HELP GONZALES OUT (THE DOOR)

Here's the Gonzales situtation in a nutshell:

Alberto Gonzales, White House Counsel during the Abu Ghraib mess and source of the "Geneva Conventions are quaint" memo, is in the process of being confirmed to take over as the new Ashcroft. No doubt you remember, as do I, the nightmare that Mr. Patriot Act put us through as he quietly and "for our own good" widdled away at our civil rights in defense of the Phantom Menace that is Al Qaeda, an enemy that is less a threat to us than Star Wars: Episode 1: The Phantom Menace. (Which, I understand to some, is a bigger threat than it should be.)

The point is, Gonzales thinks torture is cool if it's for the greater good. In a joke, Jon Stewart suggested if Gonzales didn't pony up answers to senators' questions during the confirmation hearings that perhaps torture should be used on Gonzales himself. I wonder how Gonzales would honestly feel about that. After all, the senators are only interested in the greater good. When I hear bullshit answers like "I'd have to render a legal judgement and therefore I can't comment" and even more Reagan-esque answers like "I will have to get back to you on that." I would think that torture should be a reasonable way to get the proper answers out of Gonzales based on Alberto's very own guidelines.

HOWEVER, torture is wrong, with or without the Geneva Conventions. Gonzales would have us believe that the Geneva Conventions are the only things that force us to be moral and decent to our enemies. Toss out the GCs and the very values that were the basis for it's creation are (apparently) nowhere to be found.

No concept of right and wrong, no precious Christian Bible, no Golden Rule, no nothing--just a raw, animalistic instinct for survival at any and all costs.

Who cares about you if it means "protecting" everyone else?

If we let this guy get into power, it'll mean bad things, period. He has no morals--I'm an Atheist but I seem to remember something Jesus said--something about loving your enemy?

There's a certain document that says something about how God created every one of us as equals. Now, again, I'm an Atheist, so I really don't care what God says--but if you're not an Atheist, then you should care, right? Gonzales thinks it's OK to torture people--naked piles of living humans--men forced to perform sex acts on each other--men humiliated in front of friends and strangers who are also being humiliated--men being tortured so much, they end up dead.

This is the reality Gonzales represents and we can stop him from being confirmed--no, really, it's true. We have the power because of the structure of our country. We can contact our senators and make sure they understand that Gonzales is a morally bankrupt, corrupt, sociopath who has proven that he can't tell the difference between right and wrong. Now the White House is refusing to hand over docs that the senators in charge of confirming Mr. Tortureman are asking for. Here's a little something from an AP article quoted by OnLisaReinsRadar.com in the post linked to above:

Senate Democrats say the White House has refused to give them all of the memos and documents they need to trace how that decision was made so they can review Gonzales' role and how it would affect him as the nation's top law enforcement official.

"It appears that legal positions that you have supported have been used by the administration, the military and the CIA to justify torture and Geneva Convention violations by military and civilian personnel," said Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass.

Here's how you can contact your sentators to get this amoral "American" out of the running:

1) Go to Senate.gov.
2) Select your state from the pulldown.
3) You'll automatically be sent to a listing of the two senators from your state. Click on the "web form" link to send them an email directly from their website. If there's no web form link, call the number and try to talk to them. If you're not the talking kind, call the number and get their fax or email that way.

You can also try calling these folks who are likely to actually care about this situation:

Senator Dick Durbin, (202) 224-2152,
http://durbin.senate.gov/sitepages/contact.htm

Senator Patrick Leahy, (202) 224-4242, senator_leahy@leahy.senate.gov

Senator Barbara Boxer, (202) 224-3553,
http://boxer.senate.gov/contact/webform.cfm

Senator Russ Feingold, (202) 224-5323, russ_feingold@feingold.senate.gov

Senator Edward Kennedy, 202/224-4543, senator@kennedy.senate.gov

Senator Tom Harkin, (202) 224-3254, tom_harkin@harkin.senate.gov

Senator Jim Jeffords, (202) 224-5141, Vermont@jeffords.senate.gov

Thanks to Lisa for that list and for the following sample letter/email:

Dear Senator,

I'm writing you to request that you vote against the confirmation of Alberto Gonzales as US Attorney General. I feel that placing a man with such questionable values as head of our Justice Department will send a very damaging message to the rest of the world and place our troops abroad in unnecessary danger.

We must protect the Geneva convention and our diplomatic credibility abroad by voting against Alberto Gonzales as US Attorney General.

Sincerely,

Lisa Rein

Here's what I'm going to send Boxer and Feinstein:

Dear Senator Boxer,

I am contacting you regarding the confirmation of Alberto Gonzales for the position of Attorney General of the United States.

I am writing to say that I strongly disprove of this amoral person being in charge of the part of the United States Government that has the word "justice" in it.

The government, in general, seems to be growing more and more powerful and is doing nothing to make us think otherwise. The confirmation of Gonzales would confirm that our fears are well-founded and in light of Gonzales' role in the Abu Ghraib scandal, any reasonable American wonders where the moral compass of the US Government will be if the man running the Justice Department thinks an International Law guaranteeing human rights is "quaint."

I commend you on your bravery in standing up to the Republican majority when you challenged the results of the presidential race in Ohio. Now is not the time stop standing up to them. Please do what you can to stop Gonzales from being confirmed.

Thank you.

And then to Feinstein:

Dear Senator Feinstein,

I was surprised to see you speak so highly of Condoleezza Rice in such a public forum as her confirmation hearings recently. I understand that you and she are friends, but this is not the time to embrace such friendships. The Republicans are the majority. Democrats are not just in the minority--you are in a very weak minority. Now is not the time to be standing still, an easy target for the mighty Republican Rubber Stamp that is ready to stomp you into the Senate floor if you let it.

You may think of Republicans as people you have to work with--but I ask you: when will that no longer be the case? How many compromises will you have to acquiesce to before you discover a Republican staring back at you in the mirror? Whether it's Rice or Chertoff or Gonzales up for confirmation, you must act to protect the rights of your constituents. These three people, like them or not, have behaved dishonestly and outside of the public interest but well within the interests of the Bush Administration. Do not let these people gain more control over the very people you have sworn to represent. I am one of those people. Represent me and the thousands (millions?) of other Californians and Americans who believe Gonzales, Chertoff and Rice are not the right people to serve America.

Thanks for your time and efforts.

Sincerly,

OK, so the Feinstein one is a little preachy, what do you want? I'm dead tired as I type this. You should probably go shorter with your letters/emails--I'm kinda long winded. If you can keep it short, like a paragraph long, or so, I'd bet that'd be perfect.

Anyway, it's already 8:31 in Washington, DC as I finish this blog entry. Why not get on the ball right now and make sure that your senators will have a couple of emails waiting for them when they get into work?

Head over to Senate.gov...