CrimQuips
Quips & Comments 5-7-'02 Tuesday, May 7, 2002
by Barry Crimmins
http://www.barrycrimmins.com
Court-appointed Bush administration officials say the new International Criminal Court will get no cooperation from the United States -- outside of necessitating it, that is.
When it comes to good and evil, Bush is the sheriff in these here parts!
And now the sheriff is going to have to be tried in absentia, which he is pretty sure was part of the old Soviet Union.
The court will have jurisdiction over charges of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes committed after July 1. This could force Bush to reschedule some of the military moves he had originally planned to coincide with the fall elections.
Perhaps the refusal to recognize the International Criminal Court is just an act of fiscal conservatism. Consider how much more money would have to be funneled to despotic governments if the US had to supply them with defense attorneys rather than just arms and training in psychological oppression.
If there was an award for shamelessness, Bush would win it in a walk. This clown travels all over proselytizing about a world war of good vs. evil and then when a world court is developed in which evil can be put on trial, he refuses to cooperate.
In Bush's "with us or against us" world, he is with atrocities and against the International Criminal Court. Case closed! Bush's motto: Due process never! Duplicity always! Apparently Ariel Sharon wants to ease into the peace process by first holding talks with himself, then in a few years maybe adding a few Palestinians.
Considering what happened to Pim Fortuyn in the Netherlands, Jean-Marie Le Pen's electoral trouncing in Sunday's French presidential election wasn't as bad as first reported. Fortuyn's assassination does provide the Court-appointed Bush Administration with a precedent-- the Dutch elections have been thrown into chaos by violence and the CIA is not likely to have had anything to do with it.
However, because Fortuyn was gay, a team of Dutch investigators still hasn't eliminated John Ashcroft as a suspect.
If the Dutch can't find anyone to replace Fortuyn on the ballot, Pedro Carmona of Venezuela says he'd be happy to step in. Senator Strom Thurmond has come out in support of cloning. Oh great, another hundred years of Strom Thurmond. American family farmers, being squeezed from business by a government that is allowing (and subsidizing) multinational corporations to run roughshod over agriculture like a stereotypical land-grabbing cattle baron in a western, now have the added burden of hiring a bomb squads to collect their Sears catalogues.
Now there's a great way to protest the government, blow up mail carriers and farmers. It's clear that militias don't have entrance exams.
In fact, these people are so intellectually vacant that it wouldn't be a surprise if it turns out that the latest pipe-bomber is upset with pipes.
September 11 -- now available by mail!
Firefighters and cops have been duly honored, it's time we celebrate new heroes : postal employees. Each day they face the threat of chemical and biological warfare as well as letter and pipe bombs just so credit card companies can tell us we have been pre-approved to dig a deeper financial pit for ourselves.
And this doesn't even mention the most grave threat to postal employees -- other postal employees.
Anthrax spores, developed and stored by the US government, have been used to kill Americans. Rural dwellers can't get their mail without wearing helmets and flak jackets. What's the court-appointed Bush Administration's answer? Cavity search anyone caught with a bobby pin at an airport.
In response to the latest spate of heartland terrorism, the FBI is busily following up leads on people of Middle Eastern descent with ties to the Grange. What do you bet that the pipe-bomber, currently terrorizing rural mail routes in the midwest, would seamlessly blend in with any National Guard security detail stationed at American airports?
It appears that only thing secure in this homeland are right-wing lunatics who want to wreak havoc through the mail. Cardinal Bernard Law has to give a deposition about predator priests on Wednesday in a Massachusetts court. In response, the Archdiocese of Boston will dispatch a mobile confession booth for Law's use as soon he finishes testifying.
How much longer can we bear his false witness?
I wonder if Law will have a chance to visit his old friend Father Shanley, one of the original organizers of the notorious North American Man Boy Love Association (and no, this isn't a joke, the group is real) now in custody on charges of child sexual abuse. They could talk over old times and young boys.
By the way, anyone who believes NAMBLA is a gay organization being hounded by homophobes doesn't understand some simple truth: gay liberation liberated innocents from oppression. So-called "pedophile liberation" places innocents in oppressive circumstances. If gays have a natural ally, it's abused children and not child abusers. NAMBLA is a group organized with the intent of violating the human rights of children.
And regardless of what NAMBLA says, homophobia is the ally of child molesters. A child victim of a male-male assault is much less likely to speak out in a homophobic society. Why do you think the Vatican is currently promoting homophobia as a remedy to its predator priest scandal?
The people who prey on children are violators of human rights. Progressives, to remain consistent, need to get on the side of the kids. It's sickening that this issue could be co-opted by reactionaries with a religious right agenda. People who matter-of-factly describe physical abuse of children as "good discipline" shouldn't be allowed to become the self-appointed representatives of sexually abused children.
The fight for children's rights is the world's most overdue human rights initiative. Once it is in place, children will be able to grow up trusting their hearts. A world full of people who trust their hearts won't need a lot of other human rights initiatives because the world will finally and inexorably become civilized.
2002 Barry Crimmins
http://www.barrycrimmins.com
Court-appointed Bush administration officials say the new International Criminal Court will get no cooperation from the United States -- outside of necessitating it, that is.
When it comes to good and evil, Bush is the sheriff in these here parts!
And now the sheriff is going to have to be tried in absentia, which he is pretty sure was part of the old Soviet Union.
The court will have jurisdiction over charges of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes committed after July 1. This could force Bush to reschedule some of the military moves he had originally planned to coincide with the fall elections.
Perhaps the refusal to recognize the International Criminal Court is just an act of fiscal conservatism. Consider how much more money would have to be funneled to despotic governments if the US had to supply them with defense attorneys rather than just arms and training in psychological oppression.
If there was an award for shamelessness, Bush would win it in a walk. This clown travels all over proselytizing about a world war of good vs. evil and then when a world court is developed in which evil can be put on trial, he refuses to cooperate.
In Bush's "with us or against us" world, he is with atrocities and against the International Criminal Court. Case closed! Bush's motto: Due process never! Duplicity always! Apparently Ariel Sharon wants to ease into the peace process by first holding talks with himself, then in a few years maybe adding a few Palestinians.
Considering what happened to Pim Fortuyn in the Netherlands, Jean-Marie Le Pen's electoral trouncing in Sunday's French presidential election wasn't as bad as first reported. Fortuyn's assassination does provide the Court-appointed Bush Administration with a precedent-- the Dutch elections have been thrown into chaos by violence and the CIA is not likely to have had anything to do with it.
However, because Fortuyn was gay, a team of Dutch investigators still hasn't eliminated John Ashcroft as a suspect.
If the Dutch can't find anyone to replace Fortuyn on the ballot, Pedro Carmona of Venezuela says he'd be happy to step in. Senator Strom Thurmond has come out in support of cloning. Oh great, another hundred years of Strom Thurmond. American family farmers, being squeezed from business by a government that is allowing (and subsidizing) multinational corporations to run roughshod over agriculture like a stereotypical land-grabbing cattle baron in a western, now have the added burden of hiring a bomb squads to collect their Sears catalogues.
Now there's a great way to protest the government, blow up mail carriers and farmers. It's clear that militias don't have entrance exams.
In fact, these people are so intellectually vacant that it wouldn't be a surprise if it turns out that the latest pipe-bomber is upset with pipes.
September 11 -- now available by mail!
Firefighters and cops have been duly honored, it's time we celebrate new heroes : postal employees. Each day they face the threat of chemical and biological warfare as well as letter and pipe bombs just so credit card companies can tell us we have been pre-approved to dig a deeper financial pit for ourselves.
And this doesn't even mention the most grave threat to postal employees -- other postal employees.
Anthrax spores, developed and stored by the US government, have been used to kill Americans. Rural dwellers can't get their mail without wearing helmets and flak jackets. What's the court-appointed Bush Administration's answer? Cavity search anyone caught with a bobby pin at an airport.
In response to the latest spate of heartland terrorism, the FBI is busily following up leads on people of Middle Eastern descent with ties to the Grange. What do you bet that the pipe-bomber, currently terrorizing rural mail routes in the midwest, would seamlessly blend in with any National Guard security detail stationed at American airports?
It appears that only thing secure in this homeland are right-wing lunatics who want to wreak havoc through the mail. Cardinal Bernard Law has to give a deposition about predator priests on Wednesday in a Massachusetts court. In response, the Archdiocese of Boston will dispatch a mobile confession booth for Law's use as soon he finishes testifying.
How much longer can we bear his false witness?
I wonder if Law will have a chance to visit his old friend Father Shanley, one of the original organizers of the notorious North American Man Boy Love Association (and no, this isn't a joke, the group is real) now in custody on charges of child sexual abuse. They could talk over old times and young boys.
By the way, anyone who believes NAMBLA is a gay organization being hounded by homophobes doesn't understand some simple truth: gay liberation liberated innocents from oppression. So-called "pedophile liberation" places innocents in oppressive circumstances. If gays have a natural ally, it's abused children and not child abusers. NAMBLA is a group organized with the intent of violating the human rights of children.
And regardless of what NAMBLA says, homophobia is the ally of child molesters. A child victim of a male-male assault is much less likely to speak out in a homophobic society. Why do you think the Vatican is currently promoting homophobia as a remedy to its predator priest scandal?
The people who prey on children are violators of human rights. Progressives, to remain consistent, need to get on the side of the kids. It's sickening that this issue could be co-opted by reactionaries with a religious right agenda. People who matter-of-factly describe physical abuse of children as "good discipline" shouldn't be allowed to become the self-appointed representatives of sexually abused children.
The fight for children's rights is the world's most overdue human rights initiative. Once it is in place, children will be able to grow up trusting their hearts. A world full of people who trust their hearts won't need a lot of other human rights initiatives because the world will finally and inexorably become civilized.
2002 Barry Crimmins