thenatureofmind

Human Rights Watch Report

“The U.S. government is less and less able to push for justice abroad, because it’s unwilling to see justice done at home,” said Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch. 

Abu Ghraib, Darfur: Call for Prosecutions

Meditation

All of those years and you thought we were all just sitting around wasting time! So there turns out to be something measurable in those who have devoted some time to their meditation practice. I wonder what there is that they don't yet have the instruments to measure? <smile>

Meditation Gives Brain a Charge

Thieves at work: ending social security

A new e-mail has surfaced that clearly states what the Gearge W. Bush's new Social Security initiative is about: ending social security. The beneficiaries: George's contributors in the financial community. The losers: You and me.

"Peter Wehner, the deputy to White House political director Karl Rove, says in the e-mail message that a battle over Social Security is winnable for the first time in six decades and could transform the political landscape."

What is the battle? Why for the first time in six decades? It's all about the conservative agenda: ending all government programs which benefit the citizens of the US. All government programs will now only benefit those who hold political power.

"Revamping the system to allow investment accounts would not shore up the future finances and would make the financial picture worse. The administration is considering borrowing $1 trillion to $2 trillion to continue paying benefits to current retirees while tax revenue is diverted into personal accounts, called transition costs, the e-mail said."

Read about it:

White House memo: Pitch Social Security doom

The Second Republican Theft of an Election - II

A small group of Democrats agreed Thursday to force House and Senate debates on Election Day problems in Ohio before letting Congress certify President Bush's election over Sen. John Kerry in November.

Democrats to Force Debate on Ohio Results

Mind

   What is
Mind like,
   I wonder.
It's invisible, and
As large as the universe.

               - A Zen Harvest,
                 Japanese Folk
                 Zen Sayings

Cast your vote against torture

If you subscribe to the declaration below, please click the link below and send a message to your representatives to hold the people who have brought about this situation accountable.

http://www.moveon.org/gonzales/

DECLARATION AGAINST TORTURE                   

                  Whereas torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment

• are contrary to the fundamental moral values on which the United States was founded,
• violate United States and international law,
• increase the risk to U.S. citizens serving abroad, and as Secretary of State Colin Powell warned "undermine the protections of the law of war for our troops,"
• weaken national security by inciting anti-American hatred, fanning the flames of terrorist recruitment, and providing comfort to enemies of the United States,
• compromise the global fight against terrorism, by making foreign governments more reluctant to turn over suspected terrorists to the U. S.,
• are "useless as interrogation techniques," according to the U.S. Army Field Manual.

We therefore unequivocally declare that the U.S. must:

1. respect and enforce, across all agencies, and among all employees and contract agents of the U.S. government, all obligations under the laws of war and duly ratified treaties that prohibit cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment;
2. state directly and forthrightly that torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment are always unacceptable and that anyone who engages in such behavior or knowingly condones it will be punished;
3. apply to all detainees of the United States the legal definitions of torture contained in the 1949 Geneva Conventions, as incorporated in the U.S. Law of Land Warfare, banning "any ... form of coercion" or "unpleasant or disadvantageous treatment" to get information from prisoners of war; and in the international Convention Against Torture (1984), to which the U.S. is party, prohibiting "any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining ... information;"
4. repudiate all claims of presidential power that allow for the use of torture, or for imprisonment without due process,
5. halt the practice of "extraordinary rendition," by which some detainees and prisoners are transferred to nations that employ torture.

                  

Israeli Human Rights Abuses

The Israeli human rights group B'tselem reports on Israeli human rights abuses in 2004. It's interesting that only Aljazeera picked up the story....

2004: Hundreds die at Israel's hand

The International Law on Torture

This is what the International law on torture states:

WHAT INTERNATIONAL LAW SAYS

Urge your Representatives to contest the vote

If you want to have free elections in the future in which international standards of regulation of the voting process are enforced, send a note to your senators and representatives to stand in oposition to the electorial college vote on January 6th until the voting irregularities in Ohio are fully investigated.

Contest the vote on January 6th.

The American Gulag

The US now has palns to incarcerate people for life without any semblance of due process. Basically if the government decides to imprison you for life, they can do it without evidence.

Senator Says Lifetime Terror Detentions 'Bad Idea'