Flashback

Donald Rumsfeld meets Saddam Hussein, one year after the events for which Saddam has been convicted and sentenced to hang.

Update: Alon Levy has more on what it means for someone to be hanged by the neck until dead.

The persistence of memory

Thanks to the internet, we remember everything that Michael Ledeen said, before he claimed to have opposed the invasion of Iraq. Michael Ledeen was one of the war’s strongest proponents, though perhaps in his quiet moments he reflected on reservations and now pretends that those concerns were pre-eminent and absolve him of responsibility for what was done.

This self-denial is precipitous and invariably fatal unless a course correction is made. You are what you eat, and what you sow you reap.

Glenn Greenwald and Jonathan Schwarz have plenty of details.

It’s all right

And there was justice

Cannabis is a truth teller, it restores the memory.

I can remember early childhood now, times that I had once thought long ago forgotten. I can also remember what I had for lunch a few hours ago, and what we have planned to eat for dinner. Absent some unexpected emergency, everything now is fine for my family for the foreseeable future, we have a place to live and enough food to eat, and we are happy here.

This is justice, for people who have suffered. I am not going to tell you about what we have been through, everyone has had their challenges. We earned a little happiness in our lives not because we have had pain, but because we are good to one another and those we meet.

But I will speak plainly for myself, and for nobody else who does not care to be described by my words. I practice harm reduction as a goal, to make the world better by reducing suffering. To end the enslavement of people which derives from their pain, as they are whipped by hunger and want if not by sheer force itself. The people need a pain reliever that does not kill them, a satisfactory alternative to the poisons that are now legally sold and prescribed. Only cannabis cures pain without killing the patient.

But there are those whom cannabis will not help, and to them I now address myself. Those who inflict pain, who want for nothing but more, you will not like cannabis, because cannabis will not like you. You will remember yourself, and know what you have done and are doing to people, and you will have to stop doing one of those things. Either you will discontinue cannabis or you will discontinue inflicting pain.

That is justice, for people who have caused suffering. Cannabis can help everyone, but you have to choose it, and that means facing what you must. Here’s the kicker at the end of the sentence. If you use cannabis, you will live. If you do not use cannabis you will surely die. You have a choice now. And you can always change your mind if you don’t like the path you’ve chosen, but there will always be consequences for the choices you have made.

We are your children, we are not your children

You are the bows from which your children
As living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path
Of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that
His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archers hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies, so He
Loves the bow that is stable.

For Donna.

Let there be justice

Courtesy of Lindsay Beyerstein of Majikthise, who wants you to know she has still prints photographs available to show this. What’s going on is that a net journalist, Mike Stark, was roughly assaulted by George Allen supporters at an event a while back. Because this is how tough-guy politics works, Mike’s unwillingness to file charges and to stand up for himself physically is portrayed as a weakness among the rightwing. But by Mike’s principles of strength of character he chose instead to make it clear he would not be frightened off by appearing at another George Allen event to ask a question.

The obvious happened, an Allen supporter took a pratfall and police were on hand to arrest Mike Stark.

That’s how it works, it’s a giant game of chicken, who has the guts to stand up to them? But if you stand up to them on their own terms you will take the ultimate fall, because that’s how the game is rigged.

We don’t need that, it won’t help us to have a martyr for the cause.

Here we stand on our own strong ground and make it known what we see, so that all will know what rude beasts these are who behave without respect or honor.

Without comment

The green mountain state of Vermont is the second smallest by population, the second highest proportion of caucasians in the US. The Republican senator Jim Jeffords having already converted to an independent in 2001, is retiring and the almost certain replacement will be the currently sole independent member of the house of representatives, openly democratic socialist Bernie Sanders.

The Guardian (UK) has the story. Bernie’s brother and nephew are both Green party politicians in England.

Hat-tip to Lindsay.

Pull the stone out of the mango

Abstract titles notwithstanding (you are listening to the music, I hope), here’s a comment that I left elsewhere,

I try not to predict the outcome of the upcoming US elections especially given unpredictable variables like Diebold. Regardless of the result, there are Democrats who voted to authorize torture — about a third of them, in fact. All of them are going to have to be shamed out of office.

I’ve called for outing them all, and I reiterate that. No secrets should be kept for torturers. Nobody should be required to testify against themselves, but those who have knowledge can voluntarily step forward with everything they know.

Right now it is the Republicans who must be urgently removed from power to strip away some of the administration’s backing, but this is all proceeding of course. Legitimate election or no, there will be no hiding place for the truth.

In the longer run this is better for everyone, even those who have traversed. We must have honesty between ourselves in order to stop destroying one another.