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109 Reasons To Dump The 109th Congress
from The Progress Report Issue 11/07/2006, by Judd Legum, Faiz Shakir, Nico Pitney, Amanda Terkel and Payson Schwin

We need a new Congress — here’s why:

1. Congress set a record for the fewest number of days worked — 218 between the House and Senate combined. [Link]

2. The Senate voted down a measure that urged the administration to start a phased redeployment of U.S. forces out of Iraq by the end of 2006. [Link]

3. Congress failed to raise the minimum wage, leaving it at its lowest inflation-adjusted level since 1955. [Link]

4. Congress gave itself a two percent pay raise. [Link]

5. There were 15,832 earmarks totaling $71 billion in 2006. (In 1994, there were 4,155 earmarks totaling $29 billion.) [Link]

6. Congress turned the tragic Terri Schiavo affair into a national spectacle because, according to one memo, it was “a great political issue” that got “the pro-life base…excited.” [Link]

7. The chairman of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works thinks global warming is the “greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people.” [Link]

8. The House leadership held open a vote for 50 minutes to twist arms and pass a bill that helped line the pockets of energy company executives. [Link]

9. Congress fired the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, the lone effective federal watchdog for Iraq spending, effective Oct. 1, 2007. [Link]

10. The Chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee thinks the Internet is “a series of tubes.” [Link]

11. Congress established the pay-to-play K Street corruption system which rewarded lobbyists who made campaign contributions in return for political favors doled out by conservatives. [Link]

12. The lobbying reform bill Congress passed was a total sham. [Link]

13. Rep. Jean Schmidt (R-OH) shamefully attacked Rep. John Murtha (D-PA) on the House floor, telling him that “cowards cut and run, Marines never do.” [Link]

14. Congress passed budgets that resulted in deficits of $318 billion and $250 billion. [Link]

15. House Majority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) said Donald Rumsfeld “is the best thing that’s happened to the Pentagon in 25 years.” [Link]

16. House Intelligence Committee Chairman Pete Hoekstra (R-MI) baselessly announced that “we have found the WMD in Iraq.” [Link]

17. Congress passed a special-interest, corporate-friendly Central American trade deal (CAFTA) after holding the vote open for one hour and 45 minutes to switch the vote of Rep. Robin Hayes (R-NC). [Link]

18. Senate conservatives threatened to use the “nuclear option” to block members of the Senate from filibustering President Bush’s judicial nominees. [Link]

19. Congress stuck in $750 million in appropriations bills “for projects championed by lobbyists whose relatives were involved in writing the spending bills.” [Link]

20. The typical Congressional work week is late Tuesday to noon on Thursday. [Link]

21. Congress has issued zero subpoenas to the Bush administration. [Link]

22. Congress eliminated the Perkins college loan program and cut Pell Grants by $4.6 billion. [Link]

23. Rep. Don Sherwood (R-PA) paid $500,000 to settle a lawsuit alleging that he strangled his 29-year-old mistress. [Link]

24. Congress decreased the number of cops on the streets by cutting nearly $300 million in funding for the Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) program. [Link]

25. In a debate last year over the reauthorization of the Patriot Act, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee abruptly cut off the microphones when Democrats began discussing the treatment of detainees at Guantanamo Bay. [Link]

26. Just two out of 11 spending bills have made it out of Congress this year. [Link]

27. 1,502 U.S. troops have died in Iraq since Congress convened. [Link]

28. The House Ethics Committee is “broken,” according to the Justice Department. [Link]

29. The FBI continues to investigate Rep. Curt Weldon’s (R-PA) willingness to trade his political influence for lucrative lobbying and consulting contracts for his daughter. [Link]

30. Congress failed to protect 58.5 million acres of roadless areas to logging and road building by repealing the Roadless Rule. [Link]

31. Congress spent weeks debating a repeal of the estate tax (aka the Paris Hilton Tax), which affects a miniscule fraction of the wealthiest Americans. [Link]

32. The percentage of Americans without health insurance hit a record-high, as Congress did nothing to address the health care crisis. [Link]

33. Both the House and Senate voted to open up our coasts to more oil drilling, “by far the slowest, dirtiest, most expensive way to meet our energy needs.” [Link]

34. Congress stripped detainees of the right of habeas corpus. [Link]

35. The House fell 51 votes short of overriding President Bush’s veto on expanding federal funding of embryonic stem cell research. [Link]

36. Only 16 percent of Americans think Congress is doing a good job. [Link]

37. Congress confirmed far-right activist Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito. [Link]

38. Congress spent days debating a constitutional amendment that would criminalize desecration of the U.S. flag, the first time in 214 years that the Bill of Rights would have been restricted by a constitutional amendment. [Link]

39. Congress raised the debt limit by $800 billion, to $9 trillion. [Link]

40. Rep. William Jefferson (D-LA) hid bribe money in his freezer. [Link]

41. Congress passed an energy bill that showered $6 billion in subsidies on polluting oil and gas firms while doing little to curb energy demand or invest in renewable energy industries. [Link]

42. Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-CA) used his seat on the House Appropriations Committee to steer earmarks towards to one of his closest friends and major campaign contributor. [Link]

43. Congress passed a strict bankruptcy bill making it harder for average people to recover from financial misfortune by declaring bankruptcy, even if they are victims of identity theft, suffering from debilitating illness, or serving in the military. [Link]

44. The House passed a bill through committee that that would “essentially replace” the 1973 Endangered Species Act with something “far friendlier to mining, lumber and other big extraction interests that find the original act annoying.” [Link]

45. Congress failed to pass voting integrity and verification legislation to ensure Americans’ votes are accurately counted. [Link]

46. House Majority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) distributed a memo urging colleagues to exploit 9/11 to defend Bush’s Iraq policy. [Link]

47. Congress repeatedly failed to pass port security provisions that would require 100 percent scanning of containers bound for the United States. [Link]

48. Ex-House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-TX) declared an “ongoing victory” in his effort to cut spending, and said “there is simply no fat left to cut in the federal budget.” [Link]

49. Congress allowed Rep. Bob Ney (R-OH) stay in Congress for a month after pleading guilty in the Jack Abramoff investigation. [Link]

50. Congress didn’t investigate Tom DeLay and let him stay in Congress as long as he wanted. [Link]

51. The Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission are investigating the Senate Majority Leader’s sale of HCA stock a month before its value fell by nine percent. [Link]

52. Congressional conservatives pressured the Director of National Intelligence to make public documents found in Iraq that included instructions to build a nuclear bomb. [Link]

53. Conservatives repeatedly tried to privatize Social Security, a change that would lead to sharp cuts in guaranteed benefits. [Link]

54. Congress is trying to destroy net neutrality. [Link]

55. Rep. Katherine Harris (R-FL) accepted contributions from disgraced lobbyist Mitchell Wade and MZM, Inc., her largest campaign contributor, in return for a defense earmark. [Link]

56. Former Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham (R-CA) was sentenced to eight years federal prison for taking $2.4 million in bribes in exchange for lucrative defense contracts, among other crimes. [Link]

57. Congress passed a $286 billion highway bill in 2005 stuffed with 6,000 pork projects. [Link]

58. House Intelligence Committee Chairman Peter Hoekstra (R-MI) abused his power and suspended a Democratic staffer in an act of retribution. [Link]

59. Congress failed to offer legal protections to states that divest from the Sudan. [Link]

60. The Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Ted Stevens (R-AK) tried to earmark $223 million to build a bridge to nowhere. [Link]

61. Congress spent days debating an anti-gay constitutional ban on same-sex marriage. [Link]

62. Congress isn’t doing anything significant to reverse catastrophic climate change. [Link]

63. House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-IL) secured a federal earmark to increase the property value of his land and reap at least $1.5 million in profits. [Link]

64. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) used a video tape “diagnosis” to declare that Terri Schiavo, who was later found to be blind, “certainly seems to respond to visual stimuli.” [Link]

65. Rep. Mark Foley (R-FL) resigned in disgrace after ABC News revealed explicit instant messages exchanges between Foley and former congressional pages. [Link]

66. Half of all Americans believe most members of Congress are corrupt. [Link]

67. Rep. Marilyn Musgrave (R-CO) said that gay marriage “is the most important issue that we face today.” [Link]

68. The House voted against issuing a subpoena seeking all reconstruction contract communications between Cheney’s office and Halliburton. [Link]

69. Sen. Conrad Burns (R-MT) told a Virginia-based volunteer firefighting team they had done a “piss-poor job” in fighting wildfires in Montana. [Link]

70. The House voted against amendments prohibiting monopoly contracts and requiring congressional notification for Department of Defense contracts worth more than $1 million. [Link]

71. Congress failed to pass comprehensive immigration reform. [Link]

72. During a floor debate on embryonic stem cell research, Sen. Sam Brownback (R-KS) held up a picture of an embryo drawn by a 7-year-old girl. Brownback explained that one of the embryos in the picture was asking, “Are you going to kill me?” [Link]

73. Sen. George Allen (R-VA) used the slur “macaca” to describe an opposing campaign staffer of Indian descent, and has been repeatedly accused by former associates of using racial epithets to refer to African-Americans. [Link]

74. Congress refused to swear in oil executives testifying about high prices. [Link]

75. Against congressional rules, ex-House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-TX) accepted expensive foreign trips funded by Jack Abramoff. [Link]

76. Rep. Steve King (R-IA) went on the House floor to unveil a fence that he “designed” for the southern border. King constructed a model of the fence as he said, “We do this with livestock all the time.” [Link]

77. Ex-House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-TX) threatened the judges who ruled in the Terri Schiavo case, saying the “time will come” for them “to answer for their behavior.” [Link]

78. Congressional conservatives wanted to investigate Sandy Berger, but not the Iraq war. [Link]

79. Rolling Stone called the past six years “the most shameful, corrupt and incompetent period in the history of the American legislative branch.” [Link]

80. Not a single non-appropriations bill was open to amendment in the second session of the Congress. [Link]

81. House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-IL) claimed that supporters of Bush’s Iraq policy “show the same steely resolve” as did the passengers on United 93. [Link]

82. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) appeared with prominent Christian conservatives in a telecast portraying opponents of Bush’s judicial nominees as “against people of faith.” [Link]

83. Under the guise of “tort reform,” Congress passed legislation that would “undermine incentives for safety” and make it “harder for some patients with legitimate but difficult claims to find legal representation.” [Link]

84. Despite multiple accidents in West Virginia and elsewhere, Congress passed legislation that failed to adequately protect mine workers. [Link]

85. House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-IL) said “if you earn $40,000 a year and have a family of two children, you don’t pay any taxes,” even though it isn’t true. [Link]

86. Monthly Medicare Part B premiums have almost doubled since 2000, from $45.50 in 2000 to $88.50 in 2006. [Link]

87. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) and House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-IL) inserted a provision in the Defense Appropriations bill that granted vaccine manufactures near-total immunity for injuries or deaths, even in cases of “gross negligence.” [Link]

88. Congress appropriated $700 million for a “railroad to nowhere, but just $173 million to stop the genocide in Darfur. [Link]

89. Congress included a $500 million giveaway to defense giant Northup Grumman in a bill that was supposed to provide “emergency” funding for Iraq, even though the Navy opposed the payment. [Link]

90. Ex-Rep. Bob Ney (R-OH), who has since pled guilty to talking bribes, was put it charge of briefing new lawmakers “on congressional ethics.” [Link]

91. Rep. Lynn Westmoreland (R-GA) can’t tell the difference between the Voting Rights Act and the Stamp Act. [Link]

92. Three days before Veterans Day — House Veterans’ Affairs Committee Chairman Steve Buyer (R-IN) announced that for the first time in at least 55 years, “veterans service organizations will no longer have the opportunity to present testimony before a joint hearing of the House and Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committees.” [Link]

93. Members were caught pimping out their offices with $5,700 plasma-screen televisions, $823 ionic air fresheners, $975 window blinds, and $623 popcorn machines. [Link]

94. House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-IL) skipped a vote on Katrina relief to attend a fundraiser. [Link]

95. Congress made toughening horse slaughtering rules the centerpiece of its agenda after returning from summer recess this year. [Link]

96. Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) wants to send 20,000 more troops into the middle of a civil war in Iraq. [Link]

97. Katrina victims were forced to take out ad space to plead “with Congress to pay for stronger levees.” [Link]

98. Congress passed the REAL ID Act, “a national ID law that will drive immigrants underground, while imposing massive new burdens on everyone else.” [Link]

99. Congress extended tax cuts that provided an average of $20 relief but an average of nearly $42,000 to those earning over $1 million a year. [Link]

100. Congress received a “dismal” report card from the 9/11 Commission — five F’s, 12 D’s, nine C’s, and only one A-minus — for failing to enact the commission’s recommendations. [Link]

101. Congress won’t let the government negotiate lower prices for prescription drugs for people on Medicare. [Link]

102. Congress has left America’s chemical plants vulnerable to terrorist attack. [Link]

103. Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) “threw the senatorial version of a hissy fit” when he threatened to resign unless the Senate approved funding for his bridge to nowhere. [Link]

104. Congress didn’t simplify the tax code. [Link]

105. Seventy-five percent of voters can’t name one thing Congress has accomplished. [Link]

106. House Majority Leader John Boehner (R-OH), has “raised campaign contributions at a rate of about $10,000 a day since February, surpassing the pace set by former Representative Tom DeLay.” [Link]

107. Congress failed to ensure Government Accountability Office oversight of Hurricane Katrina relief funds, resulting in high levels of waste, fraud, and abuse. [Link]

108. When a reporter asked Rep. Don Young (R-AK) if he would redirect spending on his bridge projects to Katrina victim housing, Young said, “They can kiss my ear!” [Link]

109. There were just 12 hours of hearings on Abu Ghraib. (There were more than 100 hours of hearings on alleged misuse of the Clinton Christmas card list.) [Link]

“Let the world go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans, born in this century, tempered by war, disciplined by a hard and bitter peace, proud of our ancient heritage, and unwilling to witness or permit the slow undoing of those human rights to which this nation has always been committed, and to which we are committed today, at home and around the world!” – John F. Kennedy

Sorry, Jack, you were wrong about your generation. That American torch is extinguished, for now. Sad to see the line broken, but there it is. Played by fear and hate, the U.S. Congress has passed unconstitutional legislation that denies individuals detained by the United States the ability to challenge their detentions and treatment in court (habeas corpus).

Instead of holding the executive branch accountable for its abuses, Congress has now:

• Given the Executive branch unchecked power to label anyone as an “unlawful enemy combatant” and to detain such persons, including U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents.
• Said that evidence obtained through “coercion” is acceptable (just like the Inquisitions).
• Specifically denied independent judicial review of detentions.
• Tried to eliminate accountability for previous violations of the law
• Granted the Secretary of Defense authority to deviate from time-tested military justice standards for fair trials.

Fair trials, due process of law, habeas corpus, human rights – these are fundamental American values. We have nothing to be proud of in this legislation or in those who have voted for it.

Measures Passed:

Military Commissions Act: By 65 yeas to 34 nays (Vote No. 259), Senate passed S. 3930, to authorize trial by military commission for violations of the law of war, after taking action on the following amendments proposed thereto:

Rejected:
By 48 yeas to 51 nays (Vote No. 255), Specter Amendment No. 5087, to strike the provision regarding habeas review.
By 46 yeas to 53 nays (Vote No. 256), Rockefeller Amendment No. 5095, to provide for congressional oversight of certain Central Intelligence Agency programs.
By 47 yeas to 52 nays (Vote No. 257), Byrd Amendment No. 5104, to prohibit the establishment of new military commissions after December 31, 2011.
By 46 yeas to 53 nays (Vote No. 258), Kennedy Amendment No. 5088, to provide for the protection of United States persons in the implementation of treaty obligations.

“If Vice President Cheney is right, that some ‘cruel, inhumane, or degrading’ treatment of captives is a necessary tool for winning the war on terrorism, then the war is lost already.” – Vladimir Bukovsky, who spent nearly 12 years in Soviet prisons, labor camps, and psychiatric hospitals for nonviolent human rights activities

“No good intelligence is going to come from abusive interrogation practices.” – Lieutenant John F. Kimmons, Army’s Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence

The UN Committee against Torture and the UN Human Rights Committee have found the US interrogation methods are unlawful and have expressed concern at arbitrary detentions. “The bill does not take into account substantive criticism from our side … It is not the signal that I would have expected the US government and Congress would make in order to try to comply with our recommendations,” Nowak said.

In London, Amnesty International vowed a campaign against the legislation.

“Once again the Bush [team] has succeeded in significantly breaching the rule of law. This is to the great delight of the `Islamoterrorists’ whose aim is to destroy the political system of the godless West,” the Swiss daily Tribune de Geneve said in an editorial on Friday. “Bush Junior now has tailor-made justice,” it said.

“This is one of the most regressive pieces of legislation in US history,” Reed Brody, legal counsel at the New York-based group Human Rights Watch, told Reuters. “The Bush administration has been given authority to determine who is an enemy combatant and to lock people up on its own say-so indefinitely without trial,” Brody said. “We would have thought that after Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib and secret prisons, the administration would have learned mistreatment and torture do not make the country safer against terrorism, but in fact render it more vulnerable.”

The International Commission of Jurists said the law put inmates at Guantanamo and elsewhere “back in a legal black hole”. “It is terrible to say the least for the detainees and rule of law in the United States, but also a dangerous precedent because it undermines international human rights law standards,” said Gerald Staberock, head of the ICJ’s global security program.

Shami Chakrabarti, director the of UK-based human rights group Liberty, said: “This unsavory political compromise will send the worst possible signal about the United States government’s commitment to the rule of law.”

Paris’s left-leaning Le Monde newspaper attacked the bill in an editorial earlier this week, saying it would give Bush “the power to authorize the CIA to use interrogation methods that respect neither US legislation, nor international law codified by the Geneva conventions. In fact, it would be able to resort to torture. Mr. Bush is playing his usual card: to put the fear of terrorism before any thought on the means to fight it.”

The fact is that Bush administration schemes don’t work – not for our national interests, not for our national security – and they strip us of some of the qualities and values that made America a country to be proud of. Privacy rights, freedom of expression, freedom of the press, the right to peaceable assembly – all of this and much else has been undermined and eroded by this horrible administration. All this, lost and given away, without addressing the root causes of terrorism or to making us any safer from those who would destroy us.

Look for the lights that still shine in the darkness. America cannot tolerate this pathological climate. Those who have a voice, speak. Those who have ears, hear and listen. Those who have wisdom, vote for the ones that have at least a little bit of that light left – real light. The torch is out, but the hearth-fires of October are banked. Carry the warm embers until the torchbearers return.

BBC News Aug 18

Rolling in more troops for prison security, taking in more prisoners, building yet another prison camp.

As the insurgency continues, there are now nearly 11,000 prisoners in major US-run detention centres – twice as many as last September. US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said last month he would like to give Iraq’s government full responsibility for detainees as soon as was feasible. But the US has offered no timetable for such a handover.

A Pentagon spokesman, Air Force Lt-Col John Skinner, said detention operations in Iraq were expanding. The battalion, from the division’s 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment, will be deployed to Iraq over the next two months, Pentagon officials said on Wednesday. It has already served once in Iraq, from September 2003 to April 2004, and before that in Afghanistan. The troops are being prepared to perform duties such as providing security around prison compounds and for transportation of prisoners.

PRISON CAPACITY

Abu Ghraib – expanded to house 4,000
Camp Bucca – 6,000, to take an extra 1,400
Camp Cropper – 100, to take 2,000 more
Fort Suse – to take 2,000

A fourth facility at Fort Suse in the Kurdish city of Suleimaniya, 330km (205 miles) north of Baghdad, is expected to be completed next month. The three older prisons are being expanded.

The $50m (£28m) construction programme, announced in June, will eventually allow the US to hold 16,000 prisoners.

Since I have banned further comments on this blog from him, the troll that has been posting nasty comments made an entry in his own blog E Pluribus Reluctor using me as a lightning rod for his hatred of liberals, feminists, intellectuals, etc. Here is his post.

Tuesday, August 02, 2005 Architect-1,Professor-0

Once again, facts and precision defeat slander and pamphlet-speak. “Heidi”, a Humanities Proffessor, stumbled on EPR, and decided to initiate a pointed debate in the comments section. I thought: ‘uh-oh…big shiny PhD…I’m in for it.” After one of her posts being deleted for profane content, she cried ‘censorship’. Yet the contents of her thinking became evident when she proclaimed with outright indignation, little gems like “we trained Bin Laden, we installed Saddam Hussein.”….later followed with “Guantanamo is a Gulag“.

Oh I forgot, this person’s profile starts off with ‘Feminist Intellectual”
Well, an intellectual, feminist or otherwise would know that we did not train Bin Laden, we did not install Saddam Hussein, nor is a government run prison in Cuba holding 520+ people anything remotely akin to the Soviet-era Gulag of the 1920′2 to 1950’s whereby arguably 13,000,000 people died. Not a single soul has perished at Gitmo. But they do recieve Qorans, prayer mats, a Muslim diet, and medical attention. These and many, many other widely known facts continue to evade Heidi all the way up to the university level. The ‘Prager Principle’ is proving truer by the minute. This sad fact that this ‘Ph.D’ is teaching impressionable youth simply adds further impetus to the already exploding home-schooling effort in the nation. When grown adults spout such nonsense, who will run this place in twenty years?

I did not, in fact, initiate anything, and there’s a little misquoting there too.

We trained Bin Laden: By 1984, Bin Laden was running a front organization known as Maktab al-Khidamar – the MAK – which funneled money, arms and fighters from the outside world into the Afghan war. MAK was nurtured by Pakistan’s state security services, the Inter-Services Intelligence agency, or ISI, the CIA’s primary conduit for conducting the covert war against Moscow’s occupation. Those involved in the decision to give the Afghan rebels access to a fortune in covert funding and top-level combat weaponry continue to defend that move in the context of the Cold War. Sen. Orrin Hatch, a senior Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee making those decisions, told Robert Windrem that he would make the same call again today even knowing what bin Laden would do subsequently. “It was worth it,” he said. A decision was made to provide America’s potential enemies with the arms, money – and most importantly – the knowledge of how to run a war of attrition violent and well-organized enough to humble a superpower.

We put Hussein in power – ever seen the photo of Cheney sorry – Rumsfeld shaking his hand? Ok “put in power” is possibly an exaggeration, but we did support him and helped to put him and keep him in power. US intelligence helped Saddam’s Ba`ath Party seize power for the first time in 1963. Saddam was on the CIA payroll as early as 1959, when he participated in a failed assassination attempt against Iraqi strongman Abd al-Karim Qassem. In the 1980s, the US and Britain backed Saddam in the war against Iran, giving Iraq arms, money, satellite intelligence, and even chemical & bio-weapon precursors. As many as 90 US military advisors supported Iraqi forces and helped pick targets for Iraqi air and missile attacks despite his use of chemical weapons. The Reagan administration did not deviate from its determination that Iraq was to serve as the instrument to prevent an Iranian victory. Chemical warfare was viewed as a potentially embarrassing public relations problem that complicated efforts to provide assistance. The Iraqi government’s repressive internal policies, though well known to the U.S. government at the time, did not figure at all in the presidential directives that established U.S. policy toward the Iran-Iraq war. The U.S. was concerned with its ability to project military force in the Middle East, and to keep the oil flowing. Later, we even abandoned the internal forces that were willing to fight to overthrow his regime.

Guantánamo as part of our new gulag-like system: The reason the administration located that prison in Cuba in the first place was to avoid judicial review. Although the Supreme Court ruled a year ago that Bush must give prisoners there access to US courts, none has yet had his day in court. Hardly any have even been charged with a crime. The US government has refused to allow UN human rights monitors, including the special rapporteur on torture, to visit the Guantánamo prisoners. In addition to Gitmo, there are the other prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan (not to mention the astoundingly high imprisonment percentages right here in the USA). See the documents related to torture obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, and the Defense Department’s latest effort to block the release of materials requested by the under the Freedom of Information Act – in particular, the rest of the Abu Graib photos – by the ACLU, the Center for Constitutional Rights, Physicians for Human Rights, Veterans for Common Sense and Veterans for Peace. The New York Civil Liberties Union is co-counsel in the case.

As Amnesty International points out: Neither the US administration nor the US Congress has called for a full and independent investigation of torture and abuse at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, and Afghanistan. The US government has gone to great lengths to restrict the application of the Geneva Convention and to “re-define” torture. It has sought to justify the use of coercive interrogation techniques. It has sought to justify the practice of holding “ghost detainees” (people in unacknowledged incommunicado detention). It has sought to justify the “rendering” or handing over of prisoners to third countries that practise torture. Guantanamo Bay has entrenched the practice of arbitrary and indefinite detention in violation of international law. Trials by military commissions have made a mockery of justice and due process.

May 02, 2003
Guantanamo Gulag
Writes law prof. Jonathan Turley in the Los Angeles Times, “Although certainly tiny compared with Chinese or Soviet models, the facility operated by the U.S. can no longer be defined as a prison or even a military camp. It is an American gulag, holding hundreds of prisoners without trial or access to the courts. In fairness to the Soviets, it must be noted that at least their prisoners got sham trials. This makes Camp Delta an even more extreme variation on the gulag theme.”

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In any case, I followed comments here under two different names “marc” and “Atkinson” back to his own blog. His comments here were not backed by a whole lot of evidence or factual content – just angry versions of the regular propaganda. He seemed to want to bully somebody, and I guess I can be a target for such ones. I put up with it for a while – a couple of the things he brought up could have led to an interesting debate. However, his posts got more derisive and he seemed to escalate. He bragged that he been kicked off the forum at Smirking Chimp – for similiar harassment, I’m guessing.

If you want a taste of what I was reading, I did leave several of his comments up in the last several posts. He seemed to think I should be using my blog in very specific ways and was distinctly displeased when I didn’t do what he projected that I should do.

I did use the “s” word in a colloquial way in the comments on his post – shocking, I know (especially to a guy whose avatar is taken from the movie Dr. Strangelove? Should have taken that as a warning in itself, perhaps). I sincerely hope that he doesn’t actually let his kids read the blog – let them have a few illusions. If he doesn’t delete more of the posts, here is the exchange at his blog. I finally had to tell him that while he might have some valid criticisms here and there, his intent was so clearly hostile that I don’t really feel it was worthwhile to continue to engage.

My inbox was promptly filled with attempted spam comments to the blog – one of which simply repeated the same question over and over again – typical stalker behavior – and it validated my decision to ban him from the blog. Tonight I got even more… including allcaps fun like “YOU DELETED MY COMMENTS OUT OF FEAR, BUT YOU KNOW WHAT I SAID IS TRUE. ALL—ALL—LIBERALS ACT LIKE COWARDS, BECAUSE THEIR POSITIONS ARE INDEFENSIBLE.” This guy claims that he is an ex-liberal.

Fascinating – in a certain sort of clinical, creepy way – were his fixations on my calling myself an intellectual, a feminist, someone with a Phd – all of which are true. More of us are intellectuals than we realize – it’s a word that’s used a lot more in other countries which seem to admire thinking more than we do. No need to fear thinking – thinking is very liberating and wisdom-making and there are all kinds of thinking. I like playful rumination and disciplined interpretation best, I think, and in an alternating current. And yes, I am a liberal – it’s what our country is all about.

However, I am not a “Professor,” as “marc” or “Atkinson” assumes.

Here’s how it works. You start with the PhD – that’s only the beginning. If you are very talented and somewhat lucky you get a tenure-track position as an Assistant Professsor (or if not, a Lecturer or Adjunct or 1-year appointment), then you publish 2-3 books and a bunch of articles and give tons of conference papers, and then you might get promoted to the rank of Associate Professor and even tenure if you get through the rigorous peer review process. Eventually, with good reviews and teaching evaluations and service to the community and another extremely rigorous peer review, you might be promoted to the rank of Full Professor.

I earned my PhD one year ago. There weren’t any jobs in my field last year. The job listings are published in the fall, and it is a one-year hiring period. Assuming that there is a job offered in my field anywhere in the country this year, I would compete with other applicants for the position – sometimes hundreds of other applicants. My starting salary at such a job won’t be much to write home about and I would probably have a heavy teaching load, multiple committees to work on, and the never-ending “publish or perish” pressure. That’s the best-case scenario. No one would get a PhD in the humanities except for the love of the subject they study and a love of teaching. It requires great sacrifices (and in my case at least, will continue to do so) – and at this point I just don’t need the harassment.

I have already taught at four universities: three of them while I was in graduate school, the fourth as an adjunct paid (not much) for the whole course. I have taught courses which involved world literature, religion and society, judeo-christian traditions and various other literature/religion/philosophy/culture courses. While my expertise is interdisciplinary, no PhD is an “expert” in much outside their field. So no, I don’t know everything, and neither does any other PhD. I still disagree with a goodly percentage of what he is trying to claim – and you don’t have to have a PhD to figure out why.

As for the “impressionable youth” – I don’t teach elementary, middle school or high school, so I’m not sure how I would have anything to do with “home schooling” which just seems to be a way for parents to overly-insulate their children. I am a university teacher. Teaching (mostly young 18-21 year olds) adults methods of critical reading and interpretation may get some students out of their comfort zone, especially if they are unprepared for college-level work, but I think it’s worth the effort so that they can really be capable of forming their own judgments based on something other than appeal to authority.

Kinda feel sorry for those home-schooled kids, but I’m sure they will recover. Kids are very resilient.

There are growing reports of the United States handing detainees over to countries that use torture and other cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment. Amnesty International has reported cases of people being transferred into the custody of countries such as Syria, Egypt, Morocco and Saudi Arabia in violation of US and international law. This practice of “extraordinary renditions” contravenes the obligations to uphold the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution and the Convention Against Torture. It is illegal, impractical and immoral. The Markey Amendment is a step toward restoring the rule of law and protections of fundamental human rights.

CALL YOUR REPRESENTATIVE RIGHT AWAY

Phone number: 1-202-224-3121

– As a constituent, I am calling to urge you to support the Markey Amendment to the Supplemental Appropriations Act (HR1268), which prevents funds being used to outsource torture.

– I am very concerned about increasing evidence that the United States is involved in a practice known as “extraordinary renditions” to transfer individuals into the custody of countries that have a well-documented history of using torture and other forms of cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment.

– The US has “rendered” detainees to Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Morocco and Syria where individuals have reported being held and tortured and have eventually been released without charge.

– This practice does not make us safer and violates fundamental human rights and principles that are important to me.

– Please vote in support of the Markey Amendment to the Supplemental Appropriations Act. Thank you.

(this post from an email from Amnesty International)