News of the Month

August 14, 2004

The biggest news from the previous month, for those of us who love our liberties and the principles on which this nation was founded, was the lengths to which the Bush junta will go to prevent the will of the people from being expressed once again in the 2004 elections. The illegitimate occupants of the executive branch even went so far as to see if they could get the Congress to authorize them to “postpone” this year’s elections if they decided there was a “terrorist threat.” You probably heard about that story, broken by Newsweek magazine and widely reported, so the only thing I’ll say here is to read you Jay Leno’s comment on it:

“I love that the Department of Homeland Security always tells Americans if you don’t fly commercial airlines, ‘the terrorists have won.’ If you don’t hold the Super Bowl or the World Series, ‘the terrorists have won.’ If you don’t get out to the mall and do your Christmas shopping, ‘the terrorists have won.’ Comes time for the election, ‘Oh, let the terrorists have that one.’ ”

However, you may not have heard about this next attempt by the Republican power addicts in Congress to control the elections. Their Ministry of Truth deleted from the Congressional Record a statement made on the floor of the House by Florida Congresswoman Corrine Brown about the 2004 elections. This report, by First Coast News, the web site of the Jacksonville, Florida, NBC and ABC affiliates, describes the events:

“Congresswoman Corrine Brown (D-Jacksonville)hosted a healthcare roundtable at the Mary Singleton Center this morning. Representative Brown told First Coast News she still stands behind her comments that ignited a firestorm in Washington.

“Members of the U.S. House of Representatives censured Brown after a shouting match on the House floor Thursday night. The argument started during a debate over HR 4818. The bill would provide international monitoring of the November presidential election. Congress has been considering an outside monitor due to all the confusion over the last election, and the ‘hanging chads’ in Florida.

“Representative Brown said, ‘I come from Florida, where you and others participated in what I call the United States coup d’etat. We need to make sure that it doesn't happen again. Over and over again after the election when you stole the election, you came back here and said get over it. No we're not going to get over it and we want verification from the world.’

“Those comments drew an immediate objection from Republican members of the House. Leaders moved to strike her comments from the record. The House also censured Brown, which kept her from talking on the House floor for the rest of the day.

“Congresswoman Brown responded to the matter in a statement late Thursday night. [She] wrote, ‘Striking my words from the House floor is just one more example of the Republican Party’s attempt to try and cover up what happened during the 2000 election.’ Brown also wrote, ‘When the words of Corrine Brown are stricken from the floor, so is the voice of her 600,000 constituents in Florida's 3rd Congressional District.’ “

The text of her two speeches to Congress, from her Congressional web site, can be found by following these two links:

Her original speech, calling for international oversight of the 2004 elections

Her follow-up speech, decrying the censorship of her first speech

If you want the details about the 2000 coup d’etat, you might want to watch – or even order – the DVD movie “Unprecedented.” You can get it from Austin’s Waterloo Records; or if they don’t have it, from the film’s makers at www.unprecedented.org.

Next, I have a little quote from Dr. Timothy Leary, about the effectiveness of the news media:

“You know you can never find out what’s happening from the company bulletin or the adult press. You know that. The king’s messengers are always telling you what they want you to know, for their own benefit. The revolutionary message, what’s really happening, has always come from outcasts.”

Now you know why you watch Community Access television! An August 3 editorial in the New York Times says it better than I can:

(Click here for the complete text.)

Did you ever wonder why Bush’s and Cheney’s speeches get such great receptions? Why you don’t even hear a guffaw when they come out with stupidities like “The American people are safer”? Well, here’s why – every person who attends a Bush or Cheney speech has to sign an oath that they support W for re-election before they’re allowed into the auditorium. Last week in Albuquerque, for example, everyone had to sign this oath (and listen carefully):

“I do herby endorse George W. Bush for re-election to the United States.”

I mean, I knew they were incompetent, but for crying out loud, that’s ridiculous. Of course, given who they’re talking about, it’s no surprise at all that the English is mangled. Listen to what “W” himself said when he signed the Defense Appropriations Act for 2005:

“Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we.”

Hmmm; maybe his conscience is making him tell the truth, at least some of the time.

But why do they do their events that way, with the oath and all? Because the speeches aren’t opportunities to convince people – they’re staged media events, designed to produce TV clips that can be used to convince people. As Jon Stewart of The Daily Show pointed out, “nothing convinces people like … convinced people.”

OK; on to something more serious. I’ve been reporting for over a year now that “President” George W. Bush is clinically insane. Respected web site Capitol Hill Blue has compiled some additional evidence of that:

The (continued) madness of King George

So why, you ask, don’t I just endorse John Kerry as the best alternative to the illegal, irrational, incompetent, and insane rule of King George? Well, bad as W is – and we all know how bad that is – the real question is, “Is Kerry all that much better?” They’re both members of the infamous Skull and Bones society at Yale; they’re both sons of hyper-rich families (and Kerry squared that by marrying into another hyper-rich family); and most important of all, both of them are the products of the tired old politics of power, money, and corruption.

Think back to the primaries earlier this year. Dean was easily the front-runner, with Kerry trailing back with the pack. Then all of a sudden the word went out to the news outlets to make a big – no, make that huge – deal about his enthusiastic yell after … oh, I forget – one of the primaries. And poof! The media pundits, following the party line they were given by their bosses, destroyed Dean’s candidacy, clearing the way for Skull-and-Bonesman Kerry. Did that strike anyone else out there as just a bit too slippery to be real?

So what’s the alternative? In this state, in this year, there’s only one – Libertarian candidate Michael Badnarik, of Austin. Whether you’re a Libertarian, a Green, a member of the Reform Party, or even a Republocrat who’s sick and tired of corrupt politics as usual, Michael Badnarik is the way to say that this year. The Republocrat-controlled government kept all the other parties and candidates from even gaining access to the Presidential ballot this year. If you don’t like the way this country’s being run – if you don’t like the fact that the Democrats were right in there with the Republicans voting for the infamous “PATRIOT” Act and the illegal & immoral war on Iraq, Michael Badnarik and the Libertarian Party are your best ways to say that this year. I know Michael; and he’s a straightforward, plain-spoken, dedicated advocate of freedom. And remember – there’s also a full slate of local Libertarian candidates running. Whatever else, this is a year to vote your hopes, not your fears.

But I want to leave you with an issue that makes the battle between the two wings of the Republocrat Party look like two crabs fighting in a tide pool when you look up and see the ocean. Liberal, conservative, Republican, Democrat, Green, even Libertarian … none of the labels we use to divide ourselves up and pick fights make sense any more. The human race is like the passengers on a bus that’s hurtling downhill, out of control, but who are more interested in calling each other names and proving that they’re right than gaining control of the bus before it crashes into the mountain in front of them.

What am I talking about? We’re fast approaching the end of the Age of Oil, which means the end of the age of cheap energy. The human race – or at least, those of us in the rich half of the world – has had a great time, while it lasted. Richard Heinberg, in his book The Party’s Over, puts it better than I could:

“It has been a fabulous party. But from those to whom much has been given, much should be expected. Once we are aware of the choice, it is up to us to decide. Should we vainly continue reveling until the bitter end, and take most of the rest of the world down with us? Or shall we acknowledge that the party is over, clean up after ourselves, and make way for those who will come after us?”

This is a book that everyone in this country should read. I have to say to you – get it, and read it. Some of it is kind of technical, and some of it is a real downer; but unless we as a nation realize that the corrupt corporate control of our nation and its government must be stopped, we are headed for a catastrophe of (sorry about the hyperbole, but this one is right on) unprecedented proportions. Go find out for yourself! You can start by visiting the author’s web site, www.museletter.com (that’s muse, M-U-S-E, letter.com).

How bad is it, really? Let me give you just one little clue, from a news story in Al-Jazeera about how much the world’s oil companies have been over-estimating their “reserves” – the amount of oil they estimate is still in the ground to be pumped – for years:

“One of the three super majors, Shell, this year shed 23% of its reserves almost overnight. Around 4.48 billion barrels. Just over 20% was in fact discarded in one day. If Shell were to pump their oil at the rate they are doing today, and if they were to discover no more oil in that period, Shell would run out of oil in a decade.

“Shell is not alone. El Paso of Houston Texas revised its reserves down by an amazing 43% on 31 December 2003. Forest Corps, which had announced a new field of 49 million barrels, Redoubt Shoal in Alaska, revised it down to just eight million a year later.”

I’d originally planned to end this here, but the sh… stuff just keeps coming! For example, this past Thursday US forces in Iraq invaded the city of Najaf, because one imam (holy man) who objected to the illegal invasion of his nation by our forces was holed up in a mosque there. Well, it turns out that the mosque is one of the holiest sites in Islam; it’s the burial site of Mohammed’s son-in-law, Imam Ali. As a result, Shi’ites in Iraq are joining the resistance movement in droves. Wow. “The resistance movement.” The last time we used that phrase, it described the people in Europe who resisted the illegal invasion of their countries by the Nazis. Now we’re the ones being resisted by another nation’s freedom fighters.

So what’s going to happen? The people in charge of our so-called government have decided to do things that are guaranteed to cause many, if not most, of the Muslims in the Middle East to rise up against us. And, since our “government” has defined uprisings against us, no matter how justified, as terrorism, we have the situation where our own government is encouraging the world’s Muslims to commit acts of “terror” against us. To what end, do you think? Could it have anything to do with the fact that the elections are just 3 months away? It would give the Bush junta a perfect excuse to cancel the November elections – remember, they’ve already started thinking of ways they could justify it. Come November, will there be a Republic left?

Speaking of that excuse for everything, the threat of terrorism, the Constitutional guarantee of due process has taken yet another hit from the “guardians of freedom” who are our rulers right now. An article in the New York Times on Wednesday, entitled “U.S. to Give Border Patrol Agents the Power to Deport Illegal Aliens,” reports that the Border Patrol:

“… planned to give border agents sweeping new powers to deport illegal foreigners from the frontiers with Mexico and Canada without providing them an opportunity to make their case before an immigration judge.”

The reason? As if you couldn’t guess, it’s the same one that the Bush junta has been using for years now to justify taking more and more of our Constitutional rights away – that old bugaboo, terrorism:

“ ‘There is a concern that, as we tighten the security of our ports of entry through our biometric checks, … there will be more opportunity or more effort made by terrorists to enter our country through our vast land borders,’ said Asa Hutchinson, the undersecretary for border security at the Department of Homeland Security. ‘We recognize that we have to secure those, and that’s the president's first principle of immigration reform,’ Hutchinson said. ‘America must secure its borders, and this is a part of that effort.’ ”

“There is a concern.” Hah! That’s one of the most over-used, and over-mis-used, excuses for an excuse there is. For credibility, it ranks right up there – sorry: down there – with “They say.” A concern by whom? Bush’s cocaine connection? “There is a concern.” Not something I want used to take away my rights – or yours, or even some illegal immigrant’s. Consider this: the Constitution doesn’t say “every citizen” when it talks about rights; it says “every person.” Of course, we already know what the incompetent ideologues in power think of the Constitution.