================= THE THINKERS REPORT ==================
The e-mail edition newswire.
June 23, 2004
A Publication of HOOD RESEARCH
Your neighborHOOD RESEARCH group and Think Tank
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CONTENTS
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1) HOOD RESEARCH IS COMING TO YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD
2) Online Discussion site for Hood Research
3) Legalized Torture the Real Weapon of Mass Destruction
4) 10 Similarities Between the U.S. & Nazi Germany
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1) HOOD RESEARCH IS COMING TO YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD
A TOWN HALL MEETING
June 28, 2003
5:30 – 8:00 pm
Triumph Baptist Church
2550 S. Liddesdale
If you are concerned about:
· Your Personal Safety
· Insurance redlining
· Election Issues
· Other Current Issues
Come talk to your Legislator and participate in a Hood Research Think Tank Session
For more information call 313.931.2700
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2) Online Discussion site for Hood Research
Hood Research now has the capability to have online discussions regarding issues covered by Hood Research. Go to (http://www.detropolis.com/forum/), see the Hood Research section, and join or begin a discussion. Our first topic, continued from the State of our City forum and still in the news today, the cities financial position. With the economy in Detroit as it is today, why is the city mortgaging the future by selling bonds to pay off today’s debt? This is merely a way to hide the true costs of the past year and push the burden of repaying the debt onto our children. Mortgaging their future. Also, as Detropolis a partner site, please visit its new features and its expanding content. Additionally, Detroit Uncovered has other perspectives and unique information in regards to Detroit and current issues. Hood Research does not control these other sites or their content, but we encourage all to get more information because as out motto states, “People would do better if they knew better.”
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3) Legalized Torture the Real Weapon of Mass Destruction
(Something sent to Hood Research from the Internet) President Bush and Donald Rumsfeld and his people have now stated that they torture, they intend to torture and that all the work the United States had done over the past century in republican and democratic administrations to eliminate the torture of captured (US) prisoners has been in vain. From an article in the Associated Press, (June 23, 2004 7:52 AM EDT) (Link to full article- http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_PRISONER_ABUSE? SITE=MIDTF&SECTION=HOME)
Headline/Author
Justice Dept. Repudiates Memo on Torture
By TERENCE HUNT, AP White House Correspondent
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Quote:
The president insisted Tuesday: “I have never ordered torture.”
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The above was quoted from the article. Yet in the same article it
states,
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Quote:
A 2002 order signed by President Bush says the president reserves the right to suspend the Geneva Conventions on treatment of prisoners of war at any time.
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Does this mean that US citizens might have to fear reprisals if or when
the
United States is attacked such as what happened on September 11? Will
African
Americans or Arab Americans become possible torture subjects if the
government believes information can be gained from certain people?
Looking at
the history of this nation, it seems that this is stepping backwards
and not
only reducing civil rights but placing the power of Big Brother over
your
shoulder by the threat of the use of torture.
Will torture become a tactic used to get confessions from murders and
drug
dealers by your local police department?
Also from the Article:
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Quote:
An Aug. 1, 2002, Justice Department memo argues that torture – and even
deliberate killing – of prisoners in the terror war could be justified
as
necessary to protect the United States. The memo from then-assistant
attorney
general Jay Bybee also offers a restricted definition of torture,
saying only
actions that cause severe pain akin to organ failure would be torture.
Bybee is now a justice on the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
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A U.S. judge believes its OK to torture humans. How many other judges
agree?
Torture, it seems by the actions of the president, is now an assumed
weapon
of war. This means that if the strongest nation on Earth must use
torture for
its own protection, then the tiniest nation on Earth has the same
advantage.
If the $400 billion the US (under President Bush) spends openly on the
military budget is not enough or even adequate then what is a country
that
barely has a GDP of $500 million supposed to do for their defense?
The killing and beheading of Americans in the foreign countries by
various
groups are now legalized thanks to the United States under President
Bush.
While we call it terrorism and those guilty War Criminals, those in the
foreign lands call them freedom fighters, saviors, heroes, etc.
Even Saddam Hussein, which many have said, killed his own people
including
relatives, whole villages and others in the name of protecting his
power can
be said to be doing it to protect Iraq. It was mass torture that
resulted in
many deaths but if he was doing it for the defense of his nation from
those
Iraq called terrorists then it must be justified. If the United States
can do
it openly then who else will follow our lead.
Knowing that the leaders of the so-called terrorist organizations are
well
educated, will they reach this same conclusion? Will it become open
season on
Americans? If you get tortured for walking down the street in a foreign
country, thank President Bush for tortures legalization and
formalization as
a method for national defense.
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4) 10 Similarities Between the U.S. & Nazi Germany
(Something sent to Hood Research from the Internet)
1. Both nations were led by men who pursued hidden agendas and sold
them to
their citizens by lying.
2. In both cases the vast majority of citizens considered themselves to
be
religious, specifically Christian.
3. In both cases the leader sold the idea that the citizens’ “way of
life”
was being threatened by another religious/racial group, and pursued
some
organizational strategy which appeared to minimize that group’s
influence on
“way of life”.
4. In both cases the citizens were collectively angry at being humbled
in
recent decades, and showed some desire to aggravate and even attack
other
nations if only to satiate their pride.
5. Both nations believed in preemptive attack.
6. In both cases the business class tended to support war efforts,
knowing
expansion would enable their continued wealth, while the lower classes
were
used as cannon fodder.
7. In neither case would you find consensus among citizens as to why
their
nation fought. In each case the leader synthesized different factors
existing
in different citizens into a collective support for war – distrust of
another
ethnicity, desire to humble other nations, desire to increase influence
of
particular religious beliefs, desire for greater “national security”,
desire
to expand wealth, desire to demonstrate military superiority, revenge against others, and last but not least, blind faith in leaders and desire to trust some paternalistic father figure.
8. In neither case were citizens especially bothered during the war by
reports of systematic detention of innocents, murder of innocents, military targeting of civilian areas, or even murder.
9. Both regimes, each led by a small cabal of men, shielded themselves and their motives constantly under a veil of flag-waving and nationalism.
10. Neither regime was capable of admitting mistakes or of self-
reflection.
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Credits:
Co-Founders Theo Broughton & Reggie Crawford
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Always remember (Our Vision),
“People would do better if they knew better.”
(Another Hood Research Positive Image Project)
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