This country is in the grip of a President who was not elected, who has surrounded himself with thugs in suits who care nothing about human life abroad or here, who care nothing about what happens to the Earth ... The so-called war on terrorism is not only a war on innocent people in other countries, but it is also a war on the people of the United States. A war on our liberties, a war on our standard of living. The wealth of the country is being stolen from the people and handed over to the super-rich. The lives of our young are being stolen. And the thieves are in the White House. Howard Zinn
We have thrown away the most valuable asset we had – the individual’s right to oppose both flag and country when he believed them to be in the wrong. We have thrown it away; and with it, all that was really respectable about that grotesque and laughable word, Patriotism. Howard Zinn
There is a hard core of people in the United States who will not be moved, whatever facts you present, from their conviction that this nation means only to do good, and almost always does good, in the world, that it is the beacon of liberty and freedom. Howard Zinn
Citizens deemed enemy combatants can be held indefinitely, with no charges against them, no right to see an attorney, no right to go before a judge. Aftermath: Unanswered Questions from 9/11
The Homeland Security Act which passed about a year later in November 2002 outlines in great detail the degree to which the government can now spy, listen in, record, get access to internet, library cards, bookstore records, medical records, school records ... ibid.
The political leadership of this country, as exemplified by the campaign positions of Bush and Kerry, has become so obsessed with our own security fears and so convinced of our own virtue that it has very little to offer in the way of positive socio-economic development initiatives. To most of the people of Latin America, Africa and Asia, the United States has largely become irrelevant to their hopes for a better future – except as a potential market for some of their goods or as a source of outsourced jobs. Sherle Schwenninger
If the US really believes that supporting terrorists makes you as guilty as the terrorists themselves, then it would have to put on trial most of its military and political leadership over the last handful of administrations, and more. Peter McLaren
The US record of war crimes has been, from the nineteenth century to the present, a largely invisible one, with no government, no political leaders, no military officials, no lower-level operatives held accountable for criminal actions ... Anyone challenging this mythology is quickly marginalized, branded a traitor or Communist or terrorist or simply a lunatic beyond the pale of reasonable discussion. Carl Boggs
Section 215 of the Patriot Act says that Federal authorities can go to a librarian or bookshop owner and demand to know what a patron has read. (United States of America & Books & Library) Amy Goodman, Democracy Now!
The US Patriot Act allows for sneak and peek operations. Amy Goodman
The quest for homeland security is heading ... toward the quasi-militarization of everyday life ... If danger might lurk anywhere, maybe everything must be protected and policed. William Greider
And what did we see in the aftermath of 9/11 of 2001? Action on all fronts. The Patriot Act was passed here in the United States without public debate, without any debate by Congress. Just passed. It’s a frontal assault on the constitution. Scott Ritter
There was an empty chair at the Geneva meeting this past week on implementation of the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty. The 138 signers of the Treaty were reviewing progress made in removing mines, treating victims, and destroying stockpiles ...
The empty chair was a symbolic invitation to governments that have not yet signed the treaty. Among these are Iraq, North Korea, Libya, China, and Russia. Sad to say, that empty chair in Geneva also beckons the United States.
The refusal of America to sign the Mine Ban Treaty represents a particularly embarrassing contradiction, since President Clinton, during a 1994 speech to the UN General Assembly, became the first leader of a major power to demand elimination of all antipersonnel land mines. In 1996, Clinton pledged in public that the United States would spearhead an international campaign to rid the world of antipersonnel land mines. The Boston Globe 2000
People don’t sacrifice themselves for no reason. Let’s find out what it is. And if we did something wrong (no doubt we did) let’s apologize, ask for forgiveness, and then ask how we can do better. Jeff Kandt 2001
Are you an American? Are you paying attention to what your government is doing overseas? All over the world, and in the Middle East in particular, the US government is pursuing a foreign policy that many people consider immoral. We have supported, trained and armed dictators, illegitimate governments and racist and brutal regimes. We have largely ignored the pain and suffering this has caused. Jeff Kandt 2001
Commerce, Oil, Money and Power are the only values that come from Washington’s lead, consistently over the years the world has learned to hate all American intervention because it is known full well that at the bottom of every American foreign policy these four corrupting principles are immovably roosted. Even in matters of foreign aid, the USA is abusive and two-faced. The poor USA citizens do not know the extent of the damage that their country’s commercialism-at-all-costs is costing the world. World peace, world economy, third world countries, the environment and international co-operation are all victims of the USA’s blatant greed. Vexen Crabtree, USA: Contempt for United Nations and International Folly, 2003
American corporations and popular culture affect the lives and infect the indigenous cultures of millions around the world. The foreign policy of the US government, backed by its military strength, has unprecedented global influence now that the USA is the world’s only superpower – its first ‘hyper power’. America also exports its value systems, defining what it means to be civilised, rational, developed and democratic – indeed, what it is to be human. Meanwhile, the US itself is impervious to outside influence, and if most Americans think of the rest of the world at all, it is in terms of deeply ingrained cultural stereotypes. Ziauddin Sardar & Merryl Wyn Davies, Why Do People Hate America?
[The Right] lie with impunity. Let’s face it. They’re liars. They lied about the reason they took our sons and daughters to war. They spend millions of dollars in campaign ads saying they are for a prescription drug benefit under Medicare while they work to destroy Medicare and replace it with private plans and HMOs. They call their dirty air legislation Clear Skies and their plan to give the timber companies our trees, Healthy Forests. They call their job-killing economic program a jobs program. They say they are for peace when they are for war. Millions of children are left behind under their miserly No Child Left Behind education bill. They tout a child tax credit for working families and then silently drop it in favor of more tax cuts for millionaires. Jan Schakowsky
When a republic’s most venerable institutions no longer operate as they were intended, it becomes possible for small cabals to usurp power, and, while keeping the forms, corrupt the function of those institutions for their own ends. Looking at things that way, the George W Bush presidency has been both result and symptom of the decadence of America’s constitutional mechanisms. T D Allman
The United States is the greatest threat to world peace, and has been for a long time, and not merely because it is the world’s only superpower. Equally important, the United States is also far more disposed to use its power than any other powerful nation currently is. Though Americans are culturally and emotionally blind to the fact, the mere intrusion of US power is, in and of itself, destabilizing. T D Allman
Maybe this time the voters chose what they actually want: Nationalism, pre-emptive war, order not justice, safety through torture, backlash against women and gays, a gulf between haves and have-nots, government largesse for their churches and a my-way-or-the-highway President. Katha Pollitt, re results 2004 election results
America went to war against Iraq based on a lie. We were told in 2002 that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction – the previous administration even pursued torture to try to extract false confessions to try to justify the war. It’s time to tell the truth. The truth is we should not have prosecuted a war against Iraqi people. The truth is the Democratic Senate could have stopped the Iraq War in 2002 ... Get out of Iraq! Get out of Afghanistan! Come home, America! Come home! Dennis Kucinich, Congress 14th May 2009
In our country, true teams rarely exist ... social barriers and personal ambitions have reduced athletes to dissolute cliques or individuals thrown together for mutual profit ... Yet these rugby players with their muddied, cracked bodies, are struggling to hold on to a sense of humanity that we in America have lost and are unlikely to regain. The game may only be to move a ball forward on a dirt field, but the task can be accomplished with an unshackled joy and its memories will be a permanent delight. The women and men who play on that rugby field are more alive than too many of us will ever be. The foolish emptiness we think we perceive in their existence is only our own. Victor Cahn