American Torturer Convicted : Faces 46 Years

From Democracy Now

Decades after torture allegations were first leveled against former Chicago police commander Jon Burge, a federal jury has found him guilty of lying about torturing prisoners into making confessions. Burge has long been accused of overseeing the systematic torture of more than 100 African American men. Two years ago federal prosecutors finally brought charges against Burge—not for torture, but for lying about it. On Monday afternoon, after a five-week trial, Jon Burge was found guilty on all counts of perjury and obstruction of justice for lying about the abuse. He could face up to forty-five years in prison.

Never mind what has happened in Abu Ghraib and Gitmo, as of Tuesday a Torture is headed for Jail in America and a 20 Year Campaign vicious of violence against innocent men.

This quote from one of the torture victims, where he nearly broke down with emotion was frankly hard to watch...

MARK CLEMENTS: These people stole my [bleep] life! I hate to tell you the truth. I sat in a prison cell, and I prayed for this day! Today is a victory for every poor person. I was sixteen years old! This is America! Sixteen years old! What are we going to do about other people who are sitting in those prisons? And I’m sorry if I’m offending anyone, but it’s out!

AMY GOODMAN: This was Mark Clements’s response when reporters asked him how he felt.

MARK CLEMENTS: Relieved that finally at least one of these people are now going to finally feel the pain. My daughter is twenty-nine years old. I missed all those years with my daughter, sitting in them prison cells for a crime I did not commit. I do not feel sorry for Jon Burge. That’s all I have to say.

Yes, what are we going to do about all the other people sitting in our prisons based on falsified evidence and falsified coerced confessions?

According to the Innocence Project at least 25% of the people who've been exonerated from U.S. Prisons as a result of DNA evidence had provided false confessions.

Regardless of the age, capacity or state of the confessor, what they often have in common is a decision – at some point during the interrogation process – that confessing will be more beneficial to them than continuing to maintain their innocence.

From threats to torture
Sometimes law enforcement use harsh interrogation tactics with uncooperative suspects. But some police officers, convinced of a suspect’s guilt, occasionally use tactics so persuasive that an innocent person feels compelled to confess. Some suspects have confessed to avoid physical harm or discomfort. Others are told they will be convicted with or without a confession, and that their sentence will be more lenient if they confess. Some are told a confession is the only way to avoid the death penalty.

Oh, and by the way, most of the people - as many as 72% - who we've been holding in Abu Ghraib, Gitmo and Bagram AFB are largely innocent too.

Salon - The Miami Herald’s Carol Rosenberg reports that, this week, yet another federal judge has ordered the Obama administration to release yet another Guantanamo detainee on the ground that there is no persuasive evidence to justify his detention. The latest detainee to win his habeas hearing, Mohammed Hassen, is a 27-year old Yemeni imprisoned by the U.S. without charges for 8 years, since he was 19 years old. He has “long claimed he was captured in Pakistan studying the Quran and had no ties to al Qaida,” and that “he had been unjustly rounded up in a March 2002 dragnet by Pakistani security forces in the city of Faisalabad that targeted Arabs.” Hassen is now the third consecutive detainee ordered freed who was rounded up in that same raid. The Obama DOJ opposed his petition even though the Bush administration had cleared him for release in 2007. He has now spent roughly 30% of his life in a cage at Guantanamo.

Will it take another 20 years for people such as Mohammed Hassen to finally have the justice that Mark Clements just received?

Vyan

24 Tones Down the Torture

Last week the the New Yorker featured an article that described how several military and human rights experts including the commandant of West Point took a trip to the set of "24" to have a little chat with it's stars and producers over the issue of torture.

They charged that the shows repeated depiction of extreme methods in order to obtain intelligence methods was causing confusion not only among the students and future officers at west point, but also among those already serving in Iraq.

Not long after that meeting executive producer Howard Gordon made an annoucement.

Fox's 24 will become less torturous, but not because the U.S. military, human rights groups and children's advocates want it to.

So Howard this decision has nothing to do with this statement from Brig General Patrick Finnegan?

Finnegan told the producers that "24," by suggesting that the U.S. government perpetrates myriad forms of torture, hurts the country’s image internationally. Finnegan, who is a lawyer, has for a number of years taught a course on the laws of war to West Point seniors—cadets who would soon be commanders in the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan. He always tries, he said, to get his students to sort out not just what is legal but what is right. However, it had become increasingly hard to convince some cadets that America had to respect the rule of law and human rights, even when terrorists did not. One reason for the growing resistance, he suggested, was misperceptions spread by "24," which was exceptionally popular with his students. As he told me, "The kids see it, and say, ‘If torture is wrong, what about "24"?’ " He continued, "The disturbing thing is that although torture may cause Jack Bauer some angst, it is always the patriotic thing to do."

Really now?

How about these statements...

The third expert at the meeting was Tony Lagouranis, a former Army interrogator in the war in Iraq. He told the show’s staff that DVDs of shows such as "24" circulate widely among soldiers stationed in Iraq. Lagouranis said to me, "People watch the shows, and then walk into the interrogation booths and do the same things they’ve just seen."

Instead of paying attention to what people who actually work directly with the troops and interrogators had to say Gordon instead doubts their claims.

Gordon is skeptical of the show's power over U.S. troops.

"The thesis that we are affecting our soldiers in Iraq in their treatment of prisoners is being exaggerated, I think. Hopefully, there are a lot of filters between their watching 24 and their work in the field."

I'm not going to claim I'm unsympathetic to Gordon's position. "24" is just a TV Show. It's drama. It's fiction. It's NOT REAL!

Ever since C. Delores Tucker began to speak out about so-called "Violent" Rap Music, the PMRC attempted to censor sexually explicit Rock, Ozzy Osborne and Judas Priest were sued for the subliminal messages and "backward masking" messages of suicide into their songs -- the impact of the entertainment media on our collective consciousness has been a hot button issue. I would say that it goes all the way back to the beginings of the entertainment industry - Chuck Berry and Elvis wiggling their hips on TV, the "Standards and Practices" offices at film studios, the "Comics Code Authority" which acted as defacto censor for that industry once Fredrick Wertham ridiculous screed "The Seduction of the Innocent" was published, which claimed that Wonder Woman was a "bondage babe" and Batman was a pedophile.

But at the same time Hollywood has often walked hand in hand with Washington propaganda, particularly during wartime. During WWII Hollywood created a veritable cottage industry of patriotic pro-war films, usually starring (Republican) John Wayne. Wayne continued this trend even during Vietnam with the frankly awful movie - The Green Berets. So it's not like Hollywood is completely independant of the political winds.

However, what I think is a far more dangerous tool for distortion and propaganda than any form of entertainment - is the News. Everyday we can turn on the local news station and usually the old adage - "If it bleeds - it leads" applies. Night after night our local and network news stations attempt to scare the bejeezus out of us with tales of murder, crime, disease and horror that is occuring right in our own neighborhoods. Or at least in somebodies neighborhood, somewhere.

White Chicks in PeriL has become a staple of many cable networks from CNN to MSNBC and Fox News. Jennifer Willbanks, Terri Schiavo and now the endless death of Anna Nicole Smith. Keeping us scared is big business for the News industry.

But when it comes to entertainment by an large I come down strongly on the side of the artists to express themselves in nearly all these causes. For example the arguement that Marilyn Manson was in anyway responsible for the Columbine Massacre is just plain goofy - especially since Dylan Kleibold and Eric Harris didn't like Marilyn Manson - they liked the band Rammstein who they couldn't even understand since they sing in German. Again the News distorts the facts in the interests of spreading fear.

Yet Manson was resoundingly condemned anyway.

With all this in mind it might be argued that Finnegan and Lagouranis are being a bit hysterical, but then again it might not - since they aren't talking about hypotheticals, they're talking about real impacts and viewpoints which come directly from the arguments justifying torture put forward by "24" (which are echoed loudly by the Bush Administration) and how it's making their jobs of teaching our troops to abide by international law more difficult. I don't think that something you can just brush off.

In nearly all these cases above there are other alternatives to look at and compare against. Someone who doesn't like Ozzy could listen to Amy Grant or Striper if they want to. But if you happen to enjoy a modern day action/drama that realistically addresses the issues of terrorism - where else can you go but "24"?

The only show I can think of is "Sleeper Cell" but that is on Showtime and not available to the same audience that Fox TV can reach. With it's enormous ratings the impact of "24", in the absense of other viable and equally well distributed alternatives can not be completely ignored.

Gordon says he's open to working with outside groups, "but my bottom line is that this is a TV show and that's reality. I'm optimistic that most people are able to distinguish between the two."

Yes, most people can distingish between the two - when they actually have two equally well defined options to compare against. In this case - IMO - they don't. And that isn't neccesarily "24"'s fault - it's the News medias fault for failing to seriously address these issues in a responsible way and leaving us without a "fair and balanced" picture of the situation.

One "24" critic Dave Trotter puts it this way....

Here’s how the writers illustrate the concept: in episode 18 they make the distinction between torturing: (1) suspects who've been actually charged with a crime, and (2) suspects who haven't been charged but who still might know something.

They pose the question as an over-the-top ethical issue, and the Arab supervillain plays the system expertly, using an Amnesty International clone agency lawyer like an IED to sidetrack CTU's "hot on his trail" investigation.

So the lawyers advocating due process for the suspect are working for the terrorists! I knew it! (Dang you, Osama! Dang you, Zarqawi/Saddam/Goldstein!)

Just as Fox News new "1/2 Hour News Hour" would present the ACLU or Human Rights Watch - if you're not With us, You're Against us. If you dare criticize our policies, even when they don't work - you're doing the work of the terrorist for them.

The problem is that the writers linger on the distinction that Jack wants to torture a suspect but has insufficient evidence to charge him. By this point, Spring of 2005, most citizens had seen enough wild precedents in the four years since 9/11 to recognize that the "material support" hurdle of the Patriot Act is a low one indeed. They couldn’t charge this guy?

Somebody was trying to make a point.

You bet they were. And I think that someone is Joel Surnow, co-creator of 24, "the 1/2 Hour News Hour" and card-carrying Neo-Con Wacko!

But never fear – Jack Bauer knocks out a pawn-like Federal Marshall escorting the suspect and breaks every bone in one of the suspect’s hands until he talks, which of course renders exactly the information they need, just in the nick of time. Thanks, God, for Jack Bauer, who has the stomach and the temerity to pummel my face – or yours! – into concrete in the name of national security! Finally, a hero emerges!

Never mind that we've moved far afield, by this point, whether the predication for any of this executive activity is legitimate. We're in a damned fervor, here. We ain't got time for discernment!

It's easy to rationalize when the "worst-case scenario" mentality really takes root, too. It was that guy's hand or millions of innocent lives, right? How do any of us stack up against that?

How indeed? How do the rights of terrorist to a fair hearing and habeus corpus, or the right to protest these outrages stack up against the specter of an American City destroy by a nuclear dirty bomb?

Our current Attorney General says - in all seriousness - that obeying the law and the Constitution is a grave threat to our nation, yet hardly anyone blinks an eye. This might not be because so many people have become comfortable with Jack Baeur Justice ™, and then against it just might.

Time and time again this show indicates that the rights of the accused are insignificant and that doing everything in your power including breaking the law is acceptable as long as it's for "the greater good" - just as Jonah Goldberg argued in his very first LA Times Column that the President Bush lying us into a war with Iraq was just fine, since it was for the "greater good" or that the subsequent Iraq War was a "Worthy Mistake."

The Ends Justifies the Means, no matter what price - is their mantra and credo.

One last thing from Trotter...

During season 4, Walt Cummings, one of the traitorous villains working for President Logan, advises the president that the torture of the uncharged suspect would haunt the administration if he turns out to be innocent. Jack disagrees, of course, and after torturing the suspect illegally, Jack is vindicated when the suspect reveals pertinent information. In season five, to prove a larger point, Cummings is revealed to be a traitor in patriot’s clothing.

So in case you’re keeping score, that’s "good guys" who advocate torture and incarceration without criminal charges, 1, and "bad guys" who insist that charges and evidence should at least be a requirement for torture, nothing. And where’s the party advocating no torture under any circumstances, you ask? Good question.

Yes, that's a very good question - where are the News agencies and programs which display an alternative to "24"'s incessant use of violence to achieve it's ends? Where are the shows that point out that information gained through coercian is inadmissable in court and anything gained from that info is "fruit of the poison tree" and also inadmissable?

Where are the shows or even the News programs telling the American public the truth, that even during a "ticking time-bomb" scenario TORTURE DOESN'T WORK!

One interrogator said that he would apply physical coercion only if he received a personal directive from the President. But Navarro, who estimates that he has conducted some twelve thousand interrogations, replied that torture was not an effective response. "These are very determined people, and they won’t turn just because you pull a fingernail out," he told me. And Finnegan argued that torturing fanatical Islamist terrorists is particularly pointless. "They almost welcome torture," he said. "They expect it. They want to be martyred." A ticking time bomb, he pointed out, would make a suspect only more unwilling to talk. "They know if they can simply hold out several hours, all the more glory—the ticking time bomb will go off!"

With Gordon announcing this new direction for "24" that alternative might be the very same show that put forth the "by any means unneccesary" argument in the first place.

But somehow - I doubt it.

Vyan

Waterboard Congress

Ray McGovern, a former CIA Analyst with 27 years experience, the man who directly challenged Donald Rumsfelds lies and also testified at the original Downing Street Forum with Cindy Sheehan and Joe Wilson has an idea.

A real good idea.

Waterboard Congress until they tell us the truth about Iraq (and Afghanistan, and Global Warming, and Abstinance Only Sex Ed and.... you get the picture.)

A Modest Proposal: Waterboard Congress
Maybe White House-favored interrogation techniques would coax lawmakers to tell the truth about U.S. anti-terror policies
by Ray McGovern

In response to the Supreme Court's June decision in Hamdan vs. Rumsfeld, the Bush administration has proposed a new Enemy Combatant Military Commissions Act. If passed by Congress, this act would revolutionize American jurisprudence.

The White House wants military tribunals hearing the cases of terrorism suspects to be able to use "coerced" confessions. As Acting Asst. Atty. Gen. Steven Bradbury helpfully assured Congress last month, "there are gradations of coercion much lower than torture."

Because many in the administration and Congress feel strongly that coerced confessions constitute the "best practice" to get truth from people suspected of bad things, then, under the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment, American citizens should be permitted to use the same method to pry the truth out of their elected representatives.

The "Best Practice?" Is that why everything we tortured out of Ibn Sheik al-Libi about Saddam being connected to Al Qaeda was totally bogus?

One such method is waterboarding: strapping someone to a board and pushing him underwater to make him feel like he's drowning. Since then-CIA Director Porter Goss assured Congress last year that this was a "professional interrogation method," not torture, citizens should be permitted to bring splintery planks, leather straps and water tanks to expedite discussions with any member of Congress who continues to insist that things are going swimmingly for the U.S. military in Iraq.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has during his tenure approved the use of a dozen extreme interrogation methods above and beyond those previously permitted by the Pentagon, including, but not limited to, hooding, disrobing, placing detainees in stress positions and exploiting their "fear of dogs." When the resulting Abu Ghraib photos leaked out in 2004, Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) declared that he was more "outraged by the outrage" than by the actual evidence of detainee abuse.

So: Inhofe should be blindfolded, put in a straitjacket and left in a room full of crazed chihuahuas until he explains why he believes that the U.S. military should not be constrained to follow the laws of the land, such as the Anti-Torture Act.

Sounds good to me, I got an ironing board and a bathtub all ready to go. In fact, I think this would be a great demonstration to have several thousand people show up on the capital mall with big buckets and splinters of wood.

Just to make a point, because it's pretty obvious that Congress isn't getting the point - yet.

It's been pretty clear to me for some time that the entire "secret testimony" argument that scuttled Hamdan, isn't about protecting our sources and methods of intelligence gathering, it's about protecting the Chimp in Chief's ass from War Crimes Prosecution under 18 USC § 2441. They don't want the defendant in the room for certain testimony because illegal methods may have been used to gather that evidence. This was the original impetous for denying Geneva Conventions to detainees, long before the Bybee Memo which essentially redefined torture into "organ failure" - which in plan english means death. Anything short of that - is just fine.

It's long past time certain Congress Critters, especially Senator Lindsay (Sure, we've banned torture, except that no one that's actually been tortured can sue over it) Graham, got a taste of their own medicine.

Vyan

Time to Start Playing Offense

By the time of, or at least soon after the State of the Union, Democrats -- not just the party, but we the rank and file - need to realize it's time to stop playing Defense and start playing Offense.

Simply complaining endlessly about the failings and foibles of the Bush Administration isn't enough (Although it's fun and theraputic). We also, vitally, need to point out how and why our path and philosophy is better. Some of this is obvious - Curruption and Lies:Bad, Honesty:Good - but on some issues we still need some work (Taxation, Governments Role in our lives, Being comfortable in our own faith, Support nearly for unlimited Abortion).

Well past the point where we made everyone understand who we really and where we stand rather than let Bully O'Reilly's repeatedly define us as the Far-Left Secular-Progressives who with to put porn in your homss 24/7, take God out of your lives, and homosexualize your teenagers.

We'll never get Bush's true poll numbers down to just those who actually believe in the policies he implements - as opposed to the policies he exposes - to finally show up as the 12-15% of hard-core bat-crazed wing-nuts that they are.

We have to realize that what we have staring us in the face - is a completely golden oppurtunity to completely repudiate the policies and practicies of the neo-conservative movement and set them back for decades, if not completely run them out of politics.

I know that seems like a tall order, but bear with me. The truth is the neo-cons who currently control the Republican party are hell-bent on self-destruction. They're like deeply addicted power-junkies who don't know when or how to restrain themselves. Just look at Jack Abramoff's behavior - openly scorning his own clients with epithets and insults in email, after email. Everyday we hear about another scandal, another hotbed of curruption and incompetence.

• The Bush Administration failed to head the numerous warnings, and crunch the intelligence to prevent 9-11.
• Osama Bin Laden got away at Tora Bora.
• Koran Desecration, Humiliation, Stress positions and Waterboarding at Guantanemo Bay. One prisoner, al-Libi, claims under duress that Iraq still has Nuclear aims - he's Wrong.
• We go to War with Iraq, but all the WMD and Nuclear intelligence, our justification for going to war, is all Wrong.
• We didn't have enough troops to secure the nation allowing a deadly Iraqi insurgency to grow and spread, we still don't properly equip them with proper armor or helmets - if they try to equip themselves they get threatened, and we've cut their benefits while locking them into perpetual service with "Stop-loss" policies. All the Pentagon's expectations and plans are just plain Wrong.
• Vice-Presidential Chief of Staff "Scooter" Libby Indicted, Rove implicated in Plame Affair.
• Abu Graib gets Gitmo-ized, and photos of prisons in humiliating poses and stress positions begin to appear. Repubs claim it was just "frat styled hazing" on the night shift - they're Wrong.
• Republican House Majority Leader Tom DeLay Indicted for Money Laundering.
• $8.8 Billion just plain disappears in Iraq under the Coalition Provisional Authority.
• 2000 U.S. Soldiers dead since "Mission Accomplished", 50,000 wounded. Another estimated 100,000 Iraqi casualties, President Bush only admits to 30,000.
  
• Secret Detention Centers and the Extraordinary Rendition program.
• Terry Schiavo gets her own personal Congressional Legislation and a Grandstanding Red-Eye flight by the President to sign it. Republican Heart surgeon and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist gives her a video diagnosis, "She seems responsive to light". She dies anyway as per her wishes, and the autopsy shows that she was blind.
• The levees break in New Orleans - Bush remains on vacation and in avoidance of Cindy Sheehan.
• Republican Congressman "Duke" Cunningham pleads guilty to bribery.
• Republican Lobbyists Mike Scanlon and Jack Abramoff plead guilty to bribery of Congressmen. Tom Delay and Bob Ney implicated. Repubs and Corporate Media try to implicate Dems also, but they're Wrong.
• The NSA has been spying on American's without a warrant for over four years and causing the FBI to be flooded with makeshift busy-work instead of focusing on legitimate threats. Bush Admin claims they could've stopped 9-11 if they'd already been doing this, except that they were and they are still Wrong.
  

And just in the last couple days you also have.

• Halliburton allowed our troops to drink contaminated water in Iraq, meanwhile $Millions of rebuilding funds were lost and squandered,
• The White House was specifically informed that the levees could fail before Katrina hit, and did nothing.

Just look around, these guys are crashing and burning all on their own steam. Democrats have had almost nothing to do with any of it. Yes, a few voted for the Iraq War - but that was based on intelligence that the Bush Administation gave them, and it was Wrong. The blame belongs where on the people who provided the information, not those who were duped by it.

Yet, there are those who simply refuse to believe all the above. They live in a world of pseudo-reality, swamped by denial and self-deception. They know and suspect the truth, but can't bring themselves to admit it -like a junkie who can't put down the Fundie/Wingnut crack-pipe. They get bogged down in semantics - "How can you say Bush lied", and we get bogged down with them - arguing irrelevancies.

Truth is, it doesn't matter whether Bush lied or not - he was Wrong, and that's the point. We can't afford a President who makes this many bone-head mistakes and is wrong this often, deliberate or not. If he lied, well then he simply knew he was wrong, so he's a bastard - but if he didn't, he was just plain ignorant now wasn't he? Just which is really worse? I vote being a bastard is better than being a deluded dumb-ass, but maybe that's just me.

Bush personally shouldn't be the target anyway IMO, he's a lame duck President. The target needs to be the Bush Administration as a non-functioning organization, Cheney, Rove and all of Bush's political appointees like Brownie need to be the target - and of course their lackeys in Congress.

What people need to know, is just what Dems will do about all this?

Can we Dems seriously give them - particularly those who continue to support the President and Republican Party against their own best interests - a sense that we won't make the kinds of gross (deliberate?) mistakes that the Bush administration has made? Sadly, probably not.

But that doesn't mean we can't get there. People, we have some work to do. It's not enough just to let the Repubs implode if people fail to recognize that all the above is a direct result of the Republican Philosophy of Government - which is a Government that Doesn't Work. Their main campaign arguement since Ronald Reagan has been that "Government can't solve your problems, Government is the problem", and they've worked long and hard to make sure that axiom is true. Right now, with Repubs in charge - They are the problem.

We need to hang that sound bite around their neck like a scarlet letter. Their government doesn't work - but Dems in power have and will make Government limited, but effective.

We have to stop running away from Monica, and learn to crow about the great things we've already accomplished. A Democratic President Balanced the U.S. Budget, reduced the size of government by 15% while preventing drastic unneccesary cuts in Medicaid and Medicare. A Democratic President and Administration, brought peace to Northern Ireland, ended the wars in Bosnia and Kosovo saving the lives of Millions from Ethnic Cleansing, and at the same time prevented al-Qaeda Jihadist from starting an anti-American insurgency in the region. (Now that, was a noble cause^tm). A Democratic Administration prevented the Millenium Bomb Plot, the attempted bombing of LAX, the Lincoln Tunnel and the Holland Tunnel. A Democratic Administration caught Aldridge Ames, caught Eric Robert Rudolph and executed Timothy McVeigh.

We have to make it clear that the Democratic vision is one that isn't for unneccesary government intrusion into our personal lives or the operation of our businesses without due and probable cause. We have to learn some consistency on this - it shouldn't matter if it's guns or pornagraphy. People have an equal freedom to own either, as long as they show the personally responsibility [yes, that's right - Steal those soundbytes and turn them around] not to let either fall into the wrong hands or be used irresponsibly. It should be about what you do and how it impacts those around you - not what you possess.

Our primary objective has to be election reform and accountability. We can't have a government "by and of the people" if we can't verify what the people actually voted for. At the moment this needs to be a state-level initiative, as various states have begun to test and challenge the security of Diebold and other automatically voting equipment. WIthout this, we have nothing.

Our secondary objective needs to be a revamping of our tax policy. Dems are also being accused of "taxing and spending", when the truth is that Republicans are Super-spending (with the debt approaching $8 Trillion) and tax-shifting the burden from us onto our children, and their children. A tax-cut doesn't really cut anything if all it does is explode the defecit, rather it simply forces those same taxes to be paid years later with interest.

Government isn't a surrogate Mommy or Daddy - but it can and should be a tool to help us get back up when we fall down as a result of medical problems, natural disasters or other tragedies. The axiom should be that government provides a platform where the strong can pool their resources and help those who need aid the most, simply because if they don't - no one else can without the neccesary resources.

Dems needs to allay the fears of Conservatives - No, not cynically shift to the right DLC style - but make it clear that they have a plan to address the deficit and welfare of America in new and innovative ways such as John Kerry campaign suggestion of a tax credit to businesses who provide for American jobs rather than overseas jobs.

I think this idea should be expanded and ceased upon.

Rather than simply rollback the Bush Tax cuts and thereby "raising taxes" (although the truth is that a full rollback would simply put the taxes back where they were when we were running surpluses) another idea would be to offer public service tax credits.

A Public service tax credit should be available anytime that an individual or corporation chooses to spend money to meet public service goals, for example television stations that provide for campaign ads to candidates free of charge (thereby removing the need to develop complex campaign finance laws and schemes to catch people who try to "game the system" like Abramoff and co.), or provide for books, materials and facilities donated to public schools, or add more employees to your health-care rolls. etc. The point being that the more that private citizens and companies do to take care of themselves and each other -- the less government has to spend doing it for them. Conservatives like to crow that people always know better than government. Well, sure sometimes they do - and sometimes they don't. Either way government taxes should NOT disable them from trying to do the best they can on their own before it the guvmint comes in afterward to pick of the left-over peices for all those who are -- to borrow a phrase - left behind. Public Service Tax Credits should be offered as an alternative to a straight repeal of the Bush Tax-Cuts.

Under this plan It's possible that the overall tax burden might go down even further than Bush's cuts if enough people and companies embrace the credit option, the end goal is on eliminating the need for government spending by having as many people as possible able to stand on their own without government assistance. This strategy would completely destroy the old "Tax and Spend Liberal" canard.

We also need to re-address not just tax issues, but moral ones. Issues of faith and values. A recent episode of West Wing contained a scene where the Ambassador stated the following to the American representative...

With "Life, Liberty and the Persuit of Happiness". All the aspirations of your people are financial - not ethical.

And the chilling truth of that statement was palpable. We equate the "greatness" of America not with our character or values, but with or individual financial circumstances. The size of our SUV and the strength of our economy. Dems certainly need to take this bull by the horns.

It goes without saying that bribery, corruption and cronyism are wrong. But it also needs to be said that abortion is great moral issue as well, and that we Dems certainly do not celebrate in the destruction of human life. Rather, we must seek policy which supports personal ethics that make abortion unneccesary. We must support comprehensive sex education,since almost 90% of teens indoctrinated into abstinence-only programs break their vows and have unprotected sex within 18 months (since they are discouraged and withheld knowledge of effective contraception). Abstinence is a good choice - but so is Safe-sex. Our foster system care needs to be serious reformed. Adoption should be cheaper and far more open. We should encourage the formation of extended families for child care, as well as family support from the corporate world as well such as on-site day care. Our schools need deep and serious reform using innovation rather than rote test teaching..

Being "Pro-Choice" need to include all the choices, all of the positive things that people can say "Yes" too, rather than simply say "No" to an embryo.

There are just a couple examples of what we need to allow people to be able to comfortably say "Yes" to the Democratic party, rather than simply say "No" to Repubs. Those that only say "No" are likely to sit-out the 2006 mid-term or even the 2008 elections, and we need them - we need them on our side if we're going to save this country from itself.

We need them as part of the Reality-based community, not neccesarily as Democrats - True Conservatism can function within our reality, I firmly believe this is true, but they still need to be in the same reality as the rest of us to start with.

The Conservative movement has been hijacked by Neo-cons, who are just exploiting the "wackos" with anti-Liberal rhetoric. Just remember, A Balanced Budget Amendment was included in the GOP's Contract on America a decade ago. Where did those Conservatives go? Just think, if the Neo-cons can pull all this crap, fail at so much of it this badly and still not be held accountable, just what will stop them from going even further next time?

Vyan