Civil Rights

It's quite a pleasure to spend a morning sitting in Charlottesville, Va., where all the bookstores display thrillers by local boy John Grisham, and read a thriller as good or better than any of Grisham's and written by one of us -- a blogger who supports what is now a strictly leftwing concept: the rule of law.

"Inside Out" by Barry Eisler is written, as are Grisham's novels, like a movie, complete with gratuitous sex interest and predictable plot twists. The illumination it shines on the nature of torture and the politics of torture could be removed. The political analysis of the last 50 pages could be deleted. And 90 percent of the book could be turned into a mindless Hollywood thriller.

Want to end killing by militaries or resisters or terrorists or robbers or angry spouses or disgruntled former employees and former home owners?

Want to use something other than killing people to solve our problems?

Then we have to join the civilized world, which has ceased to publicly teach that killing is good by doing it through government (except when aiding in our wars).

Support VAPD.  I just gave them $5.  Can you?

By David Swanson

Over the past half century we've made tremendous progress while sliding backwards quite destructively. The progress has come in our domestic relations. We do unbelievably better (not perfectly by any means, but radically better than 50 years ago) at treating people decently even if they aren't white, male, Protestant, educated, handsome, or even heterosexual (there's still particularly room for improvement on that last one). This progress has drastically improved the lives of millions.

By David Swanson

Much of this country believes that ACORN, the now defunct Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, supported prostitution, engaged in voter fraud, and caused the subprime lending crisis. Some people are aware that these lies have been more solidly disproven than Saddam Hussein's friendship with Al Qaeda. The Government Accountability Office has now joined a former Massachusetts attorney general, a federal court ruling, and the Congressional Research Service in finding no wrongdoing by ACORN. But I suspect that only a very tiny percentage of Americans has any idea what ACORN was or why we need it.

Here's the mp3 from WVTF.

By David Swanson

I'm at the American Humanists Assoc. conference in San Jose at which Annie Laurie Gaylor is recounting how her Freedom from Religion Foundation won a court order requiring the president to end the National Day of Prayer.

I'm here to speak about peace and humanism. We'll see how it goes. Apparently peace is a majority but not universal value among "humanists".

Gaylor is here to receive an award as a Humanist Heroine, which I think is well deserved.

For the past year and a half we've watched the White House announce the end of torture and immunity for torturers, two policies that appear incompatible and have proven to be so.  We've seen the White House claim the right to torture, and seen that greeted with silence and an averted gaze by those pretending torture is over.  We've seen report after report of ongoing torture greeted with silence from the same pretenders, among whom we must include Congress.  And we've seen civil liberties and human rights groups that refused to support the impeachment of Bush advocate for prosecutions for a while, but continue to back the wars that create the torture.  The ACLU is supporting the repeal of Don't Ask Don't Tell despite its combination with a w

By David Swanson, FreeSpeechForPeople.org

The US House of Representatives may soon have the opportunity to vote on whether to move forward with a constitutional amendment to ensure that we the people, not we the corporations, control our elections.

Yesterday, Congresswoman Donna Edwards introduced a proposed amendment to the DISCLOSE Act (HR 5175), a bill that would require disclosure by corporations engaged in making political expenditures as a result of the US Supreme Court's recent ruling in Citizens United v. FEC. The Edwards language to be added to this bill would make clear that if the Supreme Court strikes down the disclosure law,

By David Swanson

Franz Kafka's book "The Trial" begins "Someone must have been telling lies about Joseph K., for without having done anything wrong he was arrested one fine morning." There follow many thousands of words describing the ordeal of someone denied the right to know the charges against him, to face his accusers, to be given a fair and speedy trial by a jury of his peers, and so forth. We have read thousands of stories of such "Kafkan" experiences since the advent of the Global War of Terror. But we need a different kind of story now.

By David Swanson

Thoughts on Anwar al-Awlaki:

Is he the top mastermind in Al Qaeda? Well, so was Abu Zubayda, huh? Given the US goverment's record on these claims, wouldn't a TRIAL be smart?

The United States is not at war with Yemen or -- I hope -- the world. It can request extradition, and takes steps to make it more likely, including beginning to treat accused and convicted criminals humanely.

The DNI decreeing that it shall be legal to assassinate Americans abroad does not actually make it legal. In fact it's just as illegal to assassinate non-Americans.

Were al-Awlaki to seek safety within the United States, the DNI would decree it legal to kill him here.

If the top mastermind is in Yemen, what the hell are we doing building a quagmire in Afghanistan?

By David Swanson

Here in Virginia where we're addicted to the practice of killing people in order to teach them not to kill people, there are certain things that must not be said about the moron(s) who cut a gas line to a backyard grill at the home of the brother of a congressman who voted for a health insurance bill.

By David Swanson

Sunshine Week, according to its website, is "a national initiative to open a dialogue about the importance of open government and freedom of information. Participants include print, broadcast and online news media, civic groups, libraries, nonprofits, schools and others interested in the public's right to know."

The University of Virginia here in Charlottesville is doing its part by hosting book tour stops for the chief author of the worst secret laws ever established. John Yoo will be speaking at the Miller Center and at an event hosted by the Federalist Society. Yoo will be speaking in support of unlimited presidential power, including the power to create secret laws.

By David Swanson

David Cole of Georgetown University and formerly of the Center for Constitutional Rights has been doing some good writing, not only on our failure to enforce laws against powerful people, but also on our out-of-control epidemic of incarceration which has struck those too unimportant to gain immunity.

By David Swanson

Maryland's state senate has scheduled a hearing on a single-payer healthcare bill for March 10th. California's legislature has passed a single-payer bill three times. Single-payer healthcare bills are advancing in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Minnesota, Massachusetts, and New Mexico. I recently wrote about two state legislator candidates, Marcus Brandon in North Carolina and Byron DeLear in Missouri, who plan to introduce state single-payer bills immediately upon being elected.

Now, let me tell you about Colorado. Mark Mehringer is a candidate for the Colorado State House from District 7 (Denver). His website at http://votemark2010.com has an issues page and a video on the home page that both put a Medicare-for-All healthcare solution at the top of his agenda.

Ongoing here.

Listen here.

Kucinich Right, Greenwald Wrong
By David Swanson

On Democracy Now! on Tuesday, Congressman Dennis Kucinich said he was working on a Constitutional Amendment to address both "Citizen's United" and "Buckley v. Valejo," meaning the Supreme Court decisions giving corporations outrageous and destructive powers of "free speech" and defining the spending of money as "speech."

Listen here.