scarletwoman
scarletwoman's JournalThe "enemy combatant" question. It's not just about the suspect's rights, it's about OUR rights.
It's about our rights, as U.S. citizens, to be able to witness a fair and open trial of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. It's about our rights to have knowledge of the evidence, of the arguments, of how the proceedings unfold.
It's about our rights to know exactly what case is being made by the State on our behalf - what the questions are, what the answers are. We are the "People" in any court proceeding framed as "The People vs. ____________". It's OUR right to have the trial take place in open court. WE are the injured party.
The idiot assholes on the right who want to whisk Dzhokhar off to Gitmo for a trial by military tribunal not only want to curtail HIS Constitutional rights, they want to curtail OURS as well, by denying us access to a public trial, conducted in the open.
I don't care how you feel about the bomber himself, you need at least to speak up loud and clear for OUR rights to have his trial open and accessable to all of us.
sw
"I'm not a hypocrite. I spoke ill of her when she was alive & I'll speak ill of her now she's dead."
"I'll tell you what really annoyed us miners," said Pete Mansell, sipping a pint of John Smith's on Monday. "She said we were the enemy within. We weren't. We were just looking after our lives, our families, our kids and our properties, everything that we ever had. We were fighting for that big style."
Along with most of the other men drinking in the Black Bull pub in Aughton, Rotherham, the 55-year-old former pit worker had borne witness to the fiercest confrontation in the miners strike at the nearby Orgreave coking plant on 18 June 1984.
Almost 30 years have gone by since Margaret Thatcher characterised those who took part in the "battle of Orgreave" as thugs. But in a village that one drinker said had been "decimated by Thatcher", the words still cut deep. It is perhaps no surprise that those gathered in the pub were having what they described as a party after hearing about her death.
<snip>
There were 95 miners arrested at Orgreave and prosecuted for riot, a charge that carried the potential for a long prison sentence up to a maximum of life. But a year later, on 17 July 1985, all 95 were acquitted. The prosecution withdrew, from the first trial of 15, after police gave unconvincing accounts in the witness box: it became clear that the miners had themselves been attacked by police on horses or with truncheons, and there was evidence that a police officer's signature on a statement had been forged.
I strongly encourage DUers to go to the link and read the whole piece - especially those who are too young to remember what was going on in those days when Thatcher was in power.
Bonus pic - here's Steve Bell's (Brit cartoonist) eulogy for Thatcher:
All I will say is, I hope she has gone on to the reward she so richly deserves.
sw
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Gender: FemaleHometown: Minnesota
Current location: up north
Member since: 2001
Number of posts: 31,893
