Busy downtown Seattle Oct 5

[Jim]

FYI

 

Last week, both the House and Senate voted to legalize torture, indefinite detention, and military tribunals which deny basic legal rights. On Friday, Bush signed the bill. No longer will torture be carried out by secret orders in secret prisons, but openly and with Congressional approval. It really is *that* bad, and the world cannot wait.

 

Tomorrow, on October 5th, tens of thousands of people from over 190 cities and towns across the country (and counting) will be pouring out of their homes, jobs and schools to make a statement that cannot be be ignored: *This regime does not represent us and we will not stop until we drive it out!

*

In Washington State alone, there will also be protests in Everett, Olympia, Spokane, Twisp and Wenatchee. Tacoma participants are carpooling to their choice of Olympia or Seattle.

 

*Look in today's New York Times for World Can't Wait's full-page ad with the

headline, **SILENCE + TORTURE =

COMPLICITY*<http://www.worldcantwait.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3018&Itemid=223>

 

"The point is this: history is full of examples where people who had right on their side fought against tremendous odds and were victorious. And it is also full of examples of people passively hoping to wait it out, only to get swallowed up by a horror beyond what they ever imagined. The future is unwritten. WHICH ONE WE GET IS UP TO US." (from The Call to Drive Out the Bush Regime<http://worldcantwait.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2538&Itemid=2>

)

 

10:00 am--College and High School students from all schools in and around Seattle gather at Red Square on the University of Washington Campus followed by march to Capitol Hill.

12:00 Noon--Gather at Cal Anderson Park, (11th Ave between E Denny and E Pine in Capitol Hill) followed by

1:00 pm--Rally with speakers & music

3:00 pm--March into downtown Seattle to the Federal Building (2nd & Marion)

4:00 pm--Rally and SIT-IN AT THE FEDERAL BUILDING--As the night unfolds, people will talk, debate, create music and art, and work together on visions and plans for driving out the Bush Regime and reversing the whole direction it has been taking the country and the world.

[underworld]

the advisory board has as many hip hop performers as it has historians.

 

...nice

[cj001f]

the advisory board has as many hip hop performers as it has historians.

 

...nice

 

are you talking about the Iraqi coalition government again?

[underworld]

who exactly are you trying to put down with that??

the Iraqi coalition govt or the 'worldcantwait' people???

[Mr_Phil]

Tomorrow, on October 5th, tens of thousands of people from over 190 cities and towns across the country (and counting) will be pouring out of their homes, jobs and schools to make a statement that cannot be be ignored: *This regime does not represent us and we will not stop until we drive it out!

 

Let's do the math.

 

Ten's of thousands of people = Say 20,000

 

From over 190 cities and towns = Say 200

 

20,000 / 200 = 100 people per city.

 

I think it will be pretty easy to ignore 100 folks 'pouring' out of their homes, jobs, and schools in Seattle.

 

[Jim]

I suspect there will be more than 100 folks downtown tomorrow for this.

[tvashtarkatena]

I think it will be pretty easy to ignore 100 folks 'pouring' out of their homes, jobs, and schools in Seattle.

 

Yeah, it was pretty easy to ignore the civil rights movement, women's suffrage, and the internment of Japanese during WWII. It's the easiest thing in the world to sit on your ass while someone else takes it in the shorts. Easy, but not something to be especially proud of.

 

Jim's spot on, here: This policy is wrong morally, legally, and practically. It's an outrage and a slap in the face to the Constitution that is suppose to make us something to be admired. It makes us all complicit pricks. And, the kicker, it makes every American, particularly our troops in Iraq, less safe. Whether 100 or 100,000, those folks who get off their asses tomorrow to stand for what they believe in are to be applauded.

 

So, sit back, crack a cold one, and play the armchair critic. As your math has so neatly demonstrated, you're a dime a dozen.

[Mr_Phil]

And there are plenty of other crises around the world that *you* are currently ignoring, including the dying homeless on the streets of Seattle.

 

Continue to stroke yourself in smug, self-righteous satisfaction.

[tvashtarkatena]

Yep, and there are plenty of others that I'm doing something about. For me, there couldn't be anything less smug than trying to make the shit my dad had to go through in WWII somewhat worth it. I'm just a regular old American who gives half a damn about the place where he lives.

 

Yours is the oldest trick in the book...issue an armchair prick's critique and then sound the 'smug' alert when someone calls you on your product-of-an-overly-pampered-society, I'm-WAY-too-cool-to-actually-do-anything bullshit. It's the classic "Well, yer jus' a damn faggit!" argument. I think you can mail order it from the RNC by the 55 gallon drum-ful.

 

How about something original, Armchairman? If I wanted to talk to a parrot, I'd go to the pirates section. Or, let's make this even more interesting...how about something real? Tell me I'm not shooting fish in a barrel, here.

[Luna]

And there are plenty of other crises around the world that *you* are currently ignoring, including the dying homeless on the streets of Seattle.

 

This is the best excuse for doing nothing. That and watching "The Amazing Race with the Stars" or whatever.

 

You can do something. Start by getting off you butt.

[Luna]

Yep, and there are plenty of others that I'm doing something about. For me, there couldn't be anything less smug than trying to make the shit my dad had to go through in WWII somewhat worth it. I'm just a regular old American

 

[tvashtarkatena]

[quote

This is the best excuse for doing nothing. That and watching "The Amazing Race with the Stars" or whatever.

 

Now watching the Beverly Hillbillies on YouTube...OK, THAT I'll accept as excuse for sitting on your ass.

[dinomyte]

Interesting, though I'm not sure I would compare this to women's suffrage, civil rights, etc.

 

And, call me a cynic, but I doubt these protests will accomplish anything but pissed commuters.

 

While I agree that it's easy to sit back and do nothing, or point out all the other causes you are ignoring, I think it comes down to this: No "cause" is perfect. Some homeless people are homeless becuase it's their fault. And some people probably deserved to be tortured. If some asshole blows up ten people, I don't have much of a problem with someone shoving bamboo under his fingernails till he tells 'em what he knows. Obviously, no one wants to hurt innocent people, but not everyone is innocent.

[mattp]

Tough times call for tough measures, perhaps, but I think we've lost our way when we decide to abandon the Geneva Coventions, launch an aggressive program of domestic spying, invade and occupy nations who pose no threat to us, and bully even our allies in response to what are criminal acts by a relatively small number of extremists. It seems that by most accounts it isn't going to work and further it is just plain wrong.

 

We have certainly gone from being a nation that was respected and even admired around the world to one that is merely tolerated or, worse, feared. And we know that our time on top is limited.

 

I respect anybody like Jim who wants to take some time to try to contribute to the making of a statement about this.

[whidbey]

Matt has a great point... you don't give up Geneva for the hell of it. Bush is a dick and it shall be proved in history... now is not the time. I don't feel that it's AMERICAN TO SEARCH AND DETAIN ANY MOTHERFUCKER BECAUSE BUSH FELLS IT'S THE RIGHT THING. We need to get back to where we did things because they where the right things... not for some fucked up reasons that have been proved to be purrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrre bullshit.

[Stonehead]

You gotta watch this shit. It's crazy. http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/september2006/200906terrorstorm.htm

[Crux]

[tvashtarkatena]

And some people probably deserved to be tortured. If some asshole blows up ten people, I don't have much of a problem with someone shoving bamboo under his fingernails till he tells 'em what he knows. Obviously, no one wants to hurt innocent people, but not everyone is innocent.

 

No one deserves to be tortured. It's not only morally wrong, and not what Americans are supposed to be about, but it's not effective. The victim will invariably tell you exactly what you want to hear, even to the point of a false admission of guilt. The information you get is sketchy at best.

 

The people we detain are innocent until proven guilty. Any time you torture a detainee, you torture an innocent person...because we haven't proven them guilty. That's the definition of totalitarianism and fascism. Case in point: of the 430 Quantanamo detainees, how many do you think we've charged with any crime? The answer: 7. 7 out of 430. If these guys are so bad, why can't we prove it through due process?

 

You ruin an organization like Al Qaeda the same we the U.S. successfully ruined much of the mafia: informants. A couple of high value informants can take down a very large organization. The Al Qaeda informants we currently have under witness protection have proven this in spades. Informants don't come forward if they're going to be tortured. This is not just my opinion, but the opinion of the FBI agents who handle these informants.

 

So, vote no on torture. It doesn't work, and its just not the example we should be setting for the rest of the world. It's not who we are.

[Crux]

No "cause" is perfect. Some homeless people are homeless becuase it's their fault. And some people probably deserved to be tortured. If some asshole blows up ten people, I don't have much of a problem with someone shoving bamboo under his fingernails till he tells 'em what he knows. Obviously, no one wants to hurt innocent people, but not everyone is innocent.

Your reasoning is patently fallacious. First, to suggest that nothing but perfection is worth attaining is to damn your every pursuit as it ever will be. Second, nobody deserves torture, anymore than you deserve a broken nose for advocating torture. Your suggestion that torture provides good information is false, as stated by all the top-level CIA operatives who now speak out on the subject -- torture produces bad information that does nothing to protect the torturers and ultimately leads to yet more torture as well as murder of innocents. Finally, in regard to your assertion that "obviously nobody wants to hurt innocent people," I submit to you there is abundant evidence to the contrary in the dispostion and actions of the Bush administration.

 

'Now I will tell you the answer to my question. It is this. The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power. Not wealth or luxury or long life or happiness: only power, pure power. What pure power means you will understand presently. We are different from all the oligarchies of the past, in that we know what we are doing. All the others, even those who resembled ourselves, were cowards and hypocrites. The German Nazis and the Russian Communists came very close to us in their methods, but they never had the courage to recognize their own motives. They pretended, perhaps they even believed, that they had seized power unwillingly and for a limited time, and that just round the corner there lay a paradise where human beings would be free and equal. We are not like that. We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means, it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now do you begin to understand me?' --George Orwell, 1984

[Fairweather]

My solution: Kill them on the battlefield.

 

...And since we're quoting Orwell:

 

People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.

--George Orwell

 

I sometimes think that the price of liberty is not so much eternal vigilance as eternal dirt.

--George Orwell

 

Liberal: a power worshipper without power.

--George Orwell

 

War is evil, but it is often the lesser evil

--George Orwell

 

 

disclaimer: No political ideal can lay claim to Orwell. I'm sure you can come up with more quotables to demonstrate his complexity, but I really think he just liked to come up with ideas expressed just so.

[dinomyte]

FYI

 

Last week, both the House and Senate voted to legalize torture, indefinite detention, and military tribunals which deny basic legal rights. On Friday, Bush signed the bill. No longer will torture be carried out by secret orders in secret prisons, but openly and with Congressional approval.

 

If Jim is right, then our duly elected leaders, who represent us as their constituents, passed this law. Thus, the people passed the law.

 

But, then I suppose you'll come back with some kind of "he's not my president" BS, thumbing your nose at the same sacred documents that you say Bush is.

[Fairweather]

FYI

 

Last week, both the House and Senate voted to legalize torture, indefinite detention, and military tribunals which deny basic legal rights. On Friday, Bush signed the bill. No longer will torture be carried out by secret orders in secret prisons, but openly and with Congressional approval. It really is *that* bad, and the world cannot wait.

 

Tomorrow, on October 5th, tens of thousands of people from over 190 cities and towns across the country (and counting) will be pouring out of their homes, jobs and schools to make a statement that cannot be be ignored: *This regime does not represent us and we will not stop until we drive it out!

*

In Washington State alone, there will also be protests in Everett, Olympia, Spokane, Twisp and Wenatchee. Tacoma participants are carpooling to their choice of Olympia or Seattle.

 

*Look in today's New York Times for World Can't Wait's full-page ad with the

headline, **SILENCE + TORTURE =

COMPLICITY*<http://www.worldcantwait.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3018&Itemid=223>

 

"The point is this: history is full of examples where people who had right on their side fought against tremendous odds and were victorious. And it is also full of examples of people passively hoping to wait it out, only to get swallowed up by a horror beyond what they ever imagined. The future is unwritten. WHICH ONE WE GET IS UP TO US." (from The Call to Drive Out the Bush Regime<http://worldcantwait.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2538&Itemid=2>

)

 

10:00 am--College and High School students from all schools in and around Seattle gather at Red Square on the University of Washington Campus followed by march to Capitol Hill.

12:00 Noon--Gather at Cal Anderson Park, (11th Ave between E Denny and E Pine in Capitol Hill) followed by

1:00 pm--Rally with speakers & music

3:00 pm--March into downtown Seattle to the Federal Building (2nd & Marion)

4:00 pm--Rally and SIT-IN AT THE FEDERAL BUILDING--As the night unfolds, people will talk, debate, create music and art, and work together on visions and plans for driving out the Bush Regime and reversing the whole direction it has been taking the country and the world.

 

Jim,

 

I have made bold some parts of your post that you may wish to reconsider. They seem to hint strongly at removing our president via extraconstitutional means. Of course, I'm sure this isn't what you really want to convey, but I'm very curious exactly what you plan to do. Just protest? Fine. But if you fancy yourself a revolutionary and think it would be really cool to plot the overthrow - by coup or subterfuge - of a duly elected government, I think you would do well to consider that there are many - like me - who would not stand for it. Do you understand what I'm saying? Play your little game tomorrow and feel good. It's a free country, after all.

[cj001f]

Clinton Clinton Clinton

[underworld]

how do you pick sides on something like this. let's, for a second, pretend that the u.s. condones and celebrates torture. now it's a level playing field. why do you pick the u.s. govt to protest? or is there also a walk-out comdemning the other side's use of torture? when is it? simple question - why are WE (the u.s.) the bad guys?

[Dechristo]

...both the House and Senate voted to legalize torture, indefinite detention, and military tribunals which deny basic legal rights.

 

What types of torture did they legalize? Kind of an important distinction to make, considering the subjective nature of "torture" (what's torturous for me may be a casual occurance for you)?

 

"Indefinite detention"? Sounds like what occurs in every war.

 

"Military tribunals which deny basic legal rights"? You will need to work to bring your notion of "basic legal rights", respective of this issue, into existence as it has been determined by our government that enemy combatants intent upon and working toward the destruction of our nation do not have extended to them the same "basic legal rights" as you.

 

Very effective, though, to simply throw around the term "torture" as it leaves to the imagination of the reader what that term means to them, personally.