzales is gone, but this spying continues as you read and will continue until the people drive out the Bush regime. If you’re against this, you’ve got to visibly Declare It Now by wearing orange -- spreading loud, visible, resistance to the Bush regime's program.
Gonzales was involved in the selective firing of several United States Attorneys for political reasons and he is rightly hated for it. While Gonzales personally is not a Christian fascist, what trickled out in this scandal is the extent to which all levels of government have been packed with theocrats loyal to George Bush and his hateful brand of Christianity. Monica Goodling resigned, but she was only one of more than 150 graduates of Pat Robertson’s Regent University who are working in the Bush Administration. Pat Robertson, don’t forget, blamed 9-11 on feminists, the ACLU, abortionists and gays. Worse, Pat Robertson advocates overhauling the penal justice system to correspond to the biblical model -- where "habitual criminals" (note: not even "violent" criminals) are executed.
And none of this is being challenged, and in fact it is being conciliated with, by the Democrats. As bad as the voter-caging (systematic disqualification of voters likely to vote Democratic) that these attorney firings were in the service of, the Democrats do not represent any alternative in the interests of humanity. Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards are all bending over backwards cozying up to and ceding ground to those who want to make this country into a theocracy. All of them have opposed gay marriage. None of them have taken on the lunacy of George Bush and so many of the Republican presidential candidates denying the fact of evolution. And none of them have taken on the frontal assault on women’s right to abortion and birth control without which women cannot be free. All of them refused to filibuster the nomination of the Supreme Court justices these Christian fascists were celebrating -- Alito and Roberts -- and now we’ve seen the effective reversal of Brown V. Board of Education, the beginning of the criminalization of abortion, and there is much worse to come.
Gonzales is gone, but this theocratic remaking of U.S. society continues as you read and will continue until the people drive out the Bush regime. If you’re against this, you’ve got to visibly Declare It Now by wearing orange -- spreading loud, visible, resistance to the Bush regime's program.
Finally, just look at who is being buzzed about to replace Gonzales: Michael Chertoff!
This is a man who presided over the mass murder of residents of New Orleans through criminal negligence during Hurricane Katrina! This is the man who, as immigrants were already being rounded up, detained and deported -- often leaving small children orphaned and un-provided for -- said to the media, it’s "gonna get ugly." [emphasis added] These ICE raids have continued and, as Chertoff promised, they keep getting uglier.
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