Rule of Law = Cable Catnip

Morning Zombie — finally getting my second cuppa coffee and some oatmeal. It was a writing slog this morning, I’m afraid.

How are you today?

I’m up early and feeling pretty good. The weather has been very cool here in the mountains of western NC., perfect for sleeping. Frank & I are processing vegetables from the garden at an incredible pace this year. Later today I’m making homemade pizza and a fresh peach and blueberry pie.

I don’t know about the slog, that is very hard hitting post and of course depressing as hell. Justice be damned is our new rallying cry.

I hope that you and the little one have a great day.

I’ve been re-reading some of Robert Jackson’s work at Nuremburg in his prosecutions there. And contemplating the differences between who we are now versus who we aspired to be then.

Rather depressing, I must say.

I spent sixteen days in Germany in April. My hosts were a retired schoolteacher and her sister, a retired pediatrician who were children during the Nazi era. We had a pretty amazing conversation on Easter with the whole family about how much America had changed. I was at a loss to really explain it.

Which book on Jackson are you re-reading?

I’ve been re-browsing through his various speeches at the Robert Jackson center website. And looking at some of the transcripts as well.

Thank you for the link! What a great resource.

Here is another example from Think Progress this morning.

U.N. officials said the Obama administration is refusing to allow U.N. human rights investigators to interview inmates at Gitmo and to have access to information on secret prisons. Secretary of State Clinton also recently turned down a meeting request from the U.N.’s top anti-torture official. “They said, ‘We are trying to close down the institution. For the time being, we don’t see it as a priority,’” a U.N. official said.

Now I’m hooked.

From a speech entitled A Testimony to Our Faith in the Rule of Law, given in November of 1953 by Robert Jackson:

Our people, appalled by the magnitude and stubbornness of the manifestations of lawlessness, tend to sink into a suicidal fatalism that accepts violence, crime, injustice and misgovernment as part of the natural and changeless order of things.

A pretty good description of the Chuck Todd view.

Yeah — I should have warned you that site is addictive. *g*

You obviously made it through the ’slog”. Damn you hit a lot of home runs.

There really is no need to wonder why the peasants out here have little to no faith in our so called justice system.

Plenty of reasons to not have any faith….

war based on a “pack of lies”..walk free

hundreds of thousands dead due to the lies…walk free
rewrite torture laws….walk free

lower level soldiers held accountable for the torture policies,..they did not walk free

out a Cia agent..walk free
undermine the Dept of Justice…walk free

But what the hell they (justice system, Reps) know most Americans could give a rats ass. Although folks here at FDL and in other corners of the blogosphere and some on the streets do care.

the big question for me is will they continue to allow this country to rot from the inside by not applying the ‘rule of law” or continue to prove to us that everyone in the Bush administration is “above the law”

You mean, “Justice, be darned,” I’m sure.

Beyond that, very good post, Ms. H-S.

Thx, JimmyJeff

the nation has decided collective amnesia about what we allowed in all of our names is the prudent option.

Sad, but predictable, as this is the paradigm in American History classes today.
Good morning from the Great Swamp, Christy!

It’s been tough to get all my reading done of late because I’ve been mired in back-to-school shopping (The Peanut’s latest growth spurt required new school uniforms because she outgrew all the ones from last year — ack!) and we’ve been working on a project she has to finish before school starts again.

It’s a tough balance between blog reading and home-work, sometimes.

And it’s especially tough when it’s a depressing slog of a read.

I was always that kid in history class who asked the uncomfortable questions or the irritating ones with no good answers because I did extra reading outside the approved textbook assignment. *g* I’m sure you couldn’t tell that at all…

It’s as though the nation has decided collective amnesia about what we allowed in our names…

I prefer to think of it as ALLOWING acquiescent amnesia,rather than deciding .

Deciding actually requires participation.

We have the government we have acquiescently allowed.

And contemplating the differences between who we are now versus who we aspired to be then.

The nation was struggling to recover from a crushing economic depression and a cataclysmic war at the time Jackson made his mark. The nation knew what pain was. Now, not so much.

At some point, we will be in for a rude awakening. It might make sense to begin preparing for it.

Unrestrained executive power and elimination of gun laws. Do you see an agenda here?

Hi Christy,

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Back home for a short while and enjoying the tribe of grandchildren.

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The problem with the collective amnesia being engaged in by the great American public is that who have most emphatically neither forgotten nor forgiven are those communities/nationalities/ethnicities against whose members acts of tyranny were and continue to be committed.

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Thanks, Christy.

I saved the link to Robert Jackson’s address before the USA’s from your post a few weeks ago. It’s both inspiring and depressing. Inspiring for what the Rule of Law meant to people’s lives in a society gripped by the Red Scare and the perception of imminent nuclear annihilation. Depressing for the fundamental chasm between the ideals it expresses and what we’ve become by commission and omission.

Pakistan’s entire legal profession took to the streets protesting the subversion of their supreme court by General Mousharif, and they didn’t stop until the Rule of Law was restored. Defending our Constitution in America against Cheney, Addington, Libby, Yoo, Bybee, Bradbury, etal. and now the anything but benign neglect by Obama in favor of bipartisan criminal cover ups … not so much.

He seems happily apologetic to retain Bush’s anti-constitutional expansion of executive power. Dawn Johnson would be confirmed already and on the job if the administration & congress placed a priority on accountability to their oaths and the Rule of Law.

As for the former Fourth Estate, one word comes to mind …. Rosebud.

Given the numbers of people who commit crimes after they get out of prison even with a trial can we expect anything else?
If the prisoners are sent to the Super Max well nobody has ever escaped I don’t see what the fear is, unless you fear a public trial on tv? Maybe Obama should threaten one unless the GOP appoints Dawn Johnson now.
Wait does the GOP want a deal on torture not for the CIA but themselves before they agree to appoint Dawn?
Is Graham covering for the Bushies or himself? Maybe we can get him to recuse himself in this matter especially if we find out he and the GOP got more secret briefings on war crimes than the Dems did.
Which does make sense the GOP has always had guys like Graham ready with GOP talking points as soon as another torture/war crimes etc scandal happened.
Talking points take time to manufacture alibis need to be checked to see if they jive Graham and the GOP were getting the heads up.

ding!

one term for these trends you mention is ‘legitimacy crisis.’

the USA, say 60 years ago, was at its peak in terms of legitimacy, nationally and internationally and the resource could be considered inexhaustible.

for the last couple decades, they have been squandering legitimacy like there was no tomorrow, and during the Bush admin, the trend went hyperbolic.

but, as CHS points out, it has by no means been reversed simply by switching parties in power in DC.

it would be an impossible study, but I suspect there is a correlation between institutional functional legitimacy/integrity, and the ability on men like Robert H. Jackson to rise to the top of said institutions.

CHS alludes to this – where is a voice of such stature on the current bench?

I’m betting the GOP is trying to hold up healthcare until they get an under the covers deal on torture. Of course the MSM never asks those kind of questions of GOPers.

Thanks for slogging, Christy, this is a great post. Over at The Seminal, Hugh has drawn together a lot of information on a single Gitmo habeas case. It’s also a good, but depressing read.

On a somewhat surprisingly encouraging front, I found some hopeful signs in a Senate Intelligence Committee report last night.

I’d love to see Obama surprise everyone with a recess appointment for Johnsen, but, as you point out, that looks entirely unlikely. He is allowing what those of us in the rule of law community see as his most important appointment languish in the lawless mire that our government has become.

(Spew Alert)
Hey Judy Miller has all the inside connections and access to the Bush White House lets watch her show us internet hacks what a Serious Journalist with Access can do/s

No wait lets send in Bob Woodward and David Brodur too! We need the best Serious Journalists to get this story./s

Serious Journalist Oxymoron and a Moron

OT re. Health Care: Have the central TX dogs seen the details for a Saturday gathering with Rep Doggett? Downtown Austin.

and grassroots Democrats with decent, progressive values, well intentioned, also have the Democratic Party they have allowed.

I watched a fascinating film on TV last night by Liz Garbus, Martin Garbus’ daughter.

It discussed much of the history of our gradual erosion of our first amendment rights-and the judicial system that has been its Enabler in Chief. GREAT STUFF!

Here’s some links:

Martin Garbus – newsJun 29, 2009 … Martin Garbus: OBAMA FALSELY SHOUTS FIRE … a documentary from hypenate Liz Garbus, daughter of First Amendment attorney Martin Garbus. …
http://www.wikio.com/themes/Martin+Garbus – Cached – Similar

123 Minutes With Liz and Martin Garbus — New York MagazineJun 21, 2009 … 123 Minutes With Liz and Martin Garbus. The fearsome First Amendment lawyer and his documentarian daughter visit the family’s old candy …
nymag.com/news/intelligencer/encounter/57470/ – Cached – Similar

First Amendment Film Is Father/Daughter First – Legal Blog WatchJun 25, 2009 … First Amendment Film Is Father/Daughter First … through her veins because her father is Martin Garbus, a prominent First Amendment lawyer. …
legalblogwatch.typepad.com/…/first-amendment-film-is-fatherdaughter-first.html – Cached – Similar

@27 Top o’ the morn to you,Spork!

Sorry I’m up in Seattle Texbetsy might know.

Obama is on a short leash. Expect no surprises.

Obama is a complete Establishment guy. The “Yes, we can” and “Change we can believe in” is pap for the rubes. Last night he had a news conference on healthcare reform. Many in the blogosphere thought he spoke intelligently on the issue. But he never mentioned the public option except in response to a hostile question about it by Steve Koff of the Cleveland Plain Dealer. And even then he talked about it in oblique terms in which he basically admitted that a public plan not having to deal with the profit motive could deliver better, cheaper care and so keep private insurers honest. But the question is if the public option can do this, why have the private insurers at all? The reason is that the insurance industry is part of the Establishment. It is the status quo. So even though Obama admits that the public option could do a better job, his focus is and remains on the powers that be: the insurance industry. It is a classic case of Cass Sunstein’s concept of “nudge”. The system does not need to be rebuilt. It just needs a nudge. Now in other times such an idea might have a place. But when the large fundamental institutions that govern our country have flown out of control and threaten to destroy not only themselves but everything else. We need something more than a nudge.

And this brings me back to the subject of this post. We have seen rampant lawlessness and the trampling of the rule of law for 8 years. And what is Obama’s response? A wink to those who committed and sanctioned criminality and a nudge, not really to stop those crimes and excesses, but to be more circumspect in how they go about doing them.

Cheerio!

checked out the Garbus links real quick . . .

hmmm . .. I’ve dealt a little bit with fire codes, fire marshals – those who have seen the aftermath have quite an understanding of how humans packed in, and panicking in a fire, act very differently, how something small and innocuous in an exit path can indeed be a hazard . . .

on a tangent here, but a panicked crowd needs an outlet, a channel, or it can go somewhere stupid, and get stuck.

the analogy here is to this country under severe economic duress – which way will it surge?

there had better be an authentic left populist outlet, because the Right populist outlet(s) are standing ready . . . .

But when the large fundamental institutions that govern our country have flown out of control and threaten to destroy not only themselves but everything else. We need something more than a nudge.

ding ding!

the axe I’m grinding forever is that the Democratic Party is obviously one of those ‘large fundamental institutions’ that needs more than a nudge.

a hard case to make with many who have such unrequited affection for the (D)’s.

It’s as though the nation has decided collective amnesia about what we allowed in all of our names is the prudent option. Justice, be damned.

Thanks for this updated version of J’Accuse!

The Dreyfus Affair was a political scandal which divided France in the 1890s and the early 1900s. It involved the conviction for treason in November 1894 of Captain Alfred Dreyfus, a young French artillery officer of Alsatian Jewish descent. Sentenced to life imprisonment for allegedly having communicated French military secrets to the German Embassy in Paris, Dreyfus was sent to the penal colony at Devil’s Island in French Guiana and placed in solitary confinement.

Two years later, in 1896, evidence came to light identifying a French Army major named Ferdinand Walsin Esterhazy as the real culprit. However, high-ranking military officials suppressed this new evidence and Esterhazy was unanimously acquitted after the second day of his trial in military court. Instead of being exonerated, Alfred Dreyfus was further accused on the basis of false documents fabricated by French counter-intelligence officers seeking to re-confirm his conviction.

Word of the military court’s framing of Alfred Dreyfus and of an attendant cover-up began to spread, largely due to a vehement public protestation in a Paris newspaper by writer Emile Zola, in January 1898. The case had to be re-opened and Alfred Dreyfus was brought back from Guiana in 1899 to be tried again. The intense political and judicial scandal that ensued divided French society….

[After years of public outcry, pressure from the press and advocates for justice] the accusations against Alfred Dreyfus were demonstrated to be baseless. Alfred Dreyfus was exonerated and reinstated as a major in the French Army in 1906.

That wikipedia summary of the Dreyfus case (emphasis mine) is truncated. The scandal was about morality, administrative competence, social justice and religious intolerance and fear, as much as it was about a brittle military and rigid politicians fearful of offending it. That summary fails to rekindle the outrage, the humiliation and torture, and the years of activism from an outraged public that were necessary to overcome bureaucratic inertia. More than inertia, it was necessary to overcome the opposing pressure from vehement anti-Semites and leaders who put the prestige of their institutions – the army and the executive – above basic justice and the welfare of their people.

The Dreyfus Affair was about wrongfully imprisoning a single man in a tropical hell hole. It was also about the frailness of a state and a military unable to admit error and apologize to a Jew. It was, too, about the self-serving machinations of top army and political figures who were determined to hide their wrongs and promote their careers at the expense of one man’s freedom. Change “Jew” to “Moslem” and the parallels are more obvious.

Governments and institutions of power – the Roman church and its sexually predatory priests, for example – protect themselves and realize their ambitions before protecting the general welfare.

The Dreyfus affair shows what can be done through public pressure and a free press. But we have a harder to task. Our press may be free, but the state and corporate interests opposed to the open exchange of information have co-opted it. There are hundreds or thousands of Dreyfuses who have wrongfully been imprisoned and remain there precisely because our leaders are more afraid than we are.

Thanks, again, Christy.

I don’t understand how our government can continue to justify a war in defense of our values when they don’t trust the very institutions that enshrine our values

ot ding ding ding

Terri Gross doing a show on the “convoy of death”
http://woub.org/index.php?section=2

Have done my share of bringing attention to Terri Gross repeating unsubstantiated claims about Iran. But got to give it to her for shedding light on this issue. Amy Goodman stepped up to the plate immediately after the Documentary came out
http://woub.org/index.php?section=2

Let’s hope Rachel, Chris Matthews, Olbermann or Ed demonstrate some chutzpah and start to report about this seven year old story. If they ever stop reporting about the “birthers” and “Sarah”

Christy,
Thanks for this diary! Unfortunately, I’m afraid your comment @4 rings too true. Please keep up your good work on these topics; diligence, persistence and patience may yet yield good fruit.

Bob in HI

I remember looking at a list that a dear and wonderful friend Tessa Logan (one of the best teachers I have ever witnessed in action) had made. One of the things one her list said “30 minutes with Anna” (her daughter).

I said to Tessa that is kind of sad “30″ minutes. She went onto tell me that 30 minutes of her attention meant no phones, no computers, no one else, not her husband , her work. She went onto explain that she had noticed that when she took the time to give Anna her undivided attention that that type of attention really filled many of the needs of her child…undivided attention.

I went onto to use this strategy with my three daughters (did a great deal of single parenting ex with a serious addiction problem). Spending undivided attention with each one almost every day

You are making very wise decisions with the Peanut. It is such a precious time of life and goes by rather quickly

Obama is proving to be no Lincoln, no TR, no FDR. At this rate, he’ll be remembered as the 21st century’s version of Gerald Ford.

Qui s’excuse,s’accuse.