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POPS"America : The Gift Shop"
the PIPELINE: Style on Tap * September 19, 2008 11:32 AM * News National Nightmares for Sale: The Disturbing Mementos of "America: The Gift Shop" By Gabriel Bell philtoledano_america1.jpg After eight years of government that have left a sizable chip on America's shoulder, it's no big surprise that W-era memorabilia isn't exactly flooding the market. Enter photographer Phillip Toledano who previously explored the dirty corners of this country with arresting exposés on offices emptied by the dot-com crash and phone-sex workers. This time, Toledano's "America: The Gift Shop" virtual exhibition takes on the torture, special rendition, and government secrecy with enough cheek to make you gasp, giggle, or groan (depending on your politics). Turning to plastic arts instead of his camera, Toledano has created a conceptual store of Bush administration mementos, including such satirical wonders as a bouncy Gitmo holding cell, an Abu Ghraib bobblehead doll, and a Dick Cheney
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POPSNot Seen on CNN: Denver Police Gitmo Tactics They took us in an elevator that went up to a jail cell, and we were told to watch a video of a judge telling us our rights, through the bars. It was surreal, like being in a futuristic movie, like "1984" or "A Clockwork Orange." They'd keep us for long periods of time in one cage, and then re-handcuff us and move us to another cell, as if something was about to change, but it didn't. It was all psychological.
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POPSBiden vocal, consistent Gitmo opponent " has destroyed faith in America's judgment. And it has devalued America's moral leadership in the world. Instead, this administration has focused to the point of obsession on the so-called "war on terrorism" and produced a one-size-fits-all doctrine of military preemption and regime change ill suited to the challenges we face. It has made fear the main driver of our foreign policy. It has turned a deadly serious but manageable threat -- a small number of radical groups that hate America -- into a ten-foot tall existential monster that dictates nearly every move we make. Even if you look at the world through this administration's distorted lens, you see a failed policy."
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POPSMcCain Strongly Resents Supreme Court Ruling Not that I expected differently from Bush's Heir to the Presidency. Now imagine Mr. McCain going to HoTse Minh City, former Saigon, or Hanoi. Our relations with them have just begun to improve and prove to be of vital interest.
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POPSScalia’s Claim That Released Gitmo Prisoners Have Killed Americans Is An ‘Urban Legend’ All you have to do in America is tell people a lie, let it sink in and then apologize later. So many people will continue to believe and spread the lie that the damage has already been done and no amount of apologizing will undo it. This is why many still believe Saddam had anything to do with 9/11, why so many middle-Americans still believe Obama is a Muslim; the list could go on and on. This particular lie serves the purpose of adding weight to the habeas corpus arguments raging in congress (did I say arguments, I meant lip service). The more people that believe the lie, the easier it is to steamroll over the constitution. As a bright young man named Chuck D once said "Don't believe the hype!"
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POPSChina Inspired Interrogations at Guantánamo Swell, just swell, borrowing techniques from communist dictatorships. Well done! Plus: "In 2002, the training program, known as SERE, for Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape, became a source of interrogation methods both for the C.I.A. and the military. In what critics describe as a remarkable case of historical amnesia, officials who drew on the SERE program appear to have been unaware that it had been created as a result of concern about false confessions by American prisoners." Brilliant!
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POPSGitmo Trial Defendants Face Absurd Obstacles Another problem is that what the defendants tell their lawyers is classified. As a result, they can't even discuss their conversations among themselves. "When we leave the room and we're not with him (Mohammed) any more, we can't turn to each other and say 'What do you think of what he just said?'" said Nevin, who has called the commission process "very, very unfair." "And at the end of this, the government's desire is to execute Mr. Mohammed," said Capt. Prescott Prince, another of Mohammed's legal advisers. "I find that just insane." Calling this "justice" is a joke.
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POPSAir Force Judiciary chief: Gitmo trials "not justice" “If you’re going to wrap this under the banner of military justice, then it needs to be a fair trial,” Col. Davis said. “What’s taking place now, I would call neither military nor justice.” - former Chief Guatanamo Prosecutor Col. Morris Davis, who resigned his position in protest over political interference from the Bush administration last year
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POPSSupreme Court Ruling Inspires New TV Series :) Here is some of what is set to air during the presidential elections in the fall of 2008. Check your local listings. Fast-paced and wildly comedic, the series confronts social issues, while it indoctrinates the viewers with correct progressive messages. Three major American networks are about to launch new legal drama series that feature lawyers litigating in defense of armed Muslim bystanders picked up on the battlefield and wrongly accused of being enemy combatants. Quick spin-offs of such successful shows as Law & Order and Boston Legal are in the works at ABC and NBC, while CBS promises an original sitcom about a lawyer who not only defends accused terrorists, but is himself a terrorist.
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POPSGovt blocks payment of Gitmo defense attorneys "government argues is required under U.S. law because the beneficiaries of the lawyers' services are foreign terrorists" - of course, these being "fair" trials, we wouldn't assume they were "terrorists," before their conviction, now would we? Justice means nothing in this political theater.
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POPSGlenn Beck on US prisoners: "shoot them all in the head" Mass murder recommended as response to SCOTUS decision. I can think of few comments as woefully depraved. Shall we process them into sausage and eat them, too, once such limits are removed? This guy's views should set America howling for his dismissal.
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POPSJuan Cole: MANY TORTURED DETAINEES INNOCENT! Why habeas corpus is Morality 101: "prisoners were routinely abused even after it became clear that they had no intelligence value" We have no right to imprison and torture innocent people. Apparently, some previously innocent prisoners were so radicalized by US torture that they took up arms after being released.
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POPSBush: those who disagree with him "slander America" How very, very cheap - taking those who disagree with HIM and labeling them slanderers of AMERICA. He attempts to manipulate people who want to be patriotic into sitting down, shutting up, and asking no questions about his abuse of power, so he can do whatever he wants with their money.
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POPSOn Suing The Enemy “It bears repeating that our opinion does not address the content of the law that governs petitioners’ detention. That is a matter yet to be determined.” Associate Justice Antonin Scalia, who is nothing if not plain-spoken, was his usual clear and precise self on this occasion, “The game of bait-and-switch that today’s opinion plays upon the Nation’s Commander in Chief will make the war harder on us. It will almost certainly cause more Americans to be killed.” And not just Americans, if Mr. Justice Scalia proves as prescient as he is plain. Already prisoners at Guantanamo who have had to be released have returned to attacking American troops and/or civilian targets, and had to be recaptured. Having again entered the maw of the American judicial system, who knows if they will ever face justice? That question, too, remains Yet To Be Determined.
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POPSSome Iraqi News Not Reported By "The Media" Meanwhile Bill Roggio reports that a released Gitmo detainee is back to the front and is responsible for attacks inside Iraq : The detainee, Abdullah Salih al Ajmi, drove a armored truck packed with explosives into a Iraqi army base and detonated it, killing 13 Iraqi army soldiers and wounding 42. http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2008/06/released_guantanamo.php Just the tip of the iceberg I’m afraid after our courts release a large chunk of these guys. Al Qaeda in Iraq, through its puppet organization the Islamic State of Iraq, released its latest propaganda video on June 23. The video contains a montage of attacks throughout Iraq, and features two Kuwaiti al Qaeda operatives who conducted strikes in Mosul. One of the operatives was released from the US military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The Islamic State of Iraq used footage taken at Combat Outpost Inman by this reporter in Mosul in March of this year.
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POPSMcCain in 2005: Gitmo Detainees Deserve Trials Or Should Be Released This clip contains direct quotes from McCain when he appeared on Meet the Press almost exactly three years ago and is easily referenced in the Lexis/Nexis. McCain is a blatant doublespeaker. He will say whatever is necessary to garner the support he wants. It's not about right or wrong for him, it's not about ethics, hell, it's not even about what the American people want. It's purely about playing the game for him and you simply can not trust a person whose doublespeak is as egregious as his. He doesn't even believe his own words, those being fed to him by the "divinity" of the masters who rule him.
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