INTEGRITY AT LAST?!

THIS IS FROM NEWSWEEK MAGAZINE:

"Eric Holder, Attorney General of the United States, may be on the verge of asserting his independence in a profound way. Four knowledgeable sources tell NEWSWEEK that he is now leaning toward appointing a prosecutor to investigate the Bush administration's brutal interrogation practices, something the president has been reluctant to do. While no final decision has been made, an announcement could come in a matter of weeks, say these sources, who decline to be identified discussing a sensitive law-enforcement matter. Such a decision would roil the country, would likely plunge Washington into a new round of partisan warfare, and could even imperil Obama's domestic priorities, including health care and energy reform. Holder knows all this, and he has been wrestling with the question for months. 'I hope that whatever decision I make would not have a negative impact on the president's agenda,' he says. 'But that can't be a part of my decision."

YES! This is not about politics, punishment or revenge, people. This is about the integrity of our government and the very Constitution of laws that our government was formed upon.

Check out the 16th and 17th words of our Constitution in the first paragraph of the preamble:

"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

Clearly, the reasons for establishing this Constitution are not in alphabetical order, but rather in order of priority. Establishing justice comes before providing for the "common defence." Why? Because our founders understood that there first and foremost had to be a country worth defending, and that without justice, there wouldn't be. We were under the unjust rule of the British crown until 1776, a rule by an empire that was deemed not worthy of defending.

Whatever we may have to endure today in order to expose the crimes of our leaders to the light of our system of justice, is nothing compared to what those citizens endured 233 years ago in the face of an extremely powerful and corrupt government.

History shows us that the price of integrity is always worth the cost. Without it, there can be nothing but fleeting, illusory gains, at best, and inevitably, debasement and destruction at worst. Our founders understood this, as did the revolutionaries in France and elsewhere in the 18th Century, as did Gandhi, Nelson Mandella and Martin Luther King in the 20th Century.

If our Constitution is treated as if it was up for grabs during the Bush-Cheney years, and therefore, so too was our country and system of government, then the damage will remain permanent.

Make no mistake - the rabid, far right-wingers loathe a great deal of what it says in our Constitution, because it is a great challenge to live by those principles of justice for all when you are riddled with hate and fear of growth and change and difference, when you are insecure and ignorant, intellectually lazy, morally bankrupt, and numb to the callings of your soul. These are people not interested in defending our country or our Constitution, but rather, they seek to protect and defend their own dark, dank hiding places filled with the black mold of paranoia.

Come on, people! Let the prosecutions roll!