I thought the era of fascist crimes against the American people might have ended with the Democratic majority in the Congress and Senate.

We still need to PAY ATTENTION because the executive has not stopped the self-excused crimes they call Signing Statements. While we were preoccupied with midwinter celebrations, George W. Bush signed a postal reform bill December 20, along with a signing statement letting us know that Bush declares the right to OPEN OUR MAIL under emergency conditions.

“That claim is contrary to existing law and contradicted the bill he had just signed, say experts who have reviewed it.”

Again I’m baffled. Why do these people think it is OK, ethical, legal, even possible to act in direct contradiction to U.S. law? Why? Because they get away with it.

I don’t buy their longstanding fascist emergency or their excuses for illegal spying.

Hello, new Democratic Congress? This is exactly what I want you to deal with. Please investigate the crimes these people continue to commit against the American people. Hold them accountable. I don’t want you to take revenge. I just want to see justice. I want to see them accused and convicted of their crimes. Please show no mercy until it is time to sentance the criminals–if then.

UPDATE:

• Another Daily Mail Story: “The Republican sponsor of a postal reform bill called on President Bush yesterday to explain why he used it to claim he can open domestic mail without a search warrant.“
• Media Matters found that many television news stations either ignored the story or didn’t make it clear where the mysterious new power to open mail came from.

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Yesterday I watched on tv the funeral of Gerald Ford at the National Cathedral in Washington, DC. Ford showed mercy rather than revenge, said the religious man in white robes.

I disagree.

Ford showed himself more concerned with expediency than with justice. Mercy comes not in the phase of establishing guilt for crimes committed against the people but in sentencing. Richard Nixon didn’t reach that point. Richard Nixon never received justice. To seek justice is not the same as to seek revenge, as so many have implied this past week. Justice seeks truth without fear of what it might find. Revenge can sometimes be carefully crafted to look like thin justice.

I don’t think it is a coincidence that Saddam’s execution was timed for the middle of a U.S. news cycle preoccupied with making sure Gerald Ford remains an American everyman (despite his doubting the war in Iraq through Bob Woodward). The hanging was timed for many to be preoccupied with New Year and Muslims focused on Eid ul-Adha–an Islamic day of sacrifice. If it weren’t for the cell-phone video, we might not be talking so much about Saddam Hussein’s hanging. Oops. Timing didn’t hide this one.

Speaking of sacrifice, that is going to be the word to brand the new effort to drag young people into the military, according to a BBC report. SACRIFICE. Send more troops to Iraq no matter what the majority of Americans say, including the servicepeople themselves. Keith Olbermann had something to say about national sacrifice in his latest Special Comment.

When you hear the words “national sacrifice” and selective use of words like “mercy,” you know that strong national mythologies are being called upon to distract from the realities of what we’ve all seen with our own mass mediated eyes.

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Can they see our hand in this? That’s what Richard Nixon asked Henry Kissinger immediately following the September 11, 1973, coup in which Augusto Pinochet lead a military overthrown of the democratically elected government of Salvador Allende in Chile.

Which question was Nixon really asking Kissinger?

• Can THEY see our hand in this?
• Can they SEE our hand in this?
• Can they see OUR hand in this?
• Can they see our HAND in this?
• Can they see our hand in THIS?

I want to answer all of the above. Despite their decades of protestations, it has certainly been clear for a long time that WE SEE THEIR HAND IN THIS.

Like many young Americans and others, I first learned a few details about the Chilean junta nearly 10 years later when Costa-Gavras’ film Missing was released. In the film, an American journalist, Charles Horman, finds out more than he is meant to about U.S. involvement, then he comes up missing. Most of the film follows his wife and skeptical father as they work their way through the Chilean and U.S. bureaucracies to find out what happened to him. The film implied that the hand of the U.S. was at work, and subsequently declassified documents have confirmed this.

There was plenty more to learn than even an Oscar-winning film can tell. I have learned some of that history and politics since. I have sent students into libraries to find their own answers. I live with the illusion that I know something about the hand of the U.S. in Chile.

Even now, though, after Pinochet’s death yesterday on International Human Rights Day, I think of the people with whom I first saw Missing. I was a student at la Universidad de Puerto Rico at the time, and I saw the film with members of the Puerto Rican Independence Party. (If you don’t know who they are, think of them as one of the three big targets of the FBI’s CoIntelPro program, along with the Black Panthers and the American Indian Movement.) My companeros took it upon themselves to give me the education in U.S. foreign policy that my high school hadn’t managed to. I was skeptical of their claims, but I was also more skeptical of the U.S. government from that point on. I count this as an important moment in my seeing their hand in so much of the world.

So, if you consider Augusto Pinochet this week of his death, maybe you could consider the ways in which YOU SEE THEIR HAND IN THIS. This what? The possibilities are broad. Fill in the blank with any foreign relations incident of the 20th or 21st century and see what hands you can see.

Where to start? Some of the most interesting documents on the hand of the U.S. in Chile and elsewhere can be found at the National Security Archives, housed at my alma mater George Washington University. Nixon’s comment from a telephone conversation with Kissinger was part of an interview today with Peter Kornbluh on Democracy Now. Kornbluh is the author of “The Pinochet File.” You can read that at the NSA, too.

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When the Bush administration disrespects U.S. allies, eventually they stop being diplomatic about it. I wouldn’t be surprised to know that the Bush administration had little confidence in the Iraqi Prime Minister. What surprises me is the leak of a classified memo from the national security adviser saying,

the reality on the streets of Baghdad suggests Maliki is either ignorant of what is going on, misrepresenting his intentions, or that his capabilities are not yet sufficient to turn his good intentions into action.

That isn’t even the worst leak of the week. Everyone knew that Margaret Thatcher made Britain Ronald Reagan’s dog. Tony Blair would have learned that lesson, right? In an oops-did-I-say-that-out-loud, a State Department analyst said this week that he was “a little ashamed” of the one-sided relationship between the US and the UK.

[W]e typically ignore them and take no notice — it’s a sad business.

Blair really needs his moment giving a speak like UK Prime Minister Hugh Grant in Love Actually, when he stood up to the menacing US President Billy Bob Thornton.

Prime Minister [Hugh Grant]: I love that word “relationship”. Covers all manner of sins, doesn’t it? I fear that this has become a bad relationship. A relationship based on the President taking exactly what he wants and casually ignoring all those things that really matter to, erm… Britain. We may be a small country but we’re a great one, too. . . . a friend who is a bully is no longer a friend. . . . since bullies only respond to strength, from now onward, I will be prepared to be much stronger. And the President should be prepared for that.

At some point, standing up and calling George Bush a devil is going to be the rule rather than the exception.

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News is just pouring in and overwhelming today. I think an important story is getting lost. I’m not saying it is more important than civil war in Iraq or deterioration in Darfur. No. Those stories rip my heart out every day. The days of Colin Powell’s acceptance of Pottery Barn foreign policy are over. (He says it’s a civil war.) I think more time is being spent on the vocabulary of uncontrolled violence than on the violence itself. Death and suffering are difficult to face, but they are there. We need to SEE it without allowing ourselves to turn away.

But what are we missing while the world suffers? While we look away, the nasty authoritarians still play.

When Newt Gingrich spoke at a First Amendment Award Dinner about how and why first the first amendment should be reexamined. What? Keith Olbermann interviewed a George Washington University law professor about the implications.

Newt Gingrich called for a reexamination of free speech at the Loeb First Amendment Award Dinner in New Hampshire this week, saying a “different set of rules to prevent terrorism” are necessary.

Gingrich’s call to restrict free speech is mainly focused on the Internet.

Keep your eyes on these people. Call your Representatives and Senators to ask them whether they think the first amendment needs to be reexamined.

Update 12/2: Love it when Keith Olbermann goes after a subject like Newt Gingrich’s desire to suppress free speech on the internet.

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