Guilty Until Proven Guilty: Threatening the Presumption of Innocence
Thursday 18 November 2010
by: Karen Greenberg | TomDispatch | Op-Ed
Liberty versus security, that initial heated debate over the war on terror, is again rearing its head with much bravado, nowhere more so than in our nation’s courtrooms where American justice continues to pay the price.
Over the course of the past nine years, in the name of counterterrorism, there has been a notable and unappreciated development inside the criminal justice system that is cause for alarm: a growing, if often veiled, intolerance for basic guarantees of justice in cases where “national security” is invoked. This trend leaves the nation’s justice system at risk.
Last weekend, as the Washington Post reported, Obama administration officials inadvertently called attention to this development in a non-decision over whether, where, and how to bring Khalid Sheikh Mohammed to trial. Usually referred to only by his initials, KSM was the operational mastermind behind the attacks of September 11, 2001. Captured in Pakistan in 2003, and transferred to the American prison at Guantanamo Bay in 2006, he is the highest ranking al-Qaeda member taken into U.S. custody since 9/11.
At issue is whether the Obama administration will try this close associate of Osama bin Laden via a military commission at Guantanamo or a jury of civilians in federal court in lower Manhattan or elsewhere. In a recent news conference, Attorney General Eric Holder mentioned that the decision was close. The response from New York’s politicians -- Democratic Senator Charles Schumer, Republican Representative Peter King, and even Governor-elect Andrew Cuomo -- was prompt. There would, they insisted, be no 9/11 trial in New York City. At week’s end, according to the Post, unidentified administration officials were backpedaling fast, saying that KSM would likely “remain in military detention without trial for the foreseeable future.”
Since the moment a year ago when Holder first announced the administration’s decision to try KSM in Manhattan (and four other Guantanamo detainees in federal courts), the fierce and growing opposition to such trials has focused mainly on issues of cost and security. It was claimed, in particular, that a trial of KSM would demand so much security that it would impede business in Manhattan, while putting a cost burden on New York City which could not be borne without federal aid. Behind such seemingly practical issues, though, lies a deeper current of opposition based on the fear of potential acquittal, the single unacceptable outcome for a trial in which terrorism is the charge.
This Wednesday’s stunning acquittal of Guantanamo detainee Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani on all but one of 284 counts by a jury in a federal courtroom in Manhattan was the first sign in years that jurors felt confident enough to utter the word “acquittal” inside an American courtroom in a terror trial. (He may still get a life sentence for the single charge on which he was found guilty.) It was also the first time a jury had not been cowed by the notion that to be accused of terrorism is tantamount to being guilty. This verdict probably ensures that the Obama administration will never bring KSM before a jury of American civilians.
I’ve been following terrorism cases, both in civilian courts and at Guantanamo, for years and it would be easy enough for me to go off on a jag about the need to prove that civilian courts can try terrorists (without fear of a terrorist attack). Or I could write about how indefinite detention, a concept which lies outside the accepted norms of American civilian and military law, could take us down a path leading to the eradication of civil liberties on a far wider scale.
I could recite -- yet again -- all the ways in which transparency should be a key to such trials, and how healing it is for victims to be able to observe a trial in process. I could reassure you about how KSM’s guilt is remarkably well-documented and how he might get what so many seem to want for terrorists, and what, as he’s made completely clear, KSM wants for himself: execution.
All of that is important. But with the Ghailani verdict and the administration’s recent non-decision over what to do with KSM as our guide, we should really be looking at something even more basic to our system: the presumption of innocence. It’s clear that the Obama administration is now shying away from its earlier inclination to bring key terror suspects into civilian courts out of fear that the political backlash from a decision to try KSM in Manhattan will prove disastrous, and that the ongoing national hysteria over national security, easy to trigger and hard to calm, will be ratcheted up by the thought of acquittal, the 800-pound gorilla in the room when it comes to terrorism trials.
A Conviction Rate Approaching 100%
Some of us who study terrorism trials see in this a particular dilemma for American justice. The Department of Justice and those who have supported civilian trials for terrorism suspects repeatedly try to bolster their case by playing up the spotless conviction record of federal courts, with profligate use of the word “success.” In this context, success never refers to the system’s theoretical skill when it comes to weeding out wrongly charged individuals -- or those who used to be called “the innocent” -- only to convictions.
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The political debate over closing Guantanamo has put special emphasis on this definition of success. After all, the military courts at that prison, which in all these years have barely gotten off the ground, have had few convictions and are therefore less successful, many argue, than the federal ones. There, on terrorism cases, a near-90% conviction rate is the norm, if you include the penny-ante stuff, and on high profile cases nearly 100%. In an effort to bring the Guantanamo trials to the United States, liberals and progressives, who might otherwise have questioned the use of “success” as a synonym for “conviction,” have signed on definitionally speaking.
Not surprisingly, then, when in November 2009 Attorney General Holder went before the Senate Judiciary Committee to defend his decision to try KSM in New York, he insisted that "failure is not an option. These are cases that have to be won. I don't expect that we will have a contrary result." KSM’s guaranteed fate, he implied, would be death. As he emphasized when he announced his decision for the Manhattan trial, “I fully expect to direct prosecutors to seek the death penalty against each of the alleged 9/11 conspirators.”
Holder’s confidence a year ago was well-based in fact. Not only would KSM be found guilty in a federal trial, but those courts have a conviction rate in such cases that would be the envy of prosecutors anywhere. Nearly everyone accused of terrorism since 9/11 has, in fact, been convicted, even the weak cases, even when cases go to trial rather than ending in plea bargains.
A year later, Holder’s hand should have been strengthened, since the record remains remarkably unblemished when it comes to convictions. Since he announced his decision on KSM, the New York City federal courts have successfully tried a number of high-profile terrorism cases. They have gotten convictions in the jury trials of Aafia Siddiqui (an American-educated Pakistani scientist found guilty of intending to kill her American interrogators in Afghanistan and sentenced to 86 years in prison), the JFK airport plotters, and the Bronx synagogue plotters, all of whom are awaiting their sentencing hearings.
This is the context in which untold numbers of Americans are worrying that KSM or others will be set free in federal court. Foreigners and U.S. citizens alike have been convicted in every terror case of any possible significance brought into a civilian court. With or without juries, via full trials or plea bargains, until the Ghailani case (as close to an acquittal as we are likely to see), the outcome has always been the same: guilty.
The Presumption of Guilt
Human rights groups, civil libertarians, and those of us who opposed the Bush Justice Department’s disdain for the role of the federal courts in trying individuals once labeled “enemy combatants” have championed the push to bring the Guantanamo detainees to federal court. As it happened, most Americans did not. Many evidently assume that federal court equals a higher shot at acquittal (and greater odds of terrorist acts to free the prisoner). Despite conviction after conviction, a storm of political and media criticism has played up the strange idea that the most significant terrorist the U.S. has ever had in custody would somehow beat the rap against him. Although it is increasingly politically incorrect to insist on this point, in the American system of justice, a trial -- even in the context of terrorism -- should not, in fact, have a foreordained verdict. That verdict should not be known in advance, nor should it, in essence, need to be announced by the Attorney General before the trial begins. A jury should consider all the facts that the law allows to be presented to them in the context of the presumption of innocence; and those 12 jurors should come up with their own determination of guilt or innocence.
In the case of KSM, the courts would confront a figure whose role in terrorist attacks on U.S. targets is known and recognized around the world. And yet, even with this, trust in the system is so broken that fear of acquittal trumps all else -- despite the fact that, in case after case where, unlike 9/11, no attack came about, even where an FBI informant seemed to be doing much of the planning, convictions have still been the rule.
Had there been a full-scale acquittal over the past nine years, especially in one of the terror cases that look suspiciously like cases of entrapment, the system would be stronger for it. A candidate for such a fate would certainly have been one or more of the minor defendants in the Bronx synagogue bomb plot case this past summer. There, an FBI sting operation led four men to place what they thought were bombs at a synagogue and a Jewish community center in Riverdale, New York, and to purchase an inoperable surface-to-air Stinger missile to fire at airplanes at Stewart Air Base in Newburgh, New York.
Despite allegations of FBI entrapment, an entrapment defense failed, even though the predisposition of the lead defendant in the case, James Cromitie, was towards anti-Semitism rather than jihadist violence -- a subject the FBI informant claimed to know about. However, even the most peripheral players in this hapless “plot,” one of whom seemed at best only dimly aware of what was going on, were convicted. Here was yet another recent moment when a chance to distinguish between guilt and innocence in a terrorism case was thrown away.
Since September 12, 2001, Americans have been systematically cowed to a degree that is hard to grasp, and the justice system in this country has in no way been inoculated from this virus. If you need a measure of which way the currents of politics are running today, start with the political calculation that the Obama administration has had to make when it comes to the trial of KSM, which has only grown that much more difficult in the wake of the Ghailani verdict.
So, too, for those of us who favor civilian trials. How do we really feel about having been put in a position where, to defend the merits of the system of justice, we feel compelled to equate certain conviction with the notion of success?
The deepest principle of American justice is being tested, right now in Washington, in lower Manhattan in the wake of the Ghailani verdict, and elsewhere. With terrorism trials, the more serious they get, the more the presumption of innocence seems to lie at the mercy of politics.
Karen Greenberg is the Executive Director at the Center on Law and Security at New York University Law School. She is author of The Least Worst Place: Guantanamo's First 100 Days (Oxford University Press, 2009). Her daily commentary on the trial of Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani in Manhattan can be read by clicking here.
Copyright 2010 Karen Greenberg
All republished content that appears on Truthout has been obtained by permission or license.
Comments
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In American courts, there is
Fri, 11/19/2010 - 12:27 — Lawrence Seib (not verified)In American courts, there is more than simply guilt or innocence on trial, the procedures used to collect evidence are also on trial. This seems to be the best way to protect the public from illegal police action, that is to say, to keep then honest.
With the Guantanamo prisoners, Bush obviously order torture and other illegal means to collect evidence, thus any civilian court could quite well end in the acquittal of a person even when the "good" evidence proves his quilt. This of course is Bush's fault but Obama's justice department refuses to prosecute obvious crimes.
The concept of guilty until
Fri, 11/19/2010 - 16:34 — GT66 (not verified)The concept of guilty until proven innocent didn't start with the "war" on terrorism. It started with the "war" on Western ideals and those leading that war are called feminists. Feminists have from day one been angling for a woman's word to trump presumption of innocence as the credo of the legal system. It was a no brainer that the government would embrace and extend this principle on their march to turn the USA and many other western nations into a marxist state.
The presumption of innocence
Fri, 11/19/2010 - 23:34 — billy bob (not verified)The presumption of innocence is either a right or it isn't. It doesn't matter what crime one is accused of.
An innocent person wrongly accused of terrorism isn't any more guilty or dangerous than an innocent person wrongly accused of any other crime. If the nature of the crime means that, sometimes our Constitutional rights have to be ignored or revoked then, NONE OF US has ANY Constitutional rights left.
That's why, when I say that when george II and his cronies unveiled the "patriot" Act, they had repealed the ENTIRE BILL OF RIGHTS. I was not engaging in hyperbole. This is in fact that truth.
If someone falsely accused of terrorism had his rights repealed, what is there to make ANY OF US feel the same "new rules" don't apply to each of us, when OUR rights suddenly become inconvenient for those whose political agenda involves the extermination of all competing voices?
IF THE LEFT STANDS FOR ANYTHING IT'S TIME TO REPEAL THE "patriot" ACT.
-----
btw, GT66, I think you're commenting on the wrong thread. I think the website you meant to comment on is:
www.confused_misogynists_and_the_women_they_blame_for_their_sad_existence.org
First of all, Karen
Sat, 11/20/2010 - 18:03 — S. Wolf Britain (not verified)First of all, Karen Greenberg was obviously being much too careful and "kind" in the writing of this article. As a prime example, in the last paragraph she should have left out the word, "seems", instead of clearly trying to somewhat appease those who don't like categorical statements of fact. In other words, the last sentence of that paragraph should read:
"...With terrorism trials, the more serious they get, the more the presumption of innocence... lie(s) at the mercy of politics."
Why? Because it is a "definite". There is absolutely no doubt whatsoever that the presumption of innocence is definitely at the mercy of politics, as it long has been, and that now it is getting much worse. And this is just one example of several if not many places where Karen Greenberg is intentionally not definitive like she should be, damn all of the detractors, because she is, in a very misguided fashion, trying to be "fair and balanced".
We've got to completely tell it like it is, and stop being "mealymouthed" whatsoever. The survival presumption of innocence, of any True Freedom, Liberty and Justice in this country, and the survival of our very Constitutional republic, is at stake and hangs precariously in the balance to a highly extreme extent. Thus, this is definitely no time to mince words.
Therefore, except for the part about "Marxism", "GT66's" comment above is right-on and excellent. But it's not just a woman's word that is, and has for a long time been, seeking to "trump presumption of innocence". It is the word of most "witnesses" to alleged "crimes", including extremely questionable "witnesses" who are known liars; and who are, in most cases, receiving "deals" of lower sentences for their own guilt, and/or "immunity from prosecution" even though they have committed crimes, in exchange for their testimony against other defendants, and thus are predisposed to lie against often completely innocent defendants...
...A woman's and/or other
Sat, 11/20/2010 - 18:04 — S. Wolf Britain (not verified)...A woman's and/or other "witnesses'" word is and/or are not the only example(s), either, of the presumption of innocence being done away with. There is also the example of the drunk driving laws that, because of organizations like "Mother's Against Drunk Driving (MADD)", are replacing presumption of innocence with "presumption of guilt". The deck is stacked against drunk drivers by entrapping them into either agreeing to tests that assure their presumption of guilt, or losing their driver's license for at least a year in most states; and they are pressured to make such decisions when they are most often not competent to make such decisions.
Thus, even though drunk drivers, just like everyone else under Constitutional law, have the right to contest their guilt and seek a jury trial in order to do so, it would usually be a complete waste of time and public finances to go to trial, because the evidence is already stacked against them, and a guilt verdict by the jury(ies) is predetermined. As a result, their Constitutional right(s) to presumption of innocence, and to a trial, are severally violated, contravened and/or abrogated. All of this is completely unconstitutional; but, because of those screaming for being "tough on crime", etc., at the complete expense of the Constitutions, both federal and state, they are complicit in undermining and eradicating Constitutional rights, and in doing away with the Constitution itself, because they have opened the door to it more and more.
The reason "GT66" is wrong about Marxism, is because Marx was not in favor of totalitarianism. So, "GT66's" comment would better read, "...It was a no brainer that the government would embrace and extend this principle on their march to turn the USA and many other western nations into a (totalitarian communist, totalitarian socialist and/or corporate fascist) state." Or, if personal names must be used for it instead, "...to turn the USA and many other western nations into a (Bolshevik, Trotskyite, Leninist and/or Stalinist, etc.) state."
"Billy Bob's" comment above is quite excellent and right-on too, except for the ending part of his comment about feminism, which he is wrong about. If people look deeply into it, feminism and/or the women's liberation movement was started by the CIA [aka "al-CIA-duh(!)"] in order to create more radical chaos ("problem, reaction, solution"/Hegelian dialectic/Machiavellianism), etc., for the U.S. government to use to attack and "save the country from", and in order to bring in more and more authoritarian control(s), and eventually totalitarian control(s), into the U.S. and the way(s) the U.S. government operates, to oppress and repress all True Constitutionality, Liberty, Freedom and Justice, to destroy all of same, and turn the U.S. itself into a corporate fascist, totalitarian socialist and/or communist country, all rolled into one, as we very clearly see being finalized in the U.S. right this very minute.
But "Billy Bob" is very right about the so-called "U.S.A. 'P.A.T.R.I.O.T.' Act", as well as all many other similar laws very hastily passed since 9/11, needing to be repealed; i.e./e.g., the "Homeland 'Security' Act", the "Military Commissions Act(s)", the "John Warner 'National Defense' Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2007 (signed into completely unconstitutional, totally treasonous "law" by George W. Bush on the same day as the "Military Commissions Act", October 17th, 2006), "Presidential Directives", "Executive Orders", "National Security Directives", etc.
Since it is extremely improbable and/or implausible that such an in-depth Bill and/or proposed law as the "'Patriot' Act" was completely written, and made completely ready for submission to and consideration by Congress, within two weeks of 9/11, it is obvious that the Bill was already written and sitting on a shelf before 9/11, in preparation for, and just waiting for the "new Pearl Harbor" that 9/11 was, as the "Project for a New American Century" document called for, one of the primary "smoking guns" for U.S. government, and "al-CIA-duh(!)", involvement in the allowing and/or carrying out of 9/11. Therefore, there is certainly no doubt that the "'Patriot' Act", etc., need(s) to be repealed.
(Right-on and excellent comment by Lawrence Seib, too!)
To further address other issues on-point and/or on-topic with, and/or related to, the above article, here is a comment I made elsewhere, altered to more accurately fit with this thread, that will no doubt get me (extremely?) attacked by the feminists and/or their male counterparts and other defenders, even more than my foregoing comment; but it is the truth nevertheless and needs to be seriously considered, as follows:
The way it's gotten to be in Sweden and other countries, is the way it's gotten to be in most of the states in the U.S. All it takes is a woman's word to get men convicted, even if the "rape-kit" comes up "negative"; and juries will still usually convict the men on the woman's word alone, as if women never lie. Women have known for decades now that they have this power; and so, often, to seek revenge against a man for something else, or simply to get him out of their lives, they will falsely claim that they were raped. There doesn't have to be any sign(s) of trauma to their bodies or anything.
This is NOT "due process of law", at least correct and "just" due process of law, and it is not "proving guilt 'beyond a reasonable doubt'". When there's no "proof" but someone's word of someone's alleged guilt, that DOES leave reasonable doubt; but, because most American's presume peoples' guilt in violation of their own Constitution(s), they will still in most cases convict the men anyway [I say "Constitution(s)" plural because that includes both the federal and state Constitutions, where the state ones almost, if not, exactly reiterate the Bill of Rights (the first ten Amendments) of the federal Constitution].
The deck is stacked against men, and against many other defendants in other types of cases as well. The Constitution(s) have been whittled away, watered down, and undermined, contravened and abrogated (the principles of same being "interpreted-away" and/or done away with), for decades now. And, if people are poor (which most people, especially people of color, in the U.S. are now; and is intentionally being made much worse right now, doing away with the middle class) and they have to "depend on 'public defense'" lawyers, they're screwed. For, chances are, they WILL be convicted, or supposedly "have to" plead guilty to a "plea 'bargain'", even on the flimsiest of "evidence", and/or even when reasonable doubt exists.
Juries are not of our "peers" anymore in most cases; they are of "'presumers' of guilt"; of people who will bow to the illegal instructions of judges and prosecutors; and/or of people who will bow to other pressures from their fellow jurors. And the judges and prosecutors won't tell juries, of course, about their rights not to have to listen to ANY instructions of the prosecution and the judges, or even the law itself, and that they have the power to bring forward whatever verdict they wish if they feel there's any reasonable doubt whatsoever, which there often is. It is called "jury nullification". Nor will the judges and prosecutors allow the defense tell the jurors about jury nullification, either.
If people don't have money to hire attorneys for their defense, and often times even then (because paid lawyers still often sellout their criminal case clients), and especially if they have to depend on "public ('dumptruck') defenders"---'public dumptrucks' IS what they're called in the U.S., among other things---they are screwed; and, of course, as I alluded to earlier, most people cannot afford to hire their own lawyer(s).
In addition, they are usually denied reasonable bail as "REQUIRED" by the Sixth Amendment, or "own recognizance" release, are left to rot in jail, usually without speedy trials (also as "required" by the Sixth Amendment), and are worn-down until they cave in to "plea 'bargains'", usually "admitting guilt" even though they're truly not guilty---or at least not guilty of the charge(s) they're pleading guilty to (because other charges that they didn't actually commit are often used as "plea 'bargains'"); and then they're usually sent to state prison to do some time anyway, even though they're not guilty, and/or couldn't be, or it's very unlikely that they would be, convicted in a trial.
So, there's little or no True Justice in the U.S., like Sweden and many other countries; and even some attorneys, some of whom are graduates of prestigious law schools like Yale, admit it. But these facts usually aren't talked about because of the majority of people who are "washed-of-brains", who are part of the mass-insanity, and who don't understand the rights and "protections" of the Constitution(s) think those principles are supposedly "soft on crime (and/or criminals)"; and because they will jump all over ANYONE AND EVERYONE who is supposedly "soft on crime" and/or who appears to be defending "criminals".
They don't understand either that PRESUMING EVERYONE INNOCENT, even real criminals, protects THEM and THEIR rights too; and that if those who ARE guilty cannot justly, in a completely legal fashion, and entirely-Constitutionally be convicted, they SHOULD "walk free"; because it protects EVERYONE from unjust prosecution and/or wrongful conviction(s); but most people just don't "get it". And, as a direct result, we're finding more and more people who were wrongfully convicted in the United States.
Those people who don't "get it" are the ones' primarily responsible for the our human rights and civil liberties being done away with, and the Constitution(s) being violated right and left. They have aided and abetted the authoritarians, and those who want absolute totalitarianism in the U.S. and the world, with no True Liberty(ies) and Freedom(s) remaining whatsoever; and they are still aiding and abetting it and/or them. They've been intentionally "dumbed-down" about human rights, civil liberties and Constitutional rights, by design of the powers-that-be. As a direct result, they have little or no true or correct understanding of these things which ARE THE MOST IMPORTANT THINGS FOR THEM TO (CORRECTLY) UNDERSTAND; and, as a further direct result, the U.S. and the world are being turned into a globalist slave plantation where NO ONE, other than the globalist elitists at the top of the pyramid, will have ANY True Rights, Freedoms and/or Liberties.
You watch, I'll probably be (heavily?) attacked right here for what I just said and defended. Like Jack Nicholson so aptly said in the movie, "A Few Good Men", most people "...can't handle the truth!". And, if they could take me out and crucify me, as was done to Jesus the Christ, they would do so; for my speaking nothing but the Truth! The U.S. and the entire world are going completely insane on an express train to hell on earth, RIGHT NOW!
A minority of people realize what's really going on; and, because, as I already said, most people are part of the mass-insanity that is rapidly sweeping the U.S. and the world, taking over everybody and everything, and because most people are willfully blind and don't even want to understand what's really going on, but appear to WANT to be led like sheep and/or lemmings right over the edge of the cliff very soon, the people who are being taken over by the madness, the majority, attack and seek to destroy the messengers of truth about what's really going on. Thus, there's no reasoning with most people.
The majority is being taken over by evil, and we ain't seen nothin' yet. All hell on earth is already beginning to break loose; and the result is going to be a hell on earth we've never before seen in the entire history of the world. It is going to make the prior holocaust(s) look like (a) "picnic(s)", or "(a) walk(s) in the park", so to speak. The millions of the minority who are waking up to what's really going on, and who are speaking and standing up against it as it is their duty to do, are very soon going to be "taken away" and "disappeared" into the concentration camps that have been built all over the U.S., in every state in the country, as well as in Canada; and disappeared and taken away to the internment camps that have probably been built in many other countries all over the world, or soon will be; and there most of them are going to be exterminated.
"Countless people will hate the New World Order and will die protesting against it." —H.G. Wells, The New World Order (1939)
Does this mean we better shut-up, cower and not stand up against this madness? OF COURSE NOT! That's why the great American statesman, Patrick Henry, stated, "Give me liberty or give me death!" It is much better to die as a Truly Free person, than to die as a slave! (That is what people without any more True Liberty(ies) and Freedom(s) are, slaves.) But all of the people who bow down to this evil madness will die slaves! Is that what most of you people reading this want, to die slaves? Because it certainly appears that's what most you want! Wake up and completely face all of this insanity, don't be a part of or complicit in it, and stand up against it with all of your heart, mind and soul! At least that way, if you die standing up against it, you will die Truly Free!
www dot infowars dot com/patrick-henry-give-me-liberty-or-give-me-death/
www dot campfema dot com/
www dot globalresearch dot ca/index
.php?context=va&aid=7763 (sic---"ca" = Canada)
maps dot google dot com/maps/ms?hl=en&gl=
us&ie=UTF8&oe=UTF8&msa=0&msid=
118135173934136151745.00045
bc25ee928a8872d0&z=3
Etc.
GT / Wolf, Was the above
Mon, 11/22/2010 - 10:47 — Anonymous (not verified)GT / Wolf,
Was the above article secretly about an episode of "The Battle of the Sexes"?
It might be a good idea to discuss the subject of the article itself, rather than a L O N G - W I N D E D rant about unresolved issues with ex-wives.
Listen up, evil betrayer, my
Mon, 11/22/2010 - 15:06 — S. Wolf Britain (not verified)Listen up, evil betrayer, my "rant" is about presumption of guilt versus presumption of innocence, and what our world is coming to; and, it is NOT about "unresolved issues with ex-wives". Just because you have nothing important to say and almost always only talk about things like taking hikes to climb mountains, dirt biking, wheatgrass shakes and subjects of general narcissism and self-centeredness, doesn't mean that other people don't have some things to say which aren't self-centered, narcissistic and unimportant. In short, you are a typical Godless, Satanic, braindead, self-centered "American" who wouldn't know how to be unselfish is his love if how to do so were standing right in front of him...
...Our country is going to
Mon, 11/22/2010 - 15:06 — S. Wolf Britain (not verified)...Our country is going to hell in a handbasket, and you could care less. All you really care about is the next selfish "joy ride" you are going to take to go dirt biking or to conquer some small mountain. You do almost nothing, if anything, to stand up for our country, our Constitution, our liberties and freedoms, the destruction of all of those things, and our country being turned into a corporate-fascist police state where very soon none of us will have any True Freedom(s). More and more, you were already being taken over by evil and selfishness, and now you have added vindictiveness and revenge to that as well. You aren't even worth knowing, so I want nothing more to do with you. Therefore, please stop your ignorant comments.
"It is written, thus says the Lord [God through Jesus the Christ, the Word(s) of God, and the Maker / Creator of all things except evil]...":
"...Get... behind Jesus the Christ, Satan[(ist), which you are whether you know it or not]..."!
"...You are of your father the devil, and (you perpetrate) the lies [and traitorousness against the Word(s) of God and the U.S. Constitution(s)] of your father [that make you a traitor to God; to the people of the U.S.; to the country as a whole; to the U.S. Constitution; to the State Constitutions; and to the entire world (again, whether you know it or not)]..."! [Matthew 16:23 and John 8:44; etc.; emphasis and/or clarification(s) added by me.]
Correction (in capital
Mon, 11/22/2010 - 16:00 — S. Wolf Britain (not verified)Correction (in capital letters): ...In short, you are a typical Godless, Satanic, braindead, self-centered "American" who wouldn't know how to be unselfish IN his love if how to do so were standing right in front of him...
Now you're on about
Tue, 11/23/2010 - 11:13 — Anonymous (not verified)Now you're on about "dirtbikes" and wheat grass"?
No, you don't have unresolved issues, yet you just wrote a 1,000 word essay on what you think a stranger you've never met "always talks about".
I guess maintaining a little focus is too much to ask.
The irony here is that I agree with article and some of the comments above. I just don't agree with the circular firing squad shot-gun approach that blames everybody and tries to draw links between government power grabs and "wheat grass and dirt bikes"?
My comment's a lot shorter than yours, but then again, I'm only commenting on the article, and not blind guesses about the personal lives of people I've never met.
Your turn...
Be gone, Satan(ist)!!!!!
Tue, 11/23/2010 - 14:15 — S. Wolf Britain (not verified)Be gone, Satan(ist)!!!!!
Not "Satanist". "Feminist"
Tue, 11/23/2010 - 15:13 — Anonymous (not verified)Not "Satanist".
"Feminist"
to s. wolf britain, I've
Tue, 11/23/2010 - 16:30 — Anonymous (not verified)to s. wolf britain,
I've been reading some of your many many posts on the internet and have one thing to say. Others have already pointed it out but it bears repeating again:
You really need to work on distinguishing the difference between your allies and your enemies. When you go into attack mode it doesn't seem to matter who you are attacking. It could be someone who is truly, as you would say, evil - or it could just be someone who happens to be in close proximity.
Feminists and feminism are not responsible for the "patriot" act or any of its offspring. President Obama may be incompetent and weak, but he's STILL better than bush. Other people who comment on Truthout articles may disagree with you on a few points, but in general, we're all on the same team, and, in general, we aren't agents of the devil.
cont. I understand your
Tue, 11/23/2010 - 16:31 — Anonymous (not verified)cont.
I understand your anger about what has gone on in this country and to our Constitutional rights since 9-11. I probably feel more strongly about it than you do. That said, this crime was NOT perpetrated by everyone in this country other than you.
-It was perpetrated by a small minority, who happen to be disproportionately powerful.
-It was allowed, by a major majority too ignorant or lazy to pay attention.
-BUT, it is being vigorously fought against by another minority in this country, who STILL number in the millions.
I happen to be one of them.
I ALSO happen to disagree with your attitude of equating EVERYONE in the world with satan himself. It's self defeating and it's ridiculous.
cont. If I were more like
Tue, 11/23/2010 - 16:32 — Anonymous (not verified)cont.
If I were more like you, I'd begin wondering if you, yourself, were not ACTUALLY a right-wing plant being paid to make these ridiculous claims and see if you can get the 80% of this country who DON'T agree with them to start fighting each other. We DO know that the right employs people who do that very thing on the internet. It's openly admitted it. How do we know you're not one of them? All I know, is that their most effective strategy has always been to divide and conquer.
You seem pretty interested in keeping us divided.
You also seem fond of paroting a lot of the right’s pet fears. Namely, “world government”, the devil, and women’s rights. The right attacks the U.N. as a secret plot by the anti-christ. The right actually thought feminists were the reason bin laden sent the planes. It’s possible we could have a world government that would be truly evil if people like cheney and bush got their way. It makes it difficult to argue this point with the right, sometimes purposefully, clouding the conversation. The right would love for it to appear that there’s no difference between its bizaare claims that the Security Council could somehow collect all your weapons and render the U.S. military null and void - and VALID worries coming from the left who’ve actually read bush and cheney’s OWN WORDS (the PNAC agenda) and know that they REALLY DO WANT TO CREATE A WORLD GOVERNMENT - which has NOTHING to do with the U.N.
cont. You claim yourself,
Tue, 11/23/2010 - 16:37 — Anonymous (not verified)cont.
You claim yourself, that you don’t really stand on any side of this debate. You’re neither right-wing nor left-wing. You’re neither republican nor democratic.
Well, I’m taking sides. I say that the patriot act was a right-wing idea, which I oppose, so I must be a left-winger. I also say that it is not the fault of President Obama, women’s rights groups, people who drink wheat-grass juice, people who ride dirt bikes, or people who feed into any other right-wing stereotype about the left. The responsibility for this attack on our Civil Rights rests firmly on the shoulders of the people who actually wrote the legislation - BUSH AND HIS CRONIES ON THE RIGHT.
If you’re against the people who perpetrated this crime - ATTACK THEM. STOP ATTACKING ME.
AND STOP DUMBING DOWN THE CONVERSATION WITH REMARKS ABOUT “FEMINISTS” AND “WHEATGRASS”.
What an evil, lying person
Tue, 11/23/2010 - 20:00 — S. Wolf Britain (not verified)What an evil, lying person you are. You try to make it look like I attacked you; but, on the contrary, it was you who attacked me. I defended myself, and now you're attempting to make it look like you supposedly didn't initiate the attack. Please take your misrepresentations of what I've said, and what I stand for, and shove it all. When people attack me, I will defend myself no matter what evil crap they throw my way.
You claim you've responded to the article, but I've gone through the entire thread and I don't find one response from you to the article. You also fallaciously claim that I haven't been on-point with regards to the article, when I most-certainly have. So, enough of your lying, deceitful garbage. Finally get to responding to the article and stop your ad hominem attacks of me. You provoked this situation, and you have proven me right about your being evil.
I believe in the things which the "Right" is correct about, and I believe in the things which the "Left" is correct about. Both sides are incorrect about some very serious issues, and you're defense(s) of the ObamaCONS shows that you don't "get it" that Obama is in many ways just as bad as the BushCONS. They are all globalist neolibs, corporate-fascists, and traitors to this country, its people, and to its Constitution. Like with Bubba Clinton, ObamaCON was groomed by "al-CIA-duh(!)" as well.
Also, you are extremely deceived about one-world government. The "New World Order (NWO)" that the neoCON fake right-wing want, is the very same worldwide governance that the fake left-wing wants. It's all part and parcel of the neoliberal corporate-fascist agenda that they are ALL seeking to bring us under the complete and absolute subjugation and control of. So it is you who are falling for THEIR divide and conquer strategy of believing in the "left-right paradigm" lie(s).
I do not wish to divide and conquer anyone, and/or any thing, except to "divide" people from their erroneous ideas that they've been inculcated and brainwashed with by the international banker globalist-elitists who are seeking to enslave the entire world; to conquer their indoctrination, conditioning and programming to believe the globalist(s) lies; and and to try to get everyone, or as many as possible, to stand up against all of this evil that is flooding the U.S. and entire world.
The "U.S.A. P.A.T.R.I.O.T. Act" is NOT a right-wing phenomenon; it is a corporate-fascist, neoliberal one. These neolib corporate-fascists hide behind the right-wing; and, though they are extremely evil, they also hide behind false claims of being "Christian(s)". It is a common ploy of both knowing and unknowing Satanists to hide behind Christianity, and/or to claim to be "Christian", when they are anything but Truly Christian.
What better way to fool the ignorant masses in this country who claim to be "Christian(s)", who are nothing more than counterfeit "Christians" and hypocrites, than to claim neoliberal, globalist enslavement is "conservative"; to fool them into believing that the Constitution is supposedly "outdated" and that the U.S. "needs to be replaced" with world government; or to completely sidetrack them from realizing that bringing the U.S. under world government is completely treasonous to the Constitution and to this country.
Wake up and stop falling for the "left-right paradigm". BOTH sides are evil, as well as all of their offshoots including the so-called "progressives". They are ALL being fooled into believing in false "hope" and "change" for the better that are never going to be allowed to come about unless we stand up against the ENTIRE sham. Just standing up against the neoCONS, the right-wing, or the "centrist and/or 'conservative Democrats'", etc., is NOT going to cut it.
We've ALL got to stand against ALL of the evil that is seeking to completely subjugate and control the entire world, whatever it hides behind. Corporate-fascism is very real, and it is extremely evil and powerful. It uses both, or all, sides of the political paradigm(s) to accomplish its ends, and it will not be satisfied until the entire world is completely enslaved under one-world government and one-world religion (Catholicism), and is completely subjugated and controlled by them.
Their ultimate goal is to get everyone to completely bow down to evil, to sell-out their souls, and to lose their souls for eternity as a result; and, unfortunately, most people are falling for the fraud of "goodness" and "salvation" that it is being falsely portrayed as. Most people have been conditioned to believe for generations that "no conspiracy of global dimensions is (supposedly) going on"; but IT IS...
"It is written, thus says
Tue, 11/23/2010 - 20:12 — S. Wolf Britain (not verified)"It is written, thus says the Lord [God through Jesus the Christ, the Word(s) of God, and the Maker / Creator of all things except evil]...":
"...(W)e wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, (and) against spiritual evil in high places..."! [Ephesians 6:12; etc.; emphasis and/or clarification(s) added by me.]
Anonymous on 11/23 at 21:30
Thu, 12/02/2010 - 18:53 — Frances in California (not verified)Anonymous on 11/23 at 21:30 - Jeez, Man! Haven't you figured it out yet? S. Wolf B. is not playing with yon full deck . . . until he gets his meds. You seem like a reasonable if long-winded poster. I'd rather read your reaction to the article than have to watch yet another SWB v Anon ping-pong match; I always lose.