ABC News-Washington Post Poll: 56 Percent Approve of President Obama

ANALYSIS By GARY LANGER

Nov. 17, 2009

President Obama is showing durability against significant economic and policy challenges, maintaining majority approval for his job performance in the face of broad unemployment, acontroversial health plan and continued doubts about his work on the war in Afghanistan.

The trick’s in personal appeal, a strong base of support, weak opposition and a teaspoon of sugar in some of the medicine the president’s prescribed. …

…. The last is notably so on health care reform. Negatives abound: Fifty-four percent of insured Americans think it’ll increase their own costs; among all, 56 percent think it’ll raise overall costs, six in 10 think it could shut down many private insurers and 61 percent oppose covering abortions in federally supported plans. …

http://abcnews.go.com/PollingUnit/Politics/obama-health-care-abc-news-washington-post-poll/story?id=9096041

Even Al-Qaeda may not have worked as hard to force an Obama failure as America’s “loyal opposition” – the neocons. And saying the neocons wanted an Obama failure is quite different from saying the neocons wanted a government health care initiative to fail.

The neocons attacked Barack Obama’s winning of the Nobel Peace Prize. Now that is low but selling cocaine to America’s citizens is lower. Perhaps the neocons were smarting over their inability to win that “man of the year award”. But that should not have come as a surprise – the neocons got no “ATTA-BOYS” through out their rein. And the latter-day neocons don’t compare well with any other American administration in recent history.

So, the only way the neocons could “look good” is by making someone else look worse. And they set out to do that.

They used town hall meetings, Congressional meetings and the TELL AMERICA press to inflict damage upon the Obama Administration. When there was a chance that America would get a glimpse of the neocons management of the CIA, all Hades broke loose within the ranks of the neocons – and consequently within the ranks of the CIA.

Condoleezza Rice had said America would thank Mr. Bush for what he’s done. Well, why is it so difficult to find out what he has done to America’s CIA? Hiding their own misbehavior while attacking the one charged with ferreting out  and repairing the misbehaviors is “par for the course” for neocons.

Neocons are in a class by themselves. And since their behavior does not seem to be rule-based, but rather OPPORTUNITY based – expect anything – even selling cocaine to their own people.

And here’s hoping America’s ombudsmen(voters) will forever be on guard against poor performance and tricky rhetoric. Otherwise – for personal gain, someone may walk off with the country.

And even though there has been an intense neocon campaign to discredit the Obama administration, it seems that America’s ombudsmen still retain their wisdom.

As Sarah Palin, the ex-former quitting Governor of Alaska, prepares to embark on her nationwide rural hamlet book tour it reminded us here at Lynnrockets’ Blast-Off of all of those other former Republican office holders who now have nothing better to do than offer their warped opinions to whoever (or is it, “whomever”, I’m never quite sure) will listen.

Public enemy number one is Newt Gingrich, the former disgraced and dethroned Speaker of the House. This guy was unceremoniously thrown out of the leadership position by his own party which prompted his resignation in 1998. Nonetheless, if you scan through your television channels any night during primetime, you are likely to see this wife-cheating bag of gas bloviating to some talking head about his vision of the future for the G.O.P. Does he not realize that the words, “Newt Gingrich” and “future” are mutually exclusive?

Next we have former New York City mayor, Rudolph Giuliani. Like the aforementioned Gingrich, this wife-cheating disaster of a Presidential candidate can be found nightly opining on all things political with the Fox News host of his choice. Of course he has nothing of substance to say. Vice President Joe Biden put it best when he said, “There’s only three things he mentions in a sentence — a noun, a verb, and 9/11. There’s nothing else!” That truly sums up Rudy in a nutshell.

How about former Vice President, Dick Cheney? He of the “dithering” remark regarding President Obama’s contemplative and non-knee-jerk method of deciding what course of action to take in Afghanistan. We all know that Cheney’s trigger finger reaction would be to simply go in there with all guns blaring and no real plan. After all, didn’t he use that method when he shot his best friend in the face? We also learned last week that while being questioned by the FBI regarding the Valerie Plame identity leak, Cheney answered questions by saying, “I don’t recall” more than two dozen times. Consequently, should anyone be interested in getting advice from this forgetful old fool. He might consider checking into the Ronald Reagan Memorial Alzheimer’s ward.

Today’s song parody will pay tribute to these and some other unemployed Republicans who will not go away. Please enjoy.

Please remember to click on the song link below to familiarize yourselves with this great tune and to have more fun singing along to the parody.

Celluloid Heroes song link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oh23A2GptAQ&feature=PlayList&p=5AC4C35A0BBF1943&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=32

UNEMPLOYED ZEROES

(sung to the Kinks song “Celluloid Heroes”)

Everyone is a schemer and they are all fading stars
And everyone is so goofy, they all should be feathered and tarred
They’re not far from your own city
A creeping louse is on every street
They have no jobs so they walk the boulevard
Their careers ended in defeat

Just look at Scooter Libby,  George Bush spared him the jail yard
He lied for old Dick Cheney,  now finding work will be real hard
Condoleezza Rice was a princess
While she occupied her throne
But she lied about those weapons
Now no-one will throw her a bone

They ride in their nice cars as they drive down Unemployed Boulevard
Some that you recognize some that you wish you never heard of
People who lied and cheated while striving for fame
First they succeeded but now they suffer in vain

Rudolph Giuliani had a trio of wives
And if not for 9/11, White House dreams could not survive
Former Governor, Caribou Barbie
Was a lip-sticked dog with no bite
The blunders that Palin gave us
Will follow her the rest of her life

Cheney was thrown out like garbage
He shot his friend and he smiled
And then there’s George “Macaca” Allen
You’ve just got to love his style
And please don’t forget dear Larry Craig
With his stylish steel handcuffs
While in a Men’s Room stall he copped a feel
And then Idahoans had had enough

They ride in their nice cars as they drive down that Unemployed Boulevard
Some that you recognize some that you wish you never heard of
People who lied and cheated while striving for fame
First they succeeded but now they suffer in vain

Everyone is a schemer and they are all fading stars
And they all think they’re in show biz, trying to show on radar
And though some were successful
Now they must be on guard
Success walks hand in hand with failure
Along Unemployed Boulevard

Their sordid lives are a non-stop Hollywood tabloid show
A fantasy world of unemployed villains and zeroes
And those unemployed zeroes created so much pain
Those unemployed zeroes took us for a ride

They ride in their nice cars as they drive down that Unemployed Boulevard
Some that you recognize some that you wish you never heard of
People who lied and cheated while striving for fame
First they succeeded but now they suffer in vain

Those unemployed zeroes created so much pain
Those unemployed zeroes took us for a ride

Their sordid lives are a non-stop Hollywood tabloid show
A fantasy world of unemployed villains and zeroes
And those unemployed zeroes created so much pain
Those unemployed zeroes took us for a ride

On November 14:

1805  Fanny Mendelssohn, German composer and pianist, was born.

1840  Claude Monet, French painter, was born.

1878  Julie Manet, French painter, was born.

1889 Pioneering female journalist Nellie Bly (aka Elizabeth Cochrane) began a successful attempt to travel around the world in less than 80 days. She completed the trip in seventy-two days.

1908  Joseph McCarthy, U.S. Senator from Wisconsin, was born.

1918 Czechoslovakia beccame a republic.

1919  Veronica Lake, American actress, was born.

1922 The BBC began radio service.

1927 Bart Cummings, Australian race horse trainer, was born.

1935  King Hussein of Jordan was born.

1947 P. J. O’Rourke, American writer, was born.

1948  Prince Charles  was born.

1952 The first regular UK singles chart was published by the New Musical Express.

1954 – Condoleezza Rice, former United States Secretary of State, was born.

1959  Paul McGann, British actor, was born.

1969 NASA launched Apollo 12, the second manned mission to the surface of the Moon.

1971 Adam Gilchrist, Australian cricketer, was born.

1973 DPB legislation was introduced in New Zealand.

1973  Princess Anne married Captain Mark Phillips, in Westminster Abbey.

2007 The last direct-current electrical distribution system in the United States is shut down in New York City by Con Edison.

Sourced from NZ History Online & Wikipedia.

The then Secretary of State was quoted as saying: “People will soon  thank Bush for what he’s done”

As time passes, memories do fade. Given enough time America’s memory of what Mr. Bush did to America may fade and perhaps America may see Mr. Bush in a softer light. America may become reconciled to the quality of the work performance of the latter-day neocons. And that should will shall be a sad day for America.

Lowering the  performance bar in many areas of political endeavor seems easy when the resume appears to be more tuned to political ideology than to performance skills. There were many areas in which the latter-day neocons contributed performance skills whose results turned out to be way less than desirable.

Climate Control:

In an attempt to manage the news about climate change, the Bush team’s man at NASA had discourse with a NASA weather scientist. The weather scientist, not accustomed to this kind of interference from his government, went public with the Bush team’s interference.

Of course, this kind of government behavior was not meant to be publicized so the Bush team’s man left his position with NASA. But prior to leaving, he was quoted as saying – his job was to make the President look good.

Missing, lost or unaccounted-for Iraq war weapons

The case of the missing Iraq war weapons pitted excellent performance skills against political party ideology and performance skills lost – big time.

The pre-2006 neocon Congress cut funding to those auditors who discovered and “TOLD AMERICA” about the missing Iraq war weapons. And of course – we not “talkin” two or three weapons – we “talkin” 190,000 Iraqi war weapons – enough war weapons to outfit an army.

The post 2006 Congress(Democratic control)  restored funding to those auditors.

The Iraq war

[Mr. Bush had said he hoped to be remembered as a liberator of the Iraqi people but the “two-shoe presentation” to Mr. Bush by an Iraqi journalist seemed to have ruled out wide acceptance of Mr. Bush as a liberator.]

Americans could hardly thank Mr. Bush for what he has done without considering thanking Mr. Bush for the center-piece of the Bush administration – the Iraq war.

The Iraq war stood out as something quite different from other wars that engulfed the world. While no wars are mirror images of each other, the Iraq war stood out because it was an effect that had no cause.

“NOBODY DON’T KNOW WHY THE IRAQ WAR STARTED”.

It is difficult to thank Mr. Bush for his Iraq war without knowing why he started it.

The “weapons of mass destruction” assertion, though accepted by America’s Congress, failed the validity test conducted by the minds of the world’s humanity. The Bush team’s assertion, fueled by those 16 words spoken in 2003, were backed by a “document” held by the British government who records say was somewhat reluctant to release the “document”. But the “document” did get into the hands of the United Nations’ IAEA. And the rest is history.

The document, once in the hands of the United Nations’ IAEA, was quickly proved to be a phony.

The whole shenanigan could have easily qualified as an “APRIL FOOL’S” joke – if a real war had not been started using that phony document as a cause – thus making the Iraq war an effect that had no cause.  But the Bush team did elevate TERRORISM to the world’s conscience while bogged down in fighting the Iraqi war. Some took the shift to world terrorism as the cause of the Iraq war but that was not announced by the one  who spoke those 16 words – thus depriving America of  a CAUSE for the Iraq war.

Spying on Americans

The neocons seems to have worked under a basic terror suspect premise – all America was a terror suspect. The neocons’  terror hunting program brought the communications conversations of  200 million Americans into focus. It is still a fair question to ask – who hurt America the most – terrorists or terror fighters.

The electronic communications of 200 million Americans may have come under the watchful eyes and ears of the neocon government. Does that not sound stupid?

Practically all of America was a terror suspect.  The neocons, who really never demonstrated much of a talent for doing quality work – selected this huge task as their work target. And, as with their Iraq war plan, they spent much time reacting to the execution of the plan after it became public.

America’s FISA court would likely have told the neocons that eves-dropping on the electronic communications of two-thirds of America was a  FISHING expedition. And that is ILLEGAL! That possible response from the FISA court is likely why the neocons never asked the FISA court’s permission to do what they did.

And now it seems like the neocons, since 1980, have filled a Pandora’s box full of activities that must never ever see the “light of day”.

It will likely take a team of historians and archaeologists to dig up America’s neocon history. That history will range from selling cocaine to street gangs in minority neighborhoods of Los Angeles to brutal treatment of detainees connected to terrorism.

It is extremely difficult to believe that America will ever “thank Bush for what he has done”. Some of what Mr. Bush has done ought to interest the World Court. Many years passed but a Peruvian leader was asked to appear in world court. It is my understanding that some things done to humanity have no statute of limitations.

Where should any self respecting Blog or article whether by remote computer repair, remote helpdesk, outsourced pc repair, online computer repair, or computer man start?

Hillary is soooo far outside traditional American Statesmen like the 55th Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, Thomas Phillip “Tip” O’Neill, Jr., democrat, and the 35th President of The United States of America, John F. Kennedy, democrat, and America’s contemporary needs she is laughable if she (Hillary) were not so serious…soooo dangerous!

Computer Man’s brother, who shall remain nameless, is a dyed in the wool democrat and homosexual. Da computerman? I used to be republican until the republicans became democrats and the democrats became socialists.

These days Computer Man is independent, more like Joe Lieberman. Anyway, the last time brother/sister/what-ever was seen he/she adamantly and proudly proclaimed “I am a mean, vindictive bitch just like Hillary…don’t believe me?…cross me and find out”.

Well the time is at hand when we start to think about a new leader for the free world…a President of the U.S…a Commander-N-Chief of the military. Neither the race nor the gender matters to Tennessee Mountain Man, but to get the nation (the world even) caught in the Clinton crosshairs again? I think not and I believe Kathleen Wiley, the secret service, and the military would agree.

Consider these:

Female Leaders Extraordinaire:

Golda Meir:

“Golda Meir (Hebrew: גולדה מאיר‎, Arabic: جولدا مائير, born Golda Mabovitz, May 3, 1898 – December 8, 1978, known as Golda Meyerson from 1917-1956) was one of the founders of the State of Israel.

Meir served as the Minister of Labour, Foreign Minister, and then as the fourth Prime Minister of Israel from March 17, 1969 to June 3, 1974.

As the BBC put it, Golda Meir was the “Iron Lady” of Israeli politics years before the epithet was coined for Margaret Thatcher. David Ben-Gurion, the nation’s first Prime Minister, once described her as “the only man in the Cabinet.” She was Israel’s first (and, to date, only) female Prime Minister, and was the third female Prime Minister in the world”

Margaret Thatcher:

Champion of free minds and markets, she helped topple the welfare state and make the world safer for capitalism

Benazir Bhutto:

“Bhutto went into self-imposed exile in Dubai in 1998, where she remained until she returned to Pakistan on October 18, 2007, after reaching an understanding with General Musharraf by which she was granted amnesty and all corruption charges were withdrawn.”

Dr. Condoleezza Rice:

“Dr. Condoleezza Rice became the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, commonly referred to as the National Security Advisor, on January 22, 2001.

In June 1999, she completed a six year tenure as Stanford University ’s Provost, during which she was the institution’s chief budget and academic officer. As Provost she was responsible for a $1.5 billion annual budget and the academic program involving 1,400 faculty members and 14,000 students.

As professor of political science, Dr. Rice has been on the Stanford faculty since 1981 and has won two of the highest teaching honors — the 1984 Walter J. Gores Award for Excellence in Teaching and the 1993 School of Humanities and Sciences Dean’s Award for Distinguished Teaching.”

Hillary Rodham Clinton?!

Now, honestly, tell me Hillary Rodham Clinton, the purveyor of lost documents and friend of her security advisor Sandy Burger, belongs in that distinguished company!?

“KATHLEEN Willey, who claimed Bill Clinton groped her in the Oval Office in 1993, says he and his senator wife, Hillary, are up to more dirty tricks. Willey tells World Net Daily she was recently the target of a burglar who broke into her house and swiped a manuscript of her new book, which contains revelations that could supposedly damage Hillary’s presidential bid.

“Here we go again,” Willey told WND. “It scared me to death. It’s an awful feeling to know you’re sound asleep upstairs and someone is downstairs.” “Target: Caught in the Crosshairs of Bill and Hillary Clinton” will hit stores in November. A rep for the Clintons had no comment.”

Are you kidding? Hillary Clinton should not even be mentioned in the same breath as Golda Meir, Margaret Thatcher, Benazir Bhutto, or Condoleezza Rice or Kathleen Willey for that matter !!!!!!!

Hillary just does not measure up to Female World Leaders who were and are Presidents, Heads of State, or Premier Ministers.

Name// Condoleezza Rice
Occupation// Professor/diplomat/author/national security expert/United States Secretary of State
Where// Dunno source
Why Pouting// Politician pouter…

While visiting India, George Bush was invited to tea with Dr. Abdul Kalam.

 He asks Kalam what his leadership philosophy is. He says that, it is to surround himself with

intelligent people.

Bush asks how he knows if they’re intelligent. “I do so by asking them the right questions,” says Kalam.

 ”Allow me to demonstrate.”

Bush watches as Kalam phones Manmohan Singh and says, “Mr. Prime Minister, please answer this question:

“ Your mother has a child, and your father has a child, and this child is not your brother or sister. Who is it?”

Manmohan immediately responds,

 ”It’s me, Sir!”

“Correct… Thank you and good-bye” says Kalam. He hangs up and says,” Did you get that, Mr. Bush?”

 Bush nods: “Yes Mr. President… Thanks a lot. I’ll definitely be using that!”

  Bush, on returning to Washington, decides he’d better put Condoleezza Rice to the test.

 Bush summons her to the White House and says,

 ”Condoleezza, I wonder if you can answer a question for me.”

“Why, of course, sir. What’s on your mind?”

Bush poses the question: “Uh, your mother has a child, and your father has a child, and this child is not your brother or your sister. Who is it?” Rice was puzzled and finally asks, “Can I think about it and get back to you?” Bush agrees, and Rice leaves.

Rice immediately calls a meeting of senior senators, and they puzzle over the question for several hours, but nobody came up with an answer…

Finally, in desperation, Rice calls Colin Powell and explains the problem.

“Mr. Powell, your mother has a child, and your father has a child, and this child is not your brother or your sister. Who is it?”

 Powell answers immediately, “It’s me, of course.”

Much relieved Rice rushes back to the White House, finds George Bush, and exclaims,

“I know the answer, sir! I know who it is! It’s our Colin Powell!”

And Bush replies in disgust, “Wrong, it’s Manmohan Singh!”

Joe Solmonese — here he is rubbing shoulders with pseudo-progressive Billary Clinton (the Clintons did little to nothing for gay men and lesbians but they sure have liked their money!):

– is the president of the Human Rights Campaign, probably the nation’s most powerful gay and lesbian rights lobbying group.

From what I can tell, Joe really likes himself.

Well, probably not, not really, not when you really examine it. I mean, how can you sell out your people for personal gain like he does and really like yourself?

But he “likes” himself like so many pretty and rich white gay men “like” themselves, I mean.

Dear Joe (may I call you Joe?):

I have given the Human Rights Campaign a considerable amount of money, probably especially after Proposition Hate passed here in California in November. Not only am I a member of the HRC — well, I think that I’m still a member in good standing, since I still get the quarterly HRC publication Equality in the mail– but I’ve purchased a lot of stuff from the HRC website’s shop, and I do believe that I’ve made at least a few one-time online contributions to the HRC as well.

But Joe, I’m concerned.

Looking at the fall 2009 issue of Equality, I see some things that I find disturbing.

I see all of these full-page ads for corporations. There is, on page 6, a full-page ad for American Airlines. Does American Airlines pay its pilots diddly squat, like Michael Moore exposed in his latest work, “Capitalism: A Love Story”?

On page 8 of Equality is a full-page ad for Chevron. Chevron. Didn’t Condoleezza “You Know She’s Lying When Her Lips Are Moving” Rice go directly from Chevron to the BushCheneyCorp?

I mean, Chevron, Joe? Because we all know that global warming is bullshit! Condi says so!

I don’t know much about Wall Street, Joe, being quite middle class (if, um, that), but on page 10 is a full-page ad for Deloitte, on page 14 is a full-page ad for Ernst & Young, and on page 15 is a full-page ad for Citigroup. Aren’t these all players on Wall Street, and wasn’t at least one of these Wall Street players featured in “Capitalism: A Love Story” as one of the recipients of the bullshit $700 billion taxpayer bailout of Wall Street? (Wasn’t it Citigroup that Moore was wrapping crime-scene tape around in “Capitalism”?)

Wait, there’s more. On page 18 is a full-page ad for Prudential.

Oh, and Chevron won’t be outdone, because on page 22 is a full-page ad for Shell Oil.

But hey, escape from all of this depressing talk about corporate responsibility and check out “the new Luxor” in Las Vegas, which has a full-page ad on page 24 (and features an apparent lesbian apparently using another apparent lesbian for her money — sweet!).  

Page 31 of the current issue of Equality advises us readers to “SUPPORT [the HRC's] NATIONAL CORPORATE SPONSORS” and lists such corporate sponsors as American Airlines, Citigroup, Bank of America, Chevron, Harrah’s Entertainment, Nike, Shell, Chase and PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Sure, there are some corporate sponsors of HRC that don’t strike me as too bad and some I haven’t even heard of, such as Google and Dell and Mitchell Gold + Bob Williams (is this a corporation or are these two rich gay men who are in love with each other and who would like the whole world to know by spelling it out that way?). But most of HRC’s corporate sponsors send shivers up my spine, Joe.

My point, Joe, is that it’s not enough for me to know that someone affectionately prefers members of his or her same sex like I do and/or that his or her corporation is willing to give the Human Rights Campaign some money. I want to know that a person or a corporation isn’t causing others harm, even if he or she or it is not overtly anti-gay.

And as a gay man, I’m sick and tired of being reduced to a target group by corporations that don’t wuv me, as they claim, but that just want my money. It’s calculated, Joe. Corporations almost never do anything that they don’t believe will help their profits. If appearing to be pro-gay-and-lesbian will bring in the profits, then the corporations will do it.

I look at the whole picture, Joe, not just my tiny place within it.

Your concerns might be very different from mine, Joe. You might make a lot of money as the president of the HRC, and thus these “corporate sponsors” might be very important for you to be able to continue to live in the way in which I’m guessing that you’ve become accustomed.

But, Joe, when I weigh your personal fortune against things like, oh, say, the future of the entire planet itself, the future which the likes of Chevron and Shell and many if not most other transnational corporations are threatening, well, um, no offense, Joe, but I’m going to have to put the well-being of the entire planet above your own personal well-being.

Joe, lots and lots of corporations give a teeny-tiny percentage of their obscene profits to groups like the Human Rights Campaign in order to make it look like they’re actually not that bad after all.   

But, Joe, they’re actually that bad after all.

Have you seen the documentary “Flag Wars,” Joe? (Please indulge me a little here…) In that documentary, gay men and lesbians (living in Ohio) are portrayed as selfish, cold-hearted money-grubbers who care only about their own personal fortunes.

There’s a rich white lesbian who, in one great scene, goes on a drunken rant about how great capitalism has been to her. (It’s funny how both the impoverished and the rich sure seem to like to get drunk a lot, but I digress…)

In another scene in “Flag Wars,” an apparently rich white gay man states that historical homes in his neighborhood have to be “saved” from the poor. These homes have to be snatched away from their impoverished long-time residents by rich gay men and lesbians, renovated, and then sold for big profits. Screw the poor and save the homes! That’s what the gay men and the lesbians in the film say, in effect, quite unabashedly: it’s profits over people.

What kind of human beings do we gay men and lesbians want to be, Joe?

I don’t know about you, but as for me, before I am a gay man, Joe, I am a human being, and you know what? I don’t want to be the kind of human being like the heartless gay men and lesbians who are portrayed in “Flag Wars,” and the Human Rights Campaign encourages gay men and lesbians to be this kind of human being by kowtowing to corporations, perhaps especially to the Wall Street players and big oil.

I don’t know that I can continue to be a member of the Human Rights Campaign, Joe. HRC’s pro-corporate values certainly don’t seem to be in alignment with my own values as a gay man who cares about others besides myself.

I think that I already know what your counter-argument will be, Joe: HRC really, really needs the money that the corporations throw its way. And that if you didn’t accept that money as HRC president, then someone else would. Yadda yadda yadda…

But you know what, Joe? I am sick and tired of being sold out by gay and lesbian “leaders.” It’s not just you — it’s almost all gay and lesbian “leaders” who, for just the right amount of money (which often isn’t really that much) and the opportunity to do such things as to be photographed with Billary Clinton, will sell their gay and lesbian brothers and sisters (and indeed, all of the rest of humankind) out.

So we see all kinds of things that are harmful to the gay and lesbian community. We see ads for alcohol and for bars in almost all of the gay and lesbian publications, and often a gay and lesbian community’s “leaders” (such as is the case here in Sacramento) are the owners of the gay and lesbian bars that encourage alcoholism and smoking and drunken hookups, which are so helpful for the gay and lesbian community!

We see the ads for the anti-HIV drugs placed by the big-pharma corporations in which healthy-looking, young, muscular models give gay men the idea that HIV is no big deal — if you catch it you can just take a pill.

(The other gay and lesbian ”leaders” in Sacramento and elsewhere are the publishers of the gay and lesbian rags who personally profit from such advertising that actually harms the very same community that they claim they are helping.)

When we gay men and lesbians aren’t being encouraged by our “leaders” and their for-personal-profit businesses and publications to be drinking and smoking and sexing, we’re encouraged to buy stuff, to use materialism (including personal investments and pointless travel) as our drug of choice. (The fall 2009 issue of Equality also includes full-page ads for travel agencies, hotel chains and furniture.)  

Is there nothing more to being gay or lesbian than catering to our addictions to chemical substances, to sex and to money and things, Joe?

Can we gay men and lesbians perhaps be bold and brave leaders instead of being trembling followers, and help our fellow men and women, regardless of their sexual orientation, out of the spirit-and-soul-crushing effects of the humongous corporations that now control almost every aspect of our lives, even the groups like HRC that are supposed to be helping to make us free?

Joe, can you be part of a revolution that actually makes gay men and lesbians free, truly free, instead of keeping them enslaved to such things as materialism and alcoholism and sex addiction and other addictions?

Or are you utterly unable to part with the lifestyle that you have attained, even though your lifestyle comes at the expense of those you are supposed to be helping and freeing?

Please let me know, Joe.

But, truthfully, I’m not holding my breath for your response, because you seem to be addicted to corporate money, and it just might take an intervention, because I doubt that you can overcome your addiction on your own.

Thanks for listening.

Yours,

Robert Crook
Sacramento, California

P.S. From what I know of Harvey Milk and what he thought of Democrats who just use the members of the gay and lesbian community as ATMs — and what he thought of those members of the gay and lesbian community who support these Democrats — Milk is not just turning, but he is spinning, in his grave.

(Actually, you might know that Milk was cremated and not interred, but that fact just doesn’t lend itself to my point…)

Death Stare… … Ur doin’ it right

(Condoleezza Rice)

Picture by: dunno source Caption by: Adam via Advanced Lol Builder

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Par instants, j’ai le goût d’imiter le foetus.  J’ai le goût d’attirer mes genoux à mon menton, de comprimer mes poignets sur mes mollets, mes bras entassant mes jambes.  J’ai le goût d’être une masse indéfinie.  D’être un tas.  De me comprimer en une plus petite quantité de moi.  Un amas réduit de moi.

Parfois, j’ai l’appel de l’infiniment micro.  D’être un pourcentage que l’on ne prend pas en considération.  Une note loin du seuil de passage.  Un grain de poudre à bébé.  Une maille dans un tissu.  Un galet parmi tant d’autres.

Quelque fois, j’ai soif de me confondre avec la vaisselle amoncelée sur mon faux granite de comptoir.  De jouer à la cachette avec les restes de céréales qui gravitent dans la cavité du stainless.

J’ai le goût d’être une blanche dans une partition de Bach.  Une brisure dans un épi.  Une miette dans un auditorium.  Une virgule dans une tragédie.

D’autres fois, j’ai le goût d’être Jeanne d’Arc, Simone de Beauvoir, Marie Curie, Catherine Deneuve, Oprah Winfrey, Condoleezza Rice.

Updated below

The Pentagon’s Defense Technical Information Center (DTIC) last month announced the creation of a new password-protected portal where authorized users may gain access to restricted scientific and engineering publications.

“DTIC Online Access Controlled… provides a gateway to Department of Defense unclassified, controlled science and technology (S&T) and research and engineering (R&E) information,” according to a September 21, 2009 news release (pdf).  “As defense S&T information advances, so does the unique community to which it belongs,” said DTIC Administrator R. Paul Ryan.

The cultivation of controlled but unclassified scientific research by DTIC seems to represent a departure [see update below] from a longstanding U.S. government position that scientific research should either be classified, if necessary, or else unrestricted.  (There have always been exceptions for export controlled information and for proprietary information.)

“It is the policy of this Administration that, to the maximum extent possible, the products of fundamental research remain unrestricted,” wrote President Reagan in the 1985 National Security Decision Directive 189.  “It is also the policy of this Administration that, where the national security requires control, the mechanism for control of information… is classification.”

“The key to maintaining U.S. technological preeminence is to encourage open and collaborative basic research,” wrote then-National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice in 2001.  “The linkage between the free exchange of ideas and scientific innovation, prosperity, and U.S. national security is undeniable.”

In response to a request 5 days ago, DTIC was not able to provide a comment on the matter.

Update and Clarification: “Departure” may be the wrong word for this new development. DTIC has long maintained a collection of limited distribution records, both classified and unclassified, that are not publicly available. Nevertheless, the new DTIC Online Access Controlled portal appears to expand and reinforce the barriers blocking access to certain unclassified DTIC holdings.

We had a very good first session today (the first day of “condi week”), taught by Prof. Condoleezza Rice. She managed the class discussions expertly and as the class was very focused as well, the comments were spot on. I’m looking forward to Thursday when we have her next.

It was funny to see secret service scoping out the class room right before class. The entire class was dressed in as much red, blue and white as we could get our hands on, as a humorous reminder of “patriotism.”

L’altra settimana a Che Tempo che fa l’ex segretario di stato Condoleezza Rice, alla domanda posta da Fazio, vista la sua ex posizione di prestigio alla Casa Bianca, sull’esistenza degli Alieni, ha risposto che lei non ne aveva mai visti ne tantomeno ne aveva mai sentito parlare in ambienti governativi, ne aveva mai visto passare nel cielo un disco volante. Confermo. Nella mia vita ho sprecato venerdì e sabati sera a vedere, memorizzare e immagazzinare informazioni da x-files, ho comprato riviste dedicate, ho letto autorevoli testi di esimi scienziati sull’argomento. E ho fatto anche di più. Quando mi sono trasferito in campagna ho fatto in modo che si scegliesse appositamente una casa con campo di grano adiacente. In cinque anni nemmeno una scoreggia di lepre che inclinasse anche solo di un micron uno stelo di grano. Sono dunque giunto a due possibili conclusioni: la prima è che essi non esistano, ma che al massimo possano essere frutto di una nostra proiezione mentale. La seconda è che potrebbero essere impegnati in una discussione intergalattica interna in vista di un congresso, e allora i tempi si farebbero molto lunghi. Anni e anni luce. Cosa che è anche inutile pensarci, che quando sarà, se sarà, il momento, noi saremo belle che morti. Questa settimana, più precisamente domenica sera, come per magia a Che tempo che fa è apparso Veltroni.

Forty years ago, on April 3, 1969, more than 800 people met in Stanford University’s Dinkelspiel Auditorium to form what became known as the April Third Movement (A3M). This movement called upon Stanford and the Stanford Research Institute, which was owned by the university, to halt chemical and biological warfare research, classified research and other programs related to the Vietnam War. The April Third Movement was more than just an activist movement that took place at Stanford. It was part of a national youth movement that mobilized against America’s colonial and atrocious war in Southeast Asia. This movement occurred on university campuses across America, in which students organized sit-ins, teach-ins and rallies, printed flyers and occupied buildings to express moral outrage against and put an end to the war in Vietnam. Through their hard work and passionate organizing, Stanford students were successful in eliminating classified research at Stanford and contributed to the popular movement that ended the Vietnam War.

Forty years later, the United States, controlled by the Bush administration, engages in an aggressive war against Iraq, a country that posed no threat to the United States. The invasion was illegal from the very beginning but that did not stop the Bush administration from manipulating public opinion to support an immoral and illegal war. In Fall of 2007, the Hoover Institution, a neoconservative think-tank at Stanford, gave Donald Rumsfeld, one of the leading architects of the war in Iraq, a one-year appointment as a “distinguished visiting fellow”. In response, a petition was sent out opposing the appointment and garnered over 4,000 signatures. In addition, the group that soon became Stanford Says No to War, put on a rally protesting the appointment. This rally managed to get covered by international press sources and drew about 100 attendees. While an ASSU bill opposing the appointment failed to pass by 2 votes, Donald Rumsfeld’s appointment was never renewed and there is no evidence that Rumsfeld ever set foot on campus. There is no doubt in my mind that the grassroots outrage that occurred deterred Rumsfeld from stepping on Stanford soil.

However, the struggle for peace and justice continues. Faculty member, Hoover Institution fellow and former Provost Condoleezza Rice has returned to Stanford University after serving in the Bush administration as National Security Advisor and Secretary of State. During her time in the Bush administration, Rice played a decisive role in authorizing the use of torture when she chaired then National Security Council’s Principals Committee. In addition, she played a key role in manipulating public opinion to support the invasion of Iraq by spreading misinformation about the threat the country posed to American national security. As we all know now, Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction nor any connections to 9/11 or al-Qaeda. Unfortunately, this war has cost the lives of nearly 5,000 Americans and a million Iraqis. Torture is a crime against humanity and war of aggression is the supreme international war crime. There is a strong case to be made that Condoleezza Rice is responsible for committing both egregious crimes. Therefore, Rice needs to be investigated and, if necessary, prosecuted by the appropriate legal authorities – not honored with prestigious titles at an elite university. This is what our movement is about and you can join by signing our petition.

By holding her, and other high government officials, accountable for these atrocities, we can prevent them from happening in the future and work toward building a peaceful world in which war and torture are things of the past. At the same time, fighting for peace goes beyond just holding government officials accountable for their actions. It also means being critical of the current administration and confronting the imperial system head on to end the destruction it imposes on the world. Such a struggle requires a massive movement from the grassroots and the campus movement to hold Condoleezza Rice accountable for war crimes is part of that struggle.

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UPDATE (10/5/2009): Here’s the Stanford Daily’s coverage of the event. Considering their usual coverage of activist events, this article was a surprisingly good summary of what went on. Also, check out Stanford Says No to War’s YouTube channel for video clips and Danny Colligan’s pictures.

One of the highlights of last week’s Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit was an appearance by former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who sat down with Fortune’s Washington editor, Nina Easton. Rice got personal about her parents and passion for education. She also waxed political, on Russia, China, Afghanistan and Iran. Whatever their views, Summit audience members were moved, giving Rice a standing ovation as she left the stage. (Read Easton’s take on the interview here.)

Rice’s statement during the interview that the Iranian “regime is done” seems especially prescient in light of recent events.

Last week Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad tried to rally support by denouncing Israel, only to be met by thousands protesting his alleged victory in June’s election. Earlier today in New York, prior to an appearance before the UN General Assembly, Ahmadinejad softened his usual incendiary rhetoric, urging President Obama to view Iran as a friend, not a threat.

A clip of Easton’s interview with Rice (see below) was shown this morning on ABC’s Good Morning America and last night by Campbell Brown on CNN. –Jessica Shambora

I just read an interesting article by Nina Easton for Fortune about her conversation with former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and suggests she’s the “should-be face of the GOP.” She references Dr. Rice’s incredible intelligence and broad appeal that couples with an intriguing personal story that results in an interesting and compelling public figure that can be a positive force in the Republican party.

I have a great deal of admiration for Dr. Rice, and I find her to be incredibly articulate and knowledgable. There’s no doubt that she’s a foreign policy heavyweight, and she offers some measured criticism of the current diplomatic trajectory of the nation. As a person, she comes across as fairly genuine, and I for one would welcome an increased presence in the national debate.

But can she provide an avenue to increasing the GOP’s broader appeal? There’s no doubt that she may be too “Bush” for many, and as two-term bureaucrat for the previous administration she has a lot of baggage that can be thrown back at her. It’s unclear how much blame for earlier failures can be legitimately placed at her feet – as National Security Advisor and Secretary of State, I’m not sure if she was a formulator of policy or more of an executor of someone else’s. Guilt by association remains a powerful force in American politics (for one party anyway). But being attached directly or indirectly to the failed policies of previous administrations hasn’t stopped Zbigniew Brzezinski, Henry Kissinger, Madeline Albright, and numerous others from remaining potent forces in the national spotlight.

In any case, Rice’s present and future actions will overshadow whatever criticism there is of her past association. Some have posited that she might be an excellent Presidential candidate, leading her to publicly rule out a 2008 bid. For a future push to have much success, she’d have to weigh in far more heavily on domestic concerns as opposed to simply running on her strong foreign policy credentials.

The point is moot, however, if she remains on the sidelines. If her personal wish is to stay focused on private sector pursuits, then I respect that desire. But I believe that her voice is of value to the national discourse, and would be beneficial as another strong and positive national figure for the GOP.

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In the harsh winter of 1776, a time of crisis for the American colonies, General George Washington sent written orders to officers in charge of overseeing captured enemy soldiers.  One four-line sentence stands out clearly expressing the belief shared by all the founding fathers, which was that each human being retains dignity before the Creator.  That one short sentence was, “Treat them with humanity.”

The authors and signers of the Constitution were men committed to enlightenment principles, and when they had met in 1776 to declare independence from the imposed injustice of a despotic king, their desire was to establish a new nation devoted to those enlightenment principles.  Disrespect for any human life could have no place in such a noble land.  Consequently, the founding fathers emphatically forbade any use of “cruel and unusual punishment” which had for centuries been the mode of conduct throughout church-dominated Europe.

The “uncouth men” of a “course country” dared to defy the traditions of the self-defined “civilized” motherland, and the American yeoman soldiers were expected to treat even enemy soldiers with respect.  And here was set down a purely American tradition; the enlightened principle that declares the equality of all persons before the powers of Creation.  Such a truly noble perception of each person’s inherent worth in the universe astonished the Bible inspired enemy troopers who were taught to believe that physical domination reflected heaven’s favor.  But the colonies clung to enlightenment and endured—and the enlightenment principles they had used as their standard were raised in triumph and held high for the world to reach out for in wonder, hope and inspiration.

Today, nearly two hundred and thirty years after the nation dedicated to enlightenment and equality was founded, we have witnessed the blatant betrayal of those high principles by those who gained political power in a decidedly undemocratic manner.  Authorization of “enhanced” torture methods were actually set in motion.  The founding fathers must have been pacing the floor in agitation in which Dick Cheney, John Ashcroft, Donald Rumsfeld, George Trent and Condoleezza Rice unashamedly conspired and approved the application of specific torture methods (“enhanced”) for enemy prisoners.  John Ashcroft, an oh-so-devout Christian, perhaps felt some psychic presence, for he is said to have wondered aloud, “Why are we talking about this in the White House?  History will not judge this kindly.”

As a side note let us note here—again—that the War of Independence between the American colonies and Britain was not over officially until 1797: only in that year was the final treaty signed at Tripoli recognizing the American colonies as an independent nation.  Within that document was expressed still another bold declaration, i.e. Article 11 which proclaimed in clear and unmistakable words a major principle of the United States Government.  Here are the powerful and precise words of the nation’s dedication to genuine enlightenment.  “The government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian  religion.”   The history of Europe was known to all the founding fathers, and the bloody record clearly disclosed that mixing church and state was unacceptable if genuine freedom was to flourish.

Trying to provide a justification for the effectiveness of torture, the Washington Post published an article, on August 29, called “How a Detainee Became An Asset: Sept. 11 Plotter Cooperated After Waterboarding”. The article’s main argument can summed up in these paragraphs:

“After enduring the CIA’s harshest interrogation methods and spending more than a year in the agency’s secret prisons, Khalid Sheik Mohammed stood before U.S. intelligence officers in a makeshift lecture hall, leading what they called ‘terrorist tutorials.’…

These scenes provide previously unpublicized details about the transformation of the man known to U.S. officials as KSM from an avowed and truculent enemy of the United States into what the CIA called its ‘preeminent source’ on al-Qaeda. This reversal occurred after Mohammed was subjected to simulated drowning and prolonged sleep deprivation, among other harsh interrogation techniques….

[F]or for defenders of waterboarding, the evidence is clear: Mohammed cooperated, and to an extraordinary extent, only when his spirit was broken in the month after his capture March 1, 2003, as the inspector general’s report and other documents released this week indicate.”

As evidence, the article relies primarily on several unnamed sources. Phrases such as “Two sources who described the sessions, speaking on the condition of anonymity because much information about detainee confinement remains classified”, “one former senior intelligence official said this week after being asked about the effect of waterboarding”, “one former U.S. official with detailed knowledge of how the interrogations were carried out said”, and “One former agency official” are littered throughout the piece like sprinkles on a torture-loving cake. Such liberal use of anonymous sources is a useful technique for presenting baseless arguments as facts.

The article also uses the recently-released 2004 Inspector General Report to assert that waterboarding and other torture techniques worked on high-value detainees, such as Khaled Sheikh Mohammed. However, if one actually reads the report, they will notice that this is not the case. Regarding the effectiveness of “enhanced interrogation techniques” (EITs), the Report states measuring their effectiveness is “a more subjective process and not without some concern” (211). It also states that

“there is limited data on which to assess their individual effectiveness. This Review identified concerns about the use of the waterboard, specifically whether the risks of its use were justified by the results, and whether the fact that it is being applied in a manner different from its use in SERE training brings into question the continued applicability of the DoJ opinion to its use. Although the waterboard is the most intrusive of the EITs, the fact that precautions have been taken to provide on-site medical oversight in the use of all EITs is evidence that their use poses risks (220).”

As one can see, the IG Report clearly does not assert that torture worked in extracting information from high-value detainees. However, it does assert that “unauthorized, improvised, inhumane, and undocumented detention and interrogation techniques were used” (258). The Report meticulously documents the harsh treatment detainees were subjected to, such as threats of executions, threats to kill children and rape mothers, waterboarding, and numerous deaths and other abuses. No wonder the Report characterized these techniques as “inhumane”. Glenn Greenwald does a great job of summarizing the important details of the 2004 IG Report in a blog he wrote last Monday called “What every American should be made to learn about the IG Torture Report”.

Here are some articles that do a good job of countering a lot of the misinformation that’s disseminated in the Washington Post’s pro-torture propaganda piece.

“The Press and Torture” by Ray McGovern (CounterPunch.org, August 31, 2009). As a former Army officer and CIA analyst for 30 years, Ray McGovern provides an interesting (and critical) perspective on issues such as torture, American foreign policy and national security. McGovern points out that the Washington Post mischaracterized Khaled Sheikh Mohammed’s motives to attack the United States. He quotes the 9/11 Commission Report, which states,

“By his own account, KSM’s animus toward the United States stemmed not from his experience there as a student, but rather from his violent disagreement with U.S. foreign policy favoring Israel.”

However, the Washington Post offered a different view. McGovern poignantly states:

“Yesterday’s Washington Post article offers a revisionist view. It seems Mohammed’s initial response was found to be politically incorrect by implicating “U.S. foreign policy favoring Israel.” Perhaps after a few more sessions of waterboarding or a few more days of sleep deprivation he came up with a more acceptable explanation of his motivation. Or perhaps the Post has been selective in picking and choosing among the various things came out of reports from his interrogation.

In any event, without so much as a word as to why his story has changed, the Post now would have us believe that the following is the real reason: ‘KSM’s limited and negative experience in the United States – which included a brief jail stay because of unpaid bills – almost certainly helped propel him on his path to becoming a terrorist,’ according to the [CIA] intelligence summary. ‘He stated that his contact with Americans, while minimal, confirmed his view that the United States was a debauched and racist country.’

“A telling revision, indeed.

“But let’s also look for a moment at ‘debauched and racist’ on its own merits. Could the hated Khalid Sheik Mohammed be speaking some truth here? If he and other Middle Eastern Muslims looked and dressed more like us, would it be so easy to demonize them – and to torture them?

Would the Washington Post’s editors be so supportive if representatives of a more favored ethnic or religious group were stripped naked before members of the opposite sex, put in diapers, immobilized with shackles in stress positions for long periods, denied sleep and made to soil themselves?

In my view, racism is very much at play here.

And ‘debauched?’ Just read the CIA Inspector General report and decide for yourself.

And please: don’t stop with a ‘Tsk, tsk; those interrogators were certainly debauched.’ We – all of us – let it happen. We – all of us – need to ensure that our country does not descend again into such depravity. The only way to do that is to hold ALL the rotten apples accountable, from the top to the bottom of the proverbial barrel.“

The last paragraph is especially important.

“The Washington Post’s Cheney-ite defense of torture” by Glenn Greenwald (Salon.com, August 29, 2009). Glenn Greenwald beautifully dismantled the many assertions made in the Washington Post’s article in this piece. He points out that the Washington Post article is an example of “stenographer journalism”, in which journalists are nothing but “mindless amplifiers for those in power”, rather than exercising a minimal amount of critical thinking or skepticism. He also points out Jane Mayer’s comments on “Countdown with Keith Olbermann”, which I found to be really key:

“Well, the documents that I’ve seen, and maybe I’m missing something, but so far, I am amazed at how little support there is for the things that Vice President Cheney has been saying. There is nothing but a mass of claims that they got information from this individual and that individual, many from KSM, who apparently has been the greatest fount of information for them, but there’s absolutely nothing saying that they had to beat them to get this information. In fact, as anybody knows who knows anything about Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, he was dying to tell the world, when he was interviewed by Al Jazeera before he was in US custody, about everything he knew and everything he did. He was proud of his role as the mastermind of 9/11. He loves to talk about it. So there’s no evidence that I see in this that these things were necessary. I spoke to someone at the CIA who was an adviser to them who conceded to me that ‘We could have gotten the same information from tea and crumpets.’”

The Atlantic’s Andrew Sullivan also slammed the Washington Post in his blog entitled “The Washington’s Post’s Support For Torture”. He also unleashed some vitriol against Chris Wallace for his interview with Dick Cheney. He said that Chris Wallace sounded like “a teenage girl interviewing the Jonas Brothers” in his interview with the former Vice President. He concluded by saying, “When future historians ask how the United States came not only to practice torture but to celebrate it and treat torturers as heroes, a special place in hell among the journalists who embraced and justified it should be reserved for Chris Wallace.”

A few months ago (April 25, 2009), Steve Weissman wrote a piece in Truthout.org entitled “How Torture Worked to Sell the Iraq War” that is worth looking at in light of the Washington Post propaganda piece. The last three paragraphs are, perhaps, the most key:

“In part to get that smoking gun, the CIA waterboarded Khalid Sheikh Mohammed 183 times and Abu Zubaydah 83 times. But neither man told the interrogators what Bush and Cheney wanted to hear about Iraq and al-Qaeda. That came from Ibn al Sheikh al Libi, whom the Bush administration sent to Egypt for what CIA Director George Tenet called ‘further debriefing.’ As PBS Frontline reported back in November 2007, al Libi ‘confessed’ – after being beaten repeatedly and locked in a small box for some 17 hours – that Saddam Hussein had trained al-Qaeda in chemical weapons. Al Libi later retracted his statement and the CIA later rejected it as reliable intelligence. But the torture of al Libi worked to sell the war in Iraq, providing the ‘evidence’ that Secretary of State Colin Powell used when he spoke before the United Nations Security Council in February 2003.

‘I can trace the story of a senior terrorist operative telling how Iraq provided training in these [chemical and biological] weapons to al-Qaeda,’ Powell asserted. ‘Fortunately, this operative is now detained, and he has told his story.’

Torture might not work as well as conventional interrogation to provide sound intelligence, but it certainly worked for Bush and Cheney in exactly the way they most wanted.”

The United States government was so hell-bent on waging war against Iraq and overthrowing Saddam Hussein that it was willing to torture a human being so severely to the point that they got the confession they wanted to justify their imperial plans. Unfortunately, this has resulted in the deaths of millions.

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With the publication of the Washington Post article, the mainstream media will inevitably focus on the effectiveness of torture (or “enhanced interrogation techniques” as it’s euphemistically referred to in mainstream political discourse). The announcement of Eric Holder’s torture has given many figures in our current political establishment the chills, especially the ones who had a role in authorizing and carrying out the policy because they know they’re vulnerable to prosecutions. This is why Dick Cheney has been going on several news programs justifying the torture regime and saying that it worked – to salvage his, and the entire Bush administration’s, damaged political legacy and save them from prosecution.

But amidst mainstream discussions about torture, the primary focus is on whether or not it was effective in extracting information from supposed “terrorists” rather than the legal aspect. Torture is a clear violation of international and U.S. domestic law. The United Nations Convention Against Torture, a treaty the U.S. signed in 1988 and ratified in 1994, defines “torture” as:

“any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions.” (Art. 1.1)

Even more importantly, Article 2, Section 2 of the UN Convention Against Torture states:

“No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political in stability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture.”

As a signatory of this treaty, the United States is bound by its own Constitution to abide by this treaty (Article VI of the U.S. Constitution states “all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land”.)

Torture is also listed as a “crime against humanity” in Article 7 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC), along with acts such as rape, sexual slavery, enslavement, murder, extermination, enforced disappearance, persecution and apartheid. While the U.S. is not a member of the ICC, torture is widely understood to be a violation of customary international law, a principle of international law that is derived through custom and for which no violation is permitted.

It would be very difficult to find this information mentioned in mainstream discussions about torture. This is because our mainstream media is controlled by corporations that put profit, gossip, and sensationalism above fact-finding and truth-telling. It is nothing more than a corporate propaganda machine that is incredibly obedient to the government.

Torture is a felony, a violation of international law and a crime against humanity. Portrayals of torture as, somehow, an effective, or possibly effective, interrogation technique is devoid of any ounce of truth or morality. The fact that our mainstream political discourse would portray it as such is a sign of the moral bankruptcy of our mainstream political discourse and the barbarity of American foreign policy.

However, we do not have to put up with this. We can fight against this. While Eric Holder’s investigation is far from enough, it is a small step in the right direction. It opens up new grounds for the citizenry to hold their leaders accountable for authorizing such barbaric behavior.

At my school, Stanford University, former National Security Advisor and Secretary of State for the Bush Administration, Condoleezza Rice has returned to campus. The group I co-founded, Stanford Says No to War, has initiated a campaign to hold accountable for authorizing the use of torture and manipulating American public opinion to justify the immoral and illegal invasion of Iraq. We have circulated a petition stating:

“We the undersigned students, faculty, staff, alumni, and other concerned members of the Stanford community, believe that high officials of the U.S. Government, including our former Provost, current Political Science Professor, and Hoover Institution Senior Fellow, Condoleezza Rice, should be held accountable for any serious violations of the Law (including ratified treaties, statutes, and/or the U.S. Constitution) through investigation and, if the facts warrant, prosecution, by appropriate legal authorities.”

As of this writing, over 1,200 students, alumni, faculty and community members have signed the petition. Stanford Says No to War also wrote a letter about Rice’s return and detailing the crimes she committed.

The people cannot sit back and rely on the Obama administration to uphold justice and prosecute war criminals such as Condoleezza Rice, George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, John Yoo and Donald Rumsfeld. It is up to us to stand up and fight for justice. The prosecution of today’s torturers is key to ensuring that torture does not occur in the future. Let’s not sit by complacently and let Obama solve the world’s problems. If we want to make the world a better place, we’ll have to do it ourselves and prosecuting war criminals is key to fulfilling that mission.

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UPDATE (Sept. 1, 2009): If you want more proof that torture is an ineffective interrogation technique, listen to this Congressional testimony by Ali Soufan, the FBI agent who interrogated Abu Zubaydah. According to Soufan, Zubaydah broke down and gave up crucial intelligence before he was tortured. It’s unfortunate that the obedient stenographer journalists at the Washington Post did not mention this crucial piece of information.