Our Call to drive out the Bush regime lays out an indictment of the
crimes this regime is committing here and around the world, and shows
the fascist direction in which this society is headed. What
follows is an online teach-in based on the 7 “YOUR GOVERNMENT”
statements that begin our Call. This teach-in below is still
under construction, so check back later for more.
(Click on “your government”)
YOUR GOVERNMENT, on the basis of outrageous
lies, is waging a murderous and utterly illegitimate war in Iraq, with
other countries in their sights.
YOUR GOVERNMENT is openly torturing people, and justifying it.
YOUR GOVERNMENT puts people in jail on the
merest suspicion, refusing them lawyers, and either holding them
indefinitely or deporting them in the dead of night.
YOUR GOVERNMENT is moving each day closer to a theocracy, where a narrow and hateful brand of Christian fundamentalism will rule.
YOUR GOVERNMENT suppresses the science that
doesn’t fit its religious, political and economic agenda, forcing
present and future generations to pay a terrible price.
YOUR GOVERNMENT is moving to deny women here, and all over the world, the right to birth control and abortion.
YOUR GOVERNMENT enforces a culture of greed, bigotry, intolerance and ignorance.
People look at all this and think of Hitler – and
they are right to do so. The Bush regime is setting out to radically
remake society very quickly, in a fascist way, and for generations to
come. We must act now; the future is in the balance.
(Read the rest of the Call to drive out the Bush regime)
YOUR GOVERNMENT, on the basis of outrageous
lies, is waging a murderous and utterly illegitimate war in Iraq, with
other countries in their sights.
-
Although George W. Bush has said that the US knew Iraq
trained al-Qaeda members in making bombs, poisons and deadly gases, and that an
alliance with terrorists would allow the Iraqi regime to attack America without
leaving any fingerprints, no evidence of this statement has ever been
produced. Colin Powell told the UN this
alleged training took place in a camp in Northern Iraq. The area he indicated was later revealed to
be outside of Iraq’s
control and patrolled by Allied war planes.
-
Dick Cheney said that it was believed that Saddam Hussein
had reconstituted nuclear weapons, while CIA reports up to 2002 showed no
evidence for his claim.
-
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld
said that he knew where Iraq’s
weapons of mass destruction were located: “They”re in the area around Tikrit
and Baghdad and
east, west, south, and north somewhat.”
Needless to say, no such weapons have been found east, west, south, and
north somewhat.
-
In George W. Bush’s 2003 state of the union address he claimed
that Iraq was trying to
import uranium from Niger,
supposedly to enrich it and advance a nuclear program. The documents that
purported that claim was false, and the former head of the CIA has said that
information should have never been included in the speech.
-
The Bush regime has stated that Iraq could deploy its weapons of
mass destruction in 45 minutes. This
claim was based on a single source which has yet to be named and is
contradicted by the statement made by British prime minister, Tony Blair, who
said that Iraq
had begun to conceal its weapons in May 2002, which meant that they could not
have been used within 45 minutes.
-
The Bush regime wants everyone to believe that Iraq
was responsible for the September 11th attacks.
The main basis for this claim was a supposed meeting between Mohammed
Atta, leader of the 9/11 hijackers, and an Iraqi intelligence officer in Prague. Czech intelligence later concluded that the
Iraqi’s meeting was not, in fact, with Atta.
-
The death toll for Iraq, as it slides into civil war,
is a MINIMUM of 39,942, with deaths per day rising from 20 to 36 in the third
year of the occupation. American deaths total 2,588 since the beginning of the
occupation.
-
To date, the Iraq
war and occupation has cost U.S.
taxpayers upwards of $301,678,000,000.
-
The use of white phosphorus in Iraq was said to have been
originally only for illumination at night. When that information was proven
false by an Italian documentary featuring the images of dead Iraqis killed by white
phosphorus, the US
military had to retract its statement, saying it was used as an incendiary
weapon against enemy combatants. This weapon ignites on contact with oxygen,
burns through the skin and won’t be extinguished unless it is deprived of
oxygen. While an international treaty restricts its use, the US is not a
signatory to the treaty.
-
The US
military has been accused of unthinkable war crimes: The rape and murder of a
fourteen-year old girl in Al-Mahmudiyah, south of Iraq; The massacre of twenty-four
unarmed civilians in Haditha; Eleven civilians in Ishaqi forced into the corner
of a room, with their hands bound, and shot by US troops. These atrocities and many more are not the
result of a few bad apples. Rather, the very
nature of this unjust war and the orders given from the highest levels of
government are to blame.
-
Kofi Annan, United Nations secretary general, declared that
the US-led war on Iraq was illegal. The invasion was not sanctioned by the UN Security Council or in
accordance with the UN’s founding charter.
-
US-led
forces in Iraq
have attacked population centers. There
were two major offensives on the civilian town of Fallujah
in 2004, as well as on al-Qaim, Tal Afar, Samarra
and Najaf. These attacks have resulted
in many civilian casualties and massive destruction of the urban physical
infrastructure, reportedly cutting off vital necessities including water and
medical supplies. These siege tactics
are prohibited under Article 14 of the Second Protocol of the Geneva
Conventions.
-
The Bush Administration, while
publicly advocating diplomacy in order to stop Iran from pursuing a nuclear
weapon, has increased clandestine activities inside Iran-drawing up targets,
collecting information inside the country, and participating in intensified
planning for a possible major air attack.
-
In regards to the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, the
Bush regime declares that we are witnessing the widening ripples of September
11, 2001. This is the truth turned upside down.
This campaign began with the invasions of Afghanistan
and Iraq and now threatens
war against Iran, a major
target of today’s US-sponsored Israeli attack on Lebanon. Israel’s actions can’t be
understood without taking this context into account.
Sources:
Ten Appalling Lies We Were Told About Iraq
http//www.alternet.org/story/16274/
20 Lies About the War
http//www.transnational.org/features/2003/RangwalaWhitaker_20LiesWar.html
“Iraq
Death Toll in Third Year of Occupation is Highest Yet”
http://www.iraqbodycount.net/press/pr13.php
US
troops used white phosphorus as a weapon in last year’s offensive in the Iraqi
city of Fallujah, the US has said.
http//news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4440664.stm
Bad Apples from a Rotten Tree: Military Training
and Atrocities
http//www.counterpunch.org/smith08052006.html
“Iraq war was illegal and breached UN charter, says
Annan”
http//www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,1305708,00.html
“NGO Letter to the Security Council on Iraq”
http//www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/iraq/unrole/2006/0519iraqletter.htm
“The Iran
Plans”
http//www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/060417fa_fact
The interests behind Israel’s
attack on Lebanon,
and the interests of the people.
http://rwor.org/a/056/israelattack-en.html
Also check out:
Read the first chapter of Larry Everest’s book Oil, Power, & Empire.
Prevailing in Iraq– Slideshow on the realties of the Iraq War.
YOUR GOVERNMENT is openly torturing people, and justifying it.
FACT SHEET:
-
Since January 2002, the United
States has been holding men virtually incommunicado at the United States Naval
Station in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba without access to any fair and
adequate legal process. The U.S. Department of Defense continues to maintain
strict control over the information released about its treatment of prisoners
at Guantanamo.
-
The Bush administration claims that current prisoners of
war and supposed al Qaeda prisoners are Enemy Combatants. They are using this
terminology to refer to alleged terrorists captured in Afghanistan and Iraq so that no protected status or
rights apply to the captured under international or domestic law. Because
everyone captured in a war is supposed to be protected by the Geneva
Conventions, rejecting the prisoner of war categorization and replacing it with
an “Enemy Combatant” category violates international law.
-
POW status gives the occupying country the right to detain
the captured, but not to coerce the prisoner to divulge information through
force. Prisoners are to be considered POWs until there is a special hearing at
which a tribunal can make a decision that they are not POWs. The Bush
administration has refused to follow these procedures in Afghanistan or Iraq.
-
The United Nations Convention Against Torture (signed by
almost every country in the world including the U.S.) states that torture cannot be
used under any circumstances. At Kandahar and
Bagram (Afghanistan)
prisoners were beaten, shackled, repeatedly deprived of food, and kept on their
knees for sixteen hours at a time (a “stress” position.) Prisoners on their way to Kandahar were dressed in orange jumpsuits,
shackled at arms, legs, and waist, forced to wear blacked out goggles and ear
coverings, and forcibly transported on a plane for 24 hours–unable to use the
bathroom. They had to lie in their own feces and urine without knowing where
they were going.
-
At Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, torture is:
-Psychological (such as not letting prisoners know when or
if they will ever be released, putting them in isolation camps where prisoners
are stripped and their heads shaved, humiliating prisoners through mocking
religious beliefs such as making Muslim prisoners eat pork and look at each
other’s naked bodies),
-Physical (holding prisoners in dog-run cages exposed to
the elements, forcing prisoners to endure temperatures of 110 degrees, sleeping
on concrete floors with scorpions and rat infestations, experiencing beatings
by the Immediate Reaction Force (IRF), dealing with sleep, bathroom and food
deprivation, being put in stress positions such as forced kneeling chained to a
ring in the floor for hours at a time).
-
Recently released detainees from Guantanamo have stated
that they were interrogated as many as 200 times each. Especially in terms of
the conditions of interrogations, this much questioning is psychologically
devastating.
-
Prisoners in Guantanamo came from Afghanistan, but were also abducted from Indonesia, Zambia,
Azerbaijan, Germany, Morocco,
Gambia and Pakistan, and
not always from combat situations.
-
Prisoner hunger strikes have persisted since February of
2002, especially in order to protest for rights to fair hearings.
-
In the first year and a half since Guantanamo opened,
eighteen individuals made 28 suicide attempts. The suicide attempts were among
350 “self-harm” incidents reported by the military in 2003, which
included 120 “hanging gestures”.
Also disturbing was the coordinated mass suicide attempt in August of
2003 involving ten prisoners. This form of protest followed Major General
Geoffrey Miller taking of command at Guantanamo, with a mandate to acquire even more
information from prisoners accused of having associations with the Taliban or
Al Qaeda.
-
In June 2006, three detainees finally succeeded in killing
themselves – a Yemeni and two Saudis who had participated in various hunger
strikes committed suicide. Harry Harris, camp commander at the time, said: “They have no regard for life, either ours or
their own. I believe this was not an act of desperation, but an act of
asymmetrical warfare waged against us.”
-
Similar interrogation procedures to those at Guantanamo are
used at Abu Ghraib–detainees are hooded with wires with electrical currents
attached to their hands, forced to simulate sexual acts, naked, with other male
prisoners, led on leashes by soldiers, attacked by vicious dogs, etc.
-
Former head of Abu Ghraib, Janis Karpinski, has testified
that a memo signed by Sec. of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was posted in the prison,
with a list of “harsher interrogation techniques” to be used and a
handwritten note by Rumsfeld: “make
sure this happens!“
-
A report by Major General Antonio M. Taguba in the New Yorker states that these acts of
torture “perpetuated by the soldiers of the 372nd Military Police Company,
800th MP Brigade, and also by members of the American intelligence community”
include breaking chemical lights and pouring the phosphoric liquid on
detainees; pouring cold water onto naked detainees; beating detainees with a
broom handle and a chair; threatening male detainees with rape; allowing a
military police guard to stitch the wound of a detainee who was injured after
being slammed against the wall in his cell; sodomizing a detainee with a
chemical light and perhaps a broom stick, and using military working dogs to
frighten and intimidate detainees with threats of attack, in one instance
actually to bite a detainee.
-
The report Article
15-6 Investigation of the 800th Military
Police Brigade listed the following abuses: Punching, slapping, and kicking
detainees; jumping on their naked feet; videotaping and photographing naked
male and female detainees; forcibly arranging detainees in various sexually
explicit positions for photographing; forcing detainees to remove their clothing
and keeping them naked for several days at a time; forcing naked male detainees
to wear women’s underwear; forcing groups of male detainees to masturbate
themselves while being photographed and videotaped; arranging naked male
detainees in a pile and then jumping on them; positioning a naked detainee on a
MRE Box, with a sandbag on his head, and attaching wires to his fingers, toes,
and penis to simulate electric torture; writing “I am a Rapest” (sic)
on the leg of a detainee alleged to have forcibly raped a 15-year old fellow
detainee, and then photographing him naked; placing a dog chain or strap around
a naked detainee’s neck and having a female Soldier pose for a picture with him;
a male MP guard having sex with a female detainee; using military working dogs
(without muzzles) to intimidate and frighten detainees, and in at least one
case biting and severely injuring a detainee; taking souvenir photographs of
dead Iraqi detainees.
-
The problems at Abu Ghraib were not hidden from officials–but
many reports of torture were not followed up on. Abuses could have been
prevented by General Karpinski had the reports been acted on as they came out (commander
of the 800th Military Police Brigade, now testifies against the Bush
Regime on the Bush Crimes Commission. Read her testimonies on torture at Abu
Ghraib on the web at http://www.bushcommission.org/?q=node/31).
-
Although practices such as sleep deprivation, dietary
manipulation, stress positions, and the use of dogs are now barred by the U.S., Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld told in a
Senate hearing on May 12, 2004 that
these techniques had been approved at the Pentagon.
-
Amnesty
International states in 2004 that: “Full
accountability, of persons at all levels of the chain of command, including
officers in the armed forces, Central Intelligence Agency personnel and private
contractors, with no hint of scapegoating of low-level soldiers and reservist
officers, is crucial”. The problem does not begin or end at Abu Ghraib. The
rule of law and promotion of security and human rights demand that daylight be
shone onto all US
detention policies and practices.“
SOURCES
http://www.npr.org/iraq/2004/prison_abuse_report.pdf
http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?040510fa_fact
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2004/0411.carter.html
http://www.amnesty.org/
“Guantanamo: What the World Should Know”, By
Michael Ratner and Ellen Ray
http://www.ccr-ny.org
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/5068228.stm
“Tortured
Truth”, Moazzam Begg
YOUR GOVERNMENT puts people in jail on the
merest suspicion, refusing them lawyers, and either holding them
indefinitely or deporting them in the dead of night.
FACT SHEET:
(1) “Inside the United States, the most
radical departure from law as we know it is President Bush’s claim that he can
designate any American citizen an ‘enemy combatant’ – and thereupon detain that
person in solitary confinement indefinitely, without charges, without a trial,
without a right to counsel.”
“We have gone
back to a pre-Magna Carta medieval system, not a system of laws, but of
executive fiat, where the king – or in this case the president – simply
decides”I’ going to throw you into some prison. You are not going to have
access to a lawyer or anybody else, or even know if there are any charges
against you, or if you will ever be released from this prison.”
“By November 2001, the police and FBI had already
arrested and detained by some estimates up to three thousand Muslim or Arab
non-citizens in the United
States. These people were not even suspected
of terrorism; they were merely non-US citizens who had allegedly violated some
immigration procedure. Many of these people effectively disappeared in US
jails; a number were beaten and ultimately deported.”Regarding the basic
illegality of the Guantanamo interrogation camp
located in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba:“These interrogation camps were outlawed by the Geneva Conventions
in 1949, and are quite similar to the German [Nazi] World War II operations
that lead to the ban.”[Source: Ratner, Michael, and Ellen Ray. Guantanamo – What the World Should Know. White
River Jct., Vermont:
Chelsea Green Publishing Company, 2004.]
(2) “‘They’re
removing the checks and balances on federal law enforcement and the executive
branch by the federal courts,’ [ACLU’s chief lobbyist in Washington] Murphy said.”[Source: Lancaster, John. “Attacks Mute the ACLU’s
Voice.” Washington
Post, 28 September 2001. http://www.commondreams.org/headlines01/0928-03.htm.]
(3) “Said
Cole, a professor at the Georgetown
University Law
Center, ‘[This] is what
the McCarthy era was all about. We overreacted, finding guilt by association
and putting people under suspicion not for what they did, but for their
identity.'”[Source: Leonard, Mary. “Risk To Liberty Feared in Proposed Legislation.”
Boston Globe,
24 September 2001. http://www.commondreams.org/headlines01/0924-02.htm.]
(4) Legal experts and defense attorneys say that
the government is deliberately abusing Material Witness Statutes (used in grand
jury investigations) to arrest and hold thousands of people in unprecedented
numbers without explanation or charges and for unknown duration:–“‘Before Sept. 11, 99 percent of the material witness
orders would have never been issued,’ said [defense attorney Stanley] Cohen.
Now ‘there isn’t a federal judge in the United States, when faced with a
… sealed secret evidence assertion to an affidavit, that is going to say
‘denied.'”–“‘all it takes is an accusation, and they can make
your life horrible, and you spend thousands of dollars trying to prove your
innocence.'”–“‘”many of the people who have been swept up in these
immigration sweeps are persons who previously had been identified as political
activists in their respective communities who had immigration issues.'”[Source: Jakes, Lara. “Lawyers Worry About Secrecy
Being Used in Roundups.” Seattle
Post-Intelligencer, 13 October 2001. http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/42648_detain13.shtml.]
(5) “The USA
Patriot Act, which makes it easier for the government to monitor, search,
detain or deport suspects and gives the Justice Department more power to detain
immigrants without charges. Also in November 2001, the government stopped
saying how many people it has detained related to the Sept. 11 attacks.”[Source: Milbank, Dana. “In War It’s Power to the
President.” Washington
Post, 20 November 2001. http://www.commondreams.org/headlines01/1120-01.htm.]
(6) “[Center
for Constitutional Rights] legal director Bill Goodman told IPS, ‘Shortly after
9/11, the Department of Justice detained approximately 2,000 Muslim men,
primarily from the Middle East and South Asia.
Not one of these men was ever found to have been guilty of any form of
terrorism, or even linked to terrorism.'”–“These men were held for many months longer than
necessary, in solitary confinement, often physically abused and under degrading
conditions. The government fought tooth and nail against any judicial oversight
of what was going on.”–“‘This was the beginning of what has been shown to be
the U.S.
policy of indefinite detention without due process, often involving torture,’
he said.”[Source: Fisher, William. “Post-9/11 Dragnet Snares
Class Action Lawsuit.” Inter Press Service, 25 January 2006.
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0125-04.htm.]
(7) “In
September 2001, [former Attorney General John Ashcroft] ordered that all
deportation hearings with links to the Sept. 11 investigation be conducted
secretly.”— MKB v. Warden
(Case No. 03-6747) only became publicly known because of court docketing error.[Source: Richey, Warren. “Secret 9/11 Case Before High
Court.” Christian Science Monitor, 30 October 2003. http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/1030-07.htm.]
(10) The Bush
administration’s trampling of the Constitutional rights of a U.S. citizen: Yasser Hamdi.–“The Pentagon announced that it would begin making
arrangements to allow Yasser Esam Hamdi, a U.S. citizen, access to a lawyer
after more than 20 months of incommunicado military detention”.”— The Pentagon insisted that access to a lawyer was only
being granted “as a matter of discretion and military policy,” not to
comply with any requirement of domestic or international law. Indeed, the
Pentagon maintains that its decision for Hamdi should not in any way ‘be
treated as a precedent’ to be used in any other such ‘combatant’ case.”— The Pentagon’s decision to grant Hamdi “access to
counsel after nearly two years did not commit the administration to providing
any more than that – for example, international law protections for the
treatment of prisoners of war, or constitutional requirements that he be
afforded notice of any charges against him and an opportunity to be heard by an
independent court.”[Source: Pearlstein, Deborah. “Detained at the Whim of
the President.” International Herald Tribune, 10 December 2003. http://www.commondreams.org/scriptfiles/views03/1210-06.htm.]
(11) U.S.
citizen Jose Padilla was detained in a military prison without charges for
years. The Supreme Court refused to hear Padilla’s appeal in April of 2006.
According to a leaked document, Bush intends to have GOP Congress enact
legislation to continue to assert un-Constitutional presidential powers
regarding detainment of terrorist suspects—powers that the Supreme Court has
already ruled against.–“In shifting Mr. Padilla to civilian custody, the
government said that it reserved the right to re-designate him as an enemy
combatant and send him back to military custody. His lawyers argued that for
that reason, the Supreme Court should hear his case.”–“‘Nothing the government has yet done purports to
retract the assertion of executive power Padilla protests,’ Justice Ginsburg
said [in her dissenting opinion], adding that ‘nothing prevents the executive
[branch of government] from returning to the road it earlier constructed and
defended.'”[Source: Greenhouse, Linda. “Justices Decline Terror
Case of a U.S. Citizen.” New York Times, 4 April 2006.
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0404-08.htm.]–“That is, effectively, what the administration’s
draft of new rules for the military detention and trial of terrorism suspects
would do”It seeks to have Congress write into law essentially the same
procedures for military trials that the high court just said were illegal. That
is, terrorism suspects still could be excluded from the courtroom, evidence
could be withheld from the defense, and the Geneva Conventions – which the
Supreme Court explicitly said must apply, would be circumvented.”–“More chilling is that the draft makes clear that the
president wishes to impose these conditions upon any American citizen he calls
an ‘enemy combatant’.”[Source: Cocco, Marie. “Bush is After Our Rights.”
Daily Camera (Boulder, CO), 2 August 2006.
http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0802-28.htm.]
YOUR GOVERNMENT is moving each day closer to a theocracy, where a narrow and hateful brand of Christian fundamentalism will rule.
Selected Articles Online:
Esther Kaplan: On the Trail of the Christian Right, an interview with Esther Kaplan, conducted by Sunsara Taylor for Revolution newspaper
Rabbi James Rudin: The ‘Christocrats’ Are Here – an interview on Buzzflash.com
How the GOP
Became God’s Own Party, by Kevin Phillips
A Way To Understand What’s Going On: The Two Pats, And Andrew Sullivan… And Cornel West by Bob Avakian, Chairman of the Revolutionary
Communist Party
Book Recommends:
Contempt: How the Right Is Wronging American Justice, by Catherine Crier
With God on Their Side: How Christian Fundamentalists
Trampled Science, Policy, and Democracy in George W. Bush’s White House, by Esther Kaplan
The Truth About Right-wing Conspiracy….And Why
Clinton and the Democrats are No Answer,
by Bob Avakian (available at revcom.us)
The Baptizing of America: The Religious Right’s
Plans for the Rest of Us, by James
Rudin
Jesus Land: A Memoir, by Julia Scheeres
American Theocracy : The Peril and Politics of Radical
Religion, Oil, and Borrowed Money in the 21st Century, by Kevin Phillips
The Coming Civil War
and Repolarization for Revolution in the Present Era, by Bob Avakian (available at revcom.us)
YOUR GOVERNMENT suppresses the science that
doesn’t fit its religious, political and economic agenda, forcing
present and future generations to pay a terrible price.
Listen to audio
of testimonies by Ted Glick, Tom Goldtooth and Daphne Wysham from the
Bush Crimes Commission on Global Warming and the Destruction of the
Global Environment.
YOUR GOVERNMENT moving to deny women here, and all over the world, the right to birth control and abortion.
Fact Sheet:
-
On his
very first day in office, George W. Bush reinstated a global “gag rule” on
abortion. This gag rule, called the Mexico City Policy, stipulates that
non-profits must scrap all services relating to abortion in order to keep any U.S. money for international
family planning (coming through the relief agency USAID). He later
extended this policy to all international family planning programs[1] -
In the
developing world, the Mexico City Policy means that the number of illegal
or “back-alley” abortions increase dramatically, because without funding,
many clinics must shut their doors (a clinic serving over a quarter
million people in Kenya
closed after USAID funding was withdrawn.) There are 20 million illegal
procedures performed each year, and 70,000 deaths annually from illegal
abortion procedures[2]. -
In
November of 2003, the Bush regime signed the “partial-birth abortion” (a
non-scientific term made up by the pro-life movement) ban into law,
implementing the first-ever nationwide ban since abortion became legal
with the Roe v. Wade decision in 1973. -
The
Dept. of Justice, under John Ashcroft, has requested the records of women
who have received abortion services[3]. -
Seven
states, including Illinois, Louisiana, and Kentucky have either trigger laws to
ban abortion immediately if Roe v. Wade is overturned or have statements
of policy that display the same intention for immediate bans. -
Extreme
pro-life activists have been appointed to fill important positions
throughout the Bush Regime. Anti-choice governor Tommy Thompson heads up
the department of Health and Human Services, abstinence-only advocate Alma
Golden runs the nation’s family planning program Title X, and
anti-choice/Christian fundamentalist doctors opposed to contraception and
all forms of abortion (even the morning after pill, which is not in fact
an abortifacient) make key decisions delaying or preventing access to
celebrated new contraceptives and abortifacients while they
disproportionately dominate FDA advisory boards[4]. -
Although
it is unconstitutional and currently being challenged in the Supreme
Court, Congress passed, and Bush signed into law, a Federal Abortion Ban
in 2003. This ban would outlaw abortions as early as 12 to 15 weeks in
pregnancy. -
Experts
consider the fact that the Bush Regime has stacked the Supreme Court with
Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. (refuses to state his views on women’s
right to choose) and Justice Samuel Alito Jr. (has a record of hostility
toward women’s rights and privacy rights) ominous, and that these appointments leave the
states one more Bush judicial appointment away from prohibiting abortion[5] -
The
Centers for Disease Control, a (government) agency under HHS, has recently
reclassified all women as “pre-pregnant” and recommends that physicians
hold standards of prenatal care above other health concerns for women,
celebrating pregnancy as the ultimate achievement and goal for women[6]. -
In
March of 2006 South
Dakota banned all abortions except those performed to save the
life of the mother. There are no exceptions provided in this law for cases
of rape or incest. The law was passed “in hopes of drawing a legal
challenge that will cause the US Supreme Court to reverse its 1973
decision legalizing abortion.”[7] -
The
Bush regime has passed the Unborn Victims of Violence Act, which gives a
fertilized egg legal status distinct from woman. This law is a clear
threat to the foundations of Roe v. Wade.[8]
[1] http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/20010123-5.html
[2] Esther
Kaplan, “With God on Their Side: George W. Bush and the Christian Right.”
[3] “The War
on Women: A Pernicious Web”, Planned Parenthood special report, www.plannedparenthood.org
[4] Esther
Kaplan, “With God on Their Side: George W. Bush and the Christian Right.”
[5]
Stateline.org, June 22nd 2006
[6] Washington Post, May 16th
2006, page HE01
[7] CNN.com, “South Dakota
Bans Most Abortions,” March 6th 2006
[8] “The War
on Women: A Pernicious Web”
For Further Info:
PBS’s Frontline- “The Last Abortion Clinic In Mississippi”
Audio of Dr. Alan Berkman, Columbia University on Attacks on Global Public Health and Reproductive Rights from the Bush Crimes Commission.
Book Recommend: How the Pro-Choice Movement Saved America by Cristina Page
YOUR GOVERNMENT enforces a culture of greed, bigotry, intolerance and ignorance.
FACT SHEET:
-
10-term Republican incumbent Rep. Richard H. Baker from Baton Rouge was overheard telling lobbyists: “We
finally cleaned up public housing in New
Orleans. We couldn’t do it, but God did.” after
Katrina hit New Orleans.
-
Tapes of White House video-conferences about Hurricane
Katrina with emergency officials show that President Bush was fully aware of
the threat posed to New Orleans
before Hurricane Katrina. He claimed to be “fully prepared” for the
crisis. The tapes make it clear that he personally received serious warnings of
what could happen if the levees protecting New Orleans gave way. However-four days after
the storm hit he told reporters: “I don’t think anybody anticipated the
breach of the levees.” Then he allowed the National Guard to descend on
the city of New Orleans
with shoot-to-kill orders. These orders mainly applied to the thousands of poor
Black people who were labeled “looters” to the rest of world while
merely attempting to survive the disaster by obtaining food, water and other
supplies.
-
Although the majority of New Orleans residents were Black before
Katrina hit, mostly only well-off white people have been allowed or able to
return to the city. The federal office of Housing and Urban Development, or
HUD, plans to raze half the low-income housing units in the city and replace
them with more “mixed-income” housing. Only 20% of the 5,000 mostly
Black families that lived in public housing in N.O. have been able to return
since the Hurricane.
-
U.S.
based firms Halliburton and Bechtel Halliburton Corp., previously headed by
Vice President Dick Cheney and former Secretary of State George Shultz and
ex-Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger, respectively, have won billions of dollars
in regular and no-bid contracts for work in Iraq
from the U.S.
government. Haliburton is the biggest single government contractor in Iraq This sort
of unimpeded war profiteering is indicative of the deep rooted greed of the
Bush Regime.
-
The Washington Post reports that the practice of turning to
private contractors for a broad range of military logistics operations dates to
a study commissioned by then-Defense Secretary Dick Cheney after the 1991
Persian Gulf War. The Pentagon chose Brown and Root to conduct the study and
then hired the company to implement its own plan. Cheney became chief executive
of Halliburton, Brown and Root’s parent company, in 1995 and remained there
until 2000, when he left to run for the vice presidency.
-
The legislature and the Bush regime as a whole are currently
attempting to ban same-sex marriage on a nationwide level through the Federal
Marriage Amendment, a constitutional amendment that would also ban civil unions
and marriage-related benefits such as the ability to file jointly on taxes.
This attempt, which would increasingly stigmatize gay couples in society, is a
blatant manifestation of the disregard and outright hatred for the LGBTQ
community which prevails under the Bush Regime.
-
The Bush regime has also passed the Defense of Marriage Act,
or DOMA, which defines marriage as a legal union of one man and one woman. This
way, federal law can never be interpreted otherwise. Under the DOMA, the
Federal government refuses to recognize same-sex marriages or civil unions,
even if state law, like in Massachusetts,
recognizes those unions.
SOURCES:
-“New Orleans
poor blacks charge racism over housing”, 27 Jun 2006 22:02:59 GMT”Source:
Reuters http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N27243525.htm
-“Some GOP Legislators Hit Jarring Notes in Addressing
Katrina”, Charles Babington, Saturday, September 10, 2005; Page A04
-“Bush was given Katrina warning, tapes reveal”, March
3, 2006, The Guardian
-“Racist ‘Shoot to Kill’ Policy in New Orleans: White versus Black
‘Looters'” http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=PIN20050908&articleId=901
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