In his closing statement at his “Rally to Restore Sanity” John Stewart made these remarks: “Why would you reach across the aisle to a pumpkin assed forehead eyeball monster? If the picture of us were true, of course, our inability to solve problems would actually be quite sane and reasonable. Why would you work with Marxists actively subverting our Constitution or racists and homophobes who see no one’s humanity but their own?”
So the most influential man in the U.S. (according to the newly released “Ask Men” magazine poll) puts Marxists together with racists, homophobes and pumpkin assed eyeball monsters.
Subverting the constitution, are they? What about the man who plugged your rally, the man who you put on your show last week, President Barack Obama?
He has a Justice Department staging witch hunts after anti-war activists accusing them of supporting terrorist organizations, a Justice Department that arrests and prosecutes Muslim “terrorists” after its own agents think up the plots and recruit the “terrorists”.
Obama says he’s against torture, but the word apparently hasn’t gotten down to his Administration. Take in point a lawsuit filed by the Center for Constitution Rights against Donald Rumsfeld about two individuals who died at Guantanamo. CCR lawyers say the men died as a result of torture. Rumsfeld asked certification under a legal doctrine that takes the individual off the hook if they were doing the governments work and makes the government the defendant instead. In supporting granting the Rumsfeld gang this certification, Obama’s Asstant Attorney General Tony West wrote this in his legal brief “the type of activities alleged against the individuals were foreseeable and were a direct outgrowth of their responsibility to detain and gather intelligence from suspected enemy combatants” He cited a decision that “Genocide, torture, forced relocation and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment by individual defendants employed by the Department and Defense and State Department were within the scope of their employment”. He actually wrote this and he wasn’t fired. So the Administration position is that genocide and torture can be considered in the “scope” of a U.S. government employee’s job description.
What about a duty to prosecute criminals? Rumsfeld and his gang of torturers were authorizing all kinds of illegal revolting violence against bound prisoners. Stanley McChrystal oversaw an Iraqi camp “NAMA” where he was accused of responsibility for the systematic abuse of prisoners. G.W. Bush says he enthusiastically approved of waterboarding. But Obama says, “Let’s look forward not backward”, promoted McChrystal to run the whole Afghan war (for a while) and has prosecuted no one for authorizing war crimes.
Obama is against all torture, wink, wink.
What about enforcing U.S. law? The new book by Sasha Polakow-Suransky, “The Unspoken Alliance” demonstrates that Israel was working with apartheid South Africa on nuclear weapons for decades, a clear violation of the Symington amendment. That law that says that the U.S. has to cut off aid and weapons sales to countries that help other countries nuclear enrichment (except those complying with the nuclear non-proliferation treaty). Has Obama enforced that law? Has he mentioned it? No, he’s too busy shoveling Israel money. What about the Leahy law banning U.S. aid to military units with a record of human rights abuses? Didn’t the Israeli navy just kill 9 people including one American aboard the Gaza Flotilla? Doesn’t the shooting of 9 unarmed people count as abuse?
None of this was brought up on Stewart’s interview with the President. There was not a mention of any war, the drones, torture, Israel or Guantanamo, etc. There were a few digs on health care and Larry Summer, otherwise just a bunch of boring questions about the campaign.
While President Obama has been acting like Bush III what have those horrible “Marxists” and radical leftists been doing? They’ve been leading demonstrations to stop unconstitutional acts of war, protesting torture, reminding America of treaty obligations to respect human rights, and demanding war criminals be prosecuted for crimes.
So who, dear John, is subverting our Constitution?
John Stewart, you’re a funny guy. Stick to embarrassing blowhards. Don’t become one of them.
STANLEY HELLER is the host of a rival TV program, “The Struggle” which can be seen at www.TheStruggle.org/MediaP.htm Write to him at stanley.heller (at) yahoo.com
