Slashdot Mirror

There was no wrong, there where no lies, and , as it turns out, the US was being totally honest about their activities.

Are you snarking, trolling, or willfully ignorant?

U.S. officials were told to cover up evidence of child abuse by contractors in Afghanistan.

Guantanamo prison has held mostly innocent people and low-level operatives.

U.S. Military officials withheld information about the indiscriminate killing of Reuters journalists and innocent Iraqi civilians.

Known Egyptian torturers received training from the FBI in Quantico, Virginia.

The State Department authorized the theft of the UN Secretary General's DNA.

Several people in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Iran have been taken into custody/and or killed due information provided in the release of these documents. This is not a harmless crime.

And yet the government hasn't charged that, AC. Are you a paid misinformation agent?

Meanwhile, he may very well have saved tens of thousands of lives and helped spread democracy to the Middle East.

• Imperial presidency: judge jury and executioner.
• Unconstitutional detention.
• Unconstitutional wiretapping.
• Unconstitutionally waging war and not even bothering with the War Powers Act.
• Taking credit for Iraq ending when it was Iraq that kicked us out on Bush II's timetable and Obama was trying to stay longer. Assange has a much bigger claim for the removal of troops from Iraq.
• Cut deal with insurance industry while touting the public option. In the end, we get the No Insurance Company Left Behind Act. Lobbyists got their money's worth.
• Recent financial reform legislation so weak it would not have even slowed the meltdown had it already been in place. Lobbyists got their money's worth.
• Forgiving torturers Excusing them makes him complicit.
• Not even a show-attempt to prosecute fraud in the meltdown. Instead its bailouts and bonuses.
• Made deepwater horizon more likely.
• And the famous "hire the lobbyists for the industry you bow to" tactic. Good for what I don't know.
• Whistleblowers who expose wrongdoing should not be treated as Manning has been, and we don't even know if manning was responsible. He'll probably just get indefinite detention because the president says so. Welcome to Napoleonic America.

• Stop unconstitutional execution of the American citizenry.
• Stop unconstitutional detention.
• Stop unconstitutional wiretapping and prosectue AT&T's complicity (and that of any other carrier).
• Stop unconstitutionally waging war. From Korea onward, all our wars have been illegal, but Obama doesn't even feel constrained by the weak tea requirements of the war powers act. Our founding fathers never intended for the president to be a Napoleon.
• End the wars we are in. And please don't cite Iraq. The ONLY reason we are pulling out troops is because Iraq would not succumb to Obama's lobbying for a longer stay with immunity from war crimes. Thanks to wikipedia for that.
• Quit sucking insurance industry cock, i.e., real nice move touting the public option while secretly cutting a deal for the No Insurance Company Left Behind Act. I guess they got their money's worth.
• Quit sucking Wall Street cock, and don't pretend that the financial reform legislation would have even been a mild hindrance to the meltdown had it already been in place.
• Prosecute torturers rather than let them off the hook. Excusing them makes him complicit.
• At least make a show of investigating fraud on Street. The S&L crisis was 1/40th the size and 1000 bankers went to jail. This meltdown isn't even being investigated, instead, their handing out bonuses. A big "Fuck You Very Much Mr. Obama" for that.
• Thanks for helping to enable Deepwater horizon, it was exactly the gift I wanted!
• Quit hiring Keystone Pipeline lobbyists for your campaign.
• Bradley Manning. We know you have a hardon for anyone that might stand in the way of relentless war, but Christ, grow a soul and a sense of morality.

When he's claiming the right to summarily execute and/or imprison without trial American citizens, yes, I'd say he's riding roughshod over the Constitution. Now, George W Bush was a bit different, in that he just claimed the right to lock up and possibly torture US citizens without trial, and a lot of people howled that he was riding roughshod over the Constitution, but it's safe to say that right now riding roughshod over the Constitution is bipartisan.

Or, you know, we could just sit around on our laurels and watch silently as the government takes a few more, and then a few more of our rights away. The USA isn't Zimbabwe because of a the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, which is constantly under assault and has been under massive assault under Bush and now, sadly, Obama. Drawing equivalencies between regimes that are generally understood to be repressive and our own regimes when they act in a sinister and repressive manner against the citizens who they are sworn to protect and serve an who's rights they're supposed to be protecting and upholding is valid. Is it wrong to point out that my government is doing similar things as are done by repressive regimes and beginning to look more like those regimes? I think it's right and necessary. Oh, and by the way. Free Bradley Manning: http://www.bradleymanning.org/

The folks at Courage to Resist and the Bradley Manning Support Network have both been active in organizing support, rallies, and donations.