Brad, I suggested a dozen of the incarcerated to show the widespread evil of the Bush Presidency and the Homeland Security stuff.
You came up with one who is scarcely unknown - heck he was a TIME Person of the Week. Actually, the Patriot Act doesn't apply to him because he's an American citizen. So, what do we do with him? We know he wanted - and got - training in dirty bomb making. He went to Al Qaeda rather than the reverse. Of course they weren't going to do much with him. He might have been a double agent. So they sent him back where the FBI promptly snagged him. Back in the old days (I'm sure it has been changed for the worse) if there was trouble on an English street a British Bobby would arrest the miscreants for "behavior whereby a breach of the peace might be occasioned". Quaint but effective. They would be taken back to the station, left to cool their heels for a while and then released. The trouble would be de-fused, no charge would be filed, and things would return to normal. In a sense, this is what has been done with Jose. At the moment he can do no harm to anyone. There appears to be no doubt about his attempted Al Qaeda connections - or his training. If he is released, he would probably have to be kept under surveillance, for he appears to want to kill Americans. That's an expensive operation, perhaps requiring as many as a dozen FBI people to mount round the clock stakeouts. Of course, keeping him boarded is expensive too. Maybe he should have been shot while trying to escape. Anyway, they devise legalistics (there's a coin) to keep him where they can see him. He is of no use to us for I'm sure he knows nothing of importance about terrorists of any description. Can you suggest a better way to handle the problem? I'll let you off finding eleven more people whose rights have been abrogated by the Bush regime. In any event, the FBI and the police already know how to do their thing - you no doubt remember Hatfield - but perhaps we shouldn't worry too much about any general infringement of our liberties. Not yet. Harry ******************************* Henry George School of Social Science of Los Angeles Box 655 Tujunga CA 91042 818 352-4141 ******************************* -----Original Message----- From: Brad McCormick, Ed.D. [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, May 27, 2005 4:44 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: 'Karen Watters Cole'; [email protected] Subject: Re: [Futurework] The most profitable consumer goods yet (prayers?) Harry Pollard wrote: >Brad, > >I think the long list of Americans who have been >incarcerated without due process should be publicized. > > Gee! I'm flattered to be given this assignment, but I can't remember how I earned it. So I'll do what I can to contribute, quoting from Information Clearing House (today's newsletter): Charge Him or Release Him Jose Padilla : U.S. Citizen Imprisoned Without Trial or Charges for 3 Years and 19 Days Here's another quote from ICH, which I would argue shows the problematicity of general principles: "Individuals have international duties which transcend the national obligations of obedience. therefore [individual citizens] have the duty to violate domestic laws to prevent crimes against peace and humanity from occurring." - Nuremberg War Crime Tribunal, 1950 Now all of us know that George W Bush and all the advocati foeti would completely agree with this statement -- even though some of us would not agree with them in our agreeing with the same statement. It doesn't need citation (read Friedman in the NYT today) that Guantanimo is becoming an avatar of Gulag. 500 souls held incommunicado and without being charged with any crime, just because Rumsfield thinks it's a good idea to keep them out of circulation. Rumsfeld has explicitly said that the American people don't understand the new demands of new challenges: the American people still think that persons detained should be charged with a crime and tried for it and found guilty and punished, or else be released. That, according to Rumsfeld, is no longer the way to do things. And he even smirks to drive his point "home". I have not been keeping a "log" of those detained without being charged. One -- yes, all of 1! -- American citizen did get released from military detention a few months ago, but the reason appears basically to have been to keep his case from actually coming before The Supreme court [I can't find him in my files at the moment -- my indexing techniques are not good enough!]. So, this Memorial Day, let us remember all the "disappeareds" of all times and nations, including those currently in the American Lubyanka (it doesn't have a name and it doesn't have a fixed physical domicilage -- it's "virtual" so to speak...) And, lest someone snap back at me: "The United States isn't killing or torturing people at anywere near the level of Hitler or Stalin", I say: Are we to measure ourselves by the standard of persons and nations far less blessed than our own? Or are we to demand: From those to whom much has been given (e.g., 2/3 the world industrial capacity in 1945, and the great mass of its top scientific PhDs, too -- an economy not decimated but vastly enhanced by the war!), Much should be expected. I think it is also time to quote once again from Hermann Broch, who spoke of WWI Europe in terms that all too well fit our own situation: A community of life that has ceased to justify its existence -- A so-called society devoid of force, but filled with evil will, that drowns itself in blood and chokes on its own poison gasses Oh, yes, and "DU", too.... Perhaps we are living in The Last Days: Bush and his fellow travellers being the Antichrist. \brad mccormick >Perhaps you could start with a dozen or so. > >Don't go back to Lyndon's infiltration of Viet-Nam war >protest groups - just those over the last few years. > >Harry >******************************* >Henry George School of Social Science >of Los Angeles >Box 655 Tujunga CA 91042 >818 352-4141 >******************************* _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [email protected] http://fes.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
