Image by Steve Rhodes via Flickr
with Chris Hedges
LeeCamp2 on Sep 26, 2013
Are we living in a time of inverted totalitarianism? Pulitzer prize-winning author Chris Hedges tells me we are in this first episode of the Moment of Clarity Show – SEASON TWO! This episode was made possible by Coalition Films and our generous Kickstarter supporters!
1) For more on Chris Hedges’s books, go here – http://amzn.to/19KiNRB
2) For more on Coalition Films, go here – http://coalitionfilms.com/
By Mike Whitney
September 06, 2009 “Information Clearing House”
In a critical case which could determine the future of “preventive detention” in the U.S., the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that ex-Attorney General John Ashcroft can be sued for arresting Muslims as material witnesses as a pretext for investigating their possible links to terrorism. The 2 to 1 ruling (all three judges were Reagan or Bush appointees) is a setback for hardliners in the Bush administration who maintain that the state has the right to circumvent the 4th amendment and imprison “suspects” without establishing probable cause. Judge Milan Smith–a George W. Bush appointee–reproached Ashcroft’s conduct in an eloquent defense of the Constitution and basic civil liberties:
“Almost two and a half centuries ago, William Blackstone, considered by many to be the preeminent pre-Revolutionary War authority on the common law, wrote:
‘To bereave a man of life, or by violence to confiscate his estate, without accusation or trial, would be so gross and notorious an act of despotism, as must at once convey the alarm of tyranny throughout the whole kingdom. But confinement of the person, by secretly hurrying him to gaol, where his sufferings are unknown or forgotten; is a less public, a less striking, and therefore a more dangerous engine of arbitrary government.” (WILLIAM BLACKSTONE)
Dandelion Salad 