Monday August 24, 2009, 10:43 pm
We have lost this country to a bunch of murderous goons folks and we need to stand up and DEMAND a return to the rule of law and FULL accountability.

We need TOP level CIA thrown in jail for life with no parole.

There are a number of news items on here and groups you can go to where you can send letters, petitions and call and fax to push for a FULL investigation and prosecution.

Here's one news item,

http://www.care2.com/news/member/276942576/1220761

Here's the Attorney General's phone number:


Office of the Attorney General - 202-353-1555

Speak up or give up.

And giving up is NOT an option.

Peace,
NotSilent

Monday August 24, 2009, 10:44 pm


This from VotersForPeace.us


We've been working for a torture accountability investigation for a very long time. And, many of you have been helping by sending emails and making phone calls to the Attorney General, President and Congress.

Today, a major step was made -- the Attorney General announced that he was appointing a special prosecutor to investigate torture. Read the Attorney General's statement
http://votersforpeace.us/press/index.php?itemid=2602


While this is a major step forward, we are not satisfied. The Attorney General is selectively investigating torture in a limited number of cases and only examining the actions of low-level interrogators. This violates the Convention Against Torture. As we told the Attorney General in a letter I wrote earlier this month on behalf of Voters for Peace and more than 150 other organizations, the Convention Against Torture requires all acts of torture be investigated and all those involved be held accountable by being prosecuted. Read the letter
http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=zrNUwE6i7v18uzSNmesP4Epwn9mag9E6



We are going to keep the pressure on. We want a full investigation and we do not want policy makers or lawyers who facilitated torture protected.

Please support our efforts by clicking here to make a donation today.
https://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/1312/t/6850/shop/custom.jsp?donate_page_KEY=1355


Also, please take action by writing the Attorney General and urging him to investigate everyone involved in torture. Investigating a handful of low-level interrogators from the CIA is insufficient when thousands have been tortured. The policy makers and lawyers involved must also be held accountable for their actions. The Attorney General cannot let politics come before enforcing the law through selective prosecutions. Click here to take action
http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/1312/t/6850/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=27114


Thank you for your support.

Sincerely,

Kevin Zeese
Executive Director
VotersForPeace.US

Tuesday August 25, 2009, 2:36 am
Thank you Not Silent. This review has been a long time coming. Letter sent.

Tuesday August 25, 2009, 5:14 am
 
Dear ACLU Supporter,As a result of shocking revelations in the CIA Inspector General’s report, which was brought to light by an ACLU lawsuit, Attorney General Eric Holder has announced the appointment of a prosecutor to investigate prison abuse cases carried out as part of the Bush torture program. As anyone who has seen the details of this appalling report can tell you, this investigation is necessary and long overdue, and Attorney General Holder should be commended for taking this important step. However, the very limited scope of the investigation he launched today is nowhere near as thorough and broad as the torture investigation America really needs.Urge Attorney General Holder to conduct a thorough examination of the Bush torture program.
 

Tuesday August 25, 2009, 3:09 pm

Thanks Just Carole, we need to push in every way possible.

This from IndictBushNow.org

**Please circulate widely to friends and on social-networking sites**

It is Bush and Cheney who gave the orders and
it is they who must be held responsible

Washington Post masthead (transparent bk)

“The real culprits in this sordid story are those higher-ups, starting with former president George W. Bush and former vice president Richard B. Cheney, who led America down the degrading path of state-sanctioned torture and left the next administration to cope with the fallout.”

Help the IndictBushNow movement grow
by making a donation today!

Dear
Every member of IndictBushNow should feel proud. The announcement that a Special Prosecutor has been appointed to investigate Bush-era crimes was the direct result of the massive, grassroots movement from below. It was the action taken by you and people all around the country that made this possible.

The investigation must and will lead back to the high officials who ordered their subordinates to carry out the most heinous crimes. Now we must keep up the pressure. In fact we must increase it a hundred fold with newspaper ads, street demonstrations, media outreach and more.

Please make an urgently needed donation today.



As it was stated by the Washington Post lead editorial today:

“The real culprits in this sordid story are those higher-ups, starting with former president George W. Bush and former vice president Richard B. Cheney, who led America down the degrading path of state-sanctioned torture and left the next administration to cope with the fallout.”

What does the report that Attorney General Eric Holder released yesterday reveal? That Cheney, Bush and Rumsfeld’s torture tactics included:

* Mock executions
* Repeatedly choking detainees carotid artery until unconsciousness
* Threatening sexual attacks against the children and parents of detainees
* Detaining the children of detainees and threatening to kill the children
* “Hard takedowns” meaning repeatedly smashing prisoners into the floor
* Head smashing inmates into walls
* Water dousing, pouring freezing water on naked inmates strapped to plastic sheets followed by holding the still naked inmates in bitterly cold cells for days
* Sleep deprivation lasting for 11 days
* Violent shaking of prisoners
* Waterboarding (mock drowning) 183 times in the case of one detainee
* Hanging prisoners form their wrists for up to three days
* “Scrubbing” the bodies of detainees with metal brushes

More than one hundred prisoners may have died in these torture centers according to Col. Lawrence Wilkerson who served as Colin Powell’s chief of staff during the Bush Administration.

The IndictBushNow movement is now in high gear for the next phase of this critical struggle to save the Constitution. Every elected official and the mass media must know that the people will not accept finding a few low-level scapegoats to punish.

Members of Congress are echoing this call and we can create an avalanche of public support for the indictment of Cheney, Bush and Rumsfeld.

Jerome Nadler, the House Judiciary Constitution Subcommittee Chairman said yesterday: “The gruesome acts described in today's report did not happen in a vacuum ... it is vital that this special counsel be given a broad mandate to investigate these abuses, to follow the evidence where it leads, and to prosecute where warranted.”

Now that the investigation has begun all efforts to limit it will fail. Each step of the investigation will inevitably point to those who gave the orders in the chain of command. It is Bush and Cheney who gave the orders and it is they who must be held responsible.

IndictBushNow.org

Tuesday August 25, 2009, 3:32 pm

"Civil disobedience is not our problem. Our problem is civil obedience. Our problem is that numbers of people all over the world have obeyed the dictates of the leaders of their government and have gone to war, and millions have been killed because of this obedience. Our problem is that people are obedient all over the world in the face of poverty and starvation and stupidity, and war, and cruelty. Our problem is that people are obedient while the jails are full of petty thieves, and all the while the grand thieves are running and robbing the country. That's our problem.": Howard Zinn, from 'Failure to Quit'

Tuesday August 25, 2009, 6:17 pm

He spoke the truth.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4992901624852869663&ei=X4uUSoyLC8XzlQf67Nww&q

Tuesday August 25, 2009, 6:18 pm

Bless you, NotSilent . . . and don't ever BE silent -- promise?

Tuesday August 25, 2009, 7:10 pm
One question, NotSilent - during what era do you believe there was ever law and full accountability here in the USA?! Not during the "Pilgrim" 'witch'-killing & Indigenous/slaughtering days, surely; not during the "Pioneer" Indigenous/slaughtering & land-grabbing days, surely; not during the smashing of the IWW and the Western Federation of Miners by the oligarchic robber-barons and their private armies the Pinkertons, surely; not during the days of the murder of Sacco & Vanzetti and the Lynn, Massachusetts "Shirtwaist Fire" murders of organizing women clothing workers who were locked into the factory, surely; not during the days of the red-baiting/paid-thug-goons destruction of the rand-and-file unions within the CIO and the subsequent takeover by the hacks in the AFL, surely; not during the HUAC "commie witchhunt" 'hearings', surely; not during the Vietnam War draft-resister persecutions, surely; not during the subsequent harassment and vilification of the returning Vietnam & Gulf War vets sick from Agent Orange, experimental medical "vaccinations" and tortured with PTSD, surely; not during the Wounded Knee occupation/genocide and false imprisonment of Leonard Peltier[still in jail & denied parole again!] and others, surely; not during the Bush/Cheney Guantanamo/"extraordinary rendition" era, surely.... I'm sure you get my drift. And I might add: "not when myself and many others like me were arrested and incarcerated on false charges for rank-and-file/grassroots union organizing on the job." Surely! As in: "surely you jest" when you suggest that this country has EVER HAD REAL AND MEANINGFUL HUMAN RIGHTS AND FREEDOMS in anything but BIG LIE fashion!
Time for us/all to grow stronger backbones and prepare to stand up and fight for those freedoms so that AT LONG LAST they can actually EXIST in this bleeped-up "nay-shun!"
STAND UP AND FIGHT FOR LOVE AND JUSTICE - NO EXCUSES - NO EXCEPTIONS!

Tuesday August 25, 2009, 7:12 pm
noted thank you

Tuesday August 25, 2009, 7:13 pm
Petitions signed. All 3 of them to have those indicted for crimes - bush & cheney.

http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/1312/t/6850/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=27114

https://secure.aclu.org/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=1687&s_src=UNW090001ACT&s_subsrc=82409email&JServSessionIdr011=gko2xrbxe1.app25a

http://www.IndictBushNow.org

TY, NotSilent for the news and Just "C" for the forward.

Tuesday August 25, 2009, 8:13 pm
Dearest Alice B... well said my Lady, well said and Amen!

Tuesday August 25, 2009, 8:24 pm
Thanks Not Silent & Just C.-

I have no patience with courtroom drama-just give me good old fashioned karma anytime. It takes no prisoners!

Tuesday August 25, 2009, 9:07 pm
Signed every petition on this that has come along. The whole dang Bush Administration should be prosecuted for the reason *C* gave in Chomsky's remarks, for he is one of the endangered greats. Thanks Not to be Silent.

Tuesday August 25, 2009, 9:28 pm
Thank you Just C. Signed. Although president wants to forgive & forget, I'm glad someone is standing up to do the right thing.

"I have learned that nothing is more frightening to power than a direct and principled challenge to its authority. The truth is on our side and those who have incarcerated me know it. This is something that no amount of pro-war propaganda can change. My only regret is that I did not begin refusing orders sooner." ~ Victor Agosto

Tuesday August 25, 2009, 9:53 pm

Alice, I never meant that there were ever those things here in the US, what I meant was that between the fact that the government is more out of control than ever before and that we have never had so large of a lack of checks and balances, some of which actually have worked as they should that we need to push it back in the direction of the rule of law and make this country live up to it's potential which will never happen unless people participate. The military industrial complex in conjunction with the (not so secret) government and the more visible part of the government and corporations and courts and congress have us almost one hundred percent powerless. I am fully aware of what you mentioned and a million other things. What I am trying to get across to people that do stand up and people that DON"T stand up for what is right is the fact that if we don't push like hell on this issue then creeps like the cia and the rest will make the stranglehold permanent and impossible to reverse.

Not enough people did anything about tons and tons and tons of things, but until the Patriot Act and the Military Commissions Act and other vile attacks upon us it was not a one hundred percent control of the government at all levels by those bent on evil things and even if it was a large percentage of the government doing those things, there still was the ability for people to wake up and if enough of us did then we could change things.

We are down to the wire now and between the cia, blackwater, etc we could easily enter a stage where all the things you mention would pale in comparison as they could destroy all life on the planet.

If 250 million people get pissed off enough to tell holder they want the law followed, you can go and yell at them about how it never was followed, but with that many people demanding he do his job, things would start to change and the average person is who we need to wake up, not just "activists"

I need sleep, so if this response doesn't make full sense hopefully it gets the point across that those that are out to destroy our rights and build an empire and a world with the rich few and the rest of us serving them, they use nice and simple slogans and catch phrases (like for example they have used "God, Guns and Gays"...since they want to get the support of religious people along with gun rights people and people against gay marriage and they feel they can get a lot of support because they make it seem to those that are not looking very deeply at things that they stand for good and rights and God supports it), then if they can use some simple thing like 4 words, we can too and if the standard couch potato wakes up and goes to a public meeting and says they want the rule of law followed or anything else along those lines I am not going to bother telling them it never has been.

You'll notice all those things you mentioned continue in one way, shape or form and that may be because we are treating the symptoms and not the disease.

The disease is not evil politicians and war profiteers, those will always be there, the disease is apathy and lazyness and an attitude of "let someone else do it" or with some it's an attitude of "what can I do?" and if people start focusing on the rule of law being followed, then we might actually make progress instead of a small number of us always having to try to stop something or change something.

We need Mr and Mrs America to understand what's going on and understand they need to participate and the basics they need to get across is "we demand the law be followed"......NOW.

That right there is nice and simple, nice and easy to understand and covers everything from human and individual rights to animal rights and environmental laws and international treaties.

They need to understand that they must demand one thing.

That they want the rule of law followed.

I appreciate your efforts Alice and I respect the passion you obviously feel, but if my statement that we need to head back to the rule of law comes across as anything other than what it is ( desire for change and a call to action), then I here and now want to wake up from this nightmare world and find myself somewhere where things make at least some sense.

Good night.

Peace.

NotSilent

Wednesday August 26, 2009, 1:50 am

After a while, many more of you will be like my mom and myself - home and peeking out of windows. Censored and cyberstalked online, followed in person. Latest thing - the www. in my sharebook shares has been changed to "primate" for some.

Wednesday August 26, 2009, 1:55 am

How many of you have "primate" in your shares instead of www.? Just want to know: http://primate.care2.com/c2c/share/detail/1181908

Wednesday August 26, 2009, 5:54 am
Thanxxx... there definiteky needs to be accountability in all things..

Wednesday August 26, 2009, 9:01 am
While the dimmer wits among us are distracted by the shiny objects in this desperate side show, Obama quietly re-authorized extraordinary rendition yesterday:

http://www.ombwatch.org/node/10336

Wednesday August 26, 2009, 9:27 am

"You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time." -- Abraham Lincoln

Thursday August 27, 2009, 12:17 pm
thank You notsilent, and just "C"!!

Thursday August 27, 2009, 9:21 pm
Thanks C!!! Call me cynical, but at this point I can't help but wonder if this is just another dog and pony show to make the sheople THINK the criminals in charge really care and JUST IN TIME for their HUGE FAKE swine flu pandemic scare to coerce everyone into getting the jab. I pray those who still think the "government loves us" won't get in line................

Friday August 28, 2009, 2:08 pm

Demand Accountability for those at the top who ordered the torture & abuse!

Send a message to Attorney General Eric Holder

http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/424/t/4589/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=27821

and let him know we support his first step, but that it must lead to real justice, where the rule of law is upheld against those at the top rungs of political power, not just those at the bottom and where the false claims of national security do not trump the clear requirements of the constitution.

The appointment of a Special Prosecutor is an important breakthrough, ending years of impunity for the systematic torture and brutalization of detainees. Let's remind Holder that this is a very important beginning, but still only a beginning.

Send a letter to the Attorney General and tell him not stop at the interrogators--he must hold those at the top accountable! We will add you to our Citizen’s Arrest Action Team to keep you in the loop about war criminals whereabouts and opportunities to slap pink cuffs on them!

Once you send the letter you will be redirected to a page where you can get the fabulous "Torture Team" cards made by CREDO Action and Center for Constitutional Rights!

Stand with CODEPINK and other organizations thanking Attorney General Eric Holder for his first step but that we want to see those at the top held accountable!

After you sign the letter, you can get the free tortue cards (and as they mention, they can help start a conversation on the issue and get more people aware).

You get a set free, but can order more, I ordered 5 sets and if you do that you can pass them out or whatever you feel will gte the word out to the most people.

They say this about the cards:

Want the torturers prosecuted? Tired of the "few bad apples" line? The Center for Constitutional Rights has partnered with CREDO to distribute Torture Team trading cards to spark the conversation about responsibility for torture at the highest levels. Get one pack of 10 cards for free. $5 for a complete set of all 20 cards; $20 for five sets. All money will go to CCR. The cards may take 3-7 weeks to arrive.

http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/424/t/4589/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=27821