Torture is something that one had not associated with the United States for the past forty or so years. Torture occurred in Vietnam if one is to accept the testimony given by Vietnam veterans. But since the seventies, America has been supposedly the beacon of human rights.

Since Abu Ghraib, that image no longer stands. American troops tortured prisoners repeatedly and regularly and in a number of documented cases, this led to the death of the prisoner. In many cases, the prisoner was not even guilty of a crime in any sense of the word. It has been a dark time for this country.

Just so that we don’t get yanked off track by strawmen arguments about defaming the troops, this is not about the troops. This is about the degradation of a nation that was once regarded as a voice of reason and a leader in the fight against the abuse of humans and their rights across the globe, to a country that incarcerated children and tortured juveniles. It is about the attempt to pervert what this country was purportedly about.

This story is the story of Donald Rumsfeld and many others in the Bush administration, who’s actions, deeds and words, led directly to the torture of young men and women in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other members of the Bush administration "conveyed the message that physical pressures and degradation were appropriate treatment for detainees," claims a Senate Armed Services Committee report issued Thursday.

According to the committee, prisoners were tortured in the Iraqi prison Abu Ghraib, the US prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and other US military installations. Senators Carl Levin (D-MI) and John McCain (R-AZ) were responsible for the content of the Senate's findings.

This article will illicit, I am sure, a response from the right. The very right that is alarmed by Barack Oabama’s past associations with people like Bill Ayers. People scared because they don’t know, or pretend not to know, who the real Obama is.

Where are their voices calling for Rumsfeld’s head? For Cheney to be indicted? For the responsible members of the Bush administration, who have brought shame onto this country to be held accountable? These are not tin-foil-hat ideas about affectations which may or may not have occurred decades ago. These are hard facts. These men and women in the Bush enclave, these supposed real American patriots, in fact not only dragged this country through the mud, but endangered it:

The report determined that placing the blame on "a few bad apples," as Bush administration officials attempted to do in the aftermath of the Abu Ghraib scandal, is inappropriate.….

The report finally claims that Rumsfeld's torture policies "damaged our ability to collect accurate intelligence that could save lives, strengthened the hand of our enemies and compromised our moral authority."

Where are you, you who are concerned that barrack Obama may be tainted by his former acquaintances, when you are faced with terrorism in your own party? Terrorism in the form of memos, meetings, nods and ultimately torture. Where are your cries of indignation?

But it’s remarkably still around them as far as these topics go.

Religion In Action

CNN reports that a sign criticizing religion that was installed next to a Nativity scene was stolen from the Legislative Building in Olympia, Washington, on Friday. It was later found in a ditch.

Amongst other things, the sign read:

"Religion is but myth and superstition that hardens hearts and enslaves minds,"

The sign, which was at the Legislative Building at 6:30 a.m. PT, was gone by 7:30 a.m., Gaylor said.

It took some religious wingnut 60 minutes to break the Eighth Commandment.

There's irony for you.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/LIVING/12/05/atheists.christmas/index.html?iref=mpstoryview

The Real America Arrives....

At the doors of the Supreme Court in order to pray that the Supreme Court would invalidate Obama's victory.

It's a tiny crowd. They're all wingbats. But they're the real thing.

I promise.

Reported By The Raw Story

Here Comes Newt

Or, where did the GOP go?


The future of the Republican Party is shaping up in the shadows of the calamitous MCain and Palin campaign. Even before barrack Obama has been inaugurated, the remaining forces in the GOP are vying for power and attempting to define direction. Unfortunately for us, and unfortunately for them, they’ve taken McCain’s defeat as not having been too much of a thing but too little.

Even as we speak, George Bush is crafting “a right of conscience rule” which would give anyone the right to refuse to participate in any procedure they find morally objectionable. The Hippocratic Oath would become a wishy-washy, worthless expression whilst doctors and nurses refuse to care for patients based on their own beliefs. Pharmacists, caretakers and even janitors could object to working or participating in any way in anything they personally might find objectionable even if they do not understand the facts or are not in a position to grasp the full meaning of a particular issue.

Sarah Palin is shifting to the right with her ramped up rhetoric that panders to the right wing, religious nutcases but that was almost to be expected.

But now here comes Gingrich. Newt Gingrich, that purported icon of forward thinking politicians. Newt has aligned himself with a new movement called The National Committee for Faith and Family. You all know where this is going right?

Gingrich, who almost certainly will run for the Presidency in 2012, appears in a trailer for a so-called documentary in which he says:

"There is no attack on American culture more destructive and more historically dishonest than the relentless effort to drive God out of America's public square,"

Oh really?

One of the movements main characters is David Barton who in the nineties, when Gingrich was trying to bankrupt the government in order to cripple the Clinton Presidency – remember – GOP before God and country, was allied with Christian Identity, a white supremacist group.

As Michelle Goldberg notes in The New Republic, visitors to Gingrich’s website are asked to sign a petition maligning the fact that there are too few references to God in the Capitol’s visitor centre.

This is where the GOP is headed and that is probably good, because with any luck, it’ll dig its own grave there.

Who'd a Thunk It?

Iran was deemed a nuclear threat after documents which were allegedly stolen from a laptop belonging to an Iranian nuclear physicist were handed over to the CIA.

Although the name 'curveball' had not yet faded from our memories, everyone lapped this information up as being de facto proof of the Iranian nuclear ambition.

Until...

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has obtained evidence suggesting that documents which have been described as technical studies for a secret Iranian nuclear weapons-related research program may have been fabricated.

As reported by The Raw Story.

Another 'doh' moment for the Bush Administration brought to you by the movement: "Obama For Change."

Congratulations America

You've risen from the ashes and proved once again that you are a great nation, a great people and a great country.

You've broken the shackles of the neocon machine and you've liberated yourselves from the most oppressive leadership this country has ever seen.

Time to clean up the mess left behind by eight years of Republican Presidency.

Thank you for electing Barack Hussein Obama to do the job.

He's an inspiration and the leader we all need right now.

What If Obama Wins?

Tomorrow's the day. At the end of it, this country will either have voted for at least another four years of Neocon rule, or taken the high road and placed a bet on a young, ingenious Senator. An African American Senator. That's important because there are several outcomes to this election depending on who wins.

If Mccain wins, middle class white America that is afraid of socialist ideals even though these are not upheld by Obama and even though the same white Americans don't know what socialism really means, will feel vindicated. The 'real America' will feel it has won and once again bludgeoned the evil black, muslim, communist snake to death.

The Democrats I think will be shocked and dissapointed. Many will be angry. Because leading up to this election everything points to an Obama victory, a clear victory and a defeat would again raise the spectre of voter fraud, ironically, the same spectre that McCain is wielding as he warns about ACORN. Black America will be insensed at having had this opportunity taken from them and who could blame them - so near and yet so far. But their anger will be tempered by the fact that McCain was not regarded as a specific threat to them. All this is fairly obvious.

What is not obvious is what will happen if Obama wins as anyone who has been following the media will expect him to. There will be of course a lot of rejoicing on the streets by anyone left of the Neocon machine. The Bush era will finally be over and we will be preparing the stage for what will be an historical presidency come what may. But the Neocons and their minions - their blind, uneducated ignorant followers who all shake in fear at the thought of 'their America' disolving into a new version of the Soviet Union, those impossibly dumb people who think that their taxes are going to be hiked even though they are in exactly the tax bracket that Obama intends to help - what of them? What of the incredibly obtuse white trash portion of the population who believe that a McCain, who would actually only pander to the super-rich, would be their candidate?

In several of the videos showing these supporters of the McCain/Palin ticket one can observe unveiled racism and unhidden declarations of a physical attack on Obama should he become President. In at least two of these videos, a man cocks his hand to mimic a pistol and pretends to fire it when asked what will happen if Obama is elected.

These people are nuts. They are dangerous as hell being both ignorant and angry. They are indicative of the shifting mood in the United States. They will be the ones to shift even more to the right when Obama is elected. They are Palin's future.

To understand this, one has to grasp the fact that the McCain campaign has turned into a fascist movement. I do not say this lightly but the facts support that statement. The central position of a fascist movement is to single out a group of people that are regarded as the enemy and are treated and referred to as an existential threat. This is the tool which the one side uses to fuse it's followers together. Single mindedly, with no individual thought, they attack their perceived enemies even before understanding them or wanting to understand them.

So a win by Obama will, in my opinion see a strong shift to the right by the right in this country. This won't change after they notice that, being a part of the middle class their lives get better and not worse under Obama. This will also not change when they notice the country becoming stronger under the new leader. Their point of view is set, their horizon fixed. Their hatred whipped up by a Palin rhetoric is potentially the most dangerous thing this country will have faced for decades. This will be compounded by an isolation of the Republican Senators who will increasingly look to a more extremist corner for support. All the evidence is there and I am concerned for the future of this country, not because Obama will not bring about a change for the better, but because the extreme religious right will destroy it rather than see their convictions go unfulfilled. Those convictions are that if a vaguely liberal minded person is elected president it will mean the end of America as we know it. Clinton and the Clinton years are forgotten. Only fear remains.

So it is with great urgency that I call upon those on the right who have a moral backbone, who have an understanding of the dynamics at play and understand the dangers of motivating large groups of intellectually challenged people using inflamatory rhetoric, to do everything in their power to stop radicalizing Barack Obama. Criticism of his ideas and plans is appropriate. Demonizing him into some sort of anti-christ is not. This should be obvious to McCain and vice presidential candidate Palin. An assasination of Obama is clearly possible and would plunge this country into chaos. It's in the hands of the right to do what they can NOW, to prevent such a disaster.

Barack Obama is no more a danger to the United States and for that matter Israel, than Bill Clinton was. Indeed, his election alone could transform this country. It could free it from the shackles of shame that slavery brought upon it. It could change the dynamic that has dictated hatred and racism, repression and prejudice on the United States for the past hundred years. It will do this even if it does not fulfill his promises. To that end, you too, those of you who don't wish to see him elected but who have the ability to understand the disaster that would ensure should he be brought down by an assassin, you too should do what you can to ensure that that at least does not happen. You should do your part to temper the extreme right.

You can do this by ceasing to spread hatred. You can do this by ceasing to spread fear. You can do this by accepting him as your new President.