Sherry Chandler

ACLU

I give lip service to a number of causes and organizations here on this blog, but there is one that I support consistently with my purse. That organization is the American Civil Liberties Union.

Glenn Greenwald explains their vital importance here:

It is not hyperbole to say that, over the past decade, there has been no organization more important to the United States, the Constitution, and basic political liberties than the ACLU. From the start of the Bush/Cheney assault on core civil liberties — when most organizations and individuals were petrified of opposing any efforts justified by “terrorism” — the ACLU was one of a small handful of groups which defied that climate of fear by vigorously and fearlessly opposing those erosions. Along with that same small handful of civil liberties and human rights groups, the ACLU since then has been at the center of virtually every fight against government incursions into basic rights. They defend core Constitutional principles regardless of party or ideology, and they continue to lead this fight even now that Bush is gone from office.

Here’s an excerpt from an e-mail I received recently from the ACLU:

For a number of years, the ACLU has received extraordinary support from an anonymous donor, including over $20 million in 2009 alone. He has informed us that, due to market conditions, he will not be able to lend us that support in 2010. This loss of funding will have a particularly hard impact on ACLU programs targeted at the most vulnerable in our society.

In one fell swoop, we stand to lose nearly 25% of the whole organization’s budget—unless you and others step in to help.

David Gelbaum, the largest individual donor in ACLU history—someone who chose to give anonymously for years—decided to reveal the reasons for his support to the ACLU so that we can fully describe this situation to our supporters. In Mr. Gelbaum’s own words, he’s made this decision so that the ACLU, “will not be constrained by donor confidentiality, may fully explain how these programs were created and financed, and may ask others to step forward to help sustain them in the future.”

In response to this crisis, we are engaged in belt-tightening at every level of our organization. We’ve already seen remarkable acts of generosity from donors large and small all across the country.

But protecting the ACLU’s most essential work will require an extraordinary outpouring of support.

You can help by being part of our Acting Together campaign. If we can get 100,000 friends like you to donate to the ACLU by December 31, we’ll be well on our way to keeping essential work on track.

Whatever their virtues, it’s obvious that the Democrats now in control of our Federal government are not going to investigate or even reverse the incursions against civil liberties made by the Bush administration. It’s up to organizations like the ACLU. Greenwald again:

. . .their crucial efforts extend far beyond litigating and lobbying, as they have often been forced to fulfill the investigative and oversight role intended for — but abdicated by — our national media and Congress. Indeed, most of what we know about the Bush torture regime and other lawbreaking schemes is the result not of newspapers or Congressional investigations but the ACLU.

I urge you to support the ACLU. Include them in your seasonal giving.

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By the way, Facebook privacy is one of ACLU’s issues, though I’m not sure there’s anything they can do about malicious viruses.

Items

 Good news on the revolution/coup front

Honduras:

The scoreboard in the battle for Honduras shows the coup losing badly. It has not gained a single point in the international diplomatic arena, it has no serious legal points, and the Honduran people are mobilizing against it. As the military and coup leaders resort to brute force, they rack up even more points against them in human rights and common decency.

Only one factor brought the coup to power and only one factor has enabled it to hold on for these few days–control of the armed forces. Now even that seems to be eroding.

Iran:

What is new today is not that cracks have opened inside a monolithic system, or even that particularly powerful figures, like Rafsanjani, have broken onto the side of the reformers. What is new is the fierce mass movement from below, which is not confined to students and intellectuals but seems to span demographics and age groups. Even while exercising legal rights, nonviolent methods, and issuing constant appeals to Islam and to the ideals of the revolution, this movement has openly defied Khamenei, the Basij, and the Revolutionary Guards, by ignoring the threats of bloodshed and mayhem. Nothing like that has happened in thirty years.

Thanks to Dave.

Also Borges on Iran, thanks to the Poetry Hut Blog.

And this via The Sideshow:

Not such good news on our own human rights accountability:

In anticipation of the release of that report [the full version of the 2004 CIA Inspector General’s Report}, there is an important effort underway — as part of the ACLU Accountability Project — to correct a critically important deficiency in the public debate over torture and accountability.  So often, the premise of media discussions of torture is that “torture” is something that was confined to a single tactic (waterboarding) and used only on three “high-value” detainees accused of being high-level Al Qaeda operatives.  The reality is completely different. 

The interrogation and detention regime implemented by the U.S. resulted in the deaths of over 100 detainees in U.S. custody — at least.  While some of those deaths were the result of ”rogue” interrogators and agents, many were caused by the methods authorized at the highest levels of the Bush White House, including extreme stress positions, hypothermia

Sad news for bird lovers:

The nightingale has effectively vanished from woodlands across the UK.

A 30-year survey of British woodland birds has found that its population has fallen by more than 95%.

Seventeen other bird species have also declined significantly, many of which overwinter in tropical west Africa where their habitat is being destroyed.

Nightingales have a special significance for lovers of English poetry. I’ve never heard one but I grieve to think they may be gone from the English countryside.

Via

The integrity of the vote

For those of my friends on the right and the left who are concerned about the integrity of the vote, I suggest that you listen to last night’s Fresh Air broadcast with Jonah Goldman of the National Campaign for Fair Elections, which is an arm of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. Goldman is reassuring about the effects of ACORN (though he doesn’t particularly approve of their efforts either, because they create headaches for an already overworked registration system), suggests that both sides may be using scare and suppression tactics, and offers some interesting solutions for preventing this sort of registration anxiety in future, including the suggestion that we have a required national voter registration similar to the selective service registration.

Because I am a card-carrying member, I should also point out that the ACLU has launched a Voter Empowerment Program to inform voters of their rights at the polls. For Kentucky specific information, contact:

ACLU of Kentucky
Executive Director: Michael Aldridge
315 Guthrie Street, Suite 300
Louisville, KY 40202-3820
Phone: 502-581-1181
Fax: 502-589-9687
Email: info@aclu-ky.org

Meanwhile, Kentucky Secretary of State Trey Grayson suggests that voters be aware of certain requirements before they go to the polls (emphasis mine):

In addition, Grayson reminded voters that no Kentuckian should be prevented from voting in the upcoming election due to his or her work schedule, if he or she requests leave prior to the day in which he or she will cast his or her vote. The Kentucky Constitution provides �that all employers shall allow employees, under reasonable regulations, at least four hours on election days, in which to cast their votes.�

…

Grayson also encouraged voters to make note of Kentucky�s identification requirements at the polls. Voters must produce identification or be known by a precinct officer prior to voting. Types of ID include: personal acquaintance of precinct officer, driver�s license, social security card, credit card, or another form of ID containing both picture and signature.

When voters head to the polls on Election Day, they will also be governed by electioneering laws that prohibits electioneering within 300 feet of the polling location. Bumper stickers on cars of voters at a polling location are an exception to the electioneering prohibition. Cars may not be left near polling locations all day with the intent of advocating for a particular candidate. In addition, an Office of the Attorney General Opinion suggests that wearing personal items such as a campaign t-shirt, hat, or button is protected by the 1st amendment and therefore is an exception to the electioneering ban. Grayson stressed that voters will not be turned away from voting for wearing campaign materials to the polls, but noted that the best advice is to simply �wear those items outside of the precinct or cover them up when you go vote.�

Grayson also noted that it is illegal to record the identity of voters or to intimidate voters. As such, the use of recording devices, including cameras and cell phones, are prohibited from the polling place.

Read this entire press release here.

Grayson, who expects a 65% to 75% turnout in Kentucky, has also launched an Election Rumor Control site so Kentucky voters can get the “true facts.”

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Updated: Another idea for monitoring the vote from Causewired.

Some things I didn’t know about Eugene V. Debs

I’ve been trying to wean myself away from election obsession and get a little perspective by reading Ernest Freeberg’s Democracy’s Prisoner: Eugene V. Debs, The Great War, and the Right to Dissent (Harvard University Press, 2008). Not much headway so far but here are some things I’ve learned, besides the fact that this is a period of history I’m woefully ignorant of (as if that didn’t just about take all my knowledge of history):

• When Debs ran for president in 1920 as the Socialist candidate, he ran from Federal prison and his campaign buttons read Vote for Prisoner 9653.
• The American Civil Liberties Union was formed to protest the treatment of conscientious objectors during World War I. (Yes, that was Woodrow Wilson.)
• Debs was a “professional agitator” who financed his campaign and made his living by charging admission to his campaign speeches. (He obviously couldn’t do that in 1920; he wasn’t allowed to even talk to the press. Still he got a million votes.)
• In 1894, when Debs lead an American Railway Union strike against the Pullman Palace Sleeping Car Company, the New York Times called him an “enemy of the human race.” Other major newspapers were not so kind.
• Workers were divided against themselves: “Natives resented immigrants; whites shunned blacks, who in turn often served as strikebreakers.” Sounds a little bit familiar.
• In 1912, Debs got a 29-minute standing ovation from a sold-out crowd at Madison Square Garden.

Tell me whose tools you use, and I will tell you whose slave you are.
— Eugene V. Debs