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We Must
Protect Freedom and Democracy - but for Whom?
By Charles
Honeywell Mission Developer
Here are 5 signs of the demolishing
American Dream. In fact, we may be a new form of “the beast”
ourselves. Just ask people from other countries what the feeling
is toward Americans these days.
Washington’s political machine acts as though we must take
over more countries and force our leaders into power, calling that
democracy as long as we can exploit their resources, pollute their
air, and get sweatshop wages to import back to America for Wal-Mart
and other company names. Those that don’t do this go bankrupt
proving that the global economy is the only way to survive. To keep
control, even when exposed in a few big bankruptcies, the politicians
and the corporate media will focus on increased sports hype, high
profile child kidnappings, and forest fires entertaining the populace
to keep them distracted. A few token Enron, World Com, and other
executives will be put on display, and the lower level scapegoats
will possibly do a little jail time. Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands
of the elite corporate owners continue the greed that has caused
all the hatred against America. Oh sure, a few are losing a million
out of their 100 million investments in the stock market, then go
into depression, and look for a new angle.
The safest and most sure way to stop terrorism (it is a religious
war, Muslim vs. capitalism and its sanctified partner the American
religious right and mega churches) would be to announce that America
is going home and deal with countries on an equal basis of goods,
trade, honesty, and real democracy. Then, limit the 3% who own everything
(billion dollar executives and sports figures) that make millions
for salaries each year and share it with the rest of society. It
would eliminate hunger and poverty, as we know it. But now, we are
fantasizing way out of reality and talking about biblical sharing
and heaven.
Coming back to reality, there are 5 themes hitting the media and
all 5 are pointing at the same evil.
1. Jails are at record level capacity: 1 in 32
Americans are behind bars or on parole. 1 in 4 black Americans have
jail experience. Is this the description of American Democracy?
The system allows the poor communities to pacify themselves with
drugs, and then sets up a system to arrest, try, and jail them.
In this manner, you don’t find protest or terror coming from
the American poor. The Arab countries haven’t learned this
from the American leaders yet. The “War on Drugs” is
a total failure by all statistical measures, but it is highly successful
for the purpose of keeping more and more of the poor in jail. The
higher end drugs such as cocaine are mostly used by the wealthy,
yet the ones in jail are the poor who were the runners. This also
employs millions in the court/penal system, most at the bottom with
pittance wages. Therefore, no protest will be forthcoming from that
segment. Here is the latest example of protest control. Most do
not realize the gravity of this type of police action. It is clear
Gestapo mentality in action.
One
in 32, a record number of adults in jail or on probation
By Jonathon
D. Salant
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON - One in every 32 adults in the
United States was behind bars or on probation or parole by the end
of last year, according to a government report yesterday that found
a record 6.6 million people in the nation's correctional system...
...The number of adults under supervision by the criminal justice
system rose by 147,700, or 2.3 percent, between 2000 and 2001, the
Justice Department reported. In 1990, almost 4.4 million adults
were incarcerated or being supervised.
..."The overall figures suggest that we've come to rely on
the criminal justice system as a way of responding to social problems
in a way that's unprecedented," said Marc Mauer, assistant
director of the Sentencing Project, an advocacy and research group
that favors alternatives to incarcerations. "We're setting
a new record every day."
... Whites accounted for 55 percent of those on probation, while
blacks made up 31 percent, statistics show. On the other hand, 46
percent of those incarcerated were black and 36 percent were white...
PITTSBURGH
POST-GAZETTE
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 4, 2002
Sign-carrier arrested after balking at curbs
By Joyce Mendelsohn/Post-Gazette
County Police Superintendent Ken Fulton said the U.S. Secret Service
specified crowd-control procedures to ensure Bush's safety. His
officers, he said, were enforcing rules put in place by federal
agents.
"The magistrate could let them go when they appear in court,"
he said of the Neels, "It's no skin off my back."
... Protesters wanted to use Bush's appearance as an excuse to take
over a neighborhood, Selzer said, so he decided t limit their ability
to move about...
...Neel said he and his sister were not affiliated with any organization.
They went to Neville Island to pan the President, he said, because
they disagree with his policies.
Various people with signs friendly to Bush were allowed to stand
along Neville Island's main street, where the president's motorcade
passed. One Neville Island woman carried a homemade sign that said,
"Hello George." She said she stood along the street for
about seven hours until Bush arrived.
...Neel said county officers were "professional and nonjudgmental"
when they arrested him. But, he said, the steps taken to buffer
Bush from critics were indefensible...
..."It's not me that's in trouble. It's the country,"
said Neel, a retired steelworker, who has run for Congress as a
Democrat and for the state Legislature as a Republican...
... No date has been scheduled for his court hearing.
2. Campaign reform:
The next ruse is putting forth the joke of campaign reform. As we
said before, it’s all show and no substance. It’s like
asking the multi-millionaires to give up their billion-dollar wealth
and be happy with just being rich. It won’t happen! They must
buy their political leaders and then go around the system with expensive
lawyers. Meanwhile, our neighbors go to jail because they can’t
afford a jailhouse lawyer. In fact, Allegheny County just quit paying
for legal services for the poor. There is a backlog of cases now.
PITTSBURGH
POST-GAZETTE
SUNDAY, AUGUST 25, 2002
Party bigwigs forming new groups to raise soft money
Campaign reform law already skirted
By Thomas Edsall
The Washington Post
WASHINGTON - Some of the biggest names in Republican and Democratic
circles are establishing new groups to collect and spend the unlimited
political donations that were supposed to be curbed by the recent
campaign finance law.
...White House political operatives, high-profile lobbyists, former
aides to Bill Clinton and staffers at the Democratic and Republican
senatorial campaign committees are setting up tax-exempt organizations
to raise and spend "soft money." That refers to large
sums collected from corporations, unions, trade groups and individuals
outside of the normal limits on donations to federal campaigns...
3. Forest and environment:
The planet is reacting to all the greed of corporate rape.
Think the sex scandals of the Catholic Church are something? The
molestation of the land destroys many more lives yet it hardly bothers
us at all. The media brings sin to your doorstep in ways that keep
you focused on individual, personal sins, and not the far more reaching
corporate rape of our environment. And, it’s not just environmental.
Recently, I met with some American Indians from the local area over
historical issues and they see that nothing has changed in 300 years
of white occupation. They were finally given worthless land and
pushed onto reservations, only to find out that the so-called worthless
land contains uranium. Now the government wants it back and will
push the American Indians off once more. Again, no protest, many
of the leaders are given jobs at the reservation casinos. And don’t
forget who introduced alcohol to the Indians. It helped the whites
to win easier treaties, lessen the ability to fight and keep their
clans together. Today, drugs to the underclass have the same effect.
Can
Earth Survive our waste?
At world environment summit, U.S. consumerism is key issue
By David Arnold
The Boston Globe
... On the eve of the second world environmental summit, which opens
tomorrow in Johannesburg, South Africa, an Indonesian official's
quip has underscored the frustration much of the world feels about
sharing the planet with Americans...
... "We are failing the world on a catastrophic moral level,"
Brown said. "Our excuse is our economy. But the source of American
power doesn't come from our McDonald's. It comes from doing the
right thing."...
...The American strategy going into Johannesburg calls for partnerships
between governments, the private sector and non government organizations
to achieve sustainable development. "We can strive together
for freer and more open societies, thriving economies, a healthy
environment," said Undersecretary of State Paula Dobriansky
in prepared remarks that offered no specific goals or timetables.
But partnerships won't do the job, said Nitin Desai, the summit
secretary-general. "Partnerships are no substitute for government
action or responsibilities. For partnerships to succeed, you need
a public-policy framework."...
4. 3rd world exploitation:
It is not too far fetched that Bush and Cheney may be about destroying
Israel by attacking Iraq. Will more stable heads be able to intervene,
or give Sadaam justification to be a hero in the Arab world by attacking
Israel if we attack first? Or, is it again oil for which our corporate
leaders are pushing Bush. Don’t ever be under the illusion
that Bush (or any president) is making the decisions. First of all,
one has to be intellectual to lead. Second, he was forced into office
by the political right. The corporate leaders know that war is the
best way to bring back an economy for a select few. War will never
bring back a solid economy for the masses. (Refer to Campaign reform
article)
5. Liberty (Heston & Franklin get together):
I like to quote from the hated NRA for a couple of reasons. First,
I like to see Charlton Heston, having supported Bush, eat his words
by now having to blast him for taking away liberties. Second, Heston
is right. For that matter, so was Benjamin Franklin. Read their
quotes. Franklin was also a hypocrite just like other great leaders.
A Quaker and pacifist, and yet he offered a bounty for Indian scalps
after the Paxton boys threatened to raid Philadelphia back in the
18th century. Read their views on liberty and enough said.
Presidents
Column
By
Charleton Heston, President, NRA
History books will no doubt detail the events of September
11, but our reactions to those events in the months that followed
will surely be remarked upon for longer than anything that happened
the day. We could be at a turning point in American history. And
the decisions that we're making right now may very well reverberate
for centuries. If we falter, generations will pay for our failure.
Our
right to privacy, one of our most fundamental rights as free people,
is being eroded as we are followed and photographed, scanned and
screened, patterned and profiled, cataloged and cross-referenced,
compiled in databases, and combed for clues to future behavior in
more ways, in more places, for more reasons, and more often then
ever before.
This represents a polar shift in the traditional American relationship
between the individual and the state - a shift that, is allowed
to continue to it's natural end, cannot be easily undone. Because
once we've handed over the immense power that these surveillance
regimes demand - once we've untethered the corrupting influence
that such power invariably exerts on it's bearers - how, exactly,
do we get our freedom back?
When we win the war on terrorism, when can we declare victory against
an enemy as elusive and mercurial as "terror"? Even before
September 11, our privacy rights faced encroachment from many directions:
from red-light cameras and speed-trap cameras to facial-recognition
cameras at the Super Bowl in Tampa. So none of this is anything
new.
What's new is the politicians eagerness to embrace the surveillance
society as a positive response to terror. What's new is the accelerating
"arms race" among technology suppliers seeking to sell
more powerful, intrusive, and widely used systems to politicians
desperate for answers and hungry for a slice for the terror-generated
pork-barrel pie.
Results of a recent poll conducted by Zogby International of 1,000
registered voters nationwide indicate an increasing willingness
by Americans to trade some freedoms for a false sense of security.
Respondents were asked whether they favor or oppose various methods
that may be employed to combat terrorism. While more than half,
57 percent, said they oppose having their mail searched at random,
an astounding 40 percent said they favor the idea. Other results,
however, are even more worrisome. Seventy-nine percent said they
favor allowing video surveillance of public places, such as street
corners and neighborhoods, while only 17 percent oppose the intrusion.
And 62 percent said they favor allowing their cars to be searched
at random versus 35 percent who oppose it. Finally, more than half,
52 percent, said they favor allowing regular roadblocks to search
vehicles, while 44 percent said they oppose it.
Where does it all lead? Look at England, where in hundreds of cities
street-side surveillance cameras are now a fact of everyday life.
Clinton protege' Tony Blair, a vocal cheerleader for the cameras,
said, "If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear."
That may be true for Britons, who have behaved like subjects for
centuries. For Americans it's a watershed shift. Today in England,
people don't want to stand out, raise flags, arouse suspicion, or
even attract attention. Everyone from airline passengers to window
shoppers dares not step out of line from the "normal profile."
In England, no one dares to speak out or question the government
for imposing these schemes - and that's exactly why they have them.
And it's exactly what we're doing in America now, by not discussing,
debating, and deliberating very, very carefully over these very
real, far-reaching, and historically irreversible encroachments
on our freedoms.
The technology may be new, but its misuses are as old as hatred
or greed. We all know from the Hitler's, Stalin's, and Mao's of
history exactly where this can lead.
But where does it all end? When we're all strip-searched, DNA-scanned,
followed, filmed, tracked, and profiled from the cradle to the grave?
What are the consequences for freedom when the state can consolidate
such power, and such power can be so easily misused?
What kind of society is built on a distrust of the individual by
default, where we all need to be watched whether or not we've done
anything wrong?
And why do so few have the courage to even talk about it?
Add these 5 together
and you have the very strong signs of a totalitarian regime moving
along very consciously and dangerously. The American church is flying
their American flags on top of their poles with the Christian flag
underneath, fighting to keep God in the corporate altar pledge,
and you wonder why there is no protest. In the coming wars, maybe
the politicians can take the millions who get out of prison and
send them to the killing fields with hazard pay as their next short-term
employment. That would solve several problems on different fronts.
It would solve not only an economic problem (prison overcrowding)
but also a social problem (downsizes the lower class) for corporate
America. Remember, all kingdoms come crashing down, with the exception
of God’s. For that, we have the only hope.
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Bill
Neel, 65, of Butler, was arrested for protesting outside the designated
protest area when President Bush visited Neville Island on Labor
Day. The sign he was carrying said: "The Bushes must truly
love the poor - they've made so many of us."
"You
can't have them meandering around, carrying signs. That's disorderly."
- Edward Selzer,
Neville police superintendent
Charlton
Heston
BENJAMIN
FRANKLIN
(1706-1790)
They that can give up essential
liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty
nor safety. 4
Historical Review of Pennsylvania
4 This sentence was much used in the Revolutionary
period. It occurs even so early as November, 1755, in an answer
by the Assembly of Pennsylvania to the Governor, and forms the motto
of Franklin's "Historical Review," 1759, appearing also
in the body of the work,- RICHARD FROTHINGHAM (1812-1880):
Rise if the Republic of the United States, P.413
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