A pox on both their houses
Bush and Cheney on one hand and self-righteous Canadian swipples looking down on flyover Americans on the other. How about Ron Paul, peace and personal freedom? The good news: more conservatives are joining me in not buying the Republicans’ rap. Palin’s unqualified, Bachmann’s a loon and I don’t trust Rick Perry but I don’t like their haters either. It’s Ron Paul, or Gary Johnson, or the Libertarian candidate or nothing.

Canada keeps Bush out, U.S. protests grow
Torture, war crimes catching up with Bush and Cheney

The movement to hold Bush and Co. accountable for torture and war crimes is gaining steam.

A Canadian Member of Parliament has declared that U.S. vice president Dick Cheney should be barred from entering the country.

Last week, Bush was forced to cancel a fundraising appearance in Toronto, Canada at Tyndale University College and Seminary, an evangelical Christian school. Students and faculty members protested and petitioned to keep him away from their school. Their petition said: “We believe that no amount of new money can justify profiting from a former figurehead whose policies led to the murder of thousands of innocent civilians.”

Bush assumed he would be welcomed by this university, but he wasn’t. Instead, they kept him out of Canada.

Days later, dozens of people, led by former FBI special agent turned activist Coleen Rowley, met George Bush at a Minnesota fundraiser with banners, signs reading “Wanted for torture” and loud chants of “Arrest George Bush!” and “Shame!”

In an article about the protest, Rowley posed the question, “When will Bush be ‘Pinocheted?’” She also asked: “Is it proper to honor this war criminal who launched pre-emptive, unjustified wars of aggression and ‘shock and awe’ that led to hundreds of thousands of people killed, mostly civilian ‘collateral damage’ and widespread destruction in the Middle East?”

Because of this broad-based and growing movement for accountability and justice, Bush’s world is getting smaller. He is canceling more and more events and is being dogged by passionate protests wherever he goes.

The same is true for Dick Cheney.

Following protests in Orange County, New York and Chicago, Cheney was met by another demonstration in the most improbable of places, conservative Simi Valley, Calif. at a book signing in the Ronald Reagan Library. Cheney thought he would evade protest here, but he couldn’t. The movement against torture was on to him. Dozens of protesters outside the venue denounced Cheney’s complicity in torture and demanded indictment for his crimes.

This is unprecedented. Former top U.S. officials are unable to travel in their own country without being challenged by our movement.

Let’s keep up the pressure. More and more people are joining the ranks of our movement and demanding indictment for Bush, Cheney and their gang.

Labels: peace, politics