thenatureofmind

NDAA: A Victory for All of Us

"Rebellion is an act that assures us of remaining free and independent human beings. Rebellion is not waged because it will work; indeed in its noblest form it is waged when we know it will fail. Our existence, as Camus wrote, must itself be “an act of rebellion.” Not to rebel, not to protect and nurture life even in the face of death, is spiritual and moral suicide. The Nazi concentration camp guards sought to break prisoners first and then kill them. They understood that even the power to choose the timing and circumstances of one’s death was an affirmation of personal freedom and dangerous to the status quo. So although the guards killed at random they went to great lengths to prevent people in the camps from committing suicide. Totalitarian systems, to perpetuate themselves, always seek to break autonomy and self-determination. This makes all acts of resistance a threat, even those acts that will not succeed. And this is why in all states that rule by force any act of rebellion, even one that is insignificant, must be ruthlessly crushed. The goal of the corporate state, like that of any totalitarian entity, is to create a society where no one has the capacity to resist." -Chris Hedges

A Victory for All of Us

The NDAA's Coup d'Etat Foiled

Naomi Wolf writes cogently about the recent injunction handed down by a Federal judge enjoining the indefinite detention provisions of the NDAA bill from being implemented. As usual we hold our collective breaths as we await the onslaught of tax payer funded government lawyers who will try to have this overturned and deny the very people who pay their salaries of their constitutional rights...

The NDAA's Coup d'Etat Foiled

The Wheels of Justice Turn Slowly...

Just to bring you up to speed: Khaled el-Masri is a German car salesman of Lebanese extraction. On his way to Lebanon, he was stopped and detained in Macedonia in December of 2003. He was held for 3 weeks and then turned over to the CIA who flew him to Afghanistan where he was held and tortured for 5 months. The CIA eventually realized that they had the wrong person: right name, wrong man. They then flew him to Albania and left him by the side of the road in an uninhabited mountainous area with no way and no money to get back home. 

He tried to sue the people in the US government responsible but the case was thrown out because the US government claimed state secrecy. Finally the International Court is taking up the case, in this instance against the Macedonian government for violation of the European human rights conventions. Let us hope that someday Bush, Cheney, Gonzales, Yoo, Bybee and McNamara will in their turn be held accountable for their criminal actions.

Macedonia on trial for human rights abuses in US post-9/11 rendition case

To the Hague: Justice for the May 4th Kent State Massacre?

A KSTT email to the Int'l Criminal Court at the Hague:

May 7, 2012

To the International Criminal Court at the Hague,

On May 4, 1970 Allison Krause, my sister, was shot dead by an Ohio National Guard bullet as she protested the Vietnam War, the American war draft and the military occupation of her college campus at Kent State University in Kent, Ohio, U.S.A.....

Justice for the May 4th Kent State Massacre? 

OAS Human Rights Organization Agrees to Hear Gitmo Case

Could Challenge NDAA

Hedges: "No Outcry Within Media" on NDAA

HEDGES V. OBAMA LAWSUIT CHALLENGING NDAA BEGINS IN FEDERAL COURT

The first round of statements from seven high-profile plaintiffs suing President Barak Obama, Attorney General Eric Holder, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, House Speakers, and DOD Representatives seeking injunctive relief barring the implementation of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA)'s "Homeland Battlefield" provisions of indefinite detention and suspension of Habeas Corpus was heard in federal court last week.  The first hearing took place in front of Hon. Kathryn B. Forrest at the U.S. District Court in New York City on Thursday, March 29th, 2012.  

Activists & Journalists Sue President, Defense Secretary, Over Chilling Effect on Constitutional Protections 

The United States: A Torture Nation

I fear that there are many in the United States who feel that the legalisms around torture and its justification by the Bush-Cheney administration written by John Yoo and Jay Bybee was the only period in which the United States engaged in torture. Actually this is entirely mistaken. Actually the tortured legal machinations of John Yoo and Jay Bybee were simply an attempt to create a systematic justification within the legal system that would prevent those who engaged in torture from being prosecuted. Under the Obama administration, the legal fiction was rescinded, with a public declaration of a no torture policy, but the torturers were not held to account, not prosecuted as is required by the legal international treaties that the United States is a signatory to nor were the torturers remanded to an international court to stand trial for torture. This sent a message to all within the United States government that torture was legal. 

Richard Gere Speaks on Behalf of Tibet on the 17th Day of the Hunger Strike

Hollywood actor and Tibet's best friend Richard Gere visits the hunger strikers in front of the United Nations in New York on Day 17 of the Indefinite Hunger Strike for Tibet.

US Nun Tortured in Central America Recalls the Nightmare

I have seen the face of evil.....

US Nun Tortured in Central America Recalls the Nightmare