News of the Month

August 10, 2002

Well, as I predicted, Edwin Delamora was sentenced to life in prison for the crime of trying to protect himself against a violent, armed, midnight assault against his home and family. It seems he fired a handgun through his front door – once – to try to discourage the pack of thugs from battering the door down. The trouble was, it was a pack of Travis County Sheriff thugs, not just a random group of thugs off the street. One of the Sheriff’s thugs caught a stray bullet and died of his injuries. But, you know? We don’t even know for sure that it was a slug from Mr. Delamora’s handgun that hit him. The Sheriff’s office conveniently “lost” the slug that was taken from the deceased deputy’s body – probably because they realized it was one of their own slugs, and not one from the 9 mm. weapon that Mr. Delamora owned to defend his home from just such assaults.

So what does this mean to us, the ordinary people of Travis County? It means that from now on, if you hear a gang of angry hooligans outside your door, banging and hollering to be let in, you do not have the right to defend yourself, your family, or your home. You have to let them in. If they identify themselves as police officers, well, you take your chances; if it turns out that they weren’t police officers, after all, well then, you take your beating or your bullets or your raping or your robbery, or whatever they came to do. Because you are a resident of Travis County; the right of self-defense, which has been held sacred in both common law and case law for centuries, has been taken from you. You no longer have the right to defend yourself, your home, or your property against this kind of violent attack. You, too, could be convicted of Capital Murder for the crime of defending yourself.

Of course, this follows right along with the precedent that was set with the murder last December of Tony Martinez by Sheriff’s deputies. Mr. Martinez, 19, was staying overnight at a friend’s house and was sleeping on the sofa. An armed gang of thugs broke into that house that night, too, making as much noise as they could, to scare the residents into submission, I suppose. Well, Mr. Martinez awoke with a start, sat bolt upright, and was immediately and fatally shot for sitting up so quick. The Sheriff’s thugs, of course, were exonerated in the shooting. So what is the precedent here? If you’re awakened some midnight by an armed gang of bandits breaking down your door, sit up slowly. It’s now a crime, punishable by death, to sit up too fast if you’re awakened from a sound sleep.

When Will Harrell, the Executive Director of the Texas ACLU, spoke at last month’s Libertarian Distinguished Speaker Series, the county party gave him a gift – a T-shirt that says, “The Bill of Rights: Void Where Prohibited by Law.” Friends, that isn’t funny any more. At every level of government, from King George II on down to Sheriff Margo, the ones with power are doing everything they can to invalidate the amendments in the Bill of Rights, one at a time, in the name of the War on Drugs, or the War on Terrorism, or (to call that whole mess by its right name) the War on Sanity, or whatever excuse they’re using these days. It has to stop. “How,” you ask?

Well, for one, stop supporting the people who gain power and then, over and over and over again, misuse that power to reduce us to the status of vassals. Or have you fallen for the smoke and mirrors that says since the Republicans are in power, the way out is to vote for the Democrats? Hmph! Sheriff Margo is a Democrat. There is no more difference between the Republican and Democratic parties than there is between the National and the American Football Conferences. They’re both gangs of rich, powerful, privileged men who feel it’s their right to manipulate the rest of us to maximize their fortunes. If you want to make a real difference this November, then vote for a real alternative. Vote for Libertarian candidates – candidates you know will stand up for liberty – real liberty, not the smoke-and-mirrors we’re getting now.

And, speaking of the various “wars” our oligarchs have committed us to without our consent, the Drug War was in the news earlier this month, in a very literal sense. John Stossel, a TV commentator with an erratic record of rationality, finally came down on the rational side. On July 30 he did a special report for ABC, showing that the Drug War is a lot more harmful than drugs themselves. Well, he must have been right on target, because the Community Anti-Drug Coalitions of America have started a fact-twisting press release campaign to discredit him and what he showed about the Drug War. These folks and others have launched an organized letter writing campaign directed at David Westin, the President of ABC News, to tell him how wrong ABC was to present this documentary – that they were not given the time to present their views, that the facts were wrong, and so on. Wasn’t it Mark Twain who said that you could tell how right somebody was by the number of people who tried to discredit him?

Oh – remember Katherine Harris? She was Prince Jeb Bush’s hit woman in Florida during the 2000 elections. She’s the one who coordinated theft of the Presidency in Florida for the Bush crime family. Well, on August 1 she resigned as Florida’s Secretary of State, retroactive to July 15. Not out of shame for her criminal actions during the Presidential election, but because she’s going to run for the US Congress – her reward for helping to steal the Presidency for the Busha Nostra. Why retroactive to the 15^th? Florida election law – on which she’s supposed to be the state’s pre-eminent expert – required her to resign by July 15. She said, “I misunderstood the rules about when I had to quit to run for Congress!” No problem – Prince Jeb said he’d be real happy for her to hang onto the job until he finds a replacement. Like, until … oh, say … November 5? Election day?

Here’s something that happened back in June, but it’s worth telling you about anyway. It seems that there was a campaign to “Turn Your Back on Bush” when he spoke at the Ohio State graduation ceremonies on June 14. People, graduates and spectators, were urged to stand up and silently turn their backs on King George when he began to babble. Sounds like Constitutionally protected freedom of expression, right? Wrong. We’re at “war”, so even peaceful protesters can be interpreted as “unlawful combatants.” People entering the stadium that day also had their weapons taken away from them on entry – weapons like bottled drinking water and fruit. Ooh, the images that brings to the imagination.

As he opened the graduation ceremony, Ohio State Associate Vice President for Student Affairs Richard Hollingsworth warned, “Disruption, including obstructing the view or hearing of others, will not be tolerated.” Everyone, meaning about 60,000 people, were informed that anyone protesting the speakers could be subject to arrest and expulsion from the stadium. They were told that staff members, police, and Secret Service officers would be watching the stands for any signs of protest. As Bush walked to the podium, 4 graduates and a few spectators stood up and silently turned their backs to the president. They were quickly escorted out of the stadium by police officers. There’s a choice little side-note to all of this: King Georgie was not the University’s first choice to speak that day; he was only invited when – get this – Tom Hanks declined their invitation.

Here’s a little quote from Theodore Roosevelt to shed some more light on the subject:
“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.” You tell ‘em, Teddy! And yet just that moral treason is being touted as the standard for patriotic behavior by our benevolent oligarchs today. “War is peace! Ignorance is strength! Freedom is slavery!” Recognize that?

Here’s a recent item from the Meridian, Mississippi, Star on how to call the police.

George Phillips of Meridian was going up to bed when his wife told him that he’d left the light on in the garden shed, which she could see from the bedroom window. George opened the back door to go turn off the light but saw that there were people in the shed stealing things. He phoned the police, who asked, “Is someone in your house?” and he said no.

Then they said that all patrols were busy, and that he should simply lock his door and an officer would be along when available. George said, “Okay,” hung up, counted to 30, and phoned the police again. “Hello. I just called you a few seconds ago because there were people in my shed. Well, you don’t have to worry about them now cause I’ve just shot them all.” Then he hung up.

Within five minutes three police cars, an Armed Response unit, and an ambulance showed up at the Phillips residence. Of course, the police caught the burglars red-handed. One of the policemen said to George: “I thought you said that you’d shot them!” George said, “I thought you said there was nobody available.”

This next item stands as one of the most shameful acts of blatant oligarchic misrule that we have seen yet during the illegal reign of King George II and Crown Prince Dick – and that’s saying an awful lot. Last month, both the US House of Representatives and the US Senate passed the so-called “Fast Track” legislation – the House by only a few votes, and the Senate by a wide margin.

I’ll have some excerpts from a story in The Nation on that debacle; but first, do you remember what we said Fast Track was when we mentioned it a few months ago? It’s legislation that will give King George and his courtiers the right to negotiate “Free Trade” treaties at some time in the future, without bothering to run them by the Senate, as mandated by the Constitution. Here’s the article:

3:28 AM and All is Not Well:
House Approves Fast Track
07/27/2002 @ 10:50am
The Nation

At 3:28 a.m. Saturday, July 27, with senior members of Congress decrying the legislation before them as a “fraud” and a “hoax,” the United States House of Representatives voted by a razor-thin margin of three votes to grant the Bush administration authority to secretly negotiate a sweeping Free Trade Area of the Americas agreement.

“This night will be remembered as one of the largest surrenders of Constitutional authority in American history,” said US Rep. David Bonior, D-Michigan, as the House voted, 215-212, to allow the president to engage in Fast Track negotiations to create a North American Free Trade Agreement-style corporate trading zone that would include virtually every country in the western Hemisphere. (Every country except Cuba, as a matter of fact.)

A particular bone of contention was the fact that most members had not had time to read the measure they were voting on. The most important trade and economic vote by the current Congress came just hours after members received emails telling them they could review the 304-page bill on a Congressional web site. The House had to employ the so-called “Martial Law” rule in order to waive the requirement that members get at least one day to review legislation.

Rep. Marcy Kaptur, D-Ohio told the House the rush to judgment on the part of Fast Track supporters was no surprise. Condemning the legislation as a move to make it easier to create “corporate slums and global plantations with penny-wage jobs,” Kaptur said. “They want to (debate) it in the middle of the night while most people are sleeping.” And so they did.

Fast Track critics explained that, while the legislation was bad news for America workers and farmers, it represented worse news for the people who live in developing countries that could become US trading partners in a Free Trade Area of the Americas governed by corporate-dictated “trade promotion” rules, as opposed to democracy. Kaptur, who has traveled extensively to examine the impact of unrestricted free trade schemes, explained that under NAFTA, conditions for Mexican workers and farmers had dramatically worsened.

At every turn, Ways and Means Committee chair Thomas and a coterie of Fast Track backers mocked concerns expressed by opponents, gleefully suggesting that they were slow readers because they had not read the bill – which weighed six pounds when printed out – in the several hours that it had been available to them.

But the supporters of the legislation did not choose to confront the most stinging criticism to come from the opposition – the charge that it represented a capitulation by Congress to the very corporations that members are supposedly cracking down on in the wake of the Enron, Global Crossing, and WorldCom scandals. “This Fast Track shifts power from democratic governance to corporations,” boomed Rep. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, who correctly described the legislation as “corporate America’s top priority.”

So why am I, a Libertarian, calling “free trade” a debacle? Because the phrase “free trade” is a lie here. This is NOT free trade; it is enslaved trade – trade that’s enslaved to the whims and profits of the mega-corporations that have taken over the government at all levels in this country. True free trade – the kind of free trade the Libertarian Party stands for – is trade on a level playing field. Friends, there hasn’t been a level playing field in this country since corporations were given all the rights and privileges of human beings, back in 1886. The mega-corporations own the government, and buy all the legislation, privileges, and perquisites they want. Small companies, other nations, and (most importantly) the working people of this country have been relegated to the status of vassals – serfs – in the great mega-corporate machinery. That is not free trade, and that is not what the Libertarian Party stands for.

Next, I report with great sadness that, despite appeals from all quarters of this nation and the rest of the world, the US Navy has gone ahead with its plan to make the seas uninhabitable for whales, dolphins, and other large sea creatures. The Natural Resources Defense Council reports that “On July 16th the Bush administration granted the Navy a permit to harm whales, dolphins, and other marine mammals while using its Low Frequency Active sonar system in as much as 80 percent of the world’s oceans. The high-powered submarine detection system will operate at noise levels billions of times more intense than those known to disturb the migration and communication of large whales.”

You’ve already seen the results of those tests in the news:

· 60 false killer whales beached themselves off Australia

· Hundreds of giant squid had beached themselves along the Californian coastline along with unusual numbers of (harmless) leopard sharks coming in close to shore disorientated

· Twelve manatees have also been reported to have died on the Florida coast

· Another 60 pilot whales have beached themselves off Cape Cod

The sonar is equivalent in decibels to us standing next to a rocket being launched. It causes brain hemorrhaging & disorientation to cetaceans and other marine life. But did any of those news reports tell you about the sonar tests? Did even one news outlet mention that these mass beachings immediately followed the start-up of the Navy’s blaring undersea cacophony? I think not – and guess why: yet again, the Government doesn’t want you to know the truth. And again, public access media are the only places to get complete, unbiased news any more.

Speaking of water pollution for the benefit of those in power, I suppose you’ve seen that the “green” city council caved in to Gary Bradley and the Stratus Corporation? Barton Springs is dead. Just yesterday the Statesman reported that the sediment at the bottom of the pool has toxic chemicals in it. If you haven’t swum in Barton Springs, you’d better go do it soon, because soon it’s going to be declared unsafe for human occupation, and you’ll never be able to swim in it again. How did it happen? Well, the Stratus Corporation and the City Council both know that the State Legislature is just itching to take the whole issue out of Austin’s hands – and they would have, if the Council hadn’t caved here in Austin. Just one more case of a corporation buying legislative influence; what’s new?