Entries Tagged as 'torture'

3” diam. buttons - McCain/Armageddon/Apocalypse - pinback or magnet back

I’ve just added three new fixed price button listings to ebay:

A Vote for McCain is a Vote for Armageddon

- or -

If you Vote for McCain you Vote for the Apocalypse
(2 designs)


Designed by Magus Dethen
Exclusive to Persephone’s Haven

$2.99 each; up to 5 buttons ship for $1.99
Discounts available for multiple purchases - See other listings at Persephone’s Haven for sets of 2 for $5, and bulk orders of 10 or more for $1 each.


3″ diameter pin-back and magnet back buttons - please contact me to specify which design you want and whether you want pin-back or magnet-back

white and red lettering on a black and white background

“A Vote for McCain is a Vote for Armageddon”: a semi-transparent head and shoulder image of McCain is superimposed over a nuclear mushroom cloud, with the phrase overlaid in white and red lettering.

“If you Vote for McCain you Vote for the Apocalypse”: a semi-transparent head and shoulder image of McCain is superimposed over a painting of souls writhing in agony at the end of days.

Neither of these is an exaggeration:

  • McCain’s Vice Presidential pick, Sarah Palin, is a “stealth dominionist.” Dominionists believe Christians should take over the world by force so they can impose their version of “Christian” law on everyone in the world, which includes the death penalty for gays, abortion providers, pagans, and anyone else who disagrees with them. They also believe the Apocalypse is a good thing, because they will be raptured into heaven where they can laugh at the torture and suffering of those left behind.

The fate of the world literally hangs in the balance with this election. Warn as many people as you can with these buttons.

BB,
Vivienne D’Avalon

Kucinich Files Articles of Impeachment!

Rep. Dennis Kucinich has filed articles of impeachment with Congress and Robert Wexler  has co-sponsored.

Though the argument against impeachment is that it is too late, millions of people across the United States feel that the principle of justice, the preservation of our Constitution, and the prevention of a nuclear war with Iran before November are more important than “political timing.” “Impeachment is necessary.” says Stephen Heller. “It is not a matter of politics, of right versus left, Democrat versus Republican. Rather, it is a matter of law. The current administration has repeatedly violated the Constitution and civil law. If there is no accountability for these violations, then why have a Constitution? Why have laws?” “Without impeachment hearings, the full spectrum of the crimes of the Bush administration may never be known,” notes Barbara Bowley, “and many of the incursions it has made on our democratic society will be hidden in the legal and bureaucratic structures they have developed….. [F]or the sake of the maintenance of our democracy, we must impeach this administration.” Richard Mathews points out that “[u]sing impeachment to get Bush out of office is not what is most important since he is going out anyway. I want to see him impeached even if it happens on his last day in office because we need to set a precedent that this abuse of power will never be considered acceptable.” Bush’s arrogance and hatred for our democracy must be punished. “It is unthinkable” says Tobi Dragert, “to have a president who calls the Constitution, the same one he sends our young men and women to kill and die for, ‘just a goddamned piece of paper.’” (emphases added).

Among the crimes of which Bush stands accused:

Article IX: Failing to Provide Troops With Body Armor and Vehicle Armor

Article X: Falsifying Accounts of US Troop Deaths and Injuries for Political Purposes

Article XIV: Misprision of a Felony, Misuse and Exposure of Classified Information And Obstruction of Justice in the Matter of Valerie Plame Wilson, Clandestine Agent of the Central Intelligence Agency

Article XV: Providing Immunity from Prosecution for Criminal Contractors in Iraq

Article XVII: Illegal Detention: Detaining Indefinitely And Without Charge Persons Both U.S. Citizens and Foreign Captives

Article XVIII: Torture: Secretly Authorizing, and Encouraging the Use of Torture Against Captives in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Other Places, as a Matter of Official Policy

Article XIX: Rendition: Kidnapping People and Taking Them Against Their Will to “Black Sites” Located in Other Nations, Including Nations Known to Practice Torture

Article XX: Imprisoning Children

Article XXIV: Spying on American Citizens, Without a Court-Ordered Warrant, in Violation of the Law and the Fourth Amendment

Article XXV: Directing Telecommunications Companies to Create an Illegal and Unconstitutional Database of the Private Telephone Numbers and Emails of American Citizens

Article XXVI: Announcing the Intent to Violate Laws with Signing Statements

Article XXVII: Failing to Comply with Congressional Subpoenas and Instructing Former Employees Not to Comply

Article XXVIII: Tampering with Free and Fair Elections, Corruption of the Administration of Justice

Article XXIX: Conspiracy to Violate the Voting Rights Act of 1965 

and many others totaling 35 articles of impeachment, any one of which would be enough to impeach. The full text of all 35 articles can be found here. Call your congressman today to demand he or she supports Rep. Kucinich’s articles, or sign the petition in support found here.

As an additional note, according to Robert Wexler, on June 20th, 2008 at 10AM, Scott McClellanauthor of

What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington’s Culture of Deception
Price: USD 18.45

137 New and used from USD 5.99

(201 Customer reviews)

and Former White House Press Secretary, has agreed to give sworn testimony as he has been called to do by Judiciary Committee Chairman Conyers.

There is hope for justice yet.

Bush’s torture confession and Yoo’s damning memos put the Catholic Hell in perspective

Ever since George Bush confessed on national television to authorizing torture, and the texts of the John Yoo torture memos came to light (First memo and 2nd memo part 1 and part 2), I’ve been wondering how to address the news here in our blog.  (See the Washington Post article for details about this latest memo to be made public).  To say I was speechless and sputtering with outrage and frustration is an understatement.  Getting hit hard with a nasty stomach flu that put me completely out of commission for almost a week did not help either.  (Hmmm; maybe there’s a cause and effect relationship there?)
 
But a personal anecdote is often useful when trying to put overwhelming concepts into perspective, and family matters over the last week helped me do just that.  While I was sick, my 78 year old maternal aunt, paralyzed and bedridden in a nursing home, had surgery to amputate her left leg above the knee, to prevent gangrene.  Any surgery in her current state of health and age risks her life, and my mother, about to turn 76 herself, was very worried and feeling her own mortality creeping up behind her.  At such times, Catholics like my mother tend to take spiritual inventory and ask themselves whether they have successfully squared their accounts with God as they prepare to face judgment. 
 
Now, I have some very strong opinions about the existence of the Christian Hell, and about the ethical and moral worth (or lack thereof) of a deity who would condemn his own children to an eternity of torture when most mere mortals would die themselves before they would willingly hurt their own child.  But those diatribes are fodder for full-length cornerstone-content essays, so I won’t go into them here.  Suffice to say that, when I try to comfort my mother in the face of the terrors her religion has inflicted on her over the course of a long life, I try to speak in her language, and use the arguments of a Christian theologian and moralist, rather than take the opportunity to point out yet another reason I’m pagan.  That would only serve to make her tune me out entirely, anyway, and defeat my purpose.
 
My reasoning in this instance was simple: when the very President of the United States himself has publicly confessed to authorizing torture, God Almighty has much bigger fish to fry than a little old Irish Catholic lady who never hurt a soul in her life.  Now, I have had some serious issues with my mother over the years.  She was emotionally and mentally abusive; inflicted a spiritually abusive and traumatizing religion on me; and gyped me out of a lot of landmark childhood moments in life, like being part of a cheerleading squad and going camping with the girlscouts, because she was so hypochondriacal and overprotective.  But however angry and resentful I have felt toward her over the years, I never hated her, and I certainly would never consign her to Hell. 
 
If anyone could be said to deserve eternal torment roasting in a fiery pit, it is not my mother or her ilk.  Not when there are egregiously evil men like George W. Bush in the world, and holding the highest office in the land to boot.  And it’s not like he’s the only one, either.  The entire administration is filled with men and women like Dick Cheney, Condoleeza Rice, Karl Rove (gone but not forgotten), and that’s without even leaving the White House!  The line gets much longer when you pull in all the congress members in both the House and the Senate who have condoned, facilitated, and encouraged the great evils of this administration.  When you get out into the media, the religous right (hello, John Hagee, yes there is a nice warm place for you in Hades to look forward to) and branch out to the tyrants in other countries, the queue goes on for miles.  Trust me Mom, your God has got much worse problems than you to deal with, and compared to sinners like these you have led an exemplary life.  You remember how the smart kids used to ruin the grading curve for everyone else in highschool?  These gems have done the opposite for you. 
 
So breathe easy, Christian America.  Hell, if it exists, is going to be SRO for many, many eons.  Y’all don’t stand a chance of getting in anytime soon.

Bush vetoes torture ban, Pelosi files suit, atheist overthrow in Nepal, Buddhist protests in Tibet

Just a few items from this week’s news that I didn’t have a chance to cover in depth:

Bush vetoes a bill that would make torture illegal:

The Guardian

MSNBC

This one really disgusts me, as it should all of us!

***
Pelosi follows through on her threat to file a civil suit to enforce the contempt of Congress charges against Harriet Myers and Josh Bolton, and the Congressional subpoenas.  See my earlier post for the background.

House Speaker’s Blog

***
An atheist organization in Nepal has been instrumental in the demise of the monarchy there.  The God-King will be replaced with a democracy, and the atheist group is participating in an interim coalition government during the transition.

Transcript of NPR’s story
***
Buddhists in Tibet have been participating in massive demonstrations this week to protest Chinese oppression.

NPR story

Have a good week everyone, and try to avoid that flu that’s been going around!

BB,
Vivienne

Vermont Towns Vote to Arrest Bush and Cheney

Two days ago, on Tuesday, March 5, 2008, two towns in Vermont (Brattleboro and Marlboro) voted to indict President Bush and Vice President Cheney for their numerous violations of the United States Constitution, and to arrest Bush or Cheney if they come within city limits. Once arrested, they may be extradited for prosecution.

On January 25, 2008, Brattleboro’s Selectboard first voted to accept the petition and put it on the March ballot. They were unprepared for the vitriolic responses they got when the Drudge report disseminated the news to a wide audience. The text of the ballot question read:

Shall the Selectboard instruct the Town Attorney to draft indictments against President Bush and Vice President Cheney for crimes against our Constitution, and publish said indictments for consideration by other authorities and shall it be the law of the Town of Brattleboro that the Brattleboro Police, pursuant to the above-mentioned indictments, arrest and detain George Bush and Richard Cheney in Brattleboro if they are not duly impeached, and prosecute or extradite them to other authorities that may reasonably contend to prosecute them?The author of the petition says “It is largely [a] symbolic” gesture, as Brattleboro officials do not apparently have the power to arrest the President or Vice President of the United States. He hopes, however, that Bush and Cheney will be impeached before it ever comes to that. “Voters interviewed after casting ballots said they saw the article as an opportunity to express their frustration over the war in Iraq and Bush’s tenure in general,” says the USA Today article. The town issued the following statement at its website: On January 25 the Town Clerk’s office received a petition from Brattleboro resident Kurt Daims.  Per Town Charter, a petition containing signatures from 5% of Brattleboro voters can be placed on the ballot for a Town-wide vote.  Mr. Daims’ petition did contain the required number of signatures.  At a meeting on January 25, the Brattleboro Selectboard voted 3-2 to place the petition on the ballot.  Reasons given by Board members voting in the affirmative centered on the belief that if a petition contained the required signatures, the voters should have the opportunity to vote on the matter. Reasons given by Board members voting on the dissent centered on the belief that articles outside the scope and authority of the Town should not go before the voters of the Town.  The Brattleboro Town Attorney has stated that the petition has no legal standing, as the Town Attorney has no authority to write an indictment and the Town Police Department has no authority to attempt an arrest of the President of the United States.Other Vermont towns voted last year to impeach both Bush and Cheney. The Newfane, VT resident responsible for the impeachment push supported Tuesday’s vote, comparing the drafters to the founding fathers and saying their action was imbued with the same “moral authority.”The impeachment resolution read: Whereas George W. Bush has:1. Misled the nation about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction;2. Misled the nation about ties between Iraq and Al Quaeda;3. Used these falsehoods to lead our nation into war unsupported by international law;

4. Not told the truth about American policy with respect to the use of torture; and

5. Has directed the government to engage in domestic spying, in direct contravention of U.S. law.

Therefore, the voters of the town of Newfane ask that our representative to the U.S. House of Representatives file articles of impeachment to remove him from office.

Though local police officers may not have the authority to arrest a sitting President, state legislatures in America are empowered to send impeachment resolutions to Congress. Rep. Bernie Sanders(Ind) of Vermont said at the time it was “impractical to talk about impeachment” because of the Republican-controlled Congress. Of course, that is no longer the case, but nevertheless nothing has been accomplished on the impeachment issue. Tuesday’s vote is clearly an expression of Vermont’s, and the country’s, frustration.