Peace Is Every Step

"If President Obama signs this bill, it will damage both his legacy and American’s reputation for..."

Fri, 16 Dec 2011 01:34:14 -0600

“If President Obama signs this bill, it will damage both his legacy and American’s reputation for upholding the rule of law. The last time Congress passed indefinite detention legislation was during the McCarthy era and President Truman had the courage to veto that bill. We hope that the president will consider the long view of history before codifying indefinite detention without charge or trial.”

- Laura W. Murphy, director of the ACLU Washington Legislative Office in a statement released yesterday

It’s pretty bad that our government in 2011 is reacting to an attack over 10 years ago to a degree that was deemed excessive even during the McCarthy era.

That bill, of course, was the 1950 McCarran Internal Security Act or the Subversive Activities Control Act (H.R. 9490), which Truman vetoed but the Senate overrode, with 89% in favor. The Emergency Detention statute granted presidential authority to detain “each person as to whom there is a reasonable ground to believe that such person probably will engage in, or probably will conspire with others to engage in, acts of espionage or sabotage.” This provision, however, was repealed by the Non-Detention Act of 1971.

Of the relevant provisions, Truman said:

Sections 100 through 117 of this bill (title II) are intended to give the Government power, in the event of invasion, war, or insurrection in the United States in aid of a foreign enemy, to seize and hold persons who could be expected to attempt acts of espionage or sabotage, even though they had as yet committed no crime. It may be that legislation of this type should be on the statute books. But the provisions in H.R. 9490 would very probably prove ineffective to achieve the objective sought, since they would not suspend the writ of habeas corpus, and under our legal system to detain a man not charged with a crime would raise serious constitutional questions unless the writ of habeas corpus were suspended. Furthermore, it may well be that other persons than those covered by these provisions would be more important to detain in the event of emergency. This whole problem, therefore, should clearly be studied more thoroughly before further legislative action along these lines is considered.

In brief, when all the provisions of H.R. 9490 are considered together, it is evident that the great bulk of them are not directed toward the real and present dangers that exist from communism. Instead of striking blows at communism, they would strike blows at our own liberties and at our position in the forefront of those working for freedom in the world. At a time when our young men are fighting for freedom in Korea, it would be tragic to advance the objectives of communism in this country, as this bill would do.

(via mohandasgandhi)

Obama to sign indefinite detention bill into law

Fri, 16 Dec 2011 01:32:39 -0600

artivista:

In one of the least surprising developments imaginable, President Obama – after spending months threatening to veto the Levin/McCain detention bill – yesterday announced that he would instead sign it into law (this is the same individual, of course, who unequivocally vowed when seeking the Democratic nomination to support a filibuster of “any bill that includes retroactive immunity for telecom[s],” only to turn around – once he had the nomination secure — and not only vote against such a filibuster, but to vote in favor of the underlying bill itself, so this is perfectly consistent with his past conduct). As a result, the final version of the Levin/McCain bill will be enshrined as law this week as part of the the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). I wrote about the primary provisions and implications of this bill last week, and won’t repeat those points here.

The ACLU said last night that the bill contains “harmful provisions that some legislators have said could authorize the U.S. military to pick up and imprison without charge or trial civilians, including American citizens, anywhere in the world” and added: “if President Obama signs this bill, it will damage his legacy.” Human Rights Watch said that Obama’s decision “does enormous damage to the rule of law both in the US and abroad” and that “President Obama will go down in history as the president who enshrined indefinite detention without trial in US law.”

Both groups pointed out that this is the first time indefinite detention has been enshrined in law since the McCarthy era of the 1950s, when — as the ACLU put it — “President Truman had the courage to veto” the Internal Security Act of 1950 on the ground that it “would make a mockery of our Bill of Rights” and then watched Congress override the veto. That Act authorized the imprisonment of Communists and other “subversives” without the necessity of full trials or due process (many of the most egregious provisions of that bill were repealed by the1971 Non-Detention Act, and are now being rejuvenated by these War on Terror policies of indefinite detention). President Obama, needless to say, is not Harry Truman. He’s not even the Candidate Obama of 2008 who repeatedly insisted that due process and security were not mutually exclusive and who condemned indefinite detention as “black hole” injustice.

read more

DOD thinks that protests are "low-level-terrorism."

Fri, 16 Dec 2011 01:26:10 -0600

DOD thinks that protests are "low-level-terrorism.":

Under the NDAA legislation, protesters could legally be held indefinitely as terrorists.

Hello all.

Fri, 16 Dec 2011 01:24:47 -0600

I haven’t logged into this account in months. But I’m here to tell you I’m PISSED about NDAA and SOPA, and you should be too.

Occupy was great, but if you think things have changed, I have four words for you.

Wake the fuck up.

Cables Reveal 2006 Summary Execution of Civilian Family in Iraq -- Antiwar.com

Fri, 02 Sep 2011 22:12:00 -0500

Cables Reveal 2006 Summary Execution of Civilian Family in Iraq -- Antiwar.com

RHPolitics: bana05: How media clearly reflects the sexism and the racism we cannot...

Thu, 25 Aug 2011 14:08:14 -0500

RHPolitics: bana05: How media clearly reflects the sexism and the racism we cannot...:

bana05:

How media clearly reflects the sexism and the racism we cannot see in ourselves.

I wanted my first-year film students to understand what happens to a story when actual human beings inhabit your characters, and the way they can inspire storytelling. And I wanted to teach them how…

"In 2010, Rethink Afghanistan created a tool on [Facebook] that allowed you to re-spend, as you saw..."

Mon, 22 Aug 2011 22:57:02 -0500

“

In 2010, Rethink Afghanistan created a tool on [Facebook] that allowed you to re-spend, as you saw fit, the trillion dollars in tax money that had, by that point, been spent on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. I clicked to add various items to my “shopping cart” and then checked to see what I’d acquired. I was able to hire every worker in Afghanistan for a year at $12 billion, build 3 million affordable housing units in the United States for $387 billion, provide healthcare for a million average Americans for $3.4 billion and for a million children at $2.3 billion.

Still within the $1 trillion limit, I managed to also hire a million music/arts teachers for a year for $58.5 billion, and a million elemtary school teachers for a year for $61.1 billion. I also placed a million kids in Head Start for a year for $7.3 billion. Then I gave 10 million students a one-year university scholarship for $79 billion. Finally, I decided to provide 5 million residences with renewable energy for $4.8 billion. Convinced I’d exceeded my spending limits, I proceeded to the shopping cart, only to be advised:

‘You still have $384.5 billion to spare.’

[…]

A trillion dollars sure does go a long way when you don’t have to kill anybody.

”

- David Swanson, War Is A Lie (via dceiver)

creating online grassroots movements

Tue, 16 Aug 2011 09:33:34 -0500

creating online grassroots movements:

On May 14, 2000, massive numbers of people, fed up with a recent string of school shootings, descended on Washington DC to rally for common sense gun laws. This movement started with practically no funding, no central organization, no TV ads, no direct mail budget, no email database, and no social media websites like Facebook yet in existence. Yet, somehow, in just nine months, the Million Mom March was able mobilize more than 850,000 people to participate nationally — with our help.

How did we do it?

May 14, 2010 was the 10th anniversary of the Million Mom March, an organization advocating sensible gun control laws and one of Abstract Edge’s first clients. Founded in September 1999, the MMM became perhaps the first mass grassroots movement of the Internet era, mobilizing more than 850,000 people to march on Washington on Mother Day 2000 and in smaller, local marches throughout the US.

When the MMM founders first came to us, we had to figure out exactly how we were going to engage and motivate hundreds of thousands of people in only nine months. This was quite a challenge and success was hardly guaranteed. We weren’t simply asking them to write letters or send a check; we were asking them to travel to Washington and spend their Mothers Day at a rally to fight for a cause.

This was no small task. At that point there was no “formal” MMM organization or central office. The entire organization pretty much consisted of just a small handful of New Jersey soccer moms and a vision.

t-squat-magazine: Utilising Situationist methods of...

Fri, 12 Aug 2011 21:12:42 -0500

t-squat-magazine:

Utilising Situationist methods of Detournement (turning expressions of the capitalist system against itself), Robert Montgomery replaces the garish and subliminal advertisements the pervade our cities with beautiful, poetic and melancholic examples of observant poetry.

"Atheism” is a term that should not even exist. No one ever needs to identify himself as a..."

Thu, 11 Aug 2011 17:08:14 -0500

““Atheism” is a term that should not even exist. No one ever needs to identify himself as a “non-astrologer” or a “non-alchemist.” We do not have words for people who doubt that Elvis is still alive or that aliens have traversed the galaxy only to molest ranchers and their cattle. Atheism is nothing more than the noises reasonable people make in the presence of unjustified religious beliefs.”

- Sam Harris (via bringtheruckuss)

Or maybe in Sam Harris’ case, “atheist” should be used to describe his demeanor as an intolerant prejudiced Islamophobic douchebag.

(via mohandasgandhi)

What a ridiculous quote. By that extension, anarchism is a term that shouldn’t exist, people shouldn’t have to identify themselves as a “non-fascist” or a “non-statist.” Question is, if Sam Harris can ignore a few thousand years of culture, metaphysics, and religious thought, why shouldn’t anarchists? Because we know it’s stupid.

Why Sept. 17 and OccupyWallSt Won’t Work (As Much As I Wish It Would)

Thu, 11 Aug 2011 14:29:23 -0500

Why Sept. 17 and OccupyWallSt Won’t Work (As Much As I Wish It Would):

I wrote this over at my “main” blog. Feel free to check it out if you’re following this topic.

About a month ago, the folks over at Adbusters (a great alternative media source) released a call to arms of sorts, for American radicals and dissidents:

On September 17, we want to see 20,000 people flood into lower Manhattan, set up tents, kitchens, peaceful barricades and occupy Wall Street for a few months. Once there, we shall incessantly repeat one simple demand in a plurality of voices.

Drawing parallels to the Arab spring and Tahrir square, several Twitter accounts emerged which have served to “educate, organize, agitate,” including@OccupyWallSt, @radleft, and @USDayOfRage. They work to conjurer up images of a new American revolution, going beyond the disillusionment shared by most Americans and still yet something greater than a leftist response to the right’s hysteria last year (see the Glen Beck rally and other Tea Party outings).

Motivated by class-conscious resentment, they are spurred forward by popular support for Wikileaks and the vacuum of criticism for Anonymous. They echo the lingo of a movement which has been asleep for nearly forty years, with various self-drafted radical slogans; some tired (“We are witnessing the death of neoliberalism!“), some inane (“Ideology offers ppl the illusion of identity, dignity, & morality, while making it easier to part with them“). But their weakness is also their strength: the New Left of the past fell apart from in-fighting, nit-picking on it’s internal doctrine, and strict organizational structures. Horizontal coordination on the web and greater latitude for communication has created the illusion of strength in numbers. It’s difficult to say how many have committed to the planned demonstration/occupation. There are still bigger problems on the horizon for these organizers. I believe they are setting themselves up for failure – whether this is the “perceived failure” of Bill Moyer’s Movement Action Plan which leads to majority support, or a catastrophic embarrassment which further illegitimizes the American left, I don’t know. Here are the reasons why.

click thru for the rest.

Politicalprof: On London's Riots

Thu, 11 Aug 2011 10:04:59 -0500

Politicalprof: On London's Riots:

politicalprof:

I love London.

I’ve vacationed there several times. I lived there for six months on sabbatical. For whatever reason, I get London, and London gets me.

And not just the nice bits. As it happened, I lived in the remarkably posh neighborhood of St. John’s Wood. Kate Moss lived nearby. I saw Paul…

An excellent insight by someone who knows what they’re talking about.

liberationfrequency: Police state fears? Cameron calls to...

Thu, 11 Aug 2011 09:56:51 -0500

liberationfrequency:

Police state fears? Cameron calls to disrupt social media during unrest

jakke: This is a work of beauty. It should be “people in...

Wed, 10 Aug 2011 19:02:58 -0500

jakke:

This is a work of beauty.

It should be “people in academia” though

anti-propaganda: London Riots. (The BBC will never replay this....

Wed, 10 Aug 2011 13:52:28 -0500

anti-propaganda:

London Riots. (The BBC will never replay this. Send it out) (by mYcHeMiCaLrOmAnCeGaL)

‘Darcus Howe, a West Indian Writer and Broadcaster with a voice about the riots. Speaking about the mistreatment of youths by police leading to an up-roar and the ignorance of both police and the governement. Intelligent black male. SEND THIS TO EVERYONE!

(Also, did anyone notice that the interviewer tried to make him ignorant… Complete back-fire I must say)’

Darcus Howe was interviewed by Democracy Now! today. See the interview here.

CBS Report: 81 congressmen going to Israel on break

Mon, 08 Aug 2011 23:53:00 -0500

CBS Report: 81 congressmen going to Israel on break:

mohandasgandhi:

It’s no secret that Congress has always been very pro-Israel but jeeze, this is a little excessive. I’m so glad we’re paying these guys while they’re romping around in Israel.

Of the 81 heading over, 55 are Republicans and 26 are Democrats, The Post reports. Half of the freshmen Republican reps - 47 of them - make up that group, and many of them will be visiting Israel for the first time.

The article makes it very clear that AIPAC is paying for the trip. Think about that. A foreign government’s lobbying group is paying for 81 of our congressional representatives to visit their country… and this isn’t the first time they’ve done it.

Photo

Mon, 08 Aug 2011 22:32:26 -0500

"…peace as we know it is built on a whole range of concealed and structured forms of violence,..."

Mon, 08 Aug 2011 22:12:53 -0500

“…peace as we know it is built on a whole range of concealed and structured forms of violence, whether in terms of race, class, gender, sexuality, or environmental degradation.”

- Roland Boer, Political Myth, P. 124 (via noumenology)

Photo

Sun, 07 Aug 2011 16:07:58 -0500

ALL OF THE POSTS ARE DELETED.

Fri, 05 Aug 2011 02:16:16 -0500

amindajoy:

Not because I am afraid of attack, but because I like my blog to be nice and fun and a place where I can only do things/talk to people I like.

I have learned my lesson about voicing my opinion.

That’s too bad - the lesson should have been about critical thinking. Looks like you failed both.