From the “Thanks, I needed that” Department

I don’t usually post from astrological sites — rarely. But this one smacks of Timing … and … I really DID need it. Maybe you do too.

It came without browsing, right into my lap … and, as requested, I’m “sharing it” as is.

Big sigh.

Jude

THE HERBST NEWSLETTER - astrological-cultural-spiritual-political views & opinions. Thoughts, dates, and reminders about our lives as members of the craziest species on this lovely planet. Like a message in a bottle washing up on the sandy shores of consciousness — Issue #98; April 2007

Dear friends,

Numerous readers of my ongoing commentaries in this now substantial and slightly obsessive series about Uranus-Pluto have emailed to ask me if I feel any optimism about what’s coming. This newsletter is my response.

~ Bill Herbst

Commentary:
THE 2010s: REASONS FOR OPTIMISM

Some of us—I daresay many of us—spent our childhoods feeling alienated and alone in the world. This has been true of every post- World War II generation in America, although each has its own characteristic tone of estrangement: Boomers grew up in Ozzie-and-Harriet or Leave-It-to-Beaver conformity. Gen-Xers had Brady-Bunch divorces and blended families, followed by two-working-parent latch- key kids. Millennials grew up in Day Care and moved into techno-consumerism. Even the aging G.I. Civic Generation now leaving the stage—which reveled in togetherness through the Great Depression and the World War that followed—is now alienated, with its octogenarian members wondering what happened to the America they so loved and believed in.

Whatever our generational cohort, our worlds have been by turns amazing and terrible. We did not make those worlds, of course; like everyone, we were born into them as strangers. Television and mass culture made the divide greater for us than for earlier generations.

The lessons taught by our elders and teachers about fitting in were sometimes sincere, but just as frequently those lessons were pro forma indoctrination toward obedience. How many parents counseled their children to question authority? To challenge religion? To think for themselves? Some, no doubt, but probably not a significant percentage.

Abundance was the blessing and alienation the curse for many of us born in America after World War II. The tender (and not-so-tender) mercies of family did little for some of us to assuage this gnawing feeling of non-belonging and invisible isolation. If life was so good—as we were told over and over—then why did we feel so bad?

Were we stuck in the wrong world altogether? Had the cosmic bus taken a left rather than right turn at Alpha Centauri and dumped us out on some strange planet where we were never meant to be? From our youthful vantage point in the quiet angst of suburbia, many of us wanted to write “Return to Sender” on our foreheads and go back home, wherever that was. For God’s sake, beam me up, Scotty! E.T. phone home. Get me out of here and back to the starship. This was hidden for a long time in our childhoods and adolescences, buried under the facades of “normal” American life.

For my generation, or at least a part of it, the 1960s provided an unexpected and inviting escape hatch. The countercultural, political, and spiritual movements of that decade cut through our solitary confinement like a hot knife through butter and showed us that we were in the right world after all, even if it wasn’t yet the “right” world in the way humans were creating it. We discovered that we were home on this planet, that nature really was our mother, and that our having been seemingly orphaned was not finally true. It was civilization that was alienating and deadening, conforming and repressing, hateful and violent. To be sure, we too contained inside our psyches all those and other faults of humanity and civilization, but we desperately longed for something better.

There were moments in that halcyon decade of the ’60s—different moments for different individuals, based on age, location, and circumstance—where you could recognize your brothers and sisters instantly. The minute you saw certain people, you knew that they understood and were with you in the awakening, the shucking of conformity and false allegiance, the rebellion against tacit obedience. For many of us, music provided those moments: when Dylan went electric, when the Beatles made Sergeant Pepper, when The Doors sang “Light My Fire,” or Jefferson Airplane said “Feed your head.” For others, it was protests for civil rights or shared opposition to the Vietnam war. For an even larger number, the critical moment of realization was the Democratic convention in 1968. For me, there were many such moments along the way, but my culmination occurred in 1969, for all of about ten minutes somewhere between Woodstock and the Moon Landing.

Those extraordinary moments that starkly redefined who was “us” and who was “them” came and went in a flash, in large part because what revealed our bond was superficial, based mostly on appearance and a certain in-your-face attitude that was open and loving, yet simultaneously angry and defiant. Long hair, patched jeans, a faded G.I. combat jacket bought at a surplus store, whatever. Someone handing you a joint at a concert. Walking by a person in a park who was reading The Bhagavad Gita or Silent Spring. Returning to your dorm to find your roommate meditating, or making love, or tripping. All those were neon signs flashing: Something’s Happening.

Most of that, however, especially the clothes and drugs, were quickly co-opted into mainstream culture, so that by the mid-1970s, the emblems of counterculture had been rendered meaningless, reduced to mere fashion statements. Appliance salesman at Sears sported sideburns and polyester bellbottoms. Insurance adjustors smoked marijuana. Everyone wore faded denim jeans.

More importantly, the moment itself had passed, as the decade-long awakening went underground and the counterrevolutions took hold—Ford pardoned Nixon, the 700 Club appeared on television, globalization began as corporations flexed their financial muscles and sent gaggles of high-paid lawyers to Washington to lobby (and take over) the law-making in Congress. The malling of America already begun in the early 1960s expanded hundred-fold. The giants of agribusiness turned about 80% of the world’s fertile farmland into monoculture, and they began their long war to control the world’s seed banks. Rivers were dammed and oceans plundered. Well-funded right-wing think tanks sprouted up like poisonous mushrooms. Universities that had been the sites of war protests settled into quiet pursuit of lucrative Pentagon grants. Vietnam ended with a whimper, replaced by a host of smaller military adventures and paramilitary black ops launched from the dark heart of the CIA—in Peru, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Panama, Grenada, Lebanon, East Timor, and eventually Iraq (twice, no less). The full litany of our messing with other countries is as long as one’s arm, with a permanent American military presence in 173 nations.

But I digress. All those depredations were, in a sense, banal and predictable, given the extraordinary backlash the 1960s provoked among the powers-that-be. The ’60s did not derail the American Empire; they inadvertently accelerated it.

What amazes me, however, is the consistency of character between then and now. My generation of Baby Boomers who were at the forefront of the ’60s awakening have caught a lot of flak for being pampered (definitely) narcissistic (true) and for selling out (less true, I believe). If I think back to everyone I knew in the various interconnected countercultures of that era—from hippies and hitchhikers to politicos and young radicals to social activists starting food co-ops and community radio stations to drug crazies and dope dealers to potters and weavers to organic farmers and back-to-the-land folks—if I think about all of us, it was clear even then who was serious and who was not, who was committed and who was just a hanger-on.

Take drugs, for instance. A hallmark of the 1960s was “experimentation” with psychoactive drugs. By the late ’60s, those drugs—marijuana, hashish, LSD, peyote buttons and mescaline, psilocybin mushrooms—were easily available throughout the hip subculture, from college campuses, through big cities, to small rural towns. Millions of us took those drugs. Some of us sold them as growers or distributors.

A friend of mine who was a wholesale marijuana grower from his farm in rural Missouri had spent 10 years doing Mendelian seed crossbreeding of various strains of marijuana toward just the right kind of high—a perfect balance of body rush and mind expansion. In 1982, my friend told me that he knew the good-vibe days had ended when prospective buyers began showing up on his farm armed with Uzis and AK-47s. That was it, my friend said. He quit growing marijuana and walked away. He gave the profits from his last growing season to ten poor Mexican families with whom he spent winters, allowing them to purchase a thousand-year-lease from the Mexican government for a small but gorgeous tropical island just off the Caribbean coast. Helping 100 people secure a home in paradise was, in my friend’s words, good karma.

If we had known in 1969 what was coming and you had asked me then which of the hundreds, perhaps thousands of people I knew who took drugs would be going on to uppers and downers and cocaine and heroin, I could have told you. Exactly. Distinguishing between those who used or sold drugs as part of an amazing social experiment of consciousness awakening and those who were in it only for the high or the money was easy and obvious. You could tell the good-vibe folks from the hardcore businessmen. You could see at a glance who was likely to become a casualty and should never have taken drugs in the first place versus those who would not only survive, but benefit profoundly from their drug experiences. Same with spirituality. Same with politics.

In fact, it was the same with all levels of the subculture. You could tell which people were waking up in authentic ways and becoming committed to social change versus others who were just partying with the herd. It didn’t matter much what people said or how they acted, you could see through that into their character and anticipate their future paths. You knew pretty much who would run for minor office eventually and become a city councilman, who would go corporate and become a stock broker or lawyer, or who would settle into a marriage and family and return to the fold of typical American life. You knew also who was likely to run with the awakening for decades to follow, never giving up, never selling out.

Sure, there were exceptions. The arc of some lives take surprising turns, for better or for worse. But it’s never been all that hard to separate the real human beings from the pod people. In an interview, the screenwriter of Invasion of the Body Snatchers said that the 1956 sci-fi movie did not allude to the McCarthy-era political witchhunts, as some critics and moviegoers believed, but instead was a cautionary parable about the soul-deadening effects of American consumerism. Just as in that movie, it’s easy to tell the genuine humans from the empty-suit robots.

That’s what was so incredible about the 1960s. Feelings of vitality and sheer aliveness released us from our cages. As if anything were possible. When I think back to my personal experience in the ’60s, not so much day-to-day but over the whole period, that’s what I remember. The palpable experience of being alive, and of receiving some intangible but potent permission to come alive more fully. The many individuals I met along the way who were real human beings (not pod people) reinforced that feeling, confirmed it, and made me even more alive by their presence. Without them, and without the recognition that we were awakening together, I doubt that the decade would matter much to me.

Could I be wrong about this? Of course I could. Human beings are notoriously deluded about themselves and their worlds, and I am not immune from those flaws. I was 19 years old in 1969, for heaven’s sake, so of course I was vital. My natal chart was powerfully activated by the Saturn-Uranus-Pluto opposition that defined the 1960s, so perhaps I’m wrongly generalizing my own subjective experience. Maybe I’m just sentimentalizing the past, exaggerating the meaning of a time that allowed my first and most joyous burst of personal freedom.

But I think not. However much those factors might belie or at least temper my exuberance, they cannot invalidate it. Over the past decades, I’ve talked to literally thousands of people who lived through that time as I did, and whose experience resonates with mine. They confirm for me that I didn’t just imagine the feeling of the electric charge of the 1960s. Something big happened, and a lot of us felt it and lived it together, even if we didn’t know each other at the time.

In contrast are other people I’ve met whose lives in the ’60s were utterly normal, as if no awakening at all happened to them—no radical involvements, no breakthroughs, no revelatory Ah-Ha’s. In fairness, most are significantly older than my Boomer peers, members of the G.I. or Silent generations, with some very deep conservative roots. But many within my own generation were not truly part of the awakening (both Bill Clinton and George W. Bush qualify as Boomers who missed the boat). All those and many others who believe the standard elementary-school myths of American exceptionalism and moral superiority tend to see the ’60s as an aberration, an explosion of shameful civil disobedience and immaturity. Well, they’re certainly right in part: The ’60s were immature. The Uranus-Pluto conjunction kicked off a brand new cycle, so of course it was passionate, experimental, and somewhat infantile.

But here’s the point: In the decades since the 1960s lapsed into history, I haven’t felt anything like that period in the collective ether. The air was different then. You could breathe in the vitality, like a tonic. By contrast, the last five years of the 1970s were disappointing, the 1980s were depressing, and the 1990s were delusional. Now we’ve suffered through six years of the initial decade of the 21st century, which have been both deadening and downright deadly.

One reason I’m looking forward to the 2010s (which really means 2008 and beyond) is that I’m tired of living in times that are so stultifying. Yes, I’m a narcissistic Boomer, and I want something amazing to happen during my lifetime. Once is not enough, especially when we didn’t really change anything. I’m sick to death of suffering through a 30-year run of unbelievable collective stupidity, pettiness, lies, greed, immorality, and just plain damned foolishness. Things have gone from bad to worse in this country, and I’m fed up with it.

All that is about to change, however.

2007 is the pivotal year for another major awakening from the programmed sleep of unconsciousness and passive obedience. Though we will continue to slog through the confusion of Saturn opposite Neptune throughout 2007, the archetypes of radical change will finally begin to make their presence felt. This year we move into the beginnings of the Uranus-Pluto shocks and revolutions of the 2010s. As Uranus reaches its first 10° orb within square to Pluto in May, 2007, and as Saturn reaches that same 10° orb in opposition to Uranus in October, 2007, we will start to stir from our collective slumber.

Even now, one can see and feel the shift in public awareness. The illusions that overtook so many Americans through right-wing propaganda, corporate takeover, religious fundamentalism, and red- blue culture wars will start to fade after Pluto leaves Sagittarius and enters Capricorn in 2008. As the aptly-named Cardinal Climax kicks off this revolutionary decade with a Saturn-Uranus-Pluto T-square from 2009-2011, we will be forced to deal with harsher problems, especially those of plutocratic government and unsustainable global economics. Though we cannot yet predict which triggers might provoke it, the 2010s could bring a worldwide depression.

What’s the good news in that? Well, economic collapse will be accompanied by the first real possibilities for regaining our collective sanity and rebuilding civilization. Because the imperial mystique has so completely infected our culture, we can’t do much to change it.

Our political, commercial, and social institutions are much too interwoven by big money to allow reform. Empires collapse not from resistance, however, but by overreach, internal corruption, and decay. America is just about at that point now. So while painful and chaotic, the coming breakdowns will create conditions where renewal is at last possible. Throughout America, people will stand up, not merely to protest, but to address crises and co-create solutions.

The very air we breathe will once again acquire the electric charge of Uranus-Pluto. Some of us will welcome this archetypal shift in the psychic atmosphere with sighs of relief. Others will be shocked awake in spite of themselves. Individual and collective reactions will be all over the map, of course, but the unifying feature provoked by whatever crises emerge will be the palpable sensation that anything is possible—evolution, revolution, transformation. Death and rebirth.

Power will erupt from the very ground under our feet, and those who harness that power peacefully, guided by love, will find their hearts open and full, their minds awake and alert, and their hands set to work toward rebuilding a better world. The wellsprings of common humanity will once again open as we reconnect with each other in unprecedented ways.

And that is ample reason for optimism.

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[© 2007, by Bill Herbst, all rights reserved. Permission is granted by the author to forward this email, but only in its entirety, without additions or deletions of text.]

“So keep fightin’ for freedom and justice, beloveds, but don’t you forget to have fun doin’ it. Lord, let your laughter ring forth. Be outrageous, ridicule the fraidy-cats, rejoice in all the oddities that freedom can produce. And when you get through kickin’ ass and celebratin’ the sheer joy of a good fight, be sure to tell those who come after how much fun it was.”
~ Molly Ivins, 1944 - 2007

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.)

Add comment March 5th, 2007

Slow as Molasses

The national frustrations of the moment have many citizens desperate for the “cut to the chase” stage … although nobody who has the power to do that seems interested in the proposition; the Congressional investigations move slowly [and ineffectively] ahead, the Libby jury is still out, and news is full of what isn’t working [I guess we're still in the "bitching stage" ...at least we're that far!]

Another thing that isn’t working is the new FOX News Daily Show knock-off, the Pub attempt at humor. I stumbled into it last night, stunned to see Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter as would-be Prez and Vice, talking about their national plans in their version of satire … bad laugh-track and all. Stunningly bleak — I know I’m not “in sympathy” with their cause, but there might have been something amusing there. Coulter’s wish to invade Canada was about it. She’s on the hot seat with her “faggot” commentary at the CPAC — what a piece of work she is! Nothing I could say would do justice to her persona — a blogger over at HuffPo called her the Coultergeist, that about says it [nicely.] Max Blumenthal gives us 7 minutes of interviews and snips from the Conservative gathering, if you’d like a peek at the consciousness that produces this kind of crap. It’s no surprise these people ain’t funny — they ain’t right. Just one Liberals opinion, of course.

Below — the New York Times offers an editorial that says what we’d like to hear, and hopefully somebody is reading it and passing it around. We hear it … they ignore it … we hear it … they ignore it. I guess we’re not to the stage where the spine of the nation either stands tall or breaks — but it can’t be far off, not if we want something left to mend. One [big] scandal took out Nixon — one [smaller] scandal hobbled Clinton. As far as I can tell, the entire six years of Bush’s tenure has been a long string of scandals and nothings happened. How is that possible? Aren’t the same people alive today, most of them, that drove those situations to a respectable solution?

I’m aware that the kind of national emergency that we’re looking at is also showing up in people’s personal lives … a lot of wall-hitting is going on out there. Folks who are scrambling with their private lives can’t be bothered with politics. Our numerological guru, Christine, would tell us it’s a 9-year; time to assess what went before, close old energies and recreate in a new way. If that’s our global process, then we’re all on a fact-finding mission, putting our ghosts to rest — and that’s not easy stuff. But those of us who saw this nations nightmare coming are ahead of the curve and eager to see some progress. The progress that’s visible is coming from the private sector, the grassroots … politically, environmentally, socially — there is some good news out there, although it looks “little” in the face of overwhelm. When I’m able to scout around, I’ll post some of it … we need the encouragement.

This is an interesting collection — overviews, analysis, protest information, news of the camps. Meanwhile, here’s my own solution to “cut to the chase” — the first three links will welcome you in.

Jude

Impeach07

Citizens Impeachment Commission

Business Before Pleasure — Impeach Cheney First

The Must-Do List
New York Times editorial
March 4, 2007

The Bush administration’s assault on some of the founding principles of American democracy marches onward despite the Democratic victory in the 2006 elections. The new Democratic majorities in Congress can block the sort of noxious measures that the Republican majority rubber-stamped. But preventing new assaults on civil liberties is not nearly enough.

Five years of presidential overreaching and Congressional collaboration continue to exact a high toll in human lives, America’s global reputation and the architecture of democracy. Brutality toward prisoners, and the denial of their human rights, have been institutionalized; unlawful spying on Americans continues; and the courts are being closed to legal challenges of these practices.

It will require forceful steps by this Congress to undo the damage. A few lawmakers are offering bills intended to do just that, but they are only a start. Taking on this task is a moral imperative that will show the world the United States can be tough on terrorism without sacrificing its humanity and the rule of law.

Today we’re offering a list — which, sadly, is hardly exhaustive — of things that need to be done to reverse the unwise and lawless policies of President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney. Many will require a rewrite of the Military Commissions Act of 2006, an atrocious measure pushed through Congress with the help of three Republican senators, Arlen Specter, Lindsey Graham and John McCain; Senator McCain lent his moral authority to improving one part of the bill and thus obscured its many other problems.
•

Our list starts with three fundamental tasks:

Restore Habeas Corpus

One of the new act’s most indecent provisions denies anyone Mr. Bush labels an “illegal enemy combatant” the ancient right to challenge his imprisonment in court. The arguments for doing this were specious. Habeas corpus is nothing remotely like a get-out-of-jail-free card for terrorists, as supporters would have you believe. It is a way to sort out those justly detained from those unjustly detained. It will not “clog the courts,” as Senator Graham claims. Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont, the Democratic chairman of the Judiciary Committee, has a worthy bill that would restore habeas corpus. It is essential to bringing integrity to the detention system and reviving the United States’ credibility.

Stop Illegal Spying

Mr. Bush’s program of intercepting Americans’ international calls and e-mail messages without a warrant has not ceased. The agreement announced recently — under which a secret court supposedly gave its blessing to the program — did nothing to restore judicial process or ensure that Americans’ rights are preserved. Congress needs to pass a measure, like one proposed by Senator Dianne Feinstein, to force Mr. Bush to obey the law that requires warrants for electronic surveillance.

Ban Torture, Really

The provisions in the Military Commissions Act that Senator McCain trumpeted as a ban on torture are hardly that. It is still largely up to the president to decide what constitutes torture and abuse for the purpose of prosecuting anyone who breaks the rules. This amounts to rewriting the Geneva Conventions and puts every American soldier at far greater risk if captured. It allows the president to decide in secret what kinds of treatment he will permit at the Central Intelligence Agency’s prisons. The law absolves American intelligence agents and their bosses of any acts of torture and abuse they have already committed.
•

Many of the tasks facing Congress involve the way the United States takes prisoners, and how it treats them. There are two sets of prisons in the war on terror. The military runs one set in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantánamo Bay. The other is even more shadowy, run by the C.I.A. at secret places.

Close the C.I.A. Prisons

When the Military Commissions Act passed, Mr. Bush triumphantly announced that he now had the power to keep the secret prisons open. He cast this as a great victory for national security. It was a defeat for America’s image around the world. The prisons should be closed.

Account for ‘Ghost Prisoners’

The United States has to come clean on all of the “ghost prisoners” it has in the secret camps. Holding prisoners without any accounting violates human rights norms. Human Rights Watch says it has identified nearly 40 men and women who have disappeared into secret American-run prisons.

Ban Extraordinary Rendition

This is the odious practice of abducting foreign citizens and secretly flying them to countries where everyone knows they will be tortured. It is already illegal to send a prisoner to a country if there is reason to believe he will be tortured. The administration’s claim that it got “diplomatic assurances” that prisoners would not be abused is laughable.

A bill by Representative Edward Markey, Democrat of Massachusetts, would require the executive branch to list countries known to abuse and torture prisoners. No prisoner could be sent to any of them unless the secretary of state certified that the country’s government no longer abused its prisoners or offered a way to verify that a prisoner will not be mistreated. It says “diplomatic assurances” are not sufficient.
•

Congress needs to completely overhaul the military prisons for terrorist suspects, starting with the way prisoners are classified. Shortly after 9/11, Mr. Bush declared all members of Al Qaeda and the Taliban to be “illegal enemy combatants” not entitled to the protections of the Geneva Conventions or American justice. Over time, the designation was applied to anyone the administration chose, including some United States citizens and the entire detainee population of Gitmo.

To address this mess, the government must:

Tighten the Definition of Combatant

“Illegal enemy combatant” is assigned a dangerously broad definition in the Military Commissions Act. It allows Mr. Bush — or for that matter anyone he chooses to designate to do the job — to apply this label to virtually any foreigner anywhere, including those living legally in the United States.

Screen Prisoners Fairly and Effectively

When the administration began taking prisoners in Afghanistan, it did not much bother to screen them. Hundreds of innocent men were sent to Gitmo, where far too many remain to this day. The vast majority will never even be brought before tribunals and still face indefinite detention without charges.

Under legal pressure, Mr. Bush created “combatant status review tribunals,” but they are a mockery of any civilized legal proceeding. They take place thousands of miles from the point of capture, and often years later. Evidence obtained by coercion and torture is permitted. The inmates do not get to challenge this evidence. They usually do not see it.

The Bush administration uses the hoary “fog of war” dodge to justify the failure to screen prisoners, saying it is not practical to do that on the battlefield. That’s nonsense. It did not happen in Afghanistan, and often in Iraq, because Mr. Bush decided just to ship the prisoners off to Gitmo.
•

Prisoners designated as illegal combatants are subject to trial rules out of the Red Queen’s playbook. The administration refuses to allow lawyers access to 14 terrorism suspects transferred in September from C.I.A. prisons to Guantánamo. It says that if they had a lawyer, they might say that they were tortured or abused at the C.I.A. prisons, and anything that happened at those prisons is secret.

At first, Mr. Bush provided no system of trial at the Guantánamo camp. Then he invented his own military tribunals, which were rightly overturned by the Supreme Court. Congress then passed the Military Commissions Act, which did not fix the problem. Some tasks now for Congress:

Ban Tainted Evidence

The Military Commissions Act and the regulations drawn up by the Pentagon to put it into action, are far too permissive on evidence obtained through physical abuse or coercion. This evidence is unreliable. The method of obtaining it is an affront.

Ban Secret Evidence

Under the Pentagon’s new rules for military tribunals, judges are allowed to keep evidence secret from a prisoner’s lawyer if the government persuades the judge it is classified. The information that may be withheld can include interrogation methods, which would make it hard, if not impossible, to prove torture or abuse.

Better Define ‘Classified’ Evidence

The military commission rules define this sort of secret evidence as “any information or material that has been determined by the United States government pursuant to statute, executive order or regulation to require protection against unauthorized disclosure for reasons of national security.” This is too broad, even if a president can be trusted to exercise the power fairly and carefully. Mr. Bush has shown he cannot be trusted to do that.

Respect the Right to Counsel

Soon after 9/11, the Bush administration allowed the government to listen to conversations and intercept mail between some prisoners and their lawyers. This had the effect of suspending their right to effective legal representation. Since then, the administration has been unceasingly hostile to any lawyers who defend detainees. The right to legal counsel does not exist to coddle serial terrorists or snarl legal proceedings. It exists to protect innocent people from illegal imprisonment.
•

Beyond all these huge tasks, Congress should halt the federal government’s race to classify documents to avoid public scrutiny — 15.6 million in 2005, nearly double the 2001 number. It should also reverse the grievous harm this administration has done to the Freedom of Information Act by encouraging agencies to reject requests for documents whenever possible. Congress should curtail F.B.I. spying on nonviolent antiwar groups and revisit parts of the Patriot Act that allow this practice.

The United States should apologize to a Canadian citizen and a German citizen, both innocent, who were kidnapped and tortured by American agents.

Oh yes, and it is time to close the Guantánamo camp. It is a despicable symbol of the abuses committed by this administration (with Congress’s complicity) in the name of fighting terrorism.

America on its Knees Before Tyranny
Richard Mynick, Information Clearing House
03/02/07

“The Star-Spangled Banner” painted the United States in 1814 as “The Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave.” These words, though still mumbled by apathetic consumers at sporting events, amount to a cruel satire of the American people in 2007.

The 4th sentence of the Declaration of Independence reads “…That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends (ie, Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness) it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government…” It would be hard to find a more apt description of the US government in 2007, or a more appropriate remedy for this oppressive regime, increasingly loathed and feared by the citizenry.

We have a Constitution which defines a separation of powers. It also defines procedures for impeaching officials who violate its bedrock principles — in particular, its Bill of Rights, its separation of powers, and its foundational notion that power derives from the consent of the governed. We make elected officials swear an oath to “protect and defend” this Constitution. Why bother with all this, if, when the day of tyranny finally arrives, the Constitution’s own provisions are not used to defend the document’s principles against the would-be tyrants who have so egregiously violated them?

In November, US voters told Washington that the public does not support the war; sees with increasing clarity that it is immoral and was launched on false pretexts; and wants it terminated. In response, Vice-Emperor Cheney snarled in a TV interview with an obsequious Bush toady that regardless of what the public or Congress might say about it, the White House intends not only to continue the war, but to escalate it.

Let’s examine this extraordinary position. Here is a top official of a “democracy” — in a war marketed as an effort to “spread democracy” — stating publicly & with imperial scorn that he and his co-conspirators have the right to order the US war machine to bombard and occupy any nation they wish to target, even if their war is launched under demonstrably false pretexts. They claim the right to compel the public to furnish lives and bodies to be killed and maimed in the war, and to bear the moral and financial burdens of the war, in an action which not incidentally lets administration allies in the “defense” and oil industries profit handsomely from the ensuing mayhem.

Needless to say, from Cheney’s viewpoint, it’s also of no moment that the war violates the Nuremberg Principles and UN Charter forbidding aggressive war, and that the conduct of the war violates international accords to which the US is a signatory.

If that position does not constitute tyranny and abuse of power, what would? The “long train of abuses and usurpations” cited against King George in the Declaration of Independence was no worse an abuse of power than this. And nothing Britain ever did to its American colonies came anywhere near the monstrous outrages perpetrated by the US on modern-day Iraq.

The war in Iraq is not merely “the most serious foreign policy blunder in American history,” as even members of the political establishment have conceded. It represents, rather, a crisis derived from the decaying framework of the US political system, posing the most fundamental question about the relationship between the rulers and ruled in this country. Though the Bush regime led the way, the war is the joint product of both parties and the corporate media — that is, of the entire political establishment — with each part playing its own supporting role.

It’s not a question of “Well, if only Gore had won in 2000, we wouldn’t be in this mess.” The mess springs from the very structure of US society — the unequal distribution of power among its social classes, its economic and political relations with the rest of the world, its ruling ideology. As errors go, there’s an immense qualitative difference between a system malfunctioning because its framework is rotting, & the more limited type of error due to a component glitch within an otherwise healthy framework. The war in Iraq is the first type of malfunction: systemic.

The official forms of discourse in US society have degenerated to the point that they no longer permit acknowledgement — or even mention — of the main issues confronting us. The problems run too deep. The issues which must be discussed, because they’re so important, cannot be discussed, because they’re too threatening to the powers controlling the system.

The crises facing our society are like those an individual must confront, when events force upon him a choice of either internally acknowledging a dark & terrible truth about himself, or continuing in denial. The truth seems too terrible to bear — so the denial continues, & the pressure of the crisis intensifies.

What would a genuine discussion of the issues look like?

If we were to attempt a genuine discussion of the Bush regime, one might formulate the main issues as these:

Is the regime legitimate? After all, it took office by what millions recognize was a stolen election enabled by a corrupt Supreme Court and the president’s brother’s political machine in Florida.

Is the regime guilty of massive war crimes? After all, they invaded a country that posed no threat to the US, killed hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis, and have permanently destroyed Iraqi society in their rush to plunder its oil. (This, while not permitting the slightest acknowledgement that oil has anything to do with it.)

Is the regime guilty of high crimes against the Constitution? They have eavesdropped on millions of citizens. They torture detainees, many of whom are probably guilty of little more than being in the wrong place at the wrong time. They have repealed such basic democratic rights as habeas corpus, smeared political opponents, pandered to rightwing theocrats, stacked the judiciary & federal agencies with political cronies, and quietly sneaked into legislation passages making easier the declaration of martial law.

Is the regime a de facto dictatorship? After all, not only do they insist that the president can label anyone an “enemy combatant” and then disappear them; not only do they openly assert their belief in the “unitary executive;” they have also created an artificial state of permanent war, then claimed that a “nation at war” must grant its executive unlimited powers. They have openly claimed the right to wage war on anyone, even on false pretexts, using our bodies & tax dollars to feed a war machine owned by their cronies — and added with sneering condescension that we have no say in any of this. Anyone who objects is a traitor! All this, in the name of “protecting Americans, freedom and democracy!”

The mainstream media are unwilling to even recognize the existence of such questions. Their comfort zones and expertise are better suited to “reporting” on the astronaut/love-triangle/diaper story, or the intriguing battles raging over Anna Nicole’s corpse. There’s a story in today’s news that Iraq’s cabinet has approved a draft of a new “oil law,” which would largely turn control of Iraq’s oil over to Western oil companies. But we know by now that Anna Nicole’s corpse will get far more press in the days ahead, and that no media “analyst” will perceive any noteworthy connection between the new oil law and the Iraq War, originally launched because of imaginary WMD’s. (That little boo-boo is regularly ascribed by the media to “flawed intelligence,” an interesting phrase deserving further examination, if, against rising odds, we survive the next several months without a world-altering conflagration.)

What does it mean to “Support the Troops?”

In the giddy prosperity following WWII, it became commonplace in American culture to sneer contemptuously about the German soldiers who defended their wartime actions by claiming they were “just following orders.” Underlying these sneers was the principle set forth at Nuremberg — that a soldier has a moral responsibility to refuse to obey orders which their conscience tells them violate a higher ethical code.

In today’s United States, however, courageous and principled soldiers like Lt. Ehren Watada, who try to do exactly what Americans sneered at German soldiers for not doing, are jailed, court-martialed, and summarily dismissed by the press as “insubordinate.”

“Supporting the Troops” should mean supporting soldiers like Watada, and removing the troops from situations where they must kill or be killed in an unjust war. It should mean prosecuting the venal figures in Washington who have sent the troops on this criminal mission, and lied to the world about the reasons for it. Yet these same venal politicians, who won’t even adequately fund medical facilities for maimed soldiers, shamelessly use the phrase “supporting the troops” as an argument for forcing them to continue fighting a war for oil and defense company profits.

The Treacherous Role of the Democrats

The Democrats gained control of Congress only by virtue of the fact that they are not Republicans, under conditions where the electorate instructed them to oppose Bush’s deranged warmongering. Though “victorious,” they immediately surrendered to the Republicans, taking “off the table” the only two measures which could possibly stop the US war drive: impeachment and cutting off funding for the war. They then wasted two months fussing ineffectually with non-binding resolutions of feeble disapproval (of the “surge,” not the war itself), bleating pitifully to their Republican colleagues for “bipartisanship.” Almost comically, the toothless Senate resolution didn’t even make it to the floor for a vote. It should be clear from this performance that the Democrats, like the media, are terminally corrupt, and are in effect collaborating with the Bush regime against the voters who put them in office.

We have before us the spectacle of the Bush administration committing crimes which, if attempted by any foreign power, would rightly be met by torrential denunciation from Congress and the US media. But when the Bush administration commits these crimes, the media is basically supportive, while the Democrats make cynical pretenses of opposition. The Democrats’ “criticism” usually amounts to complaining that Bush’s crimes were clumsily executed or not entirely successful; and that had they been at the helm they could have pulled off the capers with more finesse.

Corruption is present to some degree in all governments, but the critical test of whether a government is beyond all salvation is whether it has the capacity to acknowledge great crimes committed by the leadership, and to rectify them. In today’s Washington, however, the Democrats function as a buffer between the Bush regime and the increasingly angry population. On the one hand, the Democrats posture dishonestly as administration “critics”; on the other hand, they ensure that no serious effort is made to rein the criminals in — not to mention bringing them to justice.

Rectifying the corruption should include restoration of the staggering wealth that in effect has been stolen from the American people, when Bush and Cheney ladled it out to their friends at Enron, Bechtel, Halliburton, the oil companies, and the other defense industries. The $400 million CEO severance packages, the billions in non-bid government contracts to defense companies and mercenaries, Cheney’s own Halliburton stock options — all this and more should be confiscated, and returned to the rightful possessors of that wealth. It should be clear that the Democrats would scarcely be able to comprehend what is being spoken of, here, let alone act as honorable advocates of its implementation.

Today’s America is no democracy — it’s a degenerating tyranny, disfigured by its military-industrial-governmental cancer. Our people are increasingly ashamed and terrified of their government, and rightly so, because we have no control over it, and it’s become a deceitful monstrous danger to us and to the health of the planet. We’re not “The Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave.” To the contrary: We, the people, are on our knees, cringing and whimpering in dismay and confusion, prostrate before the forces that have betrayed us.

Habeas Corpus Can’t Wait
Aziz Huq, TomPaine
March 05, 2007

Last week, the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia acted to return Guantánamo detainees to the Supreme Court. They ruled against the detainees, holding that they have no rights under the Constitution, thanks to the Military Commission Act of 2006.

Partisans of the rule of law look forward to the High Court’s intervention, expecting the court to rule for the detainees on the bottom-line question (of a right to writ of habeas corpus , or the right to challenge one’s detention). Many in Congress will be tempted to hang back now and allow the federal courts to finally rule on the pivotal issues presented by cases, which first filed more than five years ago.

But we should not give in to the temptation to let the court pick up the slack for a legislature that has singularly failed to live up to its oversight responsibilities. Whether or not a court finds that the detainees have constitutional rights cannot and will not answer the many difficult questions raised by the detainees’ predicament. And there is much that Congress can and must do, regardless of how the court rules.

The detainees at Guantánamo have been waiting for their day in federal court since January 2002, when the first petitions of habeas corpus were filed. From the beginning, the relief they sought has been narrow: not the automatic right to walk free, but the right to challenge the factual basis of their detention before an independent decision-maker. From the beginning of the Guantánamo regime, it has been clear that government claims that the camps housed “the worst of the worst” were factually wrong—and that the government knew as much.

This, however, is an administration that does cakewalks, not climbdowns.

Delay in the day of reckoning occurred not due to the detainees’ lawyers, but through a series of increasingly reckless maneuvers by the administration and its lawyers to avoid any review of the factual grounds for detention. First the government argued that Guantánamo was not part of the United States, and the president’s sweeping judgment that anyone picked up by the CIA from Bosnia to Pakistan via Thailand must be an “enemy combatant,” and therefore undeserving of any judicial solicitude. Then there were legislative efforts, in the form of the 2005 Detainee Treatment Act and the 2006 Military Commissions Act, to stymie review.

It is important again to emphasize that what the government has sought to avoid is not simple “release.” What the D.C. Circuit held last week was that the Military Commission Act stripped the courts of power even to hear the detainees’ pleas. And at best the Supreme Court will determine that the detainees have a right under the Constitution to be heard. None will necessarily be released. None will even immediately get a day in court. The best case scenario is that the mere prospect of review will push the government into moving forward with releases.

But this is not enough. To understand why, look at the section of Guantánamo called Camp Six. Camp Six is the “more comfortable” facility in which detainees who have been “cleared” are held. As James Cohen’s recent account for the National Law Journal makes clear, detainees in Camp Six are kept in cells with walls, floors and ceilings of solid metal for 22 hours a day, denied natural light or air and have virtually no contact with human beings other than guards. Conditions are worse than any Supermax facility in the United States.

Thus, it is not sufficient to ensure that the detainees have their day in court. Even those who the government concedes to be innocent of any terrorist involvement are still kept in brutalizing and inhumane conditions. A comprehensive solution to the Guantánamo problem requires much more. And, acting alone, the courts have only limited capacity to that end.

So Congress too must act, and there is much that it can do now. The court proceedings are no cause for delay. A comprehensive solution necessarily involves multiple branches of government, and the sooner legislators act, the sooner America can remove the moral stain of Guantánamo from its plate.

Yet action will not be easy. With the Senate in Democratic hands by only a slim margin, and with no means of stopping filibusters, the chances of enacting a comprehensive solution to the global detention problem are non-existent. At best, this Congress may redress some of the worst aspects of the Military Commissions Act of 2006. As Human Rights Watch indicated in its recent “Common Sense Agenda” for Congress, restoration of the “Great Writ” of habeas corpus ought to be at the top of the list of must-dos.

Two bills introduced by Senator Christopher Dodd, and Senators Arlen Specter and Patrick Leahy, do this in whole or in part. The Dodd bill is more comprehensive, and its provision on restoring habeas is more carefully drafted.

Nevertheless, whether these bills pass or not, there is vital oversight work that the Judiciary, Armed Services and Intelligence Committees have been tardy in doing these five years. It is these committees, as much as the courts, that have the constitutional power to shine a light on Guantánamo.

There are many who will be hesitant about leaving much to the democratic branches. In theory, democratic bodies should respond best to majorities, and sideline minority concerns. (In practice, to be sure, well-organized and financed minorities, such as industrial lobbies, often yield unwarranted clout—but that is the result of America’s eccentric belief in privatized campaign financing). Worse, minorities who lack representation, and who are the subject of racial animus, will be the brunt of cumulatively bad measures.

Without question, the immigration and counter-terrorism debates evince this dangerous dynamic. Nevertheless, the experience of other countries gives hope that democratic majorities can do better.

Last week, the Canadian Supreme Court invalidated an indefinite detention scheme because it failed to provide procedural protections to ensure accurate determinations of dangerousness. If the American experience provides a general guide, this should have prompted massive retaliation, just as the Hamdan v. Rumsfeld decision provoked the Military Commissions Act.

Instead, the Canadian House of Commons voted down, 159 votes to 124, the renewal of two provisions of an antiterrorism bill that allowed warrantless detention for brief periods. The Canadian legislature focused on the record of counter-terrorism measures over the past five years and concluded the two provisions were unwarranted infringements on human liberties.

The British Parliament too has shown spine in the face of government fearmongering. In November 2005, in the wake of the 7/7 bombings, the Blair government proposed an extension of counterterrorism preventative detention from 14 days to 90 days. Despite heavy lobbying from the Metropolitan Police, the measure was defeated 391-322. It is especially striking that the British Parliament was able to focus on the real issues of proportionality and due process.

Congress can do just as well as its common-law cousins. We the people must now hold it up to their high standards.

Aziz Huq directs the Liberty and National Security Project at the Brennan Center for Justice. He is co-author of Unchecked and Unbalanced: Presidential Power in Times of Terror, and recipient of a 2006 Carnegie Scholars Fellowship.

Tomgram: Will Iraq become the Democrats’ war?David Swanson: Dem leaders may prefer to claim they tried but failed to end it
Tom Engelhardt
3/5/07

Nothing reminds us more of how much the American constitutional system has been transformed, of just how extreme the “imperial presidency” has become, than Congress’s generally woeful record in the second half of the last century and in the first years of this one to exert any significant control over or brakes on White House wars abroad. On such issues, Congress has generally lagged well behind public opinion — as in Vietnam, where its greatest power, the power of the purse, led to partially successful defunding efforts only in 1973 after all U.S. combat forces had been withdrawn and as the American war was limping toward its end.

Congress has been weak even at its moments of relative strength, as with the War Powers Resolution of 1973; and ineffective when it has actually moved, as in the Boland Amendment’s attempt to restrict the Reagan administration from funding and arming Nicaragua’s Contra movement in the early 1980s, which resulted in the Iran-Contra Affair, a remarkably effective set of quasi-legal and utterly illegal evasions of Congress’s funding and arming strictures — until finally revealed in 1986. (And, of course, so many key figures in Iran-Contra returned to the Bush administration in 2001 in triumph and, as Seymour Hersh relates in his most recent New Yorker piece, two years ago they even convened a meeting, headed by Iran-Contra alumnus and Deputy National Security Adviser Elliot Abrams, to consider the “lessons” of the Affair and essentially plot a new version of Iran-Contra to be run out of the Vice-President’s office.)

The imperial presidency has regularly run circles around an ever weaker Congress. Now, once again, we find ourselves at a moment where the public seems increasingly eager for Congress to rein in an out-of-control White House and its increasingly catastrophic policies, this time in the Middle East.

Below, David Swanson explores these questions: What might the new Democratic Congress be willing to do when it comes to Iraq?

What is it actually capable of doing? If it does manage to act in any half-significant way, will the Bush White House simply ignore it?

Tom

Can Congress End the War?
Democratic Leaders May Prefer to Claim They Tried But Failed
David Swanson

The shortest route to ending the Iraq war (and preventing additional wars) is almost certainly through Congress. Influencing the White House directly is unimaginable, and stopping the war through the courts unlikely. Clearly, Congress is the way to go. But what specifically can Congress do?

How We Got Here

The peace movement lobbied a Republican Congress without success for four years. Then, on November 7, 2006, the American public elected a Democratic Congress in a clear mandate delivered at the polls. Not a single new Republican was elected, and 30 new Democrats were ushered in, with voters overwhelmingly telling pollsters that they were voting against the war; and by “against the war,” they meant “against the war,” not “against the escalation.” Remember, the President’s “surge” into Baghdad had not yet been announced.

Voters also appeared to be voting for accountability and possibly for the launching of impeachment hearings as well. Polls prior to the election found that a majority of Americans believed a Democratic Congress would impeach. Candidates who campaigned on the theme of accountability, including Keith Ellison (Dem., Minnesota) who promised impeachment, did well. Polls show that a majority of Americans favor impeachment or wish Bush’s presidency were over. Voters in November even booted out a couple of Republicans who had turned against the war, saying that they were voting for a Democratic majority so that the Democrats could investigate the war as well as end it — something a majority of Americans continue to say they want.

Prior to the election, Speaker-to-be Nancy Pelosi had already ordered the Democrats in the House to oppose impeachment, but she had not ordered them to support the war. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), chaired by Congressman Rahm Emanuel, however, directed most of its financial support to candidates who did not call for ending the war. Of the 22 candidates funded by the DCCC, only 8 won. The rest of the victorious Democratic challengers, many of them strongly opposed to the war, got themselves elected without Emanuel’s help.

Halfway Steps in the House

Of course, now that the election is over and the Democratic leadership has heard the people speak so clearly, now that, on January 27th, half a million Americans encircled the Capitol in opposition to the war, now that the new Congress has in its hands the power that the Republicans had a year ago, surely ending the war is at the top of its agenda.

Well, not according to Emanuel’s way of thinking, as reported in the Washington Post:

“For the rest of the year, Emanuel says, the leadership hopes to stress energy independence (with fuel-saving efficiency standards for appliances and cars) and a move toward better health care for children. And here’s what Emanuel doesn’t want to do: fall into the political trap of chasing overambitious or potentially unpopular measures.

Ask about universal health care, and he shakes his head… Reform of Social Security and other entitlements? Too big, too woolly, too risky… The country is angry, and it will only get more so as the problems in Iraq deepen. Don’t look to Emanuel’s Democrats for solutions on Iraq. It’s Bush’s war, and as it splinters the structure of GOP power, the Democrats are waiting to pick up the pieces.”

So, clearly the question before us is not just what Congress can do to end the war, but also how the American public can persuade a Democratic Congress to want to end the war. Most Republican members of Congress still follow White House orders like sheep, and leading House Democrat Emanuel is openly telling the media that he’d just as soon have the war still going on in 2008. The war has cost an estimated 655,000 Iraqi lives and over 3,000 American ones in its first 4 years, with the death rate increasing over time, so by a safe estimate Emanuel has just written off perhaps another few hundred thousand lives for the sake of an electoral strategy.

Prior to the recent Congressional recess, Congressman Jack Murtha proposed that he draft a new bill, agreeing to throw $93 billion or so at the war in the form of another “emergency supplemental” outside the regular federal budget. That may not sound like an anti-war proposal, but it certainly passed for one in Washington, D.C. In fact, Murtha was pilloried by Republicans and much of the media because he proposed including requirements that troops be properly rested, trained, and equipped before being sent to Iraq. Murtha argued that these requirements would force Bush to end his “surge.”

In a climate in which opposition to the “surge” had become confused with opposition to the war, Murtha’s plan was, amazingly enough, treated as the near equivalent of pacifism. And no strong defense of it emerged from the Democratic leadership. Instead the plan evolved into a proposal to require the President to inform Congress when he was deploying troops lacking adequate rest, training, or equipment. But it is unclear how this would even curtail the present escalation, much less end the war, and there has been no indication of what Congress would do if Bush failed to obey this reporting requirement.

Bizarrely, this whole discussion has taken place without any reference to the fact that, in November 2003, Congress passed the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2004, which placed limits on the number of days that a member of the Armed Forces could be deployed. Bush signed that bill into law, but added a signing statement announcing his intention to disregard that section. The U.S. Constitution gives the President the power to sign bills into law and enforce them, or to veto them. There is no constitutional middle course. Yet Bush has routinely used signing statements to announce his plans to disregard portions of bills he signs into law. This abuse might be addressed by impeachment proceedings, something the Democrats are not currently considering. But short of addressing this abuse, Congress Members could at least behave as though they were aware of it.

Wholehearted House Actions

Numerous peace and justice organizations seeking to end the war are urging Congress Members to vote “no” on the $93 billion supplemental bill. At the same time, they are watching closely for possible amendments to the bill that could require the money be spent on a rapid withdrawal. Such amendments might be introduced and voted on in the House Appropriations Committee, on which Congresswoman Barbara Lee (Dem., California) serves, along with Murtha, or they might be introduced and voted on in the full House.

If a bill provided billions of dollars for the war but required that it all be spent on the withdrawal of troops, and if such a bill passed both houses of Congress, the President would be unable to veto it without denying himself a source of funding he badly wants. And there is at least a chance that Congress would take umbrage and pay attention if he cancelled the end of the war with another of his signing statements.

Other possibilities for ending the war in the House include not passing a supplemental bill at all, or passing one of the four bills that have been introduced (by Representatives Lynn Woolsey, Jim McGovern, Jerrold Nadler, and Dennis Kucinich) that would use the power of the purse to try to bring the war to an end. There are also several bills that would instruct the President to end the war while continuing to fund it, an approach that seems more likely to pass both houses of Congress, but far less likely to achieve anything close to their stated goal.

Senator Russ Feingold held hearings in January on the constitutional power of the Congress to end a war. One point on which there seems to be consensus: Congress has the Constitutional power to control what money is spent on (even if that power has hardly been touched in any meaningful way in recent years). If Congress says no more money can be spent on the war, then that is the law of the land — although the history of the Iran-Contra scandal, the secret beginning of the current Iraq War, and operations now underway in Iran remind us that the law of the land and the acts of the White House can sometimes be two separate matters.

Congressman Kucinich’s bill is brand new. The other three House bills have been in play for some weeks. While Congressman Nadler’s bill does not have the support among his colleagues that Woolsey’s and McGovern’s do (thanks to both friendships and political alliances), Nadler has perhaps done the best job of crafting a bill in which Congress could make use of its undisputed power to end the war.

While the other two bills first instruct Bush to end the war in a specific period of time, and only afterward forbid the use of additional funds for the war that is now theoretically over, Nadler’s bill immediately restricts the use of any money appropriated by Congress to withdrawing the troops from Iraq.

Actually, Nadler’s bill restricts the use of funds to protecting the troops and withdrawing them. He admits that the “protecting the troops” part is a bit of nonsense, since the only way to protect them is to withdraw them. But all of these bills have been written with a keen eye to repelling the commonplace criticism that bringing our troops safely home somehow constitutes a failure to “support the troops.”

Senate Shortcomings and Opportunities

A new sideways approach to ending the war without saying you’re ending it is only now emerging in the Senate. This one involves “reauthorizing” the war. This war was, of course, never declared but pre-authorized to be launched at the President’s discretion for the purpose of eliminating Iraq’s mythical weapons of mass destruction and combating those falsely alleged to have been behind the attacks of 9-11. The facts have already repealed that authorization, but it would be useful for Congress to do so as well.

Actually reauthorizing the war, on the other hand, would undoubtedly be less useful, as it might appear to the public to be support for the war; while any aspects of the reauthorization aimed at slowly ending the war will surely be viciously attacked by the administration and its supporters. In fact, that’s already begun. The White House is denouncing any attempts to restrict the war as “micromanagement” and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has announced that Bush will probably disregard restrictions placed on the war by Congress. Rice was asked in a broadcast interview whether the President would feel bound by legislation seeking to withdraw combat troops within 120 days. “The president is going to, as commander in chief, need to do what the country needs done,” she replied.

This brazenly unconstitutional stance is another one of those “details” — like Bush’s past signing statements — that Congress might do well to bear in mind and cease trying to ignore.

There are a couple of possible ways the Senate might get around this. One would simply be not to pass the Pentagon’s supplemental spending bill — something that 41 Senators could accomplish through a filibuster. The other would be to pass Senator Russ Feingold’s bill to stop funding the war, which would obviously require a far higher voting hurdle than that filibuster. Passing a bill would involve gathering a majority — and overriding a veto to maintain it, a two-thirds vote in both houses. The filibuster, however, presents another kind of hurdle in that it requires some Senator or group of Senators to find the decency and courage to begin it, uncertain of success.

Legislating a Unitary Executive

What is lost in all of these strategy discussions, of course, is the question of whether any sort of Congressional cut-off of funds would actually truncate either the surge or the war. Remember, the President and Vice President began the preparations for the invasion of Iraq secretly with at least $2.5 billion illegally taken from other areas. They have promised never to end the war. They have asserted the power of a “unitary executive.” They have launched pre-war operations in Iran without any authorization or funding from Congress. They have built permanent bases in Iraq without any approval from Congress, and continued that construction work in violation of a bill passed by Congress forbidding the use of any funding for it.

So, the question is not just whether Congress can cut off the money, but whether the Bush administration can find enough money in other places illegally to continue a war that has never in any sense been legal. The amount of money we’re talking about is enormous, but it is a fraction of the Pentagon’s budget, and it seems clear that — given the kinds of “black budget” moneys floating around in that world — the war could be continued for some time (long enough at least to gin up a new enemy to scare Congress with); that is, unless the military sides with Congress in this dispute and refuses to pursue the war with misappropriated funds.

If any of these strategies to end the war come to fruition in Congress, a more likely outcome than an actual end to the war would be a full-scale confrontation with the “commander-in-chief” presidency of George Bush (and the vice-presidency of Dick Cheney), leading to possible impeachment proceedings.

Here’s the reality, however: None of these strategies are likely to advance very far very soon. A movement for impeachment now might strengthen the hand of those in Congress who want to move on ending the war. During the Vietnam War, the peace and impeachment efforts aided each other. And the Democrats then won the next elections, something they failed to do after choosing not to pursue impeachment proceedings against Ronald Reagan for the Iran-Contra scandal.

What Could Change

Two events on the horizon might change this outlook. One is an attack on Iran. Congressmen Dennis Kucinich and John Conyers have said they favor launching the impeachment process if the Bush administration attacks Iran. Needless to say, it would be better to begin proceedings to impeach in order to prevent an attack on Iran, but that is unlikely in the present political atmosphere.

The other event that could take us all surprising places is the completion of the trial of I. Lewis Scooter Libby. The evidence made public by that trial points to an urgent need for impeachment proceedings against Vice President Cheney. The evidence suggests that Cheney was the driving force behind the campaign of retribution against ex-ambassador Joseph Wilson, including the outing of his wife, CIA agent Valerie Plame. Journalist Murray Waas has indicated some of the points that cry out for investigation. New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof has urged Cheney to “come clean,” offer an explanation for his actions, or resign. A blogger with the handle emptywheel has drafted a mock indictment of Cheney, and Wil S. Hylton has recently published possible articles of impeachment against the Vice President in the men’s fashion magazine GQ.

It seems everyone’s getting into the act, except Congress. But Congress could do so. The evidence uncovered by the Libby trial did not exist when Pelosi ordered impeachment “off the table” a year ago. Among the public, there is a lot of fear that impeaching Bush (and removing him from office) would give us a President Cheney. By impeaching the incredibly unpopular Cheney first, Congress would allay these fears. Impeaching Cheney might actually unite the mood of the public with that of Congress more easily than the impeachment of George W. Bush — under the motto: Business Before Pleasure — Impeach Cheney First!

In the meantime, the Democrats’ strategy of letting the war continue, not thoroughly investigating the fraud that launched it, and not holding the war-makers accountable may prove not to be the electoral winner that Party figures like Emanuel expect. It might even prove a political equalizer and so a loser in 2008 or beyond. Every day that the Democrats don’t move to end the war in Iraq is another day in which that war, stretching ever on, can become the Democrats’ war. Only if they come to believe that the war’s unpopularity will work against them in the voting booths in 2008 or thereafter will they be strongly motivated to take the sorts of actions that might actually bring it to an end.

David Swanson is the Washington Director of Democrats.com and co-founder of the AfterDowningStreet.org coalition, a board member of Progressive Democrats of America, and of the Backbone Campaign. He serves on a working group of United for Peace and Justice. He has worked as a newspaper reporter and as a communications director, with jobs including Press Secretary for Dennis Kucinich’s 2004 presidential campaign.

It’s Time to Create a Little Shock and Awe in the Streets
Beth Quinn
Monday, March 5, 2007 by the Times Herald-Record (Middletown, New York)

I get occasional e-mail from readers complaining that they’re sick of my writing about Bush’s war.

Well, by golly, me too. I’m entirely sick of writing about it.

I’m sickened by it, too. I want to throw up I’m so sickened by it.

Who can even keep up with each new Goal Of The Day this president claims to have in Iraq? I’m exhausted from trying to follow the bouncing ball as he careens from one rationale to the next.

I was hoping I could take a nap from it all after the mid-term elections. Ah ha! I thought. The Democrats finally have some power — now they’ll fix the mess!

But here we are — four years from Mission Unaccomplished with most of America sick to death of this stupid, pointless war. And what have we got from the new Democratic Congress that we had such high hopes for?

We’ve got a non-binding resolution. Whooee. We’ve got a compromise on war spending. Whoop-de-doo. We’ve got a debate about blah blah blah blah blah blah.

They all sound like the grown-ups in a Charlie Brown special.

Where is everyone’s backbone? Where is the outrage over the 3,164 dead and 23,677 wounded American soldiers? Where is the remorse over the 650,000 dead Iraqis?

Where is the despair over the $279 million per day we’re spending on a war apparently planned with crayons, construction paper and a little Elmer’s Glue to hold the glitter?

Where are the congressional hearings about that smarmy, smirky little liar in the White House? About the missing money? About the torture and imprisonment without habeas corpus?

Where is the impeachment?

In case you haven’t heard the news from the rest of Earth, Bush has caused half the world to hate us and he’s put us into debt to the other half. Even Tony Blair has figured out there’s no percentage in throwing more British bodies into the Iraqi civil war. Lithuania, for cryin’ out loud — the vanguard of Bush’s “coalition of the willing” with its army of 53 soldiers — they’re pulling out, too.

But not George Bush, Boy Genius. Despite the clear will of the American people to leave Iraq, Bush is escalating. He’s sending more soldiers without armor to their death in a place that doesn’t want them and where it’s not even clear who the enemy is or what our purpose is.

So now I gotta listen to my own self talk again. On and on and on. I’m sick of it.

But I can’t stop. You can’t stop either. You shouldn’t. We voted, and Bush ignored us. We gave the Dems our fealty and so far they’ve disappointed.

So we have to take it to the streets.

A protest march on the Pentagon is set for 11 a.m. on March 17. Busloads of Hudson Valley activists will travel to Washington to join thousands of other Americans as they bring their anti-war demands directly to Shock and Awe Headquarters down there.

The protest will begin with a rally at Constitution Gardens at 23rd Street and Constitution Avenue, then head across the Potomac to the Pentagon for a rally calling for immediate withdrawal of the U.S. military from Iraq.

Buses are slated to depart from Kingston, Poughkeepsie and New Paltz, sponsored by the Hudson Valley Activist Newsletter. The cost is $50 with discounts for those on low budgets and students if they so request.

To join the trip, contact organizer Jack Smith at jacdon@earthlink.net or call 255-5779. State your name, town, e-mail and phone number, and how many seats you want to reserve. Then mail a check to Hudson Valley Activist Newsletter, Box 662, New Paltz, NY 12561.

Smith will let you know the time (probably about 5 a.m.) and departure locations once he knows how many people are traveling with the group.

By coincidence — or perhaps not — this is the 40th anniversary of the historic march on the Pentagon against the Vietnam War, a tipping point for what became a powerful anti-war movement.

It’s time for another tipping point. There are 687 days ’til Jan. 20, 2009. The devastating damage Bush has done to this country continues. Do you really want to wait until the clock runs out before we get rid of him?

Not me. I’m sick of it.

From Texas cell, Canadian, 9, pleads for help
Family in limbo after unscheduled stop in Puerto Rico
UNNATI GANDHI, Globe and Mail

AUSTIN, TEX. — Even if you try to look past the eight-metre-high chain-link fence, beyond the scores of uniformed guards patrolling the perimeter and away from the cameras, metal detectors and lasers, there isn’t the slightest evidence of children inside the T. Don Hutto Family Detention Center.

No one is playing outside; there are no sounds of laughter.

But inside the thick, whitewashed walls of this former maximum-security prison in the heart of Texas are about 170 children — including a nine-year-old Canadian boy named Kevin.

Call it international limbo. Detained by U.S. Customs officials after their flight to Toronto made an unscheduled stop on American soil nearly four weeks ago, Kevin and his Iranian parents, Majid and Masomeh, feel they are being held hostage not only by the physical parameters of Hutto, but by the politics of nationality.

“We can’t go home because I am Canadian but my parents are not,” Kevin said in a telephone interview with The Globe and Mail — no personal interviews have been granted.

Majid and Masomeh — they prefer their last name not be used — initially fled Iran for Canada in January, 1995, to seek political asylum. Majid did odd jobs, eventually becoming manager of an east Toronto pizza parlour, paying the rent for their one-bedroom apartment.

In 1997, their only son, Kevin, was born. “For the first time, I was happy,” Majid said from the Hutto detention facility.

“I had my family with me — it’s the only family I have — we didn’t have any problems and we lived happy in Toronto.”

Kevin attended a Toronto school until Grade 3. Meanwhile, his parents were seeking refugee status, based on fear of persecution in Iran, but their application was denied and, in December, 2005, the family of three was deported.

Upon their arrival in Tehran, Majid said he was taken away from his family to a prison cell. For three months, he was detained, beaten and tortured, he said. When he was released, the three were reunited, and, with the help of friends and relatives, they connected with a people smuggler in Tehran.

“I pay him $40,000 to [get us] to Canada. It included everything: fake passports, tickets. He got $20,000 in Iran, and $20,000 in Turkey.”

Carrying Greek passports — which do not require visas for entry into Canada — they travelled to Guyana, where they eventually boarded a Toronto-bound plane.

Lorne Waldman, an immigration lawyer in Toronto, said that because of the heightened security measures put in place after Sept. 11, 2001, people smugglers have found alternate routes to get into Canada.

“We see people coming in with very exotic and complex and convoluted routes,” he said. “Moscow was one. Guyana is another … because the smugglers believe it was a route that was subjected to less scrutiny.”

It was that belief that got Kevin and his parents onto a Zoom Airlines chartered, non-stop flight from Georgetown to Toronto.

No one could have anticipated what happened next.

“The woman sitting two seats behind me, she kept running to the washroom for vomiting. They put oxygen on her, and tell us to stay in our seats. They just said we have to divert to another city because of an emergency landing.”

A woman had suffered a heart attack and died on board. After landing in Puerto Rico, everyone was told to disembark while emergency crew removed the body.

“They say we have to pass immigration, and they say because we have Greek passport, you need to get a visa for United States. I said no, our ticket is to Toronto, we have no plan to come here.”

After being held in Puerto Rico for five days, the family was brought to Taylor, Tex., about 45 kilometres northeast of Austin, to the main U.S. family detention centre for immigrants.

“My luggage go to Toronto,” said Majid, 42, “and we have to stay here.”

Now, the three of them are locked inside the centre that, U.S. refugee advocates recently alleged, features inadequate medical care, lack of privacy and abusive behaviour by staff toward the green-uniformed detainees.

Everyone must wake up by 5:30 a.m. to take showers. They get 15 minutes to eat each meal. Everyone must be in bed by 9:30 p.m., when laser-triggered alarms are set to detect if anyone gets up.

“The day is very regimented,” said Barbara Hines, a law professor at the University of Texas who runs an immigration clinic with her students — the only way many of the detainees get representation.

“This is a prison. They have a head count three times a day where they have to be in their cells for an hour to be counted down.”

At one point, Majid walked into the room where Kevin and his mother sleep to help them fix a broken bed.

“They were told that if he violated rules, because the father’s not allowed into that room, the family would be separated,” Ms. Hines said. “One of the things the detainees have reported to us is the threat of separation as a means of discipline.”

The only other detention facility that holds families is in Pennsylvania, she said — but that used to be a nursing home, not a prison. “No amount of softening it [Hutto] up, as the government says, is going to change the fact that this is a secure prison facility, not a family residential centre,” she said.

But an official at Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Jamie Zuieback, said the “residential, non-secure setting at Hutto” was opened in May to keep families together.

Kevin, meanwhile, has lost six pounds in the past two weeks because he hasn’t been eating, his father said. Nearly all of the meals come from cans, Kevin complained.

“Beans, beef, sometimes they give rice. But it’s all garbage.”

Kevin goes to school for four hours a day, of which only one is instructional. He said that since he left Toronto, he hasn’t gone to a real school.

“My biggest wish is to go to Canada and be free, to go to my school, go for my books,” Kevin said, his father’s voice audible in the background.

“I want to be safe with me and my parents, and see my teachers and my friends again.”

When the consular officer at the Canadian consulate in Dallas visited the family at Hutto two weeks ago, Majid said, “he asked about our rooms and our food. Just regarding here. I asked him what he can do for us, and he said, ‘I don’t promise now. But we can help Kevin, not you.’ ”

David Marshall, a consulate spokesman, said that he could not talk about the case, citing the Privacy Act.

Alain Cacchione, a spokesman for Foreign Affairs Canada, would not comment either.

But Audrey Macklin, a professor of immigration at the University of Toronto, said that this case highlights the asymmetry of Canadian citizenship.

“We say that if adults are Canadian citizens, then they can somehow confer protection of their citizenship on their children. But we don’t allow the reverse,” she said from Toronto. “Instead, what we do is render, in effect, the Canadian citizenship of the child null, because he can’t exercise it [and sponsor his parents]. It’s as if his Canadian citizenship doesn’t exist or is worthless because his parents don’t have it.”

She said that if the Canadian government wanted to protect Kevin, it could.

“If protecting this child means letting the parents into Canada, is that a price worth paying? Well, I think we should seriously consider that.”

If they were allowed back into Canada, Prof. Macklin said, they could seek what is called a pre-risk removal assessment based on “new facts about what happened in Iran when they were deported.”

Above all else, Kevin, Majid and Masomeh say they want to live in Canada.

“We want to be free and safe,” Majid said. “Our plan was to go to Toronto, Canada, because it’s my son’s home and our home for the past few years. We have nothing there, but we were there for 10 years and it was good.”

I Am Not a State Secret
Having just lost in court, a CIA kidnap victim asks why the U.S. won’t admit its error.
Saturday, March 3, 2007 by the the Los Angeles Times
Khaled El-Masri

ON NEW YEAR’S EVE in 2003, I was seized at the border of Serbia and Macedonia by Macedonian police who mistakenly believed that I was traveling on a false German passport. I was detained incommunicado for more than three weeks. Then I was handed over to the American Central Intelligence Agency and was stripped, severely beaten, shackled, dressed in a diaper, injected with drugs, chained to the floor of a plane and flown to Afghanistan, where I was imprisoned in a foul dungeon for more than four months.

Long after the American government realized that I was an entirely innocent man, I was blindfolded, put back on a plane, flown to Europe and left on a hilltop in Albania — without any explanation or apology for the nightmare that I had endured.

My story is well known. It has been described in literally hundreds of newspaper articles and television news programs — many of them relying on sources within the U.S. government. It has been the subject of numerous investigations and reports by intergovernmental bodies, including the European Parliament. Most recently, prosecutors in my own country of Germany are pursuing indictments against 13 CIA agents and contractors for their role in my kidnapping, abuse and detention. Although I never could have imagined it, and certainly never wished it, I have become the public face of the CIA’s “extraordinary rendition” program.

Why, then, does the American government insist that my ordeal is a state secret? This is something beyond my comprehension. In December 2005, with the help of the American Civil Liberties Union, I sued former CIA Director George Tenet along with other CIA agents and contractors for their roles in my kidnapping, mistreatment and arbitrary detention. Above all, what I want from the lawsuit is a public acknowledgment from the U.S. government that I was innocent, a mistaken victim of its rendition program, and an apology for what I was forced to endure. Without this vindication, it has been impossible for me to return to a normal life.

The U.S. government does not deny that I was wrongfully kidnapped. Instead, it has argued in court that my case must be dismissed because any litigation of my claims will expose state secrets and jeopardize American security, even though President Bush has told the world about the CIA’s detention program, and even though my allegations have been corroborated by eyewitnesses and other evidence. To my amazement and dismay, last May, a federal district court judge agreed with the government and threw out my case. And then Friday, the U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld that decision. It seems that the only place in the world where my case cannot be discussed is in a U.S. courtroom.

I did not bring this lawsuit to harm America. I brought the lawsuit because I want to know why America harmed me. I don’t understand why the strongest nation on Earth believes that acknowledging a mistake will threaten its security. Isn’t it more likely that showing the world that America cannot give justice to an innocent victim of its anti-terror policies will cause harm to America’s image and security around the world?

IN NOVEMBER, I traveled to America for the first time to hear my lawyers argue my case before the appeals court in Richmond, Va. and to meet with members of Congress and their staff on Capitol Hill. (It’s obvious that the U.S. government does not consider me a security threat, or I would not have been allowed to enter the country, much less be in the same room with federal judges and members of Congress.)

Although I did not understand all of the arguments made by the lawyers, I was impressed by the dignity of the proceedings and by the respect for the rule of law that I have always associated with America. I’m deeply disappointed to find that this same legal system denies me the chance to fully present my case.

If I were being treated fairly by the American legal system, perhaps we would not have reached the point where German prosecutors are bringing criminal charges against American citizens.

During my visit in November, many Americans offered me their personal apologies for the brutality that had been perpetrated against me in their name. I saw in their faces the true America, an America that is not held captive by fear of unknown enemies and that understands the strength and power of justice. That is the America that, I hope, one day will see me as a human being — not a state secret.

Kahled El-Masri, a German citizen born in Lebanon, was a car salesman before he was detained in December 2003.

Holding Susie Hazahza for Profit
“If That’s How They Treat You as a Law Abiding American, Imagine How They Would Treat People on the Inside”
GREG MOSES
March 5, 2007

Of the four men who actually made the final trek to the Rolling Plains prison camp at Haskell, Texas on Saturday afternoon, you could say whatever you want, but you’d be a liar to call them fair weather.

Jay Johnson-Castro had walked 60 miles to the prison, stepping off Wednesday morning in Abilene with southerly winds to his back and a temperature of 63. But Thursday, Friday, and Saturday winds blew northerly into his face, as morning temperatures chilled to 40.

Behind Jay’s walk was John Neck driving his brown pickup truck with the whirling yellow light on top keeping the bigger trucks away. And joining Jay in Haskell was one supporter from Dallas and one California psychiatrist named Javier Iribarren. Count them on one hand with a finger to spare. Since everything was running a couple hours early, the four protesters had time for a long lunch before the final mile.

If the authorities could go back and do the whole thing over again, it would be interesting to see if they would still take so much trouble to keep this party out of sight. One journalist tried to catch up to them in a car, but roads near the prison were “under repair” and closed to traffic. So the lone journalist drew flashing lights from the Sheriff’s office, followed by a stern command to leave the scene.

As for the three conscientious walkers and their security driver, it must have felt like something to have a police escort and careful instructions not to approach any side of the prison that would allow the protest to be seen by prisoners.

“In Haskell County they immediately drew the line for us,” says Johnson-Castro via cell phone Saturday night. “The County Judge, the County Commissioners, the City Council, and the corporate partners from the Emerald Companies who run the Rolling Plains prison, all of them said we’re not even going to let you see the front of the prison, because we’re not going to let anyone on the inside know that anyone on the outside gives a crap. I think outside of prison there will be people who find that shocking.”

At the Haskell city limits on this cold and windy Saturday morning, Johnson-Castro was met by the Chief of Police. “Hey man it’s just me,” is how Johnson-Castro recalls his own end of the conversation. “Relax.” As he had done on Wednesday while talking to the Haskell County Sheriff, Johnson-Castro told the town’s Chief of Police that something was wrong in that prison. It had been turned into a hellish prison camp for immigrants. “Keep your ears open,” advised Johnson-Castro, because the story of the prison camp is going to come out.

Inside the Rolling Plains prison since early November are 20-year-old Suzi Hazahza and her 23-year-old sister Mirvat. They spent their first two chilly days at Haskell on the concrete floor of a drunk tank, because no beds were available. The sisters had been abducted and detained with their parents and three brothers by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) during a pre-election roundup of immigrants called “Operation Return to Sender.” Mother Juma and 11-year-old brother Mohammad were shipped to the T. Don Hutto prison camp at Taylor, Texas. Father Radi and two older sons, Ahmad and Hisham, were shipped with the sisters to Haskell.

For the first five weeks of their detention at Haskell, the Hazahzas accepted a family visitor, but since week five they have all refused to risk the humiliating cavity searches that follow contact with outsiders. Meanwhile, the Hutto prison released Juma and Mohammad shortly before a press tour in early February.

On Saturday, Juma and Mohammad planned to cross paths with Jay in Haskell and visit Mohammad’s older brothers Hisham and Ahmad. Saturday is visitation day for the men. Radi was still holding out against the cavity search. The younger men “worked up their courage” says family friend Reza Barkhordari.

“11-year old Mohammad had been day-dreaming about seeing his brothers for the entire week,” writes Barkhordari via email. “He was up at 6:00 a.m. on Saturday morning, excited with the hope of seeing his brothers after so long.” After a three-and-one-half-hour drive, Juma and Mohammad found themselves confronted by a maze of security precautions like Reza had never seen during his visits last November.

“The whole area was blocked by vehicles from the Prison Security Patrol and the Local Police,” writes Barkhordari. “I called the facility to find an alternate route. I was told that the roads are blocked because the Warden has declared a no-visitation weekend! When I asked for an explanation, I was told that the reason is confidential. I was asked for my name and the reason for my visit.”

“So, I called a second time and asked for the Warden,” continues Barkhordari. “Her assistant took the call and said that the Warden is not taking any calls today but we can reach the facility via a detour. We took the detour and found the other road to the detention center area to be blocked as well. This time we were approached by the Rolling Plains Security Guards. When asked to let us get through, they said that the warden has ordered all the roads leading to the facility blocked and that nobody knows the reason why.” After a third call to the prison, Barkhordari, Juma, and Mohammad headed back home.

“By the time we drove back, there were two additional State Trooper vehicles guarding the entrance,” reports Barkhordari. “This all seemed like deja vu to me. This was not the first time I had been told to leave without a reasonable explanation. I received a call from Suzi and her sister shortly after we departed and was told that everyone is in a lock-down this weekend.”

“As I was trying to give comfort to Mohammad, I realized how greatly public awareness can effect the world we live in. Today, I saw one of the most beautiful and powerful statements that one man made; a man walking 60 miles on foot and determined to bring light to the public eyes and awareness to their minds regarding the wrongful imprisonment and mistreatment of an immigrant family.”

A habeas corpus motion filed for the Hazahzas in late February alleges sexual harassment, medical neglect, isolation, and other prison cruelties handed to a family whose alleged wrongdoing has something to do with their attempt to seek asylum from their war-torn homeland in Palestine.

While the Hutto prison in Taylor, Texas has been sometimes defended as a “family detention” center, the prison at Haskell is nothing but a regional prison hard enough to contain convicted criminals imported from Wyoming.

Along the highway to Haskell, Johnson-Castro has picked up a few stories from local folk. There was the former prisoner who said Haskell is actually better than some other prisons you could find yourself in. But they do like to hold onto people. Every time his release date got close, said this hardtimer, there would be a new reason to keep him locked up a little longer. And of course, the longer people are locked up, the more money changes hands.

“This needs to be done,” said the former prisoner to the walker about the walk, giving his thumb’s up. “Somebody’s got to do it.” He didn’t think it was wrong that he had been sent to prison, but there were people inside that should not have been sent there. There was a man from the Rio Grande Valley who didn’t have an ID, so ICE put him away.

He saw immigrants at Haskell prison who only wanted to go back home if they could, but they couldn’t, and he thought it was unfair how long they were kept in prison under those conditions.

One woman at a restaurant talked about her uncle being a prisoner there. She said the guards could be unkind, and they did seem to like keeping people inside.

These anecdotes suggest the awful conclusion that Suzi Hazahza’s hell is being funded and extended for profit. What could be a justifiable reason to keep her locked up for one more day if not to prove that the lengthy detention of immigrants is a profitable policy, no matter who you think you are.

“This is no different than what Eisenhower warned us about when he talked about the military-industrial complex,” says Johnson-Castro. “And just like you have wars waged because there are people who profit, so there are prisons built–and people put in them–for the same motive.”

“People honked, people waved,” recalls Johnson-Castro. “People approached us and complimented us for what we were doing. At Haskell one lady was coming back from a funeral for her mom. She came out and said, I want to compliment you for doing this. I know things are wrong there. But nobody does anything about it.’ She invited us to talk with her. We said we can’t stay long, but she asked some questions anyway.”

“A diversity of people encouraged us,” says Johnson-Castro. “Which tells us that there is an element that would like to connect and be heard together. I’ve got to say that this is a part of Texas that all Texans should be proud of. Here is the Texan who is making the earth productive. It is a dying breed in our county or anywhere in the modern world. And they are trying to prove that humans can get along. It would be a violation of their conscience to see this happen to Suzi. It may look like they are guilty, but they aren’t. It’s not the people. It’s a partnership between the federal government, county government, state politicians, and corporate interests.”

“If the people recognize it, they will talk. But the people have been kept in darkness. They are good people. And this kind of operation there has to be a pact of secrecy, just like we saw manifest at Hutto. And just like Hutto, it is hard for me to believe that the majority of these people wouldn’t be outraged to know that atrocities are being committed in the Governor’s hometown of Haskell.”

“If I’m right,” says Johnson-Castro, “Haskell’s end is in view, because the voice of people will win. But their voice hasn’t been heard yet because people have been misinformed.” Back at the Haskell town square after the walk, the lone journalist found Johnson-Castro and told the story about how he had been run off by the Sheriff.

“If that’s how they treat you as a law abiding American, imagine how they would treat people on the inside,” said Johnson-Castro. “I think he took it to heart, and was kind of blown away.”

Greg Moses is editor of the Texas Civil Rights Review and author of Revolution of Conscience: Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Philosophy of Nonviolence.

“So keep fightin’ for freedom and justice, beloveds, but don’t you forget to have fun doin’ it. Lord, let your laughter ring forth. Be outrageous, ridicule the fraidy-cats, rejoice in all the oddities that freedom can produce. And when you get through kickin’ ass and celebratin’ the sheer joy of a good fight, be sure to tell those who come after how much fun it was.”
~ Molly Ivins, 1944 - 2007

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