[Peace-discuss] Re: the rule of law is dead
E. Wayne Johnson
ewj at pigs.ag
Thu Jul 9 11:49:16 CDT 2009
Where can one find this article of yours, John?
On 7/9/2009 10:48 AM, John W. wrote:
>
>
> On Thu, Jul 9, 2009 at 10:43 AM, LAURIE SOLOMON <LAURIE at advancenet.net
> <mailto:LAURIE at advancenet.net>> wrote:
>
> Did the rule of law ever actually exist or was it a delusion that
> was reinforced by mass hallucinations which we were taught in
> school to believe in and espouse? Have we not be an emulation of
> Voltaire’s Candid- optimistically believing that we live in the
> best of all possible world governed by the rule of law and not man.
>
> "Might makes right" is the rule of law, as anyone who reads my article
> on the subject comes to understand clearly. The public i has refused
> to print it, and I don't have the connections Carl has to well-known
> web-based political forums.
>
>
>
> > So this is (another) one of those cases where Obama is embracing
> a radical Bush theory of power rather than inventing one of his own.
>
> Did Obama ever really have a “theory of power” or even policies of
> HIS OWN as opposed to adopting or stealing others theories and
> policies which he then repackaged in the wrapping of his rhetoric
> and oratorical skills for resale to everyone? From the outset,
> Obama has only been true to one philosophy, one theory of power,
> and one policy – that of political opportunism, of sleight of
> hand, and of duplicitous hypocrisy. Of course, most practical
> politicians operate in the same way under the same premises where
> winning and staying in power are the goal and priority with law,
> morality, ethics, fairness and equality being secondary and
> defined by what it takes to win and stay in power.
>
> Maybe, it is time we recognize that all that has happened over the
> past 75 years is that we have shed the course cloak of fictitious
> literary idealism and ideological symbolism, replacing it with a
> more technological and sophisticated one, so as to reveal that we
> have become the very imperialistic and arrogant fascism that that
> we have always been since the start. Today’s U.S. has become a
> giant retailer promoting and selling all kinds of low quality,
> cheap, worthless, and useless goods and services at a profit to
> the established aristocratic owners, who hide behind the corporate
> structure of government and the façade of the alleged ultimate
> ownership by citizen shareholders operating under the guise of
> democratic rule by law.
>
> If we get any form of health care reform, it will be because the
> establishment corporate elite want it and will take the form that
> they will accept – general public be damned. If we get any relief
> from engagements in war making or the support of such activities,
> it will be because this same elite see it in their interests and
> not because of anything that the general public does or says. If
> we get economic stability and reform, it will be because this
> elite find it desirable and profitable to obtain it – and not
> because it helps the general public or is good for the country.
> But we all know and acknowledge these facts, then we turn a blind
> eye and start spewing out all the old symbolic clichés about
> democracy, civil rights, opportunities of the ordinary citizen,
> freedom, equality, public welfare, national security, free
> enterprise, progress, etc.
>
> *From:* peace-discuss-bounces at lists.chambana.net
> <mailto:peace-discuss-bounces at lists.chambana.net>
> [mailto:peace-discuss-bounces at lists.chambana.net
> <mailto:peace-discuss-bounces at lists.chambana.net>] *On Behalf Of
> *Ricky Baldwin
> *Sent:* Thursday, July 09, 2009 9:04 AM
> *To:* astridjb at comcast.net <mailto:astridjb at comcast.net>
> *Cc:* peace discuss
> *Subject:* [Peace-discuss] Re: the rule of law is dead
>
> The stuff of nightmares.
>
> Ricky
>
> "Speak your mind even if your voice shakes." - Maggie Kuhn
>
> --- On *Wed, 7/8/09, Astrid Berkson /<astridjb at comcast.net
> <mailto:astridjb at comcast.net>>/* wrote:
>
>
> From: Astrid Berkson <astridjb at comcast.net
> <mailto:astridjb at comcast.net>>
> Subject: the rule of law is dead
> To: "lp53forum at lpths.org <mailto:lp53forum at lpths.org>"
> <lp53forum at lpths.org <mailto:lp53forum at lpths.org>>
> Date: Wednesday, July 8, 2009, 8:39 PM
>
>
> Glenn Greenwald <http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/>
>
> Wednesday July 8, 2009 08:09 EDT
>
>
> The Obama justice system
>
> Spencer Ackerman yesterday attended a Senate hearing at which
> the DOD's General Counsel, Jeh Johnson, testified. As Ackerman
> highlighted
> <http://washingtonindependent.com/49886/johnson-opens-the-door-to-post-acquittal-detentions>,
> Johnson actually said that even for those detainees to whom the
> Obama administration deigns to give a real trial in a real court,
> the President has the power *to continue to imprison them
> indefinitely even if they are acquitted at their trial.* About
> this assertion of "presidential post-acquittal detention power" --
> an Orwellian term (and a Kafka-esque concept) that should send
> shivers down the spine of anyone who cares at all about the most
> basic liberties -- Ackerman wrote, with some understatement, that
> it "moved the Obama administration into new territory from a civil
> liberties perspective." Law professor Jonathan Turley was more
> blunt
> <http://jonathanturley.org/2009/07/08/12598/#more-12598>: "The
> Obama Administration continues its retention and expansion of
> abusive Bush policies — now clearly Obama policies on indefinite
> detention."
>
> In June, Robert Gibbs was repeatedly asked by /ABC News/' Jake
> Tapper whether accused Terrorists who were given a trial and *were
> acquitted* would be released as a result of the acquittal,
> but Gibbs -- amazingly -- refused to make that commitment
> <http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2009/06/white-house-refusal-to-answer-question-on-terrorist-prompts-senate-skirmish.html>.
> But this is the first time an Obama official has affirmatively
> stated that they have the "post-acquittal detention" power (and,
> to my knowledge, the Bush administration never claimed the power
> to detain someone even if they were acquitted).
>
> All of this underscores what has clearly emerged as the core
> "principle" of Obama justice when it comes to accused Terrorists
> -- namely, "due process" is pure window dressing with only one
> goal: to ensure that anyone the President wants to keep
> imprisoned will remain in prison. They'll create various
> procedures to prettify the process, but the outcome is always the
> same -- ongoing detention for as long as the President dictates.
> This is how I described it
> <http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/05/22/preventive_detention/>
> when Obama first unveiled his proposal of preventive detention:
>
> 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).
>
> After yesterday, we have to add an even more extreme prong to this
> policy: if by chance we miscalculate and deign to give a trial to
> a detainee who is then acquitted, *we'll still just keep them in
> prison anyway by presidential decree*. That added step renders my
> criticism of Obama's conception of "justice" even more applicable:
>
> 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.
>
> In today's /Wall St. Journal/
> <http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124699680303307309.html>, which
> also reported that "the Obama administration said Tuesday it could
> continue to imprison non-U.S. citizens indefinitely even if they
> have been acquitted of terrorism charges," Rep. Jerry Nadler was
> quoted as saying something quite similar about the Obama approach:
>
> "What bothers me is that they seem to be saying, 'Some people
> we have good enough evidence against, so we'll give them a
> fair trial. Some people the evidence is not so good, so we'll
> give them a less fair trial. *We'll give them just enough due
> process to ensure a conviction because we know they're guilty.
> That's not a fair trial, that's a show trial,"* Mr. Nadler said.
>
> Exactly. Show trials are exactly what the Obama administration is
> planning. In its own twisted way, the Bush approach was actually
> more honest and transparent: they made no secret of their belief
> that the President could imprison anyone he wanted without any
> process at all. That's clearly the Obama view as well, but he's
> creating an elaborate, multi-layered, and purely discretionary
> "justice system" that accomplishes exactly the same thing while
> creating the false appearance that there is due process being
> accorded. And for those who -- to justify what Obama is doing --
> make the not unreasonable point that Bush left Obama with a
> difficult quandary at Guantanamo, how will that excuse apply when
> these new detention powers are applied not only to existing
> Guantanamo detainees but to future (i.e.,
> not-yet-abducted) detainees as well
> <http://politics.theatlantic.com/2009/07/i_want_to_draw_attention.php>?
>
> Whatever else is true, even talking about imprisoning people based
> on accusations of which *they have been exonerated* is a truly
> grotesque perversion of everything that our justice system and
> Constitution are supposed to guarantee. That's one of those
> propositions that ought to be too self-evident to need stating.
>
> * * * * *
>
> Several related points: Spencer also notes
> <http://washingtonindependent.com/49958/guantanamo-open-after-january-2010>
> that Johnson testified yesterday about the possibility that
> Guantanamo might remain open beyond January, 2010 -- the date
> Obama, to much fanfare, established as the deadline for closing
> that prison. That decision is one of the very few to which Obama
> defenders can cling in order to claim there are significant
> differences between his approach to these issues and the
> Bush/Cheney approach.
>
> Meanwhile, former Guantanamo detainee Binyam Mohamed is engaged in
> what /The Guardian/ calls
> <http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jul/05/binyam-mohamed-guantanamo-evidence-photographs>
> "an urgent legal attempt to prevent the US courts from destroying
> crucial evidence that he says proves he was abused while being
> held at the detention camp detainee." The photographs -- which
> show Mohamed after he had been severely beaten and which he claims
> was posted on the door to his cage "because he had been beaten so
> badly that it was difficult for the guards to identify him" -- is
> scheduled to be destroyed by the U.S. Government, an act
> /The Washington Independent/'s Alexandra Jaffe calls
> <http://washingtonindependent.com/49932/alleged-torture-photos-slated-for-destruction> "another
> black mark on the Obama administration’s promised transparency."
>
> Finally, I was on an NPR station yesterday in Seattle to discuss
> NPR's ban on the use of the word "torture" to describe Bush
> administration interrogation tactics. I originally understood
> that I would be on with NPR Ombudsman Alicia Shepard, but alas, it
> turns out that she agreed only to be on the show *before* me, so
> as not to engage or otherwise interact with me, so I was forced to
> listen to her for 15 minutes and wait until she hung up before
> being able to speak. The segment can be heard here
> <http://www.kuow.org/program.php?id=17910>, beginning at the 14:00
> mark (though the quality of the recording is poor in places).
>
> The most noteworthy point was her explicit statement (at 17:50)
> that "the role of a news organization is to lay out the debate";
> rarely is the stenographic model of "journalism" -- "we just
> repeat what each side says and leave it at that" -- so expressly
> advocated (and see Jon Stewart's perfect mockery
> <http://mglo.posterous.com/re-balance-in-the-press-glenn-greenwald-salon>
> of that view). She also said -- when the host asked about the
> recent example I cited
> <http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=106233270>
> of NPR's calling what was done to a reporter in Gambia "torture"
> (at the 20:20 mark) -- that NPR will use the word "torture" to
> describe what *other* governments do because *they* do it merely
> to sadistically inflict pain on people while the U.S. did it for a
> noble reason: to obtain information about Terrorist attacks.
> That's really what she said: that when the U.S. did it (as
> opposed to Evil countries), it was for a good reason. Leaving
> aside the factual falsity of her claim
> <http://www.mcclatchydc.com/227/story/66622.html> about American
> motives, Shepard actually thinks that "torture" is determined by
> the motive with which the suffering is inflicted. The connection
> between the Government's ability to get away with these things and
> the media's warped view of its role really cannot be overstated.
>
> *_UPDATE_*: The ACLU's Ben Wizner emails to correct one point I
> made: the Bush administration, like Obama is doing now, *did*
> claim the power of post-acquittal detentions. Ben writes:
>
> Glenn – You’re right that this is disgraceful, but not that
> it’s new. The Bush gang claimed the same authority in
> connection with Gitmo military commissions, which is why,
> paradoxically, the only way to get out of Gitmo if you were
> charged in a military commission was to plead guilty and
> strike a deal that included repatriation (as David Hicks did).
>
> This is from an /LA Times/ op-ed I wrote
> <http://articles.latimes.com/2007/apr/05/opinion/oe-wizner5>
> in 4/07:
>
> Last Friday night, after a jury of senior military
> officers sentenced Hicks to seven years in prison, we all
> learned the details of that agreement: Hicks will serve a
> mere nine months -- a sentence more in keeping with a
> misdemeanor than with a grave terrorist offense.
>
> This stunning turn of events highlights a cruelly ironic
> feature of detention at Guantanamo. In an ordinary justice
> system, the accused must be acquitted to be released. *In
> Guantanamo, the accused must plead guilty to be released
> -- because even if he is acquitted, he remains an "enemy
> combatant" subject to indefinite detention.* Only by
> striking a deal does a detainee stand a chance of getting out.
>
> So this is (another) one of those cases where Obama is embracing a
> radical Bush theory of power rather than inventing one of his own.
>
>
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