n a t b s

It’s always dangerous to create a class of citizens with no rights. Especially when the definition of said class is an ideological one. Then anyone can be labeled as one of those people, and thus be stripped of their rights.

What will you be labeled as a terrorist for? Criticizing the government, protesting the war, or just acting ‘unusual’? We already have a “terrorist watch list” with over 700,000 names on it. Can all those people really be terrorists?

See, the amazing thing about our criminal justice system is that it’s designed to determine whether people are guilty or innocent of crimes using evidence. Why can’t we use that system for suspected terrorists? The government acts as if human rights are an impediment to keeping us safe and achieving justice. But I ask, how can we be safe, and how can we have justice without basic human rights? Bypassing those rights is a means that’s entirely antithetical to its supposed ends. And it’s dangerous. Basic rights protect you when you’ve fallen. They only come into play when being accused of something by the government, but now they disappear when the government accuses you! It’s madness, they might as well not exist.

There are cracks forming on the ground beneath our feet, let’s hope we don’t fall through them into the land where “innocent until proven guilty” becomes “guilty because we say so.”

Update:

Thanks Reddit for providing an example of this type of injustice:

‘Unusual’ Ferry Passengers Identified These two European business men were under suspicious for “unusual” behavior on a ferry. What constitutes unusual behavior? The FBI doesn’t say. Better be careful you’re not acting “unusual” in America. We don’t like “unusual” people around these parts.

Update2:

Terrorism Charges Leveled against RNC Protesters

Following Wright’s unapologetic press conference today, Obama had his own, and he strongly denounced Wright’s words. From Salon:

“I am outraged by the comments that were made and saddened by the spectacle that we saw yesterday,” Obama told reporters about Rev. Jeremiah Wright. “The person that I saw yesterday was not the person that I had come to know over 20 years.” While he said he gave Wright “the benefit of the doubt” because “soundbites [of his sermons] created a caricature of him,” in Wright’s sneering Monday press club performance “he caricatured himself.”

“I gave him the benefit of the doubt in my speech in Philadelphia, explaining that he has done enormous good in the church,” he said. “But when he states and then amplifies such ridiculous propositions as the U.S. government somehow being involved in AIDS; when he suggests that Minister Farrakhan somehow represents one of the greatest voices of the 20th and 21st century; when he equates the U.S. wartime efforts with terrorism – then there are no exuses. They offend me. They rightly offend all Americans. And they should be denounced, and that’s what I’m doing very clearly and unequivocally here today.”

“It is antithetical to my campaign. It is antithetical to what I’m about. It is not what I think America stands for,” he said.

Can we finally put this matter to rest? I like that Barack tried to avoid doing this as best he could, but after Wright’s unapologetic appearances this weekend and today, I don’t think he had a choice. This controversy just keeps cropping up, and hopefully, after today’s strong clear words denouncing these ridiculous statements (except for the US terrorizing people, that one I agree with, but I also completely understand why Obama must denounce it) it will finally go away. Obama said the remarks offend him, he said they’re antithetical to his campaign and himself, and he even said Wright was no longer the person he had known for the past 20 years. So please, America, stop talking about it. And please, Jeremiah Wright, shut up for the next 7 months. Thanks.

The National Priorities Project recently released their annual report on how American tax dollars were spent over the past year. Are you ready for this? 42.2% of every tax dollar went to military spending. Specifically, 28.7 cents went to current military operations, 10 cents went to interest on military debt, and 3.5 cents went to veterans benefits. By the way, 4.4 cents went to education, and 2.6 cents went to the environment and science. So yeah, military spending is almost half of all spending, and we spend almost ten times as much on our military as we do on education. I can’t imagine why we have so many problems in this country.

I find these figures to be not very surprising, but completely appalling. Our priorities are completely bass ackwards. I mean, if we had some sort of real enemy that required spending more on our military than all other countries combined, I guess I’d learn to accept it. Maybe this kind of spending made sense during the cold war, but in the “war against terror,” aka the war against disgruntled people with box-cutters, I just don’t see the need. To protect ourselves from terrorism we don’t need stealth bombers and fancy nukes, we need intelligence (in both senses of the word). I see it as a law enforcement battle, not a military one. I also see it as a pr battle; when people really fucking hate you it might be a good idea to try and figure out why, and then try to make them like you.

Anyway, isn’t it great to know where your taxes are going? And it’s almost tax time again, yay! Maybe we should all only pay 57.8% of what we owe as a form of protest. The scary thing is that it’s going to be so hard to get that number down because there are so many entrenched military-industrial-complex interests that will scream bloody murder if we try to cut military spending. Maybe our only hope is to stop increasing the military budget (lord knows we’ve increased it plenty in the past 8 years) and thus the amount we spend will go down, relatively speaking, as inflation increases.

On closing, can we just reflect on the fact that our country is putting a huge percent of it’s productivity and effort towards killing people? How did we get to this point? What kind of horrible aberration is this? Why is there money being deducted from our paychecks to kill innocent people halfway around the world? Doesn’t that just make you sick? I know I don’t want my efforts, my labor, perverted like that. You can check out the whole pdf here.

I’ve hated CNN for a while. Wolf Blitzer especially pisses me off. So last night I found another example of them being retarded. The violence in Iraq was a pretty big story yesterday. The type of thing that was the main headline in a lot of places. And this was CNN’s front page:

Obviously “Barista Donates kidney to ailing customer” is more important than “U.S. staff warned as Iraq violence spreads.” It seems like they had this barista story on retainer just waiting for a news day when the needed a distraction. It’s not exactly the type of story that “breaks.” It’s the type of story that’s meant for a slow news day, not a day with a really obvious piece of major news.

What’s with the mainstream media hardly reporting on Iraq? It’s total bullshit. They’re not doing their jobs. They weren’t doing their jobs five years ago either, and that’s how we got into this mess. And because they’re not doing their jobs now, 48% of Americans think this debacle is going well. That’s just about the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.

The fucking media is seriously screwing us. I don’t get why people take these “news networks” seriously. They’re so childish and stupid and corrupt. Has anyone ever seen Network? It’s a movie made in the 70′s that was very prescient. You see, back then the news divisions of TV networks typically didn’t make money. The networks thought of it as a public service, and the reporters thought of themselves as journalists. And this movie was about a fictional future where the news media started trying to make a profit and thus descended in to a bunch of blowhards yelling at each other all day. So yeah, pretty good prediction.

We may be beginning to see the effects of this protracted primary. According to the “Rasmussen Reports Balance of Power Calculator” the Democrats seem to be losing their electoral edge. When you include safe, likely, and leans Democratic states vs Republican ones you get Democrats 247 Republicans 229 with 62 toss-up states. That’s not bad, but it’s not nearly as good as the commanding 284-229 lead they had less than two weeks ago on March 9th. Nor is that as good as the 284-216 lead they had one month ago on February 20th.

Clinton and Obama need to stop attacking each other and start attacking John McCain because right now these numbers are moving in the wrong direction. Right now the Democrats, and the press, are taking it pretty easy on McCain. Right now the story is the Dems battling each other, and not how John Mc”Admiral“Cain is terrifying.

What the Democrats really need is a nominee, but since that’s probably not going to happen until June at the earliest they just need to stop tearing each other down. Obama made a good faith effort with his speech on tuesday. I’d like to see Clinton step up and play nice, but I have very little hope that will happen.

They need to look at these numbers and think about what they’re doing. A McCain presidency would be a disaster. Granted, it would be hard for him to be worse than Bush, but I think he’ll come damn close.