"TO DESTROY THIS INVISIBLE GOVERNMENT, TO DISSOLVE THE UNHOLY ALLIANCE BETWEEN CORRUPT BUSINESS AND CORRUPT POLITICS IS THE FIRST TASK OF THE STATESMANSHIP OF THE DAY." -- Theodore Roosevelt--
Investors, like locusts, are opportunistic. They also move in swarms, descending on whatever is unprotected and likely to yield a bountiful harvest. This time around, hedge funds are widely blamed for leading the commodities frenzy, hiding behind what analysts call "supportive market fundamentals" while whipping up prices to the breaking point.
— Marketwatch
But hold on... If you think that unfettered speculation in energy futures is a danger to your well being, wait till you hear which commodity the 'locusts' are turning their attention to next:
FOOD
Garden variety crop price manipulation has been going on for decades, but now speculators are turning their attention to what they call 'owning structure'. In other words, owning the means of food production as well as the distribution system. Everything from farms to fertilizer, processing to packaging, all in the hands of multi-billion dollar hedge-funds. But...unlike agribusiness, where the outlook is somewhat longer term and profits comparably smaller, hedge-fund investors demand enormous short-term gains. And how do you engineer such gains? Well, as Jim Hightower puts it:
...If you can lock down production and stockpile the supply – you can control price. If corn prices are lower than what investors want them to be, simply store the corn and force prices up. Or, if corn prices are down in the U.S., ship it to Japan or wherever else might be more profitable.
In short, engineer famine for the sole purpose of satisfying your investors, a situation that should not be tolerated in this, or any other country. This is the point where we transition from being a Corporate Kleptocracy to being just a normal kleptocracy.
Viacom filed suit against Google in March 2007, seeking more than $1 billion in damages for allowing users to upload clips of Viacom's copyright material. Google argues that the law provides a safe harbor for online services so long as they comply with copyright takedown requests.
Although Google argued that turning over the data would invade its users' privacy, the judge's ruling (.pdf) described that argument as "speculative" and ordered Google to turn over the logs on a set of four tera-byte hard drives.
'...for each instance a video is watched, the unique “login ID” of the user who watched it, the time when the user started to watch the video, the internet protocol address other devices connected to the internet use to identify the user’s computer (“IP address”), and the identifier for the video.'
Google correctly argued that “the data should not be disclosed because of the users’ privacy concerns,” citing the VPPA, 18 U.S.C. § 2710. However, the Court dismissed this argument with no analysis, stating “defendants cite no authority barring them from disclosing such information in civil discovery proceedings, and their privacy concerns are speculative.”
So you see, it's only speculative what they will do with your user data if you've ever watched a youtube.
But get this, Viacom had attempted to compel the source code for Google's Search, Google/Youtube Video and the Google Advertising Schema!
Here's the rundown on the whole list Viacom wanted and what the judge granted and denied:
(1) The cross-motion for a protective orderbarring disclosure of the source code for the YouTube.com search function is granted, and the motion to compel production of that search code is denied;
(2) The motion to compel production of the source code for the Video ID program is denied;
(3) The motion to compel production of all removed videos is granted;
(4) The motion to compel production of all data from the Logging database concerning each time a YouTube video has been viewed on the YouTube website or through embedding on a third-party website is granted;
(5) The rnotion to compel production of those data fields which defendants have agreed to produce for works-in-suit, for all videos that have been posted to the YouTube website is denied;
(6) The motion to compel production of the schema for the Google Advertising database is denied;
(7) The motion to compel production of schema for the Google Video Content database is granted; and
(8) The motion to compel production of the private videos and data realted to them is denied at this time except to the extent it seeks production of specified non-content data about such videos
Philippe Dauman's (current CEO of Viacom and it's general counsel for quite a few years) attitude about the suit can be viewed and read here. He's wrong on DRM, fair use, technology, net neutrality, you name it.
From WIRED: Mark Klein is the engineer who blew the whistle on AT&T's involvement in the Bu$hCo™ ILLEGAL warrantless wiretapping program. He told everybody about the secret room in Los Angeles where the telecom giant allowed NSA to tap into the trunk carrying pretty much all domestic communication on the west coast. This led to a lawsuit against AT&T, a lawsuit that will probably be pining for the fjords if the FISA Amendment Act of 2008 gets passed. In an interview with WIRED's Ryan Singel, Klein sounds off against this latest instance of obstruction of justice by the US Government (a wholly-pwned subsidiary of Bu$hCo™)
...It’s a Congressional coup against the Constitution.
The Democratic leadership is touting the deal as a "compromise," but in fact they have endorsed the infamous Nuremberg defense: "Just following orders." The judge can only check their paperwork. This cynical deal is a Democratic exercise in deceit and cowardice. [...] Congress has made the FISA law a dead letter--such a law is useless if the president can break it with impunity. Thus the Democrats have surreptitiously repudiated the main reform of the post-Watergate era and adopted Nixon’s line: "When the president does it that means that it is not illegal." This is the judicial logic of a dictatorship.
The surveillance system now approved by Congress provides the physical apparatus for the government to collect and store a huge database on virtually the entire population, available for data mining whenever the government wants to target its political opponents at any given moment—all in the hands of an unrestrained executive power. It is the infrastructure for a police state.
...which for the Ruling Crime Syndicate is a much higher priority than other infrastructure projects like highways, bridges, flood control, air traffic control, hospitals, etc. Because somehow in their way of thinking the government giving you medical treatment when you need it infringes on your freedom, whereas spying on you doesn't.
A U.S. court ruled Monday that a complaint by Maher Arar, a Canadian who accuses U.S. authorities of illegally deporting him to Syria, where he was tortured, cannot be heard in federal court.
Arar, a Canadian citizen born in Syria, was stopped at a New York airport on his way home from vacation in September 2002. U.S. officials accused him of links to al-Qaeda and deported him to Syria, where he was imprisoned and tortured for months.
He claims those who sent him to Syria recklessly and knowingly intended to subject him to torture. Before he was secretly whisked away to Syria, he was confined for 12 days in New York and alleges he had to endure cruel, inhumane and degrading conditions.
Arar had argued his constitutional rights were violated when he was confined without access to a lawyer or the court system and then forcibly returned to Syria, where U.S. authorities had reason to believe he would be tortured.
But the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals in New York, affirming a lower court decision, ruled two to one Monday that Arar's claims that it was a violation of due process to send him to Syria could not be heard in federal court.
"Arar has not adequately established federal subject matter jurisdiction over his request for a judgment declaring that defendants acted illegally by removing him to Syria so that Syrian authorities could interrogate him under torture," Reuters reported the ruling as saying.
The court concluded that adjudicating the claims would interfere with sensitive matters of foreign policy and national security. It also said that Arar, as a foreigner who had not been formally admitted to the U.S., had no constitutional due process rights.
Please note the section in bold above. To attach the correct language to it, Maher Arar was kidnapped by the FBI on September 26, 2002. That's right, kidnapped. To characterize the event as an arrest lends it a dignity it simply doesn't deserve. No arrest warrant was issued or applied for. No formal charges were laid. No habeas corpus hearing was ever held. That Arar was denied his constitutional rights seems to be a given, or in legal terms he has a prima facie case.
I'd like to make a point that I think is simple but important and often ignored. The distinction between kidnap and arrest is NOT that the latter is carried out by a government and the former by a criminal. It is that an arrest is conducted under the scrutiny of the court system and follows due process. That badges may have been flashed and so forth only adds the phrase "under color of authority" to the crime.
In fact in every detail we see that the US government and its agencies has scrupulously avoided any judicial review of these acts. That smacks of a conspiracy at the highest levels of the Bush Department of Justice. Arar should seek criminal charges against anyone involved in this sordid episode, up to and including the Attorney General at the time (John Ashcroft) and the subsequent AG (Alberto Gonzales) for not charging the kidnappers. That might just send a powerful message to Michael Mukasey, the current AG. He must know that his tenure will not last beyond the installation of a Democratic government next January.
But the sad truth of it is, the Maher Arar case is just a tiny element of a much bigger story. Much, much bigger. As Station Agent says in this post,
If ever a subject needed a definitive book written about it, the U.S. Attorneys Purge is it. The problem is coming up with a thesis for the book because the sheer evil genius of the purge is that it works for the Bush administration on so many levels that to take just one motive and run with it would leave so many other wings of the scandal behind.
Yes, the Prosecutors' Purge Scandal would by itself provide material for a major book, a tome, nay an encyclopedia - the author of which would be confronted with an overwhelming amount of evidence of criminal obstruction of justice by Bu$hCo™. But even that is only a small element in the much larger story of the perversion of justice on every level in BushMerika.
Think for instance of the $BILLIONs that have gone missing in Iraq ‡, on top of the $BILLIONS that have been distributed to crony organizations with little or no actual work having been done. Consider the various gang rapes that Blackwater and KBR employees have gotten away with scot free in a lawless environment that Paul Bremer set up to help enable Bush crimes there. (‡= TPM Muckraker posted this story on just how the administration has dodged investigation of corruption in Iraq while I was writing this piece. Instant update.)
It's as if the Bush administration wants to strip Lady Justice herself and subject her to various humiliating stress positions. Perverts!
Behind it all we see the same theme applied over and over and over - the appointment of people into key positions who will ignore the plain language of the law in order to get a result that is politically expedient to the GOP and their corporate masters. They are not looking for officers of the court, they're looking for accessories after the fact at every level up to and especially including seats on the Supreme Court, and the office of Attorney General. This is croniest at the worst imaginable, the wholesale appointment of partisan hacks into the very positions that are meant to monitor and prevent government abuses.
And in every case another theme is the connecting thread. The GOP, government agents and their corporate partners in crime ALWAYS avoid responsibility. Examples include Scooter Libby, Blackwater, KBR, the telecoms, and of course the FBI agents who kidnapped Maher Arar. The principle in play is that you are innocent even after having been proven guilty. And there are plenty of victims like Maher Arar and Jamie Leigh Jones who will continue to be denied justice in both civil and criminal courts because that's how Bu$hCo™ set it up.
On the other side of the coin are those who have been persecuted without proper cause by the Bush Department of Injustice. Examples include Don Siegelman, Dr. Cyril Wecht, Dr. Bernard Rottschaefer, plus hundreds of Iraqis, Afghanis, Uyghurs, and an assortment of suspicious-looking brown people who have been subjected to unbelievably dehumanizing abuse up to and including murder. Of whom Maher Arar is just one.
And all of them prosecuted persecuted under the guiding principle of the Bush DOJ: Forget about being assumed innocent until proven guilty. If you're not one of us, you're guilty until proven otherwise, maybe even long after proven otherwise. Most astonishingly, even if the Bushlicking Supreme Court rules that you are being denied your rights, the Bushlicking Department of Justice (or in the case of Military Commissions the Department of Defense) will continue to hold you in confinement.
That's how Bu$hCo™ set it up. They have in fact committed one huge horrific crime in order to enable the commission of a multitude of other crimes. It is an obstruction of justice case the scope of which the world has never known, and which the very mechanisms of justice are unprepared to correct.
For a blogger to merely list all of the perversions of justice that the Bush administration has perpetrated would be a monumental task. It would take the resources of an entire government department (such as DOJ if it wasn't itself a major part of the problem) years, maybe decades just to sort it all out. Something on the order of the post-apartheid Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa.
Simply put, the entire Bush regime could be accurately described as the crime of the millennium - unlikely to be surpassed before the year 3001. The case of Maher Arar will be seen as a mere speck of shit in the great stinking pile that has been created by The Bush Department of Injustice.
“There is no longer any doubt as to whether the current administration has committed war crimes. The only question that remains to be answered is whether those who ordered the use of torture will be held to account.” -- Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba --
SadButTrue had a magnificent post last week about Mary Beth Buchanan. Who's that, you ask? She's the one who hired Monica Goodling. Currently Buchanan is serving as U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania, more on her later.
If ever a subject needed a definitive book written about it, the U.S. Attorneys Purge is it. The problem is coming up with a thesis for the book because the sheer evil genius of the purge is that it works for the Bush administration on so many levels that to take just one motive and run with it would leave so many other wings of the scandal behind.
Off the top of my head, the purge served the following ends:
1. Removed a cluster of effective, impartial prosecutors. These guys were putting away Republicans right and left. 2. Sent a message to the remaining U.S. Attorneys that their job security depended strictly on their compliance (or in the case of Patrick Fitzgerald, his status as untouchable). 3. It totally negated the subpoena power of the incoming Democratic majority. They have investigated now for a year and a half and have not found a single prosecutor that can convert evidence into jail time. 4. Voter supression. The new stooges are there to serve as the Katherine Harrises and Ken Blackwells of the 2008 election cycle.
By the way something, Mary Beth Buchanan has her own Don Siegelman case on her hands. Today the House Judiciary Committee subpoenaed Justice Department for documents related to the Siegelman prosecution as well as the odious prosecution of Cyril Wecht, which was run by Buchanan. Looks like SbT was onto something. If only there were anyone left to prosecute.
Have a little look at this fabulous turn of events, where you get to buy "consumables" which are always being standardized for efficiency, and there's a VERY efficient working relationship between the State and Religion; Confession, all taped and digitized for easy retrieval. De-sensitization to violence is paramount in this culture of Lucas'. And I forgot, the Corporation IS the State. Just look for yourself.
I find the State flogging the Citizen at about 5:50 into the above video most disturbing. Replace that with Tasing, and VOILA! We have today. Clubs tomorrow?
Robert Duvall plays the part of THX-1138. (Have you put it together yet that the THX Surround Sound System is Lucas' homage to that little film yet? Anyways..) Duvall/THX get's incarcerated in the loony bin of that future state. Donald Pleasance is in the same bin. They Want OUT of their situation, really badly. Duvall/THX understands that he's looking at a dreamworld. He decides to defy the conventional and loony wisdom and walk to the boundaries of their crazy world. Donald Pleasance makes a bunch of noise and follows.
Watch the clip below, and look at about who gives them guidance at about 5:38?
And what does this guy do? Take some of their food, and when they ask him, "Do you know the way out?" he tells them, "Hey, go back the way you came. Look, that's the way out. You see?"
And they turn on their heels and follow him.
Long story short, he's a hologram, a puppet run by the same CorporoState that Brought You Consumables!
At 7:46 - "How shall a new environment be programmed? It all happens so slowly that most men fail to realize that anything had happened at all..."
This is my long winded and weird to get to the flap between Glenn Greenwald and Keith Olberman. The thing is, is that Digby is right. Fuck this centrist bullshit. What they're not saying is that POLITICS SHOULD BE AS PARTISAN AS CONCIEVABLE OR POSSIBLE RIGHT NOW! Cheese and Rice, there is no time like NOW to repudiate the politics of the Republicans with 8 out of 10 people saying the country is going down the tubes.
Obama Ain't Gotta Play On FISA. It's as simple as that. So he should suck it up and LEAD THE FILIBUSTER!
Now Olbermann announced that he'll have a Special Comment on his Monday program about this little grange war. Fine. I hope he shoots the shit out of the target and makes Obama squirm. If Keith goes to the alleged "center " on this thing, well fuck, he turns into the next generation of the Very Wise And Serious Villagers, at which point I will vomit, as if anybody cares.
Anybody that keeps saying to me "march to the center, it's pragmatic" I feel like punching in the face. I'm no sheep. I may be a Democrat and I want to win as much as anybody eolse but I don't want to wake up in 4, 5, 10 more years and be even farther down the road to THX 1138.
What the hell would be my name? UNC - 4291?
I'll vote for this Obama person, but it's only because of the alternative. Like I said during the primaries "If the country is a car hurtling off the cliff, the Repugs are stepping on the gas, the Dems are thinking about putting on the breaks. It's up to us to stop the fucking car."
There are two things I always notice when I travel in Europe. The first is how fat we are (myself included, although by American standards I'm pretty slim). The second is how the level of discourse goes up by at least an order of magnitude when I get off the plane. Here is a translated article from die Zeit (by way of Watchingamerica.com).
(If you don't read watchingamerica from time to time, do so. It's really instructive to learn how the world thinks of us.)
Now I don't think Americans are dumb, at least not individually. In the herd, though, we sink to the lowest level of nearly any civilized country. We don't speak other languages. I have literally shocked people in Germany when they address me in English and I respond in German. Das gibt doch nicht, they say, That doesn't exist, or Du hast mich doch erschrocken, you certainly shocked me. Not to say I'm the only American who speaks German but I certainly find the ones who do a lot more interesting.
My German friends and acquaintances of all educational levels always surprise me with their depth. We get together, a bit of beer or wine flows and we're talking about politics - American politics - or literature, or philosophy, or art. I read the posters stuck to nearly any flat surface in Frankfurt, classical concerts, theater, political talks. Here on the bus stops I see posters for Get Smart. And we wonder why we are losing ground in the world. In Sweden, everyone literally speaks English. They get their entertainment from us, you see, and the market for Swedish entertainment is not large enough to overdub, so they get English with subtitles. And the buildings are all built to allow natural light, something I'd like to see you propose to an American builder.
Are Americans stupid? No, not individually. As a herd, we're shallow, we think only in the short term and we tend to be very self-absorbed and I think that was what the author of the piece cited meant.
Then I read of attempts to legislate natural law and once again, I become just a bit ashamed of what our country has become.
OK, I have a prediction, totally out of left field. A name you probably haven't heard of at all, but soon will be hearing A LOT in connection with the DoJ politicization/prosecutors' purge scandal. Mary Beth Buchanan. Mark my words. And I'll tell you why.
TPM Muckraker has this profile of Esther Slater McDonald, one of the two DOJ operatives fingered for winnowing through job applicants to exclude anyone with a liberal background or affiliations. The other one is Michael Elston, the former chief of staff for then deputy attorney general Paul McNulty. Muckraker contributor Kate Klonick mentions that Ms. McDonald was "ushered into the hallowed halls of Gonzales' DOJ by none other than the Monica Goodling herself."
So that brings up the question, "who hired Monica Goodling?" And the answer is: Mary Beth Buchanan. Buchanan herself is the current US Attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania, appointed by George Bush the Lesser in 2001. As such she is one of the USAs referred to by Paul Krugman when he said last year,
"...In the last few days we’ve also learned that Republican members of Congress called prosecutors to pressure them on politically charged cases, even though doing so seems unethical and possibly illegal.
The bigger scandal, however, almost surely involves prosecutors still in office. The Gonzales Eight were fired because they wouldn’t go along with the Bush administration’s politicization of justice. But statistical evidence suggests that many other prosecutors decided to protect their jobs or further their careers by doing what the administration wanted them to do: harass Democrats while turning a blind eye to Republican malfeasance."
So, we have:
Esther Slater McDonald, implicated (with over 100 references to her in the IG's report) in the politicization of the DOJ.
Monica Goodling, who has already admitted under oath to having 'crossed the line' in her involvement in the politicization of the DOJ, hired McDonald.
Mary Beth Buchanan, one of the 'many other prosecutors [who] decided to protect their jobs...by doing what the administration wanted them to do,' hired Goodling.
Buchanan was an appointee of pResident George W. Bush, the ultimate 'loyal Bushie'.
And my prediction is that Buchanan will emerge as a key component in the DoJ prosecutors' purge scandal. She is already up to her neck in harassing Democrats: from her Wikipedia entry, read about her involvement in the prosecutionpersecution of Dr. Cyril Wecht in Pennsylvania:
Dr. Cyril Wecht, a former Allegheny County, Pennsylvania coroner and medical examiner, is a prominent Democrat in the Pittsburgh area. In January 2006, Dr. Wecht was indicted by U.S. Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan on 84 counts of fraud and theft relating to using his public office for private gain. Dr. Wecht's lawyers claimed that some of these charges involved $3.96 worth of faxes, and $1,778.55 worth of gasoline and mileage bills charged to the state.[15][16] Buchanan was known for her high-profile prosecutions and investigations of prominent Democrats such as Sheriff Pete DeFazio, the mayor Tom Murphy, and a County Judge, Joseph Jaffe.
Before Wecht's trial, the prosecution moved to dismiss 43 of the 84 counts without prejudice. The judge rejected the motion and dismissed the 43 charges with prejudice, which permanently bars the revival of the charges. Wecht's defense counsel claimed that his prosecution was politically motivated. The initial indictment was announced in early 2006, before the November 2006 elections. During the trial, the judge barred the defense from arguing that the case was politically motivated. Even though no discussions about possible political motivations were allowed during the trial, the jury foreman told reporters after the trial that some jurors began to see the prosecution as "political". In an interview post trial with a local news station, one juror expressed her concern about that case when she stated "I don't know if politically motivated or not, but it seemed to me that the motivations were certainly less than pure. There was something behind it other than seeking justice."
So this might be the second most prominent political hatchet job to come out of the Bush Department of Injustice, eclipsed only by the railroading of Alabama's true governor, Don Siegelman.
Wikipedia also notes that, "critics of Mary Beth Buchanan have claimed that she has embarked on several high profile public corruption cases that have exclusively targeted Democratic politicians such as former Sheriff Pete DeFazio, [and] former Mayor Tom Murphy."
She was also the force behind the prosecutionpersecution of actor/comedian Tommy Chong in 2003 for selling bongs over the internet. Chong spent 9 months in jail over this. When he got out, he made a documentary about his case, The United States of America vs. Tommy Chong - which resulted in a raid and confiscation of 10,000 DVD copies of the movie, in violation of Chong's First Amendment rights. Nice.
The other side of Krugman's observation holds too. Along with the harassment of Democrats, Buchanan was turning a blind eye towards Republican malfeasance.
One critic, Allegheny County Democratic Chairman Jim Burn stated that ”Her record speaks for itself. I've seen a long line of Democrats and mistakes aren't made based on party affiliation but I haven't seen anybody from the other side going though that system." Mr. Burns pointed to the fact that Mary Beth Buchanan’s Office refused to investigate former Republican Senator Rick Santorum who got a tuition reimbursement for his kids by claiming a Penn Hills residency when his family spends most of its time in Virginia as an example of an alleged double standard. "You have to ask yourself the misrepresentations of a Republican such as Rick Santorum made about his alleged residency in Penn Hills were significant," said Burn.
This brings us around to the main event: her involvement in the Prosecutors' Purge scandal at DOJ. More from her Wikipedia entry:
In April of 2007, Kyle Sampson, the former Gonzales aide, raised Ms. Buchanan's name to judiciary committee investigators during his April testimony. Mr. Sampson said that Ms. Buchanan was among the DOJ officials he consulted about which of the U.S. attorneys should be asked to resign. [36]
In May of 2007, Monica Goodling told committee members that she knew Ms. Buchanan had discussed the firings with Mr. Sampson. [...] After learning this information, the House Judiciary Committee requested an interview with Mary Beth Buchanan in June of 2006. Committee staff members privately questioned Buchanan. She had served as director of the Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys in 2004 and 2005 when discussions were held within the Justice Department concerning which of the country's 93 top federal prosecutors should be dismissed. Buchanan has denied any involvement in the firings. After the interviews, it was reported that Mary Beth Buchanan used another exit to leave the federal building where the interviews were conducted and headed directly to the airport for a flight back to Pittsburgh without providing statements on the proceedings. Buchanan has denied any involvement in the firings of the US Attorneys and has denied that the prosecutions of key Democratic politicians in the Western PA area was driven by political factors.
I must be the suspicious type, because I find Buchanan's denial that politics played a part in the prosecution persecution of Democrats somewhat hard to believe, especially in light of this piece from the Pittsburgh Post Gazette. "
Motive of Wecht deal talks questioned
Thursday, June 07, 2007 By Paula Reed Ward, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Federal prosecutors approached defense lawyers for forensic pathologist Dr. Cyril H. Wecht last week to talk about resolving his criminal case, just days before U.S. Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan's scheduled closed-door interview with House Judiciary Committee investigators.
Dr. Wecht's attorneys allege that Ms. Buchanan, in the spotlight for her role in the expanding investigation into the firings of U.S. attorneys and vetting of candidates, is trying to quell what they have all along characterized as a political prosecution.
"None of this is coincidence," said defense attorney Jerry McDevitt, of the timing of the prosecution's request to meet. "She wants to make sure we keep our mouths shut while she's down there before Congress."
Making sure that certain people keep their mouths shut seems to be a constant in the pursuit of truth in this affair. Government employees seem always to be either pleading ignorance, pleading the fifth or pleading amnesia when asked why these particular prosecutors were fired at the time they were (Dec. 7, 2006.) Again, I'm the suspicious type, so it sounds more like Omerta than amnesia to me.
So this leads to my final question. With the sworn testimony of two witnesses against her, and her own denial of involvement having NOT been made under oath, but in a private interview, why has the House Judiciary Committee NOT put Mary Beth Buchanan under oath and asked these questions again? I'm curious to see if we have another victim of contagious amnesia here. If not, and we could get some straight answers out of Ms. Buchanan, I think it would blow this case wide open.
[I originally wrote this last summer, August, actually, and I am editing it for today's currency.]
I do not apologize for the difficulty of this post, just as neither Adams or Beethoven would not. The complexity of this piece and my concept require that the reader must pay attention. Must.
It's my intention that, if you would be so kind as to observe the word and order of the video performances in this post, dear reader, you shall come to a gratifying end.
Imagine the time. 1824 and John Quincy Adams, a Founder of our United States and a rebel by the way, is President of the United States.
One of the finest pieces of human art creation I know of is Beethoven's 9th Symphony, known as "The Chorale" symphony and it debuts in said 1824. Imagine that you composed, but you never physically heard it. That would make you Beethoven. There's a little bit of it that makes you, well, you.
Be embraced, you millions! This kiss for the whole world! Brothers, beyond the stars, a loving Father dwells You bow down, you millions? Do you sense the Creator, world? Seek Him beyond the stars! Beyond the stars must He dwell. Be embraced, ye millions! This kiss for the whole world! Brothers, beyond the stars must a loving Father dwell. Be embraced, This kiss for the whole world! Joy, beautiful spark of the gods, Daughter of Elysium, Joy, beautiful spark of the gods
This first part, to measure against, is from 1942, April 20th; Hitlers birthday , Kurt Furtwangler conducting. Notice the people's faces in both the orchestra and the audience.
Observe - the conductor, Furtwangler, is a MANIAC in this performance, and the orchestra result is all "Eh. I've had better." He was a world reknown conductor beforehand and his co-option by the Nazis.
And the audience are zombies. Including the wounded. Are these "millions" embraced? No. And does this sort of staged shit look familiar, like, say, the State of the Union, pick one, since 2003?
'Bout these here performers. Are they free? No.
Are they kissed? Probably not. And there's definiteley no lube, if you know what I mean.
Lets move to the reconstruction period in Europe. Previously, SadButTrue urged homework re: the difference between "Manifest Destiny" and "Lebensraum."
Well, here's a 1949 offering from those who lived through "lebensraum" and are pretty well into the Marshall Plan.
There's a very sobering difference when one observes it. The Prague ("Praha" in my family) folks during the Marshall Plan years have an entirely different performance. It's workman-like, and understandably so, since they are re-building. Notice how the simpler approach yields an entirely different performance.
A sober, simple and methodical approach is entirely appropriate, free from the yolk of Nazi oppression, AND IT BECOMES UPLIFTING! Instead of stilted as before. Observe the faces between the 2 videos so far. Video 1, the Nazis suck. Look at all the crossed arms in #1 and the serious faces. There is no Joy in #1. But - people are so serious about their "Freude" ("Joy") in #2 in Marshall Plan Prague. The tone is lighter, but is that all? Nope - the Czechs are STILL SINGING THE GERMAN WORDS! You see, the shit Nazi German has left, but the German Art remains.
This fucking brilliant next-door-neighbor, Beethoven, over 100 fucking years ago, made this shit, it's brilliant, it's in German and these folks just don't care that the Germans have totally fucked them in the ass, they CARE ABOUT THE ART! And they should. Beauty was bereft for so long, discrimination had no place along side it. And that makes those particular Czechs so pure of heart, for their time and place, I can't tell you how much it makes me tear up in hope for the future.
The simple fact of their breathing and volume and enthusiasm in the piece are worlds apart from video #1. They have SURVIVED THE MUTHERFUCKERS and are now PROSPERING, albeit barely and by scratch. They blame the Nazis and their fascism, and do not confuse it with Beethoven. Heavenly people, really.
And now, to my ultimate point:
Again- look at the peoples faces, in both the orchestra and the audience. It's so simple for Bernstein and his audience. The smiles alone tell the jubilation of the performance.
Here's the way I look at this. You can only have one opportunity to bastardize a great work of humans for a political agenda. To my mind, what happens is, you get one shot at the bastardization. TIME will prove as the Great Corrector.
The FISA bill is exactly the kind of thing that is the subject of Beethoven's only opera, Fidelio. Is that going to pass? Odds say yes.
[...] This Administration also puts forward a false choice between the liberties we cherish and the security we demand. I will provide our intelligence and law enforcement agencies with the tools they need to track and take out the terrorists without undermining our Constitution and our freedom.
That means no more illegal wire-tapping of American citizens. No more national security letters to spy on citizens who are not suspected of a crime. No more tracking citizens who do nothing more than protest a misguided war. No more ignoring the law when it is inconvenient. That is not who we are. And it is not what is necessary to defeat the terrorists. The FISA court works. The separation of powers works. Our Constitution works. We will again set an example for the world that the law is not subject to the whims of stubborn rulers, and that justice is not arbitrary.
This Administration acts like violating civil liberties is the way to enhance our security. It is not. There are no short-cuts to protecting America, and that is why the fifth part of my strategy is doing the hard and patient work to secure a more resilient homeland.
Too often this Administration's approach to homeland security has been to scatter money around and avoid hard choices, or to scare Americans without telling them what to be scared of, or what to do. A Department set up to make Americans feel safer didn't even show up when bodies drifted through the streets in New Orleans. That's not acceptable. [emphasis mine]
The Nazi types may never again appropriate Beethoven's 9th Symphony. They will have to have US give it to them to do so again. Let us keep this particular torch unto ourselves, and never surrender it lightly. But are we surrendering?
I am dreading the day that I have to write the whole "Abschuelicher" thing again.
[Fidelio-Leonore ( woman who dresses as a man to get the job done - UC) appears on the scene: "Abscheulicher, wo eilst du hin, was hast du vor?" (despicable one, where are you hurrying off to, what is your intent?).
In trembling agitation, the orchestra accompanies the fearful lamentations of the plagued woman's heart. Then Leonore regains her posture; in a wondrous passage (introduced and accompanied by the strings, woodwinds and soft playing of the horns), "Komm, Hoffnung, laß den letzten Stern der Müden nicht rbleichen" (come, hope, do not let the last star of the weary one fade away).
And then Leonore rejoices, "Ich folg dem innern Triebe, ich wanke nicht" (I will follow my inner notions, I will not falter). She sings herself into a delirious state. --At the request of Fidelio, Rocco orders that the prison cells be opened.
With a chorus that can hardly still be described "earthly", the prisoners welcome fresh air and light. Here, the outer course of events stand completely still. Yet, the expression of the inner meaning of the events is so strong that one would not consider this chorus as an interruption but rather as a first breath of air of the freedom to come(emphasis mine) ]
Surrender your art NOT to the service of evil. And I know you folks won't. I am just challenging every frikking Dem in the Senate and the house, and not just on FISA.
But, fuck. [*] Beethoven would roll in his grave if he knew that the previous folks had ever used his Art to an ill-purposed, fascist or otherwise anti-human situation.
Be embraced ye millions - this kiss, Freedom, is for the whole world.
* This post was curse-word enhanced more than regular posting I do. Just because I wanted to.
So apparently Daddy Dobson thinks Obama has a "fruitcake interpretation of the constitution" and is "deliberately distorting the traditional understanding of the Bible to fit his own worldview, his own confused theology." So, Daddy Dearest, is anyone who comes to a different understanding of the Bible a liar? If that's the case, then most of Americans who claim a religious affiliation are liars. An amazing Pew Research poll found that more than two-thirds of adults affiliated with a religious tradition agree that there is more than one true way to interpret the teachings of their faith. Or is it as Daddy believes, that they just don't take their biblical interpretation serioiusly? Why is it that unless we agree with you, we can only be lackadaisical liars?
Obama makes an overture to you and what do you do? You call him a fruitcake and a liar. You're just like the guy on who gets rescued off a deserted island. His rescuers observes three huts on the beach and asks the man what they are for.
"Well, the first one is my home and the second one is my church," he says.
"So what's the third hut for?" they ask.
"Oh, I got pissed off at my old church so I started a new church."
Today that same poll shows that seven in ten Americans who proclaim a faith (and the poll states that faith means christian, jew, muslim, buddist, hindu...) believe there's is not the only way to eternal life. That's means maybe three in ten agree with Dobson...of course, that might mean one evangelical, one jew and one muslim. But anyway you look at it, Dobson is finding himself closer and closer to being a congregation of one on a deserted island.
This is from the recommended reader's posts at TPMCafé, and well worth a read. Kudos to the author, who goes under the name TESTING. Truly unruly.
Don't underestimate the implications of the Guantanamo rulings in the wake of the Supreme Court decision on habeas. They help peel away some of the layers of obfuscation the President and DOJ OLC created to hide this President's war crimes against protected civilians. The President and others did not take the (required) time to ensure civilians were protected.
The ruling declaring a POW was not properly classified as an enemy combatant turns Addington's applecart upside down.
There is some really nice reasoning here which can be simplified to three points.
SCOTUS has rejected the idea that any authority can be created by Congress and given to the Executive which allows them to create the designation Unlawful Enemy Combatants, thereby depriving them of their habeas corpus rights.
The administration has already rejected the idea that the detainees are soldiers, because then they would be POWs, afforded a whole set of protections under the Geneva Conventions.
So what does that make them? That's right, civilians. And the problem for the administration is that civilians are afforded even more protections than POWs are. In fact, interrogating them is an act of terrorism by definition.
OK, full disclosure, I added in that midddle point about POWs. I'm sure testing meant to include it. Anyway, it does lead to a very simple and straightforward argument against the Bush administration, not only for war crimes (which we unrulies always knew he was guilty of) but acts of terrorism as well - as defined by international convention.
There are no "authorized" interrogations of civilians during an armed conflict. Civilians are protected classes under Geneva from coercion, as interrogations inherently are.
Rather, the United States government has a problem: Interrogations of civilians could be construed as a separate offense under the laws of war, and illegal terrorism against protected civilians. Factors going against the government include:
A. the delay in guaranteeing the protected civilian status;
B. the lengthy civilian detention without a judicial review; and
C. the forced exposure of civilians to illegal interrogations despite ICRC demands to the contrary.
It was this President's policy to hide civilians prisoners from the ICRC, a subsequent violation of the laws of war.
There is only one problem here, not a legal one but one of practicality. Who in America has the nads to bell the cat? With impeachment off the table (even, it appears, in the case of crimes against humanity) and Bush's pet eunuch Michael Mukasey unwilling to enforce the law against the administration in the slightest regard any legal argument of wrongdoing is moot.
Anyway, it does lead to a very simple and straightforward argument against the Bush administration, not only for war crimes (which we unrulies always knew he was guilty of) but acts of terrorism as well - as defined by international convention.