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August 9, 2006
WB: The Boys From Brazil

Billmon:

So now we have the shameful spectacle of an American president asking his rubber stamp Congress to redefine the meaning of "war crimes," lest at some future date and in some future place he and his flunkies be forced to account for theirs. Just call it the Milosevic Amendment.

The Boys From Brazil

Posted by b on August 9, 2006 at 06:39 UTC | Permalink
Comments

“Is there a pit of slime so filthy these moral cretins won’t drag us through it? A cup of national humiliation so bitter they won’t make us drain it to the dregs?
Apparently not.” -Billmon
Excellent post. But very scary that our country has descended to this level of depravity.

Posted by: Rick Happ | Aug 9 2006 6:56 utc | 1

Well it looks like even more Israeli pols and generals will have restricted air-travel in the future.

Three lawyers in Morocco have recently filed a war crimes lawsuit against Israeli defense minister Amir Peretz – a Moroccan citizen, – and said that the Interpol should be tasked with bringing Peretz to justice in Morocco.

Posted by: Cloned Poster | Aug 9 2006 9:04 utc | 2

everyone knows that winners aren’t guilty of war crimes

Posted by: degustibus | Aug 9 2006 10:50 utc | 3

It’s offensive to think those people would be welcome here. Send them to Israel.

Posted by: alex | Aug 9 2006 12:14 utc | 4

Send them to Israel.?
Send them to a firing squad. This coming from an anti-death penalty advocate.

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Aug 9 2006 12:17 utc | 5

Rule of law!
The Hague it should be!

Posted by: Werner Dieter Thomas | Aug 9 2006 12:57 utc | 6

Rule of law?
hahaha….
To quote Moon’s own:

American jurisprudence when it relates to those with power – especially those with political power – can be very fluid
to be crude the powerful make the rules of jurisprudence & the poor are the victims of it
what bush has lost & i believe he has lost it irrevocably with the american people – is trust
i simply cannot bear all the googoo baabaa talk at firedoglake on ‘the law’ – it is that babytalk we hear so often in the university cafeterias – the law is not neutral – it is not above the actions & questions of human affairs & like its sister journalism it has become completely subsumed by its own internal necessities & ‘values’.
i do not now believe that that law can redeem anything except the most basic & accidental causalities

Thank you, R’giap

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Aug 9 2006 14:05 utc | 7

I find myself consumed by an almost overpowering rage. These traitors have betrayed the very essence of what the United States is supposed to be. In thoughts and actions, they are no different from the Nazis, Communists, and Islamic fundamentalists over whom they claim such moral superiority. The biggest difference is that they wield vastly more power than any of these ever did. As an American, I feel the blood up to my elbows, and wonder what my own personal responsibility is. Fifty years from now, will I be described as one of those “good Americans” who sat idly by while Bush and his gang of criminals committed crimes on a vast scale?
I’m starting to understand how someone like Lenin could feel so sickened by the entire system that he would think the only solution is wholesale destruction, and with it, the most immediate form of revolutionary justice. FBI and NSA — I’m saying I understand how he felt, not that we should actually line these villains up against the wall (although, by their own frontier standard of justice, they richly deserve it).
What can we do, when confronted with pure evil like this? The political system is thoroughly compromised, and most Americans just want gas to go back below $2/barrel. I fear there will be a terrible reckoning, and whatever the price we must pay is, it will be difficult to convince myself it is unfair.
Billmon, you are just a man, and I desire no brave Apollo, someone to lead us, someone to follow. But please, give us your thoughts on the question we can no longer ignore: What is to be done?

Posted by: Aigin | Aug 9 2006 14:19 utc | 8

please, give us your thoughts on the question we can no longer ignore: What is to be done?
Heh. That would get me in BIG trouble with the Secret Service.

Posted by: Billmon | Aug 9 2006 14:43 utc | 9

good catch #7

Posted by: annie | Aug 9 2006 15:02 utc | 10

#9
ROTFLMAO

Posted by: Werner Dieter Thomas | Aug 9 2006 15:31 utc | 11

That’s a question often asked by loved ones of drug addicts, alcoholics; what is to be done? We have a runaway government addicted to power at any price and by any method. The answer is the same for all of these addictions: Sometimes you have to wait until they hit rock bottom, living under a bridge so to speak, before they will consider trying to change their ways and solve the problems which have resulted.
America is working it’s way down to rock bottom, going down in flames like the phoenix, but hopefully will rise again, new and fresh and better than before.
What do we do? We wait, and try to rein in as many of the destructive actions that these power-mad lunatics come up with. The waiting is the hardest part.

Posted by: Ensley | Aug 9 2006 15:34 utc | 12

#9
ROTFLMAO

Posted by: Werner Dieter Thomas | Aug 9 2006 15:35 utc | 13

#9
ROTFLMAO

Posted by: Werner Dieter Thomas | Aug 9 2006 15:36 utc | 14

(oops, sorry, connection voodoo….)

Posted by: Werner Dieter Thomas | Aug 9 2006 15:45 utc | 15

The answer is the same for all of these addictions
and if the addiction is rape? do we wait until the rapist hits rock bottom? sorry ladies/sisters/daughters/mothers/grandmothers, we’ll just have to wait this one out?

Posted by: b real | Aug 9 2006 15:47 utc | 16

b real, you will note I said we must try to rein in their destructive actions (as in “prevent the rapes”) while waiting for the (rape) addict to finally want to turn himself in and change his life around. I didn’t say we should sit with our thumbs stuck up our kazooes and do nothing.
But America is not going to change until it is at the breaking point where this present course of action can’t be sustained anymore, a/k/a “hit bottom.” We don’t have a third-party to break the stranglehold our Washington power addicts have over this country. The few critters in both parties who have stood up against the Iraq war, Israel’s invasion of Lebanon, the PATRIOT Act, can be counted on one hand. Just getting a majority of Democrats in Congress will do nothing since most are part of the elite power machine and have rubberstamped over Bush’s signature more than their share of issues which were critical to retaining our rights and respect in the world. I’m one of the persuasion to “throw all the bums out” and replace them. But that is going to take a long time.
And so, since I also do not want to end up in a cell block with several of the others here (good company thought), I wait.
What do you propose to do?

Posted by: Ensley | Aug 9 2006 16:55 utc | 17

While you wait, I can recomend this short movie from 1946. It is very educational.
Despotism

Posted by: A swedish kind of death | Aug 9 2006 18:22 utc | 18

And so, since I also do not want to end up in a cell block with several of the others here (good company though), I wait.

If we are going to stand up against crimes against humanity, especially “our” own, I wonder if a shift in this very sentiment isn’t precisely the proposition, the corrective, the spark to ignite the course change that our collective and overflowing outrage demands.
Rove in chains, or me. Either Cheney goes to jail, or I do. Rumsfeld in the dock, or me! (Pinochet and Osama, too.)
NO violence, but civil disobedience.
There must be 100,000 of us (minimum) already who would turn ourselves in tomorrow — lock yourselves to some gate; lie down in some street; trespass some “non-trepassable” place — to lay it on the line. What would it look like if we all did this together, en masse, announced, and in has-to-be-covered-by-the-MSM fashion?
Sharing “three hots and a cot” with Sarandon and Mr. Mon, here — I’m down with that. I am willing and ready “to end up in a cell block with several of the others here.”
This is my propostion. Where and when do I show up? How many will join in? 100,000? 500,000? Millions around the planet?
We could tip the balance. We must. And how else? This is it: mass civil disobedience — Gahdhi, MLK, and us. It is the only instrument there is.

Posted by: manonfyre | Aug 9 2006 18:30 utc | 19

Good idea, manonfyre.
But this is where belonging to an organization and doing the daily work can be helpful. Then, when you get the feeling, you have access to thousands of like minded folks already, and can work together.

Posted by: Malooga | Aug 9 2006 18:44 utc | 20

Manofyre,
Here’s your recipe:
Enlist en masse for the purpose of refusing to deploy.
Otherwise, you’re back on the street on monday with no effect.

Posted by: gylangirl | Aug 9 2006 19:10 utc | 21

What is to be done?
“Stop feeding the dragon.”
Depending on your postions in society, you have different options on how.
If you are a share holder, check the war activity of your corporation[s]: hold corp officers accountable, go to share holder meetings and kick up a stink. Make them uncomfortable.
If you own a car, reduce you consumption. If you must buy gas, buy from a company not complicit in the war, like Citgo.
Reduce your purchases: Boycott Israeli products. If you live outside the US, boycott American and British products too. If you live inside the US, stop shopping at the mall, stop eating at corporate-owned restaurants. Buy only from small local business people, not from chain stores.
On election day, vote out incumbents. As you do, ask loudly “Is my vote going to be counted? How do I know this isn’t being hacked or pre-programmed toward the voting machine company’s favorite candidate? You don’t have paper verification of what I inputted?….etc.”
In conversations, object to pro-war comments among your acquaintances by providing them facts.
Don’t donate to ANY political campaigns. Don’t watch TV info-tainment channels, don’t support their advertisers. Don’t buy pro-war newspapers.
If you feel helpless to stop the bloodshed and the increasing number of refugees, then at least give blood at your local hospital, donate to your local food bank, donate to your local shelter.
If you attend churches, invite others to pray with you for peace. Walk out on objectionable sermons, yelling your objections. Yes it is ok to cause a scene like Jesus did. Put ‘raincheck’ messages in the collection plates.
If you are a musician, dust off / learn to perform all those old antiwar songs from the vietnam- and other -wars. If you are a poet write new anti war songs.
I am sure others can think of more suggestions….

Posted by: gylangirl | Aug 9 2006 19:21 utc | 22

manonfyre, been there, done that. During Vietnam, I can’t even begin to count how many times I was tear-gassed, billy-clubbed, tossed into holding cells, etc., during PEACEFUL demonstrations. I’m sorry, but my aging body won’t take that amount of abuse anymore. But I will hold the door and salute you young’uns in your twenties, thirties and forties as you go off to take your turn on the sidewalks of the world. I fight back from within the antiwar movement in less physical ways.

Posted by: Ensley | Aug 9 2006 19:23 utc | 23

@gylangirl
I like that idea, however, –and this is where anything we do gets sticky–,
there is no way to get around cointelpro 2.0. There is no way to communicate exchange ideals and coordinate, plan and excecute, that the prying eyes of our jailers can not see into. It (your idea or something like it) might work on local levels which is to say in small numbers, for a time, but once it reaches a mass it will be stopped by any means nessasary. I hate to be so myopic, but until we create a way to jam the system I see no way to conspire. And by consire, I mean the latin definition of breathing together.
Having sd, that I am hopeful an logistics of a
resistance can be created and pulled off. But I think, it needs to be one that changes things on such a level that it gets to the roots of all injustice not pieces and parts.

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Aug 9 2006 19:37 utc | 24

I think they are more sophisticated now. They just don’t give protest rallies any airtime or newspaper print: like it never happened. Or if they do, they show a clip without audio and spin what’s happening , they reduce the estimated crowd numbers, and videotape the most ridiculous looking costumes to discredit the sentiment. And they never report any police brutality or other civil liberties violations.
When there was an independent press, rallies worked. Now it’s ho hum, move on to the next diverting story. The only rally that would grab attention now is the kind where people never go home for weeks.

Posted by: gylangirl | Aug 9 2006 19:43 utc | 25

Why run away to Brazil when our boys can merely do this at the drop of a hat.
Letter from US Congress concerning ‘civilian prisoncamps’(scanned document)

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Aug 9 2006 20:14 utc | 26

I am very seriouly down with this. I need to talk with family and friends (have just in the last hour started this). Need to fulfill some work obigations, very near term, before subjecting myself to arrest and incarceration. But I am ready.
Target and date; invitation to others to do likewise; press announcement/release; etc., etc.
Somebody has to do something.
“Bush on trail; Rove in chains; Donald in the dock — or ME!”
@ Malooga: please forward any futher suggestions. glad to hear them!
@ gylangirl: it’s bigger than refusing to deploy, isn’t it? Back on the street on Monday — to do it again. And again. And again.
Bushworld is not the world my father (who recently passed away) wanted for me, or his father (an itinerant coal miner) wanted for him. It’s not the world I want to leave for the next generation.
For my own sanity, and even if I act alone and accomplish nothing — drop in the bucket; spit in the ocean — this really is looking like something I have to do. And I want to believe this is something that many, many others, around the world, are willing and ready to do, too. Like, Osamaworld is not the legacy that hundreds of millions of devoted muslims wish to leave as their legacy, either. Global, collective disgust with all of these radical advocates of “creative destruction” is mounting, if not ripe. Drop by drop, it could add up a sea change.
It’s like the bullies are lording it over the school yard, and no one is confronting them. Or, it’s like we are collectively pinned down in some form of sleep paralysis — horror and doom are barreling down on us, but we do not move — and this nightmare continues. The President, the VP, the AG, and SoD of the United States of America — advocates, ministers, apologists for TORTURE??!!! This and all the rest — the lies, the plunder, all the destruction already committed and all looms in the offing — it’s insane!
What? We’re gonna wait for foreign intervention?
Like others are asking here — like billions of human hearts are asking right now, in the very same way: What are we going to do?
I am going to pick a bucket, drip my drop, and hope that others respond in similar fashion.
I’ll keep you posted.

Posted by: manonfyre | Aug 9 2006 20:28 utc | 27

What really chokes me is, they are using my tax dollars to commit their murder and destruction and there’s nothing I can do about it.

Posted by: pb | Aug 9 2006 21:15 utc | 28

manonfyre, an apt eponym. I know what you are feeling, brother, and I respect you for your earnest desire to help change the world.
Knowledge + Right Action + Spirit + Togetherness.
Just watch your own needs to so you don’t burn out. It’s an endurance race.
@gylangirl #22:
Great suggestions. I really appreciate it.

Posted by: Malooga | Aug 9 2006 21:19 utc | 29

Uncle $cam, I’d be wary of that list of prison camps. The references to potential “UN” bases suggest that it was written by someone in the militia/”Patriot” community and relate to the belief that the UN is plotting to establish a world government which will deprive Americans of their freedoms and, in particular, their guns. Also, I doubt that there were ever “40,000 Albanians” in Guantanamo Bay…

Posted by: Gag Halfrunt | Aug 9 2006 23:13 utc | 30

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