From Indybay 6/25/08 - hat tip to Nancy Pelosi's Table:

Cynthia McKinney Remarks in support of Cindy Sheehan's 4th Amendment Burial March

June 24, 2008

Last week, Nancy Pelosi helped deal a double blow to Democratic Party grassroots supporters and to the U.S. Constitution itself. On Thursday, June 19, George Bush got another $162 billion from the Congress for war and occupation. On Friday, June 20, Nancy helped Bush give immunity to telecommunications companies that helped him spy on us!

Fannie Lou Hamer of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party remarked that she was sick and tired of being sick and tired. And she did something about it by standing up at the Democratic Party Convention that routinely had accepted all-white, non-representative state delegations from the South.

Well, I'm sick and tired and outraged, too. And I'm doing something about it.

Cindy Sheehan is my choice for Congress.

Nancy thinks that by November you will have forgotten about all of this.
Don't forget! Remember--in November!

Vote Cindy! Vote Cynthia!

Nancy Pelosi's Table is a wonderful example of using blogs to challenge political corruption and betrayal. I encourage you to check it out.

 

Hat Tip to Atomic Gay Wonk:



I previously expressed my disgust at Ms. Dole's attempt to name a HIV/AIDS bill after Jesse Helms, that's right, Jesse Helms.

 

I found this linked on the United for Peace and Justice website, which is a good example of peace groups with different viewpoints cooperating to promote common goals.

StopWarOnIran.org is the coordinating site for a collection of actions in over 20 states so far. The efforts are on or around August 2.

Find an Action Close to You!

Here is a description of the New York action and a call for similar efforts around the world.

MASS MARCH IN NYC

SATURDAY, AUGUST 2
Assemble 12 p.m. at Times Square

43rd St. & Broadway

AN APPEAL TO ORGANIZERS AND ACTIVISTS
ACROSS THE COUNTRY AND AROUND THE WORLD:

Consider as soon as possible if you can organize a STOP WAR ON IRAN protest in your locality during the weekend of August 2 – 3. Let us know so that your protest can be listed.

YET ANOTHER U.S. WAR?

The U.S. occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan is hated by the people there. These wars have no support at home and are ruining the domestic economy. Instead of pulling out, the Bush administration is preparing for still another war—this time against Iran . This must be stopped!

AGRESSION TOWARDS IRAN IS ESCALATING

On June 4, George Bush, with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert at his side, called Iran a “threat to peace.” Two days before, acting as a proxy for the Pentagon, Israel used advanced U.S. fighter planes to conduct massive air maneuvers, which the media called a “dress rehearsal” for an attack on Iran ’s nuclear facility. Under pressure from the U.S. , the European Union announced sanctions against Iran on June 23; a bill is before Congress for further U.S. sanctions on Iran and even a blockade of Iran .

IRAN “THREATS” A HOAX

Iran as a “nuclear threat” is as much a hoax as Bush’s claim of “weapons of mass destruction” in Iraq used to justify the war there. The International Atomic Energy Agency, which inspects Iran ’s nuclear facilities, says it has no weapons program and is developing nuclear power for the days when its oil runs out. Even Washington ’s 16 top spy agencies issued a joint statement that said Iran does not have nuclear weapons technology!

U.S. and Israel are the real nuclear danger. The Pentagon has a huge, nuclear-capable naval armada in the Persian/Arabian Gulf, with guns aimed at Iran . Israel , the Pentagon’s proxy force in the Middle East , has up to 200 nuclear warheads and has never signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Iran did sign it.

WAR HURTS U.S. ECONOMY

While billions of dollars go to war, at home the unemployment rate had the biggest spike in 23 years. Home foreclosures and evictions are increasing; fuel and food prices are through the roof. While the situation is growing dire for many, Washington ’s cuts to domestic programs continue. A new U.S. war will bring only more suffering.

WHAT WE DO RIGHT NOW CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE

While the summer is a difficult time to call protests, the August recess of Congress gives the White House an opportunity for unopposed aggression against Iran . We must not let this happen! From the anti-war movement and all movements for social change, to religious and grassroots organizations, unions and schools, let us join forces to demand “No war on Iran, U.S. out of Iraq, Money for human needs not war! “

This call to action is issued by StopWarOnIran.org, a network of thousands of concerned activists and organizations fighting to stop a new war against Iran since March 2006.

 

Anti-atheist bigotry is becoming a bipartisan pastime in this presidential election. Obama has called for an expansion of Bush's hate-based initiatives to divert federal funding away from inclusive charities and towards religious ones.

John McCain is not willing to be outdone in pushing for discrimination against people like myself. (Baltimore Sun 7/17/08)

CINCINNATI - Appearing before some of his presidential rival's most ardent supporters, Sen. John McCain urged delegates to the NAACP convention yesterday to support school vouchers as a way to improve education in largely black, underperforming school systems.

McCain acknowledged that he will have difficulty making inroads among black voters. But he used his speech to the Baltimore-based civil rights organization to criticize the education views of his Democratic opponent, Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, and to argue that the country needs to move away from "conventional thinking" with regard to public schools.

"Senator Obama dismissed public support for private school vouchers for low-income Americans as 'tired rhetoric about vouchers and school choice,'" said McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee. "All of that went over well with the teachers union, but where does it leave families and their children who are stuck in failing schools?"

As far back as 2001, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) did an excellent job a few years back of debunking claims by the corporate media and militant Christian fundamentalists that vouchers improve educational achievement.

Of course, the main agenda behind vouchers is attacking atheists' civil rights and church/state separation. Sleazebag politicians love using us freethinkers as whipping boys and girls.

In McCain's push, corruption also plays a role (surprise, surprise). John McCain clearly sees vouchers as a way to use tax money to buy support from preachers and religious school administrators. "Keating Five" McCain is one of the most corrupt politicians in the history of the Senate, and the vouchers patronage scheme is no different.

It should also be noted that "Keating Five" McCain's anti-union crack is further evidence of how he is bought and paid for by wealthy and corporate interests. I guess a kept man like him doesn't want to upset the gravy train.

 

Hillary Clinton still has some truly nutty supporters. If you don't believe me, go to the following website.

www.justsaynodeal.com

The level of unthinking hatred on this site is absolutely stunning. It goes beyond the usual disappointment that happens when peoples' preferred candidate loses a party's nomination. It's downright obsessed. Just the ire directed at Jesse Jackson and the pretense that all black people are interchangeable should really set off alarm bells.

Obama is better on women's issues than a militant, fundamentalist Christian like Hillary Clinton, who has been working to move the Democratic Party away from supporting abortion rights. Yet, many of these these rabid Clintonites would rather vote for a fanatical misogynist like "Keating Five" McCain than for a non-misogynist like Obama. Hatred and bigotry are the most effective tools in obscuring people from their interests. That's why the wealthy and the corporations employ those visceral weapons so readily.

I'm not certain whether I will vote for Obama or McKinney, but I'm absolutely certain that I did the necessary thing in opposing Hillary Clinton's nomination. Her campaign's decision to make white supremacy their main theme stirred much of this madness up.

One other thing that I've noticed is that the luny fringe of the Hillbots are thinking of voting for "Keating Five" McCain (anti-choice), Bob Barr (anti-choice), and Ralph Nader (vaguely pro-choice), but none of them whose writings I've seen have shown any interest in supporting Cynthia McKinney. So much for feminism having anything to do with this.

It should also be noted that these Hillhadists are still trying to steal the Democratic nomination via a superdelegate scam. They just can't stand democracy when someone who isn't 100% white wins.

The Clintons and the Bushes truly are political cancers on our society, as I've complained before. It is critical to never, ever vote for any member of those corrupt, bigoted, rightist political dynasties under any circumstances. Clinton's silence in the face of this behavior by her supporters shows that we shouldn't see Clinton's dual stances on FISA (oppose filibuster/vote against the bill) as a political opening for liberal Democrats. The Clintons will never change.

 

Hat tips to From the Left and Living in Small Places for pointing me in the direction of WeCanBelieveIn.com which I used to make this.

I have previously blogged on Obama's call to expand Bush's hate-based initiatives.

 

From Atomic Gay Wonk 7/15/08:

Obscene: Dole tries to name AIDS bill after Helms

Sen. Elizabeth Dole (R-NC) yesterday introduced an amendment that would have added the name of Jesse Helms to the title of the HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria bill that is before the Senate. Helms, who died eleven days ago, was the nation's most vociferous foe of federal funding for HIV/AIDS programs from the epidemic's beginning until he left the Senate.

The name of the Act proposed in S. 2731 is "Tom Lantos and Henry J. Hyde United States Global Leadership Against HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria Reauthorization Act of 2008". The Act would be named after former Reps. Tom Lantos (D-CA-12) and Henry Hyde (R-IL-06), who worked together in their last years in Congress to achieve bipartisan support for federal funding for the fight against these diseases. Sen. Dole apparently thought the title was missing something. From the Congressional Record:

There really is typical of the off the charts nastiness of Republicans. They really like being hateful and obnoxious for the sake of being hateful and obnoxious.

Jesse Helms did everything in his power to promote the spread of HIV through his heterosexist and sexphobic attacks on HIV prevention programs. You would almost think Ms. Dole is trying to give Helms credit for doing so much to make the problem worse.

 

The ACLU's decision to fight the FISA law which attempts to legalize government spying of political dissidents is important on its merits. This attack on the Fourth Amendment must be resisted in the courts of law and the courts of public opinion.

There also is a broader significance. The unconstitutional FISA law must be resisted as part of a broader campaign to resist all of the post 911 attacks on our constitution by rightists and enablers who kept saying it was the terrorists "who hate us for our freedoms."

Here is the text of the ACLU's 7/10/08 press release. It is important for lovers of freedom not to shut up about this.

ACLU Sues Over Unconstitutional Dragnet Wiretapping Law

Group Also Asks Secret Intelligence Court Not To Exclude Public From Any Proceedings On New Law’s Constitutionality

NEW YORK - July 10 - The American Civil Liberties Union filed a landmark lawsuit today to stop the government from conducting surveillance under a new wiretapping law that gives the Bush administration virtually unchecked power to intercept Americans’ international e-mails and telephone calls. The case was filed on behalf of a broad coalition of attorneys and human rights, labor, legal and media organizations whose ability to perform their work – which relies on confidential communications – will be greatly compromised by the new law.

The FISA Amendments Act of 2008, passed by Congress on Wednesday and signed by President Bush today, not only legalizes the secret warrantless surveillance program the president approved in late 2001, it gives the government new spying powers, including the power to conduct dragnet surveillance of Americans’ international communications.

“Spying on Americans without warrants or judicial approval is an abuse of government power – and that’s exactly what this law allows. The ACLU will not sit by and let this evisceration of the Fourth Amendment go unchallenged,” said ACLU Executive Director Anthony D. Romero. “Electronic surveillance must be conducted in a constitutional manner that affords the greatest possible protection for individual privacy and free speech rights. The new wiretapping law fails to provide fundamental safeguards that the Constitution unambiguously requires.”

In today’s legal challenge, the ACLU argues that the new spying law violates Americans’ rights to free speech and privacy under the First and Fourth Amendments to the Constitution. The new law permits the government to conduct intrusive surveillance without ever telling a court who it intends to spy on, what phone lines and email addresses it intends to monitor, where its surveillance targets are located, why it’s conducting the surveillance or whether it suspects any party to the communication of wrongdoing.

Plaintiffs in today’s case are:

• The Nation and its contributing journalists Naomi Klein and Chris Hedges
• Amnesty International USA, Global Rights, Global Fund for Women, Human Rights Watch, PEN American Center, Service Employees International Union, Washington Office on Latin America, and the International Criminal Defence Attorneys Association
• Defense attorneys Dan Arshack, David Nevin, Scott McKay and Sylvia Royce

“As a journalist, my job requires communication with people in all parts of the world – from Iraq to Argentina. If the U.S. government is given unchecked surveillance power to monitor reporters’ confidential sources, my ability to do this work will be seriously compromised,” said Naomi Klein, an award-winning columnist and best-selling author who is a plaintiff in today’s lawsuit. “I cannot in good conscience accept that my conversations with people who live outside the U.S. will put them in harm’s way as a result of overzealous government spying. Privacy in my communications is not simply an expectation, it’s a right.”

The ACLU’s legal challenge, which was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York today, seeks a court order declaring that the new law is unconstitutional and ordering its immediate and permanent halt.

In a separate filing, the ACLU asked the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) to ensure that any proceedings relating to the scope, meaning or constitutionality of the new law be open to the public to the extent possible. The ACLU also asked the secret court to allow it to file a brief and participate in oral arguments, to order the government to file a public version of its briefs addressing the law’s constitutionality, and to publish any judicial decision that is ultimately issued.

“The new law allows the mass acquisition of Americans’ international e-mails and telephone calls,” said Jameel Jaffer, Director of the ACLU National Security Project. “The administration has argued that the law is necessary to address the threat of terrorism, but the truth is that the law sweeps much more broadly and implicates all kinds of communications that have nothing to do with terrorism or criminal activity of any kind.”

In 2006, the ACLU filed a lawsuit against the National Security Agency (NSA) to stop its illegal, warrantless spying program. A federal district court sided with the ACLU, ruling that warrantless wiretapping by the NSA violated Americans’ rights to free speech and privacy under the First and Fourth Amendments of the Constitution, ran counter to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and violated the principle of separation of powers. The Bush administration appealed the ruling, and an appeals court panel dismissed the case. However, the court did not uphold the legality of the government's warrantless surveillance activity and the only judge to discuss the merits of the case clearly and unequivocally declared that the warrantless spying was unlawful. The Supreme Court declined to hear the case earlier this year.

“A democratic system depends on the rule of law, and not even the president or Congress can authorize a law that violates core constitutional principles,” said Christopher Dunn, Associate Legal Director of the New York Civil Liberties Union. “The only thing compromised in this so-called ‘compromise’ law is the Constitution.”

Attorneys on the lawsuit Amnesty v. McConnell are Jaffer, Melissa Goodman and L. Danielle Tully of the ACLU National Security Project and Dunn and Arthur Eisenberg of the NYCLU. Attorneys on the motion filed with the FISC are Jaffer, Goodman, Tully, as well as Arthur Spitzer of the ACLU of the National Capital Area.

More information, including today’s complaint, a video discussing the ACLU’s legal challenge, plaintiff statements in support of the lawsuit and the FISC motion, is available at: www.aclu.org/faa

Barbara Ehrenreich is one of the most important social analysts and economic critics of our time. A 7/9/08 Time interview includes an important observation of hers on a similarity between fundie Christian megachurches here in the US and Hamas.

What struck me when I have visited mega-churches from time to time is that they are really great big social service centers. You won't see references to Jesus in a mega-church. I mean the trappings I associate [with church]are gone, the crosses and everything. What you will see is over here we have our battered women's support group, over here we have our after-school activities. We have our group for the unemployed professionals and so on. They have really filled in where maybe there would have been public services or secular services at some other time. In the same way that Hamas, and I understand Hizballah also, gain a base by providing social services that people aren't getting otherwise.

Of course, we can all think of some other similarities:

- Superstitious world views

- Hatred of people who don't share their religious views

- Heterosexism

- Misogyny

One important aspect of this issue is a danger posed by the hate-based initiatives of Bush, and now Obama, to shift government funding from inclusive non-profits to religious ones. Government funds will be used to lure people into cultish compounds of Christian fundamentalism.

 

This New York Times article ( "U.S. Weighs Takeover of Two Mortgage Giants" - 7/10/08) is typical of how the corporate media omit underlying causes in reporting on current economic difficulties.

You can see how the Iraqtastrophe is impacting events, but you have to think very carefully while you read. Here's one example, a sentence starting the second paragraph:

The companies, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, have been hit hard by the mortgage foreclosure crisis.

Let's review three of the ways that the war on Iraq has contributed to this foreclosure crisis.

- The resulting increase in oil prices has pushed some people who were near default on their mortgages over the edge.

- The rising oil prices and increased budget deficits have slowed the overall US economy down. Newly unemployed people are much more likely to lose their homes to foreclosure.

- Higher oil prices have increased trade deficits. Those deficits, along with growing budget deficits, have resulted in a falling dollar. A weak dollar is unattractive to foreign investors, including risk tolerant ones that otherwise might be interested in buying heavily discounted US mortgage paper.

Now, let's review a paragraph later in the article (bolding mine).

The companies are by far the biggest providers of financing for domestic home loans. If they are unable to borrow, they will not be able to buy mortgages from commercial lenders. In turn, that would make it more expensive and difficult, if not impossible, for home buyers to obtain credit, freezing the United States housing market. Even healthy banks are reluctant to tie up scarce capital by offering mortgages to low-risk home buyers without Fannie and Freddie taking the loans off their books.

One of the reasons capital is so scare is that the Bush regime is borrowing so much money to pay for their colonial occupation of Iraq. Hundreds of billions of dollars have been borrowed to feed this fiscally voracious war, money which is unavailable for home and commercial credit.

Obviously, Iraq isn't the only cause of our economic difficulties. Financial market deregulation, tax cuts for the rich, and other policies which shift wealth from the middle class and the poor to the super rich all are important as well. Yet, how can we have an informed political debate if so much of what is ailing us is kept off of the metaphorical table?

Some opponents of the war say that the vast majority of Americans are not sacrificing anything to the war in Iraq. It certainly is true that military members and their families make much larger sacrifices than everyone else. However, all of us are sacrificing for this unpopular war. We are just being lied to about it.

Iraq is a proverbial "elephant in the living room" of American economic discussion. Our nation better start talking about it.

 

The passage of the unconstitutional FISA legislation to expand federal wiretapping powers to political opponents and dissidents did not happen in a vacuum. There is a context that needs to be examined.

At a National Gay and Lesbian Task Force conference over a decade ago, Urvashi Vaid warned the audience of a "creeping fascism" and gave a series of examples and arguments to build her case. At the time, the idea seemed novel, but it merely registered in my mind as something to pay attention to in the future.

In 2008, the creep has gone quite far. Here are some examples:

- Restrictions of domestic political activity at the state and federal level under NAFTA and the GATT agreement that started the World Trade Organization. The unconstitutional nature of the agreements and their enforcement was a bad sign as well. (They function as treaties yet did not get the required 2/3 Senate vote treaties need.)

- Unconstitutional Warrantless wiretapping

- Roundups based on religious beliefs

- Illegal detentions without charges at Guantanamo Bay

- The Unpatriotic Act

- Kidnapping of uncharged, alleged terrorists and sending them to foreign countries to be tortured. ("extraordinary rendition")

- Routine use of torture

- Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan without the constitutionally mandated Declarations of War

- Executive branch "signing statements" which attempt to nullify laws they don't like (expanded dramatically under Bush)

- Hate based religious patronage systems which violate state/church separation, discriminate against atheists, and amount to incumbent administrations bribing preachers for political support

- Concentration of television and radio station license holders of frequencies owned by the American people, not the corporations that license them

- Supreme Court decisions falsely claiming that campaign contributions are "speech," undermining democracy and ceding greater powers to the wealthy and to corporations over the government.

- Restricting freedom of assembly through "free speech zones" and other means

I'm sure you can come up with more. The point is that when people don't raise enough hell over one attack on our freedoms as Americans, more follow. Things are moving in a terrible direction, and we should be less willing to accept it.

During the 18th - 20th centuries, the US was transitioning to a more representative democracy where constitutionally mandated civil liberties were gaining more respect. The nation went from a situation where only landowning white males had suffrage and the Bill of Rights was largely theoretical to a place where every adult had the right to vote and courts, legislators, the media, and the public were strongly defending our freedoms.

That is all being unraveled by money, power, and religious extremism.