|
Gonzales resigns, but torture,
spying, and round-ups continue
Sunsara Taylor
Online
Journal
Wednesday Aug 29, 2007
What’s
up with a country where a torturer -- and let’s call a spade
a spade -- an architect of a police state and fascist laws can
be forced to resign and no one in a position of power calls for
the reversal of everything he’s done and for his and his
boss’s indictment for war crimes?
What’s up is a system that is so hell-bent on extending
and preserving its empire that a police state that tortures is
the program of the whole lot of them? That’s why the Democrats
grandstand and garner political advantage over Gonzales’s
resignation but have not and will not oppose the essence of his
program.
And it is why the people must.
We do not have to -- nor should we want to -- live under a system
that enforces its rule through waterboarding (near-drowning) and
locking people away without charge or trial. A system that sets
this as its norms is one that cries out for revolutionary change!
(Article continues below)
And right now, while the regime is in disarray -- with first
Rove and now Gonzales resigning -- is the time for an "orange
uprising," an outpouring of resistance across this country
by everyone who doesn‘t want to condemn future generations
to a fascist police state. Orange, because this is the color forced
on the Guantanamo detainees and torture victims. And this "orange
uprising" must not stop until the Bush regime and its program
is driven from power. Whether you’re a revolutionary or
not, you have to confront the fact that if the Bush regime is
not driven from power, then everything Gonzales was part of will
remain -- the legalization and institutionalization of wire-tapping,
torture, indefinite detentions and so much more -- no matter who
becomes the next president.
Far from being defanged, George Bush is still commander in chief
and he is still pushing forward new horrors by the day. The Democrats
-- the majority in Congress and the line up of viable presidential
contenders: Hillary, Barack and Edwards -- are not challenging
his fascist program in any of its essential features.
Gonzales called the Geneva Convention ban on torture -- a crime
against humanity! -- "quaint" and is rightly hated for
this. But the Democrats and Republicans in Congress came together
to approve the Military Commission Act last October giving George
Bush the right to decide when the Geneva Conventions apply. This
came after the photos of Abu Ghraib. This came after the conscience
of the world was shocked by the photos of human beings stripped
naked, stacked up in pyramids, terrorized by dogs, raped and forced
to perform sexual acts on each other, religiously violated. These
photos were snapped with the sportsmanship and brazenness of southern
good ol’ boys who knew the law would never come for them
-- and for good reason. Even Hitler never came out and openly
admitted, and made legal, torture!
In a recent New Yorker article, Jane Mayer quotes an expert familiar
with C.I.A. interrogation protocol, "It’s one of the
most sophisticated, refined programs of torture ever . . . At
every stage, there was a rigid attention to detail. Procedure
was adhered to almost to the letter. There was top-down quality
control, and such a set routine that you get to the point where
you know what each detainee is going to say, because you’ve
heard it before. It was almost automated. People were utterly
dehumanized. People fell apart. It was the intentional and systematic
infliction of great suffering masquerading as a legal process.
It is just chilling."
Gonzales is leaving, but this torture continues as you read,
and will continue until the people drive out the Bush regime.
If you’re against this, you’ve got to visibly Declare
It Now by wearing orange -- spreading loud, visible, resistance
to the Bush regime's program.
Gonzales lied about Bush’s illegal wiretapping and is rightly
hated for this. But the Democratic majority in Congress and the
Republicans came together recently to change the laws to make
intrusive, unwarranted wiretapping -- and likely much more --
perfectly legal. Chuck Schumer and other Democrats can try to
claim Gonzales’s resignation as a victory, but surely this
cannot be counted as a victory for those who don’t want
a police state!
Think about it: the president was caught not only breaking the
law by spying on people without warrants, but also LYING repeatedly
about it. So was the attorney general. But rather than impeaching
and removing the whole batch of liars, the Democrats changed the
laws, made such spying legal and now call it a victory because
they get to be the ones presiding over the whole criminal affair!
Further, the new domestic spying law is so expansive that headlines
last week suggest it probably includes the right of the government
to conduct physical searches!
Gonzales is gone, but this spying continues as you read and will
continue until the people drive out the Bush regime. If you’re
against this, you’ve got to visibly declare it now by wearing
orange -- spreading loud, visible, resistance to the Bush regime's
program.
Gonzales was involved in the selective firing of several United
States attorneys for political reasons and he is rightly hated
for it. While Gonzales personally is not a Christian fascist,
what trickled out in this scandal is the extent to which all levels
of government have been packed with theocrats loyal to George
Bush and his hateful brand of Christianity. Monica Goodling resigned,
but she was only one of more than 150 graduates of Pat Robertson’s
Regent University who are working in the Bush administration.
Pat Robertson, don’t forget, blamed 9-11 on feminists, the
ACLU, abortionists and gays. Worse, Pat Robertson advocates overhauling
the penal justice system to correspond to the biblical model,
where "habitual criminals" (note: not even "violent"
criminals) are executed.
And none of this is being challenged, and in fact it is being
conciliated with, by the Democrats. As bad as the voter-caging
(systematic disqualification of voters likely to vote Democratic)
that these attorney firings were in the service of, the Democrats
do not represent any alternative in the interests of humanity.
Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards are all bending
over backwards cozying up to and ceding ground to those who want
to make this country into a theocracy. All of them have opposed
gay marriage. None of them have taken on the lunacy of George
Bush and so many of the Republican presidential candidates are
denying the fact of evolution. And none of them have taken on
the frontal assault on women’s right to abortion and birth
control without which women cannot be free. All of them refused
to filibuster the nomination of the Supreme Court justices these
Christian fascists were celebrating -- Alito and Roberts -- and
now we’ve seen the effective reversal of Brown vs. Board
of Education, the beginning of the criminalization of abortion,
and there is much worse to come.
Gonzales is gone, but this theocratic remaking of U.S. society
continues as you read and will continue until the people drive
out the Bush regime. If you’re against this, you’ve
got to visibly declare it now by wearing orange -- spreading loud,
visible, resistance to the Bush regime's program.
Finally, just look at who is being buzzed about to replace Gonzales:
Michael Chertoff!
This is a man who presided over the mass murder of residents
of New Orleans through criminal negligence during Hurricane Katrina!
This is the man who, as immigrants were already being rounded
up, detained and deported -- often leaving small children orphaned
and unprovided for -- said to the media, it’s "gonna
get ugly." [emphasis added] These ICE raids have continued
and, as Chertoff promised, they keep getting uglier.
Look at this "best of all possible worlds," American
democracy! It is a system where everyone within the "legitimate"
and official political spectrum is united on continuing and furthering
an unjust war for empire (under the rubric of a "war on terror")
and constructing a fascist police state. More than anything else,
this system needs to be done in and done away with. Short of that,
and as part of contributing to creating a situation where a whole
different future can be fought for by the people, this regime
must be resisted, its program reversed, and the people in power
driven out in disgrace.
There are political vulnerabilities revealed in Gonzales’s
resignation, and they must be seized on. Anyone who doesn’t
want to be remembered with more disgust than the "Good Germans,"
will step out as part of driving out the Bush regime that is continuing
the fascist measures Gonzales helped implement. Now is the time
for an "orange uprising."
|
INFOWARS:
BECAUSE THERE'S A WAR ON FOR YOUR MIND
|
|
