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 read more

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?

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.

The read more

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 read more

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 read more

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 read more