A Not-So-Happy Birthday for the Magna Carta

Not happy at all, given that the Brits just extended the amount of time that the law allows uncharged suspects to be kept in custody. I can't find the audio clip, but this morning the BBC included a snippet of a member of the House of Commons pointing out what should be obvious to Gordon Brown - that the bin Ladens of the world no longer need to work so diligently now that secular democracies are now taking it upon ourselves to curtail our own freedoms.

On this side of the Atlantic the Constitution has been at least as trashed in the last several years, motivated by similar fears and rationalized with those same fears. But Brit pols seem to have more balls than American pols; this Tory is so horrified by the decision that he's resigning his position. Then again, if one house rep resigned for each of the major constitutional crimes committed in the last few years (yes, that's a euphemism for the reign of the Bush administration), DC would be a ghost town in no time and who would finally prosecute the scores of offenders?

More Monbiot

Now you can read George Monbiot's impressively clear-eyed account of how he came to attempt the Bolton arrest. Monbiot makes an eloquent and convincing case--take that, Michael White--on why Bolton, et al, deserve to have war crimes charges brought against them (note implied right to due process). Don't forget to read the comments. My favorites are from those who stick to the strict legalities: Monbiot's attempt wasn't an actual legal citizen's arrest, they point out. Thus missing the point, which is that so many unconscienable means of effecting all kinds of international policy and events have become so normalized that we now describe torture as "prisoner abuse." Etc. etc.

I know, it seems that I'm just a shill for the Guardian. In my defense, I run down the LA Times, NYT, Wa Po, BBC and the Guardian most days, and time and again it's the Guardian that I read more of more often, with the LA Times coming in a close second (writing for an audience presumed to be as sophisticated as the NYT's, but without the weighty pretense of the NYT's historical "paper of record" burden).

Not that the Guardian is beyond stooping to bits on the hair habits of pols. It's just that rest makes up for it, and more.