Mike Farrell - An Indecent Administration Rolls On

The Times editorial page was a good one today...

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-farrell21mar21,0,2757417.story?coll=la-news-comment-opinions

An Indecent Administration Rolls On

Once again, Bush scorns international humanitarian standards. This time he's fighting to save capital punishment.

By Mike Farrell
Mike Farrell is president of Death Penalty Focus, which seeks to abolish capital punishment.

March 21, 2005

There's a lot of huffing and puffing about "indecency" these days in Congress. Our representatives appear determined to protect us from the filth spewed from radio and television programs today, but theirs is a narrow view of what constitutes decency. Words and images easily shut off at the press of a button are less likely to do injury than some recent indecencies that appear to have escaped the attention of our national hall monitors.

Torture is certainly more indecent than four-letter words, as is appointing a man renowned for perfidy to oversee the nation's intelligence agencies or putting an imperialist zealot in the United Nations.

The latest example of governmental indecency was the casual renunciation earlier this month of part of a decades-old international treaty intended to protect Americans when they are traveling abroad. That may not sound as bad as torture, but the motive behind the withdrawal was contemptible.

The Vienna Convention on Consular Relations is a reciprocal agreement ratified by the U.S. in the 1960s that guarantees our citizens the right to seek help from a U.S. consulate if they somehow run afoul of the law when traveling abroad. An "Optional Protocol" in the accord gives the International Court of Justice in The Hague jurisdiction over disputes in such matters.

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who was a born again Christian, when she pleaded for her life..

bush is a phony christian and whom I choose to refer to as an elitist satanist


http://www.nodeathpenalty.org/newab013/govBush.html
"On September 10, Texas executed Willis Barnes, the 100th person to be murdered by the state since Gov. George W. Bush started his term in 1995. At a demonstration held that day, 80 people protested against Bush's bloody record on the death penalty. More recently, at a Live From Death Row forum in Austin, the audience of 120 gasped when a speaker pointed out that more than 100 executions had taken place under Bush's watch.

One of the most notable was that of Karla Faye Tucker, whose execution in February 1998 received national media attention. She was the first woman to be executed in Texas since the Civil War. Because of her religious conversion and rehabilitation while inside prison, there were calls for clemency from around the world, even from some normally pro-death penalty groups. Bush ignored those appeals and let her execution go forward."

(n/t)