To Kill a Mockingbirdturns 50 this summer. I did not read the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel until I was an adult, but I saw the film adaptation at around age seven or eight. Of course, it was probably the likable characters of Scout and Jem, close to my own age so I could imagine them as my own cohorts, which drew me into the television presentation. But I also look back and realize that Atticus taught me a lot about justice, respect, and human dignity.
Or at least that movie was an early inspiration to even thinking about those concepts. Sometimes I find it really hard to trace where my ideas and values come from, but I know where they stand now.
And that brings me to another subject. I feel, like many people including, I thought, the president, that our country has lost some of its moral high-standing during this ill-conceived "war on terror." But apparently President Obama has changed his opinions while mine have stayed the same.
I know I'm outsourcing to Jon Stewart twice in one week, but who can resist the comparison of Obama to Frodo?
From the BBC today: Defeated Iranian presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi says opposition detainees put on trial have been subjected to "medieval torture".
There once was a time when the U.S. could act shocked at those revelations and condemn such an evil and barbaric government. Now, what can we do? Our country went medieval a long time ago. And yes, waterboarding is medieval.
And it's not just our government. It's not just Republicans or Democrats. Many Americans are willing to tolerate torture. In fact, a recent poll indicates that Americans are more willing to tolerate the use of torture than are Chinese.
What happened? We used to be proud of our Western system of justice. The most critical right is the right of the accused to have a trial by jury. But Congress decided that shouldn't apply to detainees. Apparently gathering evidence is hard. And why have a trial when you can torture and get all the false confessions you need?
We can rightfully proclaim that "the public humiliation of prisoners is against international law" when one of our own soldiers is captured... but can the rest of the world take us seriously? I lament the loss of our moral high ground.
"When they see the American government caught up in arguments about interrogations, the terrorists see just what they were hoping for — our unity gone, our resolve shaken, our leaders distracted. In short, they see weakness and opportunity." — Dick Cheney, 05/21/2009
"The weakness the terrorists see, Sir, is the weakness of judgment suspended, in favor of self-fulfilling prophecy. The weakness the terrorists see, Sir, is the weakness of moral force supplanted by violence and revenge fantasies. The weakness the terrorists see, Sir, is the weakness... of Dick Cheney." — Keith Olbermann, 05/21/2009
I'm still trying to get my head around Cheney's paradoxical double-flip of criticizing dissent and appealing to the terrorists all in the same gasp. I realize that ingrained deep in the Republican psyche is the stabbed-in-the-back philosophy. Failure in war is always the fault of domestic enemies and treachery in high places. Always blame the dissenters and hippies! Except now, Cheney is the dissenter... Does he even realize that?
I don't want to take away his right to disagree or anybody's right to disagree. But does he get it that he's not the one in charge now? Most of us voted for Barack Obama (he won the election, you know).
And Cheney is engaging in another old game of extreme fear-mongering (plus exaggerations and misstatements). If we don't agree with him, we're all going to die. He must have mentioned 9/11 every 30 seconds in his speech last night. Republicans can't get any blunter than that, or can they?
Why is the GOP remixing the 1964 "Daisy" ad? The main offense is that they took White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs completely out of context, but at least they were smart enough to leave out the H-Bomb of the original ad. The message is the same though: the future of America is in immediate danger. In 1964, the perceived threat was Barry Goldwater. In 2009, the perceived threat is closing the Guantanamo Bay Prison.
But I thought we had already tortured this topic. Our world-class prison industrial complex can safely hold these alleged terrorists. Supermax prisoners spend up to 23 hours a day in solitary confinement -- unable to communicate, unable to plot, and unable to escape!
Glenn Greenwald lists the convicted Muslim Terrorists already imprisoned inside the US, and he refutes another popular scare tactic. If there really were sleeper terrorist cells waiting to liberate their imprisoned comrades, then they've already had a long list of potential "target" prisons for 20 years now.
But let's not forget why the Guantanamo Bay Prison was opened in the first place. The location was ostensibly selected for its security. But let's get real. The location was really selected for its legal ambiguity. However, the Supreme Court ruled that Guantanamo detainees do indeed have habeas corpus rights.
So Dick Cheney and the RNC are scared. They're scared of something, but I'm not convinced it's the terrorists. I think their biggest fear is that nothing bad will happen, and then their ideologies, their policies, and their wars will lose even more credibility.
The world hasn't gone completely mad yet. Two top Bush-era officials, Robert Gates and Tom Ridge, say the country's national security is not in jeopardy. And at least one American town realizes that taking Guantanamo prisoners could be good for their economy.
Right now I wish Dick Cheney would take a nice long vacation. I hear Spain is lovely.
I was going to blog about the ridiculous fear mongering over the plan to close Gitmo. Much of the hysteria is regarding where to keep these alleged terrorists while they await trial, and of course, much of the hysteria is ripe for parody.
First, there is the childish belief that detainees are supervillains, and somehow our world-class prison industrial complex can't hold them. Then there are the farcical scenarios where the prisoners are released into the general population. Inevitably, we hear the raucous cries from the not-in-my-backyard crowd. (Hey, I'm looking out my window right now, and my backyard isn't a maximum security prison either!)
But a controversy so absurd is best handled by The Daily Show (if video doesn't show, click here):
Still, I feel one element has been left out of this ongoing discussion. We're forgetting why the Guantanamo Bay Prison was opened in the first place. The location was ostensibly selected for its security. But let's get real. The location was really selected for its legal ambiguity. John Yoo famously opined that the Geneva Conventions did not apply to detainees. Furthermore, the US has no Status of Forces Agreement with Cuba, and thus the Bush administration argued that US courts could not review detentions. However, the Supreme Court ruled otherwise...
So at this point, closing Guantanamo is largely symbolic. And because it's so symbolic to us and the rest of the world, it is also wise. It shows the world that we've renewed our commitment to our founding principles of liberty and justice.
Obviously I just can't get into this Republican National Convention, but I never pretended to be impartial.
I'm listening to Giuliani speak right now... or should I say 9iu11ani? I felt insulted by him right from the start as he tried to create a comparison between picking a job applicant and picking a President. Does he think we're dumb? We ARE picking a job applicant for the most important job in our country. Anyway, after that, he really launched into an attack on Barack Obama. One of his points was that Obama voted "present" 130 times as Senator. Well, these votes are not unusual:
It's true that Obama voted "present" dozens of times, part of the thousands of votes he cast in an eight-year span in Springfield. Illinois lawmakers commonly vote that way on a variety of issues, and he has countered that many of those votes were cast because of technical or legal considerations about the underlying legislation.
Often, Obama voted "present" with large groups of other Democrats to protest what they saw as Republican trickery or abuse of power. Other times, voting that way sends a message that a lawmaker supports a bill's intent, but has concerns about how the legislation is drafted. Voting this way also can be a way to duck a difficult issue, as McCain charged, although that's difficult to prove.
There are also cases where legislators vote "present" as part of a strategy. Obama did this on some abortion measures, voting "present" to encourage some wavering legislators to do the same instead of voting "yes". Their "present" votes had the same effect as "no" votes, so getting them to vote present helped defeat the bills.
Giuliani was followed by Sarah Palin, and she got a standing ovation right from the start. My first thought was that they filled this stadium with "low information voters."
It's no secret that the Republican party wants to show Palin's personality and likability. I think they succeeded. I'd certainly like to have her as a next-door neighbor, but not a Vice President. Nope.
Because I'm not one of those "low information voters." I've learned a lot about her this week. I'm not simply talking about her unwed pregnant teenage daughter. That news was so yesterday. I'm talking about her possible links to this group who propose the dissolution of the US federal government. And the Republicans want their slogan to be "country first"?
And what was that she mockingly said about terrorists being read their rights?
"Al Qaeda terrorists still plot to inflict catastrophic harm on America ... he's worried that someone won't read them their rights? Government is too big ... he wants to grow it."
I'm not even sure how her last statement follows, but clearly she's going to be another irrational opponent of habeas corpus.
The last half of her speech was filled with fear of terrorism, taxes, and nuclear weapons. She reaffirmed my belief that McCain will be another war president.
When you hear the Republicans crying about the Supreme Court, it can only mean one thing -- they did something right!
By now, you've probably heard about last Thursday's Supreme Court decision. Foreign detainees held for years at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba have the right to appeal to U.S. civilian courts to challenge their indefinite imprisonment without charges.
John McCain wasted no time blasting the decision, saying it was “One of the worst decisions in the history of this country.” Really, McCain? I don't know. I thought the Dred Scott decision was pretty bad. I also loathe the Bush v. Gore decision.
Scott Ritsema writing for Prison Planet gets it right when he explains that habeas corpus is a right not a privilege:
...where exactly in the text of the Constitution does the Constitution give this right the right of habeas corpus?
You won’t find it. The Constitution only puts limits on the removal of habeas corpus, which implies that human beings possess this right naturally, and that habeas corpus is not some peculiar civil privilege, such as welfare, or some right that only citizens have, such as voting in our elections.
Similarly, human beings possess the rights in the Bill of Rights naturally, and as such, government is prevented from infringing upon them in the first ten amendments to the Constitution. But the rights are not granted by the government or the Constitution; we already had the rights as human beings!
Yes, it's that whole “inalienable rights” thing that a lot of people need to learn about. Inalienable rights cannot be taken away, violated, or transferred from one person to another. They are considered more fundamental than alienable rights, such as rights in a specific piece of property.
What scares me the most is that four Supreme Court justices (Roberts, Scalia, Thomas, and Alito) don't comprehend this basic fact. In Scalia's dissenting opinion he wrote "It will almost certainly cause more Americans to be killed." I should probably read Scalia's entire opinion, but I sure hope it contains more legal citations than fear-mongering.
Because his fear-mongering argument leaves me perplexed. He certainly agrees that U.S. citizens have the right to habeas corpus... but that certainly does not mean nobody gets convicted! To the contrary, the U.S. has more than 2.3 million people behind bars! Habeas corpus is not some kind of obstacle to a just conviction. It's only an obstacle to an unjust conviction.
