From a World Can’t Wait organizer, 10/1/06:
The “torture bill” passed by the House and Senate this week and
signed by Bush on Friday represents a turning point in the rule of law. In one
fell swoop, Bush repudiated long standing US and international law. The right
of the accused to confront his or her accusers, the right of the accused to see
the evidence presented them, the right to “have your day in court” (i.e.,
habeas corpus), the right to judicial review of this new system – all this is
wiped out in the new law.
This is only the beginning. The Geneva Convention, a
cornerstone of international precedent for over 50 years, has prohibitions
against torture. Now Bush gets to decide on what interrogation methods he
considers o.k. Remember, this is a man who as governor of Texas personally presided over the execution
of 131 people. And evidence obtained through “coercion” – in plain English,
torture – will be allowed in these military tribunals. People should note that
this new law applies to anyone Bush says it applies to – including legal
residents and citizens of the US.
This law opens a new era, in which the law is basically
whatever Bush and his crew says it is. As Molly Ivins wrote in her article “Habeas
Corpus, R.I.P.“, “the bill simply removes a suspect’s right to challenge
his detention in court. This is a rule of law that goes back to the Magna Carta
in 1215. That pretty much leaves the barn door open”. Ivins concluded her
article saying that “Fellow citizens, this bill throws out legal and moral
restraints as the president deems it necessary-these are fundamental principles
of basic decency, as well as law.”
This is serious, folks.
A lot of people have hopes that Democratic victories in the
mid-term elections will somehow turn this around. They note that all the
prominent Democratic Senators – Clinton, Feinstein, Schumer, Kennedy, Kerry,
etc., voted against the bill. A few facts would be helpful to consider here.
First is that none of these people made any serious
criticisms of the new law before it was debated and passed. And once it was put
before the Senate, they made no serious attempt to prevent a vote on it. As
even the editorial page of the New York
Times – not known for advocating radical positions – put it, “if there was
ever a moment for a filibuster, this was it”.
Holding out hope that this law will be overturned in the
courts is a pipe dream, at best, a crippling, killing illusion at worst. For
one thing, it will take years before a hearing is held, if then, assuming that
serious challenges are, (a), mounted to its legality, and (b), the Supreme
Court decides to hear them. This means that if you are hanging on to this
strategy, you are conceding to the likes of Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld a clear
path to years of torture, secret detentions and trials, and rape. Again from
the New York Times: “The bill
effectively eliminates the idea of rape as torture”.
Even if this law somehow does ever get reviewed by the
Supreme Court, keep in mind that Bush has been packing it with the likes of
Christian Fascist Alito and Chief Justice Roberts so they would agree with
his most basic policies. (People with memory banks operating independently of
the Bush hard drive may remember that Democratic Senator Biden and others
threatened a filibuster against Alito’s nomination, and did the same thing then
that they did with this torture law – which is to say, not a damn thing).
Take a hard look at how things have gone in the past few
years. Time after time, issue after issue – whether it’s the nomination of
extreme right wingers to judicial posts, the Patriot Act and its mandate for
universal spying, and now a law that tears away what have long been considered
many of the most fundamental cornerstones of what some would call the “rule of
law, not of men”, Bush has gotten his way. Not too long ago Attorney General
Alberto Gonzalez was chastised when people learned he had called the Geneva
Convention “quaint”. Now it has been rendered obsolete. And the Democratic
leadership is standing by, mute, like bystanders coming upon a horrific freeway
collision.
As a friend of mine would say, it’s time to wake up and
smell the chorizo.
Many pundits in the media claim the Democrats are cowed
because they will be labeled as being “soft on the terrorists” if they oppose
whatever Bush wants. Think about the logic of this, and look at what it’s
accomplished, just in the past week. A law that can only be called fascist, a
law that, as Bruce Ackerman, a law professor at Yale said, “further entrenches
presidential power” was allowed to sail through by the Democratic leadership.
The very next day the Senate voted 100-0 (that’s right, unanimously) to approve
Bush’s requests for funding the war in Iraq. On what basis can anyone
expect people like these to somehow begin to oppose the Bush juggernaut?
Whatever people may think about the importance or
irrelevance (or anything in between) of the mid-term elections, the politics of
this country will never be changed while on the course and trajectory the Bush
regime is driving them. Think about this for a minute. Even if many Democrats
do get elected in November, they will be going into office on the terms set by
Bush and his allies. And any time they breathe a word of questioning, much less
opposition, they will be under relentless attack from the Republicans for
“letting our enemies roam free”. There needs to be a dramatic break and change
in the current political atmosphere. Without that, no amount of Democrats in
the House and Congress will significantly impact anything about the horrible
direction this society, and the entire world, are hurtling with Bush at the
helm.
Only tens of thousands of people in the streets, growing to
hundreds of thousands and more, will do that. Only a movement in which large
and growing numbers of people are determined to change the course of history –
to drive this regime and its whole rotten agenda from power – will do that.
There is a way, and there is a day to launch this movement
into an entirely different level. To tap into and let loose the creative energy
and passion of the millions disgusted, angry, anxious, and dead set against the
whole On October 5th, people will be leaving school, leaving work,
leaving their daily routines; in cities large and small, in towns and rural
areas, on campuses, throughout the entire country, to participate in historic
actions aimed at driving out the Bush Regime; aimed at changing history.
Be there. The world demands it.