Psycopathy of Civilization (part one)

[Jerry Pitts]

Originally Posted by palani

Then again this combination might make as much sense:

Where are you getting all of these kewl etymologies?

Gotta know

Jerry Carlos

[palani]

Jerry

Check out

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?...earchmode=none

[BOBT12]

Here's a little update on ole John (torture) Yoo:

Lawyers Move To Get Torture Memo Author Yoo Tried As War Criminal

National group targets testicle crushing advocate at Berkley Law School

Steve Watson /Infowars.net | April 11, 2008

During his time in the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, Yoo authored various controversial memos in which he advocated the possible legality of torture and decreed that enemy combatants could be denied protection under the Geneva Conventions.

The National Lawyers Guild has called for the firing from Berkeley Law School of former assistant to the Attorney General John Yoo for what it describes as “complicity in establishing a policy” that has led to war crimes.

During his time in the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, Yoo authored various controversial memos in which he advocated the possible legality of torture and decreed that enemy combatants could be denied protection under the Geneva Conventions.

Yoo, a co author of the PATRIOT ACT, also suggested that it was legal to declare war anytime, any where, and on anyone the President deemed a threat.

In a press release, National Lawyers Guild President Marjorie Cohn stated:

“John Yoo’s complicity in establishing the policy that led to the torture of prisoners constitutes a war crime under the US War Crimes Act,”
The National Lawyers Guild makes the case that Yoo’s memos violate US law and establish a unduly expansive definition of presidential powers.

The release concludes:
“Congress should repeal the provision of the Military Commissions Act that would give Yoo immunity from prosecution for torture committed from September 11, 2001 to December 30, 2005. John Yoo should be disbarred and he should not be retained as a professor of law at one of the country’s premier law schools. John Yoo should be dismissed from Boalt Hall and tried as a war criminal.”

These demands are not to be taken lightly, founded in 1937, The National Lawyers Guild is the oldest and largest public
interest/human rights bar organization in the United States.

Yoo is a stalwart within the neoconservative movement, being as he is a member of the American Enterprise Institute, the neocon cess pool founded by Irving Kristol, that became one of the leading architects of the Bush administration’s public policy. Other members include Paul Wolfowitz, Lynne Cheney, John R. Bolton, Richard Perle and Newt Gingrich.

The National Lawyers Guild see Yoo as the man ultimately responsible for the fact that Bush administration officials all the way up to Vice President D*I*C*K Cheney signed off on using harsh interrogation techniques against suspected terrorists after asking the Justice Department to endorse their legality.

Just last week the ACLU disclosed details of further memos written by Yoo which argued that the Fourth Amendment could be effectively suspended where domestic counter terrorism operations are concerned.
It is almost certain that Yoo’s memo was written to provide a legal basis for the NSA, a military intelligence agency, to begin its warrantless wiretapping program, which was initiated in the same month.

The House Judiciary Committee has asked Yoo to testify at a hearing next month. Yoo has indicated he would prefer not to appear, reports the Washington Post.
Yoo is also well known for comments he made during a December 1st 2006 debate in Chicago with Notre Dame professor and international human rights scholar Doug Cassel, when he gave the green light for the scope of torture to legally include sexual torture of infants.
The debate ran:

Cassel: If the president deems that he’s got to torture somebody, including by crushing the testicles of the person’s child, there is no law that can stop him?

Yoo: No treaty.

Cassel: Also no law by Congress — that is what you wrote in the August 2002 memo…

Yoo: I think it depends on why the President thinks he needs to do that.

CASSEL: If the president deems that he’s got to torture somebody, including by crushing the testicles of the person’s child, there is no law that can stop him?

YOO: No treaty

CASSEL: Also no law by Congress — that is what you wrote in the August 2002 memo…

YOO: I think it depends on why the President thinks he needs to do that.

Several months later, when asked by an Infowars reader to explain the moral justification for crushing a child’s testicles or raping a child in front of a parent, Yoo suggested that his comments were taken out of context and stated “you can’t believe everything you hear on the internet”.

As the National Lawyers Guild makes clear, there are several laws that make such actions illegal, the federal maiming statute is just one example.
However, Yoo argues that federal statutes against torture, assault, maiming and stalking do not apply to the military in the conduct of the war.

Yoo cannot deny that there is no moral justification for the actions he argued were technically legal, he is using a legal argument to hide behind a clear avocation of genocide.
In September 2006 the Senate officially gave President Bush the legal authority to abduct and sexually mutilate American citizens and American children in the name of the war on terror when it passed new detainee legislation.

The Atlantic’s ANDREW SULLIVAN: The latest revelations on the torture front show the memo from John Yoo…means that Don Rumsfeld, David Addington and John Yoo should not leave the United States any time soon. They will be, at some point, indicted for war crimes.

“Yoo argues presidential powers on Constitutional grounds, but where in the Constitution does it say the President can order the torture of children?” Georgetown Law Professor David Cole has previously written.

“Yoo reasoned that because the Constitution makes the President the ‘Commander-in -Chief,’ no law can restrict the actions he may take in pursuit of war. On this reasoning, the President would be entitled by the Constitution to resort to genocide if he wished.”

The National Lawyers Guild call to indict Yoo for war crimes has also been echoed by The Atlantic’s Andrew Sullivan, who also made the point that if Yoo was to face such an indictment then so would other officials such as Donald Rumsfeld and former Cheney advisor David Addington.

Emphasis added.

http://www.infowars.com/?p=1448

Some feel that the people should subordinate their conscience to such mad-hatters. As anyone can see, this is unwise in the extreme!

There are some who feel that resisting any rule, is not respecting authority of the law.

"An individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for the law." -- Martin Luther King Jr.

Non-violent people like Irwin Schiff, and others, are made to suffer unjust treatment in the government's care and custody.

Yet it is these same "legal-loving" individuals who are disregarding the authority of the people who, in their sovereign capacity, are above the law written by their representatives. A jury is such a sovereign body, they are to oversee the proper administration of the law. This is why the people have always had the right to review the facts and the laws, based upon conscience.

All delegated power is trust, and all assumed power is usurpation. Time does not alter the nature and quality of either. -Paine

Nevertheless, in their lust to subordinate the people, many judges, as well as those in the "legal" profession, try to unjustly usurp this power.

Originally Posted by Thomas Jefferson

"The judiciary of the United States is the subtle corps of sappers and miners constantly working under ground to undermine the foundation of our conferated fabric. They are construing our constitution from a coordination of a general and special government to a general and supreme one alone. This will lay all things at their feet... We shall see if they are bold enough to take the daring stride their five lawyers have lately taken. If they do, then ...I will say, that against this every man should raise his voice, and more, should uplift his arm ...

"Having found, from experience that impeachment is an impractical thing, a mere scarecrow, they consider themselves secure for life; they sculk from responsibility to public opinion ... An opinion is huddled up in conclave, perhaps by a majority of one, delivered as if unanimous, and with the silent acquiescence of lazy or timid associates, by a crafty chief judge, who sophisticates the law to his mind, by the turn of his own reasoning...

"A judiciary independent of a king or executive alone, is a good thing; but independent of the will of the nation is a solecism, at least in a republican government." --Letter to Thomas Ritchie, December 25, 1820

Emphasis added.

[BOBT12]

Major update

On Friday night, in a national television interview, President Bush directly admitted what we have suspected all along: The White House was deeply and intimately involved in decisions about the CIA’s use of torture.

For the first time, George W. Bush acknowledged that he knew his top national security advisers discussed and approved specific details of the CIA’s use of torture. “I’m aware that our national security team met on this issue and I approved,” he said. He also defended the use of waterboarding -- simulated drowning where the victim feels like they are about to die.

Congress should long ago have gotten to the bottom of which top officials approved, condoned and authorized U.S. involvement in torture. But, now that the President has admitted to a policy of top-down torture, the ACLU is calling on Congress to demand an independent prosecutor to investigate possible violations of the War Crimes Act, the federal Anti-Torture Act and federal assault laws.

Tell your members of Congress: Don’t look the other way on torture.

These latest revelations confirm our worst fears about subversion of the Constitution and betrayals of the rule of law by top government officials. Recent reports indicate that members of the Bush administration including **** Cheney, Condoleezza Rice, Donald Rumsfeld, Colin Powell and George Tenet met regularly and approved the CIA’s use of “combined” “enhanced” interrogation techniques, even pushing the limits of the now infamous 2002 Justice Department “Yoo torture memo.”

That long-secret memorandum became public recently as a direct result of ACLU lawsuits aimed at getting out the truth. And the truth is, the indefensible legal opinions put forward in the torture memo tried to give the President a virtual blank check to ignore the rule of law and to violate human rights standards.

Don't tolerate torture. Demand accountability for torture now!

We have to do everything possible to reject the Bush administration’s top-down torture policies. That’s why the ACLU is stepping up pressure on Congress to use its constitutional powers to prevent illegal conduct.

It’s also why the ACLU has taken the extraordinary step of offering our assistance to Guantanamo detainees being prosecuted under the unconstitutional military commissions process. It is more important than ever that the U.S. government, when seeking justice against those it suspects of harming us, adhere to due process and the rule of law.

Take action: Tell Congress to demand answers!

If President Bush's admission finally gets Congress to challenge the Bush administration's torture policies head-on, we can begin restoring the values and due process that the Bush administration has severely undermined in the name of national security.

But, it won’t happen without an unyielding public outcry. Please do your part. Demand that your members of Congress reject torture by holding to account those responsible for approving and implementing these un-American policies.

Sincerely,


Caroline Fredrickson, Director
ACLU Washington Legislative Office

Emphasis added.