http://insomnia.livejournal.com/652389. ... style=mine

Alberto Gonzales spoke before law students at Georgetown today, justifying illegal, unauthorized surveilance of US citizens, but during the course of his speech the students in class did something pretty ballsy and brave. They got up from their seats and turned their backs to him.



To make matters worse for Gonzales, additional students came into the room, wearing black cowls and carrying a simple banner, written on a sheet.



Fortunately for him, it was a brief speech... followed by a panel discussion that basically ripped his argument a new asshole.

And, as one of the people on the panel said,

"When you're a law student, they tell you if say that if you can't argue the law, argue the facts. They also tell you if you can't argue the facts, argue the law. If you can't argue either, apparently, the solution is to go on a public relations offensive and make it a political issue... to say over and over again "it's lawful", and to think that the American people will somehow come to believe this if we say it often enough.

In light of this, I'm proud of the very civil civil disobedience that was shown here today."
- David Cole, Georgetown University Law Professor

It was a good day for dissent.

Here's a better link: http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/01/24/ ... index.html

God that is sweet. This makes me proud to be an American.

i just dont get the ben franklin quote

its dated, this was before there were religious zealots who would command their followers to die for the cause, before the advent of bombs that could be dropped from the sky from miles above, before a nations economy could be destroyed sending it into a spiral of out of controlness and a whole slew of other things

if we are going to go on how people thought/felt back then and say its true, well, they also thought people who were weird should be held underwater. if they didnt survive, then guess they werent witches after all, women shouldnt be allowed to do anything but bear children and cook and clean, and that people from africa were only hear to serve people

The constitution is dated too, we should probably just go ahead and ignore what it says, right?


The Franklin quote applies because integrity and the belief in and support of the ideals our country was founded upon don't have an expiration date. They never go out of style.

thats sorta my point in a roundabout way.....i do believe some of the constitution should be reworded, not wholey changed, but at the same time, i do think some of the things it makes a point of is right on, while others it has to change with the times

You wouldnt like a new constitution. Brazil had several constitutions and we are a horrible mess.

well, id like for the right to bear arms be strongly reworded, in like the worst possible way

If you had a house with a leaky roof, some windows that let in too much weather, a few gutters that needed cleaning, and a new a/c system, would you make fix the roof, get windows repaired, clean the gutters and install a new a/c or would you instead go grab a sledgehammer and start taking whacks at the foundation?

BTW I dig your new sig; that's one of my favorite late era Stones songs.

thats why i said some need reworded. i dont disagree with the constitution as a whole, but like i said, some of it needs worked on

a very underated song to say the least

You're proud of a bunch of people acting like rude assholes?

No, he's proud of the students ... not the Bush administration.

ziiiiiiiiing.

I probably should have known that one was coming.

theyre still excited about the duke win..they feel they can take on the world!!

They had a forum to make a strong statement of dissent that would be seen by millions and they did it without violence. F'in A I'm proud. F'in A

Yeah, that'll teach 'em! The whole administration will learn a painful lesson from a handful of law students and reverse course.

No, but millions of people will see that a small group of people decided to take advantage of an opportunity to voice their dissent and will be forced to think about the circumstances that lead to a group of people making such a strong statement of protest. And in a nutshell that is one of the main aims of dissent and protest is the drawing of attention to an action or situation that an individual or group feels isn't being given the proper attention. Just because the action of 20 or so people standing up and protesting didn't immedialely lead the world into a state of utopia doesn't mean that its not a valuable action. Using your logic, nobody would ever attempt anything.

Kind of like the protesters after we first bombed Iraq? Don't overestimate the power of modern day dissent.

The country and world recognize that not everyone agrees or disagrees with this administration. The fact is, the majority of them simply don't care. Like it or not, apathy drives the people in this country. As long as they don't view something as a direct threat to them personally, they could bitch all they want and applaud the efforts of these "brave patriots," but at the end of the day they couldn't give two shits.

And you give me way too much credit -- I don't have any logic.

Like I say, just because it didn't immediately bring the war to a grinding halt doesn't mean its not still an important action. You have to remember, a large number of Bush's inner circle were involved at the highest reaches of gov't during the Viet Nam years. They know all too well how important it is to squelch or minimize the voices of dissent if they hope to continue operating with out impedence.





I couldn't agree more and the burden of getting those apathetic people to give a shit is placed squarely on the shoulders of those of us who still do give a shit. Remember, the only condition that is required for evil to succeed is for good men to do nothing.





I got nothing for ya' on this point.