Sunday, February 28, 2010

Sunday Sermons Pat Robertson "God Hates Chile For Persecuting Pinochet" & Maddow In Tin Foil Hat "LOGOGATE" & America's "Good Terrorists" in Iran

First a discussion of Pat Robertson's verdict on the earthquake in Chile which he says was in response to the persecution of the former dictator of Chile General Pinochet. It doesn't bother Pat Robertson in the least that Pinochet rounded up and killed thousands of non-combatants in the first two weeks of the 1973 coup. It doesn't matter to Pat or other conservatives that those arrested, tortured, disappeared or killed for the most part were unarmed . The Coup was engineered by the American government in league with various American owned businesses in Chile. Heaven forbid they pay workers a fair wage or that they be made to pay taxes and royalties etc. to the Government of Chile rather than just bribe Chilean officials in order to operate without any regulations at all. But this is what America is all about stealing other nations natural resources and being supplied with cheap labor to increase the profits of corporations and increase dividends paid out to their share-holders. It is always profits before human rights since according to Pat and Glenn Beck etc. only Americans have been blessed by God with their inalienable rights the rest of humankind is shit out of luck.

Robertson: “God Even Angrier with Chile than Haiti" at The Desperate Blogger.com , Feb. 27, 2010

Citing what he described as the “the persecution of a great hero who rid their land of Godless communists” as a possible cause, prominent TV evangelist and amateur seismologist Pat Robertson today argued that the 8.8 magnitude of the earthquake that struck Chile early this morning should serve as a warning to the population that “God is even angrier with them than he is with the people of Haiti.”

“If I had to guess, I’d say it must have to do with Chile’s persecution and attempted prosecution of their great former leader, and a personal hero of mine, Augusto Pinochet – who, it should be noted, had never been convicted of a crime when the Lord called him home three years ago.” The popular host of ‘The 700 Club’ and longtime bingo circuit icon also added, “General Pinochet not only assisted the CIA in the overthrow of Chile’s Marxist government, but is widely credited with personally arranging the meetings of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of his countrymen with Jesus.”

General Pinochet, who spent the last eight years of his life fighting prosecution on human rights and other charges before succumbing to congestive heart failure in December 2006, could not be reached for comment, even by Robertson. The General–turned-Dictator has long been considered a transformative figure in the field of Crimes Against Humanity as a result of his landmark policy of ‘Forced Disappearance’, and was even honored in 1998 with the first-ever arrest warrant for a former head of state under the principle of ‘universal jurisdiction’ by Spanish Judge Baltasar Garzon, who is currently investigating former Bush Administration officials for War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity.

For his part, Robertson, who reportedly lobbied then-President George W. Bush on behalf of former Liberian Dictator and accused Human Rights criminal Charles Taylor in exchange for lucrative gold mining contracts, says that he is “praying that the people of Chile will heed this warning, and never again blaspheme against God and international free-market commerce by nationalizing their most precious natural resources.”



Rachel Maddow in a Tin Hat (Must See) Debunks Faux Obama/Missile Defense "Logogate" Scandal

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy




Maddow On Trent Franks Claim that Black Americans were better off Under Slavery

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy



and Roger Fallihee in a satirical article argues God is punishing Chile because Obam met with atheist and agnostics on that very day-OMG?

God Triggers Quake As Obama Officials Meet With Atheists by Roger Fallihee atThe World According to Roger, Feb. 27, 2010

Members of the Obama administration held a White House meeting with representatives of the Secular Coalition for America, triggering a swift and angry reaction from God (the real, Jesus one, not Allah or James Cameron).

God, already pissed at President Obama because he's a Marxist Muslim, hit Chile with a massive 8.8 magnitude earthquake in retaliation for the ill-advised gathering. God didn't directly explain (so when does He?) why the Catholic residents of Chile were punished for Obama's transgressions but the most likely explanation is revealed with the decoding of the acronym, C.H.I.L.E. Communist Health care Ideology Liberal Extreme

God simply doesn't want the Communist Barack Obama's health care reform and other socialist ideas and liberal, extreme policies to be enacted.

How much more proof do you libtard sheeple need?

The only way to reverse the wrath of God is to impeach the liberal, Godless Democrats and replace them with real Americans like Sarah Palin.

Sarah Palin - 2012.

"She's (White) One Of Us and She Worships the Real God"


Mike Lux in a recent article at Huffington Post is surprised by how popular Ayn Rand is now among US Conservatives . He is surprised because Rand was an elitist and anti-Democracy and was dismissive of all religious beliefs. But she does fit in with Glenn Beck's recent statements that the founding fathers were believers in individualism and not such bogus notions as community. This is odd because Beck is always waxing nostalgic about traditional family values and the values of traditional small town America. So Beck and other conservatives are against giving aid to the poor the lame, the sick the disenfranchised and believes the wealthy should keep all their wealth no matter how they got it even if in doing so they acted immorally or unethically since the non-wealthy have no right to judge the wealthy. Their Jesus worships materialism, wealth , power and money and would prefer a Christian quasi fascist group such as "The Family" as opposed to some liberal wishy-washy Christian Church that preaches love and tolerance and acceptance which according to Beck & Pat Robertson etc. they know Jesus is against.
Like the Tiban or other Islamic extremist who use the Qur'an to support their bizarre belief and ideology the Evangelical Christians & the Conservative Movement misuse the Bible to defend rapacious unfettered 19th century style capitalism and a fierce belief in self-reliance by which one can conclude that each of us is on our own and no one should be helped by the government or the community or anyone else. Their view of the world is that life is nasty, brutish and short and that's the way it is. Do all Christians believe this or just some ?


"The Philosophy of Me (First and Only)" by Mike Lux at Huffington Post Feb. 26

The other reason that I discounted her was, well -- how do I put this diplomatically? She was such a freak. Her twisted novels extolling selfishness and cruelty -- apparently based in part on her admiration of a kidnapper and murderer who dismembered his twelve-year-old victim and threw her head and torso at the girl's father as he sped away in a car -- are so twisted and nasty that I had trouble believing she really merited note in a discussion of influential conservatives.

But the victory of libertarian Ayn Rand disciple Ron Paul at the CPAC straw poll, the strong influences of her thinking on such CPAC heroes as Michele Bachmann and Glenn Beck, and the increasingly strident me-first-and-only-me rhetoric of a Republican party utterly captured by Tea Partiers have made me realize just how big Rand's influence is. Rand's philosophical magnum opus was a book she entitled "The Virtue of Selfishness." In it she argues not only that selfishness is moral and good, but that altruism, charity, and even kindness are evils - a "moral cannibalism" is what she called it. Like Glenn Beck, who glorified (to the laughter and cheers of the CPAC audience) the "lion eating the weak," people who are poor or weakened or in trouble for any reason are just parasites, nothing more.

Rand went even further, writing that people who place even their families and friends above their own work and desires are immoral. Rand and Beck's philosophy that selfishness is the ultimate virtue, and that any kindness or generosity or compassion toward others - even your own family and friends -- is so the opposite of what all the world's great religions and moral traditions teach us that you would think Bible toting conservatives would run from these beliefs. You'd think that the contradictions would be too great, and there are certainly rifts at times between the true libertarians and the Christian conservatives. But for political reasons conservatives try hard to keep a combination of these two philosophical strains in place at the same time, a sort of hybrid conservative that scours the Bible for quotes that can be somehow interpreted as pro-free market and against taxing the rich. My personal favorites in this genre include a Christian Coalition issues guide which argues against labor unions by quoting a verse about how slaves should obey their masters, and a guy named David Barton who argues that the Parable of the Talents (which some Bible readers might have thought was an analogy about spiritual matters) means that there should be no Capital Gains tax.


It appears that the Bush Regime and the Obama regime believe there are "Good Terrorists" those on America's side and there are bad terrorists or America's enemies. So the United States is fuding and arming and training the "Good Terrorists " in Iran who attack people who support the current Iranian Regime. Even if that means murdering, or disappearing & torturing non-combatants such as lawyers, social workers, professors etc. who defend the current Regime or who are critical of the United States.

Ray McGovern,"Iran Captures a "Good" Terrorist" by Ray McGovern at Truthout, Feb. 27

The Iranian government is celebrating the capture of Abdolmalek Rigi, the leader of a violent group called Jundallah (Arabic for Soldiers of God), which Tehran says is a terrorist organization supported by the United States, Great Britain and Israel.

Jundallah is one of several groups that have been conducting bombings and other violent attacks against Iran’s Islamic regime with the aim of knocking it off balance.

In a July 7, 2008, article for The New Yorker magazine, investigative journalist Seymour Hersh quoted Robert Baer, a former CIA clandestine officer who worked in South Asia and the Middle East for nearly two decades, as saying that Jundallah was one of the militant groups in Iran benefiting from U.S. support.


Harvard Professor (Martin Kramer) Shocking Proposal: Starve the Palestinians in Gaza into Having Fewer Babies via AlterNet.org, Feb. 26, 2010

At a recent conference, Prof. Martin Kramer called for population growth in the Muslim world to be restrained and made a series of other outrageous claims.
February 26, 2010 |


Martin Kramer revealed his true colors at the Herzliya Conference, wherein he blamed political violence in the Muslim world on population growth, called for that growth to be restrained, and praised the illegal and unconscionable Israeli blockade of civilian Gazans for its effect on reducing the number of Gazans.

It is shocking that Kramer, who has made a decade-long career of attacking social science understanding of the Middle East and demonizing anyone who departs even slightly from his rightwing Israeli-nationalist political line, should be given a cushy office at Harvard as a 'fellow' while spewing the most vile justifications for war crimes like the collective punishment of Gazan children.

Kramer is after all not nobody. He was an adviser to the Giuliani presidential campaign. He is listed as an associate of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, the influential think tank in Washington of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. He is associated with Daniel Pipe's 'Middle East Forum,' a neo-McCarthyite organization dedicated to harassing American academics who do not toe the political line of Israel's ruling Likud Party.


and so it goes,
GORD.

Friday, February 26, 2010

More Leo Strauss American Manifest Destiny or Divine Providence

UPDATE: 9:58 PM Feb. 26

Michael Morgan in his book Lost History quotes from what is considered Muhammad's "last sermon,... Muhammad... sets out some visionary and progressive concepts with which men will struggle for a thousand years to come, such as the following on racial and ethnic equality:

All mankind is from Adam and Eve, an Arab has no superiority over a non-Arab nor a non-Arab has any superiority over an Arab; also a white has no superiority over a black, nor a black has any superiority over a white-except by piety and good action.


And Abu Bakr the first Caliph of Islam is quoted as saying in his first speech to the Ummah:

O Men! I have been assigned the job of being a ruler over you while I am not the best among you. If I do well in my job,help me. If I do wrong ,redress me. Truthfulness is fidelity, and lying is treason. The weak shall be strong in my eyes until I restore to them their lost rights, and the strong shall be weak in my eye until I have restored the rights of the weak from them.

Abu Bakr first Caliph of Islam -Found in Lost History by Michael Hamilton Morgan ,p. 12 pub. 2007.

In this video Scholar Anne Norton presents a basic outline of the political philosophy of the father of the Neocons Leo Strauss. According to Strauss the masses ordinary people are ill-equipped and unable to rule themselves and so should be ruled by an elite. In order for the elite to rule the masses they must create various myths about the nation to give it a cohesiveness. So for instance America is characterized as having a special destiny / Manifest Destiny and that America is God's chosen nation. So American expansionism is either a result of natural selection and evolution or a matter of divine providence. Neoconservatives will use religion to give a foundation to these myths if necessary even though the Neoconservatives like Leo Strauss are not religious . Religion is used by Neocons to better or to easier control the nation. So whatever America does is a result of natural forces or divine providence and therefore beyond reproach.

Leo Strauss and the Politics of the American Empire 2007

Anne Norton ,born in 1954, is an American professor of political science and comparative literature. She currently holds a chair in political science at the University of Pennsylvania.

Norton's central intellectual interest has been the meaning and consequences of political identity. In the video, Norton defines the nonconservative political identity.




Some scary stuff a belief in an elite which by birthright are entitled to their wealth & their authority
The leader decides as Bush said he was the decider
There is a need for a persistent enemy which has a secret agenda.
They borrow the language of Anti-Semitism.
It is not just that there are Muslim extremists but rather the religion of Islam preaches world dominance /hegemony
-odd it is the Neocons who want a New World Order
In the Mass media or at least on Fox the idea of being anything but a Christian isn't just unfortunate(ie To be Reborn) but that the religion is the very opposite to Christianity-they claim that the holy book the Qur'an preaches war and hate of all non-muslims .
Islamophobes such as Pam Geller; Atlas Shrugs -a follower of uberconservative Ayn Rand & Robert Spencer of Jihad Watch(Neocon)they go further in making stupid racist hate filled little jokes and tirades attacking the prophet Muhammad calling him a deceiver a liar a sex-addict a pedophile and a murderer and butcher -
They further pass off as common knowledge that there has never been any advances made in science or mathematics that Islam encourages backwardness
-Islam did have its golden Ages poetry, philosophy ,architecture, algebra etc.

Robert Spencer's Islamophobic Propaganda at Fox News
Spencer & his friends at Fox promulgate lies about Islam
According to Robert Spencer & others of his ilk make the erroneous claim that Islam invented Anti-Semitism.
They erroneously claim that Christianity and Judaism are religions of peace and have never committed acts of violence.
For instance as has been discussed in this blog numerous times history shows that Anti-Semitism has been part of Christian doctrine from the time of Jesus til the present.

So the massacres and slaughter and pogroms against the Jews by Christians is ignored.
Anti-Semitism was not a part of Islam until the 19th century. Jews in Islamic dominated countries were overall treated better than they were in Christendom.
Hitler's anti-Semitism is rooted in historical Christian anti-Semitism.
The infamous forgery "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion" was created by the secret police of Russia in 1905 to connect the Jews with the revolutionaries and reformers in Russia.
Spencer and others also act as apologist for Christianity and in particular make excuses for the bloody Crusades which they believe were a response to attacks on Christendom by Islamic armies. But in fact it is the Christians who are primarily responsible for the Crusades. Now don't get me wrong Islam like Christianity and other religions has been less than peaceful or peace loving at times. It, religion that is, has been used as an excuse or rationalization for various acts of violence over the last 2,000 years.

This merely shows that human beings are universally violent by nature and will use religion or racism or ideology to wage war to oppress their fellow man.
Whether or not Robert Spencer wants to accept it or not Christians have besides killing Jews have also killed other Christians in Holy Wars whom they label as Heretics besides the mass murdering of the peoples of the Americas for instance.
Christians have also conquered and oppressed other nations & peoples.




And for instance from right-wing extremist Pam Geller at her blog Atlas Shrugs is upset that Obama would host a meeting with secularists, agnostics & atheists. She promotes the erroneous notion that president Obama is either a secret Muslim or at least promotes Islam and not Christianity or Judaism. She & her minions erroneously believe that any criticisms of Israeli policies is by definition anti-Israel and anti-Semitism.According to her view if Israel dropped a couple of Nuclear war heads on Gaza killing a million citizens or so that is Israel's God Given Right . Similarly she & other Neoconservatives & fellow travelers believe the United States of America has the right to wipe out whole cities or kill a half-a million or more as the USA has done in Iraq because the USA is God's chosen nation & whatever it does it is by definition sanctioned by God. Odd in a way that a devotee of atheist Ayn Rand would be so concerned about these religious issues . But Ayn Rand also believed as do the Neocons that religion could be used to control and motivate the citizens of America even if they themselves in private are dismissive of religious beliefs.
Pam Geller doesn't bother to mention that President Obama took part recently in the annual Christian Prayer breakfast hosted by Christian supremacist Doug Coe & the infamous "The Family " aka "The Fellowship".

Now besides accusing Obama of being anti-Semitic and anti-Christian she like Glenn Beck adds that Obama is a secret Communists who intends on redistributing the wealth and making America into a collectivist state ala Stalin & Mao Tse Tung. There is no evidence of course of any of this.

What Obama had supposedly wanted to do was to reform the medical system in America so that everyone would have equal access to medical care. This infuriates conservatives since they believe that Medical care is available by means of the free market place and if you can't afford it you are left to suffer and die but at least you would die a free person in a free country.

In the same way they believe if you are unemployed or underemployed or part of the working poor or disabled or whatever then society owes you nothing and if you starve that is God's will or a matter of Natural Selection. Geller also ignores the fact that Israel itself has more far reaching social programs available to all Israelis than the USA has for its people. But even though the Catholic Church since at least 350 AD aprox. continued to promulgate the most vicious and libelous forms of Anti-Semitism up until the last decade or so when the Pope finally gave a begrudging half -assed apology for encouraging anti-Semitism.

One of the main reasons the Spanish Inquisition was set up after the Reconquista of Spain by the Christians was to root out Jews who had converted to Christianity who were suspected of still being practicing Jews.The Jews had been told to convert or leave Spain which had been their home for over three centuries. The Spanish Muslims of Andalusia were simply told they had a month or so to pack their things and leave or be killed or sold into slavery. For some unknown reason Pam Geller & her Islamophobic Christian apologists ignore this history or claim that it is not real history but part of Islamic Propaganda.

The first mass killings of the First Crusade and later Crusade was the massacre of tens of thousands of European Jews. When the Crusaders reached Jerusalem they murdered all the Muslims and Jews and most of the Christians living in Jerusalem and in other parts of the Holy Land.

"Islamic Supremacist Obama Hosts Catholic Bashers " By Pam Geller & Catholic League president Bill Donohue (a professional Catholic Apologist who defends pedophile Catholic Priest and the massive wealth of the Catholic Church and its 1600 years or so War against the Jews) at Atlas Shrugs:

It is Obama's intent to "radically transform." He promised us this. What is becoming increasingly clear is that apart from the move to socialism and collectivism, government control over free market forces and free men, he also intends to transform the culture from a Judeo-Christian ethic to an Islamo-Christian one (though I have yet to see an Christian population thrive in any Islamic culture -- ask the Copts.)

We have watch(ed) Obama beg, grovel, bow and pay untold jiyza to the ummah (global Muslim community.) We have witnessed his antisemitism firsthand in his contempt and harmful policies towards the Jewish homeland. Now this.

Would the muhammadan president ever host Islam bashers? He appoints jihadists to the highest positions in his administration.


Recommended Reading and see Bibliography page above.

ON Islam & Judaism see for instance
;
* Armstrong, Karen : A History of God: pub. 1998
* Armstrong, Karen : In the beginning , pub. 1996
* Armstrong, Karen : Muhammad, Islam , a short history , pub. 2000 & 1988
* Armstrong, Karen: Holy War: The Crusades and Their Impact on Today's World , pub. 2001
* Armstrong, Karen: The Battle For God, pub. 2001
* Armstrong, Karen:The Great Transformation ,The Beginning of our Religious Traditions , pub. 2006
* Aslan, Reza: No God But God : The Origins,Evolution, and Future of Islam 2005
Ben-Itto, Hadassa : The Lie That Wouldn't Die -The Protocols of The Elders of Zion ,Pub. 2005
* Bronner, Stephen Eric : A RUMOR ABOUT THE JEWS: Reflections On Antisemitism and The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion, pub. 2000.
* Bainton, Ronald H.:The Horizon History of Christianity , pub. 1964
* Bernard , Lewis: The crisis of Islam : Holy War and Unholy Terror , pub. 2003
* Chebel, Malek Symbols of Islam, Pub. 1997,Trans.by Cybele Hay.
* Chouraqui, Andre: A History of Judaism, Pub. 1962
* Cohen, Mark R. : Under crescent and Cross: The Jews in the Middle Ages, 1994. ( which undermines Robert Spencer fallacious argument that Jews were treated much worse under Islamic Rule in comparison to how they were treated in Christian Europe-Pogroms, Massacres, forced mass conversions, expulsion )
* Cohen- Sherbok, Dan:The Crucified Jew: Twenty Centuries of Anti-Semitism, pub. 1992.
* Cohn, Norman :Warrant for Genocide: The Myth of the Jewish World Conspiracy and the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, pub. 1996.
* Drury, Shadia B. : Terror and Civilization: Christianity, Politics, and the Western Psyche, pub. 2004
* Esposito, John: Islam : The Straight Path ,pub.1988.
* Gorenberg, Gershom : The End of Days : Fundamentalism And The Struggle For The Temple Mount , Pub. 2000
* Green, Toby: Inquisition The Reign Of Fear, pub. 2007
* Halm, Heinz : Shia Islam: From Religion to Revolution , pub. 1997
* Kirsch, Jonathan :God against the Gods: The History of the War Between Monotheism and Polytheism, pub. 2004.(Once Christianity became the sole religion of Rome the Non-Christian Pagans were told to convert or die, their places of worship , their texts were destroyed and they were slaughtered and it was a capitol crime to preach Paganism-before the Christians took control the Roman Empire had become an Empire tolerant of other religions as long as one paid tribute to the Emperor)
* Klinghoffer, David :The Discovery of God: Abraham and the Birth of Monotheism ,pub. 2003
* Küng , Hans :The Catholic Church -Translated by John Bowden, pub. 2001.
* Lings, Martin : Muhammad: His Life Based On the Earliest Sources, Pub. 1983.
* Lowney, Chris: A Vanished World: Muslims, Christians and Jews in Medieval Spain, pub. 2005.
* Menocal, Maria Rosa :Ornament of the World- How Muslims, Jews, and Christians Created a Culture of Tolerance in Medieval Spain, Pub. 2002.
* Morgan, Michael Hamilton : Lost History : The Legacy of Muslim Scientists, Thinkers, and Artists: pub. 2007.
* Pagden, Anthony: World's At War (The 2,500 Year Struggle Between East and West, pub. 2008
* Pagels, Elaine : The Origin of Satan: How Christians Demonized Jews, Pagans, and Heretics , pub. 1996
* Porter, J. :Jesus Christ, The Jesus Of History, The Christ of Faith , pub. 1999
* Said, Edward R. : Orientalism, pub. 1994.
* Smith, Mark S. : The Early History of God: Yahweh and Other Deities in Ancient Israel, Pub. 2002
* Spencer, Robert: Islam Unveiled Pub. 2002 ( Faux scholar who ignores the real history of Europe and the Middle East and how Christians treated Jews & Muslims & how Muslims treated the Dhimmi ie Jews & Christians )
* Weyler, Rex: The Jesus Sayings, pub. 2008
* Wheatcroft, Andrew :Infidels : THE conflict between Christendom and Islam, 638‑2002 ,pub. 2003
* Watt, Montgomery, W. :The Majesty That Was Islam :The Islamic World 661 - 1100 , pub. 1974

On Neoconservatives ,Leo Strauss & War on Terror

* Aslan, Reza: How To Win A Cosmic War, Pub. 2009
* Drury,Shadia B. :The Political Ideas of Leo Strauss, (updated edition) , pub. 2005
* Faludi, Susan The Terror Dream : Fear and Fantasy in Post 9/11 America, pub. 2007
* Grey,Stephen: The True Story of The CIA Torture Program, Pub. 2006
* Harris, Sam : The End of Faith : Religion, Terror & the Future of Reason , pub. 2004
* Hedges, Chris : American Fascists , pub. 2007
* Hersh, Seymour : CHAIN OF COMMAND: THE ROAD FROM 9/11 TO ABU GHRAIB, pub. 2004
* Hodgson, Godfrey: The Myth Of American Exceptionalism, pub. 2009
* Jacoby, Susan : The Age of American Unreason, pub. 2008
* Lagouranis, Tony & Mikaelian,Allen: Fear Up Harsh: An Army Interrogator's Dark Journey Through Iraq &, pub. 2007
* Tanguay,Daniel:Leo Strauss: An Intellectual Biography, pub. 2007
* Unger,Craig:The Fall Of The House of Bush: The Untold Story of how a Band of True Believers Seized the Executive Branch, Started the Iraq War , and still Imperils America's Future, pub. 2007
* Vidal, Gore : Dreaming War: Blood For Oil And The Cheney-Bush Junta , pub. 2002
* Woodward, Bob: State of Denial: Bush at War III , Pub. 2006

and so it goes,
GORD.

Thursday, February 25, 2010

It's The End of The Neocons ? Leo Strauss Inventing The Myth Of America

Slowpoke Neocon Norman Plonk cartoon by Jen Sorensen at http://www.slowpokecomics.com/index.html



The idea that Strauss was a great defender of liberal democracy is laughable. I suppose that Strauss’s disciples consider it a noble lie. Yet many in the media have been gullible enough to believe it.

How could an admirer of Plato and Nietzsche be a liberal democrat? The ancient philosophers whom Strauss most cherished believed that the unwashed masses were not fit for either truth or liberty, and that giving them these sublime treasures would be like throwing pearls before swine. In contrast to modern political thinkers, the ancients denied that there is any natural right to liberty.

Human beings are born neither free nor equal. The natural human condition, they held, is not one of freedom, but of subordination – and in Strauss’s estimation they were right in thinking so.

Praising the wisdom of the ancients and condemning the folly of the moderns was the whole point of Strauss’s most famous book, Natural Right and History. The cover of the book sports the American Declaration of Independence. But the book is a celebration of nature – not the natural rights of man (as the appearance of the book would lead one to believe) but the natural order of domination and subordination.

...that justice is merely the interest of the stronger; that those in power make the rules in their own interests and call it justice.

Quote by Shadia Drury who has written extensively on Leo Strauss & the neoconservatives from an interview by Daniel Postel in 2003 Noble lies and perpetual war: Leo Strauss, the neocons, and Iraq,15 October 2003


Here's a funny bit on the neocons
It's the End of the Neocons
by lawyerjim-2007
YOUTUBE
A compilation of Neocon lies, mistakes, cover ups and crimes to the tune of R.E.M.'s It's the End of the World as We Know it





Here's an example of Neocons putting Leo Strauss' political philosophy into policy and action.

First Condoleezza Rice says the US & Bush Regime doesn't support the use of torture-she being part of the inner circle knows better & that torture became government policy shortly after 9/11-so she is lying but the Political Philosophy of the Neocons is that a gov't is permitted to lie to its citizens.
Secondly Leo Strauss would argue that the leaders of America or any country are not obligated in any way to tell the citizens the complete truth about their policies
Thirdly enters nuance & interpretation & doubt by questioning the very definition of terms dealing with a controversial topic- ie "torture" the spokespersons for the Regime can always say but what does or does not constitute "torture"???

By redefining torture the Bush Regime & the Conservatives & the US mainstream Media are able to dodge the question and spend more time defending the use of so called "Enhanced Interrogation Techniques" which according to the Neocons does not constitute torture even though the Geneva Conventions and the special report on Torture clearly define torture as including abuse & humiliation of subjects and also includes sensory overload, or sensory deprivation, sleep deprivation, stress positions, slapping a person multiple times , parading a POW around naked and making nasty comments etc. the refusal of religious books or practices-taking away an inmates Holy Book whether the Qur'an or the Bible etc. or preventing a Christian or Muslim from praying etc.

Of all the techniques used on thousands of Prisoners incarcerated by the USA the Neocons & Bush only focus on "water-boarding "as possibly constituting torture
so threatening a naked inmate with a vicious dog or threatening to kill their family their loved ones or putting a gun to an inmates head then pulling the trigger because the gun is not loaded the American Intelligence community and the media see a lot of these interrogation techniques as mere pranks. But the individual doesn't know the gun is not loaded or that the threats are empty threats etc.

If so then US soldiers captured if they are not "waterboarded" or beaten to a pulp shouldn't complain just because they were kept awake for a week or more or were paraded around naked & made fun of -their guards were just having fun & playing mere pranks on them. The Bush Regime & now the Obama Regime do not see the use of these "Enhanced Interrogation Techniques" as trivial complaints by the enemy.

Unfortunately those fighting the US have a case when they accuse American legislators or the White House or average soldiers see themselves as engaged in a Christian Crusade to undermine Islamic groups or Nations in order to spread dubious American values & Evangelical Christian Fundamentalism.

Religion Leo Strauss maintained was a way to control the masses. Strauss believed the masses to be incapable of ruling themselves or even to be able to think logically and religious beliefs were necessary along with a hyper Nationalism & an overarching national historical mythology or the nation as having a Unique destiny given to it by God/Jesus who committed to protecting America and not other nations except for Israel which in the last days play a pivotal role in fighting and destroying the Anti-Christ.

Condoleezza Rice Must Resign (Formerly Censored Video)
June 17, 2008

One of the more bizarre characters in the Bush White House, Condoleezza Rice has managed to hang on while others – the Secretary of Defense, the Attorney General, and other assorted criminals – have left in disgrace.


Ahmed Ismail Secretary of State? Is this some kind of a sick joke?
This video has been taken down. Thanks to one person’s tireless efforts, it’s up again.







Leo Strauss Totalitarianism & The Invention of America
A very short introduction to Leo Strauss from Adam Curtis' documentary, "The Power of Nightmares".
2007




"Leo Strauss, Conservative Mastermind " By: Robert Locke FrontPageMagazine.com ,May 31, 2002


IN CONTEMPORARY American intellectual life, there is only one school of conservative intellectuals that has taken root in academia as a movement. They are the Straussians, followers of the late Leo Strauss (1899-1973). The hostile New Republic referred to Straussians as "one of the top ten gangs of the millennium." Strauss is an ambiguous, sometimes even troubling, figure, but he is essential to the conservative revival of our time and he offers the intellectual depth we are so desperately in need of. As a crude measure of his importance for those readers who continue to believe that philosophical matters are of no practical importance, consider the following list of his students or students of his students: Justice Clarence Thomas; Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork; Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz; former Assistant Secretary of State Alan Keyes; former Secretary of Education William Bennett; Weekly Standard editor and former Quayle Chief of Staff William Kristol; Allan Bloom, author of The Closing of the American Mind; former New York Post editorials editor John Podhoretz; former National Endowment for the Humanities Deputy Chairman John T. Agresto; and, not meaning to class myself with this august company but in the interests of full disclosure, myself.

The great significance of Strauss for mainstream conservatives is that his is the deepest philosophical analysis of what is wrong with liberalism. Technocratic, legalistic, and empirical criticism of liberalism is all very well, but it is not enough. He believes that contemporary liberalism is the logical outcome of the philosophical principles of modernity, taken to their extremes. In some sense, modernity itself is the problem. Strauss believed that liberalism, as practiced in the advanced nations of the West in the 20th century, contains within it an intrinsic tendency towards relativism, which leads to nihilism. He first experienced this crisis in his native Germany’s Weimar Republic of the 1920s, in which the liberal state was so ultra-tolerant that it tolerated the Communists and Nazis who eventually destroyed it and tolerated the moral disorder that turned ordinary Germans against it. A Jew, he fled Germany in 1938. We see this problem repeated today in the multiculturalism that sanctions the importation into the West of Moslem fundamentalists whose foremost aim is the destruction of the Western society that makes that tolerance possible, and in an America so frightened of offending anyone that it refuses to carry out the basic duty of any normal state to guard its own borders.

Strauss believed that America is founded on an uneasy mixture of classical (Greco-Roman), Biblical, and modern political philosophy. Conservatives have not failed to note that a significant part of the mischief of liberalism consists in abandoning the biblical element; this story has been told many times and is well-represented in Washington. Where Strauss comes in is that he is the outstanding critic of the abandonment of the classical element. His key contribution to fighting the crisis of modernity was to restore the intellectual legitimacy of classical political philosophy, especially Plato and Aristotle.
Recommended Reading:

* Aslan, Reza: How To Win A Cosmic War, Pub. 2009

* Drury,Shadia B. : The Political Ideas of Leo Strauss, (updated edition) , pub. 2005

* ----------------- Terror and Civilization, pub.2004

* Faludi, Susan The TerrorDream : Fear and Fantasy in Post 9/11 America, pub. 2007


* Grey,Stephen: The True Story of The CIA Torture Program, Pub. 2006

* Harris, Sam : The End of Faith : Religion, Terror & the Future of Reason ,
pub. 2004.

* Hedges, Chris : American Fascists , pub. 2007

* Hersh, Seymour : CHAIN OF COMMAND: THE ROAD FROM 9/11 TO
ABU GHRAIB, pub. 2004

* Hodgson, Godfrey: The Myth Of American Exceptionalism, pub. 2009

* Jacoby, Susan : The Age of American Unreason, pub. 2008

* Lagouranis, Tony
& Mikaelian,Allen: Fear Up Harsh: An Army Interrogator's Dark
Journey Through Iraq &, pub. 2007

* Tanguay,Daniel: Leo Strauss: An Intellectual Biography, pub. 2007

* Unger,Craig: The Fall Of The House of Bush: The Untold Story of How
a Band of True Believers Seized the Executive Branch, Started
The Iraq War , and still Imperils America's Future, pub. 2007.

* Vidal, Gore : Dreaming War: Blood For Oil And The Cheney-Bush Junta ,
pub. 2002.

* Woodward, Bob: State of Denial: Bush at War III , Pub. 2006.


and so it goes,
GORD.

Wednesday, February 24, 2010

John Yoo & The Imperial Presidency Or America's " God Kings" & From Bill Moyers : US Legislators & Judges All Bought & Paid For

"For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?" Mark 8:36/New Testament



"John Yoo is a moral vacuum, but he is also a constitutional law professor at one of the nation's top law schools and a former Supreme Court clerk... So when John Yoo claims that the President is not bound by Congressional limits, he is not simply ignorant or misunderstanding the law. He is lying."

from: Top Bush Adviser Defends Allowing President to Massacre, Nuke Civilians at Raw Story ,Feb. 23, 2010

*John Yoo & the Imperial Presidency
*There are no limits to the president's Power
*Law and morality do not apply to America's God Kings
*US politicians & judges all for sale to the highest bidder
*Bribes in the form of Campaign Contributions & the death of democracy
*America is as corrupt as any Third World Nation which it is quickly becoming

First an update on John Yoo & the torture Memos & the Imperial Presidency.
If Obama and his crowd did the right thing John Yoo would have at the least been disbarred if not sent to prison or even hanged like the NAZI lawyers at Nuremberg.

This just in From Rachel Maddow
Tuesday, February 23, 2010 by The Rachel Maddow Show
New Report Undermines Cheney Torture Claims via CommonDreams.org

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy



Thanks to president Obama fear of Cheney, Bush and the well connected elite and the cowardly amoral US congress & Senate & their media enabler John Yoo is permitted to spread his form of Neoconservative amorality to other up and coming lawyers. Meanwhile Dick Cheney gets to sow his evil. Political Philosopher Leo Strauss would be proud of his evil minions and how they turned all of America into a moral vacuum.

Just because someone attends religious services or believes in God or Jesus doesn't mean that they are beyond the judgment of other mere mortals. Dick Cheney I surmise believes in the God of History who will in the future vindicate his actions.
If someone decides that they are part of some ultimate destiny as many Americans do they believe that whatever they do what ever laws they pass or believe all that matters is winning.

Bush Cheney Rumsfeld Conolezza Rice Jay Bybee Gonzales Karl Rove -they believe they are outside the bounds of ordinary basic morality or human decency-

Top Bush Adviser Defends Allowing President to Massacre, Nuke Civilians at Raw Story ,Feb. 23, 2010

"You did argue that the president can legally order a village of civilians massacred," a KQED radio host asked John Yoo, now a professor at Berkeley. "Do you stand by that?"

"If, I thought it was militarily necessary," Yoo replied. "All you have to do is look at American history.... Look at the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The senior Justice Department legal adviser to president Bush who made the legal case for the Bush Administration's use of torture tactics on terror suspects defended comments that the president could unilaterally "massacre" civilians in wartime in a newly released interview.

...Liberal blog ThinkProgress' Ian Millhiser, which first highlighted the interview, argues that Yoo's understanding of the law in this case is wrong.

"As far back as 1804, a unanimous Supreme Court held in Little v. Barreme that Congress has sweeping authority to limit the President's actions in wartime. That case involved an Act of Congress authorizing vessels to seize cargo ships bound for French ports. After the President also authorized vessels to seize ships headed away from French ports, the Supreme Court held this authorization unconstitutional on the grounds that Congress' decision to allow one kind of seizure implicitly forbade other kinds of seizure. More recently, in Hamdi v. Rumsfeld and Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, the Court held that the President does not have the power to unilaterally set military policy (in those cases with respect to detention); he must comply with statutory limits on his power. Taken together, these and other cases unquestionably establish that Congress has the power to tell the President 'no,' and the President must listen."

"John Yoo is a moral vacuum, but he is also a constitutional law professor at one of the nation's top law schools and a former Supreme Court clerk," the site added. "It is simply impossible that Yoo is not aware of Little, Hamdi and Hamdan, or that he does not understand what they say. So when John Yoo claims that the President is not bound by Congressional limits, he is not simply ignorant or misunderstanding the law. He is lying."


and here's audio from the interview:





Democracy For Sale: Bill Moyers Journal, PBS Feb. 10

Bill Moyers Journal, February 19, 2010, Bill comments on the Supreme Courts recent decision and it's contribution to the ongoing problem of "Democracy For Sale".




Bill Moyers, Justice for Sale (4)

JUSTICE FOR SALE

Bill Moyers Journal takes a hard look at how campaign cash in judicial races may sway America's courts. The Journal revisits the 1999 FRONTLINE special "Justice for Sale" which looked at the growing concern - even among Supreme Court justices themselves - that campaign contributions may be corrupting the judicial process.




Bill Moyers, Buying the Courts, Jeff Toobin_2

Bill Moyers Journal takes a hard look at how campaign cash in judicial races may sway America's courts. The JOURNAL revisits the 1999 FRONTLINE special "Justice for Sale" which looked at the growing concern - even among Supreme Court justices themselves - that campaign contributions may be corrupting the judicial process.

JEFFREY TOOBIN
Legal analyst and journalist Jeffrey Toobin talks about the relationship between big money and judicial elections today.



How to Get Our Democracy Back 1/2 - 2-05-2010 Democracy NOW!

Part 1 - Harvard law professor Lawrence Lessig. Published with 'written permission' from democracynow.org. http://www.democracynow.org Provided to you under Democracy NOW! creative commons license.



How to Get Our Democracy Back 2/2 - 2-05-2010 Democracy NOW!



and so it goes,
GORD.

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Suicidal Pilot A Fan Of glenn Beck & other rightwing Nutters & Maddow Slams CPAC


UPDATE: 4:01 PM, Feb. 23 2010

Anyway American conservatives secular & religious came together at the annual CPAC: Conservative Political Action Conference last week and it has become painfully obvious that the attendees have moved further and further to the right.

Interesting how they criticize Obama for being too far to the left and they claim they want Obama to be more centrist in his policies and be more bipartisan while at the same time the conservatives are encouraging legislators & Judges to embrace more far right-wing positions on policies. So if Obama takes a step towards the right the conservatives will demand that Obama move even further to the right. These conservatives don't just want to defend the status quo but in fact want to turn the clock back to an earlier time-ie 1950s or the 1920s prior to FDRs "New Deal". Part of this desire is nostalgia for an imagined false memory of a simpler time before Blacks, Gays, women and other minorities had the same rights as white American males. When men were "Real Men" and women and everybody else including women, blacks, Gays & Lesbians and the poor knew their place and accepted it.
Instead these other disenfranchised groups decided to take American ideals of Democracy seriously and to demand equal rights and a more level playing field in which to compete.

Here's Senator DeMint summing up the Conservative Movement's Agenda

Sen. DeMint Sums Up The CPAC Agenda
RightWingWatchdotorg
February 18, 2010



RACHEL MADDOW FACT CHECKS THE neoCON NUTS AT THE CPAC CON-vention




And here's their somewhat divided opinion on Gays having any rights-
Your Homophobic CPAC Moment, Featuring Ryan Sorba




Meanwhile the message overall was that they had to keep fighting what they refer to as "The Gay Agenda" by which they argues Gays and lesbians are out to recruit young children into accepting the Gay life style.

CPAC: Gay Marriage Will Lead to a Generation of Violent Criminals [RightWingWatch.org]



Glenn Beck sympathizes with Terrorist Suicide Bomber Joe Stack who crashed his plane deliberately into IRS building in Austin Texas-

Glenn Beck Dodges Incoming Plane at CPAC by Leslie Savan at The Nation, 02/22/2010

As CPAC opened its annual convention last Thursday, the same day that computer engineer Joe Stack flew his Piper Cherokee into an IRS office in Austin setting it ablaze, the consensus about his violent anti-tax attack was remarkably sanguine.

On Friday Human Events editor Jed Babbin introduced Grover Norquist, the nation's most rabid anti-tax activist, with a little joke: "I was just really, really glad that it was not him identified as flying that airplane into the IRS building." Laughter all around. Then Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty strained to hit a Southern-sheriff note of populist threat by suggesting, rather oddly, that conservatives were cuckolded wives who, like Tiger Woods's spouse, should "take a 9-iron and smash the window out of big government in this country!"--thereby managing to invoke both the wall of shattered glass windows at the Echelon Building and the marital troubles that may have contributed to Stack's anger.

It didn't help the damage control when conservative pin-up Scott Brown said of the attack, just hours after it happened, "I don't know if it's related, but I can just sense not only in my election, but since being here in Washington, people are frustrated." Which is scary close to saying Stack's terrorist act came from the same set of emotions and attitudes that put Brown in office (talk about saying "No"!).

But by Saturday evening, after CPACers had given Dick Cheney a standing ovation, straw-voted for Ron Paul as their next presidential candidate, and shouted down anti-gay natural law fan Ryan Sorba, a clumsy instinct for damage control seemed to assert itself. Just how much wreckage had Joseph Stack inflicted on the anti-tax Tea Party passions when he flew his single-engine plane straight into the heart of their rage? Was the GOP, and in particular its spokeschannel Fox News, edging a bit too close to a rightwing equivalent of the 1968 riots in Chicago, when a majority of Americans turned against the Democrats because of the violence they saw on TV?


Glenn Beck via Media Matters & The Nation





Beck: White House and progressives are "taking you to a place to be slaughtered" November 03, 2009

and the article at Media Matters adds what appears as a strange coincidence as Glenn Beck uses the metaphor of being on a plane with a suicidal pilot while just last week a suicidal pilote flew into IRS building in Austen:

"So, as he tells you to reject violence, pay no attention to the man over there who said that Obama and Democrats are vampires "going after the blood of our businesses," suggesting we "drive a stake through the heart of the bloodsuckers."

And draw no Holocaustal, or plane-crashing, conclusions when he exhorts us, like a later day Elmer Gantry, to "find the exit closest to you and prepare for a crash-landing because this plane is coming down because the pilot is intentionally steering it into the trees!... We will thrive--as long as these people are not in control. They [the White House and progressives] are taking you to a place to be slaughtered!"
and so itgoes,
GORD.

Monday, February 22, 2010

Glenn Beck & His Blackboard Give Keynote Speech at CPAC HATEFEST Joined By Fellow Travelers Ann Coulter & Newt Gingrich & Musical Monday Blame Canada


UPDATE: 2:44 PM & 3:05 PM ,Feb. 22, 2010


First a musical bit: Blame Canada

Glenn Beck recently claimed Canada believes in promoting Euthanasia to save money & that therefore Canadians whom he sees as Commie scum are among America's Enemies.
Its odd how Canadians refuse to believe what Americans actually think about Canada or any other nation.
Stephen Harper the current Prime Minister of Canada is more in tune with the crowd at CPAC in the United States than he is with ordinary Canadians.
-But then again I believe the leader of the Liberal Party in Canada Michael Ignatieff would also be more comfortable among this crowd than with ordinary Canadians



CPAC HATE FEST
The participants at this conservative conference again and again are dismissive of the rights of people who are not Americans or further not real Americans-other nations they tell us should bow down to America -
They also are dismissive of any other religion besides Christianity- or what can be referred to as Americanized Christianity which combines an Evangelical Fundamentalism with the American ideals -so it is religion wrapped in the American flag.

What is disturbing is no matter how insane and dangerous these Conservative American Intellectuals sound other nations including Canada seem still to be in "AWE " of America & Americans -

Ann Coulter does her stand up comedy act at CPAC
Even making fun of Ted Kennedy & his death
His death for Republicans & conservatives they see as a good news item.
These characters have no shame & if they represent "Real Americans" then the peoples outside the United States should take these American conservatives seriously
- they are for civil liberties & rights only for "Real Americans" -they are at heart Fascists who believe that corporations should do as they please and that the rich Elite know what's best for America
-They claim that America is the only country which has been blessed by God and its destiny is being directed by God-
- They are anti-Gay, anti-Unions anti-Medicare , anti-Welfare or social security and want a literacy test for all potential voters-
-so how can they be in favor of spreading democracy and civil liberties if they also believe "only Americans have been given such rights by God"
-Calling Anderson Cooper or other liberals or progressives "Gay" is one of the worst things one can say about someone-so if they retake the Whitehouse tomorrow or in 2012 we can expect anti-Gay legislation

Coulter Mocks Ted Kennedy, Anderson Cooper at CPAC



CPAC loons want to turn back the clock to the Golden Age in the past however they define it the 1950's Leave it to Beaver crowd or the Roaring Twenties or the 1850s before the Slaves were freed etc.
Glenn attacks progressives and leftists (Communists) whom he believes have been involved in taking over America and changing the American political system and American society.
He explains to his dim witted audience that Obama and his administration is really a secretive Communist administration out to destroy traditional America.



And yet Obama keeps talking about the Big Tent & bipartisanship etc. but these are die hard ideologues for whom there is no chance to bargain with or to make compromises.

Glenn Beck Hate Monger gives keynote Speech at CPAC




Blame Canada Glenn beck TYT Eugenics & rounding Up Conservatives
He says Canadians are evil because they want to kill off the infirm the old etc.

In fact what Canadians are discussing is the importance of living wills & such so deciding to pull the plug or not or leaving instructions about going to extremes to save someone in a vegetative condition. It is then an issue decided by the individual rather than by others

The Young Turks -Feb. 17, 2010
Glenn Beck Inciting Violence w/ Blatant Lies & Fear Mongering



CPAC Speaker - Liberals Ugly, Obama Snorts Coke-
Feb. 18, 2010- The Young Turks



The Young Turks-Feb. 18 -CPAC
CPAC Clowns Make Obama Telemprompter Jokes



As the Liberal Viewer argues below that Republicans & conservatives seem to believe only Americans are worthy of rights . So I would add that it is no wonder these conservatives are hostile to giving any rights to POWs /detainees or even the average Iraqi or Afghanistan citizen.
I would also add that Sarah Palin said "Americans who are worthy of rights" meaning that not all Americans are worthy of rights and some are not. Was this just another badly or poorly worded statement or did she let the cat out of the bag-that is as the John Birchers or a conservative such as William F. Buckley and more recently others have for instance called for a literacy test for would be voters or a test dealing with the their knowledge of how the American political & judicial & legislative branches of government work.
As Glenn Beck points out America is not a democracy but has a republican form of government . So only certain people should have the right to vote or have other civil liberties. So Beck like the Tea Party crowd are in fact in favor of an elite though they claim to be a populous movement.

The Liberal Viewer-
Sarah Palin Says Only Americans Worthy of Rights?

The recent Republican talking point that US constitutional rights are only for Americans citizens was nowhere so jingoistically and hypocritically expressed as it was by Sarah Palin in her appearances this month on "Fox News Sunday" and at a national Tea Party Convention, as I show in this video.

The clip I use of Sarah Palin appearing on "Fox News Sunday" comes from the segment broadcast February 7, 2010, available online at http://media2.foxnews.com/020710/0207...





and so it goes,
GORD.

Sunday, February 21, 2010

Bybee & Yoo Escape Justice For War Crimes -UN "A Paper Tiger" RE: War Crimes & MLK To Share Day With Browning Guns INC.



UPDATE due to tchnical issues I am Reposting saturday's post with some added content : 3:29 PM & 4:38 PM, & 8:16 PM & 8:38 PM Feb. 20, 2010 ; 2:00PM & 8:30Feb.21.

First a Sunday Sermon by Conservative loon & spokesperson Glenn Beck
While Basking In His Millions, Glenn Beck Wants You To Give Up Social Security And Medicare- Of course he is against social security, medicare, the GI bill & the New Deal -people he believes must fend for themselves whether old or infirm the physically or mentally disabled -



CPAC Conference Dissolves Into Right-Wing Civil War Over Gay Rights



Cindi Sheehan in Washington DC



On October 6th, 2009, Cindy Sheehan, mother of Casey Sheehan, a Specialist in the United States Army that was killed in action on April 4th, 2004 while serving in Iraq, announced that she was going to start what will be called “Peace of the Action.”



Camp OUT NOW's stated objective is to: "Clog Washington, DC every week day through diffuse Civil Resistance (CR) actions to have the effect of tampering with 'business as usual' in the Capital of the United States of America."

Our demands are simple:

* Troops out of the Middle East, which includes drones, permanent bases, contractors and torture/detention facilities.
* Reparations for the peoples of these war torn regions and a fully funded VA system to reintegrate our soldiers healthfully into our society


George Bush chuckles as Yoo & Bybee get away with murder.


DOJ defends John Yoo & Jay Bybee and by extension George Bush and the Gang. So does this mean that the US justice system is just a facade and only applies to some citizens and not others. What is legal or ethical is just a matter of opinion. I thought conservatives believed in the Rule of Law and in Morality and Ethics ???



John Yoo & Jay Bybee the authors of the Infamous Torture Memos Will not be tried nor even disciplined by the Department of Justice(or is it Injustice) And meanwhile Obama just allows another travesty of miscarried justice to take place. For who is to stop lawyers in the DOJ from rewriting and interpreting laws according to a political agenda. And one can almost hear the snickering and maniacal laughter of Dick Cheney, Bush, Rumsfeld & Condoleeza Rice knowing they are literally getting away with torture, murder and launching an Unnecessary war . In the end it is not a matter of right or wrong but whether one can get away with it. Odd how Conservatives claim to be so concerned about religion, ethics & morality until it is applied to their actions.

Sen. Marsden pairing MLK with Browning Gun Manufacturer

Is Marsden just a bit thick or is he trying to convey a rather nasty message that is that without an Industrialist like Browning the assassin of MLK would not have had the tools to complete his job which many conservatives even these days they see as a good thing since they claim that Martin Luther King Jr. was just an uppity Negro who was not a "Real American" and was if anything UnAmerican and connected with Communists because only a Commie according to these right wing nuts would insist that Black Americans should have the same rights as white Americans ??? Just watch some of the insane things being said at CPAC this week.

Let us begin with a bit of madness -Some Americans love their guns too too much-sen.Marsden wants to combine MLK holiday with Browning gun manufacturer- he doesn't see the irony-combining assassinated Civil Rights leader with Gun Manufacturer-Right-Wingers have no common sense- The pro gun lobbyist believe that American citizens should be permitted to carry loaded weapons where ever they go to the Mall, to the Beach, to Movie Theaters to Church or to political rallies as we saw last summer at the Town Hall meetings -are they just nuts-meanwhile another domestic terrorists who is ant-government anti-taxes etc. flies his plane into an IRS building yet because the man was white and wasn't named Muhammed or was a Muslim he therefore according to the Republicans & their leaders Cheney, Limbaugh, Glenn Beck etc. say he wasn't a terrorist there is something gone dreadfully wrong with these people-

"This week in crazy: State Sen. Mark Madsen of Utah
The Republican had a big idea to expand Martin Luther King Day -- pair it with a holiday for a gun manufacturer"
By Mary Elizabeth Williams at Salon.com Feb.19,2010


Some holidays just naturally go together. The proximity between the February birthdays of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, for example, makes them a natural pairing for one all-purpose, sale-a-bration-centric day off. But trying to combine an assassinated civil rights leader's day of remembrance with the birthday of a gun manufacturer? That's just wack.

And yet this week, Utah state Sen. Mark Madsen, R-Eagle Mountain, took a shot at just that, submitting a bill to the state proposing a "John M. Browning State Holiday." Though the text of the bill itself was left blank, the Salt Lake City Tribune reported that "a draft has been circulating in the Senate that would combine the current King holiday with a celebration of Browning, an Ogden native and one of the most significant pioneers in firearms manufacturing."


Two more war criminals escape justice-John Yoo & Jay Bybee are not to be even disciplined for interpreting federal law so that Bush and Cheney Rumsfeld etc. could clim that the torturing was legal-it wasn't legal . According to the judicial decisions at the Nuremberg trials lawyers are not immune to prosecution for War Crimes and enabling the torturers to do their jobs-

But in America Justice & the rule of law apply differently to those in power-for them its anything goes. Once again Americans are deemed outside the jurisdiction of the Geneva Conventions and the Judgments at Nuremberg and all other International Agreements.

Now this leads to a bigger question that if the USA can arbitrarily & unilaterally ignore International Laws and agreements why would any nation sign an agreement with the USA and expect that the USA will abide by it. If the nations that belong to the United Nations had any real say in the UN they would find ways to chastise America ie boycotts ,sanctions ,blockades etc. or even toss the US at least out of the UN Security Council or the UN entirely. But nothing will come of this as usual since the UN's position is that these laws, rules, regulations only apply to mainly third world countries and certainly not the United States, or Great Britain or Canada or Australia all of whom have committed various war crimes by actions or as the result of inaction.
Anyway the DOJ is just as usual protecting its own - if one or two lawyers might have to answer to the Department of Justice for their decisions it would mean that lawyers would be treated in a just manner as if they were ordinary lower class citizens . And the whole point of being a lawyer is to do whatever a client ask for even if it is illegal, breaks international laws or is unethical. Of course we end up trying to apply ethics and morality to the law or to lawyers or judges and they will not have it since it is they who decide what the law says and what is or is not moral ie if a lawyer does it it cannot by definition be illegal or unethical.

"DOJ bails out torture memo authors Yoo, Bybee:
Justice official overruled recommendation that Bush lawyers face disciplinary action"

By Alex Koppelman at Salon.com Feb. 19,2010


After a very long wait, a report from the Department of Justice's Office of Professional Responsibility about the conduct of torture memo authors Jay Bybee and John Yoo was released Friday. It was already all but certain that the men would not face criminal charges for their actions during the Bush administration; now it seems that -- despite the report's recommendation -- they'll also escape any professional sanctions.


In the report, which was actually completed in July of 2009, the OPR concludes that Bybee and Yoo were guilty of professional misconduct, and that they should face disciplinary action by their respective state bars. But in a memo written to Attorney General Eric Holder, Associate Deputy Attorney General David Margolis says he's overruling that decision, and "will not authorize OPR to refer its findings to the state bar disciplinary authorities in the jurisdictions where Yoo and Bybee are licensed."

That doesn't mean Margolis is excusing what Bybee and Yoo did; he repeatedly criticizes their memos. But, he says, they didn't violate any specific professional standards and are thus not guilty of professional misconduct.


and see:

DOJ Report on Torture Memo: Yoo Said Bush Could Order Civilians "Exterminated" by: Jason Leopold, t r u t h o u t.org, Feb. 19,2010

A long-awaited report into the legal memos former Justice Department attorneys John Yoo and Jay Bybee prepared for the Bush administration on torture was released Friday afternoon and concluded that the men violated "professional standards" and should be referred to state bar associations where a further review of their legal work could have led to the revocation of their law licenses.

But career prosecutor David Margolis, who reviewed the final version of the report, changed the disciplinary recommendations to "exercised poor judgment."
So it was just a matter of poor judgment on the part of Yoo & Bybee to encourage and give a legal cover for torture, summary executions, indefinite detentions , ignoring the rights of the accused or spying on millions of American citizens as long as a lawyer signs off on it it is therefore legal and no court can say other wise. As I mentioned earlier American citizens and their lawyers should draw up legal contracts or what have you to commit any crime you want -then the defendant says 'my lawyer said it was Okay' end of the argument. If lawyers can't be held responsible it is unfair and unjust to expect average citizens to know when and if they are breaking the law. Only someone with a law degree can know when a law should or should not be obeyed.

also see via Afterdowningstreet.org.:

Join Peace of the Action's "Camp OUT NOW"
http://peaceoftheaction.org


Peace of the Action will be establishing Camp OUT NOW on the lawn of the Washington Monument (with or without governmental permission) on Saturday, March 13th, to be a base of operations from which we will organize and direct daily acts of civil resistance throughout the DC area until our demands are met:

Troops out of the Middle East, which includes drones, permanent bases, contractors and torture/detention facilities.

Reparations for the peoples of these war torn regions and a fully funded VA system to reintegrate our soldiers healthfully into our society.

The first week of Camp OUT NOW, we will be holding non-violent civil resistance training, hosting peace notables and being invigorated by musicians as we start building the community that we are going to need in order to help each other through the planned sustained actions.

All persons who have had enough of "business as usual" in DC and are willing to put our anti-war, pro-humanity principles into practice, are invited to come out to Camp OUT NOW and stay with us for as little or as long as you have available.

Direct acts of non-violent resistance will begin Monday, March 22nd, following these events:
March 20 will be a national march on Washington.

We Want Yoo Prosecuted
After Downing Street, the Bill of Rights Defense Committee, Peace of the Action, Progressive Democrats of America, and War Criminals Watch invite you to a protest of John Yoo, author of memos "legalizing" aggressive war and torture.

Yoo is scheduled to speak on March 19, from 3:30-4:30 p.m. at the University of Virginia, Room 125, Minor Hall, McCormick Road, Charlottesville, VA 22903. Meet at Minor Hall at 3 p.m.

March 19th marks the beginning of Year Eight in the illegal occupation of Iraq that Yoo and Jay Bybee provided "legal" justification for. Yoo counseled the White House on how to get away with war crimes, wrote this memo promoting presidential power to launch aggressive war, and claimed the power to decree that the federal statutes against torture, assault, maiming, and stalking do not apply to the military in the conduct of the war, and to announce a new definition of torture limiting it to acts causing intense pain or suffering equivalent to pain associated with serious physical injury so severe that death, organ failure or permanent damage resulting in loss of significant body functions will likely result.

Yoo claimed in 2005 that a president has the right to enhance an interrogation by crushing the testicles of someone's child.

Yoo has been confronted in his classroom: video, and defended by the Washington Post, and again confronted in the classroom.

Yoo recently told the New York Times that he had worked, not for the law, but for his "client" the president, and that he had no regrets for the felony of conspiring to commit torture.


and so it goes,
GORD.