Friday 6 October 2006

Keillor Sings It

From Truthout:

    Congress's Shameful Retreat From American Values
    By Garrison Keillor
    The Chicago Tribune

    Wednesday 04 October 2006

    I would not send my college kid off for a semester abroad if I were you. Last week, we suspended human rights in America, and what goes around comes around. Ixnay habeas corpus.

    The U.S. Senate, in all its splendor and majesty, decided that an "enemy combatant" is any non-citizen whom the president says is an enemy combatant, including your Korean greengrocer or your Swedish grandmother or your Czech au pair, and can be arrested and held for as long as authorities wish without any right of appeal to a court of law to examine the matter. If your college kid were to be arrested in Bangkok or Cairo, suspected of "crimes against the state" and held in prison, you'd assume that an American foreign service officer would be able to speak to your kid and arrange for a lawyer, but this may not be true anymore. Be forewarned.

    The Senate also decided it's up to the president to decide whether it's OK to make these enemies stand naked in cold rooms for a couple of days in blinding light and be beaten by interrogators. This is now purely a bureaucratic matter: The plenipotentiary stamps the file "enemy combatants" and throws the poor schnooks into prison and at his leisure he tries them by any sort of kangaroo court he wishes to assemble and they have no right to see the evidence against them, and there is no appeal. This was passed by 65 senators and will now be signed by President Bush, put into effect, and in due course be thrown out by the courts.

    It's good that Barry Goldwater is dead because this would have killed him. Go back to the Senate of 1964 - Goldwater, Dirksen, Russell, McCarthy, Javits, Morse, Fulbright - and you won't find more than 10 votes for it.

    None of the men and women who voted for this bill has any right to speak in public about the rule of law anymore, or to take a high moral view of the Third Reich, or to wax poetic about the American Ideal. Mark their names. Any institution of higher learning that grants honorary degrees to these people forfeits its honor. Alexander, Allard, Allen, Bennett, Bond, Brownback, Bunning, Burns, Burr, Carper, Chambliss, Coburn, Cochran, Coleman, Collins, Cornyn, Craig, Crapo, DeMint, DeWine, Dole, Domenici, Ensign, Enzi, Frist, Graham, Grassley, Gregg, Hagel, Hatch, Hutchison, Inhofe, Isakson, Johnson, Kyl, Landrieu, Lautenberg, Lieberman, Lott, Lugar, Martinez, McCain, McConnell, Menendez, Murkowski, Nelson of Florida, Nelson of Nebraska, Pryor, Roberts, Rockefeller, Salazar, Santorum, Sessions, Shelby, Smith, Specter, Stabenow, Stevens, Sununu, Talent, Thomas, Thune, Vitter, Voinovich, Warner.

    To paraphrase Sir Walter Scott: Mark their names and mark them well. For them, no minstrel raptures swell. High though their titles, proud their name, boundless their wealth as wish can claim, these wretched figures shall go down to the vile dust from whence they sprung, unwept, unhonored and unsung.

    Three Republican senators made a show of opposing the bill and after they'd collected all the praise they could get, they quickly folded. Why be a hero when you can be fairly sure that the court will dispose of this piece of garbage.

    If, however, the court does not, then our country has taken a step toward totalitarianism. If the government can round up someone and never be required to explain why, then it's no longer the United States as you and I always understood it. Our enemies have succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. They have made us become like them.

    I got some insight last week into who supports torture when I went down to Dallas to speak at Highland Park Methodist Church. It was spooky. I walked in, was met by two burly security men with walkie-talkies, and within 10 minutes was told by three people that this was the Bushes' church and that it would be better if I didn't talk about politics. I was there on a book tour for "Homegrown Democrat," but they thought it better if I didn't mention it. So I tried to make light of it: I told the audience, "I don't need to talk politics. I have no need even to be interested in politics - I'm a citizen, I have plenty of money and my grandsons are at least 12 years away from being eligible for military service." And the audience applauded! Those were their sentiments exactly. We've got ours, and who cares?

    The Methodists of Dallas can be fairly sure that none of them will be snatched off the streets, flown to Guantanamo Bay, stripped naked, forced to stand for 48 hours in a freezing room with deafening noise. So why should they worry? It's only the Jews who are in danger, and the homosexuals and gypsies. The Christians are doing fine. If you can't trust a Methodist with absolute power to arrest people and not have to say why, then whom can you trust?

Just for the sake of emphasis:

    None of the men and women who voted for this bill has any right to speak in public about the rule of law anymore, or to take a high moral view of the Third Reich, or to wax poetic about the American Ideal. Mark their names. Any institution of higher learning that grants honorary degrees to these people forfeits its honor. Alexander, Allard, Allen, Bennett, Bond, Brownback, Bunning, Burns, Burr, Carper, Chambliss, Coburn, Cochran, Coleman, Collins, Cornyn, Craig, Crapo, DeMint, DeWine, Dole, Domenici, Ensign, Enzi, Frist, Graham, Grassley, Gregg, Hagel, Hatch, Hutchison, Inhofe, Isakson, Johnson, Kyl, Landrieu, Lautenberg, Lieberman, Lott, Lugar, Martinez, McCain, McConnell, Menendez, Murkowski, Nelson of Florida, Nelson of Nebraska, Pryor, Roberts, Rockefeller, Salazar, Santorum, Sessions, Shelby, Smith, Specter, Stabenow, Stevens, Sununu, Talent, Thomas, Thune, Vitter, Voinovich, Warner.

Thursday 5 October 2006

Time to play the religious right’s favorite game — blame your enemies!

From DefCon:

    Family Research Council: Blame the Homosexuals!
    “But neither party seems likely to address the real issue, which is the link between homosexuality and child sexual abuse.” Tony Perkins, President, Family Research Council

    The Foley Scandal “illustrates the dangers of the GOP’s growing flirtation with pro-homosexual policies.” Peter LaBarbera, Americans for Truth

    Gary Bauer & Focus on the Family Action: Blame the Left!
    The Foley revelations are “an attempt to discourage Christian conservative voters and to get some percentage of them to stay home so that the Left can retake the United States Senate and the United States House.” Gary Bauer, Campaign for Working Families

    “If any lasting cultural good could come out of this awful incident, it would be Americans discarding the politically correct notion fed to us by those on the left that obscenity is just another form of free speech.” Tom Minnery, Focus on the Family Action.

    Tony Perkins: Blame Tolerance and Diversity!
    “It’s outrageous, it’s shocking. But it shouldn’t be totally surprising when we hold up tolerance and diversity as the guidepost for public life this is what you end up getting.” Tony Perkins, Family Research Council

    Not all “diversity” should be accepted and not all conduct or beliefs should be “tolerated.” Wendy Wright, Concerned Women for America.

    “Maybe it’s time to question: when is tolerance just an excuse for permissiveness?” Tony Perkins, Family Research Council

    Focus on the Family: Blame the Internet!
    “This is yet another sad example of our society’s oversexualization, especially as it affects the Internet.” Tom Minnery, Focus on the Family.

    And the best of all….

    Human Life International: Blame….Planned Parenthood?
    “There is never an acceptable excuse or rationale for the type of deviant behavior former Congressman Mark Foley has admitted to. Homosexuality is every bit a part of the culture of death as is abortion and contraception. Not surprisingly, Foley was an ardent supporter of both, representing the interests of Planned Parenthood 64 percent of the time thus far in 2006.” Jason Jones, Human Life International.

How else could they have possibly reacted? We didn't think they'd actually think, or admit the conservative flunkies who legislate their bidding have done wrong, right? Classic.

Wednesday 4 October 2006

Does Santorum's Ass Hurt?: One More Thing Coming Back and Biting It

Not that I enjoy imagining what Santorum's naked ass looks like, but I do imagine it looks a bit like a flavorless, well-chewed piece of Bazooka bubble gum by now. Here's what pRick (with a silent "P") said about the long-running priest abuse scandal in Boston:

    "When the culture is sick, every element in it becomes infected. While it is no excuse for this scandal, it is no surprise that Boston, a seat of academic, political, and cultural liberalism in America, lies at the center of the storm."

I imagine he's whistling a whole different tune with this pedaFoley thing. Here's a good venting from Boston Globe columnist, Brian McGory.

    So, of course, I find it surprising -- no, make that shocking -- that the center of the storm has shifted from Boston to, of all places, Capitol Hill, and not just any part of Capitol Hill but specifically the offices of the Republican congressional leadership.

    The scandal in Washington so mirrors what's happened in Boston and other Catholic dioceses the nation over to the point of being surreal. A rank-and-file member of an organization does wrong by a minor. The hierarchy, in turn, does nothing. Now, rather than a priest, it's a 52-year-old Republican congressman -- or make that a former congressman, given Mark Foley's resignation on Friday. Foley, by the way, has pulled the Patrick Kennedy defense, checking himself into rehab, as if everyone is supposed to applaud the courage of self-awareness.

And the best line of all:

    The guy doesn't need a new strategy, he needs a different personality.

Too true, McGory, too true! 35 days 'til elections...