meta-roj

just a little something about standing up to authority on a bus.

your papers, please.

someone still needs to reconcile this with the whole “cuture of life” pitch for me…

it seems that the bush administration’s alternate-reality field (in which no americans die) extends to press coverage of the greatest human tragedy in the american homeland (i still hate that word).

this piece is quoted here in its entirety, because it represents an important official policy position of the united states government:

U.S. agency blocks photos of New Orleans dead [reuters, 2005.09.06]

The U.S. government agency leading the rescue efforts after Hurricane Katrina said on Tuesday it does not want the news media to take photographs of the dead as they are recovered from the flooded New Orleans area.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency, heavily criticized for its slow response to the devastation caused by the hurricane, rejected requests from journalists to accompany rescue boats as they went out to search for storm victims.

An agency spokeswoman said space was needed on the rescue boats and that “the recovery of the victims is being treated with dignity and the utmost respect.”

“We have requested that no photographs of the deceased be made by the media,” the spokeswoman said in an e-mailed response to a Reuters inquiry.

The Bush administration also has prevented the news media from photographing flag-draped caskets of U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq, which has sparked criticism that the government is trying to block images that put the war in a bad light.

The White House is under fire for its handling of the relief effort, which many officials have charged was slow and bureacratic, contributing to the death and mayhem in New Orleans after the storm struck on Aug. 29. (Additional reporting by Deborah Charles)

long ago, i started talking about this as a new american facist regime, and i meant that in a very literal way. i’m not trying to invoke the ghosts of evil people to discredit our current leaders… they are doing just fine on their own.

today, a major plank of fascism reached the third branch of american government.

Justices, 5-4, Back Seizure of Property for Development [ny times, 2005.06.23]

The Supreme Court ruled today, in a deeply emotional case weighing the rights of property owners and the good of the community, that local governments can sometimes seize homes and businesses and turn them over to private developers.

…

Writing for the majority, Justice John Paul Stevens said, “Promoting economic development is a traditional and long accepted governmental function, and there is no principled way of distinguishing it from the other public purposes the court has recognized.” The court’s ruling is certain to be studied from coast to coast, since similar conflicts between owners of homes and small businesses and development-minded officials have arisen in other locales.

in my america, the government protects me, as an individual, from private corporate interests, where i cannot protect myself. it protects my personal data from being mishandled and misused, it protects my personal property and civil rights.

this is not my america.

dictionary.com

A system of government marked by centralization of authority under a dictator, stringent socioeconomic controls, suppression of the opposition through terror and censorship, and typically a policy of belligerent nationalism and racism.

Fascism

The term fascism has come to mean any system of government resembling Mussolini’s, that in various combinations:

* exalts nation and sometimes race above the individual.
* stresses loyalty to a single leader.
* uses violence and modern techniques of propaganda and censorship to forcibly suppress political opposition.
* engages in severe economic and social regimentation.
* engages in corporatism.
* implements totalitarianism.

not a bad list, actually. just one step left…

this is not my america.

in a follow-up to this post about making up any excuse to invade iraq, tonight, i stumbled into congress, or rather, some part of congress, potentially stepping up to their constitutional responsibilities.

the democrats of the house judiciary committee have written a letter [pdf] asking some questions about all this. it opens:

We write because of troubling revelations in the Sunday London Times apparently confirming that the United States and Great Britain had secretly agreed to attack Iraq in the summer of 2002, well before the invasion and before you even sought Congressional authority to engage in military action. While various individuals have asserted this to be the case before, including Paul O’Neill, former U.S. Treasury Secretary, and Richard Clarke, a former National Security Council official, they have been previously dismissed by your Administration. However, when this story was divulged last weekend, Prime Minister Blair’s representative claimed the document contained “nothing new.” If the disclosure is accurate, it raises troubling new questions regarding the legal justifications for the war as well as the integrity of your own Administration.

signed by 88 members of congress, i imagine this will vanish in the news cycle very quickly. it was written may 5, and it certainly took a while for me to find out…

seems the bush administration asked the blair administration to come up with some justification (any justification) for a war in iraq. and they knew they had a weak case going in.

Blair plays down new Iraq claims [bbc, 2005.05.01]

The Sunday Times has published what it says is a leaked memo dated 23 July 2002 by Matthew Rycroft, a former Downing Street foreign policy aide.

In the memo, Foreign Secretary Jack Straw is quoted as saying US President George Bush had “made up his mind to take military action even if the timing was not yet decided. But the case was thin”.

It adds: “Saddam was not threatening his neighbours, and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran.

“We should work up a plan for an ultimatum to Saddam to allow back in the UN weapons inspectors. This would help with the legal justification for the use of force.”

well played, good man! well played!

and now for a quick trip back to the forgotten detainees at guantanamo…

Interrogations faked at Guantanamo, witness says [reuters, 2005.04.28]

Former Army Sgt. Erik Saar told CBS television show 60 Minutes that he believes “only a few dozen” of the 600 detainees at the camp were terrorists and that little information was obtained from them.

“Interrogations were set up so the VIPs could come and witness an interrogation … a mock interrogation, basically,” Saar told the program, to air on Sunday.

“They would find a detainee that they knew to have been cooperative. They would ask the interrogator to go back over the same information,” he said, calling it “a fictitious world” created for the visitors.

that’s an interesting approach. so to justify the continued detention, interrogation, torture and killing of people in my name, my government may have put on a little theater.

we may never know.

we’re on a roll with justice and law tonight…

Witness in Marine Case Taken Off Stand [ap via wired news, 2005.04.27]

A key witness in the case against a Marine officer accused of murdering two Iraqi civilians was abruptly taken off the stand Wednesday on suspicion of violating orders on giving interviews about the case.

Marine Sgt. Daniel Coburn was testifying at a hearing in the case against 2nd Lt. Ilario Pantano when the investigating officer, Maj. Mark E. Winn, read him his rights and told him he was suspected of violating orders from superior officers.

i guess if someone could possibly give damning testimony, this is one way to affect that testimony.

worse, the presiding officers let this happen? and we’re supposed to have faith in the military justice system?

full report