What Has The Supreme Court Been Smoking?
The High Court OKs Discriminatory, No-Fault Eviction Laws
by Arianna Huffington is a syndicated columnist
and author of How to Overthrow the Government.
In an infuriating blow to reason, logic, fairness, compassion and equal
justice, the Supreme Court ruled last week that people living in public
housing can be evicted for any drug activity by any household member or
guest -- even if the drug use happened blocks away from the housing project
and even if the tenant had no inkling that anything illegal was taking place.
Chew on that for a second. The highest judicial body in the land has said --
unanimously -- that it's OK to toss people who the court acknowledges are
innocent out of their houses for crimes they didn't commit and didn't even
know about. The generals in the drug war are getting mighty desperate -- and
silly.
The justices did not just uphold the constitutionality of the "One Strike
and You're Out" eviction policy, first implemented by the Clinton
administration in 1996; they also rushed to its defense, calling it
"reasonable," "unambiguous" and "not absurd."
But try to tell Pearlie Rucker that the law's not absurd. She was the named
defendant in the case the court ruled on, a 63-year-old great- grandmother
who found herself and everyone living with her facing eviction when her
mentally-disabled daughter was caught possessing cocaine -- three blocks
away from Rucker's apartment. Or to co- defendant Herman Walker, a disabled
79-year-old man, who now stands to lose his home because his full-time
health-care worker was found with drug paraphernalia in the apartment. You'd
think that if the Supremes didn't understand the hardship of poverty, they'd
at least understand the hardships of old age.
When the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals had struck down this draconian
policy, it ruled that it perverted the intent of the law, which was meant to
improve the lives of public housing residents -- not destroy them.
The high court's opinion, written by Chief Justice William Rehnquist no
less, tried to buttress its cold-hearted argument by claiming that so-called
"no fault" evictions are justified because drug use leads to "murders,
muggings, and other forms of violence." But he failed to point out how
locking up innocent people solves that. Or what social ills would be avoided
by Pearlie and Herman being cast out on their innocent rear ends. Surely
even the most brutal and utilitarian calculus would at least balance the
cost of punishing so many blameless victims against whatever perceived good
is achieved.
But, no, the justices couldn't be bothered. In adopting such one- sided
reasoning and hyperbolic "Reefer Madness" rhetoric the Supreme Court is
following in the fear-mongering footsteps of the administration, whose
latest whack-o, anti-drug ad campaign tried to draw a link between teenage
drug use and violent acts of terrorism.
In reality, two of the four plaintiffs in the case before the court were
elderly women whose grandchildren were caught smoking pot in a housing
project parking lot. I have a feeling the grandkids were far more interested
in the munchies than in murder and mayhem.
The ruling is not only a galling example of drug-war lunacy, but also a
gut-wrenching reminder of just how differently America treats its rich and
its poor. The multi-million dollar homes of Beverly Hills or the Upper East
Side of Manhattan have more than their share of kids struggling with drug
problems. But as concerned as these kids' parents are, you can bet that
their problems are not compounded by the additional worry that the entire
family will be tossed out onto the street because their kid is seen smoking
a joint three blocks away. Why should we hold poor people to a standard of
accountability most of us could never meet?
"A tenant who cannot control drug crime," wrote Justice Rehnquist in the
majority opinion, "is a threat to other residents and the project." I wonder
if the Chief Justice would apply the same condemnatory logic to Gov. Jeb
Bush, who also lives in public housing and was also unable to control his
troubled daughter.
Indeed, our political establishment, whether ensconced in plush public
housing or not, is filled with people unable to "control drug crime" by a
household member. But none of them -- including Sen. Ted Kennedy, Richard
Lugar, and Richard Shelby, and Rep. Dan Burton, Spencer Bachus, John Murtha,
Duke Cunningham and Maurice Hinchey -- were punished for the sins of their
kids. What's more, unlike the thousands of poor and minority drug offenders
who have had the book thrown at them, these lawmakers' lawbreaking offspring
were frequently granted special treatment.
Take the amazing case of Rep. Burton's son, Dan II, who, in 1994, was
arrested for transporting seven pounds of marijuana across state lines with
the intent to distribute. He pleaded guilty and received probation,
community service and house arrest. Soon after, he was discovered growing 30
pot plants in his apartment but skated on the charges once again -- a
federal felony carrying a mandatory-minimum sentence of five years in jail
having been miraculously transformed into a state-level misdemeanor.
It's not surprising that poor kids are routinely sent to jail while rich
kids are given a slap on the wrist and a ticket to rehab, or that poor
parents are thrown out of their houses for not knowing what their kids are
doing while powerful parents are given our sympathy and understanding. But
it is unjust. And isn't that ultimately what the Supreme Court is supposed
to be about: dispensing justice?
Since Rehnquist and company were too busy taking hits from their
double-standard bong, it's now up to Congress to undo this discriminatory
policy. Here's a thought: Why don't Ted Kennedy and Dan Burton call a joint
Senate-House hearing on "One Strike and You're Out" no-fault evictions. They
can call Jeb Bush, Pearlie Rucker and their respective daughters (one taken
to rehab, one taken to jail) as the first witnesses.
Published: Apr 01 2002
*****
http://rense.com/general21/nop.htm
Hot French Book Says There Was No Pentagon Plane Critics Call The Book
'Science Fiction' By Rebecca Harrison
4-1-2
PARIS (Reuters) - The French are lapping up a Sept. 11 conspiracy theory
that argues the plane that smashed into the Pentagon never existed and that
the world has been duped by a murky U.S. government plot.
Thierry Meyssan's book "The Frightening Fraud" is flying off shelves
according to booksellers and has topped bestseller lists.
Meyssan, president of Reseau Voltaire, a respected left-wing think tank,
reckons the American Airlines Flight 77 that crashed into the Pentagon in
Washington killing 189 on September 11 did not exist and that the whole
thing was staged by the government.
"I believe the American government is lying... No plane crashed into the
Pentagon," he told France 2 television.
Meyssan did not provide an alternative theory for what may have damaged the
Pentagon.
And although French media has scoffed at Meyssan's musings, comparing them
to the Roswell alien cover-up theory dramatized in the hit TV show "The
X-Files)," the public are intrigued.
"Copies have been flying off shelves," a saleswoman at FNAC bookshop in
central Paris told Reuters. It shot to the top of Amazon France's bestseller
list and made it to second place in the booksellers' weekly Livres Hebdo's
sales list.
SCIENCE FICTION
Daily newspaper Liberation slammed the book as "a tissue of wild
allegations," marveling at its quick rise to fame, from Internet chatrooms,
via television chat shows, to bestseller.
Conspiracy theories like the rumors that swirled around the 1963 shooting of
U.S. President John F. Kennedy, or the idea that man never actually set foot
on the moon, are not uncommon in the United States, but are fairly rare in
France.
"This phenomenon is not typical of the French," sociologist Pierre Lagrange
told Liberation.
"But the events of September 11 gave us a reality so similar to science
fiction, that there has been more of a market for paranoid interpretations."
Meyssan says key evidence shows witness accounts are contradictory, that
there are few photographs of the crash and that those that do exist show no
debris from the plane.
He also asks why the facade of the Pentagon did not immediately collapse
from the shock of the impact and questions the fate of the passengers on the
flight.
"What became of the passengers of American Airlines Flight 77? Are they
dead?" he asks.
Daily newspaper Le Monde and Liberation both probed Meyssan's theory,
tracking down relatives of the victims, and quizzing officials over the crash.
News weekly Le Nouvel Observateur denounced the book as revisionism. "This
theory suits everyone -- there are no Islamic extremists...everyone is
happy. It eliminates reality."
But while Le Monde dismissed Meyssan's theory as flimsy, it admitted that
information available did not quite add up.
"There is no official account of the crash...the lack of information is
feeding the rumor."
*****
Three More Israeli Refusenik Officers Sentenced To Jail By Joseph Algazy and
Lily Galili
Ha'aretz Daily
4-1-2
Three more officers were sentenced to military prison yesterday for terms
ranging from 28 to 35 days for refusing to do reserve service in the
territories. This brings to 16 the number of soldiers currently incarcerated
on such charges.
The three were First Lieut. Tamar Israeli, sentenced to 28 days in prison,
Staff Sergeant Bar Shendon, sentenced to 28 days, and Sergeant Oded L.
Shendon, sentenced to 35 days.
The sentences are the maximum which can be imposed on the officers for
refusing to serve.
Yesh Gvul, which has been encouraging the refuseniks, said it has received
reports that their number is constantly rising, with another 25 soldiers
joining the ranks yesterday.
Several organizations supporting soldiers who refuse to serve in the
territories are planning to conduct a second seder, emphasizing the quest
for freedom, in front of the Military Prison 6 in Atlit, the prison where
refuseniks have most frequently been jailed.
Meanwhile, 50 members of the European Parliament have sent a letter of
empathy to imprisoned refuseniks. The letter, sent to Yesh Gvul, says the
refuseniks show a peaceful desire to end the occupation and are marching
heroically in the footsteps of others in history who have opposed oppression.
*****
"Generation U"
Jason Lubyk
jasonlubyk@hotmail.com
This isn't the mid-to-late 90's, which was like some fun-house-mirror
sixties, where kids dropped out of school and tuned into the rhythms of the
IPO/internet-start-up/day-trader New Economy instead of the rhythms of the
universe, where revolutionaries read George Gilder instead of Che Guevara,
hallucinating Fortune magazine glossy visions of desktop utopias where work
is a playhouse and all are watched over by the computers of loving NASDAQ.
Self-loathing grunge death rockers had burned out and faded away, replaced
by lip synching sex robots too beautiful and vacant unable to even think of
hating themselves and wanting to die. The digital Singularity humanity was
evolving towards was easy to see, getting there as predictable as Moore's Law.
After a few heady years some cracks in the new paradigm began to appear,
hinting that all was not quite right in info-age: the surprising comeback of
the disaffected masses in Seattle, the NASDAQ crashing harder than Robert
Downey in police custody and the shifty military dictator antics of Bush
Coup 2000.
That idea something might be happening was easy to ignore, just cut back on
the espressos, get some more sleep and maybe the bad thoughts will go away.
When planes hijacked by young men dreaming of fleshly paradise flew into the
symbols of American military and financial dominance on 9/11 the realization
that everything has changed and a new zeitgeist was upon us was as
impossible to ignore as the images of death and destruction being
psychically driven into your mind.
Now your everyday life is more like some direct-to-Christian video store
adaptation of the Book of Revelations than an episode of Friends: anthrax
has usurped your credit card bill as the scariest thing that might appear in
your mailbox, ponzi -economies implode, non-linear wars explode, and America
becomes an EMPIRE, the Empire that WSJ editor Max Boot calls "an attractive
Empire, the one that everyone wants to join," until you're inside it of
course, and you're getting a little spooked out with all the talk of
microchip implants, the blatant suspension of civil liberties and the Bush
Youth volunteer citizen corps that are monitoring the black Marxist
professor on your block. The fact that clones are being born every week and
that the world is getting so hot that the polar ice caps are melting faster
than Michael Jackson's face almost seems like small beer when your wondering
when WW3 is going to begin.
No one gives a flying fuck about the revolutionary potential of motor
scooters anymore.
So it's natural that the youth culture will also change. Generation X has
finally got its shit together and become their parents with nose rings and a
bag of grass, and the frosted hair, breast implants and cell phones of
marketing construct generation Y seems empty and irrelevant as the Oscars.
The exact details at this point are impossible to predict, but I do know
that recession instead of boom-times and war instead of peace will spawn a
new generation that's edgier, darker and more paranoid, but also more
intelligent and street wise, looking more like the Dickensian street whelps
that coalesce in art neighborhoods and the center of every city than soap
opera actors.
So get your quarters ready; soon Generation Urchin is going to be everywhere.
Bio: The work of writer, video-maker and musician Jason Lubyk has appeared
in such places as Disinformation, The Thresher and The Konformist. He is
also the madman behind the New World Disorder weblog
(http://www.nwd-blog.blogspot.com).
*****
RICHARD BENNETT MEDIA - AFI Research
A leading Global Media resource for Intelligence, Security, Defence and
Conflict OSINT and Analysis.
Contact afi@supanet.com Bookmark AFI Research Telephone +44(0) 1626 33
50 40 Dateline 04/04/2002
Expert Articles, Features and Briefings written by Journalists for the
worldwide News Media
Israel's extensive military crack down produces mixed results
Israel's developing military campaign against the occupied territories is
closely following a well thought out and classic urban warfare plan. Border
Guard units sealed the frontiers with both Jordan and Egypt, aided
deliberately or at least conveniently by those countries decision to close
their borders to Palestinian refugees. The heavily reinforced rapid reaction
Mechanized Infantry units placed under the control of the Central Command
with its headquarters at Neva Yaacout, the Ist 'Golani' Mechanized Brigade,
17th 'Givaty' Mechanized Brigade and 'Nahal' Mechanized Brigade along with
the specialist COIN (Counter Insurgency)Harouv Mechanized, Shimshon
Mechanized, Rimon Mechanized, Ducifhat Mechanized and Nachson Mechanized
Infantry Battalions, Special Force and Intelligence units have conducted a
rolling occupation of all the major Arab Cities in the West Bank.
Starting with the reduction of Arafats headquarters complex in Ramallah,
Jenin, Bethlehem, Qalqilya, Tulkarm and now Nablus have been first
surrounded, then seen company sized Infantry assault formations with heavily
armoured personnel carriers, supported by large numbers of Tanks from the
7th elite Armoured Brigade and 500th elite Armoured Brigade and armed
Helicopters, conduct street and house clearing operations to flush out
suspected Islamic terrorists into either trying to flee the towns to be
caught by the surrounding cordon of Israeli units or cornered into making a
stand with the prospect of either death or surrender as the outcome.
Israel trys to prevent news coverage of its campaign in order to intimidate
the civilian Palestinian population into non-resistance highly aggressive
and destructive tactics have been adopted; noise, speed and violence are the
main tactics of the Israeli assault teams. Tanks deliberately crush private
cars parked along the streets, heavy fire is directed at any doorway or
window perceived to hide a threat and grab-teams smash in the doors to
private dwellings, destroying property and possessions and generally
terrorizing the occupants.
Water and electricity supplies have been severed, while the telephone system
has been disabled and mobile phone signals blocked, except where Israeli
electronic warfare specialists wish to monitor Palestinian communications as
part of a blanket SIGINT surveillance program in the occupied areas.
Aggressive and humiliating interrogation techniques are used and large
numbers of males between the ages of 14 and 60 have been taken to holding
facilities. Palestinian radio, TV and newspapers have been closed down or
disrupted and every possible action has been taken, including shooting at or
the use of physical intimidation to prevent news coverage by international
broadcasters and by journalists and photographers from the worlds press. All
fairly standard urban warfare tactics and not restricted just to the Israeli
Army.
The search for known terrorists and those exposed by Palestinian
collaborators has been extensive, as has the hunt to find the large stocks
of weapons known to be hidden in the West Bank. To the obvious annoyance of
the Israeli Army and Security services many of the Hamas and Islamic Jehad
fighters have slipped through their grasp and either succeeded in escaping
the Israeli cordon or re-entered those areas already 'cleared' by the Army.
Nor has the search for arms dumps been more than partly successful.
The growing tension along the northern border with the Lebanon has already
resulted in Israeli air raids on suspected Hezbollah positions and the risk
is ever present of this escalating into a full scale clash with the Iranian
backed Terrorists and their Syrian protectors in the Beka'a Valley. This
area has become even more dangerous with the presence of several thousand Al
Qa'ida fighters who evacuated Afghanistan long before the US bombing
campaign got under way and now adding their undoubted strength and expertise
to Hezbollah units along Israel's border.
Israel stirs up a hornets nest
The Israeli Army has temporarily disrupted the Islamic terrorist bombing
campaign and can probably inflict considerable damage if the campaign is
allowed to continue for another two weeks or so. The damage done to the
Palestinian authorities ability to control the security situation in its
territories is possibly fatal and will make demands from the Governments in
Jerusalem and Washington for Yasser Arafat or his successors to crack down
on the militants virtually impossible to implement. This alone will result
in Israel being forced to once again become the major instrument of 'law and
order' in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip once that area has been subjected
to the same form of military action, with all the consequential and possibly
disastrous results for the United States relations with other Arab countries
and any chance of maintaining a workable coalition against Iraq, Iran and
Syria.
Unless the international outcry and the growing unrest in the Arab world
against Israeli tactics and open American support persuades Washington to
once again try to pressure Sharon to accept that military action only
creates a hundred new suicide bombers for every one killed in the present
campaign and seek a just settlement with the Palestinians, President Bush
may well be left with no alternative but to act unilaterally in any future
action it takes the Middle East. However, the United States would be very
unwise to appear to be taking on so much of the world in a fight,
unilateralism can soon become isolation and even the worlds only superpower
may well find that untenable in the long run.
The United States is in great danger of appearing openly anti-Muslim and
leading a new Crusade against Islam. Even the inclusion of Turkey in US
plans presents a problem as few in the Arab world would forget that they
were only liberated from 800 years of Turkish rule in 1918 and even fewer
would welcome the sight of Turkish troops once again in Baghdad or on any
other Arab land. Opportunities for the use of Israel's massive military
power are even fewer, unless Washington is seriously considering dumping its
relations with the Muslim world and opt for open and very likely long-term
Arab hostility as the price it must pay to defeat the 'axis of evil' once
and for all.
Richard M. Bennett and AFI sources in Israel and the West Bank
AFI Research, The Ground Floor, 27 The Avenue, Newton Abbot, Devon, TQ12
2BZ, UK.
afi@supanet.com contact: tel: +44(0)1626 33 50 40 fax: +44(0) 1626 33
50 40
US Office, c/o ComLinks, National Press Building, Suite 1059, Washington DC
20045, USA
news@comlinks.com contact: tel: +001(202) 662 7109 fax: +001 (202) 662
7127
Richard M. Bennett is the author of FIGHTING FORCES a review of the worlds
leading Armies, including many in the Middle East, published in September
2001 it is available from Barrons of New York www.barronseduc.com ISBN
0-7641-5343-9 and the forthcoming ESPIONAGE An encyclopedia of Spies and
Secrets, which will be available from Virgin Books later this year.
"If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what
they do not want to hear" George Orwell
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