imprisonbush.com

Januanry 20, 2005 was a day to be proud of what America stands for. That’s what the conservative commentators said. It was a day to celebrate democracy, not to badmouth the president. But there people were, in Washington, D.C. and all across the country, saying bad things about the president. Look at these guys in San Francisco. Who do they think they are?

Hey! That’s not nice!

Now that’s just mean!

Oh, so Condi is evil now? Just because she lied to drag us into war?

You’re a grand old flag, you’re a high flying flag, and forever in… forever in… Dang. I forgot.

Now that’s just crazy! What does torture–I mean, “setting the conditions for interrogations”–sorry, I mean, “non-doctrinal interrogation techniques”–have to do with moral values anyway? Are you trying to say torture is a moral issue? Nobody ever mentions it at church!

So he’s broken a bunch of laws. Picky, picky!

Well, the partisan commentators were right about one thing. January 20 was a day to celebrate democracy. They just forgot what celebrating democracy actually means. Despite the way the press treats them, elections are not football games. Celebrating democracy means more than just being a loyal fan, sitting passively on your couch, and cheering for your team. It means getting involved, and standing up for what’s right. It means that when your government commits crimes, it is your civic responsibility to hold them accountable. That’s what happened on inauguration day. Thousands of people came out into the streets, to honor what America stands for, to celebrate democracy, and to denounce the criminal Bush administration.

I’ve been reflecting for the last couple of days about the audio tape, released this week, on which George W. Bush is recorded admitting that he had been a user of illegal drugs – certainly marijuana, and perhaps LSD and cocaine as well. As I’ve reflected, I’ve also observed the commentary made on the subject in the big, corporate media.

The dominant conclusion I’ve come to is that President Bush’s statements on audio tape, and his reactions to them, have shown what that the one thing that has stayed most constant in Bush’s life over the decades is his inability to make appropriate moral decisions. It seems that whenever Bush is faced with a moral decision, he chooses the easy path of immorality over the challenge of doing the right thing.

When Bush was young, he chose the easy path of breaking the law to purchase and use illegal drugs so that he could gain a temporary sensation of pleasure. When Bush ran for President, he chose the easy path of deceiving the American people about his past participation in illegal activities.

Then, when the audio tapes were revealed this week, he made the most politically easy, and most immoral, choice of all. Bush decided that instead of coming clean about his drug use, and using the opportunity to provide a moral lesson to America’s young people, he would lash out at the people who dared to record him speaking the truth about his past. Once again, Bush chose deception, and refused to stand up like a man, admit his mistakes, and provide true moral leadership for the country.

As one of the people who organize Imprison Bush, I’ve chosen to focus on Bush’s illegal activities. However, it’s safe to say that the statute of limitations on Bush’s illegal drug use has probably passed, and having smoked a joint before becoming President of the United States is not an impeachable offense.

That’s not to say that President Bush’s illegal drug use is okay. Not only did Mr. Bush break the law by using drugs, he also broke the law by buying illegal drugs. He knowingly and willingly supported a criminal culture in order to support his own habit of using artificial substances to get high – endangering other people’s lives for the sake of feeling good. Such behavior, while not strictly impeachable, is certainly wrong.

It’s amazing to me how many Christian Republicans have bent themselves over backwards in avoiding any blame to the President in this matter. I never thought I would see the day when right-wing evangelicals would be on the record as strenuously arguing that using illegal drugs is no big deal, but, now that Mr. Bush has been exposed as a drug user, that’s exactly what they’re saying.

The reason I’ve chosen to write about this issue here at Imprison Bush is that George W. Bush’s increasingly clear pattern of breaking the law must be taken into account when establishing his credibility at time of trial. President Bush is a convicted drunk driver, and has now been found to have a history of breaking drug laws. He has refused to be honest about all his illegal behavior, covering it up as long as possible.

For the President of the United States to have such a well established history of disregarding the law is quite material in the prosecution of George W. Bush’s even more serious crimes. It is quite to be expected that Mr. Bush would have a history of a cavalier attitude toward the rule of law, as it is exactly this characteristic that has been the most consistent feature of his record as President of the United States.

We all would have been better off if Mr. Bush’s law-breaking habits had been confined to his private life. Now, America is in the unfortunate position of having a President who is just as willing to use the considerable powers of his public office to undermine the laws as he was willing before as a private citizen to use his social position as a member of the Bush family to escape punishment when caught using drugs and driving drunk.

Reports of torture performed by the United States are flowing out so fast, even conservatives like Bill O’Reilly have had to take notice. For O’Reilly, though, torture isn’t the problem. Telling the truth is the problem:

“The trouble is the continuing reportage of the torture allegations is putting lives in danger. Hyping the situation to undermine the Bush administration is disgraceful and should be stopped.”

Ooh, that sounds bad. I mean, “reportage” even sounds French (hiss, boo)!

But if we take a close look at what O’Reilly is saying, we just find more of the moral rot that’s eating away at America.

He doesn’t think journalists should report about torture. Why? Is the reporting true? That’s not even an issue for O’Reilly. When news reporters say what someone says they should say, regardless of the truth, we no longer have news, just propaganda.

How exactly does telling the truth “put lives in danger?” O’Reilly doesn’t say. Perhaps he means that the lives of American soldiers in Iraq are at risk, as the truth about American brutality fans the flames of insurgency. If that’s what he means, he’s selling our troops short. American soldiers are perfectly willing to risk their lives for truth, justice, and the American way. That’s what they signed up for, nothing more and nothing less. O’Reilly wants them to stand for some perverted vision of the American way–without the truth or the justice. It’s a slap in the face of our men and women in uniform to ask them to stand for anything less than the greatest American values.

O’Reilly is also sending a rotten moral message to young people in America. In his twisted moral universe, torture isn’t the problem–telling the truth is the problem. Here’s the take home message kids: It’s OK to do something bad, but it’s wrong to tell the truth about it. It’s not the fault of the people who do bad things, it’s the fault of the tattletales “hyping the situation.”

Well, Mr. O’Reilly, let me tell you a little something media elites like you have forgotten: The real “danger” and “disgrace” is the torture itself, not the truth about it. The Bush administration has “undermined” itself, by approving violations of the Geneva Conventions.

O’Reilly has chosen his moral stance: oppose truth, and cover for torture. Just another termite eating away at the basis of American morality.

Where do you stand?

Reports of prisoner abuse keep pouring out of Guantanamo, Iraq, and Afghanistan.

One of the recent allegations comes from a translator named Erik Saar, who worked at Guantanamo in 2002 and 2003. Here is Saar’s account of an incident that happened at Guantanamo, as reported by the Associated Press:

“‘The concept was to make the detainee feel that after talking to [the female interrogator] he was unclean and was unable to go before his God in prayer and gain strength,’ says the draft, stamped ‘Secret.’

“The interrogator used ink from a red pen to fool the detainee, Saar writes.

“‘She then started to place her hands in her pants as she walked behind the detainee,’ he says. ‘As she circled around him he could see that she was taking her hand out of her pants. When it became visible the detainee saw what appeared to be red blood on her hand. She said, “Who sent you to Arizona?” He then glared at her with a piercing look of hatred.

“‘She then wiped the red ink on his face. He shouted at the top of his lungs, spat at her and lunged forward’ so fiercely that he broke loose from one ankle shackle.

“‘He began to cry like a baby,’ the draft says, noting the interrogator left saying, ‘Have a fun night in your cell without any water to clean yourself.’”

Treating another human being like this is repulsive for a lot of reasons. But even more troubling than the treatment itself is the motivation behind the treatment. This infliction of ritual impurity was coldly calculated to tear this prisoner away from God. That’s right! TEAR HIM FROM GOD!

The United States of America brought prisoners to Guantanamo for a reason. They tried to establish Guantanamo as a place where the Geneva Conventions did not apply, where American laws did not apply, where international laws did not apply. Then they took it one step farther, and made it a place where prisoners were separated from the one source of strength and solace they had left–God Himself.

Many of us learned in Sunday School about a place where prisoners have no rights, where they are tortured, where they are separated from God. It’s called Hell. Never, never in our darkest nightmares did we fear that the United States of America would establish this place on earth. But it has.

There are moments in our lives when we are met with moral challenge. When we are called upon to do what is right. When the time comes to stand tall, to look evil in the face, and to defy it. When we must resist the temptation to turn our backs, even if the struggle is not easy, or we are discouraged, or we are tired, or we are disillusioned. This moment is now, and the cause has never been more clear.

Where are our spiritual leaders? Where are our moral leaders? To those who turn their backs at this moment, I say this: Put down your sacred books, step away from your pulpits, never again speak the word “God,” never again wave the flag, silence your empty talk of “values” and “morality,” not another word of “freedom” and “democracy.” You have already abandoned the meaning behind these things, now abandon the symbols too. You are not our moral leaders. You are not our spiritual leaders. Get out of our way.

It may not make the front page anymore, but accounts of torture keep pouring out of Guantanamo. Now we hear of a Canadian child by the name of Omar Khadr, who was captured at age fifteen. According to his lawyer, he was shackled to the floor in a painful position for hours, and not allowed to use the bathroom. When he finally urinated on the floor and on himself, he was dragged on the floor, still shackled, through his own urine.

“Moral values” means nothing if it does not mean this: You never, ever do that to another human being, no matter what.

This week brings news of a crime by the Bush Administration so coldly calculated that it will give a real chill to those Americans who still bother to pay attention to those pesky little things commonly known as facts. While a slim majority of Americans are content to play around with faith based initiatives, a principled minority has hung on to one of those great ideas of the Enlightenment: Human beings, if they are honest and careful, can build systems of disciplined thinking like science in order to understand the world and make it a better place to live in.

The news: The Bush Administration has been caught attempting to perpetrate a pseudoscientific fraud that would result in the enrichment of energy corporations at the cost of devastating illness and death for hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people all across America.

For years now, George W. Bush has been touring America, telling people about a new review of research by scientists at the Environmental Protection Agency. To hear Bush tell it, government scientists have independently concluded that Americans can be exposed to higher levels of the poison mercury without any harm. So, Bush has proposed what he calls the Clear Skies Initiative, which would give coal-burning power plants in America to belch greater amounts of mercury into our air than ever before.

In what has seemed like a strange coincidence to many attentive Americans, the new high levels of mercury that President Bush has claimed are supported by the EPA’s new scientific review just so happen to be exactly what Bush’s big campaign donors from energy corporations have asked for. Now there is evidence that this odd alignment of the numbers is no coincidence at all, but the product of a criminal conspiracy concocted by top people in the Bush Administration and lobbyists from America’s biggest polluters.

A few days ago, the EPA’s Inspector General released a report on an ongoing investigation of allegations of improper interference by Bush Administration officials into scientific work at the EPA. According to the report, top managers at the EPA told staff scientists what the results of their scientific review should be – even before the scientific review was completed. The Inspector General found that Bush’s political appointees in charge of the EPA instructed the EPA’s staff scientists to come up with a fake scientific conclusion that would justify the high levels of mercury emissions that the owners of coal-burning power plants were looking for. It appears that the people right below George W. Bush were pushing a plan to create fake science at the EPA, and to do it in order to promote high levels of pollution that enable high profits for energy industry executives.

What’s the result? Mercury kills – and for those people it doesn’t kill, life becomes miserable. Already, mercury pollution is so bad in the United States that fish in most American rivers, streams and lakes are considered toxic substances, and a majority of states now advise people not to eat the fish that people catch. Fishermen who eat their catch have been shown to have levels of mercury in the blood that are several times higher than a safe medical limit. The fish that we eat in restaurants have also been shown to often be pervaded by mercury to such a degree that they could be deadly.

Widespread mercury poisoning in the food supply is already a huge problem in the United States, but the Bush Administration is pushing for it’s Clear Skies Initiative that would allow even more mercury in the air, in our drinking water, and in our food.

This is a crime, folks. The Bush Administration ordered the EPA to defraud the American people – to tell us that we were safe eating lots of mercury. They did it so that their friends in big corporate offices could make lots of money.

There’s a trail of evidence leading straight to the White House. But, will the Republicans in Congress investigate? Hell, no. They’re turning a blind eye. They’re supporting the Bush Administration’s efforts to increase mercury pollution in America.

There needs to be an independent investigation and prosecution of Bush Administration officials, including Dick Cheney and George W. Bush, if necessary. These people made the decision to aid in the poisoning of huge numbers of Americans. George W. Bush and his corporate friends are effectively putting poison on the dinner plates of American families.

It’s a conspiracy to commit mass murder.
But, if we wanted to go easy on the President, we could just charge him with negligent homicide…
or fraud…

But damn it, how long with the Congress allow the American people to be poisoned without bringing the people responsible to justice? Well… as long as the Republicans control Congress, that’s how long.

There are elections for Congress across American in 2006, folks. It’s time to get informed, and get ready to kick the dirty Republicans out of office – before they have us eating mercury frosted flakes for breakfast.

We all know what George W. Bush thinks of nations that harbor terrorists. Doesn’t like ‘em. No sir. So it comes as somewhat of a surprise to hear that America under George W. Bush is harboring terrorists.

That’s right. In northern Iraq, America is harboring 4,000 members of an Iranian exile terrorist organization called Mujahedeen-e Khalq. Since 1997, even the U.S. State Department has identified this group as a terrorist organization. American soldiers, who thought they were signing up to fight terror, instead find themselves risking their lives to guard the terrorists.

Turning America into a state sponsor of terror dishonors us all. All terrorists and all governments that sponsor terrorism must be brought to justice. George W. Bush, that means you.

It’s received almost no attention in the mainstream press, but slowly, word about the illegal Eagle Eyes domestic espionage program is spreading. As news about the Eagle Eyes operation is making its way around the country, Americans of all kinds are starting to wonder just who has been watching them, and just what they’ve been reporting.

Eagle Eyes is an official Air Force program to use air force soldiers and civilians to create a nationwide network of informants who watch over the homes, public spaces and workplaces of law-abiding Americans, and then make reports of what they see to back to the Air Force Office of Special Investigations. What are they reporting on? Well, the Eagle Eyes asks for certain kinds of information, like reporting people who visit neighborhoods where “they don’t seem to belong”. Writing in a note pad in public is another item that Eagle Eyes spies are supposed to report – or looking at a map in a car. Anything that doesn’t seem to fit into the ordinary social order is to be reported by Eagle Eyes recruits, and entered into a gigantic military database keeping information about the private, peaceful, lawful behavior of American citizens.

As the folks over at Irregular Times have mentioned, it kind of reminds you of the creepy system of neighborhood spies that the Kremlin imposed in the Soviet Union. The Air Force Eagle Eyes people even say that they’re encouraging entire families to participate – so that even the young children will become the watchful eyes of the military.

Putting up a sign in your lawn criticizing the Bush Administration? It could be reported by one of your neighborhood Eagle Eyes spies as anti-government activity. Participating at a peaceful anti-war protest? Your neighborhood Eagle Eyes informants might report you to the Air Force as a terrorist sympathizer.

Or maybe you’re just taking a picture at a local tourist destination. Will the local Eagle Eyes spies report you? Consider the case of Ian Spiers who was repeatedly harassed by Homeland Security agents for doing nothing more than taking photographs for his art class, right next to a whole bunch of tourists who were also taking photographs. Read his story at Brown Equals Terrorist.

How many Eagle Eyes spies have been sent to infiltrate American neighborhoods and workplaces? The Air Force refuses to say, but they’re actively recruiting new civilians members to spy on their neighbors, and Air Force members to go out into communities in plain clothes, to keep a watch and make sure that we civilians are behaving ourselves.

This is yet another crime committed by the Bush Administration. You see, it’s against federal law for the military to act as a law enforcement authority over civilians within the borders of the United States. It’s also an unconstitutional violation of our guarantee against unreasonable search and seizure. A nationwide system of surveillance by secret recruits, peeking through the hedge and recording what their neighbors are doing, watching to make sure nobody who “doesn’t seem to belong” in their communities is allowed to enter without be reported to the government, and informing on people’s daily activities to a military intelligence office certainly amounts to unreasonable search.

Yet, as usual, the Congress is not holding the government to account. The mainstream press hasn’t bothered reporting on this story in any substantial way. The only way you can find out about the Eagle Eyes program is to accidentally come across it while searching the Air Force web site, or to read about it in a foreign newspaper, or come an article like this one on an uppity web site like Imprison Bush.

Thanks to the Eagle Eyes program, the domestic surveillance offices of the Bush Administration know what you’re doing. Do you know what they’re doing?