Complicity

[EnfantTerrible]

complicity.

That is what we have witnessed today. Complicity to kill the Bill of Rights by your very own party. Yet, there are still thousands here at DU carrying the torch for the party that has sold them out time and time again. Like a battered spouse you all come back in droves to be beaten about the head and shoulders with "We're waiting for the best time to make a stand" or "Compromise IS politics". Except that as of today, as our illustrious reps hammer out "sunset clauses" on torture and find a compromise for being a "temporary" full blown fascist state, it's your lives that are on the line. It's you who now can be disappeared and tortured, labeled an "enemy combatant" at the first whif of dissent. Pathetic.

Good luck to you all. See you in the camps. And no, I won't be sharing my cigarettes with any of you.

[EnfantTerrible]

1. kick n/t

[EnfantTerrible]

2. Kick n/t

[LSK]

3. instead of continually bitching about an outnumbered House

Call your Senators.

[greyl]

4. Yep

A huge majority of the people at PI aren't too swift, including their leader, but some still support it.

[EnfantTerrible]

9. Hey there greyl

Where ya been hiding?

[greyl]

10. I guess you haven't been observant. nt

[EnfantTerrible]

16. Oh I take it you've been here.

I haven't.

[EnfantTerrible]

6. What does "outnumbered"

have to do with anything? And where have I bitched about it? I am bitching about the lies and the apathy and the lemmings who follow over the cliff. (BTW watch out for the cliff... you're headed right for it)

Do you understand that you are excusing them? In case you haven't been paying attention, IT DOESN'T MATTER WHO YOU CALL!

Wake up.

[cynatnite]

8. Okay, so we'll sit on our hands...

not do a damn thing. :eyes:

[EnfantTerrible]

13. If you need to just feel busy

then by all means pick up the phone. Start a phone bank... it's not going to make a bit of difference.

The deal is done already. The rest is just show.

If you really are concerned about any of this then take to the streets. Because calling your Senator is a waste of time.

[LSK]

12. READ

http://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/common/briefing/Filibuster_Cloture.htm

[EnfantTerrible]

14. Oh, I get it...

You still believe that the system works. Then what's the point of phoning my Senator if they can't do anything anyway? Puhleeeze....

[LSK]

15. thats funny, it worked during the ANWR debate last winter

But I guess you didnt know that...

[EnfantTerrible]

18. Well sure it did.

That was a no brainer for them. It made them look good and perpetuated the charade. Why should we drill in our own back yard when we can vote to continue stealing oil from the ME? In case you missed it 98-0 vote to continue the debacle. Guess it didn't work so well then. ANWR was a sop to the electorate. Don't be fooled.

[sproutster]

5. :( if you share I'll share.

I am so flipping depressed. Nobody at my workplace was. I can't believe people don't even have a clue.

[patrioticliberal]

7. Impeach Harry Reid

FUCKING ENABLER!!

[k_jerome]

11. thats funny. nt.

[EnfantTerrible]

33. I missed the joke.

eom

[Jacobin]

17. The 'pretend opposition' is having problems with how its perceived

We are now down to masochism as the only real reason to continue to actively work for these nits.

[EnfantTerrible]

19. Perception.

In worrying about looking "soft on terror" to the Right, they choose to look "soft on morality", "soft on spine" etc.


Nits. You are too kind. That would imply haplessness on their part.

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

20. "there are still thousands here at DU carrying the torch for the party"

Pssssstttt.... Hey..... Genius..... This is Democratic Underground..... There's gonna kinda maybe possibly foreseeably reasonably expectedly logically potentially likely be members here who, I dunno, support the Democratic Party?

[EnfantTerrible]

22. Awww you flatter me...

I'm no Genius, but it's nice of you to say.

I understand that you all support the Democratic Party. I just can't, in light of recent and not so recent events, figure out why? Is it an identity issue?

[meganmonkey]

23. hey ET

This place is full of geniuses, isn't it? Or full of something...

What's that smell?

:rofl:

I think I am losing it completely today. There are people on this board defending torture votes. I don't know how much longer i can take it :freak:

[EnfantTerrible]

27. Hey MM

You noticed it too huh? Apologists for torture and rendition. Gotta love that "politics is like hockey" mentality. Just support your team even through those embarrassing "rebuilding" years. 'Course no one dies in hockey. Much. And it's not like hundreds of years of habeus corpus gets "disappeared" cause of a bad trade. But hey "GOOOOOOOO TEAM!!!!" "I'm your NUMBER FAN, MAN!!!!" "WHOOOOOOOO"

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

25. "I understand that you all support the Democratic Party. I just can't"

Then asking sincerely, what is your purpose of being here? Honest question. I wouldn't post for 2 years on an automobile message board if I hated cars, ya know?

[EnfantTerrible]

28. I used to post here

Don't visit much anymore. So why? Well, because as feable an opposition as it was the Dems did represent the last roadblock for the demise of the bill of rights. Now that it is all but dead, I just wondered how you all could continue to make excuses for them.

[kerry-is-my-prez]

21. Why don't you cry about the Republicans and BushCo?

If you want to blame someone - blame them.

[EnfantTerrible]

24. Because

The problem is soooo much bigger than them. You obviously believe that there are TWO parties in this country. I hope you wake up to the truth before it's too late.

[StellaBlue]

26. Hello again - I agree.

kick

THEY are the moral relativists. WE are not. Torture, and complicity to torture, is wrong.

Edited to add: and these people SERIOUSLY need to read some Howard Zinn. Like, this afternoon.

[EnfantTerrible]

29. Hello StellaB

Not sure if you're allowed to mention Zinn around here or not. There are so many thinks you are not allowed to say or think (out loud anyway) or post for others to make up their own minds about here at DU, but I agree with you, too.

[atommom]

30. Thank you, ET. You speak for me.

And I don't want the cigs anyway, you can keep 'em.

[countryjake]

31. How did we sink so low...

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article15143.htm

~snips~

"The congressmen who supported this mockery have put their contempt for freedom on full display. They have rescinded the oldest and most treasured principle in American jurisprudence dating back 800 years to the Magna Carta. Habeas corpus is the fundamental protection that the one has from the tyrannical and erratic actions of the state.

The proposed legislation allows the president to apply the moniker of “enemy combatant” to any terror “suspect” taken into US custody and strip him of all his human rights. The president is under no obligation to file charges or provide evidence of guilt. The arrest is completely arbitrary and depends entirely on the discretion (whims?) of the executive. It is a flat rejection of the basic belief that “men are innocent until proven guilty”.

Here’s what Winston Churchill said about habeas corpus, “The power of the executive to cast a man into prison without formulating any charge known to the law, and particularly to deny him the judgment of his peers, is in the highest degree odious, and the foundation of all totalitarian government whether Nazi or Communist.”

The congress fully understands the implications of their support. They’re giving Bush a free pass to torment and abuse as he sees fit while providing him with the legal cover he needs for his “alternative techniques” (“outrages to human dignity”) Their vote makes them equally complicit in the inevitable hooding, sense deprivation, hypothermia, stress positions, isolation and water-boarding of countless victims of Bush’s deplorable war of terror."


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I've been hollering complicity all week long and now, finally, see very clearly just what this playing politics game is all about. It's having the ability to overlook corruption, shoving one's moral principles to the backroom of the brain, in order to participate in the steamrolling of our society right back to the Middle Ages.

Way I see it, we can either be driving that dozer or stand up bravely in front of it, to oppose any and all assaults on human rights, no matter what the consequences.

If ya ask me, the real "enemy combatants" of America were all sitting up on Capitol Hill today, conducting their tidy little vote. How they are punished is up to us.

[EnfantTerrible]

32. That's a good article

I posted the very same link in another thread here, yesterday.

[Jcrowley]

34. Are you serious?

What gets to me is people thinking America was once a great country with a moral compass? When was that? I must have missed that part of history. From the massacres of Indians, to slavery, to Hiroshima, Vietnam, to its policies in Latin America, to its support for the creation of the terrorist state of Israel, to supporting the Shah of Iran, to supporting Saddam with intelligence and chemical weapons against the Iranian people, to these modern day Middle East debacles, America has by far the worst track record. They just have a very powerful propaganda machine to show they are the land of the free.

Just the last 6 years?

[EnfantTerrible]

35. No argument here.

I agree completely.

[countryjake]

36. No disputing that, ideals such as justice and habeas corpus...

have never been enjoyed by all the people living in this country, since the very day it was formed. Hey, I didn't write the article, just enjoying the general eye-opening that's going down in much of the media and blogdom since this torture thing came up. Me, I think fascism is inevitably the final stage of capitalism and none of the "freedom and democracy" jargon has had me fooled, ever!

[leftchick]

37. excellent points Jcrowley

Every time I hear or see "God Bless America" I think, For What???? It should be "GOD FORGIVE AMERICA"! :(