Dear World, Please Confront America - Democratic Underground

seemslikeadream

(1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore

Tue Oct-07-08 10:09 PM
Original message

Dear World, Please Confront America

Edited on Tue Oct-07-08 10:39 PM by seemslikeadream

.............

Naomi Wolf, the author, most recently, of The End of America: Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot and the forthcoming Give me Liberty: How to Become an American Revolutionary, is co-founder of the American Freedom Campaign, a US democracy movement

Dear World, Please Confront America

.........

But, while grassroots pressure has not worked, money still talks. We need targeted government-led sanctions against the US by civilized countries, including international divestment of capital. Many studies have shown that tying investment to democracy and human rights reform is effective in the developing world. There is no reason why it can’t be effective against the world’s superpower.

We also need an internationally coordinated strategy for prosecuting war criminals at the top and further down the chain of command – individual countries pressing charges, as Italy and France have done. Although the United States is not a signatory to the statute that established the International Criminal Court, violations of Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions are war crimes for which anyone – potentially even the US president – may be tried in any of the other 193 countries that are parties to the conventions. The whole world can hunt these criminals down.

An outlaw America is a global problem that threatens the rest of the international community. If this regime gets away with flouting international law, what is to prevent the next administration – or this administration, continuing under its secret succession plan in the event of an emergency – from going further and targeting its political opponents at home and abroad?

We Americans are either too incapable, or too dysfunctional, to help ourselves right now. Like drug addicts or the mentally ill who refuse treatment, we need our friends to intervene. So remember us as we were in our better moments, and take action to save us – and the world – from ourselves.

Maybe then I can fall in love with my country again.

Clinton’s Letter to the American Freedom Campaign.

Published: October 5, 2007
October 4, 2007

Dear Mr. Fox:

Thank you for your letter and for the opportunity to convey directly my views on these issues of great importance to our Nation.

I believe the most important strength of our country emanates from our values and our institutions of justice, as enshrined in our Constitution. Our values and institutions are not liabilities, as this administration wants Americans to believe. To the contrary, I believe our values – our belief in human dignity, the rule of law, and fundamental fairness – are our most important assets, and forfeiting them in the war against terrorism and extremism hands a victory to the enemy.

As we read today in The New York Times, however, the administration has continued to try to evade the law while claiming to abide by it, commissioning secret memos that turn the laws against torture and cruel treatment on their heads.

When I opposed the Military Commissions Act in 2006, I made my position clear: torture violates the fundamental rule of law and the institutions of justice, it does not bear reliable fruit in intelligence gathering, and it undermines our moral strength in a conflict that cannot be won solely with military might. It should never be the policy of the United States to torture.

My position has been reinforced and strengthened in recent months by a number of important events. In a December 2006 report commissioned by the Defense Intelligence Agency, a number of leading experts offered evidence that challenged the reliability of information obtained from coercive interrogation tactics.

In April 2007, I met personally with a group of retired Generals and Admirals, seasoned and experienced military officers with many years of experience among them, and they were unequivocal in their view that torture and other official cruelty have no place in U.S. policy. They also said that permitting torture does “grave damage to America ’s moral authority and, by fueling jihadist recruitment, undermines our security.”

As I said in September, I could not agree more. Torture “cannot be American policy. Period.”

Similarly, we must uphold the most basic right of all people detained under government authority to challenge the reason for their detention. Our democracy is grounded in the conviction that courts must be able to check the arbitrary power of government over the individual. Denying habeas corpus to detainees in our custody undermines that principle and in doing so diminishes us all.

I also believe that the President must have the ability to pursue terrorists and defend our national security with the best technology at hand. But we have existing law that allows that -- the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The rule of law is not an obstacle, despite what some in the Executive Branch seem to believe. In fact, the rule of law facilitates our safety and security. That is why I voted against the President's wiretapping bill this past August.

To lead, our country must uphold its most fundamental rules and standards. The next president must not only possess a clear-eyed assessment of the terrorist threat, but must demonstrate the moral courage to face that threat without forsaking the values which set our Nation apart. I look forward to taking up that challenge as President.

Thank you for your important work on these issues.

Hillary Clinton

Has Sarah Palin Been Picked as the Titular Head of the Coming Police State?

By Naomi Wolf, Huffington Post. Posted September 24, 2008.

Palin will help to establish a true and irreversible 'fear society' in this once free once proud nation.

Please understand what you are looking at when you look at Sarah "Evita" Palin. You are looking at the designated muse of the coming American police state.

You have to understand how things work in a closing society in order to understand "Palin Power." A gang or cabal seizes power, usually with an affable, weak figurehead at the fore. Then they will hold elections -- but they will make sure that the election will be corrupted and that the next affable, weak figurehead is entirely in their control. Remember, Russia has Presidents; Russia holds elections. Dictators and gangs of thugs all over the world hold elections. It means nothing. When a cabal has seized power you can have elections and even presidents, but you don't have freedom.

I realized early on with horror what I was seeing in Governor Palin: the continuation of the Rove-Cheney cabal, but this time without restraints. I heard her echo Bush 2000 soundbites ("the heart of America is on display") and realized Bush's speechwriters were writing her -- not McCain's -- speeches. I heard her tell George Bush's lies -- not McCain's -- to the American people, linking 9/11 to Iraq. I heard her make fun of Barack Obama for wanting to prevent the torture of prisoners -- this is Rove-Cheney's enthusiastic S and M, not McCain's, who, though he shamefully colluded in the 2006 Military Tribunals Act, is also a former prisoner of war and wrote an eloquent Newsweek piece in 2005 opposing torture. I saw that she was even styled by the same skillful stylist (neutral lipstick, matte makeup, dark colors) who turned Katharine Harris from a mall rat into a stateswoman and who styles all the women in the Bush orbit -- but who does not bother to style Cindy McCain.

Then I saw and heard more. Palin is embracing lawlessness in defying Alaskan Legislature subpoenas -- this is what Rove-Cheney, and not McCain, believe in doing. She uses mafia tactics against critics, like the police commissioner who was railroaded for opposing handguns in Alaskan battered women's shelters -- Rove's style, not McCain's. I realized what I was seeing.

Reports confirmed my suspicions: Palin, not McCain, is the FrankenBarbie of the Rove-Cheney cabal. The strategy became clear. Time magazine reported that Rove is "dialed in" to the McCain campaign. Rove's protege Steve Schmidt is now campaign manager. And Politico reported that Rove was heavily involved in McCain's vice presidential selection. Finally a new report shows that there are dozens of Bush and Rove operatives surrounding Sarah Palin and orchestrating her every move.

What's the plan? It is this. McCain doesn't matter. Reputable dermatologists are discussing the fact that in simply actuarial terms, John McCain has a virulent and life-threatening form of skin cancer. It is the elephant in the room, but we must discuss the health of the candidates: doctors put survival rates for someone his age at two to four years. I believe the Rove-Cheney cabal is using Sarah Palin as a stalking horse, an Evita figure, to put a popular, populist face on the coming police state and be the talk show hostess for the end of elections as we know them. If McCain-Palin get in, this will be the last true American election. She will be working for Halliburton, KBR, Rove and Cheney into the foreseeable future -- for a decade perhaps -- a puppet "president" for the same people who have plundered our treasure, are now holding the US economy hostage and who murdered four thousand brave young men and women in a way of choice and lies.

How, you may ask, can I assert this? How can I argue, as I now

PAPERS PLEASE, CITIZEN: and other things you may hear this Holiday Season
By Kevin Patrick

There might be a new edition this Holiday Season to your downtown shopping district; and that is armed soldiers on your street corners. During 2007 the Bush Administration made it legal for the military to act as Police inside US borders. This had been illegal since just after the Civil War except in a few specific situations.

This will not be the National Guard, no ladies and gents, this will be the 3rd Infantry Division’s 1st Brigade Combat Team of the U.S. Army. As Naomi Wolf has said in her interviews, these troops answer to the President as Commander in chief and move at his discretion. He could send them to protests, to polling locations, to the halls of Congress, to your house. Mussolini and Hitler did this while they still ruled democracies to frighten legislators and others. Where will these soldiers go in the next 36 months? Your guess is as good as mine, but hopefully more optimistic.

Although their official mission is to quell domestic disturbance , unruly citizens, and other such behavior; it is a quick turn from dissenter to terrorist suspect in this fearful environment. This commentator finds this a deeply disturbing development. Notice the lack of mainstream media coverage; what does that say?

This follows in the wake of the Economic Patriot Act (the Paulson Bailouts). This Bill was railroaded through and many inconstancies occurred. Such as the Senate offering amendments after the Bill was voted down by the House. Representative Sherman from California said that this Bill was pushed through with threats and force. He even went so far as to say that actual Martial Law was threatened if this Bill did not pass. A video of this Congressman saying so can be seen here: link.

“These are the times that try men's souls...” No less true than when they were uttered, these words echo through history to the halls of Congress, and down an empty and boarded-up Main Street.

America faces her greatest challenges ahead. More terrifying than the Cold War is our own soldiers pin ed against us, more deadly than chemical weapons is bread-lines and food shortages, and more disheartening than international terrorism, is closed elections and closed society.

Will we rally to the Banner of Liberty? Hopefully. What will you do? This is the real question; and the answer to it will decid the fate of a nation, an idea, a great experiment in Liberty. What will you do?

Give Me Liberty: A Handbook for American Revolutionaries

In her earlier best-selling book, The End of America, feminist author and critic Naomi Wolf warned readers of a profound shift toward facism under the Bush administration. She outlined ten basic steps toward facism that Hitler’s Germany and Mussolini’s Italy took and how the US was walking a very fine line in that direction. But while most Americans who read her book agreed with her about the dire direction of the country, the power to change course remained elusive. Most of us know the problems that exist. But what are the solutions? Naomi Wolf, in her new book, “Give Me Liberty,” presents what she calls “A Handbook for American Revolutionaries.” It’s a practical Do-It-Yourself guide to taking back the country from a direction so dangerous, that everything is at stake. Naomi Wolf may scare the living day-lights out of us, but she promises hope.

GUEST: Naomi Wolf, best selling author of The End of America, and her newest book, Give Me Liberty: A Handbook for American Revolutionaries

LISTEN TO THE ENTIRE PROGRAM

Fascist America, in 10 easy steps

1. Invoke a terrifying internal and external enemy

2. Create a gulag

3. Develop a thug caste

4. Set up an internal surveillance system

5. Harass citizens' groups

6. Engage in arbitrary detention and release

7. Target key individuals

8. Control the press

9. Dissent equals treason

10. Suspend the rule of law