harikari.com

What should an American do to celebrate La Fête Nationale?

Drink!

I’m always looking of an excuse to open a bottle of French bubbly, and a day celebrating the French people’s freedom from monarchy seems like as good a reason as any.

So right now I am watching le Tour de France, listening to Symphonie Fantastique by Hector Berlioz, and drinking a bottle of Domaine Vigneau-Chevreau Vouvray Brut method traditionnelle, and toasting the French.

…not much left in the bottle now.

It’s all good….

Cheers!

“Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom, must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it.” – Thomas Paine

“In the truest sense, freedom cannot be bestowed; it must be achieved.” – Franklin D. Roosevelt

“The United States is the only country with a known birthday.” – James G. Blaine

“I have no fear that the result of our experiment will be that men may be trusted to govern themselves without a master.” – Thomas Jefferson

“I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than those attending too small a degree of it.” – Thomas Jefferson

“I love America more than any other country in this world, and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually.” – James A. Baldwin

“Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it.” – Mark Twain

“A statistician made a few calculations and discovered that since the birth of our nation more lives had been lost in celebrating independence than in winning it.” – Curtis Billings

“Each man must for himself alone decide what is right and what is wrong, which course is patriotic and which isn’t.  You cannot shirk this and be a man.  To decide against your conviction is to be an unqualified and excusable traitor, both to yourself and to your country, let men label you as they may.” – Mark Twain

“We must be free not because we claim freedom, but because we practice it.” – William Faulkner

“Guard against the impostures of pretended patriotism.” – George Washington

“I know of no country in which there is so little independence of mind and real freedom of discussion as in America.” – Alex de Tocqueville

“Go blow some shit up today.”  – Me

What does that mean?  Is that “blow” like in “You know how to whistle don’t you”  Just put your lips together and blow?” Or is that “blow” as in “cocaine,” or is it blow like “fellate?”  Take your pick.

Nonsense?  Yes…  but not if you are a high school student.  Those words may be interpreted by an authority figure as loaded words that advocate something prohibited in a school policy.

Kind of like “Bong Hits 4 Jesus.”  Does that phrase promote marijuana use?  Promote Christianity?  Nonsense?  definitely…  Is it likely to promote some kind of harm or disturbance that the government wishes to avoid?  Not likely.  Was it disruptive?  Not until the principle demanded that the students take it down.

But that didn’t stop the Supreme Court from ruling 5-4 against Joseph Frederick, the one student holding the banner that refused the principal’s order. Principal Morse wanted it down because she interpreted it to promote drug use, and she believed that schools should be able to enforce their zero-tolerance drug policies.  Okay, I’ll give them that authority on school grounds and at school functions.  But holding up an obliquely worded message designed to attract television cameras at an Olympic Torch Relay event on non-school property?  You’ve got to be kidding me.  5-4?  That’s a 9-0 vote in favor of a citizen’s right to free speech in any modern democracy.

Was it more offensive because it said “4 Jesus?”  Depends on what you believe.  Roberts did not mention it in his majority opinion.  But I have to think that if Hendrickson’s banner read “Bong Hits 4 Buddha” it would not have received much attention and a legal case, if any, would not have progressed to the Supreme Court.

If you are interested, you can read the whole Supreme Court opinion here.  I did, and I found that Justice Stevens’ dissenting opinion (starting at page 45) made far more sense than Roberts’s majority opinion.

So drugs are bad, especially when mixed with Christianity.  What about sex?  Last I heard, the schools weren’t enforcing a zero-tolerance-for-sex rule and they weren’t testing kids to make sure they were virgins.  So could a principal prohibit students from hoisting a nonsensical banner mixing sexual innuendo during a similar event?

Someday we may find out.

So, what I suggest is that we further test the boundaries of student speech.  If you know any high school students, feel free to encourage them to see how far they can go with any of the following ambiguous messages:

Shoot Up 4 Shiva

Pipe Licks 4 Mary

Light up 4 Allah

Huff 4 Hosanahs

Eat Tabs 4 Yahweh

Mainline 4 Mwari

Cracking 4 Christ

Jello Shots 4 Jehovah

Sloppy Seconds 4 Agnostics

Adrenachrome 4 Atheists

Here’s what was argued before the Supreme Court today:

What does it mean?  Does it promote drugs?  Does it promote Christianity?  Both?  Neither?  Is it purely nonsense?  Would David Byrne approve of the message?  Do you care?

I wrote more details about the case back in December when it was taken up by the Supreme Court. 

Most people seem to agree (last I checked it was 74% to 26% at this MSNBC poll) that it was wrong for the school principal to make Joseph Frederick take down his sign that he was holding up across the street from his school during an Olympic Torch Relay passing through Juneau that day and then expel him from school.  Most people agree that his nonsensical banner fell under the category of “free speech.”

Kenneth Starr argued for the opposing point of view:

“Illegal drugs and the glorification of the drug culture are profoundly serious problems for our nation,” Mr. Starr, a former solicitor general, told the justices in the opening moments of his argument on Monday.

In other words, his approach was to present the free-speech case as a drug case and argue that whatever rights students may have under the First Amendment to express themselves, speaking in oblique or even in arguably humorous dissent from a school’s official antidrug message is not one of them. 

That seems like quite a stretch…

How did the judges react?

Chief Justice Roberts took issue with a suggestion by the student’s lawyer, Douglas K. Mertz, that schools that seek to inculcate an antidrug message must permit students, outside the formal classroom setting, to offer competing views. “Content neutrality is critical here,” Mr. Mertz said.

“Where does that notion that our schools have to be content neutral” come from, the chief justice wanted to know. He added, “I thought we wanted our schools to teach something, including something besides just basic elements, including character formation and not to use drugs.”

…

Mr. Mertz clarified his point. “There is no requirement of equal time or that it be neutral,” he said. The school should be able to express a viewpoint, he continued, but “in the lunchroom, outside in recess, across the street, that is a quintessentially open forum where it would not be proper, I think, to tell students you may not mention this subject, you may not take this position.”

During the argument, Justice Alito interrupted Mr. Kneedler as the deputy solicitor general was asserting that a school “does not have to tolerate a message that is inconsistent” with is basic educational mission.

“I find that a very, very disturbing argument,” Justice Alito said, “because schools have defined their educational mission so broadly that they can suppress all sorts of political speech and speech expressing fundamental values of the students under the banner of getting rid of speech that’s inconsistent with educational missions.” 

We’ll have to wait until later this year to hear the outcome of this case, but I’ll bet it won’t be a 9-0 ruling in Frederick’s favor.

George Bush went to Mt. Vernon today and delivered a speech to honor George Washington. 

During his speech, Bush spoke of Washington reluctantly accepting the job, the powers of the president, and yes… he even linked the American Revolutionary War to the “War on Terror.”

Bush said, “After winning the war, Washington did what victorious leaders rarely did at the time. He voluntarily gave up power. Many would have gladly made George Washington the king of America.”

Funny… Our current George sort of acts like a king by ignoring the laws laid out in The Constitution that were ultimately brought about by Washington’s valiant efforts in the  American Revolutionary War.

Which leads to another quote from Bush’s speech:  “As President, George Washington understood that his decisions would shape the future of our young nation and set precedent. He formed the first Cabinet, appointed the first judges, and issued the first veto.”

Our current George has never vetoed any law passed by Congress.  That’s what he’s supposed to do if he disagrees with a law.  He’s supposed to send it back to Congress with a request for them to rewrite it in a way that is more acceptable to him.  It’s called compromise.  Our current George isn’t into that.  What he prefers to do is sign the disagreeable bill and write a statement about how he’ll choose to ignore the law if he wants to.

Bush also spoke of Washington’s character:  “His honesty and courage have become the stuff of legend. Children are taught to revere his name, and leaders to look to him for strength in uncertain times.” 

Our current George is perhaps the most dishonest and fearful man to ever be president.  Children will never be taught to revere his name.

And Bush had the audacity to close with this: 

George Washington’s long struggle for freedom has also inspired generations of Americans to stand for freedom in their own time. Today, we’re fighting a new war to defend our liberty and our people and our way of life. And as we work to advance the cause of freedom around the world, we remember that the father of our country believed that the freedoms we secured in our revolution were not meant for Americans alone. He once wrote, “My best wishes are irresistibly excited whensoever in any country I see an oppressed nation unfurl the banners of freedom.”

President Washington believed that the success of our democracy would also depend on the virtue of our citizens. In his farewell address to the American people, he said, “Morality is a necessary spring of popular government.” Over the centuries, America has succeeded because we have always tried to maintain the decency and the honor of our first President.

Funny…  Our current George has resided over an administration that has aggressively taken away our rights and limited our freedom here at home.  They have allowed torture, they have unlawfully detained American citizens, they have tapped our phones, intercepted our emails, and wasted our national treasure on an ill-conceived war to secure an oil supply—all the while telling us it was a war to protect us from WMD’s, then to prevent the development of WMD’s, then to spread democracy, and finally to quell another country’s civil war.

George Washington must have been turning in his grave as his antithesis stood above him today.

Some people think that if you are a high school student, you are a second-class citizen not afforded the inalienable right of free speech granted to you by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Today’s papers report that Joseph Frederick, a senior at Juneau Douglas High School in 2002, was suspended from school for ten days because he held a banner across the street from the school during a 2002 Olympic torch relay that read “BONG HITS FOR JESUS.”  He was actually suspended five days for the banner incident and another five days for “invoking free speech rights and quoting Thomas Jefferson to school officials about the suspension.” (link)

Principal Deborah Morse claims she was exercising her duty to enforce rules of conduct when she confiscated the nonsensical banner from Frederick and suspended him from school.  Frederick filed suit challenging the suspension.  He lost in Federal Court, but the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in his favor.

That didn’t stop Morse from taking her case to the Supreme Court for a ruling on how far the school can go to enforce its drug-message policy.

Do you want to know who filed on behalf of the Juneau school district?  Of course you do.  It’s none other than the monomaniacal Kenneth Starr.  He took the case pro bono.  He should lose this case, but who knows what else he’ll uncover about Frederick during his “investigation.”  He’s probably subpoenaed all of Frederick’s freinds, teachers, employers, ex-girlfriends, etc. in an effort to come up with something personal about him so he can write another book that ends up having nothing to do with the case.

Eric Hagen, one of the attorney’s in Starr’s office said, “It makes it a little harder when teachers and principals in their daily duties might be subject to a damages lawsuit and be held personally liable.”

Since when is it an educator’s daily duty to restrict a student’s right to free speech off of school grounds?  I’d say never. 

Note to Deborah Morse:  If you want to avoid getting sued for violating rights granted to every American in the First Amendment, don’t violate their rights.

The Supreme Court is expected to hear this case in late February.

The best thing that can be said about the recently passed bill on the treatment and legal handling of detainees from the war on Islamist terrorism is that now, at least, it is no longer a rogue president assuming authority and power he does not possess under the Constitution that sets out the parameters.  Now it has the stamp of approval of the legislative branch.  Unfortunately, this also serves to make it even more shameful.

Whilst some concessions were wrung from Bush by the three Republicans who seemed to be fighting valiantly for the soul of our democracy, in the end their bill brought them little honour.  Whilst grave breaches of Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions are prohibited, the executive branch is left a good deal of latitude on what interrogation techniques are allowed and some of these undoubtedly will include some methods that many of us would consider torture – or at least ones that would not please any of us if they were applied to captured American civilian intelligence agents or special operations troops caught out of uniform.  

Another worrying feature is the broadening of the definition of who constitutes an “enemy combatant”.  And most serious of all, the withholding of the right of habeas corpus rights, the most fundamental of all rights in the American judicial system – the right to challenge one’s detention.  We know that many detainees who have been and in some cases still are held at Guantanamo are people who were likely simply in the wrong place at the wrong time; or people who have been given up as terrorists for personal reasons or monetary gain.  They languish in detention because the government simply does not know whether they are terrorists or not.  These people have now lost the right to challenge their imprisonment.

In the end Bush gained almost everything he wanted from this bill:  the right to hold anyone he wants as an enemy combatant – even if that person is seized in the United States – as long as he wants, and to treat such individuals as harshly as he chooses within certain fairly loose constraints.  It is a bill that shows us not at our best but at our worst; not as being strong and confident in ourselves and our cause, but as weak and uncertain.

Bush administration mouthpieces such as press secretary Tony Snow like to use analogies from the past, such as World War II.; withdrawing from Iraq we’ve been told would be like losing heart during the Battle of the Bulge.  This sort of nonsense is laughable but it does serve us to look back for lessons from history.

During World War II on the battlefields of Italy, the men of the highly decorated 442^nd Regimental Combat Team fought for their country with an unmatched bravery, ferocity and devotion to their country, even as their Japanese-Americans wives, parents, siblings and children languished behind barbed wire in internment camps in the U.S., stripped of their property, and treated as if they were an enemy fifth column. 

In 1950s America, innocent men and women were persecuted and hounded from their jobs, even their homes, amid allegations of real or imagined membership of the communist party during the McCarthy era.

History shows us that when we have surrendered to our fear, we have behaved in ways that make us, in time, justifiably and deeply ashamed. I believe this is becoming such a time.

We have a president, who, for the first time in our history, has embraced torture as national policy, and who has kept our enemies in offshore prisons – some in secret locations – where they can languish indefinitely.  And now, with the explicit authorization of a compliant, spineless, Congress, these detainees – many seized under murky circumstances at best – are to be stripped of their habeas corpus right to challenge their detention. 

The administration would have us believe these are dangerous times that require tough action.  These, however, are not the actions of a strong, brave nation but a weak and frightened one.

I understand that many Americans, particularly, it seems, on the right, are scared; they want their families to be safe.  I get it.  I really do.  I have a family.  Although I am an American now, I lived in London at a time in the 1970’s when you couldn’t go for a drink in a pub without the ever-present fear of an Irish Republican Army bomb going off.  But our fear in Britain and that of our government led us to do things we bitterly regret now; the conviction of innocent people on next to no evidence, such as the Guildford Four, being but one frightening example.

We must resist the fear mongering of the Republicans who shamelessly stoke and exploit our anxieties. We will not prevail in this struggle against Islamic terrorists by fighting darkness, as this administration seeks to do, with more darkness.

In allowing the recent bill on detainee treatment and trials, which betrays bedrock principles for which Americans have always stood, to go forward in our name with barely a whimper of protest, we have shamed ourselves and our country. 

Mr Bush has at times portrayed himself as a Winston Churchill-type figure leading his country in time of war.  Perhaps, then, it is as well to remind ourselves of how a true war leader, faced with a genuine threat to the very existence of his nation, stirs his people to give of themselves their courageous best and not draw from them, instead, their frightened worst. The following is an excerpt from a speech to Parliament, delivered by Winston Churchill on the 18 June 1940 following the fall of France, when in all of Europe only Britain stands against the mighty Nazi German war machine:

The whole fury and might of the enemy must very soon be turned on us. Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this Island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be free and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands. But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that, if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, “This was their finest hour.”

Would that we will one day deserve to have it said of us.  But that time is not now.

Update:  In today’s online edition of The Progressive, you’ll find this:

But the Secret Service did not take kindly to his comment.”About ten minutes later, I came back through the mall with my eight-year-old son in tow,” Howards recalls, “and this Secret Service man came out of the shadows, and his exact words were, ‘Did you assault the Vice President?’ ”

Here’s how Howards says he responded: “No, but I did tell Mr. Cheney the way I felt about the war in Iraq, and if Mr. Cheney wants to be shielded from public criticism, he should avoid public places. If exercising my constitutional rights to free speech is against the law, then you should arrest me.”

Which is just what the agent, Virgil D. “Gus” Reichle Jr, proceeded to do.

“He grabbed me and cuffed my hands behind my back in the presence of my eight-year-old son and told me I was being charged with assault of the Vice President,”Howards recalls.

He says he told the agent, “I can’t abandon my eight-year-old son in a public mall.”

According to Howards, Reichle responded: “We’ll call Social Services.” Before that could happen, however, “my son ran away and found my wife,” who was nearby, Howards says.

Can land you in jail.

The Rocky Mountain News reported on Tuesday that:

…Steve Howards was walking his 7-year-old son to a piano practice, when he saw Cheney surrounded by a group of people in an outdoor mall area, shaking hands and posing for pictures with several people.

According to the lawsuit filed at U.S. District Court in Denver, Howards and his son walked to about two-to-three feet from where Cheney was standing, and said to the vice president, “I think your policies in Iraq are reprehensible,” or words to that effect, then walked on.

Ten minutes later, according to Howards’ lawsuit, he and his son were walking back through the same area, when they were approached by Secret Service agent Virgil D. “Gus” Reichle Jr., who asked Howards if he had “assaulted” the vice president. Howards denied doing so, but was nonetheless placed in handcuffs and taken to the Eagle County Jail.

The Vail Daily News reported in June that Secret Service Spokesman Eric Zahren said of Howards:

“[He] wasn’t acting like the other folks in the area.”

“His behavior and demeanor wasn’t quite right,” Zahren said. “The agents tried to question him, and he was argumentative and combative”

You’d expect the Secret Service to exaggerate a bit when describing his behavior.  They had to make the arrest appear justified. 

But the way I see it is that Cheney and his entourage aren’t used to seeing dissenters.  They are more accustomed to groups of gleeful, flag waving supporters that respectfully approach him and then bow down before him with their offerings of flowers.  So when they encountered a man standing around waiting for the right moment to state his feelings about Cheney’s Iraqi War policies, he appeared out of place and threatening.

It’s actually pretty normal for most politicians to encounter dissenters, just not for members of the Bush Administration.

Sounds to me like the Bush screeners were a little lapse that day and let a dissenter slip through the defense lines into the inner circle of Bush/Cheney worshippers.

In any event, the charges were dismissed and, as Tuesday’s article reports, Mr. Howards filed a lawsuit against the Secret Service for violating his right to free speech and his right to be free from unlawful seizure.

That’s good, but if I were Mr. Howards, I’d be worried about being swept away by the CIA some day.  I’d be concerned about being labeled an “enemy combatant,” being held prisoner without charges at an undisclosed location, and getting tortured until I acknowledged Cheney as the omnipotent savior of the free world.

Either that or getting shot in the face.

Willie Nelson’s tour bus was pulled over today for a routine inspection which turned into a drug bust when the aroma of marijuana wafted out of the bus and into the officer’s olfactory glands.

Given the cover art on his recent album, I don’t think many are surprised by the news.

A search of the bus led to the discovery of 1 1/2 pounds of marijuana and 1/5 pound of magic mushrooms (enough for several spiritual experiences).

While the quantity doesn’t much surprise me, I am surprised that he received only a misdemeanor citation for the possession.

A little research led to a story in The Daily Advertiser:

The quantity of drugs, if found in possession of one person, is enough to warrant a charge of distribution, which is a felony. But Williams said all five people on the bus, including Nelson, claimed the drugs as their own, and so they were each charged with misdemeanors.

Additionally, according to this website as long the quantity is under 60 pounds, the penalties in Louisiana are $500 and/or 6 months in jail.

While it is not known if the marijuana was purchased in Louisiana or not, Louisiana dealers are required to pay a dealers tax and affix a stamp to their packages.