We now know, moreover, the following undisputed facts: the president of the United States and his closest advisers devised, orchestrated and monitored interrogation methods banned by the Geneva Conventions at Guantanamo Bay and subsequently in every theater of combat; these techniques were used not only in the extra-legal no-man's land of Guantanamo Bay but also at the prison at Abu Ghraib where photographic evidence of many of the actual techniques explicitly authorized by the president - stress positions, hoods, mock-executions, etc. - was incontrovertible. We now know that those techniques that the president expressed "shock" at were already explicitly authorized for use by other agents by him long before Abu Ghraib was exposed. (emphasis mine)
Today I have written both to Senator Feinstein and Senator Boxer to call them out -- to urge them to become voices of strong concern, to take action against the government's incremental, insidious, and dangerously irreversible trend toward dictatorship. Those of you reading this might be angry about what's been happening here. Now, today, anger is no longer enough. You must tell others about your anger, tell people who are not the choir to which you might previously have preached. Tell the people whose heads are in the sand, or worse, whose brains have been washed by the current administration into believing that what they are doing to protect us is necessary to prevent future terrorist attacks. While they say now that they are just looking for terrorists, bad guys, you and I might be next. We might be the ones they spy on as we write and talk about what bastards they are for laying waste to our Constitution in pursuit of the Muslim bogeymen.
As we observe the 40th anniversaries of the Tet Offensive, the assassinations of MLK & RFK, the My Lai massacre, and the wild 1968 Democratic National Convention, let's also observe the 41st anniversary of the Summer of Love. That gathering of 100,000 people in Haight-Ashbury signaled the end to our collective inaction about the Vietnam War. The rejection of American authoritarianism, commercialism, and the material benefits of modern life, in exchange for peace, love, and the unity of all mankind, can have meaning today for us. We can turn off the network and cable news channels, put down the newspapers, and turn to our "anti-press," the blogosphere, to inspire each other to be more forceful in our comments, more fearless when we speak the truth to those who don't care to hear it or try to deny it (or make us wrong). We can worry less about how our private money is spent and worry more about how our public money (i.e., taxes) are spent.
Opposing this war is not un-American. Believing that we don't need our liberties, that we are infallible in our foreign policy, that there is only one way to deal with Muslims/Arabs -- THAT is un-American.
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