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What the Anti's are saying
Josey1
Member Posts: 9,598 ✭✭
Ashcroft's Second Amendment Action Poses Broad Threat
6/4/2002
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Feature Story
by Dick Dahl
Attorney General John Ashcroft's job as the nation's top prosecutor is to put criminals behind bars. But his recent unilateral reversal of government policy on the meaning of the Second Amendment has handed criminals a new weapon that they can use to defend themselves in court.
The first signal appeared on May 15, when lawyers for John Walker Lindh, the American who is accused of fighting for the Taliban, filed a motion to dismiss the firearms charge that the government had filed against him. They said that the charge, one of 10 counts filed against Lindh, is a violation of the Justice Department's new interpretation of the Second Amendment as an absolute guarantor of individual rights to own and use guns.
Then, on May 30, the Washington Post reported that attorneys for two men accused of violating the District of Columbia's handgun ban are arguing that the law is unconstitutional based on the administration's new position on constitutional gun rights.
These motions by the lawyers for Lindh and the Washington, D.C. defendants are probably the first of a wave. As Mathew Nosanchuk, litigation director and legislative counsel at the Violence Policy Center, says, "You're going to have lots of criminal defendants making these claims. In addition, you're going to have the NRA challenge all kinds of laws."
Many outraged voices have arisen since early May, when Solicitor General Ted Olson filed papers on two cases with the U.S. Supreme Court on behalf of Ashcroft stating that "the current position" of the U.S. government is that the "collective rights" interpretation of the amendment, as established by the U.S. Supreme Court, is simply wrong. That interpretation, established in the case of U.S. v. Miller in 1939, concluded that the Second Amendment guaranteed the collective right of states to form armed militias.
Bill Press of Tribune Media Services wrote an opinion piece (posted on www.cnn.com) in which he accuses Ashcroft of engaging in "a shocking display of executive arrogance" to "single-handedly reverse....29 years of federal policy on guns." Furthermore, Press wrote, "(e)ven if Ashcroft disagrees with official policy on guns, it's not in his power to change it."
Aschroft's arrogance in trying to reverse judicial precedent is one thing. Another is what appears to be a contradiction of the pledge he made during his confirmation hearings that he would not allow his personal beliefs to affect his duty to uphold the law of the land no matter what he may think of it.
During his confirmation hearings, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) asked him about his position on the Second Amendment and gun laws. He answered, "What I am trying to clarify here is that I believe there are constitutional inhibitions on the rights of citizens to keep and bear certain kinds of arms. And some of those I would think goodjudgment, some of those I'd think bad judgment. But as attorney general, it's not my judgment to make that kind of call my judgment. My responsibility is to uphold the acts of the legislative branch of this government in that arena, and I would do so and continue to do so in regard to the cases that now exist and further enactments of the Congress."
Following Ashcroft's issuance of the Second Amendment memo in early May, Michael Barnes, president of the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, responded by saying, "This action is proof positive that the worst fears about Attorney General Ashcroft have come true: his extreme ideology on guns has become government policy." The Coalition to Stop Gun Violence said in a statement: "What is astounding about this blatant political act by Attorney General John Ashcroft is that the Justice Department did not need to make the assertion that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to bear arms in order to protect its legal position in the two cases."
Curiously, however, even though Ashcroft's action poses one of the greatest threats to common-sense gun regulation ever, there have been precious few calls for action against Ashcroft by gun-violence-prevention groups. "It's been relatively quiet," said Maura Keefe of the year-old Alliance for Justice program, Gun Industry Watch. "But to be motivated, people have to understand the threat."
One group that has been banging a critical drum on Ashcroft's performance as attorney general has been People for the American Way. The organization recently completed a report on Ashcroft's first year in office, "The Triumph of Right-Wing Ideology Over Our Constitution and Laws," which includes a summary of his extraordinary actions to undermine law enforcement. Besides the Second Amendment turnaround, the Ashcroft Justice Department also halted efforts by the FBI to access gun-purchase records of potential terrorists.
The legal reality of the Justice Department's action on the Second Amendment is that it may very well come to constitute an impediment to prosecutors and lawmakers alike. "There's no question this is going to embolden all kinds of efforts on the part of gun-rights groups to litigate things," said Saul Cornell, an Ohio State University associate professor of history who has written about the history and politics of gun control. Nosanchuk of the VPC agrees, saying that the new interpretation will now make it easier for them to argue first that prospective new laws violate the Second Amendment. He also points to the potential influence it may have on the assault-weapons ban, which will come up for Congressional action before it's scheduled to sunset in 2004.
Still, while people are talking about the content of Ashcroft's memos, what about the legitimacy of the action itself? Nosanchuk, for one, contends that it lacks legitimacy. He said that the Ashcroft memo was based on the one letter he sent to the NRA last year at the organization's request, in which he said that he agreed with the gunlobby's individual-rights intepretation of the Second Amendment. "The NRA letter was prepared without any consulting career people, and it provides the basis for this conclusory memorandum that Ashcroft sends to U.S. attorneys. There's the letter and there's a conclusory memo that's stapled to the back of a brief. How is that legitimate?"
One of the responses to that very question is that it is legitimate because a three-judge federal appellate panel last year upheld, by 2-1, the finding by a judge in a lower court that the Second Amendment provides the individual right. That appeals court, the Fifth Circuit, is considered by many to be the most conservative in the country. In addition, Nosanchuk counters, as many other lawyers have, that the appellate ruling was qualified as nonbinding, nonprecedential "dicta."
"So here you have a judicial activist judge who does this Emerson case, which is then relied on by an executive-branch activist, Ashcroft, to produce this illegitimate result. It's ironic. I remember Ashcroft sitting in confirmation hearings when he was a senator railing against judicial activists. So then a judicial activist decision becomes one of the bases for his Second Amendment flip-flop."
Are there other reasons for the flip-flop? The new website, www.gunguys.com thinks so. A recent article posted on that site suggests that one likely answer comes from following the enormous flow of money that the NRA has given Ashcroft when he was in office and seeking reelection. The article points out that in the 2000 election cycle, the NRA and its political action committees spent a combined total of $534,668 on behalf of Ashcroft in his failed Senate re-election bid.
Even though criminal defendants and gun-rights activists have already begun scurrying to take advantage of the new interpretation, the damage hasn't necessarily been done yet -- as Nosanchuk points out, the danger comes when the new view takes "traction" in the courts. He argues that Congress has a responsibility to hold Ashcroft accountable for breaking the promises that he made during his confirmation hearings. But he also points out that because gun control and the Second Amendment are volatile issues, especially during an election year, there's little motivation for members of Congress to do so.
Which leaves it to the people. Nosanchuk encourages activists and anyone interested in gun-violence prevention to contact their own U.S. representatives, but especially Democratic members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, to express their displeasure. The message, he said, is a simple one: "This guy basically has said one thing and done another. He's basically lied."
If so, Nosanchuk says John Ashcroft must be held accountable for his actions.
http://www.jointogether.org/gv/news/features/reader/0,2061,551449,00.html
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
6/4/2002
Subscribe
Feature Story
by Dick Dahl
Attorney General John Ashcroft's job as the nation's top prosecutor is to put criminals behind bars. But his recent unilateral reversal of government policy on the meaning of the Second Amendment has handed criminals a new weapon that they can use to defend themselves in court.
The first signal appeared on May 15, when lawyers for John Walker Lindh, the American who is accused of fighting for the Taliban, filed a motion to dismiss the firearms charge that the government had filed against him. They said that the charge, one of 10 counts filed against Lindh, is a violation of the Justice Department's new interpretation of the Second Amendment as an absolute guarantor of individual rights to own and use guns.
Then, on May 30, the Washington Post reported that attorneys for two men accused of violating the District of Columbia's handgun ban are arguing that the law is unconstitutional based on the administration's new position on constitutional gun rights.
These motions by the lawyers for Lindh and the Washington, D.C. defendants are probably the first of a wave. As Mathew Nosanchuk, litigation director and legislative counsel at the Violence Policy Center, says, "You're going to have lots of criminal defendants making these claims. In addition, you're going to have the NRA challenge all kinds of laws."
Many outraged voices have arisen since early May, when Solicitor General Ted Olson filed papers on two cases with the U.S. Supreme Court on behalf of Ashcroft stating that "the current position" of the U.S. government is that the "collective rights" interpretation of the amendment, as established by the U.S. Supreme Court, is simply wrong. That interpretation, established in the case of U.S. v. Miller in 1939, concluded that the Second Amendment guaranteed the collective right of states to form armed militias.
Bill Press of Tribune Media Services wrote an opinion piece (posted on www.cnn.com) in which he accuses Ashcroft of engaging in "a shocking display of executive arrogance" to "single-handedly reverse....29 years of federal policy on guns." Furthermore, Press wrote, "(e)ven if Ashcroft disagrees with official policy on guns, it's not in his power to change it."
Aschroft's arrogance in trying to reverse judicial precedent is one thing. Another is what appears to be a contradiction of the pledge he made during his confirmation hearings that he would not allow his personal beliefs to affect his duty to uphold the law of the land no matter what he may think of it.
During his confirmation hearings, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) asked him about his position on the Second Amendment and gun laws. He answered, "What I am trying to clarify here is that I believe there are constitutional inhibitions on the rights of citizens to keep and bear certain kinds of arms. And some of those I would think goodjudgment, some of those I'd think bad judgment. But as attorney general, it's not my judgment to make that kind of call my judgment. My responsibility is to uphold the acts of the legislative branch of this government in that arena, and I would do so and continue to do so in regard to the cases that now exist and further enactments of the Congress."
Following Ashcroft's issuance of the Second Amendment memo in early May, Michael Barnes, president of the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, responded by saying, "This action is proof positive that the worst fears about Attorney General Ashcroft have come true: his extreme ideology on guns has become government policy." The Coalition to Stop Gun Violence said in a statement: "What is astounding about this blatant political act by Attorney General John Ashcroft is that the Justice Department did not need to make the assertion that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to bear arms in order to protect its legal position in the two cases."
Curiously, however, even though Ashcroft's action poses one of the greatest threats to common-sense gun regulation ever, there have been precious few calls for action against Ashcroft by gun-violence-prevention groups. "It's been relatively quiet," said Maura Keefe of the year-old Alliance for Justice program, Gun Industry Watch. "But to be motivated, people have to understand the threat."
One group that has been banging a critical drum on Ashcroft's performance as attorney general has been People for the American Way. The organization recently completed a report on Ashcroft's first year in office, "The Triumph of Right-Wing Ideology Over Our Constitution and Laws," which includes a summary of his extraordinary actions to undermine law enforcement. Besides the Second Amendment turnaround, the Ashcroft Justice Department also halted efforts by the FBI to access gun-purchase records of potential terrorists.
The legal reality of the Justice Department's action on the Second Amendment is that it may very well come to constitute an impediment to prosecutors and lawmakers alike. "There's no question this is going to embolden all kinds of efforts on the part of gun-rights groups to litigate things," said Saul Cornell, an Ohio State University associate professor of history who has written about the history and politics of gun control. Nosanchuk of the VPC agrees, saying that the new interpretation will now make it easier for them to argue first that prospective new laws violate the Second Amendment. He also points to the potential influence it may have on the assault-weapons ban, which will come up for Congressional action before it's scheduled to sunset in 2004.
Still, while people are talking about the content of Ashcroft's memos, what about the legitimacy of the action itself? Nosanchuk, for one, contends that it lacks legitimacy. He said that the Ashcroft memo was based on the one letter he sent to the NRA last year at the organization's request, in which he said that he agreed with the gunlobby's individual-rights intepretation of the Second Amendment. "The NRA letter was prepared without any consulting career people, and it provides the basis for this conclusory memorandum that Ashcroft sends to U.S. attorneys. There's the letter and there's a conclusory memo that's stapled to the back of a brief. How is that legitimate?"
One of the responses to that very question is that it is legitimate because a three-judge federal appellate panel last year upheld, by 2-1, the finding by a judge in a lower court that the Second Amendment provides the individual right. That appeals court, the Fifth Circuit, is considered by many to be the most conservative in the country. In addition, Nosanchuk counters, as many other lawyers have, that the appellate ruling was qualified as nonbinding, nonprecedential "dicta."
"So here you have a judicial activist judge who does this Emerson case, which is then relied on by an executive-branch activist, Ashcroft, to produce this illegitimate result. It's ironic. I remember Ashcroft sitting in confirmation hearings when he was a senator railing against judicial activists. So then a judicial activist decision becomes one of the bases for his Second Amendment flip-flop."
Are there other reasons for the flip-flop? The new website, www.gunguys.com thinks so. A recent article posted on that site suggests that one likely answer comes from following the enormous flow of money that the NRA has given Ashcroft when he was in office and seeking reelection. The article points out that in the 2000 election cycle, the NRA and its political action committees spent a combined total of $534,668 on behalf of Ashcroft in his failed Senate re-election bid.
Even though criminal defendants and gun-rights activists have already begun scurrying to take advantage of the new interpretation, the damage hasn't necessarily been done yet -- as Nosanchuk points out, the danger comes when the new view takes "traction" in the courts. He argues that Congress has a responsibility to hold Ashcroft accountable for breaking the promises that he made during his confirmation hearings. But he also points out that because gun control and the Second Amendment are volatile issues, especially during an election year, there's little motivation for members of Congress to do so.
Which leaves it to the people. Nosanchuk encourages activists and anyone interested in gun-violence prevention to contact their own U.S. representatives, but especially Democratic members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, to express their displeasure. The message, he said, is a simple one: "This guy basically has said one thing and done another. He's basically lied."
If so, Nosanchuk says John Ashcroft must be held accountable for his actions.
http://www.jointogether.org/gv/news/features/reader/0,2061,551449,00.html
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
Comments
Washington radio ad airs attack on GOP candidate
By Howard Libit
Sun Staff
Originally published June 5, 2002
A national gun control group began airing an advertisement on two Washington radio stations yesterday criticizing Rep. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. for his record on handguns.
The ad -- scheduled to run eight times between yesterday and Tuesday -- is the first on radio or television in Maryland's 2002 gubernatorial campaign. The congressman from Baltimore County is the leading Republican candidate for governor.
"We targeted Ehrlich first because we have concerns about his record," said Amy Stilwell, a spokeswoman for the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. "We feel strongly enough about it that we want to begin educating voters now."
Stilwell said the group spent $20,000 to $25,000 to purchase the eight 60-second ads on WTOP and WMAL. It plans to spend as much as $250,000 by the end of Maryland's campaign. The organization, formerly known as Handgun Control Inc., has not yet made a formal endorsement for governor.
The ad -- spoken by former congressman Michael D. Barnes, president of the Brady Campaign -- describes Ehrlich's record as "extremist" and says he "has always sided with the extreme gun lobby." Barnes says Ehrlich led the "gun lobby's fight against banning Saturday Night Special handguns" when he was a state delegate, and notes that he voted in Congress to overturn the federal ban on assault weapons.
A spokesman for Ehrlich said the ad inaccurately characterizes the congressman's record and turns the campaign negative before the summer has begun. "We are disappointed that the very first ad of this campaign season in Maryland is a personal attack on Bob," said spokesman Paul E. Schurick.
"Bob's long voting record on guns is mixed by any reasonable measure," Schurick said. "He's cast thousands of votes. They've decided to go in there and identify two out of a thousand and distort his record."
Ehrlich has voted in favor of such gun control measures as trigger locks and background checks for would-be gun purchasers.
Both Ehrlich and the Brady Campaign back a program known as Project Exile -- requiring tough mandatory sentences for felons caught with guns -- but Stilwell said that's not enough. "You need to take preventive measures, too," she said.
A state handgun control group -- Marylanders Against Handgun Abuse -- also has begun a campaign to highlight Ehrlich's record on guns. The two gun control groups say they're independent of the campaign of Ehrlich's leading Democratic opponent, Lt. Gov. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend.
Copyright c 2002, The Baltimore Sun
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"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
April 29, 2002
by Women's Enews
A new study suggests that American women are five times more likely to be murdered than women in other industrialized countries.
The study by the Harvard School of Public Health found that 7 out of 10 women who were murdered in the world's wealthiest countries were slain in the United States, Reuters reported. The study, touted as the first examination of international homicide rates among women, was released last week.
Of the nearly 6,300 women killed in the 25 richest countries each year, about 4,400 are American, researchers found. Finland had the second-highest rate, followed by Switzerland, Belgium and New Zealand.
Israel had the lowest female homicide rate, according to the study.
David Hemenway, the study's lead author, said that nearly half of all murdered American women are killed with a gun. He said they are more likely to be killed by someone they know, such as husbands, companions or rejected lovers.
"Guns are often bought for protection, but the U.S. has the most guns, and, clearly, we are not doing a good job protecting American women," Hemenway said. "The experience of all other developed countries shows that we can do better."
The study did not examine why American women were more likely to be murdered than their foreign counterparts, but Hemenway said the country's homicide rate is closely tied to levels of gun ownership.
Women's Enews is a news service based in New York City.
http://www.now.org/eNews/april2002/042902outrage.html
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
November 16, 2001
CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--Persistent questions are being raised about whether the long-silenced women of Afghanistan will have a voice in a post-Taliban peace process and government.
They will if Rina Amiri has her way. Born in Afghanistan, Amiri escaped with her family to India in 1973 when she was toddler during earlier political unrest, in which King Zahir Shah--considered by some foreign affairs experts to be part of the solution in a post-Taliban Afghanistan-was overthrown.
Almost 30 years have passed. Her country is still in turmoil, and Amiri is a senior associate at the Women and Public Policy Program at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government and a peace advocate. She also is the point-person for questions about Afghanistan during this propitiously scheduled two-week Women Waging Peace colloquium at Harvard that ends on Sunday. It coincided with the toppling of the extremist Taliban regime in key cities and the end of diktat that women must not work and must be veiled outside the home.
Women from past and present conflict areas around the world, including Rwanda, South Africa, Guatemala, Cambodia, Pakistan, and the Philippines, gathered here to exchange peace strategies that have worked--or sometimes failed--in their countries, to study the process of peace-making, to talk about the significant role women can play to create lasting peace and to create a powerful network of women who can help each other via new age and old age communications technologies in the years to come.
Swanee Hunt, the former ambassador to Austria and the creator of Women Waging Peace at the Kennedy School, credits Amiri as being "the conceptual force" behind this effort, the third in a series. Hunt said that women--whether by nature or nurture--bring a different, valuable sensibility to the peace table, a strong sense of family and community. Moreover, Hunt says, women should be part of the process simply because they represent at least 50 percent of the population. Did anyone question why blacks in the South should be part of government during the Civil Rights struggle, Hunt asked.
During several remarkable interviews during the conference, Amiri had much to say about the strength of those faceless Afghan women hidden behind their burqas. She talked about how the enemy in numerous conflict areas use violence and control of women as tools of psychological warfare against men who oppose them, and about how the Western world needs to rethink many assumptions about the Eastern world if there is ever to be a chance for peace in Afghanistan. She also has some advice for President George Bush and his advisors.
Peace Lessons Start With Recognizing Profoundly Different Values
Peace lesson No. 1: Amiri says that Bush should recognize that there are differences in values, but more important is to recognize the commonalities among all people. Americans have a hard time relating to Afghanistan and the danger is that when a person doesn't understand something, the person tends to dehumanize it.
For example, in the American media, over and over again people refer to lives lost in Afghanistan as "collateral damage."
Yet here in the United States, the respect for human life is so great that though there were several thousand victims in the World Trade Center terror attack, each is seen as having a personal story and many are captured in the media.
Peace lesson No. 2: Bush should not forget the lessons of Rwanda and Bosnia, Amiri says. Hundreds of thousands of people are starving or dying in Afghanistan. The situation is worse now than before Sept. 11. Hundreds of thousands of people have lost their homes and are trapped in a no-man's land between Afghanistan and Pakistan because the borders have been closed. The United Nations says 7 million people will need assistance in order to survive. The United States has been supportive but more needs to happen to stop this disaster of catastrophic proportions.
Otherwise, the genocide that happened in Rwanda will happen all over again. More than 800,000 people died in Rwanda, yet it was very preventable, Amiri says, adding that many said afterwards, "How could we let this happen?" The same in Kosovo. What was going on was widely know and many asked: "How could we have let this happen?" Averting one's gaze is a very, very dangerous act, she says. All of us need to understand what choices we are making passively and actively.
Women Have a Strategic Role in Stabilizing Afghanistan
Peace lesson No. 3: Women have a strategic role in stabilizing the country and Bush should become more informed about women's roles in Afghanistan from both an Islamic and historical perspectives-lest what has occurred to women there be forgotten.
Amiri says that she hears the arguments: "We have so many other priorities;" or "We need to put food on the table," or "We need to get the guns away from the men." The U.S. should recognize that, to be able to make these other things happen, women must be strengthened.
Amiri says she works with women in 20 conflict areas, and she sees the way women create stability in their countries--by creating nongovernmental organizations to help women find jobs, to build their skills and to run for political office, for example. When resources are given to women, the resources get to the community, she argues.
Peace lesson No. 4: People see women shrouded in the burqua and they equate that with utter powerlessness. It's become like a wall. But the burqua does not mean women are inherently weak. It just means they are working under very difficult circumstances. Afghan women have demonstrated that they are incredibly resourceful. They have managed to feed their families during this long crisis. The U.S. should give women the tools to make changes, because they have the capacity to make those changes.
Peace lesson No. 5: Bush should remember Bosnia, South Africa, Cambodia and Rwanda where sexual violence against women increased dramatically after conflicts ostensibly ended. There is euphoria now that the Taliban has fallen in some areas. However, even without the Taliban, women will not necessarily be safe. Prior to the Taliban, women were being raped. Savage acts against women are used as a tool of psychological warfare against men. Women are used as war booty. Women become dehumanized objects and are violated to terrorize the "enemy." Afghan women need multi-national forces to protect the women and all of the people.
Peace lesson No. 6: It's important to be concerned about "cultural imperialism." However, making sure women have public roles in post-Taliban Afghanistan is not necessarily imposing Western values. Rather than comparing Afghanistan to Western countries, the U.S. should look at any Islamic country apart from Afghanistan. Women are employed, they participate within the economic sphere; they do have public roles.
Women's Political Leadership May Not Be Feasible At This Stage
Amiri urged the president to look at Iran, even Saudi Arabia and says that the way women were treated in Afghanistan was not because of the Koran or because of the culture. It was not even about Afghan culture, as the Taliban tries to claim, she says. In Afghan history, or even now in the rural areas, women are active contributors to their communities, especially in urban areas.
In Kabul, prior to the overthrow of the king, 40 percent of those in the health sector were women. The education sector in Kabul had over 60 percent women. The treatment of women by the Taliban is about women being used by the Taliban as a political tool to create a persona--to say that they stand in defiance of the West, to say they are "truly" Islamic, Amiri says.
Still, gender issues are very explosive. But women certainly would be able to step into leadership roles. Political leadership for women may or may not be feasible at this stage. But it has to come from within Afghanistan instead of being imposed. Answers are not easy, but the U.S. must recognize that women have a role to play.
Peace lesson No. 7: Bush must understand Afghanistan in a regional and global context, or otherwise he will miss some of the central issues that must be addressed to create stability. Afghanistan has been used by its neighbors to fight proxy wars between regional powers. Bush should use his influence to move the United Nations group known as the "Six plus Two"--the six countries bordering Afghanistan plus the United States and Russia--which have been talking for two years about mitigating things--from mere rhetoric to action.
Just disarming the two warring groups would not be enough, Amiri says. Bush needs to apply political pressure to persuade these regional powers not to arm or fund their favorite factions in Afghanistan. The solution really lies within these countries. If Bush cuts off the tap of arms and financial support, that would eventually stop the fighting.
Bush Must Reassess Rejection of Nation-Building, as in Somalia
Peace lesson No. 8: Bush has said America doesn't do state building or nation building. However, for the last 30 years, Afghanistan has been destroyed at every level-from the social infrastructure, to the political infrastructure, to the physical infrastructure. If the nation is left in a political vacuum, if the U.S. leaves a population that has been radicalized by war, if the U.S. leaves extremists with guns, something worse than the Taliban will be the result.
Peace lesson No. 9: It's important to understand why people have been susceptible to Osama bin Laden's message. There is a reason why an element of the population thinks bin Laden speaks for them. People who are desperate and poor also feel some anger about globalization and about their perceptions of Western policies. Bush should ask the "why" question. Bush should not want to create martyrs. For every terrorist that dies, another may be born.
Peace lesson No. 10: Finally, Bush should find ways to engage the ordinary people in the region, and recognize their needs, their interests and perhaps their anger.
Florence George Graves, a resident scholar at Brandeis University Women's Studies Research Center, is a former Washington Post reporter and the founder of the national political and investigative journal, Common Cause Magazine.
http://www.now.org/eNews/nov2001/111601peacemakers.html
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
May 30, 2002
by Rebecca Vesely, Women's Enews
LOS ANGELES--In California's race for governor, women are using their political clout to put issues they care about at the forefront of debate between the two candidates who need their support most.
Both incumbent Democratic Gov. Gray Davis and Republican businessman Bill Simon Jr. face unique challenges in gaining women's votes. Recent surveys show that the most important issues for California women are reproductive choice, education, gun control and the economy, raising the bar for two candidates who must justify their unpopular positions on some of these issues.
Davis is addressing a budget shortfall of $23.6 billion by making drastic cuts into social programs that help women living in poverty. Simon, a political newcomer, is strongly anti-choice.
Women account for more than half of California's voters, with 8 million women registered to vote and another 3 million eligible. Mindful of a recent Field Poll that found that 28 percent of Californians remain undecided about whom to vote for, Davis and Simon are making targeted pitches on issues women care about. On Friday, 1,200 women gathered in Los Angeles for a breakfast, eager to hear how the two men would address these issues.
Republicans Losing Women's Votes in Recent Years
Perhaps no one needs women voters more than Simon. Republican candidates in this largely Democratic state have experienced huge losses in recent years.
Four years ago, Davis won a landslide victory over his Republican opponent Dan Lungren thanks in large part to women voters. Like Simon, Lungren was anti-choice and opposed stricter gun laws. According to a Los Angeles Times exit poll, women favored Davis over Lungren 62 percent to 35 percent, while men favored Davis over Lungren 53 percent to 42 percent.
"Women are very important in this race," said John Kohut, a political analyst at the nonpartisan Cook Political Report in Washington who is monitoring the campaign. "The Democrats will keep reminding women of Simon's conservative views on social issues and they will play to women's fears about keeping abortion legal."
'How Do I Earn Your Trust?'
Politicians at the national level tend to pay close attention to gubernatorial races in California because the state's governor inevitably campaigns for presidential candidates who covet California's large number of Electoral College votes. President George W. Bush spent considerable time here during the primary supporting the former mayor of Los Angeles Richard Riordan in his bid for governor. When Riordan lost to Simon, the White House had to abruptly shift gears. Since the primary, Bush has stumped for Simon twice, helping him raise about $5 million.
On Friday, Davis and Simon were each scheduled to answer questions at the event, The Women's TownHall. But a carpenter's union protesting subcontractor wages was picketing in front of the Westin Bonaventure hotel where the event was held. Davis, who has a strict policy of not crossing picket lines, canceled.
That left Republican contender Simon with a packed audience all to himself. Trailing 14 percentage points behind Davis in last month's Field Poll, and with a campaign fund of only $6 million to Davis' $28 million, Simon addressed his lack of appeal among women.
"The challenge for me is how do I make you feel comfortable? How do I earn your trust?" Simon asked in his opening remarks.
Answers to these questions continue to elude Simon. A lawyer and a businessman, he lacks formal political experience. He served as assistant attorney general in New York under then-U.S. Attorney Rudolph Giuliani (who has endorsed him in his bid for California governor) and his father was a Treasury secretary under presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford.
In addition, Simon's conservative views are out of step with many women here. He opposes further restrictions on guns and is endorsed by the National Rifle Association, while most women support gun control. Two out of three women in California believe in reproductive choice while Simon would limit abortion to pregnancies that are the result of rape or incest or to save the woman's life.
Many Women Critical of Simon's Abortion Stance
Throughout the campaign Simon has had a policy of not answering questions about abortion, but he said he was "glad" to talk about it at Friday's event with women representing 125 groups ranging from the Girl Scouts of the United States of America and Planned Parenthood Federation of America to Women in Technology International.
Simon promised that when appointing judges he would not make abortion a "litmus test" and would instead appoint the "most qualified judges, whether they are pro-choice or pro-life." He also said that he would uphold current laws protecting abortion rights.
Simon had gone further than ever before in detailing his views on abortion and how he would govern under current abortion law. But he drew his loudest applause when he said, "I understand that not everyone agrees with me on this subject."
Still, for many women in the audience, his words were not enough to bridge the disconnect.
"He danced around the issue very well," said Shelley Singer, co-chair of the Women's Caucus on HIV/AIDS in Los Angeles County. "But how would he uphold the law? How would he protect clinics from bombers? How would he address sex education? How would he support condom use, since women are the fastest-growing infection group in the AIDS epidemic?"
In contrast, Davis has a strong pro-choice record and supports legislation that would expand access to reproductive health services. He supports AIDS education and has passed the strictest assault-weapons laws in the country. However, despite Davis' increases in education funding, California ranks 46th in spending for students from kindergarten through 12th grade, and 34th in percentage of high school completion, according a report released last week by The Women's Foundation in San Francisco.
Poor Economy Hurts Women More
Throughout Simon's remarks, many women in the audience raised their eyebrows, crossed their arms defiantly, shook their heads and even hissed or booed.
But on the issues of education and the economy, Simon did get some cheers. He pledged to increase after-school programs. Aware there are 1.2 million women business owners in California who employ 3.8 million workers, according to organizers of Friday's event, Simon proposed cutting the capital gains tax to encourage small businesses. He said that one way to ensure equal pay for equal work is to support the rise in women-owned businesses. His pledge to focus on the economy resonated with many women.
"As women we can focus on a social agenda, but if we don't push the financial issues, we won't get funding for social programs," said Pamela Hermann, executive director of the non-partisan Leadership California, which helps women gain leadership roles in the public and private sector. "If you're $24 billion tipped the wrong way, we clearly have a problem," she said, referring to the budget shortfall.
Simon has criticized Davis for his recent budget proposal to cover the $23.6 billion deficit, noting that when Davis took office four years ago the state had a $7 billion surplus. Davis' new proposal calls for slashing some programs for the poor, such as subsidized health care and county funds that go to human services. Simon has not offered his own plan detailing how he would cover the budget deficit.
"The question Governor Davis asks women to ask themselves is, 'Who is the best person to deal with the economic slowdown?'" said Davis spokesman Roger Salazar. "Someone who will prioritize programs important to women, or someone who would do giveaways to the wealthy? It's a question of two different philosophies." Davis plans to meet with women's groups throughout the campaign, Salazar said, and will likely begin women-targeted advertisements as the race heats up.
Possible Fund-Raising Conflicts Cast Shadow
One out of three single California women and their children - 37 percent - live in poverty, compared to the national average of 25 percent, according to The Women's Foundation report.
"To cut funding to the programs that can improve women's economic security is to balance the budget at women's expense," said Patti Chang, The Women's Foundation chief executive officer and president. Davis is beset by other problems. He has a reputation as an overzealous fund-raiser and his administration is embroiled in a scandal involving a campaign worker who accepted a $25,000 contribution from the Oracle Corporation shortly before the software giant won a $95 billion, no-bid state contract that auditors say was overpriced. Davis has denied any knowledge of the contribution.
"Davis is obviously better because he is pro-choice and pro-union, but he needs to insist that corporations pay their fair share," said Bethany Leal, community advocate for the California Women's Law Center.
But others said that Davis has been such a disappointment that they will vote for Simon.
"Gray Davis had his chance," said Loretta Pierce, owner of Master Design, a Southern California apparel company for businesswomen. "It's time for a change."
Rebecca Vesely is a freelance writer based in San Francisco. Women's Enews is a news service based in New York City.
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http://www.now.org/eNews/may2002/053002voters.html
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
June 5, 2002 Posted: 04:40:10 AM PDT
The state Assembly has a chance this week to correct an anomaly in California law that uniquely immunizes gun manufacturers against liability suits even when their own negligence is a contributing factor in gun violence.
Senate Bill 682 by Sen. Don Perata, D-Oakland, would amend the law to make gun makers as responsible in the manufacture and marketing of their product as makers of washing machines, vacuum cleaners and cars.
The Legislature granted gun makers broad immunity in 1983, out of concern that a Maryland court decision against a gun maker could lead to lawsuits in this state against manufacturers who act in good faith but some of whose customers do not. But the law went too far, as became evident last year when the state Supreme Court ruled that Navegar, a Florida gunmaker, could not, because of the 1983 law, be sued in this state in the wake of the 1993 shooting deaths of nine people in a San Francisco law office by an irate former client.
The gun used at that time -- a TEC-DC9 semiautomatic rifle -- had been advertised by Navegar as having such features as a threaded barrel that can accommodate silencers and flash suppressors, and a surface with "excellent resistance to fingerprints." Why would anyone other than a criminal be concerned about such features?
At issue is not the legitimate fear of any manufacturer of being held liable for the irresponsible behavior of people who buy their products. It's the legitimate fear that, under the 1983 law, manufacturers may knowingly and recklessly seek out buyers with criminal intent. SB 682 would correct that.
http://www.modbee.com/opinion/story/3122621p-4147203c.html
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
By Sheriff Michael E. Cook
Published 06. 4. 02 at 20:48 Sierra Time
xxx
I got a request by e-mail to go to a web site and vote on a poll to give my opinion on the discussion in Congress on a law that would close the Gun Show Loophole. I went to the site and voted and then I got to thinking about the word loophole. My question would be what loophole? How can Congress vote on something that doesn't exist? I have been going to, or putting on Gun Shows for years now and until the Brady Law came along, no one even thought about them being a so-called loophole.
It seems to me that anytime the anti-gun people want to chip away at our Second Amendment Rights they find a new buzz word and then use it so much that it takes on a new life. The same thing was done with Assault Weapon, Saturday Night Special, and Waiting Periods. The problem seems to be that people take up these words and keep using them. Once they are used then the anti-gun people make them sound like a cuss word. These words suddenly become politically incorrect. So now we have the problem of this so called loophole.
There is, and never has been, a problem with gun shows and any kind of loophole. Gun Shows are a way for people who enjoy the hobby and sport of firearms to come together and trade and sell firearms and related items to each other. You can find new products and old items at these shows. If you look real hard and like to try your luck at bargaining you can even make a good deal on items. Most of the non-dealers I know who sell at gun shows are people who have the hobby of collecting firearms. You see, it is no different than people who collect coins, stamps, or art. They have shows also that are open to anyone. I don't hear anything about the loophole at these shows, do you?
The stupid thing in all of this is that the anti-gun people say they don't want people who have criminal records and such to be able to buy a firearm. Well we all can agree with that, right? The problem is, you can't prevent criminals or others from buying a firearm if they want one. Attempting to stop all sales to criminals is like saying we will stop the sales of narcotics to illegal drug users. It will never happen. They will find someone who is willing to break the law and sell to them or they will just take what they want.
You don't have to be a rocket scientist to look at other countries who have strong gun control laws to see that when guns are outlawed, the black market in illegal guns takes on a new life and the only people with guns are criminals. All the laws and all the controls that we have in place in America today will not stop one crime or save an innocent life. You can take that to the bank. What these laws will do is prevent some victim from protecting themselves from some criminal.
I thought that after the events of 9-11 people had began to see the light and would stand up for their rights. I guess it was only a temporary setback for the anti-gun crowd. They are on the push again and they are pushing even harder because their timeline was set back a little. I believe that the only new law we need in this land is this: anyone who attempts to enact or pass a law or bill that is unconstitutional should be locked up for life. Anyone who doesn't provide for their own protection and exercise their right to keep and bear arms and becomes a victim is a professional victim and this should be against the law. The only insurance you need is a good firearm and the ability to us it.
America had better wake up or this country of ours will become another waste land of oppressed people. You will no longer have the freedom to pursue life, liberty, and happiness. Your new job will be to make the government happy and do what you are told. So go out and close that loophole at those gun shows, it is a terrible thing that will cause you many sleepless nights if our Congress people don't take care of it right now. People may even fly plains into buildings if we don't close that loophole.
It's time Congress and the people get back to earth and look at things that are real, not some fantasy item dreamed up by those who would take your freedom.
God Bless America.
Michael E. Cook, Coos County Sheriff, Retired.
http://www.sierratimes.com/02/06/05/sheriff.htm
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878