Along with everyone in the executive branch of government, here's the list of congresspersons now guilty of human rights abuses carried out by the United States.
Look for those who voted YEA.
SENATE
http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=109&session=2&vote=00259
The tally in the Senate was 65 yea, 34 nay, and one not voting (perhaps Senator Snowe (R-ME) didn't consider this an important issue?). This is a shameful 2/3 of the senators voting to shred our constitution. Strange. I thought these people liked our form of government. Why do those voting yea hate America?
Special note to Senators Chafee (R-RI) and Jeffords (I-NH) for voting nay.
HOUSE
http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2006/roll491.xml
The tally in the House was 253 aye, 168 no, 12 not voting (cowering in bed rather than showing your true position today?). Special consideration for the 7 Republicans and 1 Independent who voted no.
Venom especially directed at the 34 Democratic representatives and 12 Democratic senators who voted for torture by the US. You all make me ill and shouldn't consider yourselves members of the Democratic party anymore.
Friday, September 29, 2006
Wednesday, September 27, 2006
Weightlessness
Right now, at this moment as I reflect, both houses of the US congress are debating the torture bill. No one knows the fate of this legislation. We, all together as a nation, are suspended in midair. Which direction will we go - continuing to soar up to new, greater levels of civilization or falling back down to baser forms of government to await some future day, some future nation which will rise higher than we have?
I feel this is a defining moment for Americans of the US. Will we, collectively, choose to go backwards? This is the choice - legalizing forms of torture and imprisonment without redress - which would take us to the year 1215CE. Maybe this is truly what is desired by our government rulers, for this is what they will become. If this legislation passes, democracy would be abolished in our nation at a stroke.
If we abandon it, democracy will still flourish in other countries. I have faith that reason and enlightenment will continue even if our form of government changes. It's not the end of the world. It's just the end of our identity as the good guys. We wouldn't be able to hold our heads proudly as the finest defenders of freedom on the planet. We couldn't go on feeling like the humanitarian moderate promoters of the rights of the minority and the welfare of the disenfranchised. We'd never be able to wear the white hats again.
Perhaps it would be for the best if we came down from our high horse and joined the ranks of other nations, inhabiting shades of gray when it comes to citizen's rights and freedoms. We would be less a superpower and more of a bloated irrelevant double-talking group of people trying to recapture past glory. Maybe the world would hate us less but of course, they would also listen to us less, deal with us less, trade with us less, talk with us less.
But imagine if the torture bill is not passed - either through some procedural manuvering or is defeated. Our flight will continue at the same altitude we had reached when the debate started this morning. Because the question, the issue, of how to treat 'enemy combatants' will still continue. The debate will go on. We will not begin to soar upward again until we can regain the lofty air which surrounded us before we endorsed preemptive war against our enemies. We will struggle on to contain the backdraft of fear which has overtaken so many of us and, like a sheering gale, threaten to drive us down, back through ages, of freedoms won from tyrannical rulers.
So as we float, weightless, we hang in doubt whether we plunge down into historic ages past or struggle on to regain heights we saw too briefly and strive to exceed them, into the light of peace.
I feel this is a defining moment for Americans of the US. Will we, collectively, choose to go backwards? This is the choice - legalizing forms of torture and imprisonment without redress - which would take us to the year 1215CE. Maybe this is truly what is desired by our government rulers, for this is what they will become. If this legislation passes, democracy would be abolished in our nation at a stroke.
If we abandon it, democracy will still flourish in other countries. I have faith that reason and enlightenment will continue even if our form of government changes. It's not the end of the world. It's just the end of our identity as the good guys. We wouldn't be able to hold our heads proudly as the finest defenders of freedom on the planet. We couldn't go on feeling like the humanitarian moderate promoters of the rights of the minority and the welfare of the disenfranchised. We'd never be able to wear the white hats again.
Perhaps it would be for the best if we came down from our high horse and joined the ranks of other nations, inhabiting shades of gray when it comes to citizen's rights and freedoms. We would be less a superpower and more of a bloated irrelevant double-talking group of people trying to recapture past glory. Maybe the world would hate us less but of course, they would also listen to us less, deal with us less, trade with us less, talk with us less.
But imagine if the torture bill is not passed - either through some procedural manuvering or is defeated. Our flight will continue at the same altitude we had reached when the debate started this morning. Because the question, the issue, of how to treat 'enemy combatants' will still continue. The debate will go on. We will not begin to soar upward again until we can regain the lofty air which surrounded us before we endorsed preemptive war against our enemies. We will struggle on to contain the backdraft of fear which has overtaken so many of us and, like a sheering gale, threaten to drive us down, back through ages, of freedoms won from tyrannical rulers.
So as we float, weightless, we hang in doubt whether we plunge down into historic ages past or struggle on to regain heights we saw too briefly and strive to exceed them, into the light of peace.
Monday, September 04, 2006
News Barf
It's just been an overload lately. So much, too much to write. It's all so illogical I wonder why any of it has to be explained to anyone.
Rummy called 61% of the population 'morally and intellectually confused' and equated us with Nazi sympathizers. Thank goodness for Keith Olbermann (see my Aug. 31 post).
Bush whipped an American Legion crowd into a froth like a revival preacher applying every label he can think of to his nebulous foe. Protesters in Salt Lake City weren't moved.
The Washington Post editorial staff has followed the lemmings off the cliff (the MSM would be the lemmings) by printing an editorial saying that Joe Wilson is responsible for outing his CIA agent wife. Maybe they borrowed some of Rush Limbaugh's drugs? Goodbye 4th estate. First the Gray Lady, now the WaPo.
The Maine National Guard is distributing cardboard replicas of soldiers to their families. WTF?
It's even happening locally. Here's a bizarro letter from my former neighbor (Get the Crazies Off the Lawn) castigating a nearby town to get some normal people. This gal would in fact be very happy living in Orwell's 1984 - the reason we don't live in her area anymore. Neighborhood covenants are the deathknell of civilized society. I think I'll paint my mailbox orange.
ABC is going to air a fact-challenged 'film' about the causes of the bombing of the World Trade Center. Seems like part of the Republican National Committee's propaganda in support of the midterm elections. Don't worry, they say, it's not a documentary. So then, I guess it's ok to broadcast unchallenged lies.
Read this short story. Obviously, malicious aliens have changed our timeline. It's the only explanation for the highjacking of our country by a wealthy oligarchy.
Rummy called 61% of the population 'morally and intellectually confused' and equated us with Nazi sympathizers. Thank goodness for Keith Olbermann (see my Aug. 31 post).
Bush whipped an American Legion crowd into a froth like a revival preacher applying every label he can think of to his nebulous foe. Protesters in Salt Lake City weren't moved.
The Washington Post editorial staff has followed the lemmings off the cliff (the MSM would be the lemmings) by printing an editorial saying that Joe Wilson is responsible for outing his CIA agent wife. Maybe they borrowed some of Rush Limbaugh's drugs? Goodbye 4th estate. First the Gray Lady, now the WaPo.
The Maine National Guard is distributing cardboard replicas of soldiers to their families. WTF?
It's even happening locally. Here's a bizarro letter from my former neighbor (Get the Crazies Off the Lawn) castigating a nearby town to get some normal people. This gal would in fact be very happy living in Orwell's 1984 - the reason we don't live in her area anymore. Neighborhood covenants are the deathknell of civilized society. I think I'll paint my mailbox orange.
ABC is going to air a fact-challenged 'film' about the causes of the bombing of the World Trade Center. Seems like part of the Republican National Committee's propaganda in support of the midterm elections. Don't worry, they say, it's not a documentary. So then, I guess it's ok to broadcast unchallenged lies.
Read this short story. Obviously, malicious aliens have changed our timeline. It's the only explanation for the highjacking of our country by a wealthy oligarchy.
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