Where is there compassion in torture and war on innocents? Is torture a new way to each compassion? Teaching by example is the only effective way to teach. What example are we setting? What compassion?   [End]
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Experiments in Moral Sovereignty: Notes of an American Exile by Jeff Knaebel During October–November 2006, the writer gave presentations at workshops and seminars across India that had been convened to address the existential crises facing humanity. Sponsors and venues included Prakrit Bharati Academy and Kapil Smarak Samiti, Jaipur; Friends of Gandhi Museum, Pune; Gandhi Peace Foundation, New Delhi; and World Buddhist Cultural Foundation, Varanasi. The following introduction is the first in a short series of condensations. These presentations across India express three main theme ...
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It’s easy to find out who your representatives in Congress and Senate are at http://vote-smart.org Just go to the website and fill in your 9-digit zip code and you will be taken to a page that shows both current candidates and current officials. To write your current officials, just click on the names of the representative, governor or senator you wish to contact and you will be taken to a page that will give you all the contact information. If you don’t know your 9-digit zip code, they have a way to help you with that on this website as well. Just click on the link below the spac ...
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Warning: Please do make sure there are no children viewing your computer or listening. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article15740.htm http://www.videos1.informationclearinghouse.info/video/flash/policewl1.swf [Video Embedded Here]   [End]
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Dear [insert Senator or Congressman’s name]: The Military Commissions Act overturns a number of legal protections previously provided by the Constitution, not just to foreigners but also to average American citizens. Unfortunately the Act also enables torture. It cancels rights assigned by the Geneva Conventions and protocols despite their protection of our own troops. The Act, which contravenes U.S. military justice laws, also nullifies sections of the War Crimes Act by not expressly criminalizing behaviors that constitute ”outrages upon personal dignity, particularly humiliating ...
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Will the Democrats Become Part of the Problem? by Paul Craig Roberts It only took six years for Americans to comprehend George Bush and the Republican Party and to realize that the Republicans were not leading America in any promising directions. Exit polls and interviews with voters across the country by CNN political analyst Bill Schneider show that the November 2006 election was a vote against both Bush and the war in Iraq. Schneider reports that voters did not even know the name of the Democrats for whom they voted. Voters said: ”I am going to vote Democrat, because I don’t li ...
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They Deserved to Lose by Jacob G. Hornberger Having lost control over the U.S. House of Representatives and possibly also the U.S. Senate, Republicans have no one to blame but themselves. They deserved to lose. For years, Republicans have used libertarian rhetoric in their political campaigns. “We favor freedom, free enterprise, limited government, and responsibility,” Republican candidates have so often proclaimed. “We’re opposed to big government,” they loved telling their constituents. Recall what Republicans used to tell people during the 1980s, when they controlled the W ...
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Bush’s Carnival of Blood By Mike Whitney 11/06/06 ”Information Clearing House” -- -- This is a dark day for Americans and Iraqis alike. Killing Saddam Hussein isn’t justice; it’s vengeance. Only Bush believes the two are the same. How are we supposed to feel now that we know that Saddam will be hanged for his crimes? Elated? Energized? Jubilant? Will it wash away the oceans of blood that Bush generated with his misguided and tragic war? The administration clings to the foolish notion that killing Saddam will somehow justify their unprovoked invasion and slaughter of 650,000 Iraqis ...
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From an article by Pastor David Wise on http://www.JonestownLegacy.com: There is an important historical incident that is overlooked for its true meaning in these trying times. Historically this incident was rated second in international news impact to the bombing of Pearl Harbor, until 9-11 bumped it to third. In November of 1978, almost a thousand Americans died in a somewhat coerced mass suicide in the South American country of Guyana. What was the coercion? They did not want to be tortured. We have been hearing a lot about torture in the news lately, but in Jonestown on that fatef ...
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The Supreme Court said that Bush’s rendition program, taking people to other countries to torture them is illegal. Bush had to pass laws making torture legal in order not to be impeached. These laws will be overturned, at least by the time he is gone. Bush is just a hired hand. I believe he would be in trouble if he did not do what others would have him to do. I pray for Bush. I do not believe in fighting an enemy but in working for what is right, I do not believe in us-them thinking. However, I too was denied habeas corpus and exposed to slight torture tactics to try to get me to say I ...
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(Headline above saying ”Suspension of the United States” is not the exact title used by Wikipedia, but seems to ring with a startling truth...freedom suspended in America! -- Zircon) ...HABEAS CORPUS is the name of a legal instrument or writ by means of which detainees can seek release from unlawful imprisonment. A writ of habeas corpus is a court order addressed to a prison official (or other custodian) ordering that a detainee be brought to the court so it can be determined whether or not that person is imprisoned lawfully and whether or not he or she should be released from custody. ...
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Wise words indeed.   [End]
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There has been a great deal of discussion about the Military Commissions Act of 2006 [.pdf], recently passed by both houses of Congress, and most of it has to do with the provisions allowing torture of alien detainees, that is, of non-citizens apprehended in, say, Afghanistan or Iraq, and their treatment at the hands of their American captors. Senators John McCain, Lindsey Graham, and John Warner, all Republicans, grandstanded for weeks over the torture provisions, then capitulated. Another ”Republican maverick,” Arlen Specter, zeroed in on the real issue, however, when he said the bill wo ...
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A Soul Defying, Tacit Approval Of Torture: How Did We Come To This? By Phil Rockstroh 10/04/06 ”Information Clearing House” -- - -For most of us, the price we would have to pay for confronting authority would be far too prohibitive; hence, we learn it is acceptable (as well as politically useful to our power mad leaders) to displace our anger and fear upon outsiders. Ergo, the so-called Clash of Civilizations is unloosed and slouches, by way of the Washington Beltway, to Iraq, Iran and beyond to be born. ”True sanity entails in one way or another the dissolution of the normal ego, ...
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Friday, September 29, 2006 Mark Steyn and Hugh Hewitt reveal the true impulses underlying yesterday’s vote At this point, the true depravity of Bush followers should surprise nobody. But still, there is somthing peculiarliy revealing and revolting about this disgusting, giggly little chat Mark Steyn and Hugh Hewitt. Their topic? The ”very enjoyable day trip to Gitmo” which Styen took What is there to say about things like this: HH: Well, the alleged enemy combatants lost their habeus corpus rights today, thanks to the steely indifference to liberty, as the Democrats would put it ...
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From (this week) in the New York Times (9-2006): ”The Senate today rejected an amendment to a bill creating a new system for interrogating and trying terror suspects that would have guaranteed such suspects access to the courts to challenge their imprisonment. The action set the stage for final passage of the bill, which was approved on Wednesday by the House of Representatives. The bill’s ultimate passage was assured on Wednesday when Democrats agreed to forgo a filibuster in return for consideration of the amendment.” (For what the bill really means, read Glenn Greenwald’s blog.) ...
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