Bipartisan Betrayal of American Revolution

Two Corrupt Political Parties Will Not Keep Faith

"On This Day in 1775, the first shots of the Revolutionary War were fired during the Battles of Lexington and Concord in Massachusetts," announced the U.S. Dept of Defense this morning, April 19.

The irony of our 250th anniversary, when the fighting began, is as thick as the indecency of the Trump administration betraying our Constitution and liberty for which so many brave and loyal souls gave their lives. 

Not in my lifetime have I witnessed a presidential administration partake in such sadistic pleasure in delivering torture and inhumanity onto our planet in ostentatious defiance of liberty that is American DNA. Nixon was a classical liberal in comparison to Trump.

And the Democratic Party has become a repository of cowardice and collaboration, as the Democrat  administration declared itself the arbiter of truth prior to Trump, as reported by Greg Collard today. 

What way forward?

Do something political, something you believe it. Celebrate and honor, then fight.

Oh, and by the way, fuck Israel.

Refusal to Prosecute Anti-Abortion Laws Highlights Whim Powering Legal System

Goya, Saturn Devouring His Son,
painted sometime between 1819-1823.
The image represents America today,
as judicial cult deliberating in secret has
decided women no longer have autonomy
over their bodies. The Supreme Cult seeks
other victims, amid warning, no criticism.

Commentary: Prosecutorial Discretion and Liberty

Madison, Wisconsin — Many citizens read the news that Wisconsin Attorney General Joshua Kaul (D) declared his office will not investigate or prosecute woman for abortion-related 'offenses' with approval.

Kaul made his intentions to refuse enforcement of Wisconsin's 1849 ban on abortion following oral arguments of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization in Dec 2021.

The Supreme Court decision on Dobbs will soon eviscerate reproductive liberty as the judiciary jettisons its station as a Court of law.

"Even if courts were to interpret that [1849] law as being enforceable, as attorney general I would not use the resources of the Wisconsin Department of Justice either to investigate alleged violations of that abortion ban or to prosecute alleged violations of it," Kaul said in an interview with the AP.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) claims to be outraged by Kaul and other DAs and attorneys general vowing to refuse to enforce anti-abortion laws.

Republican justices on the nonpartisan Wisconsin Supreme Court will interpret Wisconsin's 1849 ban as enforceable after Republicans on the nonpartisan United States Supreme Court hold women no longer have reproductive liberty.

Kaul was criticized for his abortion-law position by his Republican opponents for attorney general — Fond du Lac County District Attorney Eric Toney and State Rep. Adam Jarchow (R- Balsam Lake) in the AP piece.

"I am proudly pro-life and I will defend the police and defend our Wisconsin laws, including our abortion ban, if allowed," said Fond du Lac County District Attorney Eric Toney (R).

Adam Jarchow said that Kaul is a failed leader for his stated refusal to enforce criminal law. "[W]hile it’s disappointing that he says he will not follow the law, it’s not surprising," said Jarchow.

Some Wisconsin laws are more worthy of being followed and enforced than others.

Fast-forward five months to May 2022 and Jarchow is excoriating his Republican Primary opponent, Eric Toney, for enforcing Wisconsin's emergency order banning mass gatherings in 2020 (Opoien, The Capital Times). Republicans on the Wisconsin Supreme Court decided the ban was illegal.

But there is no rule of law to be found among prosecutors and judges.

Prosecutorial Discretion

Advocates for the wrongfully convicted continue to blast Attorney General Joshua Kaul for his political decision not to employ prosecutorial discretion in the DOJ's ludicrous crusade to keep those whom the State knows to be innocent in prison in post-conviction litigation, (see Steven Avery Motion to Stay Appeal and Remand, includes new eyewitness affidavit. April 12, 2021; Steven Avery Legal Filings - Updates;  State of Wisconsin v. Steven A. Avery, Appeal Number 2017AP002288 Wisconsin Democrats Block Exoneration Seekers.)

Advocates for the exonerated Black Lives Matter protesters in Madison similarly blasted the Democrat-led Dane County District Attorney’s office for changing its charging standard in two bizarre Black Lives Matter cases to accommodate a racist Democrat State Senator, Tim Carpenter (D-Milwaukee).

Prosecuting charged law-breakers is determined by politics, increasingly so.

And the judiciary is a politically charged branch of government that hides behind black robes and pretension.

The rule of law is the product of the personal whims of officeholders. Refusal to acknowledge this reality gives prosecutors (and judges) political cover.

Liberty and the rule of law are little more than political slogans of two corrupt and destructive politcal parties.

And prosecutors, in the words of Robert Jackson, are potentially the worst threats to a civil society.

"While the prosecutor at his best is one of the most beneficent forces in our society, when he acts from malice or other base motives, he is one of the worst," writes Robert Jackson in The Federal Prosecutor.

As prosecutors lie and posture to the public to no accountability, Jackson's warnings speak loudly today.

It's imperative to refuse to enforce unjust law such as bans on abortion animated by a dishonest judiciary engineering its unpopular, anti-liberty agenda in secret, as the U.S. Supreme Court proceeds.

Gap between government and the people

The fact of the matter is the enormous power of the prosecutor to direct state violence has corrupted entire professions, and the judiciary, as these super cults become focused on destroying liberty.

As the liberty of an entire class of people stands on the brink of elimination by black-robed cultists, we should consider the words of Milton Mayer, They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45, (University of Chicago Press. ©1955).

"What no one seemed to notice was the ever widening gap ... between the government and the people."

"What happened here was the gradual habituation of the people, little by little, to being governed by surprise; to receiving decisions deliberated in secret; to believing that the situation was so complicated that the government had to act on information which the people could not understand."...

This separation of government from people, this widening of the gap, took place so gradually and so insensibly, each step disguised (perhaps not even intentionally) as a temporary emergency measure or associated with true patriotic allegiance or with real social purposes. And all the crises and reforms (real reforms, too) so occupied the people that they did not see the slow motion underneath, of the whole process of government growing remoter and remoter."

The prosecutor, the judiciary and the legal system as a whole have turned into a remote and destructive force that, even as the system's nature and effect become more obvious, cries out in response that the real danger is public criticism and calls for transparency.

We need massive reform on the power of the prosecutor and the judiciary as institutional narcissism working for totalitarian movements now feeds on the public with renewed appetite.

But even casual observers must know in their hearts, reform is not possible. Only massive civil disobedience and general strikes can save liberty today.

Clueless Democrats Ignore Insight of Stephen Macedo

Stephen Macedo. The New Right v. the Constitution
(Washington: Cato Institute, 1987)

"When conservatives like [Robert] Bork treat rights as islands surrounded by a sea of government powers, they precisely reverse the view of the Founders as enshrined in the Constitution, wherein government powers are limited and specified and rendered as islands surrounded by a sea of individual rights."
- Stephen Macedo. The New Right v. the Constitution (Washington: Cato Institute, 1987)

Bork and his tyrannical vision were defeated in the U.S. Senate in 1987.

But Bork won at the Court this term, as Democrats floundered and drowned in identity politics and incompetence.

Meanwhile, Joe Biden seems oblivious on how to proceed.

Asked this morning if codifying Roe or abolishing the filibuster to help protect women's reproductive choice are the offing, Biden replied, "I am not prepared to make those judgements now."

America Entrusted Roe to Democrats; Party and Identity Politics Pissed Choice Away

Democrats Are Incompetent

Update: Biden says, "I am not prepared to make those judgements now," on codifying Roe or abolishing filibuster to help protect women's reproductive choice.
Actually, now would be a good time to make those "judgements."
---
Chants of "Do something, Democrats," rang out in D.C. last night, Reuters reports.

Wrong party. Democrats don't do things.

The chants for action took place at a demonstration outside the U.S. Supreme Court following the leak of a draft Supreme Court opinion eviscerating Roe v. Wade, (Politico) in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, designed by activists to overturn Roe.

Following oral arguments in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization in Dec 2021, Democrat senators vowed that they may be open to considering and looking at the issue of not doing "nothing."

Seriously, that was the Democrat reaction last year.

As millions of women stand to lose their right to choose, that's the best congressional Democrats and Pres Biden could do, as reported by the Washington Post last Dec, four months ago.

Here's a quote from a leading Democrat senator exemplifying Democrat floundering on the proposed effort to expand the number of Court justices: "I’m not ready to say we need to change the number of justices," Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) said. "[W]e need to take a look at how the court functions."

Morons.

Ruth Bader Ginsberg refused to resign after being diagnosed with Pancreatic Cancer in 2013, to Democrat cheers. Way to live female empowerment, Ginsberg, a critic of Roe, who seven years later bequeathed her seat to a lifelong foe of reproductive choice.

Hillary Clinton and corporatist Democrats rigged the 2016 Democrat precedential primary. Female empowerment, right? Trump nominated three Court justices, the margin Supreme Court politicians needed to reverse Roe.

If you believe the loss of reproductive choice will goad Democrats into action to safeguard reproductive rights, you are deranged.

I don’t want to hear one Democrat whine or fundraise or talk about how the Republicans are big bad meanies today. I want to hear how they’re going to use their power to codify and protect reproductive rights. I don’t want their sympathy; I want their battle plans.

— Marianne Williamson (@marwilliamson) May 3, 2022

Democrats' Indescribably Obtuse, Do-nothing Reaction to Death of Women's Choice

As women lose their right to choose, the best congressional Democrats and Pres Biden can do, as reported by their leading cheerleader, is offer statements that they may be open to considering and looking at the issue but not doing anything. 

Democrats didn't say they are not going to do nothing; they said not doing nothing should be looked at. Confusing?

Read the Washington Post piece by Seung Min Kim, "More Democratic senators are willing to weigh changes to Supreme Court."

Following oral arguments on Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) says: "And so the question becomes, well, what do we do about [this partisan court]? I’m not sure. But I don’t think the answer is nothing." 

The not-nothing party is on the job now with its collective vow to consider not doing nothing, now that Roe will soon be gone.

Here's another quote from a different leading Democrat light: "I’m not ready to say we need to change the number of justices," Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) said. "[W]e need to take a look at how the court functions."

Here's another one: Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.): "What happened yesterday forces all of us to rethink our views about the makeup of the court."

So, we have not doing nothing, looking at, and rethinking.

Why do Democrats talk this way? But it's not just talk.

Here's a hypothesis about the Democrat Party that can be tested by looking at the last time this collection of fit-to-be-strangled yahoos ran the federal government: Democrats don't really care about much beyond their self-aggrandizement, donor money and their personal piece of the pie.

Social media!, and not the corporate press, points out: Democrats did not even consider codifying Roe when they had unitary, super-majority control of government in 2009-2011.

Two years ago, in 2019, when Democrats appeared primed to take over Congress and the presidency, there was a buzz about coalescing, pledging and considering safeguarding women's choice.

How did that work out?

Someone asks me what to do about the corrupt judiciary and individual liberty, I say: Get rid of the corrupt bunch of yahoos on the Court, Congress and the Democrat-Republican parties.

Some free public relations advice: Discussion of the proposition that a woman is not entitled to autonomy of her body is to a sacrifice one's humanity.

It's a women's choice, end of fucking story.

Brett Kavanaugh Is a Lie, Senate Dems Need to Stop Vote by Any Means

Opponents of Brett Kavanaugh rallied outside the Untied
States Supreme Court last night. "Are you ready for a fight,"
said Bernie Sanders. Yes, America appears ready for a fight
that may dwarf the 1987 Bork nomination by comparison.

Kavanaugh and Bork Are Two of a Kind

"He looked, and talked, like a man who would throw the book at you — maybe like a man who would throw the book at the whole country," said Tom Shales, media critic at the Washington Post, commenting on the Robert Bork confirmation hearings in 1987, cited in the exhilarating book, Battle for Justice: How the Bork Nomination Shook America, (W. W. Norton), by Ethan Bronner. [Pick a copy of Bronner's work if you have even a passing interest in the biggest political event since 2016, stopping the Kavanaugh nomination.]

Bronner chronicled a landmark breaking point in American political history when the people rose and the United States Senate listened, defeating the Bork nomination 58-42. The vote led to the nomination and confirmation of Anthony Kennedy, a corrupt justice responsible for the among worst decisions in American judicial history: Bush. v. Gore (2000), Citizens United (2010) and Shelby County v. Holder (2013), among them.

Minority Leader Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) publicly warned the zombie-like Senate Dems to assume war footing against the Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh who is even worse than Kennedy.

Defeating this radical corporatist-statist Kavanaugh presents problems vis a vis the radical corporatist-statist Bork.

First among the challenges is the current composition of the Senate — 51 (R) to 49 (D), (115th Congress).

In 1987, Bork faced a Senate controlled by Democrats 55 (D) to 45 R), (100th Congress).

In 1987, six Republican senators voted against Bork, (Los Angeles Times).

In 2018, only a fool would count on any Republican senators rejecting the Christian fascist nominee.
---
Bork was a public relations disaster on a superficial visceral level.

Kavanaugh came across as a blend of Jimmy Stewart and Matt Damon, who above all loves his family and likely says nice things about your mother.

Kavanaugh's unmistakably appealing image is a lie. The visible malice of Kavanaugh as a younger man has melted into the kind visage we watched last night.

Kavanaugh comes prevetted by the radical, anti-civil liberties Federalist Society, armed with a jurisprudence that is savage and hateful.
---
Trump is a malignant clown, but whatever delusions from which Trump suffers, he knows how to unite the right into a fascist, corporate, Christian state that animates the political animal Kavanaugh.

Kavanaugh will vote to further degrade civil liberties and target women, minorities, immigrants, gays and elevate corporate power, executive branch power and any level of law enforcement over everyone in the name of god-almighty.

Our rights mean next to nothing.

The Republican Party and Kavanaugh will use the Supreme Court as a means of decimating the rights of the citizenry and any competing political opposition.

Make no mistake Kavanaugh is ambitious, vicious and deceitful. A woman's right to her body is gone with Kavanaugh on the Court.

Plan A should be no hearing, no vote until the Congress convenes in 2019.

Stopping Kavanaugh and Trump is doable.

We have the anti-Trump infrastructure in place, public opinion and mid-term elections. Trump and Republicans in Congress enjoy consistently low levels of approval.

We need determination and political competence.

This is the time of Bernie Sanders and it is the time of us. Our rights depend on what we do in the next six months.

As Stephen Macedo writes in The New Right v. the Constitution:

When conservatives like Bork treat rights as islands surrounded by a sea of government powers, they precisely reverse the view of the Founders as enshrined in the Constitution, wherein government powers are limited and specified and rendered as islands surrounded by a sea of individual rights.

Think of the younger generations, because the country we are leaving them will not be recognizable — a society of diminished rights, and people living as tools to power, tightly constrained, with little legal recourse.

A democracy without rights is tyranny.

Do we trust the future of our democracy to these six senators? Not on our lives:

Susan Collins.
Lisa Murkowski.
Heidi Heitkamp.
Joe Manchin.
Joe Donnelly.
Doug Jones.
If you live in Maine, Alaska, North Dakota, West Virginia, Indiana or Alabama WE ARE ALL COUNTING ON YOU TO CALL YOUR SENATORS NOW to tell them you oppose #KavanaughSCOTUS (202) 2224-3121 ☎️

— Amee Vanderpool (@girlsreallyrule) July 10, 2018

Antonin Scalia—The Ben Tilman of the Court

The political world is awash today in canonizations of Antonin Scalia.

So passionate, so principled, iconic, a legal titan, a "formidable thinker" whose legal writings stand as "a Roman candle of sparkling jurisprudential theories leavened by acerbic witticisms," (Will, Washington Post).

He had friends not sharing his masquerading quest for truth, and he was even more caustic than is known.

Wow.

Enough of this nonsense.

Scalia was a corrupt member on the Court whose service to the Republican Party and the ruling oligarchies was unwavering, and his antipathy to racial justice is repellent to any American with a fleeting grasp of history.

He played with the liberties of citizens, far more often than not finding the liberty interest of people was not prominent in the face of whatever state power inflicted onto black, brown, immigrants, Native Americans and gay Americans, in particular victims of the criminal justice system and white supremacists.

Principled?

As noted by Judge Richard Posner, a decent and honest public intellectual:

Judges tend to deny the creative—the legislative—dimension of judging, important as it is in our system, because they do not want to give the impression that they are competing with legislators, or engaged in anything but the politically unthreatening activity of objective, literal-minded interpretation, using arcane tools of legal analysis. The fact that loose constructionists sometimes publicly endorse textualism is evidence only that judges are, for strategic reasons, often not candid.

Outside of D.C. in reality land, "This doesn’t get said enough: Scalia is an intellectual fraud who uses a phony methodology to get whatever judicial outcomes align with his political preferences ... , (Campos, Salon).

Or as The Onion puts it: "Justice Scalia Dead Following 30-year Battle with Social Progress."

Good riddance.

Antonin Scalia, Republican Justice on the Supreme Court, Dies at 79

Justice Antonin Scalia (1986-2016) was found dead Saturday at 79, (Liptak, NYT).

After proper institutional plaudits and expressions of sympathy to the family, the political world has burst into a frantic posture.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) and other Republican senators and presidential candidates are calling for President Obama to abdicate his power and responsibility under the United States Constitution to appoint Supreme Court justices, and vow to stop any nominee the president appoints. The Party's only principle is its power.

This is an ironic position from so-called strict constructionists, originalists, textualists—a faux jurisprudence masquerading as a method of judicial policy-making.

Scalia

Scalia was a hyper-activist and embittered ideologue who in his later years became more troll and open bigot than serious jurist, as his influence faded to a "Justice of One," (Murphy NYT), as a dogmatic and alienating "Scalia emerged as an Old Testament–style Jeremiah, often hollering alone in the wilderness."

Individual rights were few and weak in Scalia's alleged jurisprudence and Scalia's radical views reveal a racist and contemptuous conception of the American citizen, explaining in part why Scalia never achieved a stature beyond a smirking Republican political operative on the Court.

Power

As the Republican Party now openly uses the Court as a means of inflating its power and decimating the rights of the citizenry, it is no surprise Republicans senators believe the president has no right to nominate a justice and the U.S. Senate has no duty to consider a nominee.

Rights and Liberty

Power is what the Republican Party is after, and the diminished rights of the American citizen are simply a necessary objective.

This absurd conception of liberty so championed by Scalia and the New Right jurists such as Robert Bork was eviscerated by the late Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pennsylvania) during the 1987 Bork confirmation hearings.

As Ethan Bronner writes in his brilliant chronicling of the Bork nomination, (Battle for Justice: How the Bork Nomination Shook America; Ethan Bronner. 399 pages. W. W. Norton):

What [Sen.] Specter wanted to know was this: If executive power could undergo organic development, if press freedom had to be interpreted for the modern era, why not the rest of the Bill of Rights? Why not liberty? Why couldn't liberty be an organic concept? Why should judges interpret liberally when faced with the vague concept of press freedom but be held back when confronted with the equally vague concept of liberty? 

The Republicans had no answer in 1987 to this question as the American public, pushing the U.S. Senate, rejected Bork, and the Senate voted 58-42 against the Republican vision of Americans with frail rights.

The Republicans have no answer today as they stand naked, revealed as a fascistic underground movement with no fidelity to the U.S. Constitution and the vast liberties of the American people against state power, save the right of citizens to own weapons of mass destruction.

Battle to Come

The high ground on Constitutional rights is a hill Republicans can never hope to take and Scalia's nominated successor will stand for the liberties of the Constitution in an epic political battle these next nine months.

The Republican political rejoinder to 'I got my rights,' is 'no, you don't,' no matter the slick, Luntz-crafted formulations Republicans will use. This truth will stare Americans in the face this spring and summer.

Republicans will defame, scream, and warn the Republic is coming to an end if the Senate confirms this black president's nominee to the Supreme Court of the United States.

Personally, I'm hoping for Prof. Diane P. Wood, Chief Justice of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, or perhaps a rabbit out of the hat with the nomination of Alex Kozinski, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, or a dream appointment of Richard Posner, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. Speculations abound.

As for the Republicans, let 'em scream. The result will be an aroused electorate realizing their liberty is at stake and there is very little Republicans will not do to achieve One Party rule in their project of unsurpassed ugliness.

Some People Are More Equal Than Others

'More Equal Than Others' … it’s the assumption shared by the oppressing class in societies and communities the world-over, and their useful idiots—The bigot and his militant cousin, the Brown Shirt.

If you’re in Israel, the less-equal are the Palestinians or Arabs [unless you are a favored Arab dictator].

In America, despite its pretence to pluralism and civil rights, the contemporary less-equal include the gay, lesbian, Arab, Persian, black, anybody not willing to sell out to moneyed interests.

Other examples abound, and the oppression is always justified in self defense with self-glorification used in some manner. Consonant with self-glorification, the delusion requires dehumanizing the less-equal.

Examples are obvious to the thinking mind: Women, working men, and on and on.

Want to grant all Americans full rights to fight for their country or at least serve in the Armed Forces? Can’t do that. We need inequality for the sake of good order, discipline and morale in defense of an institution.

Want Americans of the same sex to marry? No, can’t do that, it will ruin your marriage and this sacred institution, so we deny gays and lesbians in self defense.

Progress happens, and decades later we look back in disbelief that blacks and whites could not marry, that blacks and whites could not serve together in the military, or eat at the same lunch counter.

Said Robert F. Kennedy, a man who grew as a man out of tragedy, then fighting for justice [what fools today call political correctness]:

Few will have the greatness to bend history itself, but each of us can work to change a small portion of events, and in the total of all those acts will be written the history of this generation. It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped. Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.

Few are willing to brave the disapproval of their fellows, the censure of their colleagues, the wrath of their society. Moral courage is a rarer commodity than bravery in battle or great intelligence. Yet it is the one essential, vital quality for those who seek to change a world that yields most painfully to change.

Fine words, great ideals.

But reading the words in so many pages of those few without the moral courage to stand with the gays, the lesbians, the blacks, I want to puke.

Threats and Intimidation Against Free Gaza Freedom Sailors

Update: Israeli Government Recognizes “Humanitarian” Mission to Break the Siege of Gaza

The Free Gaza Movement, modern-day freedom riders of hues and persuasions, is sailing towards its objective in the Mediterranean Sea, approaching the Gaza strip that remains blockaded, the object of often savage Israeli occupation, starving and preventing the lives of the 1.4 million human beings living there.

The Free Gaza Movement movement is attempting to ship medical supplies in two boats, the Free Gaza and the Liberty, as they challenge the illegal Israeli occupation of what should be this sovereign land, the Gaza strip.

The Free Gaza Movement movement is not counting on the Israeli government's commitment to human rights during it voyage, and is prepared to die in its cause, though the mission is so well covered in the British press that Israel risks pariah status should its military kill the members of this mission.

One gets a flavor of rightwing reaction supporting Israeli militaristic policy (by no means enjoying majority support in Israel) by reading the commentary to the mission's coverage in the Jerusalem Post.

An update from Free Gaza Movement:

Across the world, there are laws against threatening other people. Verbal threats give rise to great personal and emotional insecurity, and they can be the midwives to terrible violence. Many of us on board the SS Liberty and SS Free Gaza have been threatened in these past few days. It’s appalling enough to receive phone calls, warning us that our boats will be blown up or asking us if we know how to swim, but when the callers go after our families, then that crosses the line from adolescent intimidation to psychological terrorism. This past Thursday, Lauren Booth received one such call.

“On the 14th of August 2008, an anonymous man called my home in France as my daughters played hide and seek in the garden. This stranger spoke to my husband, warning him that 'your wife is in great danger. These ships will be blown up.' My husband asked how it was this person had obtained our private home number. No response was forthcoming, but the illicit threats carried on.”

Other members of our nonviolent project have had their families in Occupied Palestine threatened with violence as well. From these threats, a pernicious pattern of intimidation is beginning to emerge. The question, of course, is just who benefits the most by trying to terrorize and stop us from breaking Israel’s terrible siege on 1.4 million Palestinians in Gaza?

In April, 2008, The Public Committee Against Torture in Israel released a report stating, “The illegal exploitation of family members, who, in most instances, are not suspects themselves, has on many occasions caused severe psychological suffering to interrogees and to their innocent relatives. In more extreme cases, this method takes the form of psychological torture of a detainee rendering him a victim of a cruel psychological manipulation via the illegal exploitation of a close relative.”

Today in the Israeli newspaper, Haartez, Amos Harel writes:

“Defense officials favor forcefully blocking two boats, which a group of U.S.-basedactivists plan to sail to Gaza ... A position paper by the Foreign Ministry's legal department says Israel has the right to use force against the demonstrators as part of the Oslo Accords ... the Foreign Ministry's paper means that security forces could detain the vessels upon entry to Gaza's territorial waters, arrest the passengers and haul the ship to Israel, where the detainees could be interrogated.”

The Oslo accords expired in 1999, but even when they were in place they never advocated or allowed Israel to use deadly force against nonviolent human rights workers. However, Israel has decided to interpret the now-defunct accords as giving them permission to act violently against us.

Given this situation, we, the members of the Free Gaza Movement, would like to make two things very clear to the government of Israel:

1) We are nonviolent human rights activists and we have vowed to take nonviolent action, in either word or deed, against any other human beings -including against Israeli government and military officials who, apparently,wish us harm.

2) The threats and intimidation that we have received these past few days,though disturbing, do not even come close to the suffering imposed on 1.4million Palestinians through the illegal and immoral Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip. Given the enormity of this crisis, we will not be deterred.

We will sail to Gaza, and this siege will be lifted.

- Members of the Free Gaza and Liberty, setting sail this week.