Rick Lucke's Open Salon Blog

Judge: Obama's NDAA Unconstitutional

Fri, 18 May 2012 05:05:04 -0400

One can only wonder what is occurring in Congress when a law like the National Defense Authorization Act passes through both branches with so much support. Of course, a president who was previously a constitutional lawyer signing it into law is even more perplexing.

NDAA's 'Indefinite Detention' Provisions Unconstitutional, says Judge

In their suit, the plaintiffs stated they could be detained 'indefinitely' for their constitutionally protected activities. Citing the 'vagueness' of certain language in the bill, U.S. District Judge Katherine Forrest -- who was appointed to the court by Obama -- agreed, and said the law could have "chilling impact on First Amendment rights" for journalists, activists, and potentially all US citizens.

While this is not exactly surprising since there has been much online buzz about this National Defense Authorization Act being in violation of the U.S. Constitution, it is good to see it verified by a judicial system that has in recent years lost the confidence of a vast amalgam of the American populace.

But there is another interesting thing I discovered in looking for more information on this development. The opening pages of GOOGLE do not list one single major news outlet carrying the story. That fact, I think, speaks volumes, especially in tandem with the pathetic nature of signing into law of this horrific bill by a president whose background is specifically constitutional law. And it says much about how out of touch most of the American voters who support Obama really are.

The fact that Obama – supposedly a constitutional scholar – actually signed the NDAA into law is more telling, in my opinion. It saddens me to think our choices are between four more years of this kind of pathetic lawmaking, or worse, and that so many Americans refuse to make a firm stand against this particular brand of tyranny.

Chipping away, chipping away, chipping away …

Conservative Andy Dean; Let's execute the wrongly convicted

Mon, 30 Apr 2012 11:04:38 -0400

On Andy Dean; Lessons in Self Contradiction

California may become the 18^th state to abolish death penalty

California will vote on eliminating the death penalty in the November election. If the ballot measure passes, California will become the 18^th state to abolish the death penalty. One of the most interesting aspects of this development is that there appears to be significant bi-partisan support for this ballot measure. The Los Angeles Times reports:

Growing numbers of conservatives in California have joined the effort to repeal the state's capital punishment law, expressing frustration with its price tag and the rarity of executions. California has executed 13 inmates in 23 years, and prisoners are far more likely to die of old age on death row than by the executioner's needle.

On Andy Dean’s April 24, 2012 radio show, Mr. Dean exhibited precisely the kind of self-righteous, self-contradictory thinking that conservatives generally demonstrate in leading America over the cliff as they have done in recent years. During the 3^rd hour of his 3-hour radio show (make sure you select the 04/24/2012 3^rd hour segement) he had a guest named Mitch Langberg, a constitutional attorney, first amendment specialist. Introducing the topics they would discuss, Andy listed California’s November vote on whether or not to abolish the death penalty. Andy is a hard-core right-wing conservative and proclaims himself “very pro-death-penalty” and describes Mitch as a leftist, hyperbolically calling him a socialist. (For those who wish to listen to the broadcast, it can be found at the above link and the death penalty discussion starts at approximately 15:20 into the segment.)

Andy starts the death penalty segment by saying that the idea of abolishing the death penalty makes him “physically ill” and that he’s a “big believer in the death penalty”. When asked for his opinion, Mitch immediately says, “The death penalty should be a thing of the past”. Mitch goes on to explain that he has “no moral issue with […] the state executing a person who has willfully intentionally murdered another human being without cause.” Mitch presents the realist argument that we have innocent people sentenced to death in prison because the system for trial and conviction is not infallible.

Mitch says, “It just nauseates me to think of someone I know and care about being wrongfully convicted and executed …and, to me, that’s the end of the story.”

Obviously, Mitch views the killing of an innocent highly immoral and recognizes that a system that can’t guarantee the guilt of those convicted, should not involve a “justice” that realistically ends in the killing of an innocent – the very crime for which the convicted is being executed. To me, that seems clear enough, but not to Andy Dean.

Andy interrupts Mitch with a logical fallacy while accusing Mitch of two logical fallacies; straw man and red herring arguments. In fact, Andy is erecting a straw man argument by arguing against something that Mitch did not say. Andy interjects that Mitch objects to the system “with these decades of appeals”, which is, obviously, NOT what Mitch said, at all. In fact, Mitch never mentioned the issue of “decades of appeals” as charged by Andy.

Mitch clarifies that it is the fact that innocents are sentenced to death because the system that convicts them makes mistakes. In Andy’s mind, that argument is a “straw man”, which makes no sense at all logically, since it is presented as the supporting reason for why we should abolish the death penalty. Also, Andy charges that the argument about the “decades of appeals” (that Mitch did not present) is a “red herring”. Andy states that if it is the appeals process Mitch objects to, “…we should fix the appeals process, not get rid of the death penalty”. I’ll return to this statement further down the page.

The most striking thing that transpires between Andy and Mitch is that Andy clearly states he sees it more important that hundreds of families get some kind of “justice” by having someone killed than to be concerned about an innocent being executed by the state. Andy says to Mitch, “It’s really sad when that one [innocent] person dies but what about the hundreds of families who are waiting for justice and you’re weighing that one person against hundreds of families?” Andy’s version of “justice” is killing an innocent, wrongly convicted, to satisfy the bloodlust of “hundreds of families”. That’s Andy’s clear declaration. But, wait …the reasoning gets worse.

Recall Andy’s statement, “…we should fix the appeals process, not get rid of the death penalty”. Starting at about 27:05 in the segment, Andy is talking to a phone-in listener, Travis, and the idea of fixing the system arises. In speaking to this particular caller, who has said we need to fix the system, Andy states clearly, “Yeah, but, Travis, you and I both know there’s never going to be a perfect system where innocent people don’t go in, I’m just saying, yeah, one out of every whatever …, it’s a risk we take to make the families of victims feel better …”.

Just to make it clear:

Andy’s argument is this: the argument that we need to stop executing people because the system is flawed and innocents might be (probably have been) executed is a straw man because all we need to do is “fix the system” even though, as Andy says, “you and I both know there’s never going to be a perfect system where innocent people don’t go in, I’m just saying, yeah, one out of every whatever …, it’s a risk we take to make the families of victims feel better …”.

Andy thinks killing somebody who is innocent is wrong, unless that person has been wrongly convicted by a system that he knows will never be perfectly capable of NOT convicting an innocent person. And there are many who agree with Andy. Need I say more?

Obama Threatens to Veto CISPA: Will He Veto?

Fri, 27 Apr 2012 04:04:40 -0400

The bill has now passed the House vote and will proceed to the Senate; will it pass? Will Obama veto The Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) if it passes through Congress and lands on his desk to be signed? Obama has threatened to veto it, but history of his support for such Orwellian-Big-Brother-esque, despite his rhetoric against them, suggests he will not veto it, but will sign it into law. If he somehow does find the courage to veto it, the act will mark a definitive change of course for him.

As reported by truthout.com:

According to the White House, CISPA does not offer enough protection of the nation's core cyber infrastructure and threatens civil liberties by failing to establish accountability measures and "sufficient limitations" on the sharing of personal information to ensure information is shared by the government and private companies for the right purposes.

The bill does not provide adequate “protection of the nation’s core cyber infrastructure” but it provides plenty of invasion of privacy while “failing to establish accountability measures and ‘sufficient limitations’” on such invasions. Coming on the heels of the FISA – and NDAA which deals with detention of citizens the government suspects of terrorism – passages, one has to wonder how much more invasion the government needs, and how much this CISPA provides that would cause Obama to threaten veto, since he has shown far more tendency to lean in favor of such invasions in the past.

Could it possibly be that Obama might actually veto this bill? I thoroughly doubt that Obama would veto this bill. Of course, he could veto it, or Democrats in Congress could put it on hold until after November’s election with the intent that it could more safely be either vetoed, or signed, after the election should Obama gain a second term.

This is my own view on this; delay any final decision until the November election’s outcome is known; once the election is in the bag, do whatever you want. It will be interesting to watch how this fiasco plays out.

ARE BOYCOTTS ECONOMIC TERRORISM, OR SOCIAL POLITICS?

Thu, 26 Apr 2012 05:04:40 -0400

A boycott is an act of voluntarily abstaining from using, buying, or dealing with a person, organization, or country as an expression of protest, usually for political reasons. It can be a form of consumer activism.

Defining Terrorism has proven virtually impossible.

“One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter.”

Terrorism is the systematic use of terror, especially as a means of coercion. In the international community, however, terrorism has no universally agreed, legally binding, criminal law definition. […] An abiding characteristic is the indiscriminate use of violence against noncombatants for the purpose of gaining publicity for a group, cause, or individual.

Maximilien Robespierre, a leader in the French revolution proclaimed in 1794 that "Terror is nothing other than justice, prompt, severe, inflexible.

On the night of April 22, 2012, I heard a conservative radio talk-show host, “Bill Cunningham – The Great American” (that’s what he calls himself), suggest that boycotts are “economic terrorism” and his guest agreed with Bill that to employ them is “wrong”, and they should not be used. Typical of political propaganda, their problem is a hyperbolic misuse of the concept of terrorism with intent to mislead. This appears to be one of the newer Republican propaganda lines, as a number of the conservative radio talk-show hosts seem to be “occupying” the same rhetoric.

Bill’s precise application was to recent circumstances of boycotts affecting businesses affiliated with ALEC. ALEC claims to be “a nonpartisan membership association for conservative state lawmakers …”, a bit of an oxymoron, I think, especially since it developed out of the Reagan Administration, although, given how the two major parties have essentially merged, perhaps “nonpartisan” fits. Regardless, some major companies responded to the boycott threats.

I recently read the governor of Vermont has apparently surrendered to Monsanto, suggesting it would “burden” Vermonters with costs of “legal challenges” from Monsanto, if he were to sign a bill that would require that food producers properly and thoroughly label their products regarding content of genetically modified organisms (GMO). As reported by Alternet.com:

But while supporters were emailing and phoning and signing, Governor Shumlin was sending out a canned response to the thousands of supporters who emailed his office. In the Governor's own words:

Dear Friend,

Thank you for contacting me about labeling genetically modified foods. I agree with those who advocate for clear labeling of genetically modified foods. GMO labeling makes sense and would give Vermonters key information about their food choices. However, we know from attempts to pass similar legislation in the past that such a requirement would not stand up to federal legal scrutiny. I don't think it is fair to ask Vermonters to bear the burden of the cost of those legal challenges...

The governor agrees that the labeling is needed, but insists that Monsanto can outlast the state financially in threatened lawsuits. The first question to ask – and answer – is why Monsanto objects to labeling indicating their product as an ingredient in food. The governor’s statement raises another question. Since similar labeling laws already exist, why would enforcing one more questionable ingredient’s listing be so different, so unique, that “such a requirement would not stand up to federal legal scrutiny”? The most reasonable conclusion I find is that the federal government represents Monsanto before it represents average citizens.

In Europe, Monsanto’s products have been banned. With regards to economic terrorism, consider the U.S. reactions to these bans:

In recent years, France and several other European countries banned Monsanto's MON-810 corn and similar genetically modified food crops. In late 2007, the U.S. ambassador to France recommended "moving to retaliation" against France and the European Union in an attempt to fight the French ban and changes in European policy toward genetically modified crops, according to a U.S. government diplomatic cable obtained by WikiLeaks. The U.S. ambassador to France recommended retaliation to cause "some pain across the EU."

In the case of GMOs, corporations producing these products make the first strike by putting harmful, or at the very least, questionable ingredients into their food products. For citizens to ask their government to merely require these ingredients be listed on the labels of products they buy is not terrorism. For these corporations to then threaten to sue the state, knowing the state will be unlikely to financially sustain an ongoing legal battle, is terrorism. For citizens to then band together and decide not to buy products affiliated with these corporations and producers is not terrorism; it is defending themselves against corporate terrorism.

Do corporations, advertisers and marketers have no political interests? Is it reasonable to assume they don’t back politicians with an agenda that benefits them? Is it worse to be subjugated to a government “of the people, for the people and by the people”, or to be subjugated to an unregulated mob of greedy wealthy elite capitalists and corporatists who care nothing for the plight of those who serve?

Like so many other issues in America, it seems obvious that, once again, while the rest of the world recognizes a dangerous situation and attempts to deal with it, the American government aligns itself with corporate-sponsored economic terrorism to undermine other nations, and even the health of its own citizenry. High I.Q. or a particular brilliant mind isn’t necessary to see this is not only a clearer case of economic terrorism, but a more vicious case, as well, and based not in promoting a healthier environment, but rather in promoting corporate profits at the expense of other nations, the health of their citizenry, and the health of America’s own citizenry.

This is a perfect example of what happens when people decide that a word or a concept means whatever they want rather than what it actually represents. If one follows capitalism’s logical course of evolution, and allows the same kind of definitional distortions, one arrives at a point where “terrorism” – in one form or another – is one of its primary inevitabilities. Profit is the primary tenet of capitalism, which means one person must disadvantage another in one way or another. The idea that one party is willingly disadvantaged by the other does not mitigate the structural characteristic that preys on human weakness.

When capitalist zealots like Bill-the-great-American decry tactics like boycotts as economic terrorism, they confuse “terrorism” with “social politics”, and they miss the point that they are, in essence, simultaneously ignoring and decrying the fact that capitalism promotes human weaknesses. After all is said and done, what, exactly, has brought us to this precipice we currently face? None other than economic terrorism has brought us here; terrorism perpetrated by American government colluding with American corporations against other nations and against American citizens, all in the name of profits for the few at the expense of the many.

A boycott essentially represents a refusal to align with a particular act by not using services or products. Boycotts are different from physically interfering with others using a service or a product. How is this any different than refusing to buy a product due to high pricing? Is this not the very essence of “free market” economics? If one person’s means of profit is damaging another’s livelihood, is it terrorism for consumers being injured to refuse to support the business that is supporting the institution supporting the injurious actions?

Perhaps the most egregious example of economic terrorism is when religion merges with moneyed elites and government officials to elevate business and corporate power above average citizens, essentially removing average citizens from the governing process. Can there be a worse example of economic terrorism than when religions like Christianity insist that their adherents support a political party that supports the subjugation of people to businesses, and bases their insistency on religious grounds that have nothing to do with preventing injuries the party of the Church’s choice supports?

We’ve seen clear examples of this kind of terrorism recently, such as the Vatican’s chastisement of The Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR), an organization representing a vast majority of nuns in the US, for “focusing its work too much on poverty and economic injustice, while keeping ‘silent’ on abortion and same-sex marriage.” The Church aligns itself with the political party that most clearly stands in opposition to some of the most basic tenets of Jesus’ teachings, morality spanning eons since before the time of Jesus, and common decency and directly demeans its own members who support those tenets. It’s easy to see the similarity between this form of coercion from the church and that of Monsanto against the state of Vermont. Of course, this form of coercion and infiltration has been characteristic of the Catholic Church throughout its history from its earliest beginnings; this is nothing new.

“Bill Cunningham-the-Great-American” is “Bill Cunningham-the-Great-Hypocrite”. He should learn to distinguish between “terrorism” and “consumer activism”. So-called “free markets” are based on consumer activism, so to decry consumer activism by labeling it as terrorism is to decry the sacred cow of conservative right-wing zealots, FREE MARKETS. Oppose economic terrorism, but know what it is.

NOT Being Pregnant Is Beginning of Life in Arizona

Sat, 14 Apr 2012 07:04:50 -0400

As if American society could not become any more insane, Arizona has completely surpassed any other place I know of on Earth in passing legislation – LEGISLATION – stating that the first sign that a woman is NOT pregnant and, therefore, cannot possibly bring forth a new life is the beginning of life.

“Once a reader of the law looks into the fine print though, that 20-week mark doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. With officials now considering the gestational age of the fetus to begin on the first day of the last period, abortions can actually be banned as early as 18 weeks after conception.”

Not only can a woman not become pregnant on the first day of her period, almost all do not ovulate until sometime around fourteen days later, which is when they can become pregnant. This legislation is so insane that anyone who supports it should be committed to an asylum to live out the rest of their days in the peace and quiet of an environment that does NOT require the presence of reality imposing on their delusions.

Honestly, can anyone reading this think of a more insane perspective that has passed any legislative body into actual LAW? And these people who have passed this would criticize what is known as Sharia Law? Really? REALLY???

Sharia Law is the moral code and religious law of Islam. Sharia deals with many topics addressed by secular law, including crime, politics and economics, as well as personal matters such as sexual intercourse, hygiene, diet, prayer, and fasting. Though interpretations of sharia vary between cultures, in its strictest definition it is considered the infallible law of God—as opposed to the human interpretation of the law.

The fact that a state legislature within the United States would pass this law determining that life begins when life cannot possibly begin demonstrates beyond any doubt that this nation is falling apart at the seams and falling into complete insanity. If this is where America is headed, then the rest of the developed modern world had better gear up for a rebellion against this level of ignorance coming from the most militarily powerful nation on the planet. Embarrassment doesn’t even begin to describe my despair that this could happen in my country. The level of ignorance required for this legislation to pass is so overwhelming that I cannot find words to describe the emotional disturbance I am experiencing.

This Arizona legislation insanely out-performs the Tennessee legislation that requires sex education instructors to refer to “holding hands” as a “gateway to sexual activity”. The absurdity of what religion is bringing to this nation is simply beyond explanation to a reasonable mind. America is falling deeper into what author Susan Jacoby has deemed “The Age of American Unreason”.

“The book is about the anti-intellectual, anti-rational strains that Jacoby believes have overtaken our culture. […] she writes that "the scales of American history have shifted heavily against the ... intellectual life so essential to functional democracy." Unafraid of laying blame, she offers a harsh indictment of a failing educational system, religious fundamentalism and the American addiction to mass media — from TV to the Web.

Unreason now rules our national discourse, drowning out the voices of reason that still exist. It’s enough to drive the stable and sane among us completely INSANE.