STOP GONZALES - include a copy of this with your fax to your Senator

[Padme Amidala]

This may get your Senator's attention. Tell them this is being distributed in schools. The author is distributing copies and has given her permission for others to distribute copies as long as the copies include her name and the copyright notice.

ALBERTO THE TORTURER
By Natasha (age 13)

Alberto the Torturer is at your door;
You’ll hear your family’s screams forever more;
Josef Mengele was too easy and meek;
Alberto is into torture at its peak;
With Alberto in charge, there’ll be lots of gore.

Alberto the Torturer is at your door;
He knows what racks, vices and broomsticks are for;
Guantanamo was his design and delight;
He’ll make sure your future will never be bright;
With Alberto as A.G., your pain will soar.

Alberto the Torturer is at your door;
The Inquisition he’ll delight to restore;
The memo he wrote says torture is alright;
If victims don’t lose limbs they’ve gotten off light;
What, you don’t like being tortured? What a bore.

Alberto the Torturer is at your door;
Bye; too bad, no one cared to stop him before;
Who has the courage to filibuster him?
For if no one does, all future will be grim;
What’s an opposition party elected for?

Knock, knock; are your there; who is on the floor?
It’s you with nothing to see but blood and gore;
Too bad Bush’s rigged vote wrecked all you had planned
Too bad your head was buried deep in the sand;
Maybe it’s not too late; boot Bush out the door.

Copyright©2004 by Natasha H. All rights reserved.

[MatrixEscape]

1. All well and good ...

but I am trying to remember just what has been stopped, prevented, overturned, vetoed, in the Liberal/Democrat sense in the recent past.

It is almost as if we are spinning our wheels and being political Luddites in response to the New Regime. * is acting as sort of a Dictator by Proxy, so the extent of his tyranny is so diffused in appearance, it is literally hidden in plain sight -- to the masses.

It has been brought up that the Representatives and Congress Persons are subject to their constituency. Yet, I recall Michael Moore mentioning that we have a only a 2% turnover rate and that is higher than Russia had under Communism.

So, either the constituency is supporting their own demise and poor state of affairs, or there is a problem in assuming that the old rules apply in this new game.

The frog is boling in the pot. The onslaught is relentless. Progress has been turned into revisionist retrogression.

I can imagine, in my paranoia, that the response to all the emails, letters, activism, and protests, from the powers that be, is something like: "Yeah, see! They don't know what is going on and they are distracted and impotent as long as they believe they are making some sort of difference or having an impact on our relentless agenda!"

[Padme Amidala]

2. Calls, faxes, letters have influenced Senators to filibuster in the past

We need to do all we can to stop this guy.

[MatrixEscape]

3. I am not discouraging it ...

by all means, that is at least worth a try. Exercise whatever you have left and hope that the usual channels are functional.

I would bet my money on Gonzales being appointed though. I would love to be pleasantly surprised to the contrary!

I see this from the perspective that the agenda of the Radical Right-wing Religious Right is now predominant and they are getting exactly what they want.

I think we have been clearly told that we are out of the loop, have we not? I guess the time has come to see if that is a realistic assumption or not.

[genius]

6. In addition to writing the torture memo and planning Guantanamo,

he's also the one who helped Bush execute all those innocent people in Texas. 16 eye witnesses saying they have the wrong man isn't enough to overturn a verdict if the defendant is black under Gonzales's reasoning.

[genius]

4. kick

[genius]

5. Kick. This is a great poem. Very accurate.

[genius]

7. Groups are organizing for a call-in / fax protest of Gonzales on Monday

The idea is for everyone to call their Senators and the members of the judiciary committee and demand a filibuster of Gonzales.

[UTUSN]

8. Re-post (again) of E-ltr I Sent to 200

media/Judiciary Committee Dems/Hispanic organizations. Results? Two auto-replies: One from BIDEN saying thanks-for-the-input and one from FEINSTEIN saying she can only listen to her own state's people. At first and last word, La Raza and LULAC were giddily in support of GONZALEZ, while MALDEF said they will review his whole record before deciding. So here's this (again):

The supposed Liberal half of the pundits on CNN’s The Capital Gang (11-13) have already sounded the retreat regarding the nomination of Alberto Gonzalez for Attorney General with the words, “He’s got a great personal story, only one of eight siblings to go to college, and he maintains contact with them!”

While the Republican majority makes it unlikely that the nomination can be blocked, Gonzalez’s record, ideology, and role as Bush waterboy need thorough exposure and opposition. But the Democrats have to stay focused on those things and not allow the process to be framed on the basis of “ethnicity,” as in, “the first Hispanic, blah blah…”

During the ESTRADA hearings the beleaguered Democratic leaders actually stood firm and eventually won a rare victory, perhaps surprising even themselves, although the deciding factor might have been Estrada’s possible personal baggage instead of ideology. And almost all of the Hispanic organizations joined in opposing him based on his ideology.

With Gonzalez, the Republicans are springing yet again their “ethnic“ or “racial” trap that started with George I’s use of Clarence Thomas: Nominating a member of a minority group, perhaps not too bright or accomplished, but who toes the Conservative line, and, most of all, stymies the Democrats by their having to oppose somebody from one of their traditional constituencies. The payload of the “ethnic” gambit is to derail the vetting process, keeping attention away from the nominee’s record and ideological fanaticism.

During the Estrada hearings, Orrin Hatch was all over the media with a Shirley Temple pout, saying innocently, “How can the Democrats oppose this well qualified Hispanic?”

The answer then should have been, as now, “It is NOT about the ethnicity. That would be racism and quotas. It’s about the ideology and his record.”

This link covers his whole career: http://www.americanprogress.org/site/pp.asp?c=biJRJ8OVF ...

This link covers his role in the torture policy: http://lawofwar.org/Torture_Memos_analysis.htm (Home Page: http://lawofwar.org / )

-------------
Link with e-addy blast list
http://www.stopalbertogonzales.com /

[genius]

12. I don't care what the heredity of torture advocates is.

I don't like torture.

[franken-sense]

9. Is he really a torturer?

What about the neocons who will say "see, the dems will destroy any latino so they are the gatekeepers of the minority forever". Tell me how this does not play right into that...

[UTUSN]

10. Our Opposition Is Based on the Wingnutism, Not the Race/Ethnicity

I don't think that NeoCons are the ones focused on domestic issues that much. They are more into first-strike war, imposing supposed "democracy" by force on Iraq, and other such. Some of the main ones got their starts under Democratic Senator "Scoop" JACKSON and were Dems themselves. It's more like rock-ribbed Repukes who like to use minorities as sockpuppets. The even farther Right wingnuts are more blatant about their racism and would prefer not even to mess with minorities.

[Name removed]

13. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[genius]

14. Much worse than Ashcroft. I'd take Ashcroft over him any day.

[genius]

19. self-delete

[genius]

20. kick

[genius]

11. Most Latinos don't write torture memos or advocate breaking treaties

Most Latinos don't design and create concentration camps that make Hitlers concentration camps appear like nice hangouts.

I suppose if I say Bush is a bad leader, I'm being prejudiced against white people.

[LaPera]

15. If Gonzales were to be rejected, there are fifty more neo-cons just as

ideologically ruthless and fascist, just ready to step right in and be nominated...There's certainly no shortage of them in this administration!

[Ima]

16. So we roll over on this?

I think he is probably the worst. * thinks he can slide him right in.

[Albert Einstein]

17. Not too many Americans are worse than Mengele. Gonzales is.

We need to stand up and oppose this or rename ourselves "The Cowards."

[UTUSN]

18. Kick n/t

[cali]

21. Worse than Mengele?

I'm going to assume that you've read what Mengele actually did; the grotesque experiments without anesthesia, the injections of blue dye into brown eyed people, the immersion of people into ice water, etc. It's absurd to state that Gonzalez is worse than Mengele, and it diminishes the suffering that he inflicted.