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Dear Senator Boxer,
I have been remiss in writing to thank you for your heroic stance. First I want to thank you for your actions on the Sixth of January. This had little chance to change the outcome, but the point was made, we have a lot of work to do. Indeed we need to go back to a standard of using just paper, and hand counts. I will be brutally honest, but machines are easier to stuff than paper ballots. There is a simple solution to the paper ballots, and that is a clear box. This has been used around the world when elections are not clean (and believe me, US Elections have not been clean since at least 2000. In fact, we could give classes on how to run dirty elections to many countries famous for having dirty elections. The problem is, they did it so well, that proving it in a court of law will be impossible, but I fear historians will have a field day with 2000, 2002 (robGeorgia file) and 2004.
I am also going to thank you for your stance on Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice. She may be academically qualified, but her job performance has been abysmal. I guess failure is rewarded in the Bush administration. Of course it worries me that bad performance is confused in the head of the American people with racism, by the likes of Frank Luntz, but that is another story.
Now to your vote on Attorney General Gonzales, who was confirmed as expected by the majority (which incidentally seems to favor a police state, with no freedoms). The man is a disgrace as a lawyer. He thinks that the Geneva Convention is quaint… well maybe he does not get it, but one reason we DID follow international standard, apart of the fact that they were the law of the land, and by De-Facto, if not De-Jure, they are no longer the law of the land, is that fair treatment saved American lives. If people believe they will be treated fairly, they will surrender. If they believe they will be tortured or killed, they will fight to the end. Quite frankly any of us in the same circumstances would do the same. Hence this ends up costing more lives, on both sides.
War is a terrible thing, which should never be entered into lightly. The Neo Cons who have hijacked the government believe that any use of force is justified. Well partly they believe this because they have never had to smell burnt flesh, hear the pain and moans of the injured, or told a relative how their significant other died. On the flipside they never feared a vehicle with a Chaplain and an officer at odd hours of the night. Or for that matter they never feared the telegram. These men and they are mostly men, are as callous as they are because the troops are just chess pieces for them. They are resources to be wasted. There are more where the troops came from. They forget, those chess pieces are mothers, and fathers, and sons and daughters of many Americas. They lied to get these chess pieces to the front lines, the same front lines none of them would ever go to. Now we face the consequences, and as a society we will pay a heavy price, but alas these Straussians will never pay any price, at least in the near future.
History, on the other hand, will not be gentle with them. As a Historian I am taking notes and I know that when this national nightmare is over, many of the sheep who have followed these evil men to the edge of destruction may, just may wake up.
It is time to call a spade a spade. These neo cons and Strausians are American Fascists, and I for one thank you for finally taking the first effective step against them.
I will leave you with one quote from another national nightmare….
In Germany, they first came for the communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Catholic. Then they came for me -- and by that time there was nobody left to speak up. - Martin Niemoller
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