News of the Month

September 14, 2002

Well, we’ve just seen a veritable orgy of flag waving (and flag selling), posturing politicians, and a cacophony of what looks very much like outrage, all because of those attacks on US buildings a year ago. “They did it to us! It’s all their fault! We’re just sitting here, free, happy, and rich, and they’re so envious of our prosperity and freedom that they just had to try to hurt us!” And so on. It’s the patriotic line – but how true is it? Tonight we’re going to find out.

Let me lead off by reading this statement that I wrote and distributed the week after the attacks last year.

As abhorrent and senseless as this tragic attack was, still we need to remember that we are reaping a whirlwind that we ourselves have sown. We have sown it by interference –armed and economic – into the internal affairs of countless nations, for little more than the enhancement of own profit and lifestyle. We have sown it by allowing a century of profit-over-people rule by huge corporations through the politicians they have bought and paid for.

Yes; the blame for that day’s tragedy must fall squarely onto the head of Osama bin Laden (or whoever it turns out was responsible for it). But the blame must also fall onto our shoulders, for we are not innocent. Think of the East Timorians (or the Native Americans) and the people living around Bhopal, India (or around Love Canal, for that matter). We cannot forever exploit the people of the world and not expect some kind of retribution. We cannot go on using the hog’s share of the world’s resources, and not expect there to be a cost.

Both the Libertarian and the Green Parties’ candidates for President in 2000 said, in essence, that the only way to make other people and nations stop trying to hurt us is for us to stop doing things to make them hate us.

We have to stop armed interventions in the affairs of other nations, whether by our own forces or by those of our client states. We have to stop allowing – encouraging – the pillage of other nations by rogue US corporations like Monsanto, Dow, and their ilk. We have to stop aiding and abetting the destruction of other nations’ economies by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. We have to stop, in other words, our constant pressure to turn other nations into nothing more than sources of cheap natural resources and labor for our rich lifestyle.

As long as the United States government is controlled by the Republicrat Party, bought and paid for by big money and big power, that government is going to cater to the money and power that put it there. It’s going to look the other way while money and power ruin people and nations for their own profit, then it’s going to cry foul when those people and nations try to ruin us in return.

Our safety does not lie in some high-tech, high-expense “missile defense” system; 9/11 proved the stupidity of that approach. Our safety does not lie in eliminating our liberty and privacy in the name of security, much as some simple-minded (or power-hungry) people might like that. Our safety lies solely in becoming the kind of nation that other nations welcome in the world community, not one that shoves the world community aside to get at the gourmet meal on silver utensils and a fine linen tablecloth while beggars starve outside our door.

The only way to make other nations and peoples stop trying to hurt us
is for us to stop doing things that make them hate us.

To lead off our news of this month’s perversions of the rich and powerful, the Bush administration has, yet another time and in yet another way, publicly declared itself the enemy of the natural world. If it doesn’t give him money, it doesn’t count for … stuff. Here’s the report, from the Center for Biological Diversity:

“Setting a new low point in the history of the endangered species conservation, the Bush administration declared on July 1 that the Puget Sound population of Orcas is going extinct, but should not be protected under the Endangered Species Act because its extinction is ‘not significant.’ This is the first time in the history of the Endangered Species Act that a presidential administration has OKed the extinction of a plant or animal. The decision came in response to a petition filed by the Center for Biological Diversity and others in May 2001.

“On August 6, a coalition of environmental groups filed a 60-day notice of intent to sue the National Marine Fisheries Service for finding that Puget Sound’s Southern Resident killer whales are not ‘significant,’ a finding that precludes protection under the Endangered Species Act. (This) notice challenges the Fisheries Service’s failure to protect these whales on the ground that the Endangered Species Act protects discrete populations in the United States, even if killer whales may survive in Canada or on the high seas.

“ ‘This was a historic and ominous determination: we know of no other determination where an agency baldly stated that it won’t protect an endangered species because it considers the species insignificant,’ said Brent Plater, an attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity. ‘This lawsuit will ensure that Puget Sound’s killer whales are protected, and that the Fisheries Service never makes such a blatantly illegal determination again.’

“Over the past six years the Puget Sound resident killer whales have declined nearly 20%, leaving only 78 individuals in the population at the end of the 2001 survey year. The cause of the current decline appears to be the synergistic effects of high levels of toxic pollutants, a population decline in their preferred salmon prey, and human disturbance.”

Speaking of government by the rich and powerful, for the benefit of the rich and powerful, I’m having trouble deciding whether the United States today is an oligarchy or a plutocracy. The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines oligarchy as “a government in which a small group exercises control especially for corrupt and selfish purposes” and a plutocracy as “a government by the wealthy.” We’re certainly not living in either a democracy or a republic; but is this country an oligarchy or a plutocracy? Or is it both? Hmmm. Both; that’s it – both. We’re a country governed by a small and wealthy group exercises control for corrupt and selfish purposes. That’s us, all right!

Are you tired of it? Are you tired of being subjected to laws that the corporations and their rich and powerful CEOs don’t have to bother with? Are you sick of having to pay income tax on your $30,000 salary, while the likes of Enron and Ken Lay haven’t paid a dime of income tax in years? Are you disgusted with the proclamations that King Georgie-Poo makes to pay back his corporate investors at the price of lost jobs, higher prices, pollution of the air you breathe & the water you drink, along with more & ever more government waste? Then act like it! This year in the general elections, don’t waste your vote on a Republicrat, someone who’ll just keep on doing what they’ve been going for decades – cast a meaningful vote, for the Libertarian candidates, people who will work to reduce the load that our corrupt government puts onto our backs. It’s not going to be easy, but it can be done – if you don’t waste your vote trying to decide between the left hand and the right hand of the same old monster.

The trouble is, a sizeable fraction of the people in this country have actually bought the smoke and mirrors of the current “administration”. The American Journalism Review and the First Amendment Center recently did a national survey of people’s attitudes toward the First Amendment. Some of the – really scary – results:

· 49% said the First Amendment goes too far in allowing free speech

· 43% said that free speech should not include free criticism of the military

· 48% support monitoring of religious groups

Is it any wonder that the Bush & Dick Junta is finding so little opposition to its campaign to deprive us of our civil rights? Here’s another example: Alex Jones’s “infowars.com” web site has a pamphlet jointly prepared and distributed by the Phoenix, AZ, office of the FBI and the Maricopa County sheriff’s office. According to that pamphlet, “Domestic terrorism is defined as: groups or individuals operating entirely inside the US, attempting to influence the US government or population to effect political or social change by engaging in criminal activity.” Nothing in there about violence against persons or property; nothing about the use of fear or terror; just “criminal activity.”

In other words, civil disobedience – a practice of long and respected history in this country – is terrorism. Henry David Thoreau was a terrorist. Those courageous young people who sat in at the lunch counters all across the South in the ’60s were terrorists. Ridiculous!

Among the examples of “terrorists” listed are “Common Law Movement Proponents,” whose identifying characteristics are listed as:

· Fictitious license plates

· No license plates

· Fictitious drivers license

· No drivers license

· Refuse to identify themselves

· Request authority for stop

· Make numerous references to US Constitution

· Claim driving is a right, not a privilege

· Attempt to “police the police”

Sounds like a Libertarian to me! Now we’re terrorists – they’ve defined us to be!

And here’s yet another way the Bush and the Dick are screwing us now, from an article in eWeek magazine by Caron Carlson and Dennis Fisher:

“The Bush administration has plans to create a centralized facility for collecting and examining security-related e-mail and data traffic and will push private network operators to expand their data-gathering initiatives, according to an unreleased draft of the plan. The call for expanded data collection and analysis results from administration concerns that efforts to secure cyberspace are hampered by the lack of a single data-collection point to detect cyber-security incidents and issue warnings, according to a draft of the plan, ….

“Critics, however, worry that such a system would be expensive, difficult to manage and allow government agencies to expand their surveillance powers.”

Well, duhhh! Now they want a single centralized facility to collect and monitor all your e-mail and other data traffic. “Security,” they cry – but it’s just one more way this illegitimate administration is working to pull the wool over your eyes, using “terrorism” as a threat to keep pulling your rights away, until there’s nothing left. Why aren’t people screaming? Are we too dulled from our own “bread and the games of the circus” – fast pseudo-food and TV? Don’t we care any more? Or are we content to sit there and veg out while the world goes by us and our rights and freedoms go down the toilet?

For our next item, some of you may remember the month we discussed the problems and dangers with genetically modified foods. I told you about a courageous Canadian farmer, whose crop had been polluted by wind-borne pollen from a neighbor’s planting of “Roundup Ready” canola. Monsanto sued him, claiming he was using their patented technology without paying a royalty. The farmer, Percy Schmeiser, had been working on and improving the quality of his crop year by year, by saving the best of his seed each year for planting the next year. Monsanto said that since their technology was in his fields, it was illegal for him to save his seed. Despite the fact that Mr. Schmeiser did not choose to use Monsanto’s product, and took no action to introduce that product into his fields, the district court ruled against Mr. Schmeiser in the matter; he appealed the case to a Court of Appeals, and just this week that court also ruled for Monsanto and against Mr. Schmeiser.

To quote from a report in Crop Choice News, “The three-judge panel unanimously decided in favor of Monsanto Canada by dismissing all of the 17 points that counsel to Schmeiser had used in contending that a May 2001 lower court decision should be set aside. … ‘This completely takes away farmers’ rights because the judges are interpreting the law to mean that patents are over and above farmers’ rights,’ Schmeiser says. ‘At the end of the day, it means that farmers lose their right to save seed.’ ” (Pause.) And it means that yet another giant multinational corporation buys – excuse me, wins – the right to stomp on the citizen in order to secure its right to an unrestricted profit. Monsanto, by the way is one of the worst corporate criminals – one, because of their arrogance and disregard for common decency in pursuing their aims, and two, because this is our food they’re trying to buy control over. Once their GM technology pollutes our nation’s crop fields, even if that pollution is wind-borne and totally out of the control of the farmers whose crops are ruined, Monsanto “owns” the crops in that field, and can dictate just what can and cannot be done with those crops. Our food. Watch out – our water is next.

Oh, let’s go to some Texas news. Texas finally has its priorities in order. As reported in the Houston Chronicle last month, “Percentage increases in spending for Texas prisons has far outstripped state spending hikes for higher education since the mid-1980s, …. The study, by the Justice Policy Institute, a Washington advocacy group, also showed Texas now has more black men in state prisons than in state colleges and universities. The study found that in 2000 there were about 66,300 African-American men in state prisons, and only 40,872 in state colleges. In the past 20 years, the rate of increase in the black male prison population has been four times higher than the increase in black male college students.”

Why is the state – actually, the entire nation – going to such great lengths to incarcerate such an enormous percentage of its black men? I have an idea about that, but I’m going to save it for a future show. If I’m right – and I believe I am – it’ll explain a whole lot of things that have been going on in this country lately (the drug war, for example). Later.

And from Conroe, that bastion of tolerance, diversity, and Christian charity, we have this news, courtesy of the Associated Press and the Austin American-Statesman:

“A sex education book for young adults might be banned from Montgomery County libraries after protests by some residents upset with its material on homosexuality and abortion. Montgomery County Commissioners agreed Tuesday that It’s Perfectly Normal: Changing Bodies, Growing Up, Sex & Sexual Health by Robie Harris should be removed from county libraries.

“ ‘That book tries to minimize or even negate that homosexuality is a problem,’ County Judge Alan Sadler said. ‘This is clearly a book for children about sexuality, and it clearly tries to steer the child toward being pro-homosexual or at least neutral.’

The county judge – the highest elected officer in the county – speaks ex cathedra. Listen to that bigoted idiot: “… it clearly tries to steer the child toward being pro-homosexual or at least neutral.” Neutral? Neutral?!? Good Goddess! I’ll bet that piddly-toot actually thinks he’s a Christian – a follower of the man who said, “Love your neighbor.” Neutral is the absolute dead last worst thing anybody ought to be. Listen, Judge, your Bible says God looked on everything he made and called it good. Who are you to spout your blasphemous verbal projectile diarrhea and contradict that? (Pause.) To continue with the story:

“The 89-page book contains three pages discussing homosexuality and two pages discussing laws and legal rulings regarding abortion.

“ ‘The illustrations are honest,’ Harris said. ‘If we’re not honest with our kids, we have no credibility. Every single illustration is of caring, loving, respectful relationships, contrary to what children see in real life, on some TV and cable – not all – and on the Internet.’

“ ‘I was appalled when I found out this book was in our library,’ Monte Lane of Cut-and-Shoot said. ‘Homosexuality is leading to the moral decay of our country. This book promotes homosexuality and abortion. To allow these things in this county brings us down.’ Lane suggested that the person responsible for purchasing the books should be fired.”

Ah, the true intellectual shines forth at last, illuminating our existence with the light of reason. (Hmph!) The Texas Triangle’s report of that bit of asininity adds that the book (4 copies of it) was on the shelves of the county library for 7 years before the ever-vigilant guardians of public morality had the wit to notice it was there, and during that time it’s been checked out more than 100 times. That same report also quoted the county librarian as saying that “one of the individuals who spoke out on the book … admitted that he had not actually read the work, but had been to a pro-life conference where he was shown ‘either the book or excerpts from the book and was appalled that it would be in our libraries.’ ” Dumb, dumb, dumb – exactly the kind of mindless bozo I’d expect to be for censorship, ignorance – and forced pregnancy.

Finally, I’d like to leave you with some words of true wisdom from Austin Chronicle columnist Michael Ventura. Do you read his column? You should – he is the most insightful, lucid, and literate writers on current events I have ever read. He’s on the web, too; just go to www.auschron.com, select the “Columns” link, then select the link to his column, “Letters at 3AM.” This week he says, “Remembering September 11, we owe it to ourselves to remember what its horrors have been shamelessly manipulated to obscure.” Some examples:

· “… during the summer of 2001, mere weeks before the attack, Attorney General John Ashcroft denied repeated FBI requests for additional funds to fight terrorism; his final letter of refusal arrived at the FBI on Sept. 10.”

· “President Bush has also never explained why, in the spring of 2001, he gave 10 million of our tax dollars to the Taliban for their supposed help in cutting opium production, trusting the Taliban to use the money for that purpose.”

· “On Aug. 16, 2001, the White House predicted that economic growth would double in 2002. The White House has since hid behind September 11's effects when questioned about the lunacy of that estimate.”

· “After September 11, the greatest military force in history overpowered a poorly armed medieval tribe; this was ballyhooed as a great victory, as though a giant squashing a bug could be termed a “victory.” A year later, American soldiers are still frantically searching for Osama bin Laden; no one knows who mailed the anthrax; there have been hundreds of arrests (of dubious constitutionality) but no convictions; terrorist alerts are frequent; there is disintegration in the Mideast; and our economy remains, to put it mildly, precarious. A recent UN investigation showed that Bush has not even managed to hinder al Qaeda's finances. Which is to say: nothing certain has been accomplished. Yet these people claim glory. And plan another war.”

Thank you, Michael. As always, you show us how to peer through the smoke and mirrors and find the truth – the fact that the men behind the curtain are manipulating everything for their own profit and power. And that must stop.