GOP memo touts NEW TERROR ATTACK

by **Homeless Halo** » Sun Nov 13, 2005 5:32 am

Well ban me, I suppose. I'm not "advocating" violence. Interpret it as you will, but this is not the intent. The point being that what constitutes a "death penalty" crime is a legitimate item for debate. I'm not telling anyone to go get weapons and harm random people. I was merely suggesting that such heinous crimes, if indeed proven, would arguably be "deserving" such a fate. Not only this, but I'm attempting to establish that such would be legal and/or preferrable to indefinite incarceration. I don't know that ANYONE could be "proven" to have explicit guilt in such specific crimes, but if it could, there should be a penalty, and it shouldn't be decided by the criminals' friends. I have never claimed to be "better" than them. My interest is generally rather self-interested, so to speak. What would you have us do with child raping/eating, warmongering, terrorist creating, high treasonous persons with infinite supplies of power and money, supposing they exist? I'm certain the majority of them would be found to be insane, at which point it is likely that we could find some use for them. But what about the others? Wait on the supreme court to indict them? I understand the whole "this is about educating the masses" meme in regards to this board's immediate goals, but what then? What are the masses supposed to do about it? How are the masses to be protected from the system of protection? What will this theoretical "education" of others achieve, supposing it miraculously works this time? Is education supposed to solve these problems in and of itself? If so, perhaps the "how" part can be explained to me, at which point I might be inclined to reconsider my position. Beyond this, in terms of "them" moving against "us", don't you think that if your plan of "education" was working to hurt "them" that they wouldn't shut you down regardless of whether or not you thought their crimes were "legally" and/or "morally" death-penalty-worthy? just a thought.

by **banned** » Mon Nov 14, 2005 3:07 am

...is murder. Sorry. You can define it that way all you want, but that doesn't mean that those of us who support it in certain instances (and it goes without saying that excludes making it a two tiered system, one for poor minorities who end up in Old Sparky and the other for the rich and powerful) have to buy your definition. You love to pontificate from on high and smear those who don't share your principles as somehow less civilized than you, but that's narcissism. If you think the BTK guy deserves to spend the rest of his natural span with three hots and a cot, that's your right, but I don't. I think in order to BE a civilization, certain actions have to be defined as beyond the pale and those who perform them removed...permanently...from society. Otherwise, why have a society at all? If society can't promise me that someone like that isn't going to be in a position to possibly escape, or be let go by some shrink with a bad case of rectocephaly who claims he's 'cured', THEN it puts me and others like me in the position of having to provide our own protection against his ilk. That's the birth of vigilantism. Executing young black men with substandard IQs on iffy evidence, 'confessions' beaten out of them--THAT is the BushCo/Gitmo model. Trials for war crimes and war profiteering followed by executions is not murder, and believe me--if more would be tyrants knew that rather than get a bully pulpit for their megalomania they'd be sentenced to hang by the neck until dead, it might inhibit their willingness to commit those crimes. Such is the rationale behind international war crimes tribunals in the first place. If all you're going to do is say "Tsk tsk, Adolf/Pol Pot/Pinochet/Slobodan/Junior, now don't do that again!" and they say "My bad" and it's all over, or they get some Martha Stewart Camp Cupcake prison to write their memoirs in--screw it. Not worth wasting paper to write up the indictments. And again, if you equate the Nuremberg prosecutors and judges with freepers, you're either a simpleton, which you are not, or you are trying to blur the lines of morality, which of course you ARE.

by **maggrwaggr** » Mon Nov 14, 2005 3:29 am

and I agree with you. Evil people cannot be dealt with any other way than with force. They bring it upon themselves. They cannot be trusted to make any kind of agreements, they will not honor any treaties, surrender treaties or otherwise, they will simply say what needs to be said for them to continue in their crimes. The only way they will stop is when someone makes them stop. That's what people just don't fucking GET about Bushco. They're gonna keep doing what they're doing until someone MAKES them stop. They don't care if they're unpopular, they don't care if they lose the support of their own party, they really don't give a shit -- they're going to do whatever their POWER lets them do. What's that old saying -- thinking that evil people will treat you fairly because you're a nice person is like thinking that tiger won't eat you because you're a vegatarian. Evil people must be dealt with in a fashion that is in itself somewhat evil. That's what evil people DO. They make us all evil.

by **banned** » Mon Nov 14, 2005 3:40 am

...of COURSE it's Jeff's blog/board and he can set the rules. HOWEVER I think everyone who sees the Internet as this wonderful tool for 'spreading truth' and 'organizing' had best wake the fuck up and huff the brewing java, because THEY DO NOT CONTROL IT. In many cases they don't even know where it came from and they sure don't know how it works. If the Net is censored it won't be because somebody on some blog opined that maybe somebody needs to take an aluminum baseball bat and apply it to the back of Bill O'Reilly's head till his occipital lobe comes out his nose. We could all be on our best behavior and make nothing sweet, sunny, Holly Hobbie comments all day long, and if they want to pull it out from under us for their own strategic reasons THEY WILL DO IT. Or do you think that every black man who was lynched actually SAID or DID something to deserve it? Personally I think we need to use the Net for all it's worth while we have it, and if some freeper snarks that "banned" said George W. Bush needs to hang for war crimes, snark back that Bill O'Reilly said everyone in San Francisco deserves to be killed by Al Qaeda. In short, play hardball and make it clear to our enemies, who seek to DESTROY US, understand that we intend to do the same to them. And if people want to institute self censorship--like say Kos of DailyKos 'purging' people for merely voting for a diary that expressed the suspicion that the London attacks were false flag ops--that's certainly their right. Of course, they must expect to lose credibility with people who are actually fighting to end tyranny not just playing some game whose object is to aggrandize their own egos, not actually bring BushCo down. I guess that is in the end where the rubber meets the road. For some of us, this ain't no party, this ain't no disco, this is a fight for liberty in which the stakes are OUR LIVES. People who just want to see how many hits their blog can get, or how many people mention it in THEIR blog, are playing a game, they're not actually dissidents, they just play one on the Internet.

by **banned** » Mon Nov 14, 2005 3:46 am

...I have to remember this one: "...thinking that evil people will treat you fairly because you're a nice person is like thinking that tiger won't eat you because you're a vegatarian." Unfortunately some people are going to have to learn the hard way that Macchiavelli was right.

by **banned** » Mon Nov 14, 2005 3:59 am

Hang him? Or send him to Camp Cupcake? Put me down for "hang him". See, professor, if I was really a bloodthirsty murdering devil like him I'd have hacked him to death SLOOOOWWWLY with a dull machete over an open flame already and never even brought him to trial. Try wrapping your mind around 800,000 people slaughtered, and then tell me what the "civilized" world's response should be. Oh wait, that's the same civilized world that didn't do a fucking thing to stop the slaughter because it was just black Africans killing black Africans, isn't it? ===== Accused Rwanda genocide "kingpin" defiant By Helen Nyambura Sun Nov 13, 9:13 AM ET DAR ES SALAAM (Reuters) - The suspected architect of Rwanda's 1994 genocide begins a fourth week of testimony on Monday defying accusers in the biggest trial to date over the central African nation's 100 days of slaughter. Prosecutors at the UN's Tanzania-based International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) say former army colonel Theoneste Bagosora, now 64, was in charge as troops and machete-wielding militiamen butchered some 800,000 people. But in lengthy comments from the stand, Bagosora has accused rebel-turned-president Paul Kagame of triggering the bloodshed, blamed the chief of UN peacekeepers for the murder of Rwanda's prime minister and even denied genocide took place. "I do not believe in the genocide theory. Most reasonable people concur that there were excessive massacres," Bagosora said during testimony and cross-examining that has already gone on for three weeks since beginning on October 24. "They have labeled and continue to label me as the mastermind of the massacres. ... The accusations that I led the killings are malicious." Bagosora's remarks are typical of the unrepentant tone of much of the testimony heard at the UN court, which has so far indicted 81 people, convicted 22 and acquitted three. A succession of hardline defendants from the Hutu ethnic group have expressed a mixture of irritation, anger and incomprehension at the notion that a genocide occurred in 1994. Many say they believed they were defending Hutus against an onslaught by rebels from the minority Tutsi group who, they argue, were just as guilty of massacres in the heat of battle. Bagosora argues the 1994 killings -- which shocked the world by their scale and crude methods -- were not premeditated despite prosecution evidence weapons were given out in advance and militias trained to slaughter Tutsis and moderate Hutus. The massacres began when President Juvenal Habyarimana's plane was shot down on April 6, 1994, killing him and sending the tiny country spiraling into three months of chaos. Numerous international figures including then U.S. President Bill Clinton and UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan have since expressed deep regret for the world's slow response. "HIS NAME MAKES ME TREMBLE" Wearing a smart suit and pink shirt and tie during his court appearances, Bagosora, a Hutu, accused now President Kagame of causing the massacres by shooting down the aircraft. "The tribunal has done nothing to arrest and prosecute this hardcore criminal," he said in testimony reproduced by the Hirondelle agency, dedicated to covering the Rwanda trials. Kagame's rebels invaded from Uganda to end the massacres. Before the killings broke out, Bagosora is accused of storming out of peace talks with Kagame's group in Tanzania and saying he was returning to Rwanda to "prepare the apocalypse." The most dramatic moment yet in his judicial proceedings came last year with testimony by Canadian General Romeo Dallaire, head of UN peacekeepers during the genocide. As a stony-faced Bagosora looked on, Dallaire -- who was so traumatized by his failure to halt the murders that six years later he tried to commit suicide -- described him as the "kingpin" behind the genocide. Bagosora, in turn, blamed Dallaire for the death of Prime Minister Agathe Uwilingiyimana, murdered a day after Habyarimana. Ten Belgian peacekeepers guarding her were taken to a military base, where Rwandan troops beat them to death. Bagosora told the tribunal he had tried to save the men, but -- bizarrely -- claimed he was rebuffed by "mutinous" soldiers. "They called me an accomplice of the enemy and threatened me ...I became afraid and withdrew," said Bagosora, who was the most powerful and feared officer in Rwanda at the time. Bagosora faces life in prison if convicted on 11 charges of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. Listening to reports of his testimony, genocide survivors in Rwanda said Bagosora should suffer the same fate as the victims of the soldiers and militias he is accused of controlling. "Don't talk about Bagosora," said Claude Hakiza, a shopkeeper in the capital Kigali. "The sound of his name leaves me trembling. He should not be alive now because he has on his hands the blood of every Rwandan who died in the genocide." (Additional reporting by Arthur Asiimwe in Kigali)

by **professorpan** » Mon Nov 14, 2005 4:44 am

I will make my point one more time, and beyond that I feel no need to revisit it. I'm going to abandon this thread to the bloodthirsty -- y'all can comfort each other with your violent vengeance fantasies, but I'm not sticking around. The progressive, evolutionary currents in human history have been to teach people that killing other sentient beings is not a viable solution to any problem. It's there in Christianity (the red-letter words of Jesus, not the Pat Robertson inversion), Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, Jainism, Ba'hai, humanism, the nonviolent resistant of Thoreau, MLK, and Gandhi, and up through the environmental and animal welfare movements. Killing in self-defense is one thing. Demanding violent retribution is oh-so Yahweh 1.0. Violence is the tool of weak minds, tyrants, and psychopaths. It is not an effective strategy, because it creates a backlash and feeds a cycle -- witness the U.S. war on Iraq, which creates terrorists by the score for every innocent person blown to bits. And banned, you make my point by citing the Rwanda massacres. Hutus killing Tutsis and vice versa. For what? Bullshit ideas about ethnicity. Yet both sides felt their violence was justified. If they could have worked their differences out nonviolently, there would have been no genocide. Anyone involved in the genocide should be imprisoned. Simple solution that doesn't require bloody vengeance. *Desire for violent vengeance* is the root problem. And one more thing, banned -- by constantly attacking me personally, and not my ideas, you're succeeding in making yourself look foolish. You can follow my postings with your mocking, off-topic digs (as in the Simpsons post), but all it does is illuminate your desire for a flame war. And I got tired of flame wars in the 90s. There are much better ways to spend one's time. I've refrained from going personal, but you don't give up. Adios.

by **banned** » Mon Nov 14, 2005 5:02 am

Out of the blue you called me an idiot for my personal views on marijuana, but you don't get PERSONAL? You're the only person on this board I can honestly say operates 100% of the time in utter existential bad faith, everything out of your mouth is designed to show what a teddibly advahnced person you are and what looooosers the rest of us are. So, toodle oo. If I've been obnoxious enough to ensure you never put your self congratulatory horse hockey in any thread I post in, my work is done. <img src=http://www.ezboard.com/images/emoticons/happy.gif ALT=":D"> " The progressive, evolutionary currents in human history have been to teach people that killing other sentient beings is not a viable solution to any problem." Church lady indeed. Aren't you SPECIAL. If killing doesn't WORK why is there so much of it, eh? Oh wait, it's because we aren't all as PROGRESSIVELY EVOLVED as professorpan. I'm soooo ashamed. The Jains wear masks so they don't accidentally swallow a bug. Gandhi and MLK got murdered by murderers who weren't as nice as you. Hindus and Muslims have been killing each other for centuries. Thoreau's mommy came to Walden Pond, which was like five blocks from town, to do his laundry. Lotta people still believe in Yahweh, and last I checked, he's a violent and vengeful mofo so don't be surprised if you get a lightning bolt up yer backside, k? <img src=http://www.ezboard.com/images/emoticons/roll.gif ALT=":rollin"> Seriously, tell me how the world would be made worse if Bush, Cheney, Rice and Rumsfeld were convicted and executed for crimes against humanity. Then I'll tell you how it would make the world better. Oh wait, you already left, trailing eau de superioritycomplex on the way out. Buhbye!

by **manxkat** » Mon Nov 14, 2005 5:12 am

I feel like I've opened a really nasty can of worms here, just by starting this thread and seeing it devolve way off topic. That said, I feel the need to take a stand -- with professorpan. Those of you otherwise intelligent people who feel violence (the death penalty, an eye for an eye, retribution) is the answer are sadly mistaken and have a lot of learning to do. I hurt for us all when I read that. You are willing to sacrifice your integrity and stoop to the same low level as that of the very people you want to punish? Shame.

by **banned** » Mon Nov 14, 2005 5:31 am

...for perpetuating the vile canard that those who want to execute war criminals are on the same level as war criminals. That's a lie. A vicious lie, and a self indulgent one by people who mistake weakness and moral relativism for ethics and integrity. Churchill said he refused to be impartial between the fire and the fire brigade. It's appeasers and Quislings without the balls to stand up to BushCo who have visited its horrors on us, not the people who have called for Bush to stand trial for violations of domestic and international law. If calling for that is barbarity I'll be goddamned if I know what it is you expect will stop these people. Since we've done it your way, played nice on all these so-called opposition blogs and in Congress and things have gotten worse and worse and WORSE to the point where now the people in Gitmo have NO RIGHTS AT ALL--I think it's time to try it our way. Your way like Neville Chamberlain at Munich leads to nothing but death, sorry I am not willing to suffer that fate so you can raise your skirts and play your moral superiority games. You play it your way and I'll play it mine, OK? And when YOU end up in Gitmo with a cattle prod up your arse, DO try not to think nasty Yahweh vengeance thoughts, okey dokey?

by **Homeless Halo** » Mon Nov 14, 2005 5:51 am

In terms of rhetoric, at least, we should be careful to distinguish between the language used and the intended meaning. For example, Pan, there is an entry in your own blog wherein you mention your personal desire to see Rumsfeld go on the Gitmo tube diet, which could easily be interpretted as an advocation of violence and/or abuse/torture. Much of it is a matter of context. I think, at the root of this thread, were a number of statements misinterpreted in this fashion which were pounced on by the "karma police". Sorry, imprisonment is not adequate, even as "self-defense" for someone dangerous enough to control the Supreme Court in America, for example. Too much "flight risk" not to mention the tendency of mob bosses to continue running their empire from jail. One would assume this would be easier if the empire/jailers were one and the same, as they would be in the case of "fallen" intelligence agents, for example. Jesus told his followers to carry swords with them. Why? Gandhi and MLK were both killed by militants, and their movements hijacked into ineffectiveness and obscurity, their methods touted as "evolutionary and progressive" by the leftist intellectual thinkers who, btw, work for the same bastards that killed them. I'm reminding you that "pacifism" was introduced as a "superior" form of conflict resolution by the people that OWN you. Where did you learn about the "effectiveness" of the "passive" civil rights movement? Did they tell you that more visible "institutional" change happened in the wake of the RIOTS following King's death than in the many years of previous passive resistence? No, of course they didn't. I think you've all "tuned in" to trendy leftish memes which will ultimately lead to your own downfall, and that of your loved ones. Where exactly would you imprison these people which would put them beyond the reach of their friends? I can think of a place.

by **tom** » Mon Nov 14, 2005 6:10 am

"you play it your way and i'll play it mine, OK" this will sound confrontational, but some light may be shed. do you have a secret life as some sort of ninja commando? are you in some way practicing what you're preaching? what way are you playing it that's so rough and tough? how up close have you ever been to lethal violence? jeff's right kiddo. i think your incandescent rage is a fine natural resource, but some refinement in its application could perhaps achieve something. what's all that bluster gonna do for the oppressed?

by **Homeless Halo** » Mon Nov 14, 2005 6:36 am

"what's all that bluster going to do for the oppressed?" I think I asked that question first. I can answer it, from my point of view. But I think we've been over that. Dead men do not normally have a habit of eating children AFTER they're dead. The problem with the "practice" of non-violence is that it can not be demonstrated to have worked. Violence may not have a wonderful track record, in real world terms, but at least it HAS a track record. I keep hearing about Gandi and MLK and fucking Jesus, for Christ's sake, but what do they have to do with this? And further more, what did their non-violence accomplish for "the oppressed"?

by **Homeless Halo** » Mon Nov 14, 2005 6:40 am

If the Nurembourg trials had whacked ALL the major supporters of history, WE wouldn't be HAVING this discussion as pertains to the current REGIME because they wouldn't be here. Think about that.

by **professorpan** » Mon Nov 14, 2005 2:46 pm

Okay, banned, I'll take your bait. Yes, I called you an idiot, and then I apologized and avoided personal attacks. Yet you continue to trail me, posting personal attacks at every opportunity rather than debating my ideas. Anyone who wishes can revisit the thread in which all this went down -- it's old news, though, and I really wish you would move on. It's tiresome and unproductive and a waste of everyone's time. Whatever. As to the rest of y'all who say that nonviolence doesn't work -- that's demonstrably false. Nonviolent action is considerably slower than bullets and bombs, and mainstream historians are more biased toward blood than peaceful change, but let me provide a few examples. India's campaign for independence Cesar Chavez and the UFW the U.S. Civil Rights movement the ending of the Vietnam war Nonviolent overthrows of U.S.-backed regimes in Central America, Bolivia, Iran the nonviolent overthrow of Milosevic Solidarity movement in Poland Dr. Vandana Shiva (anti-WTO tree planter in India) Nonviolent action is not passive acceptance -- it's direct, creative, revolutionary action. And the gains are not always instantaneous, but they are effective. Here's a good summary of recent nonviolent successes: "In 1989, thirteen nations comprising 1,695,000 people experienced nonviolent revolutions that succeeded beyond anyone's wildest expectations ... If we add all the countries touched by major nonviolent actions in our century (the Philippines, South Africa ... the independence movement in India ...) the figure reaches 3,337,400,000, a staggering 65% of humanity! All this in the teeth of the assertion, endlessly repeated, that nonviolence doesn't work in the 'real' world. (Walter Wink, as quoted by Susan Ives in a 2001 talk) And even totalitarian regimes are not immune to nonviolent action. <a href="http://www.carolmoore.net/articles/nv-action-article.html">www.carolmoore.net/articl...ticle.html</a> "When Himmler tried to crack down on Danish Jews, the Danes thwarted his efforts. Not only did the Danish government and people resist -- through bureaucratic slowdowns and noncooperation -- but, surprisingly, the German commander in Denmark also refused to help organize Jewish deportations. This prompted Himmler to import special troops to arrest Jews. But, in the end almost all Danish Jews escaped unharmed. In Bulgaria, the parliament refused to assist the German anti-Jewish measures, and Bulgarians held public demonstrations against the persecution of Jews. As far as can be known, no Bulgarian Jews were killed or deported by the Nazis. For more on this, see Hannah Arendt, "Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil" (New York: Viking Press, 1963). The omnipresent pattern that Arendt finds and that Sharp emphasizes is that totalitarian governments are not omnipotent. They need the cooperation of the ruled to exert their will. If a people denies cooperation, even a government as vicious as Hitler's, bound by few moral constraints, might be unable to get what it wants." Am I pure pacifist? No. I will defend my life and the lives of those I love. But I will take violent action only as a last resort when all nonviolent options have been exhausted. Nonviolence is working in all of our lives every day. Do we beat up or kill people that we disagree with in our day-to-day lives? Not most of us, thank Jebus. As humans, we agree to abide by a social contract that emphasizes nonviolent solutions to our disagreements. And yes, MLK, Gandhi and other peacemakers were killed. What does that prove, other than they were so effective in their promotion of nonviolence that the pro-violence factions killed them to shut them up? Their words and their deeds continue to inspire and facilitate change across the globe. To suggest they were ineffectual because they were murdered is illogical and specious. They changed the world for the better -- and gave their lives. That's more noble, in my book, than killing people in the name of vengeance or justice or dying on the battlefield in the service of the corpocracy. As for the death penalty, I find it very odd and disconcerting that folks on this board feel that giving the state the option to kill people is a wise thing. It's *never* a wise thing for a political entity to serve as executioner. And as we've seen in the past decade or so, many innocent people have been exonerated by DNA evidence who otherwise would have been put to death. And there are the extreme racial inequalities in the legal system that guarantee that minorities are put to death in greater numbers than whites. I'll just drop a quote by Aldous Huxley into the mix: "If violence is answered by violence, the result is a physical struggle. Now, a physical struggle inevitably arouses in the minds of those directly and even indirectly concerned in it emotions of hatred, fear, rage and resentment. In the heat of conflict all scruples are thrown to the winds, and all the habits of forbearance and humaneness, slowly and laboriously formed during generations of civilised living, are forgotten. Nothing matters any more except victory. And when at last victory comes to one or other of the parties, this final outcome of physical struggle bears no necessary relation to the rights and wrongs of the case: nor in most cases, does it provide any lasting settlement to the dispute." And one by MLK: "If you succumb to the temptation of using violence in the struggle, unborn generations will be the recipients of a long and desolate night of bitterness, and your chief legacy to the future will be an endless reign of meaningless chaos." Yep, what he said. Peace out, peeps.

GOP memo touts NEW TERROR ATTACK

re:rules

I do not believe that the death penalty...

Damn, Banned, you're on a roll

God, but you're a church lady, professor...

Exactly, mags...

OK, let's vote on this guy...

Re: OK, let's vote on this guy...

Are you delusional, or just a liar?

de-evolution

No, shame on YOU...

well

uh, banned....?

tom:

ok, let me put it this way

I'll take the bait

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