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Home To The World's Best Liberal Thought And Humor
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In This Edition
Greg Palast reports from London that, "Blairites Were Warned Of Enron, Andersen In 1995."
John Sutherland has a scary tale to tell in, "No More Mr. Scrupulous Guy."
Jim Hightower shows us how it's done in, "Going Down The Road."
Norman Solomon explains, "When Nothing But A Full-Page Ad Will Do."
James Donahue explores, "The Mind Of Osama."
Gene Lyons warns of, "Corporate Utopianism."
Joe Conason listens as, "Bush’s War Rhetoric Sounds Hollow Abroad."
Ted Rall tells us of "Casualties Of War."
William Rivers Pitt says, "The Enron Lies Are Piling Up."
Uri Avnery explains, "Oil, Sharon And The Axis Of Evil."
Cal Thomas wins the "Vidkun Quisling Award!"
Molly Ivins says, "Here's Why Regulations Are Important."
Ann Thomas explains why some people are, "Unfit."
And finally in Parting Shots The Onion says, "Bush Earmarks 1.5 Billion Gold Stars For Education" but first Uncle Ernie rants about, "Democracy, War And Other Lies."
This week we spotlight the cartoons of David Catrow with additional cartoons from Tom Tomorrow, Chookie Chooks, Benson, Ben Sargent, BushBeer.com, Tony Auth, Bob Englehart, Scott Griffiths, JDL, GWBush Art and Political Strikes.
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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I just wrote a email in protest to one of the top online news magazines. A couple of their writers were complaining that our glorious Fuhrer and his pals had all but destroyed American Democracy. I of course pointed out to them what they already knew but ignored, that this country has never ever been a Democracy.
It was from the beginning set up to be anything but a Democracy. An example of that was last weeks "Mini-Quiz" asking which of the following Republican Presidents were never elected to office, John Quincy Adams, Rutherford Birchard Hayes, Benjamin Harrison, Gerald Rudolph Ford, George Walker Bush. The correct answer of course was all of the above. I could have added Thomas Jefferson to that list for his first election which of course he lost but still seized power. I didn't because there was no Rethuglican party in those days but still he represented the rich power elite. Also of course the traitor Ford was appointed to the office by 'The Trick' to pardon Nixon for his treason, sedition and crimes against humanity, The rest of these monsters except for Bush snuck into office by the Electoral College, a little trick the founding fathers put in there so as to thwart the peoples will and make sure the ultra rich would have the final say. We have been from time to time a Republic of sorts, when of course we weren't a dictatorship. The Sheeple have been led to believe we were a Democracy and that their vote actually mattered until Antoni (light-fingers) Scalia and his "Gang of Five™" made it plain that our voting services would no longer be required by the state. Had we actually been a Democracy Toni and his pals would have been drawn and quartered in December of 2000 for their seditious treason.
Another thing that makes my blood boil is the talk that Smirky's "Operation Enduring Delusion" is a war. It just goes to show if the folks in Foggy Bottom and the press tell that lie over and over again the Sheeple will believe it. As I'm sure you all know the last time this country was at war was in September 1945. Korea, Viet Nam and the rest were not wars. Don't bother saying that if it looks like a duck, waddles like a duck, quacks like a duck and swims like a duck, it's a duck. Perhaps as far as ducks go that could be true but when applied to US law, only, let me repeat that again, ONLY Congress can declare war. Not Deputy Fuhrer Von Rumsfeld, Not Vice Fuhrer Cheney, not the Fuhrer or even Papa Smirk can do that. The last time Congress declared war was in December 1941 which is not surprisingly the last conflict the United States won. Do you see a moral here? And yet every mention of "Operation Kill'em Until We Get Our Pipeline," is called war. Now I realize with the Rat-Wing firmly in control of the media the talking heads and tele-bimbos are going to mouth those lies but when I hear supposed liberals say that stuff I see red. It may comfort the Sheeple on the way to shearing and the slaughter house which is why the Reich-Wingers love to say that lie but why do I hear it from the left? We know better. It has allowed the "Wonder Chimp" to slaughter thousands of innocents in his mad rush to make trillions from us all. Don't get me wrong I want to see those involved in the murder of the innocents of 9-11 brought to justice, there heads on stakes would be a nice touch but to grab'em and bring them in requires policemen not the army.
This lie has brought about the cancellation of 1/3 of the Constitution and has supposive liberals like Alan Dershowitz calling for Judges to issue 'torture permits.' It has caused about half of the anti-Bush sites to close and their owners to join in the madness marching lock-step behind our beloved Texas Prairie Monkey. Which is strange unless they were really closet Nazis to begin with? I just hope they can take pride in the murders and atrocities being committed in their names. Aiding and abetting in these crimes makes you a criminal too. The real crime they and the rest of us should be concentrating on is the Coup D'Etat which is far more serious than 9-11, in fact it was because of the Coup D'Etat that 9-11 was allowed to happen!
Because of the Coup and all the lies we are fed daily by the Junta and their corporate pals we have begun to resemble Nazi Germany in the early 1930's. 9-11 was just our Reichstag fire. Of course that’s not surprising as it was The Crime Family Bush and other American corporations that made Hitler and the Fascists possible. Without the Walker/Bush's financial backing and the American scientific know how the 3rd Reich would have been impossible. Hitler's statement about the 'BIG LIE' is truer today than it was in his time, "The great masses of the people … will more easily fall victims to a big lie than to a small one." Apparently our Rethuglicans have been doing their homework or have been just listening to Papa Smirk tell tales from his youth.
In conclusion the best thing that all of us can do is challenge the lies. Every time you read them in your papers, or hear them on the radio or on TV take the few minutes that it takes to respond and let them know you know they're lying and you're not going to stand for any more of their lies! Tell them you're mad as hell and you're not going to take their lies anymore!
Until the next time, Peace Y'all.
Chapter 5 of my new book |
 Blairites Were Warned Of Enron, Andersen In 1995 By Greg Palast When Tony met Enron I was there to witness love at first sight. New Labour was warned about Enron and its number crunchers, Arthur Andersen, after the office of Jack Cunningham, then Tony Blair's Shadow Trade and Industry Secretary, rang me in New York at 5am on 21 September 1995. Someone in London didn't know the time difference though, from the urgency of the call, they didn't care. An American power company had launched a bid for Sweb, the former South West Electricity Board, and Cunningham had read that I had investigated the would-be buyer's funny accounting. Cunningham wanted me in London pronto. The US seizure of the British electricity industry was the embarrassing endgame of the Tory privatisation of Britain's power industry, and Labour hoped to exploit by promising to block the US marauders and regulate the market. I was enlisted. On 18 October, I took Cunningham a photocopied summary of secret accounts set up by the US power firm with the approval of their auditors, Arthur Andersen. I was illustrating a point: "This isn't accounting, it's a magic show. Britain has no system of control over power plant accounting. You'll get skinned alive." Which companies should the UK beware of? I mentioned six, including Enron. During our chat, Cunningham learnt he'd lost his front-bench post so I explained again to his successor, Margaret Beckett. Over the next two years, I went over the details of utility accounting with Beckett and her team. They pledged to regulate the US power buccaneers. Once in office, the pledge vanished. After lobbying by Enron and others Blair intervened to dilute a ban on new gas-fired power stations, helping Enron expand its UK operations. Some thought its executives would offend him with their Texas swaggering. In fact, he seems infatuated with hormonal US commercialism. Enron won at every turn.
More information on this topic can be found in Greg's latest books, "The Best Democracy Money Can
Buy" and "Democracy and Regulation", both of which will be published in April
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 No More Mr. Scrupulous Guy How one of the two brains behind the Iran-Contra scandal this week became one of America's most powerful men
By John Sutherland Last Wednesday something strange happened. The American population was instructed to panic. Place themselves, that is, on a state of highest vigilance. Some cataclysmic act of terrorism would happen - within hours. But nothing terrible happened. Something creepy did. On Thursday there was an inconspicuous news item. John M Poindexter had been appointed to head a new agency "to counter attacks on the US", such as Wednesday's no-show. It is equivalent, in British terms, to Jeffrey Archer being made chancellor of the exchequer. The agency which Poindexter will run is called the Information Awareness Office. You want to know what that is? Think, Big Brother is Watching You. IAO will supply federal officials with "instant" analysis on what is being written on email and said on phones all over the US. Domestic espionage. You want to test it out? Text-message any American friend, "Bmb OK. Allah gr8". The IAO is one of two new offshoots of the Pentagon-based Darpa - the Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (it's venerable ancestor, Arpa, invented the internet). The other new agency is called the Information Exploitation Office. Its mission is to supply similarly instant analysis about overseas enemy targets. IEO will employ the computerised sensor networks that have proved so successful in Afghanistan. And, from now on, America - with IEO guiding its smart weaponry - will launch sneak attacks. No more Mr Nice Guy. IOA and IEO will get a big chunk of the $48bn of the taxpayers' money George Bush is pumping into his war on the evildoers. Never again will it be said that US intelligence agencies went to sleep on the job - or that they were too careful about the American citizen's civil rights to do that job. No more Mr Scrupulous Guy. Poindexter is frighteningly smart and very unscrupulous. He graduated top of his class at the Naval Academy in 1958 and went on to a PhD in physics at the California Institute of Technology. He returned to uniform as America's best-educated sailor. He wasn't a desk warrior. Poindexter commanded missile destroyers. He won medals to hang alongside his academic diplomas. He is the model for Tom Clancy's hero, Jack Ryan. After the assassination attempt on President Reagan in 1981, Poindexter was called in to review White House security. Reagan was impressed and appointed him a national security adviser, in 1983, with the rank of vice-admiral. At this point, things started to go wrong. He and Oliver North were found to be up to their necks in the Iran-Contra (guns for hostages) scam, which blew up in 1986. Poindexter was charged and found guilty of conspiracy, obstruction of justice, and the destruction of evidence in 1990; this was overturned on appeal the following year. The case against them was that they meticulously wiped out 5,000 incriminating emails - but forgot about the back-up tapes. Even smart guys goof sometimes. Poindexter was also accused by a Costa Rican government commission of being involved in cocaine trafficking to raise funds for the contras, though this was never proved (you can find details in the Guardian, July 22 1989). His excuse for his behaviour was brazen: "I made a very deliberate decision not to tell the president so that I could insulate him from the decision and provide some future deniability for the president if it ever leaked out." In other words, he gave himself the right to run America's foreign policy behind the back of the commander in chief. Who the hell voted for John M Poindexter? Both North and Poindexter have gone on to do well. North has a radio chat programme that rivals Rush Limbaugh in rightwing virulence. Poindexter was recruited by Syntek Technologies, a firm in bed with Darpa. His hand was back in the hi-tech cookie jar. As a company vice-president, Poindexter helped develop Genoa - an "intelligence mining, information harvesting" system designed to explore (clandestinely) large computer databases. Listen in on America's electronic conversations, that is.
Poindexter is, once again, one of the most powerful men in America. His job
description is "crisis manager". How do you put a man with Poindexter's
record back in the manager's box? Well, a spurious crisis would be
convenient. Now do you understand what was going on last
Wednesday - or must I spell it out for you? |
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Wal-Mart Warriors
In my Texas politicking period, I was able to score a couple of
underdog victories for statewide office simply by going down
the road. Instead of another high-tech, made-for-television
campaign, I crisscrossed this far-flung state with high-touch
populist politics, visiting with folks in just about every place that
has a ZIP code.
By getting out to where the workaday people actually were--in chat
& chew cafes and inner-city churches, union halls and community
colleges, kitchens and bars--not only did I gain support but, more
important, I learned what ordinary people were doing and thinking,
and I began to see the possibilities for building progressive
majorities.
While most Texans who rallied behind my campaigns would not
call themselves progressive, neither were they the bland bunch of
corporate conservatives, compliant workers and contented consumers pictured by the pundits and consultants. At
their core, I found grassroots Texans to be anti-establishment mavericks--and a whole lot more savvy, activist,
progressive and politically exciting than the Powers That Be could ever imagine.
Since those days, I've continued going down the road, working with grassroots groups all across our country--and
absorbing the phenomenal energy and rebellious spirit that is steadily spreading across our land, albeit mostly
beneath the radar of the cognoscenti holed up in the power centers. Trying to judge America's political possibilities
by focusing on the dismal waltz of the dead in Washington is like a cat watching the wrong mousehole. Our future
is out here, where we can build on the work of hundreds of thousands of unsung people who daily are taking on the
corporate greedheads and political boneheads. These people are lighting prairie fires of rebellion against the way
things are, and from them, we can learn how to put progress back in progressive.
Winning Against Wal-Mart
I've learned that progress crops up in unexpected places, such as in hard-core conservative Arizona. I recently
traveled there for a meeting of Local 99 of the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW), where I met a
scrappy and happy group of veterans from the Wal-Mart wars. They've been forging alliances with local
businesses, neighborhood groups and just plain folks, and in the past three years these coalitions have stunned the
company by stopping ten new Wal-Mart stores.
Why single out Wal-Mart? Because it's a hog. Despite the homespun image it cultivates in its ads, it operates with
an arrogance and avarice that would make Enron blush and John D. Rockefeller envious. It's the world's biggest
retail corporation and America's largest private employer; Sam Robson Walton, a member of the ruling family, is
one of the richest people on earth.
Wal-Mart and the Waltons got to the top the old-fashioned way: by roughing people up. Their low, low prices are
the product of two ruthless commandments: Extract the last penny possible from human toil and squeeze the last
dime from its thousands of suppliers, who are left with no profit margin unless they adopt the Wal-Mart model of
using nonunion labor and shipping production to low-wage hellholes abroad.
Wal-Mart always expects to get its way, whether confronting suppliers, competitors, workers, governments--or the
people of Glendale, Arizona. A developer in this middle-class suburb of Phoenix had announced plans to build a
neighborhood shopping center, promising it would be a visual oasis. The City Council OK'd the plan and all was
well--until word got out that the real occupier of this oasis was to be Wal-Mart. Indeed, Wal-Mart on steroids: a
round-the-clock SuperCenter bigger than four football fields. It would crush neighborhood businesses and supplant
good local jobs, remaking another community in Wal-Mart's image. Except that Kathleen Lewis and Bill
McDonough stood up.
Bill, who was president of Local 99, already had some victories against Wal-Mart, and knowing that the company
would resort to union-baiting, he reached out for allies in the larger community. One who reached back was Lewis,
whose Headlines Styling & Barbering Service became the headquarters of the neighborhood rebellion against the
invading hog. Around kitchen tables, she and other mad-as-hellers organized a citizens' group that dared to challenge
the mighty Wal-Mart. Few of these middle-class folks had ever thought of themselves as rebels, but the realization
that a global behemoth could bull into their lives without so much as a pretty-please ignited the latent American
radicalism within them.
The fight was on. The City Council, deceived by the developers, withdrew its approval of the zoning for the
shopping center. The Wal-Mart side, squawking like stuck pigs, launched a citywide referendum on the project,
dumping hundreds of thousands of dollars into it. Against this, Lewis's group spent a whopping $8,600 running
their kitchen-table campaign. UFCW, operating separately, went door-to-door, engaging thousands of families.
Finally came the vote. The turnout was more than double that in the previous election, and by a resounding 60-40,
Glendalers refused to be Wal-Marted.
The significance is not that one Arizona SuperCenter was defeated--or even sixteen--but that regular people like
Kathleen Lewis and her citizens' crew are finding that the Wal-Martization of our society and culture is not
inevitable, and that they share some common ground with organized labor. Like dozens of other Wal-Mart wars
(www.walmartyrs.org and www.walmartwatch.com), the Arizona phenomenon represents an incremental rise in a
simmering grassroots rebellion by America's middle class against the corporate order. "We did what had to be
done," said Lewis. For labor, UFCW is showing that it can turn up the heat on the biggest of the big, energize its
own middle-class members, forge winning coalitions--and begin to realize its own strength. As Bill McDonough put
it after the Glendale victory, "When we prevail, it demonstrates that it can be done. Local 99 is a core army of 16,000
members, with reserves ten times that or more if we use the people close to us to help. The same tactic should be
employed across the nation. When and if that happens, you'd be talking about an army of 150 million."
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Andersen is "committed to making fundamental changes in its
business as a result of the issues raised by the Enron matter,"
says one of the big-type advertisements -- headlined "An Open
Letter from Joe Berardino, Managing Partner and CEO, Andersen."
The ad explains that changes "already taking place ... are major
steps toward reforming our U.S. audit practice and transforming
our firm."
Such ads are carefully crafted by PR agencies that
specialize in blending tones of repentance, wisdom and
resilience. The aim is to make headway with investors, Wall
Street analysts, journalists and the general public. So, a
contrite Andersen ad pledges that "we will be accountable for our
actions, will learn from the experience, and will become a better
firm as a result." Theoretically, those kinds of ads are prudent.
But most readers can probably recognize the cloying
phraseology as self-serving. Full-page ad statements might be
more convincing if they went a bit heavier on the honesty.
Andersen would really seem to be turning over a new
corporate leaf if it gambled on candor. For instance: "We made
huge profits by helping Enron with its shell game. Now the game
is over, and we're ready to repent. We've suffered consequences
of getting caught, so we figure that in the future we'll be more
trustworthy than other accounting firms."
But people like Berardino and Enron's Kenneth Lay aren't the
only high-profile professionals facing significant media-image
problems. These days, some prominent American journalists might
want to consider taking out a few full-page ads themselves.
Facts have recently emerged about several journalists who
quietly pocketed sizeable checks from Enron. Now, maybe I can be
helpful. In a collegial spirit, I'd like to provide -- at no
charge -- some wording that they could use in their own full-page
ads.
Bill Kristol, editor of the Weekly Standard, has reluctantly
admitted that he received $100,000 for a two-year stint on an
Enron "advisory board" that didn't do much of anything.
An Open Letter from Bill Kristol: "Members of the vast
left-wing conspiracy are trying to make a big deal out of a
hundred grand. That's less than our magazine's annual martini
budget! Let's get real -- I can't be bought for that kind of
money. Besides, if you don't want capitalism with a rapacious
edge to it, you've got the alternative of soul-murdering
Communist tyranny..."
New York Times op-ed columnist Paul Krugman got $50,000 from
Enron to serve on the company's phantom-like advisory board in
1999, before he joined the newspaper.
An Open Letter from Paul Krugman: "The people I condemn in
my columns have ripped off millions, even billions. I'm not in
their league. They are demagogues and robber barons. I am an
entrepreneurial member of the affluent middle class..."
Republican wordsmith Peggy Noonan, who writes purportedly
visionary commentaries for The Wall Street Journal, has said that
she was paid between $25,000 and $50,000 for assisting Enron's
Lay with a speech and annual report.
An Open Letter from Peggy Noonan: "Are we to become a land
of mediocrity or meritocracy? I see a shining city on a hill. May
the spirit of America, with its free enterprise and hard-working
God-fearing citizens, lift our hearts to rejoice in our nation's
triumph over the slow suffocation of envying freedom's apostles.
Yet some wish to tarnish the legacy of saintly Ronald Reagan,
while disparaging me in the process. Forever is the memory of one
spring morning when I met with President Reagan in the Oval
Office, and I gazed into his eyes, crystalline windows of his
spiritual magnificence..."
The current need to refurbish media reputations is extending
far beyond the perimeters of the Enron scandal, however. Last
fall, Geraldo Rivera joined the staff of Fox News Channel so he
could rush off to Afghanistan -- where he quickly gained
attention for claiming to be situated where he actually wasn't,
all the while posturing as an intrepid correspondent on the front
lines.
An Open Letter from Geraldo Rivera: "Due to my idealism, I
allowed myself to get carried away. But a war was on, and as long
as Rupert Murdoch pays enough, why shouldn't I shoulder arms in
the Fox army? There's no such thing as being too patriotic or too
ambitious. So what if I made stuff up? I was waving the flag --
you got a problem with that? Gimme a break..."
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 The Mind Of Osama By James Donahue Who would have thought that a once obscure "freedom fighter" living in a cave in remote Afghanistan could organize a single attack that threatens to bring down the greatest nation in the world? If we can pause for a moment to wipe away the media implanted images of horror following the September 11 attacks, think of the following: The attacks were so beautifully orchestrated, and the concept of using four commercial airliners laden with aircraft fuel as controlled flying bombs was so unexpectedly brilliant that military strategists must admire the mind of the person who directed them. It was an ultimate act of contemporary gorilla warfare. Some Internet conspiracy theorists say they doubt if anyone could have pulled off such an attack without the cooperation of the CIA, the FBI, and the U. S. Military. Because the probability of getting four suicide pilots coordinated to take over airliners and successfully fly them into buildings in the same general area and at the same general time is so remote, some have suggested that the planes were remote controlled so they took the deadly courses they flew. That Osama bin Laden escaped the intense military bombardment and dragnet set up around the al-Qaeda network, and that President Bush no longer seems to make the capture of bin Laden among his top priorities, suggests to me that there may, indeed, have been some collusion. There is a story that bin Laden once worked as a CIA operative under George Bush the senior and I have long suspected that he may still be on the CIA payroll. While I cannot write off possible internal involvement in the 9-11 attacks, I am reasonably convinced that bin Laden and the al-Qaeda were involved with the plot. CNN recently broadcast Osama bin Laden's last-known television interview, conducted by the Qatar-based Al Jazeera network in late October. In the interview, bin Laden made an interesting prediction: "I tell you, freedom and human rights in America are doomed," bin Laden said. "The U.S. government will lead the American people in, and the West in general, into an unbearable hell and a choking life." Bin Laden also defended the Taliban for shooting back when we attacked them. "If inciting people to do that is terrorism, and if killing those who kill our sons is terrorism, then let history be witness that we are terrorists," he said. Bin Laden has been careful in all of his interviews to avoid saying anything that links him directly to the 9-11 attacks. To date, the Bush Administration claims to have proof bin Laden did this deed, but this so-called proof has never been made public. All we have seen are captured "home video" tapes that show fake bin Ladens gloating over the attack. Suppose that our president might just be telling us the truth on this one. Assuming that bin Laden is the mastermind behind the September attacks on America, I must return to my original admiration for the way in which they were carried out. Even the selection of the World Trade Center as the primary target was strategically perfect. In one quick act, this obscure billionaire, who gave up all materialism to live in a cave, struck at the heart of Capitalism. The strike on the Trade Center was such a dramatic blow against world commerce the corporate giants of the world are beginning to crumble. We saw Enron fall. K-Mart went into bankruptcy. Japan's economy is in crisis. Millions of Americans have lost their jobs. Factories are either shutting down or dramatically trimming back on production. The stock market has been wavering. It plunged dramatically after the attacks and now teeters on the brink of collapse. The Bush Administration, of course, over-reacted. Our military spent billions in a bombing campaign that achieved very little. In his State of the Union message, Mr. Bush asked for an expanded military budget and made it clear that we will probably be attacking other countries "that harbor terrorists." In the meantime, the Bush agenda has eaten up a reported multi-trillion-dollar budget surplus. According to a recent report by U. S. News and World Report, Congress may soon be dipping into America's coveted Social Security money to continue this insanity. An intricate part of the craziness going on in Washington: Attorney General John Ashcroft successfully goated our legislators to tromp on our freedoms with laws that disregard the Bill of Rights and the U. S. Constitution. I suspect that every American will soon be forced to carry personal identification papers and show them at check points as they move from place to place. We will have our telephone calls, our e-mail and our fax messages intercepted by agents looking for dangerous citizens with subversive ideas. Any careless word might get us arrested. Amazing isn't it? In that one brilliant act of terrorism, Osama bin Laden (if he is the guilty party) not only brought down big business, he destroyed our nation's cash reserve and snatched our freedom. And he did all of this because we allowed it. Our leaders are constantly warning the public of another terrorist attack; but why should there be one? That one single attack accomplished everything the al-Qaeda (and George W. Bush) ever hoped to achieve. In the meantime, bin Laden appears to be laughing at our buffoonery. In the CNN interview, he said he thought it humorous when the Bush administration asked American media not to broadcast his taped interviews because they might contain "hidden messages" to his followers in the United States. "They made hilarious claims," bin Laden said. "They said that Osama's messages have codes in them to the terrorists. It's as if we were living in the time of mail by carrier pigeon, when there are no phones, no travelers, no Internet, no regular mail, no express mail and no electronic mail. "I mean, these are very humorous things. They discount people's intellect."
Indeed. |
 Corporate Utopianism By Gene Lyons Now that The New York Times, courtesy of Texas freedom of information laws, has obtained some 350 pages of letters, Christmas cards, birthday and anniversary greetings exchanged between former Enron CEO Ken Lay and then-Gov. George W. Bush, a modest question: Up until the balloon burst last fall, did "Kenny Boy" ever ask Bush for anything he DIDN'T get? Just the other day somebody on e-Bay.com was peddling a back issue of the Enron corporate magazine. Gov. Bush was the cover boy, proudly signing Texas's Enron-backed electric deregulation bill into law. How long before TV networks start broadcasting endless replays of Bush's falsehood that Lay was somebody he hardly knew who backed Democrat Ann Richards in 1994? When will they dig up file footage of Daddy George, Dubya, and Kenny Boy at the opening ceremonies of Houston's soon-to-be-renamed Enron Field back in April 2000? Despite endless iterations of the GOP party line that Enron is a business, not a political scandal, the reality is otherwise. Whether or not Bush administration functionaries broke the law is almost beside the point. By the time Enron executives started begging cabinet members for help, the company was so deeply entwined with the White House it was hard to tell where it ended and the Bush administration began. No, the real scandal is what's legal, and what Enron's collapse reveals about GOP willingness to sacrifice its core constituency of small business and individual investors to ruthless corporate buccaneers. Having learned nothing from the fiscal meltdown caused by "deregulation" of savings and loan banks twenty years ago, supposedly conservative Republican ideologues continue to espouse what's actually a form of radical corporate utopianism. Based upon a near-religious faith in the sacramental power of money, GOP dogma holds that hyper-rich corporate executives and board members are free of what traditional theology calls original sin, and above temptation. Classic conservatism mistrusts concentrations of power on the grounds that human nature is inherently prone to corruption. Today's Republican savants, however, assure us that only government is wicked, and that unchecked, unregulated corporate acquisitiveness produces purely benign results. Their genius and spiritual worthiness proven by the astronomical salaries and perks they award themselves, demigods like Kenny Boy and his associates should be given near-total freedom to create for their fellow Americans the best of all possible worlds. Bush himself, who's earned nearly every dime he's got on one form of crony capitalism or insider-trading or another, may or may not actually believe this rubbish. But his political ascendancy depends entirely on his willingness to mouth it. Ironically, as The New Republic has shown, Democrats proposed at least four arguably conservative reforms duing the Clinton years that could have prevented or greatly diminished the impact of the Enron collapse. Congressional Republicans prevented them all from taking effect. In 1997, Sen. Barbara Boxer [D-Cal] proposed a law forbidding employee's 401(k) retirement pensions from investing more than 10 percent of their funds in the employer's stock. Inconvenient to companies like Enron, which inflated stock prices and padded pension funds by encouraging workers to put all their eggs in one basket, Boxer's bill was gutted by GOP true believers. Had it been enacted, it would have saved Enron employees from being ruined when the company went under. Also in 1997, Brooksley Born, head of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, proposed that corporations be required to disclose far more information to investors regarding energy derivative trading. (Risky speculation in oil and natural gas futures that helped bring Enron down.) Born's predecessor Wendy Gramm, wife of Texas GOP Sen. Phil Gramm, had made a ruling exempting Enron from scrutiny in 1993, then joined the company's board of directors a few days later. Born's proposal was scuttled by House Republicans after Iowa Rep. Jim Leach gave her a prolonged public scolding. Partly as a result investors had no way of knowing that Enron had turned itself into a giant casino. In 1998, Arthur Leavitt, Clinton's chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) wanted to prohibit accounting firms like Arthur Andersen from serving as both consultants and auditors of the same company-a blatant conflict of interest roughly equivalent to college biology teachers taking consulting fees for helping their own students get into medical school. Leavitt too was shot down after the Big Five accounting firms led an indignant campaign against him. Bush has since appointed one Harvey Pitt, the K Street lobbyist who ran the campaign, to head a "kinder, gentler" SEC.
In 1999, Clinton Treasury Secretary Larry Summers proposed a
crack-down on offshore tax havens of the exact kind used by Enron to
conceal its massive losses and hide its true financial condition from Wall
Street analysts. That, too, was rejected by dogmatic GOP believers in
corporate utopianism seemingly incapable of learning from experience.
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 Bush’s War Rhetoric Sounds Hollow Abroad The wife of the White House wordsmith who thought up "axis of evil" sent around a boastful e-mail to her friends and acquaintances, but the inadequacy of that trope–and the policy it represents–has already become so painfully plain that even our politest allies have taken unhappy notice. With due respect to the speechwriter’s proud spouse, "axis of evil" sounds like the name of a heavy-metal band, not a description of the problems we confront in an unstable world. What her husband has achieved is advertising, not analysis. And as is always true of political advertising, simplicity ruled and complexity vanished. The regimes of Iran, Iraq and North Korea are not necessarily the most evil governments on a planet that also encompasses China, Syria, Libya, Nigeria and Sudan. Obnoxious as they are, those governments have forged no pact of aggression against the rest of the world. (In case anyone has forgotten, Iran and Iraq were not so long ago embroiled in a protracted war that killed an estimated one million of their citizens.) Dangerous as any of them may be, they’re more dissimilar than alike in the threats they pose and the responses they require. That is why the State of the Union address provoked skepticism and even a measure of contempt among our most reliable allies. While many foreign leaders hesitated to say openly what they thought of the bellicose Bush speech, a few spoke up. Among them was Chris Patten, the European Union commissioner in charge of international relations, who derided the American administration’s "absolutist and simplistic" approach in a Feb. 9 interview with The Guardian of London. What particularly incensed Mr. Patten was the damage done by Mr. Bush to moderates in the Tehran government and the policy of "constructive engagement" pursued by European leaders there. He was equally troubled by Mr. Bush’s attitude toward North Korea, where difficult progress has been made over the past several years by European and South Korean diplomacy (and by the previous American administration). "There is more to be said for trying to engage and to draw these societies into the international community than to cut them off," said Mr. Patten, speaking of Iran and North Korea (but not Iraq). He went on to warn the United States against the "unilateralist overdrive" that has again become fashionable in the Republican White House. "However mighty you are, even if you’re the greatest superpower in the world, you cannot do it all on your own," he said. Incidentally, for those who may be unfamiliar with his distinguished career, Mr. Patten is not some soft-headed international social worker. He is a realist who strongly supported the U.S. military action in Afghanistan. (He also happens to be a former chairman of the British Conservative Party.) The revulsion he expressed is widespread among international leaders, whose cooperation is essential if the "war on terrorism" is ever to mean more than the overthrow of the Taliban. As Mr. Patten pointed out, the axis-of-evil mindset shows little evidence of actual thought. Aside from the facile and false analogy to the fascist Axis defeated in the Second World War, the Bush speech offered nothing but vague resolve. What are the President’s intentions? Is he planning a three-front war or a three-way blockade? Will he seek to punish the Europeans when they seek trade and cooperation with Iran? Does he hope to intimidate the South Koreans from making further overtures to the North? Mr. Bush and his advisers appear to have misunderstood the American military triumph in Afghanistan, which resulted from leadership in consultation with allies around the world rather than unilateral action. The idea that the United States can strike out at perceived adversaries without international support is not merely unconvincing but perilously foolish. Yet the Bush speech probably was meant less for an international audience than for domestic consumption, in the most literal sense. It served to justify the President’s budget, which allocates a huge increase in arms spending, including weapons systems that almost nobody believes are worthwhile. There are reasons to increase spending on useful modernization projects and on better pay and benefits for officers, soldiers and sailors. But the indiscriminate excess of the Bush budget resembles robbery more than reform. Billions will go, for example, to defense subsidiaries of the Carlyle Group, a firm that formerly employed George W. Bush and currently employs his father.
Then there is missile defense, the $100 billion project that lacks a successful technology and a clear purpose.
(In Republican administrations, there is always missile defense.) Exaggerating the threat from "rogue states"
has been a gambit used by Mr. Bush to support this project from the moment he took office. Now he has
amplified the rhetoric again, at considerable cost to our interests at home and abroad. How his divisive bluster
will reduce the real threats to American security remains for him to explain.
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 Casualties Of War: Bending the Rules on the Home FrontBy Ted Rall NEW YORK-The numbers are almost impossible to fathom. In less than a year, Enron went from the nation's seventh-largest corporation to Houston's biggest producer of jobless people. More than 4,000 employees hit the streets; many watching helplessly as their locked-in 401(k)s evaporated. Meanwhile, their bosses cashed in their own chips and walked away with bulging pockets. In 2000, the year before Enron went bankrupt, CEO Kenneth Lay collected $8.3 million in salaries and bonuses. Between October 1998 and November 2001, Lay sold 1.8 million of his shares of Enron stock for a cool $101 million. Oh, and Lay was on the boards of Compaq and Eli Lilly until December 2001. He owned $6.7 million of stock in those companies. His total earnings during the `90s are estimated at more than $300 million. Americans were losing the war on terror long before September 11th. As it turns out, some of our deadliest foes have been working deep within the system. Even with 2,800 9-11 victims to his credit, Osama bin Laden has nothing on these home-grown corporate terrorists. Thoughtless, greedy captains of industry like Lay have laid off more than 15 million Americans since 1990, simply to pump up the value of stock given to them for nothing. They fired people when their companies made money and they fired people when they lost money. Either way, the more they fired the more they earned. How many of those 15 million died because they could no longer afford health insurance? How many more have slipped off the ladder of downward mobility and plunged into abject poverty? Osama bin laden and Ken Lay shared a common target-innocent American workers. Enron is anything but an anomaly. It's a media-ready parable for post-deregulation capitalism. Enron is what happens when we trust business to do the right thing, when we believe in the magic of the marketplace, when a corrupt government abdicates its duty to protect workers and consumers against guys who think they deserve $101 million to run a company into the ground. There have already been thousands of Enrons. Unless we do something soon, there will be thousands more. The United States may be the only place on earth where there is both unemployment and understaffing. Lines are longer than they've ever been in banks, grocery stores and airports, but employers save money on staff and pass the inconvenience on to us. It's a simple equation: unemployment scares those who keep their jobs, who are willing to work harder for less pay, whose misery mutates into rudeness, which draws the wrath of sucker consumers who are too busy yelling to know that they're angry at the wrong people. Sure, actual business failures are a part of economic natural selection, but putting 4,000 people out of work while you collect $101 million is not an act of God -- it's a crime. The Bush Administration has already made clear that it's willing to bend the rules in the pursuit of terrorists abroad. Why not go after domestic terrorism the same way? On September 24, less than two weeks after the suicide attacks on New York and Washington, Bush ordered the assets of Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda frozen. Why weren't the assets of Lay and his fellow execs' -- millions in cash, securities and real estate -- immediately frozen? This would prevent them from moving or hiding those assets before Enron employees and shareholders get their day in court. And it would send a clear message to other practitioners of creative bookkeeping. Innocent before proven guilty, you protest? Bush didn't worry about such pretty legalisms before signing his executive order. On October 7, he ordered the bombing of Kabul, beginning a campaign that ultimately led to the fall of the Taliban government. We should conduct a precision airstrike on Enron using fiscal means. Nationalize the company, liquidate every asset down to the last paper clip and divvy up the cash among the newly-unemployed. This is a common method of dealing with rogue corporations in other countries; it should be applied to all companies that break the law. Beginning in January, U.S. forces have been charged with abusing Afghan prisoners. Northern Alliance troops released from U.S. custody reported that they were locked up in shipping containers, deprived of food and water, and beaten until their ribs snapped. The Bush Administration played fast and loose with the Geneva Convention, first stating that captured Talibs were "unlawful combatants," then paying lip-service to the treaty while nonetheless refusing to grant POW rights to the prisoners languishing in dog pens at Guantánamo. If guys who fought on our side in Afghanistan deserve such rough treatment, surely the fate held in store for Lay, his fellow Enron executives and anyone else accused of corporate terrorism should be a thousand times worse. "I am deeply troubled about asserting these rights," Lay told Congress on as he took the Fifth on February 11th. "It may be perceived by some that I have something to hide." Want Lay and other Enron terrorists to talk? Dress them up in orange jump suits, put them on a USMC diet and leave them alone with a few good men for a few good weeks. Terrorists, as Bush has said repeatedly, don't have rights.
Anything less would be hypocritical.
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 The Enron Lies Are Piling Up By William Rivers Pitt Former Enron CEO Jeffrey Skilling stepped into the maw of the Capitol Building. He carried with him the distinction of being the only executive of that doomed energy corporation not planning to stand upon his Fifth Amendment rights under questioning by one of the crowd of Congressional investigation committees. He came into the well looking every inch the high-powered corporate CEO in his somber gray suit. Once upon a time, the financial largesse of his company was passionately courted by the men and women facing him from behind the other battery of microphones across the room. Perhaps he believed that would count for something. It did not. He was destroyed. By the time the afternoon's questioning concluded, Skilling had played Dresden to Congress' air force. He was done in, not by the strafing runs of indignant politicians, but by the sheer dazzling volume of lies that poured from his lips. Skilling claimed he did not know Enron was in financial trouble when he abruptly left the company last August, an action that wound up being the catalyst for the stock meltdown that eventually led to the catastrophe. He disagreed with the damning accusations from the Powers Report, assembled by a special committee comprised of Enron board members, and claimed the executives were unaware of any wrongdoing. He blamed the accounting firm Arthur Andersen and Enron's law firm, Vinson & Elkins, for the company's demise. He could not recall being at any meetings where the double-dealing plans were laid, though his position required his presence at many of them, and his name is on the memos produced regarding them. Skilling was reminded that, as CEO, his signatures were required on all cash expenditures. He did not recall ever seeing one expenditure request. In essence, Skilling denied knowledge of virtually every aspect of the financial transactions flying through his company, one of which ran to the tune of $800 million for an off-the-books shell entity called Raptor. Former Republican Presidential candidate Steve Forbes, himself a CEO, heard this testimony during a later CNN interview and reacted as though someone had slapped him with a dead fish. He found it all but inconceivable that a CEO could have had such scant knowledge of the workings of his company. Finally, Skilling took the extraordinary step of calling one of the central witnesses against Enron a liar. Sherron Watkins, the whistleblower whose August letter to Enron chairman Kenneth Lay outlined in excruciating detail accounting practices that eventually brought the company down. In that letter, Watkins described an encounter between Skilling and Clifford Baxter, the former Enron executive recently found dead from an alleged suicide. According to Watkins, Baxter "complained mightily" to Skilling, and anyone else within earshot, about the financial doings within the company. Skilling chose to recall this encounter entirely differently. Yes, Baxter raised some questions, but indicated his belief that nothing was wrong with Enron. In fact, Baxter's whole purpose was merely to warn Skilling not to have any dealings with company CFO Andrew Fastow. The unasked question hovered below the ceiling within that Congressional chamber: if Skilling was so uninvolved with the basic financial operations of the company, as he claimed, why would Baxter bother to warn him about Fastow? In one fell swoop, Skilling denied ever having heard of trouble within Enron, and called the veracity of Watkins into question. These assertions, along with all the others, were met with a level of Congressional skepticism that peeled the paint from the walls. Perhaps not since Lt. Colonel Oliver North occupied Skilling's interrogation chair have so many lies been told in one day's testimony to the House of Representatives. The members were unconvinced, to say the very least. Mr. Skilling has a number of powerful attorneys on retainer. He will need them more than ever after today's performance. No Kamikaze ever crashed harder. It can be argued that this was a perfect moment for Skilling's testimony, as this has been a golden age in the history of lying. Late last month, Florida governor Jeb Bush denied ever having spoken to anyone from Enron about anything, ever. However, newly released public records disclosed a half-hour telephone conversation between Jeb Bush and Kenneth Lay which occurred last April. Bush and his people were forced to declare that the governor had no memory of the conversation. Yet a closer review of these records reveals a series of exchanges that would appear to be difficult to forget. Tallahassee-based Enron lobbyist Bill Bryant spent a good deal of his time attempting to forge a connection between Lay and Bush. On March 8, he received an email from Governor Bush, who wrote that he would "love to meet with Ken." The contact came a month later when Lay called Bush on his private phone in the Capitol. Lay was attempting to cajole Bush into bringing Florida into the same deregulation scheme that Enron used to enter and dominate the Texas and California energy markets. Such a move would have had profound impact on Florida's energy distribution, and would have brought about a sea change to the way energy business is done in the Sunshine State. It is reasonable to assume that a governor, the highest-ranking member of state government, would recall at least some of the details of a proposition of such momentous import. At the very least, a conversation with a executive whose company gave $10,500 to the governor over a period of six years would seem to stand out. Jeb Bush appears to follow the same leadership model as Jeff Skilling, using a hands-off approach while keeping a healthy dose of amnesia in the desk drawer. As with Skilling's testimony today, Governor Bush's cries of ignorance stimulate the raised-eyebrow response. Enron Corporation, and all involved with its collapsed, have become more politically radioactive than Clayton Waagner at a NOW rally. The stench of this catastrophe is so rank that those within the blast radius are required to tell lies of outrageous magnitude to escape taint. One cannot necessarily be blamed for a desire to come in out of the rain. In the case of Enron, however, there simply isn't enough roof to go around. The individual most desirous of a windy gap between himself and all things Enron is George W. Bush. Bush already has an image problem in this area; his 2000 Presidential campaign was fairly drenched in Enron contributions, and a mob of former Enron employees, consultants and stockholders hold high positions within his Administration. Vice President Cheney has already admitted to slow-dancing with Enron while compiling national energy policy, and is now awaiting GAO subpoenas because he is too discomforted by these dealings to reveal their substance. Kenneth Lay has undergone a profound transformation in the eyes and mind of Mr. Bush. The man once referred to as "Kenny Boy" by Bush now suffers under the rigorously distant moniker, "Mr. Lay." Thus, Lay's un-personhood is cemented. Bush claims his administration had little to do with Enron or Lay, and helping that company's fortunes was in no way a policy within his Administration. These denials are not quite good enough for the Justice Department, which recently requested that the White House to retain for possible disclosure any and all documentation pertaining to the Administration's dealings with Enron. Unless someone has located George Shultz's old shredder in the White House basement, these records may well reveal the office of the President of the United States to be yet another nest of Enron-related lies. The same Justice Department demand has been delivered to the Pentagon. The Department of Defense must retain all documents, emails and other correspondence related to Enron. Part of the request described Justice's belief that "documents in possession of the Department of Defense, its staff and employees may contain information relevant to our investigation into the financial condition of Enron and statements made by Enron employees and agents relating to the financial condition and business interests." It is most likely that this request was aimed at Secretary of the Army Thomas White, who was an Enron Vice President before joining Bush's administration. This is the same Pentagon that challenged the accuracy of a report issued by the Center for Public Integrity on January 11th. The report exhaustively detailed the Enron stock holdings of 14 Bush administration officials, including Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Undersecretary of State Charlotte Beers, Trade Representative Robert Zoellick and Presidential advisor Karl Rove. As it happens, the Pentagon was alleging that CPI claimed these individuals held Enron stock at the time of the report's release. In fact, the report clearly indicated that each of these officials divested themselves from the stock before joining the administration. In the matter of Enron, defensive hair-splitting has been raised to an art form.
This stonewalling cannot be maintained eternally. Even if a thousand shredders grind for a thousand hours, the
trail of evidence is too vast, and the mob of victims too thick, to avoid a reckoning. An executive facing prison time
will make a deal and begin to talk. A damning body of photocopied Enron documents, created to serve as an
insurance policy for someone who knew the party was coming to an end, will turn up. As Governor Willie Stark said in
'All The King's Men', "There is always something." On that day there will be no lies, no excuses, and nowhere to get in
out of the rain.
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 Oil, Sharon And The Axis Of Evil By Uri Avnery Some weeks ago, something curious happened: Israel discovered that Iran is the Great Satan. It happened quite suddenly. There was no prior sensational news, no new discovery. As if by the order of a drill-sergeant, the whole Israeli phalanx changed direction. All the politicians, all the generals, all the enlisted media, with the usual complement of professors-for-hire, - all of them discovered overnight that Iran is the immediate, real and terrible danger. By wondrous coincidence, at exactly the same moment a ship was captured that, allegedly, carried Iranian arms to Arafat. And in Washington Shimon Peres, a man for all seasons and the servant of all masters, accosted every passing diplomat and told him stories about thousands of Iranian missiles that have been given to the Hizbullah. Yes, yes, Hizbullah (included by President Bush in the list of "terrorist organizations") is receiving horrible arms from Iran (included by President Bush in the "Axis of Evil") in order to threaten Israel, the darling of the Congress. Does this sound mad? Not at all. There is method in this madness. On the face of it, the matter is easy to explain. America is still in a state of fury after the Twin-Towers outrage. It has won a amazing victory in Afghanistan, hardly sacrificing a single American soldier. Now it stands, furious and drunk with victory, and does not know who to attack next. Iraq? North Korea? Somalia? The Sudan? President Bush cannot stop now, because such an immense concentration of might cannot be laid off. The more so, as Bin-Laden has not been killed. The economic situation has deteriorated, a giant scandal (Enron) is rocki ng Washington. The American public should not be left to ponder on this. So here comes the Israeli leadership and shouts from the roof-tops: Iran is the enemy! Iran must be attacked! Who has made that decision? When? How? And most importantly - Where? Clearly not in Jerusalem, but in Washington DC. An important component of the US administration has given Israel a sign: Start a massive political offensive in order to pressure the Congress, the media and American public opinion. Who are these people? And what is their interest? A wider explanation is needed. The most coveted resource on earth is the giant oil-field in the Caspian Sea region, that competes in scale with the riches of Saudi Arabia. In 2010 it is expected to yield 3.2 billion barrels of crude oil per day, in addition to 4850 billion cubic feet of natural gas per year. The United States is determined (a) to take possession of it, (b) to eliminate all potential competitors, (c) to safeguard the area politically and militarily, and (d) to clear a way from the oil-fields to the open sea. This campaign is being led by a group of oil people, to which the Bush family belongs. Together with the arms industry, this group got both George Bush senior and George Bush junior elected. The President is a simple person, his mental world is shallow and his pronouncements are primitive, bordering on caricature, like a second-rate Western. That is good for the masses. But his handlers are very sophisticated people indeed. It's they who guide the administration. The Twin Towers outrage made their job much easier. Osama Bin Laden did not comprehend that his actions serve American interests. If I were a believer in Conspiracy Theory, I would think that Bin Laden is an American agent. Not being one, I can only wonder at the coincidence. Bush's "War on Terrorism" constitutes a perfect pretext for the campaign planned by his handlers. Under the cover of this war, America has taken total control over the three small Muslim nations near the oil reserves: Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan. The whole region is now completely under American political-military domination. All potential competitors - including Russia and China - have been pushed out. For a long time, the Americans have been arguing among themselves about the best route for piping this oil to the open sea. Routes that may be under Russian influence have been eliminated. The 19th century, deadly British-Russian competition, then called the "Great Game", is still going on between America and Russia. Until recently, the western route, leading to the Black Sea and Turkey, seemed most feasible, but the Americans did not like it very much, to say the least. Russia is much too near. The best route leads south, to the Indian Ocean. Iran was not even considered, since it is governed by Islamic fanatics. So there remained the alternative route: from the Caspian Sea, through Afghanistan and the western part of Pakistan (called Beluchistan), to the Indian Ocean. To this end, the Americans conducted, ever so quietly, negotiations with the Taliban regime. They bore no fruit. Then the "War on Terrorism" was started, the US conquered all of Afghanistan and installed their agents as the new government. The Pakistani dictator, too, was bent to the American will. If one looks at the map of the big American bases created for the war, one is struck by the fact that they are completely identical to the route of the projected oil pipeline to the Indian Ocean. That would have been the end of the story, but the appetite grows with the eating. The Americans drew two lessons from the Afghani experience: (a) that every country can be subdued by sophisticated bombs, without putting any soldiers in harm's way, and (b) that by military might and money America can install client governments anywhere. And so a new idea came up in Washington: Why lay a long pipeline around Iran (through Turkmenistan, Afghanistan and Pakistan) if one can lay a much shorter pipeline through Iran itself? One has only to topple the Ayatullah regime and install a new pro-American government. In the past, that seemed impossible. Now, after the Afghani episode, it looks eminently practicable. One has only to prepare American public opinion and to acquire the support of the congress for an attack on Iran. For this, Israel's good services are needed. It has an enormous influence in the Congress and the media. It works like this: Israeli generals declare every day that Iran is producing weapons of mass-destruction and threatens the Jewish State with a second Holocaust. Sharon announces that the capture of the Iranian arms-ship proves Arafat is a part of the Iranian conspiracy. Peres tells everybody that Iranian missiles threaten the whole world. Every day some newspaper tells its readers that Bin Laden is in Iran or with the Hizbullah in Lebanon. President Bush knows how to reward those who serve him well. Sharon got a free hand to oppress the Palestinians, imprison Arafat, assassinate militants and enlarge the settlements. It's a simple deal: You deliver the support of the Congress and the media, I deliver the Palestinians on a platter. This could not happen if America was still in need of allies in Europe and the Arab world. But in Afghanistan, the Americans learned that they don't need anybody anymore. They can spit in the eyes of the pitiful Arab regimes, that are always begging for money, and disregard Europe altogether. Who needs the negligible armies of Britain and Germany, when America alone is mightier then all the armies of the world combined? The idea of American-Israeli cooperation against Iran is not new for Sharon. On the contrary, in 1981, when he was just appointed Minister of Defense, he offered the Pentagon a daring plan: in the event of Khomeini's demise, the Israeli army would immediately occupy Iran, in order to forestall the Soviet Union. The IDF would turn the country over to the slow-moving Americans, once they arrived. For this purpose, the Pentagon would stockpile in advance the most sophisticated arms in Israel, under American control, to be used in this operation. The Pentagon did not accept the idea at that time. Now, the cooperation is being established against a different background. What conclusions should we draw from all this? First of all, that we shall be located on the frontline of this coming war. Beyond the exchange of curses between the "two Persian Chiefs-of-Staff" (as the joke goes in Israeli command circles, alluding to the fact that Shaul Mofaz was born in Iran), an Iranian reaction to an American assault may hurt us grievously. There are missiles. There are chemical and biological weapons.
Second, that those of us who desire an Israeli-Palestinian peace cannot
rely on America. Now everything depends on us alone, the Israelis and
the Palestinians. Our blood is more precious than Caspian Sea oil. At
least to us. |
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Dead Letter Office
Heil Bush,
Dear Propaganda Ansager Thomas,
Congratulations you have just been awarded the Vidkun Quisling Award for 2002. 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 Clarence (slappy) Thomas.
Without your help shilling for us, spinning the truth, telling out right lies and ignoring the real news, holding onto power after our Coup D' Etat would have been impossible. With the help of our mutual friends, the other "Media Whores," you have made it possible for all of us to goose-step off to a brave new bank account.
Along with this award there will be an Iron Cross 2nd class presented by our glorious Fuhrer Herr Bush at a gala celebration in der Fuhrer Bunker (formally the White House) on 03-15-2002. We salute you Herr Thomas, Sieg Heil!
Signed,
Heil Bush
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"Systemic," "structural" and "epidemic" are the key words here. Take, for
example, the gladsome tidings that Enron paid no taxes whatever during four of
the past five years by cleverly transferring its assets to 881 subsidiaries in
tax-shelter countries.
Enron's tax practices are so common that the Center for Public Integrity
estimates they cost the country $195 billion a year, which means the rest of us
have to make up that tax money. That comes to $1,600 per taxpayer. See? Your
very own stake in the Enron fiasco.
Arthur Levitt, former chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission and
now a hero because he saw this coming--nobody paid attention to him in the
'90s, of course--testified, "What has failed is nothing less than the system for
overseeing our capital markets." Unfortunately, the new SEC chair, Harvey Pitt, is
a Bushie who thinks the way to cure the accounting scandals is to have tighter
voluntary regulations for accounting firms. Bush tried that voluntary regulation
when he was governor. Did it work? Not hardly, as they say in West Texas.
So now everyone is hot for reform, or at least pretending to be. (Republican Rep.
Bill Tauzin of Louisiana is especially amusing in the role.) They want to reform
accounting, reform the campaign-financing system, reform stock analysts. Take
my word on this, President Bush will support a few cosmetic reforms, probably of
401(k) plans, and then run next time as a reformer. That's how he became "the
father" of the Texas patients' bill of rights.
Our more ambitious reformers would like to do something about the tax structure,
maybe even rethink the role of corporations in America. But they're not thinking
big enough, either. One of the major political parties is congenitally opposed to
government regulation of any kind, and the other one is almost as bad, simply
because of the way campaigns are financed in this country. Our free-market
fundamentalists insist that all this is self-correcting; in fact, according to the
secretary of the Treasury, Enron is proof positive that the system is working
beautifully.
Those who favor the free-market solution to everything keep warning if we put on
too many regulations we will kill the goose that is laying the golden egg. The
problem is, this goose is not laying a golden egg --it's laying an incredibly
dangerous bomb. In the current issue of the magazine Tikkun, Jeff Gates, former
counsel to the U.S. Senate Finance Committee, rehearses the dreary results
both nationally and internationally.
The financial wealth of the top 1 percent of U.S. households now exceeds the
combined household financial wealth of the bottom 95 percent.
The wealth of the Forbes 400 richest Americans grew an average $1.44 billion
each from 1997-2000, for an average daily increase of wealth of $1,920,000 per
person. That's 6,602 times the U.S. minimum wage.
The top fifth of U.S. households have 49.2 percent of the national income, while
the bottom fifth gets by on 3.6 percent.
The numbers on this immense concentration of wealth get worse every year--the
system keeps redistributing money from the poor to the rich. The predictable
result, says Gates, is excess physical capacity alongside unmet physical needs.
We are now in an over capacity recession, historically the most difficult to undo.
Nor does the phenomenon stop at our shores: Globalization is doing exactly the
same thing internationally. Eighty countries have per capita income lower than a
decade ago. In 1960, the income gap between the fifth of the world's people living
in the richest countries and the fifth living in the poorest countries was 30 to one.
By 1990, the gap had widened to 60 to one. By 1998, it was 74 to one.
There is much more of this in the article, but unlike the World Trade Organization
protesters, Gates is not in favor of killing the transnational corporation goose. His
critique is as harsh as anything we hear from the anti-globalization crowd, but his
solutions are based on free enterprise democracy. Well worth the trouble it might
take you to find Tikkun.
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Of course, I have no way of knowing if the father really is abusive -- for all I know, he's the gentlest man on the planet -- but it
doesn't seem as if the Alabama justices even took that into consideration, so terrified were they over the prospect of an "evil
homosexual" being allowed to raise her own children. The word "evil" is Chief Justice Roy Moore's designation, of course, who
also warned that homosexuality is "abhorrent, immoral, detestable, a crime against nature, and a violation of the laws of nature."
Gee, Roy, why not say how you REALLY feel?
I've really had enough of narrow-minded, bigoted, hate-filled degenerates being placed in positions of power. I'd heard about Roy
Moore before from a friend who lives in Alabama, but even with the forewarning I was still appalled that a state Supreme Court
justice could write an opinion so monumentally prejudiced and stupid. Ever since Bush & co. stole the election and began their
headlong race to dismantle all of the progress made over the poast century, the wackos and loonies have been edging ever
closer to the limelight, confident that their own brand of hate and intolerance will now enjoy the firm support of those in power.
In response to Roy Moore's ruling, the head of Alabama's Christian Coalition expressed relief, stating that the decision protected
the institution of marriage and the "traditional" family. No doubt Roy Moore secretly admires the Saudi Arabians, who regularly
execute homosexuals. I don't know that you could get him to actually admit it, but since he's stated very plainly that he believes
gays are evil, one has to assume that he'd prefer to wipe such "evil" from the face of the earth.
People like Roy Moore and the idiots at the Christian Coalition are bad enough, but at least they wear their hatred openly, and so
are easier to condemn. What bothers me even more than public displays of bigotry are the people who pretend to be tolerant and
yet are every bit as prejudiced as the Roy Moores and Jerry Falwells of the world. You know the people I mean...the ones who say
"Oh, I don't have anything against homosexuals as long as they keep it to themselves", which translates to mean "Gays should
be ashamed of who they are and hide their homosexuality". A good example of this type of disgusting bigotry is right-wing
commentator Bill O'Reilly, who never misses an opportunity to indulge in subtle gay-bashing on his Faux News show 'The
Factor'. O'Reilly is fond of adopting a reasonable and tolerant air as he opines that gays should feel free to live their lifestyles as
long as the public never has to know about it. Recently, when discussing a show about tolerance that had been presented to
schools in California, he shook his head sadly and said that he didn't think it was right to let children know about homosexuality,
because he thought children should "have a childhood". (This is the same guy, of course, who thinks that children - especially
children of wealthy families - shouldn't be exposed to homeless people).
The O'Reillys of the world, in my opinion, pose a greater threat to gay rights than people like Roy Moore, because their comments
are not as blatantly hateful. They're similar to the people who supported segregation and the "separate but equal" nonsense that
used to be spouted by racists. Don't be fooled by their phony air of reasonableness...they are fully as bigoted as the regressive
pseudo-Christians who preach intolerance and hate; they've just found a more clever way to go about it, one that won't
automatically bring condemnation down on their heads.
The ironic thing in Roy Moore's ruling was his belief that he was fit to declare anyone "unfit". The fact that a state Supreme Court
Justice bases his rulings on a narrow-minded interpretation of the Bible (or any interpretation of the Bible, come to think of it) and
his own filthy prejudices is all the proof anyone should need that our society is in a hell of a lot of trouble. If we need more proof,
we have only to look at John Ashcroft, whose hateful comments about Islam, insistence on draping partially nude statues, and
belief that calico cats are sent by the devil (no, I'm not kidding) are just the tip of the unfitness iceberg. Or we could look at Bush's
nominee to the 5th District Court of Appeals, Charles Pickering, who once tried to make a Mississippi state law banning
interracial marriages more "enforceable". Or we could look at just about anyone in Bush's administration, because a bigger
collection of "unfit" people would be difficult to find.
This edition we're proud to showcase the cartoons of David Catrow |
| Everything Is Broken
Broken lines, broken strings
Broken bottles, broken plates,
Seems like every time you stop and turn around
Broken cutters, broken saws,
Every time you leave and go off someplace
Broken hands on broken ploughs,
A previous commitment will keep a Suffolk man from traveling to Washington,
D.C., to accept a Republican of the Year award: He's serving a 26-year
state prison sentence.
Spokesmen for the National Republican Congressional
Committee, an arm of the Republican National Committee that raises millions
of dollars to elect GOP candidates to the U.S. House of Representatives,
acknowledged Tuesday that convicted sex offender Mark A. Grethen was
invited to accept the award at its Business Advisory Council's luncheon in
March. U.S. Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va., chairs the NRCC. ``We weren't aware of
his current predicament. Otherwise, (the invitation) never would have been
extended,'' said Carl Forti, an NRCC spokesman. The award was rescinded
after the NRCC learned of Grethen's crimes,
Forti said Tuesday.
Grethen, 44, a former businessman, was convicted last year of six sex crimes
involving children -- two counts each of forcible sodomy, aggravated sexual
battery and indecent liberties. He is in the Deep Meadow Correctional
Center, and his projected release date is Sept. 25, 2024. He faces
supervised probation upon his release. |
|
Activist Alerts "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good people to do nothing." ... Edmund Burke
Welcome to a brand spanking New Year - the year the people take back
the power!
Since the Hightower Lowdown featured the Rolling Thunder Down-Home
Democracy Tour, we have gotten hundreds of inquiries from folks such
as yourself, interested in jolting the task masters out of their
somnolent status quo system that thinks, profit first, people last.
Well I know I don't have to tell YOU that the sleeping beast is going
to be politely, but firmly awoken by thousands of perceptive
speakers, sassy musicians, passionate politicians, no-terd-takin
cowboys, free-thinkin farmers, hard-workin waitresses, talented
workshop leaders and a whole host of other inspired, inspiring, bona
fide 100% honest-to-goodness just downright real folks!
From Seattle to Libertytown, MD, from LaFarge WI to Memphis, TN you
all have jumped up to say (in the words of Penny Lane from Floyd,
VA) "we're overworked and underfunned - let's Chautauqua!"
And so Chautauqua-ing we are.
* Firstly, we thank our financial supporters without whom this would
not be possible: Working Assets, Ben and Jerry's, Mother Jones, the
Tides Foundation, Global Resource Action Coalition for the
Environment, Essential Action, the MacArthur Foundation, Nathan
Cummings Foundation, Common Council Foundation, Pohaku Fund, the Gill
Foundation and others!
But don't let them get all the credit - sponsor us yourselves! Your
donation means the world to us - whatever the amount. Just click on
the "Donate Now!" button at www.jimhightower.com/tour and make your
tax-exempt donation today!
* Way back in September we went up to a little place called Unity,
Maine, where we pioneered the reincarnated Chautauqua concept.
Community members and groups from the Alliance for Democracy to the
Maine Organic Farmers & Gardeners Association joined together
to "quell the corporate coup." All the organizations involved not
only worked hard to put together this event, but also committed to
devote 10% of their attention and energy over the coming year to
solving the overarching problem of corporate rule. Through local
referendums and initiatives they will challenge corporate
sovereignty, personhood and the other illegitimate privileges they
have usurped over the years (e.g., their rights to enjoy Bill of
Rights protections, to demand welfare, to suborn elections, to
dictate policy, to overwhelm local business, to own life forms,
etc.). Speakers included Doris Haddock (Granny D), David Korten,
Ronnie Dugger and Jim Hightower. Check out the great webpage
www.newchautauqua.net for information about how Maine folks are
continuing the Chautauqua spirit and listen to coverage of the event!
* Start agitating NOW! Meetings to discuss plans for the RTD2 tour
to come to Austin, Tucson, Atlanta, and Chicago will be held in the
upcoming weeks. Please contact the following people to get involved!
Austin
Tucson
Atlanta
Chicago, IL
* Austin, TX will be our next stomping grounds where we will wake up
the nation and urge them to get up on the right side of the
ideological bed. We'll have hide-tingling speakers, death defying
acrobats (and activists), hay bale mazes for the kids and kids-at-
heart, Hightower hot sauce, and YOU! We need geniuses and idiots,
farmers, bakers and candlestick makers, toddlers and tykes, grandmas
and poppas, actresses and hams, and very other type of person to be
vendors, workshop leaders, organizers, volunteers, barkers, ticket-
sellers, media spokespeople, etc. To get involved in the Austin
planning, contact Tricia Forbes at tforbes@protex.org or call 512-441-
3003. We'll be heading to Austin in March so contact Tricia TODAY!
* I get more calls from the Tucson area than almost anywhere else
and we're getting set to do a bang-up job on the Chautauqua there.
We'll scoot on over to Tucson in April so come join the Arizona
Central Labor Council, Derechos Humanos, Jobs with Justice, Latin
American Council for Labor Advancement, League of United Latin
American Citizens, Primavera Foundation for the Homeless, Sierra
Club, SW Biodiversity Center, League of Conservation Voters,
Interfaith Social Justice Committee, Catholic Social Services and
other organizations to help craft a progressive extravaganza!
* In Chicago, IL plans are underway for a Chautauqua focused on
celebrating real farmers and real food (yes! They still exist!) to
take place in June. The goal of this festival will be to democratize
the food system from the planting to the processing. The groups
involved thus far include the Institute for Agriculture and Trade
Policy, Farm Aid, Organic Valley Family of Farms, the Illinois Food
Safety Coalition, the GRACE Factory Farm Project, Public Citizen's
Food Irradiation Project, the Illinois Food Stewardship Alliance, the
Chicago Task Force on Homelessness and the Center on Voting and
Democracy. We are also working with the office of Representative
Jesse Jackson Jr. Contact LaDonna Redmond at songobisi@netzero.net or
773-261-7339 for more information on how to be involved or be a
sponsoring organization.
* In Atlanta, GA plans are underway in collaboration with Task Force
for the Homeless, the Atlanta Central Labor Council, the Christian
Council of Concerned Black Clergy, 9 - 5 National Association of
Working Women, Rural Urban Summit, and others to produce a Chautauqua
focused primarily on human and civil rights. This Chautauqua will be
held in May and we look forward to your involvement! Contact Anita
Beaty at anitalawbeaty@aol.com or 404-230-5007.
* The other cities we are thinking of visiting include Seattle,
Madison, Oakland, Baltimore / DC, Boston and Minneapolis and a whole
host of others. If you want your city to be part of the tour, please
email info@rollingthundertour.org and ask for a
proposal form. But, don't wait for us to come to you - roll your own
thunder!
We can't make it to every city so we are encouraging communities to
roll their own thunder by hosting a mini Chautauqua. We will be
compiling Chautauqua Community Superstars - communities where the
full-fledged tour doesn't stop, but where there is enough local
enthusiasm to put on a mini-Chautauqua by reaching out to other
organizations and putting together an event with both cultural and
activist concepts such as a spoken word event, a kids performance, a
workshop on corporate dominance in your hometown.
We ask that communities that are interested in doing this adhere to
the Chautauqua spirit in that the events endeavor to bring together a
diverse group pf people and constituencies, that they focus on the
common thread that unites us all - the need to take back our
democracy from the global greedheads, and that there is an effort
made to stick together and work cooperatively with one another after
the event so that the momentum and energy doesn't dissipate. These
events will be publicized on our soon-to-be website and also on this
listserve so that other like-minded people in your community and
region can hear about what is going on around them and can get
involved. We also want to showcase all the individuals,
organizations, networks and entire communities that are rejoicing in
the Chautauqua spirit. We'll ask communities to submit a photo, a
list of the organizations involved and a brief description of their
mini-Chautauqua and we will display them proudly at each mega-
Chautauqua to encourage and catalyze others to take power back in
their own communities!
If you are interested in hosting a mini Chautauqua, please let us
know the nature and details of the event so we can post it. Send an
email to info@rollingthundertour.org
* Our list of national partners continues to grow and thus far
includes ACORN, The National Council of Churches, Service Employees
International Union, AFL-CIO, (SEIU), United Students Against
Sweatshops, Ben and Jerry's, Barbara Ehrenreich, Working Assets,
Essential Information, Tides Foundation, Representative Jesse Jackson
Jr., Rainforest Action Network, Global Exchange, Senator Paul
Wellstone, Public Citizen, Mother Jones, The Nation, Utne Reader,
Alternet, Dan Carol, CTSG, Patch Adams and the Gesundheit Institute,
Campaign for America's Future, Institute for Agriculture and Trade
Policy, Joel Rogers, Ruckus Society, Alliance for Democracy, Center
for Voting and Democracy, Bioneers, Ella Baker Center for Human
Rights, Business Leaders for Sensible Priorities, Global Resource
Action Center for the Environment, United for a Fair Economy, Public
Campaign, Sustain, Democracy Matters, Julianne Malveaux, Greenpeace,
Organic Consumers Association, Women's International League for Peace
and Freedom, National Coalition for the Homeless, Organic Valley
Family of Farms, American Medical Students Association, and many
others in the works. To find out what it means to be a national
sponsor and to add your organization to the list, please email
info@rollingthundertour.org.
That's all for now folks...but hold on to yer hats and keep listening
for the roar...of thunder and of minds being activated......
Until soon.
We, the people, do hereby demand that Congress investigate the following
actions taken by George W. Bush and his administration, and call for the
IMPEACHMENT of Bush, John Ashcroft, the five members of the Supreme Court
who violated State's Rights to select Bush, every member of the
administration who also served in George H.W.Bush's administration, and
every person who has executive and monetary ties to the oil industry.
The Republican Party spent $40 million of our tax dollars trying to
crucify Bill Clinton for his sexual activities, and there has barely been a
whimper but one is finally emerging -- about GWB's desecration of the
very foundations of our democracy. We, the people, demand investigation of
the following crimes of treason -- with the intent to impeach:
1. Tampering with the 2000 presidential election process, e.g. hard
plastic inserts causing "no vote" in the Gore column of Florida ballots.
(Cited by Diane Feinstein.) We demand investigation and imprisonment of
all those in the State of Florida who participated in this obstruction and
the blocking of recounts in Florida.
2. Violation of State's Rights by the last and final bastion of law in
the United States â?? the Supreme Court. Violated State's Rights to
recount, and Florida State Law that automatically requires a recount in
close elections. We demand impeachment of all "Justices" who desecrated our
democratic process and appointed Bush to the White House.
3. John Ashcroft, to gain office, said he would not let his personal
beliefs interfere with his position that wields power of the laws of our
nation. Investigate and impeach for violating State's Rights by
overturning the will of the people of Oregon that allows assisted suicides.
4. Investigate and impeach John Ashcroft for implementing laws that are
so vague in describing "terrorist" that they potentially violate the civil
rights of citizens and residents of our country, thus destroying the
tenets of democracy that made this country great.
5. Investigate and imprison members of our "intelligence" who met with
bin Laden in July 2001. Since bin Laden was, even then, a "war" criminal,
investigate why he was MET WITH and NOT ARRESTED. Impeach the final
authority who directed the visits.
6. Intelligence members have stated that Bush TOLD them to back off from
bin Laden to NOT investigate him and his cohorts. Investigate and IMPEACH
the final authority who directed that surveillance of bin Laden and his
cohorts be stopped prior to the attacks.
7. Members of our "intelligence" placed PUTS on United and American
airlines two days before the attacks sent the stocks plummeting. Although
software supposedly tracks abnormal trading, the 1200% gain in PUT activity
on those two airlines was not revealed. Investigate and imprison all who
profited from these puts. Investigate and IMPEACH the final authority who
gave notice that the event would happen.
8. Bush has attached his unpopular agenda items to his so-called "war"
bills, and has used the "war" as an excuse to undermine every tenet of
civil rights inherent in our democracy. Compile a list and remove his
agenda items, as well as every "law" that erodes and violates our civil
rights. Note that every participant in this agenda commits TREASON and is a
TRAITOR to this
great nation.
9. Bush is buying up every satellite image of Afghanistan â?? with our
tax dollars. His daddy didn't do this, and reviews of satellite photography
after the Kuwait "war," where GHWBush didn't bring in Hussein, showed that
there was NO enemy presence in Kuwait - hence our soldiers died from
"friendly fire." Investigate and impeach anyone who endeavors to maintain
exclusivity and secrecy in our democracy. Democracy works by keeping WE,
THE PEOPLE, informed of all actions of our politicians, in order that we
may more properly select who will REPRESENT us. SECRETS are TREASON to
democracy.
10. Bush has by Executive Order hidden all presidential papers -- that
BELONG to WE, THE PEOPLE. His order locks other presidential records,
including his daddy's and Reagan's. The order has a "double lock" on it,
so that if either the creating or the sitting president says "no" to
releasing the records, they remain locked from the public. We, the people,
demand that Congress act in unison to destroy this "Executive Order." We
demand investigation of what the Order seeks to hide, and full revelation
to the people.
11. Bush has requested power to "quarantine" American citizens in the
event of a smallpox (or communicable disease) breakout. He has refused to
discard American supplies of the smallpox virus. History has proven that
quarantines do NOT WORK. Should he accuse bin Laden of threatening with
smallpox, and then mandate a nation-wide inoculation, he will set the
"bio-terrorism" in motion himself, as there are always people who become
sick from the vaccine, and the American people today already have massively
corrupted immune systems. Recall Ford's attempt to force inoculations for
Swine Flu - and that he killed people. Every person with a weakened immune
system has the potential of contracting the disease, and then contagion
will have been set in motion - with only blame on, but no action from, bin
Laden. Ensure that Bush cannot in ANY way cause or allow to be done the
releasing in ANY FORM of any virus or anthrax that
can harm we, the people.
12. People have already been concerned that FEMA would have totalitarian
powers if a national emergency were declared. Bush has now sought the same
power for himself. He has stripped all rights from "foreigners" (racism)
the diversity of which made this nation great. With quarantine powers, he
can strip all rights from citizens -? WE, THE PEOPLE, and prevent movement
within the country. (Read this as Hitler's Germany.) He can imprison
(quarantine) people in stadiums. Entire cities could be herded into
unsheltered, unhealthy environments. He has taken the power to turn
hospitals into prisons. WE, THE PEOPLE demand that Congress overturn this
Executive Order, for it does NOTHING to stop terrorism.
13. Bush has set in motion SECRET military tribunals, once again
declaring "needs of security." He has made it law that a person's home is
not longer his castle, and it can be entered and searched without a
warrant. He has made it a law that one is no longer innocent until proven
guilty. One now only needs to be "suspected." One now has no guarantee of a
fair and democratic trial. One can be tried by a secret military tribunal
and be executed â?? in total secrecy. This constitutes a police state and
NOT a democracy. We, the people, DEMAND that this power be stripped away
and never set in motion. We demand that Bush be IMPEACHED for granting
himself "unusual powers" for a "war" that is phony - and not declared by
Congress, and for further destroying the character of America in the world
community.
14. Bush is buying all satellite images of Afghanistan, he has locked
down presidential papers, and he wants to conduct secret executions â?? to
prevent the airing of any testimony that might incriminate him and his role
in the attacks used to set in motion all of these assaults on American
citizens. We, the people, demand IMPEACHMENT for his destruction of the
ELECTION PROCESS and his intent to grant himself FULL DICTATORIAL AUTHORITY.
15. The anthrax distributed in the mail - and sent only to Democrats -is
the variety held by our own military. We, the people, demand investigation
of our own military and administrative authorities who have command over
U.S. supplies of anthrax. Imprison all who participated in its release, and
IMPEACH the highest authority.
16. Bomber pilots are saying that they are being prevented from bombing
military complexes in Afghanistan. Rumsfeld declared the "anonymous" pilots
to be "royal thumb suckers." Rumsfeld tripped over his own lies as he first
denied the charges with that idiotic remark, and then admitted it when
someone rephrased the question. He stood LAUGHING at some of the questions.
Excuse me, did someone say this was about "war"???? Investigate WHY the
military is under such discretionary control, and the reasons for it.
IMPEACH all who are calling the orders in this phony "war."
17. We, the people, demand an investigation into who controls the news
media so that it is not screaming from the headlines, and at the top of the
hour, about these acts that are TREASON to our nation. The news media's
purpose is not to amuse and deceive.
18. Investigate "profiteering through government" during this time of
assault upon the American people via permission by you in Congress who have
failed in your purpose to represent WE, THE PEOPLE. You have handed
BILLIONS of our tax dollars to Corporations â?? letting these corporations
"take the money and run" â?? even as individuals lose their jobs, and will
wind up working for $6 an hour to pay for the massive government debt being
created by Bush - and yourselves! STOP and REVERSE these handouts.
19. Investigate WHY Congress has cooperated so fully in Bush's
destruction of our democracy under the pretext of "war." If there has been
any threat, or collusion to deceive the American people, IMPEACH all who
participated.
20. Investigate the role of OIL in this entire charade, and the monies
paid by "religious" influences who also seek destruction of American rights
and freedoms. Clean up our government, beginning with your own apologies
to the American people - and to the world. We could FEED the world with the
BILLIONS that Bush is giving to war barons and corporations. This is a dark
hour in our history, and each of you need to bring all of these TREASONOUS
and TRAITOROUS acts into the LIGHT.
Representing We, The People,
Here's what you can do to help:
2. Contact your local and/or state Democratic Party office urging them to also
support the resolution.
3. Contribute to the Democratic Party of Oregon. We plan to continue to promote
this resolution and your contribution, no matter how small, will help us in this fight
for democracy. Click on Democratic Party of Oregon to send your support today!
This ultra-conservative group needs donations! Lend them a helping hand by sending them a few $100 or $1000 bills ... Confederate ones! Click
here to print or download the bills. Send them to other right-wing groups as well!
And if you still want to annoy the Heritage Foundation, you can always go to their
online donation form as soon as you try to leave the page, a pop-up window appears asking why you decided not to donate. Give them an explanation, but remember to be polite!
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. Top twenty Republican donors with global consumer brands:
1 Philip Morris - $4,554,732
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Parting Shots...  Bush Earmarks 1.5 Billion Gold Stars For Education
WASHINGTON, DC—Vowing to give the nation's public schools "a much-needed boost," President Bush announced Monday that his 2003 budget
proposal would allocate 1.5 billion gold-star stickers for education.
"As class sizes continue to grow and test scores continue to decline, our public schools are in a
state of crisis," Bush said at a White House press conference. "There is no more time for
deliberation. It is time to act. Our children need these adhesive gold stars."
Bush went on to describe the "alarming state" of many of the nation's public schools, citing
underpaid teachers, buildings badly in need of repair, and woefully outdated textbooks.
"If a child is going to learn under these conditions, he or she is going to need lots of
encouragement," Bush said. "These gold stars will serve as reinforcement for our best students
while motivating underachievers to do better. You have no idea what a difference it makes to a
young child's self-esteem to see a big, shiny star at the top of his or her spelling test. I know it
made a big difference to me as a child."
Bush said the stars, which
are expected to cost the
government an estimated $2.3
thousand, are well worth the
expense.
"Can we really put a price tag on the future of our nation?" Bush asked. "Can we
ever put a dollar amount on success?"
Should the Bush proposal pass, teachers in any school across the country will be
eligible for up to 200 gold stars, depending upon the population of the school. The stars
will then be distributed to students according to academic performance and need for
encouragement.
"I am so thrilled to hear this," said Linda Egan, a sixth-grade teacher at Chicago's
Eisenhower Elementary School, one of Bush's "Gold Star Schools." "For so long, we've
been just barely scraping by with no federal support whatsoever. Now I feel like we've
got a friend in Washington."
Bush is not without opposition. Shortly after the press conference, U.S. Sen. Ernest
Hollings (D-SC) called the president's plan "preposterous."
"What kind of president would think that distributing gold stars would improve the
country's education system?" Hollings said. "Kids don't even care about gold stars
anymore. At the very least, we're going to need Pokémon stickers and lick-'n'-stick Hello
Kitty stamps. And what about candy? The president is talking about rewarding good
behavior, and he doesn't even mention candy?"
Bush said that if the gold stars are successful, he intends to expand the program to
include other achievement-fostering adhesives. Among them are sheets of stickers
featuring ducks, turtles, and other cartoon animals offering students such exhortations as "Awesome!," "Super Job!," and "You Deserve A High Five!"
Despite his confidence in his gold-star plan, Bush stressed that the government cannot be expected to fix America's schools by itself.
"I ask that each and every American do their part," Bush said. "If you can spare any gold stars, stickers, or even a sparkly pencil or multi-colored pen,
please donate it to your local school district. We've all got to come together to make this work."
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Issues & Alibis Vol 2 # 8 © 2/22/2002
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