Compromising Our Values

Many of the reports on the so-called "compromise" in the Senate over Bush's secret prisons have shown it to be a sham. The "Mavericks" lead by McCain actually have just caved in to the Bush policy. In the Congress they didn't waste any time with the appearance of oversight, the Rubber-Stamp Republicans simply gave Bush everything he demanded. John McHugh, as usual, was in lock-step with the Bush agenda.

Bob Johnson has a different view:
I am a doctor, a veteran, and an American. Because of all three of those things, I strongly condemn torture in all of its forms, and I oppose the "legalized torture"” bill currently in the Congress.

As a doctor, I know what pain does to people, and I know that torture doesn'’t work. Under the extreme stress of torture, a person will say literally anything to make it stop. He or she will tell the interrogator whatever it is he thinks the interrogator wants to hear. Because of that, the information gleaned from torture is useless and
completely unreliable.

As a veteran, I know what the prohibitions against torture encoded in the Geneva Conventions have done to protect our soldiers through the years. Starting to carve out exceptions to those prohibitions exposes our soldiers to the "exceptions"” of others. That is why the US military is against allowing torture: it exposes our own soldiers, sailors, Marines, and members of the Air Force to greater risk.

And as an American, I know that torture is both against our national interests in the world and our basic conception of right and wrong. It is against our national interests because our moral authority has always been our greatest asset in the world. People looked to us and followed us because of what we represented. This quality has been
greatly diminished by the Bush Administration and the Republican Congress over the last few years; this bill allowing torture would greatly accelerate that.

And torture is just plain wrong; it'’s against the very fabric of America. It cheapens and degrades anyone who takes part in it, and it weakens the societies that allow it.

My opponent this fall, incumbent Republican John McHugh, firmly supports the Bush Administration'’s right to torture. Perhaps because he never served in the military, he doesn'’t understand how opposing torture protects our own troops. Perhaps because he hasn't put in the work to study the issue, he doesn'’t know that torture doesn'’t work and produces unreliable information. And perhaps because he has been in Washington so long, he has lost touch with the basic morality of what it means to be an American.

I can'’t say why he takes the position he does. But I do know this: he is profoundly, seriously, and morally wrong.

- Bob Johnson, Democratic and Working Families candidate for Congress (NY23)

Primary School - Report Card

I am happy to report that Andrew Brockway has convincingly won the Democratic nomination for the 114th Assembly district. I truly feel that Andrew has shown himself capable to be our next Assembly person, and I look forward to victory in November.


While obviously expected, I am glad to see that Eliot Spitzer has overwhelmingly won the Democratic nomination for Governor. With Eliot Spitzer in the Governor's office, Andy Brockway in the Assembly, and Tim Merrick in the State Senate the North Country will be firmly set on a path to a brighter future.

Five Years...

There are many emotions that swell within me when I think of the horror our nation was subjected to on September 11, 2001.

The first thing that jumps into my mind is walking out of a class in Clinton Community College to see faculty setting up a TV and shaken looking students scattered around the lobby. A few were already in tears and I was confused until TV was switched on to reveal the World Trade Center burning. By that point both towers had already been hit, but clips of the second plane hitting were repeated many times to show us why. It felt completely unreal to me at that moment, and I remember mumbling a few times to one of my friends that I had visited the towers only two years before.

A picture from my visit (1999):


Though thankfully I didn't lose anyone close to me that day I think the only thing that kept tears from my own eyes at the sight of the collapse of one, then the second tower, was the numbness of shock.

I have always been a patriotic person, but on that day I felt an especially strong connection to my country. In the days that followed I joined those that proudly displayed flags to show our defiance against those that had attacked us. I supported the response of invading Afghanistan to destroy Al Queda and it's supporters the Taliban. I will not say I was ever a fan of the Bush administration but I was inclined to respect the early spirit of nonpartisanship that was felt in those first months.

Then I watched in disgust as Karl Rove and Bush exploited the attacks of 9/11 to basically declare their opposition traitors and cowards and win the elections of 2002. Their ultimate goal became clear as they twisted the resolve our nation felt to lead us into a ridiculous war in Iraq.

I feel now that the public is finally shaking off the shock of 9/11 to see the lies that Bush has used to crush democratic opposition and lead this nation toward ruin. I only hope enough of the public has woken up to change the course of this nation and get rid of the Bush rubber-stamp Republican Congress. We must have some kind of brake on this trainwreck of a President while we still can.

Tonight Keith Olbermann gave an eloquent and powerful statement on the Bush administration and how they have twisted the trust we placed in them. It much more clearly states what needs to be said about this disaster than anything else I could write.

These are some of the best excerpts, read the full transcript here.

This hole in the ground (excerpts):
Half a lifetime ago, I worked in this now-empty space. And for 40 days after the attacks, I worked here again, trying to make sense of what happened, and was yet to happen, as a reporter.

All the time, I knew that the very air I breathed contained the remains of thousands of people, including four of my friends, two in the planes and -- as I discovered from those "missing posters" seared still into my soul -- two more in the Towers.

And I knew too, that this was the pyre for hundreds of New York policemen and firemen, of whom my family can claim half a dozen or more, as our ancestors.

I belabor this to emphasize that, for me this was, and is, and always shall be, personal.

And anyone who claims that I and others like me are "soft,"or have "forgotten" the lessons of what happened here is at best a grasping, opportunistic, dilettante and at worst, an idiot whether he is a commentator, or a Vice President, or a President.

However, of all the things those of us who were here five years ago could have forecast -- of all the nightmares that unfolded before our eyes, and the others that unfolded only in our minds -- none of us could have predicted this.

Five years later this space is still empty.

Five years later there is no memorial to the dead.

Five years later there is no building rising to show with proud defiance that we would not have our America wrung from us, by cowards and criminals.

Five years later this country's wound is still open.

Five years later this country's mass grave is still unmarked.

Five years later this is still just a background for a photo-op.

It is beyond shameful.

--

The only positive on 9/11 and the days and weeks that so slowly and painfully followed it was the unanimous humanity, here, and throughout the country. The government, the President in particular, was given every possible measure of support.

Those who did not belong to his party -- tabled that.

Those who doubted the mechanics of his election -- ignored that.

Those who wondered of his qualifications -- forgot that.

History teaches us that nearly unanimous support of a government cannot be taken away from that government by its critics. It can only be squandered by those who use it not to heal a nation's wounds, but to take political advantage.

Terrorists did not come and steal our newly-regained sense of being American first, and political, fiftieth. Nor did the Democrats. Nor did the media. Nor did the people.

The President -- and those around him -- did that.

They promised bi-partisanship, and then showed that to them, "bi-partisanship" meant that their party would rule and the rest would have to follow, or be branded, with ever-escalating hysteria, as morally or intellectually confused, as appeasers, as those who, in the Vice President's words yesterday, "validate the strategy of the terrorists."

They promised protection, and then showed that to them "protection" meant going to war against a despot whose hand they had once shaken, a despot who we now learn from our own Senate Intelligence Committee, hated al-Qaida as much as we did.

The polite phrase for how so many of us were duped into supporting a war, on the false premise that it had 'something to do' with 9/11 is "lying by implication."

The impolite phrase is "impeachable offense."

--

How dare you, Mr. President, after taking cynical advantage of the unanimity and love, and transmuting it into fraudulent war and needless death, after monstrously transforming it into fear and suspicion and turning that fear into the campaign slogan of three elections? How dare you -- or those around you -- ever "spin" 9/11?

--

When those who dissent are told time and time again -- as we will be, if not tonight by the President, then tomorrow by his portable public chorus -- that he is preserving our freedom, but that if we use any of it, we are somehow un-American...When we are scolded, that if we merely question, we have "forgotten the lessons of 9/11"... look into this empty space behind me and the bi-partisanship upon which this administration also did not build, and tell me:

Who has left this hole in the ground?

We have not forgotten, Mr. President.

You have.

May this country forgive you.