Muslims In Libya Condemn Violence, Apologize To Americans
Month: September 2012
The Thirty-second Spirit is Asmoday, or Asmodai. He is a Great King, Strong and Powerful. He appeareth with Three Heads, whereof the first is like a Bull, the second like a Man, and the third like a Ram; he hath also the tail of a Serpent, and from his mouth issue Flames of Fire. His Feet are webbed like those of a Goose. He sitteth upon an Infernal Dragon, and beareth in his hand a Lance with a Banner.
Amongst the Legions of Amaymon, Asmoday governs seventy two legions of inferior spirits.
Asmodee: Usually written “Asmodeus,” and sometimes “Chashmodai”. Derived by some from the Hebrew word “Asamod,” to destroy or exterminate; and by others from the Persian verb “Azmonden,” = to tempt, to try or prove.
alternate spellings- Ashmodai, Asmodeus, Asmody, Asmoday
Asmodeus, also known as Ashmadia, most likely originated from the Persian Aeshma-deva (“demon of wrath”).
He giveth the Ring of Virtues; he teacheth the Arts of Arithmetic, Astronomy, Geometry, and all handicrafts absolutely. He giveth true and full answers unto thy demands. He maketh one Invincible. He showeth the place where Treasures lie, and guardeth it.
Goetia–S. L. MacGregor Mathers (1904)/Dictionnaire Infernal–Collin de Plancy (1863)
One of the questions asked in that study was, How many Vietnamese casualties would you estimate that there were during the Vietnam war? The average response on the part of Americans today is about 100,000. The official figure is about two million. The actual figure is probably three to four million. The people who conducted the study raised an appropriate question: What would we think about German political culture if, when you asked people today how many Jews died in the Holocaust, they estimated about 300,000? What would that tell us about German political culture?
Noam Chomsky, “Media Control” (via siegfriedandfreud)
Three or four million Asians killed by the US — and three Southeast Asian countries (Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos) shattered for several generations — is nothing to US Americans, not even worth a footnote. In World War II, 20 million Chinese were killed, many in concentration camps every bit as brutal as those in Germany, subject to human experimentation for developing chemical and biological weapons, yet I guarantee you that most US Americans have no idea this happened in a war in which the US and China were ostensibly fighting as allies and indeed the Chinese land war was every bit as critical to securing Japan’s surrender as the US naval campaign. Any German who believes that only 300,000 Jews were killed in the Holocaust is rightly condemned as a history-denying racist, and for me the same logic applies to US Americans.
(via zuky)
I got dressed in my traditional Indian regalia, but there was a man, he was the producer of the whole show. He took that speech away from me and he warned me very sternly. “I’ll give you 60 seconds or less. And if you go over that 60 seconds, I’ll have you arrested. I’ll have you put in handcuffs.”
– Sacheen Littlefeather in Reel Injun (2009), dir. Neil Diamond.
You can watch the original speech here.
The way she was treated by people was sickening. The self centered indignation from whites was pretty awful, and trying to discredit her heritage was despicable. Everything she said was true. Hollywood still whitewashes the hell out of Native American and other POC characters. Just look at the casting of Johnny Depp in The Lone Ranger as one example.
Obama’s NDAA (Indefinite military detention of citizens) ruled unconstitutional
September 13, 2012The Obama administration’s efforts to enshrine sweeping 9/11-era rollbacks of civil liberties and constitutional rights as federal law hit a serious roadblock yesterday, as a federal judge struck down clauses of the National Defense Authorization Act as unconstitutional.
The offending section of the NDAA, signed by Obama on New Year’s Eve last year, grants the government the power to put citizens in military detention indefinitely and without the usual recourse to civil courts.
Chris Hedges, along with other writers and activists including Daniel Ellsberg and Noam Chomsky, challenged the law soon after in a federal lawsuit.
They argued that the phrasing of the law, which allows for the detention of anyone who has “substantially supported al-Qaeda, the Taliban, or associated forces that are engaged in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners,” is so broad that in infringes on their own first-amendment rights.
Judge Katherine Forrest, a recent Obama appointee to the federal bench, was clearly sympathetic, and granted a preliminary injunction of the offending sections of the law.
The parties were back in court for further arguments last month for further arguments, but by Forrest’s close questioning of administration lawyers, it was clear she still wasn’t buying the government’s argument.
That impression was confirmed yesterday with Forrest’s 112-page ruling, which resoundingly dismisses the law as unconstitutional:
The Government did not—and does not—generally agree or anywhere argue that activities protected by the First Amendment could not subject an individual to indefinite military detention under § 1021(b)(2). The First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution provides for greater protection: it prohibits Congress from passing any law abridging speech and associational rights. To the extent that § 1021(b)(2) purports to encompass protected First Amendment activities, it is unconstitutionally overbroad.
First amendment rights aren’t the only constitutional problem with the law, Forrest continues:
The due process rights guaranteed by the Fifth Amendment require that an individual understand what conduct might subject him or her to criminal or civil penalties. Here, the stakes get no higher: indefinite military detention—potential detention during a war on terrorism that is not expected to end in the foreseeable future, if ever. The Constitution requires specificity—and that specificity is absent from § 1021(b)(2).
Forrest is particularly dismissive of the government’s argument that the issue is none of the court’s business, and that at most, courts can consider individual habeas corpus petitions from already-detained prisoners.
That argument is without merit and, indeed, dangerous…. If only habeas review is available to those detained under § 1021(b)(2), even U.S. citizens on U.S. soil, core constitutional rights available in criminal matters would simply be eliminated. No court can accept this proposition and adhere truthfully to its oath.
Speaking with the Voice Wednesday night, Hedges said he is happy with the ruling.
“I’m elated,” he said. “This judge is amazing. She had the courage to do the right thing in an age when most judges write long opinions about why they can’t do the right thing.”
There’s good reason to temper the elation, however. The government is almost certain to appeal the ruling. Indeed, the administration already has appealed the temporary injunction granted in May.
“That’s all right,” Hedges said Wednsday. “If they appeal, we’ll fight them, and we’ll keep fighting them, and we’ll fight them until we win.”
And people want to vote for this man who wants to indefinitely detain citizens in military prisons without due process?
The NDAA would light the First & Fifth Amendment up in flames.