The U.S. government didn't manage to stop its hideous, perverse, illegal, and unethical syphilis experiments on black prisoners at Tuskegee until 1972: thirty years on--and well-hidden. Now we have news of further U.S. government sponsored syphilis "research"--again hideous, perverse, illegal and unethical--involving intentionally infecting otherwise uninfected Guatamalan men with syphilis. Why Guatamalan? Not just because they were poor? Not just because they were not "white"? (Well, we might say, at least they weren't U.S. citizens this time.)
Of, course, since the beginning of the Tuskegee experiments, the U.S. government had been spewing propaganda about medical experiments the Japanese were supposedly carrying out on prisoners. According to U.S. propaganda, this proved that the Japanese were "evil," even "sub-human," and deserved to be "exterminated." U.S. propaganda wasn't so hard on the Nazis: after all, they were only doing bad things to Jews.
Now? Well, the U.S. has its government kidnappers and murder squads all over the world, its secret "rendition" prisons and torture camps, and its illegal concentration camp at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. And the U.S. president won't do anything to stop them. U.S. military courts absolved almost everybody in the torture crimes scandal in Iraq. The U.S. Army almost managed to keep anyone from knowing about the "kill-for-sport" soldiers in the Army's Stryker unit--but one brave young man and his father finally made these continuing war crimes public knowledge. And the U.S. government has had Bradley Manning in solitary confinement for more than four months now, at Quantico; he is the young U.S. Army soldier who heroically and honorably leaked videos of U.S. military's murders of civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan, published as "Wikilinks."
Is there anything that connects all these things? Of course there is. And there are surely more links in this chain of violence, war crimes, and constant dishonor.
The Nuremburg War Crimes trials which the U.S. ran did not punish individual Nazi soldiers. It punished leaders. Of course: and in those days U.S. President Harry Truman had a sign on his desk, "The Buck Stops Here." It's time to conduct similar trials for the U.S. leaders responsible for these recent and continuing crimes. And if the U.S. court system is compromised--contaminated--and we don't have a working democracy any more, then the World Court should do it.
Or do 10,000 nuclear weapons and a lack of any sense of honor put us above anything like law or justice?
zaterdag 2 oktober 2010
maandag 27 september 2010
KIDNAP, KIDNAP
I don't like revenge. But sometimes, when bullies won't listen, won't learn, "turn about is fair play" seems almost morally legitimate.
The US has just convicted a Palestinian citizen, Aafia Siddiqui, of "trying to murder US military personnel." She was sentenced to 86 years in prison.
Dr. Siddiqui's husband and uncle have been held, illegally, in the US concentration camp at Guantanamo since 1991. Dr. Saddiqui had been captured by US soldiers, in 2006, in Afghanistan, and was being "interrogated." She escaped. Two years later she was kidnapped, brought to the US, and left to rot in prison for two years. Now she has been tried, and convicted.
Now an American citizen has been kidnapped, and the kidnappers are demanding an exchange. They will free this unnamed hostage in exchange for the freedom of Dr. Siddiqui.
A hostage exchange. Kidnap for kidnap.
Or is it against some higher special privilege for power law that says only the US can kidnap people?
Not to mention run a concentration camp in Cuba, and hold kidnapees in secret prisons all over the world.
I don't know about you, but I assume that, like me, you prefer the rule of law to our government's arrogant lawlessness.
Bert Hornback
The US has just convicted a Palestinian citizen, Aafia Siddiqui, of "trying to murder US military personnel." She was sentenced to 86 years in prison.
Dr. Siddiqui's husband and uncle have been held, illegally, in the US concentration camp at Guantanamo since 1991. Dr. Saddiqui had been captured by US soldiers, in 2006, in Afghanistan, and was being "interrogated." She escaped. Two years later she was kidnapped, brought to the US, and left to rot in prison for two years. Now she has been tried, and convicted.
Now an American citizen has been kidnapped, and the kidnappers are demanding an exchange. They will free this unnamed hostage in exchange for the freedom of Dr. Siddiqui.
A hostage exchange. Kidnap for kidnap.
Or is it against some higher special privilege for power law that says only the US can kidnap people?
Not to mention run a concentration camp in Cuba, and hold kidnapees in secret prisons all over the world.
I don't know about you, but I assume that, like me, you prefer the rule of law to our government's arrogant lawlessness.
Bert Hornback
vrijdag 24 september 2010
HYPOCRISY????
Oh, come now! The good ole liberty-loving USA couldn't possibly be hypocritical. George Washington, Thomas Jefferson the slave-owning, daughter-selling "all men are created equal" founding father, the Christian hate-mongers and warriors, the democracy-loving congressmen who love lobbyists, the champions of college and professional athletics, the rich liberals, the millions and millions of income tax cheats and liars: they can't be hypocrites!
I would defend every last soul--if there is such--among them. Just because we execute a woman in Virginia is no reason we can't cry "shame!" at Iran for planning to execute a woman. Is a "lethal injection" any less humane than stoning? Does a human cringe more, cry more, curse more, hurt more being injected with a deadly poison or potion than by being hit with stones? Isn't death death? Isn't murder murder? Those Iranians! Who do they think they are, criticising us? Everything we do is right, and just, and proper. (Excuse me: can I add, just for my liberal heart's sake, "Screw the poor!")
How about the Pakistani woman sentenced to 86 years in prison--for allegedly shooting at US soldiers in Pakistan. Wait. We don't have soldiers in Pakistan, legally. Wait twice. Let's remember that the US has had her uncle and husband in its illegal concentration camp at Guantanamo Bay in Cubs for nine years--on "suspicion" of crimes that the US obviously can't prove or they would have brought them to trial. Wait a third time. This woman was kidnapped in Pakistan by the US.
And now she has been tried in a US kangaroo court, and convicted--of shooting at US soldiers operating illegally in Pakistan, which happens to be her country. Good for us! We are always right, no matter what we do. (We have nuclear bombs: and everybody had better remember that!)
We USers are a moral people. We believe strongly that we are right. We hate everybody who doesn't agree with us. We are confident that Jesus Christ approves of greed, and actually wrote in his famous gospels that greed and other kinds of violence are Christian virtues. We know that God blesses our abuse of other peoples.
I thank you for letting me say this. I know what I've said is true. All my rich and war-loving friends have been telling me so for years. And they aren't hypocrites.
With liberty and justice for all,
Bert Hornback
I would defend every last soul--if there is such--among them. Just because we execute a woman in Virginia is no reason we can't cry "shame!" at Iran for planning to execute a woman. Is a "lethal injection" any less humane than stoning? Does a human cringe more, cry more, curse more, hurt more being injected with a deadly poison or potion than by being hit with stones? Isn't death death? Isn't murder murder? Those Iranians! Who do they think they are, criticising us? Everything we do is right, and just, and proper. (Excuse me: can I add, just for my liberal heart's sake, "Screw the poor!")
How about the Pakistani woman sentenced to 86 years in prison--for allegedly shooting at US soldiers in Pakistan. Wait. We don't have soldiers in Pakistan, legally. Wait twice. Let's remember that the US has had her uncle and husband in its illegal concentration camp at Guantanamo Bay in Cubs for nine years--on "suspicion" of crimes that the US obviously can't prove or they would have brought them to trial. Wait a third time. This woman was kidnapped in Pakistan by the US.
And now she has been tried in a US kangaroo court, and convicted--of shooting at US soldiers operating illegally in Pakistan, which happens to be her country. Good for us! We are always right, no matter what we do. (We have nuclear bombs: and everybody had better remember that!)
We USers are a moral people. We believe strongly that we are right. We hate everybody who doesn't agree with us. We are confident that Jesus Christ approves of greed, and actually wrote in his famous gospels that greed and other kinds of violence are Christian virtues. We know that God blesses our abuse of other peoples.
I thank you for letting me say this. I know what I've said is true. All my rich and war-loving friends have been telling me so for years. And they aren't hypocrites.
With liberty and justice for all,
Bert Hornback
donderdag 23 september 2010
Harvard Bigotry
I have just sent the following letter to the president of Harvard University, regarding the university's plans to name a building after an ignorantly offensive professor who says that "Muslim life is cheap."
May I urge you to send similar letters.
Dr. Drew Gilpin Faust, President
Harvard University
Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138
Dear President Faust,
I am disgusted by Martin Peretz’ ignorant and obscene remark, and both shocked and ashamed that Harvard University will still name a building after him.
Does Harvard think it is above criticism? My colleagues and students here certainly don’t think so.
I taught for twenty-eight years at the University of Michigan. Public bigotry was not honored there. And here, where people are sensitive to bigotry and prejudice, the remark is seen as utterly offensive.
Surely Harvard’s honor is not so cheap as honoring Martin Peretz will make it.
Sincerely yours,
Bert G. Hornback
Professor of English, Universitaet des Saarlandes
Emeritus Professor of English, University of Michigan
May I urge you to send similar letters.
Dr. Drew Gilpin Faust, President
Harvard University
Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138
Dear President Faust,
I am disgusted by Martin Peretz’ ignorant and obscene remark, and both shocked and ashamed that Harvard University will still name a building after him.
Does Harvard think it is above criticism? My colleagues and students here certainly don’t think so.
I taught for twenty-eight years at the University of Michigan. Public bigotry was not honored there. And here, where people are sensitive to bigotry and prejudice, the remark is seen as utterly offensive.
Surely Harvard’s honor is not so cheap as honoring Martin Peretz will make it.
Sincerely yours,
Bert G. Hornback
Professor of English, Universitaet des Saarlandes
Emeritus Professor of English, University of Michigan
zondag 12 september 2010
I don't quite know where to start. I don't like to use--let alone depend on--statistics. I would prefer to argue principle. But nobody seems to pay any attention to principle.
If Christians were attentive to principle, they would have to quit hating Muslims, call off all their wars--and give up all their wealth to follow Jesus. If Christians were attentive to principle, they would despise--as Jesus did--all hypocrisy. (Sorry, Benedict: you are the number one hypocrite.)
But Christianity is a minority religion, and the United States is largely a godless place unless you let the hypocrites count as godly.
Even as a secular nation, the United States pretends to principle. We talk about democracy even as we subvert it. We talk about equal opportunity but do nothing to establish it. Our president talks about our consitiution while he violates it. We talk of justice and honor while we kidnap and torture and run a World War II style concentration camp.
So let's not try to talk principle. Let me cite a few statistics, and invite you to focus your attention on them.
You and I own slightly more than 61% of General Motors. For some alleged reason it was "saved" by our generous government, and still exists. It has a new CEO, Daniel Akerson. And somehow, President Obama's overseer has agreed that Daniel Akerson deserved a $9,000,000 pay package for this year!
How does Daniel Akerson deserve such? Deserve? There are hungry Americans, homeless Americans, jobless Americans who can't get work because Daniel Akerson needs $9,000,000.
We approved that? Are we crazy? Or is our greed so blind and stupid that we will protect Daniel Akerson's greed because someday we might get a chance at a similar-sized theft?
TIAA-CREF is a retirement fund organisation created for teachers. For some years Clifton Wharton. Jr., was its president. Dr. Wharton came from the academic world. Dr. Wharton was and is a great man, and not a greedy man; he didn't need a huge salary in 1987 when he accepted the presidency of the organisation founded to help university teachers prepare for retirement. But in 2009, when Roger Ferguson took over that job, he "needed"--and was given--$11,000,000 a year, plus benefits and expenses.
Should TIAA-CREF be spending teachers' money so extravagantly? If university professors are now making enough to afford people like Roger Ferguson, then university professors are paid too much, too.
But $9,000,000 a year isn't much in the United States, nor is $11,000,000 plus benefits and expenses. Daniel Akerson's annual $9,000,000 is four and a half minutes--minutes--worth of the United States military budget.
The United States spent $1,039,531,000,000 on what was euphemistically called "defense" this past year. That's $2,000,000 a minute.
And what is our defense? War in Iraq, war in Afghanistan, bombings in Palistan, kidnappings and assassination attempts everywhere, United States troops occupying parts of Cuba, Japan, Germany, Britain, Italy, Greece. Dangerous, murderous, and not very bright CIA operatives--I have known five of them--all over the world. (I wonder if the assistant economics attaché at the United States Embassy in London is still the cover for the chief CIA man in Europe?)
The best defense the United States could mount would be decency in the world at large, and a decent society at home.
Since the days of the Marshall Plan--which was one of the greatest undertakings of any government in the history of this world--the United States has gone from failure to failure, disaster to disaster, lie to lie, greed to more greed.
Can we still save us? Yes: but we need to get busy now, before there's nothing left to save, nothing left worth saving.
If Christians were attentive to principle, they would have to quit hating Muslims, call off all their wars--and give up all their wealth to follow Jesus. If Christians were attentive to principle, they would despise--as Jesus did--all hypocrisy. (Sorry, Benedict: you are the number one hypocrite.)
But Christianity is a minority religion, and the United States is largely a godless place unless you let the hypocrites count as godly.
Even as a secular nation, the United States pretends to principle. We talk about democracy even as we subvert it. We talk about equal opportunity but do nothing to establish it. Our president talks about our consitiution while he violates it. We talk of justice and honor while we kidnap and torture and run a World War II style concentration camp.
So let's not try to talk principle. Let me cite a few statistics, and invite you to focus your attention on them.
You and I own slightly more than 61% of General Motors. For some alleged reason it was "saved" by our generous government, and still exists. It has a new CEO, Daniel Akerson. And somehow, President Obama's overseer has agreed that Daniel Akerson deserved a $9,000,000 pay package for this year!
How does Daniel Akerson deserve such? Deserve? There are hungry Americans, homeless Americans, jobless Americans who can't get work because Daniel Akerson needs $9,000,000.
We approved that? Are we crazy? Or is our greed so blind and stupid that we will protect Daniel Akerson's greed because someday we might get a chance at a similar-sized theft?
TIAA-CREF is a retirement fund organisation created for teachers. For some years Clifton Wharton. Jr., was its president. Dr. Wharton came from the academic world. Dr. Wharton was and is a great man, and not a greedy man; he didn't need a huge salary in 1987 when he accepted the presidency of the organisation founded to help university teachers prepare for retirement. But in 2009, when Roger Ferguson took over that job, he "needed"--and was given--$11,000,000 a year, plus benefits and expenses.
Should TIAA-CREF be spending teachers' money so extravagantly? If university professors are now making enough to afford people like Roger Ferguson, then university professors are paid too much, too.
But $9,000,000 a year isn't much in the United States, nor is $11,000,000 plus benefits and expenses. Daniel Akerson's annual $9,000,000 is four and a half minutes--minutes--worth of the United States military budget.
The United States spent $1,039,531,000,000 on what was euphemistically called "defense" this past year. That's $2,000,000 a minute.
And what is our defense? War in Iraq, war in Afghanistan, bombings in Palistan, kidnappings and assassination attempts everywhere, United States troops occupying parts of Cuba, Japan, Germany, Britain, Italy, Greece. Dangerous, murderous, and not very bright CIA operatives--I have known five of them--all over the world. (I wonder if the assistant economics attaché at the United States Embassy in London is still the cover for the chief CIA man in Europe?)
The best defense the United States could mount would be decency in the world at large, and a decent society at home.
Since the days of the Marshall Plan--which was one of the greatest undertakings of any government in the history of this world--the United States has gone from failure to failure, disaster to disaster, lie to lie, greed to more greed.
Can we still save us? Yes: but we need to get busy now, before there's nothing left to save, nothing left worth saving.
zondag 29 augustus 2010
GO TO JAIL FOR TELLING THE TRUTH
Go to jail for telling the truth.
The Bush government violated everything this country supposedly stood for. We all knew much of what they were doing, but we didn't have hard evidence. Like most criminals, the Bush government tried to keep their worst criminal acts secret. And they tried to keep the criminal acts of others secret. But the truth kept leaking out. Their crimes were so gross that they couldn't stay secret. Some of them--like attacking Iraq and the concentration camp at Guantanamo Bay--weren't secret at all; they were arrogant acts of illegal, unconstitutional, immoral violence. They tried to keep their world-wide kidnapping and torture program secret, but we found out. about it.
Now, thanks to a young man named Bradley Manning, we know a lot more. Thanks to Bradley Manning's patriotism and his heroism, we have a great deal of evidence. It is in the public domain.
Knowing what he knew--having the evidence that he possed--Private First Class Bradley Manning had two choices. He could keep his mouth shut, and join all the others involved in the cover-up. Had he done so, he would have committed a crime underArticke 78 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. In both civilian and military jurisdictions, this crime is called "accessory after the fact." His other choice was to make known what he had discovered.
Remarkably, Bradley Manning is now being held in prison, in solitary confinement, for obeying the law. By whom? Not by the Bush administration, but by the Obama administration.
Why is President Obama holding Bradley Manning? Because he told the truth? Because he made public the evidence for some of our crimes of violence? Of murder, of torture?
Now you and I have two choices. We can demand Bradley Manning's release from prison. Or we can keep quiet, and ourselves become guilty of being accessories after the fact. We can join the conspirators, and by our cowardice become criminals.
At present you and I can't be charged with crimes for supporting Bradley Manning and demanding his release. But if we keep quiet we might as well be living under such a threat--and maybe soon we will be. "Keep quiet," the tyrant says.
Unless President Obama wants to be the same kind of criminal join George Bush and his cronies were and are, he must release Bradley Manning immediately. The rule of law demands it. And without the rule of law, we are indeed what many in the world accuse us of being: a rogue state.
Bert Hornback
The Bush government violated everything this country supposedly stood for. We all knew much of what they were doing, but we didn't have hard evidence. Like most criminals, the Bush government tried to keep their worst criminal acts secret. And they tried to keep the criminal acts of others secret. But the truth kept leaking out. Their crimes were so gross that they couldn't stay secret. Some of them--like attacking Iraq and the concentration camp at Guantanamo Bay--weren't secret at all; they were arrogant acts of illegal, unconstitutional, immoral violence. They tried to keep their world-wide kidnapping and torture program secret, but we found out. about it.
Now, thanks to a young man named Bradley Manning, we know a lot more. Thanks to Bradley Manning's patriotism and his heroism, we have a great deal of evidence. It is in the public domain.
Knowing what he knew--having the evidence that he possed--Private First Class Bradley Manning had two choices. He could keep his mouth shut, and join all the others involved in the cover-up. Had he done so, he would have committed a crime underArticke 78 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. In both civilian and military jurisdictions, this crime is called "accessory after the fact." His other choice was to make known what he had discovered.
Remarkably, Bradley Manning is now being held in prison, in solitary confinement, for obeying the law. By whom? Not by the Bush administration, but by the Obama administration.
Why is President Obama holding Bradley Manning? Because he told the truth? Because he made public the evidence for some of our crimes of violence? Of murder, of torture?
Now you and I have two choices. We can demand Bradley Manning's release from prison. Or we can keep quiet, and ourselves become guilty of being accessories after the fact. We can join the conspirators, and by our cowardice become criminals.
At present you and I can't be charged with crimes for supporting Bradley Manning and demanding his release. But if we keep quiet we might as well be living under such a threat--and maybe soon we will be. "Keep quiet," the tyrant says.
Unless President Obama wants to be the same kind of criminal join George Bush and his cronies were and are, he must release Bradley Manning immediately. The rule of law demands it. And without the rule of law, we are indeed what many in the world accuse us of being: a rogue state.
Bert Hornback
vrijdag 13 augustus 2010
Logic, Law, Justice, and Freedom
It's tiresome, dealing with ignorance. George W. Bush, John McCain, Sarah Palin, Phylis Schlafly's absurdly stupid husband. The California woman protesting against gay marriage, and except on a few miraculous good days Thomas L. Freidman of the New York Times. They all have right to be heard. But the rest of us have a responsibility to respond.
We have had good presidents. FDR. Harry Truman--despite the gravest error of modern times, the nuclear bombing of Nagasaki. I would not agree that the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima was justified; I would argue forever that the nuclear bombing of Nagasaki was criminal. So was the fire-bombing of Dresden, carried out by the United States and Britain.
Since World War II, we have had Truman's war in Korea, stupid in hindsight. And ten other wars, stupid and immoral and criminal in foresight. Johnson's lies to get us into Vietnam: the admitted fabrication of that attack in the Gulf of Tonkin. (The CIA was operating in Vietnam as early as 1962, according to CIA operative Paul Corscadden.) President Kissinger and his stooge Richard Nixon, bombing Cambodia.)
Stupid Gerald Ford, and poor Jimmy Carter: both feebly tried to have war; Ford with Nortnh Korea and Carter with Iran. Carter's attempt was much more perverse: a bunch of young Iranis had captured 50 CIA agents in the U.S. Embassy in Terehan; we couldn't release their names--or confirm their number--because they all had multiple identities and passports. The world was lucky: Carter's attempt to start WW III failed when his attack forces' helicopters went down in the desert. At time, our European friends were trying to reach a diplomatic solution to the situation in Teheran; but Carter was running for reelection, and needed to prove that he was macho. To hell with diplomacy.
Reagan didn't get to have war. But he reminisced about his combat flights in World War II--though of course those took place only in movies. He did manage to bomb Lybia, and to invade Grenada.
George I wanted a war, and he got one. He was quite a guy: remember when he said that the reason he had been so outrageously vulgar in the vice-presidential debate with Geraldine Ferraro was that he "just wanted to kick a little ass"? In August of 1990 George I decidedto go to war, though he insisted that was looking for peace. In January of 1991 he went to war, as planned.
Bill Clinton began his presidency beybombing Basra, in Iraq. Why? To prove that he was as ruthless a murderer as any other American. An Iraqi had been accused of plotting to murder George I. According to American law, an accusation is the same thing as a conviction, so Clinton prempted any court, and trial, and bombed Basra. Oddly, the man was never brought to trial. Count a few deaths for murderer Bill.
And then we got George II. And now we have Barak Obama.
Is Mr. Obama a good president? Well, he told us that he would restore "habeas corpus," but he hasn't. He promised to close the U. S. concentration camp at Guantanamo, but he hasn't. He promised an end to U.S. torture, but he hasn't ended it. And he told us he would end our illegal war in--our invasion of--Iraq, and our illegal war in Afghanistan.
He is a very bright man, but he has failed at everything. And in addition to no "habeas corous," the continued operation of the concentration camp in Cuba, torture, and our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, we are now invading and attacking Pakistan.
So . . . what about all those good things? I had intended to talk about them. But--sorry--I am too depressed to talk about justice and law and society and community and goodness and freedom and all those other un-American ideas: ideas that have been a part of human history for at least the past 8,000 years.
Maybe I will try again. Right now I am too depreseed--as I always am, when I think about our country. Funny: the only times I can feel good about us are when I read about Sarah Palin or Mitch McConnell.
We have had good presidents. FDR. Harry Truman--despite the gravest error of modern times, the nuclear bombing of Nagasaki. I would not agree that the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima was justified; I would argue forever that the nuclear bombing of Nagasaki was criminal. So was the fire-bombing of Dresden, carried out by the United States and Britain.
Since World War II, we have had Truman's war in Korea, stupid in hindsight. And ten other wars, stupid and immoral and criminal in foresight. Johnson's lies to get us into Vietnam: the admitted fabrication of that attack in the Gulf of Tonkin. (The CIA was operating in Vietnam as early as 1962, according to CIA operative Paul Corscadden.) President Kissinger and his stooge Richard Nixon, bombing Cambodia.)
Stupid Gerald Ford, and poor Jimmy Carter: both feebly tried to have war; Ford with Nortnh Korea and Carter with Iran. Carter's attempt was much more perverse: a bunch of young Iranis had captured 50 CIA agents in the U.S. Embassy in Terehan; we couldn't release their names--or confirm their number--because they all had multiple identities and passports. The world was lucky: Carter's attempt to start WW III failed when his attack forces' helicopters went down in the desert. At time, our European friends were trying to reach a diplomatic solution to the situation in Teheran; but Carter was running for reelection, and needed to prove that he was macho. To hell with diplomacy.
Reagan didn't get to have war. But he reminisced about his combat flights in World War II--though of course those took place only in movies. He did manage to bomb Lybia, and to invade Grenada.
George I wanted a war, and he got one. He was quite a guy: remember when he said that the reason he had been so outrageously vulgar in the vice-presidential debate with Geraldine Ferraro was that he "just wanted to kick a little ass"? In August of 1990 George I decidedto go to war, though he insisted that was looking for peace. In January of 1991 he went to war, as planned.
Bill Clinton began his presidency beybombing Basra, in Iraq. Why? To prove that he was as ruthless a murderer as any other American. An Iraqi had been accused of plotting to murder George I. According to American law, an accusation is the same thing as a conviction, so Clinton prempted any court, and trial, and bombed Basra. Oddly, the man was never brought to trial. Count a few deaths for murderer Bill.
And then we got George II. And now we have Barak Obama.
Is Mr. Obama a good president? Well, he told us that he would restore "habeas corpus," but he hasn't. He promised to close the U. S. concentration camp at Guantanamo, but he hasn't. He promised an end to U.S. torture, but he hasn't ended it. And he told us he would end our illegal war in--our invasion of--Iraq, and our illegal war in Afghanistan.
He is a very bright man, but he has failed at everything. And in addition to no "habeas corous," the continued operation of the concentration camp in Cuba, torture, and our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, we are now invading and attacking Pakistan.
So . . . what about all those good things? I had intended to talk about them. But--sorry--I am too depressed to talk about justice and law and society and community and goodness and freedom and all those other un-American ideas: ideas that have been a part of human history for at least the past 8,000 years.
Maybe I will try again. Right now I am too depreseed--as I always am, when I think about our country. Funny: the only times I can feel good about us are when I read about Sarah Palin or Mitch McConnell.
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