CBS News | Orwellian Guantanamo
The presiding tribunal officer accuses Idr of associating "with a known Al Qaeda operative." The detainee says, reasonably enough: "Give me his name." The tribunal president says: "I do not know." Idr understandably asks: "How can I respond to this?" The tribunal president asks: "Did you know of anybody that was a member of al Qaeda?" Idr says: "No, no ..."
And then Idr went to the heart of the constitutional problem, as Judge Green sees it, with an evaluation that the judge described as "piercingly accurate."
"This is something the interrogators told me a long while ago," Idr complains during his so-called trial. "I asked the interrogators to tell me who this person was. Then I could tell you if I might have known this person, but not if this person is a terrorist. Maybe I knew this person as a friend. Maybe it was a person that worked with me. Maybe it was a person that was on my team. But I do not know if this person is Bosnian, Indian or whatever. If you tell me the name, then I can respond and defend myself against this accusation."
The tribunal president then responds, presumably with a straight face: "We are asking you the question and we need you to respond to what is on the unclassified summary."
i spent the day yesterday canvassing outer se portland with acorn. walking around in the rain and cold i kept telling myself that this is what democracy feels like, a lot of work. i did a pretty good job of avoiding the tv until about 11pm. what i saw didn't look good.
kerry's concession this morning has me wondering what's going to happen. i hope that when all the second guessing is done people come to the realization that it was a fucking close election. there wasn't a blowout for either side, the republicans just squeaked by. they did a better job of getting out the vote than most people expected and it paid off.
that said, in the last year and a half the left has built up an amazing set of activist groups. i really, truly hope that we can keep the infrastructure in place to fight back in the house and senate races in 2006. the republicans are going to have FULL control of the government for at least that long and bush's probably going to get to pick two supreme court justices. we're going to have to fight like hell to slow down the destruction of this country.
back in 2000 i thought to myself "how bad can it be?" well this time i've got an idea. quite a few of my friends want to stick their heads in the sand and pretend that it won't affect them. i wish i could believe that. it's going to be a rough couple of years.
random thoughts in reverse order
good match up. kerry had great points and managed to hit bush pretty hard a couple of times. on the other hand, bush did an amazing job of staying on topic and avoiding questions. i would have loved to see kerry hitting on bush's evasiveness.
watching bush bounce out of the convention ready to bring out the mud and coat the white house. there's a great piece over at hullabaloo that makes a good case that slime is the answer. i've been telling everyone who'll listen that i just want to see the 527 that's ready to give it to bush and i'll send 'em a check. not that accurate moveon.org stuff. i want new york sewer stuff about bush's "daughters" being conceived while his wife had an affair kind of thing. what's that phrase bush likes so much? bring it on or something like that?
as busy as nader maybe trying to get bush reelected, he still has time to write an open letter to michael moore complaining about the lack of an invitation to the f911 opening. if you can make it through his horrible writing you'll arrive at this gem:
Your old friends remain committed to blazing paths for a just society and world. As they helped you years ago, they can help you now. They are also trim and take care of themselves. Girth they avoid.
after seeing fahrenheit 9/11 i'm going to appologize to micheal moore for my criticisms of his previous movies. there was only one shot in the movie that had me thinking "fuck mike, just turn off the camera and let the poor woman cry". instead of talking the entire time he let the images speak for themselves. i'd be amazed if you could see the movie and leave without having your stomach in a knot. i think it'll raise plenty of questions that can only hurt our dear leader.
as long as we can keep nader out of the way this nightmare may come to an end.
pennies from heaven: regan's thoughts sent back from heaven. it might sound a little hokey but it's actually a wonderful piece.
salon has a delightful piece detailing how the only republicans support nader has taken from bush are in his head.
when i went to see kerry speak at pioneer square there were about 30 bush supporters. it occured to me later that if they'd really wanted to hurt kerry they would have left the pro-bush signs at home and come out to raise money for nader instead.
you gotta watch the trailer for fahrenheit 9/11. i'm not a big micheal moore fan, his confrontational style is too much for me but this one looks pretty good.
i went and saw super size me last night, i really liked it. where moore would have put the lunch lady serving junk food to kids on defensive and eventually portray her as some evil bitch posioning our kids, spurlock is very friendly and lets her pretty much say "yeah, we're feeding them shit but what am i supposed to do?" i just appreciate he's not out to make everyone look like a fuck. i've got no problem with moore doing that to the administration and captains of industry but he has to do it to the little people and try to get a cheap emotional moment out of it.
i'll keep seeing moore's movies because i think it's important to have him out there on the fringe, it opens up a lot more space for other directors like spurlock to make progressive movies that can seem mainstream by comparison.
remember the john kerry intern sex scandal? like a weed it kind of sprung up and then withered. the lady who was accused has written up an autopsy on the event.
al gore has been out slamming the bush administration. they played a condensed version on the o'franken factor this morning. i really appreciate proxy role that he, dean and others are playing, getting out there and saying the things that kerry can't. paul krugman thinks that bush's teflon coating has just about worn off.
mark schmitt has some very interesting comments describing the way the senate works.
yasir arafat details the palestinian vision of peace in the new york times.