From mjkirk12 at yahoo.com  Fri May  1 13:08:32 2009
From: mjkirk12 at yahoo.com (Mike Kirk)
Date: Fri, 1 May 2009 10:08:32 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [CitizensTruth] Louisisana: cattle dropping dead,
	proprietary green fluid spewing into the air
In-Reply-To: <BDFF145C-E69E-4731-9DD4-841DE2957034@drxyzzy.org>
Message-ID: <799609.66600.qm@web83811.mail.sp1.yahoo.com>

Chesapeake Energy and Schlumberger may likely sue the cattle farmers for 'stealing' their oozing goo.?? Just like Monsanto did to the Canadian farmers who's fields became contaminated with Monsanto's GM seeds.? :-(

Ah, progress....

--- On Thu, 4/30/09, Hal Snyder <hal at drxyzzy.org> wrote:
From: Hal Snyder <hal at drxyzzy.org>
Subject: [CitizensTruth] Louisisana: cattle dropping dead, proprietary green fluid spewing into the air
To: citizenstruth at six.pairlist.net
Date: Thursday, April 30, 2009, 4:26 PM

16 Cattle Drop Dead Near Mysterious Fluid at Gas Drilling Site
April 30, 2009
[bold added]
Sixteen cattle dropped dead in a northwestern Louisiana field this week after apparently drinking from a mysterious fluid adjacent to a natural gas drilling rig, according to Louisiana's Department of Environmental Quality and?a report in the?Shreveport Times. At least one worker told the newspaper that the fluids, which witnesses described as green and spewing into the air near the drilling derrick, were used for a drilling process called?hydraulic fracturing. But the company,?Chesapeake Energy, has not identified exactly what chemicals are in those fluids and is insisting to state regulators that no spill occurred.The problem is that both Chesapeake and its contractor doing the work Schlumberger, say that a lot of these fluids are proprietary, said Otis Randle, regional manager for the DEQ. "It can be an obstacle, but we try to be fair to everybody," he said. "We try to remember that the products they use are theirs and they need them to make a
 living."
Few trends could so thoroughly undermine the very foundations of our free society as the acceptance by corporate officials of a social responsibility other than to make as much money for their stockholders as possible. -?Milton FriedmanThe key to sound environmental policy is respect for private property rights.?- Ron Paul_______________________________________________
CitizensTruth mailing list
CitizensTruth at six.pairlist.net
http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/citizenstruth
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From rmigalla at earthlink.net  Sun May  3 00:00:09 2009
From: rmigalla at earthlink.net (Robin Migalla)
Date: Sat, 2 May 2009 23:00:09 -0500
Subject: [CitizensTruth] Confessions of a Medical Heretic
Message-ID: <01C9CB79.BED0DC10.rmigalla@earthlink.net>

Hi Everyone,

I've recently read "Confessions of a Medical Heretic" by Robert Mendelsohn. 
 I liked some of it so much, I scanned parts of it to post.  I find it 
particularly interesting in the light of today's push for health care 
reform.  Here's a link to the PDF file of the excerpts...

http://westonaprice-elgin.org/Learn/ConfessionsofaMedicalHeretic.pdf

Here are a few quotes to whet your appetite...

"Hospitalization degrades you. In my twenty-five years of practicing and 
witnessing the practice of medicine, I've never seen a degrading experience 
that did anybody's health any good."

"Hospital costs are the biggest single element in the country's total bill 
for medical "care." That bill is rapidly overtaking defense, the Number One 
item on the country's total bill for everything. When medicine exceeds 
defense, the Inquisition will really be  unstoppable. No one seriously 
challenges whatever institution is the first item on the budget. Whatever 
costs more than anything else gathers bureaucratic inertia of such immense 
proportions that it controls the destiny of the country."

"We've already seen what a disaster curative medicine has become, but 
so-called preventive medicine is just as dangerous. In fact, the juggernaut 
of Modern Medicine's drive for power over our lives is preventive medicine. 
It's no secret what mayhem power-hungry institutions - including 
governments - can get away with hiding behind the intention of "preventing" 
trouble. Modern Medicine gets away with even more. For example, the Defense 
Department explains the billions it spends by forwarding the old "we're 
protecting you from camels" routine. Though a great portion of those 
billions is no doubt wasted money, at least the Defense Department can 
point to the virtual absence of camels as evidence that some of the money 
is spent on worthwhile activities."

My favorite part of the book, though, was the Epilogue.  Here are the first 
two paragraphs...

"Health neither begins nor ends with the doctor. The doctor's role is 
somewhere in the middle. And still crucial. If doctors weren't important, 
the Church of Modern Medicine could never have gained the power it has.

This simultaneous process of destroying Medicine and rebuilding Medicine 
is, by nature, a political process. At all levels, the Medical Revolution 
involves the participant in politics: If you keep your children out of 
public school to avoid immunizing them, that is a political act. If you 
have your baby at home when state laws discourage it or health insurance 
refuses to pay for it, that's a political act. If you decide to have 
another baby, that's a political act. While we turn our backs on the 
Inquisition, we turn towards and embrace the New Medicine as we need to in 
order to survive and prosper. That is going to require action which is 
explicitly political, too."

Here's another link that might be interesting for you, too:

www.metzelf.info

Cheers,
Robin
www.healthforlifecoloncare.com
www.westonaprice-elgin.org
"Let thy food be thy medicine and thy medicine be thy food."
                                     --Hippocrates  (460-377 B.C.)
            Just be careful how you define food ;-)


From welaware at merr.com  Sun May  3 09:39:31 2009
From: welaware at merr.com (Kris Knight)
Date: Sun, 3 May 2009 08:39:31 -0500
Subject: [CitizensTruth] Confessions of a Medical Heretic
In-Reply-To: <01C9CB79.BED0DC10.rmigalla@earthlink.net>
References: <01C9CB79.BED0DC10.rmigalla@earthlink.net>
Message-ID: <50F9C646-1DB8-4DBB-B36E-6C89FCB6F851@merr.com>

Thanks, Robin.  Just as I think veterans have a powerful right/ 
entitlement to give us their opinions to be weighed heavily re.  
occupation, war behaviors, their effects of the soldiers and all those  
around them, I think people who have worked within the medical system  
have the greatest right to weigh in on the follies and the foibles of  
same.  I am one of those people, and there are many, many defectors of  
that system who have been exiled in one way or another, who, if our  
ideas were pooled in the quest for true movement toward health care  
for all, and not sickeness perpetuation and co-dependence, would  
revolutionize this nation.

On May 2, 2009, at 11:00 PM, Robin Migalla wrote:

> Hi Everyone,
>
> I've recently read "Confessions of a Medical Heretic" by Robert  
> Mendelsohn.
> I liked some of it so much, I scanned parts of it to post.  I find it
> particularly interesting in the light of today's push for health care
> reform.  Here's a link to the PDF file of the excerpts...
>
> http://westonaprice-elgin.org/Learn/ConfessionsofaMedicalHeretic.pdf
>
> Here are a few quotes to whet your appetite...
>
> "Hospitalization degrades you. In my twenty-five years of practicing  
> and
> witnessing the practice of medicine, I've never seen a degrading  
> experience
> that did anybody's health any good."
>
> "Hospital costs are the biggest single element in the country's  
> total bill
> for medical "care." That bill is rapidly overtaking defense, the  
> Number One
> item on the country's total bill for everything. When medicine exceeds
> defense, the Inquisition will really be  unstoppable. No one seriously
> challenges whatever institution is the first item on the budget.  
> Whatever
> costs more than anything else gathers bureaucratic inertia of such  
> immense
> proportions that it controls the destiny of the country."
>
> "We've already seen what a disaster curative medicine has become, but
> so-called preventive medicine is just as dangerous. In fact, the  
> juggernaut
> of Modern Medicine's drive for power over our lives is preventive  
> medicine.
> It's no secret what mayhem power-hungry institutions - including
> governments - can get away with hiding behind the intention of  
> "preventing"
> trouble. Modern Medicine gets away with even more. For example, the  
> Defense
> Department explains the billions it spends by forwarding the old  
> "we're
> protecting you from camels" routine. Though a great portion of those
> billions is no doubt wasted money, at least the Defense Department can
> point to the virtual absence of camels as evidence that some of the  
> money
> is spent on worthwhile activities."
>
> My favorite part of the book, though, was the Epilogue.  Here are  
> the first
> two paragraphs...
>
> "Health neither begins nor ends with the doctor. The doctor's role is
> somewhere in the middle. And still crucial. If doctors weren't  
> important,
> the Church of Modern Medicine could never have gained the power it  
> has.
>
> This simultaneous process of destroying Medicine and rebuilding  
> Medicine
> is, by nature, a political process. At all levels, the Medical  
> Revolution
> involves the participant in politics: If you keep your children out of
> public school to avoid immunizing them, that is a political act. If  
> you
> have your baby at home when state laws discourage it or health  
> insurance
> refuses to pay for it, that's a political act. If you decide to have
> another baby, that's a political act. While we turn our backs on the
> Inquisition, we turn towards and embrace the New Medicine as we need  
> to in
> order to survive and prosper. That is going to require action which is
> explicitly political, too."
>
> Here's another link that might be interesting for you, too:
>
> www.metzelf.info
>
> Cheers,
> Robin
> www.healthforlifecoloncare.com
> www.westonaprice-elgin.org
> "Let thy food be thy medicine and thy medicine be thy food."
>                                     --Hippocrates  (460-377 B.C.)
>            Just be careful how you define food ;-)
>
> _______________________________________________
> CitizensTruth mailing list
> CitizensTruth at six.pairlist.net
> http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/citizenstruth
> website: http://citizenstruth.info

Kris Knight of WellAware Life Enhancement Center
Phone:  1-608-ALL-LIFE
welaware at merr.com







From aroyboy44 at hotmail.com  Mon May  4 21:44:09 2009
From: aroyboy44 at hotmail.com (andrew ritter)
Date: Tue, 5 May 2009 01:44:09 +0000
Subject: [CitizensTruth] Buying Brand Obama
Message-ID: <BLU123-W27389C6EE29360D905C315BE690@phx.gbl>


Buying Brand Obama                                        

  
    

  
    


  by Chris Hedges



Barack Obama is
a brand. And the Obama brand is designed to make us feel good about our
government while corporate overlords loot the Treasury, our elected
officials continue to have their palms greased by armies of corporate
lobbyists, our corporate media diverts us with gossip and trivia and
our imperial wars expand in the Middle East. Brand Obama is about being
happy consumers. We are entertained. We feel hopeful. We like our
president. We believe he is like us. But like all branded products spun
out from the manipulative world of corporate advertising, we are being
duped into doing and supporting a lot of things that are not in our
interest.


What, for all our faith and hope, has the Obama brand given us? His
administration has spent, lent or guaranteed $12.8 trillion in taxpayer
dollars to Wall Street and insolvent banks in a doomed effort to
reinflate the bubble economy, a tactic that at best forestalls
catastrophe and will leave us broke in a time of profound crisis. Brand
Obama has allocated nearly $1 trillion in defense-related spending and
the continuation of our doomed imperial projects in Iraq, where
military planners now estimate that 70,000 troops will remain for the
next 15 to 20 years. Brand Obama has expanded the war in Afghanistan,
including the use of drones sent on cross-border bombing runs into
Pakistan that have doubled the number of civilians killed over the past
three months. Brand Obama has refused to ease restrictions so workers
can organize and will not consider single-payer, not-for-profit health
care for all Americans. And Brand Obama will not prosecute the Bush
administration for war crimes, including the use of torture, and has
refused to dismantle Bush's secrecy laws or restore habeas corpus.  


Brand Obama offers us an image that appears radically
individualistic and new. It inoculates us from seeing that the old
engines of corporate power and the vast military-industrial complex
continue to plunder the country. Corporations, which control our
politics, no longer produce products that are essentially different,
but brands that are different. Brand Obama does not threaten the core
of the corporate state any more than did Brand George W. Bush. The Bush
brand collapsed. We became immune to its studied folksiness. We saw
through its artifice. This is a common deflation in the world of
advertising. So we have been given a new Obama brand with an exciting
and faintly erotic appeal. Benetton and Calvin Klein were the
precursors to the Obama brand, using ads to associate themselves with
risqu? art and progressive politics. It gave their products an edge.
But the goal, as with all brands, was to make passive consumers mistake
a brand with an experience.  


"The abandonment of the radical economic foundations of the women's
and civil-rights movements by the conflation of causes that came to be
called political correctness successfully trained a generation of
activists in the politics of image, not action," Naomi Klein wrote in
"No Logo."


Obama, who has become a global celebrity, was molded easily into a
brand. He had almost no experience, other than two years in the Senate,
lacked any moral core and could be painted as all things to all people.
His brief Senate voting record was a miserable surrender to corporate
interests. He was happy to promote nuclear power as "green" energy. He
voted to continue the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He reauthorized the
Patriot Act. He would not back a bill designed to cap predatory credit
card interest rates. He opposed a bill that would have reformed the
notorious Mining Law of 1872. He refused to support the single-payer
health care bill HR676, sponsored by Reps. Dennis Kucinich and John
Conyers. He supported the death penalty. And he backed a class-action
"reform" bill that was part of a large lobbying effort by financial
firms. The law, known as the Class Action Fairness Act, would
effectively shut down state courts as a venue to hear most class-action
lawsuits and deny redress in many of the courts where these cases have
a chance of defying powerful corporate challenges.  


While Gaza was being bombarded and hit with airstrikes in the weeks
before Obama took office, "the Obama team let it be known that it would
not object to the planned resupply of ?smart bombs' and other hi-tech
ordnance that was already flowing to Israel," according to Seymour
Hersh. Even his one vaunted anti-war speech as a state senator, perhaps
his single real act of defiance, was swiftly reversed. He told the
Chicago Tribune on July 27, 2004, that "there's not that much
difference between my position and George Bush's position at this
stage. The difference, in my mind, is who's in a position to execute."
And unlike anti-war stalwarts like Kucinich, who gave hundreds of
speeches against the war, Obama then dutifully stood silent until the
Iraq war became unpopular. 


Obama's campaign won the vote of hundreds of marketers, agency heads
and marketing-services vendors gathered at the Association of National
Advertisers' annual conference in October. The Obama campaign was named
Advertising Age's marketer of the year for 2008 and edged out
runners-up Apple and Zappos.com. Take it from the professionals. Brand
Obama is a marketer's dream. President Obama does one thing and Brand
Obama gets you to believe another. This is the essence of successful
advertising. You buy or do what the advertiser wants because of how
they can make you feel.  


Celebrity culture has leeched into every aspect of our culture,
including politics, to bequeath to us what Benjamin DeMott called "junk
politics." Junk politics does not demand justice or the reparation of
rights. Junk politics personalizes and moralizes issues rather than
clarifying them. "It's impatient with articulated conflict,
enthusiastic about America's optimism and moral character, and heavily
dependent on feel-your-pain language and gesture," DeMott noted. The
result of junk politics is that nothing changes - "meaning zero
interruption in the processes and practices that strengthen existing,
interlocking systems of socioeconomic advantage." It redefines
traditional values, tilting "courage toward braggadocio, sympathy
toward mawkishness, humility toward self-disrespect, identification
with ordinary citizens toward distrust of brains." Junk politics
"miniaturizes large, complex problems at home while maximizing threats
from abroad. It's also given to abrupt unexplained reversals of its own
public stances, often spectacularly bloating problems previously
miniaturized." And finally, it "seeks at every turn to obliterate
voters' consciousness of socioeconomic and other differences in their
midst."  

    An image-based culture, one dominated by junk politics,
communicates through narratives, pictures and carefully orchestrated
spectacle and manufactured pseudo-drama. Scandalous affairs,
hurricanes, earthquakes, untimely deaths, lethal new viruses, train
wrecks-these events play well on computer screens and television.
International diplomacy, labor union negotiations and convoluted
bailout packages do not yield exciting personal narratives or
stimulating images. A governor who patronizes call girls becomes a huge
news story. A politician who proposes serious regulatory reform,
universal health care or advocates curbing wasteful spending is boring.
Kings, queens and emperors once used their court conspiracies to divert
their subjects. Today cinematic, political and journalistic celebrities
distract us with their personal foibles and scandals. They create our
public mythology. Acting, politics and sports have become, as they were
during the reign of Nero, interchangeable.  


In an age of images and entertainment, in an age of instant
emotional gratification, we do not seek reality. Reality is
complicated. Reality is boring. We are incapable or unwilling to handle
its confusion. We ask to be indulged and comforted by clich?s,
stereotypes and inspirational messages that tell us we can be whoever
we seek to be, that we live in the greatest country on Earth, that we
are endowed with superior moral and physical qualities, and that our
future will always be glorious and prosperous, either because of our
own attributes, or our national character, or because we are blessed by
God. Reality is not accepted as an impediment to our desires. Reality
does not make us feel good.  


In his book "Public Opinion," Walter Lippmann distinguished between
"the world outside and the pictures in our heads." He defined a
"stereotype" as an oversimplified pattern that helps us find meaning in
the world. Lippmann cited examples of the crude "stereotypes we carry
about in our heads" of whole groups of people such as "Germans," "South
Europeans," "Negroes," "Harvard men," "agitators" and others. These
stereotypes, Lippmann noted, give a reassuring and false consistency to
the chaos of existence. They offer easily grasped explanations of
reality and are closer to propaganda because they simplify rather than
complicate. 


Pseudo-events-dramatic productions orchestrated by publicists,
political machines, television, Hollywood or advertisers-however, are
very different. They have, as Daniel Boorstin wrote in "The Image: A
Guide to Pseudo-Events in America," the capacity to appear real even
though we know they are staged. They are capable, because they can
evoke a powerful emotional response, of overwhelming reality and
replacing reality with a fictional narrative that often becomes
accepted truth. The unmasking of a stereotype damages and often
destroys its credibility. But pseudo-events, whether they show the
president in an auto plant or a soup kitchen or addressing troops in
Iraq, are immune to this deflation. The exposure of the elaborate
mechanisms behind the pseudo-event only adds to its fascination and its
power. This is the basis of the convoluted television reporting on how
effectively political campaigns and politicians have been
stage-managed. Reporters, especially those on television, no longer ask
if the message is true but if the pseudo-event worked or did not work
as political theater. Pseudo-events are judged on how effectively we
have been manipulated by illusion. Those events that appear real are
relished and lauded. Those that fail to create a believable illusion
are deemed failures. Truth is irrelevant. Those who succeed in
politics, as in most of the culture, are those who create the brands
and pseudo-events that offer the most convincing fantasies. And this is
the art Obama has mastered.


A public that can no longer distinguish between truth and fiction is
left to interpret reality through illusion. Random facts or obscure
bits of data and trivia are used to bolster illusion and give it
credibility or are discarded if they interfere with the message. The
worse reality becomes-the more, for example, foreclosures and
unemployment skyrocket-the more people seek refuge and comfort in
illusions. When opinions cannot be distinguished from facts, when there
is no universal standard to determine truth in law, in science, in
scholarship, or in reporting the events of the day, when the most
valued skill is the ability to entertain, the world becomes a place
where lies become true, where people can believe what they want to
believe. This is the real danger of pseudo-events and why pseudo-events
are far more pernicious than stereotypes. They do not explain reality,
as stereotypes attempt to, but replace reality. Pseudo-events redefine
reality by the parameters set by their creators. These creators, who
make massive profits peddling these illusions, have a vested interest
in maintaining the power structures they control.  


The old production-oriented culture demanded what the historian
Warren Susman termed character. The new consumption-oriented culture
demands what he called personality. The shift in values is a shift from
a fixed morality to the artifice of presentation. The old cultural
values of thrift and moderation honored hard work, integrity and
courage. The consumption-oriented culture honors charm, fascination and
likability. "The social role demanded of all in the new culture of
personality was that of a performer," Susman wrote. "Every American was
to become a performing self."


The junk politics practiced by Obama is a consumer fraud. It is
about performance. It is about lies. It is about keeping us in a
perpetual state of childishness. But the longer we live in illusion,
the worse reality will be when it finally shatters our fantasies. Those
who do not understand what is happening around them and who are
overwhelmed by a brutal reality they did not expect or foresee search
desperately for saviors. They beg demagogues to come to their rescue.
This is the ultimate danger of the Obama Brand. It effectively masks
the wanton internal destruction and theft being carried out by our
corporate state. These corporations, once they have stolen trillions in
taxpayer wealth, will leave tens of millions of Americans bereft,
bewildered and yearning for even more potent and deadly illusions, ones
that could swiftly snuff out what is left of our diminished open
society.

? 2009 TruthDig.com
Chris Hedges writes a regular column for Truthdig.com. Hedges graduated from Harvard Divinity School and was
for nearly two decades a foreign correspondent for The New York Times. He
is the author of many books, including: War Is A Force That Gives Us Meaning, What Every Person Should Know About War, and American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America.  His most recent book, Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle, will be out in July, but is available for pre-order.



_________________________________________________________________
Hotmail? has ever-growing storage! Don?t worry about storage limits.
http://windowslive.com/Tutorial/Hotmail/Storage?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_HM_Tutorial_Storage1_052009
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From dimension04 at sbcglobal.net  Tue May  5 02:56:32 2009
From: dimension04 at sbcglobal.net (Connie Smith)
Date: Tue, 5 May 2009 01:56:32 -0500
Subject: [CitizensTruth] Buying Brand Obama
In-Reply-To: <BLU123-W27389C6EE29360D905C315BE690@phx.gbl>
References: <BLU123-W27389C6EE29360D905C315BE690@phx.gbl>
Message-ID: <A4C183765AD547D49A426DD0584D49E1@InspironConnie>



"Brand Obama" my foot.  The article-writer below worked 2 decades for "Brand New York Times" -- while Obama helped poor people and taught constitutional law.  Let's wait and see who turns out to be the better man.  

Given his humanitarian-saturated upbringing, what Obama's probably doing is duct-taping some societal structures for the short-term so that they collapse (as they must) SLOWLY, instead of suddenly and catastrophically -- and maneuvering to prevent his assassination, which would certainly occur if he just fired all the nazis outright, like JFK did.

If you were in office, and if you were smart, you would proceed in the same way.

I myself have been immune to being a fan of ANYBODY.  As a young newspaper reporter immediately out of school, I spent time with celebrities like The Doors and The Lettermen and Robert Goulet and a number of others who had big followings, but it was so clear to me they were "just people" that I've forever been immune to any kind of charisma.  However, I am attracted to good character.  (And that has panned out very well in my life -- I am apparently a good judge of it.)

And I've never been susceptible to brand-names OF or ON anything -- only interested in the quality "of the product."  Obama's character and quality have been clear and consistent (consistent as humanly possible) since first observing him here in Illinois politics in 1997. He is obviously not a product nor a brand, but a well-rounded and highly intelligent human being.

The criticisms of him strike me as short-sighted knee-jerk reactions to a ship's captain who has had to take over AFTER the Titanic struck the iceberg.  The wobbly emergency efforts to keep us from suddenly sinking, and a long, slow turn (instead of an immediate shift of the helm and a tip-over as a result) are scary but possibly wise moves -- possibly the only relatively safe ones that can be made.  

When the pilot headed the commercial airliner for the Hudson River in January, it seemed like a horrible move -- especially to everyone on board!  But he did the best that could be done under the extreme circumstances. There were some injuries, but the job was very, VERY well done. 

I predict that Obama's wisdom-beyond-his-years will eventually bring us to the softest landing possible.  And I feel it's really ignorant of people who are not in the cockpit of this out-of-control country to attack him when he's doing all he CAN do -- for this nation and for the world.  

That sense of service is where he came from and that's where he will take us -- with the injuries that do occur obviously being the fall-out from the previous NON-wise, NON-intelligent, NON-service-oriented assholes who ruled and wrecked since the turn of the century.  

Those years of long and horrendous momentum CANNOT just be brought to a screeching halt in only 3 months!

Connie




  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: andrew ritter 
  To: truth seekers 
  Sent: Monday, May 04, 2009 8:44 PM
  Subject: [CitizensTruth] Buying Brand Obama


  Buying Brand Obama
  by Chris Hedges

  Barack Obama is a brand. And the Obama brand is designed to make us feel good about our government while corporate overlords loot the Treasury, our elected officials continue to have their palms greased by armies of corporate lobbyists, our corporate media diverts us with gossip and trivia and our imperial wars expand in the Middle East. Brand Obama is about being happy consumers. We are entertained. We feel hopeful. We like our president. We believe he is like us. But like all branded products spun out from the manipulative world of corporate advertising, we are being duped into doing and supporting a lot of things that are not in our interest.
  What, for all our faith and hope, has the Obama brand given us? His administration has spent, lent or guaranteed $12.8 trillion in taxpayer dollars to Wall Street and insolvent banks in a doomed effort to reinflate the bubble economy, a tactic that at best forestalls catastrophe and will leave us broke in a time of profound crisis. Brand Obama has allocated nearly $1 trillion in defense-related spending and the continuation of our doomed imperial projects in Iraq, where military planners now estimate that 70,000 troops will remain for the next 15 to 20 years. Brand Obama has expanded the war in Afghanistan, including the use of drones sent on cross-border bombing runs into Pakistan that have doubled the number of civilians killed over the past three months. Brand Obama has refused to ease restrictions so workers can organize and will not consider single-payer, not-for-profit health care for all Americans. And Brand Obama will not prosecute the Bush administration for war crimes, including the use of torture, and has refused to dismantle Bush's secrecy laws or restore habeas corpus.  
  Brand Obama offers us an image that appears radically individualistic and new. It inoculates us from seeing that the old engines of corporate power and the vast military-industrial complex continue to plunder the country. Corporations, which control our politics, no longer produce products that are essentially different, but brands that are different. Brand Obama does not threaten the core of the corporate state any more than did Brand George W. Bush. The Bush brand collapsed. We became immune to its studied folksiness. We saw through its artifice. This is a common deflation in the world of advertising. So we have been given a new Obama brand with an exciting and faintly erotic appeal. Benetton and Calvin Klein were the precursors to the Obama brand, using ads to associate themselves with risqu? art and progressive politics. It gave their products an edge. But the goal, as with all brands, was to make passive consumers mistake a brand with an experience.  
  "The abandonment of the radical economic foundations of the women's and civil-rights movements by the conflation of causes that came to be called political correctness successfully trained a generation of activists in the politics of image, not action," Naomi Klein wrote in "No Logo."
  Obama, who has become a global celebrity, was molded easily into a brand. He had almost no experience, other than two years in the Senate, lacked any moral core and could be painted as all things to all people. His brief Senate voting record was a miserable surrender to corporate interests. He was happy to promote nuclear power as "green" energy. He voted to continue the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He reauthorized the Patriot Act. He would not back a bill designed to cap predatory credit card interest rates. He opposed a bill that would have reformed the notorious Mining Law of 1872. He refused to support the single-payer health care bill HR676, sponsored by Reps. Dennis Kucinich and John Conyers. He supported the death penalty. And he backed a class-action "reform" bill that was part of a large lobbying effort by financial firms. The law, known as the Class Action Fairness Act, would effectively shut down state courts as a venue to hear most class-action lawsuits and deny redress in many of the courts where these cases have a chance of defying powerful corporate challenges.  
  While Gaza was being bombarded and hit with airstrikes in the weeks before Obama took office, "the Obama team let it be known that it would not object to the planned resupply of ?smart bombs' and other hi-tech ordnance that was already flowing to Israel," according to Seymour Hersh. Even his one vaunted anti-war speech as a state senator, perhaps his single real act of defiance, was swiftly reversed. He told the Chicago Tribune on July 27, 2004, that "there's not that much difference between my position and George Bush's position at this stage. The difference, in my mind, is who's in a position to execute." And unlike anti-war stalwarts like Kucinich, who gave hundreds of speeches against the war, Obama then dutifully stood silent until the Iraq war became unpopular. 
  Obama's campaign won the vote of hundreds of marketers, agency heads and marketing-services vendors gathered at the Association of National Advertisers' annual conference in October. The Obama campaign was named Advertising Age's marketer of the year for 2008 and edged out runners-up Apple and Zappos.com. Take it from the professionals. Brand Obama is a marketer's dream. President Obama does one thing and Brand Obama gets you to believe another. This is the essence of successful advertising. You buy or do what the advertiser wants because of how they can make you feel.  
  Celebrity culture has leeched into every aspect of our culture, including politics, to bequeath to us what Benjamin DeMott called "junk politics." Junk politics does not demand justice or the reparation of rights. Junk politics personalizes and moralizes issues rather than clarifying them. "It's impatient with articulated conflict, enthusiastic about America's optimism and moral character, and heavily dependent on feel-your-pain language and gesture," DeMott noted. The result of junk politics is that nothing changes - "meaning zero interruption in the processes and practices that strengthen existing, interlocking systems of socioeconomic advantage." It redefines traditional values, tilting "courage toward braggadocio, sympathy toward mawkishness, humility toward self-disrespect, identification with ordinary citizens toward distrust of brains." Junk politics "miniaturizes large, complex problems at home while maximizing threats from abroad. It's also given to abrupt unexplained reversals of its own public stances, often spectacularly bloating problems previously miniaturized." And finally, it "seeks at every turn to obliterate voters' consciousness of socioeconomic and other differences in their midst."  
  An image-based culture, one dominated by junk politics, communicates through narratives, pictures and carefully orchestrated spectacle and manufactured pseudo-drama. Scandalous affairs, hurricanes, earthquakes, untimely deaths, lethal new viruses, train wrecks-these events play well on computer screens and television. International diplomacy, labor union negotiations and convoluted bailout packages do not yield exciting personal narratives or stimulating images. A governor who patronizes call girls becomes a huge news story. A politician who proposes serious regulatory reform, universal health care or advocates curbing wasteful spending is boring. Kings, queens and emperors once used their court conspiracies to divert their subjects. Today cinematic, political and journalistic celebrities distract us with their personal foibles and scandals. They create our public mythology. Acting, politics and sports have become, as they were during the reign of Nero, interchangeable.  
  In an age of images and entertainment, in an age of instant emotional gratification, we do not seek reality. Reality is complicated. Reality is boring. We are incapable or unwilling to handle its confusion. We ask to be indulged and comforted by clich?s, stereotypes and inspirational messages that tell us we can be whoever we seek to be, that we live in the greatest country on Earth, that we are endowed with superior moral and physical qualities, and that our future will always be glorious and prosperous, either because of our own attributes, or our national character, or because we are blessed by God. Reality is not accepted as an impediment to our desires. Reality does not make us feel good.  
  In his book "Public Opinion," Walter Lippmann distinguished between "the world outside and the pictures in our heads." He defined a "stereotype" as an oversimplified pattern that helps us find meaning in the world. Lippmann cited examples of the crude "stereotypes we carry about in our heads" of whole groups of people such as "Germans," "South Europeans," "Negroes," "Harvard men," "agitators" and others. These stereotypes, Lippmann noted, give a reassuring and false consistency to the chaos of existence. They offer easily grasped explanations of reality and are closer to propaganda because they simplify rather than complicate. 
  Pseudo-events-dramatic productions orchestrated by publicists, political machines, television, Hollywood or advertisers-however, are very different. They have, as Daniel Boorstin wrote in "The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-Events in America," the capacity to appear real even though we know they are staged. They are capable, because they can evoke a powerful emotional response, of overwhelming reality and replacing reality with a fictional narrative that often becomes accepted truth. The unmasking of a stereotype damages and often destroys its credibility. But pseudo-events, whether they show the president in an auto plant or a soup kitchen or addressing troops in Iraq, are immune to this deflation. The exposure of the elaborate mechanisms behind the pseudo-event only adds to its fascination and its power. This is the basis of the convoluted television reporting on how effectively political campaigns and politicians have been stage-managed. Reporters, especially those on television, no longer ask if the message is true but if the pseudo-event worked or did not work as political theater. Pseudo-events are judged on how effectively we have been manipulated by illusion. Those events that appear real are relished and lauded. Those that fail to create a believable illusion are deemed failures. Truth is irrelevant. Those who succeed in politics, as in most of the culture, are those who create the brands and pseudo-events that offer the most convincing fantasies. And this is the art Obama has mastered.
  A public that can no longer distinguish between truth and fiction is left to interpret reality through illusion. Random facts or obscure bits of data and trivia are used to bolster illusion and give it credibility or are discarded if they interfere with the message. The worse reality becomes-the more, for example, foreclosures and unemployment skyrocket-the more people seek refuge and comfort in illusions. When opinions cannot be distinguished from facts, when there is no universal standard to determine truth in law, in science, in scholarship, or in reporting the events of the day, when the most valued skill is the ability to entertain, the world becomes a place where lies become true, where people can believe what they want to believe. This is the real danger of pseudo-events and why pseudo-events are far more pernicious than stereotypes. They do not explain reality, as stereotypes attempt to, but replace reality. Pseudo-events redefine reality by the parameters set by their creators. These creators, who make massive profits peddling these illusions, have a vested interest in maintaining the power structures they control.  
  The old production-oriented culture demanded what the historian Warren Susman termed character. The new consumption-oriented culture demands what he called personality. The shift in values is a shift from a fixed morality to the artifice of presentation. The old cultural values of thrift and moderation honored hard work, integrity and courage. The consumption-oriented culture honors charm, fascination and likability. "The social role demanded of all in the new culture of personality was that of a performer," Susman wrote. "Every American was to become a performing self."
  The junk politics practiced by Obama is a consumer fraud. It is about performance. It is about lies. It is about keeping us in a perpetual state of childishness. But the longer we live in illusion, the worse reality will be when it finally shatters our fantasies. Those who do not understand what is happening around them and who are overwhelmed by a brutal reality they did not expect or foresee search desperately for saviors. They beg demagogues to come to their rescue. This is the ultimate danger of the Obama Brand. It effectively masks the wanton internal destruction and theft being carried out by our corporate state. These corporations, once they have stolen trillions in taxpayer wealth, will leave tens of millions of Americans bereft, bewildered and yearning for even more potent and deadly illusions, ones that could swiftly snuff out what is left of our diminished open society.

  ? 2009 TruthDig.com
  Chris Hedges writes a regular column for Truthdig.com. Hedges graduated from Harvard Divinity School and was for nearly two decades a foreign correspondent for The New York Times. He is the author of many books, including: War Is A Force That Gives Us Meaning, What Every Person Should Know About War, and American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America.  His most recent book, Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle, will be out in July, but is available for pre-order. 


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From welaware at merr.com  Tue May  5 08:23:06 2009
From: welaware at merr.com (Kris Knight)
Date: Tue, 5 May 2009 07:23:06 -0500
Subject: [CitizensTruth] Buying Brand Obama
In-Reply-To: <A4C183765AD547D49A426DD0584D49E1@InspironConnie>
References: <BLU123-W27389C6EE29360D905C315BE690@phx.gbl>
	<A4C183765AD547D49A426DD0584D49E1@InspironConnie>
Message-ID: <299D13FC-BF87-4F9A-8016-C0546EECED6A@merr.com>

Well said, Connie!!!  I had a slightly different metaphor that I  
thought of, having been raised more familiar with animals than ocean  
liners...I have described Obama's task as being similar to a new  
person to the team, standing on a wagon, with TWO small leather reins  
in his hand, and a team of 12 huge, incredibly strong horses harnessed  
in,  and he is expected to get them to go somewhere as soon as  
possible, through steering, a dearth of vocal commands and a  
tremendous lot of balls.  If you've ever seen this feat, even with a  
driver who the horses know, it is extraordinary.  Especially when one  
or more of these huge horses have other things in mind.

I think we also need to remind ourselves of all that is going on that  
we cannot see, and we need to use current knowledge of the power of  
our own thoughts/intention to help steer the direction of life around  
us, both far and near.  If all you do is keep up to date with what you  
think is reality through conventional media and conversation groups,  
you are merely participating in yet another form of fundamentalism and  
narrowmindedness.  What is mostly conversed about through this  
conversation group is a very, very narrow part of the spectrum of  
reality, and let us remind ourselves of this.  C'mon, we're bigger  
than that, folks.  Or at least, reality surely is.  If we are truly  
truth seekers, I think it is incumbent upon each of us to seek and  
intend for the largest and the finest outcomes we can each imagine.   
While at the same time keeping our fingers on the pulse of diverse  
viewpoints.

On May 5, 2009, at 1:56 AM, Connie Smith wrote:

>
>
> "Brand Obama" my foot.  The article-writer below worked 2 decades  
> for "Brand New York Times" -- while Obama helped poor people and  
> taught constitutional law.  Let's wait and see who turns out to be  
> the better man.
>
> Given his humanitarian-saturated upbringing, what Obama's probably  
> doing is duct-taping some societal structures for the short-term so  
> that they collapse (as they must) SLOWLY, instead of suddenly and  
> catastrophically -- and maneuvering to prevent his assassination,  
> which would certainly occur if he just fired all the nazis outright,  
> like JFK did.
>
> If you were in office, and if you were smart, you would proceed in  
> the same way.
>
> I myself have been immune to being a fan of ANYBODY.  As a young  
> newspaper reporter immediately out of school, I spent time with  
> celebrities like The Doors and The Lettermen and Robert Goulet and a  
> number of others who had big followings, but it was so clear to me  
> they were "just people" that I've forever been immune to any kind of  
> charisma.  However, I am attracted to good character.  (And that has  
> panned out very well in my life -- I am apparently a good judge of  
> it.)
>
> And I've never been susceptible to brand-names OF or ON anything --  
> only interested in the quality "of the product."  Obama's character  
> and quality have been clear and consistent (consistent as humanly  
> possible) since first observing him here in Illinois politics in  
> 1997. He is obviously not a product nor a brand, but a well-rounded  
> and highly intelligent human being.
>
> The criticisms of him strike me as short-sighted knee-jerk reactions  
> to a ship's captain who has had to take over AFTER the Titanic  
> struck the iceberg.  The wobbly emergency efforts to keep us from  
> suddenly sinking, and a long, slow turn (instead of an immediate  
> shift of the helm and a tip-over as a result) are scary but possibly  
> wise moves -- possibly the only relatively safe ones that can be made.
>
> When the pilot headed the commercial airliner for the Hudson River  
> in January, it seemed like a horrible move -- especially to everyone  
> on board!  But he did the best that could be done under the extreme  
> circumstances. There were some injuries, but the job was very, VERY  
> well done.
>
> I predict that Obama's wisdom-beyond-his-years will eventually bring  
> us to the softest landing possible.  And I feel it's really ignorant  
> of people who are not in the cockpit of this out-of-control country  
> to attack him when he's doing all he CAN do -- for this nation and  
> for the world.
>
> That sense of service is where he came from and that's where he will  
> take us -- with the injuries that do occur obviously being the fall- 
> out from the previous NON-wise, NON-intelligent, NON-service- 
> oriented assholes who ruled and wrecked since the turn of the century.
>
> Those years of long and horrendous momentum CANNOT just be brought  
> to a screeching halt in only 3 months!
>
> Connie
>
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: andrew ritter
> To: truth seekers
> Sent: Monday, May 04, 2009 8:44 PM
> Subject: [CitizensTruth] Buying Brand Obama
>
> Buying Brand Obama
>
> by Chris Hedges
> Barack Obama is a brand. And the Obama brand is designed to make us  
> feel good about our government while corporate overlords loot the  
> Treasury, our elected officials continue to have their palms greased  
> by armies of corporate lobbyists, our corporate media diverts us  
> with gossip and trivia and our imperial wars expand in the Middle  
> East. Brand Obama is about being happy consumers. We are  
> entertained. We feel hopeful. We like our president. We believe he  
> is like us. But like all branded products spun out from the  
> manipulative world of corporate advertising, we are being duped into  
> doing and supporting a lot of things that are not in our interest.
> What, for all our faith and hope, has the Obama brand given us? His  
> administration has spent, lent or guaranteed $12.8 trillion in  
> taxpayer dollars to Wall Street and insolvent banks in a doomed  
> effort to reinflate the bubble economy, a tactic that at best  
> forestalls catastrophe and will leave us broke in a time of profound  
> crisis. Brand Obama has allocated nearly $1 trillion in defense- 
> related spending and the continuation of our doomed imperial  
> projects in Iraq, where military planners now estimate that 70,000  
> troops will remain for the next 15 to 20 years. Brand Obama has  
> expanded the war in Afghanistan, including the use of drones sent on  
> cross-border bombing runs into Pakistan that have doubled the number  
> of civilians killed over the past three months. Brand Obama has  
> refused to ease restrictions so workers can organize and will not  
> consider single-payer, not-for-profit health care for all Americans.  
> And Brand Obama will not prosecute the Bush administration for war  
> crimes, including the use of torture, and has refused to dismantle  
> Bush's secrecy laws or restore habeas corpus.
> Brand Obama offers us an image that appears radically  
> individualistic and new. It inoculates us from seeing that the old  
> engines of corporate power and the vast military-industrial complex  
> continue to plunder the country. Corporations, which control our  
> politics, no longer produce products that are essentially different,  
> but brands that are different. Brand Obama does not threaten the  
> core of the corporate state any more than did Brand George W. Bush.  
> The Bush brand collapsed. We became immune to its studied  
> folksiness. We saw through its artifice. This is a common deflation  
> in the world of advertising. So we have been given a new Obama brand  
> with an exciting and faintly erotic appeal. Benetton and Calvin  
> Klein were the precursors to the Obama brand, using ads to associate  
> themselves with risqu? art and progressive politics. It gave their  
> products an edge. But the goal, as with all brands, was to make  
> passive consumers mistake a brand with an experience.
> "The abandonment of the radical economic foundations of the women's  
> and civil-rights movements by the conflation of causes that came to  
> be called political correctness successfully trained a generation of  
> activists in the politics of image, not action," Naomi Klein wrote  
> in "No Logo."
> Obama, who has become a global celebrity, was molded easily into a  
> brand. He had almost no experience, other than two years in the  
> Senate, lacked any moral core and could be painted as all things to  
> all people. His brief Senate voting record was a miserable surrender  
> to corporate interests. He was happy to promote nuclear power as  
> "green" energy. He voted to continue the wars in Iraq and  
> Afghanistan. He reauthorized the Patriot Act. He would not back a  
> bill designed to cap predatory credit card interest rates. He  
> opposed a bill that would have reformed the notorious Mining Law of  
> 1872. He refused to support the single-payer health care bill HR676,  
> sponsored by Reps. Dennis Kucinich and John Conyers. He supported  
> the death penalty. And he backed a class-action "reform" bill that  
> was part of a large lobbying effort by financial firms. The law,  
> known as the Class Action Fairness Act, would effectively shut down  
> state courts as a venue to hear most class-action lawsuits and deny  
> redress in many of the courts where these cases have a chance of  
> defying powerful corporate challenges.
> While Gaza was being bombarded and hit with airstrikes in the weeks  
> before Obama took office, "the Obama team let it be known that it  
> would not object to the planned resupply of ?smart bombs' and other  
> hi-tech ordnance that was already flowing to Israel," according to  
> Seymour Hersh. Even his one vaunted anti-war speech as a state  
> senator, perhaps his single real act of defiance, was swiftly  
> reversed. He told the Chicago Tribune on July 27, 2004, that  
> "there's not that much difference between my position and George  
> Bush's position at this stage. The difference, in my mind, is who's  
> in a position to execute." And unlike anti-war stalwarts like  
> Kucinich, who gave hundreds of speeches against the war, Obama then  
> dutifully stood silent until the Iraq war became unpopular.
> Obama's campaign won the vote of hundreds of marketers, agency heads  
> and marketing-services vendors gathered at the Association of  
> National Advertisers' annual conference in October. The Obama  
> campaign was named Advertising Age's marketer of the year for 2008  
> and edged out runners-up Apple and Zappos.com. Take it from the  
> professionals. Brand Obama is a marketer's dream. President Obama  
> does one thing and Brand Obama gets you to believe another. This is  
> the essence of successful advertising. You buy or do what the  
> advertiser wants because of how they can make you feel.
> Celebrity culture has leeched into every aspect of our culture,  
> including politics, to bequeath to us what Benjamin DeMott called  
> "junk politics." Junk politics does not demand justice or the  
> reparation of rights. Junk politics personalizes and moralizes  
> issues rather than clarifying them. "It's impatient with articulated  
> conflict, enthusiastic about America's optimism and moral character,  
> and heavily dependent on feel-your-pain language and gesture,"  
> DeMott noted. The result of junk politics is that nothing changes -  
> "meaning zero interruption in the processes and practices that  
> strengthen existing, interlocking systems of socioeconomic  
> advantage." It redefines traditional values, tilting "courage toward  
> braggadocio, sympathy toward mawkishness, humility toward self- 
> disrespect, identification with ordinary citizens toward distrust of  
> brains." Junk politics "miniaturizes large, complex problems at home  
> while maximizing threats from abroad. It's also given to abrupt  
> unexplained reversals of its own public stances, often spectacularly  
> bloating problems previously miniaturized." And finally, it "seeks  
> at every turn to obliterate voters' consciousness of socioeconomic  
> and other differences in their midst."
> An image-based culture, one dominated by junk politics, communicates  
> through narratives, pictures and carefully orchestrated spectacle  
> and manufactured pseudo-drama. Scandalous affairs, hurricanes,  
> earthquakes, untimely deaths, lethal new viruses, train wrecks-these  
> events play well on computer screens and television. International  
> diplomacy, labor union negotiations and convoluted bailout packages  
> do not yield exciting personal narratives or stimulating images. A  
> governor who patronizes call girls becomes a huge news story. A  
> politician who proposes serious regulatory reform, universal health  
> care or advocates curbing wasteful spending is boring. Kings, queens  
> and emperors once used their court conspiracies to divert their  
> subjects. Today cinematic, political and journalistic celebrities  
> distract us with their personal foibles and scandals. They create  
> our public mythology. Acting, politics and sports have become, as  
> they were during the reign of Nero, interchangeable.
> In an age of images and entertainment, in an age of instant  
> emotional gratification, we do not seek reality. Reality is  
> complicated. Reality is boring. We are incapable or unwilling to  
> handle its confusion. We ask to be indulged and comforted by  
> clich?s, stereotypes and inspirational messages that tell us we can  
> be whoever we seek to be, that we live in the greatest country on  
> Earth, that we are endowed with superior moral and physical  
> qualities, and that our future will always be glorious and  
> prosperous, either because of our own attributes, or our national  
> character, or because we are blessed by God. Reality is not accepted  
> as an impediment to our desires. Reality does not make us feel good.
> In his book "Public Opinion," Walter Lippmann distinguished between  
> "the world outside and the pictures in our heads." He defined a  
> "stereotype" as an oversimplified pattern that helps us find meaning  
> in the world. Lippmann cited examples of the crude "stereotypes we  
> carry about in our heads" of whole groups of people such as  
> "Germans," "South Europeans," "Negroes," "Harvard men," "agitators"  
> and others. These stereotypes, Lippmann noted, give a reassuring and  
> false consistency to the chaos of existence. They offer easily  
> grasped explanations of reality and are closer to propaganda because  
> they simplify rather than complicate.
> Pseudo-events-dramatic productions orchestrated by publicists,  
> political machines, television, Hollywood or advertisers-however,  
> are very different. They have, as Daniel Boorstin wrote in "The  
> Image: A Guide to Pseudo-Events in America," the capacity to appear  
> real even though we know they are staged. They are capable, because  
> they can evoke a powerful emotional response, of overwhelming  
> reality and replacing reality with a fictional narrative that often  
> becomes accepted truth. The unmasking of a stereotype damages and  
> often destroys its credibility. But pseudo-events, whether they show  
> the president in an auto plant or a soup kitchen or addressing  
> troops in Iraq, are immune to this deflation. The exposure of the  
> elaborate mechanisms behind the pseudo-event only adds to its  
> fascination and its power. This is the basis of the convoluted  
> television reporting on how effectively political campaigns and  
> politicians have been stage-managed. Reporters, especially those on  
> television, no longer ask if the message is true but if the pseudo- 
> event worked or did not work as political theater. Pseudo-events are  
> judged on how effectively we have been manipulated by illusion.  
> Those events that appear real are relished and lauded. Those that  
> fail to create a believable illusion are deemed failures. Truth is  
> irrelevant. Those who succeed in politics, as in most of the  
> culture, are those who create the brands and pseudo-events that  
> offer the most convincing fantasies. And this is the art Obama has  
> mastered.
> A public that can no longer distinguish between truth and fiction is  
> left to interpret reality through illusion. Random facts or obscure  
> bits of data and trivia are used to bolster illusion and give it  
> credibility or are discarded if they interfere with the message. The  
> worse reality becomes-the more, for example, foreclosures and  
> unemployment skyrocket-the more people seek refuge and comfort in  
> illusions. When opinions cannot be distinguished from facts, when  
> there is no universal standard to determine truth in law, in  
> science, in scholarship, or in reporting the events of the day, when  
> the most valued skill is the ability to entertain, the world becomes  
> a place where lies become true, where people can believe what they  
> want to believe. This is the real danger of pseudo-events and why  
> pseudo-events are far more pernicious than stereotypes. They do not  
> explain reality, as stereotypes attempt to, but replace reality.  
> Pseudo-events redefine reality by the parameters set by their  
> creators. These creators, who make massive profits peddling these  
> illusions, have a vested interest in maintaining the power  
> structures they control.
> The old production-oriented culture demanded what the historian  
> Warren Susman termed character. The new consumption-oriented culture  
> demands what he called personality. The shift in values is a shift  
> from a fixed morality to the artifice of presentation. The old  
> cultural values of thrift and moderation honored hard work,  
> integrity and courage. The consumption-oriented culture honors  
> charm, fascination and likability. "The social role demanded of all  
> in the new culture of personality was that of a performer," Susman  
> wrote. "Every American was to become a performing self."
> The junk politics practiced by Obama is a consumer fraud. It is  
> about performance. It is about lies. It is about keeping us in a  
> perpetual state of childishness. But the longer we live in illusion,  
> the worse reality will be when it finally shatters our fantasies.  
> Those who do not understand what is happening around them and who  
> are overwhelmed by a brutal reality they did not expect or foresee  
> search desperately for saviors. They beg demagogues to come to their  
> rescue. This is the ultimate danger of the Obama Brand. It  
> effectively masks the wanton internal destruction and theft being  
> carried out by our corporate state. These corporations, once they  
> have stolen trillions in taxpayer wealth, will leave tens of  
> millions of Americans bereft, bewildered and yearning for even more  
> potent and deadly illusions, ones that could swiftly snuff out what  
> is left of our diminished open society.
> ? 2009 TruthDig.com
> Chris Hedges writes a regular column for Truthdig.com. Hedges  
> graduated from Harvard Divinity School and was for nearly two  
> decades a foreign correspondent for The New York Times. He is the  
> author of many books, including: War Is A Force That Gives Us  
> Meaning, What Every Person Should Know About War, and American  
> Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America.  His most  
> recent book,Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph  
> of Spectacle, will be out in July, but is available for pre-order.
>
> Hotmail? has ever-growing storage! Don?t worry about storage limits.  
> Check it out.
> _______________________________________________
> CitizensTruth mailing list
> CitizensTruth at six.pairlist.net
> http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/citizenstruth
> website: http://citizenstruth.info
> _______________________________________________
> CitizensTruth mailing list
> CitizensTruth at six.pairlist.net
> http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/citizenstruth
> website: http://citizenstruth.info

Kris Knight of WellAware Life Enhancement Center
Phone:  1-608-ALL-LIFE
welaware at merr.com






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From edward_rynearson at yahoo.com  Tue May  5 09:09:34 2009
From: edward_rynearson at yahoo.com (Edward Rynearson)
Date: Tue, 5 May 2009 06:09:34 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [CitizensTruth] Brand Obama
Message-ID: <386640.1699.qm@web30002.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

I agree with Chris Hedges.? 
?
Ed Rynearson
?

--- On Tue, 5/5/09, citizenstruth-request at six.pairlist.net <citizenstruth-request at six.pairlist.net> wrote:


From: citizenstruth-request at six.pairlist.net <citizenstruth-request at six.pairlist.net>
Subject: CitizensTruth Digest, Vol 47, Issue 5
To: citizenstruth at six.pairlist.net
Date: Tuesday, May 5, 2009, 1:56 AM


Send CitizensTruth mailing list submissions to
??? citizenstruth at six.pairlist.net

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Today's Topics:

???1. Re: Buying Brand Obama (Connie Smith)


----------------------------------------------------------------------

Message: 1
Date: Tue, 5 May 2009 01:56:32 -0500
From: "Connie Smith" <dimension04 at sbcglobal.net>
Subject: Re: [CitizensTruth] Buying Brand Obama
To: "andrew ritter" <aroyboy44 at hotmail.com>,??? "truth seekers"
??? <citizenstruth at six.pairlist.net>
Message-ID: <A4C183765AD547D49A426DD0584D49E1 at InspironConnie>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="windows-1252"



"Brand Obama" my foot.? The article-writer below worked 2 decades for "Brand New York Times" -- while Obama helped poor people and taught constitutional law.? Let's wait and see who turns out to be the better man.? 

Given his humanitarian-saturated upbringing, what Obama's probably doing is duct-taping some societal structures for the short-term so that they collapse (as they must) SLOWLY, instead of suddenly and catastrophically -- and maneuvering to prevent his assassination, which would certainly occur if he just fired all the nazis outright, like JFK did.

If you were in office, and if you were smart, you would proceed in the same way.

I myself have been immune to being a fan of ANYBODY.? As a young newspaper reporter immediately out of school, I spent time with celebrities like The Doors and The Lettermen and Robert Goulet and a number of others who had big followings, but it was so clear to me they were "just people" that I've forever been immune to any kind of charisma.? However, I am attracted to good character.? (And that has panned out very well in my life -- I am apparently a good judge of it.)

And I've never been susceptible to brand-names OF or ON anything -- only interested in the quality "of the product."? Obama's character and quality have been clear and consistent (consistent as humanly possible) since first observing him here in Illinois politics in 1997. He is obviously not a product nor a brand, but a well-rounded and highly intelligent human being.

The criticisms of him strike me as short-sighted knee-jerk reactions to a ship's captain who has had to take over AFTER the Titanic struck the iceberg.? The wobbly emergency efforts to keep us from suddenly sinking, and a long, slow turn (instead of an immediate shift of the helm and a tip-over as a result) are scary but possibly wise moves -- possibly the only relatively safe ones that can be made.? 

When the pilot headed the commercial airliner for the Hudson River in January, it seemed like a horrible move -- especially to everyone on board!? But he did the best that could be done under the extreme circumstances. There were some injuries, but the job was very, VERY well done. 

I predict that Obama's wisdom-beyond-his-years will eventually bring us to the softest landing possible.? And I feel it's really ignorant of people who are not in the cockpit of this out-of-control country to attack him when he's doing all he CAN do -- for this nation and for the world.? 

That sense of service is where he came from and that's where he will take us -- with the injuries that do occur obviously being the fall-out from the previous NON-wise, NON-intelligent, NON-service-oriented assholes who ruled and wrecked since the turn of the century.? 

Those years of long and horrendous momentum CANNOT just be brought to a screeching halt in only 3 months!

Connie




? ----- Original Message ----- 
? From: andrew ritter 
? To: truth seekers 
? Sent: Monday, May 04, 2009 8:44 PM
? Subject: [CitizensTruth] Buying Brand Obama


? Buying Brand Obama
? by Chris Hedges

? Barack Obama is a brand. And the Obama brand is designed to make us feel good about our government while corporate overlords loot the Treasury, our elected officials continue to have their palms greased by armies of corporate lobbyists, our corporate media diverts us with gossip and trivia and our imperial wars expand in the Middle East. Brand Obama is about being happy consumers. We are entertained. We feel hopeful. We like our president. We believe he is like us. But like all branded products spun out from the manipulative world of corporate advertising, we are being duped into doing and supporting a lot of things that are not in our interest.
? What, for all our faith and hope, has the Obama brand given us? His administration has spent, lent or guaranteed $12.8 trillion in taxpayer dollars to Wall Street and insolvent banks in a doomed effort to reinflate the bubble economy, a tactic that at best forestalls catastrophe and will leave us broke in a time of profound crisis. Brand Obama has allocated nearly $1 trillion in defense-related spending and the continuation of our doomed imperial projects in Iraq, where military planners now estimate that 70,000 troops will remain for the next 15 to 20 years. Brand Obama has expanded the war in Afghanistan, including the use of drones sent on cross-border bombing runs into Pakistan that have doubled the number of civilians killed over the past three months. Brand Obama has refused to ease restrictions so workers can organize and will not consider single-payer, not-for-profit health care for all Americans. And Brand Obama will not prosecute the Bush
 administration for war cr
imes, including the use of torture, and has refused to dismantle Bush's secrecy laws or restore habeas corpus.? 
? Brand Obama offers us an image that appears radically individualistic and new. It inoculates us from seeing that the old engines of corporate power and the vast military-industrial complex continue to plunder the country. Corporations, which control our politics, no longer produce products that are essentially different, but brands that are different. Brand Obama does not threaten the core of the corporate state any more than did Brand George W. Bush. The Bush brand collapsed. We became immune to its studied folksiness. We saw through its artifice. This is a common deflation in the world of advertising. So we have been given a new Obama brand with an exciting and faintly erotic appeal. Benetton and Calvin Klein were the precursors to the Obama brand, using ads to associate themselves with risqu? art and progressive politics. It gave their products an edge. But the goal, as with all brands, was to make passive consumers mistake a brand with an
 experience.? 
? "The abandonment of the radical economic foundations of the women's and civil-rights movements by the conflation of causes that came to be called political correctness successfully trained a generation of activists in the politics of image, not action," Naomi Klein wrote in "No Logo."
? Obama, who has become a global celebrity, was molded easily into a brand. He had almost no experience, other than two years in the Senate, lacked any moral core and could be painted as all things to all people. His brief Senate voting record was a miserable surrender to corporate interests. He was happy to promote nuclear power as "green" energy. He voted to continue the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He reauthorized the Patriot Act. He would not back a bill designed to cap predatory credit card interest rates. He opposed a bill that would have reformed the notorious Mining Law of 1872. He refused to support the single-payer health care bill HR676, sponsored by Reps. Dennis Kucinich and John Conyers. He supported the death penalty. And he backed a class-action "reform" bill that was part of a large lobbying effort by financial firms. The law, known as the Class Action Fairness Act, would effectively shut down state courts as a venue to hear most
 class-action lawsuits and den
y redress in many of the courts where these cases have a chance of defying powerful corporate challenges.? 
? While Gaza was being bombarded and hit with airstrikes in the weeks before Obama took office, "the Obama team let it be known that it would not object to the planned resupply of ?smart bombs' and other hi-tech ordnance that was already flowing to Israel," according to Seymour Hersh. Even his one vaunted anti-war speech as a state senator, perhaps his single real act of defiance, was swiftly reversed. He told the Chicago Tribune on July 27, 2004, that "there's not that much difference between my position and George Bush's position at this stage. The difference, in my mind, is who's in a position to execute." And unlike anti-war stalwarts like Kucinich, who gave hundreds of speeches against the war, Obama then dutifully stood silent until the Iraq war became unpopular. 
? Obama's campaign won the vote of hundreds of marketers, agency heads and marketing-services vendors gathered at the Association of National Advertisers' annual conference in October. The Obama campaign was named Advertising Age's marketer of the year for 2008 and edged out runners-up Apple and Zappos.com. Take it from the professionals. Brand Obama is a marketer's dream. President Obama does one thing and Brand Obama gets you to believe another. This is the essence of successful advertising. You buy or do what the advertiser wants because of how they can make you feel.? 
? Celebrity culture has leeched into every aspect of our culture, including politics, to bequeath to us what Benjamin DeMott called "junk politics." Junk politics does not demand justice or the reparation of rights. Junk politics personalizes and moralizes issues rather than clarifying them. "It's impatient with articulated conflict, enthusiastic about America's optimism and moral character, and heavily dependent on feel-your-pain language and gesture," DeMott noted. The result of junk politics is that nothing changes - "meaning zero interruption in the processes and practices that strengthen existing, interlocking systems of socioeconomic advantage." It redefines traditional values, tilting "courage toward braggadocio, sympathy toward mawkishness, humility toward self-disrespect, identification with ordinary citizens toward distrust of brains." Junk politics "miniaturizes large, complex problems at home while maximizing threats from abroad. It's also
 given to abrupt unexplai
ned reversals of its own public stances, often spectacularly bloating problems previously miniaturized." And finally, it "seeks at every turn to obliterate voters' consciousness of socioeconomic and other differences in their midst."? 
? An image-based culture, one dominated by junk politics, communicates through narratives, pictures and carefully orchestrated spectacle and manufactured pseudo-drama. Scandalous affairs, hurricanes, earthquakes, untimely deaths, lethal new viruses, train wrecks-these events play well on computer screens and television. International diplomacy, labor union negotiations and convoluted bailout packages do not yield exciting personal narratives or stimulating images. A governor who patronizes call girls becomes a huge news story. A politician who proposes serious regulatory reform, universal health care or advocates curbing wasteful spending is boring. Kings, queens and emperors once used their court conspiracies to divert their subjects. Today cinematic, political and journalistic celebrities distract us with their personal foibles and scandals. They create our public mythology. Acting, politics and sports have become, as they were during the reign of
 Nero, interchangeable.? 
? In an age of images and entertainment, in an age of instant emotional gratification, we do not seek reality. Reality is complicated. Reality is boring. We are incapable or unwilling to handle its confusion. We ask to be indulged and comforted by clich?s, stereotypes and inspirational messages that tell us we can be whoever we seek to be, that we live in the greatest country on Earth, that we are endowed with superior moral and physical qualities, and that our future will always be glorious and prosperous, either because of our own attributes, or our national character, or because we are blessed by God. Reality is not accepted as an impediment to our desires. Reality does not make us feel good.? 
? In his book "Public Opinion," Walter Lippmann distinguished between "the world outside and the pictures in our heads." He defined a "stereotype" as an oversimplified pattern that helps us find meaning in the world. Lippmann cited examples of the crude "stereotypes we carry about in our heads" of whole groups of people such as "Germans," "South Europeans," "Negroes," "Harvard men," "agitators" and others. These stereotypes, Lippmann noted, give a reassuring and false consistency to the chaos of existence. They offer easily grasped explanations of reality and are closer to propaganda because they simplify rather than complicate. 
? Pseudo-events-dramatic productions orchestrated by publicists, political machines, television, Hollywood or advertisers-however, are very different. They have, as Daniel Boorstin wrote in "The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-Events in America," the capacity to appear real even though we know they are staged. They are capable, because they can evoke a powerful emotional response, of overwhelming reality and replacing reality with a fictional narrative that often becomes accepted truth. The unmasking of a stereotype damages and often destroys its credibility. But pseudo-events, whether they show the president in an auto plant or a soup kitchen or addressing troops in Iraq, are immune to this deflation. The exposure of the elaborate mechanisms behind the pseudo-event only adds to its fascination and its power. This is the basis of the convoluted television reporting on how effectively political campaigns and politicians have been stage-managed. Reporters,
 especially those on televisi
on, no longer ask if the message is true but if the pseudo-event worked or did not work as political theater. Pseudo-events are judged on how effectively we have been manipulated by illusion. Those events that appear real are relished and lauded. Those that fail to create a believable illusion are deemed failures. Truth is irrelevant. Those who succeed in politics, as in most of the culture, are those who create the brands and pseudo-events that offer the most convincing fantasies. And this is the art Obama has mastered.
? A public that can no longer distinguish between truth and fiction is left to interpret reality through illusion. Random facts or obscure bits of data and trivia are used to bolster illusion and give it credibility or are discarded if they interfere with the message. The worse reality becomes-the more, for example, foreclosures and unemployment skyrocket-the more people seek refuge and comfort in illusions. When opinions cannot be distinguished from facts, when there is no universal standard to determine truth in law, in science, in scholarship, or in reporting the events of the day, when the most valued skill is the ability to entertain, the world becomes a place where lies become true, where people can believe what they want to believe. This is the real danger of pseudo-events and why pseudo-events are far more pernicious than stereotypes. They do not explain reality, as stereotypes attempt to, but replace reality. Pseudo-events redefine reality by
 the parameters set by th
eir creators. These creators, who make massive profits peddling these illusions, have a vested interest in maintaining the power structures they control.? 
? The old production-oriented culture demanded what the historian Warren Susman termed character. The new consumption-oriented culture demands what he called personality. The shift in values is a shift from a fixed morality to the artifice of presentation. The old cultural values of thrift and moderation honored hard work, integrity and courage. The consumption-oriented culture honors charm, fascination and likability. "The social role demanded of all in the new culture of personality was that of a performer," Susman wrote. "Every American was to become a performing self."
? The junk politics practiced by Obama is a consumer fraud. It is about performance. It is about lies. It is about keeping us in a perpetual state of childishness. But the longer we live in illusion, the worse reality will be when it finally shatters our fantasies. Those who do not understand what is happening around them and who are overwhelmed by a brutal reality they did not expect or foresee search desperately for saviors. They beg demagogues to come to their rescue. This is the ultimate danger of the Obama Brand. It effectively masks the wanton internal destruction and theft being carried out by our corporate state. These corporations, once they have stolen trillions in taxpayer wealth, will leave tens of millions of Americans bereft, bewildered and yearning for even more potent and deadly illusions, ones that could swiftly snuff out what is left of our diminished open society.

? ? 2009 TruthDig.com
? Chris Hedges writes a regular column for Truthdig.com. Hedges graduated from Harvard Divinity School and was for nearly two decades a foreign correspondent for The New York Times. He is the author of many books, including: War Is A Force That Gives Us Meaning, What Every Person Should Know About War, and American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America.? His most recent book, Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle, will be out in July, but is available for pre-order. 


------------------------------------------------------------------------------
? Hotmail? has ever-growing storage! Don?t worry about storage limits. Check it out. 


------------------------------------------------------------------------------


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From edward_rynearson at yahoo.com  Tue May  5 09:55:58 2009
From: edward_rynearson at yahoo.com (Edward Rynearson)
Date: Tue, 5 May 2009 06:55:58 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [CitizensTruth] The Obama Deception - A Review
Message-ID: <857021.13324.qm@web30008.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

"Though Obama gets top billing in this movie the film isn?t that much about our spruce pack-a-day new Prez. What it breaks down is the false left-right paradigm, the military industrial owned and therefore controlled mainstream media and the unholy alliance between the Federal Government and the private offshore banking cartel that is the Federal Reserve. The Federal Reserve is the crack dealing money machine to the Federal Government which has been an addict of fiat money since 1913 when Woodrow Wilson sold our country out to the Wall Street den of vipers and thieves. This is the film that will finally get people to understand that there is a shadow government behind the puppet government. It is run by the Rothschild-Rockefeller-British & Dutch Royal Family and assorted Bilderberg cohorts. This is the Anglo-American Empire exposed and Jones does better in exposing the great lie in The Obama Deception than any other film on the subject to date, even
 his own earlier films."
?
http://edwardrynearson.wordpress.com/2009/03/15/review-the-obama-deception-by-alex-jones/
?
(Full length YouTube at the bottom of the page - please watch - information can't hurt you - if you feel threatened by information then you need to examine why)
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From rmigalla at earthlink.net  Tue May  5 10:57:31 2009
From: rmigalla at earthlink.net (Robin Migalla)
Date: Tue, 5 May 2009 09:57:31 -0500
Subject: [CitizensTruth] Brand Obama
Message-ID: <01C9CD67.E8C1A460.rmigalla@earthlink.net>

Hi Andrew, Connie, Kris, Ed, and all other Truth Seekers among our small 
community,

I must confess, Andrew, when I first opened your initial message, I was 
overwhelmed by too many words and quickly deleted it without reading it. 
 The subsequent conversation between Connie, Kris, and Ed piqued my 
interest.  I have a few thoughts I'd like to share.  Lest we personalize 
and moralize issues rather than clarifying them, let's try looking at just 
the facts in Chris Hedges piece.  As far as I can tell the list below 
summarizes these facts (I put braces around items that could render a 
statement that might otherwise be known as fact as personalizing or 
moralizing):

1) His [Obama's] administration has spent, lent or guaranteed $12.8 
trillion in taxpayer dollars to Wall Street and insolvent banks in a doomed 
effort to reinflate the bubble economy...

2) {Brand} Obama has allocated nearly $1 trillion in defense-related 
spending and the continuation of our doomed imperial projects in Iraq, 
where military planners now estimate that 70,000 troops will remain for the 
next 15 to 20 years.

3) {Brand} Obama has expanded the war in Afghanistan, including the use of 
drones sent on cross-border bombing runs into Pakistan that have doubled 
the number of civilians killed over the past three months.

4) {Brand} Obama has refused to ease restrictions so workers can organize 
and will not consider single-payer, not-for-profit health care for all 
Americans.

5) {Brand} Obama will not prosecute the Bush  administration for war 
crimes, including the use of torture, and

6)  He [Obama] has refused to dismantle Bush's secrecy laws or restore 
habeas corpus.

7)  He [Obama] was {happy} to promote nuclear power as "green" energy.

8)  He [Obama] voted to continue the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

9)  He [Obama] reauthorized the Patriot Act.

10) He [Obama] would not back a bill designed to cap predatory credit card 
interest rates.

11)  He [Obama] opposed a bill that would have reformed the notorious 
Mining Law of 1872.

12)  He [Obama] refused to support the single-payer health care bill HR676, 
sponsored by Reps. Dennis Kucinich and John Conyers.

13) He [Obama] supported the death penalty.

14) He [Obama] backed a class-action "reform" bill that was part of a large 
lobbying effort by financial firms. The law, known as the Class Action 
Fairness Act...

15) While Gaza was being bombarded and hit with airstrikes in the weeks 
before Obama took office, "the Obama team let it be known that it would not 
object to the planned resupply of ?smart bombs' and other hi-tech ordnance 
that was already flowing to Israel," according to Seymour Hersh.

16) Even his [Obama's] {one vaunted} anti-war speech as a state senator, 
{perhaps his single real act of defiance}, was swiftly reversed. He told 
the Chicago Tribune on July 27, 2004, that "there's not that much 
difference between my position and George Bush's position at this stage. 
The difference, in my mind, is who's in a position to execute." And unlike 
anti-war stalwarts like Kucinich, who gave hundreds of speeches against the 
war, Obama then {dutifully} stood silent until the Iraq war became 
unpopular.

17)  Obama's campaign won the vote of hundreds of marketers, agency heads 
and marketing-services vendors gathered at the Association of National 
Advertisers' annual conference in October.

18)  The Obama campaign was named Advertising Age's marketer of the year 
for 2008 and edged out runners-up Apple and Zappos.com.

Given these facts, I'm not getting a warm fuzzy about Obama, yet.  Can 
anyone here refute these facts or clear up any confusion I'm having about 
them?

Thanks,
Robin


-----Original Message-----
From:	Edward Rynearson [SMTP:edward_rynearson at yahoo.com]
Sent:	Tuesday, May 05, 2009 08:10
To:	citizenstruth at six.pairlist.net
Subject:	[CitizensTruth] Brand Obama

I agree with Chris Hedges. 
 
Ed Rynearson
 

--- On Tue, 5/5/09, citizenstruth-request at six.pairlist.net 
<citizenstruth-request at six.pairlist.net> wrote:


From: citizenstruth-request at six.pairlist.net 
<citizenstruth-request at six.pairlist.net>
Subject: CitizensTruth Digest, Vol 47, Issue 5
To: citizenstruth at six.pairlist.net
Date: Tuesday, May 5, 2009, 1:56 AM


Send CitizensTruth mailing list submissions to
    citizenstruth at six.pairlist.net

To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit
    http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/citizenstruth
or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to
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When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
than "Re: Contents of CitizensTruth digest..."


Today's Topics:

   1. Re: Buying Brand Obama (Connie Smith)


----------------------------------------------------------------------

Message: 1
Date: Tue, 5 May 2009 01:56:32 -0500
From: "Connie Smith" <dimension04 at sbcglobal.net>
Subject: Re: [CitizensTruth] Buying Brand Obama
To: "andrew ritter" <aroyboy44 at hotmail.com>,    "truth seekers"
    <citizenstruth at six.pairlist.net>
Message-ID: <A4C183765AD547D49A426DD0584D49E1 at InspironConnie>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="windows-1252"



"Brand Obama" my foot.  The article-writer below worked 2 decades for 
"Brand New York Times" -- while Obama helped poor people and taught 
constitutional law.  Let's wait and see who turns out to be the better 
man. 

Given his humanitarian-saturated upbringing, what Obama's probably doing is 
duct-taping some societal structures for the short-term so that they 
collapse (as they must) SLOWLY, instead of suddenly and catastrophically -- 
and maneuvering to prevent his assassination, which would certainly occur 
if he just fired all the nazis outright, like JFK did.

If you were in office, and if you were smart, you would proceed in the same 
way.

I myself have been immune to being a fan of ANYBODY.  As a young newspaper 
reporter immediately out of school, I spent time with celebrities like The 
Doors and The Lettermen and Robert Goulet and a number of others who had 
big followings, but it was so clear to me they were "just people" that I've 
forever been immune to any kind of charisma.  However, I am attracted to 
good character.  (And that has panned out very well in my life -- I am 
apparently a good judge of it.)

And I've never been susceptible to brand-names OF or ON anything -- only 
interested in the quality "of the product."  Obama's character and quality 
have been clear and consistent (consistent as humanly possible) since first 
observing him here in Illinois politics in 1997. He is obviously not a 
product nor a brand, but a well-rounded and highly intelligent human being.

The criticisms of him strike me as short-sighted knee-jerk reactions to a 
ship's captain who has had to take over AFTER the Titanic struck the 
iceberg.  The wobbly emergency efforts to keep us from suddenly sinking, 
and a long, slow turn (instead of an immediate shift of the helm and a 
tip-over as a result) are scary but possibly wise moves -- possibly the 
only relatively safe ones that can be made. 

When the pilot headed the commercial airliner for the Hudson River in 
January, it seemed like a horrible move -- especially to everyone on 
board!  But he did the best that could be done under the extreme 
circumstances. There were some injuries, but the job was very, VERY well 
done.

I predict that Obama's wisdom-beyond-his-years will eventually bring us to 
the softest landing possible.  And I feel it's really ignorant of people 
who are not in the cockpit of this out-of-control country to attack him 
when he's doing all he CAN do -- for this nation and for the world. 

That sense of service is where he came from and that's where he will take 
us -- with the injuries that do occur obviously being the fall-out from the 
previous NON-wise, NON-intelligent, NON-service-oriented assholes who ruled 
and wrecked since the turn of the century. 

Those years of long and horrendous momentum CANNOT just be brought to a 
screeching halt in only 3 months!

Connie




  ----- Original Message -----
  From: andrew ritter
  To: truth seekers
  Sent: Monday, May 04, 2009 8:44 PM
  Subject: [CitizensTruth] Buying Brand Obama


  Buying Brand Obama
  by Chris Hedges

  Barack Obama is a brand. And the Obama brand is designed to make us feel 
good about our government while corporate overlords loot the Treasury, our 
elected officials continue to have their palms greased by armies of 
corporate lobbyists, our corporate media diverts us with gossip and trivia 
and our imperial wars expand in the Middle East. Brand Obama is about being 
happy consumers. We are entertained. We feel hopeful. We like our 
president. We believe he is like us. But like all branded products spun out 
from the manipulative world of corporate advertising, we are being duped 
into doing and supporting a lot of things that are not in our interest.
  What, for all our faith and hope, has the Obama brand given us? His 
administration has spent, lent or guaranteed $12.8 trillion in taxpayer 
dollars to Wall Street and insolvent banks in a doomed effort to reinflate 
the bubble economy, a tactic that at best forestalls catastrophe and will 
leave us broke in a time of profound crisis. Brand Obama has allocated 
nearly $1 trillion in defense-related spending and the continuation of our 
doomed imperial projects in Iraq, where military planners now estimate that 
70,000 troops will remain for the next 15 to 20 years. Brand Obama has 
expanded the war in Afghanistan, including the use of drones sent on 
cross-border bombing runs into Pakistan that have doubled the number of 
civilians killed over the past three months. Brand Obama has refused to 
ease restrictions so workers can organize and will not consider 
single-payer, not-for-profit health care for all Americans. And Brand Obama 
will not prosecute the Bush
 administration for war cr
imes, including the use of torture, and has refused to dismantle Bush's 
secrecy laws or restore habeas corpus. 
  Brand Obama offers us an image that appears radically individualistic and 
new. It inoculates us from seeing that the old engines of corporate power 
and the vast military-industrial complex continue to plunder the country. 
Corporations, which control our politics, no longer produce products that 
are essentially different, but brands that are different. Brand Obama does 
not threaten the core of the corporate state any more than did Brand George 
W. Bush. The Bush brand collapsed. We became immune to its studied 
folksiness. We saw through its artifice. This is a common deflation in the 
world of advertising. So we have been given a new Obama brand with an 
exciting and faintly erotic appeal. Benetton and Calvin Klein were the 
precursors to the Obama brand, using ads to associate themselves with 
risqu? art and progressive politics. It gave their products an edge. But 
the goal, as with all brands, was to make passive consumers mistake a brand 
with an
 experience. 
  "The abandonment of the radical economic foundations of the women's and 
civil-rights movements by the conflation of causes that came to be called 
political correctness successfully trained a generation of activists in the 
politics of image, not action," Naomi Klein wrote in "No Logo."
  Obama, who has become a global celebrity, was molded easily into a brand. 
He had almost no experience, other than two years in the Senate, lacked any 
moral core and could be painted as all things to all people. His brief 
Senate voting record was a miserable surrender to corporate interests. He 
was happy to promote nuclear power as "green" energy. He voted to continue 
the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He reauthorized the Patriot Act. He would 
not back a bill designed to cap predatory credit card interest rates. He 
opposed a bill that would have reformed the notorious Mining Law of 1872. 
He refused to support the single-payer health care bill HR676, sponsored by 
Reps. Dennis Kucinich and John Conyers. He supported the death penalty. And 
he backed a class-action "reform" bill that was part of a large lobbying 
effort by financial firms. The law, known as the Class Action Fairness Act, 
would effectively shut down state courts as a venue to hear most
 class-action lawsuits and den
y redress in many of the courts where these cases have a chance of defying 
powerful corporate challenges. 
  While Gaza was being bombarded and hit with airstrikes in the weeks 
before Obama took office, "the Obama team let it be known that it would not 
object to the planned resupply of ?smart bombs' and other hi-tech ordnance 
that was already flowing to Israel," according to Seymour Hersh. Even his 
one vaunted anti-war speech as a state senator, perhaps his single real act 
of defiance, was swiftly reversed. He told the Chicago Tribune on July 27, 
2004, that "there's not that much difference between my position and George 
Bush's position at this stage. The difference, in my mind, is who's in a 
position to execute." And unlike anti-war stalwarts like Kucinich, who gave 
hundreds of speeches against the war, Obama then dutifully stood silent 
until the Iraq war became unpopular.
  Obama's campaign won the vote of hundreds of marketers, agency heads and 
marketing-services vendors gathered at the Association of National 
Advertisers' annual conference in October. The Obama campaign was named 
Advertising Age's marketer of the year for 2008 and edged out runners-up 
Apple and Zappos.com. Take it from the professionals. Brand Obama is a 
marketer's dream. President Obama does one thing and Brand Obama gets you 
to believe another. This is the essence of successful advertising. You buy 
or do what the advertiser wants because of how they can make you feel. 
  Celebrity culture has leeched into every aspect of our culture, including 
politics, to bequeath to us what Benjamin DeMott called "junk politics." 
Junk politics does not demand justice or the reparation of rights. Junk 
politics personalizes and moralizes issues rather than clarifying them. 
"It's impatient with articulated conflict, enthusiastic about America's 
optimism and moral character, and heavily dependent on feel-your-pain 
language and gesture," DeMott noted. The result of junk politics is that 
nothing changes - "meaning zero interruption in the processes and practices 
that strengthen existing, interlocking systems of socioeconomic advantage." 
It redefines traditional values, tilting "courage toward braggadocio, 
sympathy toward mawkishness, humility toward self-disrespect, 
identification with ordinary citizens toward distrust of brains." Junk 
politics "miniaturizes large, complex problems at home while maximizing 
threats from abroad. It's also
 given to abrupt unexplai
ned reversals of its own public stances, often spectacularly bloating 
problems previously miniaturized." And finally, it "seeks at every turn to 
obliterate voters' consciousness of socioeconomic and other differences in 
their midst." 
  An image-based culture, one dominated by junk politics, communicates 
through narratives, pictures and carefully orchestrated spectacle and 
manufactured pseudo-drama. Scandalous affairs, hurricanes, earthquakes, 
untimely deaths, lethal new viruses, train wrecks-these events play well on 
computer screens and television. International diplomacy, labor union 
negotiations and convoluted bailout packages do not yield exciting personal 
narratives or stimulating images. A governor who patronizes call girls 
becomes a huge news story. A politician who proposes serious regulatory 
reform, universal health care or advocates curbing wasteful spending is 
boring. Kings, queens and emperors once used their court conspiracies to 
divert their subjects. Today cinematic, political and journalistic 
celebrities distract us with their personal foibles and scandals. They 
create our public mythology. Acting, politics and sports have become, as 
they were during the reign of
 Nero, interchangeable. 
  In an age of images and entertainment, in an age of instant emotional 
gratification, we do not seek reality. Reality is complicated. Reality is 
boring. We are incapable or unwilling to handle its confusion. We ask to be 
indulged and comforted by clich?s, stereotypes and inspirational messages 
that tell us we can be whoever we seek to be, that we live in the greatest 
country on Earth, that we are endowed with superior moral and physical 
qualities, and that our future will always be glorious and prosperous, 
either because of our own attributes, or our national character, or because 
we are blessed by God. Reality is not accepted as an impediment to our 
desires. Reality does not make us feel good. 
  In his book "Public Opinion," Walter Lippmann distinguished between "the 
world outside and the pictures in our heads." He defined a "stereotype" as 
an oversimplified pattern that helps us find meaning in the world. Lippmann 
cited examples of the crude "stereotypes we carry about in our heads" of 
whole groups of people such as "Germans," "South Europeans," "Negroes," 
"Harvard men," "agitators" and others. These stereotypes, Lippmann noted, 
give a reassuring and false consistency to the chaos of existence. They 
offer easily grasped explanations of reality and are closer to propaganda 
because they simplify rather than complicate.
  Pseudo-events-dramatic productions orchestrated by publicists, political 
machines, television, Hollywood or advertisers-however, are very different. 
They have, as Daniel Boorstin wrote in "The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-Events 
in America," the capacity to appear real even though we know they are 
staged. They are capable, because they can evoke a powerful emotional 
response, of overwhelming reality and replacing reality with a fictional 
narrative that often becomes accepted truth. The unmasking of a stereotype 
damages and often destroys its credibility. But pseudo-events, whether they 
show the president in an auto plant or a soup kitchen or addressing troops 
in Iraq, are immune to this deflation. The exposure of the elaborate 
mechanisms behind the pseudo-event only adds to its fascination and its 
power. This is the basis of the convoluted television reporting on how 
effectively political campaigns and politicians have been stage-managed. 
Reporters,
 especially those on televisi
on, no longer ask if the message is true but if the pseudo-event worked or 
did not work as political theater. Pseudo-events are judged on how 
effectively we have been manipulated by illusion. Those events that appear 
real are relished and lauded. Those that fail to create a believable 
illusion are deemed failures. Truth is irrelevant. Those who succeed in 
politics, as in most of the culture, are those who create the brands and 
pseudo-events that offer the most convincing fantasies. And this is the art 
Obama has mastered.
  A public that can no longer distinguish between truth and fiction is left 
to interpret reality through illusion. Random facts or obscure bits of data 
and trivia are used to bolster illusion and give it credibility or are 
discarded if they interfere with the message. The worse reality becomes-the 
more, for example, foreclosures and unemployment skyrocket-the more people 
seek refuge and comfort in illusions. When opinions cannot be distinguished 
from facts, when there is no universal standard to determine truth in law, 
in science, in scholarship, or in reporting the events of the day, when the 
most valued skill is the ability to entertain, the world becomes a place 
where lies become true, where people can believe what they want to believe. 
This is the real danger of pseudo-events and why pseudo-events are far more 
pernicious than stereotypes. They do not explain reality, as stereotypes 
attempt to, but replace reality. Pseudo-events redefine reality by
 the parameters set by th
eir creators. These creators, who make massive profits peddling these 
illusions, have a vested interest in maintaining the power structures they 
control. 
  The old production-oriented culture demanded what the historian Warren 
Susman termed character. The new consumption-oriented culture demands what 
he called personality. The shift in values is a shift from a fixed morality 
to the artifice of presentation. The old cultural values of thrift and 
moderation honored hard work, integrity and courage. The 
consumption-oriented culture honors charm, fascination and likability. "The 
social role demanded of all in the new culture of personality was that of a 
performer," Susman wrote. "Every American was to become a performing self."
  The junk politics practiced by Obama is a consumer fraud. It is about 
performance. It is about lies. It is about keeping us in a perpetual state 
of childishness. But the longer we live in illusion, the worse reality will 
be when it finally shatters our fantasies. Those who do not understand what 
is happening around them and who are overwhelmed by a brutal reality they 
did not expect or foresee search desperately for saviors. They beg 
demagogues to come to their rescue. This is the ultimate danger of the 
Obama Brand. It effectively masks the wanton internal destruction and theft 
being carried out by our corporate state. These corporations, once they 
have stolen trillions in taxpayer wealth, will leave tens of millions of 
Americans bereft, bewildered and yearning for even more potent and deadly 
illusions, ones that could swiftly snuff out what is left of our diminished 
open society.

  ? 2009 TruthDig.com
  Chris Hedges writes a regular column for Truthdig.com. Hedges graduated 
from Harvard Divinity School and was for nearly two decades a foreign 
correspondent for The New York Times. He is the author of many books, 
including: War Is A Force That Gives Us Meaning, What Every Person Should 
Know About War, and American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on 
America.  His most recent book, Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and 
the Triumph of Spectacle, will be out in July, but is available for 
pre-order.


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 << File: ATT00394.htm >>  << File: ATT00395.txt >> 

From dimension04 at sbcglobal.net  Tue May  5 11:26:38 2009
From: dimension04 at sbcglobal.net (Connie Smith)
Date: Tue, 5 May 2009 10:26:38 -0500
Subject: [CitizensTruth] The Obama Deception - A Review
In-Reply-To: <857021.13324.qm@web30008.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
References: <857021.13324.qm@web30008.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <BD0087163DDD4FDFBFB6DACD8134BC87@InspironConnie>



Awhile back, I began to watch The Obama Deception with interest -- I have always loved learning and knowing -- hence becoming an avid 9/11 Truther early on -- as well as reading everything I could get my hands on from the age of 5.

But in the first 5 minutes, I practically recoiled at the amateurish special effects and ominous sound track of "Deception" (yeah, good name -- but who's deceiving??) -- and then almost laughed that the manipulations were so transparent.  How can anyone trust the information -- or even follow it, spend their time on it -- when the manipulation is so crass?  

It sure made me disappointed in Alex Jones and wondering if he just wants to keep his gig going.  And why isn't everyone likewise distressed that if the facts about Obama are that bad, they sure don't need to be heavily tweaked with darkened images and spooky music.  That gives the production a big credibility problem, and that's a shame if genuine education is the intent.  

Connie
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Edward Rynearson 
  To: citizenstruth at six.pairlist.net 
  Sent: Tuesday, May 05, 2009 8:55 AM
  Subject: [CitizensTruth] The Obama Deception - A Review


        "Though Obama gets top billing in this movie the film isn?t that much about our spruce pack-a-day new Prez. What it breaks down is the false left-right paradigm, the military industrial owned and therefore controlled mainstream media and the unholy alliance between the Federal Government and the private offshore banking cartel that is the Federal Reserve. The Federal Reserve is the crack dealing money machine to the Federal Government which has been an addict of fiat money since 1913 when Woodrow Wilson sold our country out to the Wall Street den of vipers and thieves. This is the film that will finally get people to understand that there is a shadow government behind the puppet government. It is run by the Rothschild-Rockefeller-British & Dutch Royal Family and assorted Bilderberg cohorts. This is the Anglo-American Empire exposed and Jones does better in exposing the great lie in The Obama Deception than any other film on the subject to date, even his own earlier films."

        http://edwardrynearson.wordpress.com/2009/03/15/review-the-obama-deception-by-alex-jones/

        (Full length YouTube at the bottom of the page - please watch - information can't hurt you - if you feel threatened by information then you need to examine why) 



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From Walterb306 at cs.com  Tue May  5 11:43:12 2009
From: Walterb306 at cs.com (Walterb306 at cs.com)
Date: Tue, 5 May 2009 11:43:12 EDT
Subject: [CitizensTruth] ARTICLE-In Congress We Trust...Not
Message-ID: <c96.3d4640dd.3731b890@cs.com>

All,

Have recently returned from a long-awaited repeat trip to Washington, D.C.  
But this time to the street behind the Capitol Building, and behind the 
Mall with its impressive monuments, meant perhaps to distract citizens and 
visitors from the reality of the workings of our government, inclding the gangs 
of lobbyists seen up and down.

So, reading Sibel Edmonds's article is refreshing ... and sad.  How many of 
us have suspected as much.  Now someone with credibility and visibility 
puts it into words.

Who is to hold them accountable, if not us?

Beverley

http://www.bradblog.com/?p=7117

BRADBLOG.COM

Blogged by Sibel Edmonds
5-4-2009

IN CONGRESS WE TRUST?NOT

The former FBI translator and whistleblower suggests blackmail may be at 
the heart of Congressional refusal to bring accountability and oversight to 
its own members - such as both Hastert and Harman - in matters of espionage 
and national security
Exclusive to The BRAD BLOG...
Guest Editorial by Sibel Edmonds

I have been known to quote long-dead men in my past writings. Whether 
eloquently expressed thoughts by our founding fathers, or those artfully 
expressed by ancient Greek thinkers, these quotes have always done a better job 
starting or ending my thoughts - that tend to be expressed in long winding 
sentences. For this piece I am going to break with tradition and start with an 
appropriate quote from a living current senator, John Kerry: "It's a sad day 
when you have members of Congress who are literally criminals go 
undisciplined by their colleagues. No wonder people look at Washington and know this 
city is broken."

The people do indeed look at Washington and know that this city is 'badly' 
broken, Senator Kerry. The public confidence in our Congress has been 
declining drastically. Recent poll results highlight how the American people's 
trust in their Congress has hit rock bottom. A survey of progressive blogs 
easily confirms the rage rightfully directed at our Congress for abdicating its 
role of oversight and accountability. 

Activists scream about promised hearings that never took place - without 
explanation. They express outrage when investigations are dropped without any 
justification. And they genuinely wonder out loud why, especially after they 
helped secure a major victory for the Democrats. The same Democrats who had 
for years pointed fingers at their big bad Republican majority colleagues 
as the main impediment preventing them from fulfilling what was expected of 
them.

The recent stunning but not unexpected revelations regarding Jane Harman 
(D-CA) by the Congressional Quarterly provide us with a little glimpse into 
one of the main reasons behind the steady decline in the integrity of 
Congress. But the story is almost dead - ready to bite the dust, thanks to our 
mainstream media's insistence on burying 'real' issues or stories that delve deep 
into the causes of our nation's continuous downward slide. In this 
particular case, the 'thank you' should also be extended to certain blogosphere 
propagandists who, blinded by their partisanship, myopic in their assessments, 
and ignorant in their knowledge of the inner workings of our late Congress 
and intelligence agencies, helped in the post-burial cremation of this case.

Ironically but understandably, the Harman case has become one of rare 
unequivocal bipartisanship, when no one from either side of the partisan aisle 
utters a word. How many House or Senate Republicans have you heard screaming, 
or even better, calling for an investigation? The right wing remains silent. 
Some may have their hand, directly or indirectly, in the same AIPAC cookie 
jar. Others may still feel the heavy baggage of their own party's tainted 
colleagues; after all, they have had their share of Abramoffs, Hasterts and the
 like, silently lurking in the background, albeit dimmer every day. Some on 
the left, after an initial silence that easily could have been mistaken for 
shock, are jumping from one foot to the other, like a cat on a hot tin 
roof, making one excuse after another; playing the 'victims of Executive Branch 
eavesdropping' card, the same very 'evil doing' they happened to support 
vehemently. Some have been dialing their trusted guardian angels within the 
mainstream media and certain fairly visible alternative outlets. They need no 
longer worry, since these guardian angels seem to have blacked out the story, 
and have done so without the apparent need for much arm twisting...
Hastert Redux

I am going to rewind and take you back to September 2005, when Vanity Fair 
published an article , which, in addition to my case and the plight of 
National Security Whistleblowers, exposed the dark side of the then Speaker of 
the House, Dennis Hastert (R-IL), and the corroborated allegations of his 
illegal activities involving foreign agents and interests. 

Vanity Fair printed the story only after they made certain they were on 
sure footing in the face of any possible libel by lining up more than five 
credible sources, and after triple pit-bull style fact-checking. They were 
vindicated; Hastert did not dare go after them, nor did he ever issue any true 
denial. Moreover, further vindication occurred only a month ago. On April 10, 
2009, The Hill reported that the Former Speaker of the House was contracted 
to lobby for Turkey. The Justice Department record on this deal indicates 
that Hastert will now be "principally involved" on a $35,000-a-month contract 
providing representation for Turkish interests. That seems to be the current 
arrangement for those serving foreign interests while on the job in 
Congress --- to be paid at a later date, collecting on their IOU's when they secure 
their positions with 'the foreign lobby.'

In a recent article for American Conservative Magazine, Philip Giraldi, 
former CIA officer stationed in Turkey, made the following point: "Edmonds's 
claims have never been pursued, presumably because there are so many skeletons 
in both parties' closets. She has been served with a state-secrets gag 
order to make sure that what she knows is never revealed, a restriction that the 
new regime in Washington has not lifted."

And then, he hits the nail on its head: "In Hastert's case, it certainly 
should be a matter of public concern that a senior elected representative who 
may have received money from a foreign country is now officially lobbying on 
its behalf. How many other congressmen might have similar relationships 
with foreign countries and lobbying groups, providing them with golden 
parachutes for their retirement?"

Congress went mum on my case after the Vanity Fair story, with, of course, 
the mainstream media making it very easy for them. They turned bipartisan in 
not pursuing the case, with the same zeal as they have, so far, not pursued 
the Harman case. Similarly, the mainstream media is happily letting it all 
disappear.
I was not aware that during the publication of the Hastert story in Vanity 
Fair , Jane Harman's AIPAC case was already brewing in the background. 
Moreover, one of the very few people in Congress who was notified about Harman 
was none other than Hastert --- the man himself. The same Hastert, who in 
addition to being one of several high-ranking officials targeted by FBI 
counterintelligence and counterespionage investigations, was also known to be 
directly involved in several other high profile scandals: from his intimate 
involvement in the Abramoff scandal, to the Rep. William Jefferson scandal; from 
his 'Land Deal' scandal - where he cashed in millions off his position while 
"serving", to the 2006 House Page scandal.

All for One, One for All?
How does it work? How do these people escape the consequences of 
accountability? Are we talking about the possible use of blackmail by the Executive 
Branch against Congressional representatives, as if the days of J. Edgar 
Hoover were never over? Cases such as NSA illegal eavesdropping come to mind, 
when Congressional members were briefed long before it became public, yet none 
took any action or even uttered a word; members of both parties. Or is it 
more likely to be a case of secondhand blackmail, where members of Congress 
watch out for each other? Or, is it a combination of the above? Regardless, we 
see this 'all for one, one for all' kind of solidarity in Congress when it 
comes to criminal conduct and scandals such as those of Hastert and Harman.

Although at an initial glance, based on the wiretapping angle, the Harman 
case may appear to involve blackmailing --- or a milder version, exploitation 
of Congress by the Executive Branch --- deeper analysis would suggest even 
further implications, where Congressional members themselves use the 
incriminating information against each other to prevent pursuit or investigation of 
cases that they may be directly or indirectly involved in. Let me give you 
an example based on the Hastert case mentioned earlier:

In 2004 and 2005 I had several meetings with Rep. Henry Waxman's (D-CA) 
investigative and legal staff. Two of these meetings took place inside a 
high-security SCIF, where details and classified information pertaining to my case 
and those involved could be discussed.

I was told, and at the time I believed it to be the case, that the 
Republican majority was preventing further action - such as holding a public hearing 
on my whistleblower revelations. Once the Democrats took over in 2006, that 
barrier was removed, or so I thought.

In March 2007, I was contacted by one of Rep. Waxman's staff people who 
felt responsible and conscientious enough to at least let me know that there 
would never be a hearing into my case by their office, or for that matter, any 
Democratic office in the House. Based on his/her account, in February 2007 
Waxman's office was preparing the necessary ingredients for their promised 
hearing, but in mid-March the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, called 
Waxman into a meeting on the case, and after Waxman came out of that 
twenty-minute meeting, he told his staff 'we are no longer involved in Edmonds' case.' 
And so they became 'uninvolved.' 

What was discussed during that meeting? The facts regarding the FBI's 
pursuit of Hastert, and certain other representatives, were bound to come out in 
any Congressional hearing into my case. Now we know that Hastert and Pelosi 
were both informed of Harman's role in a related case involving 
counterespionage investigation of AIPAC. Is it possible that Pelosi asked Waxman to lay 
off my case in order to protect a few of their own in an equally scandalous 
case? Was there a deal made between the Democratic and Republican leaders in 
the House to keep this and other related scandals hushed? Will we ever know 
the answer to these questions? Most likely not, considering the current 
state of our mainstream media.

And the victims remain the same: The American people who have entrusted 
their Congress with the role of ensuring oversight and accountability.
This kind of infestation touches everyone in Congress; one need not have a 
skeleton of his own to get sucked into the swamp of those infested. Does 
Waxman have to be a sinner to take part in the sin committed by the Hasterts 
and Harmans of Congress? Certainly not. On the other hand, he and others like 
him will abide by the un-pledged oath of 'solidarity with your party 
members' and 'loyalty to your dear colleagues.' 

Rotten at its Core
Back to the enablers: How can we explain the continued blackout by the 
mainstream media, and/or, the logic-free defenses of the Harmans and Hasterts 
alike by the apologist spinners --- some of whom pass as the 'alternative' 
media? Some are committing what they rightfully accused the previous 
administration and their pawns of doing: cherry picking the facts, then, spin, spin, 
and spin until the real issue becomes blurry and unrecognizable. The 
conspiracy angle aimed at the timing; Porter Goss' possible beef with Jane Harman; 
accusing the truth divulgers, CQ sources, of being 'conspirators' with 
ulterior motives; portraying Harman as an outspoken vigilante on torture. And if 
those sound too lame to swallow, they throw in a few evil names from the 
foggy past of Dusty the Foggo man! If the issue and its implications weren't so 
serious, these spins of reality would certainly make a Pulitzer-worthy 
satire.
Let's take the issue of timing. First of all, the story was reported , 
albeit not comprehensively, by TIME magazine years ago. It took a tenacious 
journalist, more importantly a journalist that could have been trusted by the 
Intel sources to give it real coverage. It is also possible that the sources 
who leaked in the Harman case got fed up and disillusioned by the absence of 
a real investigation and decided to 'really' talk. After all, the AIPAC 
espionage case was dropped by the Justice Department's prosecutors within two 
weeks of the Harman revelations.

Same could be said about the Hastert story. At the time, many asked why the 
story was not told during the earlier stages of my case. It took three 
years for me and other FBI and DOJ sources to exhaust all channels; 
Congressional inquiry, IG investigation, and the courts. Those who initially were not 
willing to come forward and corroborate the details opened up to the Vanity 
Fair journalist, David Rose, in 2005.
Now let's look at the 'blackmail' and 'Goss Plot' angles. Of course the 
'blackmail' scenario is possible; in fact, highly possible. We all can picture 
one of the President's men in the White House pulling an opposing 
Congressional member aside and whispering 'if I were you, Congressman, I'd stop 
pushing. I understand, as we speak, my Justice Department is looking into certain 
activities you've been engaged in.'
We all can imagine, easily, a high-ranking Justice Department official 
having a 'discreet' meeting with a member of Congress who's been pushing for a 
certain investigation of certain department officials for criminal deeds, and 
saying, 'dear Congresswoman, we are aware of your role in a certain 
scandal, and are still pondering whether we should turn this into a direct 
investigation of you and appoint a special prosecutor?'
But, let's not forget, the misuse of incriminating information, for the 
purpose of blackmail, does not turn the practitioner of the wrongful deed into 
a victim, nor does it make the wrongful criminal deed less wrong. Instead of 
spinning the story, taking away attention from the facts in hand, and 
making Harman a victim, we must focus on this case, on Harman, as an example of a 
very serious disease that has infected our Congress for far too long. Those 
who have been entrusted with the oversight and accountability of our 
government cannot do so if they are vulnerable to such blackmail from the very 
same people they are overseeing?Period.

Those who have been elected to represent the people and their interests 
cannot pursue their own greed and ambitions by engaging in criminal or 
unethical activities against the interests of the same people they've sworn to 
represent, and then be given a pass.
As for far-reaching ties such as Harman's stand on torture, or a specific 
beef with former CIA Director Porter Goss, or wild shots from the hip in 
bringing up mafia-like characters such as Dusty Foggo; please don't make us 
laugh! Are we talking about the same Hawkish Pro-Secrecy Jane Harman here?! 
Harman's staunch support of NSA Wiretapping of Americans, the FISA Amendment of 
2008, the Patriot ACT, the War on Iraq, and many other activities on the 
Civil Liberties' No-No list, is widely recognized by almost everyone, 
apparently, but the authors of the recent apologist spin. 

And, let's not forget to add her own long-term cozy relationship with 
AIPAC, and the large donations she's received from various other AIPAC-related 
pro-Israeli PACs. To these certain 'wannabe' journalists, driven by far from 
pure agenda(s), shame on you; as for honor-worthy vigilant activists out 
there: watch out for these impostors with their newly gained popularity among 
those tainted in Washington, and take a hard look at whose agendas they are 
serving as a mouthpiece for. 

Despite a certain degree of exposure, cases such as Harman's and Hastert's, 
involving corruption of public officials, seem to meet the same dead-end. 
Criminal conduct, by powerful foreign entities, against our national 
interest, is given a pass, as was recently proven by the abandonment of the AIPAC 
spy case. The absence of real investigative journalism and the pattern of 
blackout by our mainstream media seem now to have been almost universally 
accepted as a fact of life.
Pursuit of cases such as mine, via cosmetically available channels, has 
been, and continues to be proven futile for whistleblowers.

Therefore, you may want to ask, why in the world am I writing this piece? 
Because more and more people --- although not nearly enough --- are coming to 
the realization that our system is rotten at it's core; that in many cases 
we have been trying to deal with the symptoms rather than the cause.

I, like many others, believed that changing the Congressional majority in 
2006 was going to bring about some of the needed changes; the pursuit of 
accountability being one. We were proven wrong. In 2008, many genuinely bought 
in to the promise of change, and thus far, they've been let down.
These experiences are disheartening, surely, but they are also eye-opening. 
I do see many vigilant activists who continue the fight. As long as that's 
the case, there is hope. More people realize that real change will require 
not replacing one or two or three, but many more. More people are coming to 
understand that the road to achieving government of the people passes through 
a Congress, but not the one currently occupied by the many crusty 
charlatans who represent only self-interest --- achieved by representing the 
interests of the few, rather than the majority of the people of this nation. And so 
I write.

Here I go again, rather than ending this in a long paragraph or two, I will 
let another long-gone man do it shortly and effectively: "If we have 
Senators and Congressmen there that can't protect themselves against the evil 
temptations of lobbyists, we don't need to change our lobbies, we need to change 
our representatives." - Will Rogers
==
Sibel Edmonds is a former FBI translator and noted whistleblower who has 
been under a years-long "gag order", prohibiting her from discussing many 
details of her allegations of corruption and espionage gleaned during her time 
at the FBI, due to the continuing "States Secrets privilege" assertions by 
the Executive Branch. Her own story has been partially documented over the 
last several years in several different media outlets, including a lead story 
on CBS' 60 Minutes, a detailed feature in Vanity Fair and, over the years, in 
a number of exclusive articles here at The BRAD BLOG. She is the Founder 
and President of the National Security Whistleblowers Coalition. 


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From geri at thetwofacesofmoney.com  Tue May  5 11:47:50 2009
From: geri at thetwofacesofmoney.com (Geri Perry)
Date: Tue, 05 May 2009 10:47:50 -0500
Subject: [CitizensTruth] Brand Obama
In-Reply-To: <01C9CD67.E8C1A460.rmigalla@earthlink.net>
References: <01C9CD67.E8C1A460.rmigalla@earthlink.net>
Message-ID: <4A005FA6.6020407@thetwofacesofmoney.com>

Just to add to the fray,

This is a good article by William Blum, author of Killing Hope, Rogue 
States, etc titled Some Thoughts about Torture. And Mr. Obama:

http://www.killinghope.org/bblum6/aer69.html

gerip

Robin Migalla wrote:
> Hi Andrew, Connie, Kris, Ed, and all other Truth Seekers among our small 
> community,
>
> I must confess, Andrew, when I first opened your initial message, I was 
> overwhelmed by too many words and quickly deleted it without reading it. 
>  The subsequent conversation between Connie, Kris, and Ed piqued my 
> interest.  I have a few thoughts I'd like to share.  Lest we personalize 
> and moralize issues rather than clarifying them, let's try looking at just 
> the facts in Chris Hedges piece.  As far as I can tell the list below 
> summarizes these facts (I put braces around items that could render a 
> statement that might otherwise be known as fact as personalizing or 
> moralizing):
>
> 1) His [Obama's] administration has spent, lent or guaranteed $12.8 
> trillion in taxpayer dollars to Wall Street and insolvent banks in a doomed 
> effort to reinflate the bubble economy...
>
> 2) {Brand} Obama has allocated nearly $1 trillion in defense-related 
> spending and the continuation of our doomed imperial projects in Iraq, 
> where military planners now estimate that 70,000 troops will remain for the 
> next 15 to 20 years.
>
> 3) {Brand} Obama has expanded the war in Afghanistan, including the use of 
> drones sent on cross-border bombing runs into Pakistan that have doubled 
> the number of civilians killed over the past three months.
>
> 4) {Brand} Obama has refused to ease restrictions so workers can organize 
> and will not consider single-payer, not-for-profit health care for all 
> Americans.
>
> 5) {Brand} Obama will not prosecute the Bush  administration for war 
> crimes, including the use of torture, and
>
> 6)  He [Obama] has refused to dismantle Bush's secrecy laws or restore 
> habeas corpus.
>
> 7)  He [Obama] was {happy} to promote nuclear power as "green" energy.
>
> 8)  He [Obama] voted to continue the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
>
> 9)  He [Obama] reauthorized the Patriot Act.
>
> 10) He [Obama] would not back a bill designed to cap predatory credit card 
> interest rates.
>
> 11)  He [Obama] opposed a bill that would have reformed the notorious 
> Mining Law of 1872.
>
> 12)  He [Obama] refused to support the single-payer health care bill HR676, 
> sponsored by Reps. Dennis Kucinich and John Conyers.
>
> 13) He [Obama] supported the death penalty.
>
> 14) He [Obama] backed a class-action "reform" bill that was part of a large 
> lobbying effort by financial firms. The law, known as the Class Action 
> Fairness Act...
>
> 15) While Gaza was being bombarded and hit with airstrikes in the weeks 
> before Obama took office, "the Obama team let it be known that it would not 
> object to the planned resupply of ?smart bombs' and other hi-tech ordnance 
> that was already flowing to Israel," according to Seymour Hersh.
>
> 16) Even his [Obama's] {one vaunted} anti-war speech as a state senator, 
> {perhaps his single real act of defiance}, was swiftly reversed. He told 
> the Chicago Tribune on July 27, 2004, that "there's not that much 
> difference between my position and George Bush's position at this stage. 
> The difference, in my mind, is who's in a position to execute." And unlike 
> anti-war stalwarts like Kucinich, who gave hundreds of speeches against the 
> war, Obama then {dutifully} stood silent until the Iraq war became 
> unpopular.
>
> 17)  Obama's campaign won the vote of hundreds of marketers, agency heads 
> and marketing-services vendors gathered at the Association of National 
> Advertisers' annual conference in October.
>
> 18)  The Obama campaign was named Advertising Age's marketer of the year 
> for 2008 and edged out runners-up Apple and Zappos.com.
>
> Given these facts, I'm not getting a warm fuzzy about Obama, yet.  Can 
> anyone here refute these facts or clear up any confusion I'm having about 
> them?
>
> Thanks,
> Robin
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From:	Edward Rynearson [SMTP:edward_rynearson at yahoo.com]
> Sent:	Tuesday, May 05, 2009 08:10
> To:	citizenstruth at six.pairlist.net
> Subject:	[CitizensTruth] Brand Obama
>
> I agree with Chris Hedges. 
>  
> Ed Rynearson
>  
>
> --- On Tue, 5/5/09, citizenstruth-request at six.pairlist.net 
> <citizenstruth-request at six.pairlist.net> wrote:
>
>
> From: citizenstruth-request at six.pairlist.net 
> <citizenstruth-request at six.pairlist.net>
> Subject: CitizensTruth Digest, Vol 47, Issue 5
> To: citizenstruth at six.pairlist.net
> Date: Tuesday, May 5, 2009, 1:56 AM
>
>
> Send CitizensTruth mailing list submissions to
>     citizenstruth at six.pairlist.net
>
> To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit
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> than "Re: Contents of CitizensTruth digest..."
>
>
> Today's Topics:
>
>    1. Re: Buying Brand Obama (Connie Smith)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Tue, 5 May 2009 01:56:32 -0500
> From: "Connie Smith" <dimension04 at sbcglobal.net>
> Subject: Re: [CitizensTruth] Buying Brand Obama
> To: "andrew ritter" <aroyboy44 at hotmail.com>,    "truth seekers"
>     <citizenstruth at six.pairlist.net>
> Message-ID: <A4C183765AD547D49A426DD0584D49E1 at InspironConnie>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="windows-1252"
>
>
>
> "Brand Obama" my foot.  The article-writer below worked 2 decades for 
> "Brand New York Times" -- while Obama helped poor people and taught 
> constitutional law.  Let's wait and see who turns out to be the better 
> man. 
>
> Given his humanitarian-saturated upbringing, what Obama's probably doing is 
> duct-taping some societal structures for the short-term so that they 
> collapse (as they must) SLOWLY, instead of suddenly and catastrophically -- 
> and maneuvering to prevent his assassination, which would certainly occur 
> if he just fired all the nazis outright, like JFK did.
>
> If you were in office, and if you were smart, you would proceed in the same 
> way.
>
> I myself have been immune to being a fan of ANYBODY.  As a young newspaper 
> reporter immediately out of school, I spent time with celebrities like The 
> Doors and The Lettermen and Robert Goulet and a number of others who had 
> big followings, but it was so clear to me they were "just people" that I've 
> forever been immune to any kind of charisma.  However, I am attracted to 
> good character.  (And that has panned out very well in my life -- I am 
> apparently a good judge of it.)
>
> And I've never been susceptible to brand-names OF or ON anything -- only 
> interested in the quality "of the product."  Obama's character and quality 
> have been clear and consistent (consistent as humanly possible) since first 
> observing him here in Illinois politics in 1997. He is obviously not a 
> product nor a brand, but a well-rounded and highly intelligent human being.
>
> The criticisms of him strike me as short-sighted knee-jerk reactions to a 
> ship's captain who has had to take over AFTER the Titanic struck the 
> iceberg.  The wobbly emergency efforts to keep us from suddenly sinking, 
> and a long, slow turn (instead of an immediate shift of the helm and a 
> tip-over as a result) are scary but possibly wise moves -- possibly the 
> only relatively safe ones that can be made. 
>
> When the pilot headed the commercial airliner for the Hudson River in 
> January, it seemed like a horrible move -- especially to everyone on 
> board!  But he did the best that could be done under the extreme 
> circumstances. There were some injuries, but the job was very, VERY well 
> done.
>
> I predict that Obama's wisdom-beyond-his-years will eventually bring us to 
> the softest landing possible.  And I feel it's really ignorant of people 
> who are not in the cockpit of this out-of-control country to attack him 
> when he's doing all he CAN do -- for this nation and for the world. 
>
> That sense of service is where he came from and that's where he will take 
> us -- with the injuries that do occur obviously being the fall-out from the 
> previous NON-wise, NON-intelligent, NON-service-oriented assholes who ruled 
> and wrecked since the turn of the century. 
>
> Those years of long and horrendous momentum CANNOT just be brought to a 
> screeching halt in only 3 months!
>
> Connie
>
>
>
>
>   ----- Original Message -----
>   From: andrew ritter
>   To: truth seekers
>   Sent: Monday, May 04, 2009 8:44 PM
>   Subject: [CitizensTruth] Buying Brand Obama
>
>
>   Buying Brand Obama
>   by Chris Hedges
>
>   Barack Obama is a brand. And the Obama brand is designed to make us feel 
> good about our government while corporate overlords loot the Treasury, our 
> elected officials continue to have their palms greased by armies of 
> corporate lobbyists, our corporate media diverts us with gossip and trivia 
> and our imperial wars expand in the Middle East. Brand Obama is about being 
> happy consumers. We are entertained. We feel hopeful. We like our 
> president. We believe he is like us. But like all branded products spun out 
> from the manipulative world of corporate advertising, we are being duped 
> into doing and supporting a lot of things that are not in our interest.
>   What, for all our faith and hope, has the Obama brand given us? His 
> administration has spent, lent or guaranteed $12.8 trillion in taxpayer 
> dollars to Wall Street and insolvent banks in a doomed effort to reinflate 
> the bubble economy, a tactic that at best forestalls catastrophe and will 
> leave us broke in a time of profound crisis. Brand Obama has allocated 
> nearly $1 trillion in defense-related spending and the continuation of our 
> doomed imperial projects in Iraq, where military planners now estimate that 
> 70,000 troops will remain for the next 15 to 20 years. Brand Obama has 
> expanded the war in Afghanistan, including the use of drones sent on 
> cross-border bombing runs into Pakistan that have doubled the number of 
> civilians killed over the past three months. Brand Obama has refused to 
> ease restrictions so workers can organize and will not consider 
> single-payer, not-for-profit health care for all Americans. And Brand Obama 
> will not prosecute the Bush
>  administration for war cr
> imes, including the use of torture, and has refused to dismantle Bush's 
> secrecy laws or restore habeas corpus. 
>   Brand Obama offers us an image that appears radically individualistic and 
> new. It inoculates us from seeing that the old engines of corporate power 
> and the vast military-industrial complex continue to plunder the country. 
> Corporations, which control our politics, no longer produce products that 
> are essentially different, but brands that are different. Brand Obama does 
> not threaten the core of the corporate state any more than did Brand George 
> W. Bush. The Bush brand collapsed. We became immune to its studied 
> folksiness. We saw through its artifice. This is a common deflation in the 
> world of advertising. So we have been given a new Obama brand with an 
> exciting and faintly erotic appeal. Benetton and Calvin Klein were the 
> precursors to the Obama brand, using ads to associate themselves with 
> risqu? art and progressive politics. It gave their products an edge. But 
> the goal, as with all brands, was to make passive consumers mistake a brand 
> with an
>  experience. 
>   "The abandonment of the radical economic foundations of the women's and 
> civil-rights movements by the conflation of causes that came to be called 
> political correctness successfully trained a generation of activists in the 
> politics of image, not action," Naomi Klein wrote in "No Logo."
>   Obama, who has become a global celebrity, was molded easily into a brand. 
> He had almost no experience, other than two years in the Senate, lacked any 
> moral core and could be painted as all things to all people. His brief 
> Senate voting record was a miserable surrender to corporate interests. He 
> was happy to promote nuclear power as "green" energy. He voted to continue 
> the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He reauthorized the Patriot Act. He would 
> not back a bill designed to cap predatory credit card interest rates. He 
> opposed a bill that would have reformed the notorious Mining Law of 1872. 
> He refused to support the single-payer health care bill HR676, sponsored by 
> Reps. Dennis Kucinich and John Conyers. He supported the death penalty. And 
> he backed a class-action "reform" bill that was part of a large lobbying 
> effort by financial firms. The law, known as the Class Action Fairness Act, 
> would effectively shut down state courts as a venue to hear most
>  class-action lawsuits and den
> y redress in many of the courts where these cases have a chance of defying 
> powerful corporate challenges. 
>   While Gaza was being bombarded and hit with airstrikes in the weeks 
> before Obama took office, "the Obama team let it be known that it would not 
> object to the planned resupply of ?smart bombs' and other hi-tech ordnance 
> that was already flowing to Israel," according to Seymour Hersh. Even his 
> one vaunted anti-war speech as a state senator, perhaps his single real act 
> of defiance, was swiftly reversed. He told the Chicago Tribune on July 27, 
> 2004, that "there's not that much difference between my position and George 
> Bush's position at this stage. The difference, in my mind, is who's in a 
> position to execute." And unlike anti-war stalwarts like Kucinich, who gave 
> hundreds of speeches against the war, Obama then dutifully stood silent 
> until the Iraq war became unpopular.
>   Obama's campaign won the vote of hundreds of marketers, agency heads and 
> marketing-services vendors gathered at the Association of National 
> Advertisers' annual conference in October. The Obama campaign was named 
> Advertising Age's marketer of the year for 2008 and edged out runners-up 
> Apple and Zappos.com. Take it from the professionals. Brand Obama is a 
> marketer's dream. President Obama does one thing and Brand Obama gets you 
> to believe another. This is the essence of successful advertising. You buy 
> or do what the advertiser wants because of how they can make you feel. 
>   Celebrity culture has leeched into every aspect of our culture, including 
> politics, to bequeath to us what Benjamin DeMott called "junk politics." 
> Junk politics does not demand justice or the reparation of rights. Junk 
> politics personalizes and moralizes issues rather than clarifying them. 
> "It's impatient with articulated conflict, enthusiastic about America's 
> optimism and moral character, and heavily dependent on feel-your-pain 
> language and gesture," DeMott noted. The result of junk politics is that 
> nothing changes - "meaning zero interruption in the processes and practices 
> that strengthen existing, interlocking systems of socioeconomic advantage." 
> It redefines traditional values, tilting "courage toward braggadocio, 
> sympathy toward mawkishness, humility toward self-disrespect, 
> identification with ordinary citizens toward distrust of brains." Junk 
> politics "miniaturizes large, complex problems at home while maximizing 
> threats from abroad. It's also
>  given to abrupt unexplai
> ned reversals of its own public stances, often spectacularly bloating 
> problems previously miniaturized." And finally, it "seeks at every turn to 
> obliterate voters' consciousness of socioeconomic and other differences in 
> their midst." 
>   An image-based culture, one dominated by junk politics, communicates 
> through narratives, pictures and carefully orchestrated spectacle and 
> manufactured pseudo-drama. Scandalous affairs, hurricanes, earthquakes, 
> untimely deaths, lethal new viruses, train wrecks-these events play well on 
> computer screens and television. International diplomacy, labor union 
> negotiations and convoluted bailout packages do not yield exciting personal 
> narratives or stimulating images. A governor who patronizes call girls 
> becomes a huge news story. A politician who proposes serious regulatory 
> reform, universal health care or advocates curbing wasteful spending is 
> boring. Kings, queens and emperors once used their court conspiracies to 
> divert their subjects. Today cinematic, political and journalistic 
> celebrities distract us with their personal foibles and scandals. They 
> create our public mythology. Acting, politics and sports have become, as 
> they were during the reign of
>  Nero, interchangeable. 
>   In an age of images and entertainment, in an age of instant emotional 
> gratification, we do not seek reality. Reality is complicated. Reality is 
> boring. We are incapable or unwilling to handle its confusion. We ask to be 
> indulged and comforted by clich?s, stereotypes and inspirational messages 
> that tell us we can be whoever we seek to be, that we live in the greatest 
> country on Earth, that we are endowed with superior moral and physical 
> qualities, and that our future will always be glorious and prosperous, 
> either because of our own attributes, or our national character, or because 
> we are blessed by God. Reality is not accepted as an impediment to our 
> desires. Reality does not make us feel good. 
>   In his book "Public Opinion," Walter Lippmann distinguished between "the 
> world outside and the pictures in our heads." He defined a "stereotype" as 
> an oversimplified pattern that helps us find meaning in the world. Lippmann 
> cited examples of the crude "stereotypes we carry about in our heads" of 
> whole groups of people such as "Germans," "South Europeans," "Negroes," 
> "Harvard men," "agitators" and others. These stereotypes, Lippmann noted, 
> give a reassuring and false consistency to the chaos of existence. They 
> offer easily grasped explanations of reality and are closer to propaganda 
> because they simplify rather than complicate.
>   Pseudo-events-dramatic productions orchestrated by publicists, political 
> machines, television, Hollywood or advertisers-however, are very different. 
> They have, as Daniel Boorstin wrote in "The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-Events 
> in America," the capacity to appear real even though we know they are 
> staged. They are capable, because they can evoke a powerful emotional 
> response, of overwhelming reality and replacing reality with a fictional 
> narrative that often becomes accepted truth. The unmasking of a stereotype 
> damages and often destroys its credibility. But pseudo-events, whether they 
> show the president in an auto plant or a soup kitchen or addressing troops 
> in Iraq, are immune to this deflation. The exposure of the elaborate 
> mechanisms behind the pseudo-event only adds to its fascination and its 
> power. This is the basis of the convoluted television reporting on how 
> effectively political campaigns and politicians have been stage-managed. 
> Reporters,
>  especially those on televisi
> on, no longer ask if the message is true but if the pseudo-event worked or 
> did not work as political theater. Pseudo-events are judged on how 
> effectively we have been manipulated by illusion. Those events that appear 
> real are relished and lauded. Those that fail to create a believable 
> illusion are deemed failures. Truth is irrelevant. Those who succeed in 
> politics, as in most of the culture, are those who create the brands and 
> pseudo-events that offer the most convincing fantasies. And this is the art 
> Obama has mastered.
>   A public that can no longer distinguish between truth and fiction is left 
> to interpret reality through illusion. Random facts or obscure bits of data 
> and trivia are used to bolster illusion and give it credibility or are 
> discarded if they interfere with the message. The worse reality becomes-the 
> more, for example, foreclosures and unemployment skyrocket-the more people 
> seek refuge and comfort in illusions. When opinions cannot be distinguished 
> from facts, when there is no universal standard to determine truth in law, 
> in science, in scholarship, or in reporting the events of the day, when the 
> most valued skill is the ability to entertain, the world becomes a place 
> where lies become true, where people can believe what they want to believe. 
> This is the real danger of pseudo-events and why pseudo-events are far more 
> pernicious than stereotypes. They do not explain reality, as stereotypes 
> attempt to, but replace reality. Pseudo-events redefine reality by
>  the parameters set by th
> eir creators. These creators, who make massive profits peddling these 
> illusions, have a vested interest in maintaining the power structures they 
> control. 
>   The old production-oriented culture demanded what the historian Warren 
> Susman termed character. The new consumption-oriented culture demands what 
> he called personality. The shift in values is a shift from a fixed morality 
> to the artifice of presentation. The old cultural values of thrift and 
> moderation honored hard work, integrity and courage. The 
> consumption-oriented culture honors charm, fascination and likability. "The 
> social role demanded of all in the new culture of personality was that of a 
> performer," Susman wrote. "Every American was to become a performing self."
>   The junk politics practiced by Obama is a consumer fraud. It is about 
> performance. It is about lies. It is about keeping us in a perpetual state 
> of childishness. But the longer we live in illusion, the worse reality will 
> be when it finally shatters our fantasies. Those who do not understand what 
> is happening around them and who are overwhelmed by a brutal reality they 
> did not expect or foresee search desperately for saviors. They beg 
> demagogues to come to their rescue. This is the ultimate danger of the 
> Obama Brand. It effectively masks the wanton internal destruction and theft 
> being carried out by our corporate state. These corporations, once they 
> have stolen trillions in taxpayer wealth, will leave tens of millions of 
> Americans bereft, bewildered and yearning for even more potent and deadly 
> illusions, ones that could swiftly snuff out what is left of our diminished 
> open society.
>
>   ? 2009 TruthDig.com
>   Chris Hedges writes a regular column for Truthdig.com. Hedges graduated 
> from Harvard Divinity School and was for nearly two decades a foreign 
> correspondent for The New York Times. He is the author of many books, 
> including: War Is A Force That Gives Us Meaning, What Every Person Should 
> Know About War, and American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on 
> America.  His most recent book, Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and 
> the Triumph of Spectacle, will be out in July, but is available for 
> pre-order.
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------  
> ------
>   Hotmail? has ever-growing storage! Don?t worry about storage limits. 
> Check it out.
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------  
> ------
>
>
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From Walterb306 at cs.com  Tue May  5 12:57:00 2009
From: Walterb306 at cs.com (Walterb306 at cs.com)
Date: Tue, 5 May 2009 12:57:00 EDT
Subject: [CitizensTruth] ARTICLE-Souter's resignation possibly forced
Message-ID: <bd9.3453bd7b.3731c9dc@cs.com>

All,

Forwarding article, below.

Beverley


> Ed. Note: This report should be read from its website location at
> http://www.whatdoesitmean.com/index1231.htm as this email copy does not
> contain the links embedded in the original report.]
> 
> May 1, 2009
> 
> Top Supreme Court Justice Forced Out Over US Plans For Martial Law
> 
> By: Sorcha Faal, and as reported to her Western Subscribers
> 
> FSB reports circulating in the Kremlin today are stating that United
> States Supreme Court Justice David Souter [photo top left]  has been
> forced to resign over his refusing an order from Bush-appointed Chief
> Justice John Roberts to support the planned implementation of Martial
> Law within the US planned for this coming fall due to the combining of
> the current H1N1 Swine Flu virus with the H5N1 Avian Flu, which, as we
> had reported on earlier, will, according to Russian scientists, unleash
> a ?Tidal Wave? of death upon our World.
> 
> According to these reports, Justice Souter, Justice Ruth Ginsberg and
> Justice Samuel Alito were all refusing Chief Justice Roberts orders when
> yesterday, a prot?g? of Justice Alito, former Deputy Assistant Attorney
> General under President Clinton, and head of fundraising for Hillary
> Clinton?s failed presidential bid, Mark Levy [photo 2nd left], was
> ?suicided? prompting Justice Souter?s immediate resignation.
> 
> Attorney Mark Levy, these reports continue, was a classmate of the
> former President Clinton and his wife Hillary at Yale and was actively
> working with Justices Souter, Ginsberg and Alito in preparing a US
> Supreme Court challenge to the planned implementation of Martial Law and
> was an experienced litigator before America?s highest court having
> argued 16 prior cases before them. 
> 
> On the suiciding of Levy by those forces supporting Martial Law, the
> Washington Post, known by the FSB as the ?CIA?s mouthpiece?, reports
> that Levy?s shooting a bullet through his head was due to has having
> been laid off from his job at the prestigious Kilpatrick Stockton law
> firm, but which these reports state is ?ludicrous? as Levy and his
> family are worth tens-of-millions of dollars and his vast connections
> within Washington D.C. through the Clinton?s and President Obama
> ?assured? his place as one of the United States top legal workers for
> decades to come.
> 
> It is important to note that Levy?s suiciding was the second to have
> occurred in the last fortnight in this titanic battle for power and
> control of the United States, and as we had previously reported on in
> our April 23rd report ?Top Freddie Mac Official ?Suicided? After $50
> Billion Traced From US To Israel?.
> 
> To the concerns of Justice Souter and his Supreme Court colleagues over
> the planned implementation of Martial Law within the United States,
> these reports state are genuine indeed as with President Obama just
> having declared a Public Health Emergency, the US Department of Homeland
> Security has implemented this week former President Bush?s much feared
> April 1, 2005 Executive Order 13375 giving the President unprecedented
> dictatorial powers over the American people due to ?novel influenza
> viruses that cause a pandemic?.
> 
> What is most surprising about all of these events though is how utterly
> clueless the American people are as to what is happening around them,
> which becomes even more astounding when viewed in the light of past
> historical events that clearly show the machinations the elite Western
> banking class use in pushing forth their agenda for a New World Order,
> and which include, Global Economic Collapse, Global Pandemic and Global
> War.
> 
> Even worse, these deluded Americans continue to rely upon their
> propaganda media organs for information that even the most cursory of
> research shows is nearly all total lies being told to keep them from
> knowing, and acting on the truth. 
> 
> An example of this is Reuters News Services London bureau commenting
> yesterday on our April 25th report ?Mexican Drug Cartel Linked With al
> Qaeda Unleashes Pandemic? by stating:
> 
> ?But one link experts probably won't be exploring is an Internet report
> charging that Mexican drug cartels working with al Qaeda unleashed the
> swine flu. ?The claim of the conspiracy theorists is that this new
> combination could not have occurred naturally, but this is not true,?
> the New Scientist's biology editor Michael Le Page wrote.? ?Flu viruses
> consisting of a mixture of human, swine and bird strains have been found
> before.?
> 
> A statement that is contradicted by facts, and as we can read as
> reported by US Researcher Andrea Neblett, who says:
> 
> ?The strain of swine flu sweeping around the world is a unique strain ?
> it combines genetic material from pigs, birds and humans in a way that
> researchers have not seen before. It has bird flu from North America,
> swine flu from Europe, and swine flu from Asia. Humans do not have
> natural immunity to this strain.?
> 
> Suffice it to say, and as these latest Russian FSB reports confirm, the
> current bio-engineered H1N1 Swine Flu Virus currently sweeping the Globe
> is but a precursor to the much more important events coming this fall,
> but which is allowing the United States and its Western allies to begin
> implementing Martial Law now against their citizens who are waking up to
> the fact that all of their Nations are totally bankrupt and their
> capitalistic way of life corrupted beyond all repair.
> 
> Or, as better stated by the United Nations General Assembly President
> Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann, ?The current global economic and financial
> crisis proves that the logic of capitalism is evil and suicidal.?
> 
> But, to our past warnings given to these peoples (such as our June 28,
> 2007 report ?US Banking Collapse ?Imminent? Warns French Banking Giant?
> and our July 14, 2007 report ?US Begs China To Prop Up Housing As 1.8
> Americans Face Foreclosure?, to just name a few) time, and time again,
> it has been proven that the ?seed of truth? imparted to them so that
> they may prepare and protect themselves from what is to come, can, and
> nearly always does, get murdered by the mountain of poison propaganda
> heaped upon by the Western media. 
> 
> How sad it is that these once great people have forgotten the ?playbook?
> from which these evil monsters of humanity are working from, and best
> exampled by the words of the Nazi Propaganda Minister in words that
> apply to the US ?Homeland? of today as well as they did to the German
> ?Fatherland? of last century: 
> 
> ?If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will
> eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such
> time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic
> and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally
> important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for
> the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the
> truth is the greatest enemy of the State.?
> 
> And as another day dawns upon a World huddled in fear over what new
> atrocities are being planned by these monsters, never forget that we
> are, indeed one of these ?enemies? of the state and can always use your
> HELP?.that is, of course, unless you want to continue believing the lies
> you?re being told.
> 
> ? May 1, 2009 EU and US all rights reserved
> http://www.whatdoesitmean.com/index1231.htm
> -- 
>   Sorcha Faal
>   sorchafaal at fastmail.fm
> 
> 
 
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From hal at drxyzzy.org  Tue May  5 19:02:13 2009
From: hal at drxyzzy.org (Hal Snyder)
Date: Tue, 5 May 2009 18:02:13 -0500
Subject: [CitizensTruth] ARTICLE-Souter's resignation possibly forced
In-Reply-To: <bd9.3453bd7b.3731c9dc@cs.com>
References: <bd9.3453bd7b.3731c9dc@cs.com>
Message-ID: <EC3C31FE-649A-4C9D-847E-D108DFC0B40C@drxyzzy.org>

In my experience, Sorcha Faal is not a reliable source.

On May 5, 2009, at 11:57 AM, Walterb306 at cs.com wrote:

> All,
>
> Forwarding article, below.
>
> Beverley
>
>
>> Ed. Note: This report should be read from its website location at
>> http://www.whatdoesitmean.com/index1231.htm as this email copy does  
>> not
>> contain the links embedded in the original report.]
>>
>> May 1, 2009
>>
>> Top Supreme Court Justice Forced Out Over US Plans For Martial Law
>>
>> By: Sorcha Faal, and as reported to her Western Subscribers
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From edward_rynearson at yahoo.com  Tue May  5 19:30:29 2009
From: edward_rynearson at yahoo.com (Edward Rynearson)
Date: Tue, 5 May 2009 16:30:29 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [CitizensTruth] Mortgaging the White House (Bill Moyers)
Message-ID: <189082.45329.qm@web30007.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

Mortgaging the White House
"Your opinion of Obama's first 100 days depends, of course, on your own vantage 
  point. But we'd argue that as part of his bending over backwards to support 
  the banks and avoid the losers, he has blundered mightily in his choice of economic 
  advisers."
http://www.truthout.org/050209Z



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From aqmstaffo at mailbag.com  Tue May  5 23:24:45 2009
From: aqmstaffo at mailbag.com (Daniel Stafford)
Date: Tue, 05 May 2009 22:24:45 -0500
Subject: [CitizensTruth] An invention that could change the internet
Message-ID: <4A0102FD.5090209@mailbag.com>

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/an-invention-that-could-change-the-internet-for-ever-1678109.html 


From garyfranchi at gmail.com  Wed May  6 00:52:25 2009
From: garyfranchi at gmail.com (Gary Franchi)
Date: Tue, 5 May 2009 23:52:25 -0500
Subject: [CitizensTruth] An invention that could change the internet
In-Reply-To: <4A0102FD.5090209@mailbag.com>
References: <4A0102FD.5090209@mailbag.com>
Message-ID: <2c9e41bb0905052152o18d9d444xbcbe28875bb8756f@mail.gmail.com>

check this out to:
http://www.deeperweb.com

On Tue, May 5, 2009 at 10:24 PM, Daniel Stafford <aqmstaffo at mailbag.com>wrote:

>
> http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/an-invention-that-could-change-the-internet-for-ever-1678109.html
> _______________________________________________
> CitizensTruth mailing list
> CitizensTruth at six.pairlist.net
> http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/citizenstruth
> website: http://citizenstruth.info
>
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From futurenotwritten at yahoo.com  Wed May  6 10:17:36 2009
From: futurenotwritten at yahoo.com (Jay Becker)
Date: Wed, 6 May 2009 07:17:36 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [CitizensTruth] "Swine Flu,
	H1N1 & Fevered Anti-Immigrant Demagogues"
Message-ID: <753786.72317.qm@web33501.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

>From www.worldcantwait.org
(Note how the current administration is building on - not halting, let alone reversing - much of executive branch 'over-reaching' of the previous administration. Jay)

Swine Flu, H1N1 Influenza, and Fevered Anti-Immigrant Demagogues
			
				
		
		
	





	
		Sunday, 03 May 2009 20:50	By Larry Jones
?The
spread of the swine flu, or H1N1 influenza, is real and it has spread
to 16 countries with 658 confirmed cases as of this writing.?The World
Health Organization has raised the pandemic level to stage 5 on a scale
of 6.?One death in the U.S. has been reported, a Mexico City toddler who traveled to Texas with family and died on April 29 at a Houston hospital.
?
Nut-job
talk show hosts and television hate mongers have jumped on this to spew
onto the airwaves a diatribe of invective against immigrants in general
and Mexicans in particular.?Among the worst was Michelle Malkin, a
syndicated columnist and Fox News contributor.?? 
?
"I've
blogged for years about the spread of contagious diseases from around
the world into the U.S. as a result of uncontrolled immigration. We've
heard for years from reckless open-borders ideologues who continue to
insist there's nothing to worry about. And we've heard for years that
calling any attention to the dangers of allowing untold numbers of
people to pass across our borders and through our other ports of entry
without proper medical screening -- as required of every legal
visitor/immigrant to this country -- is RAAAACIST."
?



To which Keith Olbermann of MSNBC
replied, ?Well, yes, you are a racist.??Malkin also complained about
Americans not waking up to her xenophobic fear of immigrants, saying
that "9/11 didn't convince the open-borders zealots to put down their
race cards and confront reality. Maybe the threat of their sons or
daughters contracting a deadly virus spread from south of the border to
their Manhattan prep schools will."?The problem with this argument is
that the flu that spread from Mexico to New York City didn?t come by
way of Mexicans.?It was by a group of Catholic school girls who were in
Cancun for spring break.
?
Michael
Savage of The Savage Nation said that ?Illegal aliens are carriers of
the new strain of Human Swine Avian Flu from Mexico. Is this a
terrorist attack???Almost as if to answer that question, Neal Boortz
said on his show that ?There?s the bio-terrorism angle.?What better way
to sneak a virus in this country than to give it to Mexicans.??
?
So
maybe some terrorist somehow was able to collect a vial of H1N1 and
sneak it into Mexico City and dump it into someone?s drinking water.?Do
these poor excuses for media commentators think all of us are as stupid
as they are?
?
Calls to Close the Border
?
There
are other ranting Fox News personalities, such as the notorious Glenn
Beck who said: ?If this is so important, why haven?t we closed the
border???It may or may not be coincidental, but amid the babble of
right wing calls to seal the border, The Washington Post
announced on April 25 that the Pentagon and Homeland Security
Departments have plans in the making to expand the military?s role at
the Mexican border, to help fight the drug war.?And what or who else?
?
Chris
Simcox, founder of the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, a group of
hateful anti-immigrant vigilantes, has called for an immediate
deployment of National Guard troops at the border.?He has also said he
will run against John McCain in the 2010 Senate race.
?
Quarantines
?
The
U.S. government appears to have seized upon what is clearly a public
health problem, not an immigration problem, to put in place and test
measures to control the population whenever leaders in the Obama
administration say there?s a crisis, such as quarantine.?According to
CBS News, on April 27, the Department of Homeland Security issued a
memo stating: "The Department of Justice has established legal federal
authorities pertaining to the implementation of a quarantine and
enforcement. Under approval from HHS, the Surgeon General has the
authority to issue quarantines." 
?
Such
authority is limited to diseases listed in presidential executive
orders.?President Bush added "novel" forms of influenza with the
potential to create pandemics in Executive Order 13375.??
Anyone violating a quarantine order could face a $250,000 fine and a
year in prison.?A problem for the government is that at this point no
Surgeon General has been appointed and confirmed, but that should soon
be resolved.
?
Scanners and wiretaps
?
Some countries, such as Canada use airport temperature scanners,
which "determine the temperature of an object by measuring the amount
of infrared radiation emitted by that object; the higher the
temperature, the more infrared radiation that is emitted,? according to
the Canadian government.?http://www.slate.com/id/2217148/
The U.S. has not yet started using such equipment, but its potential
could go far beyond testing for a flu virus.?Other types of scanners,
such as eye scanners and tetrahertz scanners which show anything hidden
on your person, are now available in this country.
?
President
Obama voted in the Senate last August for the changes in the Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) law which granted immunity to
telecoms which have participated in illegal electronic surveillance
programs which include average American citizens.
When a
suit was filed last October against Bush regime officials for illegally
spying on ordinary Americans, the plaintiffs agreed to postpone
hearings until April, when they hoped for a better response from the
Obama Department of Justice (DOJ).?But were they ever wrong!?In other
cases the Obama DOJ used the Bush argument that the suits could not
proceed because they involved state secrets.?
?
However,
in the case filed last August the Obama DOJ?s response went even
further.?Glenn Greenwald of Salon.com put it well when he wrote
that ?beyond even the outrageously broad ?state secrets? privilege
invented by the?Bush administration and now embraced fully by the Obama
administration, the?Obama DOJ has now invented a brand new claim of
government immunity, one which literally asserts that the?U.S.
Government is free to intercept all of your communications?(calls,
emails and the like) and -- even if what they're doing is blatantly
illegal and they know it's illegal -- you are barred from suing them
unless they "willfully disclose" to the public what they have learned.??
?
Your response
?
It is
evident that the response of people in this country to the calls to
shut down the border, to target Mexican people, to prepare for large
quarantines, to utilize modern technology to invade our privacy, and to
deny our right to sue the government for illegal spying are calls for a
major leap in repression, targeting Mexican immigrants specifically,
but with much broader applicability.
Are we
going to sit still in the face of all that, or are we going to mobilize
a spirit-filled independent response to all these dangers??Tell us what
you think.

    Stop thinking like an American, 
Start thinking about humanity!



      
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From Walterb306 at cs.com  Wed May  6 12:10:23 2009
From: Walterb306 at cs.com (Walterb306 at cs.com)
Date: Wed, 6 May 2009 12:10:23 EDT
Subject: [CitizensTruth] ARTICLE-Souter's resignation possibly forced
Message-ID: <c08.5df2dfac.3733106f@cs.com>

Hal,

Thanks for the alert.

Google search turns up more than 6000 entries for "Sorcha Faal."  Very 
strong, if not wild, claims.

Still, we have Obama's administration proposing hundreds of billions more 
for the IMF and World Bank- which, despite the original vision of those 
insitutions, have devolved into agents of massive exploitation and degradation.  
Hard to take in the shock of that - and corporatist media, of course, lets 
it pass.

Where this is taking us is a disturbing question.

Beverley
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From rmigalla at earthlink.net  Thu May  7 15:12:05 2009
From: rmigalla at earthlink.net (Robin Migalla)
Date: Thu, 7 May 2009 14:12:05 -0500
Subject: [CitizensTruth] FW: Interfaith Panel Discussion/Reminder - Greening
	our lives and places of faith
Message-ID: <01C9CF1D.CE0D5030.rmigalla@earthlink.net>

Hi All,

If you're not busy on Friday, you may be interested in this.

Cheers,
Robin

-----Original Message-----
From:	danielle henson [SMTP:dhenson at gailborden.info]
Sent:	Tuesday, May 05, 2009 11:27
To:	rmigalla at earthlink.net
Subject:	Interfaith Panel Discussion/Reminder - Greening our lives and places of faith

Interfaith Panel Discussion
Sustainable Sanctuary

Friday, May 8th 7:00-9:00
Highland Avenue Church of the Brethren
783 W. Highland Avenue, Elgin

Please join us for a lively presentation and discussion on Greening our
lives and places of faith.
Bring your ideas and questions!

Panel Presenters-

David Radcliff- Global Economy and Local Efforts
Sandy Anna-Fair Trade Options
Robin Migalla-Local Food
Kathleen Haerr-Simple Steps-Global Effects
Dave Segal-Green Sanctuary

These presenters are experts in the ways we can meet our current
challenges and will provide step by step ways we can support our faith in
action as we move forward individually and as a whole.

We are looking for your input and questions as we embark on our journey to
make our places of faith more sacred by creating more sustainable yet
simple practices. Please join us for Fair Trade coffee, tea and great
connections. If you have anyone willing to join our panel to present
please contact Danielle Henson @ dhenson at gailborden.info or call
224-856-1317

Please forward to anyone you feel would have an interest.
Peace


















From mjkirk12 at yahoo.com  Thu May  7 21:55:09 2009
From: mjkirk12 at yahoo.com (Mike Kirk)
Date: Thu, 7 May 2009 18:55:09 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [CitizensTruth] Eminent domain and PA 9/11 memorial
Message-ID: <800725.94928.qm@web83806.mail.sp1.yahoo.com>

Wow - two controversial issues at odds with each other...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090507/ap_on_re_us/us_flight93_memorial

What a wild world we live in.

-Mike
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From hal at drxyzzy.org  Fri May  8 12:59:10 2009
From: hal at drxyzzy.org (Hal Snyder)
Date: Fri, 8 May 2009 11:59:10 -0500
Subject: [CitizensTruth] changing times
Message-ID: <579A8D5E-C125-4F40-A927-419008A67B66@drxyzzy.org>

I have read the Hedges and Blum articles on Obama recently mentioned  
here, as well as numerous others. I agree with many of the complaints  
but want to point out something else that is going on.

Since the elections of last November, it has occurred to some of us  
that there are ways to work for social change within the system, and  
that chances for positive influence are significantly improved.

I have been putting effort into such efforts, such as running for  
local office in the April election, and working to get the best  
possible result out of the present health care reform legislative  
process. I personally prefer the change in emphasis from dissent to  
organizing for a specific, positive and proximal result.


From dimension04 at sbcglobal.net  Fri May  8 19:30:43 2009
From: dimension04 at sbcglobal.net (Connie Smith)
Date: Fri, 8 May 2009 18:30:43 -0500
Subject: [CitizensTruth] changing times
In-Reply-To: <579A8D5E-C125-4F40-A927-419008A67B66@drxyzzy.org>
References: <579A8D5E-C125-4F40-A927-419008A67B66@drxyzzy.org>
Message-ID: <B44D7B19328540FDAF5E4F01EE63E984@InspironConnie>




Bravo, Hal!
Connie


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Hal Snyder" <hal at drxyzzy.org>
To: <citizenstruth at six.pairlist.net>
Sent: Friday, May 08, 2009 11:59 AM
Subject: [CitizensTruth] changing times


>I have read the Hedges and Blum articles on Obama recently mentioned  
> here, as well as numerous others. I agree with many of the complaints  
> but want to point out something else that is going on.
> 
> Since the elections of last November, it has occurred to some of us  
> that there are ways to work for social change within the system, and  
> that chances for positive influence are significantly improved.
> 
> I have been putting effort into such efforts, such as running for  
> local office in the April election, and working to get the best  
> possible result out of the present health care reform legislative  
> process. I personally prefer the change in emphasis from dissent to  
> organizing for a specific, positive and proximal result.
> 
> _______________________________________________
> CitizensTruth mailing list
> CitizensTruth at six.pairlist.net
> http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/citizenstruth
> website: http://citizenstruth.info

From geri at thetwofacesofmoney.com  Sun May 10 20:59:15 2009
From: geri at thetwofacesofmoney.com (Geri Perry)
Date: Sun, 10 May 2009 19:59:15 -0500
Subject: [CitizensTruth] changing times
In-Reply-To: <B44D7B19328540FDAF5E4F01EE63E984@InspironConnie>
References: <579A8D5E-C125-4F40-A927-419008A67B66@drxyzzy.org>
	<B44D7B19328540FDAF5E4F01EE63E984@InspironConnie>
Message-ID: <4A077863.9010001@thetwofacesofmoney.com>

I agree,

Many Kudos to Hal for devoting time and energy to initiating change at 
the LOCAL level, and also for running for local office.

Just one point I'd like to refine: dissent is different from critical 
analysis and evaluation.

Dissent is often counter-productive, thoughtful analysis and evaluation 
never is. Unfortunately, dissent is the easier choice - so Hal's 
emphasis on local participation is something more of us should seek to 
emulate. Local participation includes writing oped pieces for local news 
outlets, ala Connie BTW.

But we should never ignore the need for continuous critical analysis and 
evaluation, even of our own ideas and beliefs.

gerip

Connie Smith wrote:
>
>
>
> Bravo, Hal!
> Connie
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Hal Snyder" <hal at drxyzzy.org>
> To: <citizenstruth at six.pairlist.net>
> Sent: Friday, May 08, 2009 11:59 AM
> Subject: [CitizensTruth] changing times
>
>
>> I have read the Hedges and Blum articles on Obama recently mentioned  
>> here, as well as numerous others. I agree with many of the 
>> complaints  but want to point out something else that is going on.
>>
>> Since the elections of last November, it has occurred to some of us  
>> that there are ways to work for social change within the system, and  
>> that chances for positive influence are significantly improved.
>>
>> I have been putting effort into such efforts, such as running for  
>> local office in the April election, and working to get the best  
>> possible result out of the present health care reform legislative  
>> process. I personally prefer the change in emphasis from dissent to  
>> organizing for a specific, positive and proximal result.
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> CitizensTruth mailing list
>> CitizensTruth at six.pairlist.net
>> http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/citizenstruth
>> website: http://citizenstruth.info
> _______________________________________________
> CitizensTruth mailing list
> CitizensTruth at six.pairlist.net
> http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/citizenstruth
> website: http://citizenstruth.info

From futurenotwritten at yahoo.com  Mon May 11 09:07:59 2009
From: futurenotwritten at yahoo.com (Jay Becker)
Date: Mon, 11 May 2009 06:07:59 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [CitizensTruth] "The Guantanamo Labyrinth" in Sunday Trib
Message-ID: <335534.3866.qm@web33508.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

Excellent front-page article in the Trib's Sunday magazine, featuring Candace Gorman and summarizing the horror of torture at Guantanamo and the orders and justifications for it all the way from the White House on down. http://tinyurl.com/onfcyl
Write letters to the editor!

Here's how the piece ends:

It's March in The Hague. Daffodils are already up, the tulips are soon
to follow, and criminal proceedings are under way against some of the
world's most notorious war criminals -- Liberia's Charles Taylor is on
trial for crimes against humanity; the trial of Radovan Karadzic,
Bosnia's wartime leader, is expected to begin soon; and an arrest
warrant has been issued for Sudanese President Omar Bashir, the man who
presided over the Darfur genocide. Gorman believes that senior Bush
administration officials belong here too.



 "To me, there is no question they are war criminals. They enabled the process that took place," she says.


 She is particularly contemptuous of John Yoo and Jay Bybee, the
Justice Department lawyers most responsible for the torture memo. "It
wouldn't have happened without the lawyers," she says.


 "In the back of my mind, I've kept my own list of the worst of the
worst," Gorman says. "I don't know what I can do at this point. Right
now, I'm focused on my two clients and getting them out. When they're
out, we'll see what's next."

Jay

    Stop thinking like an American, 
Start thinking about humanity!



      
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From geri at thetwofacesofmoney.com  Mon May 11 14:42:16 2009
From: geri at thetwofacesofmoney.com (Geri Perry)
Date: Mon, 11 May 2009 13:42:16 -0500
Subject: [CitizensTruth] The County Sheriff, martial law and the Constitution
Message-ID: <4A087188.205@thetwofacesofmoney.com>

This guy is great - only7 minutes: 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLJgPuNAh60

read the oath:  http://oath-keepers.blogspot.com/

and check out some of Sheriff's Mack's recommends: http://sheriffmack.com/

From geri at thetwofacesofmoney.com  Mon May 11 14:57:36 2009
From: geri at thetwofacesofmoney.com (Geri Perry)
Date: Mon, 11 May 2009 13:57:36 -0500
Subject: [CitizensTruth] Important Film Monday May 18  [Fwd: ADHD, Depression,
 Suicide - Generation Rx]
Message-ID: <4A087520.5030406@thetwofacesofmoney.com>


What: Documentary Generation Rx
Where: Orland Park, Marcus Theaters
When: Monday May 18, doors open 6:30pm, film at 7pm
Cost: $5, must pre-register below

PLEASE FORWARD WIDELY to all Southwest suburban area residents who may 
be interested

-------- Original Message --------

Having trouble viewing this email? Click here 
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From aroyboy44 at hotmail.com  Mon May 11 17:29:22 2009
From: aroyboy44 at hotmail.com (andrew ritter)
Date: Mon, 11 May 2009 21:29:22 +0000
Subject: [CitizensTruth] changing times
In-Reply-To: <4A077863.9010001@thetwofacesofmoney.com>
References: <579A8D5E-C125-4F40-A927-419008A67B66@drxyzzy.org>
	<B44D7B19328540FDAF5E4F01EE63E984@InspironConnie> 
	<4A077863.9010001@thetwofacesofmoney.com> 
Message-ID: <BLU123-W31CA90DD2108066894007BBE630@phx.gbl>






HAL -  I am happy to hear about your run!  - do you need any help?

I would like to echo Geri and add that posting facts and opinions about Obama/Democrats on this list does not mean that a person is not working for positive change in our day to day lives.  This is a place to share ideas & research, hopefully raise some awareness and raise the level of discourse from what the current msm discourse is which is largely 2 voices:  1) Obama is hope & change    2)  Obama is the antichrist

BTW - Tomorrow Tuesday May 12th @ 8:00 pm at the Strawdawg Theatre is Democracy Burlesque

http://democracyburlesque.com/

Ticket proceeds always go towards a wonderful
cause and this time the cause is the VetArt project for Iraq/Afghan
veterans who are trying to deal with their
post traumatic stress disorder issues through the arts.  Hope to see you there. 









> Date: Sun, 10 May 2009 19:59:15 -0500
> From: geri at thetwofacesofmoney.com
> To: dimension04 at sbcglobal.net
> CC: citizenstruth at six.pairlist.net
> Subject: Re: [CitizensTruth] changing times
> 
> I agree,
> 
> Many Kudos to Hal for devoting time and energy to initiating change at 
> the LOCAL level, and also for running for local office.
> 
> Just one point I'd like to refine: dissent is different from critical 
> analysis and evaluation.
> 
> Dissent is often counter-productive, thoughtful analysis and evaluation 
> never is. Unfortunately, dissent is the easier choice - so Hal's 
> emphasis on local participation is something more of us should seek to 
> emulate. Local participation includes writing oped pieces for local news 
> outlets, ala Connie BTW.
> 
> But we should never ignore the need for continuous critical analysis and 
> evaluation, even of our own ideas and beliefs.
> 
> gerip
> 
> Connie Smith wrote:
> >
> >
> >
> > Bravo, Hal!
> > Connie
> >
> >
> > ----- Original Message ----- From: "Hal Snyder" <hal at drxyzzy.org>
> > To: <citizenstruth at six.pairlist.net>
> > Sent: Friday, May 08, 2009 11:59 AM
> > Subject: [CitizensTruth] changing times
> >
> >
> >> I have read the Hedges and Blum articles on Obama recently mentioned  
> >> here, as well as numerous others. I agree with many of the 
> >> complaints  but want to point out something else that is going on.
> >>
> >> Since the elections of last November, it has occurred to some of us  
> >> that there are ways to work for social change within the system, and  
> >> that chances for positive influence are significantly improved.
> >>
> >> I have been putting effort into such efforts, such as running for  
> >> local office in the April election, and working to get the best  
> >> possible result out of the present health care reform legislative  
> >> process. I personally prefer the change in emphasis from dissent to  
> >> organizing for a specific, positive and proximal result.
> >>
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> CitizensTruth mailing list
> >> CitizensTruth at six.pairlist.net
> >> http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/citizenstruth
> >> website: http://citizenstruth.info
> > _______________________________________________
> > CitizensTruth mailing list
> > CitizensTruth at six.pairlist.net
> > http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/citizenstruth
> > website: http://citizenstruth.info
> _______________________________________________
> CitizensTruth mailing list
> CitizensTruth at six.pairlist.net
> http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/citizenstruth
> website: http://citizenstruth.info

_________________________________________________________________
Hotmail? goes with you. 
http://windowslive.com/Tutorial/Hotmail/Mobile?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_HM_Tutorial_Mobile1_052009
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From rmigalla at earthlink.net  Wed May 13 11:05:19 2009
From: rmigalla at earthlink.net (Robin Migalla)
Date: Wed, 13 May 2009 10:05:19 -0500
Subject: [CitizensTruth] Wisdom Rising - Saturday, May 16th
Message-ID: <01C9D3B2.52E52C40.rmigalla@earthlink.net>

Hi All,

We're having a wonderful event here in Elgin on Saturday, May 16th from 9am 
to 5pm to "learn, share and raise your wisdom of today's latest healing 
arts techniques."  Please join us.  To learn more, visit:

http://www.uucewisdomrising.com/

Dr. Meyer Eisenstein - "World-renowned physician who applies the principles 
of minimal pharmaceuticals to adult medicine and emphasizes natural 
substitutes to control other medical conditions." will be the keynote 
speaker at noon.  There are lots of other great speakers sharing their 
wisdom as well (http://www.uucewisdomrising.com/program.htm).  I will be 
giving a presentation on Edgar Cayce and Holism at 3:00.  I hope to see you 
there.

Cheers,
Robin

From geri at thetwofacesofmoney.com  Wed May 13 14:08:43 2009
From: geri at thetwofacesofmoney.com (Geri Perry)
Date: Wed, 13 May 2009 13:08:43 -0500
Subject: [CitizensTruth] [Fwd: ACTION ALERT!!!] Oppose Illinois HB 85,
 related to internet voting
Message-ID: <4A0B0CAB.3060607@thetwofacesofmoney.com>

Some of you may know  . . .

that the We The People Congress has  initiated a Federal Lawsuit to ban 
all electronic voting. This lawsuit is headed for trial. Discovery has 
begun and then the jury will decide the law. Let's hope that's what they 
will actually be allowed to do. see: 
http://www.wethepeoplefoundation.org/UPDATE/Update2009-05-11.htm

In the meantime, Illinois will entertain another bill which it has 
little business "entertaining". See info below, and call appropriate 
officials ASAP.


-------- Original Message --------

*URGENT!!!!!

*Please go to our website at http://ballotintegrity.org/  to see the 
full details.

PLEASE SPREAD WIDELY!!!!!!

*Please call your* *Illinois state Senator AND Governor Pat Quinn's 
office*  to OPPOSE  /_*Illinois HB 85*, which seeks to establish an ad 
hoc_/ /_commission_/ to investigate INTERNET VOTING.

*    Don't know your Senator?  
    Look here: 
http://www.elections.state.il.us/DistrictLocator/SelectSearchType.aspx *

*    Pat Quinn's office: 
    (Phone: 217-782-0244* *or **312-814-2121**)*

WHY OPPOSE THE COMMISSION:

Since the bill establishes a COMMISSION and NOT a COMMITTEE it is 
_*not*_ subject to the usual review or input from the public, internet 
security and voting experts.  As such, the commission can "rule" to 
suggest a *_vendor_* for internet voting without the benefit of fully 
understanding the insecurities of internet voting or the fact that there 
is no verifiable paper ballot as */_required_/ *by the Illinois Election 
Code.
=0 A
I THOUGHT THAT INTERNET VOTING IS SECURE:
While many transactions have been conducted online safely, all systems 
are still vulnerable to attack--even the Pentagon has been hacked into.
 For more information:
http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/03/07/china.hackers/index.html

I THOUGHT THAT INTERNET VOTING WOULD BENEFIT US CITIZENS LIVING ABROAD, 
INCLUDING US MILITARY PERSONNEL:
ALL ILLINOIS VOTERS should demand a verifiable /*paper ballot*/ which 
can be easily read, marked, accurately counted and secured, especially 
in the event of a recount or close election.  ALL military personnel and 
those living abroad still have that ability NOW to vote with a military 
or overseas paper absentee ballots. 

The Pentagon tried to introduce internet voting for its military, but it 
was a /_complete failure_/, due among other problems, its vast 
insecurity.  So porous was the system that the Pentagon _/*CANCELED 
*/_*internet voting.  *

See: http://news.digitaltrends.com/news-article/2589/favicon.ico

According to Dr. Rebecca Mercuri, computerized voting expert--the 
military and ex-pats have the ability NOW to establish precincts in 
overseas military bases as well as all overseas embassies.  _The fact 
is, the need for internet voting is not justified_.

In a document regarding internet voting over *_24 computer security and 
computerized voting experts_* have determined that inte rnet voting or 
the even a pilot program for internet voting is just /_not appopriate 
due to inherent insecurity_/:

Here is what they said: 

"Given this list of problems, there is ample reason to be skeptical of 
internet voting proposals. Therefore, the principles of operation of any 
internet voting scheme should be publicly disclosed in sufficient detail 
so that anyone with the necessary qualifications and skills can verify 
that election results from that system can reasonably be trusted. Before 
these conditions are met, /*?pilot studies? of internet voting in 
government elections should be avoided, because the apparent ?success? 
of such a study absolutely cannot show the absence of problems that, by 
their nature, may go undetected. *Furthermore, potential attackers may 
choose only to attack full-scale elections, not pilot projects.*
**The internet has the potential to transform democracy in many ways, 
but permitting it to be used for public elections without assurance that 
the results are verifiably accurate is an extraordinary and unnecessary 
risk to democracy.
*/
You can see the entire document here.
http://www.verifiedvoting.org/downloads/InternetVotingStatement.pdf

INTERNET VOTING IS JUST FOR THOSE PEOPLE OVERSEAS--HOW DOES IT AFFECT ME?
One can make a claim that with any vote lost, (or stolen) our democracy 
suffers, our self-determination denied.  An internet voting pilot 
program may turn into a fully run el ection--with no verifiable paper 
ballot, no observers at the poll, no election judges, no observers when 
ballots or materials are dropped off or counted. Our elections would be 
in the hands of a private server.  Is this something that we want?  I 
would say emphatically NO!

It would be a fully FAITH BASED election--worse than those conducted now 
with privatized, computerized voting.

Please just take a few minutes and voice your concern.
Please tell them you your name and address.  
To make them accountable to you--please also ask your Senator to write 
you back as to how they will vote on the bill and WHY.

Use the body of this message for talking points  OR go to our website 
www.ballot-integrity.org

______________ the bottom line is this:

Internet voting is insecure, unverifiable, and a strict violation of 
Illinois election code which requires a voter verifiable paper ballot 
for all voters!
I urge you to oppose HB 85, and the establishment of a commission for 
internet voting.


Thank you!

Melisa Urda
Illinois Ballot Integrity Project








 



------------------------------------------------------------------------
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From aqmstaffo at mailbag.com  Wed May 13 21:40:12 2009
From: aqmstaffo at mailbag.com (Daniel Stafford)
Date: Wed, 13 May 2009 20:40:12 -0500
Subject: [CitizensTruth] Bush's "Smoking Gun" Witness is Found Dead
In-Reply-To: <12208882.1242233505010.JavaMail.www@app22>
References: <12208882.1242233505010.JavaMail.www@app22>
Message-ID: <4A0B767C.7030207@mailbag.com>


>
> 	ImpeachBush top 
> <http://www.impeachbush.org/site/R?i=tl2TV_Pw0PwpRF10CUpfTg..> 	
> Click here to subscribe. 
> <http://www.impeachbush.org/site/R?i=UUEdHYYAM2n8ETVLIl-Xxw..>   
> E-mail this page to a friend 
> <http://www.impeachbush.org/site/R?i=WPW17ylZPB9yFhG5vFcm-g..>
>
> **Please circulate widely on the internet and to social networking 
> sites**
>
> *Bush's 'Smoking Gun' Witness Found Dead*
> *IndictBushNow files Freedom of Information Act lawsuit to get to 
> bottom of story*
>
> The cover-up of Bush-era crimes is taking a shocking but not 
> unexpected turn. A fateful move has been made and it is certain to 
> backfire.
> Powell
> /Colin Powell used al-Libi's tortured and knowingly fabricated 
> testimony to tell the United Nations that Saddam Hussein's government 
> was helping al-Qaeda develop weapons of mass destruction to kill 
> Americans. It was all a lie./
> *IndictBushNow.org is joining with the Partnership for Civil Justice 
> Fund and the ANSWER Coalition to demand that the truth be told. We 
> have filed a Freedom of Information Act Request (FOIA) with the CIA, 
> Department of Defense, Department of State and other agencies to 
> reveal information in their possession about Libi's imprisonment, 
> torture, false testimony on Iraq and the circumstances of his death.* 
> To read a copy of the FOIA, *click this link* 
> <http://www.impeachbush.org/site/R?i=hidLcVDF60RFOL00dXj1-Q..>.
>
>
> A prisoner who was horribly tortured in 2002 until he agreed - at the 
> demand of Bush torturers - to say that al-Qaeda was linked to Saddam 
> Hussein is suddenly dead. Several weeks ago, Human Rights Watch 
> investigators discovered the missing inmate and talked to him. He had 
> been secretly transferred by the administration to a prison in Libya 
> after having been held by the CIA both in secret "black hole prisons" 
> and in Egypt.
>
> Under conditions of extreme torture, the prisoner, Ibn al-Sheikh 
> al-Libi, agreed in 2002 to supply the Bush-ordered interrogators what 
> they sought as a political cover for Bush's marketing of the pending 
> war of aggression against Iraq. Mr. Libi agreed to tell them whatever 
> they wanted in exchange for an end to the torture. The now famous 
> Torture Memos providing legal cover for the torture were written at 
> the same time starting in the summer of 2002.
>
> Libi's tortured and knowingly fabricated testimony was the source of 
> information used by Bush to sell the war to the U.S. Senate, and the 
> source for Colin Powell's bogus and lying presentation to the United 
> Nations in 2003.
>
> Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Rice are now running around saying that the 
> torture regime "protected the country from terrorist attack." *But the 
> torture was used for the personal political goals of Bush and Cheney: 
> namely, to sell their Iraq invasion to a very skeptical and 
> disbelieving country.
> *
> Having been discovered by human rights investigators two weeks ago, 
> Mr. Libi's story coincided with the release of the Torture Memos and 
> the growing clamor for criminal prosecutions of Bush officials.
>
> His testimony is the smoking gun that would reveal that the torture 
> regime was not for "national security" but for the personal political 
> aims of Bush and Cheney.
>
> He was Exhibit A in the indictment that alleges that tortured 
> confessions and the contrived legal justifications of torture set up 
> by Justice Department lawyers in July/August 2002 were central to the 
> launch of the war against Iraq.
>
> Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have died and tens of thousands of 
> U.S. service members have either been killed or badly wounded in a war 
> that was based on lies fortified and promoted by the most sadistic 
> torture.
>
> Mr. Libi is suddenly dead.  A Libyan "newspaper source" says that his 
> death is an apparent suicide. His friends don't believe that.
>
> We are building a movement for the appointment of a Special 
> Prosecutor. This is not a political choice. It is a legal imperative. 
> Mr. Libi's death must be the first business of the investigation. When 
> other prisoners who had been kept at secret sites were sent to 
> Guantanamo, the Bush administration and the CIA intentionally kept Mr. 
> Libi from being part of that transfer. Mr. Libi was publicly stating 
> that the Iraq-al-Qaeda links attributed to him from his torture 
> sessions were not true.
>
> "Who was the beneficiary" from his death? Why was he spirited away by 
> the Bush administration to hidden foreign prisons after he recanted 
> his tortured testimony and revealed that he was forced to make false 
> statements about Iraq under torture?
>
> *IndictBushNow.org is joining with the Partnership for Civil Justice 
> Fund and the ANSWER Coalition to demand that the truth be told. We 
> have filed a Freedom of Information Act Request (FOIA) with the CIA, 
> Department of Defense, Department of State and other agencies to 
> reveal information in their possession about Libi's imprisonment, 
> torture, false testimony on Iraq and the circumstances of his death.* 
> To read a copy of the FOIA, *click this link* 
> <http://www.impeachbush.org/site/R?i=pziZNKNGHjAk8l3n7ouWWg..>.
>
> *Please Donate Today
> *
> *Please help us continue this work with a generous donation*. The 
> truth is coming out and the pressure is building, but we can't do it 
> without your contribution.* Please click this link to donate today. 
> <http://www.impeachbush.org/site/R?i=9yjZukNJ7U0eTihcPGN_-g..>*
>
> /--From all of us at IndictBushNow.org
>
> /
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> ** 
> <http://pepib.convio.net/site/CO?i=r6HnajWsURW3naRlbI2ASIaHo68m58ZT&cid=0> 
>
>
>
> Powered by Convio. 
> <http://www.impeachbush.org/site/R?i=GFhk5Y1TKGTJliwabQIWGA..>
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From Walterb306 at cs.com  Thu May 14 10:52:23 2009
From: Walterb306 at cs.com (Walterb306 at cs.com)
Date: Thu, 14 May 2009 10:52:23 EDT
Subject: [CitizensTruth] ACTION ALERT - Internet Voting Bill
Message-ID: <d4f.5120008a.373d8a27@cs.com>

All,

FYI.  Alert

Beverley

URGENT!!!!! 



Please go to our website at www.ballot-integrity.org to see the full 
details.



PLEASE SPREAD WIDELY!!!!!!




Please call your Illinois state Senator AND Governor Pat Quinn's office? to 
OPPOSE? Illinois HB 85, which seeks to establish an ad hoc commission to 
investigate INTERNET VOTING. 

??? 
      
     Don't know your Senator? ? 
??? Look here:   
     
(http://www.elections.state.il.us/DistrictLocator/SelectSearchType.aspx)

??? 
     Gov. Pat Quinn's office:? 
??? (Phone: 217-782-0244 or 312-814-2121)


WHY OPPOSE THE COMMISSION:

Since the bill establishes a COMMISSION and NOT a COMMITTEE it is not 
subject to the usual review or input from the public, internet security and 
voting experts.? As such, the commission can "rule" to suggest a vendor for 
internet voting without the benefit of fully understanding the insecurities of 
internet voting or the fact that there is no verifiable paper ballot as 
required by the Illinois Election Code.


I THOUGHT THAT INTERNET VOTING IS SECURE:
While many transactions have been conducted online safely, all systems are 
still vulnerable to attack--even the Pentagon has been hacked into. 
?For more information: 
http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/03/07/china.hackers/index.html


I THOUGHT THAT INTERNET VOTING WOULD BENEFIT US CITIZENS LIVING ABROAD, 
INCLUDING US MILITARY PERSONNEL: 
ALL ILLINOIS VOTERS should demand a verifiable paper ballot which can be 
easily read, marked, accurately counted and secured, especially in the event 
of a recount or close election.? ALL military personnel and those living 
abroad still have that ability NOW to vote with a military or overseas paper 
absentee ballots.? 

The Pentagon tried to introduce internet voting for its military, but it 
was a complete failure, due among other problems, its vast insecurity.? So 
porous was the system that the Pentagon CANCELED internet voting.? 

See: http://news.digitaltrends.com/news-article/2589/favicon.ico 


According to Dr. Rebecca Mercuri, computerized voting expert--the military 
and ex-pats have the ability NOW to establish precincts in overseas military 
bases as well as all overseas embassies.? The fact is, the need for 
internet voting is not justified.

In a document regarding internet voting over 24 computer security and 
computerized voting experts have determined that internet voting or the even a 
pilot program for internet voting is just not appopriate due to inherent 
insecurity:

Here is what they said:? 



"Given this list of problems, there is ample reason to be skeptical of 
internet voting proposals. Therefore, the principles of operation of any 
internet voting scheme should be publicly disclosed in sufficient detail so that 
anyone with the necessary qualifications and skills can verify that election 
results from that system can reasonably be trusted. Before these conditions 
are met, "pilot studies" of internet voting in government elections should be 
avoided, because the apparent "success" of such a study absolutely cannot 
show the absence of problems that, by their nature, may go undetected. 
Furthermor e, potential attackers may choose only to attack full-scale elections, 
not pilot projects.
The internet has the potential to transform democracy in many ways, but 
permitting it to be used for public elections without assurance that the 
results are verifiably accurate is an extraordinary and unnecessary risk to 
democracy.


You can see the entire document here.
http://www.verifiedvoting.org/downloads/InternetVotingStatement.pdf



INTERNET VOTING IS JUST FOR THOSE PEOPLE OVERSEAS--HOW DOES IT AFFECT ME?
One can make a claim that with any vote lost, (or stolen) our democracy 
suffers, our self-determination denied.? An internet voting pilot program may 
turn into a fully run election--with no verifiable paper ballot, no observers 
at the poll, no election judges, no observers when ballots or materials are 
dropped off or counted. Our elections would be in the hands of a private 
server.? Is this something that we want?? I would say emphatically NO!



It would be a fully FAITH BASED election--worse than those conducted now 
with privatized, computerized voting. 

Please just take a few minutes and voice your concern.
Please tell them you your name and address. ? 
To make them accountable to you--please also ask your Senator to write you 
back as to how they will vote on the bill and WHY.



Use the body of this message for talking points? OR go to our website 
www.ballot-integrity.org



_____________ the bottom line is this:


Internet voting is insecure, unverifiable, and a strict violation of 
Illinois election code which requires a voter verifiable paper ballot for all 
voters!
I urge you to oppose HB 85, and the establishment of a commission for 
internet voting.




Thank you!



Melisa Urda

Illinois Ballot Integrity Project 

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From edward_rynearson at yahoo.com  Thu May 14 11:05:55 2009
From: edward_rynearson at yahoo.com (Edward Rynearson)
Date: Thu, 14 May 2009 08:05:55 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [CitizensTruth] Eighty to ninety percent of all Americans who seek
	medical care have symptoms caused by repressed inner conflicts
Message-ID: <803333.96234.qm@web30004.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

Time To Listen

How I Learned What Really Matters

Since eighty to ninety percent of all Americans who seek medical care have symptoms caused by repressed inner conflicts and not by a disease process (ask your primary care physician if he agrees with this), our high powered health care system designed to diagnose and treat serious life threatening illnesses has become a colossal failure bankrupting the health care system of our country.

If one's ten year old daughter says she has a severe stomach ache and must stay out of school, and if we know she has many friends and is doing well in school, but is anxious about her grandma's recently diagnosed cancer and the fact that an infant brother just joined the family, then we feel compassion for her? we suffer with her.? We don't rush her to the doctor because we have important information that gives us insight into the cause of her pain.

Our current medical system has so limited the time available for the primary care physicians to obtain this crucial information to obtain this insight into the repressed cause of the symptom that the disease oriented approach that fits the vast minority of patients, causes not only an unsustainable cost but also potential harm and even death to the majority.

It doesn't have to be that way says Mayo trained psychiatrist, Dr. Robert R. Rynearson who founded the Psychiatry Department at the Scott and White Clinic in Temple, Texas.? He spent thirty-four years listening to people.? The chances, he says, of a patient getting appropriate treatment in the current medical system are slim. Your doctor doesn't have time to listen to you to determine if you are one of the eighty to ninety percent of patients whose symptoms are caused by inner emotional conflicts or if you are one of the ten to twenty percent of patients whose symptoms require medication, complicated testing, and referral to a specialist.

Dr. Rynearson has developed a short cut for the eighty to ninety percent group to get significant help.??? Once a person sees the inner conflict (insight) the symptoms are no longer necessary.

One woman presented with severe chronic abdominal pain.? She had spent her life savings seeing specialists and had been operated on seven times.? When Dr. Rynearson first saw her, he asked about her pain.? She said it had been present for eleven years.? He asked what happened eleven years ago.?? She burst into tears and said that her only son had committed suicide eleven years ago by shooting himself in the abdomen with a ten gauge shot gun. She hadn't discussed this with any of the doctors she had seen previously. When she dealt with this unresolved inner conflict she went home pain free.

Dr. Rynearson has developed techniques to help his patients gain insight.??? The late Ian Alger's pioneering work with television techniques which he called Profile Self Confrontation combined with? Dr. Rynearson's work on developing Emotional Status Examination system have quickly revealed the patient's underlying conflict.

In his memoir, TIME TO LISTEN, Dr. Rynearson illustrates the Profile Self Confrontation, Emotional Status Examination,? and other methods used to help his patients quickly obtain insight without subjecting them to expensive and sometimes harmful procedures.? If doctors prescribe medication, tests, and referrals to only the ten to twenty percent of their patients who need it, our medical system would not be bankrupt.? Every headache does not require an MRI.

Wordpress
http://robertrynearson.wordpress.com/

YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FgZ2J_iPXM

Amazon (Kindle Edition)
http://www.amazon.com/Time-To-Listen-ebook/dp/B0029U15EY/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=digital-text&qid=1242306553&sr=1-1

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From welaware at merr.com  Thu May 14 11:20:38 2009
From: welaware at merr.com (Kris Knight)
Date: Thu, 14 May 2009 10:20:38 -0500
Subject: [CitizensTruth] Eighty to ninety percent of all Americans who
	seek medical care have symptoms caused by repressed inner conflicts
In-Reply-To: <803333.96234.qm@web30004.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
References: <803333.96234.qm@web30004.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <3BF67062-BF12-40D6-8333-B147546B377C@merr.com>

I would also submit this...a huge percentage of both physical and  
emotional imbalances have a nutritional deficiency basis, which  
psychiatrists almost totally ignore.  I just spent about 17 hours  
driving and listening that whole time to an amazing conference of very  
detailed info re. the spectrum of disorders/imbalances that includes  
ADHD, autism, learning disabilities, dyspraxia, etc. and the  
statistics were stunning as to the percentage of problems that are  
nutritionally based.  Psychiatrists are hell-bent on making everything  
an inner conflict that is within the realm of emotions, almost  
completely ignoring the nutritional/digestive component in those, and  
other docs are hell-bent on treating as though the emotions have  
nothing to do with the physical problems beyond something they  
medicate.  And the vast majority of digestive activity takes place in  
the gut, and reactions to the body follow from there.  If what you  
take in, or what you have to work with once the ingestion takes place,  
is in any way compromised, this is the beginning of many problems.
In Britain, all of the aforementioned problems fall under the category  
of a syndrome that has been named GAPS---Gut and Psychology Syndrome,  
which categorically binds the two systems and their aberrant  
symptoms.  The issues are far more complicated than simply vaccine- 
related, although one component is vaccine related---that of a  
stimulant to an already very compromised system on many levels.  Then  
the vaccine becomes the trigger for many children, but not  all.
The other comment I'd like to make is that structural aberrations,  
what i work with, when corrected, make huge differences in one's  
overall functioning, since the bodymind inherently is trying to be  
healthy.  If given the chance, the pH, nerves, muscles, fascia, etc.  
will gravitate strongly toward health instead of disease.
If these two considerations were uppermost in all premises of new  
structuring of health care in this country, and ALL ELSE followed from  
there in terms of protocols for helping people stay OUT of the system,  
there would be a complete transformation of how we move through our  
lives.
It looks to me like the people with the best chance of thriving in  
life are those who self-educate in terms of these two factors--- 
digestive system health and structural alignment with emphasis on  
muscle imbalance correction which then enhances all the practitioners  
do to assist through bone/energy manipulation.
Ed, I'd love to have you forward this to your relative below, and then  
I'd like to read his feedback on this.  He is on the right track but  
still off by a mile.

On May 14, 2009, at 10:05 AM, Edward Rynearson wrote:

> Time To Listen
>
> How I Learned What Really Matters
>
> Since eighty to ninety percent of all Americans who seek medical  
> care have symptoms caused by repressed inner conflicts and not by a  
> disease process (ask your primary care physician if he agrees with  
> this), our high powered health care system designed to diagnose and  
> treat serious life threatening illnesses has become a colossal  
> failure bankrupting the health care system of our country.
>
> If one's ten year old daughter says she has a severe stomach ache  
> and must stay out of school, and if we know she has many friends and  
> is doing well in school, but is anxious about her grandma's recently  
> diagnosed cancer and the fact that an infant brother just joined the  
> family, then we feel compassion for her? we suffer with her.  We  
> don't rush her to the doctor because we have important information  
> that gives us insight into the cause of her pain.
>
> Our current medical system has so limited the time available for the  
> primary care physicians to obtain this crucial information to obtain  
> this insight into the repressed cause of the symptom that the  
> disease oriented approach that fits the vast minority of patients,  
> causes not only an unsustainable cost but also potential harm and  
> even death to the majority.
>
> It doesn't have to be that way says Mayo trained psychiatrist, Dr.  
> Robert R. Rynearson who founded the Psychiatry Department at the  
> Scott and White Clinic in Temple, Texas.  He spent thirty-four years  
> listening to people.  The chances, he says, of a patient getting  
> appropriate treatment in the current medical system are slim. Your  
> doctor doesn't have time to listen to you to determine if you are  
> one of the eighty to ninety percent of patients whose symptoms are  
> caused by inner emotional conflicts or if you are one of the ten to  
> twenty percent of patients whose symptoms require medication,  
> complicated testing, and referral to a specialist.
>
> Dr. Rynearson has developed a short cut for the eighty to ninety  
> percent group to get significant help.    Once a person sees the  
> inner conflict (insight) the symptoms are no longer necessary.
>
> One woman presented with severe chronic abdominal pain.  She had  
> spent her life savings seeing specialists and had been operated on  
> seven times.  When Dr. Rynearson first saw her, he asked about her  
> pain.  She said it had been present for eleven years.  He asked what  
> happened eleven years ago.   She burst into tears and said that her  
> only son had committed suicide eleven years ago by shooting himself  
> in the abdomen with a ten gauge shot gun. She hadn't discussed this  
> with any of the doctors she had seen previously. When she dealt with  
> this unresolved inner conflict she went home pain free.
>
> Dr. Rynearson has developed techniques to help his patients gain  
> insight.    The late Ian Alger's pioneering work with television  
> techniques which he called Profile Self Confrontation combined with   
> Dr. Rynearson's work on developing Emotional Status Examination  
> system have quickly revealed the patient's underlying conflict.
>
> In his memoir, TIME TO LISTEN, Dr. Rynearson illustrates the Profile  
> Self Confrontation, Emotional Status Examination,  and other methods  
> used to help his patients quickly obtain insight without subjecting  
> them to expensive and sometimes harmful procedures.  If doctors  
> prescribe medication, tests, and referrals to only the ten to twenty  
> percent of their patients who need it, our medical system would not  
> be bankrupt.  Every headache does not require an MRI.
>
> Wordpress
> http://robertrynearson.wordpress.com/
>
> YouTube
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FgZ2J_iPXM
>
> Amazon (Kindle Edition)
> http://www.amazon.com/Time-To-Listen-ebook/dp/B0029U15EY/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=digital-text&qid=1242306553&sr=1-1
>
> _______________________________________________
> CitizensTruth mailing list
> CitizensTruth at six.pairlist.net
> http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/citizenstruth
> website: http://citizenstruth.info

Kris Knight of WellAware Life Enhancement Center
Phone:  1-608-ALL-LIFE
welaware at merr.com






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From rmigalla at earthlink.net  Thu May 14 11:47:03 2009
From: rmigalla at earthlink.net (Robin Migalla)
Date: Thu, 14 May 2009 10:47:03 -0500
Subject: [CitizensTruth] Eighty to ninety percent of all Americans who
	seek	medical care have symptoms caused by repressed inner conflicts
Message-ID: <01C9D481.520D41C0.rmigalla@earthlink.net>

Hi Ed,

Is this a relative?  It's a very timely message since I'll be giving a 
presentation on holism this Saturday.

Cheers,
Robin
www.healthforlifecoloncare.com
www.westonaprice-elgin.org
"Let thy food be thy medicine and thy medicine be thy food."
                                     --Hippocrates  (460-377 B.C.)
            Just be careful how you define food ;-)

-----Original Message-----
From:	Edward Rynearson [SMTP:edward_rynearson at yahoo.com]
Sent:	Thursday, May 14, 2009 10:06
To:	citizenstruth at six.pairlist.net
Subject:	[CitizensTruth] Eighty to ninety percent of all Americans who 
seek	medical care have symptoms caused by repressed inner conflicts

Time To Listen

How I Learned What Really Matters

Since eighty to ninety percent of all Americans who seek medical care have 
symptoms caused by repressed inner conflicts and not by a disease process 
(ask your primary care physician if he agrees with this), our high powered 
health care system designed to diagnose and treat serious life threatening 
illnesses has become a colossal failure bankrupting the health care system 
of our country.

If one's ten year old daughter says she has a severe stomach ache and must 
stay out of school, and if we know she has many friends and is doing well 
in school, but is anxious about her grandma's recently diagnosed cancer and 
the fact that an infant brother just joined the family, then we feel 
compassion for her? we suffer with her.  We don't rush her to the doctor 
because we have important information that gives us insight into the cause 
of her pain.

Our current medical system has so limited the time available for the 
primary care physicians to obtain this crucial information to obtain this 
insight into the repressed cause of the symptom that the disease oriented 
approach that fits the vast minority of patients, causes not only an 
unsustainable cost but also potential harm and even death to the majority.

It doesn't have to be that way says Mayo trained psychiatrist, Dr. Robert 
R. Rynearson who founded the Psychiatry Department at the Scott and White 
Clinic in Temple, Texas.  He spent thirty-four years listening to people. 
 The chances, he says, of a patient getting appropriate treatment in the 
current medical system are slim. Your doctor doesn't have time to listen to 
you to determine if you are one of the eighty to ninety percent of patients 
whose symptoms are caused by inner emotional conflicts or if you are one of 
the ten to twenty percent of patients whose symptoms require medication, 
complicated testing, and referral to a specialist.

Dr. Rynearson has developed a short cut for the eighty to ninety percent 
group to get significant help.    Once a person sees the inner conflict 
(insight) the symptoms are no longer necessary.

One woman presented with severe chronic abdominal pain.  She had spent her 
life savings seeing specialists and had been operated on seven times.  When 
Dr. Rynearson first saw her, he asked about her pain.  She said it had been 
present for eleven years.  He asked what happened eleven years ago.   She 
burst into tears and said that her only son had committed suicide eleven 
years ago by shooting himself in the abdomen with a ten gauge shot gun. She 
hadn't discussed this with any of the doctors she had seen previously. When 
she dealt with this unresolved inner conflict she went home pain free.

Dr. Rynearson has developed techniques to help his patients gain insight. 
   The late Ian Alger's pioneering work with television techniques which he 
called Profile Self Confrontation combined with  Dr. Rynearson's work on 
developing Emotional Status Examination system have quickly revealed the 
patient's underlying conflict.

In his memoir, TIME TO LISTEN, Dr. Rynearson illustrates the Profile Self 
Confrontation, Emotional Status Examination,  and other methods used to 
help his patients quickly obtain insight without subjecting them to 
expensive and sometimes harmful procedures.  If doctors prescribe 
medication, tests, and referrals to only the ten to twenty percent of their 
patients who need it, our medical system would not be bankrupt.  Every 
headache does not require an MRI.

Wordpress
http://robertrynearson.wordpress.com/

YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FgZ2J_iPXM

Amazon (Kindle Edition)
http://www.amazon.com/Time-To-Listen-ebook/dp/B0029U15EY/ref=sr_1_1?ie=U  
TF8&s=digital-text&qid=1242306553&sr=1-1
 << File: ATT00053.htm; charset = utf-8 >>  << File: ATT00054.txt >> 

From rmigalla at earthlink.net  Thu May 14 11:52:57 2009
From: rmigalla at earthlink.net (Robin Migalla)
Date: Thu, 14 May 2009 10:52:57 -0500
Subject: [CitizensTruth] Eighty to ninety percent of all Americans
	who	seek medical care have symptoms caused by repressed inner
	conflicts
Message-ID: <01C9D482.28404F30.rmigalla@earthlink.net>

Hi Kris,

Edgar Cayce put it this way:

"Again, without that whole-hearted cooperation and oneness of mind and 
purpose, irrespective of position, condition, relation one with another, 
there may not be expected the result desired; any more than of a 
mis-directed mind attempting to understand a spiritual law through a purely 
physical application, or a physical law by spiritual application; for the 
spiritual is the LIFE; the mental is the BUILDER; the physical is the 
RESULT." (Reading 254-42)

Cheers,
Robin
www.healthforlifecoloncare.com
www.westonaprice-elgin.org
"Let thy food be thy medicine and thy medicine be thy food."
                                     --Hippocrates  (460-377 B.C.)
            Just be careful how you define food ;-)

-----Original Message-----
From:	Kris Knight [SMTP:welaware at merr.com]
Sent:	Thursday, May 14, 2009 10:21
To:	edward_rynearson at yahoo.com
Cc:	citizenstruth at six.pairlist.net
Subject:	Re: [CitizensTruth] Eighty to ninety percent of all Americans 
who	seek medical care have symptoms caused by repressed inner conflicts

I would also submit this...a huge percentage of both physical and
emotional imbalances have a nutritional deficiency basis, which
psychiatrists almost totally ignore.  I just spent about 17 hours
driving and listening that whole time to an amazing conference of very
detailed info re. the spectrum of disorders/imbalances that includes
ADHD, autism, learning disabilities, dyspraxia, etc. and the
statistics were stunning as to the percentage of problems that are
nutritionally based.  Psychiatrists are hell-bent on making everything
an inner conflict that is within the realm of emotions, almost
completely ignoring the nutritional/digestive component in those, and
other docs are hell-bent on treating as though the emotions have
nothing to do with the physical problems beyond something they
medicate.  And the vast majority of digestive activity takes place in
the gut, and reactions to the body follow from there.  If what you
take in, or what you have to work with once the ingestion takes place,
is in any way compromised, this is the beginning of many problems.
In Britain, all of the aforementioned problems fall under the category
of a syndrome that has been named GAPS---Gut and Psychology Syndrome,
which categorically binds the two systems and their aberrant
symptoms.  The issues are far more complicated than simply vaccine-
related, although one component is vaccine related---that of a
stimulant to an already very compromised system on many levels.  Then
the vaccine becomes the trigger for many children, but not  all.
The other comment I'd like to make is that structural aberrations,
what i work with, when corrected, make huge differences in one's
overall functioning, since the bodymind inherently is trying to be
healthy.  If given the chance, the pH, nerves, muscles, fascia, etc.
will gravitate strongly toward health instead of disease.
If these two considerations were uppermost in all premises of new
structuring of health care in this country, and ALL ELSE followed from
there in terms of protocols for helping people stay OUT of the system,
there would be a complete transformation of how we move through our
lives.
It looks to me like the people with the best chance of thriving in
life are those who self-educate in terms of these two factors---
digestive system health and structural alignment with emphasis on
muscle imbalance correction which then enhances all the practitioners
do to assist through bone/energy manipulation.
Ed, I'd love to have you forward this to your relative below, and then
I'd like to read his feedback on this.  He is on the right track but
still off by a mile.

On May 14, 2009, at 10:05 AM, Edward Rynearson wrote:

> Time To Listen
>
> How I Learned What Really Matters
>
> Since eighty to ninety percent of all Americans who seek medical
> care have symptoms caused by repressed inner conflicts and not by a
> disease process (ask your primary care physician if he agrees with
> this), our high powered health care system designed to diagnose and
> treat serious life threatening illnesses has become a colossal
> failure bankrupting the health care system of our country.
>
> If one's ten year old daughter says she has a severe stomach ache
> and must stay out of school, and if we know she has many friends and
> is doing well in school, but is anxious about her grandma's recently
> diagnosed cancer and the fact that an infant brother just joined the
> family, then we feel compassion for her? we suffer with her.  We
> don't rush her to the doctor because we have important information
> that gives us insight into the cause of her pain.
>
> Our current medical system has so limited the time available for the
> primary care physicians to obtain this crucial information to obtain
> this insight into the repressed cause of the symptom that the
> disease oriented approach that fits the vast minority of patients,
> causes not only an unsustainable cost but also potential harm and
> even death to the majority.
>
> It doesn't have to be that way says Mayo trained psychiatrist, Dr.
> Robert R. Rynearson who founded the Psychiatry Department at the
> Scott and White Clinic in Temple, Texas.  He spent thirty-four years
> listening to people.  The chances, he says, of a patient getting
> appropriate treatment in the current medical system are slim. Your
> doctor doesn't have time to listen to you to determine if you are
> one of the eighty to ninety percent of patients whose symptoms are
> caused by inner emotional conflicts or if you are one of the ten to
> twenty percent of patients whose symptoms require medication,
> complicated testing, and referral to a specialist.
>
> Dr. Rynearson has developed a short cut for the eighty to ninety
> percent group to get significant help.    Once a person sees the
> inner conflict (insight) the symptoms are no longer necessary.
>
> One woman presented with severe chronic abdominal pain.  She had
> spent her life savings seeing specialists and had been operated on
> seven times.  When Dr. Rynearson first saw her, he asked about her
> pain.  She said it had been present for eleven years.  He asked what
> happened eleven years ago.   She burst into tears and said that her
> only son had committed suicide eleven years ago by shooting himself
> in the abdomen with a ten gauge shot gun. She hadn't discussed this
> with any of the doctors she had seen previously. When she dealt with
> this unresolved inner conflict she went home pain free.
>
> Dr. Rynearson has developed techniques to help his patients gain
> insight.    The late Ian Alger's pioneering work with television
> techniques which he called Profile Self Confrontation combined with
> Dr. Rynearson's work on developing Emotional Status Examination
> system have quickly revealed the patient's underlying conflict.
>
> In his memoir, TIME TO LISTEN, Dr. Rynearson illustrates the Profile
> Self Confrontation, Emotional Status Examination,  and other methods
> used to help his patients quickly obtain insight without subjecting
> them to expensive and sometimes harmful procedures.  If doctors
> prescribe medication, tests, and referrals to only the ten to twenty
> percent of their patients who need it, our medical system would not
> be bankrupt.  Every headache does not require an MRI.
>
> Wordpress
> http://robertrynearson.wordpress.com/
>
> YouTube
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FgZ2J_iPXM
>
> Amazon (Kindle Edition)
> 
http://www.amazon.com/Time-To-Listen-ebook/dp/B0029U15EY/ref=sr_1_1?ie=U  
TF8&s=digital-text&qid=1242306553&sr=1-1
>
> _______________________________________________
> CitizensTruth mailing list
> CitizensTruth at six.pairlist.net
> http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/citizenstruth
> website: http://citizenstruth.info

Kris Knight of WellAware Life Enhancement Center
Phone:  1-608-ALL-LIFE
welaware at merr.com





 << File: ATT00056.htm; charset = WINDOWS-1252 >>  << File: ATT00057.txt >> 


From mjkirk12 at yahoo.com  Thu May 14 11:56:40 2009
From: mjkirk12 at yahoo.com (Mike Kirk)
Date: Thu, 14 May 2009 08:56:40 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [CitizensTruth] Eighty to ninety percent of all Americans who
	seek medical care have symptoms caused by repressed inner conflicts
In-Reply-To: <01C9D481.520D41C0.rmigalla@earthlink.net>
Message-ID: <821027.66684.qm@web83814.mail.sp1.yahoo.com>

If you read Dale Carnegie's book on worry and anxiety, it says pretty much the same thing.?? Our outlook on life affects our physical body.

http://www.westegg.com/unmaintained/carnegie/stop-worry.html

--- On Thu, 5/14/09, Robin Migalla <rmigalla at earthlink.net> wrote:
From: Robin Migalla <rmigalla at earthlink.net>
Subject: Re: [CitizensTruth] Eighty to ninety percent of all Americans who seek medical care have symptoms caused by repressed inner conflicts
To: "citizenstruth at six.pairlist.net" <citizenstruth at six.pairlist.net>
Date: Thursday, May 14, 2009, 10:47 AM

Hi Ed,

Is this a relative?  It's a very timely message since I'll be giving a 
presentation on holism this Saturday.

Cheers,
Robin
www.healthforlifecoloncare.com
www.westonaprice-elgin.org
"Let thy food be thy medicine and thy medicine be thy food."
                                     --Hippocrates  (460-377 B.C.)
            Just be careful how you define food ;-)

-----Original Message-----
From:	Edward Rynearson [SMTP:edward_rynearson at yahoo.com]
Sent:	Thursday, May 14, 2009 10:06
To:	citizenstruth at six.pairlist.net
Subject:	[CitizensTruth] Eighty to ninety percent of all Americans who 
seek	medical care have symptoms caused by repressed inner conflicts

Time To Listen

How I Learned What Really Matters

Since eighty to ninety percent of all Americans who seek medical care have 
symptoms caused by repressed inner conflicts and not by a disease process 
(ask your primary care physician if he agrees with this), our high powered 
health care system designed to diagnose and treat serious life threatening 
illnesses has become a colossal failure bankrupting the health care system 
of our country.

If one's ten year old daughter says she has a severe stomach ache and must 
stay out of school, and if we know she has many friends and is doing well 
in school, but is anxious about her grandma's recently diagnosed cancer and

the fact that an infant brother just joined the family, then we feel 
compassion for her? we suffer with her.  We don't rush her to the doctor 
because we have important information that gives us insight into the cause 
of her pain.

Our current medical system has so limited the time available for the 
primary care physicians to obtain this crucial information to obtain this 
insight into the repressed cause of the symptom that the disease oriented 
approach that fits the vast minority of patients, causes not only an 
unsustainable cost but also potential harm and even death to the majority.

It doesn't have to be that way says Mayo trained psychiatrist, Dr. Robert 
R. Rynearson who founded the Psychiatry Department at the Scott and White 
Clinic in Temple, Texas.  He spent thirty-four years listening to people. 
 The chances, he says, of a patient getting appropriate treatment in the 
current medical system are slim. Your doctor doesn't have time to listen to

you to determine if you are one of the eighty to ninety percent of patients 
whose symptoms are caused by inner emotional conflicts or if you are one of 
the ten to twenty percent of patients whose symptoms require medication, 
complicated testing, and referral to a specialist.

Dr. Rynearson has developed a short cut for the eighty to ninety percent 
group to get significant help.    Once a person sees the inner conflict 
(insight) the symptoms are no longer necessary.

One woman presented with severe chronic abdominal pain.  She had spent her 
life savings seeing specialists and had been operated on seven times.  When 
Dr. Rynearson first saw her, he asked about her pain.  She said it had been 
present for eleven years.  He asked what happened eleven years ago.   She 
burst into tears and said that her only son had committed suicide eleven 
years ago by shooting himself in the abdomen with a ten gauge shot gun. She 
hadn't discussed this with any of the doctors she had seen previously. When

she dealt with this unresolved inner conflict she went home pain free.

Dr. Rynearson has developed techniques to help his patients gain insight. 
   The late Ian Alger's pioneering work with television techniques which he

called Profile Self Confrontation combined with  Dr. Rynearson's work on 
developing Emotional Status Examination system have quickly revealed the 
patient's underlying conflict.

In his memoir, TIME TO LISTEN, Dr. Rynearson illustrates the Profile Self 
Confrontation, Emotional Status Examination,  and other methods used to 
help his patients quickly obtain insight without subjecting them to 
expensive and sometimes harmful procedures.  If doctors prescribe 
medication, tests, and referrals to only the ten to twenty percent of their 
patients who need it, our medical system would not be bankrupt.  Every 
headache does not require an MRI.

Wordpress
http://robertrynearson.wordpress.com/

YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FgZ2J_iPXM

Amazon (Kindle Edition)
http://www.amazon.com/Time-To-Listen-ebook/dp/B0029U15EY/ref=sr_1_1?ie=U  
TF8&s=digital-text&qid=1242306553&sr=1-1
 << File: ATT00053.htm; charset = utf-8 >>  << File:
ATT00054.txt >> 
_______________________________________________
CitizensTruth mailing list
CitizensTruth at six.pairlist.net
http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/citizenstruth
website: http://citizenstruth.info
-------------- next part --------------
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From futurenotwritten at yahoo.com  Thu May 14 15:01:53 2009
From: futurenotwritten at yahoo.com (Jay Becker)
Date: Thu, 14 May 2009 12:01:53 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [CitizensTruth] "Sadistic, violent, inhuman" photos
Message-ID: <478230.43161.qm@web33502.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

>From www.mikemalloy.com
?Sadistic . . . violent . . . inhuman.?

						
				
									They
must be horrific. So violent, in fact, so obscene, so counter to even
the basic tenets of human decency that President Barack Obama?sought
today?to block the release of hundreds of photos showing prisoners in
Iraq and Afghanistan being abused, violated, tortured. He ordered
this?reversal of?his position - he had been in favor?of the decision to
release this further evidence of?war crimes?committed under orders
from?George W.?Bush and?Dick Cheney?-?after military commanders warned
that the images could?inflame anti-American sentiment and endanger U.S.
troops.

But, it is far worse than that. The reality is this: Anti-American
sentiment could not be more ?inflamed? than it already is in the Middle
East, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. Our policy?of indiscriminate bombing
after the location of a ?target? has been determined has caused the
deaths of hundreds of men, women and children in both Pakistan and
Afghanistan. Our policies of providing weapons of terror - such as
white phosphorous, concussion bombs, advanced jet fighters, massive
tanks bristling with the power to annihilate anything in its path,
explosives?packed in cases made of depleted uranium?- to be used by
Israel against an utterly defenseless Palestinian population is known
throughout the Middle East, throughout the world, except, of course,
here in the U.S.

No, the release of the photos and videos in question would do more
than ?inflame anti-American sentiment and endanger U.S. troops.? If we
are to believe reports that began circulating four years ago, reports
from investigative journalists such as Seymour Hersh, their release
would unleash a wave of anti-American hatred that would endanger the
lives of not just U.S. soldiers, but the lives of all Americans,
civilians as well as military personnel. Hersh, who helped uncover the
scandal, said in a speech before an ACLU convention: ?Some of the
worse that happened that you don?t know about, ok? Videos, there are
women there. Some of you may have read they were passing letters,
communications out to their men ? . The women were passing messages
saying ?Please come and kill me, because of what?s happened. Basically
what happened is that those women who were arrested with young
boys/children in cases that have been recorded. The boys were sodomized
with the cameras rolling. The worst about all of them is the soundtrack
of the boys shrieking that your government has. They [the Bush Crime Family] are in total terror it?s going to come out.?

At today?s White House press briefing, press secretary Robert Gibbs
told reporters that the president was concerned that the photos?
release would pose a national security threat. In other words,
these?unreleased photos and videos show acts of degeneracy so vile
there is no way they can be explained or rationalized. They contain images of children
- some of them the children of detainees - being raped and sodomized as
a means of forcing?confessions from the adult detainees?that would
provide the links between Saddam Hussein and al-Quaeda that Dick Cheney
and George W. Bush insisted were the basis of their orders to invade
and occupy Iraq. Children of detainees being raped and sodomized as a means of obtaining confessions. In
testimony before Congress five years ago no less a war criminal than
the murderous former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said the
unrevealed photos and videos contain acts ?that can only be described
as blatantly sadistic, cruel and inhuman.?

Two months ago, Hersh, speaking at the University of Minnesota, said
the following in trying to reveal yet more of the incredible depravity
and lawlessness of Dick Cheney:
?After 9/11, I haven?t written about this yet, but the Central
Intelligence Agency was very deeply involved in domestic activities
against people they thought to be enemies of the state. Without any
legal authority for it. They haven?t been called on it yet. That does
happen. Right now, today, there was a story in the New York Times that
if you read it carefully mentioned something known as the Joint Special
Operations Command ? JSOC it?s called. It is a special wing of our
special operations community that is set up independently. They do not
report to anybody, except in the Bush-Cheney days, they reported directly to the Cheney office.
They did not report to the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff or to
Mr. [Robert] Gates, the secretary of defense. They reported directly to
him.

?? Congress has no oversight of it. It?s an executive assassination
ring essentially, and it?s been going on and on and on. Just today in
the Times there was a story that its leaders, a three star admiral
named [William H.] McRaven, ordered a stop to it because there were so
many collateral deaths. ?Under President Bush?s authority, they?ve been
going into countries, not talking to the ambassador or the CIA station
chief, and finding people on a list and executing them and leaving.
That?s been going on, in the name of all of us.? [emphasis added]
[Note: The former head of JSOC - Lt. General Stanley McChrystal?was
named this week to replace Gen. David McKiernan as?U.S Commander and
Commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan.]

Torture conducted by the CIA. The rape and sodomizing of children.
Sending detainees to countries whose methods of torture are medieval in
their scope and techniques. Assassination squads that answered only to
Dick Cheney. This?was your country. This?was your country in the grip
of a madman. This is your country trying desperately to deny, to hide, to bury, the evidence of war crimes on a massive scale.
- MDM

    Stop thinking like an American, 
Start thinking about humanity!



      
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From dimension04 at sbcglobal.net  Thu May 14 15:56:35 2009
From: dimension04 at sbcglobal.net (Connie Smith)
Date: Thu, 14 May 2009 14:56:35 -0500
Subject: [CitizensTruth] Eighty to ninety percent of all Americans
	whoseek medical care have symptoms caused by repressed inner
	conflicts
In-Reply-To: <821027.66684.qm@web83814.mail.sp1.yahoo.com>
References: <821027.66684.qm@web83814.mail.sp1.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <73FA5DE39DFA40C8B389C6C21AC0D110@InspironConnie>


I've long found myself attracted to the most radical ideas on this topic, and grateful to Ed -- and others before -- to see them distributed here.  (I haven't been able to apply these concepts very well -- but I sure am attracted to them, and DO try to apply them!)

I think for me it started with Deepak Chopra in the 80's.  Before he was a famous author/lecturer, he was a highly regarded endocrinologist in charge of a department at a Boston hospital.  The truth of his statement, "You are ALWAYS renewing," especially at the cellular level everyday, really got my attention.  Point being that HOW you are renewing is usually an unconscious process impressed upon us by family and society.  (I'll get to genetics in a moment.) 

But HOW we are renewing everyday references another Chopra statement, "Where a thought goes, a chemical follows," which I think is most profound.  It implies we are creating our own chemistry!  And whether we send around within our body a fear chemical, or a trust (love? self-confidence? faith?) chemical, determines -- or at least tremendously influences -- our toxic or our healthy state.

Very exciting then is the 2007 book, "The Genie in Your Genes," by Dawson Church, Ph.D, with input from scads of scientists and other researchers.  Ten-year studies of chemical monitors in subjects' bodies apparently PROVE beyond all debate that our thoughts instantaneously alter our chemistry, for good or for ill.  

I would add, that our REACTIONS to life do that.  Our reactions to life -- and our projections ABOUT life -- send around within us chemicals for good or for ill -- and of course, our reactions are based upon our thoughts.  And our thoughts/emotions (our daily bio-chemistry generators?) come from our deepest beliefs.  

Even more startling than the claims above is the book's basic premise that our beliefs/thoughts/emotions are what "turn on" or "turn off" our genetic proclivities!!  WE are the Genie in our Genes? I think this line of study started with observations of identical twins and the mystery of why one genetically identical sibling "got the family disease," while the other one did not.

Further evidence of all this happy (and challenging!) potential for ourselves is coming out this fall in a new book at Hay House -- "Spontaneous Evolution" by Bruce Lipton -- long renowned for the mind/matter connection -- and his fellow author, Steve Bhaerman.  Steve has fame as the highly intellectual (and highly hilarious!) comedian, "Swami Beyondananda."  But Steve is now known, not only for his mind-bending, funny-bone-breaking word-play on the foibles of our world, but for his deep and heartfelt insights into and work for humanity -- including 9/11 Truth.  

You can look into their upcoming book -- and all their exciting projects around it, like "The Department of Heartland Security" -- at the links below.

But, in conclusion, most radical of all -- and this is channeled information, something I NEVER rely on but pay attention to when it's backed up by verifiable sources and their work, as above -- the granddaddy Channel of them all back in the 70's had this to say about -- not only creating our chemistry -- but creating all of our physical reality.  I refer to Seth, as in "Seth Speaks:"

"You chemically create your physical reality through your skin, your pores, your extended nerve pathways."
"You construct the lines you walk on."
"You create your physical reality as unconsciously as you breathe."
"You are here to learn that you create your physical reality."
(I would insert here:  Think of the different physical realities that humanity experiences, just culturally, here on earth.  Add to that all the different body types and personalities and idiosyncrasies, then we have literally billions of different realities going on, despite all of us being made of the same basic "stuff.")
Seth further states:  "The human race is a phase of consciousness you pass through in order to see the concrete results of your thoughts and emotions."  

I realize this seems to undermine all the justice work we're all involved in -- and assaults our deepest sensitivities, as well.  As in, SURELY all those people murdered and injured on 9/11 are not responsible for their fate.  SURELY the Iraqi people are not responsible for the sadism and savagery imposed upon them by Bush, Cheney, et al.  And SURELY this disease of mine, or my dreadful circumstances of loss and suffering, would never be created by my own self.  

Well, of course, never deliberately!  But like Deepak's phrase that characterizes humanity, mostly operating under "the hypnosis of social conditioning," it's possible we are indeed operating in significantly unconscious modes.  And the advanced teachers probably see us the same way that we see non-9/11 Truthers -- as amazingly oblivious creatures.  

I would say the scientific data now is all pointing towards all this painful but exciting truth -- which again -- I myself have in no way mastered, but feel that it all ultimately makes the most sense.  There obviously is an exquisite intelligence behind the order of the universe and underneath the flabberghasting functionality of the human body.  And I would think that only ignorance could mess up -- or mess with -- that intelligence, that goodness we apparently come from. 

Why we are ignorant is another huge subject -- and 9/11 Truth eventually leads to that deep discussion, which in fact it is doing here.  But the main point now is if we can begin to entertain the idea that we are indeed ignorant of the power we each have to affect and correct our own bodies and our overall reality -- then how WONDERFUL if we can learn those dynamics -- and then experience (and help others experience) the MOST JOYOUS TRANSFORMATIONS!

This is where I believe we are all headed.  Or as a post-UFO-experience thought occurred to me -- "you humans, you are doomed -- to succeed!" -- I think we are actually now starting to get on board the "Doomed for Success" Express!
Connie

upcoming "Spontaneous Evolution" book
https://bear.he.net/~wakeupl/epistore/index.php?productId=65

Department of Heartland Security projects
http://www.departmentofheartlandsecurity.org/heartlandradio.htm







  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Mike Kirk 
  To: citizenstruth at six.pairlist.net 
  Sent: Thursday, May 14, 2009 10:56 AM
  Subject: Re: [CitizensTruth] Eighty to ninety percent of all Americans whoseek medical care have symptoms caused by repressed inner conflicts


        If you read Dale Carnegie's book on worry and anxiety, it says pretty much the same thing.   Our outlook on life affects our physical body.

        http://www.westegg.com/unmaintained/carnegie/stop-worry.html

        --- On Thu, 5/14/09, Robin Migalla <rmigalla at earthlink.net> wrote:

          From: Robin Migalla <rmigalla at earthlink.net>
          Subject: Re: [CitizensTruth] Eighty to ninety percent of all Americans who seek medical care have symptoms caused by repressed inner conflicts
          To: "citizenstruth at six.pairlist.net" <citizenstruth at six.pairlist.net>
          Date: Thursday, May 14, 2009, 10:47 AM


Hi Ed,Is this a relative?  It's a very timely message since I'll be giving a presentation on holism this
 Saturday.Cheers,Robinwww.healthforlifecoloncare.comwww.westonaprice-elgin.org"Let thy food be thy medicine and thy medicine be thy food."                                     --Hippocrates  (460-377 B.C.)            Just be careful how you define food ;-)-----Original Message-----From:	Edward Rynearson [SMTP:edward_rynearson at yahoo.com]Sent:	Thursday, May 14, 2009 10:06To:	citizenstruth at six.pairlist.netSubject:	[CitizensTruth] Eighty to ninety percent of all Americans who seek	medical care have symptoms caused by repressed inner conflictsTime To ListenHow I Learned What Really MattersSince eighty to ninety percent of all Americans who seek medical care have symptoms caused by repressed inner conflicts and not by a disease process (ask your primary care physician if he agrees with this), our high powered health care system designed to diagnose and treat serious
 life threatening illnesses has become a colossal failure bankrupting the health care system of our country.If one's ten year old daughter says she has a severe stomach ache and must stay out of school, and if we know she has many friends and is doing well in school, but is anxious about her grandma's recently diagnosed cancer andthe fact that an infant brother just joined the family, then we feel compassion for her? we suffer with her.  We don't rush her to the doctor because we have important information that gives us insight into the cause of her pain.Our current medical system has so limited the time available for the primary care physicians to obtain this crucial information to obtain this insight into the repressed cause of the symptom that the disease oriented approach that fits the vast minority of patients, causes not only an unsustainable cost but also potential harm and even
 death to the majority.It doesn't have to be that way says Mayo trained psychiatrist, Dr. Robert R. Rynearson who founded the Psychiatry Department at the Scott and White Clinic in Temple, Texas.  He spent thirty-four years listening to people.  The chances, he says, of a patient getting appropriate treatment in the current medical system are slim. Your doctor doesn't have time to listen toyou to determine if you are one of the eighty to ninety percent of patients whose symptoms are caused by inner emotional conflicts or if you are one of the ten to twenty percent of patients whose symptoms require medication, complicated testing, and referral to a specialist.Dr. Rynearson has developed a short cut for the eighty to ninety percent group to get significant help.    Once a person sees the inner conflict (insight) the symptoms are no longer necessary.One woman presented with severe chronic
 abdominal pain.  She had spent her life savings seeing specialists and had been operated on seven times.  When Dr. Rynearson first saw her, he asked about her pain.  She said it had been present for eleven years.  He asked what happened eleven years ago.   She burst into tears and said that her only son had committed suicide eleven years ago by shooting himself in the abdomen with a ten gauge shot gun. She hadn't discussed this with any of the doctors she had seen previously. Whenshe dealt with this unresolved inner conflict she went home pain free.Dr. Rynearson has developed techniques to help his patients gain insight.    The late Ian Alger's pioneering work with television techniques which hecalled Profile Self Confrontation combined with  Dr. Rynearson's work on developing Emotional Status Examination system have quickly revealed the patient's underlying conflict.In his memoir, TIME
 TO LISTEN, Dr. Rynearson illustrates the Profile Self Confrontation, Emotional Status Examination,  and other methods used to help his patients quickly obtain insight without subjecting them to expensive and sometimes harmful procedures.  If doctors prescribe medication, tests, and referrals to only the ten to twenty percent of their patients who need it, our medical system would not be bankrupt.  Every headache does not require an MRI.Wordpresshttp://robertrynearson.wordpress.com/YouTubehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FgZ2J_iPXMAmazon (Kindle Edition)http://www.amazon.com/Time-To-Listen-ebook/dp/B0029U15EY/ref=sr_1_1?ie=U  TF8&s=digital-text&qid=1242306553&sr=1-1 << File: ATT00053.htm; charset = utf-8 >>  << File:ATT00054.txt >> _______________________________________________CitizensTruth mailing
 listCitizensTruth at six.pairlist.nethttp://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/citizenstruthwebsite: http://citizenstruth.info 



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From dimension04 at sbcglobal.net  Thu May 14 18:06:31 2009
From: dimension04 at sbcglobal.net (Connie Smith)
Date: Thu, 14 May 2009 17:06:31 -0500
Subject: [CitizensTruth] "Sadistic, violent, inhuman" photos
In-Reply-To: <478230.43161.qm@web33502.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
References: <478230.43161.qm@web33502.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <17C8E9A7B0BC44FF8EE795A8B7D1C647@InspironConnie>



Obviously it was grim but accurate humor when comedian Craig Ferguson stated, with Dick Cheney present, that the VP was beginning his move out of the VP residence rather soon after the last election because "it takes longer to pack up an entire dungeon than you might think."

:(
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Jay Becker 
  To: WCW Drivers ; Citizens Truth ; WCW National List 
  Sent: Thursday, May 14, 2009 2:01 PM
  Subject: [CitizensTruth] "Sadistic, violent, inhuman" photos


        From www.mikemalloy.com

        ?Sadistic . . . violent . . . inhuman.?
        They must be horrific. So violent, in fact, so obscene, so counter to even the basic tenets of human decency that President Barack Obama sought today to block the release of hundreds of photos showing prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan being abused, violated, tortured. He ordered this reversal of his position - he had been in favor of the decision to release this further evidence of war crimes committed under orders from George W. Bush and Dick Cheney - after military commanders warned that the images could inflame anti-American sentiment and endanger U.S. troops.




        But, it is far worse than that. The reality is this: Anti-American sentiment could not be more ?inflamed? than it already is in the Middle East, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. Our policy of indiscriminate bombing after the location of a ?target? has been determined has caused the deaths of hundreds of men, women and children in both Pakistan and Afghanistan. Our policies of providing weapons of terror - such as white phosphorous, concussion bombs, advanced jet fighters, massive tanks bristling with the power to annihilate anything in its path, explosives packed in cases made of depleted uranium - to be used by Israel against an utterly defenseless Palestinian population is known throughout the Middle East, throughout the world, except, of course, here in the U.S.




        No, the release of the photos and videos in question would do more than ?inflame anti-American sentiment and endanger U.S. troops.? If we are to believe reports that began circulating four years ago, reports from investigative journalists such as Seymour Hersh, their release would unleash a wave of anti-American hatred that would endanger the lives of not just U.S. soldiers, but the lives of all Americans, civilians as well as military personnel. Hersh, who helped uncover the scandal, said in a speech before an ACLU convention: ?Some of the worse that happened that you don?t know about, ok? Videos, there are women there. Some of you may have read they were passing letters, communications out to their men ? . The women were passing messages saying ?Please come and kill me, because of what?s happened. Basically what happened is that those women who were arrested with young boys/children in cases that have been recorded. The boys were sodomized with the cameras rolling. The worst about all of them is the soundtrack of the boys shrieking that your government has. They [the Bush Crime Family] are in total terror it?s going to come out.?




        At today?s White House press briefing, press secretary Robert Gibbs told reporters that the president was concerned that the photos? release would pose a national security threat. In other words, these unreleased photos and videos show acts of degeneracy so vile there is no way they can be explained or rationalized. They contain images of children - some of them the children of detainees - being raped and sodomized as a means of forcing confessions from the adult detainees that would provide the links between Saddam Hussein and al-Quaeda that Dick Cheney and George W. Bush insisted were the basis of their orders to invade and occupy Iraq. Children of detainees being raped and sodomized as a means of obtaining confessions. In testimony before Congress five years ago no less a war criminal than the murderous former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said the unrevealed photos and videos contain acts ?that can only be described as blatantly sadistic, cruel and inhuman.?




        Two months ago, Hersh, speaking at the University of Minnesota, said the following in trying to reveal yet more of the incredible depravity and lawlessness of Dick Cheney:

        ?After 9/11, I haven?t written about this yet, but the Central Intelligence Agency was very deeply involved in domestic activities against people they thought to be enemies of the state. Without any legal authority for it. They haven?t been called on it yet. That does happen. Right now, today, there was a story in the New York Times that if you read it carefully mentioned something known as the Joint Special Operations Command ? JSOC it?s called. It is a special wing of our special operations community that is set up independently. They do not report to anybody, except in the Bush-Cheney days, they reported directly to the Cheney office. They did not report to the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff or to Mr. [Robert] Gates, the secretary of defense. They reported directly to him.




        ?? Congress has no oversight of it. It?s an executive assassination ring essentially, and it?s been going on and on and on. Just today in the Times there was a story that its leaders, a three star admiral named [William H.] McRaven, ordered a stop to it because there were so many collateral deaths. ?Under President Bush?s authority, they?ve been going into countries, not talking to the ambassador or the CIA station chief, and finding people on a list and executing them and leaving. That?s been going on, in the name of all of us.? [emphasis added]

        [Note: The former head of JSOC - Lt. General Stanley McChrystal was named this week to replace Gen. David McKiernan as U.S Commander and Commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan.]




        Torture conducted by the CIA. The rape and sodomizing of children. Sending detainees to countries whose methods of torture are medieval in their scope and techniques. Assassination squads that answered only to Dick Cheney. This was your country. This was your country in the grip of a madman. This is your country trying desperately to deny, to hide, to bury, the evidence of war crimes on a massive scale.

        - MDM




        Stop thinking like an American, 
        Start thinking about humanity!
       




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From Walterb306 at cs.com  Fri May 15 12:46:25 2009
From: Walterb306 at cs.com (Walterb306 at cs.com)
Date: Fri, 15 May 2009 12:46:25 EDT
Subject: [CitizensTruth] Fwd: AG Holder Repudiates Torture
Message-ID: <d26.2f147565.373ef661@cs.com>

       All,

FYI,

Please pass the word.

Beverley
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Subject: AG Holder Repudiates Torture
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From Walterb306 at cs.com  Fri May 15 13:05:14 2009
From: Walterb306 at cs.com (Walterb306 at cs.com)
Date: Fri, 15 May 2009 13:05:14 EDT
Subject: [CitizensTruth] Meeting with Schakowsky - President Obama - My
	appraisal and expectations
Message-ID: <c59.4a12123f.373efaca@cs.com>

All,

FYI,

Beverley


JAN SCHAKOWSKY, a member of Congress from Chicago and northern suburbs, 
speaks on Sunday, May 17th, at 10:30 a.m. Her topic is ?President Obama: My 
Appraisal and Expectations.? An early supporter of Obama in his runs for 
Senator and President, she will share her thoughts on how well our country is 
doing. This program is free.

Ethical Humanist Society - 7574 N. Lincoln Avenue, Skokie (at Lincoln and 
Howard)
847 677 3334 www.ethicalhuman.org

submitted by Marne Glaser, Ethical Action Committee of EHS.
    
 
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From futurenotwritten at yahoo.com  Fri May 15 14:12:40 2009
From: futurenotwritten at yahoo.com (Jay Becker)
Date: Fri, 15 May 2009 11:12:40 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [CitizensTruth] Fwd: AG Holder Repudiates Torture
Message-ID: <757655.31901.qm@web33507.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

Confidence is far too easily redeemed if a statement as conditional as this:

 ?If somebody was tortured to death, clearly a crime would have occurred.? 
is enough, in the face of clear evidence that 1) torture is standard policy in many facilities run by the US, 2) it was ordered down to the smallest detail from the highest levels of US government (see recently released 'torture memos'), and 3) neither Holder nor Obama have given ANY indication that anyone will be held accountable (quite the contrary), which is a betrayal not only of campaign promises but the rule of law itself.

I guess that tent is big enough for torturers and their commanders, huh?

Jay


    Stop thinking like an American, 
Start thinking about humanity!


--- On Fri, 5/15/09, Walterb306 at cs.com <Walterb306 at cs.com> wrote:

From: Walterb306 at cs.com <Walterb306 at cs.com>
Subject: [CitizensTruth] Fwd: AG Holder Repudiates Torture
To: citizenstruth at six.pairlist.net
Date: Friday, May 15, 2009, 11:46 AM

?????? All,



FYI,



Please pass the word.



Beverley
-----Inline Attachment Follows-----

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From aroyboy44 at hotmail.com  Fri May 15 14:54:16 2009
From: aroyboy44 at hotmail.com (andrew ritter)
Date: Fri, 15 May 2009 18:54:16 +0000
Subject: [CitizensTruth] Judge rules family can't refuse chemo for boy
Message-ID: <BLU123-W297B949C0A40B84859A539BE5F0@phx.gbl>


This is absolutely disturbing.

-------------------------------------------
Judge rules family can't refuse chemo for boyParents of 13-year-old sought to treat his cancer with ?alternative medicine?
updated 1 hour, 25 minutes agoMINNEAPOLIS
- A Minnesota judge has ruled that a 13-year-old cancer patient whose
parents want to treat him with ?alternative medicine? must seek
conventional medical treatment for their son.In
a 58-page ruling Friday, Brown County District Judge John Rodenberg
found that Daniel Hauser has been ?medically neglected? and is in need
of child protection services.

Read Full Story Here:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30763438/
_________________________________________________________________
Hotmail? has ever-growing storage! Don?t worry about storage limits.
http://windowslive.com/Tutorial/Hotmail/Storage?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_HM_Tutorial_Storage1_052009
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From edward_rynearson at yahoo.com  Sat May 16 11:00:32 2009
From: edward_rynearson at yahoo.com (Edward Rynearson)
Date: Sat, 16 May 2009 08:00:32 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [CitizensTruth] Theologian tells Norwegian audience 9/11 Attacks
	orchestrated by Rumsfeld, Cheney and Myers
Message-ID: <488968.17666.qm@web30006.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

Theologian tells Norwegian audience 9/11 Attacks orchestrated by Rumsfeld, Cheney and Myers
?
I?ve said before that I could not imagine that the Bush Administration was behind 9/11.? Today I?ve changed my mind. I think that administration was cynical enough to do it. Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Richard Myers are the three key persons I think were behind this, Griffin said.
?
http://davidraygriffin.com/calendar/may-15-2009-trondheim/
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From geri at thetwofacesofmoney.com  Sun May 17 17:03:16 2009
From: geri at thetwofacesofmoney.com (Geri Perry)
Date: Sun, 17 May 2009 16:03:16 -0500
Subject: [CitizensTruth] California does NOT have to go broke or
 self-destruct - and neither does America!! PLEASE FORWARD WIDELY
Message-ID: <4A107B94.2010809@thetwofacesofmoney.com>

You may know . . .

California is in big trouble again as state officials warn that the 
state may run out of money as soon as JULY: 
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-california-budget-crisis8-2009may08,0,7342537.story

On the national scene, things are no brighter, given that we are in the 
midst of 5 raging economic storms which combine to paint a very bleak 
picture. These storms include plunging jobs reports, housing starts that 
are down by 77.6%, auto sales that are down by 44%, the biggest collapse 
in consumer credit EVER recorded, and the reality that the big banks 
MUST cut back on their lending if they are to build needed capital 
quickly. [NB: No credit, no money supply - UNDER THE CURRENT SYSTEM!]  
For more on these economic storms and the three deceptions that are 
lulling us back to sleep:  
http://www.moneyandmarkets.com/five-economic-storms-raging-now-33659

If we keep going under the same debt/money system, this will only mean 
increasingly lower wages, fewer jobs, reduced public services, more 
taxes, more debt, and more "public/private partnerships" aka selling of 
public assets to private corporations, usually multinationals.

We have a 200 year old Constitutional solution: debt free government 
created money!! Troubled states can play a crucial, intermediary role in 
making this happen on the  national level, in the manner intended by the 
founding fathers. (Here is the most active, dedicated organization that 
is working on such a national proposal: http://www.monetary.org/ )

California can put itself in the forefront of the "money question", 
along with Minnesota, and also save itself from looming catastrophe by 
passing a law modeled after a Minnesota proposal that would allow the 
state to create debt free money by applying an accounting mechanism 
within the current central banking system. This debt free money would 
help rebuild state infrastructure, help create new jobs, and help reduce 
debt simply by virtue of the fact that this new money would have debt 
PAYING power as opposed to the debt CREATING Power our money now has.

See the possibilities for California (under the state map):  
http://moneyaswealth.blogspot.com/2009/05/fix-it.html   Here is the 
Minnesota bill: 
https://www.revisor.leg.state.mn.us/bin/bldbill.php?bill=H0888.0.html&session=ls86   
And here is the Constitutional authority: 
http://moneyaswealth.blogspot.com/2008/10/responsibility-without-authority-is.html

There is NO reason, other than ignorance, mis-information or inertia 
that other states in similar budgetary crisis should not follow the lead 
set by California and Minnesota. MEANWHILE . . .

The rest of us can dedicate ourselves to making our Congressmen aware of 
the Monetary Reform Act, currently in draft form, from the American 
Monetary Institute. One easy way would be to ask to be included on their 
email action alerts list and if possible make a donation: 
http://www.monetary.org/contact.htm .

Again, please forward widely,

gerip

From dimension04 at sbcglobal.net  Mon May 18 20:19:41 2009
From: dimension04 at sbcglobal.net (Connie Smith)
Date: Mon, 18 May 2009 19:19:41 -0500
Subject: [CitizensTruth] WORTH a few dollars!
Message-ID: <211524FB01FC4D1DA88BD2F66704CE7C@InspironConnie>




Architect Richard Gage has been risking everything to educate the American public on how the World Trade Center could only collapse like that from internal explosions -- explosions which hundreds of 9/11 survivors testify to personally experiencing. 

Everybody ought to know about this by now, but they don't.  

Thus, Gage and hundreds of others are working through the system to get the word out in New York, especially to get New Yorkers' signatures on a petition that can put a Truth investigation ON THE BALLOT of a city-wide referendum!

The volunteers have succeeded in getting 38,000 signatures, but they must collect 35,000 more by the end of June.  The petitioning staff has become so effective that they collect 1 signature for every dollar spent ? ?a buck a sig?, as they like to put it. This operation has expenses like everything else does, and the workers can't fund it all themselves.  

Are you able to support obtaining some signatures?  Gage requests $25 from 2,000 people -- but knowing how over-extended everybody is these days, I think even $5 would help, and it's certainly all I can afford at this time.  

Take a look at the exciting prospect below -- at least KNOW ABOUT the prospect -- of legal, people-power action to "finally get somewhere" with 9/11 Truth -- and decide if you can devote a few dollars, which result in a few signatures, for this historic and urgently needed action. 
Connie



----- Original Message ----- 
From: barhonegger at aol.com 
To: dimension04 at sbcglobal.net ; bleterc at aol.com ; pem1442 at aol.com ; mixer_karen at yahoo.com ; hebard at mbay.net ; junebug46 at comcast.net ; jamil280 at comcast.net ; jblack at miis.edu ; gabekish at comcast.net ; robertdeford000 at yahoo.com ; seklund at localnet.com ; mustangs27 at earthlink.net ; long-goldstein at comcast.net ; breakthruconsult at aol.com 
Sent: Monday, May 18, 2009 2:27 PM

Subject: ! Urgent Appeal from Richard Gage 


  FROM BARBARA HONEGGER, author of "The Pentagon Attack Papers."

  (6-min video: http://video.yahoo.com/watch/182642/995421)

  (PDF: "Covert elements of the US military and intelligence community, not al Qaeda, had the access to plant explosives inside its own most heavily defended world headquarters, the Pentagon..."
  The evidence: http://physics911.net/pdf/honegger.pdf )

  Re: The New York Ballot Initiative
     This is an Urgent appeal from Richard Gage, one of our speakers 
  for the Monterey May 30 9/11 Truth event.  Please do whatever 
  you can to donate the $25 -- or more -- he requests for the 
  NYC Ballot Initiative drive, which has UNTIL THE END OF JUNE 
  to make its deadline in time.  We're all pressed right now -- I almost 
  had my electricity turned off the other day because of the upcoming 
  9/11 event funds we've had to put out.  But THIS is THE Time to do this!!   
  Thanks for All you can do, and please send the below to ALL your lists... 
     Thank you !!  
     Barbara 


      From: AE911Truth Action Alerts <actionalerts at ae911truth.us>
      Subject: AE911Truth Action Alert: Urgent Message from Richard Gage, AIA
      To: honkystar at yahoo.com
      Date: Friday, May 15, 2009, 11:17 PM


                
              Your source for hot news/information/events     ?     May 15, 2009  
                 Urgent Message from Richard Gage, AIA 

              NYC 9/11 Investigation Ballot Initiative 

              Fellow Architect/Engineer and other Petition Signers, 
              It looks like 2009 will be the breakthrough year for establishing a real investigation into the destruction of the three World Trade Center high-rise on 9/11. At the San Francisco AIA convention, April 30=2 0to May 2, about 60 architects signed our petition calling for a new investigation, bringing the total number of architects and engineers calling for a new investigation to over 700. 
               
              Out on the East coast, a different petition is happening?one that we must support FULLY. In the very city where these tragic events took place, over 38,000 New Yorkers have so far signed the petition calling for a citywide referendum on the formation of a new, independent, impartial investigation into the events of September 11, 2001. When the voters of New York City collect the required number of signatures to put this referendum on the ballot and pass it by majority vote, a new Commission will be formed, this time consisting of pre-selected individuals who will follow the evidence wherever it may lead. Such a Commission will give us the legally established venue to present the evidence for the explosive controlled demolition of the three WTC high-rises. 
              For over three years, Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth have called upon Congress to reopen the 9/11 investigation. Our demand has fallen on deaf ears. Now, we have the opportunity to help make this investigation a reality. 
              The dedic ated team at NYCCAN in New York City need OUR support. To guarantee their referendum will make it on the ballot, they must to collect 35,000 more signatures by the end of June. Their goal is attainable if they have adequate funding. Their petitioning staff has become so effective that they collect 1 signature for every dollar spent ? ?a buck a sig?, as they like to put it. If 2,000 of us donate only $25, they will immediately raise the $50,000 needed for the completion of their petitioning effort. And with 75,000 signatures, the referendum will indeed make it on the ballot. This donation must be in addition to your ongoing support of AE911Truth. We cannot afford to lose any of your valued support at this time ? as our upcoming architect convention projects are equally important in the overall 9/11 truth effort. 
              Now is the time for us to put our money where our heart is. Donate $25 right now, and we will be able to present the evidence before an independent, impartial Commission. Now is the time to support the New York City Coalition for Accountability Now, because NYC CAN. 
              www.NYCCAN.org 
              One real chance. One real investigation. Donate now. 

              Sincerely, 

              Richard Gage, AIA 

                
              Unsubscribe or Update Your Profile    

        View Action Alerts Online (if in archive)  




--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A Good Credit Score is 700 or Above. See Yours in Just 2 Easy Steps! 
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From futurenotwritten at yahoo.com  Tue May 19 10:06:28 2009
From: futurenotwritten at yahoo.com (Jay Becker)
Date: Tue, 19 May 2009 07:06:28 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [CitizensTruth] "Behind the Logic of Censoring the Photos..."
Message-ID: <106674.17782.qm@web33505.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

Join World Can't Wait & 8th Day Center for Justice at 6 pm on Thursday, May 28, to protest Karl Rove's appearance at the Chicago Theater ( 175 N. State St., Chicago) that evening. "Torture is a War Crime! Prosecute!"
Jay

http://www.revcom.us/a/165/torture_logic-en.html

Behind the Logic of Censoring the Photos?


        
		      
In justifying his decision to block the release of the 2000 plus photos of U.S. torture?

              
Obama says that
releasing the photos would ?not add any additional benefit to our
understanding of what was carried out in the past by a small number of
individuals.?

              
In fact,
we will learn plenty of new things, including that these policies of
torture happened at many more places beyond Abu Ghraib and Guant?namo,
and that the ways in which prisoners were treated were even worse than have been admitted.? We will all get a better sense of how systemic this
was, the role it played, and the damage to people that it caused.? Note
that Human Rights First has documented at least 98 deaths of prisoners
in U.S. custody, many of them labeled as homicides by army medical
examiners; some of this may be further documented in these photos.




              
Obama says that ?[T]he individuals who were involved have been identified and appropriate actions have been taken.? 

              
Really? Literally thousands tortured. Following instructions that came from the White House. And there is only one of these torturers serving time. ?Appropriate actions?? Only if by ?appropriate? what is meant is appropriate to cover up and provide a stamp of approval for what went on.




              
Obama says ?In
fact, the most direct consequence of releasing them, I believe, would
be to further inflame anti-American opinion and to put our troops in
greater danger.? 

              
Gee, well maybe they should have thought of that before they did it! Or
maybe the logic should be fully followed, and the government should not
allow anyone to publish photos or even news accounts of ?incidents?
like last week?s massacre of over 100 Afghani civilians by American
bombers (initially denied by the U.S. but then exposed by those pesky
photos).? After all, that stirs up hatred.? And let?s not allow
pictures of Israeli troops burning children in Gaza with U.S.-supplied
white phosphorus bombs (used in a way illegal under the Geneva
Conventions).? After all, that might rile people up too.? In fact,
let?s not allow any news at all?because it seems that everything
America does is likely to stir up hatred.




              
Or maybe, Americans should just stop acting like and protecting criminals.? Of
course, criminals very rarely stop unless their crimes are exposed and
resisted. And after all, this is the ?responsibility? president,
right?? If a young Black man on the streets of an inner city, who has
never had an opportunity to get a decent education, a job, or any kind
of a life is driven to a life of crime, than according to Obama, he has
to take responsibility for his actions. But on the other hand, we are
told that when it comes to those who ordered horrendous and grotesque
war crimes and their willing flunkies, it?s time for ?reflection? and
?not retribution.?

      
      
Send us your comments.



    Stop thinking like an American, 
Start thinking about humanity!



      
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From geri at thetwofacesofmoney.com  Wed May 20 19:33:39 2009
From: geri at thetwofacesofmoney.com (Geri Perry)
Date: Wed, 20 May 2009 18:33:39 -0500
Subject: [CitizensTruth] The Ron Paul Phenomenon is NOT Dead
Message-ID: <4A149353.4050607@thetwofacesofmoney.com>

FYI. . ..

I am in the process of publishing a 4 part series of articles under the 
main heading of "The Ron Paul Phenomenon Is NOT Dead".

The first article, "Evaluating the Message" is here: 
http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_4674.shtml and here: 
http://dissidentvoice.org/2009/05/evaluating-the-message/

The titles of each of the 4 articles are as follows:

#1: Evaluating the Message
#2: Defining Ourselves
#3: The Left Gatekeepers and Tax Exempt Foundations
#4: Think Tanks and the Right Gatekeepers


Geraldine Perry
http://thetwofacesofmoney.com/index.php/Main/HomePage

From futurenotwritten at yahoo.com  Wed May 20 21:50:26 2009
From: futurenotwritten at yahoo.com (Jay Becker)
Date: Wed, 20 May 2009 18:50:26 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [CitizensTruth] Story of RNC informant on This American Life
Message-ID: <772556.48855.qm@web33501.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

A friend sent me this:

"This American Life" will air a story on an informer who infiltrated RNC groups for the FBI. (Also see http://brandondarby.com/) 

Jay

    Stop thinking like an American, 
Start thinking about humanity!



      
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From r.gillam at comcast.net  Wed May 20 22:02:01 2009
From: r.gillam at comcast.net (Ragen Gillam)
Date: Wed, 20 May 2009 21:02:01 -0500
Subject: [CitizensTruth] FW: Great Article
Message-ID: <20090521020159.A636B6D6E7@six.pairlist.net>

>From a friend:

 

Most importantly, I came across this "Democracy or Republic" article on News
with Views/ Devvy Kidd. I read it and consider it to be the number one
teaching tool for all.  Please read it, copy it, e-mail it, distribute it,
spread it far and wide. I may touch on it tonight.

 

http://www.devvy.com/pdf/larosa/larosa_democracy_or_republic.pdf

 

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From futurenotwritten at yahoo.com  Wed May 20 23:19:30 2009
From: futurenotwritten at yahoo.com (Jay Becker)
Date: Wed, 20 May 2009 20:19:30 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [CitizensTruth] Obama nominates Superfund Polluter Lawyer to Run
	DOJ Envirnt Div
Message-ID: <938996.60505.qm@web33505.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

See:
> http://thinkprogress.org/2009/05/15/ignacia-moreno-superfund/

Obama Nominates Superfund Polluter Lawyer To Run DOJ Environment Division
May 15

President Barack Obama has nominated a lawyer for the nation?s largest toxic polluters to run the enforcement of the nation?s environmental laws. On Tuesday, Obama ?announced his intent to nominate? Ignacia S. Moreno to be Assistant Attorney General for the Environment and Natural Resources Division in the Department of Justice.
Moreno, general counsel for that department during the Clinton
administration, is now the corporate environmental counsel for General
Electric, ?America?s #1 Superfund Polluter?:

? ? Number five in the Fortune 500 with revenues of $89.3 billion and earnings of $8.2 billion in 1997, General Electric
has been a leader in the effort to roll back the Superfund law and
stave off any requirements for full cleanup and restoration of sites
they helped create.

This February, General Electric lost an
eight-year battle to ?prove that parts of the Superfund law are
unconstitutional.? One of the 600-person DOJ environmental division?s
?primary responsibilities is to enforce federal civil and criminal
environmental laws such as? the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, the Safe Drinking Water Act, and the Superfund.

Before General Electric, Moreno worked as a corporate attorney at Spriggs and Hollingsworth. Moreno?s name is found in the Westlaw database as an attorney defending General Motors in another Superfund case, the GM Powertrain facility in Bedford, Indiana:

?
? Historical uses and management of PCB containing hydraulic oils and
PCB impacted materials has contaminated on-site areas as well as the
sediment and floodplain soil within Bailey?s Branch and the Pleasant
Run Creek watershed.

Although General Motors entered into an
agreement in 2001 with the EPA to clean up the site, a number of local
residents whose land has been contaminated by polychorinated biphenyls
(PCBs) have sued for damages in Allgood v. GM (now Barlow v. GM), in a
contentious and caustic dispute over cleanup, monitoring, and lost
property values.

During the Clinton administration, Moreno was involved in another controversial case, unsuccessfully defending the Secretary of Commerce?s decision to weaken the dolphin-safe tuna standard. In Brower v. Daley, Earth Island Institute, The Humane Society of the United States, and other individuals and organizations brought suit against the United States government for actions that were ?arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, and contrary to law,? winning their case in 2000.

    Stop thinking like an American, 
Start thinking about humanity!



      
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From richardfobes at hotmail.com  Sat May 23 18:57:24 2009
From: richardfobes at hotmail.com (Richard Fobes)
Date: Sat, 23 May 2009 17:57:24 -0500
Subject: [CitizensTruth] =?windows-1252?q?Former_9/11_Commission_Member_Sa?=
 =?windows-1252?q?ys_That_the_Publics_Version_of_9/11_Is_=93almost_entirel?=
 =?windows-1252?q?y_untrue=94?=
Message-ID: <BAY128-W23A980AD8DA4FEBEF5AAA3D5570@phx.gbl>









Former 9/11 commission member says that the public's version of 9/11 is ?almost entirely untrue?

http://www.examiner.com/x-1551-Fringe-Culture-Examiner~y2009m5d21-911-Commission-official-says-public-story-almost-entirely-untrue

_________________________________________________________________
Hotmail? has ever-growing storage! Don?t worry about storage limits.
http://windowslive.com/Tutorial/Hotmail/Storage?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_HM_Tutorial_Storage1_052009
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From mincam2 at yahoo.com  Sat May 23 19:12:21 2009
From: mincam2 at yahoo.com (Chuck Minne)
Date: Sat, 23 May 2009 16:12:21 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [CitizensTruth]
 =?utf-8?q?Former_9/11_Commission_Member_Says_That?=
 =?utf-8?q?_the_Publics_Version_of_9/11_Is_=E2=80=9Calmost_entirely_untrue?=
 =?utf-8?b?4oCd?=
Message-ID: <104674.71318.qm@web36906.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

It sounds like sort of a red herring to me. Not the real truth by any means, but some BS continuing to blame it on the Arabs and something to be used as an excuse for more fighting on our part and especially more "defense" spending. But who knows? I don't expect the truth.


?
?
?
In the late 1950s,?Curious as to how discoveries about the origin of the universe might affect society as a whole, NASA contracted with the Brookings Institution, a leading think tank, to research the question. Only a small part of its 100-page answer, which came to be known as "The Brookings Report," dealt with alien encounter. But it contained a stern warning. "Anthropological files contain many examples of societies, sure of their place in the universe, which have disintegrated when they had to associate with previously unfamiliar societies espousing different ideas and different life ways; others that survived such an experience usually did so by paying the price of changes in values and attitudes and behavior."

It further stated that the discovery might have a devastating effect on scientists themselves due to the discovery that many of their most cherished theories could be at risk.
?
Thus all alien and UFO data was denied.


Click the following?for ?The Greatest Story Ever Denied

--- On Sat, 5/23/09, Richard Fobes <richardfobes at hotmail.com> wrote:


From: Richard Fobes <richardfobes at hotmail.com>
Subject: [CitizensTruth] Former 9/11 Commission Member Says That the Publics Version of 9/11 Is ?almost entirely untrue?
To: "LoneLantern_Meetup" <9-11-340 at meetup.com>, wcwdrivers-chicago at yahoogroups.com, "Citizen's.Truth" <citizenstruth at six.pairlist.net>
Date: Saturday, May 23, 2009, 5:57 PM




#yiv53954645 .hmmessage P
{
margin:0px;padding:0px;}
#yiv53954645 {
font-size:10pt;font-family:Verdana;}



#yiv53954645 ExternalClass .EC_hmmessage P
{padding:0px;}
#yiv53954645 .ExternalClass body.EC_hmmessage
{font-size:10pt;font-family:Verdana;}

Former 9/11 commission member says that the public's version of 9/11 is ?almost entirely untrue?

http://www.examiner.com/x-1551-Fringe-Culture-Examiner~y2009m5d21-911-Commission-official-says-public-story-almost-entirely-untrue



Hotmail? has ever-growing storage! Don?t worry about storage limits. Check it out. 
-----Inline Attachment Follows-----


_______________________________________________
CitizensTruth mailing list
CitizensTruth at six.pairlist.net
http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/citizenstruth
website: http://citizenstruth.info



      
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From welaware at merr.com  Sat May 23 21:02:42 2009
From: welaware at merr.com (Kris Knight)
Date: Sat, 23 May 2009 20:02:42 -0500
Subject: [CitizensTruth]
 =?windows-1252?q?Former_9/11_Commission_Member_Sa?=
 =?windows-1252?q?ys_That_the_Publics_Version_of_9/11_Is_=93almost_entirel?=
 =?windows-1252?q?y_untrue=94?=
In-Reply-To: <104674.71318.qm@web36906.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
References: <104674.71318.qm@web36906.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <3A07B2E9-44D2-4598-BFC3-7151E13166AF@merr.com>

Just finishing HIGH STRANGENESS by Laura Knight-Jadzyck, re. topics  
below and changing what we think is going on...quite an amazing book.
On May 23, 2009, at 6:12 PM, Chuck Minne wrote:

> It sounds like sort of a red herring to me. Not the real truth by  
> any means, but some BS continuing to blame it on the Arabs and  
> something to be used as an excuse for more fighting on our part and  
> especially more "defense" spending. But who knows? I don't expect  
> the truth.
>
>
>
>
> In the late 1950s, Curious as to how discoveries about the origin of  
> the universe might affect society as a whole, NASA contracted with  
> the Brookings Institution, a leading think tank, to research the  
> question. Only a small part of its 100-page answer, which came to be  
> known as "The Brookings Report," dealt with alien encounter. But it  
> contained a stern warning."Anthropological files contain many  
> examples of societies, sure of their place in the universe, which  
> have disintegrated when they had to associate with previously  
> unfamiliar societies espousing different ideas and different life  
> ways; others that survived such an experience usually did so by  
> paying the price of changes in values and attitudes and behavior."
>
> It further stated that the discovery might have a devastating effect  
> on scientists themselves due to the discovery that many of their  
> most cherished theories could be at risk.
>
> Thus all alien and UFO data was denied.
>
>
> Click the following for  The Greatest Story Ever Denied
>
>
> --- On Sat, 5/23/09, Richard Fobes <richardfobes at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> From: Richard Fobes <richardfobes at hotmail.com>
> Subject: [CitizensTruth] Former 9/11 Commission Member Says That the  
> Publics Version of 9/11 Is ?almost entirely untrue?
> To: "LoneLantern_Meetup" <9-11-340 at meetup.com>, wcwdrivers-chicago at yahoogroups.com 
> , "Citizen's.Truth" <citizenstruth at six.pairlist.net>
> Date: Saturday, May 23, 2009, 5:57 PM
>
> Former 9/11 commission member says that the public's version of 9/11  
> is ?almost entirely untrue?
>
> http://www.examiner.com/x-1551-Fringe-Culture- 
> Examiner~y2009m5d21-911-Commission-official-says-public-story-almost- 
> entirely-untrue
>
> Hotmail? has ever-growing storage! Don?t worry about storage limits.  
> Check it out.
>
> -----Inline Attachment Follows-----
>
> _______________________________________________
> CitizensTruth mailing list
> CitizensTruth at six.pairlist.net
> http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/citizenstruth
> website: http://citizenstruth.info
>
> _______________________________________________
> CitizensTruth mailing list
> CitizensTruth at six.pairlist.net
> http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/citizenstruth
> website: http://citizenstruth.info

Kris Knight of WellAware Life Enhancement Center
Phone:  1-608-ALL-LIFE
welaware at merr.com






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From aqmstaffo at mailbag.com  Sun May 24 01:15:22 2009
From: aqmstaffo at mailbag.com (Daniel Stafford)
Date: Sun, 24 May 2009 00:15:22 -0500
Subject: [CitizensTruth] 9-11 more so
Message-ID: <4A18D7EA.20809@mailbag.com>

Source: http://www.earthrainbownetwork.com/Archives2009/UnderNewMan3.htm


Now new scientific evidence has come to the surface that conclusively 
demonstrates that the 2 towers and the Building 7 that mysteriously 
collapsed in 6.4 seconds several hours after the planes hit the other 
World Trade Center buildings were deliberately demolished using several 
tons of nano-thermite 
<http://911research.wtc7.net/essays/thermite/explosive_residues.html> to 
melt the metallic structure of the towers, to weaken them, and them 
successively blow up each story as in any controlled demolition. Please 
take 10 minute to watch the following video of a mainstream news report 
on Danish TV last April 14 revealing the result of 18 months of 
scientific investigation by a team of 9 scientists into this monstrous 
act of deception and mass-murder...

911 Media Breakthrough in Denmark
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_2et5WMvVQ
Danish scientist talks about the findings of nano-thermite in the 911 rubble

...and check Nano-thermite Behind Collapse of WTC Buildings 
<http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/WO0904/S00225.htm> - "He says that they 
found such large quantities of nano-thermite in the dust from the WTC, 
that he believes that this product, which has the ability to melt metal, 
as well as break things apart, must have been brought into the WTC site 
in tonnes, on pallets."

To read their whole scientific paper, check Explosives Found in World 
Trade Center Dust 
<http://911research.wtc7.net/essays/thermite/explosive_residues.html>. 
Here is a brief excerpt: "The implications of the discovery of unspent 
aluminothermic explosives and matching residues in World Trade Center 
dust are staggering. There is no conceivable reason for there to have 
been tons of high explosives in the Towers except to demolish them, and 
demolition is blatantly incompatible with the official 9/11 narrative 
that the skyscrapers collapsed as a result of the jetliner impacts and 
fires. The discovery of active thermitic materials adds to a vast body 
of evidence that the total destruction of the Towers were controlled 
demolitions, and to the subset of that evidence indicating the use of 
aluminothermic materials to implement those demolitions. That discovery 
also undermines the oft-heard claim that no explosives residues were 
found, a claim that was never compelling, given the apparent lack of 
evidence that any official agency looked for evidence of explosive 
residues of any kind. Worse, the public record shows that NIST not only 
failed to look for such evidence, it repeatedly evaded requests by 
scientists and researchers to examine numerous facts indicating 
explosives and incendiaries 
<http://911research.wtc7.net/essays/thermite/explosives_evidence_timeline.html>."
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From futurenotwritten at yahoo.com  Sun May 24 10:59:59 2009
From: futurenotwritten at yahoo.com (Jay Becker)
Date: Sun, 24 May 2009 07:59:59 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [CitizensTruth] Glenn Greenwald on preventive detention proposal
Message-ID: <983257.66331.qm@web33502.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

This is the best 'dispassionate' dissection of the Obama administration's sweeping proposals that I have read yet. I urge everyone to consider this, and the questions he poses, seriously, and share your thoughts, please!

Jay


http://www.salon. com/opinion/ greenwald/ 2009/05/22/ preventive_ detention/ print.html



Facts and myths about Obama's preventive detention proposal

Is a system of indefinite detention with no charges a standard or radical idea? 



Salon.com

Glenn Greenwald



May. 22, 2009



[Updated below - Update II (Interview with ACLU) - Update III - Update IV - Update V - Update VI] 



In the wake of Obama's speech yesterday, there are vast numbers of new
converts who now support indefinite "preventive detention." It thus
seems constructive to have as dispassionate and fact-based discussion
as possible of the implications of "preventive detention" and Obama's
related detention proposals (military commissions) . I'll have a
podcast discussion on this topic a little bit later today with the
ACLU's Ben Wizner, which I'll add below, but until then, here are some
facts and other points worth noting:



(1) What does "preventive detention" allow?  



It's important to be clear about what "preventive detention"
authorizes. It does not merely allow the U.S. Government to imprison
people alleged to have committed Terrorist acts yet who are unable to
be convicted in a civilian court proceeding. That class is merely a
subset, perhaps a small subset, of who the Government can detain. Far
more significant, "preventive detention" allows indefinite imprisonment
not based on proven crimes or past violations of law, but of those
deemed generally "dangerous" by the Government for various reasons
(such as, as Obama put it yesterday, they "expressed their allegiance
to Osama bin Laden" or "otherwise made it clear that they want to kill
Americans"). That's what "preventive" means: imprisoning people because
the Government claims they are likely to engage in violent acts in the
future because they are alleged to be "combatants. " 



Once known, the details of the proposal could -- and likely will --
make this even more extreme by extending the "preventive detention"
power beyond a handful of Guantanamo detainees to anyone, anywhere in
the world, alleged to be a "combatant." After all, once you accept the
rationale on which this proposal is based -- namely, that the U.S.
Government must, in order to keep us safe, preventively detain
"dangerous" people even when they can't prove they violated any laws --
there's no coherent reason whatsoever to limit that power to people
already at Guantanamo, as opposed to indefinitely imprisoning with no
trials all allegedly "dangerous" combatants, whether located in
Pakistan, Thailand, Indonesia, Western countries and even the U.S.



(2)  Are defenders of Obama's proposals being consistent?



During the Bush years, it was common for Democrats to try to convince
conservatives to oppose Bush's executive power expansions by asking
them: "Do you really want these powers to be exercised by Hillary
Clinton or some liberal President?"



Following that logic, for any Democrat/progressiv e/liberal/ Obama
supporter who wants to defend Obama's proposal of "preventive
detention," shouldn't you first ask yourself three simple questions: 



(a) what would I have said if George Bush and Dick Cheney advocated a
law vesting them with the power to preventively imprison people
indefinitely and with no charges?;



(b) when Bush and Cheney did preventively imprison large numbers of
people, was I in favor of that or did I oppose it, and when right-wing
groups such as Heritage Foundation were alone in urging a preventive
detention law in 2004, did I support them?; and



(c) even if I'm comfortable with Obama having this new power because I
trust him not to abuse it, am I comfortable with future Presidents --
including Republicans -- having the power of indefinite "preventive
detention"?



(3)  Questions for defenders of Obama's proposal:



There are many claims being made by defenders of Obama's proposals
which seem quite contradictory and/or without any apparent basis, and
I've been searching for a defender of those proposals to address these
questions:



Bush supporters have long claimed -- and many Obama supporters are now
insisting as well -- that there are hard-core terrorists who cannot be
convicted in our civilian courts. For anyone making that claim, what is
the basis for believing that? In the Bush era, the Government has
repeatedly been able to convict alleged Al Qaeda and Taliban members in
civilian courts, including several (Ali al-Marri, Jose Padilla, John
Walker Lindh) who were tortured and others (Zacharais Moussaoui,
Padilla) where evidence against them was obtained by extreme coercion.
What convinced you to believe that genuine terrorists can't be
convicted in our justice system?



For those asserting that there are dangerous people who have not yet
been given any trial and who Obama can't possibly release, how do you
know they are "dangerous" if they haven't been tried? Is the
Government's accusation enough for you to assume it's true?



Above all: for those justifying Obama's use of military commissions by
arguing that some terrorists can't be convicted in civilian courts
because the evidence against them is "tainted" because it was obtained
by Bush's torture, Obama himself claimed just yesterday that his
military commissions also won't allow such evidence ("We will no longer
permit the use of evidence -- as evidence statements that have been
obtained using cruel, inhuman, or degrading interrogation methods").
How does our civilian court's refusal to consider evidence obtained by
torture demonstrate the need for Obama's military commissions if, as
Obama himself claims, Obama's military commissions also won't consider
evidence obtained by torture?



Finally, don't virtually all progressives and Democrats argue that
torture produces unreliable evidence? If it's really true (as Obama
defenders claim) that the evidence we have against these detainees was
obtained by torture and is therefore inadmissible in real courts, do
you really think such unreliable evidence -- evidence we obtained by
torture -- should be the basis for concluding that someone is so
"dangerous" that they belong in prison indefinitely with no trial? If
you don't trust evidence obtained by torture, why do you trust it to
justify holding someone forever, with no trial, as "dangerous"?



(4)  Do other countries have indefinite preventive detention?



Obama yesterday suggested that other countries have turned to
"preventive detention" and that his proposal therefore isn't radical
("other countries have grappled with this question; now, so must we").
Is that true?



In June of last year, there was a tumultuous political debate in
Britain that sheds ample light on this question. In the era of IRA
bombings, the British Parliament passed a law allowing the Government
to preventively detain terrorist suspects for 14 days -- and then
either have to charge them or release them. In 2006, Prime Minister
Tony Blair -- citing the London subway attacks and the need to
"intervene early before a terrorist cell has the opportunity to achieve
its goals" -- wanted to increase the preventive detention period to 90
days, but MPs from his own party and across the political spectrum
overwhelmingly opposed this, and ultimately increased it only to 28
days. 



In June of last year, Prime Minister Gordon Brown sought an expansion
of this preventive detention authority to 42 days -- a mere two weeks
more. Reacting to that extremely modest increase, a major political
rebellion erupted, with large numbers of Brown's own Labour Party
joining with Tories to vehemently oppose it as a major threat to
liberty. Ultimately, Brown's 42-day scheme barely passed the House of
Commons. As former Prime Minister John Major put it in opposing the
expansion to 42 days:



It is hard to justify: pre-charge detention in Canada is 24 hours;
South Africa, Germany, New Zealand and America 48 hours; Russia 5 days;
and Turkey 7? days.



By rather stark and extreme contrast, Obama is seeking preventive
detention powers that are indefinite -- meaning without any end,
potentially permanent. There's no time limit on the "preventive
detention." Compare that power to the proposal that caused such a
political storm in Britain and what these other governments are
empowered to do. The suggestion that indefinite preventive detention
without charges is some sort of common or traditional scheme is clearly
false.



(5)   Is this comparable to traditional POW detentions?



When Bush supporters used to justify Bush/Cheney detention policies by
arguing that it's normal for "Prisoners of War" to be held without
trials, that argument was deeply misleading. And it's no less
misleading when made now by Obama supporters. That comparison is
patently inappropriate for two reasons: (a) the circumstances of the
apprehension, and (b) the fact that, by all accounts, this "war" will
not be over for decades, if ever, which means -- unlike for traditional
POWs, who are released once the war is over -- these prisoners are
going to be in a cage not for a few years, but for decades, if not life.



Traditional "POWs" are ones picked up during an actual military battle,
on a real battlefield, wearing a uniform, while engaged in fighting.
The potential for error and abuse in deciding who was a "combatant" was
thus minimal. By contrast, many of the people we accuse in the "war on
terror" of being "combatants" aren't anywhere near a "battlefield, "
aren't part of any army, aren't wearing any uniforms, etc. Instead,
many of them are picked up from their homes, at work, off the streets.
In most cases, then, we thus have little more than the say-so of the
U.S. Government that they are guilty, which is why actual judicial
proceedings before imprisoning them is so much more vital than in the
standard POW situation. 



Anyone who doubts that should just look at how many Guantanamo
detainees were accused of being "the worst of the worst" yet ended up
being released because they did absolutely nothing wrong. Can anyone
point to any traditional POW situation where so many people were
falsely accused and where the risk of false accusations was so high?
For obvious reasons, this is not and has never been a traditional POW
detention scheme. 



During the Bush era, that was a standard argument among Democrats, so
why should that change now? Here is what Anne-Marie Slaughter -- now
Obama's Director of Policy Planning for the State Department -- said
about Bush's "POW" comparison on Fox News on November 21, 2001:



Military commissions have been around since the Revolutionary War. But
they've always been used to try spies that we find behind enemy lines.
It's normally a situation, you're on the battlefield, you find an enemy
spy behind your lines. You can't ship them to national court, so you
provide a kind of rough battlefield justice in a commission. You give
them the best process you can, and then you execute the sentence on the
spot, which generally means executing the defendant.



That's not this situation. It's not remotely like it. 



As for duration, the U.S. government has repeatedly said that this
"war" is so different from standard wars because it will last for
decades, if not generations. Obama himself yesterday said that "unlike
the Civil War or World War II, we can't count on a surrender ceremony
to bring this journey to an end" and that we'll still be fighting this
"war" "a year from now, five years from now, and -- in all probability
-- 10 years from now." No rational person can compare POW detentions of
a finite and usually short (2-5 years) duration to decades or life in a
cage. That's why, yesterday, Law Professor Diane Marie Amann, in The
New York Times, said this:



[Obama] signaled a plan by which [Guantanamo detainees] ? and perhaps
other detainees yet to be arrested? ? could remain in custody forever
without charge. There is no precedent in the American legal tradition
for this kind of preventive detention. That is not quite right:
precedents do exist, among them the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798 and
the Japanese internment of the 1940s, but they are widely seen as low
points in America's history under the Constitution.



There are many things that can be said about indefinitely imprisoning
people with no charges who were not captured on any battlefield, but
the claim that this is some sort of standard or well-established
practice in American history is patently false.



(6)  Is it "due process" when the Government can guarantee it always wins?



If you really think about the argument Obama made yesterday -- when he
described the five categories of detainees and the procedures to which
each will be subjected -- it becomes manifest just how profound a
violation of Western conceptions of justice this is. What Obama is
saying is this: we'll give real trials only to those detainees we know
in advance we will convict. For those we don't think we can convict in
a real court, we'll get convictions in the military commissions I'm
creating. For those we can't convict even in my military commissions,
we'll just imprison them anyway with no charges ("preventively detain"
them). 



Giving trials to people only when you know for sure, in advance, that
you'll get convictions is not due process. Those are called "show
trials." In a healthy system of justice, the Government gives everyone
it wants to imprison a trial and then imprisons only those whom it can
convict. The process is constant (trials), and the outcome varies
(convictions or acquittals). 



Obama is saying the opposite: in his scheme, it is the outcome that is
constant (everyone ends up imprisoned), while the process varies and is
determined by the Government (trials for some; military commissions for
others; indefinite detention for the rest). The Government picks and
chooses which process you get in order to ensure that it always wins. A
more warped "system of justice" is hard to imagine.



(7)  Can we "be safe" by locking up all the Terrorists with no charges?



Obama stressed yesterday that the "preventive detention" system should
be created only through an act of Congress with "a process of periodic
review, so that any prolonged detention is carefully evaluated and
justified." That's certainly better than what Bush did: namely,
preventively detain people with no oversight and no Congressional
authorization -- in violation of the law. But as we learned with the
Military Commissions Act of 2006 and the Protect America Act of 2007,
the mere fact that Congress approves of a radical policy may mean that
it is no longer lawless but it doesn't make it justified. As Professor
Amann put it: "no amount of procedures can justify deprivations that,
because of their very nature violate the Constitution' s core guarantee
of liberty." Dan Froomkin said that no matter how many procedures are
created, that's "a dangerously extreme policy proposal."



Regarding Obama's "process" justification -- and regarding Obama's
primary argument that we need to preventively detain allegedly
dangerous people in order to keep us safe -- Digby said it best:



We are still in a "war" against a method of violence, which means there
is no possible end and which means that the government can capture and
imprison anyone they determine to be "the enemy" forever. The only
thing that will change is where the prisoners are held and few little
procedural tweaks to make it less capricious. (It's nice that some sort
of official committee will meet once in a while to decide if the war is
over or if the prisoner is finally too old to still be a "danger to
Americans.")



There seems to be some misunderstanding about Guantanamo. Somehow
people have gotten it into their heads is that it is nothing more than
a symbol, which can be dealt with simply by closing the prison. That's
just not true. Guantanamo is a symbol, true, but it's a symbol of a
lawless, unconstitutional detention and interrogation system. Changing
the venue doesn't solve the problem.



I know it's a mess, but the fact is that this isn't really that
difficult, except in the usual beltway kabuki political sense. There
are literally tens of thousands of potential terrorists all over the
world who could theoretically harm America. We cannot protect ourselves
from that possibility by keeping the handful we have in custody locked
up forever, whether in Guantanamo or some Super Max prison in the US.
It's patently absurd to obsess over these guys like it makes us even
the slightest bit safer to have them under indefinite lock and key so
they "can't kill Americans."



The mere fact that we are doing this makes us less safe because the
complete lack of faith we show in our constitution and our justice
systems is what fuels the idea that this country is weak and easily
terrified. There is no such thing as a terrorist suspect who is too
dangerous to be set free. They are a dime a dozen, they are all over
the world and for every one we lock up there will be three to take his
place. There is not some finite number of terrorists we can kill or
capture and then the "war" will be over and the babies will always be
safe. This whole concept is nonsensical.



As I said yesterday, there were some positive aspects to Obama's
speech. His resolve to close Guantanamo in the face of all the
fear-mongering, like his release of the OLC memos, is commendable. But
the fact that a Democratic President who ran on a platform of restoring
America's standing and returning to our core principles is now
advocating the creation of a new system of indefinite preventive
detention -- something that is now sure to become a standard view of
Democratic politicians and hordes of Obama supporters -- is by far the
most consequential event yet in the formation of Obama's civil
liberties policies.



UPDATE: Here's what White House Counsel Greg Craig told The New Yorker's Jane Mayer in February:



"It's possible but hard to imagine Barack Obama as the first President
of the United States to introduce a preventive-detentio n law," Craig
said. "Our presumption is that there is no need to create a whole new
system. Our system is very capable."



"The first President of the United States to introduce a
preventive-detentio n law" is how Obama's own White House Counsel
described him. Technically speaking, that is a form of change, but
probably not the type that many Obama voters expected.



UPDATE II: Ben Wizner of the ACLU's National Security Project is the
lead lawyer in the Jeppesen case, which resulted in the recent
rejection by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals of the Bush/Obama state
secrets argument, and also co-wrote (along with the ACLU's Jameel
Jaffer) a superb article in Salon in December making the case against
preventive detention. I spoke with him this morning for roughly 20
minutes regarding the detention policies proposed by Obama in
yesterday's speech. It can be heard by clicking PLAY on the recorder
below. A transcript will be posted shortly.



UPDATE III: Rachel Maddow was superb last night -- truly superb -- on the topic of Obama's preventive detention proposal:



UPDATE IV: The New Yorker's Amy Davidson compares Obama's detention
proposal to the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II
(as did Professor Amann, quoted above). Hilzoy, of The Washington
Monthly, writes: "If we don't have enough evidence to charge someone
with a crime, we don't have enough evidence to hold them. Period" and
"the power to detain people without filing criminal charges against
them is a dictatorial power." Salon's Joan Walsh quotes the Center for
Constitutional Rights' Vincent Warren as saying: "They're creating,
essentially, an American Gulag." The Philadelphia Inquirer's Will Bunch
says of Obama's proposal: "What he's proposing is against one of this
country's core principles" and "this is why people need to keep the
pressure on Obama -- even those inclined to view his presidency
favorably."



UPDATE V: The Atlantic's Marc Ambinder -- who is as close to the Obama
White House as any journalist around -- makes an important point about
Obama that I really wish more of his supporters would appreciate:



[Obama] was blunt [in his meeting with civil libertiarians] ; the
[military commissions] are a fait accompli, so the civil libertarians
can either help Congress and the White House figure out the best way to
protect the rights of the accused within the framework of that
decision, or they can remain on the outside, as agitators. That's not
meant to be pejorative; whereas the White House does not give a
scintilla of attention to its right-wing critics, it does read, and
will read, everything Glenn Greenwald writes. Obama, according to an
administration official, finds this outside pressure healthy and useful.



Ambinder doesn't mean me personally or exclusively; he means people who
are criticizing Obama not in order to harm him politically, but in
order to pressure him to do better. It's not just the right, but the
duty, of citizens to pressure and criticize political leaders when they
adopt policies that one finds objectionable or destructive. Criticism
of this sort is a vital check on political leaders -- a key way to
impose accountability -- and Obama himself has said as much many times
before. 



It has nothing to do with personalities or allegiances. It doesn't
matter if one "likes" or "trusts" Obama or thinks he's a good or bad
person. That's all irrelevant. The only thing that matters is whether
one thinks that the actions he's undertaking are helpful or harmful. If
they're harmful, one should criticize them. Where, as here, they're
very harmful and dangerous, one should criticize them loudly. Obama
himself, according to Ambinder, "finds this outside pressure healthy
and useful." And it is. It's not only healthy and useful but absolutely
vital.



UPDATE VI: Bearing in mind what Obama repeatedly pledged to do while
running, this headline from The New York Times this morning is rather
extraordinary:



As Greg Craig put it: "hard to imagine Barack Obama as the first
President of the United States to introduce a preventive-detentio n
law."



-- Glenn Greenwald 

    Stop thinking like an American, 
Start thinking about humanity!



      
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From futurenotwritten at yahoo.com  Tue May 26 09:35:07 2009
From: futurenotwritten at yahoo.com (Jay Becker)
Date: Tue, 26 May 2009 06:35:07 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [CitizensTruth] Karl Rove in Chicago this Thurs.
Message-ID: <900485.75252.qm@web33502.mail.mud.yahoo.com>


	News from the Chicago Chapter	
	?
	



    
        
            
            
                
                    
                        
                        
                            
                                
                                    
                                    
                                    

                                    Protest Karl Rove - "Bush's Brain" - War Criminal Appearing in Public!

                                    Thursday May 28th at 6pm
                                    Chicago Theater

                                    175 N. State St.

                                    Sponsored by World Can't Wait - Chicago, 8th Day Center for Justice, and Buddhist Peace Fellowship

                                    Contact: 773.227.2453

                                    chicago at worldcantwait.org
                                    
                                    
                                
                            
                        
                        
                    
                
            
            
        
    


What does Karl Rove have to do with torture?
Karl Rove was the head of the "White House Iraq Group" whose only purpose was to sell the Iraq war
to the American public and the world. We now know that one impetus to
institute torture was to fabricate phony 'evidence' of an Iraq
connection to al Queda to justify that war. Karl Rove is now second
only to former vice president Dick Cheney in his vociferous defense of torture. With his intimate knowledge of and participation in White House discussions and decisions, we demand investigation and prosecution of Karl Rove, along with George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, the notorious Office of Legal Counsel
lawyers John Yoo and Jay Bybee, and all other officials who instituted
and provided legal justification for the immoral and illegal use of torture.
Join us this Thursday, 6 pm, when Karl Rove speaks at the Chicago Theater 
(see sidebar).



	
	
	

	World Can't Wait - National: http://www.worldcantwait.org 866.973.4463
Chicago Chapter: chicago at worldcantwait.org 773-227-2453 chicagoworldcantwait.org
	Meeting on Mondays at 6:30pm.
Meeting venue, is Mercury Cafe at 1505 W. Chicago Ave., Chicago IL 60642
It's right on Chicago Ave., five blocks west of the Chicago Ave. Blue line stop, and one block east of Ashland Ave.

    Stop thinking like an American, 
Start thinking about humanity!



      
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From aroyboy44 at hotmail.com  Wed May 27 13:57:55 2009
From: aroyboy44 at hotmail.com (andrew ritter)
Date: Wed, 27 May 2009 17:57:55 +0000
Subject: [CitizensTruth] Glenn Greenwald on preventive detention proposal
In-Reply-To: <983257.66331.qm@web33502.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
References: <983257.66331.qm@web33502.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <BLU123-W72C250C324E76DCEF4E04BE530@phx.gbl>


Thanks for this Jay,

What an important topic that is getting very little play in the msm

"Preventative Detention" is clearly a dark awful piece of fascist nonsense that violates the constitution and opens the door for creepy things like thought crimes and being detained indefintely for your beliefs.

People continue to defend the Obama administration and I would argue they are stuck in an unhealthy mind pattern where they allow their fantasy of who he is to be overshadowed by the reality of the actions the administration continues to take.

The question then becomes what real action can we citizens take that would help to stop this proposal from going through?






Date: Sun, 24 May 2009 07:59:59 -0700
From: futurenotwritten at yahoo.com
To: citizenstruth at six.pairlist.net
Subject: [CitizensTruth] Glenn Greenwald on preventive detention proposal

This is the best 'dispassionate' dissection of the Obama administration's sweeping proposals that I have read yet. I urge everyone to consider this, and the questions he poses, seriously, and share your thoughts, please!

Jay


http://www.salon. com/opinion/ greenwald/ 2009/05/22/ preventive_ detention/ print.html



Facts and myths about Obama's preventive detention proposal

Is a system of indefinite detention with no charges a standard or radical idea? 



Salon.com

Glenn Greenwald



May. 22, 2009



[Updated below - Update II (Interview with ACLU) - Update III - Update IV - Update V - Update VI] 



In the wake of Obama's speech yesterday, there are vast numbers of new
converts who now support indefinite "preventive detention." It thus
seems constructive to have as dispassionate and fact-based discussion
as possible of the implications of "preventive detention" and Obama's
related detention proposals (military commissions) . I'll have a
podcast discussion on this topic a little bit later today with the
ACLU's Ben Wizner, which I'll add below, but until then, here are some
facts and other points worth noting:



(1) What does "preventive detention" allow?  



It's important to be clear about what "preventive detention"
authorizes. It does not merely allow the U.S. Government to imprison
people alleged to have committed Terrorist acts yet who are unable to
be convicted in a civilian court proceeding. That class is merely a
subset, perhaps a small subset, of who the Government can detain. Far
more significant, "preventive detention" allows indefinite imprisonment
not based on proven crimes or past violations of law, but of those
deemed generally "dangerous" by the Government for various reasons
(such as, as Obama put it yesterday, they "expressed their allegiance
to Osama bin Laden" or "otherwise made it clear that they want to kill
Americans"). That's what "preventive" means: imprisoning people because
the Government claims they are likely to engage in violent acts in the
future because they are alleged to be "combatants. " 



Once known, the details of the proposal could -- and likely will --
make this even more extreme by extending the "preventive detention"
power beyond a handful of Guantanamo detainees to anyone, anywhere in
the world, alleged to be a "combatant." After all, once you accept the
rationale on which this proposal is based -- namely, that the U.S.
Government must, in order to keep us safe, preventively detain
"dangerous" people even when they can't prove they violated any laws --
there's no coherent reason whatsoever to limit that power to people
already at Guantanamo, as opposed to indefinitely imprisoning with no
trials all allegedly "dangerous" combatants, whether located in
Pakistan, Thailand, Indonesia, Western countries and even the U.S.



(2)  Are defenders of Obama's proposals being consistent?



During the Bush years, it was common for Democrats to try to convince
conservatives to oppose Bush's executive power expansions by asking
them: "Do you really want these powers to be exercised by Hillary
Clinton or some liberal President?"



Following that logic, for any Democrat/progressiv e/liberal/ Obama
supporter who wants to defend Obama's proposal of "preventive
detention," shouldn't you first ask yourself three simple questions: 



(a) what would I have said if George Bush and Dick Cheney advocated a
law vesting them with the power to preventively imprison people
indefinitely and with no charges?;



(b) when Bush and Cheney did preventively imprison large numbers of
people, was I in favor of that or did I oppose it, and when right-wing
groups such as Heritage Foundation were alone in urging a preventive
detention law in 2004, did I support them?; and



(c) even if I'm comfortable with Obama having this new power because I
trust him not to abuse it, am I comfortable with future Presidents --
including Republicans -- having the power of indefinite "preventive
detention"?



(3)  Questions for defenders of Obama's proposal:



There are many claims being made by defenders of Obama's proposals
which seem quite contradictory and/or without any apparent basis, and
I've been searching for a defender of those proposals to address these
questions:



Bush supporters have long claimed -- and many Obama supporters are now
insisting as well -- that there are hard-core terrorists who cannot be
convicted in our civilian courts. For anyone making that claim, what is
the basis for believing that? In the Bush era, the Government has
repeatedly been able to convict alleged Al Qaeda and Taliban members in
civilian courts, including several (Ali al-Marri, Jose Padilla, John
Walker Lindh) who were tortured and others (Zacharais Moussaoui,
Padilla) where evidence against them was obtained by extreme coercion.
What convinced you to believe that genuine terrorists can't be
convicted in our justice system?



For those asserting that there are dangerous people who have not yet
been given any trial and who Obama can't possibly release, how do you
know they are "dangerous" if they haven't been tried? Is the
Government's accusation enough for you to assume it's true?



Above all: for those justifying Obama's use of military commissions by
arguing that some terrorists can't be convicted in civilian courts
because the evidence against them is "tainted" because it was obtained
by Bush's torture, Obama himself claimed just yesterday that his
military commissions also won't allow such evidence ("We will no longer
permit the use of evidence -- as evidence statements that have been
obtained using cruel, inhuman, or degrading interrogation methods").
How does our civilian court's refusal to consider evidence obtained by
torture demonstrate the need for Obama's military commissions if, as
Obama himself claims, Obama's military commissions also won't consider
evidence obtained by torture?



Finally, don't virtually all progressives and Democrats argue that
torture produces unreliable evidence? If it's really true (as Obama
defenders claim) that the evidence we have against these detainees was
obtained by torture and is therefore inadmissible in real courts, do
you really think such unreliable evidence -- evidence we obtained by
torture -- should be the basis for concluding that someone is so
"dangerous" that they belong in prison indefinitely with no trial? If
you don't trust evidence obtained by torture, why do you trust it to
justify holding someone forever, with no trial, as "dangerous"?



(4)  Do other countries have indefinite preventive detention?



Obama yesterday suggested that other countries have turned to
"preventive detention" and that his proposal therefore isn't radical
("other countries have grappled with this question; now, so must we").
Is that true?



In June of last year, there was a tumultuous political debate in
Britain that sheds ample light on this question. In the era of IRA
bombings, the British Parliament passed a law allowing the Government
to preventively detain terrorist suspects for 14 days -- and then
either have to charge them or release them. In 2006, Prime Minister
Tony Blair -- citing the London subway attacks and the need to
"intervene early before a terrorist cell has the opportunity to achieve
its goals" -- wanted to increase the preventive detention period to 90
days, but MPs from his own party and across the political spectrum
overwhelmingly opposed this, and ultimately increased it only to 28
days. 



In June of last year, Prime Minister Gordon Brown sought an expansion
of this preventive detention authority to 42 days -- a mere two weeks
more. Reacting to that extremely modest increase, a major political
rebellion erupted, with large numbers of Brown's own Labour Party
joining with Tories to vehemently oppose it as a major threat to
liberty. Ultimately, Brown's 42-day scheme barely passed the House of
Commons. As former Prime Minister John Major put it in opposing the
expansion to 42 days:



It is hard to justify: pre-charge detention in Canada is 24 hours;
South Africa, Germany, New Zealand and America 48 hours; Russia 5 days;
and Turkey 7? days.



By rather stark and extreme contrast, Obama is seeking preventive
detention powers that are indefinite -- meaning without any end,
potentially permanent. There's no time limit on the "preventive
detention." Compare that power to the proposal that caused such a
political storm in Britain and what these other governments are
empowered to do. The suggestion that indefinite preventive detention
without charges is some sort of common or traditional scheme is clearly
false.



(5)   Is this comparable to traditional POW detentions?



When Bush supporters used to justify Bush/Cheney detention policies by
arguing that it's normal for "Prisoners of War" to be held without
trials, that argument was deeply misleading. And it's no less
misleading when made now by Obama supporters. That comparison is
patently inappropriate for two reasons: (a) the circumstances of the
apprehension, and (b) the fact that, by all accounts, this "war" will
not be over for decades, if ever, which means -- unlike for traditional
POWs, who are released once the war is over -- these prisoners are
going to be in a cage not for a few years, but for decades, if not life.



Traditional "POWs" are ones picked up during an actual military battle,
on a real battlefield, wearing a uniform, while engaged in fighting.
The potential for error and abuse in deciding who was a "combatant" was
thus minimal. By contrast, many of the people we accuse in the "war on
terror" of being "combatants" aren't anywhere near a "battlefield, "
aren't part of any army, aren't wearing any uniforms, etc. Instead,
many of them are picked up from their homes, at work, off the streets.
In most cases, then, we thus have little more than the say-so of the
U.S. Government that they are guilty, which is why actual judicial
proceedings before imprisoning them is so much more vital than in the
standard POW situation. 



Anyone who doubts that should just look at how many Guantanamo
detainees were accused of being "the worst of the worst" yet ended up
being released because they did absolutely nothing wrong. Can anyone
point to any traditional POW situation where so many people were
falsely accused and where the risk of false accusations was so high?
For obvious reasons, this is not and has never been a traditional POW
detention scheme. 



During the Bush era, that was a standard argument among Democrats, so
why should that change now? Here is what Anne-Marie Slaughter -- now
Obama's Director of Policy Planning for the State Department -- said
about Bush's "POW" comparison on Fox News on November 21, 2001:



Military commissions have been around since the Revolutionary War. But
they've always been used to try spies that we find behind enemy lines.
It's normally a situation, you're on the battlefield, you find an enemy
spy behind your lines. You can't ship them to national court, so you
provide a kind of rough battlefield justice in a commission. You give
them the best process you can, and then you execute the sentence on the
spot, which generally means executing the defendant.



That's not this situation. It's not remotely like it. 



As for duration, the U.S. government has repeatedly said that this
"war" is so different from standard wars because it will last for
decades, if not generations. Obama himself yesterday said that "unlike
the Civil War or World War II, we can't count on a surrender ceremony
to bring this journey to an end" and that we'll still be fighting this
"war" "a year from now, five years from now, and -- in all probability
-- 10 years from now." No rational person can compare POW detentions of
a finite and usually short (2-5 years) duration to decades or life in a
cage. That's why, yesterday, Law Professor Diane Marie Amann, in The
New York Times, said this:



[Obama] signaled a plan by which [Guantanamo detainees] ? and perhaps
other detainees yet to be arrested? ? could remain in custody forever
without charge. There is no precedent in the American legal tradition
for this kind of preventive detention. That is not quite right:
precedents do exist, among them the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798 and
the Japanese internment of the 1940s, but they are widely seen as low
points in America's history under the Constitution.



There are many things that can be said about indefinitely imprisoning
people with no charges who were not captured on any battlefield, but
the claim that this is some sort of standard or well-established
practice in American history is patently false.



(6)  Is it "due process" when the Government can guarantee it always wins?



If you really think about the argument Obama made yesterday -- when he
described the five categories of detainees and the procedures to which
each will be subjected -- it becomes manifest just how profound a
violation of Western conceptions of justice this is. What Obama is
saying is this: we'll give real trials only to those detainees we know
in advance we will convict. For those we don't think we can convict in
a real court, we'll get convictions in the military commissions I'm
creating. For those we can't convict even in my military commissions,
we'll just imprison them anyway with no charges ("preventively detain"
them). 



Giving trials to people only when you know for sure, in advance, that
you'll get convictions is not due process. Those are called "show
trials." In a healthy system of justice, the Government gives everyone
it wants to imprison a trial and then imprisons only those whom it can
convict. The process is constant (trials), and the outcome varies
(convictions or acquittals). 



Obama is saying the opposite: in his scheme, it is the outcome that is
constant (everyone ends up imprisoned), while the process varies and is
determined by the Government (trials for some; military commissions for
others; indefinite detention for the rest). The Government picks and
chooses which process you get in order to ensure that it always wins. A
more warped "system of justice" is hard to imagine.



(7)  Can we "be safe" by locking up all the Terrorists with no charges?



Obama stressed yesterday that the "preventive detention" system should
be created only through an act of Congress with "a process of periodic
review, so that any prolonged detention is carefully evaluated and
justified." That's certainly better than what Bush did: namely,
preventively detain people with no oversight and no Congressional
authorization -- in violation of the law. But as we learned with the
Military Commissions Act of 2006 and the Protect America Act of 2007,
the mere fact that Congress approves of a radical policy may mean that
it is no longer lawless but it doesn't make it justified. As Professor
Amann put it: "no amount of procedures can justify deprivations that,
because of their very nature violate the Constitution' s core guarantee
of liberty." Dan Froomkin said that no matter how many procedures are
created, that's "a dangerously extreme policy proposal."



Regarding Obama's "process" justification -- and regarding Obama's
primary argument that we need to preventively detain allegedly
dangerous people in order to keep us safe -- Digby said it best:



We are still in a "war" against a method of violence, which means there
is no possible end and which means that the government can capture and
imprison anyone they determine to be "the enemy" forever. The only
thing that will change is where the prisoners are held and few little
procedural tweaks to make it less capricious. (It's nice that some sort
of official committee will meet once in a while to decide if the war is
over or if the prisoner is finally too old to still be a "danger to
Americans.")



There seems to be some misunderstanding about Guantanamo. Somehow
people have gotten it into their heads is that it is nothing more than
a symbol, which can be dealt with simply by closing the prison. That's
just not true. Guantanamo is a symbol, true, but it's a symbol of a
lawless, unconstitutional detention and interrogation system. Changing
the venue doesn't solve the problem.



I know it's a mess, but the fact is that this isn't really that
difficult, except in the usual beltway kabuki political sense. There
are literally tens of thousands of potential terrorists all over the
world who could theoretically harm America. We cannot protect ourselves
from that possibility by keeping the handful we have in custody locked
up forever, whether in Guantanamo or some Super Max prison in the US.
It's patently absurd to obsess over these guys like it makes us even
the slightest bit safer to have them under indefinite lock and key so
they "can't kill Americans."



The mere fact that we are doing this makes us less safe because the
complete lack of faith we show in our constitution and our justice
systems is what fuels the idea that this country is weak and easily
terrified. There is no such thing as a terrorist suspect who is too
dangerous to be set free. They are a dime a dozen, they are all over
the world and for every one we lock up there will be three to take his
place. There is not some finite number of terrorists we can kill or
capture and then the "war" will be over and the babies will always be
safe. This whole concept is nonsensical.



As I said yesterday, there were some positive aspects to Obama's
speech. His resolve to close Guantanamo in the face of all the
fear-mongering, like his release of the OLC memos, is commendable. But
the fact that a Democratic President who ran on a platform of restoring
America's standing and returning to our core principles is now
advocating the creation of a new system of indefinite preventive
detention -- something that is now sure to become a standard view of
Democratic politicians and hordes of Obama supporters -- is by far the
most consequential event yet in the formation of Obama's civil
liberties policies.



UPDATE: Here's what White House Counsel Greg Craig told The New Yorker's Jane Mayer in February:



"It's possible but hard to imagine Barack Obama as the first President
of the United States to introduce a preventive-detentio n law," Craig
said. "Our presumption is that there is no need to create a whole new
system. Our system is very capable."



"The first President of the United States to introduce a
preventive-detentio n law" is how Obama's own White House Counsel
described him. Technically speaking, that is a form of change, but
probably not the type that many Obama voters expected.



UPDATE II: Ben Wizner of the ACLU's National Security Project is the
lead lawyer in the Jeppesen case, which resulted in the recent
rejection by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals of the Bush/Obama state
secrets argument, and also co-wrote (along with the ACLU's Jameel
Jaffer) a superb article in Salon in December making the case against
preventive detention. I spoke with him this morning for roughly 20
minutes regarding the detention policies proposed by Obama in
yesterday's speech. It can be heard by clicking PLAY on the recorder
below. A transcript will be posted shortly.



UPDATE III: Rachel Maddow was superb last night -- truly superb -- on the topic of Obama's preventive detention proposal:



UPDATE IV: The New Yorker's Amy Davidson compares Obama's detention
proposal to the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II
(as did Professor Amann, quoted above). Hilzoy, of The Washington
Monthly, writes: "If we don't have enough evidence to charge someone
with a crime, we don't have enough evidence to hold them. Period" and
"the power to detain people without filing criminal charges against
them is a dictatorial power." Salon's Joan Walsh quotes the Center for
Constitutional Rights' Vincent Warren as saying: "They're creating,
essentially, an American Gulag." The Philadelphia Inquirer's Will Bunch
says of Obama's proposal: "What he's proposing is against one of this
country's core principles" and "this is why people need to keep the
pressure on Obama -- even those inclined to view his presidency
favorably."



UPDATE V: The Atlantic's Marc Ambinder -- who is as close to the Obama
White House as any journalist around -- makes an important point about
Obama that I really wish more of his supporters would appreciate:



[Obama] was blunt [in his meeting with civil libertiarians] ; the
[military commissions] are a fait accompli, so the civil libertarians
can either help Congress and the White House figure out the best way to
protect the rights of the accused within the framework of that
decision, or they can remain on the outside, as agitators. That's not
meant to be pejorative; whereas the White House does not give a
scintilla of attention to its right-wing critics, it does read, and
will read, everything Glenn Greenwald writes. Obama, according to an
administration official, finds this outside pressure healthy and useful.



Ambinder doesn't mean me personally or exclusively; he means people who
are criticizing Obama not in order to harm him politically, but in
order to pressure him to do better. It's not just the right, but the
duty, of citizens to pressure and criticize political leaders when they
adopt policies that one finds objectionable or destructive. Criticism
of this sort is a vital check on political leaders -- a key way to
impose accountability -- and Obama himself has said as much many times
before. 



It has nothing to do with personalities or allegiances. It doesn't
matter if one "likes" or "trusts" Obama or thinks he's a good or bad
person. That's all irrelevant. The only thing that matters is whether
one thinks that the actions he's undertaking are helpful or harmful. If
they're harmful, one should criticize them. Where, as here, they're
very harmful and dangerous, one should criticize them loudly. Obama
himself, according to Ambinder, "finds this outside pressure healthy
and useful." And it is. It's not only healthy and useful but absolutely
vital.



UPDATE VI: Bearing in mind what Obama repeatedly pledged to do while
running, this headline from The New York Times this morning is rather
extraordinary:



As Greg Craig put it: "hard to imagine Barack Obama as the first
President of the United States to introduce a preventive-detentio n
law."



-- Glenn Greenwald 

    Stop thinking like an American, 
Start thinking about humanity!


_________________________________________________________________
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From rmigalla at earthlink.net  Wed May 27 15:49:35 2009
From: rmigalla at earthlink.net (Robin Migalla)
Date: Wed, 27 May 2009 14:49:35 -0500
Subject: [CitizensTruth] Glenn Greenwald on preventive detention proposal
Message-ID: <01C9DEDA.5AC5A970.rmigalla@earthlink.net>

Hi Jay, Andrew, and the rest of our Truth seeking community,

I agree with you, Andrew.  Yes, Jay, thanks for your post.  I always enjoy 
analysis based on facts rather than emotional reactions.  It was a truly 
refreshing piece.  Andrew, I believe your question gets to the heart of 
what we as a group are trying to do.  I wish I had the answer.  For me, 
I've come to realize I'm unable to stop anyone from doing anything.  The 
best I action I can take (interesting word here, take) is offer peace where 
I am right now.

Cheers,
Robin

-----Original Message-----
From:	andrew ritter [SMTP:aroyboy44 at hotmail.com]
Sent:	Wednesday, May 27, 2009 12:58
To:	futurenotwritten at yahoo.com; truth seekers
Subject:	Re: [CitizensTruth] Glenn Greenwald on preventive detention 
proposal


Thanks for this Jay,

What an important topic that is getting very little play in the msm

"Preventative Detention" is clearly a dark awful piece of fascist nonsense 
that violates the constitution and opens the door for creepy things like 
thought crimes and being detained indefintely for your beliefs.

People continue to defend the Obama administration and I would argue they 
are stuck in an unhealthy mind pattern where they allow their fantasy of 
who he is to be overshadowed by the reality of the actions the 
administration continues to take.

The question then becomes what real action can we citizens take that would 
help to stop this proposal from going through?






Date: Sun, 24 May 2009 07:59:59 -0700
From: futurenotwritten at yahoo.com
To: citizenstruth at six.pairlist.net
Subject: [CitizensTruth] Glenn Greenwald on preventive detention proposal

This is the best 'dispassionate' dissection of the Obama administration's 
sweeping proposals that I have read yet. I urge everyone to consider this, 
and the questions he poses, seriously, and share your thoughts, please!

Jay


http://www.salon. com/opinion/ greenwald/ 2009/05/22/ preventive_ 
detention/ print.html



Facts and myths about Obama's preventive detention proposal

Is a system of indefinite detention with no charges a standard or radical 
idea?



Salon.com

Glenn Greenwald



May. 22, 2009



[Updated below - Update II (Interview with ACLU) - Update III - Update IV - 
Update V - Update VI]



In the wake of Obama's speech yesterday, there are vast numbers of new
converts who now support indefinite "preventive detention." It thus
seems constructive to have as dispassionate and fact-based discussion
as possible of the implications of "preventive detention" and Obama's
related detention proposals (military commissions) . I'll have a
podcast discussion on this topic a little bit later today with the
ACLU's Ben Wizner, which I'll add below, but until then, here are some
facts and other points worth noting:



(1) What does "preventive detention" allow?



It's important to be clear about what "preventive detention"
authorizes. It does not merely allow the U.S. Government to imprison
people alleged to have committed Terrorist acts yet who are unable to
be convicted in a civilian court proceeding. That class is merely a
subset, perhaps a small subset, of who the Government can detain. Far
more significant, "preventive detention" allows indefinite imprisonment
not based on proven crimes or past violations of law, but of those
deemed generally "dangerous" by the Government for various reasons
(such as, as Obama put it yesterday, they "expressed their allegiance
to Osama bin Laden" or "otherwise made it clear that they want to kill
Americans"). That's what "preventive" means: imprisoning people because
the Government claims they are likely to engage in violent acts in the
future because they are alleged to be "combatants. "



Once known, the details of the proposal could -- and likely will --
make this even more extreme by extending the "preventive detention"
power beyond a handful of Guantanamo detainees to anyone, anywhere in
the world, alleged to be a "combatant." After all, once you accept the
rationale on which this proposal is based -- namely, that the U.S.
Government must, in order to keep us safe, preventively detain
"dangerous" people even when they can't prove they violated any laws --
there's no coherent reason whatsoever to limit that power to people
already at Guantanamo, as opposed to indefinitely imprisoning with no
trials all allegedly "dangerous" combatants, whether located in
Pakistan, Thailand, Indonesia, Western countries and even the U.S.



(2)  Are defenders of Obama's proposals being consistent?



During the Bush years, it was common for Democrats to try to convince
conservatives to oppose Bush's executive power expansions by asking
them: "Do you really want these powers to be exercised by Hillary
Clinton or some liberal President?"



Following that logic, for any Democrat/progressiv e/liberal/ Obama
supporter who wants to defend Obama's proposal of "preventive
detention," shouldn't you first ask yourself three simple questions:



(a) what would I have said if George Bush and Dick Cheney advocated a
law vesting them with the power to preventively imprison people
indefinitely and with no charges?;



(b) when Bush and Cheney did preventively imprison large numbers of
people, was I in favor of that or did I oppose it, and when right-wing
groups such as Heritage Foundation were alone in urging a preventive
detention law in 2004, did I support them?; and



(c) even if I'm comfortable with Obama having this new power because I
trust him not to abuse it, am I comfortable with future Presidents --
including Republicans -- having the power of indefinite "preventive
detention"?



(3)  Questions for defenders of Obama's proposal:



There are many claims being made by defenders of Obama's proposals
which seem quite contradictory and/or without any apparent basis, and
I've been searching for a defender of those proposals to address these
questions:



Bush supporters have long claimed -- and many Obama supporters are now
insisting as well -- that there are hard-core terrorists who cannot be
convicted in our civilian courts. For anyone making that claim, what is
the basis for believing that? In the Bush era, the Government has
repeatedly been able to convict alleged Al Qaeda and Taliban members in
civilian courts, including several (Ali al-Marri, Jose Padilla, John
Walker Lindh) who were tortured and others (Zacharais Moussaoui,
Padilla) where evidence against them was obtained by extreme coercion.
What convinced you to believe that genuine terrorists can't be
convicted in our justice system?



For those asserting that there are dangerous people who have not yet
been given any trial and who Obama can't possibly release, how do you
know they are "dangerous" if they haven't been tried? Is the
Government's accusation enough for you to assume it's true?



Above all: for those justifying Obama's use of military commissions by
arguing that some terrorists can't be convicted in civilian courts
because the evidence against them is "tainted" because it was obtained
by Bush's torture, Obama himself claimed just yesterday that his
military commissions also won't allow such evidence ("We will no longer
permit the use of evidence -- as evidence statements that have been
obtained using cruel, inhuman, or degrading interrogation methods").
How does our civilian court's refusal to consider evidence obtained by
torture demonstrate the need for Obama's military commissions if, as
Obama himself claims, Obama's military commissions also won't consider
evidence obtained by torture?



Finally, don't virtually all progressives and Democrats argue that
torture produces unreliable evidence? If it's really true (as Obama
defenders claim) that the evidence we have against these detainees was
obtained by torture and is therefore inadmissible in real courts, do
you really think such unreliable evidence -- evidence we obtained by
torture -- should be the basis for concluding that someone is so
"dangerous" that they belong in prison indefinitely with no trial? If
you don't trust evidence obtained by torture, why do you trust it to
justify holding someone forever, with no trial, as "dangerous"?



(4)  Do other countries have indefinite preventive detention?



Obama yesterday suggested that other countries have turned to
"preventive detention" and that his proposal therefore isn't radical
("other countries have grappled with this question; now, so must we").
Is that true?



In June of last year, there was a tumultuous political debate in
Britain that sheds ample light on this question. In the era of IRA
bombings, the British Parliament passed a law allowing the Government
to preventively detain terrorist suspects for 14 days -- and then
either have to charge them or release them. In 2006, Prime Minister
Tony Blair -- citing the London subway attacks and the need to
"intervene early before a terrorist cell has the opportunity to achieve
its goals" -- wanted to increase the preventive detention period to 90
days, but MPs from his own party and across the political spectrum
overwhelmingly opposed this, and ultimately increased it only to 28
days.



In June of last year, Prime Minister Gordon Brown sought an expansion
of this preventive detention authority to 42 days -- a mere two weeks
more. Reacting to that extremely modest increase, a major political
rebellion erupted, with large numbers of Brown's own Labour Party
joining with Tories to vehemently oppose it as a major threat to
liberty. Ultimately, Brown's 42-day scheme barely passed the House of
Commons. As former Prime Minister John Major put it in opposing the
expansion to 42 days:



It is hard to justify: pre-charge detention in Canada is 24 hours;
South Africa, Germany, New Zealand and America 48 hours; Russia 5 days;
and Turkey 7? days.



By rather stark and extreme contrast, Obama is seeking preventive
detention powers that are indefinite -- meaning without any end,
potentially permanent. There's no time limit on the "preventive
detention." Compare that power to the proposal that caused such a
political storm in Britain and what these other governments are
empowered to do. The suggestion that indefinite preventive detention
without charges is some sort of common or traditional scheme is clearly
false.



(5)   Is this comparable to traditional POW detentions?



When Bush supporters used to justify Bush/Cheney detention policies by
arguing that it's normal for "Prisoners of War" to be held without
trials, that argument was deeply misleading. And it's no less
misleading when made now by Obama supporters. That comparison is
patently inappropriate for two reasons: (a) the circumstances of the
apprehension, and (b) the fact that, by all accounts, this "war" will
not be over for decades, if ever, which means -- unlike for traditional
POWs, who are released once the war is over -- these prisoners are
going to be in a cage not for a few years, but for decades, if not life.



Traditional "POWs" are ones picked up during an actual military battle,
on a real battlefield, wearing a uniform, while engaged in fighting.
The potential for error and abuse in deciding who was a "combatant" was
thus minimal. By contrast, many of the people we accuse in the "war on
terror" of being "combatants" aren't anywhere near a "battlefield, "
aren't part of any army, aren't wearing any uniforms, etc. Instead,
many of them are picked up from their homes, at work, off the streets.
In most cases, then, we thus have little more than the say-so of the
U.S. Government that they are guilty, which is why actual judicial
proceedings before imprisoning them is so much more vital than in the
standard POW situation.



Anyone who doubts that should just look at how many Guantanamo
detainees were accused of being "the worst of the worst" yet ended up
being released because they did absolutely nothing wrong. Can anyone
point to any traditional POW situation where so many people were
falsely accused and where the risk of false accusations was so high?
For obvious reasons, this is not and has never been a traditional POW
detention scheme.



During the Bush era, that was a standard argument among Democrats, so
why should that change now? Here is what Anne-Marie Slaughter -- now
Obama's Director of Policy Planning for the State Department -- said
about Bush's "POW" comparison on Fox News on November 21, 2001:



Military commissions have been around since the Revolutionary War. But
they've always been used to try spies that we find behind enemy lines.
It's normally a situation, you're on the battlefield, you find an enemy
spy behind your lines. You can't ship them to national court, so you
provide a kind of rough battlefield justice in a commission. You give
them the best process you can, and then you execute the sentence on the
spot, which generally means executing the defendant.



That's not this situation. It's not remotely like it.



As for duration, the U.S. government has repeatedly said that this
"war" is so different from standard wars because it will last for
decades, if not generations. Obama himself yesterday said that "unlike
the Civil War or World War II, we can't count on a surrender ceremony
to bring this journey to an end" and that we'll still be fighting this
"war" "a year from now, five years from now, and -- in all probability
-- 10 years from now." No rational person can compare POW detentions of
a finite and usually short (2-5 years) duration to decades or life in a
cage. That's why, yesterday, Law Professor Diane Marie Amann, in The
New York Times, said this:



[Obama] signaled a plan by which [Guantanamo detainees] - and perhaps
other detainees yet to be arrested? - could remain in custody forever
without charge. There is no precedent in the American legal tradition
for this kind of preventive detention. That is not quite right:
precedents do exist, among them the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798 and
the Japanese internment of the 1940s, but they are widely seen as low
points in America's history under the Constitution.



There are many things that can be said about indefinitely imprisoning
people with no charges who were not captured on any battlefield, but
the claim that this is some sort of standard or well-established
practice in American history is patently false.



(6)  Is it "due process" when the Government can guarantee it always wins?



If you really think about the argument Obama made yesterday -- when he
described the five categories of detainees and the procedures to which
each will be subjected -- it becomes manifest just how profound a
violation of Western conceptions of justice this is. What Obama is
saying is this: we'll give real trials only to those detainees we know
in advance we will convict. For those we don't think we can convict in
a real court, we'll get convictions in the military commissions I'm
creating. For those we can't convict even in my military commissions,
we'll just imprison them anyway with no charges ("preventively detain"
them).



Giving trials to people only when you know for sure, in advance, that
you'll get convictions is not due process. Those are called "show
trials." In a healthy system of justice, the Government gives everyone
it wants to imprison a trial and then imprisons only those whom it can
convict. The process is constant (trials), and the outcome varies
(convictions or acquittals).



Obama is saying the opposite: in his scheme, it is the outcome that is
constant (everyone ends up imprisoned), while the process varies and is
determined by the Government (trials for some; military commissions for
others; indefinite detention for the rest). The Government picks and
chooses which process you get in order to ensure that it always wins. A
more warped "system of justice" is hard to imagine.



(7)  Can we "be safe" by locking up all the Terrorists with no charges?



Obama stressed yesterday that the "preventive detention" system should
be created only through an act of Congress with "a process of periodic
review, so that any prolonged detention is carefully evaluated and
justified." That's certainly better than what Bush did: namely,
preventively detain people with no oversight and no Congressional
authorization -- in violation of the law. But as we learned with the
Military Commissions Act of 2006 and the Protect America Act of 2007,
the mere fact that Congress approves of a radical policy may mean that
it is no longer lawless but it doesn't make it justified. As Professor
Amann put it: "no amount of procedures can justify deprivations that,
because of their very nature violate the Constitution' s core guarantee
of liberty." Dan Froomkin said that no matter how many procedures are
created, that's "a dangerously extreme policy proposal."



Regarding Obama's "process" justification -- and regarding Obama's
primary argument that we need to preventively detain allegedly
dangerous people in order to keep us safe -- Digby said it best:



We are still in a "war" against a method of violence, which means there
is no possible end and which means that the government can capture and
imprison anyone they determine to be "the enemy" forever. The only
thing that will change is where the prisoners are held and few little
procedural tweaks to make it less capricious. (It's nice that some sort
of official committee will meet once in a while to decide if the war is
over or if the prisoner is finally too old to still be a "danger to
Americans.")



There seems to be some misunderstanding about Guantanamo. Somehow
people have gotten it into their heads is that it is nothing more than
a symbol, which can be dealt with simply by closing the prison. That's
just not true. Guantanamo is a symbol, true, but it's a symbol of a
lawless, unconstitutional detention and interrogation system. Changing
the venue doesn't solve the problem.



I know it's a mess, but the fact is that this isn't really that
difficult, except in the usual beltway kabuki political sense. There
are literally tens of thousands of potential terrorists all over the
world who could theoretically harm America. We cannot protect ourselves
from that possibility by keeping the handful we have in custody locked
up forever, whether in Guantanamo or some Super Max prison in the US.
It's patently absurd to obsess over these guys like it makes us even
the slightest bit safer to have them under indefinite lock and key so
they "can't kill Americans."



The mere fact that we are doing this makes us less safe because the
complete lack of faith we show in our constitution and our justice
systems is what fuels the idea that this country is weak and easily
terrified. There is no such thing as a terrorist suspect who is too
dangerous to be set free. They are a dime a dozen, they are all over
the world and for every one we lock up there will be three to take his
place. There is not some finite number of terrorists we can kill or
capture and then the "war" will be over and the babies will always be
safe. This whole concept is nonsensical.



As I said yesterday, there were some positive aspects to Obama's
speech. His resolve to close Guantanamo in the face of all the
fear-mongering, like his release of the OLC memos, is commendable. But
the fact that a Democratic President who ran on a platform of restoring
America's standing and returning to our core principles is now
advocating the creation of a new system of indefinite preventive
detention -- something that is now sure to become a standard view of
Democratic politicians and hordes of Obama supporters -- is by far the
most consequential event yet in the formation of Obama's civil
liberties policies.



UPDATE: Here's what White House Counsel Greg Craig told The New Yorker's 
Jane Mayer in February:



"It's possible but hard to imagine Barack Obama as the first President
of the United States to introduce a preventive-detentio n law," Craig
said. "Our presumption is that there is no need to create a whole new
system. Our system is very capable."



"The first President of the United States to introduce a
preventive-detentio n law" is how Obama's own White House Counsel
described him. Technically speaking, that is a form of change, but
probably not the type that many Obama voters expected.



UPDATE II: Ben Wizner of the ACLU's National Security Project is the
lead lawyer in the Jeppesen case, which resulted in the recent
rejection by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals of the Bush/Obama state
secrets argument, and also co-wrote (along with the ACLU's Jameel
Jaffer) a superb article in Salon in December making the case against
preventive detention. I spoke with him this morning for roughly 20
minutes regarding the detention policies proposed by Obama in
yesterday's speech. It can be heard by clicking PLAY on the recorder
below. A transcript will be posted shortly.



UPDATE III: Rachel Maddow was superb last night -- truly superb -- on the 
topic of Obama's preventive detention proposal:



UPDATE IV: The New Yorker's Amy Davidson compares Obama's detention
proposal to the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II
(as did Professor Amann, quoted above). Hilzoy, of The Washington
Monthly, writes: "If we don't have enough evidence to charge someone
with a crime, we don't have enough evidence to hold them. Period" and
"the power to detain people without filing criminal charges against
them is a dictatorial power." Salon's Joan Walsh quotes the Center for
Constitutional Rights' Vincent Warren as saying: "They're creating,
essentially, an American Gulag." The Philadelphia Inquirer's Will Bunch
says of Obama's proposal: "What he's proposing is against one of this
country's core principles" and "this is why people need to keep the
pressure on Obama -- even those inclined to view his presidency
favorably."



UPDATE V: The Atlantic's Marc Ambinder -- who is as close to the Obama
White House as any journalist around -- makes an important point about
Obama that I really wish more of his supporters would appreciate:



[Obama] was blunt [in his meeting with civil libertiarians] ; the
[military commissions] are a fait accompli, so the civil libertarians
can either help Congress and the White House figure out the best way to
protect the rights of the accused within the framework of that
decision, or they can remain on the outside, as agitators. That's not
meant to be pejorative; whereas the White House does not give a
scintilla of attention to its right-wing critics, it does read, and
will read, everything Glenn Greenwald writes. Obama, according to an
administration official, finds this outside pressure healthy and useful.



Ambinder doesn't mean me personally or exclusively; he means people who
are criticizing Obama not in order to harm him politically, but in
order to pressure him to do better. It's not just the right, but the
duty, of citizens to pressure and criticize political leaders when they
adopt policies that one finds objectionable or destructive. Criticism
of this sort is a vital check on political leaders -- a key way to
impose accountability -- and Obama himself has said as much many times
before.



It has nothing to do with personalities or allegiances. It doesn't
matter if one "likes" or "trusts" Obama or thinks he's a good or bad
person. That's all irrelevant. The only thing that matters is whether
one thinks that the actions he's undertaking are helpful or harmful. If
they're harmful, one should criticize them. Where, as here, they're
very harmful and dangerous, one should criticize them loudly. Obama
himself, according to Ambinder, "finds this outside pressure healthy
and useful." And it is. It's not only healthy and useful but absolutely
vital.



UPDATE VI: Bearing in mind what Obama repeatedly pledged to do while
running, this headline from The New York Times this morning is rather
extraordinary:



As Greg Craig put it: "hard to imagine Barack Obama as the first
President of the United States to introduce a preventive-detentio n
law."



-- Glenn Greenwald

    Stop thinking like an American,
Start thinking about humanity!


_________________________________________________________________
Hotmail? goes with you.
http://windowslive.com/Tutorial/Hotmail/Mobile?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_HM_Tuto  
rial_Mobile1_052009 << File: ATT00534.htm; charset = Windows-1252 >>  << 
File: ATT00535.txt >> 

From futurenotwritten at yahoo.com  Wed May 27 16:57:57 2009
From: futurenotwritten at yahoo.com (Jay Becker)
Date: Wed, 27 May 2009 13:57:57 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [CitizensTruth] Glenn Greenwald on preventive detention proposal
Message-ID: <994815.2596.qm@web33501.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

Yes, as individuals, there is little we can do, but we aren't just individuals, we're also part of communities and a society, the US, that is raining this terror down on other people and threatening more, not only 'over there' either. 

I think this is a very good time to act. Obama refuses to release 2000 torture photos (think about that number!) from at least half a dozen US facilities (think about how widespread that means this is) because seeing what has been done will shatter illusions that this was done "by a few individuals," as Obama alleged again last week, and increase exponentially the demand that those responsible for ordering all this be prosecuted. This is a very sticky situation for Obama and our determined actions now could (no guaranties in this world) make a difference, crack open the debate, dis-illusion people in a good way. 

It won't happen without that, and we're here where we can make a difference. I wonder what people being hit by drones in Pakistan and bombs in Afghanistan would think about us protesting? What difference would it make in the world if there was a loud voice of protest here in the US that wasn't loyal to the government doing this to them AND wasn't supporting the fundamentalist opposition, the only two choices they see in front of them.

Here's a thoughtful piece from a young writer on Revolution that I recommend: 
Silence Plus Torture 
                Equals Complicity 
              It?s
spring 2009, students were finishing final exams and graduating,
looking at the life ahead of them. Young people are filling their
summers with activities and friends.
              At around
the same time on May 4, U.S. airstrikes massacred 147 people in
Afghanistan, including teenagers. What were their hopes and dreams,
what do their lives count for? Do WE have a responsibility to THEM? And
if so, what is it?

              At the same time we have now
read memos that show that this government, from its very highest
levels, held detainees and legally justified their torture; that they
were, and some are still,? being held indefinitely not knowing why, or
when, or if, they will be tried, kept in solitary confinement,
interrogated for up to 20 hours a day, brutally tortured or even
killed. And now, we have also been told by Barack Obama that extensive
photographs documenting this torture are going to be suppressed because
if people saw them it might ?inflame? the opinion of Americans, and
people around the world, and endanger the troops in Iraq. Do WE have a
responsibility to society, to humanity, to oppose this?
Read on at 
http://revcom.us/a/166/torture-editorial-en.html

Thanks for sharing your thoughts!
Jay

    Stop thinking like an American, 
Start thinking about humanity!


--- On Wed, 5/27/09, Robin Migalla <rmigalla at earthlink.net> wrote:

From: Robin Migalla <rmigalla at earthlink.net>
Subject: Re: [CitizensTruth] Glenn Greenwald on preventive detention proposal
To: "truth seekers" <citizenstruth at six.pairlist.net>
Date: Wednesday, May 27, 2009, 2:49 PM

Hi Jay, Andrew, and the rest of our Truth seeking community,

I agree with you, Andrew.? Yes, Jay, thanks for your post.? I always enjoy 
analysis based on facts rather than emotional reactions.? It was a truly 
refreshing piece.? Andrew, I believe your question gets to the heart of 
what we as a group are trying to do.? I wish I had the answer.? For me, 
I've come to realize I'm unable to stop anyone from doing anything.? The 
best I action I can take (interesting word here, take) is offer peace where 
I am right now.

Cheers,
Robin

-----Original Message-----
From:??? andrew ritter [SMTP:aroyboy44 at hotmail.com]
Sent:??? Wednesday, May 27, 2009 12:58
To:??? futurenotwritten at yahoo.com; truth seekers
Subject:??? Re: [CitizensTruth] Glenn Greenwald on preventive detention 
proposal


Thanks for this Jay,

What an important topic that is getting very little play in the msm

"Preventative Detention" is clearly a dark awful piece of fascist nonsense 
that violates the constitution and opens the door for creepy things like 
thought crimes and being detained indefintely for your beliefs.

People continue to defend the Obama administration and I would argue they 
are stuck in an unhealthy mind pattern where they allow their fantasy of 
who he is to be overshadowed by the reality of the actions the 
administration continues to take.

The question then becomes what real action can we citizens take that would 
help to stop this proposal from going through?






Date: Sun, 24 May 2009 07:59:59 -0700
From: futurenotwritten at yahoo.com
To: citizenstruth at six.pairlist.net
Subject: [CitizensTruth] Glenn Greenwald on preventive detention proposal

This is the best 'dispassionate' dissection of the Obama administration's 
sweeping proposals that I have read yet. I urge everyone to consider this, 
and the questions he poses, seriously, and share your thoughts, please!

Jay


http://www.salon. com/opinion/ greenwald/ 2009/05/22/ preventive_ 
detention/ print.html



Facts and myths about Obama's preventive detention proposal

Is a system of indefinite detention with no charges a standard or radical 
idea?



Salon.com

Glenn Greenwald



May. 22, 2009



[Updated below - Update II (Interview with ACLU) - Update III - Update IV - 
Update V - Update VI]



In the wake of Obama's speech yesterday, there are vast numbers of new
converts who now support indefinite "preventive detention." It thus
seems constructive to have as dispassionate and fact-based discussion
as possible of the implications of "preventive detention" and Obama's
related detention proposals (military commissions) . I'll have a
podcast discussion on this topic a little bit later today with the
ACLU's Ben Wizner, which I'll add below, but until then, here are some
facts and other points worth noting:



(1) What does "preventive detention" allow?



It's important to be clear about what "preventive detention"
authorizes. It does not merely allow the U.S. Government to imprison
people alleged to have committed Terrorist acts yet who are unable to
be convicted in a civilian court proceeding. That class is merely a
subset, perhaps a small subset, of who the Government can detain. Far
more significant, "preventive detention" allows indefinite imprisonment
not based on proven crimes or past violations of law, but of those
deemed generally "dangerous" by the Government for various reasons
(such as, as Obama put it yesterday, they "expressed their allegiance
to Osama bin Laden" or "otherwise made it clear that they want to kill
Americans"). That's what "preventive" means: imprisoning people because
the Government claims they are likely to engage in violent acts in the
future because they are alleged to be "combatants. "



Once known, the details of the proposal could -- and likely will --
make this even more extreme by extending the "preventive detention"
power beyond a handful of Guantanamo detainees to anyone, anywhere in
the world, alleged to be a "combatant." After all, once you accept the
rationale on which this proposal is based -- namely, that the U.S.
Government must, in order to keep us safe, preventively detain
"dangerous" people even when they can't prove they violated any laws --
there's no coherent reason whatsoever to limit that power to people
already at Guantanamo, as opposed to indefinitely imprisoning with no
trials all allegedly "dangerous" combatants, whether located in
Pakistan, Thailand, Indonesia, Western countries and even the U.S.



(2)? Are defenders of Obama's proposals being consistent?



During the Bush years, it was common for Democrats to try to convince
conservatives to oppose Bush's executive power expansions by asking
them: "Do you really want these powers to be exercised by Hillary
Clinton or some liberal President?"



Following that logic, for any Democrat/progressiv e/liberal/ Obama
supporter who wants to defend Obama's proposal of "preventive
detention," shouldn't you first ask yourself three simple questions:



(a) what would I have said if George Bush and Dick Cheney advocated a
law vesting them with the power to preventively imprison people
indefinitely and with no charges?;



(b) when Bush and Cheney did preventively imprison large numbers of
people, was I in favor of that or did I oppose it, and when right-wing
groups such as Heritage Foundation were alone in urging a preventive
detention law in 2004, did I support them?; and



(c) even if I'm comfortable with Obama having this new power because I
trust him not to abuse it, am I comfortable with future Presidents --
including Republicans -- having the power of indefinite "preventive
detention"?



(3)? Questions for defenders of Obama's proposal:



There are many claims being made by defenders of Obama's proposals
which seem quite contradictory and/or without any apparent basis, and
I've been searching for a defender of those proposals to address these
questions:



Bush supporters have long claimed -- and many Obama supporters are now
insisting as well -- that there are hard-core terrorists who cannot be
convicted in our civilian courts. For anyone making that claim, what is
the basis for believing that? In the Bush era, the Government has
repeatedly been able to convict alleged Al Qaeda and Taliban members in
civilian courts, including several (Ali al-Marri, Jose Padilla, John
Walker Lindh) who were tortured and others (Zacharais Moussaoui,
Padilla) where evidence against them was obtained by extreme coercion.
What convinced you to believe that genuine terrorists can't be
convicted in our justice system?



For those asserting that there are dangerous people who have not yet
been given any trial and who Obama can't possibly release, how do you
know they are "dangerous" if they haven't been tried? Is the
Government's accusation enough for you to assume it's true?



Above all: for those justifying Obama's use of military commissions by
arguing that some terrorists can't be convicted in civilian courts
because the evidence against them is "tainted" because it was obtained
by Bush's torture, Obama himself claimed just yesterday that his
military commissions also won't allow such evidence ("We will no longer
permit the use of evidence -- as evidence statements that have been
obtained using cruel, inhuman, or degrading interrogation methods").
How does our civilian court's refusal to consider evidence obtained by
torture demonstrate the need for Obama's military commissions if, as
Obama himself claims, Obama's military commissions also won't consider
evidence obtained by torture?



Finally, don't virtually all progressives and Democrats argue that
torture produces unreliable evidence? If it's really true (as Obama
defenders claim) that the evidence we have against these detainees was
obtained by torture and is therefore inadmissible in real courts, do
you really think such unreliable evidence -- evidence we obtained by
torture -- should be the basis for concluding that someone is so
"dangerous" that they belong in prison indefinitely with no trial? If
you don't trust evidence obtained by torture, why do you trust it to
justify holding someone forever, with no trial, as "dangerous"?



(4)? Do other countries have indefinite preventive detention?



Obama yesterday suggested that other countries have turned to
"preventive detention" and that his proposal therefore isn't radical
("other countries have grappled with this question; now, so must we").
Is that true?



In June of last year, there was a tumultuous political debate in
Britain that sheds ample light on this question. In the era of IRA
bombings, the British Parliament passed a law allowing the Government
to preventively detain terrorist suspects for 14 days -- and then
either have to charge them or release them. In 2006, Prime Minister
Tony Blair -- citing the London subway attacks and the need to
"intervene early before a terrorist cell has the opportunity to achieve
its goals" -- wanted to increase the preventive detention period to 90
days, but MPs from his own party and across the political spectrum
overwhelmingly opposed this, and ultimately increased it only to 28
days.



In June of last year, Prime Minister Gordon Brown sought an expansion
of this preventive detention authority to 42 days -- a mere two weeks
more. Reacting to that extremely modest increase, a major political
rebellion erupted, with large numbers of Brown's own Labour Party
joining with Tories to vehemently oppose it as a major threat to
liberty. Ultimately, Brown's 42-day scheme barely passed the House of
Commons. As former Prime Minister John Major put it in opposing the
expansion to 42 days:



It is hard to justify: pre-charge detention in Canada is 24 hours;
South Africa, Germany, New Zealand and America 48 hours; Russia 5 days;
and Turkey 7? days.



By rather stark and extreme contrast, Obama is seeking preventive
detention powers that are indefinite -- meaning without any end,
potentially permanent. There's no time limit on the "preventive
detention." Compare that power to the proposal that caused such a
political storm in Britain and what these other governments are
empowered to do. The suggestion that indefinite preventive detention
without charges is some sort of common or traditional scheme is clearly
false.



(5)???Is this comparable to traditional POW detentions?



When Bush supporters used to justify Bush/Cheney detention policies by
arguing that it's normal for "Prisoners of War" to be held without
trials, that argument was deeply misleading. And it's no less
misleading when made now by Obama supporters. That comparison is
patently inappropriate for two reasons: (a) the circumstances of the
apprehension, and (b) the fact that, by all accounts, this "war" will
not be over for decades, if ever, which means -- unlike for traditional
POWs, who are released once the war is over -- these prisoners are
going to be in a cage not for a few years, but for decades, if not life.



Traditional "POWs" are ones picked up during an actual military battle,
on a real battlefield, wearing a uniform, while engaged in fighting.
The potential for error and abuse in deciding who was a "combatant" was
thus minimal. By contrast, many of the people we accuse in the "war on
terror" of being "combatants" aren't anywhere near a "battlefield, "
aren't part of any army, aren't wearing any uniforms, etc. Instead,
many of them are picked up from their homes, at work, off the streets.
In most cases, then, we thus have little more than the say-so of the
U.S. Government that they are guilty, which is why actual judicial
proceedings before imprisoning them is so much more vital than in the
standard POW situation.



Anyone who doubts that should just look at how many Guantanamo
detainees were accused of being "the worst of the worst" yet ended up
being released because they did absolutely nothing wrong. Can anyone
point to any traditional POW situation where so many people were
falsely accused and where the risk of false accusations was so high?
For obvious reasons, this is not and has never been a traditional POW
detention scheme.



During the Bush era, that was a standard argument among Democrats, so
why should that change now? Here is what Anne-Marie Slaughter -- now
Obama's Director of Policy Planning for the State Department -- said
about Bush's "POW" comparison on Fox News on November 21, 2001:



Military commissions have been around since the Revolutionary War. But
they've always been used to try spies that we find behind enemy lines.
It's normally a situation, you're on the battlefield, you find an enemy
spy behind your lines. You can't ship them to national court, so you
provide a kind of rough battlefield justice in a commission. You give
them the best process you can, and then you execute the sentence on the
spot, which generally means executing the defendant.



That's not this situation. It's not remotely like it.



As for duration, the U.S. government has repeatedly said that this
"war" is so different from standard wars because it will last for
decades, if not generations. Obama himself yesterday said that "unlike
the Civil War or World War II, we can't count on a surrender ceremony
to bring this journey to an end" and that we'll still be fighting this
"war" "a year from now, five years from now, and -- in all probability
-- 10 years from now." No rational person can compare POW detentions of
a finite and usually short (2-5 years) duration to decades or life in a
cage. That's why, yesterday, Law Professor Diane Marie Amann, in The
New York Times, said this:



[Obama] signaled a plan by which [Guantanamo detainees] - and perhaps
other detainees yet to be arrested? - could remain in custody forever
without charge. There is no precedent in the American legal tradition
for this kind of preventive detention. That is not quite right:
precedents do exist, among them the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798 and
the Japanese internment of the 1940s, but they are widely seen as low
points in America's history under the Constitution.



There are many things that can be said about indefinitely imprisoning
people with no charges who were not captured on any battlefield, but
the claim that this is some sort of standard or well-established
practice in American history is patently false.



(6)? Is it "due process" when the Government can guarantee it always wins?



If you really think about the argument Obama made yesterday -- when he
described the five categories of detainees and the procedures to which
each will be subjected -- it becomes manifest just how profound a
violation of Western conceptions of justice this is. What Obama is
saying is this: we'll give real trials only to those detainees we know
in advance we will convict. For those we don't think we can convict in
a real court, we'll get convictions in the military commissions I'm
creating. For those we can't convict even in my military commissions,
we'll just imprison them anyway with no charges ("preventively detain"
them).



Giving trials to people only when you know for sure, in advance, that
you'll get convictions is not due process. Those are called "show
trials." In a healthy system of justice, the Government gives everyone
it wants to imprison a trial and then imprisons only those whom it can
convict. The process is constant (trials), and the outcome varies
(convictions or acquittals).



Obama is saying the opposite: in his scheme, it is the outcome that is
constant (everyone ends up imprisoned), while the process varies and is
determined by the Government (trials for some; military commissions for
others; indefinite detention for the rest). The Government picks and
chooses which process you get in order to ensure that it always wins. A
more warped "system of justice" is hard to imagine.



(7)? Can we "be safe" by locking up all the Terrorists with no charges?



Obama stressed yesterday that the "preventive detention" system should
be created only through an act of Congress with "a process of periodic
review, so that any prolonged detention is carefully evaluated and
justified." That's certainly better than what Bush did: namely,
preventively detain people with no oversight and no Congressional
authorization -- in violation of the law. But as we learned with the
Military Commissions Act of 2006 and the Protect America Act of 2007,
the mere fact that Congress approves of a radical policy may mean that
it is no longer lawless but it doesn't make it justified. As Professor
Amann put it: "no amount of procedures can justify deprivations that,
because of their very nature violate the Constitution' s core guarantee
of liberty." Dan Froomkin said that no matter how many procedures are
created, that's "a dangerously extreme policy proposal."



Regarding Obama's "process" justification -- and regarding Obama's
primary argument that we need to preventively detain allegedly
dangerous people in order to keep us safe -- Digby said it best:



We are still in a "war" against a method of violence, which means there
is no possible end and which means that the government can capture and
imprison anyone they determine to be "the enemy" forever. The only
thing that will change is where the prisoners are held and few little
procedural tweaks to make it less capricious. (It's nice that some sort
of official committee will meet once in a while to decide if the war is
over or if the prisoner is finally too old to still be a "danger to
Americans.")



There seems to be some misunderstanding about Guantanamo. Somehow
people have gotten it into their heads is that it is nothing more than
a symbol, which can be dealt with simply by closing the prison. That's
just not true. Guantanamo is a symbol, true, but it's a symbol of a
lawless, unconstitutional detention and interrogation system. Changing
the venue doesn't solve the problem.



I know it's a mess, but the fact is that this isn't really that
difficult, except in the usual beltway kabuki political sense. There
are literally tens of thousands of potential terrorists all over the
world who could theoretically harm America. We cannot protect ourselves
from that possibility by keeping the handful we have in custody locked
up forever, whether in Guantanamo or some Super Max prison in the US.
It's patently absurd to obsess over these guys like it makes us even
the slightest bit safer to have them under indefinite lock and key so
they "can't kill Americans."



The mere fact that we are doing this makes us less safe because the
complete lack of faith we show in our constitution and our justice
systems is what fuels the idea that this country is weak and easily
terrified. There is no such thing as a terrorist suspect who is too
dangerous to be set free. They are a dime a dozen, they are all over
the world and for every one we lock up there will be three to take his
place. There is not some finite number of terrorists we can kill or
capture and then the "war" will be over and the babies will always be
safe. This whole concept is nonsensical.



As I said yesterday, there were some positive aspects to Obama's
speech. His resolve to close Guantanamo in the face of all the
fear-mongering, like his release of the OLC memos, is commendable. But
the fact that a Democratic President who ran on a platform of restoring
America's standing and returning to our core principles is now
advocating the creation of a new system of indefinite preventive
detention -- something that is now sure to become a standard view of
Democratic politicians and hordes of Obama supporters -- is by far the
most consequential event yet in the formation of Obama's civil
liberties policies.



UPDATE: Here's what White House Counsel Greg Craig told The New Yorker's 
Jane Mayer in February:



"It's possible but hard to imagine Barack Obama as the first President
of the United States to introduce a preventive-detentio n law," Craig
said. "Our presumption is that there is no need to create a whole new
system. Our system is very capable."



"The first President of the United States to introduce a
preventive-detentio n law" is how Obama's own White House Counsel
described him. Technically speaking, that is a form of change, but
probably not the type that many Obama voters expected.



UPDATE II: Ben Wizner of the ACLU's National Security Project is the
lead lawyer in the Jeppesen case, which resulted in the recent
rejection by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals of the Bush/Obama state
secrets argument, and also co-wrote (along with the ACLU's Jameel
Jaffer) a superb article in Salon in December making the case against
preventive detention. I spoke with him this morning for roughly 20
minutes regarding the detention policies proposed by Obama in
yesterday's speech. It can be heard by clicking PLAY on the recorder
below. A transcript will be posted shortly.



UPDATE III: Rachel Maddow was superb last night -- truly superb -- on the 
topic of Obama's preventive detention proposal:



UPDATE IV: The New Yorker's Amy Davidson compares Obama's detention
proposal to the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II
(as did Professor Amann, quoted above). Hilzoy, of The Washington
Monthly, writes: "If we don't have enough evidence to charge someone
with a crime, we don't have enough evidence to hold them. Period" and
"the power to detain people without filing criminal charges against
them is a dictatorial power." Salon's Joan Walsh quotes the Center for
Constitutional Rights' Vincent Warren as saying: "They're creating,
essentially, an American Gulag." The Philadelphia Inquirer's Will Bunch
says of Obama's proposal: "What he's proposing is against one of this
country's core principles" and "this is why people need to keep the
pressure on Obama -- even those inclined to view his presidency
favorably."



UPDATE V: The Atlantic's Marc Ambinder -- who is as close to the Obama
White House as any journalist around -- makes an important point about
Obama that I really wish more of his supporters would appreciate:



[Obama] was blunt [in his meeting with civil libertiarians] ; the
[military commissions] are a fait accompli, so the civil libertarians
can either help Congress and the White House figure out the best way to
protect the rights of the accused within the framework of that
decision, or they can remain on the outside, as agitators. That's not
meant to be pejorative; whereas the White House does not give a
scintilla of attention to its right-wing critics, it does read, and
will read, everything Glenn Greenwald writes. Obama, according to an
administration official, finds this outside pressure healthy and useful.



Ambinder doesn't mean me personally or exclusively; he means people who
are criticizing Obama not in order to harm him politically, but in
order to pressure him to do better. It's not just the right, but the
duty, of citizens to pressure and criticize political leaders when they
adopt policies that one finds objectionable or destructive. Criticism
of this sort is a vital check on political leaders -- a key way to
impose accountability -- and Obama himself has said as much many times
before.



It has nothing to do with personalities or allegiances. It doesn't
matter if one "likes" or "trusts" Obama or thinks he's a good or bad
person. That's all irrelevant. The only thing that matters is whether
one thinks that the actions he's undertaking are helpful or harmful. If
they're harmful, one should criticize them. Where, as here, they're
very harmful and dangerous, one should criticize them loudly. Obama
himself, according to Ambinder, "finds this outside pressure healthy
and useful." And it is. It's not only healthy and useful but absolutely
vital.



UPDATE VI: Bearing in mind what Obama repeatedly pledged to do while
running, this headline from The New York Times this morning is rather
extraordinary:



As Greg Craig put it: "hard to imagine Barack Obama as the first
President of the United States to introduce a preventive-detentio n
law."



-- Glenn Greenwald

? ? Stop thinking like an American,
Start thinking about humanity!


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From janice.matthews at gmail.com  Wed May 27 17:37:08 2009
From: janice.matthews at gmail.com (Janice Matthews)
Date: Wed, 27 May 2009 16:37:08 -0500
Subject: [CitizensTruth] Glenn Greenwald on preventive detention proposal
In-Reply-To: <994815.2596.qm@web33501.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
References: <994815.2596.qm@web33501.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <4A1DB284.1070502@gmail.com>

Excellent, compelling post.
I remember hearing an incredible talk on the radio once, by Arundhati 
Roy, that's always stuck with me clearly. In brief, she said 
(summarizing) that in general, people don't /want/ to know about things 
because once we know something, we are unable to un-know it. And because 
we know it, we are compelled to /do/ something about it.

Oh, how I want to un-know so many things. And, how I wish (once in 
awhile) I lived near a place where others were also taking action, so I 
could join with them instead of being alone. There's such energy in 
coming together in resistance--I'm a little envious of you all near 
Chicago (though I wouldn't trade my hermit country life for anything now).

So knowing what's being done in our name is a terrible, heavy burden. 
And I know, of course, it's nothing compared to those who are surviving 
these bombings, while their loved ones are being killed and tortured. I 
understand why the mothers are asking to just be killed rather than have 
to live with the memory of watching their children raped by "US." And to 
be honest, I don't WANT to see the pictures! I'm already so upset by it 
(particularly as someone who has been raped, I think) that the thought 
of seeing what we've done is unbearable; moreso even than reading 
Seymour Hersch say that what will always stay with him from Abu Ghraib 
was the shrieks of the boys as they were being raped... But I guess 
that's the reason the photos have to be released. Apparently many 
Americans have to be so shocked with reality that they can't "not know" 
it, so that they'll then be compelled to DO something!

I think the heaviest part of the burden is knowing that, for some of us, 
we've fought so hard, tried so hard, pleaded and reasoned and begged and 
boycotted and been conscious in our choices to try to oppose, weaken, 
change, make SOME kind of change /at least /to this dirty, rotten 
system. And we keep trying, and everyday it seems less and less possible 
to create any kind of change (so long as we stay stuck in this same 
paradigm, at least).

On the other hand, what did Dorothy Day say? Being tired is not an 
option; there's work to be done.
Ahhhh...

Thanks for allowing me to share in this community.
Janice
(in Kansas)

Jay Becker wrote:
> Yes, as individuals, there is little we can do, but we aren't just 
> individuals, we're also part of communities and a society, the US, 
> that is raining this terror down on other people and threatening more, 
> not only 'over there' either.
>
> I think this is a very good time to act. Obama refuses to release 2000 
> torture photos (think about that number!) from at least half a dozen 
> US facilities (think about how widespread that means this is) because 
> seeing what has been done will shatter illusions that this was done 
> "by a few individuals," as Obama alleged again last week, and increase 
> exponentially the demand that those responsible for ordering all this 
> be prosecuted. This is a very sticky situation for Obama and our 
> determined actions now could (no guaranties in this world) make a 
> difference, crack open the debate, dis-illusion people in a good way.
>
> It won't happen without that, and we're here where we can make a 
> difference. I wonder what people being hit by drones in Pakistan and 
> bombs in Afghanistan would think about us protesting? What difference 
> would it make in the world if there was a loud voice of protest here 
> in the US that wasn't loyal to the government doing this to them AND 
> wasn't supporting the fundamentalist opposition, the only two choices 
> they see in front of them.
>
> Here's a thoughtful piece from a young writer on Revolution that I 
> recommend:
>
>
>       *Silence Plus Torture Equals Complicity*
>
> It?s spring 2009, students were finishing final exams and graduating, 
> looking at the life ahead of them. Young people are filling their 
> summers with activities and friends.
>
> At around the same time on May 4, U.S. airstrikes massacred 147 people 
> in Afghanistan, including teenagers. What were their hopes and dreams, 
> what do their lives count for? Do WE have a responsibility to THEM? 
> And if so, what is it?
>
>
> At the same time we have now read memos that show that this 
> government, from its very highest levels, held detainees and legally 
> justified their torture; that they were, and some are still,  being 
> held indefinitely not knowing why, or when, or if, they will be tried, 
> kept in solitary confinement, interrogated for up to 20 hours a day, 
> brutally tortured or even killed. And now, we have also been told by 
> Barack Obama that extensive photographs documenting this torture are 
> going to be suppressed because if people saw them it might ?inflame? 
> the opinion of Americans, and people around the world, and endanger 
> the troops in Iraq. Do WE have a responsibility to society, to 
> humanity, to oppose this?
>
>
> Read on at
> http://revcom.us/a/166/torture-editorial-en.html
>
> Thanks for sharing your thoughts!
> Jay
>
> * *//Stop thinking like an American,
> Start thinking about humanity!
>
>
> --- On *Wed, 5/27/09, Robin Migalla /<rmigalla at earthlink.net>/* wrote:
>
>
>     From: Robin Migalla <rmigalla at earthlink.net>
>     Subject: Re: [CitizensTruth] Glenn Greenwald on preventive
>     detention proposal
>     To: "truth seekers" <citizenstruth at six.pairlist.net>
>     Date: Wednesday, May 27, 2009, 2:49 PM
>
>     Hi Jay, Andrew, and the rest of our Truth seeking community,
>
>     I agree with you, Andrew.  Yes, Jay, thanks for your post.  I
>     always enjoy
>     analysis based on facts rather than emotional reactions.  It was a
>     truly
>     refreshing piece.  Andrew, I believe your question gets to the
>     heart of
>     what we as a group are trying to do.  I wish I had the answer. 
>     For me,
>     I've come to realize I'm unable to stop anyone from doing
>     anything.  The
>     best I action I can take (interesting word here, take) is offer
>     peace where
>     I am right now.
>
>     Cheers,
>     Robin
>
>     -----Original Message-----
>     From:    andrew ritter [SMTP:aroyboy44 at hotmail.com
>     </mc/compose?to=aroyboy44 at hotmail.com>]
>     Sent:    Wednesday, May 27, 2009 12:58
>     To:    futurenotwritten at yahoo.com
>     </mc/compose?to=futurenotwritten at yahoo.com>; truth seekers
>     Subject:    Re: [CitizensTruth] Glenn Greenwald on preventive
>     detention
>     proposal
>
>
>     Thanks for this Jay,
>
>     What an important topic that is getting very little play in the msm
>
>     "Preventative Detention" is clearly a dark awful piece of fascist
>     nonsense
>     that violates the constitution and opens the door for creepy
>     things like
>     thought crimes and being detained indefintely for your beliefs.
>
>     People continue to defend the Obama administration and I would
>     argue they
>     are stuck in an unhealthy mind pattern where they allow their
>     fantasy of
>     who he is to be overshadowed by the reality of the actions the
>     administration continues to take.
>
>     The question then becomes what real action can we citizens take
>     that would
>     help to stop this proposal from going through?
>
>
>
>
>
>
>     Date: Sun, 24 May 2009 07:59:59 -0700
>     From: futurenotwritten at yahoo.com
>     </mc/compose?to=futurenotwritten at yahoo.com>
>     To: citizenstruth at six.pairlist.net
>     </mc/compose?to=citizenstruth at six.pairlist.net>
>     Subject: [CitizensTruth] Glenn Greenwald on preventive detention
>     proposal
>
>     This is the best 'dispassionate' dissection of the Obama
>     administration's
>     sweeping proposals that I have read yet. I urge everyone to
>     consider this,
>     and the questions he poses, seriously, and share your thoughts,
>     please!
>
>     Jay
>
>
>     http://www.salon. com/opinion/ greenwald/ 2009/05/22/ preventive_
>     detention/ print.html
>
>
>
>     Facts and myths about Obama's preventive detention proposal
>
>     Is a system of indefinite detention with no charges a standard or
>     radical
>     idea?
>
>
>
>     Salon.com
>
>     Glenn Greenwald
>
>
>
>     May. 22, 2009
>
>
>
>     [Updated below - Update II (Interview with ACLU) - Update III -
>     Update IV -
>     Update V - Update VI]
>
>
>
>     In the wake of Obama's speech yesterday, there are vast numbers of new
>     converts who now support indefinite "preventive detention." It thus
>     seems constructive to have as dispassionate and fact-based discussion
>     as possible of the implications of "preventive detention" and Obama's
>     related detention proposals (military commissions) . I'll have a
>     podcast discussion on this topic a little bit later today with the
>     ACLU's Ben Wizner, which I'll add below, but until then, here are some
>     facts and other points worth noting:
>
>
>
>     (1) What does "preventive detention" allow?
>
>
>
>     It's important to be clear about what "preventive detention"
>     authorizes. It does not merely allow the U.S. Government to imprison
>     people alleged to have committed Terrorist acts yet who are unable to
>     be convicted in a civilian court proceeding. That class is merely a
>     subset, perhaps a small subset, of who the Government can detain. Far
>     more significant, "preventive detention" allows indefinite
>     imprisonment
>     not based on proven crimes or past violations of law, but of those
>     deemed generally "dangerous" by the Government for various reasons
>     (such as, as Obama put it yesterday, they "expressed their allegiance
>     to Osama bin Laden" or "otherwise made it clear that they want to kill
>     Americans"). That's what "preventive" means: imprisoning people
>     because
>     the Government claims they are likely to engage in violent acts in the
>     future because they are alleged to be "combatants. "
>
>
>
>     Once known, the details of the proposal could -- and likely will --
>     make this even more extreme by extending the "preventive detention"
>     power beyond a handful of Guantanamo detainees to anyone, anywhere in
>     the world, alleged to be a "combatant." After all, once you accept the
>     rationale on which this proposal is based -- namely, that the U.S.
>     Government must, in order to keep us safe, preventively detain
>     "dangerous" people even when they can't prove they violated any
>     laws --
>     there's no coherent reason whatsoever to limit that power to people
>     already at Guantanamo, as opposed to indefinitely imprisoning with no
>     trials all allegedly "dangerous" combatants, whether located in
>     Pakistan, Thailand, Indonesia, Western countries and even the U.S.
>
>
>
>     (2)  Are defenders of Obama's proposals being consistent?
>
>
>
>     During the Bush years, it was common for Democrats to try to convince
>     conservatives to oppose Bush's executive power expansions by asking
>     them: "Do you really want these powers to be exercised by Hillary
>     Clinton or some liberal President?"
>
>
>
>     Following that logic, for any Democrat/progressiv e/liberal/ Obama
>     supporter who wants to defend Obama's proposal of "preventive
>     detention," shouldn't you first ask yourself three simple questions:
>
>
>
>     (a) what would I have said if George Bush and Dick Cheney advocated a
>     law vesting them with the power to preventively imprison people
>     indefinitely and with no charges?;
>
>
>
>     (b) when Bush and Cheney did preventively imprison large numbers of
>     people, was I in favor of that or did I oppose it, and when right-wing
>     groups such as Heritage Foundation were alone in urging a preventive
>     detention law in 2004, did I support them?; and
>
>
>
>     (c) even if I'm comfortable with Obama having this new power because I
>     trust him not to abuse it, am I comfortable with future Presidents --
>     including Republicans -- having the power of indefinite "preventive
>     detention"?
>
>
>
>     (3)  Questions for defenders of Obama's proposal:
>
>
>
>     There are many claims being made by defenders of Obama's proposals
>     which seem quite contradictory and/or without any apparent basis, and
>     I've been searching for a defender of those proposals to address these
>     questions:
>
>
>
>     Bush supporters have long claimed -- and many Obama supporters are now
>     insisting as well -- that there are hard-core terrorists who cannot be
>     convicted in our civilian courts. For anyone making that claim,
>     what is
>     the basis for believing that? In the Bush era, the Government has
>     repeatedly been able to convict alleged Al Qaeda and Taliban
>     members in
>     civilian courts, including several (Ali al-Marri, Jose Padilla, John
>     Walker Lindh) who were tortured and others (Zacharais Moussaoui,
>     Padilla) where evidence against them was obtained by extreme coercion.
>     What convinced you to believe that genuine terrorists can't be
>     convicted in our justice system?
>
>
>
>     For those asserting that there are dangerous people who have not yet
>     been given any trial and who Obama can't possibly release, how do you
>     know they are "dangerous" if they haven't been tried? Is the
>     Government's accusation enough for you to assume it's true?
>
>
>
>     Above all: for those justifying Obama's use of military commissions by
>     arguing that some terrorists can't be convicted in civilian courts
>     because the evidence against them is "tainted" because it was obtained
>     by Bush's torture, Obama himself claimed just yesterday that his
>     military commissions also won't allow such evidence ("We will no
>     longer
>     permit the use of evidence -- as evidence statements that have been
>     obtained using cruel, inhuman, or degrading interrogation methods").
>     How does our civilian court's refusal to consider evidence obtained by
>     torture demonstrate the need for Obama's military commissions if, as
>     Obama himself claims, Obama's military commissions also won't consider
>     evidence obtained by torture?
>
>
>
>     Finally, don't virtually all progressives and Democrats argue that
>     torture produces unreliable evidence? If it's really true (as Obama
>     defenders claim) that the evidence we have against these detainees was
>     obtained by torture and is therefore inadmissible in real courts, do
>     you really think such unreliable evidence -- evidence we obtained by
>     torture -- should be the basis for concluding that someone is so
>     "dangerous" that they belong in prison indefinitely with no trial? If
>     you don't trust evidence obtained by torture, why do you trust it to
>     justify holding someone forever, with no trial, as "dangerous"?
>
>
>
>     (4)  Do other countries have indefinite preventive detention?
>
>
>
>     Obama yesterday suggested that other countries have turned to
>     "preventive detention" and that his proposal therefore isn't radical
>     ("other countries have grappled with this question; now, so must we").
>     Is that true?
>
>
>
>     In June of last year, there was a tumultuous political debate in
>     Britain that sheds ample light on this question. In the era of IRA
>     bombings, the British Parliament passed a law allowing the Government
>     to preventively detain terrorist suspects for 14 days -- and then
>     either have to charge them or release them. In 2006, Prime Minister
>     Tony Blair -- citing the London subway attacks and the need to
>     "intervene early before a terrorist cell has the opportunity to
>     achieve
>     its goals" -- wanted to increase the preventive detention period to 90
>     days, but MPs from his own party and across the political spectrum
>     overwhelmingly opposed this, and ultimately increased it only to 28
>     days.
>
>
>
>     In June of last year, Prime Minister Gordon Brown sought an expansion
>     of this preventive detention authority to 42 days -- a mere two weeks
>     more. Reacting to that extremely modest increase, a major political
>     rebellion erupted, with large numbers of Brown's own Labour Party
>     joining with Tories to vehemently oppose it as a major threat to
>     liberty. Ultimately, Brown's 42-day scheme barely passed the House of
>     Commons. As former Prime Minister John Major put it in opposing the
>     expansion to 42 days:
>
>
>
>     It is hard to justify: pre-charge detention in Canada is 24 hours;
>     South Africa, Germany, New Zealand and America 48 hours; Russia 5
>     days;
>     and Turkey 7? days.
>
>
>
>     By rather stark and extreme contrast, Obama is seeking preventive
>     detention powers that are indefinite -- meaning without any end,
>     potentially permanent. There's no time limit on the "preventive
>     detention." Compare that power to the proposal that caused such a
>     political storm in Britain and what these other governments are
>     empowered to do. The suggestion that indefinite preventive detention
>     without charges is some sort of common or traditional scheme is
>     clearly
>     false.
>
>
>
>     (5)   Is this comparable to traditional POW detentions?
>
>
>
>     When Bush supporters used to justify Bush/Cheney detention policies by
>     arguing that it's normal for "Prisoners of War" to be held without
>     trials, that argument was deeply misleading. And it's no less
>     misleading when made now by Obama supporters. That comparison is
>     patently inappropriate for two reasons: (a) the circumstances of the
>     apprehension, and (b) the fact that, by all accounts, this "war" will
>     not be over for decades, if ever, which means -- unlike for
>     traditional
>     POWs, who are released once the war is over -- these prisoners are
>     going to be in a cage not for a few years, but for decades, if not
>     life.
>
>
>
>     Traditional "POWs" are ones picked up during an actual military
>     battle,
>     on a real battlefield, wearing a uniform, while engaged in fighting.
>     The potential for error and abuse in deciding who was a
>     "combatant" was
>     thus minimal. By contrast, many of the people we accuse in the "war on
>     terror" of being "combatants" aren't anywhere near a "battlefield, "
>     aren't part of any army, aren't wearing any uniforms, etc. Instead,
>     many of them are picked up from their homes, at work, off the streets.
>     In most cases, then, we thus have little more than the say-so of the
>     U.S. Government that they are guilty, which is why actual judicial
>     proceedings before imprisoning them is so much more vital than in the
>     standard POW situation.
>
>
>
>     Anyone who doubts that should just look at how many Guantanamo
>     detainees were accused of being "the worst of the worst" yet ended up
>     being released because they did absolutely nothing wrong. Can anyone
>     point to any traditional POW situation where so many people were
>     falsely accused and where the risk of false accusations was so high?
>     For obvious reasons, this is not and has never been a traditional POW
>     detention scheme.
>
>
>
>     During the Bush era, that was a standard argument among Democrats, so
>     why should that change now? Here is what Anne-Marie Slaughter -- now
>     Obama's Director of Policy Planning for the State Department -- said
>     about Bush's "POW" comparison on Fox News on November 21, 2001:
>
>
>
>     Military commissions have been around since the Revolutionary War. But
>     they've always been used to try spies that we find behind enemy lines.
>     It's normally a situation, you're on the battlefield, you find an
>     enemy
>     spy behind your lines. You can't ship them to national court, so you
>     provide a kind of rough battlefield justice in a commission. You give
>     them the best process you can, and then you execute the sentence
>     on the
>     spot, which generally means executing the defendant.
>
>
>
>     That's not this situation. It's not remotely like it.
>
>
>
>     As for duration, the U.S. government has repeatedly said that this
>     "war" is so different from standard wars because it will last for
>     decades, if not generations. Obama himself yesterday said that "unlike
>     the Civil War or World War II, we can't count on a surrender ceremony
>     to bring this journey to an end" and that we'll still be fighting this
>     "war" "a year from now, five years from now, and -- in all probability
>     -- 10 years from now." No rational person can compare POW
>     detentions of
>     a finite and usually short (2-5 years) duration to decades or life
>     in a
>     cage. That's why, yesterday, Law Professor Diane Marie Amann, in The
>     New York Times, said this:
>
>
>
>     [Obama] signaled a plan by which [Guantanamo detainees] - and perhaps
>     other detainees yet to be arrested? - could remain in custody forever
>     without charge. There is no precedent in the American legal tradition
>     for this kind of preventive detention. That is not quite right:
>     precedents do exist, among them the Alien and Sedition Acts of
>     1798 and
>     the Japanese internment of the 1940s, but they are widely seen as low
>     points in America's history under the Constitution.
>
>
>
>     There are many things that can be said about indefinitely imprisoning
>     people with no charges who were not captured on any battlefield, but
>     the claim that this is some sort of standard or well-established
>     practice in American history is patently false.
>
>
>
>     (6)  Is it "due process" when the Government can guarantee it
>     always wins?
>
>
>
>     If you really think about the argument Obama made yesterday -- when he
>     described the five categories of detainees and the procedures to which
>     each will be subjected -- it becomes manifest just how profound a
>     violation of Western conceptions of justice this is. What Obama is
>     saying is this: we'll give real trials only to those detainees we know
>     in advance we will convict. For those we don't think we can convict in
>     a real court, we'll get convictions in the military commissions I'm
>     creating. For those we can't convict even in my military commissions,
>     we'll just imprison them anyway with no charges ("preventively detain"
>     them).
>
>
>
>     Giving trials to people only when you know for sure, in advance, that
>     you'll get convictions is not due process. Those are called "show
>     trials." In a healthy system of justice, the Government gives everyone
>     it wants to imprison a trial and then imprisons only those whom it can
>     convict. The process is constant (trials), and the outcome varies
>     (convictions or acquittals).
>
>
>
>     Obama is saying the opposite: in his scheme, it is the outcome that is
>     constant (everyone ends up imprisoned), while the process varies
>     and is
>     determined by the Government (trials for some; military
>     commissions for
>     others; indefinite detention for the rest). The Government picks and
>     chooses which process you get in order to ensure that it always
>     wins. A
>     more warped "system of justice" is hard to imagine.
>
>
>
>     (7)  Can we "be safe" by locking up all the Terrorists with no
>     charges?
>
>
>
>     Obama stressed yesterday that the "preventive detention" system should
>     be created only through an act of Congress with "a process of periodic
>     review, so that any prolonged detention is carefully evaluated and
>     justified." That's certainly better than what Bush did: namely,
>     preventively detain people with no oversight and no Congressional
>     authorization -- in violation of the law. But as we learned with the
>     Military Commissions Act of 2006 and the Protect America Act of 2007,
>     the mere fact that Congress approves of a radical policy may mean that
>     it is no longer lawless but it doesn't make it justified. As Professor
>     Amann put it: "no amount of procedures can justify deprivations that,
>     because of their very nature violate the Constitution' s core
>     guarantee
>     of liberty." Dan Froomkin said that no matter how many procedures are
>     created, that's "a dangerously extreme policy proposal."
>
>
>
>     Regarding Obama's "process" justification -- and regarding Obama's
>     primary argument that we need to preventively detain allegedly
>     dangerous people in order to keep us safe -- Digby said it best:
>
>
>
>     We are still in a "war" against a method of violence, which means
>     there
>     is no possible end and which means that the government can capture and
>     imprison anyone they determine to be "the enemy" forever. The only
>     thing that will change is where the prisoners are held and few little
>     procedural tweaks to make it less capricious. (It's nice that some
>     sort
>     of official committee will meet once in a while to decide if the
>     war is
>     over or if the prisoner is finally too old to still be a "danger to
>     Americans.")
>
>
>
>     There seems to be some misunderstanding about Guantanamo. Somehow
>     people have gotten it into their heads is that it is nothing more than
>     a symbol, which can be dealt with simply by closing the prison. That's
>     just not true. Guantanamo is a symbol, true, but it's a symbol of a
>     lawless, unconstitutional detention and interrogation system. Changing
>     the venue doesn't solve the problem.
>
>
>
>     I know it's a mess, but the fact is that this isn't really that
>     difficult, except in the usual beltway kabuki political sense. There
>     are literally tens of thousands of potential terrorists all over the
>     world who could theoretically harm America. We cannot protect
>     ourselves
>     from that possibility by keeping the handful we have in custody locked
>     up forever, whether in Guantanamo or some Super Max prison in the US.
>     It's patently absurd to obsess over these guys like it makes us even
>     the slightest bit safer to have them under indefinite lock and key so
>     they "can't kill Americans."
>
>
>
>     The mere fact that we are doing this makes us less safe because the
>     complete lack of faith we show in our constitution and our justice
>     systems is what fuels the idea that this country is weak and easily
>     terrified. There is no such thing as a terrorist suspect who is too
>     dangerous to be set free. They are a dime a dozen, they are all over
>     the world and for every one we lock up there will be three to take his
>     place. There is not some finite number of terrorists we can kill or
>     capture and then the "war" will be over and the babies will always be
>     safe. This whole concept is nonsensical.
>
>
>
>     As I said yesterday, there were some positive aspects to Obama's
>     speech. His resolve to close Guantanamo in the face of all the
>     fear-mongering, like his release of the OLC memos, is commendable. But
>     the fact that a Democratic President who ran on a platform of
>     restoring
>     America's standing and returning to our core principles is now
>     advocating the creation of a new system of indefinite preventive
>     detention -- something that is now sure to become a standard view of
>     Democratic politicians and hordes of Obama supporters -- is by far the
>     most consequential event yet in the formation of Obama's civil
>     liberties policies.
>
>
>
>     UPDATE: Here's what White House Counsel Greg Craig told The New
>     Yorker's
>     Jane Mayer in February:
>
>
>
>     "It's possible but hard to imagine Barack Obama as the first President
>     of the United States to introduce a preventive-detentio n law," Craig
>     said. "Our presumption is that there is no need to create a whole new
>     system. Our system is very capable."
>
>
>
>     "The first President of the United States to introduce a
>     preventive-detentio n law" is how Obama's own White House Counsel
>     described him. Technically speaking, that is a form of change, but
>     probably not the type that many Obama voters expected.
>
>
>
>     UPDATE II: Ben Wizner of the ACLU's National Security Project is the
>     lead lawyer in the Jeppesen case, which resulted in the recent
>     rejection by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals of the Bush/Obama state
>     secrets argument, and also co-wrote (along with the ACLU's Jameel
>     Jaffer) a superb article in Salon in December making the case against
>     preventive detention. I spoke with him this morning for roughly 20
>     minutes regarding the detention policies proposed by Obama in
>     yesterday's speech. It can be heard by clicking PLAY on the recorder
>     below. A transcript will be posted shortly.
>
>
>
>     UPDATE III: Rachel Maddow was superb last night -- truly superb --
>     on the
>     topic of Obama's preventive detention proposal:
>
>
>
>     UPDATE IV: The New Yorker's Amy Davidson compares Obama's detention
>     proposal to the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II
>     (as did Professor Amann, quoted above). Hilzoy, of The Washington
>     Monthly, writes: "If we don't have enough evidence to charge someone
>     with a crime, we don't have enough evidence to hold them. Period" and
>     "the power to detain people without filing criminal charges against
>     them is a dictatorial power." Salon's Joan Walsh quotes the Center for
>     Constitutional Rights' Vincent Warren as saying: "They're creating,
>     essentially, an American Gulag." The Philadelphia Inquirer's Will
>     Bunch
>     says of Obama's proposal: "What he's proposing is against one of this
>     country's core principles" and "this is why people need to keep the
>     pressure on Obama -- even those inclined to view his presidency
>     favorably."
>
>
>
>     UPDATE V: The Atlantic's Marc Ambinder -- who is as close to the Obama
>     White House as any journalist around -- makes an important point about
>     Obama that I really wish more of his supporters would appreciate:
>
>
>
>     [Obama] was blunt [in his meeting with civil libertiarians] ; the
>     [military commissions] are a fait accompli, so the civil libertarians
>     can either help Congress and the White House figure out the best
>     way to
>     protect the rights of the accused within the framework of that
>     decision, or they can remain on the outside, as agitators. That's not
>     meant to be pejorative; whereas the White House does not give a
>     scintilla of attention to its right-wing critics, it does read, and
>     will read, everything Glenn Greenwald writes. Obama, according to an
>     administration official, finds this outside pressure healthy and
>     useful.
>
>
>
>     Ambinder doesn't mean me personally or exclusively; he means
>     people who
>     are criticizing Obama not in order to harm him politically, but in
>     order to pressure him to do better. It's not just the right, but the
>     duty, of citizens to pressure and criticize political leaders when
>     they
>     adopt policies that one finds objectionable or destructive. Criticism
>     of this sort is a vital check on political leaders -- a key way to
>     impose accountability -- and Obama himself has said as much many times
>     before.
>
>
>
>     It has nothing to do with personalities or allegiances. It doesn't
>     matter if one "likes" or "trusts" Obama or thinks he's a good or bad
>     person. That's all irrelevant. The only thing that matters is whether
>     one thinks that the actions he's undertaking are helpful or
>     harmful. If
>     they're harmful, one should criticize them. Where, as here, they're
>     very harmful and dangerous, one should criticize them loudly. Obama
>     himself, according to Ambinder, "finds this outside pressure healthy
>     and useful." And it is. It's not only healthy and useful but
>     absolutely
>     vital.
>
>
>
>     UPDATE VI: Bearing in mind what Obama repeatedly pledged to do while
>     running, this headline from The New York Times this morning is rather
>     extraordinary:
>
>
>
>     As Greg Craig put it: "hard to imagine Barack Obama as the first
>     President of the United States to introduce a preventive-detentio n
>     law."
>
>
>
>     -- Glenn Greenwald
>
>         Stop thinking like an American,
>     Start thinking about humanity!
>
>
>     _________________________________________________________________
>     Hotmail? goes with you.
>     http://windowslive.com/Tutorial/Hotmail/Mobile?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_HM_Tuto 
>
>     rial_Mobile1_052009 << File: ATT00534.htm; charset = Windows-1252
>     >>  <<
>     File: ATT00535.txt >>
>     _______________________________________________
>     CitizensTruth mailing list
>     CitizensTruth at six.pairlist.net
>     </mc/compose?to=CitizensTruth at six.pairlist.net>
>     http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/citizenstruth
>     website: http://citizenstruth.info
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> _______________________________________________
> CitizensTruth mailing list
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> website: http://citizenstruth.info
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From hal at drxyzzy.org  Wed May 27 18:17:12 2009
From: hal at drxyzzy.org (Hal Snyder)
Date: Wed, 27 May 2009 17:17:12 -0500
Subject: [CitizensTruth] Glenn Greenwald on preventive detention proposal
In-Reply-To: <4A1DB284.1070502@gmail.com>
References: <994815.2596.qm@web33501.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
	<4A1DB284.1070502@gmail.com>
Message-ID: <2A89A6AE-FFE7-4882-BC42-C52511F5791D@drxyzzy.org>

I spent decades in academia, medicine, and industry solving hard  
problems. They were all abstract and technical. The way to solve hard  
technical problems (for me at least) is to shut out all distractions  
and interactions and take whatever time is needed to study the whole  
problem. A solution eventually arrives if you can take all the facts  
and conceptual models into a higher level of consciousness. A few  
problems took years but eventually were solved.

Around 2003 something woke me up to what was going on outside the  
laboratory and every day for about 6 months, reading about the world -  
from as many sources as I could find - was like being punched in the  
stomach.

I saw multiple looming existential threats
war
mass extinction
ecosystem collapse
ineffective/corrupt government
etc. probably everyone on this list has their top 3 out of 20 or so.

And society was split into about 3 camps on most matters of importance

1) oblivious - tomorrow will be pretty much like today, let's go  
shopping
2) reformer - iceberg ahead, ring the alarms, change course or at  
least prepare lifeboats
3) reactionary - neutralize all reformer efforts and full ahead engines

A huge shift was the lesson, endlessly repeated, of how powerless I  
was alone, 180 degrees from prior life of problem-solving. Next steps  
were to join up with others, taking the lead when indicated. Some  
improvement and sense of leverage but society still clearly headed for  
disaster. Working as a field organizer for 5 months last year, I  
discovered the power of organizing and see that as the next level in  
working for social change.

Additional observations, YMMV:

1. People are more likely to move if I meet them where they are.

2. Nobody likes me when I am cranky all the time. Find joy in an  
action or stay home.

3. Denouncing others for not being in the same place as me is a waste  
of everybody's time.

Hal (in Palatine Township)

On May 27, 2009, at 4:37 PM, Janice Matthews wrote:

> Excellent, compelling post.
> I remember hearing an incredible talk on the radio once, by  
> Arundhati Roy, that's always stuck with me clearly. In brief, she  
> said (summarizing) that in general, people don't want to know about  
> things because once we know something, we are unable to un-know it.  
> And because we know it, we are compelled to do something about it.
>
> Oh, how I want to un-know so many things. And, how I wish (once in  
> awhile) I lived near a place where others were also taking action,  
> so I could join with them instead of being alone. There's such  
> energy in coming together in resistance--I'm a little envious of you  
> all near Chicago (though I wouldn't trade my hermit country life for  
> anything now).
>
> So knowing what's being done in our name is a terrible, heavy  
> burden. And I know, of course, it's nothing compared to those who  
> are surviving these bombings, while their loved ones are being  
> killed and tortured. I understand why the mothers are asking to just  
> be killed rather than have to live with the memory of watching their  
> children raped by "US." And to be honest, I don't WANT to see the  
> pictures! I'm already so upset by it (particularly as someone who  
> has been raped, I think) that the thought of seeing what we've done  
> is unbearable; moreso even than reading Seymour Hersch say that what  
> will always stay with him from Abu Ghraib was the shrieks of the  
> boys as they were being raped... But I guess that's the reason the  
> photos have to be released. Apparently many Americans have to be so  
> shocked with reality that they can't "not know" it, so that they'll  
> then be compelled to DO something!
>
> I think the heaviest part of the burden is knowing that, for some of  
> us, we've fought so hard, tried so hard, pleaded and reasoned and  
> begged and boycotted and been conscious in our choices to try to  
> oppose, weaken, change, make SOME kind of change at least to this  
> dirty, rotten system. And we keep trying, and everyday it seems less  
> and less possible to create any kind of change (so long as we stay  
> stuck in this same paradigm, at least).
>
> On the other hand, what did Dorothy Day say? Being tired is not an  
> option; there's work to be done.
> Ahhhh...
>
> Thanks for allowing me to share in this community.
> Janice
> (in Kansas)
>
> Jay Becker wrote:
>>
>> Yes, as individuals, there is little we can do, but we aren't just  
>> individuals, we're also part of communities and a society, the US,  
>> that is raining this terror down on other people and threatening  
>> more, not only 'over there' either.
>>
>> I think this is a very good time to act. Obama refuses to release  
>> 2000 torture photos (think about that number!) from at least half a  
>> dozen US facilities (think about how widespread that means this is)  
>> because seeing what has been done will shatter illusions that this  
>> was done "by a few individuals," as Obama alleged again last week,  
>> and increase exponentially the demand that those responsible for  
>> ordering all this be prosecuted. This is a very sticky situation  
>> for Obama and our determined actions now could (no guaranties in  
>> this world) make a difference, crack open the debate, dis-illusion  
>> people in a good way.
>>
>> It won't happen without that, and we're here where we can make a  
>> difference. I wonder what people being hit by drones in Pakistan  
>> and bombs in Afghanistan would think about us protesting? What  
>> difference would it make in the world if there was a loud voice of  
>> protest here in the US that wasn't loyal to the government doing  
>> this to them AND wasn't supporting the fundamentalist opposition,  
>> the only two choices they see in front of them.
>>
>> Here's a thoughtful piece from a young writer on Revolution that I  
>> recommend:
>> Silence Plus Torture Equals Complicity
>>
>> It?s spring 2009, students were finishing final exams and  
>> graduating, looking at the life ahead of them. Young people are  
>> filling their summers with activities and friends.
>>
>> At around the same time on May 4, U.S. airstrikes massacred 147  
>> people in Afghanistan, including teenagers. What were their hopes  
>> and dreams, what do their lives count for? Do WE have a  
>> responsibility to THEM? And if so, what is it?
>>
>>
>> At the same time we have now read memos that show that this  
>> government, from its very highest levels, held detainees and  
>> legally justified their torture; that they were, and some are  
>> still,  being held indefinitely not knowing why, or when, or if,  
>> they will be tried, kept in solitary confinement, interrogated for  
>> up to 20 hours a day, brutally tortured or even killed. And now, we  
>> have also been told by Barack Obama that extensive photographs  
>> documenting this torture are going to be suppressed because if  
>> people saw them it might ?inflame? the opinion of Americans, and  
>> people around the world, and endanger the troops in Iraq. Do WE  
>> have a responsibility to society, to humanity, to oppose this?
>>
>>
>> Read on at
>> http://revcom.us/a/166/torture-editorial-en.html
>>
>> Thanks for sharing your thoughts!
>> Jay
>>
>> Stop thinking like an American,
>> Start thinking about humanity!
>>
>>
>> --- On Wed, 5/27/09, Robin Migalla <rmigalla at earthlink.net> wrote:
>>
>> From: Robin Migalla <rmigalla at earthlink.net>
>> Subject: Re: [CitizensTruth] Glenn Greenwald on preventive  
>> detention proposal
>> To: "truth seekers" <citizenstruth at six.pairlist.net>
>> Date: Wednesday, May 27, 2009, 2:49 PM
>>
>> Hi Jay, Andrew, and the rest of our Truth seeking community,
>>
>> I agree with you, Andrew.  Yes, Jay, thanks for your post.  I  
>> always enjoy
>> analysis based on facts rather than emotional reactions.  It was a  
>> truly
>> refreshing piece.  Andrew, I believe your question gets to the  
>> heart of
>> what we as a group are trying to do.  I wish I had the answer.  For  
>> me,
>> I've come to realize I'm unable to stop anyone from doing  
>> anything.  The
>> best I action I can take (interesting word here, take) is offer  
>> peace where
>> I am right now.
>>
>> Cheers,
>> Robin
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From:    andrew ritter [SMTP:aroyboy44 at hotmail.com]
>> Sent:    Wednesday, May 27, 2009 12:58
>> To:    futurenotwritten at yahoo.com; truth seekers
>> Subject:    Re: [CitizensTruth] Glenn Greenwald on preventive  
>> detention
>> proposal
>>
>>
>> Thanks for this Jay,
>>
>> What an important topic that is getting very little play in the msm
>>
>> "Preventative Detention" is clearly a dark awful piece of fascist  
>> nonsense
>> that violates the constitution and opens the door for creepy things  
>> like
>> thought crimes and being detained indefintely for your beliefs.
>>
>> People continue to defend the Obama administration and I would  
>> argue they
>> are stuck in an unhealthy mind pattern where they allow their  
>> fantasy of
>> who he is to be overshadowed by the reality of the actions the
>> administration continues to take.
>>
>> The question then becomes what real action can we citizens take  
>> that would
>> help to stop this proposal from going through?
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Date: Sun, 24 May 2009 07:59:59 -0700
>> From: futurenotwritten at yahoo.com
>> To: citizenstruth at six.pairlist.net
>> Subject: [CitizensTruth] Glenn Greenwald on preventive detention  
>> proposal
>>
>> This is the best 'dispassionate' dissection of the Obama  
>> administration's
>> sweeping proposals that I have read yet. I urge everyone to  
>> consider this,
>> and the questions he poses, seriously, and share your thoughts,  
>> please!
>>
>> Jay
>>
>>
>> http://www.salon. com/opinion/ greenwald/ 2009/05/22/ preventive_
>> detention/ print.html
>>
>>
>>
>> Facts and myths about Obama's preventive detention proposal
>>
>> Is a system of indefinite detention with no charges a standard or  
>> radical
>> idea?
>>
>>
>>
>> Salon.com
>>
>> Glenn Greenwald
>>
>>
>>
>> May. 22, 2009
>>
>>
>>
>> [Updated below - Update II (Interview with ACLU) - Update III -  
>> Update IV -
>> Update V - Update VI]
>>
>>
>>
>> In the wake of Obama's speech yesterday, there are vast numbers of  
>> new
>> converts who now support indefinite "preventive detention." It thus
>> seems constructive to have as dispassionate and fact-based discussion
>> as possible of the implications of "preventive detention" and Obama's
>> related detention proposals (military commissions) . I'll have a
>> podcast discussion on this topic a little bit later today with the
>> ACLU's Ben Wizner, which I'll add below, but until then, here are  
>> some
>> facts and other points worth noting:
>>
>>
>>
>> (1) What does "preventive detention" allow?
>>
>>
>>
>> It's important to be clear about what "preventive detention"
>> authorizes. It does not merely allow the U.S. Government to imprison
>> people alleged to have committed Terrorist acts yet who are unable to
>> be convicted in a civilian court proceeding. That class is merely a
>> subset, perhaps a small subset, of who the Government can detain. Far
>> more significant, "preventive detention" allows indefinite  
>> imprisonment
>> not based on proven crimes or past violations of law, but of those
>> deemed generally "dangerous" by the Government for various reasons
>> (such as, as Obama put it yesterday, they "expressed their allegiance
>> to Osama bin Laden" or "otherwise made it clear that they want to  
>> kill
>> Americans"). That's what "preventive" means: imprisoning people  
>> because
>> the Government claims they are likely to engage in violent acts in  
>> the
>> future because they are alleged to be "combatants. "
>>
>>
>>
>> Once known, the details of the proposal could -- and likely will --
>> make this even more extreme by extending the "preventive detention"
>> power beyond a handful of Guantanamo detainees to anyone, anywhere in
>> the world, alleged to be a "combatant." After all, once you accept  
>> the
>> rationale on which this proposal is based -- namely, that the U.S.
>> Government must, in order to keep us safe, preventively detain
>> "dangerous" people even when they can't prove they violated any  
>> laws --
>> there's no coherent reason whatsoever to limit that power to people
>> already at Guantanamo, as opposed to indefinitely imprisoning with no
>> trials all allegedly "dangerous" combatants, whether located in
>> Pakistan, Thailand, Indonesia, Western countries and even the U.S.
>>
>>
>>
>> (2)  Are defenders of Obama's proposals being consistent?
>>
>>
>>
>> During the Bush years, it was common for Democrats to try to convince
>> conservatives to oppose Bush's executive power expansions by asking
>> them: "Do you really want these powers to be exercised by Hillary
>> Clinton or some liberal President?"
>>
>>
>>
>> Following that logic, for any Democrat/progressiv e/liberal/ Obama
>> supporter who wants to defend Obama's proposal of "preventive
>> detention," shouldn't you first ask yourself three simple questions:
>>
>>
>>
>> (a) what would I have said if George Bush and Dick Cheney advocated a
>> law vesting them with the power to preventively imprison people
>> indefinitely and with no charges?;
>>
>>
>>
>> (b) when Bush and Cheney did preventively imprison large numbers of
>> people, was I in favor of that or did I oppose it, and when right- 
>> wing
>> groups such as Heritage Foundation were alone in urging a preventive
>> detention law in 2004, did I support them?; and
>>
>>
>>
>> (c) even if I'm comfortable with Obama having this new power  
>> because I
>> trust him not to abuse it, am I comfortable with future Presidents --
>> including Republicans -- having the power of indefinite "preventive
>> detention"?
>>
>>
>>
>> (3)  Questions for defenders of Obama's proposal:
>>
>>
>>
>> There are many claims being made by defenders of Obama's proposals
>> which seem quite contradictory and/or without any apparent basis, and
>> I've been searching for a defender of those proposals to address  
>> these
>> questions:
>>
>>
>>
>> Bush supporters have long claimed -- and many Obama supporters are  
>> now
>> insisting as well -- that there are hard-core terrorists who cannot  
>> be
>> convicted in our civilian courts. For anyone making that claim,  
>> what is
>> the basis for believing that? In the Bush era, the Government has
>> repeatedly been able to convict alleged Al Qaeda and Taliban  
>> members in
>> civilian courts, including several (Ali al-Marri, Jose Padilla, John
>> Walker Lindh) who were tortured and others (Zacharais Moussaoui,
>> Padilla) where evidence against them was obtained by extreme  
>> coercion.
>> What convinced you to believe that genuine terrorists can't be
>> convicted in our justice system?
>>
>>
>>
>> For those asserting that there are dangerous people who have not yet
>> been given any trial and who Obama can't possibly release, how do you
>> know they are "dangerous" if they haven't been tried? Is the
>> Government's accusation enough for you to assume it's true?
>>
>>
>>
>> Above all: for those justifying Obama's use of military commissions  
>> by
>> arguing that some terrorists can't be convicted in civilian courts
>> because the evidence against them is "tainted" because it was  
>> obtained
>> by Bush's torture, Obama himself claimed just yesterday that his
>> military commissions also won't allow such evidence ("We will no  
>> longer
>> permit the use of evidence -- as evidence statements that have been
>> obtained using cruel, inhuman, or degrading interrogation methods").
>> How does our civilian court's refusal to consider evidence obtained  
>> by
>> torture demonstrate the need for Obama's military commissions if, as
>> Obama himself claims, Obama's military commissions also won't  
>> consider
>> evidence obtained by torture?
>>
>>
>>
>> Finally, don't virtually all progressives and Democrats argue that
>> torture produces unreliable evidence? If it's really true (as Obama
>> defenders claim) that the evidence we have against these detainees  
>> was
>> obtained by torture and is therefore inadmissible in real courts, do
>> you really think such unreliable evidence -- evidence we obtained by
>> torture -- should be the basis for concluding that someone is so
>> "dangerous" that they belong in prison indefinitely with no trial? If
>> you don't trust evidence obtained by torture, why do you trust it to
>> justify holding someone forever, with no trial, as "dangerous"?
>>
>>
>>
>> (4)  Do other countries have indefinite preventive detention?
>>
>>
>>
>> Obama yesterday suggested that other countries have turned to
>> "preventive detention" and that his proposal therefore isn't radical
>> ("other countries have grappled with this question; now, so must  
>> we").
>> Is that true?
>>
>>
>>
>> In June of last year, there was a tumultuous political debate in
>> Britain that sheds ample light on this question. In the era of IRA
>> bombings, the British Parliament passed a law allowing the Government
>> to preventively detain terrorist suspects for 14 days -- and then
>> either have to charge them or release them. In 2006, Prime Minister
>> Tony Blair -- citing the London subway attacks and the need to
>> "intervene early before a terrorist cell has the opportunity to  
>> achieve
>> its goals" -- wanted to increase the preventive detention period to  
>> 90
>> days, but MPs from his own party and across the political spectrum
>> overwhelmingly opposed this, and ultimately increased it only to 28
>> days.
>>
>>
>>
>> In June of last year, Prime Minister Gordon Brown sought an expansion
>> of this preventive detention authority to 42 days -- a mere two weeks
>> more. Reacting to that extremely modest increase, a major political
>> rebellion erupted, with large numbers of Brown's own Labour Party
>> joining with Tories to vehemently oppose it as a major threat to
>> liberty. Ultimately, Brown's 42-day scheme barely passed the House of
>> Commons. As former Prime Minister John Major put it in opposing the
>> expansion to 42 days:
>>
>>
>>
>> It is hard to justify: pre-charge detention in Canada is 24 hours;
>> South Africa, Germany, New Zealand and America 48 hours; Russia 5  
>> days;
>> and Turkey 7? days.
>>
>>
>>
>> By rather stark and extreme contrast, Obama is seeking preventive
>> detention powers that are indefinite -- meaning without any end,
>> potentially permanent. There's no time limit on the "preventive
>> detention." Compare that power to the proposal that caused such a
>> political storm in Britain and what these other governments are
>> empowered to do. The suggestion that indefinite preventive detention
>> without charges is some sort of common or traditional scheme is  
>> clearly
>> false.
>>
>>
>>
>> (5)   Is this comparable to traditional POW detentions?
>>
>>
>>
>> When Bush supporters used to justify Bush/Cheney detention policies  
>> by
>> arguing that it's normal for "Prisoners of War" to be held without
>> trials, that argument was deeply misleading. And it's no less
>> misleading when made now by Obama supporters. That comparison is
>> patently inappropriate for two reasons: (a) the circumstances of the
>> apprehension, and (b) the fact that, by all accounts, this "war" will
>> not be over for decades, if ever, which means -- unlike for  
>> traditional
>> POWs, who are released once the war is over -- these prisoners are
>> going to be in a cage not for a few years, but for decades, if not  
>> life.
>>
>>
>>
>> Traditional "POWs" are ones picked up during an actual military  
>> battle,
>> on a real battlefield, wearing a uniform, while engaged in fighting.
>> The potential for error and abuse in deciding who was a "combatant"  
>> was
>> thus minimal. By contrast, many of the people we accuse in the "war  
>> on
>> terror" of being "combatants" aren't anywhere near a "battlefield, "
>> aren't part of any army, aren't wearing any uniforms, etc. Instead,
>> many of them are picked up from their homes, at work, off the  
>> streets.
>> In most cases, then, we thus have little more than the say-so of the
>> U.S. Government that they are guilty, which is why actual judicial
>> proceedings before imprisoning them is so much more vital than in the
>> standard POW situation.
>>
>>
>>
>> Anyone who doubts that should just look at how many Guantanamo
>> detainees were accused of being "the worst of the worst" yet ended up
>> being released because they did absolutely nothing wrong. Can anyone
>> point to any traditional POW situation where so many people were
>> falsely accused and where the risk of false accusations was so high?
>> For obvious reasons, this is not and has never been a traditional POW
>> detention scheme.
>>
>>
>>
>> During the Bush era, that was a standard argument among Democrats, so
>> why should that change now? Here is what Anne-Marie Slaughter -- now
>> Obama's Director of Policy Planning for the State Department -- said
>> about Bush's "POW" comparison on Fox News on November 21, 2001:
>>
>>
>>
>> Military commissions have been around since the Revolutionary War.  
>> But
>> they've always been used to try spies that we find behind enemy  
>> lines.
>> It's normally a situation, you're on the battlefield, you find an  
>> enemy
>> spy behind your lines. You can't ship them to national court, so you
>> provide a kind of rough battlefield justice in a commission. You give
>> them the best process you can, and then you execute the sentence on  
>> the
>> spot, which generally means executing the defendant.
>>
>>
>>
>> That's not this situation. It's not remotely like it.
>>
>>
>>
>> As for duration, the U.S. government has repeatedly said that this
>> "war" is so different from standard wars because it will last for
>> decades, if not generations. Obama himself yesterday said that  
>> "unlike
>> the Civil War or World War II, we can't count on a surrender ceremony
>> to bring this journey to an end" and that we'll still be fighting  
>> this
>> "war" "a year from now, five years from now, and -- in all  
>> probability
>> -- 10 years from now." No rational person can compare POW  
>> detentions of
>> a finite and usually short (2-5 years) duration to decades or life  
>> in a
>> cage. That's why, yesterday, Law Professor Diane Marie Amann, in The
>> New York Times, said this:
>>
>>
>>
>> [Obama] signaled a plan by which [Guantanamo detainees] - and perhaps
>> other detainees yet to be arrested? - could remain in custody forever
>> without charge. There is no precedent in the American legal tradition
>> for this kind of preventive detention. That is not quite right:
>> precedents do exist, among them the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798  
>> and
>> the Japanese internment of the 1940s, but they are widely seen as low
>> points in America's history under the Constitution.
>>
>>
>>
>> There are many things that can be said about indefinitely imprisoning
>> people with no charges who were not captured on any battlefield, but
>> the claim that this is some sort of standard or well-established
>> practice in American history is patently false.
>>
>>
>>
>> (6)  Is it "due process" when the Government can guarantee it  
>> always wins?
>>
>>
>>
>> If you really think about the argument Obama made yesterday -- when  
>> he
>> described the five categories of detainees and the procedures to  
>> which
>> each will be subjected -- it becomes manifest just how profound a
>> violation of Western conceptions of justice this is. What Obama is
>> saying is this: we'll give real trials only to those detainees we  
>> know
>> in advance we will convict. For those we don't think we can convict  
>> in
>> a real court, we'll get convictions in the military commissions I'm
>> creating. For those we can't convict even in my military commissions,
>> we'll just imprison them anyway with no charges ("preventively  
>> detain"
>> them).
>>
>>
>>
>> Giving trials to people only when you know for sure, in advance, that
>> you'll get convictions is not due process. Those are called "show
>> trials." In a healthy system of justice, the Government gives  
>> everyone
>> it wants to imprison a trial and then imprisons only those whom it  
>> can
>> convict. The process is constant (trials), and the outcome varies
>> (convictions or acquittals).
>>
>>
>>
>> Obama is saying the opposite: in his scheme, it is the outcome that  
>> is
>> constant (everyone ends up imprisoned), while the process varies  
>> and is
>> determined by the Government (trials for some; military commissions  
>> for
>> others; indefinite detention for the rest). The Government picks and
>> chooses which process you get in order to ensure that it always  
>> wins. A
>> more warped "system of justice" is hard to imagine.
>>
>>
>>
>> (7)  Can we "be safe" by locking up all the Terrorists with no  
>> charges?
>>
>>
>>
>> Obama stressed yesterday that the "preventive detention" system  
>> should
>> be created only through an act of Congress with "a process of  
>> periodic
>> review, so that any prolonged detention is carefully evaluated and
>> justified." That's certainly better than what Bush did: namely,
>> preventively detain people with no oversight and no Congressional
>> authorization -- in violation of the law. But as we learned with the
>> Military Commissions Act of 2006 and the Protect America Act of 2007,
>> the mere fact that Congress approves of a radical policy may mean  
>> that
>> it is no longer lawless but it doesn't make it justified. As  
>> Professor
>> Amann put it: "no amount of procedures can justify deprivations that,
>> because of their very nature violate the Constitution' s core  
>> guarantee
>> of liberty." Dan Froomkin said that no matter how many procedures are
>> created, that's "a dangerously extreme policy proposal."
>>
>>
>>
>> Regarding Obama's "process" justification -- and regarding Obama's
>> primary argument that we need to preventively detain allegedly
>> dangerous people in order to keep us safe -- Digby said it best:
>>
>>
>>
>> We are still in a "war" against a method of violence, which means  
>> there
>> is no possible end and which means that the government can capture  
>> and
>> imprison anyone they determine to be "the enemy" forever. The only
>> thing that will change is where the prisoners are held and few little
>> procedural tweaks to make it less capricious. (It's nice that some  
>> sort
>> of official committee will meet once in a while to decide if the  
>> war is
>> over or if the prisoner is finally too old to still be a "danger to
>> Americans.")
>>
>>
>>
>> There seems to be some misunderstanding about Guantanamo. Somehow
>> people have gotten it into their heads is that it is nothing more  
>> than
>> a symbol, which can be dealt with simply by closing the prison.  
>> That's
>> just not true. Guantanamo is a symbol, true, but it's a symbol of a
>> lawless, unconstitutional detention and interrogation system.  
>> Changing
>> the venue doesn't solve the problem.
>>
>>
>>
>> I know it's a mess, but the fact is that this isn't really that
>> difficult, except in the usual beltway kabuki political sense. There
>> are literally tens of thousands of potential terrorists all over the
>> world who could theoretically harm America. We cannot protect  
>> ourselves
>> from that possibility by keeping the handful we have in custody  
>> locked
>> up forever, whether in Guantanamo or some Super Max prison in the US.
>> It's patently absurd to obsess over these guys like it makes us even
>> the slightest bit safer to have them under indefinite lock and key so
>> they "can't kill Americans."
>>
>>
>>
>> The mere fact that we are doing this makes us less safe because the
>> complete lack of faith we show in our constitution and our justice
>> systems is what fuels the idea that this country is weak and easily
>> terrified. There is no such thing as a terrorist suspect who is too
>> dangerous to be set free. They are a dime a dozen, they are all over
>> the world and for every one we lock up there will be three to take  
>> his
>> place. There is not some finite number of terrorists we can kill or
>> capture and then the "war" will be over and the babies will always be
>> safe. This whole concept is nonsensical.
>>
>>
>>
>> As I said yesterday, there were some positive aspects to Obama's
>> speech. His resolve to close Guantanamo in the face of all the
>> fear-mongering, like his release of the OLC memos, is commendable.  
>> But
>> the fact that a Democratic President who ran on a platform of  
>> restoring
>> America's standing and returning to our core principles is now
>> advocating the creation of a new system of indefinite preventive
>> detention -- something that is now sure to become a standard view of
>> Democratic politicians and hordes of Obama supporters -- is by far  
>> the
>> most consequential event yet in the formation of Obama's civil
>> liberties policies.
>>
>>
>>
>> UPDATE: Here's what White House Counsel Greg Craig told The New  
>> Yorker's
>> Jane Mayer in February:
>>
>>
>>
>> "It's possible but hard to imagine Barack Obama as the first  
>> President
>> of the United States to introduce a preventive-detentio n law," Craig
>> said. "Our presumption is that there is no need to create a whole new
>> system. Our system is very capable."
>>
>>
>>
>> "The first President of the United States to introduce a
>> preventive-detentio n law" is how Obama's own White House Counsel
>> described him. Technically speaking, that is a form of change, but
>> probably not the type that many Obama voters expected.
>>
>>
>>
>> UPDATE II: Ben Wizner of the ACLU's National Security Project is the
>> lead lawyer in the Jeppesen case, which resulted in the recent
>> rejection by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals of the Bush/Obama state
>> secrets argument, and also co-wrote (along with the ACLU's Jameel
>> Jaffer) a superb article in Salon in December making the case against
>> preventive detention. I spoke with him this morning for roughly 20
>> minutes regarding the detention policies proposed by Obama in
>> yesterday's speech. It can be heard by clicking PLAY on the recorder
>> below. A transcript will be posted shortly.
>>
>>
>>
>> UPDATE III: Rachel Maddow was superb last night -- truly superb --  
>> on the
>> topic of Obama's preventive detention proposal:
>>
>>
>>
>> UPDATE IV: The New Yorker's Amy Davidson compares Obama's detention
>> proposal to the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II
>> (as did Professor Amann, quoted above). Hilzoy, of The Washington
>> Monthly, writes: "If we don't have enough evidence to charge someone
>> with a crime, we don't have enough evidence to hold them. Period" and
>> "the power to detain people without filing criminal charges against
>> them is a dictatorial power." Salon's Joan Walsh quotes the Center  
>> for
>> Constitutional Rights' Vincent Warren as saying: "They're creating,
>> essentially, an American Gulag." The Philadelphia Inquirer's Will  
>> Bunch
>> says of Obama's proposal: "What he's proposing is against one of this
>> country's core principles" and "this is why people need to keep the
>> pressure on Obama -- even those inclined to view his presidency
>> favorably."
>>
>>
>>
>> UPDATE V: The Atlantic's Marc Ambinder -- who is as close to the  
>> Obama
>> White House as any journalist around -- makes an important point  
>> about
>> Obama that I really wish more of his supporters would appreciate:
>>
>>
>>
>> [Obama] was blunt [in his meeting with civil libertiarians] ; the
>> [military commissions] are a fait accompli, so the civil libertarians
>> can either help Congress and the White House figure out the best  
>> way to
>> protect the rights of the accused within the framework of that
>> decision, or they can remain on the outside, as agitators. That's not
>> meant to be pejorative; whereas the White House does not give a
>> scintilla of attention to its right-wing critics, it does read, and
>> will read, everything Glenn Greenwald writes. Obama, according to an
>> administration official, finds this outside pressure healthy and  
>> useful.
>>
>>
>>
>> Ambinder doesn't mean me personally or exclusively; he means people  
>> who
>> are criticizing Obama not in order to harm him politically, but in
>> order to pressure him to do better. It's not just the right, but the
>> duty, of citizens to pressure and criticize political leaders when  
>> they
>> adopt policies that one finds objectionable or destructive. Criticism
>> of this sort is a vital check on political leaders -- a key way to
>> impose accountability -- and Obama himself has said as much many  
>> times
>> before.
>>
>>
>>
>> It has nothing to do with personalities or allegiances. It doesn't
>> matter if one "likes" or "trusts" Obama or thinks he's a good or bad
>> person. That's all irrelevant. The only thing that matters is whether
>> one thinks that the actions he's undertaking are helpful or  
>> harmful. If
>> they're harmful, one should criticize them. Where, as here, they're
>> very harmful and dangerous, one should criticize them loudly. Obama
>> himself, according to Ambinder, "finds this outside pressure healthy
>> and useful." And it is. It's not only healthy and useful but  
>> absolutely
>> vital.
>>
>>
>>
>> UPDATE VI: Bearing in mind what Obama repeatedly pledged to do while
>> running, this headline from The New York Times this morning is rather
>> extraordinary:
>>
>>
>>
>> As Greg Craig put it: "hard to imagine Barack Obama as the first
>> President of the United States to introduce a preventive-detentio n
>> law."
>>
>>
>>
>> -- Glenn Greenwald
>>
>>     Stop thinking like an American,
>> Start thinking about humanity!
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From futurenotwritten at yahoo.com  Wed May 27 21:15:40 2009
From: futurenotwritten at yahoo.com (Jay Becker)
Date: Wed, 27 May 2009 18:15:40 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [CitizensTruth] Glenn Greenwald on preventive detention proposal
Message-ID: <725300.98070.qm@web33501.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

We have to continually deepen our study of the material reality in which we find ourselves, on many levels, including the opinions or attitudes of those around us but those are more determined by larger social and political forces than determinative of them and are just one part of the picture in any case.

I go back to an analogy I read in Revolution newspaper: Here in the US, it's like we are living in the house of Tony Soprano. We know there's something going on out there in the world that Tony's involved in and that supports the lifestyle we live but we don't really want to know very much about that! 

Society is split into classes: imperialists who run their global empire of production and extraction of value and destruction of people & the environment to keep their profit-making machinery and its military enforcers going and to stave off their international competitors; a whole lot of people in various levels of administration and technology keeping things running in the middle; and working class people in manual labor and those thrown out of the working class at the lower and lowest ends. And the imperialists at the top are not about to let any of the rest of us decide what they are or are not going to do to try to solve the apparent multiple crises in which they find themselves, elections or no elections!

So, in my years of experience, in more or less normal times, most people will keep on keepin' on as much and as best as they can. Then something will happen that wakes up some people, sometimes more personal events, more often probably social ones, like 9/11, war, financial meltdown. And then those people look for answers. We can tell them it'll be okay, let's just rearrange the furniture in Tony's house so we can feel a little more comfortable awhile longer, or we can share with them both a materialist understanding of the worldwide 'food chain' we find ourselves at the (relatively) top end of and the most important fact of all: It is all totally unnecessary in this day and age and there's actually a strategy that could put power in the hands of the people. (Curious? Find a lot more at revcom.us)

Yes, that puts a lot of responsibility on us but you know what? It's also really liberating to see a way to act on this madness that actually is responsible. What's life about anyway but the meaning we give it and to me, the highest meaning is contributing what we can to humanity. I invite everyone to read some thoughts on "Life with a Purpose" from a great revolutionary, Bob Avakian, at http://revcom.us/avakian/ruminations/BA-ruminations2-en.html.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts!

Jay

    Stop thinking like an American, 
Start thinking about humanity!


--- On Wed, 5/27/09, Hal Snyder <hal at drxyzzy.org> wrote:

From: Hal Snyder <hal at drxyzzy.org>
Subject: Re: [CitizensTruth] Glenn Greenwald on preventive detention proposal
To: citizenstruth at six.pairlist.net
Date: Wednesday, May 27, 2009, 5:17 PM

I spent decades in academia, medicine, and industry solving hard problems. They were all abstract and technical. The way to solve hard technical problems (for me at least) is to shut out all distractions and interactions and take whatever time is needed to study the whole problem. A?solution eventually arrives if you can take all the facts and conceptual models into a higher level of consciousness. A few problems took years but eventually were solved.
Around 2003 something woke me up to what was going on outside the laboratory and every day for about 6 months, reading about the world - from as many sources as I could find - was like being punched in the stomach.
I saw multiple looming existential threatswarmass extinctionecosystem collapseineffective/corrupt governmentetc. probably everyone on this list has their top 3 out of 20 or so.
And society was split into about 3 camps on most matters of importance
1) oblivious - tomorrow will be pretty much like today, let's go shopping2) reformer - iceberg ahead, ring the alarms, change course or at least prepare lifeboats3) reactionary - neutralize all reformer efforts and full ahead engines
A huge shift was the lesson, endlessly repeated, of how powerless I was alone, 180 degrees from prior life of problem-solving. Next steps were to join up with others, taking the lead when indicated. Some improvement and sense of leverage but society?still?clearly headed for disaster. Working as a field organizer for 5 months last year, I discovered the power of organizing and see that as the next level in working for social change.
Additional observations, YMMV:
1. People are more likely to move if I meet them where they are.
2. Nobody likes me when I am cranky all the time. Find joy in an action or stay home.
3. Denouncing others for not being in the same place as me is a waste of everybody's time.
Hal (in Palatine Township)
On May 27, 2009, at 4:37 PM, Janice Matthews wrote:
  Excellent, compelling post. 
 I remember hearing an incredible talk on the radio once, by Arundhati Roy, that's always stuck with me clearly. In brief, she said (summarizing) that in general, people don't want to know about things because once we know something, we are unable to un-know it. And because we know it, we are compelled to do something about it. 
 
 Oh, how I want to un-know so many things. And, how I wish (once in awhile) I lived near a place where others were also taking action, so I could join with them instead of being alone. There's such energy in coming together in resistance--I'm a little envious of you all near Chicago (though I wouldn't trade my hermit country life for anything now). 
 
 So knowing what's being done in our name is a terrible, heavy burden. And I know, of course, it's nothing compared to those who are surviving these bombings, while their loved ones are being killed and tortured. I understand why the mothers are asking to just be killed rather than have to live with the memory of watching their children raped by "US." And to be honest, I don't WANT to see the pictures! I'm already so upset by it (particularly as someone who has been raped, I think) that the thought of seeing what we've done is unbearable; moreso even than reading Seymour Hersch say that what will always stay with him from Abu Ghraib was the shrieks of the boys as they were being raped... But I guess that's the reason the photos have to be released. Apparently many Americans have to be so shocked with reality that they can't "not know" it, so that they'll then be compelled to DO something! 
 
 I think the heaviest part of the burden is knowing that, for some of us, we've fought so hard, tried so hard, pleaded and reasoned and begged and boycotted and been conscious in our choices to try to oppose, weaken, change, make SOME kind of change at least to this dirty, rotten system. And we keep trying, and everyday it seems less and less possible to create any kind of change (so long as we stay stuck in this same paradigm, at least).
 
 On the other hand, what did Dorothy Day say? Being tired is not an option; there's work to be done.
 Ahhhh... 
 
 Thanks for allowing me to share in this community.
 Janice
 (in Kansas)
 
 Jay Becker wrote:                     Yes, as individuals, there is little we can do, but we aren't just individuals, we're also part of communities and a society, the US, that is raining this terror down on other people and threatening more, not only 'over there' either. 
        
 I think this is a very good time to act. Obama refuses to release 2000 torture photos (think about that number!) from at least half a dozen US facilities (think about how widespread that means this is) because seeing what has been done will shatter illusions that this was done "by a few individuals," as Obama alleged again last week, and increase exponentially the demand that those responsible for ordering all this be prosecuted. This is a very sticky situation for Obama and our determined actions now could (no guaranties in this world) make a difference, crack open the debate, dis-illusion people in a good way. 
        
 It won't happen without that, and we're here where we can make a difference. I wonder what people being hit by drones in Pakistan and bombs in Afghanistan would think about us protesting? What difference would it make in the world if there was a loud voice of protest here in the US that wasn't loyal to the government doing this to them AND wasn't supporting the fundamentalist opposition, the only two choices they see in front of them.
        
 Here's a thoughtful piece from a young writer on Revolution that I recommend: 
        Silence Plus Torture Equals Complicity It?s spring 2009, students were finishing final exams and graduating, looking at the life ahead of them. Young people are filling their summers with activities and friends.At around the same time on May 4, U.S. airstrikes massacred 147 people in Afghanistan, including teenagers. What were their hopes and dreams, what do their lives count for? Do WE have a responsibility to THEM? And if so, what is it?
        At the same time we have now read memos that show that this government, from its very highest levels, held detainees and legally justified their torture; that they were, and some are still,? being held indefinitely not knowing why, or when, or if, they will be tried, kept in solitary confinement, interrogated for up to 20 hours a day, brutally tortured or even killed. And now, we have also been told by Barack Obama that extensive photographs documenting this torture are going to be suppressed because if people saw them it might ?inflame? the opinion of Americans, and people around the world, and endanger the troops in Iraq. Do WE have a responsibility to society, to humanity, to oppose this?        
 Read on at 
 http://revcom.us/a/166/torture-editorial-en.html
        
 Thanks for sharing your thoughts!
 Jay
        
                         Stop thinking like an American, 
 Start thinking about humanity!
                                
        
 --- On Wed, 5/27/09, Robin Migalla <rmigalla at earthlink.net> wrote:
        
 From: Robin Migalla <rmigalla at earthlink.net>
 Subject: Re: [CitizensTruth] Glenn Greenwald on preventive detention proposal
 To: "truth seekers" <citizenstruth at six.pairlist.net>
 Date: Wednesday, May 27, 2009, 2:49 PM
          
          Hi Jay, Andrew, and the rest of our Truth seeking community,
          
 I agree with you, Andrew.? Yes, Jay, thanks for your post.? I always enjoy 
 analysis based on facts rather than emotional reactions.? It was a truly 
 refreshing piece.? Andrew, I believe your question gets to the heart of          
 what we as a group are trying to do.? I wish I had the answer.? For me,          
 I've come to realize I'm unable to stop anyone from doing anything.? The 
 best I action I can take (interesting word here, take) is offer peace where 
 I am right now.
          
 Cheers,
 Robin
          
 -----Original Message-----
 From:??? andrew ritter [SMTP:aroyboy44 at hotmail.com]
 Sent:??? Wednesday, May 27, 2009 12:58
 To:??? futurenotwritten at yahoo.com; truth seekers
 Subject:??? Re: [CitizensTruth] Glenn Greenwald on preventive detention          
 proposal
          
          
 Thanks for this Jay,
          
 What an important topic that is getting very little play in the msm
          
 "Preventative Detention" is clearly a dark awful piece of fascist nonsense 
 that violates the constitution and opens the door for creepy things like 
 thought crimes and being detained indefintely for your beliefs.
          
 People continue to defend the Obama administration and I would argue they 
 are stuck in an unhealthy mind pattern where they allow their fantasy of 
 who he is to be overshadowed by the reality of the actions the 
 administration continues to take.
          
 The question then becomes what real action can we citizens take that would 
 help to stop this proposal from going through?
          
          
          
          
          
          
 Date: Sun, 24 May 2009 07:59:59 -0700
 From: futurenotwritten at yahoo.com
 To: citizenstruth at six.pairlist.net
 Subject: [CitizensTruth] Glenn Greenwald on preventive detention proposal
          
 This is the best 'dispassionate' dissection of the Obama administration's 
 sweeping proposals that I have read yet. I urge everyone to consider this, 
 and the questions he poses, seriously, and share your thoughts, please!
          
 Jay
          
          
          http://www.salon. com/opinion/ greenwald/ 2009/05/22/ preventive_ 
 detention/ print.html
          
          
          
 Facts and myths about Obama's preventive detention proposal
          
 Is a system of indefinite detention with no charges a standard or radical 
 idea?
          
          
          
 Salon.com
          
 Glenn Greenwald
          
          
          
 May. 22, 2009
          
          
          
 [Updated below - Update II (Interview with ACLU) - Update III - Update IV - 
 Update V - Update VI]
          
          
          
 In the wake of Obama's speech yesterday, there are vast numbers of new
 converts who now support indefinite "preventive detention." It thus
 seems constructive to have as dispassionate and fact-based discussion
 as possible of the implications of "preventive detention" and Obama's
 related detention proposals (military commissions) . I'll have a
 podcast discussion on this topic a little bit later today with the
 ACLU's Ben Wizner, which I'll add below, but until then, here are some
 facts and other points worth noting:
          
          
          
 (1) What does "preventive detention" allow?
          
          
          
 It's important to be clear about what "preventive detention"
 authorizes. It does not merely allow the U.S. Government to imprison
 people alleged to have committed Terrorist acts yet who are unable to
 be convicted in a civilian court proceeding. That class is merely a
 subset, perhaps a small subset, of who the Government can detain. Far
 more significant, "preventive detention" allows indefinite imprisonment
 not based on proven crimes or past violations of law, but of those
 deemed generally "dangerous" by the Government for various reasons
 (such as, as Obama put it yesterday, they "expressed their allegiance
 to Osama bin Laden" or "otherwise made it clear that they want to kill
 Americans"). That's what "preventive" means: imprisoning people because
 the Government claims they are likely to engage in violent acts in the
 future because they are alleged to be "combatants. "
          
          
          
 Once known, the details of the proposal could -- and likely will --
 make this even more extreme by extending the "preventive detention"
 power beyond a handful of Guantanamo detainees to anyone, anywhere in
 the world, alleged to be a "combatant." After all, once you accept the
 rationale on which this proposal is based -- namely, that the U.S.
 Government must, in order to keep us safe, preventively detain
 "dangerous" people even when they can't prove they violated any laws --
 there's no coherent reason whatsoever to limit that power to people
 already at Guantanamo, as opposed to indefinitely imprisoning with no
 trials all allegedly "dangerous" combatants, whether located in
 Pakistan, Thailand, Indonesia, Western countries and even the U.S.
          
          
          
 (2)? Are defenders of Obama's proposals being consistent?
          
          
          
 During the Bush years, it was common for Democrats to try to convince
 conservatives to oppose Bush's executive power expansions by asking
 them: "Do you really want these powers to be exercised by Hillary
 Clinton or some liberal President?"
          
          
          
 Following that logic, for any Democrat/progressiv e/liberal/ Obama
 supporter who wants to defend Obama's proposal of "preventive
 detention," shouldn't you first ask yourself three simple questions:
          
          
          
 (a) what would I have said if George Bush and Dick Cheney advocated a
 law vesting them with the power to preventively imprison people
 indefinitely and with no charges?;
          
          
          
 (b) when Bush and Cheney did preventively imprison large numbers of
 people, was I in favor of that or did I oppose it, and when right-wing
 groups such as Heritage Foundation were alone in urging a preventive
 detention law in 2004, did I support them?; and
          
          
          
 (c) even if I'm comfortable with Obama having this new power because I
 trust him not to abuse it, am I comfortable with future Presidents --
 including Republicans -- having the power of indefinite "preventive
 detention"?
          
          
          
 (3)? Questions for defenders of Obama's proposal:
          
          
          
 There are many claims being made by defenders of Obama's proposals
 which seem quite contradictory and/or without any apparent basis, and
 I've been searching for a defender of those proposals to address these
 questions:
          
          
          
 Bush supporters have long claimed -- and many Obama supporters are now
 insisting as well -- that there are hard-core terrorists who cannot be
 convicted in our civilian courts. For anyone making that claim, what is
 the basis for believing that? In the Bush era, the Government has
 repeatedly been able to convict alleged Al Qaeda and Taliban members in
 civilian courts, including several (Ali al-Marri, Jose Padilla, John
 Walker Lindh) who were tortured and others (Zacharais Moussaoui,
 Padilla) where evidence against them was obtained by extreme coercion.
 What convinced you to believe that genuine terrorists can't be
 convicted in our justice system?
          
          
          
 For those asserting that there are dangerous people who have not yet
 been given any trial and who Obama can't possibly release, how do you
 know they are "dangerous" if they haven't been tried? Is the
 Government's accusation enough for you to assume it's true?
          
          
          
 Above all: for those justifying Obama's use of military commissions by
 arguing that some terrorists can't be convicted in civilian courts
 because the evidence against them is "tainted" because it was obtained
 by Bush's torture, Obama himself claimed just yesterday that his
 military commissions also won't allow such evidence ("We will no longer
 permit the use of evidence -- as evidence statements that have been
 obtained using cruel, inhuman, or degrading interrogation methods").
 How does our civilian court's refusal to consider evidence obtained by
 torture demonstrate the need for Obama's military commissions if, as
 Obama himself claims, Obama's military commissions also won't consider
 evidence obtained by torture?
          
          
          
 Finally, don't virtually all progressives and Democrats argue that
 torture produces unreliable evidence? If it's really true (as Obama
 defenders claim) that the evidence we have against these detainees was
 obtained by torture and is therefore inadmissible in real courts, do
 you really think such unreliable evidence -- evidence we obtained by
 torture -- should be the basis for concluding that someone is so
 "dangerous" that they belong in prison indefinitely with no trial? If
 you don't trust evidence obtained by torture, why do you trust it to
 justify holding someone forever, with no trial, as "dangerous"?
          
          
          
 (4)? Do other countries have indefinite preventive detention?
          
          
          
 Obama yesterday suggested that other countries have turned to
 "preventive detention" and that his proposal therefore isn't radical
 ("other countries have grappled with this question; now, so must we").
 Is that true?
          
          
          
 In June of last year, there was a tumultuous political debate in
 Britain that sheds ample light on this question. In the era of IRA
 bombings, the British Parliament passed a law allowing the Government
 to preventively detain terrorist suspects for 14 days -- and then
 either have to charge them or release them. In 2006, Prime Minister
 Tony Blair -- citing the London subway attacks and the need to
 "intervene early before a terrorist cell has the opportunity to achieve
 its goals" -- wanted to increase the preventive detention period to 90
 days, but MPs from his own party and across the political spectrum
 overwhelmingly opposed this, and ultimately increased it only to 28
 days.
          
          
          
 In June of last year, Prime Minister Gordon Brown sought an expansion
 of this preventive detention authority to 42 days -- a mere two weeks
 more. Reacting to that extremely modest increase, a major political
 rebellion erupted, with large numbers of Brown's own Labour Party
 joining with Tories to vehemently oppose it as a major threat to
 liberty. Ultimately, Brown's 42-day scheme barely passed the House of
 Commons. As former Prime Minister John Major put it in opposing the
 expansion to 42 days:
          
          
          
 It is hard to justify: pre-charge detention in Canada is 24 hours;
 South Africa, Germany, New Zealand and America 48 hours; Russia 5 days;
 and Turkey 7? days.
          
          
          
 By rather stark and extreme contrast, Obama is seeking preventive
 detention powers that are indefinite -- meaning without any end,
 potentially permanent. There's no time limit on the "preventive
 detention." Compare that power to the proposal that caused such a
 political storm in Britain and what these other governments are
 empowered to do. The suggestion that indefinite preventive detention
 without charges is some sort of common or traditional scheme is clearly
 false.
          
          
          
 (5)???Is this comparable to traditional POW detentions?
          
          
          
 When Bush supporters used to justify Bush/Cheney detention policies by
 arguing that it's normal for "Prisoners of War" to be held without
 trials, that argument was deeply misleading. And it's no less
 misleading when made now by Obama supporters. That comparison is
 patently inappropriate for two reasons: (a) the circumstances of the
 apprehension, and (b) the fact that, by all accounts, this "war" will
 not be over for decades, if ever, which means -- unlike for traditional
 POWs, who are released once the war is over -- these prisoners are
 going to be in a cage not for a few years, but for decades, if not life.
          
          
          
 Traditional "POWs" are ones picked up during an actual military battle,
 on a real battlefield, wearing a uniform, while engaged in fighting.
 The potential for error and abuse in deciding who was a "combatant" was
 thus minimal. By contrast, many of the people we accuse in the "war on
 terror" of being "combatants" aren't anywhere near a "battlefield, "
 aren't part of any army, aren't wearing any uniforms, etc. Instead,
 many of them are picked up from their homes, at work, off the streets.
 In most cases, then, we thus have little more than the say-so of the
 U.S. Government that they are guilty, which is why actual judicial
 proceedings before imprisoning them is so much more vital than in the
 standard POW situation.
          
          
          
 Anyone who doubts that should just look at how many Guantanamo
 detainees were accused of being "the worst of the worst" yet ended up
 being released because they did absolutely nothing wrong. Can anyone
 point to any traditional POW situation where so many people were
 falsely accused and where the risk of false accusations was so high?
 For obvious reasons, this is not and has never been a traditional POW
 detention scheme.
          
          
          
 During the Bush era, that was a standard argument among Democrats, so
 why should that change now? Here is what Anne-Marie Slaughter -- now
 Obama's Director of Policy Planning for the State Department -- said
 about Bush's "POW" comparison on Fox News on November 21, 2001:
          
          
          
 Military commissions have been around since the Revolutionary War. But
 they've always been used to try spies that we find behind enemy lines.
 It's normally a situation, you're on the battlefield, you find an enemy
 spy behind your lines. You can't ship them to national court, so you
 provide a kind of rough battlefield justice in a commission. You give
 them the best process you can, and then you execute the sentence on the
 spot, which generally means executing the defendant.
          
          
          
 That's not this situation. It's not remotely like it.
          
          
          
 As for duration, the U.S. government has repeatedly said that this
 "war" is so different from standard wars because it will last for
 decades, if not generations. Obama himself yesterday said that "unlike
 the Civil War or World War II, we can't count on a surrender ceremony
 to bring this journey to an end" and that we'll still be fighting this
 "war" "a year from now, five years from now, and -- in all probability
 -- 10 years from now." No rational person can compare POW detentions of
 a finite and usually short (2-5 years) duration to decades or life in a
 cage. That's why, yesterday, Law Professor Diane Marie Amann, in The
 New York Times, said this:
          
          
          
 [Obama] signaled a plan by which [Guantanamo detainees] - and perhaps
 other detainees yet to be arrested? - could remain in custody forever
 without charge. There is no precedent in the American legal tradition
 for this kind of preventive detention. That is not quite right:
 precedents do exist, among them the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798 and
 the Japanese internment of the 1940s, but they are widely seen as low
 points in America's history under the Constitution.
          
          
          
 There are many things that can be said about indefinitely imprisoning
 people with no charges who were not captured on any battlefield, but
 the claim that this is some sort of standard or well-established
 practice in American history is patently false.
          
          
          
 (6)? Is it "due process" when the Government can guarantee it always wins?
          
          
          
 If you really think about the argument Obama made yesterday -- when he
 described the five categories of detainees and the procedures to which
 each will be subjected -- it becomes manifest just how profound a
 violation of Western conceptions of justice this is. What Obama is
 saying is this: we'll give real trials only to those detainees we know
 in advance we will convict. For those we don't think we can convict in
 a real court, we'll get convictions in the military commissions I'm
 creating. For those we can't convict even in my military commissions,
 we'll just imprison them anyway with no charges ("preventively detain"
 them).
          
          
          
 Giving trials to people only when you know for sure, in advance, that
 you'll get convictions is not due process. Those are called "show
 trials." In a healthy system of justice, the Government gives everyone
 it wants to imprison a trial and then imprisons only those whom it can
 convict. The process is constant (trials), and the outcome varies
 (convictions or acquittals).
          
          
          
 Obama is saying the opposite: in his scheme, it is the outcome that is
 constant (everyone ends up imprisoned), while the process varies and is
 determined by the Government (trials for some; military commissions for
 others; indefinite detention for the rest). The Government picks and
 chooses which process you get in order to ensure that it always wins. A
 more warped "system of justice" is hard to imagine.
          
          
          
 (7)? Can we "be safe" by locking up all the Terrorists with no charges?
          
          
          
 Obama stressed yesterday that the "preventive detention" system should
 be created only through an act of Congress with "a process of periodic
 review, so that any prolonged detention is carefully evaluated and
 justified." That's certainly better than what Bush did: namely,
 preventively detain people with no oversight and no Congressional
 authorization -- in violation of the law. But as we learned with the
 Military Commissions Act of 2006 and the Protect America Act of 2007,
 the mere fact that Congress approves of a radical policy may mean that
 it is no longer lawless but it doesn't make it justified. As Professor
 Amann put it: "no amount of procedures can justify deprivations that,
 because of their very nature violate the Constitution' s core guarantee
 of liberty." Dan Froomkin said that no matter how many procedures are
 created, that's "a dangerously extreme policy proposal."
          
          
          
 Regarding Obama's "process" justification -- and regarding Obama's
 primary argument that we need to preventively detain allegedly
 dangerous people in order to keep us safe -- Digby said it best:
          
          
          
 We are still in a "war" against a method of violence, which means there
 is no possible end and which means that the government can capture and
 imprison anyone they determine to be "the enemy" forever. The only
 thing that will change is where the prisoners are held and few little
 procedural tweaks to make it less capricious. (It's nice that some sort
 of official committee will meet once in a while to decide if the war is
 over or if the prisoner is finally too old to still be a "danger to
 Americans.")
          
          
          
 There seems to be some misunderstanding about Guantanamo. Somehow
 people have gotten it into their heads is that it is nothing more than
 a symbol, which can be dealt with simply by closing the prison. That's
 just not true. Guantanamo is a symbol, true, but it's a symbol of a
 lawless, unconstitutional detention and interrogation system. Changing
 the venue doesn't solve the problem.
          
          
          
 I know it's a mess, but the fact is that this isn't really that
 difficult, except in the usual beltway kabuki political sense. There
 are literally tens of thousands of potential terrorists all over the
 world who could theoretically harm America. We cannot protect ourselves
 from that possibility by keeping the handful we have in custody locked
 up forever, whether in Guantanamo or some Super Max prison in the US.
 It's patently absurd to obsess over these guys like it makes us even
 the slightest bit safer to have them under indefinite lock and key so
 they "can't kill Americans."
          
          
          
 The mere fact that we are doing this makes us less safe because the
 complete lack of faith we show in our constitution and our justice
 systems is what fuels the idea that this country is weak and easily
 terrified. There is no such thing as a terrorist suspect who is too
 dangerous to be set free. They are a dime a dozen, they are all over
 the world and for every one we lock up there will be three to take his
 place. There is not some finite number of terrorists we can kill or
 capture and then the "war" will be over and the babies will always be
 safe. This whole concept is nonsensical.
          
          
          
 As I said yesterday, there were some positive aspects to Obama's
 speech. His resolve to close Guantanamo in the face of all the
 fear-mongering, like his release of the OLC memos, is commendable. But
 the fact that a Democratic President who ran on a platform of restoring
 America's standing and returning to our core principles is now
 advocating the creation of a new system of indefinite preventive
 detention -- something that is now sure to become a standard view of
 Democratic politicians and hordes of Obama supporters -- is by far the
 most consequential event yet in the formation of Obama's civil
 liberties policies.
          
          
          
 UPDATE: Here's what White House Counsel Greg Craig told The New Yorker's 
 Jane Mayer in February:
          
          
          
 "It's possible but hard to imagine Barack Obama as the first President
 of the United States to introduce a preventive-detentio n law," Craig
 said. "Our presumption is that there is no need to create a whole new
 system. Our system is very capable."
          
          
          
 "The first President of the United States to introduce a
 preventive-detentio n law" is how Obama's own White House Counsel
 described him. Technically speaking, that is a form of change, but
 probably not the type that many Obama voters expected.
          
          
          
 UPDATE II: Ben Wizner of the ACLU's National Security Project is the
 lead lawyer in the Jeppesen case, which resulted in the recent
 rejection by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals of the Bush/Obama state
 secrets argument, and also co-wrote (along with the ACLU's Jameel
 Jaffer) a superb article in Salon in December making the case against
 preventive detention. I spoke with him this morning for roughly 20
 minutes regarding the detention policies proposed by Obama in
 yesterday's speech. It can be heard by clicking PLAY on the recorder
 below. A transcript will be posted shortly.
          
          
          
 UPDATE III: Rachel Maddow was superb last night -- truly superb -- on the 
 topic of Obama's preventive detention proposal:
          
          
          
 UPDATE IV: The New Yorker's Amy Davidson compares Obama's detention
 proposal to the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II
 (as did Professor Amann, quoted above). Hilzoy, of The Washington
 Monthly, writes: "If we don't have enough evidence to charge someone
 with a crime, we don't have enough evidence to hold them. Period" and
 "the power to detain people without filing criminal charges against
 them is a dictatorial power." Salon's Joan Walsh quotes the Center for
 Constitutional Rights' Vincent Warren as saying: "They're creating,
 essentially, an American Gulag." The Philadelphia Inquirer's Will Bunch
 says of Obama's proposal: "What he's proposing is against one of this
 country's core principles" and "this is why people need to keep the
 pressure on Obama -- even those inclined to view his presidency
 favorably."
          
          
          
 UPDATE V: The Atlantic's Marc Ambinder -- who is as close to the Obama
 White House as any journalist around -- makes an important point about
 Obama that I really wish more of his supporters would appreciate:
          
          
          
 [Obama] was blunt [in his meeting with civil libertiarians] ; the
 [military commissions] are a fait accompli, so the civil libertarians
 can either help Congress and the White House figure out the best way to
 protect the rights of the accused within the framework of that
 decision, or they can remain on the outside, as agitators. That's not
 meant to be pejorative; whereas the White House does not give a
 scintilla of attention to its right-wing critics, it does read, and
 will read, everything Glenn Greenwald writes. Obama, according to an
 administration official, finds this outside pressure healthy and useful.
          
          
          
 Ambinder doesn't mean me personally or exclusively; he means people who
 are criticizing Obama not in order to harm him politically, but in
 order to pressure him to do better. It's not just the right, but the
 duty, of citizens to pressure and criticize political leaders when they
 adopt policies that one finds objectionable or destructive. Criticism
 of this sort is a vital check on political leaders -- a key way to
 impose accountability -- and Obama himself has said as much many times
 before.
          
          
          
 It has nothing to do with personalities or allegiances. It doesn't
 matter if one "likes" or "trusts" Obama or thinks he's a good or bad
 person. That's all irrelevant. The only thing that matters is whether
 one thinks that the actions he's undertaking are helpful or harmful. If
 they're harmful, one should criticize them. Where, as here, they're
 very harmful and dangerous, one should criticize them loudly. Obama
 himself, according to Ambinder, "finds this outside pressure healthy
 and useful." And it is. It's not only healthy and useful but absolutely
 vital.
          
          
          
 UPDATE VI: Bearing in mind what Obama repeatedly pledged to do while
 running, this headline from The New York Times this morning is rather
 extraordinary:
          
          
          
 As Greg Craig put it: "hard to imagine Barack Obama as the first
 President of the United States to introduce a preventive-detentio n
 law."
          
          
          
 -- Glenn Greenwald
          
 ? ? Stop thinking like an American,
 Start thinking about humanity!
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From futurenotwritten at yahoo.com  Thu May 28 00:53:41 2009
From: futurenotwritten at yahoo.com (Jay Becker)
Date: Wed, 27 May 2009 21:53:41 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [CitizensTruth] Protest War Criminal Karl Rove, 6 pm tonight!
Message-ID: <375898.60460.qm@web33505.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

?
	
	News from the Chicago Chapter	
	?
	



    
        
            
            
                
                    
                        
                        
                            
                                
                                    
                                    
                                    Protest Karl Rove - "Bush's Brain" - War Criminal Appearing in Public!

                                    Thursday May 28th at 6pm
                                    Chicago Theater

                                    175 N. State St.

                                    Sponsored by World Can't Wait - Chicago, 8th Day Center for Justice, and Buddhist Peace Fellowship

                                    Contact: 773.227.2453

                                    chicago at worldcantwait.org
                                    
                                    World Can't Wait protesting Karl Rove on Tuesday at NYC's Radio City 
                                    
                                    The Fight to Stop Torture Comes to a Chicago High School 
                                    
                                    
                                    On
May 21, World Can't Wait Chicago held torture workshops at the "We Are
Everywhere" Youth Summit at the Multicultural Arts School in Little Village a high school that was built after fierce struggle in the community, including a group of Latina mothers waging a nineteen-day hunger strike demanding a new school for their children. 
                                    ?
                                    We
started off the workshops by asking, American lives more valuable than
the lives of people around the world? Resoundingly the students
responded no, though many thought that the reality was that people
around the world were treated as if they were worth less.
                                    ?
                                    This led directly into the topic of torture. Showing the video produced for the May 28th National Day of Protest Against U.S. Torture, the students were shocked to see the images from Abu Ghraib, which many of them had not seen before and did not know about. read more...
                                    
                                    
                                    
                                
                            
                        
                        
                    
                
            
            
        
    






	
	
	

	World Can't Wait - National: http://www.worldcantwait.org 866.973.4463
Chicago Chapter: chicago at worldcantwait.org 773-227-2453 chicagoworldcantwait.org
	Meeting on Mondays at 6:30pm.
Meeting venue, is Mercury Cafe at 1505 W. Chicago Ave., Chicago IL 60642
It's right on Chicago Ave., five blocks west of the Chicago Ave. Blue line stop, and one block east of Ashland Ave.
	





 


    



      
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From rmigalla at earthlink.net  Thu May 28 13:05:25 2009
From: rmigalla at earthlink.net (Robin Migalla)
Date: Thu, 28 May 2009 12:05:25 -0500
Subject: [CitizensTruth] Glenn Greenwald on preventive detention proposal
Message-ID: <01C9DF8C.963FAA20.rmigalla@earthlink.net>

Hello Everyone,

Thank you, Jay, for your invitation to read "Life with a Purpose" from Bob 
Avakian.  I like the quote at the end from Ardea Skybreak's "The Science of 
Evolution and the Myth of Creationism-Knowing What's Real and Why It 
Matters."

I have one thought, though, that I'd like to share.  I must disagree with 
the first premise in the article - "all human beings die,"  but the second 
premise - "human beings are not only conscious of this but in many ways 
acutely aware of it" - hints at a reality that I believe to be true - all 
human beings live and it is the human consciousness that is aware of this 
fact.  This consciousness not only resides within and outside of a physical 
body, but it surrounds us everywhere as well.  What we see in the world 
around us is just our bird's eye view of this consciousness.  We can expand 
our view at any moment, to which is what I believe the quote from Skybreak 
speaks.

Cheers,
Robin

-----Original Message-----
From:	Jay Becker [SMTP:futurenotwritten at yahoo.com]
Sent:	Wednesday, May 27, 2009 20:16
To:	citizenstruth at six.pairlist.net; Hal Snyder
Subject:	Re: [CitizensTruth] Glenn Greenwald on preventive detention 
proposal

We have to continually deepen our study of the material reality in which we 
find ourselves, on many levels, including the opinions or attitudes of 
those around us but those are more determined by larger social and 
political forces than determinative of them and are just one part of the 
picture in any case.

I go back to an analogy I read in Revolution newspaper: Here in the US, 
it's like we are living in the house of Tony Soprano. We know there's 
something going on out there in the world that Tony's involved in and that 
supports the lifestyle we live but we don't really want to know very much 
about that!

Society is split into classes: imperialists who run their global empire of 
production and extraction of value and destruction of people & the 
environment to keep their profit-making machinery and its military 
enforcers going and to stave off their international competitors; a whole 
lot of people in various levels of administration and technology keeping 
things running in the middle; and working class people in manual labor and 
those thrown out of the working class at the lower and lowest ends. And the 
imperialists at the top are not about to let any of the rest of us decide 
what they are or are not going to do to try to solve the apparent multiple 
crises in which they find themselves, elections or no elections!

So, in my years of experience, in more or less normal times, most people 
will keep on keepin' on as much and as best as they can. Then something 
will happen that wakes up some people, sometimes more personal events, more 
often probably social ones, like 9/11, war, financial meltdown. And then 
those people look for answers. We can tell them it'll be okay, let's just 
rearrange the furniture in Tony's house so we can feel a little more com  
fortable awhile longer, or we can share with them both a materialist 
understanding of the worldwide 'food chain' we find ourselves at the 
(relatively) top end of and the most important fact of all: It is all 
totally unnecessary in this day and age and there's actually a strategy 
that could put power in the hands of the people. (Curious? Find a lot more 
at revcom.us)

Yes, that puts a lot of responsibility on us but you know what? It's also 
really liberating to see a way to act on this madness that actually is 
responsible. What's life about anyway but the meaning we give it and to me, 
the highest meaning is contributing what we can to humanity. I invite 
everyone to read some thoughts on "Life with a Purpose" from a great 
revolutionary, Bob Avakian, at 
http://revcom.us/avakian/ruminations/BA-ruminations2-en.html.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts!

Jay

    Stop thinking like an American,
Start thinking about humanity!


--- On Wed, 5/27/09, Hal Snyder <hal at drxyzzy.org> wrote:

From: Hal Snyder <hal at drxyzzy.org>
Subject: Re: [CitizensTruth] Glenn Greenwald on preventive detention 
proposal
To: citizenstruth at six.pairlist.net
Date: Wednesday, May 27, 2009, 5:17 PM

I spent decades in academia, medicine, and industry solving hard problems. 
They were all abstract and technical. The way to solve hard technical 
problems (for me at least) is to shut out all distractions and interactions 
and take whatever time is needed to study the whole problem. A solution 
eventually arrives if you can take all the facts and conceptual models into 
a higher level of consciousness. A few problems took years but eventually 
were solved.
Around 2003 something woke me up to what was going on outside the 
laboratory and every day for about 6 months, reading about the world - from 
as many sources as I could find - was like being punched in the stomach.
I saw multiple looming existential threatswarmass extinctionecosystem 
collapseineffective/corrupt governmentetc. probably everyone on this list 
has their top 3 out of 20 or so.
And society was split into about 3 camps on most matters of importance
1) oblivious - tomorrow will be pretty much like today, let's go shopping2) 
reformer - iceberg ahead, ring the alarms, change course or at least 
prepare lifeboats3) reactionary - neutralize all reformer efforts and full 
ahead engines
A huge shift was the lesson, endlessly repeated, of how powerless I was 
alone, 180 degrees from prior life of problem-solving. Next steps were to 
join up with others, taking the lead when indicated. Some improvement and 
sense of leverage but society still clearly headed for disaster. Working as 
a field organizer for 5 months last year, I discovered the power of 
organizing and see that as the next level in working for social change.
Additional observations, YMMV:
1. People are more likely to move if I meet them where they are.
2. Nobody likes me when I am cranky all the time. Find joy in an action or 
stay home.
3. Denouncing others for not being in the same place as me is a waste of 
everybody's time.
Hal (in Palatine Township)
On May 27, 2009, at 4:37 PM, Janice Matthews wrote:
  Excellent, compelling post.
 I remember hearing an incredible talk on the radio once, by Arundhati Roy, 
that's always stuck with me clearly. In brief, she said (summarizing) that 
in general, people don't want to know about things because once we know 
something, we are unable to un-know it. And because we know it, we are 
compelled to do something about it.

 Oh, how I want to un-know so many things. And, how I wish (once in awhile) 
I lived near a place where others were also taking action, so I could join 
with them instead of being alone. There's such energy in coming together in 
resistance--I'm a little envious of you all near Chicago (though I wouldn't 
trade my hermit country life for anything now).

 So knowing what's being done in our name is a terrible, heavy burden. And 
I know, of course, it's nothing compared to those who are surviving these 
bombings, while their loved ones are being killed and tortured. I 
understand why the mothers are asking to just be killed rather than have to 
live with the memory of watching their children raped by "US." And to be 
honest, I don't WANT to see the pictures! I'm already so upset by it 
(particularly as someone who has been raped, I think) that the thought of 
seeing what we've done is unbearable; moreso even than reading Seymour 
Hersch say that what will always stay with him from Abu Ghraib was the 
shrieks of the boys as they were being raped... But I guess that's the 
reason the photos have to be released. Apparently many Americans have to be 
so shocked with reality that they can't "not know" it, so that they'll then 
be compelled to DO something!

 I think the heaviest part of the burden is knowing that, for some of us, 
we've fought so hard, tried so hard, pleaded and reasoned and begged and 
boycotted and been conscious in our choices to try to oppose, weaken, 
change, make SOME kind of change at least to this dirty, rotten system. And 
we keep trying, and everyday it seems less and less possible to create any 
kind of change (so long as we stay stuck in this same paradigm, at least).

 On the other hand, what did Dorothy Day say? Being tired is not an option; 
there's work to be done.
 Ahhhh...

 Thanks for allowing me to share in this community.
 Janice
 (in Kansas)

 Jay Becker wrote:                     Yes, as individuals, there is little 
we can do, but we aren't just individuals, we're also part of communities 
and a society, the US, that is raining this terror down on other people and 
threatening more, not only 'over there' either.

 I think this is a very good time to act. Obama refuses to release 2000 
torture photos (think about that number!) from at least half a dozen US 
facilities (think about how widespread that means this is) because seeing 
what has been done will shatter illusions that this was done "by a few 
individuals," as Obama alleged again last week, and increase exponentially 
the demand that those responsible for ordering all this be prosecuted. This 
is a very sticky situation for Obama and our determined actions now could 
(no guaranties in this world) make a difference, crack open the debate, 
dis-illusion people in a good way.

 It won't happen without that, and we're here where we can make a 
difference. I wonder what people being hit by drones in Pakistan and bombs 
in Afghanistan would think about us protesting? What difference would it 
make in the world if there was a loud voice of protest here in the US that 
wasn't loyal to the government doing this to them AND wasn't supporting the 
fundamentalist opposition, the only two choices they see in front of them.

 Here's a thoughtful piece from a young writer on Revolution that I 
recommend:
        Silence Plus Torture Equals Complicity It's spring 2009, students 
were finishing final exams and graduating, looking at the life ahead of 
them. Young people are filling their summers with activities and friends.At 
around the same time on May 4, U.S. airstrikes massacred 147 people in 
Afghanistan, including teenagers. What were their hopes and dreams, what do 
their lives count for? Do WE have a responsibility to THEM? And if so, what 
is it?
        At the same time we have now read memos that show that this 
government, from its very highest levels, held detainees and legally 
justified their torture; that they were, and some are still,  being held 
indefinitely not knowing why, or when, or if, they will be tried, kept in 
solitary confinement, interrogated for up to 20 hours a day, brutally 
tortured or even killed. And now, we have also been told by Barack Obama 
that extensive photographs documenting this torture are going to be 
suppressed because if people saw them it might "inflame" the opinion of 
Americans, and people around the world, and endanger the troops in Iraq. Do 
WE have a responsibility to society, to humanity, to oppose this?
 Read on at
 http://revcom.us/a/166/torture-editorial-en.html

 Thanks for sharing your thoughts!
 Jay

                         Stop thinking like an American,
 Start thinking about humanity!


 --- On Wed, 5/27/09, Robin Migalla <rmigalla at earthlink.net> wrote:

 From: Robin Migalla <rmigalla at earthlink.net>
 Subject: Re: [CitizensTruth] Glenn Greenwald on preventive detention 
proposal
 To: "truth seekers" <citizenstruth at six.pairlist.net>
 Date: Wednesday, May 27, 2009, 2:49 PM

          Hi Jay, Andrew, and the rest of our Truth seeking community,

 I agree with you, Andrew.  Yes, Jay, thanks for your post.  I always enjoy 
 analysis based on facts rather than emotional reactions.  It was a truly
 refreshing piece.  Andrew, I believe your question gets to the heart of 
 what we as a group are trying to do.  I wish I had the answer.  For me, 
 I've come to realize I'm unable to stop anyone from doing anything.  The
 best I action I can take (interesting word here, take) is offer peace 
where
 I am right now.

 Cheers,
 Robin

 -----Original Message-----
 From:    andrew ritter [SMTP:aroyboy44 at hotmail.com]
 Sent:    Wednesday, May 27, 2009 12:58
 To:    futurenotwritten at yahoo.com; truth seekers
 Subject:    Re: [CitizensTruth] Glenn Greenwald on preventive detention 
 proposal


 Thanks for this Jay,

 What an important topic that is getting very little play in the msm

 "Preventative Detention" is clearly a dark awful piece of fascist nonsense 
 that violates the constitution and opens the door for creepy things like
 thought crimes and being detained indefintely for your beliefs.

 People continue to defend the Obama administration and I would argue they
 are stuck in an unhealthy mind pattern where they allow their fantasy of
 who he is to be overshadowed by the reality of the actions the
 administration continues to take.

 The question then becomes what real action can we citizens take that would 
 help to stop this proposal from going through?






 Date: Sun, 24 May 2009 07:59:59 -0700
 From: futurenotwritten at yahoo.com
 To: citizenstruth at six.pairlist.net
 Subject: [CitizensTruth] Glenn Greenwald on preventive detention proposal

 This is the best 'dispassionate' dissection of the Obama administration's
 sweeping proposals that I have read yet. I urge everyone to consider this, 
 and the questions he poses, seriously, and share your thoughts, please!

 Jay


          http://www.salon. com/opinion/ greenwald/ 2009/05/22/ preventive_ 
 detention/ print.html



 Facts and myths about Obama's preventive detention proposal

 Is a system of indefinite detention with no charges a standard or radical
 idea?



 Salon.com

 Glenn Greenwald



 May. 22, 2009



 [Updated below - Update II (Interview with ACLU) - Update III - Update IV 
-
 Update V - Update VI]



 In the wake of Obama's speech yesterday, there are vast numbers of new
 converts who now support indefinite "preventive detention." It thus
 seems constructive to have as dispassionate and fact-based discussion
 as possible of the implications of "preventive detention" and Obama's
 related detention proposals (military commissions) . I'll have a
 podcast discussion on this topic a little bit later today with the
 ACLU's Ben Wizner, which I'll add below, but until then, here are some
 facts and other points worth noting:



 (1) What does "preventive detention" allow?



 It's important to be clear about what "preventive detention"
 authorizes. It does not merely allow the U.S. Government to imprison
 people alleged to have committed Terrorist acts yet who are unable to
 be convicted in a civilian court proceeding. That class is merely a
 subset, perhaps a small subset, of who the Government can detain. Far
 more significant, "preventive detention" allows indefinite imprisonment
 not based on proven crimes or past violations of law, but of those
 deemed generally "dangerous" by the Government for various reasons
 (such as, as Obama put it yesterday, they "expressed their allegiance
 to Osama bin Laden" or "otherwise made it clear that they want to kill
 Americans"). That's what "preventive" means: imprisoning people because
 the Government claims they are likely to engage in violent acts in the
 future because they are alleged to be "combatants. "



 Once known, the details of the proposal could -- and likely will --
 make this even more extreme by extending the "preventive detention"
 power beyond a handful of Guantanamo detainees to anyone, anywhere in
 the world, alleged to be a "combatant." After all, once you accept the
 rationale on which this proposal is based -- namely, that the U.S.
 Government must, in order to keep us safe, preventively detain
 "dangerous" people even when they can't prove they violated any laws --
 there's no coherent reason whatsoever to limit that power to people
 already at Guantanamo, as opposed to indefinitely imprisoning with no
 trials all allegedly "dangerous" combatants, whether located in
 Pakistan, Thailand, Indonesia, Western countries and even the U.S.



 (2)  Are defenders of Obama's proposals being consistent?



 During the Bush years, it was common for Democrats to try to convince
 conservatives to oppose Bush's executive power expansions by asking
 them: "Do you really want these powers to be exercised by Hillary
 Clinton or some liberal President?"



 Following that logic, for any Democrat/progressiv e/liberal/ Obama
 supporter who wants to defend Obama's proposal of "preventive
 detention," shouldn't you first ask yourself three simple questions:



 (a) what would I have said if George Bush and Dick Cheney advocated a
 law vesting them with the power to preventively imprison people
 indefinitely and with no charges?;



 (b) when Bush and Cheney did preventively imprison large numbers of
 people, was I in favor of that or did I oppose it, and when right-wing
 groups such as Heritage Foundation were alone in urging a preventive
 detention law in 2004, did I support them?; and



 (c) even if I'm comfortable with Obama having this new power because I
 trust him not to abuse it, am I comfortable with future Presidents --
 including Republicans -- having the power of indefinite "preventive
 detention"?



 (3)  Questions for defenders of Obama's proposal:



 There are many claims being made by defenders of Obama's proposals
 which seem quite contradictory and/or without any apparent basis, and
 I've been searching for a defender of those proposals to address these
 questions:



 Bush supporters have long claimed -- and many Obama supporters are now
 insisting as well -- that there are hard-core terrorists who cannot be
 convicted in our civilian courts. For anyone making that claim, what is
 the basis for believing that? In the Bush era, the Government has
 repeatedly been able to convict alleged Al Qaeda and Taliban members in
 civilian courts, including several (Ali al-Marri, Jose Padilla, John
 Walker Lindh) who were tortured and others (Zacharais Moussaoui,
 Padilla) where evidence against them was obtained by extreme coercion.
 What convinced you to believe that genuine terrorists can't be
 convicted in our justice system?



 For those asserting that there are dangerous people who have not yet
 been given any trial and who Obama can't possibly release, how do you
 know they are "dangerous" if they haven't been tried? Is the
 Government's accusation enough for you to assume it's true?



 Above all: for those justifying Obama's use of military commissions by
 arguing that some terrorists can't be convicted in civilian courts
 because the evidence against them is "tainted" because it was obtained
 by Bush's torture, Obama himself claimed just yesterday that his
 military commissions also won't allow such evidence ("We will no longer
 permit the use of evidence -- as evidence statements that have been
 obtained using cruel, inhuman, or degrading interrogation methods").
 How does our civilian court's refusal to consider evidence obtained by
 torture demonstrate the need for Obama's military commissions if, as
 Obama himself claims, Obama's military commissions also won't consider
 evidence obtained by torture?



 Finally, don't virtually all progressives and Democrats argue that
 torture produces unreliable evidence? If it's really true (as Obama
 defenders claim) that the evidence we have against these detainees was
 obtained by torture and is therefore inadmissible in real courts, do
 you really think such unreliable evidence -- evidence we obtained by
 torture -- should be the basis for concluding that someone is so
 "dangerous" that they belong in prison indefinitely with no trial? If
 you don't trust evidence obtained by torture, why do you trust it to
 justify holding someone forever, with no trial, as "dangerous"?



 (4)  Do other countries have indefinite preventive detention?



 Obama yesterday suggested that other countries have turned to
 "preventive detention" and that his proposal therefore isn't radical
 ("other countries have grappled with this question; now, so must we").
 Is that true?



 In June of last year, there was a tumultuous political debate in
 Britain that sheds ample light on this question. In the era of IRA
 bombings, the British Parliament passed a law allowing the Government
 to preventively detain terrorist suspects for 14 days -- and then
 either have to charge them or release them. In 2006, Prime Minister
 Tony Blair -- citing the London subway attacks and the need to
 "intervene early before a terrorist cell has the opportunity to achieve
 its goals" -- wanted to increase the preventive detention period to 90
 days, but MPs from his own party and across the political spectrum
 overwhelmingly opposed this, and ultimately increased it only to 28
 days.



 In June of last year, Prime Minister Gordon Brown sought an expansion
 of this preventive detention authority to 42 days -- a mere two weeks
 more. Reacting to that extremely modest increase, a major political
 rebellion erupted, with large numbers of Brown's own Labour Party
 joining with Tories to vehemently oppose it as a major threat to
 liberty. Ultimately, Brown's 42-day scheme barely passed the House of
 Commons. As former Prime Minister John Major put it in opposing the
 expansion to 42 days:



 It is hard to justify: pre-charge detention in Canada is 24 hours;
 South Africa, Germany, New Zealand and America 48 hours; Russia 5 days;
 and Turkey 7? days.



 By rather stark and extreme contrast, Obama is seeking preventive
 detention powers that are indefinite -- meaning without any end,
 potentially permanent. There's no time limit on the "preventive
 detention." Compare that power to the proposal that caused such a
 political storm in Britain and what these other governments are
 empowered to do. The suggestion that indefinite preventive detention
 without charges is some sort of common or traditional scheme is clearly
 false.



 (5)   Is this comparable to traditional POW detentions?



 When Bush supporters used to justify Bush/Cheney detention policies by
 arguing that it's normal for "Prisoners of War" to be held without
 trials, that argument was deeply misleading. And it's no less
 misleading when made now by Obama supporters. That comparison is
 patently inappropriate for two reasons: (a) the circumstances of the
 apprehension, and (b) the fact that, by all accounts, this "war" will
 not be over for decades, if ever, which means -- unlike for traditional
 POWs, who are released once the war is over -- these prisoners are
 going to be in a cage not for a few years, but for decades, if not life.



 Traditional "POWs" are ones picked up during an actual military battle,
 on a real battlefield, wearing a uniform, while engaged in fighting.
 The potential for error and abuse in deciding who was a "combatant" was
 thus minimal. By contrast, many of the people we accuse in the "war on
 terror" of being "combatants" aren't anywhere near a "battlefield, "
 aren't part of any army, aren't wearing any uniforms, etc. Instead,
 many of them are picked up from their homes, at work, off the streets.
 In most cases, then, we thus have little more than the say-so of the
 U.S. Government that they are guilty, which is why actual judicial
 proceedings before imprisoning them is so much more vital than in the
 standard POW situation.



 Anyone who doubts that should just look at how many Guantanamo
 detainees were accused of being "the worst of the worst" yet ended up
 being released because they did absolutely nothing wrong. Can anyone
 point to any traditional POW situation where so many people were
 falsely accused and where the risk of false accusations was so high?
 For obvious reasons, this is not and has never been a traditional POW
 detention scheme.



 During the Bush era, that was a standard argument among Democrats, so
 why should that change now? Here is what Anne-Marie Slaughter -- now
 Obama's Director of Policy Planning for the State Department -- said
 about Bush's "POW" comparison on Fox News on November 21, 2001:



 Military commissions have been around since the Revolutionary War. But
 they've always been used to try spies that we find behind enemy lines.
 It's normally a situation, you're on the battlefield, you find an enemy
 spy behind your lines. You can't ship them to national court, so you
 provide a kind of rough battlefield justice in a commission. You give
 them the best process you can, and then you execute the sentence on the
 spot, which generally means executing the defendant.



 That's not this situation. It's not remotely like it.



 As for duration, the U.S. government has repeatedly said that this
 "war" is so different from standard wars because it will last for
 decades, if not generations. Obama himself yesterday said that "unlike
 the Civil War or World War II, we can't count on a surrender ceremony
 to bring this journey to an end" and that we'll still be fighting this
 "war" "a year from now, five years from now, and -- in all probability
 -- 10 years from now." No rational person can compare POW detentions of
 a finite and usually short (2-5 years) duration to decades or life in a
 cage. That's why, yesterday, Law Professor Diane Marie Amann, in The
 New York Times, said this:



 [Obama] signaled a plan by which [Guantanamo detainees] - and perhaps
 other detainees yet to be arrested? - could remain in custody forever
 without charge. There is no precedent in the American legal tradition
 for this kind of preventive detention. That is not quite right:
 precedents do exist, among them the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798 and
 the Japanese internment of the 1940s, but they are widely seen as low
 points in America's history under the Constitution.



 There are many things that can be said about indefinitely imprisoning
 people with no charges who were not captured on any battlefield, but
 the claim that this is some sort of standard or well-established
 practice in American history is patently false.



 (6)  Is it "due process" when the Government can guarantee it always wins?



 If you really think about the argument Obama made yesterday -- when he
 described the five categories of detainees and the procedures to which
 each will be subjected -- it becomes manifest just how profound a
 violation of Western conceptions of justice this is. What Obama is
 saying is this: we'll give real trials only to those detainees we know
 in advance we will convict. For those we don't think we can convict in
 a real court, we'll get convictions in the military commissions I'm
 creating. For those we can't convict even in my military commissions,
 we'll just imprison them anyway with no charges ("preventively detain"
 them).



 Giving trials to people only when you know for sure, in advance, that
 you'll get convictions is not due process. Those are called "show
 trials." In a healthy system of justice, the Government gives everyone
 it wants to imprison a trial and then imprisons only those whom it can
 convict. The process is constant (trials), and the outcome varies
 (convictions or acquittals).



 Obama is saying the opposite: in his scheme, it is the outcome that is
 constant (everyone ends up imprisoned), while the process varies and is
 determined by the Government (trials for some; military commissions for
 others; indefinite detention for the rest). The Government picks and
 chooses which process you get in order to ensure that it always wins. A
 more warped "system of justice" is hard to imagine.



 (7)  Can we "be safe" by locking up all the Terrorists with no charges?



 Obama stressed yesterday that the "preventive detention" system should
 be created only through an act of Congress with "a process of periodic
 review, so that any prolonged detention is carefully evaluated and
 justified." That's certainly better than what Bush did: namely,
 preventively detain people with no oversight and no Congressional
 authorization -- in violation of the law. But as we learned with the
 Military Commissions Act of 2006 and the Protect America Act of 2007,
 the mere fact that Congress approves of a radical policy may mean that
 it is no longer lawless but it doesn't make it justified. As Professor
 Amann put it: "no amount of procedures can justify deprivations that,
 because of their very nature violate the Constitution' s core guarantee
 of liberty." Dan Froomkin said that no matter how many procedures are
 created, that's "a dangerously extreme policy proposal."



 Regarding Obama's "process" justification -- and regarding Obama's
 primary argument that we need to preventively detain allegedly
 dangerous people in order to keep us safe -- Digby said it best:



 We are still in a "war" against a method of violence, which means there
 is no possible end and which means that the government can capture and
 imprison anyone they determine to be "the enemy" forever. The only
 thing that will change is where the prisoners are held and few little
 procedural tweaks to make it less capricious. (It's nice that some sort
 of official committee will meet once in a while to decide if the war is
 over or if the prisoner is finally too old to still be a "danger to
 Americans.")



 There seems to be some misunderstanding about Guantanamo. Somehow
 people have gotten it into their heads is that it is nothing more than
 a symbol, which can be dealt with simply by closing the prison. That's
 just not true. Guantanamo is a symbol, true, but it's a symbol of a
 lawless, unconstitutional detention and interrogation system. Changing
 the venue doesn't solve the problem.



 I know it's a mess, but the fact is that this isn't really that
 difficult, except in the usual beltway kabuki political sense. There
 are literally tens of thousands of potential terrorists all over the
 world who could theoretically harm America. We cannot protect ourselves
 from that possibility by keeping the handful we have in custody locked
 up forever, whether in Guantanamo or some Super Max prison in the US.
 It's patently absurd to obsess over these guys like it makes us even
 the slightest bit safer to have them under indefinite lock and key so
 they "can't kill Americans."



 The mere fact that we are doing this makes us less safe because the
 complete lack of faith we show in our constitution and our justice
 systems is what fuels the idea that this country is weak and easily
 terrified. There is no such thing as a terrorist suspect who is too
 dangerous to be set free. They are a dime a dozen, they are all over
 the world and for every one we lock up there will be three to take his
 place. There is not some finite number of terrorists we can kill or
 capture and then the "war" will be over and the babies will always be
 safe. This whole concept is nonsensical.



 As I said yesterday, there were some positive aspects to Obama's
 speech. His resolve to close Guantanamo in the face of all the
 fear-mongering, like his release of the OLC memos, is commendable. But
 the fact that a Democratic President who ran on a platform of restoring
 America's standing and returning to our core principles is now
 advocating the creation of a new system of indefinite preventive
 detention -- something that is now sure to become a standard view of
 Democratic politicians and hordes of Obama supporters -- is by far the
 most consequential event yet in the formation of Obama's civil
 liberties policies.



 UPDATE: Here's what White House Counsel Greg Craig told The New Yorker's
 Jane Mayer in February:



 "It's possible but hard to imagine Barack Obama as the first President
 of the United States to introduce a preventive-detentio n law," Craig
 said. "Our presumption is that there is no need to create a whole new
 system. Our system is very capable."



 "The first President of the United States to introduce a
 preventive-detentio n law" is how Obama's own White House Counsel
 described him. Technically speaking, that is a form of change, but
 probably not the type that many Obama voters expected.



 UPDATE II: Ben Wizner of the ACLU's National Security Project is the
 lead lawyer in the Jeppesen case, which resulted in the recent
 rejection by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals of the Bush/Obama state
 secrets argument, and also co-wrote (along with the ACLU's Jameel
 Jaffer) a superb article in Salon in December making the case against
 preventive detention. I spoke with him this morning for roughly 20
 minutes regarding the detention policies proposed by Obama in
 yesterday's speech. It can be heard by clicking PLAY on the recorder
 below. A transcript will be posted shortly.



 UPDATE III: Rachel Maddow was superb last night -- truly superb -- on the
 topic of Obama's preventive detention proposal:



 UPDATE IV: The New Yorker's Amy Davidson compares Obama's detention
 proposal to the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II
 (as did Professor Amann, quoted above). Hilzoy, of The Washington
 Monthly, writes: "If we don't have enough evidence to charge someone
 with a crime, we don't have enough evidence to hold them. Period" and
 "the power to detain people without filing criminal charges against
 them is a dictatorial power." Salon's Joan Walsh quotes the Center for
 Constitutional Rights' Vincent Warren as saying: "They're creating,
 essentially, an American Gulag." The Philadelphia Inquirer's Will Bunch
 says of Obama's proposal: "What he's proposing is against one of this
 country's core principles" and "this is why people need to keep the
 pressure on Obama -- even those inclined to view his presidency
 favorably."



 UPDATE V: The Atlantic's Marc Ambinder -- who is as close to the Obama
 White House as any journalist around -- makes an important point about
 Obama that I really wish more of his supporters would appreciate:



 [Obama] was blunt [in his meeting with civil libertiarians] ; the
 [military commissions] are a fait accompli, so the civil libertarians
 can either help Congress and the White House figure out the best way to
 protect the rights of the accused within the framework of that
 decision, or they can remain on the outside, as agitators. That's not
 meant to be pejorative; whereas the White House does not give a
 scintilla of attention to its right-wing critics, it does read, and
 will read, everything Glenn Greenwald writes. Obama, according to an
 administration official, finds this outside pressure healthy and useful.



 Ambinder doesn't mean me personally or exclusively; he means people who
 are criticizing Obama not in order to harm him politically, but in
 order to pressure him to do better. It's not just the right, but the
 duty, of citizens to pressure and criticize political leaders when they
 adopt policies that one finds objectionable or destructive. Criticism
 of this sort is a vital check on political leaders -- a key way to
 impose accountability -- and Obama himself has said as much many times
 before.



 It has nothing to do with personalities or allegiances. It doesn't
 matter if one "likes" or "trusts" Obama or thinks he's a good or bad
 person. That's all irrelevant. The only thing that matters is whether
 one thinks that the actions he's undertaking are helpful or harmful. If
 they're harmful, one should criticize them. Where, as here, they're
 very harmful and dangerous, one should criticize them loudly. Obama
 himself, according to Ambinder, "finds this outside pressure healthy
 and useful." And it is. It's not only healthy and useful but absolutely
 vital.



 UPDATE VI: Bearing in mind what Obama repeatedly pledged to do while
 running, this headline from The New York Times this morning is rather
 extraordinary:



 As Greg Craig put it: "hard to imagine Barack Obama as the first
 President of the United States to introduce a preventive-detentio n
 law."



 -- Glenn Greenwald

     Stop thinking like an American,
 Start thinking about humanity!
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From garyfranchi at gmail.com  Thu May 28 13:36:57 2009
From: garyfranchi at gmail.com (Gary Franchi)
Date: Thu, 28 May 2009 12:36:57 -0500
Subject: [CitizensTruth] TEA PARTY PROTESTS FOLLOWED UP BY ACTION
Message-ID: <2c9e41bb0905281036y733292b6w7163ae4cfcea9bdd@mail.gmail.com>

*TEA PARTY PROTESTS*

*FOLLOWED UP BY ACTION*

ROSEMONT, IL?A national freedom movement coalition called Truth Attack is
urging all Tea Party participants to keep the momentum going by putting
action behind their words of last April 15, when Americans across the
country vented their frustration with the government's tax and gift
policies.

Truth Attack, an association of thousands of patriots and a score of freedom
oriented organizations, says it is determined to save America from the
federal government's self-destructive policies and actions and save the
government from itself by inducing a "truth attack".  According to Truth
Attack spokesman, Tom Cryer, an attorney who beat the IRS in a recent court
battle, "Americans are fed up with being taxed into poverty only to line the
pockets of the rich, but the Tea Parties held last month will accomplish
nothing unless they are followed up by action."

Cryer will be presenting Truth Attack's comprehensive plan to Save America
at a one-day seminar hosted by Free Enterprise Society, Freedom Law School
and Restore the Republic to be held from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on June 7, 2009,
at the Sheraton Gateway Suites O?Hare, 6501 Mannheim Rd. Rosemont, IL.  A
Q&A session will follow.  Cryer adds that "one of the first to see this plan
was Congressman Ron Paul, who enthusiastically endorses the plan as one that
is long overdue."

Pre-registration is recommended but not required.  More information and
instructions for registering for the seminar are available at Truth Attack's
web site, *www.truthattack.org* <http://www.truthattack.org/> and Freedom
Law School?s website
*www.taxfreedomseminar.com*<http://www.taxfreedomseminar.com/>.


Source:  Truth Attack, *hq at truthattack.org* <hq at truthattack.org>

More Information/Photos: 318-866-9966 or 760-868-5834

Mr. Cryer is available for phone interviews up to the event and for live
interviews on June 5. 318-865-3392

Please add this event to your calendar of events
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From edward_rynearson at yahoo.com  Thu May 28 17:21:00 2009
From: edward_rynearson at yahoo.com (Edward Rynearson)
Date: Thu, 28 May 2009 14:21:00 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [CitizensTruth] Richard Gage,
	Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth on KMPH Fox 26 in Fresno, CA
Message-ID: <384404.34969.qm@web30006.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

Richard Gage, Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth on KMPH Fox 26 in Fresno, CA




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oO2yT0uBQbM
(watch this!)
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From geri at thetwofacesofmoney.com  Sat May 30 13:40:29 2009
From: geri at thetwofacesofmoney.com (Geri Perry)
Date: Sat, 30 May 2009 12:40:29 -0500
Subject: [CitizensTruth] Leap in U.S. Debt hits taxpayers with 12% more red
 ink, USA today article
Message-ID: <4A216F8D.7050706@thetwofacesofmoney.com>

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2009-05-28-debt_N.htm