Jackson Thoreau

2003-07-17T11:51:00.000-07:00

U.S. media still REFUSES to mention Bush sexual assault lawsuit that Texas woman continues to pursue

By Jackson Thoreau

Copyright 2003

A Texas woman continues to pursue a lawsuit she filed last December against George W. Bush alleging that the White House inhabitant sexually assaulted her.
Contacted by phone at her home in mid-July by this writer, plaintiff Margie Denise Schoedinger said I was one of the first media members to attempt to contact her about the case. In case you’re counting, that’s more than seven months after she filed the legal brief in a Fort Bend County court.
“I am still trying to prosecute [the lawsuit],” said Schoedinger, a 38-year-old African-American woman who lives in the Houston suburb of Missouri City. “I haven’t had a court date set, yet….I want to get this matter settled and go on with my life.”
I must say at this point that I’ve been a journalist for mostly mainstream publications for more than 20 years. In my time, I’ve dealt with my fair share of crackpots, probably more than my fair share. I’ve been around the block a few times – and have survived so far.
But Schoedinger didn’t sound like the average crackpot. She sounded intelligent, articulate, soft-spoken, and yeah, even honest over the phone, for whatever that’s worth. I know many people who sound honest – like a certain White House occupant at times – are really not. But my point is that Schoedinger didn’t sound like she was on drugs, although being drugged by federal agents is part of her lawsuit.
Anyways, I could only unearth one U.S. mainstream newspaper that has mentioned the lawsuit - a December 2002 story by the Texas-based Fort Bend Star. And that paper even later ran a nasty letter by a reader recommending it fire the reporter for simply doing her job and covering the story.
Not even scandal sheets like the National Enquirer will report on this lawsuit, to my knowledge, although they cover the latest allegations about Clinton and other Democrats. Hell, I once read a story in one of those scandal sheets that said Clinton was dating a woman with three breasts. And they can’t find the space to mention a sexual assault lawsuit against our latest White House occupant?
If Schoedinger had filed a lawsuit against Clinton, do you think the story would be at least mentioned in every U.S. media outlet from Maine to Hawaii to Alaska to Florida? I’d bet my mortgage on it. Can you say mainstream media double standard, once again?
Look at the way the national and local U.S. media has run with the sexual assault allegation against NBA star Kobe Bryant. The 19-year-old woman who alleges that Bryant assaulted her in June did not even go to the trouble and expense of filing a lawsuit. She just reported it to police, who actually arrested Bryant without filing any charges.
The story ran on the national news for numerous days. Bryant, who denied the charge in published reports, is not known as being politically active, and a Federal Elections Commission search did not reveal any contributions to political candidates. But his coach, Phil Jackson, has given money to several Democratic candidates, including Bill Bradley, who he played with in the NBA.
Could that link to Democrats, as well as Bryant’s African-American background, be why the mainstream media pounds this Bryant assault allegation into the ground before the facts are clear, and ignores allegations filed in a public court case against the Caucasian Republican Bush? More on that question later.
When I asked about the lack of media coverage, Schoedinger said she wasn’t seeking publicity. She did not even know about the Fort Bend Star story, although that article said the paper tried to contact her [funny, I had no problem reaching and speaking to Schoedinger on my first attempt]. She said she was surprised the case wasn’t covered more because “it is true……People have to be accountable for what they do, and that’s why I’m pursuing it.”
To be sure, Schoedinger’s accusations – which include being drugged and assaulted numerous times by Bush and men purporting to be FBI agents - are bizarre enough and hard for the average, television-media-brainwashed drone to believe. But to those of us who search beyond our conventional media and go places relatively few dare, her story could be true. Who the hell besides Schoedinger and Bush and a few others really knows?
Strange things have occurred in human history, probably stranger than we can imagine. The U.S. government – like most governments – contains its share of evil bastards who would think nothing of doing more than assaults to people. These are people without consciences, without caring about any cosmic, karmic principle that you reap what you sow.
I’ve learned about too many strange deaths and mind-control experiments and sex orgies that the CIA and other parties play around with to know that they occur. Each one I hear about makes me madder and more determined to do something to stop the madness. My contribution is to keep trying to expose these bastards’ evil deeds to the light of day, to side with the truth-and-justice seekers, even if we are sorely overmatched, even if we are laughed at and discredited in an attempt to divert attention from what’s really going on. Evil bastards hate the light – they like to operate in the dark, behind the scenes.
One of my favorite movies is one that many critics raked over the coals as too shallow and corny and unbelievable to the point of making them vomit. But I don’t give a damn what such critics think. Amazing Grace and Chuck [1987] starred former NBA player Alex English as a pro hoopster who quit and joined a protest by a Little League baseball player to rid the world of all nuclear weapons.
Many people believe that will never happen, especially now with Bush-Cheney in control, coming up with “smaller” nuclear weapons, space weapons and lies to develop and use them like the kind they told to justify killing some 10,000 innocent Iraqi civilians – not to mention the war combatants on both sides - earlier this year. But that’s not the point. The point of movies like Amazing Grace and Chuck is to show us what a different way of life would be like and give us some ideas on how to begin the process of getting there. The point is to give us some hope.
Yes, with Ted Turner as an executive consultant, the movie was preachy. You may be laughing now, thinking, you tough-sounding, cussing, hard-ass reporter/writer enjoyed a sappy movie like that? I guess there still is that other Gemini side to me, a more optimistic side that likes to dream big, even if that dream seems unreachable. Like many people, I’m not a simple, one-dimensional human being.
The movie had some good ideas on how to reach the masses to really make a dent – namely through our modern-day gladiators who find their social consciences and really listen to what kids think. In real life, English is a cool guy who actually supports the views of his character on the issue of nuclear disarmament. When someone told his character ridding the world of such weapons was unrealistic, he didn’t try to overwhelm them with numbers and frightening scenarios. He simply said, “Maybe so, but wouldn’t it be nice?”
English’s character knew how to operate in the light, to disarm critics, to reach people. He also knew how to be tough, to stand up to the evil nuclear weapons barons. After personally threatening one, English’s plane was blown apart. But his spirit lived on and kept inspiring others to keep working towards the seemingly unreachable goal - just as the spirits of JFK and RFK and MLK and Wellstone and the others our real-life evil bastards assassinate live on in those of us who choose to keep remembering them and keep working for the principles for which they stood and fought.
As a freshman reporter for my junior college newspaper in 1978, I met a witness of the John F. Kennedy assassination who saw the president’s head explode a few feet in front of him. He was convinced Lee Harvey Oswald did not act alone. That meeting propelled me to an investigation that has yet to stop.
As a senior for my college paper in 1981, I took a phone call from a representative of a D.C. CIA watchdog organization. He said Steve Gorman, one of my college’s political science professors, worked for the CIA and used some of his students for such research. I didn’t hang up on him. By then, I had read too many books, interviewed too many people, thought too much on the topic of government skullduggery and conspiracy to not follow through here.
I confronted Gorman, who denied doing any work for the CIA or using his students, as expected. But I sensed an underlying uneasiness – he was too casual, almost joking in his denial. Further research showed Gorman was a member of the Latin American Studies Association, which has ties to the CIA. He also had lived in and researched four Latin American countries – Peru, Ecuador, British Honduras and Mexico - in which the CIA did its dirty work.
Still, I didn’t think I had enough for a story then. I pretty much forgot about it until a couple of years later when I read a short story on Gorman’s weird death.
He had been run over by a train in the middle of nowhere early one morning.
A bomb exploded in my mind, and they have yet to stop exploding.
So what does the above have to do with Schoedinger’s lawsuit against Bush? There is a method to my madness here. If you read through Schoedinger’s briefs on the surface without knowing much about how “intelligence” and other government agencies really work, you might laugh at her allegations that Bush was behind a campaign to harass her into committing suicide to cover up the sexual assaults he allegedly committed. But if you knew the level of harassment that Bush and his minions committed against, say, J.H. Hatfield, author of an explosive bio on Bush who supposedly committed suicide in 2001 shortly after the book’s publication, you might not laugh so loudly.
If I was to coldly do a just-the-facts news story on this lawsuit and not give you some personal anecdotes like the strange Gorman death that leads me to believe there might be more to this than meets the eye, you might not give this story much thought. You might just think, man, there are a lot of wackos out there. So I’m breaking some of the rules I learned back in j-school and inserting my personal experiences and observations here. I’ve never enjoyed writing those impersonal articles, anyways. This is more my style.
In her court petition, Schoedinger said police in Sugar Land, another Houston suburb where she said some assailants linked to Bush attempted to unsuccessfully abduct her from her car shortly before the 2000 election, refused to take a report or do anything about that incident. She filed a lawsuit against the Sugar Land department and said that in preparing its defense, Sugar Land police found out that she dated Bush as a minor. I didn’t get a chance to ask Schoedinger about that tie and didn’t meet her in person, but her driver’s license lists her as being 5-foot-8 and weighing 125 pounds, for what that’s worth.
The Fort Bend Star story quoted a Sugar Land police captain saying his department had no record of any complaints by Schoedinger. All he had to do was what I did – go to the Fort Bend County Internet site and do a simple search on Schoedinger’s name in the area of civil court records. I found the lawsuit Schoedinger filed in December 2000 against Sugar Land police, and it even had numerous responses by the department’s attorneys in that case.
So someone in that department knew about Schoedinger.
Somebody is lying.
And something strange is going on here.
When I started asking Schoedinger about certain details on the case, such as alleged surveillance at her home and if she was still legally representing herself, she politely ended our conversation. “I need to see what has been written,” Schoedinger said. “I feel like it’s best for me to end our conversation.”
Obviously, she had learned to be careful about what she said and to whom she said it. I could understand her being leery about talking about her situation with a stranger over the phone.
But some media members besides me and the Fort Bend Star need to attempt to talk to Schoedinger and investigate this situation. Hello, Houston Chronicle? Hello, 60 Minutes? Hello, 20/20? Hello, Washington Post? Hell, hello, Geraldo Rivera and Jerry Springer?
Do your jobs. Please.
Remember how much you played up Monica Lewinsky’s blow jobs and Paula Jones’ sexual harassment lawsuit against Clinton in the 1990s, while ignoring or downplaying extramarital activities by the hypocritical Republicans who served on Clinton’s impeachment committee like Henry Hyde and Bob Barr? Remember how much you covered Gennifer Flowers’ affair allegations – which did not even include a lawsuit – against Clinton, while ignoring or downplaying affair allegations against more prominent Republicans like Newt Gingrich and Bush Jr.? [The GWB one was by a 39-year-old Texas woman, Tammy Phillips, a former stripper who was quoted in the National Enquirer in 2000 saying she had an affair with Bush that had ended in 1999. I have yet to track her down. There are just too many Republican mistresses and not enough hours in the day.]
Remember how much you covered Democrat Gary Condit and Chandra Levy, while ignoring or downplaying the allegations of extramarital affairs committed by Republicans Jeb Bush and Joe Scarborough, who even resigned from Congress and was rewarded with his own MSNBC show? Remember how you reporters staked out Democrat Gary Hart to catch him with a woman who was not his wife and end his presidential ambitions, and downplayed or ignored allegations of affairs committed by Republicans Reagan, Bush Sr. and others?
Quick now, has anyone heard of Randy Ankeney? He was a rising star in Colorado Republican circles until he was arrested in 2001 and accused of trying to have sex with a 13-year-old girl he met through the Internet. Police said he even warned the girl he’d ruin her life if she told anyone. Does that sound familiar? That’s how many of these Republicans keep their affairs quiet – they threaten a bunch of people. Another 17-year-old girl said Ankeney sexually assaulted her while working on a political campaign. Last year, he pleaded guilty to attempted sexual assault of a child.
What about Republican hypocrite John Fund, who was moved to the Wall Street Journal’s Internet magazine after reports came out that he impregnated the daughter of an old girlfriend and then the supposed anti-abortion-supporter looked the other way when she aborted his child? Does Republican Marty Glickman, one of those rabid dog conservative talk radio commentators in Florida who was arrested in 2001 and charged with giving drugs and money to underage girls in exchange for sex, ring a bell?
How about Parker J. Bena, a Virginia Republican activist who proudly cast one of his state’s electoral vote for Bush in 2000, being indicted for possessing child pornography in 2001? Anyone hear of Kevin T. Coan, a Republican director of the St. Louis Election
Board who was charged with trying to solicit sex from a 14-year-old girl in cyberspace? Or Virginia Republican activist Richard Delgaudio who was sentenced to two years probation in 2003 after pleading guilty to a child pornography charge?
Then there is Philip Giordano, the former Republican mayor of Waterbury, Conn., who was recently sentenced to 37 years in prison for soliciting sex with underaged girls and violating their civil rights. It’s more likely you’ve heard of him since this case has received ample media coverage unlike most of the other sex stories involving Republicans. Another case that got some attention was Beverly Russell, a leader in the Republican-based Christian Coalition and Pat Robertson’s former presidential campaign who allegedly molested children-drowner Susan Smith.
Supposedly, it is relatively common among Religious Right nuts to read sexual material under the guise of knowing what’s in it so they can keep it from their children. Yeah, right, the fucking hypocrites. Many Religious Rightists also believe a man can have sex with his wife anytime he pleases, whether she wants to or not. Some would call that rape, but I’m sure these nuts have another word for it.
What about Bill Thomas, Bob Livingston, Dick Armey, Dan Burton, Charles Canady, J.C. Watts, Helen Chenoweth, Sue Myrick, Ken Calvert, John Peterson, Dan Crane, Donald Lukens, Jim Gilmore, Scott McInnis and Arlan Stangeland – all Republican politicians accused of various sexual misdeeds? Most of these hypocrites attacked Clinton for his affairs and expressed outrage when people put a microscope on their private sexual lives.
For details on their cases, as well as some on various Democrats – I’m not by any means excusing Democrats, just pointing out the hypocrisy of many Republicans and mistaken belief of many people that mostly Democratic politicians commit affairs - go to Comedy on Tap’s excellent compilation at http://www.comedyontap.com/features/congress.html. Connie Cook Smith has also detailed other such Republicans, such as Katrina Leung, a California Republican fund-raiser who sold secrets to the Chinese while working as an FBI informant and reportedly had extramarital affairs with two FBI agents, on her blog at http://www.conniescomments.blogspot.com.
I’m sure if you asked the average person who was most likely to have had an affair, [a] Democrat Gary Condit, or [b] Republican Sue Myrick, Condit would be the overwhelming choice. But the correct choice is [c] all of the above.
So c’mon, mainstream media. At least make an effort to balance the scales.
Here’s your chance. I’ll even help you find Schoedinger’s contact information. Go to http://ccweb.co.fort-bend.tx.us/imgcache/CCCIVIL217038-1-7.pdf. Read all the way to the last page. Call her. Call Bush. Call the Sugar Land police. Call the FBI. Mention Schoedinger’s name and make them squirm some.
For the record, I contacted Bush’s media office and have yet to hear back. That’s fine. I don’t really want to speak to those lying bastards, anymore than they want to speak to me. I just want them out of the White House.
Media members, do your god-damn jobs, like you did when Clinton was legitimately in the White House.
Or are you too damn intimidated, too afraid of you and your family being harassed by CIA-Mafia spooks? [That’s a legitimate concern. Remember that classic line in War’s song, “Why Can’t We Be Friends?” I know you’re working for the CIA – They wouldn’t have you in the Mafia. A lot of truth there.] Too afraid of losing your jobs and prestige and White House dinner invitations when Bush and Co. dry up your political sources? Too afraid of losing your jobs and prestige when the big Bush-supporting bosses upstairs come down hard on your ass for covering another Bush scandal? Or do you just not want to deal with all those hateful phone calls, emails and letters by conservatives who blindly believe Bush and Co. are the second coming of Christ, when they are really more like the anti-Christ?
Oh I know a few of you do your jobs. More of you are following the Iraqi war lies trail. That’s good. But get on these Republican sex scandals, as well. Show the American people that Republicans commit just about as many dirty sexual deeds as Democrats. Help get these Republican Religious Right hypocrites who chirp about morals, honor and dignity while their actions speak otherwise off their god-damn high horses.
Schoedinger’s allegations, which include possible assaults against Schoedinger’s husband while they were drugged and possibly losing a child Bush might have fathered, may turn out to be figments of an overactive imagination or exaggerated claims. But they need to be investigated and aired with the same zeal as the allegations against Clinton when he was in the White House. That is only fair.
Sure, I hope this story helps lead to Bush’s defeat in 2004. I’d like to see anyone who committed a crime be brought to justice, but I’d also like to see this case hurt Bush. I’m open about my motives, unlike many conservatives who said they supported prying into Clinton’s private life because it was a matter of “justice.” Those were civil legal actions brought on by partisan Republican conservatives. Gimme a fucking break.
I want to see Bush and Cheney fall because, if not, they will continue their idiotic, selfish plans to use the American military to dominate the world. It’s weird that many Americans can stomach a president lying about military matters and saying stupid things like “Bring ‘em on,” although they end up causing more deaths, pain and suffering as the Iraqi quagmire is doing. But lying about having an extramarital affair? That’s another matter.
Anyways, the Schoedinger case is about more than a private alleged affair – it’s about alleged crimes, cover-ups and harassment campaigns. Some say her story is typical of the treatment inflicted on CIA mind-controlled slaves, of which there are more than most people realize. Remember that Bush is a member of the secret order of Skull and Bones, an exclusive Yale-based club for the elite that practices weird, Satanic-like, sexual initiations and ceremonies. Such strange sexual ceremonies are used as blackmail to guarantee Skull and Boners do what the power elite wants [there are even rumors that Bush has had sexual relations with a male Skull and Boner], just as some elitists are alleged to commit unspeakable sexual trauma on their kids to assure obedience. Several books document these practices, including TranceFormation of America by Cathy O’Brien and Mark Phillips [http://www.trance-formation.org].
The bottom line is that Schoedinger’s lawsuit deserves much more investigation than it’s received in the last few months. Maybe we need a liberal legal firm to represent Schoedinger, like the conservative Rutherford Institute supported Paula Jones. Hello, ACLU? Hello, NAACP? Schoedinger is also alleging race-based discrimination. Maybe then, it will get some national coverage.
If you can send a link to this story or this entire essay to your local or national media outlet or any other place you think might be interested in it, by all means, do it. The universe, the cosmic forces of good, will thank you. Yes, I operate from a spiritual perspective, as well as political. You have to when you do this kind of work. Even the most evil bastards have the potential to recognize somewhere inside them that I might, just might, be right about this metaphysical, reap-what-you-sow, karmic philosophy, and they might face dire consequences in their afterlives if they continue on their present courses. [Yes, I believe in God, just not the way most in organized religion do.]
Do I really think this Schoedinger case will help defeat Bush in 2004? With the ability to fix elections through electronic voting machines that leave no paper trails and other means, and the inability of many Americans to get news from more sources than TV, maybe not.
But like Alex English’s character said in Amazing Grace and Chuck, wouldn’t it be nice?

Jackson Thoreau is an American writer and co-author of We Will Not Get Over It: Restoring a Legitimate White House. The updated, 120,000-word electronic book can be downloaded on his Internet site at http://www.geocities.com/jacksonthor/ebook.html. Citizens for Legitimate Government has the earlier version at http://www.legitgov.org/we_will_not_get_over_it.html. Thoreau can be emailed at jacksonthor@justice.com or jacksonthor@yahoo.com.

2003-07-17T11:47:00.000-07:00

U.S. media still REFUSES to mention Bush sexual assault lawsuit that Texas woman continues to pursue

By Jackson Thoreau

Copyright 2003

A Texas woman continues to pursue a lawsuit she filed last December against George W. Bush alleging that the White House inhabitant sexually assaulted her.
Contacted by phone at her home in mid-July by this writer, plaintiff Margie Denise Schoedinger said I was one of the first media members to attempt to contact her about the case. In case you’re counting, that’s more than seven months after she filed the legal brief in a Fort Bend County court.
“I am still trying to prosecute [the lawsuit],” said Schoedinger, a 38-year-old African-American woman who lives in the Houston suburb of Missouri City. “I haven’t had a court date set, yet….I want to get this matter settled and go on with my life.”
I must say at this point that I’ve been a journalist for mostly mainstream publications for more than 20 years. In my time, I’ve dealt with my fair share of crackpots, probably more than my fair share. I’ve been around the block a few times – and have survived so far.
But Schoedinger didn’t sound like the average crackpot. She sounded intelligent, articulate, soft-spoken, and yeah, even honest over the phone, for whatever that’s worth. I know many people who sound honest – like a certain White House occupant at times – are really not. But my point is that Schoedinger didn’t sound like she was on drugs, although being drugged by federal agents is part of her lawsuit.
Anyways, I could only unearth one U.S. mainstream newspaper that has mentioned the lawsuit - a December 2002 story by the Texas-based Fort Bend Star. And that paper even later ran a nasty letter by a reader recommending it fire the reporter for simply doing her job and covering the story.
Not even scandal sheets like the National Enquirer will report on this lawsuit, to my knowledge, although they cover the latest allegations about Clinton and other Democrats. Hell, I once read a story in one of those scandal sheets that said Clinton was dating a woman with three breasts. And they can’t find the space to mention a sexual assault lawsuit against our latest White House occupant?
If Schoedinger had filed a lawsuit against Clinton, do you think the story would be at least mentioned in every U.S. media outlet from Maine to Hawaii to Alaska to Florida? I’d bet my mortgage on it. Can you say mainstream media double standard, once again?
Look at the way the national and local U.S. media has run with the sexual assault allegation against NBA star Kobe Bryant. The 19-year-old woman who alleges that Bryant assaulted her in June did not even go to the trouble and expense of filing a lawsuit. She just reported it to police, who actually arrested Bryant without filing any charges.
The story ran on the national news for numerous days. Bryant, who denied the charge in published reports, is not known as being politically active, and a Federal Elections Commission search did not reveal any contributions to political candidates. But his coach, Phil Jackson, has given money to several Democratic candidates, including Bill Bradley, who he played with in the NBA.
Could that link to Democrats, as well as Bryant’s African-American background, be why the mainstream media pounds this Bryant assault allegation into the ground before the facts are clear, and ignores allegations filed in a public court case against the Caucasian Republican Bush? More on that question later.
When I asked about the lack of media coverage, Schoedinger said she wasn’t seeking publicity. She did not even know about the Fort Bend Star story, although that article said the paper tried to contact her [funny, I had no problem reaching and speaking to Schoedinger on my first attempt]. She said she was surprised the case wasn’t covered more because “it is true……People have to be accountable for what they do, and that’s why I’m pursuing it.”
To be sure, Schoedinger’s accusations – which include being drugged and assaulted numerous times by Bush and men purporting to be FBI agents - are bizarre enough and hard for the average, television-media-brainwashed drone to believe. But to those of us who search beyond our conventional media and go places relatively few dare, her story could be true. Who the hell besides Schoedinger and Bush and a few others really knows?
Strange things have occurred in human history, probably stranger than we can imagine. The U.S. government – like most governments – contains its share of evil bastards who would think nothing of doing more than assaults to people. These are people without consciences, without caring about any cosmic, karmic principle that you reap what you sow.
I’ve learned about too many strange deaths and mind-control experiments and sex orgies that the CIA and other parties play around with to know that they occur. Each one I hear about makes me madder and more determined to do something to stop the madness. My contribution is to keep trying to expose these bastards’ evil deeds to the light of day, to side with the truth-and-justice seekers, even if we are sorely overmatched, even if we are laughed at and discredited in an attempt to divert attention from what’s really going on. Evil bastards hate the light – they like to operate in the dark, behind the scenes.
One of my favorite movies is one that many critics raked over the coals as too shallow and corny and unbelievable to the point of making them vomit. But I don’t give a damn what such critics think. Amazing Grace and Chuck [1987] starred former NBA player Alex English as a pro hoopster who quit and joined a protest by a Little League baseball player to rid the world of all nuclear weapons.
Many people believe that will never happen, especially now with Bush-Cheney in control, coming up with “smaller” nuclear weapons, space weapons and lies to develop and use them like the kind they told to justify killing some 10,000 innocent Iraqi civilians – not to mention the war combatants on both sides - earlier this year. But that’s not the point. The point of movies like Amazing Grace and Chuck is to show us what a different way of life would be like and give us some ideas on how to begin the process of getting there. The point is to give us some hope.
Yes, with Ted Turner as an executive consultant, the movie was preachy. You may be laughing now, thinking, you tough-sounding, cussing, hard-ass reporter/writer enjoyed a sappy movie like that? I guess there still is that other Gemini side to me, a more optimistic side that likes to dream big, even if that dream seems unreachable. Like many people, I’m not a simple, one-dimensional human being.
The movie had some good ideas on how to reach the masses to really make a dent – namely through our modern-day gladiators who find their social consciences and really listen to what kids think. In real life, English is a cool guy who actually supports the views of his character on the issue of nuclear disarmament. When someone told his character ridding the world of such weapons was unrealistic, he didn’t try to overwhelm them with numbers and frightening scenarios. He simply said, “Maybe so, but wouldn’t it be nice?”
English’s character knew how to operate in the light, to disarm critics, to reach people. He also knew how to be tough, to stand up to the evil nuclear weapons barons. After personally threatening one, English’s plane was blown apart. But his spirit lived on and kept inspiring others to keep working towards the seemingly unreachable goal - just as the spirits of JFK and RFK and MLK and Wellstone and the others our real-life evil bastards assassinate live on in those of us who choose to keep remembering them and keep working for the principles for which they stood and fought.
As a freshman reporter for my junior college newspaper in 1978, I met a witness of the John F. Kennedy assassination who saw the president’s head explode a few feet in front of him. He was convinced Lee Harvey Oswald did not act alone. That meeting propelled me to an investigation that has yet to stop.
As a senior for my college paper in 1981, I took a phone call from a representative of a D.C. CIA watchdog organization. He said Steve Gorman, one of my college’s political science professors, worked for the CIA and used some of his students for such research. I didn’t hang up on him. By then, I had read too many books, interviewed too many people, thought too much on the topic of government skullduggery and conspiracy to not follow through here.
I confronted Gorman, who denied doing any work for the CIA or using his students, as expected. But I sensed an underlying uneasiness – he was too casual, almost joking in his denial. Further research showed Gorman was a member of the Latin American Studies Association, which has ties to the CIA. He also had lived in and researched four Latin American countries – Peru, Ecuador, British Honduras and Mexico - in which the CIA did its dirty work.
Still, I didn’t think I had enough for a story then. I pretty much forgot about it until a couple of years later when I read a short story on Gorman’s weird death.
He had been run over by a train in the middle of nowhere early one morning.
A bomb exploded in my mind, and they have yet to stop exploding.
So what does the above have to do with Schoedinger’s lawsuit against Bush? There is a method to my madness here. If you read through Schoedinger’s briefs on the surface without knowing much about how “intelligence” and other government agencies really work, you might laugh at her allegations that Bush was behind a campaign to harass her into committing suicide to cover up the sexual assaults he allegedly committed. But if you knew the level of harassment that Bush and his minions committed against, say, J.H. Hatfield, author of an explosive bio on Bush who supposedly committed suicide in 2001 shortly after the book’s publication, you might not laugh so loudly.
If I was to coldly do a just-the-facts news story on this lawsuit and not give you some personal anecdotes like the strange Gorman death that leads me to believe there might be more to this than meets the eye, you might not give this story much thought. You might just think, man, there are a lot of wackos out there. So I’m breaking some of the rules I learned back in j-school and inserting my personal experiences and observations here. I’ve never enjoyed writing those impersonal articles, anyways. This is more my style.
In her court petition, Schoedinger said police in Sugar Land, another Houston suburb where she said some assailants linked to Bush attempted to unsuccessfully abduct her from her car shortly before the 2000 election, refused to take a report or do anything about that incident. She filed a lawsuit against the Sugar Land department and said that in preparing its defense, Sugar Land police found out that she dated Bush as a minor. I didn’t get a chance to ask Schoedinger about that tie and didn’t meet her in person, but her driver’s license lists her as being 5-foot-8 and weighing 125 pounds, for what that’s worth.
The Fort Bend Star story quoted a Sugar Land police captain saying his department had no record of any complaints by Schoedinger. All he had to do was what I did – go to the Fort Bend County Internet site and do a simple search on Schoedinger’s name in the area of civil court records. I found the lawsuit Schoedinger filed in December 2000 against Sugar Land police, and it even had numerous responses by the department’s attorneys in that case.
So someone in that department knew about Schoedinger.
Somebody is lying.
And something strange is going on here.
When I started asking Schoedinger about certain details on the case, such as alleged surveillance at her home and if she was still legally representing herself, she politely ended our conversation. “I need to see what has been written,” Schoedinger said. “I feel like it’s best for me to end our conversation.”
Obviously, she had learned to be careful about what she said and to whom she said it. I could understand her being leery about talking about her situation with a stranger over the phone.
But some media members besides me and the Fort Bend Star need to attempt to talk to Schoedinger and investigate this situation. Hello, Houston Chronicle? Hello, 60 Minutes? Hello, 20/20? Hello, Washington Post? Hell, hello, Geraldo Rivera and Jerry Springer?
Do your jobs. Please.
Remember how much you played up Monica Lewinsky’s blow jobs and Paula Jones’ sexual harassment lawsuit against Clinton in the 1990s, while ignoring or downplaying extramarital activities by the hypocritical Republicans who served on Clinton’s impeachment committee like Henry Hyde and Bob Barr? Remember how much you covered Gennifer Flowers’ affair allegations – which did not even include a lawsuit – against Clinton, while ignoring or downplaying affair allegations against more prominent Republicans like Newt Gingrich and Bush Jr.? [The GWB one was by a 39-year-old Texas woman, Tammy Phillips, a former stripper who was quoted in the National Enquirer in 2000 saying she had an affair with Bush that had ended in 1999. I have yet to track her down. There are just too many Republican mistresses and not enough hours in the day.]
Remember how much you covered Democrat Gary Condit and Chandra Levy, while ignoring or downplaying the allegations of extramarital affairs committed by Republicans Jeb Bush and Joe Scarborough, who even resigned from Congress and was rewarded with his own MSNBC show? Remember how you reporters staked out Democrat Gary Hart to catch him with a woman who was not his wife and end his presidential ambitions, and downplayed or ignored allegations of affairs committed by Republicans Reagan, Bush Sr. and others?
Quick now, has anyone heard of Randy Ankeney? He was a rising star in Colorado Republican circles until he was arrested in 2001 and accused of trying to have sex with a 13-year-old girl he met through the Internet. Police said he even warned the girl he’d ruin her life if she told anyone. Does that sound familiar? That’s how many of these Republicans keep their affairs quiet – they threaten a bunch of people. Another 17-year-old girl said Ankeney sexually assaulted her while working on a political campaign. Last year, he pleaded guilty to attempted sexual assault of a child.
What about Republican hypocrite John Fund, who was moved to the Wall Street Journal’s Internet magazine after reports came out that he impregnated the daughter of an old girlfriend and then the supposed anti-abortion-supporter looked the other way when she aborted his child? Does Republican Marty Glickman, one of those rabid dog conservative talk radio commentators in Florida who was arrested in 2001 and charged with giving drugs and money to underage girls in exchange for sex, ring a bell?
How about Parker J. Bena, a Virginia Republican activist who proudly cast one of his state’s electoral vote for Bush in 2000, being indicted for possessing child pornography in 2001? Anyone hear of Kevin T. Coan, a Republican director of the St. Louis Election
Board who was charged with trying to solicit sex from a 14-year-old girl in cyberspace? Or Virginia Republican activist Richard Delgaudio who was sentenced to two years probation in 2003 after pleading guilty to a child pornography charge?
Then there is Philip Giordano, the former Republican mayor of Waterbury, Conn., who was recently sentenced to 37 years in prison for soliciting sex with underaged girls and violating their civil rights. It’s more likely you’ve heard of him since this case has received ample media coverage unlike most of the other sex stories involving Republicans. Another case that got some attention was Beverly Russell, a leader in the Republican-based Christian Coalition and Pat Robertson’s former presidential campaign who allegedly molested children-drowner Susan Smith.
Supposedly, it is relatively common among Religious Right nuts to read sexual material under the guise of knowing what’s in it so they can keep it from their children. Yeah, right, the fucking hypocrites. Many Religious Rightists also believe a man can have sex with his wife anytime he pleases, whether she wants to or not. Some would call that rape, but I’m sure these nuts have another word for it.
What about Bill Thomas, Bob Livingston, Dick Armey, Dan Burton, Charles Canady, J.C. Watts, Helen Chenoweth, Sue Myrick, Ken Calvert, John Peterson, Dan Crane, Donald Lukens, Jim Gilmore, Scott McInnis and Arlan Stangeland – all Republican politicians accused of various sexual misdeeds? Most of these hypocrites attacked Clinton for his affairs and expressed outrage when people put a microscope on their private sexual lives.
For details on their cases, as well as some on various Democrats – I’m not by any means excusing Democrats, just pointing out the hypocrisy of many Republicans and mistaken belief of many people that mostly Democratic politicians commit affairs - go to Comedy on Tap’s excellent compilation at http://www.comedyontap.com/features/congress.html. Connie Cook Smith has also detailed other such Republicans, such as Katrina Leung, a California Republican fund-raiser who sold secrets to the Chinese while working as an FBI informant and reportedly had extramarital affairs with two FBI agents, on her blog at http://www.conniescomments.blogspot.com.
I’m sure if you asked the average person who was most likely to have had an affair, [a] Democrat Gary Condit, or [b] Republican Sue Myrick, Condit would be the overwhelming choice. But the correct choice is [c] all of the above.
So c’mon, mainstream media. At least make an effort to balance the scales.
Here’s your chance. I’ll even help you on finding Schoedinger’s contact information. Go to http://ccweb.co.fort-bend.tx.us/imgcache/CCCIVIL217038-1-7.pdf. Read all the way to the last page. Call her. Call Bush. Call the Sugar Land police. Call the FBI. Mention Schoedinger’s name and make them squirm some.
For the record, I contacted Bush’s media office and have yet to hear back. That’s fine. I don’t really want to speak to those lying bastards, anymore than they want to speak to me. I just want them out of the White House.
Media members, do your god-damn jobs, like you did when Clinton was legitimately in the White House.
Or are you too damn intimidated, too afraid of you and your family being harassed by CIA-Mafia spooks? [That’s a legitimate concern. Remember that classic line in War’s song, “Why Can’t We Be Friends?” I know you’re working for the CIA – They wouldn’t have you in the Mafia. A lot of truth there.] Too afraid of losing your jobs and prestige and White House dinner invitations when Bush and Co. dry up your political sources? Too afraid of losing your jobs and prestige when the big Bush-supporting bosses upstairs come down hard on your ass for covering another Bush scandal? Or do you just not want to deal with all those hateful phone calls, emails and letters by conservatives who blindly believe Bush and Co. are the second coming of Christ, when they are really more like the anti-Christ?
Oh I know a few of you do your jobs. More of you are following the Iraqi war lies trail. That’s good. But get on these Republican sex scandals, as well. Show the American people that Republicans commit just about as many dirty sexual deeds as Democrats. Help get these Republican Religious Right hypocrites who chirp about morals, honor and dignity while their actions speak otherwise off their god-damn high horses.
Schoedinger’s allegations, which include possible assaults against Schoedinger’s husband while they were drugged and possibly losing a child Bush might have fathered, may turn out to be figments of an overactive imagination or exaggerated claims. But they need to be investigated and aired with the same zeal as the allegations against Clinton when he was in the White House. That is only fair.
Sure, I hope this story helps lead to Bush’s defeat in 2004. I’d like to see anyone who committed a crime be brought to justice, but I’d also like to see this case hurt Bush. I’m open about my motives, unlike many conservatives who said they supported prying into Clinton’s private life because it was a matter of “justice.” Those were civil legal actions brought on by partisan Republican conservatives. Gimme a fucking break.
I want to see Bush and Cheney fall because, if not, they will continue their idiotic, selfish plans to use the American military to dominate the world. It’s weird that many Americans can stomach a president lying about military matters and saying stupid things like “Bring ‘em on,” although they end up causing more deaths, pain and suffering as the Iraqi quagmire is doing. But lying about having an extramarital affair? That’s another matter.
Anyways, the Schoedinger case is about more than a private alleged affair – it’s about alleged crimes, cover-ups and harassment campaigns. Some say her story is typical of the treatment inflicted on CIA mind-controlled slaves, of which there are more than most people realize. Remember that Bush is a member of the secret order of Skull and Bones, an exclusive Yale-based club for the elite that practices weird, Satanic-like, sexual initiations and ceremonies. Such strange sexual ceremonies are used as blackmail to guarantee Skull and Boners do what the power elite wants [there are even rumors that Bush has had sexual relations with a male Skull and Boner], just as some elitists are alleged to commit unspeakable sexual trauma on their kids to assure obedience. Several books document these practices, including TranceFormation of America by Cathy O’Brien and Mark Phillips [http://www.trance-formation.org].
The bottom line is that Schoedinger’s lawsuit deserves much more investigation than it’s received in the last few months. Maybe we need a liberal legal firm to represent Schoedinger, like the conservative Rutherford Institute supported Paula Jones. Hello, ACLU? Hello, NAACP? Schoedinger is also alleging race-based discrimination. Maybe then, it will get some national coverage.
If you can send a link to this story or this entire essay to your local or national media outlet or any other place you think might be interested in it, by all means, do it. The universe, the cosmic forces of good, will thank you. Yes, I operate from a spiritual perspective, as well as political. You have to when you do this kind of work. Even the most evil bastards have the potential to recognize somewhere inside them that I might, just might, be right about this metaphysical, reap-what-you-sow, karmic philosophy, and they might face dire consequences in their afterlives if they continue on their present courses. [Yes, I believe in God, just not the way most in organized religion do.]
Do I really think this Schoedinger case will help defeat Bush in 2004? With the ability to fix elections through electronic voting machines that leave no paper trails and other means, and the inability of many Americans to get news from more sources than TV, maybe not.
But like Alex English’s character said in Amazing Grace and Chuck, wouldn’t it be nice?

Jackson Thoreau is an American writer and co-author of We Will Not Get Over It: Restoring a Legitimate White House. The updated, 120,000-word electronic book can be downloaded on his Internet site at http://www.geocities.com/jacksonthor/ebook.html. Citizens for Legitimate Government has the earlier version at http://www.legitgov.org/we_will_not_get_over_it.html. Thoreau can be emailed at jacksonthor@justice.com or jacksonthor@yahoo.com.

2003-07-03T13:56:00.000-07:00

NOW far right-wingers are calling for impeachment of U.S. Supreme Court justices

By Jackson Thoreau

After the moderates on the U.S. Supreme Court recently prevailed in upholding some affirmative action laws and invalidating anti-sodomy laws, many far right-wingers have predictably gone ballistic.

For example, in a recent column calling for the impeachment of any justice who doesn’t hold narrow, right-wing views, Joseph Farah, editor of World Nut Daily, one of numerous conservative ezines polluting cyberspace, labeled the U.S. Supreme Court “out of control” and “renegade” and a “ruling elite.” Of course, he didn’t make such comments when the same court made its most anti-democratic decision in history in the 2000 Bush v. Gore case.

To Farah, the court is only “exceeding its constitutional authority” when even several Republicans on that court recognize that anti-sodomy laws are an unjust invasion of privacy, not to mention ludicrous to enforce. Of the 13 states with sodomy laws that are now finally eradicated, four — Texas, Kansas, Oklahoma and Missouri — prohibited oral and anal sex only between same-sex couples. The other nine stone-age states that are now forced to join the 21st century banned consensual oral and anal sex for everyone: Alabama, Florida, Idaho, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Utah and Virginia.

I know Farah and others would love to see a special police force out there whose only duty is to enter Americans’ bedrooms and arrest anyone who is engaging in male-to-male, female-to-female, oral, anal or any other form of sex not covered by the traditional male-to-female position. They would love to see a law that only married Americans can perform sex only for the purpose of trying to procreate, and it must be done in the missionary position at all times.

In short, Farah and Co. would love other Americans to have as boring sex lives as they probably have. Perhaps that’s why they are so concerned about other Americans’ sex lives and they want to be legal voyeurs – because their sex lives are so boring.

To Farah, the nation’s highest court is only “sticking its thumb in the eye of the people” when its decisions don’t benefit super-wealthy, white, apparently heterosexual Americans [except for those like dress-wearing J. Edgar Hoover and some other closet gay conservatives]. Farah and Co. see no problem with far right-wingers Rehnquist, Thomas and Scalia, of course. It’s the other more moderate members they seek to oust.

They want justices who hate homosexuals [except for certain conservative ones], minorities [especially Arabs], civil liberties, the ACLU, anyone who smokes a joint in private, and anyone who questions why the Bush administration has the divine right to bully and dominate the world.

These are people who are not satisfied with controlling Congress, the White House, most state legislatures, and most of the media and the courts. They want to stamp out any sign of hope for true progress. They call themselves patriots, but they are anything but.

The true patriots are those who strive for a liberty and justice for all that goes beyond selfish, narrow boundaries. As the celebrated American patriot Tom Paine said, “My country is the world.”

As the esteemed writer, professor and people’s historian Howard Zinn wrote in a recent column on TomPaine.com, “I suggest that a patriotic American who cares for his country might act on behalf of a different vision. Instead of being feared for our military prowess, we should want to be respected for our dedication to human rights. Should we not begin to redefine patriotism? We need to expand it beyond that narrow nationalism which has caused so much death and suffering. If national boundaries should not be obstacles to trade - we call it globalization - should they also not be obstacles to compassion and generosity? Should we not begin to consider all children, everywhere, as our own? In that case, war, which in our time is always an assault on children, would be unacceptable as a solution to the problems of the world. Human ingenuity would have to search for other ways.”

Like Zinn, I am not in a mood to celebrate much this July 4th, when so many Americans are blind to the pain and suffering we are causing in Iraq, Afghanistan and other places, when so many Americans just want to continue the selfish, unilateral, “America First” approach to foreign policy and most everything else. Yet when I think more about it, I recognize there is much good in our country, such as it developed people like Paine and Zinn. Indeed, we have much to celebrate, although I will not overlook the negative parts. I will keep hoping, keep working, keep fighting for a better America and a better world.

Here’s hoping that the broader patriotism of people like Paine and Zinn will eventually win out and not the narrow patriotism of those like Farah.

Jackson Thoreau is an American writer and co-author of We Will Not Get Over It: Restoring a Legitimate White House. The updated, 120,000-word electronic book can be downloaded on his Internet site at http://www.geocities.com/jacksonthor/ebook.html. Citizens for Legitimate Government has the earlier version at http://www.geocities.com/jacksonthor/ebook.html. Thoreau can be emailed at jacksonthor@justice.com or jacksonthor@yahoo.com.
Zinn’s column is at http://www.tompaine.com/feature2.cfm/ID/7726. Farah’s column is at http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=33380.

2003-07-03T12:11:00.000-07:00

NOW far right-wingers are calling for impeachment of U.S. Supreme Court justices

By Jackson Thoreau

After the moderates on the U.S. Supreme Court recently prevailed in upholding some affirmative action laws and invalidating anti-sodomy laws, many far-right wingers have predictably gone ballistic.

For example, in a recent column calling for the impeachment of any justice who doesn’t hold narrow, far-right views, Joseph Farah, editor of World Nut Daily, one of numerous conservative ezines polluting cyberspace, labeled the U.S. Supreme Court “out of control” and “renegade” and a “ruling elite.” Of course, he didn’t make such comments when the same court made its most anti-democratic decision in history in the 2000 Bush v. Gore case.

To Farah, the court is only “exceeding its constitutional authority” when even several Republicans on that court recognize that anti-sodomy laws are an unjust invasion of privacy, not to mention ludicrous to enforce. Of the 13 states with sodomy laws that are now finally eradicated, four — Texas, Kansas, Oklahoma and Missouri — prohibited oral and anal sex only between same-sex couples. The other nine stone-age states that are now forced to join the 21st century banned consensual oral and anal sex for everyone: Alabama, Florida, Idaho, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Utah and Virginia.

I know Farah and others would love to see a special police force out there whose only duty is to enter Americans’ bedrooms and arrest anyone who is engaging in male-to-male, female-to-female, oral, anal or any other form of sex not covered by the traditional male-to-female position. They would love to see a law that only married Americans can perform sex only for the purpose of trying to procreate, and it must be done in the missionary position at all times.

In short, Farah and Co. would love other Americans to have as boring sex lives as they probably have. Perhaps that’s why they are so concerned about other Americans’ sex lives and they want to be legal voyeurs – because their sex lives are so boring.

To Farah, the nation’s highest court is only “sticking its thumb in the eye of the people” when its decisions don’t benefit super-wealthy, white, apparently heterosexual Americans [except for those like dress-wearing J. Edgar Hoover and some other closet gay conservatives]. Farah and Co. see no problem with far-rightwingers Rehnquist, Thomas and Scalia, of course. It’s the other more moderate members they seek to oust.

They want justices who hate homosexuals [except for certain conservative ones], minorities [especially Arabs], civil liberties, the ACLU, anyone who smokes a joint in private, and anyone who questions why the Bush administration has the divine right to bully and dominate the world.

These are people who are not satisfied with controlling Congress, the White House, most state legislatures, and most of the media and the courts. They want to stamp out any sign of hope for true progress. They call themselves patriots, but they are anything but.

The true patriots are those who strive for a liberty and justice for all that goes beyond selfish, narrow boundaries. As the celebrated American patriot Tom Paine said, “My country is the world.”

As the esteemed writer, professor and people’s historian Howard Zinn wrote in a recent column on TomPaine.com, “I suggest that a patriotic American who cares for his country might act on behalf of a different vision. Instead of being feared for our military prowess, we should want to be respected for our dedication to human rights. Should we not begin to redefine patriotism? We need to expand it beyond that narrow nationalism which has caused so much death and suffering. If national boundaries should not be obstacles to trade - we call it globalization - should they also not be obstacles to compassion and generosity? Should we not begin to consider all children, everywhere, as our own? In that case, war, which in our time is always an assault on children, would be unacceptable as a solution to the problems of the world. Human ingenuity would have to search for other ways.”

Like Zinn, I am not in a mood to celebrate much this July 4th, when so many Americans are blind to the pain and suffering we are causing in Iraq, Afghanistan and other places, when so many Americans just want to continue the selfish, unilateral, “America First” approach to foreign policy and most everything else. Yet when I think more about it, I recognize there is much good in our country, such as it developed people like Paine and Zinn. Indeed, we have much to celebrate, although I will not overlook the negative parts. I will keep hoping, keep working, keep fighting for a better America and a better world.

Here’s hoping that the broader patriotism of people like Paine and Zinn will eventually win out and not the narrow patriotism of those like Farah.

Jackson Thoreau is an American writer and co-author of We Will Not Get Over It: Restoring a Legitimate White House. The updated, 120,000-word electronic book can be downloaded on his Internet site at http://www.geocities.com/jacksonthor/ebook.html. Citizens for Legitimate Government has the earlier version at http://www.legitgov.org/we_will_not_get_over_it.html. Thoreau can be emailed at jacksonthor@justice.com or jacksonthor@yahoo.com.
Zinn’s column is at http://www.tompaine.com/feature2.cfm/ID/7726. Farah’s column is at http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=33380.

2003-05-27T10:43:00.000-07:00

In 1984, I quit my job as a reporter at a mainstream newspaper to protest my boss's decision not to publish a story I wrote about the local nuclear freeze movement. I am heartened to hear that some mainstream journalists still stand up to media censorship and the military/industrial complex.
This story can also be read at other sites, including Information Clearinghouse.

Standing up to media censorship and the military/industrial complex

By Jackson Thoreau

In 1984, at the height of Reagan’s militarism, the editor of a Texas suburban newspaper - where I had worked as a reporter for two years right out of college - told me the paper could not print a feature article I wrote on a local woman who began a nuclear weapons freeze organization because it would “upset” advertisers. After all, many of those advertisers worked for the U.S. military/industrial complex.
This is a situation that sadly is more common in today’s media environment than it was in 1984. I had a choice back then: I could meekly resign myself to this ethical roadblock and go back to work, or I could quit my job in protest and find another way to get the story to the public. I was 24, probably even more liberal and idealistic than I am now, and the proverbial “angry young man” who wasn’t going to compromise my idealism and integrity or let anyone stop me from my mission to expose our society’s evil bastards. I was single and didn’t have to worry about feeding a family, as I do now. So, of course, I chose the latter option. I took the story to a competition paper - which published it - and submitted my letter of resignation to my boss. I didn’t regret it then, and I don’t regret it now. In fact, I’m prouder of my stand now, despite what my parents and others think.
I didn’t just quit my job in protest – I joined an intensive, Survivor-like protest march against the worldwide nuclear arms race across this country and Europe to Russia. The stand I took on my former job helped me march some 5,000 miles for the next 18 months. But not even walking all those miles lessened the anger in me or my resolve to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.
Once that was over, I returned to journalism in Texas, starting with weekly suburban newspapers and eventually working as a reporter for a bureau of one of the largest newspapers in the Southwest. Though I had to confront numerous other times in which stories I suggested or did were shot down for various excuses, I did not resign in protest again. I tried to work within the limited corporate framework, taking consolation in small victories, such as being able to cover certain peace demonstrations and progressive causes. I was one of the few to give a voice to local progressive community activists who were shunned by many media outlets. With one of those activists, I wrote a book on the history of a certain Texas city that was viewed as opening the door to greater understanding of the plight of minorities and the disenfranchised.
But that still wasn’t enough for me. The large newspaper where I started working in the mid-1990s had this hypocritical policy that reporters and editors could not express any political viewpoint beyond voting, supposedly because doing so would compromise our so-called “objectivity,” one of many journalism myths with which I had problems. Although many large U.S. papers, including the Washington Post and New York Times, have this suppressive policy, that doesn’t make it right. Europe is more progressive in this area - the leading papers defend the political rights of journalists.
In my case, I thought I could adequately separate my professional and personal life, while retaining my Constitutional rights. I mean, what my employer was saying was that we don’t trust you to be fair and professional in your stories if you care enough about our country to get politically involved. In effect, we are denied our Constitutional rights if we want to keep our jobs. We can’t sign petitions, participate in demonstrations, work on political campaigns or give money to candidates.
Yet, the senior managers could do all that and more – most gave boatloads of cash to conservative politicians. This hypocrisy not only burned me up on the face of it – our upper bosses could flaunt a policy they placed on us – but here we were, an institution that was supposed to support the First Amendment, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom to issue hypocritical policies, freedom to find ways to get around them, and we were not exactly practicing what we preached.
Not wanting to openly protest this policy by quitting again because I had a family by this time and I thought I needed the job, the rebel part of me had to find ways to break that policy without getting caught. It became an on-the-edge type of engagement to me, one that gave me a somewhat exciting double life to lead. I attended demonstrations on the guise of covering them for the paper, and usually I would use material and quotes in later stories. I used a pseudonym – my late dog’s name, Jackson - to sign petitions. I helped the campaigns of progressive candidates in ways that I hoped would not be detected. This went on for all of the ten years I worked for that media company.
There were a few times when I thought I would be fired, such as when the book, which we originally self-published before I began working for this larger media company, was reprinted by a local publisher while I worked for that firm. But my immediate supervisor was a cool guy – for a moderate Republican - who also knew the activist, and he probably helped save my job.
After Bush Inc. stole the 2000 presidential election, I became much more active. I added the Thoreau last name to my pseudonym to honor one of my favorite writers and Americans. I began arguing with conservatives on message boards, chat rooms and anyplace I could. I started contributing to progressive electronic journals and Web sites using this pseudonym.
However, there wasn’t much my immediate supervisor could do to keep me from being laid off from my job a year after Bush’s coup, after a decade with that newspaper company. They gave the excuse that all companies give – tough economic times – even though that company was doing fine on its bottom line. Indeed, many big firms making huge layoffs these days are still making good money. The greedy bastards at the top just want more – and Bush and Co. help give it to them with their corporate-friendly policies and tax cuts that mostly benefit these wealthy, greedy bastards.
I thought the layoff had a lot to do with my 40-something age – they had to pay reporters like me more than the ones fresh out of college, even though I sure wasn’t making much. I also suspected it could have had something to do with the book I wrote and my liberal activities. I filed a complaint with the Texas Human Rights Commission, but that, predictably, went nowhere in union-busting Texas, which sides with corporate management on most issues.
I continue to this day to expose and work against Bush-Cheney through my writings and activism, mostly under my pseudonym, which has become more popular than my real name. I have found other ways to make a living to feed my family, including as a photographer, book author and all-around handyman. Fortunately, I’m a man of many talents, and I have discovered, in fact, that I don’t need to keep a low-paying newspaper job whose fascist owners take away our Constitutional rights to survive. Although the mainstream media needs progressive journalists, the thought of working full-time for another such newspaper nauseates me.
But I think it’s important for readers, especially those who criticize the mainstream media with a wide brush, to know something about my story. You never know how many other reporters are doing something like I did, leading a sort of double life because they believe in that basic journalism tenet to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. Unless they are a journalist like Seymour Hersh or Molly Ivins, they can’t really openly carry out that principle in today’s upbeat-lifestyle-good-news-bad-news-only-if-it-involves-a-non-Republican-dominated corporate media environment.
Many reporters today are ordered to concentrate on safe puff pieces that speak favorably about companies that advertise. Others are forced to focus on lifestyle stories on the latest high-tech gadget or how to open an IRA - news you can supposedly use - and to make sure you get “real people” to say something to make it appear like the media cares about what the average reader thinks. A few reporters are allowed to chase government and even corporate secrets to make it look like the media still wants to do its job, but their numbers are dwindling and their reports are watered down beside the puff pieces.
Still, some journalists find other ways to live out the afflicted principle, as I did and am doing. And you will never hear about most of those ways.
In recent months, there has been an alarming increase in the number of mainstream reporters fired or reprimanded for simply exercising their Constitutional rights. The result is just what the Bush-Cheney New World Odor [yes, I mean, “Odor,” as in these heartless elitists stink like crap] wants: an increasing working environment of fear in which people goosestep behind their political leaders or stay silent because they are afraid for their jobs or even their lives. I feel for these reporters. As much as progressives like to complain about the media - and I do my share - I also realize the constraints of the profession. It’s hard to quit a job in protest – or even mildly go against the grain - when you have to feed a family in a tough job market. Members of the Bush-Cheney New World Odor know this. It’s all part of the plan. It’s why we have a tough job market today. That’s right, the New World Odor wants a tough economic market to better control us.
In the face of this fascist environment, the convictions and courage of some mainstream journalists continue to inspire me. Henry Norr, a former technology columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle, was fired in April for participating in a demonstration against the U.S. invasion of Iraq. That came despite that newspaper not having a policy that reporters or columnists could not participate in demonstrations at that time. The paper has since implemented such a hypocritical, fascist policy against employees taking part in actions against the war that has had a chilling effect on the newsroom, even though corporate bigwigs are free to engage in whatever political activity they want. Norr also covered areas largely unrelated to politics and war.
Norr has filed several complaints with state commissions, including the California State Labor Commission, which prohibits employers from interfering with the political activity of employees. But as he said, at least one media corporation in another state got around a similar law by saying – in a bit of Orwellian doublespeak that Bush-Cheney would be proud of - that the First Amendment gave newspaper owners the right to limit the free speech of employees.
As he awaits decisions from the commissions, Norr continues to take action - he was shot in the leg with a wooden dowel in Oakland and arrested for civil disobedience outside the gates of Lockheed-Martin, the world’s largest arms manufacturer. “I intend to continue exercising my constitutional rights and my moral obligation, as I see it, to oppose the Bush Administration’s reckless and illegal imperial adventures,” he wrote in a statement published recently in the San Francisco Bay Guardian. “Someday I may have grandchildren who ask my daughters what our family did in the face of this madness. At least they’ll be able to say we all tried to make our voices heard - my wife and both of my daughters have also been arrested in civil disobedience this month. And I’m glad to know they won’t have to say that I just stood on the sidelines for fear of retaliation from my employer.”
Ed Gernon is another casualty of these McCarthyism times when you can’t even comment in general about what our country is like without being fired. The veteran TV producer was fired in April from the company that produced the CBS mini-series Hitler after this comment about that project in TV Guide: “It basically boils down to an entire nation gripped by fear, who ultimately chose to give up their civil rights and plunge the whole nation into war. I can’t think of a better time to examine this history than now.” What’s wrong with that, besides using “who” rather than “that?”
Another note for conspiracy theorists: TV Guide is owned by far-right media mogul Rupert Murdoch. Was Gernon set up? At the very least, his firing for expressing an opinion about a society when such opinions were suppressed further proves his point about the parallels between 1930s Nazi Germany and present-day U.S.
Not even a respected Pulitzer Prize-winning war correspondent like Peter Arnett can get away with saying general comments. He was fired by NBC in March after saying on an Iraqi television station that war planners “misjudged the determination of the Iraqi forces” and that there was “a growing challenge to President Bush about the conduct of the war.” An NBC statement said, “It was wrong for Mr. Arnett to grant an interview to state-controlled Iraqi TV - especially at a time of war - and it was wrong for him to discuss his personal observations and opinions in that interview.”
Why is it ever wrong to state opinions in a so-called “free society?” Could it be that our society is not as free as we like to think it is? Why does our “free society” have to stop allowing freedom of speech and the press when there is a war? Could it be because those opinions might get in the way of executing that war and reduce advertising and thus media owners’ profits? So much for freedom of speech and the press by such hypocritical, greedy media owners.
I don’t buy the argument that Arnett’s comments could have led to more American troops dying, or that he shouldn’t be talking to Iraqi media. American and Iraqi troops and as many as 10,000 Iraqi civilians died because Bush-Cheney invaded Iraq for their own selfish political and economic reasons, not because of anything Arnett said. Put the blood on Bush-Cheney’s hands. And to really get beyond war, we have to stop seeing everything in nationalistic terms. As Tom Paine said, “My country is the world.” But of course, Bush-Cheney won’t stop the patriotic nationalism wave because it keeps them in power.
Republicanazi Senator Jim Bunning of Kentucky and others even called for Arnett, who quickly found another job with England’s Daily Mirror, to be arrested and tried for treason. And people in this country still think there are no parallels to Nazi Germany here?
The corporate masters even want to control our private thoughts. Former Fort Worth Star-Telegram business reporter Steve McLinden was axed in March for simply sending a private email critical of a political fascist group called Young Conservatives of Texas. Like Norr, McLinden’s job had little to do with politics, and he wasn’t even getting arrested in a demonstration. All McLinden did was send an email to this group in response to a mass email sent by the conservative group announcing its plans to protest an Austin speech by Our Last Elected President Clinton in February. The hypocritical fascists, who call on others to take responsibility but look for someone to blame whenever something goes wrong under a Republican regime, predictably blamed the Sept. 11 terrorist acts on Clinton. That was despite those actions happening under Bush, who had plenty of warning and went on a month-long vacation right before Sept. 11, 2001, and despite Republicans’ long history of support for military aid and training to terrorists like bin Laden.
As the Fort Worth Weekly pointed out, Young Conservatives of Texas is the same group that has objected to Rice University’s annual Hispanic Professionals’ Leadership Day, called affirmative action “anti-white,” labeled an idea by Democrat Ron Kirk to require high school students to perform community service as a “scheme for Soviet-style social engineering at the hands of Washington bureaucrats,” and filed complaints against Texas hospitals that provide non-emergency care to undocumented immigrants.
So McLinden had every right to send a private email – he didn’t even roast this group in public as the Weekly did – stating that he did not like this organization’s actions. McLinden did so in admirable colorful fashion: “Ah, the heartless, greedy, anti-intellectual little fascists are mobilizing again. Let me guess. All you frat boys saved up your allowances and monies from your McDonald’s jobs for those Beemers you’ll be driving to the protest, and those new jackboots you’ll be sportin’ en route. Hey, don’t forget all the nasty little deals that Reagan’s henchmen cut with Middle East figures that got us directly into this mess today. I’m sure you’ll be protesting the Reagan household any day now. By the way, is it not enough to have the White House and Congress? Would you like to stamp out all signs that we are a two-party, Democratic country? What’s that? You would? How noble of you. I salute you and your polarized, little status-quo world.”
Touche. I couldn’t have written a better response myself. I sent such biting, sarcastic emails to similar fascist groups many times when I was employed under the Thou Shall Not State a Political Opinion Newspaper Slave Owners – I just was smart enough to use a pseudonym and not the company computer.
Then came the fascist owners who control McLinden’s former place of employment, who were informed of the sarcastic email by another mailing by the Young Conservatives. His boss actually sent the conservatives an email apologizing for McLinden’s PRIVATE comments and promptly fired McLinden, who has SIX children. He was canned despite the Young Conservatives making clear in another press release it did not want McLinden fired. So why did the Star-Telegram fire McLinden? To send another chilling, Nazi-like message to its employees that you have no political rights, you are our slaves. We even want to control your PRIVATE thoughts. That is the ultimate Orwellian nightmare coming home to roost.
There are several other examples of such firings. Dan Guthrie, a former columnist for the Grants Pass Daily Courier in Oregon, was fired for describing Bush as “hiding in a Nebraska hole” rather than returning to Washington immediately after the Sept. 11 attacks. Tom Gutting, former city editor of the Texas City Sun, was also fired after he wrote that Bush “was flying around the country like a scared child seeking refuge in his mother’s bed after having a nightmare.”
Las Vegas Mercury editor Geoff Schumacher was among those to condemn such firings. He quoted author Barbara Kingsolver: “It’s a fact of our culture that the loudest mouths get the most airplay, and the loudmouths are saying now that in times of crisis it is treasonous to question our leaders. Nonsense. That kind of thinking let fascism grow out of the international depression of the 1930s. In critical times, our leaders need most to be influenced by the moderating force of dissent. That is the basis of democracy, in sickness and in health, and especially when national choices are difficult, and bear grave consequences.”
Finally, most people have heard that MSNBC fired Phil Donahue in February. But most probably do not know about MSNBC officials’ real reasons, not the fake ones about supposed low ratings. Donahue was a “difficult public face for NBC in a time of war,” according to a company memo. In effect, Donahue was fired simply because he is liberal, still another McCarthyism action.
Then there are those journalists who are not fired from their jobs but lose columns or other forums. Brent Flynn, a reporter for the Lewisville Leader in Texas, saw his column axed earlier this year after he wrote about a Dallas anti-war demonstration in which he participated. “It is ironic that after writing a forceful essay in support of the first amendment, my column was cancelled,” Flynn wrote in a note on his personal Web site [http://brentflynn.com/brent/useful_idiots.htm]. “I was told that because I had attended an anti-war rally, I had violated the newspaper’s ethics policy that prohibits members of the editorial staff from participating in any political activity other than voting. I am convinced that if my column was supportive of the war and it was a pro-war rally that I attended, they would not have dared to cancel my column..…
“I was also told that my objectivity as a reporter would be called into question. However, my opposition to an invasion of Iraq was well documented in previous columns before I revealed that I had participated in the protest. But instead of taking me off of my beat or terminating my employment as a staff reporter, my opinion column was cancelled - the aspect of my job that was enhanced by my participation in the rally. In my opinion, a powerful liberal voice was unwelcome in the conservative Republican county served by my newspaper. The fact that the column was cancelled just days before the start of the U.S. invasion of Iraq raises serious questions about the motives for the cancellation.”
Flynn continues to be a news reporter for the paper, while writing more interesting columns on his Internet site.
Kurt Hauglie, a former reporter and columnist for Michigan’s Huron Daily Tribune, actually resigned in protest from the paper in March after his bosses declined to publish an anti-war column he wrote because it might upset readers.
Meanwhile, right-wing radio disc jocks like Clear Channel’s Glenn Beck – who admittedly aren’t really journalists – can go as far as to organize, not just attend and participate in, pro-war rallies.
Another case came in April when NBC reporter Ashleigh Banfield was rebuked by network President Neal Shapiro for saying in a speech at Kansas State University that television reporters sugarcoated Iraqi war coverage with patriotism and did not show the realities of the conflict. Banfield’s comments were true. For example, CNN’s Moneyline host Lou Dobbs appeared on camera with an American flag pin in his lapel and called weapons inspection head Hans Blix “a petulant UN bureaucrat.” No one dared broadcast pictures of Iraqi children blown to bits by our “smart bombs.” The bottom line is that NBC bigwigs don’t really care as much about telling the truth as they do about making the bucks.
Perhaps some of these reporters really are scared for their lives during wartime and don’t want to further risk their lives by getting the U.S. military mad. Reporters Without Borders, which ranks the U.S. 17th in press freedom with Finland, Iceland, Norway and Holland at the top, accused the U.S. Defense Department and the International Humanitarian Fact-Finding Commission of ignoring its demands for a proper search for two journalists that were missing in southern Iraq for a month. The agencies also refused to investigate deaths of several journalists there. Those are real concerns.
There are numerous other forms of censorship occurring. The country band Dixie Chicks was taken off the air of several radio stations simply for questioning the Iraqi invasion and saying they were ashamed that Bush is from their home state. Right-wingers have organized a campaign to revoke filmmaker Michael Moore’s Oscar and try to keep Bowling for Columbine out of theaters.
The Web site YellowTimes.org, which features original anti-war commentary, was shut down by its Internet hosting company in March, after it posted images of U.S. POWs and Iraqi civilian victims of the war. Orlando-based Vortech Hosting told Yellow Times in an e-mail, “Your account has been suspended because [of] inappropriate graphic material,” according to a press release by Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting.
Another Vortech email said, “As ‘NO’ TV station in the U.S. is allowing any dead U.S. soldiers or POWs to be displayed and we will not either.” The site is now back, however.
In two separate recent cases at malls in New York and Arkansas, people were arrested and charged with trespassing simply for wearing t-shirts with peace messages on them. They were not in the mall to protest, just to have lunch and shop. People can wear all kinds of vulgar, hateful messages on shirts in these malls, but not ones that call for peace, something which Christ and other religious leaders that so many people claim to follow have done.
While today’s society seems like it is becoming increasingly less free on the surface, perhaps there is more happening underneath that will one day unearth itself. Journalism may not be the right-the-wrongs watchdog profession I envisioned it as more than two decades ago, but some people are still trying. Maybe there are more Henry Norrs and Kurt Hauglies in mainstream journalism willing to put their principles on the line than we realize. On the surface, the fascist owners may seem to win when they fire one of us, or make us resign in protest. But that’s only on the surface. Deep down, we push on. The firings and resignations only make us push on harder.
For instance, New York Times Pulitzer Prize-winning war correspondent Chris Hedges gave an inspiring commencement address to Rockford [Ill.] College’s graduating class in May in which he warned of the dangers of U.S. empire.
“As we revel in our military prowess - the sophistication of our military hardware and technology, for this is what most of the press coverage consisted of in Iraq - we lose sight of the fact that just because we have the capacity to wage war it does not give us the right to wage war,” Hedges said. “This capacity has doomed empires in the past….War, we have come to believe, is a spectator sport. The military and the press - remember in wartime the press is always part of the problem - have turned war into a vast video arcade came. Its very essence - death - is hidden from public view…..We no longer understand that war begins by calling for the annihilation of others but ends if we do not know when to make or maintain peace with self-annihilation. We flirt, given the potency of modern weapons, with our own destruction.”
That a journalist would give such a speech at a relatively conservative university – which admittedly did not receive it well – is reason in itself for hope. Though officials actually turned off Hedges’ microphone at one point – which he called “heartbreaking” – still some got the message.
In addition, perhaps there are more journalists like me in my latter career, leading double lives and getting back at the fascists in other ways. Perhaps some like me write for progressive journals and Web sites under pseudonyms, if just to show the bastards in power that they haven’t gotten to us entirely.
Almost 20 years after the year for the setting of Orwell’s 1984 and some two decades after my resignation from a newspaper in protest of journalistic censorship, I can take comfort that some reporters are still making such stands. And unlike the characters in Orwell’s classic novel, Big Brother Bush-Cheney have yet to totally break our spirits. They can cut us with their doublespeak, jolt us with electricity. But they’ll never take the better part of us, the spirit that makes us freer than they will ever know.
Jackson Thoreau is co-author of We Will Not Get Over It: Restoring a Legitimate White House. The updated, 120,000-word electronic book can be downloaded on his Liberty and Justice For All web site at http://www.geocities.com/jacksonthor/ebook.html. Citizens for Legitimate Government has the earlier version at http://www.legitgov.org/we_will_not_get_over_it.html. Thoreau can be emailed at jacksonthor@justice.com.

Email from The Raven and others

I found your article rather interesting. What gave me pause was this quote: "Yet, the senior managers could do all that and more - most gave boatloads of cash to conservative politicians."
When I read that line, following as it did your complaint that your political viewpoints were being suppressed by the papers you have worked for, it seems to me that you have a problem with a
newspaper expressing a conservative bias, whereas were it to proclaim a liberal stance you would have no objections whatsoever.
Here, then, is the crux of the matter. It would seem that the owners of a paper have every right to be highly concerned if their reporters are weaving all over the political spectrum. "For God's sake," you can imagine them thinking, "can't these damned writers just get the story and leave their freaking
progressive politics out of it?"
I don't think Europe has any particular edge over us in this regard. The S.F. Chronicle and LA Times are extremely liberal publications, as is the Detroit Free Press - champions of diversity all and deeply committed to eradicating caucasian influence in society. The Chi Trib and Philly Inquirer seem fairly neutral, and the NYT seems fairly left of center. The Wash Post and Times are both rather conservative, yet I'd also argue that fact is what makes them eminently quotable - it isn't their bias per se, rather the lack of obvious slant that makes them solid vehicles for the formation of opinion.
And then there's this: "I have discovered, in fact, that I don't need to keep a low-paying newspaper job whose fascist owners take away our Constitutional rights to survive."
It would seem that you have every right to start your own newspaper and publish whatever news the public deems of value. In fact, I'll bet that if you did start your own paper, "The Leninist Observer" or whatnot, you'd be pretty anxious not to piss off your advertisers. Suddenly, you'd understand where the
"fascist" managers were coming from all these years. What we need to move forward as a people are more citizens who think carefully and deeply about the things that are important, and we need
fewer "activists" whose egotistical concern with feeling good about themselves leads to tremendous wastes of energy and intellectual ennui.
Best regards,
The Raven
D.S.

RESPONSE FROM JT: Thanks for your email. I just have to say that I don't have a problem with a paper giving a conservative viewpoint on its editorial page. My problem comes when senior managers can disobey a policy they place on us. That is called being a hypocrite in my book.
I understand how many people in the news business want to please advertisers. But as a writer, that is not my job. My job is to get the story and write it as truthfully, fairly and accurately as I can. It is not to worry about whether something I write will offend an advertiser.
My point is that even though I have progressive views, I can be professional and make sure the story is fair and accurate. I think I have done that throughout my career. I don't need some paper taking away my Constitutional rights, especially when that policy is not enforced on all employees.
Finally, I don't write just to "feel good about myself." I write for many reasons, including because I see a lot of areas that are just not being challenged these days, especially when it comes to the yahoos in the White House.

My particular field of "activisim," is corruption in the courts. However, it has come about thanks to the SAME FACTORS you outlined - information control to brainwash the public, and a "dumbing-down" thanks to our (lack of) educational system, which then makes us all "easy pickings" to be robbed of our rights. I did EXTENSIVE research on it, which culminated in a RICO lawsuit, which can be viewed on civicusa.org - click on "Who Killed Lady Justice?" MY findings were: the "mainstream media" is DEFINITELY involved, as the same big advertisers have their "stoolies" in practically every government committee and foundation, which is responsible to serve the people and give them accurate information.
Hats off to you for hanging in there! We can take our country back, as long as the public is EDUCATED and INFORMED.
J.

Way to go my friend! I can't thank you guys at AmericaHeld enough for helping keep me sane. I also know what it feels like taking a stand and getting dixie chicked, having my promising music career stomped back in the 80's protesting Reagan.
Luckily I didn't have a family either (and never did get to afford one), but we can see where these so-called moral majority folks have taken us. I haven't lost a lick, just as strong and vital (maybe better) than way back then, and ready to surface whenever that economic and political ice breaks above me.
My latest tune has the chorus: "Our flag's been ripped down and spit on, by those who claim to love it most, over the protest of any, and the founding fathers ghosts. Our flag has been ripped down and shredded, and used as a filthy bloody rag, by those who do evil in its' name, and want your freedoms
banned"
Wouldn't that be a fun little pop tune to have on the air right now? I'm that missing artist between Bob Dylan and Rage Against The Machine haha. Good luck out there on all this madness, my friend.
R.C.

I just read one of your articles: Big Brother Bush-Cheney have yet to totally break our spirits, and just wanted to say that I was very moved by what you said about going against the grain.
I know it's often difficult to report anything honestly about the 'powers that be' unless you speak of them in glowing terms, and I, for one, have always found it almost impossible to know where to draw the line on idealism - one does need to earn after all.
N.S.

I just read your column on the Information Clearing House website. In a real, conflicted, human way, it eloquently points out that we all make choices, and that we must be held responsible for the choices which we make.
I don't know if you're familiar with a poem entitled, "The Apolitical Intellectuals" by poet and revolutionary, Otto Rene Castillo, but it's a powerful statement of what you write about being, "...asked what you did when the light of liberty was being extinguished in our country".
As a writer, I was especially delighted by the wonderfully dry, double or triple-layered irony of the taking to task of Ed Gernon's grammar. You obviously have put in your time as an editor of not just your own writing, but of that by others. But seriously (don't call me seriously, my name is Jackson), don't you think the punishment for violating Strunk & White a bit extreme for the crime? Let's just call Rupert and explain it to him. I'm sure, once he has all the facts, he'll apologize to Ed, reinstate him, shake his hand, write him a check for back salary, and, to show there's no hard feeling, throw in a little something extra.
As someone who obviously is concerned with turning this Titanic of a country of ours before it hits the iceberg, I thought you might be interested (if you aren't already) in what's going on with independent politics in Texas. A friend of mine has been working her butt off in Austin to build a political force that can wield a powerful political stick to hit these bastards upside the head (cause we know, that's what it takes to get their attention.)
While I throughly enjoyed both the content and style of your writing, what I thought was missing --and, as well, missing in so many other good pieces about what is happening in America-- was what your readers can DO (as this is an email, I can't italicize DO, so I capitalized it. Forgive me).
I believe that building independent politics is the only hope we have to change the TweedleDee/TweedleDum seesaw of power that has been the virtually unassailable status quo for lo these many years. And since you no longer are constrained by a media oligarch's undemocratic and unconstitutional hypocrisy, if you like what you find (unless you already have), by golly, you can just
join right in on the fun.
B.L.

Just finished reading your opinion piece at Information Clearing House. Thank you for standing up and describing a systemic assault on the rights and liberties of this people and the peoples of the world. I think that we are now on the verge of perennial conflict with much of the world and that we are, and have been, at war against the people and Constitution and Bill of Rights of this country.
That Mr. Hedges was booed at Rockford College is no surprise to me. I live in a community near Rockford, Illinois and have lived in the area and Rockford itself. This is very much a corporate community. Its population have been raised and educated to accept carte blanche what is told them by institutions - governmental, corporate and familial. The one major newspaper - Rockford Register Star - is owned by Gannett and long ago gave up any semblance of responsible journalism in favor of repeating shamelessly whatever a given authority figure - government or corporate - claims. We are addicted to suv's, mortgages, beer - and other drugs -, sports, tv and belonging. That Rockford is not unique in this country is very disturbing.
My background is: USMC Vietnam Era Vet (volunteered December, 1972), former Adjunct Assistant Professor in Business and Management for Cardinal Stritch University, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and former small business owner. I do not think that I am a rabid revolutionary nor a mindless adherent to a popular or given philosophy. I am trying to make a difference by public speaking, writing letters and calling our elected/purchased representatives. I am seeking a way to do more.
I am most interested in communicating with you and developing strategies and methods to further a public discussion about the direction that our nation is going. If you have the time and inclination I would appreciate the opportunity to e-mail you and enlist your assistance in considering and editing and discussing articles and writings.
Thank you for speaking out.
P.G.

I received a nice note from Michael Copps, an FCC Commissioner that does battle with Michael Powell on a daily basis. I had written him after seeing his appearance on PBS, speaking about the rule changes which allow concentration of media ownership. He is fighting an uphill battle to prevent Rupert Murdoch from controlling the Ministry of Truth.
The Communications Act of 1996 was the worst thing Bill Clinton ever did.....far more damaging that any Oval Office antic.
The loss of our Fourth Estate and the curious capitulation by our mainstream newspapers and journalists give me a sense of impending doom. Among my acquaintances, none, more than can be counted on one hand, feel as strongly as I do. It is refreshing to read your essays, so that I don't feel isolated in my opinion about our lost freedoms.
On KLRU, a day or so ago, was an interview with Greg Palast, who I imagine you know very well. I recalled his interview today when reading your trials with employer / censors. He suffered the same problem and solved it by leaving the country to work with BBC and the Guardian. We need your voices, so keep writing and I will keep reading.
J.C.

I keep wondering how long this attempt to smother the smouldering volcano of folks like you with conviction and training, journalists, is going to go on without blowing up noisily and undeniably even by Bush and Co.. I've been to your web site, and I go to Smirking Chimp and others and I just wonder.
What'd happen if some of you guys with conviction, and justifiable outrage got your heads together to put out a Web site,on the model of, like, oh, Christian science monitor on a weekly or twice a week basis? How many $5 dollars would it take to make this work? I say five cause my pension gives me tight
opportunity to survive. The Columbia Journalism Review which I subscribe to, is edging in this direction of being sure enough journalists in these times,but pulling it's punches. You don't have to be mad. Just professional. A journalist like you are must have many others you know about who are as upset and
angry as you are, and I'll betcha they know others. Get a BUNCH of pseudo names and put out a web paper which tells it like it is. No exaggeration, just tells it like it is.
Course you could have "letters to the editors", and opiinion pieces in it. And you could have a section in it about reporting on the reporters: newspapers, media in general coverage. Oh man would you have an avid reader in the likes of me. And in the circle of friends I have.
I suspect the "leaning on the t roops" process in which top management lets you know if you want to keep your job with"us" you better not embarrass the GOP or Bush, or Ashcroft etc., never in a memo or any paper trail, but just "leaning on" you is the order of the day most all over.
How about a breath of fresh air? There's gotta be someone out there with enough coin to fee nagle this thing, and as I say, I'll betcha there lots of folks, Dem/green/GOP who'd like to see the news really returned to the glory of what being a journalist is all about.
Get a bunch of folk who see it all like you do together, even if it's cyber, and do a weekly or bi weekly or something. See where it goes. Here comes the cop out. I wish I could do something. Heart problems,
vascular problems, etc. age stuff won't let me. I'm back water. But I got $5, maybe $10. Tie a knot in some thread and begin sewing. Whatever. Thanx very, very much for this article in The Smirking Chimp. It
lifted me!
These are the times.
H.E.

I love you man! You have courage, strength of your convictions, and your actions and words are truly uplifting. Sometimes, we peaceniks and lovers of life feel discouraged, outnumbered, worn out and jaded, until someone like you comes along to, once again, remind us that we are neither outnumbered nor alone, and that our love of life and our positive determination to make this world a better place really is possible, and that it requires faith, hope, desire, commitment, energy and action, and Inspiration (being reminded). Yeah baby!
Though I am not a journalist, I, too, have been punished (several or perhaps many times, I can't keep count. But I do know the score, and though on the outside I sometimes look like a loser, and on the inside, sometimes feel like one, I wake up and realize that I am not.) for standing up to and speaking out against injustice or wrong doing, for daring to defy the slave masters, the war lords (medieval mo'f...rs!) for demonstrating integrity, especially at work. Sometimes, I was defending myself, sometimes others, sometimes principles. It cost me, sometimes a lot. But it was always worth it, and besides, I`ve still got my soul and many, other blessings.
Reading your story this afternoon, gave me a much needed shot in the arm today.
Peace out brother. God bless you and yours. Keep on standing. Right on! Write on....
I almost forgot to say, "THANK YOU".
A.M.J., Toronto

GREAT piece on the Information Clearing House! You crack me up I would have never guess that was not your name! Keep up the great work. My Family also has not stopped expressing their Disapproval of my life! I have never been close to them, I use to pray that I was adopted then everything would make since, I do not come around them very often, holidays and only if my mom really complains.
Bbut mostly I do not bother. I love them but do not feel the need to subject myself to the bullshit and crap that I know will follow.
Anyway you made my day I was tired and a little sad being in Los Angels away from my chosen family, who is in Fresno, all 5 Friends who I love moer that life itself. I find you and am encouraged tomorrow is another day who know what wonderful thing will be given me!
T.

Maybe it's time for a journalist movement. After all there are more of you then there are of them. Journalist strikes? Get together and start your own media conglomerate? Start a newspaper? Radio stations? TV News stations?
Pool your resources .... I've learned first hand that it only takes one to get the ball rolling and there most definitely is strength in numbers. Connect with other journalists, to those politicians like Gore that are speak out against media consolidation, and the people with money that are against it ... form a network. To fight them you have to become a large voice.
Here our school district was on the verge of major cuts ... losing 12 teachers, programs, the buildings were falling apart ...... It was in disarray and we hadn't passed a school budget in 11 years. We were also facing an embedded and very strong good old boys network that was working against us. My children were young, I was naive to the workings of the network, but being the rebel I am, I went to a few that I hardly knew, but people I knew were upset about the way things were and we banded together for our own movement.
We basically said screw them and we went to the people ... the parents ... we gained strength by adding to our numbers and growing in opposition to the good old boys. Growing in numbers automatically happens when others are ready to take a chance and step up to the plate ... some do it right from the beginning and other's need time to get over their fears. We also took anyone that was willing to give any time, no matter how small, to the cause in whatever way they could. Needless to say we've won and we've passed 11 of 12 school budgets since that time, as well as, changed the caliber of the education in the school district. We started out as 6 people and have grown to hundreds that are willing to help elected pro-education candidates to the board of education and pass the yearly budget.
Now when districts all over the country are having to make big cuts to weather the Bush storm, we have the ability to ride it out for a while and do it under budget.
There a lot to be said about working for Nobel causes, it's a powerful motivation for people and I have found as long as you keep your eye on the goal and go about it in a manner that is honest and above board, it's difficult for others that are more powerful to undermine the honesty and truth of the noble cause. In other words we always made sure we were honest and that we crossed every t and dotted every i.
Look what just happened when the antiwar movement banded together ... common goal, they didn't win, but they sure weren't ignored, their voices were heard and they can't be stopped, but they also need journalists to report the truth. Many of you have readers ... together you all have a wealth of contacts, and people to support you. Someone just needs to take the ball and run. I have found it works and it works better than the lone wolf, or a number of lone wolves separately fighting city hall.
S.

Thank you, thank you, thank you for your courage and perserverence. How can this article be sent to people in power? This is such a frightening time---and the implications of what you are writing are horrific for this country. Sometimes I feel like there is nothing I can do, and then I read these kinds of articles and feel renewed to say the emperor has no clothers. Keep up the wonderful work.
K.W.

WOW!! I believe you have outdone yourself!! You made me cry and you made me angry. I am so proud to know you!
It was a long, hard read. I'm a speed reader and I had to take it slow. Once again, wow, powerful, powerful!
S.

2003-05-17T06:40:00.000-07:00

We need more Democratic politicians like the Texas 58

By Jackson Thoreau

Every time I get sick of living in the backwards state of Texas, something surprises me to make me say, "Hey, maybe it’s not so bad."

The walkout this week by the 58 Texas House Democrats is the latest surprise. That 58 Democratic politicians would take such a bold move is encouraging. That 58 Texas Democratic politicians – who are, as a group, more conservative than average – would do so is mind-boggling.

I mean, Dubya and the Republicanazis stole the White House a little more than two years ago – or was it 200 years ago? - and you couldn’t even get ONE Democratic senator IN THE WHOLE FREAKING COUNTRY to do something as simple as agree to challenge Dubya’s "victory" when Congress certified the results. Only 14 mostly African-American House members – two from Texas - walked out, leaving that a hollow statement.

Most Democratic politicians have seemed to meekly go along with whatever slimy, immoral, sleezeball power play the Republicanazis shoved down their throats. Such a lack of balls made me leave the party and become an independent again.

But this walkout, this makes me – and the mainstream media - take notice. This shows me that some Democrats still have guts. Some Democrats are tired of taking the Republicanazis’ crap. Enough Democrats banded together to walk out and SHUT DOWN the freaking Texas government for almost a week. They did what more Congressional Democrats should have done in January 2001. More Congressional Democrats should have joined the 14 and walked out and refused to certify those fictitious results that allowed Bush to steal the White House. But they didn’t. And I lost more faith in Democrats [it started before that, including when Gore conceded a victory that he rightly won, but that’s another story].

Here it is, two years into the Bush fascist dictatorship, and we have tax cuts for the super wealthy, illegal blood-for-oil wars that kill thousands of kids in faraway lands, an out-of-control regime that cares nothing about working with other countries on issues like nuclear proliferation and global warming, more homeless people, more children without health insurance while we pay to make sure the surviving Iraqis get health insurance, concentration camps and people being arrested without being charged, oil companies gorging national parks and other public lands, a vast array of conflicts and slimy business deals involving Bush administration officials who personally benefit by the murder in Iraq with large defense, "homeland security" and Iraq oil and rebuilding contracts for companies they formerly directed, ad nauseam, ad nauseam, ad nauseam.

I have gotten so sick of the power-hungry, elitist, hypocritical bastards in the White House that I can’t even stand to watch them speak on TV. Not even that "moderate" sellout Colin Powell. I can’t even stand to think of them. I just want to switch the channel and try to tune them out. But I can’t. And I won’t. I’ll keep finding ways to fight the bastards.

One way is this walkout business. What a concept. As states struggle with budget deficits and cut kids’ health insurance and education and programs that benefit needy people, few politicians had the gumption to ask why this was happening when we could give billions of dollars in tax breaks to the super wealthy and their corporations. And fewer did anything about it.

Until the Texas 58.

The Texas Legislature has been controlled this year by Republicanazis who are about as partisan as they come. House Speaker Tom Craddick is a fascist who gets his marching orders from U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, who gets his marching orders from the White House. Republicanazis have spent this session working to outlaw same-sex marriages, keep pubic hair out of view in strip joints, get gay Texans out of coverage under the Hate Crimes Act, and help their campaign contributors with favorable legislation. Craddick is legendary for conflicts of interest that border on crimes, such as authoring a 1999 bill that gave Midland’s Cap Rock Energy an edge over other electric utility companies before Craddick received more than $28,000 from a Cap Rock subsidiary and his daughter was hired as a lobbyist. This session, Craddick is working on a water bill from which he and his cronies will personally benefit.

Republicanazis have also cut programs for the needy to address a $10 billion deficit, rather than taxing corporations owned by their wealthy campaign contributors or cutting back on all these prisons that house the poor. Then as the session was winding down in early May, Craddick all of a sudden said the most important issue out there was to redistrict Congressional districts so Republicans can get six or so more seats and really take control of the U.S. House.

What a bunch of sleazy bastards. There is no better way to put it, and I don’t give a damn what anyone thinks of my profanity. Sometimes profanity describes a bastard so well it would be downright hypocritical not to use it.

Redistricting is an issue that was already dealt with two years ago by judges and should not be done again for another eight years. But Republicanazis wanted to cram this issue down our throats rather than find ways to keep health benefits for the needy. So 58 Democratic House members said, "That’s it." They walked out Monday, shutting down the session since they were at least eight members shy of a quorum.

That’s an action of beauty.

What was Republicanazi Craddick’s response? Of course, he and partisan Republicanazi Gov. Rick Perry called out the state police to arrest these members. They called them "Chicken Ds" and cowards and bastards and bitches and other names. The problem was the Democrats made it out of the state, with most hiding out in Oklahoma and others perhaps in New Mexico, where they couldn’t be arrested by Texas police [yes, there is an actual Texas law that allows authorities to arrest a politician for not showing up]. And the Oklahoma authorities refused to get involved, although New Mexico Attorney General Patricia Madrid, a Democrat, said on Tuesday she "put out an all-points bulletin for law enforcement to be on the lookout for politicians in favor of health care for the needy and against tax cuts for the wealthy."

On Monday, Craddick turned to his pal Bush and other feds to ask them to send federal agents to arrest Texas Democrats. In fact, the Homeland Security Department – that bureaucratic, Big Brother agency that Bush-Cheney promised would not be used for domestic purposes – helped track down the Democrats in Oklahoma. They said it was because they thought a plane one Democratic representative used had crashed – another convenient excuse. Bush-Cheney lied again – I don’t believe a damn thing those major league assholes say.

Three of the Democrats who walked out Monday showed up at the State Capitol Tuesday, including one who said she was rudely told to get in a squad car by a state trooper and driven back to Austin. In effect, she was arrested and made to get back to the Texas Legislature by the Republican fascists.

The rest of the Democrats remained on their walkout out of the state until late Thursday, when the redistricting measure was effectively killed. Other Republicanazis, who called the Democrats childish for standing up to them, did childish things like pass around decks of cards with the pictures of these Democrats. They tried to emulate the U.S. military’s deck of cards for Iraq’s Most Wanted that just belittles and insults Arabs – it seems everything, even a war that kills a lot of civilians and children, is a game to these Republicanazis. Is that not childish?

Oh, it’s funny to put Iraq’s deposed leaders on a deck of cards. It’s funny to compare Democrats to the former leaders of our country’s supposed enemies. It’s funny to rub it in the world’s faces that a country that spends upwards of $500 billion a year on sophisticated weapons can destroy a country that spends $1.4 billion annually on archaic tanks and Scud missiles. Hardeharhar.

As Texas Democratic Party Chairwoman Molly Beth Malcolm said, these Texas Democratic leaders should be heralded, not demonized. "They are showing what true courage and true commitment are all about," Malcolm said. "Redistricting was the last straw in a series of outrageous, iron-fisted power plays by Speaker Tom Craddick. If Mr. Craddick wants to know who caused this, he should look in the mirror."

Fort Worth Rep. Lon Burnam, the Ace of Clubs and one of the leaders of the walkout, is among the state’s most principled leaders. He has long headed the Dallas Peace Center – it’s amazing Dallas even has such a center - and been a public target for far-right bullies for years. If you think it’s hard to work for peace and justice in a progressive city like San Francisco or New York these days, try our hellhole called Dallas, the capital of defense contracts and conflicts of interest. Yet, Burnam admirably perseveres.

More of us need to follow Burnam’s and other Democrats' examples and just walk out on these Republicanazis. Those working for Republicanazis, be it a business or government agency, just walk out. Refuse to work for the bastards – for at least one day. We need to organize a National Walkout on the Republicanazis Day.

And those in states besides Texas need to urge their state politicians to engage in similar walkouts. What if Democratic state legislators in all 50 states enacted a similar walkout? We could shut down the country and send a stronger message to Bush and other Republicanazis that we are sick and freaking tired of your CRAP.

And to those who say that such protests are subversive or juvenile, I say remember the Boston Tea Party of 1770. Our history books glorify that protest - and they should. We should not forget that our country was founded on such protests. The same Republicanazi hypocrites who belittled Democrats for walking out support such walkouts and other protests when they target a cause they like.

There’s evidence that even some Republican voters admire what Burnam and others did. I found this message on a Texas board: "I voted Republican for the last two state elections, but I didn’t vote for people going all the way to the right. I think we need to take care of education and of poor people. I never thought I would say it, but ‘Yea to the Democrats.’ They at least show some principles rather than meanness."

When Republican voters call their leaders mean and applaud an action of defiance by Democrats like this, something is changing. It gives me hope for this state, yet.

Texas may be at or near the bottom of education and healthcare spending and of taking care of poor people and a lot of similar categories. But for every Bush Texas births, there is a Molly Ivins or a Jim Hightower or a Lon Burnam or a Roy Williams. Before we invaded Iraq, the only sports celebrities I knew to risk their shoe contracts and question the invasion were Texan hoopsters Steve Nash and Nick Van Exel. The Texas-born Dixie Chicks are the only country group I know of to publicly criticize Bush.

I may move out of Texas later this year to D.C. to get more involved in the War Against Bush. But I won’t forget that there are people in this state who make me proud to have lived in Texas for most of my life.

Jackson Thoreau is co-author of We Will Not Get Over It: Restoring a Legitimate White House. The updated, 120,000-word electronic book can be downloaded on his Internet site at http://www.geocities.com/jacksonthor/ebook.html. Citizens for Legitimate Government has the earlier version at http://www.legitgov.org/we_will_not_get_over_it.html. Thoreau can be emailed at jacksonthor@justice.com.

2003-04-21T20:54:00.000-07:00

This is a long essay on a subject that is becoming clearer to me every day. Right after reading about “Operation Orpheus,” a phony terrorism campaign devised by some U.S. military and government officials to cover up Iran-Contra misdeeds in the 1980s, in Al Martin’s book, I read about “Operation Northwoods,” another phony terrorism campaign discussed by U.S. officials in 1962 to overthrow Cuba, in actual mainstream media articles like on ABC’s Web site. A segment of the U.S. military/intelligence community – the so-called “secret government” in itself - has a longer history of devising fake events to justify military action than I thought. It leads me to a chilling question that I’ve tried to avoid but can’t any longer: Was this segment of the U.S. government involved in the Sept. 11, 2001, tragedy? I don’t have concrete proof, but it’s another one of those hunches that won’t leave me alone.
This essay is also at http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article2976.htm, http://www.steamshovelpress.com/offlineillumination12.html, http://www.americaheldhostile.com/ed041703.shtml, and http://www.liberalslant.com/jt041703.htm, among other sites. Jackson

The U.S. Iran-Contra Secret Government Rears its Ugly Head in Today’s Bush Administration

By Jackson Thoreau

If the United States truly practiced the concept of “liberty and justice for all,” retired Navy Lt. Cmdr. Al Martin would be the one with the national radio talk show and prestige, and Ollie North would be having to hide out in a remote site, or better yet, in prison.

George W. Bush, Jeb Bush, George Bush Sr., Richard Armitage, and others sure would not be in the positions of power they are. Some people would not be sitting in prisons for what they knew about the Iran-Contra scandal of the 1980s. Other people would not have died under odd circumstances since then, possibly because someone was afraid they’d talk too much, or find out too much.

And two books I’ve recently read, Martin’s The Conspirators: Secrets of an Iran-Contra Insider [National Liberty Press, LLC, P.O. Box 43, Pray, Montana 59065, Toll-free 1-866-317-1390, http://www.almartinraw.com, 2002] and Uri Dowbenko’s Bushwhacked: Inside Stories of True Conspiracy [Conspiracy Digest, Pray, Mont., Toll-free 1-866-317-1390, http://www.conspiracydigest.com, 2002], would be required reading in all U.S. college government courses.

But of course, as the Denzel Washington character says in Philadelphia, we don’t live in a perfect world, now do we?

The books made my head spin, once I finally found some time to really read them and not just skim over them. They deserve careful readings by anyone interested in learning more about why the U.S. bullies much smaller countries like Iraq, Syria, Iran, and Nicaragua. If you want to know why the Bush administration is on the verge of invading Syria when its adventures in Afghanistan and Iraq are not even complete, buy these books. They connect the dots between North and the Bush syndicate – and even prominent Democrats that profited from and helped cover up Iran-Contra and Iraqgate, such as Janet Reno. They pull no punches. They give credence to your suspicions that something is frightfully wrong with the direction Bush Inc. are leading us.

Martin, one of the bravest whistle-blowers who has graced the U.S., was actually an officer in the powerful Office of Naval Intelligence and a middle player in Iran-Contra, the scheme that on the surface illegally sold American weapons to Iran, then used that money to illegally fund the right-wing Contras’ war on the leftist Nicaraguan government. But as he shows, Iran-Contra was a lot more than that; it was bank fraud, savings and loan fraud, drug running, apparent murder, falsely imprisoning people who knew too much.

Martin describes numerous meetings with none other than Jeb Bush, the man who stole Florida for his brother in the 2000 election heist. At one, Bush, who Martin calls a “real sharp cookie,” tells him how to illegally “short” stock in companies to make a hefty profit that can then be sent to the Contras. Martin explains how he incorporated dummy companies with Bush that were used to funnel illegal money between the Middle East, Central America, and other regions.

“Jeb likes any kind of fraud – banking, security, real estate, oil and gas, gold bullion, aircraft brokerage,” Martin writes. “Neil [Bush] was much more in the real estate end of the fraud. But George Jr. – I would classify as an insurance fraudster, in terms of his Iran-Contra profiteering….At the top of that [Iran-Contra fraud] pyramid, there are people like George Bush [Sr.] and a few others like Oliver North. George Bush is at the very pinnacle of that pyramid.”

This is the same Bush Sr., who Martin quotes as saying, “The greatest reliever of stress is shredding documents.”

As Martin writes, the repercussions of Iran-Contra did not stop in the 1980s. American taxpayers are still paying for all of the banks and S&Ls that failed due to the fraud. Americans are still financing the illegal and immoral adventures in the Middle East and Latin America of this “secret government,” a term for the Iran-Contra U.S. government hijackers of the 1980s who exist stronger than ever under Bush Jr.

Many obvious players in Iran-Contra, such as North and Bush, are still heavily involved in the current U.S. secret plans to do whatever the hell the rich and powerful forces that really run our government want to do. In a chilling precursor, Martin describes Operation Orpheus, a secret plan in the 1980s to fake a nuclear attack by Russia to cover up Iran-Contra misdeeds and install a military dictatorship in the U.S. It was a similar plan to Operation Northwoods, another phony terrorism campaign which some of the late President Kennedy’s military advisors, led by then-Army Gen. Lyman L. Lemnitzer, devised to help justify an invasion of Cuba in 1962 to overthrow Fidel Castro. Among the ideas these U.S. government officials discussed were killing innocent Americans in cities and blaming Cuban “terrorists,” blowing up U.S. ships and blaming Castro, blaming Cuba if the spaceship with John Glenn exploded [as some blamed Arab terrorists for the explosion of the Space Shuttle Columbia this year], provoking a war by flying a plane over Cuba, and paying a Cuban official to attack U.S. forces at the Guantanamo naval base. Kennedy rejected the phony campaign and was assassinated the following year. Some said military planners enraged by JFK’s rejection of Operation Northwoods could have participated in the assassination.

Now it seems as if Bush Jr. has accepted a similar plan – both bin Laden and Hussein were trained and financed by U.S. military and intelligence agents at one time, and both somehow escaped capture and death in the latest military operations. Were deals made with bin Laden and Hussein? Is this “war on terrorism” as phony as the previous U.S. military schemes? Are the hawks behind Bush actually being allowed to execute a version of Operation Northwoods or Operation Orpheus to justify the Iraqi invasion and others to come, funnel more funds to the military-industrial complex, and perhaps even implement a military dictatorship with Bush Jr. as head puppet?

There are many more ties between the 1980s scandal and the present one. For instance, U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum, a Caucasian Republican from Pennsylvania, was among the beneficiaries of the Iran-Contra scandal, Martin says. Santorum is now a key supporter of Israel who is leading the charge in the Senate to invade Syria and other countries. He and Sen. Barbara Boxer, a Jewish Democrat from California, plan to introduce legislation that would set the stage for the Syrian invasion, if they haven’t done so already.

Rep. Eliot Engel, a Jewish Democrat from New York, and Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Hispanic Republican from Florida, introduced similar legislation in the U.S. House on April 11, before the Iraqi mission to make that country another U.S. puppet state was finished. Predictably, they called Syria a “rogue nation” [idle question: When has Syria defied the UN and bombed another sovereign nation back to the Stone Age, killing and maiming thousands of innocent people in the process?]. They accused Syria of supporting terrorists, which it does, but only the kind that fights back against Israeli-sponsored terrorism against Palestinians. What one side calls terrorists the other side calls soldiers – see http://www.counterpunch.org/sharon.html for Israeli leader Ariel Sharon’s record of war crimes. They said Syria has these dreaded “weapons of mass destruction,” which UN inspectors and U.S. troops have yet to find in Iraq, another country the U.S. invaded supposedly because it had these awful weapons.

Hey, if the U.S. wants to find “weapons of mass destruction” so much, all it has to do is look in its own backyard. Or the backyard of Israel, which has more than 400 nuclear weapons, a primary reason why countries like Iraq, Syria, and Iran want more potent weapons to provide a balance in the region. But of course, the U.S. won’t look in its own backyard or the backyard of its favorite lapdog state, next to Great Britain. The U.S. secret government wants to make sure certain other countries don’t keep the weapons it developed and sold to them at one time [yes, to Iraq, to Syria, to Iran, and others] to make a quick buck. That’s not hypocritical, it’s just part of what we have to do in the war on terrorism, right? Wrong. It’s part of our “leaders” latest attempts to divert our attention from their selfish plans to control the Middle East and ultimately the planet, and inadequacies in providing for our domestic needs.

Meanwhile, the propaganda war against Syria rages in the mainstream media, and public support to invade that country because “hey, we will have to do it someday” will increase. Syria will be an even easier “opponent” than Iraq was, as it spends even less on national defense than Iraq, according to the well-respected, non-partisan Center for Defense Information. Syria is near the bottom of the worldwide list, spending only $1 billion, compared to Iraq’s $1.4 billion and the United States’ $399 billion [add another $100 billion or so for the Iraqi invasion]. Israel is a respectable 14th in military spending at $10.6 billion, with the only other Middle Eastern country higher being Saudi Arabia, which is eighth at $21.3 billion.

And the secret teamers want us to believe we should fear countries with relatively small militaries like Iraq, Syria, and Iran? Are we really that stupid?

Anyways, Santorum profited from the International Signals and Controls scandal, where the Pennsylvania company shipped missiles and component parts to Iran and Iraq during the Iran-Contra days, Martin writes. At least one official from that company ended up in prison, but obviously not Santorum.

The list goes on – these books need indexes so you can look up certain people. Besides the Bush clan, Martin implicates Bush’s Interior Secretary Gale Norton, Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, and White House National Security Council aide Elliott Abrams, Reno, Bill Clinton, U.S. Rep. Henry Hyde, the adulterer who tried to drive Clinton from office for lying about an affair, former Reagan National Security Advisor Frank Carlucci, and former Republican presidential candidates Steve Forbes and Bob Dole, among others. Among those who deserve commendation are numerous reporters who tried to get bits of the story out, and Sen. John Kerry, who headed a commission that attempted to expose the truth.

Some fellow progressives might bristle at the mention of Clinton and Reno, but I’ve never been naïve enough to think that Clinton got so far merely by making goody-goody deals. I just liked Clinton’s politics on the surface better than other recent presidents, and I enjoyed the way he infuriated conservatives, who hate Clinton so much they are wasting millions of dollars to open a “Counter Clinton Library” in Little Rock later this year. Have liberals opened a “Counter Reagan Library” or “Counter Bush Library” in the cities that house their libraries? No – that just lends more evidence on who the real hatemongers are in this country, the Limbaughs and Norths and Liddys that Clinton loved to piss off. But I admit I’ve overlooked Clinton’s excesses, though not near as much as the average Bush-can-do-no-wrong supporter overlooks his.

Martin also exposes Israeli involvement in Iran-Contra and Iraqgate, an important link in the current situation in the Middle East. Hard-line Zionists will accuse me of being anti-Jewish for daring to criticize Israel. I may be anti-Sharon administration like I’m anti-Bush administration. But as much as certain people yell at me that I’m anti-Jewish, I’m not. Just as many Bush supporters call me anti-American for opposing the anti-American-ideals Bush administration, many Israeli supporters call me anti-Jewish for opposing the far right, bulldoze-the-Palestinians-out-of-existence Sharon government.

Now, a conspiracy theorist, that’s a different matter. Look at this situation with Syria. Rather than focusing on the declining economy, runaway budget deficits, growing chasm between the haves and have-nots, and other important domestic issues, Bush administration officials, many Congressional Republicans and Democrats, and the wealthy international interests behind them are salivating over the prospect of invading and controlling Syria next. Then it’s on to Iran, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia. Bush Inc. are playing right into Sharon’s hands, if they are not directly conspiring with Sharon, which I suspect is more likely the case. By the time the U.S.-Israeli crusaders are done, the Middle East will lie in ruins and be ruled over by a Jewish-American King accountable only to multinational oil companies.

While many Americans are giddy about our “victory” in Iraq, it was like an NFL Super Bowl champion playing a junior high school football squad. When one side spends $399 billion-plus on high-tech weapons and the other side spends $1.4 billion on scud missiles and used tanks, is anything fair about that contest? Ironically, the U.S. kept claiming the Iraqis weren’t “playing fair” for faking surrenders and other tricks, but that’s like the NFL team claiming the junior high team was playing dirty for trying some trick plays [excuse the sports analogy – in a past life I was a sports reporter – it’s the best one I can think of, though I know war is by no means a game].

Another note of personal disclosure here: I am a Caucasian American born in Washington, D.C., whose family originally derives from Lithuania, Ireland, England, and Austria. I married a woman who was born in Pennsylvania whose parents are from Syria. Therefore, my two young children are half Syrian American. We have many relatives in Syria. I admittedly do not want my tax dollars used to kill and maim and make homeless my relatives in Syria, as they have already been used to kill and maim and make homeless thousands of innocent Iraqis and innocent Afghans.

I do not buy the Bush-Cheney Inc. line that people’s lives in these countries will be improved – ask the families of those killed if the U.S. military action improved their lives. Obviously, those who are dead would speak otherwise, if they could. Ask the families of the more than 100 American and British soldiers who died if this invasion was really worth it in a few years, when another dictator takes control of Iraq. Did I miss it, or have all the ruling clans in Afghanistan held free elections and decided not to kill each other? What about Kuwait, another American colony still run by an unelected, dictatorial prime minister 12 years after we “freed” that country? Don’t tell me Kuwait elects a national assembly – that body has even less power than the U.S. Congress against the dictators in the White House.

Beyond that, I understand the government in Syria is a dictatorship. But I also understand that I live under a more subtle dictatorship, one that can install a leader in power who was not elected by the majority of voters and control other leaders through corporations and money. I can write and scream and march and protest all I want, and Bush-Cheney Inc. are not going to listen to my request to stop these immoral, idiotic invasions. Millions of people can protest, Michael Moore can use the Oscars stage to protest, and Bush barely can get his cocaine-and-alcohol-destroyed brain working long enough to ask Karl Rove, “What does ‘fictitious’ mean?” Because I refuse to give a penny to any politician, much less hundreds of thousands of dollars that is the going rate for bribery these days, I have about as little influence on my government as the average Iraqi had on Hussein or the average Syrian has on its dictatorship.

The challenge is to find ways to live under our forms of dictatorships without destroying each other. The challenge is to find ways to survive when we have only surface control of our government, whose leaders ultimately do whatever the rich, powerful people who fund their campaigns want them to do, which is gain more land and wealth for them.

You say you don’t think Israel has much influence over U.S. Middle Eastern policy? Look at who is running the Iraqi “interim” government. You have Jay Garner, a retired general hand-picked by Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz for "viceroy designate" of Iraq – meaning he is the Big Cheese in Iraq right now. Garner was most recently head of the Pentagon's Office for Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance, whose motto is “Bomb the Hell out of Those Damn Foreigners, Then Send a Few Crumbs of Bread to Give Those Who Survive for the Media Cameras and Give Fat Reconstruction Contracts to Friends in the Defense Industry.” Garner has strong links to both the international arms industry and a Jewish lobby group, according to syndicated columnist Molly Ivins. He has visited Israel as the guest of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs and signed a statement in October 2000 blaming the Palestinians for the violence in the region after the collapse of peace talks – which Bush stopped when he took over in early 2001.

Garner has also commended the Israeli army for its "remarkable restraint." This is the same army that showed such “remarkable restraint” in killing thousands of Palestinians, bulldozing thousands of homes, and even killing a few American and European peace activists like Rachel Corrie [see http://www.rachelcorrie.com/] who try to stop the violence. The Israeli military has destroyed more than 7,000 Palestinian homes since the beginning of the Israeli occupation in 1967, leaving 30,000 people homeless. Most home demolitions target civilians who have not been charged with any crime. The Caterpillar bulldozers that destroyed many homes and Rachel are partly financed by U.S. tax dollars - Israel is the world's largest beneficiary of American military and economic aid. It receives more than $5 billion a year from the U.S., and 75 percent of those funds are spent on arms and equipment from U.S. corporations.

So, Israel can use tanks and bulldozers and automatic weapons to kill Palestinians, and it’s OK. But when a few Palestinians fight back through suicide bomber missions – which I don’t condone but understand – they’re branded as dirty terrorists. At least three times as many Palestinians have died as Israelis in the last two years. Who are the terrorists here?

And now we claim Syria is harboring terrorists and even Iraqis who fled Baghdad. So are we going to bomb Idaho and Montana and other U.S. states because they give refuge to KKK members and anti-government U.S. terrorists like Tim McVeigh who bombed Oklahoma in 1995? How about Ireland, which has terrorized the British since the 1920s? Oh, they're white terrorists, so we don't mess with them. I forgot.

The bottom line is Bush-Cheney Inc., with help from many Republicans and Democrats in Congress, are running a racist policy to exterminate Arabs and hand over control of the Middle East to wealthy, powerful oil and real estate cronies. More and more, I’m beginning to think the secret government conspirators are closer to the truth than most of us head-scratchers know. Maybe there is a group of wealthy business-types who call most of the shots on our planet from some secretive island off the coast of South Carolina or in the Pacific.

Maybe there doesn’t appear to be much the average person can do to stop the secret teamers from running roughshod over people. Maybe it’s easier not to think too much about it, to go on with our lives gliding along the surface, unaware of why the latest tragedy occurs.

Still, I’ve never been one to just glide on the surface. I want to dig deeper, I want to know more. When I was five, my older sister died at the age of nine of a still-undiagnosed disease that took her quickly, within a couple of days. I don’t remember crying. I only remember sitting around a room full of sobbing family members, bewildered at the scene. I couldn’t cry like my younger sister who cried just because everyone else was. I had to know why I should cry, what had really caused such a scene. I had to know why my older sister died.

I’ve continued my search for that truth and many others. My sister died in Florida – another reason why I dislike that state - and I suspect environmental causes, perhaps pesticide poison from some fruit she might have picked from a tree and eaten. The medical staff of that Tampa hospital in 1965 and the county medical examiner were not exactly the most skilled – they didn’t even perform a complete autopsy, or at least they won’t release such records. The cause of my sister’s death remains another mystery.

That experience has shaped my life, sent me head-long into searches that many people don’t dare take, such as psychic medium sessions, poring over obscure books and documents in more obscure libraries and government offices for days, back-alley rendezvous in tough neighborhoods, and 5,000-mile walks through the heart of the global military-industrial complex. I don’t believe at face value anything anyone tells me – not even a family member. I listen politely, for the most part, but I have to make my own investigation, to search beyond the obvious surface clues for the underlying story.

As a freshman reporter for my college newspaper way back in 1978, I didn’t turn away an eyewitness to the JFK assassination who wanted to share some insight that others wouldn’t digest. I not only listened to the man, I wrote story after story, read book after book, interviewed person after person, walked down dangerous alley after dangerous alley, fought off critic after critic, ignored threat after threat, in a search that continues to this day.

That search leads me to believe that the Warren Commission’s conclusion that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in killing JFK was erroneous, and that commission was covering up misdeeds by powerful people, agencies, and institutions. Former and current government agents and military officials, members of the Mafia, anti-Castro Cubans, wealthy far-right oil barons and industrialists, and members of the current secret government were most likely involved. When someone challenges me on this conclusion, I say to them, read the books I have, talk to the people I have, and then we’ll talk. When someone calls me a “conspiracy nut,” I say to them, all I want is the truth, and I don’t believe we have been told the truth about this.

And let me say something about conspiracies – conspiracies have existed as long as human beings have. The Bible and other books are full of such tales of conniving rulers and wannabe rulers plotting against people to consolidate their power. To ignore conspiracies just because you’re afraid of being labeled a “conspiracy nut” is to ignore a vital trend and component of our society that can lead you farther along on your path to the truth. To ignore conspiracies is to compromise your search for the truth.

The bottom line is our government, our corporations, our media, our institutions, lied to us then, and have lied to us many times before and since. The most powerful government officials and corporate leaders have engaged in conspiracy after conspiracy since Day One. And we’ve let them with our silence, our inertia, our unwillingness to confront them, our unwillingness to expose their misdeeds to the light of day and bring them to justice.

Exposing the lies has become a passion to me, a reason to live. When a newspaper I work for refuses to publish something I write, I find another way to get it out. With the Internet – thank God Al Gore invented that, huh? - it is easier these days than it was back when I had to publish my own newsletters, pamphlets, and books. It’s easier to take a too-controversial-for-mainstream-journalism article to the Web than quit your job in protest and take a story on the powerful local defense establishment trying to shut down the nuclear freeze movement to the competition newspaper, which I did in 1984.

The truth shall set you free, someone said, but I’m sure not yet free. I guess I have yet to really uncover as much of that truth as I think I can. Even then, I remain skeptical that I’ll ever really be free, except for perhaps in my own mind.

I’m most free when I read books like Martin’s and Dowbenko’s. Bushwhacked is a great complement to The Conspirators, as it further exposes the crimes of the powerful, usually-unseen-to-the-general-public forces that prop up the Bush regime and prior regimes. The book is an indictment of our system in which most people worship the wealthy and mindlessly justify their excesses, and would rather watch Survivor on television than do something about helping us all really survive on this planet. For those who want to do something, it provides much ammunition and insight we need to execute our plan of action.

I tell people again and again you cannot look at Bush on the surface. He appears to be a nice, affable doofus to many. But he is conniving and politically astute, more so than his father. He is more willing to engage in dirty campaigning than the former CIA director was. He is more willing to win at any cost, as we saw in the 2000 election. He is more willing to bomb civilians in some faraway land if he can gain politically from those deaths, as we saw in Afghanistan and Iraq and probably will in Syria and other countries.

But to really know what Bush is about you must know something about the people around him and those who fund him. You must know something about the murky origins of DynCorp, which Dowbenko explains began as an Air Force contractor in 1954 and has gained a reputation as a front company for the CIA, performing dirty tricks throughout the world. This Virginia-based “security” firm was one of Bush’s biggest campaign donors in 2000 and has been awarded all kinds of lucrative government contracts, from protecting Afghan officials to providing “security” in Iraq.

“Even more sinister is the fact that DynCorp manages email and information systems for many federal investigation agencies like FBI, DOJ, and SEC,” writes Dowbenko, one of the alternative media’s foremost writers who founded Conspiracy Digest, Al Martin Raw, and Steamshovel Press. “What does that mean? Whenever criminal behavior is detected, DynCorp controls the information, giving it defacto power to subvert the process of law and cover up corporate-government criminal activities.”

Dowbenko includes a more-than-interesting chapter about Bush skeletons like a U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency video allegedly showing Jeb and Dubya with a large amount of cocaine. There are more stories on how investment banker Catherine Austin Fitts was ambushed by corporate-government criminals, the last known interview with the late best-selling author Malachi Martin on the “end of religion,” and bizarre mind control programming.

So is what’s in these books, and in this essay, really true? It’s hard to say what’s really true. Ultimately, we all have to figure it out on our own. But I do believe in the law of karma, that what goes round comes round. No empire, not the Romans, not the British, not the U.S., lasts forever. Someday, our kids and their kids will pay for our sins. I just hope they understand that not everyone merely went along with the crowd, just as not every German went along with the Nazis in the 1930s.

So if you believe the Bush administration is controlled by a secret government, what can you really do about it? For one thing, expose it to the light of day. Spread the word, via whatever means you have. Let them know there are a lot of people on our planet who are fed up with their selfish, violent actions.

What’s the alternative? To do nothing? To live in fear? Better to light a candle than curse the darkness. Better to march a mile than sit around wringing your hands.

Better to read a book like The Conspirators or Bushwhacked that goes deeper than mere headlines than watch more CNN coverage that only skims the surface.

Jackson Thoreau is co-author of We Will Not Get Over It: Restoring a Legitimate White House. The updated, 120,000-word electronic book can be downloaded on his Internet site at http://www.geocities.com/jacksonthor/ebook.html. Citizens for Legitimate Government has the earlier version at http://www.legitgov.org/we_will_not_get_over_it.html. Thoreau can be emailed at jacksonthor@justice.com.

Emails from readers:

You make people like me and possibly many more aware and that is what ultimately will make a difference in this world. So, thank you, your work is not wasted. The internet is wonderful in that sense that it allows unrestricted access to a wealth of info like your article and many others. Without that we are left to CNN.
So, keep up the good work and keep marching and protesting. It does not 'appear' to make any difference but it like steering a boat. You steer and nothing happens. Only later, the boat changes its course. Popular opinion is like that. It appears to make no difference but it does in a more subtle way. Anti-american feelings are more widespread than ever and something will have to stop that US killing machine
Regards, P.W., New Zealand

Excellent. It is so frustrating to know so much and want to share the information with those who do not know; or who have not access yet to information. I received your essay from a yahoogroup. May I have your permission to forward it to others outside the yahoogroup? It will help in people's research, spread of information and search for truth. Thank you.
D.T., Attorney/Mediator

I just can't understand how the American Public is so absent minded about events and seeing Oliver North in Fox Channel talking about the war, it is enough to make you sick.
It seems everyone forgot about the Iran-Contra affair, and Osama and now Hussein.
Your article is very thorough and I want to keep encouraging to tell it like you see it.
J.C.

2003-04-07T15:07:00.000-07:00

Remember Rachel by calling on Israel to stop inhumane bulldozing of people's homes

Here are some good Web sites on Rachel Corrie, a 23-year-old American peace activist who was killed on March 16 when she was run over by an Israeli bulldozer, which was made by a U.S. company. Rachel was trying to stop the bulldozer from demolishing the home of a Palestinian doctor in the Gaza Strip. Witnesses said she was in full sight of the driver, wearing a bright, easily-seen jacket, and was deliberately run over - twice. Israeli military even disturbed Rachel's memorial service two days after her death, firing tear gas at mourners and threatening them with another bulldozer.

http://www.distanceeddesign.com/rachel/
http://www.veteransforpeace.org/Statement_Rachel_Corrie_031703.htm

The Israeli military has destroyed more than 7,000 Palestinian homes since the beginning of the Israeli occupation in 1967, leaving 30,000 people homeless. Most home demolitions target civilians who have not been charged with any crime.
The Caterpillar bulldozers that destroyed homes and Rachel are partly financed by U.S. tax dollars. Israel is the world's largest beneficiary of American military and economic aid. It receives more than $5 billion a year from the U.S., and 75 percent of those funds are spent on arms and equipment from U.S. corporations. That's another way that U.s. weapon manufacturers make a killing. They sell so much to foreign governments that obtain U.S. aid, as well as the multi-billions they directly receive from the U.s. government.
As an American, I am tired of seeing my tax dollars used to purchase bulldozers and other weapons that are used to kill Rachel and many more people. Many people seem to care more about the drug trade and drug dealers than we do about weapons dealers, who kill far more people.
Write your representatives to demand that they pressure Israel to stop the inhumane bulldozing of people's homes. Write them to stop the U.S. from giving so much money to Israel, which turns around and spends it on more weapons they use to kill Americans like Rachel and many more Palestinians.
Jackson Thoreau
Texas

2003-04-07T12:28:00.000-07:00

Responses to 'By the Numbers' Column on Operation Iraqi Invasion

I teach English at a small college. I'm often impressed by these articles on Democratic Underground. Not only are they usually more well researched than syndicated columnists making big bucks in the national media, they are more passionate and just plain well written.
In future centuries, it won't be the essays by the David Broder's and Charles Krauthammer's that will be studied and emulated (certainly not the Thomas Sowell's or Cal Thomas's)-it will be the Jackson Thoreau's and Bernard Weiner's of the world who write for the love of it.
Thanks again,
B.B.

I would like to use some of your statistics from "Iraq Invasion by Numbers" in a small free anti-war newsletter here in the UK. An online version of the newsletter will be available at www.seditioustimes.org
Full acknowledgement will be given, and no profit is derived from the articles use. I feel is only courteous and proper to request your consent, and also to commend you on a clever article.
Thank you
P.R.
NO WAR ON IRAQ!
DEMONSTRATE, ORGANISE, STOP THE WAR.
http://stopwar.org.uk/

Congratulations - In a few words you have identified the real AXIS OF
EVIL. And does it not qualify to the description - SATANIC? M.S.

Some people have asked about sources for the statistics I list. I didn't list those because they often get cumbersome on a list of stats, but I understand why some want to know. If you want those, you can add this to the bottom of the page:

SOURCES: Center for Defense Information, Fellowship of Reconciliation, United Nations, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, Education for Peace in Iraq, National Network to End the War in Iraq, Peace Action, Voices in the Wilderness, American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, Amnesty International, Red Cross, IndyMedia, numerous newspapers and other media in the Middle East, Europe and even U.S., including the London Observer, Guardian, BBC, New York Times, and Arab Times.
- Jackson

More Iraqi Numbers

Around New Years I made a list of numbers like yours. There
were
only four numbers, but they were all biggies. Your list includes one of
my
four, so here are the rest of mine:

Taxpayer dollars the Pentagon announced it's lost track of last year:
$2,300,000,000,000.

Decibel level of taxpayer hollering about overtaxation in certain other
contexts: 2,300,000,000,000.

Half-life of the "depleted" uranium with which we're coating the
birthplace
of civilization for the second time: 4,500,000,000 years.

Actually, that last figure is misleading, since the longer the
half-life,
the *lower* the radioactivity. As I understand it (I don't have special
training in biophysics), the real problem with depleted uranium is the
"heavy metal" toxicity, like lead, only worse. But chemical toxins can
have
the same scary health effects as radiation sickness. Think tobacco and
Thalidomide.

The figure of mine that you do already list is the latest estimate for
the
Iraqi civilian death toll from the sanctions. How about if you add to
your
list the calculation 1,500,000 / 3,000 = 500? The Master Race
implications
in all this are frightening the natives with good reason. We're now
making
unprovoked war on an Arab state whose only connection to al-Qaeda-like
groups is race/religion. If we call this a part of the war on
terrorists,
then we're implicitly defining the term in accordance with that one
connection, right?

And this is hardly the only ugly signal to that effect we've been
sending.
Nothing like calling the Arabs "towel heads" in a leaked State
Department
document, or the Vice-President speaking at a gathering that hands out
NO
MUSLIMS, NO TERROR bumper stickers, or the flannel-mouthed PNAC crowd
jabbering publicly about "modernizing" Islam, or justifying the
sanctions on
the basis of *preventing* mass destruction, or the code name Operation
Desert Fox for a blasting operation on a Semitic people, etc.

As a sidelong suggestion, perhaps someone more comfortable with public
communication than I am should try putting it all together in an
attempt to
(instant overworked cliché) shock and awe the American public into a
better
sense of what we're getting ourselves into. The mainstream Muslim world
is
now radicalizing (by our definition), and the corporate media are
showing
themselves at their brainless worst by playing down the danger. Which
reminds me of a recent Washington Post daily online update:

-----------------------
Mubarak: War Could Lead to Increased Islamic Militancy
Monday, Mar 31, 2003; 7:47 AM

CAIRO, Egypt -- President Hosni Mubarak warned Monday that a drawn-out
war
in Iraq will lead to an increase in Islamic militancy throughout the
world.

"If there is one (Osama) bin Laden now, there will be 100 bin Ladens
afterward," Mubarak said, referring to the al-Qaida terror network
leader
during a speech to army commanders in the city of Suez, 80 miles east
of the
capital, Cairo.
-------------------------

What is that stupid "could" doing in the headline, when it's
*immediately*
followed by Mubarak's dogmatic predictions? That's what I mean by
brainless,
this utterly reflexive cover for an out-of-control GOP administration,
no
matter how grave the potential consequences.

Anyway, another calculation you might make for your list is the ratio
between your percentages of global military spending for the U.S. and
Iraq:
50% / .0015% = cc. 33,000. Yeecks. But this assumes only $13.5 million
annually for Iraq, which sounds a bit low. Might the figure be a
straight
ratio rather than a percentage, so that it's actually one hundred times
greater?

In any case, we've leveled the playing field somewhat by going in with
inadequate forces. It's that world-renowned American sense of fair
play, no
doubt.

Oh, stop it. This of all subjects has me ironizing compulsively, but
I'm
trying to behave myself.

I notice that you give a middle-range estimate of 5,000 for the victims
of
the 1988 gassing of Kurds in Halabja, and you properly label it as an
estimate. I've just been noticing the wild range of numbers we're
getting
from respectable (as well as "respectable") sources, usually presented
with
dogmatic certainty, and with little if any correlation with ideology.
Many
say 100,000, while others question whether it even happened at all.
Round
numbers are always suspicious, and perhaps some are confusing Halabja
with
the whole campaign of chemical attacks on the Kurds that may have gone
on
for a period of years.

My real point is that it's almost as if Halabja has morphed into a kind
of
vaporous "marketing image," Saddam Brand Evil(tm) or something, such
that no
one really gives much of a damn what actually happened. I'm resisting
the
urge to come up with a suitable Madison Avenue-style tag line.

Finally, you might want to add the number of WMD inspections we've
allowed
to the equal number you give for Israel.

Best,

D.K.

P.S. I'm now listening to an NPR discussion of the reasons for American
public support for the war. No one is mentioning the just plain false
beliefs after a year of relentlessly dishonest propaganda. How about
adding
poll figures for the percentage of Americans who believe that some or
all of
the 9/11 participants were Iraqi, and that Saddam was the mastermind
behind
9/11? For the first, I keep hearing around 50%, while the second varies
between half and two-thirds.

And then there was the Time Magazine poll of Europeans last year,
eventually
reporting that 84% regard the U.S. as the greatest danger to world
peace,
vs. 8% for Iraq. Since the country they really fear is the one they're
standing up to, this rigorously discredits the White House rhetoric
about
those spineless Europeans.

I'm now envisaging facetious stats to address certain pro-war rhetoric
of
even less legitimacy, to wit:

Sanity level in accusing the anti-war movement of "political
motivation"
considering that it's a political issue, so OF COURSE they're
politically
motivated: 0

One-time level of support for Saddam at his worst by the same White
House
hypocrites who now accuse the anti-war people of being "Saddam lovers":
100

That first first bit of pre-human verbiage is reminiscent of Bush
attacking
Gore, and the Congressional GOPs attacking Tom Daschle, for
"partisanship,"
i.e., for doing what they're getting paid to do.

And then there's this grand dot-connect in your Harper's Index format:

Number of times Saddam has failed to do our bidding, considering our
secret
support at the time together with our deliberate provocations to set up
a
pretext for our own aggressive moves: 0

Given this, then not only didn't the sanctions-racked Iraqi people
elect
their leader, but we don't even have a real beef against him. It just
gets
worse and worse the closer we look. But there's no excuse for not doing
that
looking, since that's what lets it continue. As I say, spelling it all
out
may be our best shot at changing public attitudes, since it's the
hardest
stuff to shrug off.

2003-04-07T09:07:00.000-07:00

Operation Iraqi Invasion, By the Numbers

By Jackson Thoreau

NOTE: This is a variation of a question-and-answer piece on the relationship between Iraq, the U.S., Europe, and military campaigns circulating through cyberspace. I set it up as an easier-to-read numerical column and added a few items of my own. The numbers speak for themselves.

Percentage of the world's population living in the U.S.: 6.
Percentage of the world’s energy resources used in the U.S.: 30.
Rank of Iraq among countries in the world for the largest oil reserves: 2 [behind Saudi Arabia].

Military spending, worldwide: $900 billion.
Percentage of worldwide military spending by U.S.: 50.
Percentage of worldwide military spending by Iraq: 0.0015.

Percentage of Iraq's military capacity U.S. claimed it destroyed in 1991 Persian Gulf War: 80.
Percentage of Iraq's post-1991 capacity to develop weapons of mass destruction the UN claimed to have discovered and dismantled by 1998: 90.
Percentage of U.S. military spending that would ensure basic necessities to everyone in the world: 10.

Number of Americans who have died in wars since World War II: 92,212.
Number of people living outside U.S. who have died in wars since World War II: 25 million.

Years that Iraq has had chemical and biological weapons: 20.
Number of U.S. and European corporations that supplied Iraq with materials and knowledge to make chemical and biological weapons since the early 1980s: 150.
Number of Western nations that condemned Saddam Hussein in 1988 immediately after he used gas in the Kurdish town of Halabja in 1988 to kill an estimated 5,000 people: 0.
Number of pounds of Agent Orange and other herbicides U.S. dropped in the Vietnam War: 100 million.

Value of worldwide weapons trade: $800 billion.
Percentage of weapons dealt by U.S. companies worldwide: 50.

Estimated number of Iraqi civilian deaths in the 1991 Persian Gulf War: 35,000.
Estimated number of retreating Iraqi soldiers buried alive by U.S. tanks in 1991 war: 6,000.
Estimated number of Iraqi civilian deaths Pentagon predicted in the 2003 war: 10,000.
Estimated number of Iraqi civilian casualties in the 2003 war so far: 800.
Percentage of Iraqi civilian deaths that are children: 50.

Tons of depleted uranium left in Iraq and Kuwait after the 1991 Gulf War: 40.
Percentage increase in cancer rates in Iraq between 1991 and 1994: 700.

Number of years the U.S. has engaged in air strikes on Iraq: 26.
Pounds of explosives U.S.-led coalition dropped on Iraq in 1991 Persian Gulf War: 177 million.
Pounds of explosives U.S.-British pilots dropped on Iraq between December 1998 and September 1999: 20 million.
Estimated pounds of explosives U.S.-British pilots have dropped on Iraq since the start of Operation Iraqi Invasion in March 2003: 200 million.

Years Iraq has lived under economic sanctions imposed by the UN: 12.
Iraqi child death rate in 1989 [per 1,000 births]: 30.
Iraqi child death rate in 1999 [per 1,000 births]: 131.
Number of Iraqis estimated to have died through 1999 due to UN sanctions: 1.5 million.
Percentage of them children: 50.

Number of UN weapons inspections conducted in Iraq in November-December 1998: 300.
Number of those inspections with problems: 5.
Number of UN weapons inspections conducted in Iraq in 2003: 500.
Number of UN resolutions Israel violated through 1992: More than 65.
Number of UN resolutions on Israel that U.S. vetoed between 1972 and 1990: More than 30.
Number of UN weapons inspections Israel has ever allowed: 0.

Number of nuclear warheads U.S. has: More than 10,000.
Number of nuclear warheads Israel has: More than 400.
Number of nuclear warheads Iraq has: 0.

Number of countries known to have nuclear weapons: 8.
Number of countries that have used nuclear weapons on another country: One [ the U.S.].

Jackson Thoreau is co-author of We Will Not Get Over It: Restoring a Legitimate White House. The updated, 120,000-word electronic book can be downloaded on his Internet site at http://www.geocities.com/jacksonthor/ebook.html. Citizens for Legitimate Government has the earlier version at http://www.legitgov.org/we_will_not_get_over_it.html. Thoreau can be emailed at jacksonthor@justice.com.

Why the Iraq War Should Be Halted

By Bob Connors

I WANT THIS WAR TO STOP BECAUSE I LOVE OUR SOLDIERS. THE INNOCENT IRAQIS, WHETHER YOU BELIEVE IT OR NOT, ARE HUMAN BEING AS WELL .

All of us who either themselves, or had friends, who fought in Vietnam, know the horror of guerilla warfare. Every teenager behind a bush might be concealing a weapon. Soon, the combat becomes a living hell! Soon, our dear, innocent, boys who went to war with the highest intentions, have seen too many of their friends killed by a native who was considered to be a friendly. Soon, every native gets frisked briskly, maybe rougher than needs to be, because the American youth is justifiably scared out of his mind.

That is what 43 is subjecting our boys and girls to now!

I WANT THIS WAR TO STOP BECAUSE I LOVE OUR COUNTRY, AND I WANT IT TO BE THE SAME FOR MY CHILD, AS IT WAS FOR ME!

I have a 13 year old boy. His grade school, just 10 minutes outside of Washington D.C., recently required each child to bring provisions for use in case of a terrorist attack. What caused this new requirement for my child? The war with Iraq and its resultant raising of HERR Ridges’s Terrorist Threat Level.

Just recently, every subway rider in the Metropolitan D.C. area hears messages about dogs sniffing out explosives, and being on the alert about untended packages. What caused this new requirement for the subway riders? The war with Iraq and its resultant raising of HERR Ridges’s Terrorist Threat Level. I have a friend, who turns off his hearing aid when he gets on the subway because the alerts get him too upset. Everyone in the D.C. area is scared. It must be the same in New York.

What 43’s team is doing to our civil liberties, under the guise of protecting us from terrorist attacks, is evil! We are approaching the totalitarian state described in ‘1984’ through the Patriots Act 1 and 2! Having Poindexter, a convicted Iran Contra scandal thug , in control of the ‘Total Information Awareness’ is like having THE NAZI HERR HIMLER back and in the game!

THE REAL U.S. PATRIOTS NOW ARE THE ONES WHO ARE BEGGING FOR THIS WAR TO STOP.

For those of us who don’t know, the GOP models that this administration are imitating, are replete with bullies who lie to the press and obstruct the free flow of accurate information to the citizens. Remember that the N.Y. Times had to sue the U.S. in 1971, in the case called, New York Times vs. U.S. (1971).

Daniel Ellsberg, must be considered a model for all peace activist of today.

He knew that the war had been wrong and that the U.S. populace was being duped. Believing that the Pentagon Papers strongly supported his views, Ellsberg delivered a copy of the them to Senator William Fulbright, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Even that failed, as neither party made the papers public. Somehow copies of the documents were obtained by the New York Times, and in June 1971 they began publishing a series of articles based on the study. Nearly immediately a telegram was issued to the Times by the Attorney General

John Mitchell ordering that it halt publication. The Times refused, and the government brought suit against them. Thus began a remarkably swift journey of justice ending at the Supreme Court. The first court

decision, issued by NY federal district court Judge Gurfein, was in favor of the Times. However, the federal appellate court reversed this decision and ordered the newspaper to halt publication. Meanwhile, the

Washington Post had obtained copies and had begun to print them, and the government brought suit against them as well. The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia decided not halt publication. The

case was picked up by the Supreme Court in late June, just 11 days after the first suit.

The case of New York Times Co. vs. United States was a landmark case in the American judicial system. It was the first attempt by the federal government to restrain the publication of a newspaper. It a major test of the interpretation of the First Amendment.

In terms of suppressing free flow of information, now, what about 43’s recent press conference in which he joked about it being the first scripted press conference in U.S. history? It was used to call us all to war and any ethical leader would have felt duty bound to answer all questions. The dunce had his script, the lap dog journalists read their prepared questions, and he threw them a bone, by granting them the grandeur of his presence.

That is not much different than the work of the imbedded journalists in the Iraq theatre of war.

43 NEEDS THIS WAR TO PROP UP HIS POPULARITY AND PUSH THROUGH EVIL POLICIES AS THE INNOCENT U.S. POPULATION IS NUMBED BY OUR INCURSION INTO NOT ONLY IRAQ, BUT THE MIDDLE EAST!

We know the horror of GOP war-time propaganda, all of us who either themselves, or had friends, who lived through the Vietnam era. We know how Kissinger and Nixon spread the war illegally into Cambodia and Laos.

43 has his blanket, ‘war against terrorism’ or ‘those who support terrorism’, or ‘those who might have weapons of mass destruction (WMD)’. This is a more powerful warmongering tool than Nixon’s puny ‘domino effect’.

It should be, as the GOP strategists have been testing global statements, such as Ronnie’s ‘Evil Empire’, 41’s ‘can’t let naked aggression stand’ among others to see how to best terrorize the U.S. populace. Their goal of course is only to win elections, and fill their buddies’ pockets with money in the process.

43’s ‘never ending war against terrorism’ ensures that any derogatory statement, about any GOP policy, war related or not, such as Kerry’s of April 3rd, 2003 statements, gets a full attack by every GOP hatchet-man. They are the masters of ‘negative campaigning’ as symbolized by HERR ROVE’S attack against McCain in the 2000 presidential primaries.

These thugs will do what it takes to stay in power, and the future of ongoing wars is what they see as their ticket for perennial supremacy.

2003-03-20T15:26:00.000-08:00

A Republican with a conscience

With most Republicans and Democrats in Congress who have no kids in this war supporting Bush-Cheney's immoral invasion of Iraq, it's a good time to salute those who stand up to these idiots who will bring us more days like Sept. 11, 2001.

Since most Dems, including Hillary and Lieberman, sound like Bush these days, I'm seriously considering leaving the Democratic Party to go back to being an independent. While I appreciate Dems like Sen. Robert Byrd and Rep. Pete Stark who go on the record with their scathing criticism of this war, most Democratic leaders make me sick with their spinelessness.

So I'm here to congratulate a Republican who has a greater conscience than most Democratic leaders - Jack Walters, a former GOP county chairman in Missouri who resigned March 8.

Jackson

Here is the resignation letter of Jack Walters:

As the Bush administration moves toward certain war in the Middle East—a war which I believe nothing good will come from, a war which is unjust, unnecessary, and a war which will undoubtedly widen, perhaps even into world war, thereby placing our nation in dire peril—I have made a decision regarding my position as Boone County Republican Chairman.

Wars are easy to get into, but very difficult to get out of. They can sap the moral and spiritual fiber of a nation, squander lives and resources, deplete scarce funds, cause undue hardship on all involved, destroy families, and engender hopelessness.

I have questioned both the motives for military action at this time, and the ever-changing, illogical justifications presented to us in what has to be one of the greatest media propaganda blitzes ever force-fed a populace. Any time ground troops are deployed, serious questions must be asked and real answers demanded. The jingoistic rhetoric we are receiving does not constitute legitimate answers.

The consequences of our planned attack on Iraq (and also probably Iran, given the size of our forces and their location in proximity to Iran), should cause us all to pause. The Pentagon has announced that we will hit Baghdad with a force almost equal to the bombing of Hiroshima. Obviously many thousands of civilians will perish, with untold thousands maimed. And for what? To liberate them? To bring them freedom? Or democracy? Or is it to really secure the world’s second largest oil reserve and establish a base from which to subjugate other Middle Eastern nations? Is it also the plan for Israel to use the cover of war to forcibly relocate the Palestinian population (as has been publicly stated by some members of Israel’s current government)?

How on earth have we arrived at this crucial juncture in our country’s history? How has a war on terrorism been converted into an attack on Iraq? What threat does Iraq pose to us? We must lay the blame squarely on our congress, who according to our Constitution, only has the power to declare war. For congress to cede it’s war-making power to the executive branch is unconstitutional on the very face of it and effectively destroys our three branches of government. Circumventing our Constitution is very bad, and the undeclared wars, which have resulted in our recent history, have had disastrous results. Undeclared wars have no declared objectives, and therefore can widen at will, and our foray into the Middle East will likely set in motion a long-term wave of retaliation. Indeed, I believe that the administration would like to entice Iraq into firing the first blow so some justification could be paraded at the United Nations. If the United States government can adopt this unreal doctrine of preemptive attack on any nation, anywhere, at any time, so can other nations! This is how world wars begin. If the President goes into Iraq alone without a UN resolution, he will be in violation of the war powers given him last October by congress which was contingent on UN approval. A constitutional crisis will occur.

What we are about to do in the Middle East is abhorrent to me. It is made doubly so since this is a contrived and fraudulently justified war with hidden objectives. The coming mass slaughter of innocents, the harm our own troops are being placed in, and the potential for wars on several fronts have brought home to me the sobering realization that by remaining Boone County Republican Chairman, I would be giving tacit approval to this imminent war, and tacit approval to the belligerent and reckless language coming from the White House. The safety and integrity of our country outweighs politics.

I therefore resign as Chairman of the Boone County Republican Central Committee effective at noon, March 10, 2003. I do not wish to be Chairman when this tragedy starts. I am not resigning to placate those who have demanded same .I do not fear them in the least. I was quite willing to stand and face an ouster vote. I am resigning because I cannot support the Republican position on this war. I only sought the position of Chairman originally in the hope that I could recruit God-fearing, thinking, pro-life believers in our Constitution to stand for office.

I grieve for our nation, and the untold suffering that will be wrought. As history has shown, you can possess the greatest armaments in the world, but if your cause and motives are not right, only catastrophe will result.

Jack Walters, March 8, 2003

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article1980.htm

2003-03-19T17:38:00.000-08:00

From America Held Hostile: http://www.americaheldhostile.com/ed031803.shtml

Call For a Special Session of the United Nations
General Assembly to Stop Bush's Immoral War
By Jackson Thoreau

Bush is on the verge of his immoral invasion of Iraq. It's clear Bush wants to get his friends in the oil business a piece of the Iraqi oil pie, to improve his polling numbers, to boost U.S. and worldwide military spending that will help his defense contractor buddies, to allow the Pentagon to test some new weapons on human Arab guinea pigs, to gain some personal revenge against Hussein for daring to go after his dad, to bully what's left of the rest of the world through even more effective ways than surprise attacks and bombings.

But we can stop Bush. We can and we must. Not by protests, which are noble and necessary to make a statement. But Bush doesn't listen to such statements, even when tens of millions of people make them.

No matter what you think of it, the United Nations is our best hope to stop Bush. We must stop what we are doing right now and contact our UN representatives to demand they convene an emergency special session. The Center for Constitutional Rights in New York, Greenpeace, and others are calling on all members of the UN to convene an emergency session of the General Assembly to avoid Bush's immoral war on Iraq by using little-known UN resolution 377.

We must answer the call, once again. We must join this campaign.

Known as "Uniting for Peace," the resolution allows the General Assembly to call an emergency session when the Security Council is split on the issue of how to maintain international peace and security. As Michael Ratner, president of the Center for Constitutional Rights, said, "The 'Uniting for Peace' resolution may be the last hope to avert war. If passed, it will put the U.S. and the U.K. on notice that a war without Security Council authorization is utterly illegal and a crime against the peace."

As labor author Jeremy Brecher recently wrote, when Egypt nationalized the Suez Canal in 1956, Great Britain, France, and Israel invaded Egypt. Then-U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower, a real Republican and patriotic American, demanded that the invasion stop. The UN Security Council called for a cease-fire, but Great Britain and France vetoed such measures.

Then the United States did what we MUST do now - it appealed to the UN General Assembly, where countries like Britain and France and the U.S. do not have veto power. The U.S. proposed a resolution calling for Great Britain, France, and Israel to withdraw its forces from Egypt. The General Assembly convened in an emergency session and approved the resolution. Great Britain and France withdrew from Egypt within a week.

Resolution 377 says that if there is a "threat to peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression" and the permanent members of the Security Council do not agree on action, the General Assembly can meet immediately and recommend collective measures to UN members to "maintain or restore international peace and security." Since adopted by the UN in 1950, the "Uniting for Peace" mechanism has been used ten times, most frequently and ironically by the U.S. The last time was in 1997 over the Israeli-Palestinian issue.

One UN member state must request that such a meeting be convened to consider adoption of a resolution. Either seven members of the Security Council or a majority of the members of the General Assembly must agree.

"It's now up to all the world's countries, not just a few of the powerful, to meet together to avert this march to war," said Steve Sawyer, a spokesman for Greenpeace. "If it wanted the world to be ruled by the cowboy with the biggest guns, the international community wouldn't have created the UN in the first place. The UN, including the General Assembly, was created to preserve the rule of law and promote multilateralism. It's time the UN fully exercises its mandate and unites as a whole to defend its founding principles and stop the impending attack on Iraq, which would be the most horrific example of unilateralism. It must take this last chance for peace."

Indeed. STOP what you are doing right now. Go to http://www.reachingcriticalwill.org/govcontacts/govindex.html or http://www.uvpeaceandjustice.org/UN_and_media.html and contact as many UN representatives as you can. Phone them. Fax them. Email them. Tell them to convene an emergency session of the General Assembly to stop this war.

Start by phoning Secretary-General Kofi Annan at 212-963-4475 or faxing him at 212-963-7055. If you live in the U.S. like me, then phone U.S. Ambassador John D. Negroponte at 212-415-4000, fax him at 212-415-4443, or email him at usa@un.int. Then keep going.

I contacted, at least by email, everyone on those lists. I will continue to do so. If anyone has any better UN General Assembly contacts, please let me know.

To repeat, the US can't stop a resolution in the General Assembly, as it can in the UN Security Council. The US does not have veto power in the General Assembly. For more info on this action, go to http://www.ccr-ny.org/v2/whatsnew/report.asp?ObjID=o3ONGr1exC&Content=207.

Even if the UN General Assembly passes such a resolution, Bush can still ignore it. But he does so at the risk of the UN invoking some sanctions on the U.S. or some European countries boycotting trade with the U.S.

This is another tool we need. Keep going to the protests and vigils. Keep writing your politicians and the media. But contact the UN as well.

Once the war is stopped, the UN can form a tribunal to try Hussein and whoever else on crimes without shedding innocent blood. The UN can work if we support it. But we must support it.

So tell the UN to find its backbone.

Tell it to do its job.

Jackson Thoreau is co-author of We Will Not Get Over It: Restoring a Legitimate White House. The 110,000-word electronic book can be downloaded at http://www.geocities.com/jacksonthor or at http://www.legitgov.org/we_will_not_get_over_it.html.
Thoreau can be emailed at jacksonthor@justice.com.

ASK NOT FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS FOR IT TOLLS FOR US ALL!

By Bob Connors

Back in the 1969 I was an 18 year old who tried to get my Catholic Church’s priest to help me to become a conscientious objector. I could never have killed a Vietnamese solider. My draft number was high, and I was never drafted, so I never followed this plan to its conclusion.

Now, I’m a 51 year old, flabby, weak, mid-level bureaucrat, whose job happens to be halfway between the White House and the Capitol. I’m more afraid going to work each day than when I was as an 18 year old awaiting my position on the wheel of death, draft lottery.

Back then, as now, I love my own, the U.S. of A. I didn’t think that the Commies, or the Viet Cong were anything other than our enemies, and I disliked Hanoi Jane Fonda’s stance. Having said that, I didn’t have the ability to go over to Vietnam and kill people who I thought were being interfered with by the U.S. military.

It is same for me now, except for a few minor situational specific alterations.

I, as every D.C. based Federal Government employee has seen parts of the Federal Government, the Pentagon, destroyed by airplanes remade into bombs. I personally see that the Capitol steps, which I had for years used as my outside walking machine, closed. I see the increased helicopter surveillance and in the subway we’ve all received tips on what to do if we see something strange going on.

I didn’t sign up for this. I’m not a soldier. I’m a geeky, untrained for hand to hand combat and unaware of the signs of being attacked by WMD, computer programmer. We all are scared because we all know that the inevitable Iraq will foment Islamic hatred of the U.S. and the likely places of attack I can see from my office window.

GOP LIES!

Back then, I also knew that Tricky Dick had a long record as a perpetual liar, and I was convinced that his “domino theory” was as big of a pack lies as his “secret plan to end the Vietnam war”. He unveiled the latter during his 1968 presidential campaign. People died directly as a result of these lies, which were associated to the GOP warmongering habit.

Nixon realized that if the country’s energy was expended dealing with wars then his other policies could slide through with little resistance. Remember his “trickle down theory of economics”? No one can clearly calculate the indirect carnage, which ensued, because of reduced income, due to this particular lie, but Nixon never settled for small victories. Relate, as any objective person would, Nixon‘s “trickle down theory of economics” to 43’s tax cut for the top 1%, his “Pioneer buddies. They are the same, just called a different name solely for propaganda reasons!

AM I NUTS TO DREDGE UP THESE HISTORICAL REFERENCES TO EARLIER GOP WARMONGERING?

No, I’m not! Political parties continually dredge up what has worked for themselves in the past. They often make references to the earlier stances of their own in similar situations. How many times recently have heard about the 1991 Iraq War, and Reagan’s stance against the “Evil Empire”? The current president’s “Axis of Evil”, uses 50% of the phrase that the GOP used in the 1980’s to tank our economy and wage an ideological driven war against the Christian God hating, nuclear weapons of mass destruction possessing, heathen, Communist threat. Now we are waging an ideological driven war against the Christian God hating, biological and chemically, but not nuclear weapons of mass destruction possessing, Islamic, terrorist threat. The current phrase is pretty much the same for the consumption of the common masses of U.S. voters, as the former propaganda slogan. The GOP depends on the obvious, that is why Bush stands in front of signs like, “Peace in the Middle East”, when he is pushing for war and death there.

WHY JUST FOCUS ON THE U.S. VOTERS?

Simply, because the GOP plays lip service to being a part of the international community and have constantly had stances, such as Bush’s earlier pledge, of not “getting bogged down in nation building”. This, as with most of his other promises, he abandoned when it stopped serving his interests.

At its core, the GOP has one constant concern. They want to win the next election. They have reasoned that as long as they mumble slogans like, “returning the people’s money to the people”, while they are in reality redistributing all of the money they can to the top 1%, they can skim off the cream for their “Pioneer” buddies, and still win the next election. It is a model they have been using for at least as far back as the 1968 election.

THE AZORES SUMMIT

We could get only 3 out of 15 countries in the U.N. Security council to agree with this terrible war. We could only get 2 out of 5 countries with vetoing power to agree with this terrible war.

The AZORES SUMMIT presentation started less than an hour after the leaders of Spain and England converged with the U.S. super-duper power-man Bush. He greased a few palms, slapped a few backs, and told Blair that he would talk to Rumsfeld about respecting England. Then, the others rolled over and played dead for the privilege of basking in 43’s radiant personality.

He, who as a candidate just 3 years ago, was mocked by news reporters for not knowing the names of foreign leaders, who had no experience in foreign policy prior to becoming “the leader of the world who doesn’t do nuances”, who has ignored the Israeli-Palestinian crisis, as well as the North Korean crisis, is now the leading man in foreign policy for the entire world. No, no one thinks that! The world realizes we can buy off vast segments of the economically strapped countries and intimidate the rest.

Only one concession from the U.S. came out of this. Blair had been trying to get 43 interested in the Israeli-Palestinian crisis since the summer of 2002, when Blair convened meetings with each side. Finally, 43 has muttered something, which everyone in the world knows better than to believe, about this situation, which Blair rightfully has been saying is much more critical than Iraq! Everything else out THE AZORES SUMMIT was predictable, and could have been written months ago!

ALLIES WORK WITH US AT YOUR OWN EXPENSE

During Bush’s short run we have reneged on existing treaties, most specifically the ABM treaty, which has resulted in the anticipated proliferation of nuclear weapons in both Iran and North Korea, proposed treaties, Kyoto, and shafted the world with tariffs on foreign goods being imported into the U.S.

Now we force this abomination of a war onto the world! How can we expect any ally to help us with the legitimate threat of fighting terrorism, when we stick them with this and laugh at them and call them names like, “Old Europe” and Rumsfeld denigrate England’s part in the upcoming war? Consequentially, since turn around is fair play, our anticipated and needed help from our allies, will surely wane. Who would help someone who has frequently disparaged them? We can anticipate a day soon in which all of the Islamic terrorist hatred will directed entirely against the U.S. and that our allies will remember how we have snubbed them and will respond in kind to our pleas for help.

THE MEMBERS OF THE U.N. HAVE GOALS OTHER THAN SERVING OUR DESIRES, AND WE HAVEN’T RESPECTED THEM, AT OUR OWN PERIL!

The members of the U.N. don’t like the U.S. being THE POWER. They will gladly cut us down to size for this monstrosity of selfishness, this wrong war!

MAYBE THAT DEAR BOY, 41’S SON, DOES NOT REALIZE:

The allies paid for over 90% of the bill for Iraq 1. Never in the history of the U.S. has a president started a hugely expensive war and subsequentially cut taxes. How can we pay for the war without a revenue stream? Does 43 know that Reagan had to repeal most of his tax cuts? Do the U.S. citizens realize that when the deficits get higher, then 43’s spokespeople will say that all domestic services have to be slashed? Who doesn’t realize that cutting taxes is a ploy to cut down on all Federal government, except for the GOP priority, the military. Surprisingly, now their new crown jewel, homeland security, a place where it seemed to be a sure bet that the GOP would dump money that could then be funneled to their “Pioneer” buddy corporate executives, is getting under-funded. If Ridge can’t figure out ways to get carloads of money then maybe the GOP is in earnest about controlling the deficit. Ronnie Reagan paid lip service to that while he ran up huge deficits.

WHICH ARTICLE COMES FROM FOXNews.com AND Power and Interest News Report (PINR)

“Allies Withdraw Iraq Resolution; Bush to Address Nation Tonight

Monday, March 17, 2003

UNITED NATIONS — The United States and its allies on Monday withdrew the

resolution seeking the use of force against Saddam Hussein. The White House,

saying, "the diplomatic window has closed," announced that President Bush would

address the nation at 8 p.m. EST.

Saying no compromise within the U.N. Security Council is possible, British

Ambassador Jeremy Greenstock announced to reporters that there will be no vote

on Tuesday on the resolution, which was co-sponsored by Britain, the United

States and Spain.

With the "explicit threat" of a veto by France -- which was referred to only as

"one country in particular -- U.S. officials said, there was no way the

resolution would pass. Greenstock said this country's objection came even

"before the Iraq government itself" responded to a British proposal for a new

set of deadlines and benchmarks.

But "we believe the vote would have been close," said U.S. Ambassador John

Negroponte.

Greenstock said Sunday's summit in the Azores with the United States, Britain,

Spain and Portugal concluded that "no ultimatum, no pressure, and no

disarmament" would come as a result of the French position.

The cosponsors of the U.S.-backed resolution "reserve their right to take their

own steps to secure the disarmament of Iraq," he added.

If the allies called for a vote and the resolution failed, they would be in

violation of the U.N. charter if they went to war. By not holding a vote at all

-- regardless of whether the resolution would have garnered enough support --

they could still use force against Saddam and not be in direct violation of the

United Nations.”

OR

“In the next few weeks, the future of international

order will be determined. If the Bush administration chooses

to invade Iraq after failing to secure United Nations

approval, a precedent will be established encouraging states

to pursue unilateralist rather than multilateralist policies.

The failure of the U.N. to restrain the United States may

spark a new wave of nationalism, where states no longer feel

secure under the symbolic umbrella of international treaties

and agreements. This will weaken global cooperation and

increase the possibility for conflicts around the world.

Therefore, the current debate over Iraq is merely a power

struggle set on the world stage. Multilateralists such as

Colin Powell would rather have the U.S. secure U.N. support,

or an otherwise broad coalition before invading Iraq. Powell's

purpose for this is that he does not want the U.S. to

blatantly abandon multilateralism because it may hurt U.S.

interests in the long term. The so-called "hawks" of the

administration associated with the Pentagon are indifferent to

the U.S.' failing to secure international support. These

nationalists would like to see a U.S. unrestrained by

international agreements, solely pursuing its own short-term

interests even at the expense of other powerful states. As of

now, the "hawks" are in control, expressed through U.S.

willingness to attack Iraq with or without U.N. support.”.

The first article was from FOX, one of the many GOP media organs of choice and the second came from Erich Marquardt, of Power and Interest News Report (PINR), the Yellow Times. Neither article was glowing of the U.S., but the second was openly more honest, and consequentially, honest. How can the world let the U.S. acts as we have been since this regime has started? Even Powell, who initially was a multilateralist has been co-opted and has traded his right place as being a seasoned military and foreign policy expert, to being a shill for 43’s war against specifically Iraq, but also, more broadly, the wishes of the world.

IN SUM, 43 HAS DECIDED THAT HE HAS ALL OF THE ANSWERS, AND NEEDS NO OTHER COUNTRY’S HELP. WHEN THE PRICE TAG FOR THE OCCUPATION OF IRAQ STARTS BREAKING INTO THE NUMBED MINDS OF OUR U.S. CITIZENS, THEN 43 WILL BE IN TROUBLE.

His spinners can massage phrases like, “the deficit in relation to our GNP is manageable”, and later, when the deficits start chewing us apart, “we have to cut funds for non-essential domestic services, such as Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, but soon we’ll be able to replenish their budgets!”. Maybe by say, the 2004 presidential election, the current regime will find out that more U.S. citizens then they project, are actually calculating the ledger sheet on this ruinous regime and they will see that the expenditures quadruple the revenue for this folly, tax cuts for 43’s buddies only!

FOREIGN TRUTH!

This from the ©2003 Asia Times Online Co, Ltd., article, “THE ROVING EYE--The moment of truth - and lies”, by Pepe Escobar,

“CAIRO - Cynicism. Hypocrisy. Orwellian newspeak. As

photo-ops of political theater go, the Azores

micro-summit was somber. How apt a metaphor: three

isolated men in a remote island in the middle of the

Atlantic - the American behaving like a bully and the

two Europeans trying to bridge the unbridgeable.

As a show of unity, it was a fiasco. France, Germany and

Russia were not even invited. On Saturday, this

so-called "axis of peace" - helped by anti-war

demonstrations around the world - may have preempted

Azores with a call for a meeting of foreign ministers at

the Security Council; but then on Sunday US President

George W Bush, British Prime Minister Tony Blair and his

Spanish counterpart Jose Maria Aznar made their own

preemptive move against the United Nations.

Bush's dislike of the UN process was evident by his body

language and omission. The work of the weapons

inspectors was not even mentioned. The blame for the

diplomatic collapse was shifted to the ones who oppose

an illegal war. Bush implied that he does not need the

UN now because it does not fit his agenda. But he

explicitly said that he will go back to the UN to get

the expertise and the commitment to rebuild Iraq. He

conveniently forgot to mention the European Union -

whose main financial donors are none other than France

and Germany. The UN may be useful only for

nation-building - when Washington's attention span moves

from Iraq to the next war.

The whole Bush-Blair-Aznar argument rests on UN

resolution 1441, which superseded all previous

resolutions related to Iraq. Lawyers in the European

Union in Brussels, as well as 16 eminent British

academic lawyers, stress that 1441 specifically does not

authorize the use of military force. If it had been the

case, the resolution would never have been adopted. UN

Secretary General Kofi Annan has also stated the

obvious: if the US and UN go to war sidelining the UN,

they breach the UN charter. The conclusion on all

quarters - except Washington - is that such war is

illegal. And a supposed God-given mandate for regime

change and occupation of Iraq is also illegal.”, is only moderately disparaging of 43’s war.

On many Cable shows, Powell was spinning furiously that the war was not illegal, and that the U.N. Resolution 1441 sanctions this action. He neglected to mention the fact that The "Uniting for Peace" mechanism has been used ten times, most frequently on the initiative of the United States. If you are depending on the U.S. media only, this term means nothing to you. This procedure was adopted by the Security Council so that the UN can act even if the Security Council is stalemated. Resolution 377 provides that, if there is a "threat to peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression" and the permanent members of the Security Council do not agree on action, the General Assembly can meet immediately and recommend collective measures to U.N. members to "maintain or restore international peace and security."

ASK NOT FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS FOR IT TOLLS FOR US ALL!

Last week, before we were told that Terror Alert had been bumped up due to the upcoming war against Islam in Iraq, there was a huge black billowing cloud originating 3 blocks from me on the mall. One woman in my office, soaked a sweatshirt with water, wrapped it over her nose and mouth and ran off to the nearest subway. A guy in my group yelled at her not to do that because he was concerned that it could have been an explosion of chemical or biological weapons in the subway. I worked on projects to take my mind away from fear, and called my wife and told her about it and asked her to call me if she heard anything on the radio. The remaining 100 lost souls in my group went into an office and listened to the radio and looked up AP reports on the internet for the remainder of the day. We never heard what it was.

On March 18th, I woke up and immediately began listening to the news radio station. I didn’t want to waste my morning going to work if there was a terrorist strike. The news radio station had sketchy reports of someone driving a bomb laden van into the reflecting pool. It was 20 blocks from where I work, so I could go to work today.

Are all of us D.C. based Federal Government employees fools to continue in our jobs? Should we quit immediately?

I tell myself that the Ridge’s boys in blue will concentrate its efforts to protect the area around the white house and Capitol building. In Afghanistan, the central government area in Kabul is now the only place that country where people have security. Maybe I’m deluding myself, but I think the terrorists will attack the vast portions of the country that haven’t been invaded in the 9-11 attack. Part of me realizes that this is a rationalization, but maybe if I didn’t consciously hoodwink myself, I would not be able to function anymore, so I tell myself that our homeland security department has cordoned off the D.C. area, and all of you are the ones

FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS!

Bob Connors n323c@erols.com

2003-02-26T12:41:00.000-08:00

My No War Letter Sent to Texas Senators Today

Feb. 26, 2003

Dear Sens. Hutchison and Cornyn,

I am writing to urge you not to support our planned invasion of Iraq. We are the biggest military superpower by far, and we should not be abusing that power to bully much smaller countries, even those with regimes we do not like.
The Iraq problem can be solved peacefully through the United Nations, if we let that process work. If we can unilaterally attack another country because it MIGHT attack us, what's to stop another country from attacking us in the future because we MIGHT attack it? Such scenarios can only escalate into disaster for all of us.
There has been no credible evidence presented so far that bin Laden was aided by Hussein. Hussein is a secular Arab and does not share the same goals as bin Laden [why don't we focus more on finding bin Laden, by the way, rather than attacking another country?].
As for chemical and biological weapons, are we going to go into every country in that region, including Israel, and demand that they destroy all such weapons? Countries like Iraq have such weapons to try to balance the nuclear weapons that Israel has. Are we going to disarm our own weapons of mass destruction? Fat chance. So why are we hypocritically calling on other countries to do something we would never do?
Humans have long lived with terrorism. Black people were terrorized in our countries for centuries through slavery and the KKK. The Irish have terrorized the British over a land and occupation issue for decades. Terrorism is just something we have to live with, along with militarism, corporate elitism, and other trends. It does no good to fear - as Thoreau, FDR, and others said, fear is the main thing we should fear.
I supported military police actions to go after al Qaida, but I cannot in good conscience support us invading another country that is little threat to us. In fact, if we invade Iraq, we will cause that country and many more people around the world to become threats to us.
Such an invasion makes no sense. It's immoral - more than a million Iraqi kids have died due to sanctions and other measures since the Persian Gulf war and many more will die faster with such an invasion. This war goes against Christ's call to love our enemies and does not meet the criteria of a just war, as the Pope and others have said.
Sure, you can continue to support justifying such a war. You can continue to tell your lies that it's to stop terrorism and prevent future attacks. I don't buy such lies, and millions of other people around the world don't buy them, either. I'm afraid the Bush administration and people like you who support it are hell-bent on world domination and other selfish goals.
Like all empires, we will fall unless we truly embrace global cooperation and sincerely work with other nations on our immense problems.
Ultimately, you and others who support invading Iraq will have to answer to a higher power.

In peace,
Jackson Thoreau

U.S. hypocritically refuses to allow inspections of its weapons of mass destruction

The Washington Post reported that an international group of legislators, scientists and others recently tried to inspect an Army facility near Baltimore, Md., that trains and manufactures chemical weapons. The delegation of 13 legislators, scientists and academics, from countries including Britain, Italy, Canada and Denmark, insisted that their mission was neither stunt nor show. They said they had accomplished their goal: to protest a possible U.S. war with Iraq by highlighting what they consider the hypocrisy of U.S.-led efforts to force Iraq to relinquish weapons of mass destruction.
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0224-04.htm

Bush Faces Increasingly Poor Image Overseas

Check this photo out of one of the largest effigies of Bush that I’ve seen, which was carried in a Prague protest. Bush was his usual articulate self, saying, “Size of protest, it's like deciding, well, I'm going to decide policy based upon a focus group.” This is coming from someone who has to consult Karl Rove and others about when he can go to the bathroom.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A55326-2003Feb23.html

US bribing, blackmailing other countries for UN votes

This is not coming from me - it's from the Associated Press. Senior U.S. officials have been quietly dispatched in recent days to the capitals of key UN Security Council countries where they are warning leaders to vote with the United States on Iraq or risk "paying a heavy price." Countries such as Angola, Guinea and Cameroon — poor African countries whose concerns drew little attention before they landed seats on the council — are among those being pressured. Among the threats are cutting off foreign aid if they vote no, and giving more foreign aid if they vote yes, i.e. bribery and blackmail. This is the American way, right?
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0224-01.htm

Who said, "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself?"

A lot of people will say FDR in the 1930s. But FDR borrowed that from Thoreau, who said it almost 100 years before FDR, who was known to carry a volume of Thoreau’s works. And Thoreau probably borrowed it from others who said something similar before him.
For instance, in 1623, English philosopher Francis Bacon said, “Nothing is terrible except fear itself.”
And in 1580, Michel de Montaigne, a French Renaissance writer, said, “The thing I fear most is fear.” Montaigne’s quote is the earliest one I can locate. So there’s another contribution given to us by the French.

Pray for the world, not just the US

OK, I don’t have a problem with people praying for US troops, especially if you know someone over there. My problem comes when we refuse to pray for the other side. Christ said to pray for and love your enemies. Yet, something called the presidential prayer team at http://www.worldprayerteam.org/ shows only prayers for Bush and the US. That’s another example of the selfishness of such people: They think that God is only on their side. Someday I suspect we all will find out otherwise. If you want to contact this team, I found some email addresses at: Media@PresidentialPrayerTeam.org, lisa@theenvoygroup.com, lisa@worldprayerteam.org, and memberservices@worldprayerteam.org.

The Esteemed Howard Zinn writes

Among all the really great emails I have received lately was one from one of my favorite authors, Howard Zinn, Professor Emeritus of Political Science at Boston University, author of A People's History of the United States: 1492-Present and many other books, civil rights activist, and playwright. A People’s History was a big inspiration to me to co-author a similar book on Dallas in 1991 that a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist called “a good start at providing a history of Dallas for everyone” in a Dallas Morning News review. It was great to hear from Prof. Zinn, as he praised some of my writings.
I have included the comments of Prof. Zinn, fellow progressive journalist Lydia Howell, and others as promotional blurbs for the 120,000-word e-book I co-authored called We Will Not Get Over It: Restoring a Legitimate White House. Read them at http://www.geocities.com/jacksonthor/ebook.html – and feel free to support the cause.

Woman hoopster makes unpopular stand

Here is an interesting story on a women's college basketball player in New York making a silent protest against US injustice and the horrible treatment she has received from some fans who have harassed her and yelled at her, opponents who have called her a jerk, and others. It's at http://www.nyjournalnews.com/newsroom/022103/a0121protest.html or http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0221-07.htm.
As a former high school and college bball player myself, I know what kind of peer and outside pressure Toni Smith of Manhattanville College is under to conform and salute the flag before games. It takes a lot of courage to make such a stand. If you want to support her right to make such a statement, email lincolnc@mville.edu [her coach's email] president@mville.edu, brooksb@mville.edu, or athletics@mville.edu.

2003-02-20T13:45:00.000-08:00

Why is accused adulterer Joe “Gary Condit” Scarborough a Republican spokesman on Hardball?

Did anyone else object to seeing former Florida Republican Congressman Joe Scarborough – the Reps’ answer to Gary Condit – on MSNBC’s Hardball Tuesday as a party debate member against a Democratic Congresswoman from California on Iraq? That’s like the Democrats putting up fellow accused adulterer and former California Congressman Gary Condit.
Since Scarborough was forced to resign his seat in 2001 after an alleged extramarital affair with aide Lori Klausutis, who was FOUND DEAD IN HIS OFFICE WITH A MAJOR HEAD INJURY [Hello?? National media?? Anyone home??], Scarborough has found a good living as a Republican media whore on Hardball and other shows. Bush even appointed him to the President's Council on the 21st Century Workforce, where he serves with Labor Secretary Chao.
Meanwhile, Condit, whose mistress at least did not die in his office and was never linked to her disappearance, has been exiled, probably never to be heard from again.
Does anyone besides me see the hypocrisy in this treatment? Let me try to spell it out: You have two former Congressmen who had employees with whom they have been accused of having sex on the side die. One’s case was covered 24 hours a day by the national media, and he lives as a recluse. The other’s was barely mentioned inside the newspaper briefs section and nowhere on national TV, and he is a celebrated national party spokesman. Guess which one is a Democrat and which one is a Republican.
The hypocrisy by the national media and the Republican Party in this case is shameless, but not surprising. As Mary MacElveen pointed out in a October 2002 column on MikeHersh.com [see http://www.mikehersh.com/article_121.shtml], a Google search of Scarborough and Klausutis turned up exactly ZERO news articles. Meanwhile, a similar search of Condit and Chandra Levy had 18 news articles show then – when I checked recently it was up to 51.
There are a number of questions that DEMAND investigation in the Klausutis case, but only a few are asking them, much less investigating them. Chris George and Denis Wright did some excellent work that ran on American Politics Journal [see http://www.americanpolitics.com/20010808Klausutis.html] and Online Journal. Jennifer van Bergen wrote more on the case on Truthout.com [see http://www.truthout.org/docs_01/01.07B.Klausutis.3.htm]. Gil Christner provided a great chart that contrasts the media’s treatment of Condit and Scarborough in an article on Democratic Underground [see http://www.democraticunderground.com/articles/02/03/25_tape.html].
Among the questions is why the desk, which officials say caused Klausutis’ death after she fainted and hit it, was nowhere near her body. Another is why Fort Walton Beach Police Chief Steve Hogue initially said that a preliminary investigation into Klausutis' death did not turn up any evidence of trauma to her body. That was before Medical Examiner Michael Berkland’s autopsy showed clear evidence of severe trauma to the head – including a seven-and-a-half-inch fracture across the top of the head. Berkland said that Klausutis had an "undiagnosed cardiac arrhythmia” that halted her heart and stopped her breathing before the blow to her head. Berkland himself raises questions, including why his license was revoked in Missouri and why he was suspended in Florida.
Another question is why did Scarborough divorce his wife shortly before this incident, then say he was resigning from Congress to “spend more time with my family” after Klausutis died? It doesn’t seem like there is much family left when you get divorced, at least not the way it was before.
A final question: Does anyone else get mad when they see Scarborough smugly issuing some arch-conservative rhetoric on TV these days?

Thank God for France, but not for ‘spokesfascist’ Sean Hannity

Writing in the Russian Journal, Matt Taibbi points out the contrast between how the U.S. press has treated France, compared to Russia and Germany, which are making similar stands against Bush Inc.’s immoral invasion of Iraq. As Taibbi says, the vitriol being heaved France’s way “is of a rare and spectacular variety. Short of a call for an actual invasion of France, it couldn’t get any worse.”
Taibbi also scores points with me by calling Fox News’ Sean Hannity a “spokesfascist.” He’s not the first to use that term – man, I wish I had come up with that label. I guess I’ll have to be content with being the one to give the world the term “Republicanazis,” which I coined the majority party to mock Limbaugh calling feminists “feminazis” shortly after Bush Inc. stole the White House in Dec. 2000.
Anyways, Taibbi’s column was recently chosen as my “Column or Article of the Day.” Read it at http://www.therussiajournal.com/index.htm?obj=35220&type=3&sid=812154540157608838998533&cat=8

More than 2 million workers laid off again in 2002

As the media focuses so much attention on Iraq as the Republicans want, few have noticed that more than 2 million people were again laid off in 2002. The U.S. Labor Department reported in its final mass layoff press release in late December that 2 million people were laid off between January 2002 and November 2002.
Since the mass layoff program was canceled by the Bush administration, supposedly due to lack of funds [c’mon, they can find funds to jet Bush and others around the country to campaign for Republicans and take vacations, but they can’t find money just to record some important statistics??], in late 2002, we can only speculate about the total. A whole month of uncounted layoffs probably put the number to 2.2 million, a little below the 2.4 million reached in 2001.
Many of these companies that lay off workers still make nice profits. The firm that laid me off in 2001 because it only broke even that year made $131 million last year.

The Esteemed Howard Zinn writes

Among all the really great emails I have received lately was one from one of my favorite authors, Howard Zinn, Professor Emeritus of Political Science at Boston University, author of A People's History of the United States: 1492-Present and many other books, civil rights activist, and playwright. A People’s History was a big inspiration to me to co-author a similar book on Dallas in 1991 that a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist called “a good start at providing a history of Dallas for everyone” in a Dallas Morning News review. It was great to hear from Prof. Zinn, as he praised some of my writings.
I have included the comments of Prof. Zinn, fellow progressive journalist Lydia Howell, and others as promotional blurbs for the 120,000-word e-book I co-authored called We Will Not Get Over It: Restoring a Legitimate White House. Read them at http://www.geocities.com/jacksonthor/ebook.html – and feel free to support the cause.

Police brutality at New York peace rally

Reports of police brutality in New York during Saturday's peace march that authorities stopped before it began have surfaced. That causes more concern for people like me who believe in giving more than lip service to that “liberty and justice for all” phrase in our pledge. You can read about the police using pepper spray and charging the crowd on horses yourself at http://nyc.indymedia.org/.

2003-02-18T06:37:00.000-08:00

Here is my report of the Dallas peace march Saturday, probably the largest anti-war rally that city has seen. A shorter version is up on AlterNet at http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=15197.

People around the world have spoken in numbers that Bush can’t continue to ignore

By Jackson Thoreau

You could say I’m a veteran of peace demonstrations. Since the early 1980s, I estimate that I have participated in more than 200 such rallies and marches around the world, from Dallas to Washington, D.C., to New York City to London to Paris to Berlin to Moscow to New Dehli.
Some, like many in my resident city of Dallas, Tx., have been relatively small, but important nonetheless. Others, like in D.C. and European cities, have been massive. In some, we didn’t march. In others, we marched for miles.
But on Saturday, Feb. 15, I have to say I emerged from the largest demonstration I’ve ever attended in Dallas with more hope that our situation will improve than ever before. It wasn’t just that 5,000 or so people from one of the most right-wing areas of the world, the former home of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney and the fictional J.R. Ewing and many others who represent cold-hearted, selfish economic and political policies, had braved the wind and cold and threats and everything else to make a statement to Bush Inc. that a blood-for-oil-personal-revenge-world-domination-military-boost war against economic-sanctions-wracked Iraq was unacceptable.
It was the wide array of people from all walks of life represented – high school students showing they cared about more than their own problems, soccer moms protesting for the first time, retired school teachers, professionals in suits, war veterans, parents who also brought their young children as I did – that gave me the most hope.
Bush can continue to ignore veteran activists and liberals like me. But he can’t ignore the independent suburban voters, the kind who don’t vote straight-ticket Republican or any other political party.
Bush can’t ignore people like Virginia Abdo, a 68-year-old retired teacher from University Park, a wealthy suburb right next to the ‘burb where Cheney lived until he helped steal the White House. When people like Abdo carry signs like, "Old Euro-Americans Want Peace, Too,” Bush has to take notice, or risk being another one-term Bush president.
Bush can’t ignore people like Virginia Barnett, a 49-year-old graphics technician from Dallas who attended a peace rally at the memorial for assassinated former President John F. Kennedy for the first time in her life on Saturday. He can’t ignore Harold Jones, an 81-year-old World War II veteran who carried a sign that read “Brains Not Bombs.” He can’t ignore Jason Lantz, a computer systems administrator running for a City Council position in Plano, a city north of Dallas even more conservative than the latter. Lantz proudly displayed his “No War in Iraq” button as he spoke about his campaign.
These are people who know that to solve our problems, it will take more than duct tape and plastic sheets and tax cuts for the wealthy and corporate paybacks to campaign contributors and phony terrorism alerts that seek to divert attention from the real problems and immoral, bullying invasions of far weaker opponents.
Bush and British leaders like Tony Blair can’t ignore the estimated 2 million people who jammed London’s streets, the largest by far protest ever in that city [police put the crowd at less than 1 million, but they always low-ball demonstrations]. They can’t ignore the estimated 3 million people at a massive protest in Rome, probably the largest demonstration in world history. There were another 500,000 or so people each at more gigantic rallies in New York, Berlin, Madrid, and Barcelona.
The major media couldn’t ignore such numbers, and Bush can’t either. Even the Dallas Morning News and Fort Worth Star-Telegram, which ignore most protests, covered the rallies.
Bush, Blair, and others can’t ignore the other protests in the other more than 350 cities around the world that were largely without arrests – the most boisterous rally was in Athens, Greece, where police fired tear gas at demonstrators. Speakers stuck to the message that we don’t support Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, but war is not an answer when that country has not attacked us.
That’s a message we must adhere to if we want to broaden this movement even farther. We must not give the right-wing any ammunition that would allow them to tell more lies about how we are supposedly anti-American. I believe the people who came out and practiced their democratic rights on Saturday are more American than those who sat on their butts and criticized them. We must continue to display our flags with pride, showing we are patriots who care about more than the selfish, violent agenda pushed by Bush Inc. When someone tells me to go protest in Baghdad or some other country, I answer that I am an American who pays taxes that support Bush's policies, and I have a responsibility here to protest those policies if I believe they are wrong. Furthermore, the US was born on protests, such as the Boston Tea Party of 1770, and those who tell me I am anti-American for engaging in protests are ignoring our country's history.
We must continue to remind Christians who support bombing Iraq of Christ’s messages to “love your enemies” and “blessed are the peacemakers.” We must also continue to remind others from other rligions like Osama bin Laden that they must stop their violent acts, as well.
Organizers with various peace groups around the world – including the Dallas Coalition Against the War in Iraq, the North Texas Coalition for a Just Peace, and the Dallas Peace Center that coordinated the Dallas one – deserve much praise and support. Saturday’s demonstrations were successful beyond most people’s wildest dreams.
Even if Bush Inc. continues its path of bullying Iraq and other countries, millions of people stood up to the Bush bullies in unprecedented numbers Saturday. They will remember come election time.
Even more importantly, history will remember us as people who stood up for peace, justice, humanity, and international goodwill in the face of the Bush Inc. regime that seeks to be another empire, like the British and Roman and others, that enslaves and dominates the planet. Such a stand against tyrants – and Bush is a tyrant, even if he appears benevolent on the surface to some people - is always worth making, no matter what occurs in the future.
Jackson Thoreau is co-author of We Will Not Get Over It: Restoring a Legitimate White House. The updated, 120,000-word electronic book can be downloaded on his Internet site at www.geocities.com/jacksonthor/ebook.htmltizens for Legitimate Government has the earlier version at http://www.legitgov.org/we_will_not_get_over_it.html. Thoreau can be emailed at jacksonthor@justice.com.

2003-02-18T06:31:00.000-08:00

Email from an American supporting the invasion of Iraq:

I think the taking sides over issues could go on and on as each of us have their own ideas on things. I very much respect the opinions of others, and hope I get the same in return.
I give my opinion, but do not pretend to be totally informed on all issues.. I let that up to those that have years of experience in government matters. I had an uncle very high up in the military. He often spoke of how those misinformed or lack of information can harm what those government officials try to do. He also told us all that we do NOT know all the facts and shouldn't. There are things that we all do not know of the comings and goings of these people the US is trying to handle.
So I often rely on our government to do what should be done. Too many people are
"Arm Chair politicians" and so called experts that think they have all the right answers when in fact know nothing but misguided information from the press or , God Forbid, these post areas.
No one wants killings thru war or harming even one individual. But I feel rather them then us and there WILL be an us if we don't get busy and out of the negotiating tables. There already have been " us " with 911. They caught us with our Pants down so to speak. That cannot happen again but its going to and by Iraq. I am amazed at how blind so many people are. With Bin Laden and Saddam, there is no such thing as peace. They do not want peace, nor do they care.. They kill their own all the time.... People need to wake up to that fact. They do NOT care. The cannot be dealt with peacefully, and don't want to.
Those thousands that may be killed in Iraq if we go to war, are those that actually spit on American flags. TV cameras have caught KIDS in action against Americans and other countries. Those are the future? Hope not.
This country has to take care of its own and I hope and pray that they do.
I often wonder how the peace activists will feel as well as France and others that oppose any action, when the terrorists attack and hit maybe one of their own. And its going to happen. Or when Iraq surprises a few of these countries, and our own. We NEED to be ready or take first step.
We shouldnt be preparing for the results of attacks but preparing for our fight for our own freedom.
That post area is full of nut cases and I hope it is screened by the FBI. I heard it was. Some of these people need to be checked into.

Jackson's response:

I just don't believe in giving blind trust to our government. Our government has lied to us so many times, from Vietnam to Watergate to Contragate to Monicagate to this Iraq situation. It has little credibility in my book.
Furthermore, it was a Republican president, Theodore Roosevelt, who said, "To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by the president right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public."
There are times when war is just such as WWII when we were actually attacked and the german nazis really threatened to take over the world. You can't tell me that tiny Iraq with its $1.4 billion annual military budget, compared to our $400 billion, is going to take over the world. It's more likely that some US leaders want us to take over the world.
Terrorism has always been with us. Ask any black person in this country about terrorism. They have been terrorized for centuries by white people in slavery and then the KKK. They have been taken from their homes, stripped of dignity, killed, beaten, etc. That's terrorism. Ask the British about the Irish terrorists. No matter what they do, the Irish have still committed terrorism since the 1920s. Many Irish see the British as immoral invaders of their land. And they find a way to fight back because they know the British would slaughter them in a conventional war. Same with Arabs against Israel. Why don't we get Israel to destroy all of its weapons of destruction? Israel won't disarm so why should Arab nations?
The bottom line is that Iraq presents no imminent danger to my country or any others that would justify a war. Iraqi disarmament issues can be solved peacefully through the United Nations. An attack on Iraq would only fuel extremism around the world and increase acts of terrorism.
And watch out for supporting crackdowns by the FBI on people like me who only exercise our constitutional rights. Someday you might not have a leader in the white house you agree with and you might want to speak out against him.

2003-02-16T20:56:00.000-08:00

His Excellency Ambassador Jean-Marc de la Sabliere
Permanent Mission of France to the United Nations
245 East 47th Street
New York, NY 10017

Dear Ambassador Jean-Marc de la Sabliere:

As a 43-year-old American citizen born in Washington, D.C., and now living in Dallas, Tx., I want to thank you for supporting the United Nations inspection process in regards to Iraq. I also thank you for opposing the attack the United States government obviously wants to carry out against Iraq.
I know your country has been unjustly vilified by some Americans because of your position. I want to make it clear that many Americans like me support your position. Just last Saturday, Feb. 15, I participated in the largest peace demonstration in Dallas history. Several signs praised France's efforts. One said, "Viva la France!"
Many Americans forget our history, particularly how if it was not for France, Great Britain would have probably won the American Revolutionary War of the 18th century. I am well aware of that history and of our countries' links. I think it is important to remember our bonds during such times. I often remind my fellow Americans of your country's role in helping to secure my country's independence and your importance in history.
It is also important to have differences of opinions between leaders of different countries to provide checks and balances so that no country becomes a world empire again. While some Americans want our country to dominate the world, many of us want to be a good global citizen that works well with other nations to create a more just and peaceful world.
I urge you not to waver in the face of intense U.S. pressure. Iraq presents no imminent danger to my country or any others that would justify a war. Iraqi disarmament issues can be solved peacefully through the United Nations. An attack on Iraq would only fuel extremism around the world and increase acts of terrorism.
Sincerely,

Jackson Thoreau
Dallas, Tx.

2003-02-10T17:00:00.000-08:00

Time for Action: Impeach Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Ashcroft

Ramsey Clark, former U.S. Attorney General during the Johnson Administration has drafted articles of impeachment setting forth high crimes and misdemeanors by President Bush and other civil officers of his administration.
The U.S. Constitution provides the means for preventing George W. Bush from engaging in a war of aggression against Iraq, and from advancing a first strike potentially nuclear preemptive war. It's called impeachment.

High Crimes and Misdemeanors
Impeachment is the direct constitutional means for removing a President, Vice President or other civil officers of the United States who has acted or threatened acts that are serious offenses against the Constitution, its system of government, or the rule of law, or that are conventional crimes of such a serious nature that they would injure the Presidency if there was no removal.

A Constitutional Imperative
Impeachment appears six times in the U.S. Constitution. The Founders weren't concerned with anything more than with impeachment because they had lived under King George III and had in 1776 accused the king of all the things that George W. Bush wants to do: Usurpation of the power of the people; Being above the law; Criminal abuse of authority.

Power Remains in the Hands of the People
Impeachment is the means by which We The People of the United States and our elected representatives in Congress can prevent further crimes by the President and the human catastrophe they threaten and force accountability for crimes committed.

Save the Constitution, the U.N., and Countless Human Lives
Congressional proceedings for impeachment can bring about open, fearless consideration of the most dangerous acts and threats ever committed by an American President. If courageously pursued, they can save our Constitution, the United Nations, the rule of law, the lives of countless people and leave open the possibility of peace on earth.

The Time for Action is Now
Each of us must take a stand on impeachment now, or bear the burden of having failed to speak in this hour of maximum peril.

TO TAKE ACTION to impeach Bush and Co., click here: http://votetoimpeach.org/

2003-02-04T14:40:00.000-08:00

CNN bias against Clinton

It was clear on NBC's Dateline that NASA engineer Don Nelson wrote Bush last year -- begging for presidential intervention in the shuttle program because of safety problems. Bush ignored the plea for help.
But last night on CNN, they showed a picture of Clinton 3 years ago (and none of Bush) just before the engineer said, "I wrote the president."
CNN -- "the most trusted source for news" -- needs to be held accountable for manipulating the public and for hiding Bush's negligence.
You can comment by e-mailing cnn@cnn.com.
Connie C.S.
Illinois

2003-02-04T14:24:00.000-08:00

More on Bush, the Iraq war, and other matters:

43 will get the boob vote, as being one they identify with him, and HERR ROVE knows how, and when, to appeal to them!
Anyone who has to write more than a paragraph to summarize 43’s state of the union address doesn’t get it! His only audience, ever, is the vast, missing in action, U.S.-boob-tube-viewing, beer-swilling citizens. Those primarily, red state drones, who identify with their disinterested role model, the failed son, of an awful, “vision challenged” the loser, Poppy 41, are the only people who matter to HERR ROVE. The plan is to get the scene of our young boys in body bags dying for Iraqi oil, finished by mid-spring of 2003.
That will give 43 plenty of time to steal more money for the top 1%, primarily via tax cuts, before he starts his 2004 campaign of lies. These tax cuts are also excellent at reducing the dwindling source of money for the domestic budgets—which the GOP has always wanted to slash. 43 can look us in the eye and say the tax cuts will stimulate the economy--in fact he could take a polygraph test to that effect, because in his distorted reality, the top 1%, his “Pioneer buddies, is the entire world! What he can’t give them in tax cuts he can filter their way through defense contracts to his Carlyle buddies, and other means, such as ripping off the elderly by giving the pharmaceuticals all of the money they can stuff in their pockets for prescription drugs, and letting corporate executives write policy for their financial benefit, such as “Kenny Boy” fleecing, principally California, for Enron’s benefit! If 43 can look us in the eye and say his S.E.C. is doing swell on policing corporate crimes, then he can lie about anything else. HERR ROVE knows if you are in for a penny you’re in all of the way, and a huge lie, convincingly told, to stupid morons, is all the GOP needs to swing the 2004 election. They don’t have to be artful or particularly compelling debates, because the GOP propaganda machine includes 99% of the mass media!
Democrats have to win in 2004 to restore peace to the world!
If the world is to have a chance, the Democrats better learn now, to get sound bite messages, directed at people who they can sway, because that is all that the dolts can be expected to absorb. If we don’t win in 2004, the world will be in danger. In a survey in England recently, the U.S., not Hussein or bin laden, was voted to be the major source of threat in the world. That is a survey in the one country in which its leader, Blair, has steadfastly supported the boob’s 2nd Bush family against Iraq war! At least 41 had a tissue paper thin excuse for that war. He could garble, “We can’t let naked aggression stand!”, while Bob Dole who was eyeing the next election said that the war was for Iraq’s oil. 41 muzzled Dole.
Have to get the message out even though the GOP media favorably covers 43 exclusively!
Now, 43 has all of the mass media, with few exceptions, under his influence. When HERR ROVE gives Limbaugh, Hammity, the Washington Times and the Wall Street Journal the instruction on how to spin 43’s state of the union address, and they all parrot it exactly the same way, it is pretty clear. Now, 10 GOP oriented companies own 90% percent of the media. It is the nightmare that the book “Citizen Kane” foretold, media magnates winning elections for their chosen ones. It is FOX’s Roger Allies writing 43 love letters after 9-11 explaining to the boob how he could use the tragedy for his political advantage. It is the GOP Iran-Contra war criminal, Ollie North getting a high paying gig on FOX and hosting a show, War Heroes”. It is 43 appointing another GOP war criminal, Kissinger, who had millions of people’s blood on his filthy hands, as head of 9-11 and the media not revolting against the evil hypocrisy of that selection! It is the media letting 43 and 41’s appointed U.S. Supreme Court judges, stealing the 2000 election and telling the person, who was cheated, to concede defeat early, rather than upset the country. The country has been ruined since that day! If that atrocity had happened in a 3rd world country, the U.S. would have supervised a new election, but here the media supports a fool therefore being complicit stealing the election!
Lies all of the time about Iraq!
For public attribution, about the upcoming Cheney U.N. speech, a U.S. official said, speaking on condition of anonymity , "There are some countries, some elements of public opinion, that think the U.S. needs a smoking gun of some sort," . "Well we don't have a smoking gun and Powell's not coming with it."
Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, "No one will be able to evade the absolute conclusion about Saddam Hussein's denial, deception, his absolute lack of willingness to show any sign of disarmament motive in his mind". Does this amount to reasons for starting a war? The world doesn’t think so.
That means the poor soul, Colin Powell, who started out as the voice of reason against the Bush neo-con hawks, will have to convince the U.N. with card tricks or sleight of hand. The U.N. won’t buy Powell’s speech, but some of them, let’s pray not many, will take U.S. money, to approve of this upcoming war. Armitrage, a neo-con insider with 43, also admitted that much of what 43 said, in the state of the union lie/drivel regarding the justifications for the 2nd Iraq war, was not clearly based on facts. Armitrage also said that the 43 team should back off on the lie they have been spewing for months about Iraq having tubing that according to 43 team, “can only be intended for nuclear uses.“. In an article, representative of objective reality, dated September 23, 2002, “Aluminum Tubing Is an Indicator of an Iraqi Gas Centrifuge Program: But Is the Tubing Specifically for Centrifuges?”, this quote shows the truth, “Other U.S. intelligence and nuclear analysts, however, have challenged the conclusion that the tubes could only be intended for a gas centrifuge program. These analysts have concluded that although the tubes may have been intended for gas centrifuges, they are "dual-use" items that could have been intended for non-nuclear uses. Some experts said that the tubes could be for conventional artillery rockets. Thus, the dispute is whether enough evidence exists to state that the tubes were definitely ordered for the gas centrifuge program“. They have been lying about this since the spring of 2002, and the media has allowed them to!
You hear them mumble about protecting sources and methods. Does getting a few new sources and methods cost as much as the $100 billion contribution that our allies made to Iraq 1? Bloody perfidy, it doesn’t, but the mass media doesn’t ever mention this! WHY?
Lying about a war, for Bush’s ratings, and his Carlyle buddies to make a few bucks, will cost us our youth’s blood ! How can the media not be all over this?
Admitting that they are lying about Iraq!
Armitrage is the first insider who has admitted openly, recently, that 43’s team is not saying things that are clearly based on facts, Isn’t that double-speak for lying? For months we have known that the junk dribbling out of 43’s team is not at all related to the truth. We have seen articles about how the CIA information is being altered by the spinners for 43’s speeches. We have seen the Pentagon open, and be forced to close, an “Office of Disinformation”. We have seen how 43 is trying to get the CIA to get facts, and alter them however they want, to agree with his rationale of attacking Iraq. The CIA, which has never been known to be obsessed with the truth, can’t force itself to agree with 43. As a matter of fact the CIA is clearly warning the world that the only sure way to get Hussein to use his weapons of mass destruction is by starting a war purportedly to prevent him from using his weapons of mass destruction . This makes my head hurt! It is a failed syllogism in Philosophy 101, but the dolt would never have been bothered with following the rules of logic!
Guess what--43 tried to get his “faith based initiative: passed by Congress. When they threw it out 43, made it an executive order. If they want to lie to the public about Iraq they will and they then won’t have to worry about a current day Ellsburg getting them for lying, as they are spinning that they have to lie to get the world to understand its pious, sanctimonious line of lies for Iraq 2! I’ve even heard them say that they are trying to bring peace to Iraq! When the bombs start hitting the cities, and the collateral damage gets out of control, they will be self-righteously lying fools and mumble that they had to accept these numbers of casualties. The war, they will proclaim, was necessary to protect us, and our allies, from the country, Iraq, that barely has a pot to piss in, and the entire world is satisfied with keeping under control simply with maintaining the sanctions and the inspections regimes!
A source that hasn’t been seen in the U.S. GOP controlled print media and will never be seen on the Cable boob tube shows!
In the January 31, 2003 article, “Global Eye -- Kean Insight” by Chris Floyd , he writes about retired New Jersey Governor Thomas Kean, being named Kissinger's 9-11 Investigation replacement. Kean is described as a "safe pair of hands," by the professional spinners in the mainstream media. Floyd continues, “Fortune Magazine reports this week that both Kean and Bush share an unusually well-placed business partner: one Khalid bin Mahfouz -- perhaps better known as "Osama bin Laden's bagman" or even "Osama bin Laden's brother-in-law." He concludes that, “ Kean is a director of Amerada Hess, an oil giant married up to Saudi Arabia's Delta Oil in a venture to pump black gold in Azerbaijan. (The partnership is incorporated in a secretive offshore "tax haven," natch. You can't expect a worthy like Kean to pay taxes like some grubby wage slave.)” Clinton desperately tried to reign in these offshore dodges, but the GOP controlled Congress wouldn’t go along with it. One of those cut-outs was Mahfouz factotum James Bath, a partner in George W.'s early oil venture, Arbusto, who has admitted serving as a pass-through for secret Saudi money. It is easy to keep connecting the dots when you see that years later, when Bush's maladroit business skills were about to sink another of his companies, Harken Energy, the firm was saved by a $25 million investment from a Swiss bank -- a subsidiary of the Bank of Credit and Commerce International, partly owned by the beneficent Mahfouz. The U.S. Senate labeled BCI as, "one of the largest criminal enterprises in history". It doesn’t end there as Floyd concludes that, “ Somehow we doubt that worthy Kean will poke very hard at the nexus of intersections between his own business partner, Mahfouz, and the bin Ladens, the Bushes, the Saudi royals, Saddam, the CIA and BCCI.”.
Why will this not be investigated?!
43 controls the media. Like the old TV show, “Outer Limits”, HERR ROVE tells us what we can view and his spinners explain to the boob tube fools what the proper explanation of the facts are. HERR ROVE wants 43 to get some extra bucks now in case he does not win in 2004 and the U.S. Supreme Court can’t steal the presidency again. The bottom line is all GOP thugs know!
Bob Connors

2003-01-29T16:10:00.000-08:00

My letter to Comcast, a cable TV firm in the DC area that refused to run some ads paid for by Peace Action Education Fund:

Comcast
Mitchell_Schmale@cable.comcast.com

Dear Mitchell Schmale,

I am writing to express my extreme displeasure at your company's undemocratic decision not to run the ad in which people voiced their opposition to the Iraqi invasion. That was obviously a political act by your company to score points with the Bush administration.

Don't give me that BS lie about unsubstantiated claims. Every ad run on TV has unsubstantiated claims, if you want to see it that way. Bush's speech was full of unsubstantiated claims.

As part of the media, you should not be working in concert with the government. You should be a watchdog. I have worked in the media as a reporter for 23 years so I know what I'm talking about. I find decisions like yours extremely disheartening and contributing to the loss of democracy in our country.

Please tell your company's execs to refrain from making such a decision in the future.

Sincerely,

Jackson Thoreau

Satire of the Day on Bush's Mis-State of the Dis-Union Address:

http://www.democracymeansyou.com/satire/explainified.htm

ACTION ALERT: Join an international, mass-movement, flyer action against the invasion of Iraq.

http://www.thealliancefordemocracy.org/html/eng/1964-AA.shtml

2003-01-28T11:38:00.000-08:00

GOP Decoder for Bush's bogus State of the Union address

When 43 gives his, all lies, all of the time, State of the Union Address, here is the key to understanding it! He will give all of the money to the top 1%, his “Pioneer” contributors.

Domestic policy
He will give all of the money to the top 1%! He will slash all domestic policy budgets. WHY? To fund them adequately he would not be able to give all of the money to the top 1%.
His welfare policy is to give all of the money to the top 1%, even though they don’t need it! His bogus “economic stimulus” policy is to give all of the money to the top 1%, even though they won’t spend it and therefore won’t stimulate the economy.
His “leave no child behind policy” won’t work because he is giving all of the money to the top 1%, so there is no money to adequately fund this purported priority of his. Prescription drugs, Medicare and Social Security enhancements, Energy and Environment policies, have one thing in common, he will give all of the money to the top 1%.
These programs only will be funded so as to help the service providers, who luckily have been given the authority to write the policies, and they will shaft the people who have to use the alleged services.
There is a tax cut for the rich while increasing the taxes on the “lucky duckies” who make less than $18,000 a year.
Now this latest scam takes balls! He sanctimoniously uses the same evil phrases that Goldwater, Nixon, Reagan, 41 used about “tough love”, and making the down and out be responsible for their future. Conservatism means trying to keep things the same, and this group just rehashes earlier jargon, failed criminals and stupid policies, ad-infinitum. It has always been a crock!

Compassionate Conservatism
He will give all of the money to the top 1%. Poppy 41’s “thousand points of light”, Reagan’s empty, “just say no” anti-drug campaign, and 43’s “Compassionate Conservatism”, all are the same. They cost nothing and will provide the same!
Are all of the eerily silent of protest liberal media in cahoots? Can’t be -- because as of now they have been virtually non-existent in detailing all of the obvious crimes of this current group! Even with their complicity with the GOP on Dec. 2, 2002, all of the major newspapers reported about the Esquire article in which a 43 flunky, John DiIulio, a former high-level official in the Bush administration, charges Bush with "a virtual absence as yet of any policy accomplishments that might, to a fair-minded nonpartisan, count as the flesh on the bones of so-called compassionate conservatism."
The very evil ploy of passing as an executive order, his “faith-based initiatives”, will soon be used to distract a few stupid, uninterested voters for him in 2004, while he is cutting back all of their social services. He says that he cares for us while he is letting our elderly parents decide between eating dog food or having a prescription medicine.
Soon, only a select few people will have jobs because of the way 43 is destroying our economy. Coming on schedule is his plot that only a few will be able to afford to send their children to a school in which they can get a decent education. This is all working swell in 43’s plan to have a tiny ultra-rich class and the rest of the U.S. shining their shoes and begging for handouts -- dying before our time because of lack of medicine and medical care, and being blown up by terrorists and as soldiers in the “everlasting war against terrorism."

Foreign policy
He will give all of the money to the top 1%. This lazy, disinterested goof, who while running for president just two years ago, was criticized for being completely inept in foreign policy, is now being praised by the GOP as being an international genius.
He is choosing wars for oil as it has worked out swell with the Afghanistan, Turkmenistan oil project. Soon he hopes he will have his hands on Iraq’s oil. His duplicitous Texas oil buddies have their dirty little fingers in these pies, and 43 will get his cut! His wars are nicely profiting Poppy and his Carlyle pals.
Ending the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) treaty blew up in his face, as the Democrats warned. Their valid concern was the United States could trigger a new arms race by abandoning the treaty. It would cause a proliferation in the nuclear capabilities of countries who could rightfully justify there actions by saying that they needed more nuclear warheads to be on an open playing field with the U.S. This entire policy has already failed! Star Wars produced nothing! Our Navy Department gave up on its version of Star Wars.
If 43 doesn’t want to honor international treaties, such as the ABM treaty and the Kyoto environmental treaty, then the world has every justification to call him the “bullying Cowboy moron” -- as they have, and this sort of backlash will continually happen.

Intelligence Altering for Iraq 2 and Gathering
The U.S. foreign Intelligence gathering agency, the CIA, have been under increasing pressure to come up with anything, be it based in fact or not, that supports the foolish push toward a second Iraq war. They can’t!
As a matter of fact, they say that the only way that Hussein will use his weapons of mass-destruction is if we invade them. Isn’t that as bizarre as a convoluted Kafka novel, or at least in the genre of the double-speak Orwellian tale?
The only way that we get the only action we don’t want is if we push forward in a war that the whole world is begging us not to do. Somehow we can’t stop, although it would be truly easy to do so, as this wrong course of action on our part is the only way that we can seemingly go in 43’s insane world.
The Pentagon's war against the CIA relies heavily on intelligence from the Iraqi National Congress. Sadly, most intelligence gathering hands with long experience in dealing with that country's tumultuous politics consider the INC's intelligence-gathering abilities to be nearly nil. Yet, Perle, Woolsey and the Pentagon's policy-makers increasingly use the INC as their primary source of information about Iraq's weapons programs, its relationship to terrorism and its internal political dynamics. The gibberish and lies find their way into 43’s mouth and spewed out to us as the truth!
Under the Homeland Security Act a top-secret Pentagon program known as Total Information Awareness, run by convicted Iran-Contra criminal, Dr. Poindexter, hopes to have a computer system ready as early as 2004, potentially giving Uncle Sam the powers of Big Brother, the omnipresent state in George Orwell's 1984. Poindexter, who was let go by the judges appointed by 43’s Poppy, never saw a law he didn’t break if it slowed him down! He will have a database of all of us, and who will have access to it? The GOP will use it just as they had Nixon’s lists during his evil regime.

Homeland Security
The history of this is truly evil! Why haven’t the moderate newspapers blown the lid off of this? This Office of Homeland Security, was squashed by the GOP for nine months, with all of 43’s operatives arguing that no department was needed. Why all of this perfidy? HERR ROVE planned it so that the GOP, particularly the boob front-man, could use it against the Democrats in the 2002 mid-term elections.
Who could ever forget the ROVE inspired treachery that the GOP used to beat Max Cleland? Then there was the sudden, politically-timed reversal in June 2002. This resulted in the most significant reorganization of the federal government since the creation of the Department of Defense, receiving talking-points caliber deliberation. The evil GOP then attached evil, non-related to Homeland Security riders to their bill. The riders got the pharmaceutical companies off the hook, particularly Eli Lilly. What does that have to do with Homeland Security? As far as a reasonable person can see nothing, but the pharmaceutical companies paid their way into 43’s favor by contributing to the GOP coffers.

Rehabilitating GOP criminals
Poindexter, Otto Reich and Ollie North are GOP criminals who have been rehabilitated to serve big brother 43, the first two in governmental positions and the third being connected with 43’s buddy, Roger Allies at Fox! You remember him as the guy who wrote 43 the love letter after 9-11 instructing the fool to use the tragedy to his advantage.

9-11 Investigation
Speaking of GOP thugs from yesteryear how can we forget Kissinger? During Tricky Dick’s evil regime this thug was responsible for trying to stop Ellsburg’s release of the Pentagon Papers. The world considers him to be a war-criminal. Who else would 43 hand pick to lead the 9-11 Investigation?

SEC
Just as with Kissinger, Harvey Pitts was the guy who would let all of the GOP criminals off! That is why he was chosen! He had to recuse himself from so many of the SEC investigations because of conflicts of interests that it soon became apparent that he was appointed not to crackdown on corporate crime, but to facilitate them.
So his policies stink and have one goal: He will give all of the money to the top 1%. If you are not in that select group, don’t vote for him!
Bob Connors

2003-01-28T11:07:00.000-08:00

Another response to the "compassionate conservative" who calls Clinton a "rapist," among other charges

I'd take a closer look into these allegation claiming President Clinton helped Enron and McAuliffe bailed out of Global Crossing "just before" they went bankrupt. In fact, Clinton prevented Enron from moving intro California and "raping" that state. Bush opened the door to the $billion swindle, which would dwarf any special favors Enron supposedly got under Clinton. Just like the Clinton "rapes." It never happened.
Enron and other multinationals make their own deals with foreign nations -- like Cheney's Haliburton made a sweet deal to help Saddam Hussein just a few years ago. Of course Cheney lies about that. Also, Bush's oil buddied met with the Taliban in Texas as recently as 1997!
Terry McAuliffe never was an officer of Global, he was a venture capitalist -- a Republican hero in every regard -- who put up seed money for all sorts of ventures. Most failed, giving him a negative return but one was a "home run," and paid off very very well.
Contrast that against Bush's insider status when he traded on special knowledge, breaking a vow not to capitalize illegally on his role on the auditing committee, and violating the advice of the Harken corporate attorneys who called selling stock in that time period illegal insider trading.
Bush still won't tell us who bought his huge cache of stock! Not so oddly, the SEC run by his father's pals chose not to investigate this matter. At all. I think Martha Stewart has a good claim for unequal protection under the law, as she wasn't even an insider like Bush!
Of course, Enron supported Bush and the GOP much more than they ever supported Clinton, Gore or the Democrats.
Kenny Boy Lay stayed over at the Bush I White House -- not the Clinton White House as some tried to claim. AWOL Bush did indeed have business relations with that man, Kenny Boy Lay, then Bush lied about them. Put him under oath and ask just how close those relations were, and his roles in Harken and the "Funeralgate" matter -- shall we?
Mike Hersh
www.MikeHersh.com

2003-01-27T16:16:00.000-08:00

Another "compassionate conservative," return-civility-back-to-Washington Bush supporter sends me a harsh email

How come you never wrote articles on "Slick Willie" the rapist, when he accepted a $100,000 contribution from Ken Lay of Enron, because "Numb Nuts" approved a $300 million dollar plant in India or when he sold nuclear technology to China for campaign contributions. Or, when Terry(PUNK) McAuliffe, DNC Chairman, was a lobbyist for Global Crossing and made $18 million dollars for a $100,000 investment (18,000% profit) just before they filed for bankruptcy. I'll tell you why, because you are a PIECE OF SHIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Typical liberal demoCRAP spin, you are only concerned about $900.

My response:
Ask Limbaugh and other Republicanazi spinsters why they have never written about Republicanazi's sins, and you will get your answer. I never claimed to be an unbiased columnist. We all have biases; there are more than enough people like Limbaugh writing against Democrats that I don't often choose to do so. I have written columns critical of Democrats, including this one here against Democrats like Sen. Joe Lieberman wrapping himself around the flag during the Pledge of Allegiance flap.

Then here is a nicer letter, at least from my vantage point:

It seems that anything that is immoral or illegal is legal in Texas. Give Texas back to Mexico, along with all the right-wing gringos. Would Mexico still want Texas?
I guess Texans breed among themselves much the same way they breed their cattle.
Gritzle

<"Politicians put a premium on loyalty, which can be bred within families," Wheat said. "This kind of thing can look questionable and raise questions about what the relative actually did or what his qualifications were. But when it is just $900, few people would think it worth investigating.">>

2003-01-22T16:37:00.000-08:00

Republican senator funnels campaign cash to nephew – after being elected

By Jackson Thoreau

Copyright 2003

New U.S. Sen. John Cornyn of Texas gave $900 in campaign funds to his 19-year-old nephew more than two weeks after the Nov. 5 election, listing the expense as “consulting” in his latest Federal Election Commission campaign report.
Cornyn, a Republican and former Texas attorney general, campaigned on his “high ethics” and blasted his Democratic opponent, Ron Kirk, for questionable ethics several times. Cornyn also had George W. Bush, a close friend who campaigned on restoring “honor” to the White House, return to Texas to campaign for him.
Giving campaign funds to family members is legal in Texas and by no means unusual, said Andrew Wheat, research director of Texans for Public Justice, an Austin-based organization that monitors campaign finances.
“Politicians put a premium on loyalty, which can be bred within families,” Wheat said. “This kind of thing can look questionable and raise questions about what the relative actually did or what his qualifications were. But when it is just $900, few people would think it worth investigating.”
But what makes this case smell more than usual is that candidates usually list the relative openly as receiving a salary in reports filed well before the election. That gives their opponents and media time to decide whether to make it a campaign issue before the election. Many times opponents have family members on the payroll themselves and won’t pursue the matter. Often the media has bigger fish to fry than a politician giving a few hundred dollars in campaign funds to a relative.
But Cornyn’s expense was sneaked in the post-election report, listing 19-year-old Gabriel B. Cornyn of San Antonio as a consultant in receiving the money on Nov. 22. Voters on Nov. 5 did not know about that family tie by Cornyn, as the payment has escaped notice by all media – local, state, and national. Gabriel Cornyn could not be located as doing political consulting work for any other candidate, and his name doesn’t come up in popular search engines. Neither Cornyn nor his campaign responded to requests for comment.
During the campaign, Kirk criticized Cornyn for taking $193,000 in campaign donations from Enron executives before the company went bankrupt and for making a decision that protected some of Enron’s financial secrets from ratepayers. Cornyn responded by questioning Kirk’s ethics as a former lobbyist for tobacco giant Philip Morris.
As attorney general, Cornyn helped start the Republican Attorneys General Association [RAGA]. In a 2000 RAGA fundraising appeal, Cornyn wrote that the group was started to stop those with “a wish list for future mass state lawsuits [targeting] car rental companies, pharmaceutical firms, makers of lead paint, and gun manufacturers,” according to Texans for Public Justice.
Among the beneficiaries of that association was Dallas businessman Harold Simmons, one of Cornyn’s top campaign contributors and owner of NL Industries, a leading producer of lead paint. Simmons hired Gale Norton before she become U.S. Interior Secretary to lobby Cornyn and other attorney generals not to follow Rhode Island’s example by suing lead paint makers for the cost of cleaning up the paint that can poison children’s brains.
RAGA refused to reveal its contributors. The association obtains funding through the Republican National State Elections Committee [RNSEC], according to Texans for Public Justice. In the 2000 election campaign, RNSEC received money from numerous donors that sought to curb lawsuits, including tobacco companies [$665,765], Simmons’ holding companies [$350,000], the National Rifle Association [$150,000], and Aetna, a health maintenance organization [$75,000].
As Texas attorney general, Cornyn did not pursue legal action against lead paint makers and gun manufacturers. He also allowed Aetna to settle a patient-protection lawsuit for free. Cornyn’s predecessor, Democrat Dan Morales, filed a 1998 lawsuit charging Aetna with millions of dollars in violations of state law by allegedly offering incentives to doctors to withhold medical care. Cornyn’s settlement merely required Aetna to start obeying the law and did not require the HMO to admit wrongdoing, pay a fine, or cover the state’s legal costs.
Another questionable ruling by Texas’ new senator was declaring unconstitutional a state law that forbid Texas from importing hazardous waste from abroad. The decision was applauded by waste companies, from which Cornyn took more than $100,000, according to Texans for Public Justice.
Even with such questionable decisions, Cornyn is not a far-right conservative by Texas standards. He has distanced himself from the Republican Party of Texas’ platform, which calls for abolishing the federal Department of Education, withdrawing from the United Nations, and banning abortions, among other far-right positions.
Still, the sneaky payment to Cornyn’s nephew, his prior favorable decisions for campaign contributors, and hypocritical campaigning in 2002 show Cornyn to be another Republican politician who talks the talk when it comes to ethics but doesn’t walk the walk.

Jackson Thoreau is co-author of We Will Not Get Over It: Restoring a Legitimate White House. The updated, 120,000-word electronic book can be downloaded on his Internet site at http://www.geocities.com/jacksonthor/ebook.html. Citizens for Legitimate Government has the earlier version at http://www.legitgov.org/we_will_not_get_over_it.html. Thoreau can be emailed at jacksonthor@justice.com.

2003-01-20T11:27:00.000-08:00

Still another example of what is wrong with race relations on this Martin Luther King Jr. Day:

I sailed on the Carnival Cruise Lines Fastasy for the New Year's celebration and what a turn off.
On New Year's eve when everyone was on the deck celebrating, a white man walked over and said "Happy New Year's tar baby". Not only that but they would not ride on the elevators with anyone black. If you were on the elevator they would not get on and if the elevator stopped and you got on
they would get off.
Also while we were in Freeport, Bahamas, we got a cab to go shopping. Four of us were in the front of the line and 10 whites were behind us. A 15-passenger cab pulled up and we got in, when we would not
move to the back of the cab, they did get in but before the cab drove off they all got out.
Another friend wanted to go shopping and the cab had 2 white couples already in the cab and when the driver told her he would drop her off, they replied, "We don't want her in our cab."
I am a part time travel agent and have travelled around the world, including cruising since 1962, but I have never been exposed to such poor white trash in my life.
I am deeply concerned because Carnival Cruise Line canvases all of the black churches throughout the US and has no one in the administive office of color. There were approximately 80 blacks on this cruise with approximately 1,200 whites. I hate to think of what a brawl could have occurred, especially on a cruise ship. I wrote to the president of Carnival Cruise Line, but as of this date he has not answered. I guess he will just ignore it until they have to deal with a riot on board.
I hope this will add to the problems that we are currently facing because the Republican administration makes them believe that it's okay.
Beverly G.

And here's one calling ME evil, with my response:

Judging by your callous use of sweeping, stereotypical, untrue lies about
Republicans, I have concluded you're onevulgar ball of HATE...revealing the deep
rascism in yourself! I am sending your vile rant to everyone I know...as example
of how pure, evil hate can burn out of control in a person. I'm a lifelong
independent, but the shit you're peddling in the name of Democrats does your
party no fucking good! You're nothing but a undiluted vessel of hate! I don't
have to tell you to go hell because you're already there! You are evil, man.
EVIL!
Lauriat J., Hades

My response:
Thanks for writing. Have you ever heard of the saying, "What you see in others is a mirror of yourself?" Talk about the pot calling the kettle black....And thanks for forwarding my column. It's gotten some good exposure.

2003-01-17T16:20:00.000-08:00

Is the US really free or similar to the former Soviet Union?

Here's an interesting story about a man from Iran who has pedaled more than 46,000 miles across 55 countries for peace, but he was not allowed in the U.S. He has been in a holding center in Arizona since Nov. 10 for supposedly trying to enter the country illegally.
As we prepare to invade Iraq, it's stories like this one that makes you wonder how committed to world peace the US government really is. And why the US government believes someone from Iran - even someone who would openly cycle across the land - is automatically a terrorist and spy and should not enter the country.
Some of you might know I walked 7,000 miles for peace through 15 countries twenty years ago, and we were stopped from entering Russia and East Germany under much the same suspicion. So now is the so-called freedom-loving US the paranoid superpower which seeks to strengthen its hold on world domination by restricting the very aspects that make us free?
Jackson
http://www.azcentral.com/offbeat/articles/0113reza13.html

2003-01-16T20:00:00.000-08:00

Ed Sebesta also has an excellent Web site on the Neo-Confederate movement called Temple of Democracy at http://www.templeofdemocracy.com/.

2003-01-16T19:51:00.000-08:00

Another excellent column on racism in Republican Party:

Jim Schutze wrote recently in the Dallas Observer about Ed Sebesta and his role in exposing Trent Lott and other Radical Right racists at http://www.dallasobserver.com/issues/2003-01-09/schutze.html/1/index.html.
He talks about how many neo-Confederates are well-educated, even college professors who talk nice to most people but hold these extremist views behind most people's backs. He also told an interesting story about hearing Rev. Criswell make similar remarks at the 1984 Republican Convention in Dallas.

2003-01-15T11:58:00.000-08:00

Another inspiring letter on a family's campaign to improve race relations:

I just read your piece in the American Politics Journal ("The Republicans' Real Message on Race Relations: We Don't Really Care") that a friend sent to me. I thought it was really good. Although you may have more faith in the Democratic Party than I do, I thought your assessment of the Republicans sounded right.
I live in Canada, but my father, who died last spring, was from Texas, right in the heart of Klan country. He taught me and my brother and sisters about the racism that surrounded him and about the Klan terrorizing people on horse back during the 1920s and 1930s down the dirt roads in rural Texas. He told us about the racism among his family and the people he grew up around -- most of whom were living in poverty just like the Black people they hated -- and how he came to hate racism with his whole being.
Like you, he never really understood why he broke so decisively with his family on this question -- and it was that question that definitely broke the bonds. He became involved in the civil rights movement in California in the 1950s and 1960s before the family moved to Canada, and in those days -- before the student movement and the voters' rights campaign in the South, and the rise of Black consciousness across the US -- it was scary to be involved in civil rights, as I'm sure you know.
I am so proud that my dad and my mother both were part of the great American civil rights movement. They weren't able to get rid of the Republican Party, but they did contribute to the struggle that continues to this day. When our family moved to Canada their fight against racism didn't end. Both of my parents fought the racism in our small town towards Native people, and some of the closest ties we have in the community are with the Aboriginal people there. The younger generations in my family now are a
rainbow of colours and cultures, and this reflects, in part, the legacy we have inherited from my parents.
Thanks for writing a good article about the racist bastards in the Republican Party.
Colleen F., Canada

And here's one from her mother:

My daughter has sent me a copy of your article on racism in the Reublican Party and her answer to you where she writes about her dad's fight against racism. She states that she wasn't sure what influenced
him to be non-racist, having been born in Texas. Well, he told this story many times, and I am sure that is what turned him around:

Frank was in the army during WW II and served with many G.I's of mixed races, which influenced him a lot - having been raised in a segregated neighborhood in Dallas. However, I think what really changed his mind was an incident his mother told him about:

She and her brother were left motherless on the farm her father worked in rural Texas. He had a black man who worked for him and appaently he was "assigned" to take care of the small children. His name was Bartha, and Bartha was mother and care-giver to the two children until they both reached the age of independence. Bartha "got into trouble" and left Texas, but during the war he showed up back at the ranch. The family was delighted to see him and welcomed him with open arms (literally), and invited him to have dinner with them.

Well, when the food was ready, the family gathered in the dining room - to a table with white linen and the best dishes. But, they set up a small card table in the kitchen for Bartha! Now when Frank's mother told this story Frank couldn't believe it. He confronted his mother and asked why they did such a thing to Bartha - a man who had loved and raised them from childhood?

She said things like, "He would not have been comfortable sitting down with us" and " He was shy with white folks". Finally, with Frank prodding her, she burst into tears and said, "I'd be damned if I would sit down to eat at the table with a nigger!"

I truly believe that was the turning point in Frank's life when he saw the ridiculous cancer that racism is. When the war was over, we were married and became active in causes against racism, for equality and against war. I cannot remember Frank ever using a derogatory word against any racial group.

In fact, I was raised in California and had a few racial hang-ups myself, and he showed me the error or my ways. Frank is gone now, but he never deviated from his beliefs - and, as my daughter told you, our children are the products of our love and beliefs.

Doris F., Canada

2003-01-15T09:17:00.000-08:00

Here is a link to an excellent essay on the development of the 1964 Civil Rights Bill:

http://www.congresslink.org/civil/essay.html

As it shows, a majority of Democrats and Republicans voted for that bill [not just most Republicans, as many Republicans say]. The Republicans were stronger in their votes. In the House, Reps approved it 138-34 and Dems 152-96 [92 of the Dems voting against it were from the South]. In the Senate, Reps approved it 27-6 and Dems 46-21.
Key Democrats like Sen. Hubert Humphrey and LBJ, a Southerner, were instrumental in passing the act, as were Republicans like Sen. Everett Dirksen.
So while Republican support for the bill was stronger than Dems, you can't say the Democratic Party didn't support the legislation. I will admit Reps were stronger on civil rights than Dems until the late 1960s, when Nixon and others Reps devised a strategy to capture the southern white vote by using code words like "states' rights."

2003-01-15T06:35:00.000-08:00

I read your column on Republican racism and found it excellent and well written. I was not surprised at all. I just wish the media would expose these people for who they are.
I am a pastor and an editorial columnist in Louisiana so I am quite familiar with their hateful rhetoric and thinly-veiled racism.
Rev. G.H., Louisiana

2003-01-14T15:48:00.000-08:00

Here's a nice post from another Santa Fe resident:

Nothing incenses people more than the truth. I hope you haven't formed an innaccurate opinion of Santa Fe after reading these people's responses to your article. Actually most of us in New Mexico are Democrats and liberals; unfortunately over the past ten or fifteen years we have recieved a lot of migrant right-wing republicans; probably fed up with living in the social economic messes they left behind in thier home states.
David S., Santa Fe

2003-01-14T10:32:00.000-08:00

I really enjoyed reading your article in Democratic Underground ["Message to America from the Racist Republican Regime: We Don't Really Care About Improving Race Relations"] and totally agree with it.
I, too, grew up in a Republican household in Colorado, although I now live in more progressive Minnesota. My parents weren’t blatantly racist, but made a few comments here and there.
You are absolutely right that when Republicans think that only Republicans are listening they open up and say some of the most racist things you will ever hear.
What’s worse is that my family knows I am a liberal, but they say these things anyway. My brother even asked why Martin Luther King had a holiday named after him. He asked, “What has he ever done?” I tried to explain, but it fell upon deaf ears.
I know that I need to make stronger statements to them that I am offended by what they say. It’s hard when there is just you against so many others, but that’s still no excuse. I am even considering spending as little time as possible around all of my relatives because they are all Republicans and all racist. It’s very depressing. I feel cut off from my own family.
Here in Minnesota I have been supporting progressives and fighting the good fight. It feels good to help those who are suffering and really need the government to help them. It feels good to support candidates who believe that all of us are equal.
Thanks for the great work you have done. I really appreciate that you are willing to expose those in power for what they are.
Sheryl M., Minn.

2003-01-14T09:57:00.000-08:00

Here are some of the responses on the New Mexican site to the column:

If you want to find racist Democrats, you certainly don't need to dig up fossils like Byrd. This city's own former mayor, Debbie Jaramillo, is an excellent local example. I could cite countless other examples, but I really don't see any point in doing so. Politicians, like any other Americans, are entitled to hold whatever beliefs they wish. Those beliefs are only relevant when they're experessed through official actions. Anyone who hasn't lived on Mars for the past 40 years knows that if any party in America is dedicated to maintaining racism, it's the Democrats, not the Republicans. Remember, had it not been for Republicans like Bob Dole, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 never would have passed. Too many Democrats (like Al Gore's father) voted against it.
Jeffrey G.

Note the description of the author at the bottom: "...co-author of 'We Will Not Get Over It: Restoring a Legitimate White House'. The e-book can now be downloaded at Fight the Right." Looking up "Fight the Right" takes you to http://www.qrd.org/qrd/www/FTR/tblcntnt.html which is an "action kit" by the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. So it's my guess the author pretty much has a visceral hatred of Republicans in the first place--and has joined the loony lefty that looks under every rock hoping to find racism or homophobia under that rock [while he makes certain his tin foil hat will not fall off when he bends over to look]. He also states "A recent article by USA Today cited several other examples of recent insensitive remarks made by Republican public officials and none by Democratic officials, because reporters could not find any - ..." Using his logic, all the voter fraud is committed by Democrats--because reporters don't seem to find any committed by Republicans. Has it occurred to him that if Democrats did not commit so much fraud, they might not win ANYTHING? He also concedes that even though Byrd has made some racist remarks "in the past, but not recently enough to be included in the article." The N word last year is not recent enough? Or might it have been a slanted article? Yet the author himself refers to 1964, '79-'89, 2000, and 2002 citing Republican offenses. He also cites what must to him be a credible source, "evilGOPbastards.com." What a guy! I'm really rather surprised the Santa Fe New Mexican would stoop to publish such hate speech as though it has any validity. The other day I heard someone say "The Democrat Party has become the party of Joe McCarthy. They ask 'Are you now or have you EVER been a racist, sexist, or homophobe?'" Sounds pretty much like McCarthy to me. Let's all chip in to replenish Mr. Thoreau's supply of aluminum foil. He doesn't even realize that minorities would be better served if he cleaned his OWN house of HIS OWN who would maintain the plantation.
Dot P.

As an person who votes for independents, democrats, republicans, libertarians, etc. not based on party but on the person, I am always amused to hear members of any party comment on the other parties. They often seem blind to similar faults within their own party. (Judging by the title of your book, I am assuming you are a democrat. If you are not, I apologize, but I think the point I am going to try to make is still valid.) I have many friends who work for various unions. I was a member of the union myself for a period of time. A lot of the people I have met in the unions are what you might call "good ol' boys." They are easily the most politically charged people I know personally, and they are all democrats. They take their political party very seriously, and ridicule anyone who challenges it. I have seen it often. But what stands out most about nearly all of them I meet is just how racist they can be in private. You would be ill. These are all democrats, who as of yet, have not bolted the party, nor do they seem to have any intention of doing so. As you stated in your article, often times white people assume it ok to let their racist feelings vent around other white people. Many black friends have told me most black people who are racists act the same way. (Unlike the black democratic city council member from New York, who publicly stated his desire to indiscriminately smack white people around. I guess at least he was "man" enough to say it in public instead of in private?) Back to the democrats, who have been fighting the specter of racism within their party going all the way back to the "dixiecrat" days of Strom Thurmond. I recently read an article that said Senate democrats are endorsing Robert Byrd of West Virginia for the position of Senate Pro Tempore. What could they possibly be thinking? Here is a man who was not only an admitted high ranking member of the KKK who was paid $10 per hood for each new member he recruited., but who also filibustered the 1964 Civil Rights Act (which was supported by almost all republicans and opposed by most democrats) with Al Gore Sr. at his side, for more than 14 hours. He also opposed the nominations of the Supreme Court's two black justices, one a liberal and one a conservative. Hard to say politics came into play in his decision, isn't it. Many say he has changed, but Years after Byrd supposedly broke all ties with the Ku Klux Klan, officials in West Virginia discovered a letter Sen. Byrd had written to the Klan’s Imperial Wizard. He said, "The Klan is needed today as never before and I am anxious to see its rebirth here in West Virginia and in every state in the Union." Another letter Sen. Byrd wrote after he quit the KKK attacked the desegregation of the armed forces. (The ex-Klansman vowed never to fight "with a Negro by my side. Rather I should die a thousand times, and see Old Glory trampled in the dirt never to rise again, than to see this beloved land of ours become degraded by race mongrels, a throwback to the blackest specimen from the wilds.) Compared to him, Strom Thurmond (incidentally, the first Senator ever to hire a black aide) doesn't look so bad to me. Yet, the democratic party wants to put Byrd third in the succession line for the Presidency? I get the feeling that if Byrd were a republican, you would be all over him. Maxine Waters, Terry McAuliffe, Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton and all the other left-wing bloodhounds who sniff racism in every crevice of American life would be barking up a storm and Byrd would probably be forced to resign. But despite the plethora of evidence of democratic racism, especially during Dr. King's time, this double standard exists, and frankly it is a big turn off. It seems democrats don't really care about race relations either, except when it comes to causing even more trouble and division in the area. I only hope Joe Lieberman (who probably would have won in 2000 were he the top candidate) can save this party from it's left-wing much the same as Bush has saved his from it's right-wing. The American people need leaders who can lead, not simply resort to calling each other names when they disagree.
Matthew M.

That's the biggest bunch of B.S. I've read in a long time. I'd like to see the footnotes of proof,if there are any.In this country we still have the right to belong to whatever country club we choose,and it doesn't make us racists,we also have the right to associate with whom we please,and it's not racism. Social engineering will not result in the utopia you would like,just continue to fomet hate among the races.Tell me about all the wonderful things the Democrats have done in over 50 years for the African Americans,if they are still in the same boat today. Just lots of talk and promises for votes. Let's remember,it's the Party of Linclon,that freed the slaves. the Republican party.
Joseph R.

I for one am very tired of some people calling all Republicans racists. Why does he think every person who uses the "N" word is a Republican. There are more than a few Democrats who are guilty of same. Trent Lott made an innocent remark to say something nice to a very old man, and it was turned into his support of racism. That's just plain stupid. The Democrats still have a former KKK member in their midst, but I guess that's okay. There's racism everywhere and I think the pot shouldn't call the kettle black.
Carol P.

I don't think he's saying all Republicans, Carol -- just the Republican Party as a whole. And the case he makes is a pretty good one, and there's actual history to examine for the record. I don't see Lott's comment about segregation and Thurmond as "innocent." Blundering, or just plain stupid, sure, but not innocent. Also, Byrd -- the former KKK member who's now a member of the Democratic Party -- is probably just smarter than Lott and wouldn't be dumb enough to say something even close to what Lott said. Besides: Just because someone's saying the Republican Party on the whole is demonstrably racist doesn't mean they're saying the Democratic Party isn't! That's really not the point. That's like saying "Yeah, so our party on the whole espouses a retrograde, ignorant view of humanity, but, but....so do THEY!"
Bill A.

Well written article Jackson. For too long the "quiet?" racism in America has gone unnoticed by the media. With the roundup of Arab Americans after 9/11, this became even more evident. Sadly, most Americans rallied behind that action without realizing that with race, it's just a matter of time before your race is called. I thought the slogan was "freedom and justice for ALL". Great writing, astute eye.
Meria H.

The author responds to comments:
I appreciate the Santa Fe New Mexican picking up my column. And I appreciate people taking the time to write their responses to it.
I understand what I wrote provokes anger and denial in a lot of people. I have gotten the same response from a lot of people in my life - including my parents and other family members and co-workers - when I confront them on a racist statement they have made. It's a difficult subject to tackle without ruffling feathers. But racism is something we must confront if we are to advance as a species.
I am a partisan, mostly liberal Democrat and make no apologies for that, just as Rush Limbaugh and other Republican conservatives don't apologize for their views. I am not aligned with the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, as my Fight the Right Web site at http://www.geocities.com/jacksonthor/ is independent. I understand there are racists who are Democrats, African-American, and of other beliefs and backgrounds.
My main point of the column is that racism in the Republican Party goes much deeper than Trent Lott. Republicans who think they can make this issue go away by simply making Lott resign as Senate Majority Leader are only fooling themselves.
Most of the examples of Democrats being racists brought up are of years past. I'm talking about what is going on right now. And by any fair count, the Republican Party now contains far more racists than the Democratic Party, and racist groups support Republicans more than Democrats. Why do white supremacist groups like the National Alliance only give money to Republican candidates? There is a reason for that.
Anyways, keep reading and thinking about this issue. I'm glad I could help provoke some thought.
Jackson T.

2003-01-14T05:54:00.000-08:00

The Santa Fe New Mexican picked up my column on racism in the Republican Party. Even in Santa Fe, a fairly liberal city, most of the people who have commented online are Freepers who call the Democrats racists and ignore their own hoods. In other words, it's the same old hypocritical stuff with Reps trying to divert attention from their problems by casting blame at others and not taking responsibility as they call on others to take responsibility.

The column is at:

http://www.sfnewmexican.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=6682742&BRD=2144&PAG=461&dept_id=367954&rfi=6

2003-01-13T16:16:00.000-08:00

I am in grateful receipt of your eloquent
essay regarding the unspoken phenomonon occuring in my
part of the south.
I recently left my career in construction (@ $15 - $17
per hour) to become a telemarketer ($8.00 per hour) and
couldn't be happier! Why? I spent years of my life serving
bigoted, hate filled racists making comments that made me
want to tear off my skin. I determined my life was being
wasted by enriching such people with my efforts, and have
enriched myself by spending my worklife (and homelife)
with people of color different than myself.
Much like you, I was born white into an upper-middle-class family. My parents' money came from an
inherited steel company that would have been mine if I'd
played the "game". I found myself very much different from
my parents. As a teenager, I fantasized about an America
that would be Grey someday, not Blacks and Whites. My
childhood included the "country club" (no Jews, please,)
and my parents calling President Kennedy "that Catholic".
In fact, after my father died, I scaned through audio
tapes from my childhood for his voice: the only tape I had
of him was his telling a racist joke, making fun of the
way he thought Blacks spoke. I threw my father's voice in
the trash.
Your column spoke perfectly to the nudge-nudge,
wink-wink racism rampant in America today. This may be the
chink in the Republican's Teflon Armor as far as the media
is concerned, judging by the way Trent Lott's mouth lit up
CNN.
William Gardner, Easley, S.C.

2003-01-13T15:51:00.000-08:00

Typical, morally-challenged and fact-deficient screed.
People like you need to lie to support every one of your positions.
Your comments about Colin Powell (you know what you said) are blatantly racist. It might have escaped your corrupted reality, but Secretary Powell is the highest-ranking black political appointee in the HISTORY of our great nation, but I guess he's not "black enough" for you. I guess the names Clarence Thomas, Condeleeza Rice and Rod Paige (all Republican-appointed and exceedingly qualified) mean nothing to you -- oh but they're not "really black" either are they? That would probably surprise them and their families. Oh yeah, that's right, racists like you can't fathom that an African-American can hold any opinions divergent from the monolithic Democratic concentration camp you are a willing cell block guard for. You need an ignorant mass whistling "Internationale" for your "ideas" to enjoy any validity. Thank God America is not that. Americans are smart. African-Americans are smart. We as a nation recognize that 40 years of a Brave New Democratic World have done not a damn bit of good for a single person. It's only a matter of time. I know this is beyond you, but do a little research into the makeup of the government at every level (federal, state, local) in 1970. Look at it now. See a difference? Bet you do. Take heed, take it to heart. Do you see any dinosaurs around? Didn't think so. Your time for lumbering around uselessly is coming to an end. You are wrong in so many ways and history is bearing that out. You know it and that is why you live in such fear. At this point you and yours are more comedy than danger. I can just see you fading away like the wicked witch -- "I'M MELTING!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Greg S., San Diego

Jackson's reply:

Oh yeah, I spend my life actually making race relations better around me, live in a multi-ethnic neighborhood, marry someone of a different race, and I'M the racist? Typical, hypocritical republican crap.

How is it racist to say that many Republicans are more comfortable with light-skinned African Americans than dark-skinned ones? [I will even admit that's the case with some Democrats.] That's just being honest. If we are ever going to beat our racial problems, we have to be honest. I never said Powell wasn't "black enough" for me. Don't put words in my mouth.

And the 2000 election showed that more people voted Democratic than Republican. If you throw in the progressive greens, more than 51 percent of voters voted to the left. The 2002 elections were tainted after Sept. 11, 2001, and the threat of the iraqi invasion that the reps used to scare people. I believe your ideas are outdated, belonging back in the 1950s.

JT

2003-01-10T12:52:00.000-08:00

Another example of how racists feel more comfortable in the Republican Party came in the Texas 2002 governor's race when Jim Claymore, an Austin spokesman for the National Alliance, a white-supremacist group, gave $100 to Republican Rick Perry and nothing to Democrat Tony Sanchez.

Claymore told The Dallas Morning News that supporting the Republican governor was "more the lesser of two evils situation. If nothing else, he buys us a little more time from a political and a racial perspective."

2003-01-09T13:23:00.000-08:00

You said it so well, and with articles like this going the rounds, someday
it will make a difference.

I lived in Augusta, Georgia, for a few months in 1949, at the age of 17, and
carrying my daughter in my tummy, while my husband was in the service.

I was truly horrified at the way people of color were treated, and coming
from a small town in Iowa, this was out of my experience. But from time to
time I have heard many rascist remarks, nothing like you heard. In Georgia,
my husband and another service man got on a city bus and sat down in the
back of the bus where there was a lot of room. My husband said the bus came
to a screeching halt and the driver said to move to the front of the bus.
Shouted actually! The back was for blacks.

Once when I was working in a bowling alley, there was a regular customer
who seemed like a nice pleasant person, telling jokes etc. with friends, and
I noticed often he said ugly things about blacks. I was tiered of hearing
it and I thought of something to say to make him THINK.

I have wondered why some of us seem to feel the way we do so young, as I
also have strong feelings about the abuse of anyone, and if we could figure
it out, maybe we could speed up the brotherhood level.
So one time right after he said something really ugly, I said to him, " well
Larry if you had been born black, you would have had to kill yourself ,
right ". He stopped and looked at me and did not say another word.
I do not believe he did again at least not where I could hear it.

I make it a point to let people know how I feel if and when it ever comes
up, because promoting brotherhood is my souls agenda for this lifetime.

I also am a blue eyed blonde, probably adolph's ideal, and I sometimes say I
must be one of the lost tribes of Israel because I have
so much empathy for them also.

Whatever, we will overcome as he said, together we will!

Dorla B.

2003-01-09T10:15:00.000-08:00

Jan. 9, 2003

Racist Republican Regime Doesn't Really Care about Improving Race Relations

By Jackson Thoreau

I’m a blond-haired, blue-eyed, middle-class, middle-aged white guy who has lived most of my life in Dallas, Tx., probably the country’s bastion of old-school racism where Dubya Bush and Dick Cheney once lived.

I haven’t been a victim of racism myself – I don’t subscribe to the reverse racism theory leveled by many closet Republican racists like William Bennett, who recently in the National Review equated universities with affirmative action policies that attempt to level the playing field with the same type of racism exhibited by the Ku Klux Klan, which has engaged in terrorism and murder for decades. Because of my whitebread appearance, many white Republicans have felt comfortable enough around me during various times in my adult life to let their guard down and express their true feelings on matters of race.
Big mistake. This column is part of my payback for having to endure all those sickening comments. This is part of my payback for Republicans refusing to heed my responses that I don’t appreciate their racist comments and them acting like there’s something wrong with me because I don’t play along.

I know from experience that Trent Lott is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to racism in the Republican Party.

I can’t count the number of times some Anglo conservative has used the N-word in reference to African-Americans in front of me, even towards those they root for, such as Dallas Cowboys running back Emmitt Smith. I can’t count the number of racial “jokes” or references some white City Council member, police officer, businessman, or other establishment figure - whom I know is a Republican - has told to my face. A popular “joke” during this time of year by such racist Republicans is, “What are you doing for Martin Luther ‘Coon’ Day?” Or they will snicker, “Have you learned anything during ‘Black Ass’ History Month?”

I’ve sat at high school football games in Republican-dominated towns as Anglo adults in the stands taunted the lone black player on the opposing team using that N-word. I’ve attended all-white meetings – as a reporter, not participant - in which elitist Republicans have discussed getting around the Voting Rights Act by lobbying for requirements that voters have to own property. I didn’t need someone to spell out what they were talking about – they wanted some way to keep blacks from voting.

In the 1920s, Dallas had more Ku Klux Klan members per capita than any other large U.S. city. The city had an actual “segregation of the races” clause written in to its charter as late as 1968. Peter Gent, a former Cowboy player and author of classics like North Dallas Forty, says he was shocked to arrive from the Midwest in the mid-1960s to witness such blatant Jim Crow segregation. For example, the team’s black players had to drive an extra hour from their segregated South Dallas neighborhoods to reach practice in North Dallas. Through lawsuits, protests, and other measures, the blatant racist policies are gone, but they have been replaced with subtle, back-door racism executed from still all-white country clubs and subdivisions in the suburbs.

Sure, the white racists around here used to be mostly Democrats, who hated Lincoln-style Republicans who forced Reconstruction on them after the Civil War. But most of those have left the Democratic Party for the friendlier-for-them confines of the Republican Party, where they don’t have to rub elbows with African-Americans at the multi-cultural Democratic functions that contrast with Republican events like black and white keys on a piano.

Many of the high-profile African-American Republicans are of mixed race, anyways – Colin Powell, for example, is part black, white, and Indian. In fact, Powell could be more white than black, with English, Scottish, and Irish ancestry mixed in with African and Indian. There’s nothing wrong with that, of course – many Americans have some mixed blood. But let’s be honest – the average white Republican would rather have a light-skinned mulatto move in next door than a dark-skinned African-American.

Name a white public figure who espouses racist views, and the vast majority of the time he or she is affiliated with the Republican Party [yes, there is racism exhibited by some African-American public figures, but that’s the subject for another column]. David Duke, the former Klansman and Louisiana state representative, chaired the Republican Parish Executive Committee of the largest Republican parish in Louisiana as late as 2000, when he skipped the country and eventually was convicted of fraud and tax evasion. Many Republicans are associated with the openly-racist Council for Conservative Citizens, including outgoing Georgia Congressman Bob Barr, who has spoken before the segregationist group, and Republican National Committee leader Buddy Witherspoon, who has resisted calls that he resign his CCC membership.

As the Internet site, evilGOPbastards.com, points out, Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist, a Republican, launched his career as a GOP operative in 1964 by harassing black voters. He has issued numerous racist rulings, including one that refused to examine the suppression of African-American voters in Florida in 2000. Republican Attorney General John Ashcroft opposed racial integration and the appointment of African Americans to offices as Missouri governor and attorney general and has uttered pro-Confederate views. Ashcroft and other Bush administration officials carry out racist policies against Arab-Americans, as seen in measures like arresting Arab-Americans and holding them for months without them being charged with crimes or being allowed due process of law that others who are arrested obtain.

The Republican Party in general launched a strategy during the late 1960s to capture the southern racist vote by opposing affirmative action, supporting the rights of states like South Carolina to fly the Confederate flag in front of public buildings, and similar positions. Bush himself spoke before the segregationist Bob Jones University in South Carolina, genuflected before the Confederate flag, and helped implement the racist Willie Horton ad during the 1988 presidential campaign of Bush Sr., who approved the racist ad after lobbying by his son. Both Bush’s have appointed many racists - both subtle and overt - to high offices, who now work to further erode civil rights. Furthermore, Bush’s “War on Terrorism” is a racist war that targets Arab terrorists and ignores terrorists of other races, such as IRA and KKK members.

White House strategist Karl Rove also aided with the racist Horton ad and oversaw the racist 2000 South Carolina smear campaign against Sen. John McCain, which alluded to McCain’s “black child,” who actually is an adopted daughter from Bangladesh. While in Congress from 1979 until 1989, Cheney opposed measures strengthening laws against housing discrimination and collecting hate-crime data. Cheney supported apartheid in the racist South African regime, even as it crumbled. Republican politicians in Georgia and South Carolina, such as Sonny Perdue, the new Republican governor of Georgia, were elected in 2002 on platforms that included “restoring pride” in the Confederate flag.

Who can forget the Florida 2000 recount battle, when white supremacists rallied for Republicans who embraced their support? What about Florida Republican Gov. Jeb Bush’s and former Bush-state-campaign-co-chair-Secretary-of-State-turned-Congresswoman Katherine Harris’ openly racist system of purges before the 2000 election that took the names of mostly African-American voters off the rolls? What about the police roadblocks near black precincts on election days? And how about the Republican warnings in communities across the country about impending black voter fraud that usually occur a few days before an election, not to mention misleading fliers circulated by Republican operatives in African-American neighborhoods telling them of different days to vote or wrongly warning that their criminal backgrounds and parking tickets will be checked to try to intimidate them against voting?

Getting to Lott, Republicans still think highly enough of him to make Lott chairman of the Senate Rules Committee, despite his public banishment as Senate Majority Leader and a racist record that includes far more than a few errant comments. As our last elected president, Bill Clinton, recently said, “[Lott] just embarrassed [Republican leaders] by saying in Washington what they do on the back roads every day.” And as Jack Hughes of evilGOPbastards.com writes, the majority of Republican senators who elected Lott as their leader “must either share his views [which were so often repeated that nobody could plead ignorance of Lott's sympathies], or were at the very least ‘comfortable’ with a leader that held those beliefs.”

Indeed, many senators, such as new Majority Leader Bill Frist and Don Nickles, the first Senate Republican to call for Lott’s resignation as majority leader – not because he’s a racist but because it was giving Republicans bad publicity - have a civil rights voting record nearly identical to Lott, according to the NAACP. One of the worst – perhaps even worse than Lott – is Jefferson Sessions of Alabama. Sessions has called a black assistant U.S. attorney “boy” and a white civil rights attorney a “disgrace to his race.” As a prosecutor, Sessions pursued civil rights workers on phony voter fraud charges. As Alabama attorney general, he again pursued allegations of voter fraud in African-American communities, looked the other way in Anglo communities, and refused to aggressively investigate burnings and bombings of black churches. He also said he thought KKK members were “OK” until he heard some might have smoked marijuana and charged the NAACP with being “un-American” and “Communist-inspired.” Despite such a past, Bush and other Republicans have campaigned for Sessions.

The other Republican senator from Alabama, Richard Shelby, callously equated Lott’s verbal criticism in the media with an atrocious physical act of violence against African-Americans and others. “I think we should not lynch him,” Shelby told CNN.

Frist, himself, has his own racial skeletons. He was a member of the all-white Belle Meade Country Club in Nashville, Tenn., before running for the Senate in 1994. Some believe the National Republican Senatorial Committee headed by Frist was behind the intimidation of minority voters in recent years.

Then there is Republican Sen. George Allen of Virginia, who as governor of that state, issued a proclamation recognizing “Confederate History and Heritage Month.” Allen, the new National Republican Senatorial Committee chairman, also displays a Confederate flag in his living room, according to a recent New York Times column.

Moving over to the U.S. House, there is Cass Ballenger. The white Republican from North Carolina recently told the Charlotte Observer that he had “segregationist” feelings and called former U.S. Rep. Cynthia McKinney, an African-American Democrat from Georgia, a “bitch.” In an ensuring radio interview, Ballenger, the Deputy Majority Whip and a member of the House Republican Steering Committee who has a black lawn jockey in his yard that an aide recently painted white, refused to apologize to McKinney, calling her divisive, pushy, and “less than patriotic.”

“One must wonder whether [Ballenger] would have made the same statement about a white congressman he considered to be pushy or divisive,” said Kim Gandy, president of the National Organization of Women. “I think not. His statements demonstrated beliefs about race and gender that do not belong in the U.S. Congress.”

While some like Democrats.com and Eleanor Smeal, president of the Feminist Majority, called for Ballenger to resign, most ignored his racist comments, as they have other Republicans’ racism. You can email Ballenger here, if you don’t think his views are right.

There are many other examples. In Texas, an aide to new Republican Sen. John Cornyn derisively dismissed the Democrats fielding a Hispanic, African-American, and Anglo in the top three state races in 2002 as a “racial quota.” Meanwhile, the top three Republican candidates were – you guessed it – white. So were the Republicans fielding the usual white-only quota?

Rep. Tom Craddick, the new Texas House Republican leader, was one of a small group to vote against establishing a Martin Luther King Jr. state holiday in 1987. He repeated his opposition to the holiday in a 1991 vote that clarified the day. Unlike Lott, Craddick has yet to publicly apologize for those votes.

In Rochester, N.Y., Monroe County Executive Jack Doyle, a white Republican, recently derided Mayor William Johnson Jr., a black Democrat. “If there was a mayor that looked like me, it would be a whole different landscape,” Doyle told a local reporter.

A recent article by USA Today cited several other examples of recent insensitive remarks made by Republican public officials and none by Democratic officials because reporters could not find any – believe me, they would have included some by Democrats if they found them. Democratic Sens. Robert Byrd of West Virginia and Fritz Hollings of South Carolina have made some racist remarks in the past, but not recently enough to run in that article.

Racism, especially subtle racism, does exist in many people across the board. It especially comes out during times of crisis. In the week following September 11, 2001, Arab-Americans – a group that includes my wife and two children - reported a significant upswing in hate crimes, including murders, against them. A Gallup poll conducted September 14-15 found respondents evenly divided over whether Arab-Americans should be required to carry special identity cards. Two late September polls found that most respondents favored police profiling of Arab-Americans. A December 2001 poll by the Institute for Public Affairs at the University of Illinois found that more than 25 percent of respondents said Arab-Americans should surrender more rights than others.

Profiling someone simply due to his or her race is racism, period. You can always justify your racism by saying you are concerned about your security. But who’s to say the next terrorist won’t be white like Timothy McVeigh who bombed the Oklahoma building in 1995? Who’s to say the next terrorist won’t be white like the Irish Republican Army? Who’s to say the next terrorist won’t be white like the KKK? Who’s to say the next terrorist won’t be white like most mass murderers are?

Should we implement special profiling against white people like me because of the McVeigh’s and Duke’s of the world? I don’t recall similar polls favoring racial profiling of white Americans after the 1995 Oklahoma bombing. I don’t recall polls favoring profiling of white Americans after white Texan George Hennard drove his truck into a Luby’s Cafeteria and killed 23 people in a 1991 terrorism act.

Another 2001 Gallup Poll found that 60 percent of white respondents believed that black Americans were not treated the same as whites in this country. That rocketed to 91 percent among African-American respondents. Some 47 percent of black respondents said they experienced discrimination in stores, by the police, and in other situations in the previous month.

I’ve long wondered how many people there are who secretly harbor racist views they would denounce in public. I recently contacted the authors of 20 postings to white supremacist Web sites, asking if I could quote them using their real names. Only three replied back granting permission to use their names.

Jessica Coleman of Texas claimed her grandfather was “a powerful knight [of the KKK] in South Carolina,” and she thought all blacks should be shipped “back to Africa and all of the wetbacks back to Mexico.” Tom of New Jersey, who would not give his last name, wrote about a high school field trip to Philadelphia, which sickened him so much to see blacks that he “wanted to take out a machine gun and shoot everyone of them.” Are these people really just aberrations to be ignored again until the next major race-related blow-up in our country? Or do they represent the suppressed voices inside the average white Republican – and, yes, some Democrats - who doesn’t dare let such thoughts reach the surface?

That’s why I call Republicans like Bush and Cheney and Bennett closet racists. They publicly embrace Martin Luther King Jr. as they call for a colorblind society, yet live in their mostly-white neighborhoods [in the Dallas area, Bush settled in the mostly-white Preston Hollow neighborhood and Cheney in the largely-Anglo Highland Park suburb] and practice racism when it suits their political agenda. They like to point out that lynching black people is wrong as they oppose proposals that would do more to bring about real equality and execute racist campaigns – as Bush did against McCain in South Carolina in 2000 – to gain political victory.

Would such closet racists live next to African-American families? I have for more than six years, and the only problems we have had were with some white neighbors. Living in a multi-cultural neighborhood is part of my contribution to carry out what a lot of Republicans only give lip service to, and go beyond words to live out our desire for a truly colorblind society.

I respect my Republican parents and what they did for me, but I don’t like their racist comments, such as they hope black people don’t buy the homes up for sale on their blocks. I don’t know what has made me so different from my parents on this matter. I’ve been this way since, as a young child, I was one of the few to befriend the only African-American student in our elementary school. A psychic once told me I was black in a past life. Maybe that’s it. Maybe in a past life, I actually walked in the shoes of a slave and experienced the discrimination that I can’t stand today. Maybe that’s the only way a white American can really understand what a black American experiences – to walk in his or her shoes. Maybe that’s the only way we can make some real progress on race relations.

Anyways, I can’t recall such comments about hoping African-Americans don’t move on the block coming from Democrats I know in recent years. In the aftermath of the Lott debacle, Republicans, as usual, tried to turn the tables on Democrats and highlight the latter party’s racist past, as seen in members like Sen. Byrd.

But that’s like Bush and other Republicans saying Democrats took money from Enron when Republicans took three or four times as much. Republicans display their usual hypocrisy, as they talk about “taking responsibility,” yet seek to divert attention and cast blame on others when they are caught with their hands in the Enron jar. And many in the media let Republicans get away with it.

The sins of the Democrats and Republicans are not of the same magnitude. When more than, say, 50 percent of current Republicans exhibit racist tendencies and less than, say, 20 percent of Democrats do, you can’t paint a broad stroke and say both parties exhibit racism and just leave it at that. For every Sen. Byrd Republicans bring up, I can counter with five Sen. Lotts and Sen. Sessions and Sen. Frists and Rep. Ballengers and Dubya Bush’s.

The subtle and overt racism of the Republican Party is a stench they have to live with, and no amount of history rewriting by Republican apologists can eradicate that smell. To eradicate it, they must admit that racism in their party goes far beyond Lott and make at least as much progress on advancing race relations as the Democratic Party has. Republicans have not done that, and I doubt they will while I’m still alive here.

As the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday approaches, these subtle racist Republicans will talk like they have supported King’s vision of a colorblind society and African-American rights all along, when their records and actions speak otherwise. That’s just more of the Republican con job. Don’t buy that crap.

Jackson Thoreau is co-author of We Will Not Get Over It: Restoring a Legitimate White House. The entire updated, 120,000-word electronic book can now be downloaded on his Fight the Right Internet site at http://www.geocities.com/jacksonthor/ebook.html. Citizens for Legitimate Government has the earlier version at http://www.legitgov.org/we_will_not_get_over_it.html. Thoreau also co-authored a book on Dallas history from the perspective of African-Americans, civil rights advocates, and others. Thoreau can be emailed at jacksonthor@justice.com.

[1/9/2003 1:23:48 PM ]
Excellent article; it gives me hope to see that there
are conscious Anglo men in the world who are willing to
take these principled positions.

My supposition about why you are different from your
parents is that you may have experienced other feelings
of alienation as a child, which was transposed into
empathy of other sorts. There's a wonderful piece
written about the Sandinavian writer, Hans Christian
Andersen, and his amazing sense of empathy for women,
lower classes and people of other ethnic groups.
People couldn't understand how this very white and
relatively wealthy man had such an amazing sensitivity
for "subalternality." It turns out that he basically
felt emotionally alienated as a writer and had
channelled those feelings to feel solidarity with the
alienation other oppressed groups experienced.

My white (Italian-Irish) husband from the north east
coast says that being married to me, a brown woman, has
been instructive for him as well. Living with someone
who isn't of the majority is almost as good as "walking
in their shoes." I have no doubt that your marriage to
an Arab-American woman (she's Syrian, right?) has also
been instructive for you. I wrote a chapter for an
anthropology textbook (university level) on kinship
and cosmopolitanism, where I discussed my own mixed
ethnic background and how it complicates one's cultural
allegiances.
Denise C., In Exile [Texas]