#117911 by nahida on 12/04: “...I find it really outrageous and inconceivable to watch this fierce campaign rallying in “defence” of “our rights”, the rights of Muslim women..... What disturbs and frustrates me about this impious movement is the fact that those who are holding the banner of our “liberation” are precisely the ones whose hands are dripping with our blood...”

The one thing that Britain, the USA and Israel have in common is that they are all essentially “settler societies”, Nahida.

Some might find that surprising in regard to Britain, but it is so. They are the product of historical invasions and migrations from Europe for the past 2,000 years - and it shows in the genetic differences in their faces.

What is more, even Israel is basically European as most of its people have migrated there from centuries and generations of life and racial intermingling in Western Europe and since the Christian crusades.

But the USA is not only admittedly a “settler society” but, along with Israel, practices the worst atrocities of that mentality and mode of living. Prejudice, self-righteousness, arrogance and vanity, repression, you name it.

More recently, the British experience was that the English majority forced their way upon the Irish (search “plantations of Ulster") and the Scots (search “Highland clearances"). That was the methodology of the subsequent invasion of North America but it perhaps originated with the infamous crusades of 1,000 years past.

Ever since, Asia - and West Asia/North Africa in particular (the so-called “middle East"), have been the subject of their biased and jaundiced supremacist views. It is now endemic in “British” society, as you would most probably already know, but it has also been successfully exported to all nominally Anglo-Saxon countries.

As such, the “crusader” mentality is alive and thriving, and especially thanks to the Neocons and George Bush ("Crusader Rabbit” himself!). They are only now beginning to learn that not only do other people around the world not like it but that there are far-reaching economic disadvantages to their selfishly preferred attitudes.

“female U.S. soldiers had died of dehydration by denying themselves water. They were afraid to go to the latrine at night to urinate, for fear of being raped by fellow soldiers: “

And yet, some dare to talk about our oppression, the oppression of Muslim women!!

I find it really outrageous and inconceivable to watch this fierce campaign rallying in “defence” of “our rights”, the rights of Muslim women, such as the recent staging of the Islamo-fascist Awareness Week in USA sponsored by David Horowitz.

What disturbs and frustrates me about this impious movement is the fact that those who are holding the banner of our “liberation” are precisely the ones whose hands are dripping with our blood, the blood of Muslim women!

Wouldn’t it be a good idea if they stop killing us first (in Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine with the imminent threat to Iran)?

I mean honestly, at least their hideous and bogus calls might gain some legitimacy and credibility then.

Wouldn’t it be a good idea if they could spare us their fake concern, and their crocodile tears weeping over our state of affairs and act honestly for once, by stopping their genocide against us, and by washing our blood off their hands?

This shrieking and fussing calling for our liberation from the “oppression” and

“dominance” of Islam; is not innocent, it’s rather sinister and disturbing dare I say.

These systematic attempts in the Western media to dehumanise one quarter of the world population, namely the Muslims are influenced and manipulated by the Zionists propaganda.
This recent study shows ‘demonisation’ of Muslims in the British media:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2007/nov/14/pressandpu blishing.religion

The Zionists are discovering that their long concealed hideous crimes in Palestine have been exposed now, they are realizing that slowly but surely they are losing the world support, so they are trying to regain their grip and manipulate the world’s opinion by using new tactics...............

read article here:

http://poetryforpalestine.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!92A A638F9B6EA940!1409.entry

.

The people on this forum thing the political leadership of this country changed in the 2000 election not so. The political leadership changed after the 1984 presidential election, and confirmed by the 1994 congressional election. In the 1984 election Walter Mondale ran as a traditional liberal and as we know from history he lost big. I think he only carried one state. That was the last time a major presidential candidate ran as a liberal. Fast forward to 1992 and Clinton ran as a “new Democrat” some would say Republican light and just got himself elected , If Perot had not ran I think Papa Bush would have been reelected. Then in 1994 and the republicans take control of congress. Then in 2006 if it had not been for the anti war bump the democrats would still be in the minority.
So the current democratic leadership has looked at this 22 years of history and in the words of Bernard Goldberg “lost its nerve” So John Lewis is not a bad man , but I think a man that lost his nerve.
Many democrats fall into that category now.

cyrena you might trying checking into Something called ‘CoX2 Control’ Body Comfort by KAL. Primary active ingredient is called Japanese Knotwood. It won’t cure anything but I can testify that over time it helps to make pain and discomfort just a bit easier to manage and less intrusive.

There’s something to be said for roaring. I’ll think about that!

“You’re wasting your time demonizing one member of Congress, when none of this has been allowed to continue because of that ONE individual, but rather because of a huge collection of ignorant citizens, who I might add are either apathetic, corrupt, or just plain stupid, misinformed, with iodine deficient ideologies.”

No, it isn’t a waste of time! Call up your Representative’s office and scream at them! Now!!! I will demonize my Rep on my end, so I expect others to demonize theirs on their end. If you are not swearing and screaming at your Reps, then you are not trying hard enough. This tyranny is not something to get used. IF you need a cup of strong coffee or powerful liquor then I highly recommend it. If you need to smoke an unfiltered cigarette to get those neurons firing at full blast then do it!

This is not normal. Don’t get used it!!!! Roar!!!!

#117554 by Paracelsus on 12/02 at 2:05 pm
@ #117447 by John Hanks
• Do you have any more background on Thom Hartman and Jay Marvin?
Paracelsus,

This is just another one of those things that I came across, and remembered that you’d asked. It’s an article (or book preview maybe) from Thom Hartman. So, I thought I’d post it for you.

I don’t know anything about Jay Marvin.

Whatever Happened to “We the People”?
By Thom Hartmann
Berrett-Koehler Publishing

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/112407F.shtml

#117604 by Paracelsus
• I urge you to read Naomi Wolf’s book on fascism. She is very good about documenting how German liberals went weak kneed at the moments when German patriots needed them to stand tall.

Actually, Paracelsus, I HAVE read Naomi’s book, and I’ve recommended it for a course for the upcoming academic term. (The course is on Authoritarianism, and I’m relatively sure that it will be adopted. if not the entire book, than at least some of the most relevant chapters).

I’m also perfectly well aware of the liberal Germans who went weak kneed at the moments when they needed to speak out. Matter of fact, pretty much ANYBODY that has even an iota of knowledge of that time in history, is well aware of the fact that the ‘good Germans’ kept their heads down, and did nothing, thereby allowing the atrocities to take place.

So, that’s why I didn’t bother responding to all of your other stuff. It’s old news. We already KNOW it, and we already KNOW that the same thing is happening here in the US, and has been for at least 8 years. I did the VERY SAME ranting and raving in 2000, in the lead-up to the disaster that initiated the horrors of the Dick Bush regime, and I got the same responses that I now hear from the Ron Paulies – the cult of the ignorant. So, it would appear that little has changed. In short, your rage is understandable, but it is extremely late, and very misplaced. You’re wasting your time demonizing one member of Congress, when none of this has been allowed to continue because of that ONE individual, but rather because of a huge collection of ignorant citizens, who I might add are either apathetic, corrupt, or just plain stupid, misinformed, with iodine deficient ideologies.

• I am afraid you have a cultish devotion to those who rest on their laurels.

This would be a grossly incorrect assumption on your part, since I’m about as “anti-group think” as anyone that I know. So, your ignorance/arrogance is showing again, and the rhetoric is old and tired. “Those who rest on their laurels”? Please.

Now, I am really sorry about your chronic ailments, and I do in fact understand. I have been living with chronic pain as a result of an accident/injury and multiple surgeries for a number of years now. Since I’ve accepted the permanence of that, I manage my pain as best I can, and I agree that it isn’t easy. The meds are tempting, but in the end, they can (and generally do) add to the scope of the disability, since they disable the mind, without actually repairing the injuries to the body.

Now maybe in 20 or so years, I’ll be willing to part with my mind. But for now, I still need it, so I have to sort of just deal with the pain. But, those of course are individual choices. I’m sure Big Pharma is grateful for your business.

#117545 by Conservative Yankee

“Rage, being irrational, leaves this discussion moot.

“Who do you think is helped when one yells “fire” in a crowded building without using the phone next to him to call the fire department?”

You will be able to call the FBI on me when HR 1955 becomes law. How does angrily calling my Rep’s office equate to yelling fire in a crowded building to my desperate pleas and invective filled rants to my Congressman’s office?

Honestly would you be sympathetic to Congressman having me arrested?

Are you that accommodating to some sort of perceived wisdom in Lewis? You trust him that much while all around you a police state is being built.

CY, and Cyrena, let it be known that I, Paracelsus with hateful, malicious speech born of despair in the competency and virtue of a former civil rights leader who sits on his thumbs while all of America is destroyed by the coming police state, should be arrested under the kindly authority of Homeland Security. This former civil rights leader does nothing to stop Bush and company, and yet I Paracelsus am deserving of recrimination and scolding for “ignorance” for raging against a pompous ass, who bleats Christian principles of forgiveness in dealing with a criminal wrecking crew. I’m the bad guy; I’m the hateful filled Nazi. So… what that make you? Good? You’re not good. You just know how to hide, how to lie. Me, I don’t have that problem. Me, I always tell the truth. Even when I lie. So say good night to the bad guy! Come on. The last time you gonna see a bad guy like this again, let me tell you. Come on. Make way for the bad guy. There’s a bad guy comin’ through! Better get outta his way!

#117595 by cyrena

“Meantime Paracelsus, I thought you were gonna lay off the oxycodone? Didn’t you write a note to yourself about that? I guess you forgot.”

It is not a matter of forgetting. I have to deal with chronic pain resulting from an auto accident. But I see you will use any rhetorical weapon you find in the kitchen draw. I shall be less disclosing in the future as you have shown your character. But I do hope you can change that.

As to the spinelessness of John Lewis, that was from the article I posted. I notice that you had not mentioned my articles on the wonderful liberal folks of Wiemar Republic, who are footnotes of history for not doing anything to stop Hitler. The Reichstag had more Social Democrats and liberals than Nazis, and yet they voted for the “enabling act”. Lewis had voted for the HR 1955 Home Terrorism Act which criminalises free speech. Perhaps you think it is my speech that makes me a criminal for pointing out the cowardliness of Lewis in not submitting letters impeachment of the Bush Administration.

You want to impugn me for supposed ignorance for my opinion, when I know well his career; I live in his voting district. You want to create this hagiography of this man, thus this beatification makes any valid criticism of Lewis some sort of blasphemy. I hate the cowardice in the man, not the man himself. I pray he changes, but I fear all these rubber chicken dinner tributes to past milestones has corrupted him for our present battles.

I urge you to read Naomi Wolf’s book on fascism. She is very good about documenting how German liberals went weak kneed at the moments when German patriots needed them to stand tall. I am afraid you have a cultish devotion to those who rest on their laurels.

Feel free to scream out your rage at me. You know not what you do.

• #117313 by Conservative Yankee on 12/01 at 5:45 am
The idea that John Lewis is “spineless” because he picks his battles using his vast knowledge of how the system works is a concept born from a lack of knowledge…….John Lewis “spineless?” WOW what unmitigated ignorance!!!

Well CY, you DEFINITELY called this one right. And, that’s really all that it is. IGNORANCE. But, in the case of this Paracelsus character, it’s aided and abetted by mean spirited and bitter hatred. So, while some ‘ignorance’ can in fact be cured, (we all have a level of it, and it can in fact be cured with morsels of knowledge here and there) that doesn’t help when this combination exists.

Meantime Paracelsus, I thought you were gonna lay off the oxycodone? Didn’t you write a note to yourself about that? I guess you forgot.

#117524 by John Hanks on 12/02: “...crooks and their suckers run the world.  Lazy cowards always put up with it.... liberal Jews that have protected us from the Zionists, Neocons, and Israeli right.  They are the ones who have followed this filth, and therefore they report on them.  Most of the good reporting has come from leftists and Jews..... intelligent smart Jews don’t seem to be willing to take this scum on..... the same mistake that many Jews made as Hitler came to power...”

Ironic then that it was an American German Jew, Robert (I have no regrets) Oppenheimer and an insane Hungarian migrant Jew, Edward Teller who who developed the A-bomb and the H-bomb, the world’s first nuclear WMD’s and that the world has never been the same since http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Teller and also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Oppenheimer

It all started back in pre-WW2 Nazi Germany once the information that the element uranium was a huge potential source of energy came to “light”. Immediately, the Nazis siezed on it and began research into using it as a weapon. Other countries soon followed suit. The USA got there first most probably because of being able to fund a larger team of scientists.

Later, the USA and Russia contended in a race to capture the surviving Nazi rocket scientists and their research information as Germany crumbled in 1944. None of that was in any way intended for peace. World domination was the only motivation for all sides as with the nuclear research from its beginnings.

Again, it has been Israel which has covertly developed its own nuclear weapons and has the only working nuclear reactor in the Middle East. We can thank the Jew, Mordechai Vanunu for exposing that to the world. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mordechai_Vanunu But how long before anyone reveals a way of ending the nuclear arms race????

Instead, Israel manipulates its allies (especially the USA) into promoting its expansionist “Its either them or us” mentality and racist and biased elitist policies. For the rest of the Nuclear Club, pride in being able to “beat” their neighbours “back to the stone age” is their greatest shortcoming - and the greatest danger to the human race. What “liberal Jew” will step forward now to help end this quest for total anihilation???

@ #117447 by John Hanks

Do you have any more background on Thom Hartman and Jay Marvin?

@ #117524 by John Hanks

Do you have any clever quotes of Hannah Arendt?

#117456 by for the poor

Some of the best exposes of Zionism had been written by Jews. Freeman, Shahak, Fagan, and Schoenmann have all contributed invaluable knowledge on the NWO and Israel.
I do not like the generalizations made.

@ #117313 by Conservative Yankee

Calling Lewis spineless is the equivalent of labeling Albert Einstein “stupid”. Einstein was clever. Leo Szilard was a genius.

http://www.nexusmagazine.com/articles/einstein.html

@ #117294 by cyrena

“At least it wouldn’t hurt. Knowledge rarely does.”

Kinda like this:

http://johnlewis.house.gov/index.php?option=com_conten t&task=view&id=17&Itemid=31

His Civil Rights bona fides have become a mort main of his career. This dead hand has given his path a dangerous inertia. Someone has to attend to the wheel house before we run aground on the shoals.
Recall please that German Reichstag in the early 30’s (before ‘33) was filled with well intentioned legislators who had given civil liberties to homosexuals. They were a liberal institution deadlocked between mainstream conservatives and mainstream liberals. How many of those enlightened beings of 1920’s and early 1930’s are still remembered for their high minded and liberal attitudes? I cannot recall any. John Lewis will be the same sort of footnote if he and like minded legislators take the “moderate path.”

I am reminded of Barry Goldwater, “Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. Moderation in the face of tyranny is no virtue.”

@ #117412 by John Hanks

“What bothers me most about Jews in general is their seeming willingness to excuse or cover the criminal acts of Zionists.”

I suppose you asked each and every one them about the criminal acts of the Israeli government, and everyone of them to the last of them excused and covered for Israel. I am sure you used the most rigorous science to come up this recondite and unqualified conclusion?

#117313 by Conservative Yankee

GW Bush, and Dick Cheney represents tyranny and untold cruelty to millions of human beings. They represent an authoritarian and despotic trend. We will not have a humanitarian, constitutional republic.

I will continue to bother, to harass, to scream ‘No!’ to Lewis’s staff. I care not a whit for Lewis’s Civil Rights past as he supports tyranny and oppression, right now!! We are facing a burning house and Lewis is playing at elder statesman. This is a most sinful, evil and baleful vanity. He might as well have not been a Civil Rights leader for it will not matter. With the police brutality and suppression that he lets pass by without a thought to impeach and criminally prosecuting the Bush administration, it would have been best if it his mama just had a good douche. He will be made a dumb and moot note of history. No one will remember his past good deeds as he is convicted by his cowardly inaction now. Does any remember the past nobility of Hindenburg? Does anybody give a rat turd for Petain’s bravery in the Great War? Are the liberal moderates of the Menchovik Party remember? And yet weren’t there advocates saying do not impose upon such a noble soul. It would not be wise. For shame should you should say that about him given his earlier sacrifices in the Great Humanitarian Cause. There is nary a German liberal politician of Wiemar Germany that is fondly remembered. Some esoteric sort might comment upon Rathenau, the JFK of that generation. I could give a shit about Lewis’s great sacrifices as America heads into the a gulag police state. Remembering his past triumphs won’t make the Halliburton prison repast of thin soup and hard bread anymore savory. All his speechifying on this commemoration or that new building will not erase the present fact that he acts as a vainglorious idiot, and I call him as often as my rage pushes me to remind him of that fact.

#116876 by Douglas Chalmers on 11/29 at 2:02 pm
•
#116826 by Yani on 11/29 at 9:58 am: “There goes cyrena redefining the definition if “is” again. Your just flat wrong. Amy Goodman is a worthless wanker… your too ignorant to even frame things in the proper context. You have no idea what Zionism is...”

• Actually, cyrnea’s comment you whined about but failed to address were from ‘lilmamzer’.

Douglas,
Thanks for pointing this out to Yani. (and me as well) I couldn’t figure out what the hell he was talking about.

Yani, please try to pay more attention, (other than to me). Here again, maybe I should be flattered, but I’m not. I can manage to bring on enough attacks from the crazies all by myself, so there’s no need to attribute anything to me, that actually comes from someone else. OK. Just try to keep up.

#116854 by Paracelsus

Paracelsus,

This is a link to something that I came across on one of the websites that I access daily, (for about the past 4 or so years I guess). This is not new information for me, just because I’ve been around a while, and so I’m familiar with John Lewis and his history in the Civil Rights Movement here in the USA.

I know how disgusted you are with his failure to kick Dick Bush out of the White House, and of course there’s that disgust that you also have because he’s failed to prosecute and deport all of these ‘illegal aliens’.

However, I guess he’s just only one dude after all, and his own history has pretty much ALWAYS been sealed in the concept of civil and human rights. It would appear that he’s still pretty much devoted to that. If you (or others) weren’t aware of that, this link might provide some insight.

Then, maybe in his NEXT life, he’ll be able to do all of that housecleaning at the white house, that you have lined up for him. But, if you don’t wanna wait that long, maybe you could just jump in and do it yourself, or even ask for help from a few others. I don’t think John Lewis is running a one-man operation, but it IS clear that he’s still very committed to his original concerns, and they ARE in fact STILL issues on the plate in YOUR state.

So, I’m really certain, (at least on this) that John Lewis is not ‘spineless’. If he didn’t lose his spine 30 years ago from the multiple beatings and other injuries that he suffered, he’s not likely to have lost it now.

And, if you’re NOT familiar with the history of the Civil Rights Movement in your adopted country, (and the ENOURMOUS part that John Lewis took in that) then this would be a good opportunity to learn a little bit about it.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/112807A.shtml

At least it wouldn’t hurt. Knowledge rarely does.

http://play.napster.com/track/10020405

True.

#116932 by SaraB on 11/29 at 8:15 pm: “...I know what Zionism is. There was a time when the rest of the world called it terrorism. I know what anti semitism is. It’s horror....”

No, SaraB, “antisemitism” was horror - its now an excuse to berate people who are opposed to the hypocrisies of Zionism and the expansionist policies of the Israeli state.

Thus the lilmamzers and yanis and Howards and so forth trade on it here. It makes them feel so righteous in their utter misinterpretations (if they actually have any) of religion/god/jehovah/whatever as well as their pathetic misunderstandings of politics and the ‘art of war’.

In effect, it has become a licence for covert hostility and prejudice towards all who would oppose them in their glorious undertaking of bringing about a third world war and thus the final solution to all of their anxieties and dishonest existence as ‘returned refugees’ (they are neither!).

Yes, there is/was prejudice against or hatred of Jews - known as antisemitism - but it has been cleverly manipulated by the survivors who wished to legitimise their actions as violent landgrabbers as #116937 by Paracelsus describes. Thus, the myth goes on but mainly in the minds of those who perceive some benefit from it.

Anyway, this topic was about Iraq and Arabs, not Israel or Jews. We can thank the agendas of some who wish to be vocal at the time of the Annapolis summit that we are now being diverted into more and more precious garbage on the glories of Israel and the Jews in this and several other topics on Truthdig, uhh.

Apart from the idiot Texan Christian Zionists and the blind fools of Chrisitanity who insist on worshipping a Judeo version of Christianity, everybody hates them all the more for their lies and deceptions. That is not “antisemitism”, though, but the desire for TRUTH and FREEDOM.

@ #116895 by lilmamzer

“Zionism is the belief and movement in support of the restoration and now the preservation of the Jewish national homeland, which has adopted the name Israel. It is self-determination for the Jewish people, and it is one of the best things to have come out of the late 19th and 20th centuries.”

http://takingaimradio.com/hhz/ch02.htm

Please follow the above link. You will be given a truthful account of Zionism.

“Cecil B. de Mille’s Samson and Delilah was more than a Hollywood biblical romance about the perfidy of woman and the virtue of manly strength. It carried, as well, the authoritarian values of the novel from which it was adopted, Vladimir Jabotinsky’s Samson, which trumpeted the necessity of brute force if the Israelites were to conquer the Philistines.

“Shall I give our people a message from you?” Samson thought for a while, and then said slowly: “The first word is iron. They must get iron. They must give everything they have for iron – their silver and wheat, oil and wine and flocks, even their wives and daughters. All for iron! There is nothing in the world more valuable than iron.” [28]

Jabotinsky, the siren of “an iron wall through which the local population can not break through” and of “the iron law of every colonizing movement ... armed force”, found his call echoed in major Zionist forays against victim peoples in the decades to come.

Israel’s current Minister of Defense, Yitzhak Rabin, launched the 1967 war as Chief of Staff with “Iron Will”. As Prime Minister in 1975 and 1976 he declared the policy of Hayad Barzel, the “Iron Hand”, in the West Bank. Over 300,000 Palestinians were to pass through Israeli prisons under conditions of sustained and institutionalized torture exposed by the Sunday Times of London and denounced by Amnesty International.”

I didn’t really believe there were people like lilmamzer and yani out there, or 1drees for that matter. What does Zionism or anit-semitism have to do with this disucssion? I know what Zionism is. There was a time when the rest of the world called it terrorism. I know what anti semitism is. It’s horror. My son is in the world only because his grandmother was rescued from the ‘final solution’ and raised in a British orphanage. If opposition to torture is a leftist agenda then the left is the best protector of any minority, jewish, muslim or anything else. (Though it would not be the best protector of Zionism or Jihad/terrorism either.) But I can’t see that it is a leftist agenda. It’s a human agenda - isn’t it?

#116826 by Yani on 11/29 at 9:58 am

And to you anti-Semites crying about Zionism, your too ignorant to even frame things in the proper context. You have no idea what Zionism is and you are just using this as a vehicle to support anti Semitism. Hate them all you want, they are Gods children and have survived and will continue to survive much worse than you leftist nazi lovers.

Well, Yani, if they know what Zionism is and continue to post such hateful rhetoric, they are willfully and deliberately ignorant as well as dishonest. If they don’t know what it is they are guilty of being intellectually lazy and recycling lame and malicious lies.

Zionism is the belief and movement in support of the restoration and now the preservation of the Jewish national homeland, which has adopted the name Israel. It is self-determination for the Jewish people, and it is one of the best things to have come out of the late 19th and 20th centuries.

#116826 by Yani on 11/29 at 9:58 am: “There goes cyrena redefining the definition if “is” again. Your just flat wrong. Amy Goodman is a worthless wanker… your too ignorant to even frame things in the proper context. You have no idea what Zionism is...”

How do women “wank”, Yani? Maybe you are the “malaka”, eh?

“In modern Greek, the word malakas is used metaphorically in everyday speech to define the individual that uses absolutely no common sense, who instead repeats the same mistakes many times over, while maintaining an attitude of self-righteousness. The relation is probably derived by the common notion according to which excessive masturbation harms the brain.....” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malakas

Actually, cyrnea’s comment you whined about but failed to address were from ‘lilmamzer’.

http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/?q=node/28534

Congressman John Lewis Loses Spine
Submitted by davidswanson on Thu, 2007-11-08 18:28. Congress | Impeachment

Rep Lewis in the following note pushes the idea that impeachment is about anger and vengeance:

Thank you very much for writing me about the possible impeachment of
President Bush and Vice-President Cheney. I appreciate hearing from you
and having the benefit of your views.

It was in 2005 that I first voiced my willingness to explore the filing of
articles of impeachment against President Bush. His actions since then, as
well as those of Vice-President Cheney and others in his Administration,
have reinforced my position.

I have heard, read and felt your anger toward this Administration. Many of
their actions are inexcusable and stain the moral fabric of America. We
were drawn into an unjust conflict in Iraq on false pretenses-on lies. We
were told it would make us safer. We were told we had to attack them
before they attacked us. We know now that we are not safer. We know now
that there were no Weapons of Mass Destruction. We know now that they did
not have the military resources to attack us nor the inclination.

So, I understand why you are angry-I am angry too! But we must control our
anger, if only for the soldiers. We must bring them home now. An attempt
to impeach the President or Vice-President would waste valuable time and
cost precious lives. Every day we delay in bringing our soldiers home,
every day we spend quarreling about spending or procedure or even
impeachment, is a day wasted and more soldiers perish.

As we approach the eighth year of George W. Bush’s Presidency, we must
consider what is in the best interest of our nation. We have much work to
do, much to repair, much to fix. We must push vengeance from out hearts
and rebuild the American Presidency as an office that is once again
respected the world over. Most importantly, we must restore the American
Presidency to an office that is respected here at home.

I will never waiver in my efforts to preserve the honor and integrity of
the United States as well as the rights and privileges afforded every
American under the Constitution. Our time is too precious to work for
vengeance when we must now work to rebuild and bring our soldiers home.

Again, thank you for offering your opinion on this issue and I hope you
will continue to contact me on other issues of importance to you. Also,
please visit my website at http://www.house. gov/johnlewis/ for more
information.

Sincerely,

John Lewis
Member of Congress

@ #116775 by cyrena

You don’t call HR 1955 authoritarian. Did you read my last post carefully. Do you know what HR 1955 is?

http://critterology.blogspot.com/2007/10/declaration-o f-war-vs-people.html

“Up until now the Government has primarily focused on people who were directly connected to terrorist organizations. Those investigated and accused ranged from foreign aide organizations to a university professor in South Florida. Although the majority of cases have ended in mistrial, some speculate the total number of ‘Black Listed’ Americans to be somewhere in the ballpark of 770,000. That was before the Government considered its own Citizens to be Terrorists.

Once this bill passes through the Senate and is signed into Law by the President, it will no longer be safe to speak out against the Government. Any word spoken across telephone lines, or written and recorded on the Internet, could potentially be scrutinized by the Department of Homeland Security, and lead more innocent victims to secret prisons to be subjected to violent acts of torture.”

As to illegal aliens, every time I travel into Atlanta I see dozens of homeless, unemployed black men in the streets. How about Lewis doing some work for the home team?

“Have you ever considered a less radical and more practical solution to your problems of illegal aliens? For instance, have you ever approached any of the many conservative red-necks in your state about the fact that they keep breaking the law by HIRING these alleged illegal people?”

The people who hire illegal aliens aren’t exactly rednecks. The rednecks you speak of I know to be unemployed in the construction trades. How about comprehensive enforcement? How you know that I haven’t asked Lewis to make more stringent laws against employers? You assume too much ignorance on my part. Why is that?

BTW, I am not from South Africa, “Stereotypes Are Us”.

“Then maybe chop off their fingers and toes before you deport them?”

Nope, I am not a DLC Democrat.

#116716 by Paracelsus

...."John Lewis did vote ‘aye’ on the Jane Harman “Prevention of Home Terrorism Act”. I think that ever since I pushed him hard to impeach Bush, he has turned authoritarian. There were issues on illegal aliens. He wanted to forgive them. I wanted them prosecuted and deported"…

No Paracelsus,

I don’t think that John Lewis has become the least bit ‘authoritarian’ and I suspect that you might not recognize a good thing when you see it. It would appear from the above comments, that you know little or nothing about John Lewis’ history, which would explain a bit more about why he might not be in any hurry to solve the immigration problem ‘YOUR” way.

Have you ever considered a less radical and more practical solution to your problems of illegal aliens? For instance, have you ever approached any of the many conservative red-necks in your state about the fact that they keep breaking the law by HIRING these alleged illegal people?

And, do you have any real understanding about the concept of ‘authoritarian’? DIdn’t you say you were from South Africa? Surely you would know the difference between a John Lewis, and an ‘authoritarian’ unless of course you don’t know anything about Mr. Lewis, and can’t recognize yourself as an ‘authoritarian’, with the full force of retribution and punitive ideology behind it. Gee, not enough to just deport them, eh? We should prosecute them all as well. Or, John Lewis should, since you told him to. And, he should work that in with the shurb’s impeachment as well, never mind that he’s only one of 535 peeps without that kind of single handed AUTHORITY. Would you like to be present at each and every one of these prosecutions? Then maybe chop off their fingers and toes before you deport them?

• I am afraid that mainstream liberals have this crazed militia man phobia when we hit certain issues that are just bedrock values. Talk about a false paradigm.

No, I wouldn’t call it a false paradigm at all. Instead, I’d say that you come across as a crazed militia man, and I’m not given to phobias. I bet John Lewis is wondering how much it would cost to make you just go away.

Why did you leave South Africa anyway?  McVey Jr..

#116638 by lilmamzer

• Where is Amy Goodman and so-called “Democracy Now” when female genitalia are mutilated as a matter of course throughout the Arab and Muslim world?
WRONG lilmamzer. Female genitalia are not mutilated AS A MATTER OF COURSE, throughout the Arab and Muslim world, so stop making all of these broad generalities.

Yes, it DOES happen, there’s certainly no getting around that. And, addressing that, (among a multitude of other issues) is not an easy task for the Western arrogance of universalism to conquer. Can any westerner possibly find such practices allowable? Well of course not. OTOH, we also can’t tell other people in other cultures what to do, just because WE say so.

There are multitudes of NGO’s at work in countries near and far, including multiple countries in Africa and the Middle East. Some of them do good work. Others of course, do not. Clearly, YOU would not be among those who could have any sort of positive influence.

Over time, this particular practice IS diminishing, because there are in fact people who have been able to adapt a position that works, at least some of the time, in some of the places. So, since you aren’t a part of that effort, you should probably just shut up, and not worry about what Amy Goodman is or isn’t doing, unless you happen to be paying her salary or donating money to any one of her many efforts. Somehow, I don’t think that’s what you’re about.
Meantime, I just ran across a piece the other day, that explains in excellent detail, how Afghanistan is now under the near TOTAL control of the Taliban. So much for our military fixing THAT all up.

Remember how we supposedly had them all scurrying across the borders like fleeing rats 6 years ago?
Well, they’re BACK!! (or, maybe they never left).

#116731 by SaraB

• I can see that my shoving in such irrelevancies as regretting the kind of society we’ll get if we use means like torture to get it or suggesting that ends don’t justify means (whereas means do predetermine the final outcome), must have been very annoying. So I apologize for the intrusion.
P.S. Can anyone tell me where I might find a discussion on the actual issue?

SaraB,

Hang in there girl. You just got an initiation from the hazardous and toxic elements of the blog here. Not a whole lot we can do about it, other than to just be aware that they exist, and that they DO NOT, I repeat DO NOT represent the overall thinking of this blog. So, now that you know, you can just blow them off. It’s the only way. Otherwise, you waste time and energy dealing with insanity, and you know how unproductive that is. We put up with it when we have to, (like with people we know and love, who can’t help their insanity) but on this blog…the crazies don’t get any passes. Ignore them. They’ll go away, and then come back, and then hopefully go away again. Lilmamzer is off her meds again or something.

Now, on the actual issue of torture, I could load you down with more than you want, but probably you’ve already been through that. We know that it’s the ultimate of absolute prohibitions, and there are dozens of laws in place to cement that. So, if there ever was an issue that CAN allow for absolute universalism, it’s torture. It’s NEVER OK, at ANY time, under ANY circumstances.

That said, I don’t honestly know what the alleged Democrat position is on it. I worried myself that Feinstein and Schumer were willing to confirm Mukasey, who apparently thinks it’s just fine to continue breaking the ultimate universal prohibition against torture. Barack Obama did state in his most recent address in Iowa, that torture was NEVER acceptable in any form. But, enough other Dem senators voted to comfirm Muckasy, so I don’t know what to think.

I’ll try to think of some other places where there is active discourse among sane people on this. Meantime, just keep reading Amy Goodman, and if you have time, you can try to sort through the obvious garbage here, and find some other sane voices as well. There are several, but I admit that you got caught by one of the demons, before anyone else had a chance to jump in and allow you to know that the whole thing is not so poisoned.

@ #116731 by SaraB

I do not find Amy credible not because she is left wing but because she is supported by foundation money, therefore she has been domesticated. As to the torture issue, I am eager to return to constitutional government. Imperial governments as a rule will violate any law, any humane custom, any time tried tradition to get whatever they want. In time the American system will be too bankrupted morally and financially to rule the world, then it will be China’s turn, and they have no qualms about torture and summary death sentences. I hope the the collapse does not give the elites a perfect setting for a year zero program of liquidating the American population as was done in Cambodia. At $200 a barrel oil, food will be a formidable weapon.

I thought that the question in hand was the issue of torture and whether or not the Democrats had aligned themselves with a ‘pro-torture’ agenda. I had assumed that in attacking the author of this article as ‘left wing’ and therefore not credible (and all who agreed with her, actually), some of the posts here were obliquely defending the necessity of torture. An argument that should be heard though I’m unlikely to agree with it. But I’m starting to see that I was badly mistaken. This isn’t a discussion about the issue of torture at all. It’s a chance to get the proverbial ‘rocks off’ along the lines of: “Right, (thanks for the excuse of the article)… so she’s a lefty, (boo hiss) if you agree with her you’re a lefty (boo hiss), I’m a righty… now let’s get down to it.”

But right and left wing governments and ideologies have been responsible for disgusting, inhuman depradations and I have no inclination to got to bat for either one. I can see that my shoving in such irrelevancies as regretting the kind of society we’ll get if we use means like torture to get it or suggesting that ends don’t justify means (whereas means do predetermine the final outcome), must have been very annoying. So I apologize for the intrusion.
P.S. Can anyone tell me where I might find a discussion on the actual issue?