Standing Pat against the Radicals in the White House

Luke's sister Sally here. For reasons I'm sure he'll later regret, Luke's given me rights to post to this blog. As my header suggests, I have not yet expatriated. I hail from New York City, which although, geographically confined within United States boundaries, is considered by many (New Yorkers) to be the capital of the world.

Take that with a grain of salt. Nevertheless, we do sport a surprisingly diverse spectrum of ethnicities. This everyone knows. It is natural that this should be the collecting pool of many of the country's newest immigrants, who may find a larger population of their own kind here than in other states. Up until September 11th, New York, with its Statue of Liberty, welcoming the poor and huddled masses, represented Lady Liberty's lifted lamp. But then the WTC tragedy, and the Bush administration (with its Bush 1 cronies having already prepared to invade Iraq) began one of the most radical attacks on immigrants in America and the Constitution that this country has ever seen.

Right after 9/11, approximately 1,000 men of Arab and South Asian descent were hauled off to Guantanamo, Cuba. Only one of those thousand men was ever charged in connection with the terrorist attacks. Later, these detainments were denounced by the Office of the Inspector General (of the JUSTICE DEPARTMENT!). Many of those men are still being detained, without bail, and without being charged with a crime.

Never before, except during World War II, when Japanese Americans were rounded up and locked into detainment camps, has there been such a vicious, radical attack on civil liberties. For info on the current status of the detainess, I refer you to this New York Times article.

So, while many like to link Bush to his conservative Republican supporters, with the way he's been attacking the core principles upon which America was founded as documented in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights (attacking due process, free speech, and our country's special system of checks and balances with his unprecendented executive power grab), I say he's a radical, and maybe even...a rogue!

Well, that's all for now. Good luck to all of you Americans in the UK supporting our country and the preservation of our country's democratic principles!

Comments

[w00t!]

Blimey, I never even knew he had a sister!