The Tavis Smiley show on air and online

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(In LA: KCET at 7PM repeated at 11PM)

June 30, 2008

Tavis talks with investigative journalist Jeremy Scahill, author of the award-winning book, Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army.

Jeremy Scahill

An award-winning investigative journalist, Jeremy Scahill is a frequent contributor to The Nation and a correspondent for the national radio and TV program Democracy Now! He's also a Puffin Writing Fellow at The Nation Institute and serves as an election correspondent for HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher. Scahill has reported from post-Katrina New Orleans, Yugoslavia, Nigeria and Iraq and is a vocal critic of private military contractors, particularly Blackwater Worldwide, the subject of his book, Blackwater.
RELATED LINKS

* http://www.blackwaterbook.com/excerpt.php
* http://www.thenation.com/directory/bios/jeremy_scahill
* http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/10192007/profile.html

I don't have a gun. I'm an European and I even live in a state which wouldn't allow to freely keep and bear arms or to form a militia, so I have only my word - that's my only defense against that what seems to be happening.

I took the hour and a half (because I find the case be really very important for the Americans and the future of freedom) and I was listening thoroughly the whole disputation in the Supreme Court in the case DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, ET AL v. DICK ANTHONY HELLER.

I guess I have an important note:
They disputed all the words in the 2nd Amendment and many aspects and possible meanings of the words from elsewhere - machine guns, handguns, armor piercing bullets (and various laws and regulations, sometimes apparently irrelevant in the sense when one have to decide the case according to the US Constitution - as the superior law - the US Supreme Court IMHO have no right to contradict in its judgments, nor duty to follow any precedents or laws - except the US Constitution they've the judges taken the oath to defend - as a whole), but they have "forgotten" the main one word - as it would be a big taboo - they absolutely avoided the word free - its meaning in the 2nd Amendment ("A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.")

To explain what I mean, I'll try to describe how I understand the meaning of the 2nd Amendment in the context of the US Constitutional law by my own words (I'll borrow some):

Because there is a constant danger a state, its government, could develop into a tyranny - rendering the state and its constituents unfree - the people's right to keep and bear the arms generally (not just to form the militia) should not be infringed - because the people can defend the freedom only if they are constantly armed and continuously form a real threat of a real power against possible tyrants (foreign or domestic) - to take them down - if needed even by using the armed force - in case the tyrants would infringe, abridge or dissolve their unalienable rights and freedoms, pursuing invariably the same Object evincing a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism.(I'm borrowing this from the 6th sentence of the Declaration of Independence)

Guns & Butter
Wednesday, June 27, 2007, 1:00pm

The Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights

Interview with President of the Center for Constitutional Rights, Michael Ratner, on this Fourth of July 2007. Where are we now? Host Bonnie Faulkner goes through these three documents with Michael Ratner and discusses their decimation by the Bush Administration, post 9/11.

KPFA 94.1 FM Berkeley 1pm PST, and streaming and archived at www.kpfa.org

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