The Republic on a Knife's Edge-By Robert Parry

[kpete]

The Republic on a Knife's Edge

By Robert Parry
June 13, 2008


There are two ways of looking at the landmark 5-4 Supreme Court decision recognizing the habeas corpus rights of detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba: As a stirring victory for individual liberty over collective fear – or as a reminder that the one more right-wing justice could make George W. Bush’s imperial presidency “constitutional.”

..................

Presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain also has vowed to appoint more justices in the mold of Bush’s selections, Roberts and Alito.

If another Roberts or Alito replaces one of the five more moderate justices, the new right-wing majority would be in position to reverse the latest ruling.

......................

Given the advanced ages and questionable health of some Supreme Court justices, Election 2008 may well decide more than just who will be the new occupant of the White House.

It may well decide whether Bush’s imperial presidency outlasts his time in office – and whether the concept of “unalienable rights” survives.

more at:
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2008/061208.html

[MH1]

1. Robert Parry - always dead on.

It scares me how so many people don't know what is truly at stake in this election.

[Gabi Hayes]

2. gee, an actual journalist! and someone whose career was destroyed

by refusing to kowtow to the likes of his boss Evan Thomas at Newsweek

unlike some rich poseurs who are getting unfathomable praise today, gaining their fame, fortune, power by contraverting the ideals which they apparently displayed at some point in their earlier careers

thanks for the link

all of Parry's books are well worth reading, especiall, in retrospect, Fooling America, one of the earliest books decrying the state of the herd instince in mainstream 'journalism'

a refresher on how Parry got where he is today...a struggling, independent voice in the mainstream miasma, who is self-funded, and needs help all the time:

http://www.namebase.org/sources/SS.html

Parry, Robert. Fooling America: How Washington Insiders Twist the Truth and Manufacture the Conventional Wisdom. New York: William Morrow, 1992. 336 pages.
Robert Parry was an Associated Press reporter who, with Brian Barger, broke the story of contra drug-smuggling in 1985. Getting the facts for the story was considerably easier than getting it on the AP wire, which left Parry a bit disillusioned. So in 1987 he left AP and joined Newsweek. Forget you ever saw "All the President's Men." It's time for your reality check.


One month later, Parry is at a dinner, replete with tuxedoed waiter, at the elegant home of Newsweek's Washington bureau chief Evan Thomas. This was a regular affair where the magazine's socially-conscious reporters dined pleasantly with Washington insiders. The Tower Commission had just completed their work, and commissioner Brent Scowcroft and Dick Cheney were there to deliver the Conventional Wisdom. Scowcroft volunteered that even if Poindexter HAD told Reagan about the diversion of funds, he would advise him to say that he hadn't. Parry, naive and incredulous, his fork halfway through the asparagus that was cooked just right, asks a question: "General, you're not suggesting that the admiral should commit perjury, are you?" But before Scowcroft could answer, Newsweek's editor from New York cut in. "Sometimes," Maynard Parker reminded Parry, "you have to do what's good for the country."



Fooling America reviews, which I could only find on Amazon, though I looked around for awhile....looks like the media, surprise, avoided this book like the plague:

From Publishers Weekly
How could the Washington press corps miss, or report tardily on, the savings-and-loan debacle, Iran-Contra abuses, Saddam Hussein's Western-backed military buildup and nearly every other major scandal of the 1980s? Parry, a former reporter for Newsweek and the Associated Press, faults the major news media for cozying up to the political elite and suppressing stories that go beyond the conventional wisdom dictated by the Washington/New York government, business and journalistic establishments. Crucial reading for citizens who want to be informed of the news behind the news, this compelling report is replete with examples of media cowardice and kowtowing to power. Parry delivers a damning account of the media's selling of the CIA-funded Contra army to the American public, the demonization of longtime CIA employee Manuel Noreiga, the Reagan administration's propaganda apparatus (operating out of the National Security Council) to create a pro-interventionist mindset, President Bush's professed ignorance of Iran-Contra abuses, and the press's failure to cover CIA terrorist campaigns abroad under Bush, its former director.
--Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

[Hart2008]

3. According to Scalio and Scalilto we have now rights, only privileges. n/t