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©2001 chadsux
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In This Edition We spotlight the cartoons of Ted Rall with additional cartoons from Chris Whitehouse, Lisa Casey, GWBush Art, Chad Chadwick, Rex Babin, Political Strikes, Shakti, John Chuckman and Chadsux. Vincent Bugliosi gives us part one of a three part series of his, "None Dare Call It Treason!" Scott Lindlaw reports, "Bush: No Price Caps On Electricity." Grandma Suni runs afoul of the SS in, "So Much For 1st Amendment Rights, Family Values Or Care Of The Elderly." Bev Conover says, "The Internet Is Raising Havoc With The Corporate Media's Message." Joe Conason reports on, "Bush's Double Standard." Daniel Kadlec plays some, "Stupid Tax Tricks." James Pinkerton asks, "If Jenna Bush Is A Pothead, Is It News?" Willaim Rivers Pitt takes us on, "The Descent Into Freeper Hell!" Senator Lincoln wins the "Vidkun Quisling Award." Molly Ivins considers, "McVeigh's Warped Sense Of The Warrior Culture." Tally Briggs reminds Smirky that, "Karma's A Bitch!" If you want to get activated read "Activist Alerts." And finally Hank Blakely shares another letter from Smirky in, "My Two Weeks In Hell" but first Uncle Ernie reports on the "Death Of A Freeper." Plus we have all of your favorite departments! Welcome one and all to "Uncle Ernie's Issues & Alibis." We hope you enjoy your stay! |
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Funny thing about these born again Christians is that they love and follow the Son of God. Really? God must have a son I’ve never heard of then. The one I heard of was about loving your fellow man, forgiving this and that regardless of what others do. All about love and kindness and obeying those Ten Commandments. You know like: "Thou shall not kill, Thou shall not steal, Thou shall not bare false witness." I didn’t notice any asterisks next to them did you?
Don’t get me wrong Timmy was a monster. But giving that power to the state is like trying to make a pet-able pet out of an Eastern Diamondback rattlesnake. Sooner or later you’re going to get bit. For many reasons on many levels I’m against it. I trust the State as far as I can comfortably spit out a rat. These morons can’t even build a road and you’re going to trust them with your life? There ought to be a catch-22 for politics. I.e. "If you want to run for office, you can’t." Think about it. We couldn’t be any worse off than we are now. Do you remember what "Mark Twain" said about the subject,
"It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress."
Sam was a wise old dude no doubt and he wouldn’t be surprised by Monday’s morality play. Somewhere in Freeperville there are some certifiable loons planning as I speak to blow up a_, launch a missile at a_, spread poison germs on a_, (you fill in the blanks) all in the name of this monster. Another good reason why I was against his death was it was "Way to Easy!"
How many of us will ever be that lucky? When you have imagined your own death or watched a loved one die, I’m willing to bet your thought wasn’t of death happening in your sleep and taking all of 4 minutes. Everyone should be that lucky! No, he got his martyrdom and the Right got a new hero. Talk about soft on crime. Had I been that monsters keeper I would have made plans for Timmy in a pitch black, dank, wet, foul smelling hole, without ever the chance of seeing the light of day, in which to spend the rest of his tortured life! Paying back as much as possible for his crimes against the innocent. And certainly not a "Lull-la-Bye and Good Night!"
His diseased mind saw himself as a solider, a patriot, out to strike a blow for freedom. To save us all from the likes of Janet Reno. She killed as many children as he did but that was by accident. Still I could have gotten David without firing a shot and getting anyone on either side hurt in the slightest and anyone else with any kind of a brain could have done so as well. They could have simply taken him in town away from the fort, away from the children, away from the 50-cal. guns. With a swat team in civvies, or on a road while he was in a car, would have been easy as pie. So should we do in Janet for those children too? Not to mention the heads of the FBI (we should talk to Louie about Ruby Ridge as well), the ATF who attacked even though they knew that their element of surprise was gone and they were being waited for with open "ARMS." Need I go on?
Well Emperor Smirk decided to make a martyr out of young Tim. I wonder what other innocents will pay for that mistake? If you’re not hip to "The Freepers" you’ll find a piece by William Rivers Pitt called, "The Descent Into Freeper Hell," below. Be afraid America, be Very Afraid! |
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None Dare Call It Treason By Vincent Bugliosi Part One In the December 12 ruling by the US Supreme Court handing the election to George Bush, the Court committed the unpardonable sin of being a knowing surrogate for the Republican Party instead of being an impartial arbiter of the law. If you doubt this, try to imagine Al Gore's and George Bush's roles being reversed and ask yourself if you can conceive of Justice Antonin Scalia and his four conservative brethren issuing an emergency order on December 9 stopping the counting of ballots (at a time when Gore's lead had shrunk to 154 votes) on the grounds that if it continued, Gore could suffer "irreparable harm," and then subsequently, on December 12, bequeathing the election to Gore on equal protection grounds. If you can, then I suppose you can also imagine seeing a man jumping away from his own shadow, Frenchmen no longer drinking wine. From the beginning, Bush desperately sought, as it were, to prevent the opening of the door, the looking into the box--unmistakable signs that he feared the truth. In a nation that prides itself on openness, instead of the Supreme Court doing everything within its power to find a legal way to open the door and box, they did the precise opposite in grasping, stretching and searching mightily for a way, any way at all, to aid their choice for President, Bush, in the suppression of the truth, finally settling, in their judicial coup d'état, on the untenable argument that there was a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment's equal protection clause--the Court asserting that because of the various standards of determining the voter's intent in the Florida counties, voters were treated unequally, since a vote disqualified in one county (the so-called undervotes, which the voting machines did not pick up) may have been counted in another county, and vice versa. Accordingly, the Court reversed the Florida Supreme Court's order that the undervotes be counted, effectively delivering the presidency to Bush. Now, in the equal protection cases I've seen, the aggrieved party, the one who is being harmed and discriminated against, almost invariably brings the action. But no Florida voter I'm aware of brought any action under the equal protection clause claiming he was disfranchised because of the different standards being employed. What happened here is that Bush leaped in and tried to profit from a hypothetical wrong inflicted on someone else. Even assuming Bush had this right, the very core of his petition to the Court was that he himself would be harmed by these different standards. But would he have? If we're to be governed by common sense, the answer is no. The reason is that just as with flipping a coin you end up in rather short order with as many heads as tails, there would be a "wash" here for both sides, i.e., there would be just as many Bush as Gore votes that would be counted in one county yet disqualified in the next. (Even if we were to assume, for the sake of argument, that the wash wouldn't end up exactly, 100 percent even, we'd still be dealing with the rule of de minimis non curat lex--the law does not concern itself with trifling matters.) So what harm to Bush was the Court so passionately trying to prevent by its ruling other than the real one: that he would be harmed by the truth as elicited from a full counting of the undervotes? And if the Court's five-member majority was concerned not about Bush but the voters themselves, as they fervently claimed to be, then under what conceivable theory would they, in effect, tell these voters, "We're so concerned that some of you undervoters may lose your vote under the different Florida county standards that we're going to solve the problem by making sure that none of you undervoters have your votes counted"? Isn't this exactly what the Court did? Gore's lawyer, David Boies, never argued either of the above points to the Court. Also, since Boies already knew (from language in the December 9 emergency order of the Court) that Justice Scalia, the Court's right-wing ideologue; his Pavlovian puppet, Clarence Thomas, who doesn't even try to create the impression that he's thinking; and three other conservatives on the Court (William Rehnquist, Sandra Day O'Connor and Anthony Kennedy) intended to deodorize their foul intent by hanging their hat on the anemic equal protection argument, wouldn't you think that he and his people would have come up with at least three or four strong arguments to expose it for what it was--a legal gimmick that the brazen, shameless majority intended to invoke to perpetrate a judicial hijacking in broad daylight? And made sure that he got into the record of his oral argument all of these points? Yet, remarkably, Boies only managed to make one good equal protection argument, and that one near the very end of his presentation, and then only because Justice Rehnquist (not at Boies's request, I might add) granted him an extra two minutes. If Rehnquist hadn't given him the additional two minutes, Boies would have sat down without getting even one good equal protection argument into the record. This was Boies's belated argument: "Any differences as to how this standard [to determine voter intent] is interpreted have a lot less significance in terms of what votes are counted or not counted than simply the differences in machines that exist throughout the counties of Florida." A more powerful way to make Boies's argument would have been to point out to the Court the reductio ad absurdum of the equal protection argument. If none of the undervotes were counted because of the various standards to count them, then to be completely consistent the Court would have had no choice but to invalidate the entire Florida election, since there is no question that votes lost in some counties because of the method of voting would have been recorded in others utilizing a different method.1 [Footnotes on page 7] How would the conservative majority have gotten around that argument without buckling on the counting of the undervotes? Of course, advice after a mistake is like medicine after death. And as we shall see, no matter what Boies argued, the five conservative Justices had already made up their minds. But it would have been delightful to see how these Justices, forced to stare into the noonday sun, would have attempted to avoid a confrontation with the truth. The Court majority, after knowingly transforming the votes of 50 million Americans into nothing and throwing out all of the Florida undervotes (around 60,000), actually wrote that their ruling was intended to preserve "the fundamental right" to vote. This elevates audacity to symphonic and operatic levels. The Court went on to say, after stealing the election from the American people, "None are more conscious of the vital limits on its judicial authority than are the members of this Court, and none stand more in admiration of the Constitution's design to leave the selection of the President to the people." Can you imagine that? As they say, "It's enough to drive you to drink." What makes the Court's decision even more offensive is that it warmly embraced, of all the bitter ironies, the equal protection clause, a constitutional provision tailor-made for blacks that these five conservative Justices have shown no hospitality to when invoked in lawsuits by black people, the very segment of the population most likely to be hurt by a Bush administration. As University of Southern California law professor Erwin Chemerinsky noted: "The Rehnquist Court almost never uses equal protection jurisprudence except in striking down affirmative action programs [designed to help blacks and minorities]. I can't think of a single instance where Scalia or Thomas has found discrimination against a racial minority, or women, or the aged, or the disabled, to be unconstitutional." Varying methods to cast and count votes have been going on in every state of the union for the past two centuries, and the Supreme Court has been as silent as a church mouse on the matter, never even hinting that there might be a right under the equal protection clause that was being violated. Georgetown University law professor David Cole said, "[The Court] created a new right out of whole cloth and made sure it ultimately protected only one person--George Bush." The simple fact is that the five conservative Justices did not have a judicial leg to stand on in their blatantly partisan decision. In a feeble, desperate effort to support their decision, the Court cited four of its previous cases as legal precedent, but not one of them bears even the slightest resemblance to Bush v. Gore. In one (Gray v. Sanders), the state of Georgia had a system where the vote of each citizen counted for less and less as the population of his or her county increased. In another (Moore v. Ogilvie), the residents of smaller counties in Illinois were able to form a new party to elect candidates, something residents of larger counties could not do. Another (Reynolds v. Sims) was an apportionment case, and the fourth (Harper v. Virginia) involved the payment of a poll tax as a qualification for voting. If a first-year law student ever cited completely inapplicable authority like this, any thoughtful professor would encourage him not to waste two more years trying to become a lawyer. As Yale law professor Akhil Reed Amar noted, the five conservative Justices "failed to cite a single case that, on its facts, comes close to supporting its analysis and result." If the Court majority had been truly concerned about the equal protection of all voters, the real equal protection violation, of course, took place when they cut off the counting of the undervotes. As indicated, that very act denied the 50 million Americans who voted for Gore the right to have their votes count at all. It misses the point to argue that the five Justices stole the election only if it turns out that Gore overcame Bush's lead in the undervote recount. We're talking about the moral and ethical culpability of these Justices, and when you do that, the bell was rung at the moment they engaged in their conduct. What happened thereafter cannot unring the bell and is therefore irrelevant. To judge these Justices by the final result rather than by their intentions at the time of their conduct would be like exonerating one who shoots to kill if the bullet misses the victim. With that type of extravagant reasoning, if the bullet goes on and accidentally strikes down a third party who is about to kill another, perhaps the gunman should ultimately be viewed as a hero. Other than the unprecedented and outrageous nature of what the Court did, nothing surprises me more than how it is being viewed by the legal scholars and pundits who have criticized the opinion. As far as I can determine, most have correctly assailed the Court for issuing a ruling that was clearly political. As the December 25 Time capsulized it, "A sizable number of critics, from law professors to some of the Court's own members, have attacked the ruling as...politically motivated." A sampling from a few law professors: Vanderbilt professor Suzanna Sherry said, "There is really very little way to reconcile this opinion other than that they wanted Bush to win." Yale's Amar lamented that "for Supreme Court watchers this case will be like BC and AD. For many of my colleagues, this was like the day President Kennedy was assassinated. Many of us [had] thought that courts do not act in an openly political fashion." Harvard law professor Randall Kennedy called the decision "outrageous." The only problem I have with these critics is that they have merely lost respect for and confidence in the Court. "I have less respect for the Court than before," Amar wrote. The New York Times said the ruling appeared "openly political" and that it "eroded public confidence in the Court." Indeed, the always accommodating and obsequious (in all matters pertaining to the High Court, in front of which he regularly appears) Harvard law professor Laurence Tribe, who was Gore's chief appellate lawyer, went even further in the weakness of his disenchantment with the Court. "Even if we disagree" with the Court's ruling, he said, Americans should "rally around the decision."
Sometimes the body politic is lulled into thinking along unreasoned lines. The "conventional wisdom" emerging
immediately after the Court's ruling seemed to be that the Court, by its political ruling, had only lost a lot of
credibility and altitude in the minds of many people. But these critics of the ruling, even those who flat-out say the
Court "stole" the election, apparently have not stopped to realize the inappropriateness of their tepid position
vis-à-vis what the Court did. You mean you can steal a presidential election and your only retribution is that some
people don't have as much respect for you, as much confidence in you? That's all? If, indeed, the Court, as the
critics say, made a politically motivated ruling (which it unquestionably did), this is tantamount to saying, and can
only mean, that the Court did not base its ruling on the law. And if this is so (which again, it unquestionably is),
this means that these five Justices deliberately and knowingly decided to nullify the votes of the 50 million
Americans who voted for Al Gore and to steal the election for Bush. Of course, nothing could possibly be more
serious in its enormous ramifications. The stark reality, and I say this with every fiber of my being, is that the
institution Americans trust the most to protect its freedoms and principles committed one of the biggest and most
serious crimes this nation has ever seen--pure and simple, the theft of the presidency. And by definition, the
perpetrators of this crime have to be denominated criminals. |
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``Energy debates sometimes throw off some sparks,'' Bush said at the Marine Corps base at Camp Pendleton, in advance of a meeting with Davis.
``But this is no time for harsh rhetoric, and it's certainly no time for name-calling,'' Bush said, a thinly veiled reference to Davis' increasingly hostile criticism of
White House leadership on energy.
``It's time for leadership, it's time for results,'' Bush said. ``It's time to put politics aside and focus on the bests interests of the people.''
Bush proposed $150 million, in addition to $300 million already budgeted for a component of the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, to provide
special help to cash-strapped residents of California. The money could also help residents in Midwestern areas such as Chicago, an aide said.
And after touring the base, he praised personnel for going beyond a pledge earlier this month to cut energy use by one-tenth during peak hours.
Bush said federal facilities are the largest single consumers of electricity in California, and said they were ``exceeding expectations'' following his May 3 directive
that they cut use. He didn't say by what margin they had surpassed his goals.
Mindful of the high environmental consciousness in California, he made special mention of conservation measures he called for in his national energy plan earlier
this month.
Bush traveled across the country to deliver news Davis doesn't want to hear: He won't force down soaring electricity prices that have cost California nearly $8
billion since January.
``We are entitled to relief,'' Davis said in a public discussion with victims of the energy crunch, staged in the same hotel where Bush was staying. ``It doesn't
matter if someone thinks we should have relief, the law says we should have relief.''
A spokesman for Davis dismissed Bush's call for a new tone on the energy debate Tuesday, and said his proposed aid for low-income residents was insufficient.
``We're asking the president to step up to the plate to use the power that only he has, and that's to provide some short-term price relief,'' spokesman Steve Maviglio
said.
The additional $150 million ``doesn't do anything'' to address power supply shortages, he said.
The Republican president and the embattled Democratic governor arranged a 20-meeting Tuesday to talk about California's energy crisis, but there was no indication
they would break their stalemate.
While Bush was speaking at the Marine base, about 100 protesters from the state Democratic Party, the Green Party and environmental, consumer and socialist
organizations, called on Bush to support limiting energy rates.
``We've got to stop the gouging and work towards a cleaner, more sane energy policy,'' said June Brashares of Global Exchange, an environmental and labor
organization.
Several women wearing pig noses held signs saying: ``Oilmen for Bush.''
Bush flew into the Marine base, 40 miles north of San Diego, without confronting the protesters. At one point, they attempted to walk onto the base but a dozen
California Highway Patrol officers in riot helmets blocked their path.
Bush opposes price limits on wholesale electricity that utilities buy, arguing they do nothing to address supply-and-demand issues at the heart of the crisis.
Davis contends federal energy regulators are ignoring their mandate to ensure ``just and fair'' electricity prices.
With no sign of a break in the deadlock, each side maneuvered for maximum advantage from Bush's first full day in California as president.
Davis, in an interview Tuesday on ABC's ``Good Morning America,'' defended his record on licensing more power plants.
``We've licensed 15 plants. Ten are under construction, four will be online this summer, four next summer, and by the end of 2003 we will have built our way out
of this problem. But between now and then, we are getting gouged unbelievably,'' Davis said.
The Bush administration timed positive energy announcements to coincide with the president's visit.
To alleviate an electricity bottleneck on a crucial south-north transmission line known as Path 15, the Department of Energy announced that the Western Area Power
Authority will try to raise money from a variety of private and public entities to finance a crucial additional lines.
``We're going to unplug the Path 15 bottleneck,'' Bush said.
Davis had a letter for Bush from top economists who maintain price caps are justified and necessary.
Mindful of the national stage he commanded, Davis planned a news conference to air his grievances. |
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Grandma Suni Was Handcuffed Well ----So Much for 1st Amendment Rights-Family Values or Care of the Elderly. Signs seemed to be the most important thing to King George on Monday, June 4th. So much so that the order went out for no anti-Bush signs to be allowed inside Legends Field. Wish they had told me sooner so I could have saved my energy and ink when making a six foot sign stating, Bush Stole the Election. So this grandma who often seems to lack respect for the emperor with no clothes just packed her eight signs into her pocketbook. After all, who would ever invade a womanâs pocketbook? Invade it they did--- at the checkpoint going in (the airport?). The officers said I could not use the sign that said "Booo!" BUT--- when my dear friend Maurice asked, "Can she just take the stick off of it and use it that way?"---Security said OK. So, with eight signs tucked safely in my pocketbook we ventured off onto the baseball field for Oral Majority's 126th protest since November 2000, hoping to make some friends who would also hold my signs. I tried to get up front where other short people (children) were standing. We gathered behind a rope that penned us in like Roman slaves. Near the rope and behind the children King George's huge security men were dressed in suits and shouting, "all littleliggers up front". I misunderstood his pronunciation of the little leaguers and questioned him about it. THIS WAS A MISTAKE! After I apologized for my misunderstanding of his "littleliggers" he started telling me that I could not hold the signs I was holding. I pointed out the large signs over in the stands across from us and he didn't seem to want to hear about it. Other people around us were saying we were wrong for protesting. One young woman faced me and I asked her if that was how she talked to her grandma.. She said clearly, "my grandmother is not an asshole", to which I answered her "That cannot be true since--- she had you". Hmmm, ANOTHER MISTAKE! As I reflect back, we were not making any friends there with my poor attitude, so where did I go wrong? I recall waking up early that Monday and turning on channel 11 for ABC's Good Morning America: While I checked my email I also listened to the TV as they gave some local news. "George W. Bush will be at Legend's Field today" and people who are attending are already making signs. They immediately showed a man making a very large sign in front of the TV Cameras. So I began to make one that was even larger. Unfortunately, when Maurice and Dave greeted Jan and I in the parking lot after our caravan ride of Democrats from Pasco County we were told that we couldnât use my big sign. They will not let us in with it, they said. How could that be when it was so plain on ABC TV at 7:30AM a man was making a sign for this very event? So I listened to my friends and put the huge sign back in the car and began distributing my small signs that read, "INVESTIGATE FLORIDA VOTERGATE" giving one to Walter the 81-year-old man who rode with Jan down from Pasco County. I kept the other eight, especially the one that said "HEIL TO THE THIEF". Seems that one was the most appropriate for what happened to us there that day on Legendâs Field. Was democracy totally dead this day? Another bigger security officer came over to us as we stood there looking for friends and said we cannot use the signs we were holding. Again I told him that security checked my bag and allowed us to have them. This Security apparently was not in touch with the other security. This must have been the pure-Bushit Security---the ones who wore suites rather than uniforms. I wish I had told the reporters who gathered around us that these security men were bullies in the first sense of the word. They grabbed my 81/2 by 11 paper signs and started routing in my bag for more. I also had NO MORE BUSHIT bumper stickers in there along with pins. I had to protect them. Next thing you know there were the police officers trying to get Maurice who has a severe health problem similar to Muscular Dystrophy. They tried to make him give up his sign that read, "June is Gay Pride Month". Some of the Repugs said, "No wonder they are protesting. They're Gays". One of the two Bushit Security men told Maurice to give up his sign and take a pro Bush sign instead. He refused. With that all H__L broke loose. A police officer came and told us we had to leave. We said we had a right to be there. We said other people were holding signs much bigger than ours. Large poster signs flashed all around the stadium for Bush. We had a right to be there as well as anyone else. We had tickets. We didn't do anything wrong. Why were they taking us away --- in Handcuffs? All we did was show our small signs. I just couldn't believe it. They put handcuffs on Maurice and we were afraid he would pass out. He was shaking in the way I had seen him do once before. His health is so fragile and I was afraid he would be very hurt. Jan and I hung onto his arms as he asked us to do. Then Maurice went limp and fell down dragging me with him. When we were on the ground the same woman I questioned earlier about her grandma kicked dirt on me. I looked for Jan and she didn't fall with us. Instead a very large policewoman who was much shorter than Jan, but muscular, had her handcuffed and used our Jan as a shield to bludgeon her way through the crowd. She pushed her through with such force that she knocked over our new friend Walter who rode in the car with Jan to this event Walter Olson is 81 years old and carried one of my little orange signs that said "Investigate Florida Votergate". I was so angry at what this officer of the law did to this old man that I told her so. I said-Why did you do that? To which she answered "Assault on a Policeman!" And they handcuffed me. We were pushed through the crowd to a room under the stadium where 6 or 7 other policemen sat at round tables. I turned around to look at Maurice and he was handcuffed on the floor with sweat dripping from his brow. One kind police officer offered him a drink and Maurice took a sip from his prone position. Then the officer asked if he wanted some water on his brow. I said loud and clearly, I want to know your badge number so I can tell others there is a humane police officer in Tampa.
After getting some non-uniformed security person to let go of my shoulder that was recently operated on
for a torn rotator cuff we were seated and they changed our cuffs to the front of our bodies where we
maintained some comfort. We were questioned regarding our names and addresses and, the officers filled
out forms charging us with a misdemeanor. It was my misfortune to have my paperwork done by the
bludgeoning bombshell who attacked the old man---Ugh using our dear Jan as her weapon. What can I
expect in the future from all of this? Do I live in America? Whatever will I tell my grandchildren????
Grandma Suni was handcuffed in Tampa because she held up the wrong sign? Heil to the thief who stole
our democracy! Editors note: When asked why this was being done a police spokesperson replied they were only following the orders of the SS. Now where have I heard this before? Oh yes it was at Nurenberg during the trials! |
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To hear Times reporter Andrew Stille and Cass, the author of
"Republic.com," tell it, the Net is causing "group polarization," as if
that were something new in American or any other society.
"To Mr. Sunstein, such polarization is just one of the negative political
effects of the Internet, which allows people to filter out unwanted
information, tailor their own news and congregate at specialized Web
sites that closely reflect their own views. A 'shared culture,' which
results partly from exposure to a wide range of opinion, is important for
a functioning democracy, he argues. But as the role of newspapers and
television news diminishes, he wrote, 'and the customization of our
communications universe increases, society is in danger of fragmenting,
shared communities in danger of dissolving,'" Stille wrote.
There are several things missing from this argument. First, people filter
unwanted things all the time.
Second, we live in a binary world. Anything that can be used to do good
can also be used to do bad. In that context, the Net, newspapers,
television or radio news are neither inherently good or inherently bad. It
all depends on how they are used.
Third, we in the U.S. have lived with the "melting pot" and "classless
society" myths. You know, a group immigrates to this country and over
time assimilates into the larger society. That's the ideal. The reality is
that various ethnic, racial and even religious groups are still clustered in
their own enclaves. While we have made some progress in establishing
integrated neighborhoods, go into any town or city and you will still
find enclaves divided along ethnic, racial and religious lines.
As for the classless society, it is rare to find the millionaire's mansion
alongside a poor person's humble abode. Our communities are further
divided by economic, social and educational standing. And let us not
forget regional divisions in which people not born in a region (state,
county, town) are never fully accepted into the fold.
There are even communities divided along political lines.
Add into the mix the fact that Americans are mobile people, whether by
choice or out of the necessity to find or keep jobs. Many have been on
the move ever since their ancestors' feet hit these shores. This has been
a boon to our corporate dominated culture: Keep 'em moving so they
can't put down roots and experience a shared sense of community.
There was some resistance in the 1980s to the corporate whim of forcing
people to move every three to five years, but we don't hear anything
about that backlash today.
In the blame the Internet game, what Stille and Sunstein leave out of
their arguments is that before the once independent mainstream media
were concentrated in the hands of a few owners and turned into the
propaganda machines of their corporate masters, people were offered
print and broadcast news with a variety of points of view. It was a
matter of choice as to how many differing points of view people
exposed themselves to, but at least they had the choice.
While television was the weakest among them, when it came to
controversy, there were still enough real journalists who weren't afraid
to stand up for truth. It was Edward R. Murrow who stood up to the
communist witch hunting bullies; Morrow who gave us the wrenching
"Harvest of Shame" about the plight of migrant workers. There was
"CBS Reports" and NBC's "White Paper." PBS even had some
punch in the early days of "Frontline." Who can forget the tears
streaming down Walter Cronkite's face and his voice breaking when he
announced the death of President Kennedy, or his jubilance when Neil
Armstrong took that "one small step for man and one giant leap for
mankind" as he stepped onto the moon?
How far would the civil rights movement have gotten if television and
print journalists not covered it, thereby inscribing on our brains the
violence that was perpetrated on Americans, black and white, who
sought only their constitutional rights to equal treatment for all? Ditto for
the anti-war movement interspersed with the horrors of the Vietnam War
served up to us nightly with our dinners? And, when Cronkite turned on
the war, Lyndon Baines Johnson saying that if he had lost Cronkite, he
had lost the country and, therefore, deciding not to seek a second term
as president?
These were the shared defining moments of a generation, before the
major media were all gobbled up by the big corporations, ushering in the
age of controlled and sanitized news reported by people who publicly
claim they have no point of view; the "objective" ants who do their
corporate masters' bidding in exchange for fat pay checks and the thrill
of climbing in bed with the rich and powerful.
It is they who no longer serve the people. It is they who have stopped
being the people's watchdogs. It is they who ignore the people
protesting against the corporate globalization monster. It is they who
choose not to see the people's anger over a stolen presidential election
and the treasonous Supreme Court justices who decreed the votes of a
free people in a free society are meaningless. It is they who fell prey to
the lies about a twice elected president, championed his impeachment
and called for his ouster, when the American people knew better. It is
they who aided and abetted the coup d'état by turning a blind eye to the
deeds of George W. Bush and his minions.
Today we have the lie of all this diversity, especially when it comes to
broadcast. Look behind the curtain and what do you see? In just
broadcast and cable alone:
Viacom owns CBS, UPN, MTV, the Paramount Channel,
Nickelodeon, VH1, Comedy Central, Showtime, BET, All
News Channel, Viacom Interactive, Paramount Stations Group
(stations in local markets that once were independent affiliates).
General Electric owns NBC, 32 percent of Paxon
Communications, CNBC, MSNBC (with Microsoft), Arts &
Entertainment (25 percent with Disney and Hearst), the History
Channel, Prime Network, Rainbow Media Holdings in
conjunction with Cablevision, consisting of American Movie
Classics, Bravo, Independent Film Channel, Much Music,
News 12 (a regional news service), Romance Classics,
extrahelp; Rainbow Advertising Sales (cable sales), Sports
Channel (regional sports networks - managed by Rainbow and
affiliated with Fox Sports Net), consisting of all the Fox Sports
channels and Madison Square Garden Network; 39 percent of
Value Vision, National Geographic's cable channel (25 percent
with Fox and National Geographic).
Disney owns ABC, the Disney Channel, Toon Disney, ESPN
Inc. (80% - Hearst Corporation owns the remaining 20%),
Classic Sports Network (with AT&T), A&E Television
(37.5%, with Hearst and GE), the History Channel (with
Hearst and GE), Lifetime Television (50%, with Hearst),
Lifetime Movie Network (50% with Hearst), E! Entertainment
(34.4%, with Comcast, MediaOne and Liberty Media each have
10.4% interests).
News Corporation (Rupert Murdoch) owns Fox Broadcasting
Company, Fox Entertainment, Fox Kid's Network, Fox
Sports, Fox News Channel. FxM, Speedvision, the TV Guide
Channel, the Family Channel, MTM Entertainment.
AOL Time Warner owns CNN, HBO, Cinemax, Time Warner
Sports, Turner Home Satellite, Turner Network Sales, TBS
Superstation, Turner Network Televsion, Tuner South, Cartoon
Network, Turner Classic Movies, Court TV (with Liberty
Media), Time Warner Cable, New York City Cable Group
(largest cable cluster in world—more than 1.1 million), New
York 1 News, Time Warner Home Theater (pay-per-view).
USA Networks, Inc. owns USA Network, USA Broadcasting,
Sci-Fi Channel, Home Shopping Network, Silver King
Broadcasting, SF Broadcasting. (Seagram owns 45 percent,
and Liberty Media 21 percent, of USA Networks.)
Some diversity in broadcast, eh? And it's much more entangled than
that, plus all their holdings abroad.
And what does all this "diversity" provide us with? A few news
headlines and a lot of cute, but meaningless when it comes to conducting
our lives, features between the commercials. The "news" magazine
shows feed us pap between the commercials, and the "objective"
talking heads keep recycling the corporate-approved hacks. When they
can't escape noticing demonstrators in the streets, the give the
appropriate corporate response, "We don't know what they are
protesting about." They get an extra gold star if they proclaim the
demonstrators to be wackos and flash some footage of what they label
as anarchists.
Does anyone remember when then Federal Communications
Commission head Newton Minnow called television "a vast wasteland?"
And that was in the days when there were still oases that flourished.
The polarization argument is not new. Perhaps it's part of the human
condition. Name a subject and there are people polarized by it. Madison
called it factions and so aptly made the case in Federalist Paper 10 that
one of the primary functions of government is to act as a check on
factions. Government has failed us in that. So now our major media
speak for only one faction: the corporate faction.
Is it so odd then that the same factions that exist in everyday life would
also exist on the Internet? Of course not. The Net, though, goes beyond
factions in providing a way for people of differing ethnicities, races,
religions, social and economic and educational backgrounds together.
For the first time in human history, geographical separation is no barrier
to people communicating directly with each other. And it is this
communication, the exchange of ideas and the sharing of experiences
that scares the daylights out of governments and corporations.
So an element of fear must be introduced, as though all adults are
children. In case the polarization fear doesn't quite do it, Stille mixes
apples with oranges to come up with this:
"An example is the 1999 book 'Code' by Lawrence Lessig, a law
professor at Stanford University, who argues that the enormous amount
of personal information people reveal when they shop online, browse
Web sites or call up information offers extraordinary opportunities for
both governments and businesses to control their lives. 'Left to itself,'
he wrote, 'cyberspace will become a perfect tool of control.'"
Then Stille followed it with, "Mr. Sunstein's assessment is somewhat
different from Mr. Lessig's, though still negative. 'His is closer to
Orwell's 1984; mine is more like Brave New World,' Mr. Sunstein
explained. If to Mr. Lessig his danger is government or corporate
control, to Mr. Sunstein it is a world of seemingly infinite choice, where
citizens are transformed into consumers and a common political life is
eroded."
As if we haven't been transformed into consumers now. Is a "common
political life" like "compassionate conservatism?" Both make about as
much sense.
Could the bottom line be that professors Sunstein and Lessig are calling
for government intervention into what is or isn't on our web sites? Sort
of an Internet Fairness Doctrine? Interesting, when cyberspace is so vast
and filled with such diversity, yet the broadcast Fairness Doctrine was
tossed out after the Supreme Court felt it was an imposition on free
speech, despite the limitations to the public airwaves. In the absence of
the Fairness Doctrine that gave all voices equal time in broadcast, it has
been all downhill for that medium.
Intervention is precisely what Sunstein wants.
Stille wrote, "Mr. Sunstein said he was not talking about limiting
diversity but rather the insular way that most sites were structured. For
example, he said, most political Web sites have links only to other
like-minded sites. Although he stops short of calling for government
intervention, he says, 'We might want to consider the possibility of
ways of requiring or encouraging sites to link to opposing viewpoints.'"
Does Professor Sunstein think people are so stupid that they can't surf
for all the opposing viewpoints they desire? What paternalistic
arrogance. Or is Professor Sunstein concerned that people are going to
obtain information the corporate media refuses to report?
It is the corporate media, not what is being published or broadcast on the
Net, that is dysfunctional, polarizing and lacking in diversity. 
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Bush's Double Standard: The president demands severe punishment for drug and alcohol offenders -- unless they're members of the Bush clan. , By Joe Conason Knocking the wind out of a self-righteous windbag is always healthy fun, especially when the windbag happens to be an authority figure like the president of the United States. Sometimes, however, the impulse to deflate also injures innocent bystanders such as Jenna and Barbara Bush -- whose moralizing pappy must be mortified by their recent booze busts. Unfortunately for the Bushes, their fellow citizens have a right to know that the first family will be held to the same rules imposed on the rest of us. The necessity for a single standard is greater still when those rules were imposed by the president himself. Yet conservative commentators, in a sudden display of tender concern for victims of tabloid journalism, are urging reporters to stop picking on the Bush twins. They point out that almost all American kids start drinking before they reach legal age, that underage guzzling is usually a private problem for families to resolve, and that neither of the girls has harmed anyone else. The pleas for mercy sound perfectly reasonable, even though several of the same pundits couldn't resist attacking Chelsea Clinton in the most cruel and boorish way. But except for a few lonely civil libertarians, almost nobody made those permissive arguments when George W. Bush (and a bipartisan majority of the Texas Legislature) enacted the "three strikes" penalties that could lead to Jenna Bush's imprisonment if she is arrested with alcohol once more. In the situational ethics that now define conservatism, cracking down on kids who drink was a great national imperative, until that policy meant political trouble for a Republican in the White House. No doubt the public humiliation of Jenna and Barbara Bush has been inevitable since 1997, when their father approved a set of Draconian revisions to the Texas laws governing consumption of alcohol by minors. Like most teenagers, they eventually were bound to run afoul of those statutes, which he had trumpeted as symbols of his own rectitude and his determination to crush youthful vice and criminality. Due to their high visibility, they were likely to be caught, too. In fact, as reported in the Houston Chronicle, Jenna Bush's first alcohol offense occurred within six months after the then-governor signed the harsh new standards into law. (Were it not for a loophole that excludes her first offense because she was only 16 at the time, she would now be facing up to six months in jail as well as a $2,000 fine.) By the time he approved that bill, Bush had already fashioned a political career out of his propensity for cracking down, for "tough love" and for treating juvenile offenders with "zero tolerance." Those were the principal themes of his first campaign for governor, when much more was said about his opponent's history of substance abuse than about his own excessive drunkenness. During that 1994 race, he went so far as to cite his daughters as evidence of his fitness to punish other kids. "I've raised two children that respect discipline," he said proudly (and somewhat optimistically). Within weeks after he signed the laws that now haunt his family, Bush triumphantly addressed a Midwestern GOP conference. "One of my main responsibilities as governor -- and I believe one of the responsibilities as Republicans -- is to set the tone for change," he remarked. "Whether that change involves schools, or the juvenile justice system, or whether that change involves solving the No. 1 problem facing America -- the culture of our time -- a culture that says if it feels good, do it, and if you have a problem, blame somebody else." When he embarked on his campaign for the presidency, Bush continued to emphasize the nation's supposed moral decline while proclaiming a "new era of personal responsibility." As the long-concealed facts about his own past finally emerged, however, it became difficult not to wonder whether he assumed that his preachments are for ordinary citizens only, not members of the Bush clan. With his insistent avoidance of honest discussion about his own indulgences and indiscretions, including his drunk-driving arrest, he made that contradiction all too obvious. Lying behind Bush's personal double standard are issues not only of abusive authority but of class and race. The imagery he exploited in his crusade against juvenile offenders always focused on black, Latino and white working-class youth, not the sons and daughters of the fancy Dallas and Houston suburbs. That nasty habit hasn't changed with his elevation to the White House. The latest penalty to be imposed on young people arrested for possession of marijuana -- permanent ineligibility for federal student loans -- is heavily class-biased. Young scholars with backgrounds similar to that of Bush girls, each of whom is the beneficiary of a half-million-dollar trust fund, don't need federal loans. So for many Americans, the Bush booze bust represents a question of elementary fairness as well as an opportunity for a few laughs. It isn't that the president's daughters deserve to be mocked or humiliated. They don't. It is simply that they must be accorded the same tough treatment mandated by him toward other young people, whose chances and privileges are otherwise far smaller than theirs. The only insurance of such equal justice (or injustice) is appropriate media coverage of their illegal conduct and its consequences. In short, on Father's Day they will have only one man to blame for their present predicament.
And speaking of Daddy Dubya, perhaps his daughters' distress will encourage
him to reconsider his punitive attitude toward those who make the same
mistakes he once did. Had he been subjected to such a strict and unforgiving
code, after all, this paragon of sobriety would be in no position to inflict his
hypocrisies on the rest of us today. |
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Stupid Tax Tricks By Daniel Kadlec At first there was clarity and discipline behind the shaping of the nation's largest tax cut in 20 years. Lobbyists were kept at bay. Businesses were told to wait their turn because other cuts would be coming. This one, the Republicans promised, would focus on individual taxpayers and make good sense. It would simplify the filing process while promoting long-term economic growth through tax savings of some $1,600 a year for the average household.Then it all went bad. Late last month, during three days of chaotic, last-minute, closed-door negotiations between House and Senate leaders, Washington demonstrated its immense talent for mucking things up. A tax package was rushed through Congress just in time for lawmakers to make the Memorial Day barbecues back home, and what should have been a taxpayer feast looks instead like a botched grilling. Most households will see less than $600 of savings this year, and as for simpler tax returns, well, that's just a laugh. A more confusing tax bill is hard to imagine. The mess that the President is expected to sign this week is loaded with targeted tax breaks and maddening phase-ins and phase-outs--tax reductions that come and go like a spring afternoon. It contains some last-minute special-interest morsels, including one that may be a precursor to school vouchers. Most of the relief comes at the tail end of the 10-year plan--and the year after that, the whole thing disappears, restoring in 2011 the very same tax laws that were in force last April 15. Is Bush to blame? Perhaps. But not alone. He may have turned on the Washington meat grinder, but both parties fed it foul flesh. And both sides were so hungry for a bill that neither paid close attention to what the bill was. "Nobody was down there on the Senate floor combing through the details," says a Democratic Senator's chief of staff. Most Senators and House members were clueless about the bill's fine print right up to the vote, even most members of the Senate Finance Committee and House Ways and Means Committee, the bodies charged with steering this kind of legislation. On the House side, only the ranking Ways and Means members--Republican Representative Bill Thomas and Democrat Charles Rangel--were involved in late-hour haggling. Among the Senators, the conferees included Republicans Charles Grassley, Trent Lott and Don Nickles and Democrats Max Baucus, Tom Daschle, Jay Rockefeller and John Breaux. But for most of the final 48-hour marathon to complete the bill on the Thursday and Friday before Memorial Day, only Grassley, Thomas, Breaux and Baucus were actually in the room. Rangel, who at one point during negotiations was asked to leave the room because the Republicans wanted to negotiate among themselves out of earshot of a Democrat, calls the bill "a fraud on the American people." He and others charge that the bill underestimates the true cost of the tax cuts by half a trillion dollars and that it is aimed squarely at the richest Americans. Republicans, of course, take offense at the characterization. "That demagoguery and class-warfare rhetoric is pure nonsense," says Republican whip Nickles. "Low-income taxpayers get immediate relief retroactively. Some people are just throwing arrows and playing class warfare because they do it out of habit, not out of knowledge of the bill." Yet the sponsors of the bill--those who know it best--are hard-pressed to explain it. Topping the list of odd features is the "sunset" provision that repeals the entire bill at the end of 2010. Budget rules require Congress to include a sunset clause in all major tax legislation, but this sunset arrives a year early--after 10 years instead of the 11 years covered by the current budget resolution. That year was shaved off to keep the total cost of the bill under $1.35 trillion. By repealing the legislation in the 10th year, Congress saved billions of dollars. Without the repeal and a few other tricks, the cost of the full 11-year plan would balloon to more than $1.8 trillion by the end of 2011, far exceeding anything the Democrats would vote for. And the cost in the second decade would reach as much as $4 trillion. Even some conservatives on Capitol Hill are dismayed by the apparent dishonesty of the early sunset. After both parties agreed to a smaller tax cut, the conference committee pulled a fast one. These bigger numbers remain relevant because no future Congress wants to commit political suicide by allowing this tax cut to expire. Simply stated, all of Washington knows many of these provisions are in effect permanent. The Big Lie is that it costs only $1.35 trillion. Since the real cost is much greater, future Administrations--and Congresses--will have to deal with a political nightmare: the real possibility of deficit spending a decade from now as baby boomers begin to retire en masse and sap the Social Security and Medicare systems. For individual Americans, the tax cuts play havoc with estate planning. Starting next year, when the estate-tax exemption rises to $1 million per person (instead of the current $675,000), rates will decline and taxpayers will be able to leave more to their heirs on a tax-free basis. But the estate tax doesn't disappear entirely until 2010--and a year later, unless Congress acts, the tax is restored to what it is today. This is absurdity of the highest order, making dying in 2010 so attractive for the rich--and dying in 2011 so unappealing--that wags say some millionaires will pull their own plugs early to shelter their wealth. The shell game gets ridiculous in its treatment of corporate taxes. One provision delays the collection of $33 billion of estimated corporate taxes from Sept. 15 to Oct. 1 this year. Why? By pushing the collection into the next fiscal year, the bill makes this year's immediate relief look larger. "Republicans had to make sure it looked less dangerous by packing it with every kind of gimmick and sleight of hand I have ever seen," fumes Rangel. The tax bill isn't all bad. Beginning in 2002, it introduces a generous college-tuition deduction that increases up to $4,000 a year. But that lasts only through 2005. The bill expands the education ira to an annual contribution limit of $2,000, up from just $500, and for the first time permits that money to be put toward private elementary, middle and high school costs. Some see that as a stealth move toward a voucher system because it helps more families afford private school and thus undermines public education. In another give-and-take break, the bill addresses the marriage penalty but then makes the fix disappear. Lawmakers have long lamented that some married couples pay more tax than they would if they filed as singles. The problem is that the standard deduction for married people is less than twice the standard deduction for singles. And for married couples, income thresholds for higher tax brackets are less than twice the level for singles. The tax bill raises the standard deduction between 2005 and 2009. But the new schedule dissolves at the end of 2010. Finally, there is the most bizarre levy of all, the alternative minimum tax, or AMT. It's supposed to hit just the rich by forcing taxpayers with substantial deductions to compute their taxes twice--once the normal way and then at a lower rate but without many of the deductions. They pay whichever calculation costs them more. Because the AMT, which now affects some taxpayers making less than $100,000 a year, is not indexed to the inflation rate, it is creeping up on many middle-income taxpayers. This year 1.4 million paid the tax. That number is expected to reach 5.6 million in 2004 and more than 35 million in 2011. And there's the rub. The law provides $2,000 to $4,000 in AMT relief this year but drops the relief in 2005. So when the crunch really hits, the AMT will steal whatever tax relief many Americans think they're getting. The hope on both sides is that when future lawmakers evaluate the nation's finances, they will find that surpluses have grown and be able to make all these tax reductions permanent. That hope looks a bit futile in the face of the new, more pessimistic surplus projections that are expected later this month. Bush and the Republican leadership think the numbers will work out--and some economists agree. These optimists believe the stimulative effect of lower taxes "will strengthen the economy and increase the projected budget surplus by generating larger tax revenues," in the words of Mark Weinberger, Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for tax policy and the government's top tax expert. Plenty of people dismiss that as classic supply-side dogma. But Weinberger notes that tax revenue increased after Ronald Reagan's tax cuts took full effect in the mid-1980s. The Reagan deficits, he argues, resulted from his military buildup and other spending, not the tax cuts.
It's too late to turn back now. The machinery is in place to begin mailing a rebate check of $300 to $600 to nearly every
taxpayer by the end of September. Each filer should get a letter in July stating the amount of the rebate. All told, the rebates will
inject $40 billion into the economy. Many economists believe that may be enough to hold off a recession. "A lot of the analysis
simply does not take into account the fact that the tax cut will promote economic growth and changes in consumer behavior,"
Weinberger asserts. "It's difficult to quantify. But the changes will be positive." Let's hope so. To pay for all these tax cuts and
make them permanent, the country is going to need plenty of growth. |
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The charge that Jenna smokes marijuana is found in the Enquirer's March 20 issue; the tabloid quotes two unidentified fellow students, one of whom says,
"Jenna came over one night and we all did some doobies together. I wouldn't say she's a major pothead but she likes to toke up when it's around." Can
unnamed sources be trusted? The answer to that question usually depends on the reputation of the publication.
Starting from a low base, the Enquirer's rep has been rising in recent years. It had so many scoops on the O.J. Simpson case that even the New York Times had
to acknowledge its journalism; in the Ennis Cosby murder, the reward it offered broke the case. And just in the past few weeks, it scooped the establishment
media on Jesse Jackson's "love child" and Hugh Rodham's receipt of $400,000 to influence his brother-in-law on presidential pardons.
One reason the Enquirer gets scoops like these is that it hunts for them, while other publications are leery of "scandal-mongering." But as media critic William
Powers observed recently in the distinctly unsensationalistic National Journal, sometimes the real news is scandal: "Despite their well-known flaws, the tabs are
now serious players because they know that great journalism isn't just about bloodless policy and issue debates. It's about ethical foibles and hypocrisies of the
powerful."
Speaking of the powerful, George W. Bush, who refused to answer questions about his own drug use during the campaign, now finds himself as commander in
chief of the worldwide drug war, being fought all over the Third World as well as on Mean Streets, USA. But if the Enquirer's pot-puffing allegation is to be
believed, Bush's own daughter is nevertheless safe and sound, actively protected by the U.S. Secret Service -- this in the Lone Star State, where conviction on
possession of 2 ounces or less of marijuana leads to a jail sentence of up to 180 days.
The White House dismisses the Enquirer report as not being worthy of comment. Noelia Rodriguez, press secretary to the first lady, said only this much on the
record: "Our position on the daughters is that they're private citizens."
Fair enough, although that position doesn't shield others from being hassled over their activities as private citizens. As the drug war escalates, Uncle Sam's reach
extends further. In 1998, Congress amended the Higher Education Act in an effort to exclude students with past drug convictions from receiving financial aid.
According to Students for Sensible Drug Policy, some 8,600 college kids have lost some or all of their benefits during the current school year after revealing a
drug conviction on their application form. Another 278,000 refused to answer the question; Congress is poised to tighten restrictions further to de-fund those
students, too.
In other words, between drug busts and aid cuts, young people and pot is a big story. So why has there been utter silence -- a database search finds not a single
reference to the Enquirer story in the two weeks since its publication -- on the Jenna Bush allegation?
Three explanations present themselves. First, reporters have found no evidence to corroborate the Enquirer's allegation. Fred Zipp, managing editor of the
Austin American-Statesman, said in an interview, "From time to time we have pursued tips about the behavior of the Bush daughters" -- that is, Jenna and her
twin sister, Barbara -- "but we didn't find anything newsworthy."
A second possibility, of course, is that the major media aren't much interested in marijuana-crime stories. Why not? Maybe because reporters, who may have had
countercultural-pharmaceutical-type experiences in their own pasts, tend to empathize with marijuana dabbling. And so journos might not think that dope
smoking is a crime worth getting revved up about. According to a Pew Center poll released this week, 38 percent of Americans admit they've experimented with
marijuana. Extrapolated to the entire U.S. population, that's over 100 million experimenters. So maybe the media deserve credit for realizing that marijuana use
is no big deal -- even when, allegedly, the "criminal" in question is a president's daughter.
A third possibility is that the non-tabloid pressies are simply afraid to follow the truth if they think it will lead them into trouble. Jane Hall, professor of
journalism at the American University in Washington, observed in an interview, "It's not going to win reporters any points with the public to go after this story."
But what about the law, which goes after plenty of pot users? Hall answered by noting the current split between popular culture and the legal culture: "The
American public is forgiving; the penal system is not forgiving."
Needless to say, President Bush and the entire White House apparat would probably not feel forgiving toward the media entity that pursued a story about drug
use in his family. That means no state dinner invitations for Enquirer editor Steve Coz. But it also might leave people wondering what revelations are being
squelched by the reporters and editors who do show up at presidential fetes.
Who could blame Bush for feeling unforgiving and unfriendly toward those who would violate his family's privacy? But who could blame any other father for
feeling similarly -- but perhaps unavailingly -- protective toward his own children as they are drug-busted?
This much is certain: The law is not nearly as forgiving to the nonwhite and the non-protected. According to the Sentencing Project, African-Americans account
for 13 percent of the drug-using population, but a disproportionate 55 percent of those convicted of drug offenses.
Jenna Bush, of course, has been convicted of nothing. But the legal system her father now oversees looks increasingly guilty of discrimination against the weak
and hypocrisy in favor of the strong.
And that should be a big story.
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The Descent Into Freepers "HELL"
On this night, Novak was pointing to a public poll that had been running on CNN.com. You know these polls. Log on to a news
site and you can vote your opinion on whatever happens to be the headline of the day. The poll Novak referred to asked the
question: "Should Al Gore concede?"
The results showed that some 89 percent of the American population who found their way onto CNN.com voted "Yes" to this
question. The count of those who voted numbered in the tens of thousands.
Novak flapped this poll all around the studio as indisputable proof that a large majority of the American people saw Gore as a
thief and a usurper and a sore loser who should just go away. Soon enough, Gore did.
I never forgot that night, and never lost the sneaking suspicion that something shady had occurred. Somehow, someone had
flooded that poll with "Yes" votes to skew the results. I had no proof, and the theme song to 'X-Files' was sounding in my head .
. . but I was mortally sure that something was rotten in Denmark.
Now, after all these months, I have figured out what happened that night.
That CNN.com poll was "Freeped."
What does it mean when something gets "Freeped?" Aim your browser to http://www.FreeRepublic.com, join the conversations in
the forums, and you will find out.
FreeRepublic.com is a website which describes its cause thusly: "We're working to roll back decades of governmental largesse,
to root out political fraud and corruption, and to champion causes which further conservatism in America."
This seems innocent enough. I am a particular fan of governmental largesse, but respect coherent arguments against it. I
believe my work against the illegitimacy of Bush proves my dedication to rooting out political fraud and corruption. And while I am
no conservative, I have met many conservatives whom I admire for their intellect, ability to articulate a message, and integrity in
the truest definition of that word: "Steadfast adherence to a strict moral or ethical code."
My grandfather was a conservative of great integrity from the old school, and I never once found cause to look down on him,
even when we disagreed on a principle. My grandfather was the ideal conservative, in my opinion.
A part of me is glad he died before I could tell him about the Freepers.
A Freeper is a member of FreeRepublic.com. Freepers speak to each other on the forums of this website, discussing all varieties
of topic. Purportedly, they support the ideals espoused above. In actuality, there is a yawning moral chasm between word and
deed.
Take the CNN.com poll I discussed above, for example. A common Freeper tactic is to post on the FreeRepublic forums a notice
that a poll exists somewhere which asks a question dear to the conservative heart: "Should the Congress pass more gun control
legislation?" or "Is Bill Clinton the illegitimate spawn of Satan and Baal?" The URL to this poll is provided, and the Freeper legions
swarm to vote . . . say, "no" on the first and "yes" on the second. There are a lot of Freepers, and many of them will vote
multiple times. This obviously skews the result.
This is how a poll is "Freeped."
Novak and CNN used the "Freeped" CNN.com poll to convince the public that 89 percent of them wanted Al Gore to quit before
the votes were counted. This helped to push the rising tide that allowed the Supreme Court to get away with stealing the
election.
Is this not political corruption? Does such a disruption skew information that is provided to the public via the media? Does this
not pervert the truth?
Of course, there are liberals out there who organize the same kind of coordinated mugging of public Internet polls. It can be
argued that such things are no more than political gamesmanship.
Dig a little deeper into the Freeper phenomenon, however, and you will find a darkness where true morality dares not show its
face.
As we all know, Jenna Bush was recently busted for attempting to purchase booze at a restaurant named Chuy's in Austin,
Texas. The manager of the establishment, Mia Lawrence, called 911 when she saw what was happening.
The Freepers took this personally, believing the Jenna fiasco to be part of some liberal conspiracy to humiliate Bush and the
daughters. They called for a 'Freeping' of Chuy's restaurant.
Salon.com recently wrote a story about the Freeper reaction to the Chuy's situation. I quote it in part below:
"The attacks against Mia Lawrence, the bar manager, are being orchestrated on the Internet. Her address, date of birth, drivers
license and registration information, physical description, and even birth information about her infant child have been posted on
Freerepublic.com, along with calls for punitive actions. Freerepublic.com Web site's sysop pulled some of the information as it
was called to his attention—o his credit—ut the info has circulated and been posted to other Internet forums to spread the 'Get
Lawrence' frenzy."
I felt a chill in my spine when I first read these words. The manager, Mia Lawrence, was in all likelihood seeking to save her
restaurant from breaking Texas' punitive underage drinking laws, signed by Governor Bush, which would have cost Chuy's its
liquor license.
She earned for her trouble a legion of stalkers who speak openly of loving guns. Her personal information, along with maps
providing driving directions to her home, was posted on FreeRepublic. I am confident in my prediction that she has not slept
since dialing 911.
I did some research regarding this topic on FreeRepublic. Entering the word "Chuy" into the search engine provided, I found the
following Freeper commentary:
"The manager, (aka 'Mia the Liberal DemonRat'), tried to cause as much trouble for the Bush twins and their dad as possible and
now might get it returned back on her own head in spades!!! This is sweet!"Truth_Eagle
"Hell! Surround Chuy's with tanks and set the place on fire while fully occupied."olustee
"Let's turn that TEXMEX joint into a BARBECUE!"makoman
I read comments, since removed by the moderators of FreeRepublic, which suggested that someone should go into Chuy's and
smear butyric acid on the tables.
To be fair, a fellow Freeper posted the following dissent:
"Every thread that had Mia's addy posted on it got pulled. Every one. It's NOT OK. Printing a map to the house, and having the
addy on the map, is arguably worse."CyberLiberty
CyberLiberty is proof positive that not all Freepers are violent psychopaths. Still, there were far more posts in the vein of
olustee's than of CyberEagle's. By all means, seek out the site and investigate for yourself.
I am forced to wonder how posting the name, address and physical description of a restaurant manager from Austin, as well as
the description of her infant child, furthers the conservative cause in America.
I am reminded of the words of art critic and author, Harold Rosenberg: "The values to which the conservative appeals are
inevitably caricatured by the individuals designated to put them into practice."
Clearly, the purported targeting of the daughter of the president is mortally offensive to the average Freeper. I decided to do a
search using the words "Chelsea Clinton." I found the following:
Question asked: "I really do wonder what perversions Chelsea participates in." Response: "THAT is something I would rather NOT
wonder about. Animals, plants, the elderly . . . echh. The girl is a walking STD."AntiChris
"If people didnt know that hillary was an ugly assed dyke - they must have been blind - she just put up with old dumb ass so she
could run the white house - just look at the bizarre bunch she put in office - the female version of frankenstein - which is janet
reno - and this could go on and on - halfbright looks just like broomhilda - weirdest looking bunch ever to defile any government -
and all courtesy of mr hillary - and then she supported all the fags in hollywood and along with her fat assed dyke buddy rosie -
they all look like something from a sideshow at a circus - everyone of them has the coyote rating." [sic]candyman34
In these two short entries, the daughter of a president is accused of carnal knowledge of animals and plants. She is accused of
being a spreader of socially transmitted diseases (STDs). Senator Hillary Clinton is called a "dyke." The very notion of balance or
fair play is conspicuously absent here. The hatred is palpable.
Hatred . . . which brings me to yet another favorite Freeper topic.
A singular characteristic of the average Freeper is an abiding love and respect for Jesus Christ of Nazareth. Many Freepers use
Christ as the shield with which they defend their views. Sometimes, they use him as their sword.
If I remember my Sunday School classes, Jesus said in the Book of John, chapter 15 verse 12, " This is my commandment, that
ye love one another."
I entered the word "homosexual" into the FreeRepublic search engine, and found the following. Keep the Bible quote I provided in
mind as you read:
"The spread of infectious diseases . . . oral and anal cancer . . . death from HIV infections . . . Just some of the ways GOD gets
even with the queers and faggots."upchuck
"In another time, and in another place, they burned people like this . . ."East Bay Patriot
"I will tell you that the Lord God has at least 7000 righteous in the USA that have not bowed their knee to baal = and these
flames of fire are going to rise up soon and speak the Living Word of a Holy God to these frog-demon-freaks and ban them from
our land. I will NOT let this country be over-run by Communist/Socialist/Globalist/Abortionist/Feminist Sodomites."
[sic]jdhmichigan
"DO NOT, I repeat, DO NOT shake hands with any homosexuals."Mr. K.
I have been a Christian all my life. My understanding of the teachings of Jesus directs me to love my enemies, and accept
everyone—hristian, Jew, Muslim, Buddhist—s a child of God. Jesus was the son of God, but was also a revolutionary seeking
freedom from Roman persecution. Therefore, as a Christian and a freedom-loving American, I respect and love those who do not
bend a knee to any religion. Jesus died so all of us could live, and the American Revolution was fought so that all people in this
nation could live as they wish. These two events are connected intimately.
I do not pretend, as a card-carrying heterosexual, to understand how one man can look with lust upon another man. But after
being friends with, and after sharing apartment space with, a number of homosexual men and women, I know in my heart that
such things exist for a reason and are not wrong. God loves everyone equally, as He sees the smallest sparrow fall. I love
everyone, too. Perhaps, like gay men and women, I was born that way.
I have never espoused the burning at the stake of any human being, be they gay or conservative. I know of no liberal who has
espoused such action. How such a statement falls within the yardsticks of Christianity or true conservatism is a mystery which I
may never solve.
I do know this, however: were Jesus to log on to FreeRepublic and read the perversion His message has undergone in 2,000
years, He would beg to be crucified again, so as to be spared exposure to such hatred.
I suppose it is easy for the average Freeper to post such virulent messages on a public forum. After all, they dare not use their
real names. Names like Truth_Eagle, upchuck and AntiChris are shields behind which cowards hide. It is easy to speak when no
one can see your face. A veteran of many email flame wars, I know well how brave a person can be when shielded by the
anonymity of a computer keyboard. Those who sexually stalk teenage girls in Internet chat rooms use similar tactics. It is very
effective.
My screen name, on each and every board I post to, is WilliamPitt. I am easy to find. I do not hide, and I never will.
The glaring fact of the cowardice of the average Freeper should not in any way diminish the effectiveness of their actions. They
pervert public polls. They call and email congressional representatives en masse, thus creating the illusion of massive public
pressure that twists the actions of elected officials who seek only respond to the legitimate concerns of constituents. They
bombard media outlets with prurient stories to discredit respectable Democratic officeholders. They are the bedrock base of the
entity we know as the GOP. They are powerful.
Keep these things in mind when you find yourself shocked by the results of a poll on MSNBC, or when a senator refuses to
support reasonable gun control laws, or when the press decides to spend two years covering a consensual sex act between
adults.
Robert Kennedy described Richard Nixon as being a symbol of "the dark side of the American Dream." Were he alive today, he
would described FreeRepublic in the same terms.
The Freepers are out there. |
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Dead Letter Office
Heil Bush,
Dear Gruppenfuhrer Lincoln,
Congratulations you have just been awarded the Vidkun Quisling Award for 2001. Your name will now live throughout history with such past award winners as Marcus Junius Brutus, Judas Iscariot, Benedict Arnold, Vidkun Quisling and last year’s winner Volksjudge Antoni (light-fingers) Scalia.
With your vote to weaken workers safety laws and thereby save your corporate masters billions of dollars, while eliminating useless, worn out workers from corporate responsibility, you have made it possible for all of us to goose-step off to a brave new world.
Along with this award there will be an Iron Cross 2nd class presented by our glorious Fuhrer Herr Bush at a gala party in das Fuhrer Bunker, formerly the White House on 7-4-2001. We salute you Frau Lincoln! Sieg Heil!
Signed,
Heil Bush
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McVeigh's Warped Sense Of The Warrior
Culture
AUSTIN -- "Invictus"?! Lord save us, what a sick
man. Talk about delusional.
That Timothy McVeigh, mass murderer of children,
saw himself as the master of his ship and the
captain of his soul is beyond irony. Now he's going to ruin a
perfectly good minor poem.
To the extent that Timothy McVeigh can be understood -- or that
we'd want to understand him -- he obviously considered himself
part of the warrior culture. Warrior mythology is an ancient and in
some ways still-noble ideal. "Duty, honor and country" is a code that
continues to reverberate with most of us. From Hector of ancient
Troy to Col. William Travis to Audie Murphy, the romance of the
warrior role still has great appeal. To be a warrior in a comfortable,
commercial, bourgeois culture is to be profoundly out of place. It is
also a way of finding a sense of superiority over all the fat, lazy
civilians of the world.
In McVeigh's favorite book, "The Turner Diaries," the hero is an
outlaw guerilla warrior whose motive is not just glorified racism. In
the book, the "mud people" (black Americans) are subhuman, while
the Jews are behind everything and white men are an endangered
species. Paranoia, racism and a profound distaste for and sense of
superiority to the complacent sheep of the American middle class
are all intermingled in a poisonous stew of badly written prose. The
book also includes the recipe for the bomb McVeigh used in
Oklahoma City and a hilariously bad sex scene -- and if you think
those two don't belong in the same sentence, you have no idea
how bad this book is.
One of the more puzzling aspects of McVeigh's warped sense of
the warrior culture is that he so clearly loathed the "country" for
which he claimed to act. I rarely venture into the realm of parlor
psychology, mostly because I am hopelessly unqualified, but
McVeigh is not just an aberration. Exactly how a supposed code of
honor could drive someone to murder 168 people is beyond me,
but it is obviously not unique to McVeigh.
This nation has a huge population that identifies the manly warrior
with guns, bombs and killing. Believe me, I am not blaming this
society for Timothy McVeigh. That someone could be unhappy with
both the culture and the government of America seems not at all
odd to me -- I am, frequently. But the point of a democracy is that
there is, in theory, something you can do about it: organize, protest,
run for office. All of which is damn tame to an immature mind
compared to blowing up a building.
It is this longing for a sense of mission, for a purpose, to be in a
heroic drama in a country that judges accomplishment only by the
size of a person's bank account that is so familiar about McVeigh.
Not to put McVeigh and Charlton Heston in the same category (I
sincerely apologize even for the implication), but I was struck by
that dramatic footage of Heston at the recent National Rifle
Association convention holding up a rifle and proclaiming that it
would have to "pried from my dead, cold hands." It's the easiest
thing in the world to make fun of such self-dramatizing claptrap,
especially in an age with an overdeveloped sense of irony -- but
there are many people who have no ear for irony, just as others
have no ear for music.
People say McVeigh was the poster boy for the death penalty.
White, had good lawyers, had a number of opportunities in life, was
not retarded or evidently insane and, best of all, we know he did it.
The pro-death-penalty people have an underdeveloped taste for
vengeance, as far as I'm concerned. McVeigh got off too easily. If
we'd put the s.o.b. in the Cowboy Gulag for 50 years, then he could
have learned what suffering is.
Anthropologists tell us one of the great needs of Western civilization
is for a rite of passage, for some ceremony -- a sort of trial by fire
that marks passage into adulthood. War and its substitutes, like
jousting and hunting, have long been recognized as such a rite.
American kids often invent their own weird rites of passage --
stealing hubcaps, taking LSD -- for lack of some recognized rite.
Despite the fact that he had served in an actual war, McVeigh
seems to have tried to invent another war in a search for mission,
for some Luke Skywalker role. The weird part is not that his urge
was so strange, but that it is so familiar. |
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The recent announcement that the Bush administration will send the Taliban a gift of $43 million – tax payer
money, only proves that the Resident and our current government is so far removed from reality as to inhabit
their own universe in a galaxy far, far away from the one the rest of the world is familiar with. In Robert
Scheer’s recent article regarding this unbelievable move, he eloquently points out the following:
"Enslave your girls and women, harbor anti-U.S. terrorists and destroy every vestige of civilization in your
homeland, and the Bush administration will embrace you. All that matters is that you line up as an ally in the
drug war, the only international cause that this nation still takes seriously…….. At no point in modern history
have women and girls been more systematically abused than in Afghanistan, where in the name of madness
masquerading as Islam, the government in Kabul obliterates their fundamental human rights. Women may not
appear in public without being covered from head to toe with the oppressive shroud called the burkha, and they
may not leave the house without being accompanied by a male family member. They've not been permitted to
attend school or be treated by male doctors, yet women have been banned from practicing medicine or any
profession for that matter. The lot of males is better if they blindly accept the laws of an extreme religious
theocracy that prescribes strict rules governing all behavior, from a ban on shaving to what crops may be grown.
It is this last power that has captured the enthusiasm of the Bush White House."
Are we to be far behind in this lifestyle? Why is Bush so in bed with the Reverend Moon? Why open an office of
Faith Based Charities that so clearly goes against the Constitution’s specific mandating the separation of church
and state? Not to mention we have yet to get the list of which "faiths" need apply.
One question I have is how on Earth did these "policies" of Bush’s get so far in the first place? Doesn’t anyone
like Congress or the Senate need to approve them? I certainly have had no voice in $43 millions dollars of tax
money, which according to Bush is MY money, going to such a blatant violator of civil and human rights. If I
did, I would have voiced an emphatic "no".
And even more recently the announcement "U.S. Mulls Plans to Buy Russian Missile System". Whaaaaa?
According to the Los Angeles Times, "The officials, who asked not to be named, said the offers would be
extended to other U.S. "allies and friends" and could include the purchase of Russian-made S-300 surface-to-air
missiles."
What happened to giving our defense manufacturers the contracts? Not that any ‘missile’ defense is viable
against terrorist bombing or chemical warfare, but if we’re going to spend the money, shouldn’t we be giving
our own economy the boost? Why do we seem to be underwriting every foreign economy instead of shoring up
our own? How far could $43 million go towards long-term care for the elderly? Or how about helping the
homeless off the streets?
Most every government believes in and defends the ABM treaty as the foundation of modern arms control, but
not the Bush administration. More nuclear EVERYTHING! Arms and energy! Pull out all the stops as long as
every contributor has a BIG MONEY contract so as to fund Bush’s re-election campaign now. Why else is he
systematically transferring vast amounts of wealth from the wealthiest state in the union? Energy crisis? Hell, we
here in California have so much gasoline they are having trouble storing it all, but have prices gone down? Hell
no. All municipal utilities have so much energy they are selling it to the rest of the state, and are not subject to
rolling blackouts and rate hikes. No, this has been deliberate, and the entire world knows it. Soon our media
whore machine will wake up to the fact they’ve lost their business to overseas journalism.
Well. The time has come. Time for the Democrats to use the power they’ve been given by one of the bravest men
in America, and hopefully Jeffords has set an example to other GOP members who have a conscience – if there
are any. Time for the criminal investigations to begin. Time for the subpoenas, and outing of the biggest con job
of modern times. Bush, Cheney, The Hive of Five, et al, have all grown up so privileged they’ve never had to
take responsibility for anything – until now.
Now is the time for all the markers to be called in. It’s pay up and pay back time.
Now is the time for all the little GOP off-compass zealots to realize that Karma is truly a bitch.
This edition we're proud to showcase the cartoons of Ted Rall. |
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To End On A Happy Note ... Scalia
Scalia...
Scalia...
Scalia...
Scalia!
Scalia!
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"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good people to do nothing." ... Edmund Burke
There are several important announcements about the Pro-Democracy Convention. Please take note and help us
to pass this information along.
1) LOCATION CHANGE: From Friday, June 29th's National Town Hall Meeting through Sunday, July 1st's Closing
Plenary, all sessions of the Pro-Democracy Convention will be held at the Pennsylvania Convention Center.
Address: 1101 Arch Street. T: 215/418.4700.
2) HOTEL RESERVATIONS: To obtain the group rate for the Convention, you must make your hotel reservations
by Tuesday, June 12th. The discount price is $99 for a single or double, $109 for a triple or quad. After tomorrow,
the rates approximately DOUBLE. The hotel is walking distance from the Convention Center. Call the Wyndham
Franklin Plaza Hotel at 215/448.2000.
3) CO-SPONSORS & ENDORSERS: Please inform people of these changes A.S.A.P.! Please also distribute the
Convention update, included below.
4) HOW TO REACH US: For anything related to the Pro-Democracy Convention, call us at 212.614.6452 or write
us at a temporary e-mail address, demconv@hotmail.com.
******************************************
Update - Please Circulate Widely.
For more information, write demconv@hotmail.com or call 212.614.6452.
COUNTDOWN TO THE PRO-DEMOCRACY CONVENTION!
Shaping the Future of Democracy in America: From Voter Disenfranchisement to a Voters' Bill of Rights
A National Pro-Democracy Convention
June 29 - July 1, 2001 / Philadelphia
From June 29 to July 1st, 2001, the Center for Constitutional Rights and a coalition of more than fifty
organizations are sponsoring a National Pro-Democracy Convention in Philadelphia. The Convention is being
convened in response to the disenfranchisement of thousands, if not millions of voters in the recent Presidential
election.
With the Voter's Bill of Rights as a primary focus, the National Pro-Democracy Convention will be a vehicle to
gather up and galvanize the disparate and disaffected constituencies and movements outraged by the flawed
election to build a permanent force for real democracy.
The Convention kicks off with a National Town Hall Meeting, where there will be a guided discussion featuring John
Anderson (Center for Voting and Democracy), Melanie Campbell (National Coalition for Black Civic Participation),
Representative John Conyers (Michigan), Granny D (Alliance for Democracy), Ron Daniels (Center for
Constitutional Rights), Cheri Honkala (Kensington Welfare Rights Union), Arianna Huffington (author), Reverend
Jesse Jackson (Rainbow/PUSH), Martin Luther King III (Southern Christian Leadership Conference), Reverend Al
Sharpton (National Action Network), and June Zeitlin (Women’s Economic and Development Organization), to name
a few.
On Saturday and Sunday of the Convention, there will be workshops and plenaries on the principles outlined in the
Voters' Bill of Rights and strategies for strengthening the pro-democracy movement. The Voters’ Bill of Rights is a
ten point platform that calls for:
- Clean Money Elections
- Easier Access for All Electoral Candidates.
- Voting Rights for Former Prisoners
- Independent and Non-Partisan Election Administration Bodies
The Convention will include updates on and the Campaign to Free Connie Tyree and Frank "Pinto" Smith and the
Struggle Against the Corporate Takeover of Pacifica . Time will also be allotted for regional and thematic
caucusing.
NOTE: IMPORTANT LOCATION CHANGE! All sessions of the Pro-Democracy will take place at the
Pennsylvania Convention Center. Address: 1101 Arch Street. Phone: 215.418.4700.
To register or for more information, see www.pro-democracy.com, e-mail demconv@hotmail.com or contact the
Center for Constitutional Rights at 212.614.6452.
Greetings from the very beautiful and independent state of Vermont. You
may not have known that Vermont is also the birthplace of National Strikes
One, Two, Three, AKA The Baseball Strikes. Needless to say, National Strike
One went very well, indeed, here in Vermont as well as throughout the rest of
the nation. The fact that Senator Jeffords, of Vermont, made public his
intention to leave right wing Republicans, one day after National Strike One
ended, has sent a powerful signal to all. This announcement and party switch
also occurred in the week following the Voter March in Washington, DC, and
San Francisco. He could have picked any week of any month to switch parties.
That he chose the week following two national protest demonstrations is
significant to our efforts. If our Senators sense the majority of us are in
favor of right wing policies, they would not feel compelled to oppose them.
Senator Jeffords got the message loud and clear here in Vermont, and he
joined National Strike One by refusing to participate in what he could not
agree with ethically or legally.
For more information about National Strike Two, as well as how to create a
permanent national strike force capability, to protect us from election
fraud, go to the new Strike Two webpage at the following link:
http://hometown.aol.com/estrellaberosini/index.html
Best Wishes,
As an alternative to George W. Bush's energy policies and lack of emphasis
on efficiency, conservation and alternative fuels, there will be a voluntary
rolling blackout on the first day of summer, June 21, from 7 p.m. - 10 p.m.
It doesn't matter what time zone you, what state, what country. If we all
turn out the lights at 7 p.m. regardless of where we live, the "blackout"
will roll across the planet!
It's a simple protest and a symbolic act. Turn out your lights, televisions,
radios and more from 7 p.m. - 10 p.m. on June 21. If it plugs in, turn it
off! Light a candle to read by, kiss your lover in the moonlight, take a
stroll in the dark, tell your children ghost stories, or make up a new and
innovative activity that requires no electricity. All you have to do is have
fun in the dark.
Forward this web site as widely as possible, to your government
representatives and environmental contacts.
Nathan Rudy
We, the undersigned voters, know that our cherished democracy is endangered from
within by the grave and potentially fatal flaws in our voting systems exposed by the
Presidential Election of 2000.
As our elected representatives, you have the duty, the opportunity, and the privilege to
correct these flaws and to restore fair and honest elections throughout our nation. To this
end, we charge you to construct and pass a VOTERS BILL OF RIGHTS, which shall
include:
Strict enforcement and extension of the Voting Rights Act to prevent the
disenfranchisement of voters and require full investigation and criminal prosecution of
any offenders;
Standardized, easily understandable federal election ballots
Funding to replace old and unreliable voting machines to ensure that every vote is
counted fairly and accurately
Genuine campaign finance reform that bans campaign contributions from special
interests
Replacement of the Electoral College with a majority-rule election, or substantial reform
of the Electoral College to allow for proportional representation
Measures to increase voter participation by eliminating bureaucratic hurdles to voter
registration and turnout, including language barriers, physical barriers, archaic
equipment, and lack of resources
Enactment and enforcement of a VOTERS BILL OF RIGHTS will restore trust in our
government and encourage participation in our democratic processes. The linchpin of a
democracy is the process by which we select our representatives and leaders. The right
to vote is our defining right as citizens of this nation. We call upon our elected
representatives to protect our Constitution from abusive exercise of government power
by enacting a VOTERS BILL OF RIGHTS.
We pledge our full and constant support for enactment of a VOTERS BILL OF
RIGHTS.
It is likely that 50% of the U.S. population is strongly dissatisfied with
the ascendancy of George W. Bush to the office of President. There are
three likely reasons:
In the interest of democracy, one could discredit election gripes (point
number one) as being unfair to our longstanding electoral college process..
Also, one might disregard Bush’s agenda (point number two) because the
hallmark of the United States Constitution is tolerance for divergent
political and moral beliefs.
However, point number three leads to a more egregious problem, namely that a
rather anonymous man, with no distinguishing ambition or vision has, by
virtue of family wealth and connection, been installed as President of the
United States. Even the most cursory glance at George W. Bush’s history and
character builds a strong case for charges of nepotism and cronyism. Such a
glaring display of favoritism, to benefit an individual with no considerable
talent, runs counter to the spirit of competition and fair play that has
driven the engine of American capitalism for more than two hundred years.
There is a way to tangibly and immediately raise a voice in protest of
George W. Bush as President. For the remainder of his term, conscientious
Americans should simply write "George W. Bush is an Idiot" on all U |