Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: Morte di una democrazia

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/28/opinion/28thu1.html
Editorial
Rushing Off a Cliff
Published: September 28, 2006
Here's what happens when this irresponsible Congress railroads a profoundly 
important bill to serve the mindless politics of a midterm election: The 
Bush administration uses Republicans' fear of losing their majority to push 
through ghastly ideas about antiterrorism that will make American troops 
less safe and do lasting damage to our 217-year-old nation of laws - while 
actually doing nothing to protect the nation from terrorists. Democrats 
betray their principles to avoid last-minute attack ads. Our democracy is 
the big loser.
Republicans say Congress must act right now to create procedures for 
charging and trying terrorists - because the men accused of plotting the 
9/11 attacks are available for trial. That's pure propaganda. Those men 
could have been tried and convicted long ago, but President Bush chose not 
to. He held them in illegal detention, had them questioned in ways that will 
make real trials very hard, and invented a transparently illegal system of 
kangaroo courts to convict them.
It was only after the Supreme Court issued the inevitable ruling striking 
down Mr. Bush's shadow penal system that he adopted his tone of urgency. It 
serves a cynical goal: Republican strategists think they can win this fall, 
not by passing a good law but by forcing Democrats to vote against a bad one 
so they could be made to look soft on terrorism.
Last week, the White House and three Republican senators announced a 
terrible deal on this legislation that gave Mr. Bush most of what he wanted, 
including a blanket waiver for crimes Americans may have committed in the 
service of his antiterrorism policies. Then Vice President Dick Cheney and 
his willing lawmakers rewrote the rest of the measure so that it would give 
Mr. Bush the power to jail pretty much anyone he wants for as long as he 
wants without charging them, to unilaterally reinterpret the Geneva 
Conventions, to authorize what normal people consider torture, and to deny 
justice to hundreds of men captured in error.
These are some of the bill's biggest flaws:
Enemy Combatants: A dangerously broad definition of "illegal enemy 
 combatant" in the bill could subject legal residents of the United States, 
as well as foreign citizens living in their own countries, to summary arrest 
and indefinite detention with no hope of appeal. The president could give 
the power to apply this label to anyone he wanted.
The Geneva Conventions: The bill would repudiate a half-century of 
international precedent by allowing Mr. Bush to decide on his own what 
abusive interrogation methods he considered permissible. And his decision 
could stay secret - there's no requirement that this list be published.
Habeas Corpus: Detainees in U.S. military prisons would lose the basic right 
to challenge their imprisonment. These cases do not clog the courts, nor 
coddle terrorists. They simply give wrongly imprisoned people a chance to 
prove their innocence.
Judicial Review: The courts would have no power to review any aspect of this 
new system, except verdicts by military tribunals. The bill would limit 
appeals and bar legal actions based on the Geneva Conventions, directly or 
indirectly. All Mr. Bush would have to do to lock anyone up forever is to 
declare him an illegal combatant and not have a trial.
Coerced Evidence: Coerced evidence would be permissible if a judge 
considered it reliable - already a contradiction in terms - and relevant. 
Coercion is defined in a way that exempts anything done before the passage 
of the 2005 Detainee Treatment Act, and anything else Mr. Bush chooses.
Secret Evidence: American standards of justice prohibit evidence and 
testimony that is kept secret from the defendant, whether the accused is a 
corporate executive or a mass murderer. But the bill as redrafted by Mr. 
Cheney seems to weaken protections against such evidence.
Offenses: The definition of torture is unacceptably narrow, a virtual 
reprise of the deeply cynical memos the administration produced after 9/11. 
Rape and sexual assault are defined in a retrograde way that covers only 
forced or coerced activity, and not other forms of nonconsensual sex. The 
bill would effectively eliminate the idea of rape as torture.
.There is not enough time to fix these bills, especially since the few 
Republicans who call themselves moderates have been whipped into line, and 
the Democratic leadership in the Senate seems to have misplaced its spine. 
If there was ever a moment for a filibuster, this was it.
We don't blame the Democrats for being frightened. The Republicans have made 
it clear that they'll use any opportunity to brand anyone who votes against 
this bill as a terrorist enabler. But Americans of the future won't remember 
the pragmatic arguments for caving in to the administration.
They'll know that in 2006, Congress passed a tyrannical law that will be 
ranked with the low points in American democracy, our generation's version 
of the Alien and Sedition Acts.

 so they could be made to look soft on terrorism.
Ecco. Questo è possibile solamente in un paese in cui l'elettorato è 
costituito in gran parte da fessi che si abbeverano avidamente alla 
fonte della propaganda.
Problema 1: la percentuale di fessi è importante nella maggior parte dei 
paesi (anche se non sempre è decisiva come in USA e Italia) e pare che 
sia in crescita.
Problema 2: il voto di un fesso vale tanto quanto quello di un normodotato.
Possibile soluzione: seduciamo il fesso di turno con balle più 
succulente che lo portino a votare in maniera differente (FUD wars).
Che triste cosa è diventata la democrazia: una sporca gara psicologica 
per convincere il Forrest Gump della situazione a correre nella 
direzione giusta.
Riot, l'elista ademocratico