I'm not going down the list -- this is all so fruitless. Sometimes it's fun, but I'm all funned out. Just a couple of general points if you will. The abuses of human and civil and legal rights by this Administration are, I think, of a different order of magnitude than any previous Administration in their breadth and magnitude. This is what I think, but it's based of little more than impression I'll grant you. I'll grant you as well that certain of my "damages" are topped by some previous Administrations. Certainly FDR's imprisonment of U. S. citizens of Japanese descent was akin to Stalin's tactics except that we didn't put them to forced labor or starve them -- but we undoubtedly would have killed them had they tried to escape. Kennedy's Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba was just a much an international crime as Bush's invasion of Iraq. So were Reagan's proxy wars in Latin America. Johnson's throwing away hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars in Vietnam is as grievous a waste of national treasure as Bush's adventure. And it derailed the War on Poverty which could have made America as decent a place to live as Scandinavia. And his willingness to throw away the lives of twenty-five thousand U. S. soldiers in a war that he did not even believe was winnable, and that Nixon was willing to throw away the lives of another twenty-five thousand American soldiers in a war that even he was desperately trying to extricate himself from and who apparently seriously considered using Nuclear weapons to do so -- these crimes are every bit as grievous as Bush's. And I screamed against them, just as I scream against Bush. It is people who shrug and say, oh well, that's the way it's always been that shackle humanity to barbarity. You don't have to be like them, Eric. The world doesn't have to be like them. And Nancy famously said: Just say No!
Mike Geary MemphisPS: You keep throwing Clinton at me. I've never been an admirer of Clinton. I thought I'd made that clear years ago.
----- Original Message ----- From: "Eric Yost" <mr.eric.yost@xxxxxxxxx>
To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Sent: Thursday, March 08, 2007 1:57 PM Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Nuclear Responsibility and Iran
Mike's list: >The attack on the Bill of Rights by the Patriot Act.**Hardly anything at all compared to the Drug War bill in the early '90s. That damage happened on Clinton's watch when nobody was looking.>The very notion of, not to mention the waging of, pre-emptive war.**Self-defense has always been a right of nations. Plus that 1 percent pre-emption policy has been abandoned. (See also below.)>The torturing of prisoners. The kidnapping, disappearing andextraordinary rendition of people around the world. The establisment of secret CIA prisons in foreign countries. The confinement of people without recourse to justice. The suspension of habeas corpus.**This happened throughout the Cold War and into the Clinton years. During the Clinton years, the phrase "giving a trip to the pyramids" was coined to refer to rendition to Egypt. Are you so naive as to assume that Bush started this? Wow.>The unprecedented, enormous waste of the national treasure.** Money talk, eh? Well the waste is precedented, though I'll meet you halfway on this one. A lot of waste and corruption that should result in massive criminal prosecution.>The extreme secrecy within which our own government operates. The unchecked surveillance of American citizens by government officials.** Again, happened throughout the Cold War. Surveillance actually became more difficult with the switch to fiber optic cables and the widespread use of E-mail encryption technology. Phones always were tapped. Harry Truman authorized first tap of transatlantic phone cables.>The destruction of the goodwill towards America throughout most of the world caused by the foreign policy of this Administration.**With the USSR gone, we're the only superpower nations can feel resentment toward. Part is due to Bush's strong unilateral actions, yes, but the rest is due to the fact that we're the only remaining superpower.>That's the kind of damage I'm talking about.**If you check what I've written, you see this is just more of the same, only it's becoming more widely known. Engage the points above and I'll provide you with references.------------------------------------------------------------------ To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off, digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html
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