By Brad on Jan 8, 2009 in America, American Values, Bush Administration, Government, Hypocrisy, Justice, The President, Worth Considering | comments(0)
From Proverbs:
Differing weights and differing measures—
the LORD detests them both.
From Glenn Greenwald:
That’s America’s justice system in a nutshell: the President who deliberately and knowingly violated our 30-year-old law making it a felony offense to eavesdrop on Americans without warrants has the entire political and media class eagerly defend him against prosecution. Those who enabled him — in both parties — block investigations into what was done. Ruth Marcus and Cass Sunstein and friends offer one excuse after the next to justify this immunity. But the powerless and defenseless — though definitively courageous — public servant who blew the whistle on this lawbreaking is harassed, investigated, and pursued by the DOJ’s Criminal Division to the point of bankruptcy and depression. The high-powered criminals are protected by our political elite while the whistle-blower spends years paying lawyers and devoting his mental energies to trying to fend of the DOJ’s criminal investigation.
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Sad, but true. And this is a practice that is not confined to one side or the other. It happens across the political spectrum. And it seriously undercuts the consistent rhetoric from our nation’s leaders that “no one is above the law.” That’s simply not true. It’s proven again and again that those at the top are indeed above the law because no one ever holds them accountable.
By Brad on Jan 5, 2009 in America, American Values, Blogosphere, The World, War, Worth Considering | comments(0)
Rabbi Eric Yoffie posted an op-ed piece in The Forward last week in which he lamented those “few Jewish doves” who “have demonstrated an utter lack of empathy for Israel’s predicament,” calling their views “morally deficient.” J Street, one of Rabbi Yoffie’s targets, responds:
Our position on the crisis reflects our support for Israel, our hope for its security and our sympathy with the ongoing suffering of the people on both sides in this conflict. It is hard for us to understand how the leading reform rabbi in North America could call our effort to articulate a nuanced view on these difficult issues “morally deficient.” If our views are “naïve” and “morally deficient”, then so are the views of scores of Israeli journalists, security analysts, distinguished authors, and retired IDF officers who have posed the same questions about the Gaza attack as we have.
And, when tens of thousands of pro-Israel American Jews are joining with statements made by J Street, Americans for Peace Now, Brit Tzedek, Israel Policy Forum and others calling for a ceasefire – it is simply wrong to call these views out of touch with Jewish sentiment.
American Jews are, as Rabbi Yoffie says, by and large sensible and centrist, and they support Israel in her hour of need. But many of those same Jews – and their friends who want the best for Israel – are well within their rights and within the centrist mainstream to question the wisdom of the actions taken this week, to question where they will lead and to ask the US and others to help bring an end to the violence as quickly as possible.
It’s not completely unlike the condemnations by the pro-war crowd against anyone who questions the wisdom of our own nation’s military actions, especially when some of those actions prove to have been based on false premises and crumbling justifications. While there are often legitimate reasons for military action to protect our nation’s security, there are also those in this country who seem to relish at the thought of starting wars, especially if it means attacking Arab/Muslim countries Continued
By Brad on Dec 15, 2008 in America, American Values, Blogosphere, Bush Administration, Quoteworthy, The President, The World, Worth Considering | comments(3)
Glenn Greenwald wants to know:
Just ponder the uproar if, in any other country, the political parties joined together and issued a report documenting that the country’s President and highest aides were directly responsible for war crimes and widespread detainee abuse and death. Compare the inevitable reaction to such an event if it happened in another country to what happens in the U.S. when such an event occurs — a virtual media blackout, ongoing fixations by political journalists with petty scandals, and an undisturbed consensus that, no matter what else is true, high-level American political figures (as opposed to powerless low-level functionaries) must never be held accountable for their crimes.
