Posts Tagged ‘THE WALL STREET JOURNAL’
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, RELIGION, Social commentary on February 10, 2025 at 12:02 am
Hamza Kashgari, a 23-year-old columnist in Saudi Arabia, decided to celebrate the birthday of the Islamic prophet Muhammed in a truly unique way.
Hamza Kashgar
In early February, 2012, he posted on Twitter a series of mock conversations between himself and Muhammad:
“On your birthday, I will say that I have loved the rebel in you, that you’ve always been a source of inspiration to me, and that I do not like the halos of divinity around you. I shall not pray for you.
“On your birthday, I find you wherever I turn. I will say that I have loved aspects of you, hated others, and could not understand many more.
“On your birthday, I shall not bow to you. I shall not kiss your hand. Rather, I shall shake it as equals do, and smile at you as you smile at me. I shall speak to you as a friend, no more.
“No Saudi women will go to hell, because it’s impossible to go there twice.”
The tweets sparked some 30,000 infuriated responses. Many Islamic clerics demanded that he face execution for blasphemy.
Kashgari posted an apology tweet: “I deleted my previous tweets because…I realized that they may have been offensive to the Prophet and I don’t want anyone to misunderstand.”
Soon afterward, Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, then King of Saudi Arabia, ordered his arrest.
Saudi King King Abdullah
Kashgari fled to Malaysia, another majority-Muslim country. He was quickly arrested by police as he passed through Kuala Lumpur international airport. Three days later, he was deported to Saudi Arabia.
Human rights groups feared that he would be executed for blasphemy, a capitol offense in Saudi Arabia.
After nearly two years in prison, Kashgari was freed on October 29, 2013. Kashgari used Twitter to inform his supporters of his release.
Outrageous? By Western standards, absolutely.
Clearly there is no tolerence in Saudi Arabia for the freedoms of thought and expression that Americans take for granted.
Meanwhile, Right-wing American ayatollahs are working overtime to create just that sort of society—where theocratic despotism rules the most intimate aspects of our lives.
One of these was the former GOP Presidential candidate and U.S. Senator Rick Santorum. In early January, 2012, he said that states should have the right to outlaw birth control without the interference of the Supreme Court.
Rick Santorum
In an interview with ABC News, Santorum said he opposed the Supreme Court’s ruling that made birth control legal:
“The state has a right to do that [ban contraception]. I have never questioned that the state has a right to do that. It is not a Constitutional right. The state has the right to pass whatever statutes they have.
“That’s the thing I have said about the activism of the Supreme Court—they are creating rights, and it should be left up to the people to decide.”
In the landmark 1965 decision, Griswold v. Connecticut, the Court struck down a law that made it a crime to sell contraceptives to married couples. The Constitution, ruled the Justices, protected a right to privacy.
Two years later, in Eisenstadt v. Baird, the Court extended Griswold by striking down a law banning the sale of contraceptives to unmarried couples.
Santorum has left no doubt as to where he stands on contraception. On October 19, 2011, he said:
“One of the things I will talk about that no President has talked about before is I think the dangers of contraception in this country, the whole sexual libertine idea. Many in the Christian faith have said, ‘“Well, that’s okay. Contraception’s okay.’
“It’s not okay because it’s a license to do things in the sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be. They’re supposed to be within marriage, they are supposed to be for purposes that are, yes, conjugal, but also…procreative.
“That’s the perfect way that a sexual union should happen. We take any part of that out, we diminish the act….And all of a sudden, it becomes deconstructed to the point where it’s simply pleasure.”
“How things are supposed to be”—according to Right-wing fanatics like Santorum and the evangelicals who support them.
Like the Saudi religious zealots who demand the death of a “blasphemer,” they demand that their religious views should govern everyone. That means Jews, Catholics, Islamics, atheists and agnostics.
American Christian fundamentalists and Islamic fundamentalists fervently agree on the following:
- Women should have fewer rights than men.
- Abortion should be illegal.
- There should be no separation between church and state.
- Religion should be taught in school.
- Religious doctrine trumps science.
- Government should be based on religious doctrine.
- Homosexuality should be outlawed.
The important difference—for Americans who value their freedom—is this:
The United States has a Supreme Court that can—and does—overturn laws that threaten civil liberties. Laws that GOP Presidential candidates clearly want to revive and force on those who don’t share their peculiar religious views.
Eleanor Roosevelt once said: “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.”
The same holds true—in a democracy—for candidates who seek dictatorial power over their fellow citizens. Don’t give them your consent.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on February 7, 2025 at 12:05 am
Donald Trump is a convicted felon who blatantly supports Communist dictators Kim Jong-Un, Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping—and who tried to treasonously overturn the 2020 Presidential election.
So why do so many Republicans continue to support him?
The answer lies in what happened almost 80 years ago in Berlin—when the “Thousand-Year” Third Reich collapsed after little more than 12 years.
While the Nazi Party ruled Germany from 1933 to 1945, its influence over all aspects of Germans’ lives was suffocating.
“Censorship prevailed, education was undermined, family life was idealized, but children were encouraged to turn in disloyal parents,” reads the back cover of Richard Grunberger’s classic 1971 book, The 12-Year Reich.
“‘Volk’ festivals, party rallies, awards, uniforms, pageantry all played a part in the massive effort to shape the mind of a nation.”
And yet, after the Reich surrendered unconditionally to the Allies on May 8, 1945:
- Countless Germans claimed to have hidden Jews in their attics—despite the fact that six million Jews died horrifically before the Reich fell.
- American and British soldiers couldn’t find any German veterans willing to admit they had ever fought against Western, democratic nations.
- All the once-proud legionaries of the Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS swore they had been fighting “the real enemy”—the Russians—on the Eastern front.
And almost universally, they blamed the conflict on the man they had embraced as their Fuhrer.
In short: Adolf Hitler had lost the war he started—making him a loser nobody wanted to be identified with.
In the decades since, the “loser” tag has continued to stick with those who once served the Third Reich. Mel Brooks has repeatedly turned German soldiers—once the pride of the battlefield—into idiotic comic foils.
Even the fearsome Gestapo was spoofed for laughs on the long-running TV comedy, “Hogan’s Heroes.”
“Hogan’s Heroes”
“Americans love a winner,” George C. Scott as George S. Patton says at the outset of the classic 1970 movie. “And will not tolerate a loser.”
And that is why Republicans have stuck so closely with Donald J. Trump—as President, former President and now re-elected President.
During the 2024 Presidential campaign, Americans were repeatedly warned that Trump intended to embrace Project 2025, a collection of policy proposals to fundamentally reshape the U.S. federal government.
Among these:
- The DOJ must be thoroughly “reformed” and tightly overseen by the White House.
- The director of the FBI must be personally accountable to the President—just as the head of the KGB is personally accountable to Vladimir Putin.
Seal of the Justice Department
- Federal employees could be instantly fired for not obeying illegal orders, or on mere whim—including the whim of the President.
- The Environmental Protection Agency would be stripped of its authority to protect the air, water and soil.
- The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) which the project calls “one of the main drivers of the climate change alarm industry” would be abolished.
- Fossil fuels—the leading cause of global warming—would be favored and environmental regulations to combat climate change abolished.
- Federal funding for all public transit systems across the country would be eliminated.
- Traditionally independent federal agencies such as the Department of Justice, Federal Communications Commission and the Federal Trade Commission would be placed under Presidential control.
- The wealthiest 1% would receive massive tax cuts at the expense of the poor and middle class.
- Conception would be designated as the point where life begins.
- Abortion would be outlawed.
- Access to birth control would be sharply restricted, if not banned.
Yet almost no Republican members of Congress dared to oppose this wholesale rejection of 248 years of American democracy.
Republicans don’t care that Trump has trashed the institutions that Americans have cherished for more than 200 years. Institutions like an independent judiciary, a free press, and an incorruptible Justice Department.
He has viciously attacked all of these—and Republicans have either said nothing or rushed to his defense. Many of them tried to short-circuit Special Counsel Jack Smith’s investigation and prosecution of Trump’s inciting a deadly riot against Congress on January 6, 2021.
What Congressional Republicans truly fear about Donald Trump is that if they dare to hold him accountable for his lifetime of criminality, his Fascistic base will turn on them—and turn them out of Congress.
Trump has been convicted of multiple crimes, but Republicans continue to slavishly support him. If they hadn’t, he would now be:
- A figure held up to ridicule and condemnation.
- Like Adolf Hitler.
- Like Richard Nixon.
And his Congressional supporters would be branded as losers along with him.
Republicans vividly remember what happened after Richard Nixon was forced to resign on August 9, 1974: Democrats, riding a wave of reform fever, swept Republicans out of the House and Senate—and Jimmy Carter into the White House.
If Republicans are conflicted—whether to continue supporting Trump or desert him—the reason is the same: How can I hold onto my power and all the privileges that go with it?
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on January 31, 2025 at 12:26 am
Next hero: Marie Yovanovitch, the former United States ambassador to Ukraine (2016 – 2019). She had joined the Foreign Service in 1986, and served as ambassador to Kyrgyzstan (2005 – 2008) and Armenia (2008 – 2011).
In May 2019, on President Donald Trump’s orders, the State Department recalled Yovanovitch as ambassador to Ukraine. She had earned respect from the national security community for her efforts to encourage Ukraine to tackle corruption.
But she had been criticized by Right-wing media outlets—notably Fox News Network––and by Trump’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani.
Marie Yovanovitch
CNN reported that Yovanovitch stopped Giuliani from interviewing witnesses in his search for politically damaging information against former Vice President Joe Biden, whose son, Hunter, had had business dealings in Ukraine.
On October 11, 2019, she appeared before the House Intelligence Committee, chaired by Representative Adam Schiff (D-CA). She did so in defiance of orders by the White House and State Department to not attend.
“She was a hero even before she hit the hearing room,” wrote Charles Pierce for Esquire magazine.
“She told them to stuff their directives, she would answer a congressional subpoena like a citizen is supposed to do. And she didn’t sneak in through the basement. She walked into the Capitol through the front doors, and she didn’t do so to fck around.”
Testifying for nearly 10 hours, Yovanovitch said that Trump had removed her from her post owing to “unfounded and false claims” and “a concerted campaign against me.”
She believed that associates of Trump’s personal lawyer, Giuliani, might have thought “that their personal financial ambitions were stymied by our anti-corruption policy in Ukraine.”
And she warned that the State Department was being “attacked and hollowed out from within. State Department leadership, with Congress, needs to take action now to defend this great institution, and its thousands of loyal and effective employees.”
Another victim on Trump’s hate-list was Chis Krebs.
During the 2016 Presidential race, Russian propaganda had played a major role in convincing millions of Americans to vote for Donald Trump. Social media platforms—especially Facebook and Twitter—were flooded with genuinely fake news to sow discord among Americans and create a pathway for Trump’s election.
And where Internet trolls left off, Russian computer hackers took over.
Trump didn’t win a majority of the popular vote. But he got enough help from Russian President Vladimir Putin to triumph in the Electoral College.
So notorious was the role played by Russian trolls and hackers in winning Trump the 2016 election that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was determined to prevent a repetition in 2020.
And point man for this was Chris Krebs.
Born in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1977, Krebs had received a B.A. in environmental sciences from the University of Virginia in 1999, and a J.D. from the George Mason University School of Law in 2007.
Chris Krebs
Krebs had served as Senior Advisor to the Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security for Infrastructure Protection, and later worked in the private sector as Director for Cybersecurity Policy for Microsoft.
Now he was director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency at DHS.
In preparation for the 2020 Presidential election, Krebs launched a massive effort to counter lies spread by Russians—and Americans—on social media platforms. Among his duties:
- Sharing Intelligence from agencies such as the CIA and National Security Agency with local officials about foreign efforts at election interference.
- Ensuring that domestic voting equipment was secure.
- Attacking domestic misinformation head-on.
As a result, Krebs was widely praised for revamping the department’s cybersecurity efforts and increasing coordination with state and local governments.
By all accounts—except Trump’s—the November 3, 2020 election went very smoothly.
As a result of the vast increase in election security, Trump not only failed to win the popular vote again but couldn’t get the help he expected from Putin.
On November 17, Trump fired Chris Krebs.
The reason: Krebs had not only countered Russian propaganda lies—he had dared to counter Trump’s as well. For example: He rejected Trump’s claims of widespread voter fraud: There “is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised.”
In a November 17 story on the CNN website, CNN reporters Kaitlan Collins and Paul LeBlanc bluntly concluded:
“[Krebs’] dismissal underscores the lengths Trump is willing to go to punish those who don’t adopt his conspiratorial view of the election.
“Since CNN and other outlets called the race for President-elect Joe Biden, Trump has refused to accept the results, instead pushing baseless conspiracies that his second term is being stolen.”
Yet, by depriving Trump of Russian help, Krebs ensured a victory for democracy.
On January 6, the House and Senate counted the Electoral Votes—and pronounced Joseph Biden the winner—bringing an end to Trump’s reign of criminality and treason.
In his 1960 poem, “Conversation With an American Writer,” the Russian poet, Yevgeney Yevtushenko spoke for those Russians who had maintained their integrity in the face of Stalinist terror:
“You have courage,” they tell me.
It’s not true. I was never courageous.
I simply felt it unbecoming
to stoop to the cowardice of my colleagues.
Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of Republicans in the United States Senate and House of Representatives in the face of Trump terror.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on January 30, 2025 at 12:11 am
Next up: Nikolai Sergeyvich Zhilayev (pronounced Zill-lay-ev) was a Russian musicologist and the teacher of several 20th-century Russian composers.
Among these: Dimitri Shostakovich (September 25, 1906 – August 9, 1975)
Among his friends—to his ultimate misfortune—was Mikhail Nikolayevich Tukhachevsky, the former military hero now falsely condemned and executed as a traitor by Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin.
In 1938, Zhilayev (November 18, 1881 – January 20, 1938) also became a casualty of what has become known as The Great Terror.
In his posthumously-published memoirs, Testimony, Shostakovich, his pupil and friend, described how Zhilayev faced his end with a calmness that awed even the NKVD (the predecessor to the KGB) secret police sent to arrest him.
Dimitri Shostakovich
“He had a large picture of Tukhachevsky in his room, and after the announcement that Tukhachevsky had been shot as a traitor to the homeland, Zhilayev did not take the picture down.
“I don’t know if I can explain how heroic a deed that was….As soon as the next poor soul was declared an enemy of the people, everyone destroyed in a panic everything connected with that person….
“And naturally, photographs flew into the fire first, because if someone informed on you, reported that you had a picture of an enemy of the people, it meant certain death.
“Zhilayev wasn’t afraid. When they came for him, Tukhachevsky’s prominently hung portrait amazed even the executioners.”
“What, it’s still up?” one of the secret police asked.
“The time will come,” Zhilayev replied, “when they’ll erect a monument to him.”
As, in fact, has happened.
Meanwhile, Stalin has been universally condemned as one of history’s greatest tyrants.
Third hero: Brett Crozier, the former commanding officer of the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt.
Graduating from the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis in 1992, he received his Master’s Degree in National Security and Strategic Studies from the Naval War College in 2007.
From 2017 to 2018 he commanded the USS Blue Ridge. In November, 2019, he was given command of the nuclear aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt.
On March 24, 2020, reports circulated that three members of the crew had tested positive for COVID-19. The next day the number of stricken sailors increased to eight. A few days later, it was “dozens.” The sailors reportedly became ill at sea, two weeks after a port call at Danang, Vietnam.
The initial cases were airlifted to a military hospital. The Roosevelt was ordered to Guam. After the ship docked on March 27, 2020, all 5,000 aboard were ordered to be tested for the virus. But only about 100 stricken sailors were allowed to leave the ship. The rest remained on board.
On March 30, Crozier emailed a four-page internal letter to multiple Naval officials, pleading to have the majority of the crew evacuated and quarantined on shore. Given the crowded sleeping quarters and narrow passageways of the vessel, Crozier wrote that it was impossible to follow social distancing and quarantine procedures:
“This will require a political solution but it is the right thing to do. We are not at war. Sailors do not need to die. If we do not act now, we are failing to properly take care of our most trusted asset—our Sailors….
“This is a necessary risk. Keeping over 4,000 young men and women on board the TR is an unnecessary risk and breaks faith with those Sailors entrusted to our care.”
Brett Crozier
Crozier sent his letter via a non-secure, unclassified email to 20-30 recipients, as well as the captain’s immediate chain of command. He reportedly believed that his immediate supervisor would not allow him to send it.
And his superior later confirmed that he would not have allowed Crozier to send it.
On March 31, someone leaked the letter to the San Francisco Chronicle, which published it.
On April 1, the Navy ordered the aircraft carrier evacuated. A skeleton crew of 400 remained aboard to maintain the nuclear reactor, the fire-fighting equipment, and the ship’s galley.
On April 2, Crozier was relieved of command by acting United States Secretary of the Navy Thomas Modly.
By that time, about 114 crew members—out of a total of around 4,000—reportedly tested positive for COVID-19.
As Crozier disembarked, sailors loudly saluted him with a standing ovation: “Cap-tain Cro-zier!”
Crozier was reassigned to a shore position and retired in 2022.
Modly claimed that Crozier’s letter “raised alarm bells unnecessarily. It undermines our efforts and the chain of command’s efforts to address this problem, and creates a panic and this perception that the Navy’s not on the job, that the government’s not on the job, and it’s just not true.”
It was true.
Actually, the Trump administration had frittered away January and February, with President Donald Trump giving multiple—and misleading—press conferences. In these, he played down the dangers of COVID-19, saying that “we’re on top of it”—even as the virus spread across the country.
“It was a betrayal. And I can tell you one other thing: because he did that he put it in the public’s forum and it is now a big controversy in Washington, DC,“ continued Modly. [Italics added]
This was the United States Navy under Donald Trump—who threw “betrayal” and “treason” at anyone who dared reveal the truth about institutional crimes and failures.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on January 29, 2025 at 12:10 am
…A truly great man is ever the same under all circumstances. And if his fortune varies, exalting him at one moment and oppressing him at another, he himself never varies, but always preserves a firm courage, which is so closely interwoven with his character that everyone can readily see that the fickleness of fortune has no power over him.
The conduct of weak men is very different. Made vain and intoxicated by good fortune, they attribute their success to merits which they do not possess. And this makes them odious and insupportable to all around them. And when they have afterwards to meet a reverse of fortune, they quickly fall into the other extreme, and become abject and vile.
—Niccolo Machiavelli, The Discourses
Four heroes, three villains.
Two of the heroes are Russians; three are Americans.
The villains: One Russian (actually, Georgian); two American.
First up—in order of disappearance: Mikhail Nikolayevich Tukhachevsky (pronounced too-ka-chev-sky).
Tukhachevsky (February 4, 1893 – June 12, 1937) was a major Soviet military leader and theoretician from 1918 to 1937.
He commanded the Soviet Western Front during the Russian-Polish War (1920-21) and served as Chief of Staff of the Red Army (1925-1928).
He fought to modernize Soviet armament, as well as develop airborne, aviation and mechanized forces. Almost singlehandedly, he created the theory of deep operations for Soviet forces.
Mikhail Tukhachevsky
All of these innovations would reap huge dividends when the Soviet Union faced the lethal fury of Adolf Hitler’s Wehrmacht.
In 1936, Tukhachevsky warned Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin that Nazi Germany might attack without warning—and ignite a long and murderous war.
Stalin—the son of a Georgian cobbler—resented Tukhachevsky’s coming from a noble family. A monumental egomaniac, he also hated that Tukhachevesky’s fame rivaled his own.
Warned of the approaching German danger, Stalin shouted: “What are you trying to do—frighten Soviet authority?”
Joseph Stalin
The attack that Tukhachevsky warned against came five years later—on June 22, 1941, leaving at least 26 million Russians dead.
But Tukhachevsky wasn’t alive to command a defense.
The 1930s were a frightening and dangerous time to be alive in the Soviet Union. In 1934, Stalin, seeing imaginary enemies everywhere, ordered a series of purges that lasted right up to the German invasion.
An example of Stalin’s paranoia occurred one day while the dictator walked through the Kremlin corridors with Admiral Ivan Isakov. Officers of the NKVD (the predecessor to the KGB) stood guard at every corner.
“Every time I walk down the corridors,” said Stalin, “I think: Which one of them is it? If it’s this one, he will shoot me in the back. But if I turn the corner, the next one can shoot me in the face.”
In 1937-38, the Red Army fell prey to Stalin’s paranoia.
Its victims included:
- Three of five marshals (five-star generals);
- Thirteen of 15 army commanders (three- and four-star generals);
- Fifty of 57 army corps commanders; and
- One hundred fifty-four out of 186 division commanders.
And heading the list of those marked for death was Marshal Mikhail Tukhachevsky.
Arrested on May 22, 1937, he was interrogated and tortured. As a result, he “confessed” to being a German agent plotting to overthrow Stalin and seize power.
On his confession, which survives in the archives, his bloodstains can clearly be seen.
On June 11, 1937, the Soviet Supreme Court convened a special military tribunal to try Tukhachevsky and eight generals for treason.
It was a sham: The accused were denied defense attorneys, and could not appeal the verdict—-which was foregone: Death.
Within hours of the verdict, Tukhachevsky was summoned from his cell and shot once in the back of the head.
In a Russian version of poetic justice, five of the eight generals who served as Tukhachevsky’s judges were themselves later condemned and executed as traitors.
From 1937 until 1956, Tukhachevsky was officially declared a traitor and fifth-columnist.
Then, on February 25, 1957, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev delivered his bombshell “Secret Speech” to the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
In this, he denounced Stalin (who had died in 1953) as a ruthless tyrant responsible for the slaughter of millions of innocent men, women and children. He condemned Stalin for creating a “personality cult” around himself, and for so weakening the Red Army that Nazi Germany was able to easily overrun half of the Soviet Union from 1941 to 1943.
On January 31, 1957, Tukhachevsky and his co-defendants were declared innocent of all charges and were “rehabilitated.”
Today, he is once again—rightly—considered a Russian hero and military genius. And Stalin is universally—and rightly—seen as a blood-stained tyrant.
Postage stamp honoring Mikhail Tukhachevsky
Next hero: Nikolai Sergeyvich Zhilayev (pronounced Zill-lay-ev)
Zhilayev (November 18, 1881 – January 20, 1938) was a Russian musicologist and the teacher of several 20th-century Russian composers. Among these: Dimitri Shostakovich.
Zhilayev, a member of the Russian Academy of Art-Sciences, taught at the Moscow Conservatory. Among his friends—to his ultimate misfortune—was Mikhail Tukhachevsky.
In 1938, he, too, became a casualty of what has become known as The Great Terror.
In his posthumously-published memoirs, Testimony, Shostakovich, his pupil and friend, described how Zhilayev faced his end with a calmness that awed even the NKVD secret police sent to arrest him.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on January 28, 2025 at 12:06 am
January 26, 2025, marked the 140th anniversary of the fall of Khartoum, the Sudanese city that sits on the banks of the White and Blue Nile Rivers.
The siege and fall of Khartoum is one of the truly epic stories of military history.
From March 18, 1884, to January 26, 1885, the charisma and military genius of one man—British General Charles George Gordon—held at bay an army of thousands of fanatical Islamics intent on slaughtering everyone in the city. 
Khartoum in 1888—four years after the siege
At stake were the lives of Khartoum’s 30,000 residents.
By comparison: The defenders of the Alamo—a far better-known battle—numbered no more than 250. And the siege of the San Antonio mission lasted only 13 days (February 23 to March 6, 1836) against an army of about 2,000 Mexicans.
The Alamo
Gordon’s story may seem antiquated. But it resembles the efforts Republicans made to pressure the Obama administration to commit ground forces to “freeing” Syria of its longtime dictator, “President” Bashir al-Assad.
The neocons of the George W. Bush Administration plunged the United States into an unprovoked war against Iraq in 2003. After Baghdad quickly fell, Americans cheered, thinking the war was over and the troops would soon return home.
Suddenly, American soldiers found themselves waging a two-front war in the same country: Fighting an Iraqi insurgency to throw them out, while trying to suppress growing sectarian warfare between Sunni and Shia Muslims.
And then, with Syria, Americans were being urged to plunge headfirst into a conflict they knew nothing about—and in which they had absolutely no stake.
On one side was the Ba’ath regime of Bashir al-Assad, supported by Russia, Iran, Hizbollah and elements in the Iraqi government. Hizbollah is comprised of Shiite Muslims, who form a minority of Islamics.
A sworn enemy of Israel, it has kidnapped scores of Americans suicidal enough to visit Lebanon and truck-bombed the Marine barracks in Beirut in 1983, killing 299 Americans.
Flag of Hizbollah
Al-Qaeda, on the other hand, is made up of Sunni Muslims, who form the majority of that religion.
It is intolerant of non-Sunni Muslims and has instigated violence against them. It denounces them as “takfirs”–heretics—and thus worthy of extermination.
Flag of Al-Qaeda
In short, it’s a Muslim-vs.-Muslim “holy war.
It’s all very reminiscent of events in the 1966 epic film, Khartoum, starring Charlton Heston as British General Charles George Gordon.
In 1884, the British government sends Gordon, a real-life hero of the Victorian era, to evacuate the Sudanese city of Khartoum.
Mohammed Achmed, a previously anonymous Sudanese, has proclaimed himself “The Madhi” (“The Expected One”) and raised the cry of jihad.
The Madhi (played by Lawrence Olivier) intends to drive all foreigners (of which the English are the largest group) out of Sudan and exterminate all those Muslims who do not practice his “pure” version of Islam.
Charlton Heston as Gordon (left); Laurence Oliver as the Madhi (right)
Gordon arrives in Khartoum to find he’s not fighting a rag-tag army of peasants. Instead, the Madhi is a highly intelligent military strategist.
And Gordon, an evangelical Christian, also finds he has underestimated the Madhi’s religious fanaticism: “I seem to have suffered from the delusion that I had a monopoly on God.”
A surprised Gordon finds himself and 30,000 Sudanese trapped in Khartoum when the Madhi’s forces suddenly appear. He sends off messengers and telegrams to the British Government, begging for a military relief force.
But the British Government wants nothing to do with the Sudan. It has sent Gordon there as a sop to British public opinion that “something” had to be done to quell the Madhist uprising.
The siege continues and tightens.
In Britain, the public hails Gordon as a Christian hero and demands that the Government send a relief expedition to save him.
Prime Minister William Gladstone finally sends a token force—which arrives in Khartoum two days after the city has fallen to the Madhi’s forces.
Gordon, standing at the top of a staircase and coolly facing down his dervish enemies, is speared to death.
George W. Joy’s famous—and romanticized—painting of “The Death of Gordon”
(Actually, the best historical evidence indicates that Gordon fought to the last with pistol and sword before being overwhelmed by his Islamic enemies.)
When the news reaches England, Britons mourn—and then demand vengeance for the death of their hero.
The Government, which had sought to wash its hands of the poor, military unimportant Sudan, suddenly has to send an army to avenge Gordon.
As the narrator of Khartoum intones at the close of the film: “For 15 years the British paid the price with shame and war.”
There is a blunt lesson for Americans to learn from this episode—and from the 1966 movie Khartoum itself.
Americans have been fighting in the Middle East since 2001—first in Afghanistan to destroy Al-Qaeda, and then in Iraq, to pursue George W. Bush’s vendetta against Saddam Hussein. They continue to fight in Syria against ISIS.
The United States faces a crumbling infrastructure, millions living in poverty and trillions of dollars in debt.
It’s time for Americans to clean up their own house before worrying about the messes in other nations—especially those wholly alien to American values.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on December 30, 2024 at 12:22 am
Lori Tankel had a problem: A lot of angry people thought she was George Zimmerman.
She began getting death threats on her
Unfortunately for Tankel, her number was one digit away from the number Zimmerman used to make his call to police just before he fatally shot Martin.
That phone number had been shown throughout the trial. And, believing the number was Zimmerman’s, someone posted Tankel’s number online.
Just minutes after the verdict, Tankel began getting death threats. “We’re going to kill you. We’re going to get you. Watch your back,” threatened a typical call.
George Zimmerman
Tankel worked as a sales representative for several horse companies. She had grown used to relying on her phone to keep her business going.
But, almost as soon as the Zimmerman verdict came in, “My phone just started to blow up. Phone call after phone call, multiple phone
So she did what any ordinary citizen, faced with multiple death threats, would do: She called the police.
According to her, the Seminole County Sheriff’s Office told her the department itself receives around 400 death threats a minute on social media sites.
In short: Unless you’re wealthy, a politician or—best of all, a cop—don’t expect the police to protect you if your life is threatened.
First, above everyone else, police look out for each other.
Robert Daley bluntly revealed this truth in his 1971 bestseller, Target Blue: An Insider’s View of the N.Y.P.D. A police reporter for the New York Times, he served for one year as a deputy police commissioner.
“A great many solvable crimes in the city were never solved, because not enough men were assigned to the case, or because those assigned were lazy or hardly cared or got sidetracked,” wrote Daley.
“But when a cop got killed, no other cop got sidetracked. Detectives worked on the case night and day….
“In effect, the citizen who murdered his wife’s lover was sought by a team of detectives, two men. But he who killed a cop was sought by 32,000.”
That’s why the Mafia tried to bribe cops, but never killed them.
Second, don’t expect the police to do for you what they’ll do for one another.
In February, 2013, Christopher Dorner declared war on his former fellow officers of the Los Angeles Police Department.
The LAPD assigned security and surveillance details to at least 50 threatened officers and their families. A typical detail consists of two to five or more guards. And those guards must be changed every eight to 12 hours.
Those details stayed in place long after Dorner was killed in a firefight on February 12, 2013.
But if your bullying neighbor threatens to kill you, don’t expect the police to send a guard detail over. They’ll claim: ”We can’t do anything until the guy does something. If he does, give us a call.”
Third, the more status and wealth you command, the more likely the police are to address your complaint or solve your case.
If you’re rich, your complaint will likely get top priority and the best service the agency can provide.
But if you’re poor or even middle-class without high-level political or police connections, you’ll be told: “We just don’t have the resources to protect everybody.”
Fourth, don’t expect your police department to operate with the vigor or efficiency of TV police agencies.
“I want this rock [Hawaii] sealed off,” Steve McGarrett (Jack Lord) routinely ordered when pursuing criminals on “Hawaii Five-O.”
Jack Lord as Steve McGarrett
Real-life police departments, on the other hand:
- Often lack state-of-the-art crime labs to analyze evidence.
- Often lose or accidentally destroy important files.
- Are—like all bureaucracies—staffed by those who are lazy, indifferent or incompetent.
- Are notoriously competitive, generally refusing to share information with other police departments-–thus making it easier for criminals to run amok.
Even when police ”solve” a crime, that simply means making an arrest. After that, there are at least three possible outcomes:
- The District Attorney may decide not to file charges.
- The perpetrator may plead to a lesser offense and serve only a token sentence—or none at all.
- He might be found not guilty by a judge or jury.
Fifth, the result of all this can only be increased disrespect for law enforcement from a deservedly—and increasingly—cynical public.
It is the witnessing of blatant inequities and hypocrisies such as those displayed in the Christopher Dorner case that most damages public support for police at all levels.
When citizens believe police lack the ability—or even the will—to protect them or avenge their victimization, that is a deadly blow to law enforcement.
Police depend on citizens for more than crime tips.
They depend upon them to support hiring more cops and buying state-of-the-art police equipment.
When public support vanishes, so does much of that public funding.
The result can only be a return to the days of the lawless West, where citizens—as individuals or members of vigilante committees—look only to themselves for protection.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on December 16, 2024 at 12:10 am
Ever heard of “polygraph by copier”?
If you haven’t, here’s how it works:
A detective loads three sheets of paper into a Xerox machine.
“Truth” has been typed onto the first sheet.
“Truth” has been typed onto the second sheet.
“Lie” has been typed onto the third sheet.
Then a criminal suspect is led into the room and told to put his hand against the side of the machine.
“What is your name?” asks the detective.
The suspect gives it.
The detective hits the copy button, and a page comes out: “Truth.”
“Where do you live?” asks the detective.
The suspect gives an address, the detective again hits the copy button, and a second page appears: “Truth.”
Then comes the important question: “Did you kill Big Jim Tate on the evening of….?”
The suspect answers. The detective presses the copy button one last time, and the sheet appears: “Lie.”
“Well, well, well, you lying little bastard,” says the detective.
Convinced that the police have found some mysterious way to peer into the darkest recesses of his criminality, the suspect “gives it up” and makes a full confession.
Yes, contrary to what many believe, police can legally use deceit to obtain a confession.
In 1973, the Supreme Court ruled, in United States v. Russell: “Nor will the mere fact of deceit defeat a prosecution, for there are circumstances when the use of deceit is the only practicable law enforcement technique available.”
In that case, the Court narrowly upheld a conviction for methamphetamine production even though the defendant had argued entrapment.
So what types of interrogative deceit might a police officer use to develop admissible evidence of a suspect’s guilt?
Police interrogation
The general rule is that deception can be used so long as it’s not likely to cause an innocent person to commit a crime or confess to a crime that s/he didn’t commit.
Click here: The Lawful Use of Deception – Article – POLICE Magazine
Consider the following examples:
- A detective is interviewing a suspect in a rape case. “Oh, that girl,” he says, thus implying that the victim was a slut and had it coming. The suspect, thinking he’s dealing with a sympathetic listener, starts bragging about his latest conquest—only to learn, too late, that his listener isn’t so simpatico after all.
- “We found your prints on the gun”—or on any number of other surfaces. Actually, there are few good places on a pistol to leave prints. And those that are left can be smeared. The same goes for other surfaces. But if a suspect can be led to believe the cops have his prints, a confession is often forthcoming.
- A police officer is interrogating a suspect in a murder case. “He came at you, didn’t he?” asks the cop. The suspect, who murdered the victim in cold blood, thinks he has an escape route. “Yeah, he came at me”—this confirming that, yes, he did kill the deceased.
- “Your partner just gave you up” is a favorite police strategy when there is more than one suspect involved. If one suspect can be made to “flip”—turn–against the other, the case is essentially wrapped up.
- Interrogating a bank robbery suspect, a cop might say: “We know you didn’t do the shooting, that you were only the wheelman.” This implies that the penalty for driving the getaway car is far less than that for killing someone during a robbery. In fact, criminal law allows every member of the conspiracy to be charged as a principal.
- “I don’t give a damn what you did,” says the detective. “Just tell me why you did it.” For some suspects, this offers a cathartic release, a chance to justify their guilt.
- The “good cop/bad cop” routine is known to everyone who has ever seen a police drama. Yet it continues to yield results so often it continues to be routinely used. “Look, I believe you,” says the “good” cop, “but my partner’s a real asshole. Just tell me what happened so we can clear this up and you can go.”
- “So,” says the detective, “why do you think the police believe you did it?” “I have no idea,” says the suspect, confident that he isn’t giving up anything that might come back to haunt him. “Well,” says the cop, “I guess you’ll just have to make something up.” Make something up sounds easy, but is actually a trap. The suspect may end up giving away details that could incriminate him—or lying so brazenly that his lies can be used against him.
So is there a best way for a suspect to deal with an invitation to waive his Miranda right to remain silent?
Yes, there is. It’s to refuse to say anything and to ask for permission to call a lawyer.
That’s the preferred method for Mafia hitmen—and accused police officers.
Any cop who finds himself under investigation by his department’s Internal Affairs unit automatically shuts up—and calls his lawyer.
Any other reason—no matter how well-intentioned—may well result in a lengthy prison sentence.
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In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on December 9, 2024 at 12:10 am
According to Donald Trump, stopping illegal immigration is easy.
Just build a massive, impenetrable wall along the U.S./Mexican border to keep out Mexican immigrants.
“Building a wall is easy, and it can be done inexpensively,” Trump said in an interview on July 17, 2015. “It’s not even a difficult project if you know what you’re doing.”
Really?
Among the obstacles to erecting such a barrier:
- The United States/Mexican border stretches for 1,954 miles—and encompasses rivers, deserts and mountains.
- Environmental and engineering problems.
- Squabbles with ranchers who don’t want to give up any of their land.
- Building such a wall would cost untold billions of dollars.
- Drug traffickers and alien smugglers could easily tunnel under it into the United States—as they are now doing.
There are, in fact, cheaper and more effective remedies for combating illegal immigration.
Illegal aliens crossing into the United States
(1) The Justice Department should vigorously attack the “sanctuary movement” that officially thwarts the immigration laws of the United States.
Among the 31 “sanctuary cities” of this country: Washington, D.C.; New York City; Los Angeles; Chicago; San Francisco; Santa Ana; San Diego; Salt Lake City; Phoenix; Dallas; Houston; Austin; Detroit; Jersey City; Minneapolis; Miami; Denver; Baltimore; Seattle; Portland, Oregon; New Haven, Connecticut; and Portland, Maine.
These cities have adopted “sanctuary” ordinances that do not allow municipal funds or resources to be used to enforce federal immigration laws, usually by not allowing police or municipal employees to inquire about one’s immigration status.
(2) Indict the highest-ranking officials of those cities who have actively violated Federal immigration laws.
In San Francisco, for example, former District Attorney Kamala Harris—who is now Vice President of the United States—created a secret and illegal program called Back on Track, which provided training for jobs that illegal aliens could not legally hold.
(3) Even if some indicted officials escaped conviction, the results would prove worthwhile.
City officials would be forced to spend huge sums of their own money for attorneys and face months or even years of prosecution.
And this, in turn, would send a devastating warning to officials in other “sanctuary cities” that the same fate lies in store for them.
(4) CEOs whose companies—like Wal-Mart—systematically employ illegal aliens should be held directly accountable for the actions of their subordinates.
They should be indicted by the Justice Department under the Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act, the way Mafia bosses are prosecuted for ordering their own subordinates to commit crimes.
Upon conviction, the CEO should be sentenced to a mandatory prison term of at least 20 years.
CEOs forced to account for their subordinates’ actions would take drastic steps to ensure that their companies strictly complied with Federal immigration laws.
(5) The Government should stop automatic citizenship to “anchor babies” born to illegal aliens in the United States.
A comparable practice would be allowing bank robbers who had eluded the FBI to keep their illegally-obtained loot.
A person who violates the bank robbery laws of the United States is legally prosecutable for bank robbery, whether he’s immediately arrested or remains uncaught for years. The same should be true for those born illegally within this country.
If they’re not here legally at the time of birth, they should not be considered citizens and should—like their parents—be subject to deportation.
(6) The United States Government—from the President on down—should scrap its apologetic tone on the right to control its national borders.
First Lady Michelle Obama—accompanied by Margarita Zavala, the wife of then-Mexican President Felipe Calderon—was visiting a second-grade class in Silver Spring, Maryland.
A second-grade girl said: “My Mom, she says says that Barack Obama is taking everybody away that doesn’t have papers.”
Replied Mrs. Obama: “Yeah, well, that’s something that we have to work on right?”
The girl then said: “But my mom doesn’t have any….”
Obama: “Well, we’ll have to work on that. We have to fix that, and everybody’s got to work together in Congress to make sure that happens.”
The Mexican Government doesn’t consider itself racist for strictly enforcing its immigration laws.
The United States Government should not consider itself racist for insisting on the right to do the same.
(7) Voting materials and ballots should be published in one language—English.
In Mexico, voting materials are published in one language—Spanish.
Throughout the United States, millions of Spanish-speaking illegals refuse to learn English and yet demand that voting materials and ballots be made available to them in Spanish.
This is an English-speaking country. If immigrants don’t want to learn its national language, they should remain in their own nations.
(8) The United States should impose economic and even military sanctions against countries—such as China and Mexico—whose citizens make up the bulk of illegal aliens.
Mexico, for example, uses its American border to rid itself of those who might demand major reforms in the country’s political and economic institutions.
Such nations must learn that dumping their unwanteds on the United States now comes at an unfavorably high price. Otherwise those dumpings will continue.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on November 15, 2024 at 12:11 am
The time is long overdue for the United States to scrap its devil’s bargain relationship with Saudi Arabia.
Reason #1: The political assassination of Saudi dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi, a key critic of Saudi King Mohammed bin Salman.
On October 2, 2018, Khashoggi walked into the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul to pick up a document allowing him to marry a Turkish woman. Video footage showed Khashoggi walking into the consulate; there is none of him leaving it.
He was never seen again.
According to Turkish government officials:
- Fifteen Saudi agents flew into Istanbul.
- They waited for Khashoggi inside the consulate and murdered him within two hours of his arrival.
- The assassins used a bone saw to dismember Khashoggi’s corpse.
Jamal Khashoggi A
April Brady / POMED, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
Reason #2: Saudi Arabia is a weak ally.
President Donald Trump claimed that Saudi Arabia served as a counter-weight to the growing regional influence of Iran. But Saudi Arabia was unable to defend itself against Saddam Hussein’s Iraq in 1990, after the invasion and takeover of Kuwait.
This was, in fact, why Saudi-born Osama bin Laden decided to declare war on the United States.
He petitioned Saudi King Fahd bin Abdulazis al-Saud to let Saudis oppose any invasion by Iraq. He argued that “infidel” American soldiers stationed in the Kingdom would “pollute” Islam’s two great holy sites: Mecca and Medina.
Having fought against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan during the 1980s, bin Laden offered to help defend Saudi Arabia with his Arab legion.
The king refused—because he knew that, despite all the sophisticated military hardware he had bought from the United States, the Saudis were too militarily weak to resist an invasion.
Bin Laden left the country to wage fulltime war against the United States.
Osama bin Laden
Reason #3: Saudi Arabia is filled with Islamics who hate the United States as “the Great Satan.”
Fifteen of the 19 September 11, 2001 highjackers came from Saudi Arabia.
And Saudi Arabia is the birthplace of Wahhabism, a radical brand of Islam dedicated to “purifying” the world of “unbelievers.”
Reason #4: The only reason the United States cares about Saudi Arabia is that it’s the second-largest oil-producing country (after Venezuela) n the world.
Yet oil consumption threatens the future of the world through global warming. And it keeps America tethered to a regime that is fundamentally unstable and hostile to the West.
Reason #5: The United States can end its dependence on Saudi oil by embarking on a crash program to develop alternatives to oil.
Had this happened during the 1973 Arab oil embargo, the United States would now be energy-independent. America has the technology to do so; it lacks only the will.
Reason #6: Once the United States no longer needs fossil fuels, it can quit financing Middle East dictatorships.
This will end spending billions of dollars every year to prop up dictatorial regimes like those in Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Egypt. America will no longer supply big-ticket military hardware (like fighter planes and missiles) to potentially hostile Islamic regimes.
Reason #7: By withdrawing from the Middle East, the United States can free itself of the burden of acting as Israel’s permanent bodyguard.
Millions of Americans believe they are morally obligated to defend Israel owing to the barbarism of the Holocaust. But America was never a party to this—and has nothing to atone for.
Yet, for decades, the United States has been repeatedly dragged into the never-ending religious conflicts between Israelis and Islamics. Since both sides believe they are doing “God’s will,” there can be no substantial compromise by either.
Reason #8: The United States and its European allies can defend themselves against Islamic terrorism by erecting a “Sand Curtain” around the Middle East.
For 44 years—1947 to 1991—the United States and the Soviet Union were locked in a Cold War stalemate. Essentially, the United States drew a ring around the Soviet Union—including those nations its armies had seized following the defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945.
The United States said, in effect: “We can’t liberate the countries you’re now occupying”—because that would have triggered a nuclear World War III. “But we won’t allow you to occupy and enslave any other countries. And if you try to do so, it will mean total war.”
America could withdraw all of its forces from the Middle East—but keep a good portion stationed in Europe.
It could then publicly announce: “From now on, you are the masters of your own destinies—so long as what you do affects only the Middle East.
“We recognize that barbarism and violence have always been a part of life in the Middle East. And we don’t expect this to change.
“We realize you will destroy as many of your own citizens as you can—because they’re Jewish or Christians, or because Sunni Muslims and Shiite Muslims hate each other.
“Just don’t threaten citizens living outside your territories. In short: Europe and the United States are strictly off-limits to you.
“And if you aim your aggression at either, we will consider this an act of war and use all the weapons at our disposal—including nuclear ones—to wipe you from the face of the Earth.“
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THE AFGHAN-AMERICAN TALIBAN: PART ONE (OF FOUR)
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, RELIGION, Social commentary on February 10, 2025 at 12:02 amHamza Kashgari, a 23-year-old columnist in Saudi Arabia, decided to celebrate the birthday of the Islamic prophet Muhammed in a truly unique way.
Hamza Kashgar
In early February, 2012, he posted on Twitter a series of mock conversations between himself and Muhammad:
“On your birthday, I will say that I have loved the rebel in you, that you’ve always been a source of inspiration to me, and that I do not like the halos of divinity around you. I shall not pray for you.
“On your birthday, I find you wherever I turn. I will say that I have loved aspects of you, hated others, and could not understand many more.
“On your birthday, I shall not bow to you. I shall not kiss your hand. Rather, I shall shake it as equals do, and smile at you as you smile at me. I shall speak to you as a friend, no more.
“No Saudi women will go to hell, because it’s impossible to go there twice.”
The tweets sparked some 30,000 infuriated responses. Many Islamic clerics demanded that he face execution for blasphemy.
Kashgari posted an apology tweet: “I deleted my previous tweets because…I realized that they may have been offensive to the Prophet and I don’t want anyone to misunderstand.”
Soon afterward, Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, then King of Saudi Arabia, ordered his arrest.
Saudi King King Abdullah
Kashgari fled to Malaysia, another majority-Muslim country. He was quickly arrested by police as he passed through Kuala Lumpur international airport. Three days later, he was deported to Saudi Arabia.
Human rights groups feared that he would be executed for blasphemy, a capitol offense in Saudi Arabia.
After nearly two years in prison, Kashgari was freed on October 29, 2013. Kashgari used Twitter to inform his supporters of his release.
Outrageous? By Western standards, absolutely.
Clearly there is no tolerence in Saudi Arabia for the freedoms of thought and expression that Americans take for granted.
Meanwhile, Right-wing American ayatollahs are working overtime to create just that sort of society—where theocratic despotism rules the most intimate aspects of our lives.
One of these was the former GOP Presidential candidate and U.S. Senator Rick Santorum. In early January, 2012, he said that states should have the right to outlaw birth control without the interference of the Supreme Court.
Rick Santorum
In an interview with ABC News, Santorum said he opposed the Supreme Court’s ruling that made birth control legal:
“The state has a right to do that [ban contraception]. I have never questioned that the state has a right to do that. It is not a Constitutional right. The state has the right to pass whatever statutes they have.
“That’s the thing I have said about the activism of the Supreme Court—they are creating rights, and it should be left up to the people to decide.”
In the landmark 1965 decision, Griswold v. Connecticut, the Court struck down a law that made it a crime to sell contraceptives to married couples. The Constitution, ruled the Justices, protected a right to privacy.
Two years later, in Eisenstadt v. Baird, the Court extended Griswold by striking down a law banning the sale of contraceptives to unmarried couples.
Santorum has left no doubt as to where he stands on contraception. On October 19, 2011, he said:
“One of the things I will talk about that no President has talked about before is I think the dangers of contraception in this country, the whole sexual libertine idea. Many in the Christian faith have said, ‘“Well, that’s okay. Contraception’s okay.’
“It’s not okay because it’s a license to do things in the sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be. They’re supposed to be within marriage, they are supposed to be for purposes that are, yes, conjugal, but also…procreative.
“That’s the perfect way that a sexual union should happen. We take any part of that out, we diminish the act….And all of a sudden, it becomes deconstructed to the point where it’s simply pleasure.”
“How things are supposed to be”—according to Right-wing fanatics like Santorum and the evangelicals who support them.
Like the Saudi religious zealots who demand the death of a “blasphemer,” they demand that their religious views should govern everyone. That means Jews, Catholics, Islamics, atheists and agnostics.
American Christian fundamentalists and Islamic fundamentalists fervently agree on the following:
The important difference—for Americans who value their freedom—is this:
The United States has a Supreme Court that can—and does—overturn laws that threaten civil liberties. Laws that GOP Presidential candidates clearly want to revive and force on those who don’t share their peculiar religious views.
Eleanor Roosevelt once said: “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.”
The same holds true—in a democracy—for candidates who seek dictatorial power over their fellow citizens. Don’t give them your consent.
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