fayfreethinkers.com

"In fact, as shocking as the treatment of Padilla has been, and as horrifying as Padilla's condition now is, and as terrifying as the fact that Padilla, a US citizen, was stripped of all of his constitutional rights and tortured without recourse just exactly as if he lived in South Africa during apartheit, or in Russia in the Stalinist period, or in any South American dictatorship you could name is, the most vile, stinking, contemptible, debased, and humiliating fact about the whole episode is that yesterday, when Padilla's condition was reported on AOL, 75% of AOL's poll responders voted FOR the government's treatment of Padilla. Apparently they did not know that he is no longer being accused of the dirty bomb crime, and apparently they didn't care ANYTHING about their constitutional rights as Americans.

"...Anyone at all who does not find Padilla's treatment repugnant in every way, and perfect grounds for impeachment, imprisonment, and solitary confinement of everyone in charge of our government for the last five years and ten months, has devolved from a human being to a reptile."

Read the rest here.

Padilla, like most of the people in Gitmo and the secret prisons, was arrested because he is brown, Muslim, or both. The AOL poll lookes at a brown Muslim and, believing the profiling defined by W&Co, said "yeah, that's the way to treat terrorists". Citizenship doesn't matter, and in this case, it shouldn't - the constitutional guarantees are that the government won't do these things, not that citizens are immune. The reason W needs "military commissions" is that there is NO evidence of any crime committed by these people, Padilla included. If there had been evidence, they would have been funneled through the court system years ago, with every conviction a star in W's crown - proving how right he was. Anger is the only thing that keeps me from falling into abject despair over the deeds done in our name (Hogeye - yes, "our" name - I am an American citizen, sometimes if not at the moment, proudly so) by this administration.

So much for the notion that elections, or the "wisdom" of the flaghumping masses, can limit the State. But Barbara still insists "we are the State." So don't worry, Barbara - Padilla is really doing it to himself, since he is the State.

The fact that elections can rein in government in a free society is why the Rs in general and W in particular have been working so hard to change us into a fascist society. Which I freely and mournfully admit they have done. At this time we have a small chance to reverse the process - repeal or otherwise remove the unconsitutional laws passed in the last 5 year (warrantless surveillance, authority to 'delay' elections, suspension of habeas corpus, martial law budget rider, "signing statements" - and presidential definitions of things like torture, unlawful enemy combatant, and assisting terrorism) before the president actually uses them to disappear significant members of our current Dem majority, at least one supreme court justice - and decide since we're "at war" elections must be "delayed" for the duration. That removal of tyrannical authority - which while unconsitutional, is law at the moment - and fixing the election process so that every vote counts and every vote counts for the person it was cast for are the two most important things we have to accomplish in the next year. Everything else (and you know how important I think global warming is - and social security, for that matter) is in second place after getting our country back.