Irregular Times Diaries: Unfit Discussion

John has a good suggestion:

“I have an idea I like to call Volunteer Russia. It means that those Americans who want to have their postal mail and email read, who will allow themselves to be placed under surveillance, have their phone conversations listened to, those Americans who are willing to give up some of their rights in order to be detained and interrogated and not charged with anything in the name of national security have the right to submit their names to the government as open citizens. If they want to live in the Soviet Union, why should any of us stop them?

I think that’s fair.”

Any takers?

Someone happened by the Irregular Times web site tonight and left a message about something called Project Hamad. The project, in short, exists in order to bring attention to the plight of a man named Adel Hamad, a prisoner in the America gulag at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The federal government says that Adel Hamad is a terrorist.

I say that Adel Hamad is innocent.

How can I say that Adel Hamad is innocent? Well, how can the federal government of the United States of America declare that Adel Hamad is a terrorist?

The simple truth that Americans have forgotten is that I have solid legal standing to say that Adel Hamad is innocent, and the U.S. federal government has no legal standing to say that Adel Hamad is guilty of terrorism.

The simple truth that Americans have forgotten is that our legal system is based upon the presumption of innocence. The Supreme Court has ruled consistently, in the past, that it is a fundamental aspect of America law that a person accused of a crime is considered innocent until that person is proven to be guilty.

The federal government has not proven that Adel Hamad is guilty. The government has not brought any evidence against Adel Hamad before the public. The government has not put Adel Hamad on trial. The government has not even charged Adel Hamad with a crime. The government has not given anyone any reason to believe that Adel Hamad is guilty of anything.

So, I say that Adel Hamad is innnocent. I say that the government of the United States of America is imprisoning an innocent man. I will continue to say this, until I am proven wrong, until Adel Hamad is proven guilty. And so, I am joining Project Hamad.

Feel squeamish about that? Why? Because the name of the organization is Project Hamad? Because you think that makes the group sound like it’s some kind of terrorist front organization? Well, maybe it is, but then again, maybe Amway is a terrorist front organization. We can speculate on and on about who might be secretly coordinating with terrorist groups. The people at the Department of Homeland Security would probably love us to do that. But it’s paranoid to do so.

Besides, what reason do you have to think that Project Hamad is a terrorist group, other than the name Hamad in the title. It’s not a European name, that’s for sure, but what difference does that make? Are we now supposed to assume that all people of non-European descent are likely terrorists? That’s the mindset of people who suspect Barack Obama because his last name sounds like Osama and his middle name is Hussein. I won’t engage in that kind of ethnic hatred.

Here’s all that joining Project Hamad requires: You have to agree to the following statement:

“I believe people detained by the U.S. government have the right to:
— know the charges against them
— have access to a lawyer
— be able to have the merits of their case reviewed by a federally appointed judge”

The federal government of the United States of America has declared that people do not have these rights. Congress has assented to that declaration by passing the Military Commissions Act. Now, you have to decide whether you will be complicit.

Will you join Project Hamad, or are you too afraid to do so? Do you agree that these rights no longer exist?

As for myself, once more, I say that Adel Hamad is innocent.

Why do I insist on saying this? Because it’s the American way, that’s why.

Here’s a link for the Southern readers of Irregular Times: Atlanta Progressive News. I know, it sounds a bit like an oxymoron, but it isn’t. The truth is that Atlanta is a mix of Northerners and Southerners, plus people from elsewhere in the country, and so there is, finally, a real local struggle to establish a genuinely progressive presence.

Atlanta Progressive News doesn’t always go as far as progressives outside Georgia might expect it to go, but hey, at least it’s a step in the right direction. Georgia still isn’t Vermont, but some people are trying to move the culture ahead, at long last.

Does anyone else have some local progressive links to suggest?

Yesterday, I wrote about the embarassing fawning of Republican John McCain over George W. Bush last weekend, and McCain’s increasingly weird support for the scheme to hand over operations of American ports to a company owned by the government of the United Arab Emirates. John McCain’s recent actions, I concluded, suggest that he may not be a moderate after all.

Then I took a look at Senator McCain’s broader legislative record, and what I found astonished me. In our legislative scorecard of the US Senate, Senator McCain is shown to have supported progressive legislation only 8 percent of the time, while McCain supported right wing legislation 75 percent of the time. That’s not a moderate record. It’s a record of right wing extremism.

It turns out that we’re not the only ones catching on to the fraud behing the John McCain moderate hype. Over at the Down With Tyranny Blog, there’s a good discussion of the issue of McCain’s false moderation, which is then amended by a comment carrying an op-ed column by Paul Krugman published in the New York Times yesterday, coming to the same conclusion. Krugman calls McCain The Right’s Man.

It’s a coincidence that three separate people came to the same conclusion about John Mccain on the same day, but it shouldn’t come as a surprise. Just a tiny bit of digging into the substance of John McCain’s political career makes it clear that McCain is every bit as much the right winger that George W. Bush is.

For that reason, we’ve added a new section to our No Republicans for President in 2008 political shop. It’s called, simply, Not John McCain for President in 2008. We’ve just started adding to our selection there this morning, but it’s growing fast, so check back soon for more anti-McCain items.