Justice US Style

Claimed to be the most democratic country in the world and trying to democrstise the other countries who are deemed by US as undemocratic (hmmm...mostly arab/islamic countries)

There are US citizens who are not happy with their government passing ridiculus laws and not even looking at a president's criminal acts and acts against human rights.

I read a blog by David Swanson about Bush/Cheyney era of governance. It is very educational to a point and. as a person who is against war and cruelty to others, I always thought US and UK citizens will bring cases against Bush and Blair to bring them to justice. I myself has written to few UK MPs who were likely to be against Blair's decision to go to war. I was disappointed, when few of them had me entertained for a few months with an email saying they recieved the letter, and as they never replied. I can feel the frustration of D Swanson about the same matter in US.
 
Here is the start of the blog, but do go to his blog to read the rest.

Elizabeth Holtzman knows something about struggles for justice in the U.S. government. She was a member of Congress and of the House Judiciary Committee that voted for articles of impeachment against President Richard Nixon in 1973. She proposed the bill that in 1973 required that "state secrets" claims be evaluated on a case-by-case basis. She co-authored the special prosecutor law that was allowed to lapse, just in time for the George W. Bush crime wave, after Kenneth Starr made such a mockery of it during the Whitewater-cum-Lewinsky scandals. She was there for the creation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) in 1978. She has served on the Nazi War Crimes and Japanese Imperial Government Records Interagency Working Group, bringing long-escaped war criminals to justice. And she was an outspoken advocate for impeaching George W. Bush.



Holtzman's new book, coauthored with Cynthia Cooper, is called "Cheating Justice: How Bush and Cheney Attacked the Rule of Law and Plotted to Avoid Prosecution -- and What We Can Do About It." Holtzman begins by recalling how widespread and mainstream was the speculation at the end of the Bush nightmare that Bush would pardon himself and his underlings. The debate was over exactly how he would do it. And then he didn't do it at all.

Talking about justice in US where around 20% of the people are in prisons, I came across another of D Swansons blogs which made me get interested and I hope you too. Well it is about a new law passed while the US citizens were partying on NewYears Eve. It is quite a controvercial law. Chstian Post did an article thus. There were protestors from the "Occupy the Wallstreet", doing a protest in the Grand Central Station. Read all about it here.

Under the new law, the president of the United States can designate any individual, whether an American citizen, resident alien, or citizen of any other country, to be arrested and detained for life by the US military. The law defines a “covered person” in the following terms: “A person who was a part of or substantially supported al-Qaeda, the Taliban, or associated forces that are engaged in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners, including any person who has committed a belligerent act or has directly supported such hostilities in aid of such enemy forces.”


No more demostration, as that itself is under the openess of the said law can be intrpreted by the military or po- lice, and arrest the demonstrators as terrorists. Not even peacful ones. Grrrr I can here someone.

Ah back from the ranting of moi, here is the first two paras of the said article by Mr Swanson

Good things do come out of the Virginia state legislature. That normally reprehensible body has just stood up to the federal outrage that has come to be known as the NDAA. The letters stand for the National Defense Authorization Act, but at issue here is not the bulk of that bill. Virginia's state government has no objection to dumping our grandchildren's unearned pay into the pockets of war profiteers while our schools lack funding. At issue is the presidential power to lock people up without a trial, which was slipped into the latest military funding bill late last year and signed into law by President Barack Obama on New Year's Eve. In fact, Virginia's legislature does not object to that abuse except in one particular circumstance, namely when the victim of it is a U.S. citizen. But in that circumstance, Virginia says Hell No.



Locally in Charlottesville, we rallied at Republican Congressman Robert Hurt's office.

Here is the rest.