[R-G] High Court ruling on "military tribunals" -- a big glass of nourishment

[Hunter Gray]

NOTE BY HUNTER BEAR:

In an era marked not only by destructive seasonal explosions, the
unparalleled arrogance of the Bush Administration, and sheer global horror
engendered by ever new peaks of hideous technological warfare, this
morning's report of the US Supreme Court ruling against drum head "military
tribunals" adds up to a big green oasis -- and a very potentially expansive
one in the most positive sense.

When this military tribunal concept was launched in the immediate post 9-11
period, along with a never-ending mangling of the US Constitution, many
denounced that -- and other, poisonous people-strangling dimensions that
blossomed like poison ivy in a Kansas river bottom.  Among those seriously
questioning the military tribunal dimension were highly experienced US
military people.

Now the Court has ruled against that "star" in the infamous Bush crown and
has struck a major blow for due process and civil liberty in general.  But,
in a fashion reminiscent of the deepening afternoon in the McCarthy Red
Scare when, in the latter 50s, the Warren Court began to hand down decisions
reflecting the rights of embattled political minorities, this Court
certainly appears to be sensing a change in the national mood and, at the
same time, may well now -- as per this critical ruling -- play a causal role
in returning the United States to at least substantive normalcy.

The Red Scare of the latter '40s and '50s didn't end simply because of the
heroic stand taken by such people as Clinton Jencks [Jencks v United States,
1957.]  Much of it continued to harass a great many through the '60s and
beyond and that pathological phenomenon obviously has more lives than a
rattler.  But after the Court began, in those bleak days of the latter '50s,
to hand down pro-civil liberties rulings, and as grassroots social justice
struggles broadened and deepened, the ideological hate campaigns and witch
hunts were, more and more, on the covert, clandestine defensive.

I personally recall All Those Days only too well.

[As an added note, the Court strengthened the great validity of the  Geneva
Convention.  It also supported the use, in the context of the specific issue
at hand, of conventional US military court martial proceedings as set forth
by the Uniform Code of Military Justice.  In my opinion -- and I was a GI,
fortunately never entangled in any court martial -- that Code is almost
always very fair in its philosophy and methodology and implementation.]

There are -- for all people of good will -- many miles of trail yet to go,
many rivers to cross and ridges to climb.  But this Decision and its effects
go a long way toward the Sun.

Hunter Gray [Hunter Bear]

HUNTER GRAY  [HUNTER BEAR/JOHN R SALTER JR]   Mi'kmaq /St. Francis
Abenaki/St. Regis Mohawk
Protected by Na´shdo´i´ba´i´
 and Ohkwari'

Check out our massive social justice website:  www.hunterbear.org

Honored with The Elder Recognition Award by Wordcraft Circle of Native
Writers and Storytellers:
http://www.hunterbear.org/elder_recognition_award_for_2005.htm

In our Gray Hole, the ghosts often dance in the junipers and sage, on the
game trails, in the tributary canyons with the thick red maples, and on the
high windy ridges -- and they dance from within the very essence of our own
inner being. They do this especially when the bright night moon shines down
on the clean white snow that covers the valley and its surroundings.  Then
it is as bright as day -- but in an always soft and mysterious and
remembering way. [Hunter Bear]