The Return of Penury in America.

Defeat Bush's Social-Darwinist Agenda NOW:
Regressive Bankruptcy Bill Will Hit Poorest Americans Hardest

By

Evan Augustine Peterson, III, J.D.

Executive Director, American Center for International Law

(ACIL)

In an HONEST world, this bill would have been called what really it is -- "The Debt Slavery Act." But its sponsoring Senators deceptively named it the "Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005" (S. 256/H.R. 685). [1]

In a BETTER world, this bill never would have passed. But on 3-10-05, the U.S. Senate passed the Republicans' phony bankruptcy "reform" bill by a 74-25 vote, in part because 18 turncoat Democrats crossed over to The Dark Side. [2]


Is all of this a moot point, now that the Senate has passed the bill? NO!


Fortunately, the U.S. Constitution created a BICAMERAL legislature, which requires controversial bills like this one to be passed by BOTH the Senate AND the House of Representatives. Hence, the House is scheduled to take up the same bankruptcy bill -- H.R. 685 -- in April, when it returns from its two-week vacation.


Whether it WILL pass, and whether it SHOULD pass, in the House are two very different questions. The argument that it WILL pass is based on the amoral assum ption that the credit industry drafted this sleazy bill; thus, they'll be paying their "K" Street lobbyists overtime to full-court press those Representatives to whom they've contributed millions in "campaign donations" (formerly known as bribes). Hence, the Washingtonian cognoscenti conclude that it WILL pass by a wide margin.


Consider that Democratic Senator Joseph Biden of Delaware -- "Say it ain't so, Joe!" --voted FOR the Republicans' bankruptcy bill. But then, credit-industry leviathan MBNA has its corporate headquarters in Delaware and, as Joe's actions tell us, "Money talks!" [3]


The argument that it SHOULD NOT pass is based on moral and prudential public-policy grounds. Consider that the Senate's draconian bill is unpopular among federal bankruptcy judges, who should know best what it will do! More than a dozen judges have said that it will unjustly overburden our society's most vulnerable people: the sick; the elderly; the poor; minorities; middle-class and military families; recent divorcées; and single parents. [4]


Further consider the negative consequences of this bill, as articulated by UCLA Law Professor Kenneth Klee, who co-authored the 1978 bankruptcy-reform bill when he was a Republican congressional staffer. Professor Klee says this new bankruptcy bill will leave our nation's most economically-desperate people buried beneath a mountain of debt, with no hope of getting out from under it, so it's predictable that they'll either go UNDERGROUND or into a life of CRIME.
[5]


That illustrates the difference between the "compassionate" conservative rhetoric about an "ownership society" and the reality. One wonders what's next on the Religious Right's "compassion-for-the-poor" agenda -- the revival of debtors' prisons?


Now consider that the Senate passed but one amendment, among the many proposals for a less draconian bill, and that it creates an UNJUST exception for disabled veterans! How so? The amendment's harsh language stipulates that 50% of a disabled veteran's total indebtedness must have accrued AFTER his/her disabling injury. Otherwise, s/he CANNOT qualify for a debt-discharging personal bankruptcy under Chapter 7, and instead MUST enter into a five-year, court-supervised repayment plan under Chapter 13.


Therefore, if a married National Guardsman with a homemaker wife and five small children is deployed to Iraq for an indeterminate time, and he takes out a $50,000.00 loan before he leaves to keep his family afloat financially, because he knows he'll be losing his higher-paying civilian job while receiving military pay, but then he quickly returns home after an Improvised Explosive Device transforms him into a wheelchair-bound quadraplegic, this asinine amendment says: "That's just your tough luck, buddy -- pay up on that loan NOW!" That vet accrued his debt BEFORE he was blown apart, so he can't qualify for a debt-liquidating personal bankruptcy under Chapter 7. And yet he can't pull himself up by his wheelchair straps, either. Hopefully, this family outright owns a very large station wagon in which they can sleep!


Furthermore, this UNJUST bill does absolutely nothing to rein in the credit industry's predatory lending practices (e.g., outrageous $50.00 late fees and usurious 30% interest rates are common), or to eliminate the special trust havens in certain states where wealthy Americans -- like Enron's CEO, Ken Lay -- have been hiding their assets during personal bankruptcies. Hence, we can conclude that this bill is a lopsided sham that SHOULD be overwhelmingly defeated in the House of Representatives.


Remember: "There -- But For The Grace Of God -- Go I!"


People like to THINK that they'll never need to avail themselves of the bankruptcy laws. However, the vast majority of the people who end up filing for personal laws. However, the vast majority of the people who end up filing for personal bankruptcy were reasonably-prudent individuals who never thought they'd see that day come. And yet it did. Indeed, recent studies that Harvard Law School Professor Elizabeth Warren cites prove that we're only one catastrophic illness, or one job loss, or one divorce, away from joining them in bankruptcy court, regardless of our social class or income level. [6]


What will YOU do if this bill passes, and there's NO WAY OUT of mounting indebtedness? DON'T let that happen -- regardless of whether you're a Democrat, a Republican, or an Independent!


The Bottom Line: Defeat Mr. Bush's Social Darwinist Agenda NOW!


This is the American peoples' LAST CHANCE to defeat one of the most destructive measures on our Reverse-Robin Hood president's regressive agenda. If we're wise enough to resist NOW, then this will become our first stand in a TWO-WAY pitched battle. Otherwise, Mr. Bush will continue to wage vicious ONE-WAY, top-down class warfare on behalf of his filthy-rich "HAVE-MORES," against the beleaguered "HAVES" who are just barely hanging on, and the downtrodden "HAVE-NOTS" who are drowning in debt! [7]


Finally, please know that YOU -- dear reader -- CAN do something that matters TODAY! The immoral credit industry continues to UNJUSTLY dominate us only because we, the people, do nothing to stop them from buying our Congresspersons, lock, stock, and barrel.

Instead, contact your U.S. Representative by telephone, fax, e-mail, or postal mail, and urge him or her to VIGOROUSLY OPPOSE H.R. 685, the credit industry's phony bankruptcy "reform" bill: http://www.house.gov/writerep/

ENDNOTES

[1] The bankruptcy "reform" bill is 450 pages long, but it is summarized at:
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d109:HR00685:@@@L&summ2=m&
[2] To hold the 18 turncoat Democrats and 57 Republicans who voted FOR this terrible bill ACCOUNTABLE, find out which Senators voted "yea," and which "voted nay," by reading the sidebar chart in THIS essay:
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0312-03.htm
[3] See OpenSecrets.org's revealing profile of MBNA's political donations:
http://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/summary.asp?ID=D000000114&Name=MBNA+Corp
[4] AmericanProgressAction.org's 3-29-05 column, "The Progress Report,"
explains: "BANKRUPTCY -- JUDGES SPEAK OUT AGAINST BILL: The goal of the bankruptcy bill steamrolling through Congress isn't to reform the bankruptcy system, it's to destroy it. Bankruptcy judges around the country are speaking out against the legislation. Keith Lundin, a federal bankruptcy judge in the eastern district of Tennessee in Nashville said, '[t]he advocates [of the bill] aren't trying to fix the bankruptcy law; they're trying to mess it up so much that nobody can use it.' Under the new law, repayment plans would be so expensive that many debtors would be unable to keep up, 'forcing debtors out of bankruptcy court protection.' Creditors could then 'try to force debtors to pay the full amount owed -- not the reduced amount a judge had ordered -- by moving to repossess their belongings or bringing legal actions.' As a result, 'many people would have to pay creditors far into the future ... and thus be unable to restart their economic lives, a long-held aim of bankruptcy.'"
[5] See the fourth-to-last paragraph in Peter Gosselin's 3-29-05 CD/LAT article, "Judges Say Overhaul Would Weaken Bankruptcy System" :
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0329-02.htm
[6] HLS Professor Elizabeth Warren's 2-12-05 CD/MH essay, "Sick And Broke":
http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0212-10.htm
[7] Please read these excellent essays for more specific facts about this
UNJUST bill:
A. The Nation's 3-25-05 CD/TN editorial, "Democrats: MIA":
http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0325-28.htm
B. Alan Maass' 3-19-05 CP essay, "Making Bankruptcy A Life Sentence:
Washington's Bipartisan Gift To The Bankers":
http://www.counterpunch.org/maass03192005.html
C. Robert Scheer's 3-15-05 CD/LAT essay,"The Bankruptcy Bill: A Tutorial
In Greed": http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0315-27.htm
D. Cynthia Tucker's 3-13-05 CD/AJC essay, "Bush Cheats Those He Owes":
http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0313-25.htm
E. David Broder's 3-13-05 CD/ST essay, "A Bankrupt Senate Vote":
http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0313-30.htm
F. Matthew Rothschild's 3-13-05 CD/TP essay, "Democrats Cave On Bankruptcy Bill": http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0313-31.htm
G. RedState's confessional 3-11-05 TP essay, "An Embarrassed Republican"
[A red-state Republican blogger laments his party's harsh bankruptcy bill by stating, among other things, that "This is on us, folks, and it's going to hurt a lot ofpeople."]:
http://www.tompaine.com/articles/an_embarrassed_republican.php
H. Arianna Huffington's 3-10-05 CD/AO essay, "The Senate Opens Fire on U.S.
Consumers": http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0310-22.htm
I. Paul Krugman's 3-9-05 TO essay "The Debt-Peonage Society":
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/030905G.shtml
J. Evan Augustine Peterson III's 3-9-05 TPV essay, "On Attempting To Justify The Unjustifiable With Scripture: Debt Slavery": http://tinyurl.com/4auhq
K. Molly Ivins' 3-3-05 CD/WFC essay, "Bad To Worse: Republicans Vote Down Military Exemption To Bankruptcy Bill, Add Loopholes For Rich":
http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0303-29.htm

About The Author:
Evan Augustine Peterson III, J.D.,
is the Executive Director of the
American Center for International Law ("ACIL").
© 2005 EAPIII. It is published here by permission.

Dispatch from the Netherlands Foreign Press Foundation (FPF)

Holland - an American

'Lapdog of War'.

Today: Dutch F-16 fighter bombers arrived at 1530 hrs on the "Killing Air Fields" of Afghanistan, assisting Dutch "Special Forces with a License to Kill." *

by Henk Ruyssenaars, FPF Senior Correspondent, March 29, 2005

The Netherlands - With hardly a word said, and keeping the information out of the Dutch 'news', some hours ago four Dutch F-16 bomber fighters landed at a Kabul air base in Afghanistan.

They are supposed to stay at least a year, and help in what the Dutch parliament has called American "Kill and Destroy" actions. Afghanistan has never attacked Holland nor given a Declaration of War, and according to the Geneva Convention and international law, the war and occupation is illegal. As illegal is the war in Iraq. Ergo: like the Americans, the Dutch are now war criminals.*

'Expected war criminals', according to the American government's information service 'Associated Press' today*: "American officials say fixing the runway at Bagram will make it suitable for Dutch F-16 fighters expected to deploy this year to support the separate NATO-run security force in Afghanistan. U.S. forces have begun vacating Shindand Air Base, near the Iranian border, as NATO expands its 8,500-strong force into the west."

Contrary to European thinking and popular wishes, pro-US criminals within NATO are secretly drawing Europe further into the American quagmires; to fight, get killed and have the taxpayers foot the (secret) bill: "The United States is pouring $83 million into upgrading its main military bases in Afghanistan, an Air Force general said Monday, in a sign that American forces will likely be needed in the country for years to come as al-Qaida remains active in the region." [Killing fields Afghanistan: http://tinyurl.com/2l8ku ]


The fact that NATO 'expands' and is misused to guard US oil pipelines and kill local people has only been possible because the US neocons have been putting the 'National Shame of the Netherlands' - Mr. Jaap de Hoop Scheffer - as super stooge at the top of NATO, a spineless figure with niether a brain or shame. AP: "Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said in Kabul this month that Washington had not decided how long to keep troops in the country, which neighbors Iran, Pakistan and oil rich Central Asia."

It is a known fact that the whole country - one of the poorest in the whole world - is unsafe for any foreign being. As is shown daily by attacks, like yesterday's explosion which damaged a Canadian Embassy vehicle and injured one Canadian. The bomb left a five-foot-wide crater next to the road. Even the capital Kabul is off limits and out of bounds after dark. So much for all the freedom...

WRONG ABOUT THE DUTCH NEOCONS

In many headlines critical of the war in Iraq it's often referred that: "Italy, Holland, Ukraine and Poland are all set to withdraw troops from Iraq this year. But one nation has marched out of step with them. In this respect we shall look at one headline. In February Australian Prime Minister John Howard announced that he will double his "boots on the ground" in Iraq."

Worse than the Australian crooks, the dutch 'managers' have with a lot of fanfare and media noise pulled back a few troops from South Iraq, but will go on there with military police supposedly training local police. Worse however still is the fact that Holland is sending hundreds of 'commandos', Special Dutch/US trained Forces, with a 'license to kill'. http://tinyurl.com/5vhq6]

So instead of winding down the war in Iraq, the multinational 'managers' in the Netherlands, with their comliant and industrial media keep faking, or don't give any news at all. The result being that the dutch taxpayers don't have a clue and are not even informed about what you've been reading here; about the squandering of millions of their Euros on inhumane war actions in Afghanistan. With only a few members of parliament asking ''why we should
take part in those illegal 'Kill and Destroy' actions''?

They never get an answer, the media keep lying and the Afghanis die.

The Dutch government caricatures and their warmongering 'managers' ought to end up in court soon; for their despicable media, and war criminal behavior.

The US neocon blueprint all over the country has to be torn apart: for the benefit of people in all US - war beseiged countries.

The 'government' held reponsible for this killing in the Netherlands calls itself 'Christian' too, but represents just an 'American Lapdog of War.'

Those collaborators are a shame for humanity.

But their turn will come.

Henk Ruyssenaars


* Dutch 'Special Forces' Kill and Destroy for the US - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/6mpw2

* Afghanistan - Torturing and killing for 'Freedom'? - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/4nf2b

* AP - English - - Dutch F-16's at the Bagram base Url.: http://tinyurl.com/47zvr

* Dutch Air Force web site confirming F-16 arrival in Kabul
in Dutch - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/4wc52


FOREIGN PRESS FOUNDATION
http://tinyurl.com/3tro9
Editor : Henk Ruyssenaars
http://tinyurl.com/66dmo
The Netherlands
FPF@Chello.nl

Ayatollah "W" during the run up to the last presidential election. Heraldville, Ca. (courtesy http://www.freewayblogger.com )

"Shotgun Journalism" on a world wide scale.

The Anti-Empire Report, No. 18

February 16, 2005

by William Blum

"What do the imperial mafia really want?"

After what was humorously designated an "election" in Iraq, there was a marked increase in calls for the United States to announce a timetable for withdrawal from that unhappy land. Senator Kennedy, The Brookings Institution, and a British government official were amongst numerous of the influential class to propose such action.

The rationale behind the timing of these requests, one would assume, is that now that Iraq has displayed a measure of what the White House calls "democracy", the United States can and should declare, once again, "mission accomplished" and leave, without loss of face.

Such a proposal might make sense if this thing called democracy was indeed the reason the United States invaded and occupied Iraq. But the fact that Washington officials do not miss an opportunity to make it abundantly clear that they have no intention of leaving in the foreseeable future reveals how unenlightened are these calls for departure; for the reasons the US is in Iraq have very little to do with democracy, by whatever description.

On February 17, 2003, a month before the American invasion, I wrote an essay entitled: "What do the imperial mafia really want?" It can be read online.{1} Briefly, the essay lists as motivations for the attack: expansion of the empire, idealism, oil, globalization, arms industry, Israel.

The election in Iraq has been labeled "successful" in many quarters primarily, it would appear, because it was held at all and there was much less of the usual violence attending it on that day. For the record it should be noted that Iraq held peaceful elections under Saddam Hussein on a number of occasions.

Individuals could run for parliament after being cleared by the Baath party. Presumably, a similar process attended the recent election, with clearance being provided by other sources, including occupation authorities. Did any candidate try to run on a platform of early withdrawal of all American military forces and the cessation of construction of some dozen permanent American military bases? He likely wouldn't have gotten clearance, but since scarcely any of the voters were privy to the names of the candidates or their platforms anyway the question is academic.

In any event, it's questionable whether the United States cares all that much about who makes up the Iraqi government. Whoever it is will not have much power to place obstacles in the way of Washington's goals, particularly concerning oil, military bases, the care and feeding of American corporations, and catering to Israel's needs.Commie rhetoric"The defense of proletarian internationalism is a sacred duty of each communist and workers' party and of every Marxist-Leninist."

During the Cold War, we were all taught that it was one of the many signs of America's superiority over the Russian commies that we didn't talk that way. American cultural products and conservatives routinely satirized this commiespeak.

Now, American servicemen heading for Iraq are given "talking points" on cards and in slide shows to enable them to better relate to the media and others. Amongst the talking points are: "We are a values-based, people-focused team that strives to uphold the dignity and respect of all." ... "We are not an occupying force." ... "We are moving forward together with the Iraqi government as partners in building a future for the sons and daughters of Iraq." ... "Coalition forces will help our Iraqi partners as they build their new and independent country and take their rightful place in the world community."{2}

And here is Dick Cheney speaking of Viktor Yushchenko, newly elected president of Ukraine (color him good for he's "pro-West"): "Free nations stood with him as he made his just demands that the voice of the people be heard. The free world will stand with him once again as he works to consolidate Ukraine's democratic gains."{3}

In his January 20 inauguration speech, which lasted 21 minutes, President Bush used the word "liberty" 15 times and the word "freedom" 27 times; that's one or the other word casually dropped exactly once every 30 seconds. He made not a single mention of Iraq or Afghanistan or any other world issue. The president's advisers said the speech was "the rhetorical institutionalization of the Bush doctrine and reflected the president's deepest convictions about the purposes behind his foreign policies." But, they added, "it was carefully written not to tie him to an inflexible or unrealistic application of his goal of ending tyranny."{4}

Only a man of Mr. Bush's, er, self-confidence, could believe that he could get away with this.And Commie Socialist RealismA TV ad for Anheuser-Busch shown during the recent Super Bowl: An airport, a contingent of US soldiers in uniform is passing through, presumably on the way to or just returning from Iraq; the people in the terminal one by one look up, and slowly realize who's walking by -- It's (choke) ... Can it (gasp) be? ... Yes! HEROES!! Real honest-to-God heroes!! The faces of the onlookers are filled with deep gratitude and pride. The soldiers begin to realize what's happening as the waves of adulation sweep over them, their faces are bursting with matching gratitude and matching pride, their faces say "Thanks." The screen says "Thanks." Not a dry eye in the whole damn terminal.

In the USSR they might have been a group of Stakhanovite hero workers on the way to the factory.The guilty saved by a guilty conscienceFebruary 13 marked the 60th anniversary of the firebombing of Dresden by the United States and Great Britain in World War II. Several thousand people marched in Dresden on that day to condemn the incendiary destruction of the beautiful old city and the taking of tens of thousands of lives for no apparent military purpose. (It's been suggested that the motivation had to do with the expectation that the city would soon be falling under Soviet control.)

The Western media has referred to the demonstrators simply as "neo-Nazis" and "fascists" as if no German citizen or anyone else could have any good reason to be upset by the bombing, which could well qualify as a war crime. The Independent of London reported that "Churchmen in Dresden have blamed hostility to the Allies on East German Communist propaganda which for decades held that the raid was a needless act of 'Anglo-American aggression' inflicted on innocent civilians." Dresden was part of East Germany.

The operative word here is "guilt". German guilt is so heavy that, apart from the right wing, Germans generally reject attempts to lessen it by blaming the Allies for anything; and likewise reject attempts to portray Germans as also victims of World War II. German Chancellor Gerhardt Schröder appealed to Germans to reject such interpretations of the Dresden raid. "Showing historical responsibility means not weighing crimes against suffering," he said. "I always remember how much suffering Germany caused to others by a war that it started."{5}

The same guilt factor comes into play in the recent scenario involving Germany and US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Under a 2002 German law allowing prosecutors to investigate war crimes no matter where they occurred, the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York filed a request with the German prosecutor's office to investigate war crimes charges against Rumsfeld arising from the Abu Ghraib prison scandal. The Germans chose to ignore their own law and declined to pursue the matter. The outcome was never in doubt. The idea of the German government prosecuting an American official for war crimes borders on science fiction.Neo-conservative fairy talesWhat do you call a man who said: "When history is written, the contras will be folk heroes?"{6}

The man was speaking of that charming band of Nicaraguans who went around in the 1980s burning down schools and medical clinics, murdering teachers, doctors and nurses, and sabotaging any other accomplishment the Sandinista government could point to with pride (all carried out with the invaluable assistance of the CIA, fulfilling its historical role of counter-revolutionary).

You call the man Elliott Abrams and you also call him the new deputy national security adviser to President Bush; another promotion for the man who in the 1980s in the Reagan administration was a tireless campaigner for the vilest of dictatorships, death squads, and torturers in Central America and Pinochet's Chile. In 1991 he pled guilty to the much lesser crime of withholding information from Congress in the Iran-contra affair but was pardoned by George W.'s dad.

History, in recent years, has been kinder to Abrams than to his prediction. It would be difficult to find anyone outside of extreme-neo-con-land who has a charitable word for the contras, who also engaged in widespread drug trafficking and were accomplished rapists.

As can be seen in my essay referred to above, another neo-con leading light, Michael Ledeen, of the American Enterprise Institute, also tried his hand at prognostication shortly before the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, declaring that "If we just ... wage a total war against these tyrants, I think we will do very well, and our children will sing great songs about us years from now." I could not resist. Last spring I sent Mr. Ledeen an email reminding him of his words and saying simply: "I'd like to ask you what songs your children are singing these days."I received no reply.

Does anyone have Elliott Abrams' email address? Are they not devilishly clever? What's that? They've cut the budget for the Environmental Protection Agency by 506 million dollars? How can they do that? Do they want to wreck the EPA? Yes, that's the idea. Same with Social Security. Same with any federal agency that gives corporations or the wealthy a hard time or that smacks of the government helping lesser folk. The gargantuan tax cuts not only rained money down on rich Republican Party contributors, but they produced deficits which are now being used as an excuse for cuts in social spending, always at the top of the wish list for the AynRandites of the Bush administration.

What's next? Attacking unions, gay marriage, and the ACLU?In the last issue of this report, I discussed how prominent Democrats have been trying to sound like Republicans on religious matters, talking it up holy-like on god and bible. Now we have clear indications of the Democrats sliding backwards on the abortion issue.{7}

And topping it all off was a letter of January 13 signed by 21 Democratic senators -- including Kennedy, Clinton, Kerry, Biden, Schumer and Kohl -- to the president urging him to expand the military. The letter opens with: "The United States military is too small for the missions it faces. Accordingly, we write today to urge you to include funding for an expanded active duty Army and Marine Corps in your FY2006 budget request."{8}

The time when Democrats offered the voting public a clear liberal alternative to the conservative Republicans has become a subject for nostalgia buffs. Progressives surely have their work cut out for them. But it's best that they proceed with their eyes open and their backs unturned. Howard Dean as chairman of the Democratic Party will not make their job easier. He wasn't chosen to put a brake on the movement to the right. "I don't mind being called a liberal," he said last year. "I just don't really think it's true."

Hypocrisy of this magnitude has to be respectedAt last year's meeting of the UN Commission on Human Rights, the United States sponsored a motion criticizing China's record on human rights and is considering doing so again at this year's meeting in March. Chinese treatment of prisoners is one thing that bothers the State Department, including holding prisoners without revealing their names.{9}

(Did anyone say Guantanamo?)

I wonder when the US will start "rendering" prisoners to China for interrogation cum torture. Or have they already begun?

The State Department is also upset that Cuba and Zimbabwe are on a panel to develop the agenda for the meeting. "The United States believes that countries that routinely and systematically violate the rights of their citizens should not be selected to review the human rights performance of other countries."{10}

(Educational note to elucidate the preceding: During the period of its revolution, Cuba has had one of the very best records on human rights in all of Latin America. Please see my essay in which I discuss this.){11}

Another member on the panel with Cuba and Zimbabwe, but not singled out for rights violations by the State Department, is Saudi Arabia. One would think that if the department is politically unable to criticize the Saudis, it would have enough self-respect and common sense to refrain from singling out any of the other panel members.


NOTES

{1} http://members.aol.com/bblum6/mafia.htm
{2} Editor & Publisher, January 18, 2005
{3} Washington Post, January 27, 2005
{4} Washington Post, January 22, 2005
{5} The Independent (London), February 14, 2005
{6} LA Weekly (Los Angeles), March 9-15, 1990, p.12
{7} Nicole Colson, "Have the Democrats Surrendered on Abortion Rights?" Counterpunch, February 10, 2005; Washington Post, February 13, 2005, p.A5
{8} Press release issued by the office of Sen. Jack Reed (D.-RI), US Fed News, January 13, 2005
{9} Washington Post, February 7, 2005
{10} Washington Post, February 9, 2005

{11} http://members.aol.com/bblum6/democ.htm

William Blum is the author of:

Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War 2

Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only SuperpowerWest-Bloc Dissident: A Cold War Memoir

Freeing the World to Death: Essays on the American Empire

www.killinghope.org

Previous Anti-Empire Reports can be read at this website.
Free subscriptions to his newsletter are available there.

Our Sen. Pat Roberts "Stonewalling" for Bush? Naw, he'd never do that would he?

This article by David Corn is about to appear in the weekly magazine, The Nation, but since he put out this call to circulate it, well who could resist since we transmit from Kansas to many, many Kansans including members of the Kansas state government. - FCF Ed.

The Missing WMD Report

Below is a piece I wrote for the latest issue of The Nation. It seems that Pat Roberts, the Republican chairman of the Senate intelligence committee, wants to break the promise he made last year to investigate whether the Bush administration misrepresented the prewar intelligence on WMDs.

What a surprise. Before the November election, Roberts said this was an important subject warranting examination but that his committee could not mount an inquiry until early 2005. How politically convenient. Now he wants to forget all about it.

This matter has so far received little media coverage. But Democrats should be howling about Roberts' stonewalling. Do your bit for responsibility and accountability in government by passing along this article.

Missing WMD Report

The Nation, April 11, 2005

by David Corn

When is a priority not a priority? When it's after the election.

Last July, the Senate Intelligence Committee released a much-anticipated report on the prewar intelligence on weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. The study concluded that the intelligence community -- led by the CIA -- had "overstated" and "mischaracterized" the intelligence on Iraq's (nonexistent) WMDs.

The massive report repeatedly detailed instances when the intelligence services botched the job by ignoring contrary evidence, embracing questionable sources and rushing to judgments that just happened to fit the preconceived notions of the Bush Administration. "What the President and the Congress used to send the country to war was information that was...flawed," declared Pat Roberts, the Republican chairman of the committee. Jay Rockefeller, the committee's senior Democrat, noted that the report outlined "one of the most devastating...intelligence failure in the history of the nation."


But the committee's report did not cover a crucial area: how the Bush Administration used -- or abused -- the prewar intelligence to build support for the Iraq invasion. Roberts claimed his committee was hot on that trail: "It is one of my top priorities," he said. The problem, he explained, was that there was not enough time before the November election to complete the assignment.

Rockefeller took issue with that and complained that the "central issue of how intelligence was...exaggerated by Bush Administration officials" was being relegated into a "Phase II" investigation that would not begin until after the election. A Democratic committee staffer said that such an inquiry could easily be completed within months.


Still, Roberts succeeded in his transparent effort to kick that inconvenient can down the road. (Imagine the headache for the Bush campaign if news stories appeared before the election reporting that the committee had found Bush had stretched an already stretched truth.) Now -- with Bush re-elected -- Roberts no longer considers Phase II a priority.

In mid-March, Roberts declared further investigation pointless. He noted that if his committee asked Bush officials whether they had overstated or mischaracterized prewar intelligence, they'd simply claim their statements had been based on "bum intelligence." Roberts remarked, "To go though that exercise, it seems to me, in a postelection environment, we didn't see how we could do that and achieve any possible progress. I think everybody pretty well gets it."


Gets what, precisely? The evidence is strong that Bush and his aides overstated the overstated intelligence. One example: Bush claimed that Iraq possessed stockpiles of biological weapons, yet the CIA reported only that Saddam had an active biological weapons R&D program. (It turns out he had neither stockpiles nor an active program.)

The question is, How and why did Bush and his lieutenants come to exaggerate exaggerations? And just because the answer is obvious doesn't mean an investigation is unwarranted.


While Roberts has dismissed the need for Phase II, Rockefeller has been trying to push the investigation forward. But the committee has not yet bothered to interview any Administration officials about the use of prewar intelligence. The committee also appears to be stymied by obstacles it encountered last year while pursuing a matter to be included in the Phase II inquiry: the actions of the Office of Special Plans.

The OSP was a neocon-linked, maverick intelligence shop in the Pentagon set up to search for intelligence (good or bad) to support the case for war. Phase II was supposed to determine whether the OSP had operated appropriately. But when committee staff were probing the OSP last year, people connected to it began hiring lawyers and clamming up, and the committee had a hard time prying documents from the Pentagon.

"We received documents up to a point," comments a Rockefeller aide. "Then it stopped. The issue for us became whether we wrapped up the investigation on the basis of what we got, or do we try to get more information?" Roberts, however, has signaled he's no longer interested in the OSP inquiry. "We sort of came to a crossroads, and that is basically on the back burner," he said recently. So stonewalling works.


It would not tax the committee to compare the prewar assertions of Bush officials with the intelligence it had been provided. Apparently the commission Bush appointed last year (under pressure) to examine WMD intelligence has not been performing this task. The preliminary signs are that this commission, due to issue a report soon, will focus on inadequacies of intelligence related to present and potential WMD threats, such as Iran and North Korea.


When the intelligence committee released its report last summer, I asked Roberts if the public and relatives of US troops killed in Iraq deserved to know "whether this Administration handled intelligence matters adequately and made statements that were justified." He replied, "I have made my commitment, and it will be done." His promise was -- oh-so shocking! -- nothing but a maneuver to protect Bush's backside. Rockefeller and other Democrats are insisting Phase II be carried out. But Bush may benefit from the attempted cover-up.

A President doesn't have to worry about troubling answers if no one asks the questions.

"Not Martyrs, Murderers! She's on Medicaid like the 40 million without health insurance. I keep telling you the bombs in Iraq have nothing to do with this ... President Bush supports us .... yes he does ... he got up out of bed and flew up to DC to sign that bill ... it's time to save her from the MURDERERS in the government judciary.

Our Man in Holland - the Foreign Press Foundation (FPF) Writes about the world's Economic Hit People!

World Bank: An army doesn't march on an empty stomach

WOLFOWITZ AND A BLOODY MARY FOR BREAKFAST

By Henk Ruyssenaars, Foreign Press Foundation (FPF), Brussels, Belgium

March 25th - 2005

They always made me think of albino rabbits, with their white skin and red eyes. Whether it was in the 1st class of a Swissair plane, exiting from an executive US/UN Lear jet, or in some expensive hotel in a Third World country.


If the party had been really hot, their eyes behind the Ray-Bans would have the same color as the 'Bloody Mary's they were having for breakfast as the hair of the dog 'that bit them the night before'.


And many of those pinstripe suit operators were - and are - the people who are supposed to give advice and help to the one billion plus extremely poor people in the world.


Fact is that the financial help given by the world's international loan shark banks, like Wolfowitz's World Bank or the IMF, often is referred to as "Development AIDS", or USAIDS... Which is quite understandable, because as is shown on a worldwide scale and for anyone to see if one wants to: this 'help' many times has a killing effect, like the spreading of AIDS.


It can be seen again in the present doubling of - also AIDS related - tuberculosis cases, with all those 'unprofitable' people - because they can not pay for the medicine they need - dying in Africa and elsewhere. Are they dying thanks to all the 'help', given by the World Bank or IMF?


Or thanks to all those international 'aid donors' that never pay up the millions they promise?


But put the money in their own pockets? Spending it on illegal wars* to restructure the US's energy needs?

A DOLLAR A DAY KEEPS RESISTANCE AWAY...

Many of the paupers which are forced to vegetate on less than one dollar a day, need, and often are promised, help from the so called international development workers and their institutions. And many - before ending up in cardboard coffins or less - have understood that they in reality have been strangled by World Bank and IMF loans.


Which always have been putting the already poor countries economy in further shambles and strangling them, also using the greed of their own countrymen. The corruption of people made possible and often enforced with multi million dollar bribes by organizations like the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, UNDP, USAID etc. etc.: many times the direct origin of the inhumane poverty, which is based on the principle: An army doesn't march on an empty stomach.


You keep'em poor - I'll keep'em stupid.

So they can't understand nor revolt. Because this is how it works in one of the ways: imagine a poor idealist in for instance India or Africa, who after 40 years of work finally has gotten a project to work, to function in a way benevolent to the poor people in the area.


Whatever it is; a new dam, city or forest. And globally it's happening: in fly the often gold rim bespectacled, Armani dressed and Fahrenheit smelling tasteless Rolex toting 'sons of the neocons'. With their Hermès shawl covered 'secretaries'; the criminal travelers on the 'Gravy Train'. The global reps and constructors of the World Bank and IMF 'development work' the 'Fata Morganas.


Tipped as they are by their local bank snitches or the usual collaborators at the embassies which are focused on money making, called trade; they're mostly not there to help countrymen. Even if those pay them through their taxes.

'AN OFFER ONE CAN'T REFUSE'

The idealist and the 'project' will then be visited and checked to see whether it's profitable for the banks. Then comes 'An offer he/she can't refuse'.


Which is easy and contains every form of pressure, because in nearly all countries in the world the banking world and so called 'governments' are one. The offer may be including a retainer, say $5000,- a month, for the rest of his or her lifetime. The length of which by the way also is decided by the bank gangs, as perfectly described in the just published Perkins book about the US, the CIA and it's killing 'Jackals' of the World Bank, IMF etc.

Following the inspection the WWF, World Bank and/or IMF 'helpers' are taking over the name of the project. Which from then on is called "our project", be it in India, AIDS patients in poor Africa, baby seals slaughtered in Canada's Polar world, Pandas in China or whatever.


With glossy information material, people the world over are 'informed' about the fact that 'our project after decades of investing and idealistic work finally is operating' - and of course needs your permanent donations to keep everybody happy.


Meaning top salaries and all expenses, like guzzling SUV's, paid for by the 'helpers'.


The people in the West always pay for 'Pandas and poor people', they say. The local idealist gets say $5000 a month, and the now ''IMF, World Bank or World Wildlife Fund project'' as it will be called, will via the consenting media rake in the millions which can be collected from the sheeple believing in the 'good work and projects'.


That's how it many times works; that's the 'gravy' which keeps the train running.


Not to talk about the billions thrown away on crazy projects.

DROMEDARIES MILK AND CAMEMBERT?

Like making Camembert cheese out of dromedaries milk in Mauritania on the African continent's west coast, to 'help' the poor people in the Sahara area. The local Sahraouis told the swedish 'development workers', living in their newly built air conditioned bungalow with swimming pool: "We've tried, and for a thousand years nobody has been able to make real cheese out of these camel's milk. It's not like normal cows milk."


The Swedes spent a $-million, had a good time on the beach too, and after the first year produced one sheet of A-4 size called 'Report on the Mauritania Project'. Concluding that it was not possible to make cheese from dromedaries milk. [There are no camels in Africa, only dromedaries the 'camels' are in Asia.]


The Swedish minister for Third World Development, who advocated and used tax money for this 'camel project' via the University of Uppsala, was called Camilla Ohdnoff. The rest of her life she'll be remembered by her nickname 'Camela' Ohdnoff.

WOLFOWITZ: MORE WOLF THAN WITZ

In an article which was published yesterday in the States, Reverend Jesse Jackson, the well known political activist and former candidate for president in 1984 and 1988, had a few things to say concerning the American decision to nominate Paul Wolfowitz as the new boss of the World Bank.


Reverend Jackson puts his finger on the sore spot by describing the heartless power of the World Bank, the IMF and criminals like Wolfowitz. A zionist front man which globally is seen as more of a 'Wolf' than a 'Witz' and who is certainly no 'Witz' (joke) to billions of poor people all over the world, who think of him as the bad genius behind many disastrous American actions."


Why should the world's poorest people be excluded from the process of selecting one of the most important leaders who will affect their lives?


Why are the nations most controlled by World Bank and International Monetary Fund policies not allowed to nominate - or even participate in any meaningful way - in the selection of new leadership?


Is Nelson Mandela less qualified to run the World Bank than Paul Wolfowitz?


These names are not even considered. Only Americans, and even then, only hard-core Bush loyalists, are in the loop. In an entirely secret process, despite his lack of development credentials, and despite the widespread rejection of the idea when the Wolfowitz name was first floated publicly, George W. Bush followed up on his divisive choice of John Bolton for the U.N. with the promotion of leading war hawk Wolfowitz to head the World Bank.


Forget all that talk about reconciliation with Europe and the rest of the world. Bush's picks were like a thumb in each of the world's wide-open eyes." - Wolfowitz is a world disaster, as Jackson correctly observed.

CIA'S DEADLY 'JACKALS'

AND

CONFESSIONS OF AN ECONOMIC HIT MAN

Globally Wolfowitz now is known and - outside the US and Israel - also described, as the bad genius behind the waged US wars, who amid global opposition is expected to head the World Bank, one of the world's biggest criminal institutions, and thus a dirty job that fits Wolfowitz well.


This despicable figure is supposed to be the new head of the US Empire's economical killers: the Jackals and 'hit men', which are perfectly described in "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man" by John Perkins, which has now been published.

Perkins, a former respected member of the international banking community is one of the people who after decades concluded that he can't take it anymore 'how the U.S. uses globalization to cheat poor Countries out of $-trillions'.


In his book Perkins describes how he as a highly paid professional, helped the U.S. cheat poor countries around the globe out of trillions of dollars by lending them more money than they could possibly repay and then take over their economies.


Perkins: "When the economic 'hit men' fail in this scenario, the next step is what we call the jackals. Jackals are C.I.A.-sanctioned people that come in and try to foment a coup or revolution. If that doesn't work, they perform assassinations.,or try to.

In the case of Iraq, they weren't able to get through to Saddam Hussein. His bodyguards were too good. He had doubles. They couldn't get through to him. So the third line of defense, if the economic hit men and the jackals fail, the next line of defense is our young men and women, who are sent in to die and kill, which is what we've obviously done in Iraq," Perkins writes.

THE SHELL BOYCOTT AND A MONARCHY FIEFDOM

In Argentine - and in a very underreported way - the Kirchner government is fighting back. Two weeks ago democratic President Kirchner rightly urged all Argentinians to boycott infamous Royal Dutch/Shell, after the oil company increased prices at the pump reaping billions in profit worldwide.


President Kirchner suggested that petrol station franchisees buy instead from Enarsa, the new state oil company. Trying to be on a safer side, President Kirchner has already made defense and energy deals with Venezuela's president Chavez: like him putting his life on the line by opposing the US and it's banking bandits.


As Kirchner lashed out at the Anglo-Dutch oil major, accusing the Royal Dutch Shell Group of Companies of fueling inflation with higher energy prices, picketers who support the president said they would march on Shell stations in the capital.


"Argentines should not buy from them, they have to say 'No' to Shell," Kirchner said at an event with schoolchildren. "Let's unite and not even buy a can of oil from them. May they realize that Argentines no longer put up with this. A national boycott is the best thing the people can do," he added.


'Royal Dutch Shell' is known for it's abominable practices: fraud with oil reserves, lying, cheating and murdering (Nigeria/Ogonis) and the 'running' of their tax haven the Netherlands. Where for instance the 'leader' of the so called 'Social Democratic Party' Labour, is one of SHELL's protégés and plant's.


Labour is thus 'run' by a man who got his schooling at SHELL - party leader Wouter Bos. Bos c.s. just stopped a change in the dutch constitution which after centuries would have made it possible for the 16 million Netherlanders to have elected mayors, like in the surrounding countries.


SHELL's and Bos (covert right wing) Labour Party senators voted 'No', thus stopping the law for years to come. It's of course more profitable to appoint one's own mayors, and have control over the police in the whole country, like the situation is now.


The mayor normally and by law being 'Head of Police' too. So the SHELL people (Labour) saw their power game threatened and stopped the law, forcing a minister (de Graaf) to exit with the eggs on his and his 'Democrats 66' party's face.

ARRESTING BUSH ON HIS VISIT TO HOLLAND IN MAY

Eggs that also should smear the face of the worlds 'Terrorist Number One' President George Bush, if he tries to visit the Netherlands as planned, coming May. To avoid further shame and guilt by association the Netherlands justice apparatus and some dare devil DA should arrest Bush upon arrival, so his criminality can be judged by the International Court of Justice or some form of honest Tribunal.


The fact that a despised war criminal is invited once again confirms that the managers running the country have turned the Netherlands into an anachronism.


To many foreign observers it looks like one of the last real fiefdoms. Where the mind numbing and dumbing down fakes are kept alive by the neocon's media.


Fakes about the 'people's will' for a medieval monarchy which has gathered billions through SHELL, and having the misled taxpayers covering the expenses of the House of Orange. Which is more like 'Clockwork Orange' to honest people, the kitsch being as bad as the media's Piped Piper's music.


One of the so called 'princesses' has made PR in Brussels for an international tobacco company; selling cancer. The not very intelligent crown prince 'Wilhelm' Alexander married Maxima, the daughter out of the foul nest of Jorge Zorreguieta, the infamous Argentinean war criminal and minister in the 'dirty war' under the arrested criminal and pro-US ex-dictator Videla.


With overwhelming propaganda and disinformation force Maxima was 'sold' and shoved down the throat of the ignorant dutch sheeple by the treacherous media and their collaborators.

ONE LOVER IN JAIL AND ONE IN A COFFIN

Another one - Mabel Wisse-Smit - an international UN and 'jet set beaver' - fornicated with a Croatian muslim and diplomat/embezzler in the United Nations gravy train, who let some $-millions disappear and ended up in jail.


Then Mabel shared bed and boat, the 'Neeltje Jacoba' - with the biggest criminal and drugs smuggler in the Netherlands, Klaas Bruinsma, who got gunned down in the street by competing gansters. The mission not being accomplished, and with one lover in jail and one in a coffin, Mabel thereupon turned to an ignorant Dutch empty headed prince, and hooked him.


Dinasaurial 'Queen' Beatrix thereafter exclaimed on State TV NOS: "She is perfectly fitting into the Royal family''. How very true indeed!


The Dutch industrial news services and their media also keep the fake alive that the World Bank, the IMF and with 1 $million by Lockheed bribed late Prince Bernhard's WWF, and similar rackets, like the elite's secret 'Bilderberg Conferences' - ''are meant to help the poor people and the Third World.''


So: 'shut up and pay up' is the slogan, well supported by most of the Dutch mainstream media which are indoctrinating and spreading 'mental manure' as effective as the heavy air- and land traffic badly polluting the whole country.


A new form of journalism is however slowly arising from the ashes of the old corrupt gang of media people in the fiefdom, which sold out to the gangs managing the docile country a long tome ago. Killing the freewheeling optimism that existed from 1965 to 1980.


Based on 40 years of work as an independent correspondent abroad, I fully agree with American colleague Craig Merrihue who wrote: 'Experience and education has taught me, like many others, that the bottom line to politics is money and murder, an unpleasantry completely ignored by professional journalism, which is doomed to therefore never approach the most salient truths.


Frankly, those are precisely my thoughts whenever I'm exposed to the lying/ignorant/arrogant corporate media or its apologists. Deep in my heart, and with no hyperbole, I believe the hands of such information deficient journalists drip with the blood of innocents throughout time and the world.


I wonder if your sleep is appropriately fitful'.


Let's hope they lie awake in well deserved agony


Henk Ruyssenaars


The best and latest independent news from Venezuela - also in English: via VHeadline.com Venezuela - Url.: http://www.vheadline.com/main.asp

FOREIGN PRESS FOUNDATION http://tinyurl.com/3tro9Editor

Henk Ruyssenaars http://tinyurl.com/66dmo

Netherlands FPF@Chello.nl

Stolen from Dick Cheney's PDA - courtesy Air America!

...And our elected officials in Kansas use religion as a bully's club to punish people who are weak or different.

A MESSAGE TO OUR CONSERVATIVE READERS & LEGISLATORS
WHEN YOU QUIT EATING WITH GREEDY PIGS
PEOPLE WILL QUIT CALLING YOU A

DUMB ASS

Mark Twain, wrote in early 1901 an essay titled "To the Person Sitting in Darkness."

Each of the world's strongest nations, he wrote, was proceeding "with its banner of the Prince of Peace in one hand and its loot-basket and its butcher-knife in the other.”

Too bad Twain isn’t alive today to write of the empty “loot basket” and bloody knife being wielded by business within contemporary America. Thousands of villages across the country are sliding into Third World status while millions of righteous villagers are mobilized by their respective congressional representatives to defend a brain dead religious martyr on permanent life support in Florida.

What fools the legislators are making of us not only in Kansas, but across Bush Country.

OUT SOURCED, DOWN SIZED, & BRAIN DEAD?
THE KANSAS LEGISLATORS ARE BLOWING SO MUCH HOLY SMOKE UP OUR BUTTS ITS COMING OUT OUR EARS!

Here in Kansas, deep in Bush Country, the ramifications of this poisonous program of ramming religion into the forefront of any debate, while the countryside teeters on economic ruin is tantamount to criminality in public office.

Many Kansans are finally getting fed up with our legislator’s rank hypocrisy. Many are fed up with the moral thrashing legislator’s in Topeka throw upon Democratic Governor Sebelius; tightening the purse strings, cutting back social services, privatizing anything they can lay their hands on – and making the whole state look like it’s inhabited by a bunch of Christian troglodytes.

The Flyer doesn’t endorse politicians, never did and never will, especially when Kansas Democrats cower in the corner and never come out swinging. Yet what that bunch of conservative legislators in Topeka are doing to Gov. Kathleen Sebelius and to women in this state sickens the whole nation.

How else can one explain the comments of a female radio talk show host on Air America Radio fielding phone call after phone call from outraged women around the country about Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline’s secret inquisition into the sexual medical records of women? She said he was “out of control” and “running amok” and the state pays the former anti – abortion protestor turned lawyer and “deputy” Assistant Attorney General Bryan Brown $68,000.00 a year to help Gen. Kline.

Who wouldn’t be a tad bit upset?

Recently the Flyer published to its nearly 1000 readers (and growing fast) the “Top Ten Reasons to Vote ‘NO’ on the Kansas ballot initiative” this April 5th, 2005.

Go to: http://fightincockflyer.blogspot.com/2005/03/ten-top-reasons-to-oppose-god-hates.html to read this important document from the Mainstream Coalition.

Consider their thoughtful arguments before casting your vote this April 5th. To give you an idea of just how twisted things are here among the faithful in Kansas; some of our more conservative Kansas readers replied that “gays were attacking the state government.”

I have yet to read of a single incident of a gay or lesbian “attacking” the state government.

And what the hell does that mean anyhow? Are people around here so tame that they forgot the First Amendment?

It is one thing to tell gays and lesbians that they can’t have marriage ceremonies in some Podunk church.

It is quite another for the government to deprive them of a simple civil marriage license that entitles spousal benefits to the queer couple; in hospitals, on living wills, in probate court, in pensions and retirement benefits, you know all those nice things married people can do for each other.

Pilgrims, fellow dumb Podunk people, these nice things that married men and women share in Kansas is already illegal for homosexuals in Kansas. It is already prohibited by law for queers to enjoy.

It’s not enough to have “gay marriage” illegal in Kansas according to the state legislature that put it on the ballot – we have to be as mean spirited, puritanical and as bigoted as the “God Hates Fags” bunch at the local Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka.

Go to the link above and read it, go ahead and read it fellow Podunk.

Yes, that’s right, you sodbusters, Kansas already have laws prohibiting gay and lesbian marriages of any kind, civil or sacramental – so what is this possible new law about?

Why is this stupid amendment to the state constitution even being printed up on the ballots and billed to the Podunk taxpayer?

Go right back up there and take the time to read it, fellow Podunk.

The Kansas Mainstream Coalition had the chutzpah to point out in its first point that this “initiative” has less to do with “Gay Marriage” and more to do with “religious tyranny”, and the nation has seen in the last few days just how tyrannical and arrogant the Christian fundamentalist fascists are about imposing their hypocritical agenda upon all of us. We have heard all the flatulent speeches our legislators have made over their ready made religious martyr, Terry Schiavo. Don't tell us about God when you whore this pitiful woman for your political causes.

We called it the “God Hates Fags ballot initiative” and stand by it.

A vote for the April 5th ballot initiative is a vote for a big Fred Phelps “God Hates Fags” sign to represent the state that was once an embattled refuge for fugitive slaves. Those that vote for the ballot initiative might as well take the state seal of Kansas down and give it back to the old slaver’s bounty hunters along the Missouri River.

The royal blue Seal of the once Great State of Kansas then can read “God Hates Nigger Lovers, Fags, Abortion Doctors and the Women who have Abortions” and blare out to the whole world how stupidly fascist we are!

These well paid hyenas making laws in our state will throw anything into the smudge pot to get a big sooty cloud in the air: gays, lesbians, Bill & Hillary Clinton, fetal tissue, stem cells, yes even poor old brain dead Terry Schiavo gets thrown in to blind the faithful and all the while our elected public officials wine and dine, making all those deals with the big shots in the corporations while cold cocking the bible voters in their pocket books.

Kansans who don’t believe it should check into just how much money was contributed by the Kansas executives at the Westar electrical energy company to Tommy DeLay’s political action committees and other politicians. Look into how much that figure amounts to while you are writing out that check to pay your electrical bill.

And to our readers outside of Kansas we ask, “Now don’t you pity the poor Podunk people in Kansas?”

Fear and Consumption
“DON’T GO TO HELL, PLEASE DON’T GO TO HELL.”

Nothing more outrageous than a whole pack of upper middle class creeps in tailored suits and razor hair cuts sermonizing, waving their bibles and selling their spiritual snake oil to an indolent and fearful audience of big box chain store consumers.

Do you hear the hyenas for the energy, banking and construction companies? “We got to go into Iraq, they got’em [WMD].” – G. W. Bush. “The people will erect a statute of George Bush in Baghdad square.” - Richard Perle. “We need another $87 billion this year. We have an exit strategy.” “Social Security is going broke.” And on and on and on it goes and the old people of Podunk and the young yuppie Republicans just keep gulping and swallowing the lies like a prostitute working an all night truck stop parking lot.

Just one more trick and it’ll get fixed.

Extreme cynics have commented that the Schiavo propaganda blitz is tailored by these same political hucksters to appeal to an equally brain dead population of zombie voters.

America’s mullahs with their big flag lapel pins and red ties will shovel this religious manure down our throats as long as Ma and Pa Kettle in the Deliverance states keep eating it. Even while their children face a polluted future of perpetual war and penury.

Maybe, if they live to see their children and grandchildren locked up in the country jail for credit card debts, being involved in an illegal abortion or just vanish into the teeming slums of the cities to escape military conscription the old folks will consider the ramifications of their political choices.

Ma and Pa Kettle will probably have to die of old age, after the farm is foreclosed over their medical bills before the down and dirty truth is realized.

They haven’t captured Osama Bin Ladin yet, but the Bushites got his relatives out of America. How many Ma and Pa Kettles will go to their graves wondering?

Where is Osama Bin Ladin?

This is the sickest manipulation of a huge national herd of people since the lies about WMD lead to over 100,000 slaughtered men, women and children in Iraq.

What a miserable smelling stench is blowing out from behind the fundamentalist church pulpits today.

A cowardly graft soaked congress spends many hours pontificating on a miserable situation faced by a family wrecked by division. And the stink, whew, is getting as ripe as a pig ranch on a hot Fourth of July.

Just how stupid and gullible do the arrogant big shot corporations and their governments think we are?

Well, pretty damn stupid in considering the number of American citizens who have been corralled and herded around like cattle and hogs to the sloshing sound of a bucket full of moralizing slop from the master’s farmhouse table. What a stupid lot we are being made to look like by the big corporations and their campaign funded hyenas in our governments.

The fears being peddled to the narrowest self – interests of the faithful fundamentalist fascists is beginning to wear very thin. Fearless smirking leaders full of themselves with moral outrage are on the television swearing allegiance to the phony “pro – life” folks.

The rural areas of the state of Kansas, like so many others in the heartland, are being financially gutted with Main Street businesses abandoned to nearby big box monster chains; public schools and homes are marginalized to rot where the survivors too old or too poor to leave are left to bull doze the remains.

And the loyal opposition, equally fear filled, plays along with the game, so far.

Crap media at its slimiest; reporting on the slavish crumb grubbing most Kansans are taught to observe in their relationship to all government – instilled with the proper amount of fear of “going without” the people of Kansas are bombarded with the media of fear. “Don’t go to Hell. Please, don’t go to Hell.”

One can almost smell the fear among Kansans when graft greased liars in the big buildings and courthouses tell them “it’s for your own good” – then the out – sourced, downsized and low wage conservatives begin the great howling, the gnashing of teeth and rending of garments.

The hollow petroleum-based red, white and blue idol of “Pro – Life” is raised up by their elected pulpit pounding politicians and the bamboozled bedraggled believers stampede to another sunrise worship service.

Support the Project for an Old American Century (POAC) at: http://oldamericancentury.org

A SHORT DIGEST OF LAST WEEKEND'S ANTI - WAR DEMONSTRATIONS!

THE RESISTANCE WILL NOT BE TELEVISED

Joshua Frank, a Free State fellow in Montana, wrote a devastating critique of Howard Dean on the important Counterpunch web site called, “The Selling (Out) of the Antiwar Movement.” This site should be bookmarked by both worried conservative and radical liberal for its clearly written sharp content.

Go to: http://www.counterpunch.org/frank03242005.html and maybe prepare an evaluation of Dean’s much ballyhooed sash shay through Topeka and Lawrence, Ks. last month. We know some of our readers attended the events as well as John Edward’s appearance. We’d like to hear from you at the Flyer about this, after you read the above article. Feel free to post an anonymous comment.

A general report on opposition activities to the Iraq war over the weekend from the widely read: http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0320-05.htm

The argument over anti – war tactics spills out on to liberal talk radio just days before the nationwide actions!

Eyeball the arguments and actors.

Anyone listening to the chatter traffic couldn’t fail to notice the very loud debate that exploded on Air America Radio’s “Unfiltered” last week when Paul Rieckhoff of the “Manhattan-based Operation Truth” started leveling charges against the sponsors that organized the demonstrations outside Ft. Bragg.

Go to the formidable GNN: http://www.guerrillanews.com/articles/1225/Fayetteville_Diary to get an ‘on the ground’ report about the charges that it was the wrong place to demonstrate. And at the end of the GNN article is a link to the raging argument. Got an opinion? Post a comment.

Another great video news clip from Truthout.org!

From the folks that gave Kansans and the world the hilarious country curmudgeon M. T. Liggett of Mullinville, Ks. during their “Red State Road Trip.” Truthout.org has produced another timely report. This is what the peoples’ news media is all about, non commercial and popular!

Here are quick interviews directly in front of the army post gates with veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan war zones listing with internet contacts. The file takes a while to download, but is well worth the wait.

Truthout.org Chris Hume and Scott Galindez have again produced a very powerful and well edited video program from Fayetteville, North Carolina this last March 19th ! Thanks, Truthout! Click the link below and watch this eye opening short report. http://www.truthout.org/multimedia.htm

Want to read or hear audio from Democracy Now! Project’s news coverage of the speeches at the Fayetteville demonstration? Go to: http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/03/21/1456200

Thanks to Project for the Old American Century (POAC) for finding this link!

http://oldamericancentury.org

Complete listings of links to many of the groups active this last weekend, go to: http://antiwar.com/antiwar-actions.php

Jan. 20, 2005 along the Washington DC parade route for President Bush's Inauguration where hundreds were pepper sprayed for touching the fence. (photo image courtesy: Indymedia - DC)

The End Of Days
By Anwaar Hussain

"The enlightened world citizenry needs to jolt itself into action before these lunatics on both sides decide to answer the call on one fateful night of full moon. Otherwise, the "End of Days" may not seem such a far-fetched idea."

SUICIDE ATTACKS have been on the rise around the world for about the last two decades. Since many such attacks, including those of 9/11, have been actually, or purportedly, committed by Muslims, it has been conveniently obvious that Islamic "fundamentalism" and "militancy" are the central causes.


Another expedient conclusion has been that these "fundamentalists" abhor Christianity in general and Western civilization, or it's so called way of life, in particular.Concurrently, as if on cue, the chant of the terms "Islamic fundamentalism" and "terrorism" by the Western media, the policy makers and many interested parties globally has been taken up at once.


This thoughtless overuse of these terms, in tandem with the current Western onslaught on Islam, therefore, necessitates a serious inquiry.


What is "fundamentalism" and what is the origin of the term? Are there fundamentalist elements in Islam? Can the whole religion be branded as radical if such elements do exist in Islam? When Western policy makers and their mouthpieces use the term in the context of Islam, are there ulterior motives? Who is primarily responsible for the beating Islam's image is taking? Are there any other fundamentalists active these days, or is it just the Muslim ones? As "terrorists" are invariably labeled "Islamic fundamentalists", let us first focus on the word "fundamentalism".


Ironically, the term "fundamentalism" is not Islamic in origin. It originated in a series of pamphlets published between 1910 and 1915. Entitled "The Fundamentals: A Testimony to the Truth," these booklets were written by leading evangelical Christian churchmen in the face of a relentless surge of secularism overtaking the Western world. By and large, fundamentalism was a response to the loss of influence traditional revivalism experienced in America during the early years of the twentieth century.


Conversely, in the Muslim world, unlike the Christian world or its present secular _expression, there has never been a group or sect that called itself "fundamentalist".That fundamentalism, basically a Christian concept, never really died out, is witnessed by the spectacular resurgence of "neo-fundamentalists" in the corridors of power in the United States. The President of United States refers to the divine and invokes the name of God more often than any other incumbent Western head of state. His second inaugural address of 20th January 2005 bears the most recent testimony to this fact.If its designs are not sinister, the West must bear two things in mind before branding any religion as "militant" and its followers as "fundamentalists".

First every subject has certain fundamentals. Be it religion, business, science, or any other issue, the underlying fundamentals are necessary to be learned and practiced. Each of these subjects has certain distinguishing features. Such attributes may alternatively be called the fundamentals of these subjects.


Physics, for example, would be impossible to grasp without first tackling its fundamentals of Laws of Motion, theories of relativity and atomic particles.Likewise, all religions, such as Islam, have certain fundamentals. Even atheists, moralists, humanists, not followers of any religions really, follow certain fundamentals. Not following them means one cannot claim to be a true devotee of that ideology.


Logically then, fundamentalism is an approach, an attempt or a movement that holds onto or tries to uphold these fundamentals. Muslims, like followers of all other religions, believe in these as revered features and endeavor to conform to these as best as they can nothing more, nothing less and nothing extraordinary.


Second, a little lesson in history. What goes around comes around. When religion is mixed with politics for underhanded motives, a dangerous brew is the end concoction. If the Bin Ladens of today offer Paradise to the fresh recruits who die in a holy cause, Pope Urban II did exactly the same when enlisting soldiers for a crusade to "tear that land from the wicked race" in AD 1095.Slaughtering an infidel was advertised as a virtuous act ensuring profit and prestige, both here and in the hereafter, for those joining the Pope's army.


For this Christian "Jihad", the papal promise was complete "atonement" from all sins and guaranteed entry into heaven, not much different than the Bin Laden promise. The subsequent slaughter of women, children, Jews and Muslims has been described by various historians as having caused the streets of Jerusalem "to flow in blood up to the bridal reins".


Presently, the West castigates moderate Muslims for not openly condemning the acts of the Bin Laden ilk. Muslims may counter-argue that the citizenry of the greatest Western power, the USA, has actually elected for the second time the half mad neo-fundamentalists to run the most dominant Western government, handing them the reins of a most awesome military power while their hands were still bloody from ongoing murders of innocent human beings.


The Muslim fundamentalists, by and large, are fringe dwellers of Muslim society, nowhere close to the seat of power in any significant Muslim country--a fact even the Western world recognizes. To many Muslims, therefore, it increasingly sounds like a purposeful attempt to create a new rift in the already fragmented world of Islam.One could argue that Christianity has matured and its afore-quoted bloody manifestations are seen no more.


This is a debatable argument at best. Not very far back the Church was on a rampage in Europe and parts of the American continent. And currently, the present American neo-fundos, answering to imagined "divine calls", are straining at the leash to plunge the entire Muslim world in pools of their own blood. Given their unparalleled military superiority, many neocon mouths salivate at the mere mention of the word "Crusade". Unbelievable as it is, the insanity of this dangerous messianic strain of Christian fundamentalism is manifestly clear in its attempts to ally itself with Israel in preparation for the so-called "End of Days".


It is not too difficult to argue that this heightened concern in the West about the Muslim world suitably coincided with the demise in the mid 80's of the Soviet Union. For almost fifty years in the last century the socialist giant remained a favorite punching bag for the Western powers. The very Muslim "fundamentalists" of today were nurtured by the West and used as pawns for an accelerated downfall of the Soviet empire.


The West is crying foul now that the chickens have come home to roost. Almost all the so-called Muslim fundamentalist hot spots, e.g. Kashmir, Chechnya, Palestine etc., existed then as now. None were then thought worthy of the scorn now heaped upon them by the West. The reason is simple. With the socialist apparition out of the way, it was obvious that the Western world must have another demon to exorcise. If "Muslim fundamentalism" had not been conjured up soon enough, another evil empire would have been sought or invented. After all, the huge military muscle built up for the earlier adventure could not be allowed to lie idle and wither away for want of exercise. Moreover, power does not operate in a vacuum, needing a medium to exert itself in or risk fading away.


The fateful arrival, therefore, of the neocons upon the scene has only accelerated the inevitable.If in the process some genuine Muslim struggles had to be sacrificed at the altar of expediency, so be it. How else could the deliberate ignoring of the Muslims' genocide in Kashmir, Palestine and Chechnya, among many, at the hands of the highly trained and very well equipped state forces be justified while predominantly Christian East Timor got its independence for a song by comparison?


Why else is the plight of these Muslims only whispered about but never brought to public attention by the leaders of the Western media and public policy?


Why else was democracy and nationhood deemed good for the goose but not for the gander?


Why else were Muslim despots and dictators of every hue and color cultivated, pampered and propped up by the West? It is thus not very difficult to surmise that this deliberate use of the _expression "Islamic fundamentalism" by the West and their cronies is mischievous, willful and malicious.


It also explains to a great degree the Western tendency to lump together acts of extremism, sabotage or fanaticism on the part of some splinter groups in the Muslim world with movements of Islamic revival. That the attempt is both misleading and counter-productive obviously does not ruffle their feathers.


It is misleading because the origin, terminology and description of "fundamentalism" are borrowed primarily from the Christian fundamentalist movement of the American South.


It is counterproductive because ordinary Muslims, or Islam, have nothing to do with the acts of fanaticism carried out in the name of Islam. Bracketing ordinary Muslims with the fanatics will only swell the ranks of the very people giving sleepless nights to the West.


The theory peddled by reigning neocons that future 9/11s can be avoided only by an across-the-board transformation of Muslim societies is, thus, overly simplistic and ultimately dangerous. The presumed connection between suicide attacks and Islam and the subsequent bogies of "fundamentalism" and 'terrorism' are a transparent sham and deserve to be treated with unmitigated contempt. Pursuing this farce may give birth to self-serving domestic and foreign policies, like the Patriot Act and Iraq/Afghanistan invasion, but cannot stem the danger of suicide attacks.The fact is that a band of fringe lunatics does exist in Islam.


It cannot be overemphasized, nonetheless, that Islam itself has nothing to do with their acts. Desperate situations spawn desperate actions. Therefore, certain flag carriers of repressed Muslim peoples drawing attention to their plight cannot just be branded as terrorism.


Addressing their grievances, on the other hand, would go a long way in eliminating the danger.


One cannot but admit, however, that the primary responsibility for the misperception of Islam in the West and among other non-Muslims lies with none other than the debauched Muslim elites, past and present.


Voluntarily or otherwise, existing Muslim elites, with few exceptions, are entirely dependent on the West for their otherwise untenable claim to power. Unfortunately, the existing Western and the toady Muslim leadership acting in concert are dealing a more devastating blow to Islam's image than if one of them were to act alone.


Grotesquely fascinating is the fact that some of these fundamentalist packs on both sides argue that there is no such thing as peaceful co-existence. One must, eventually, vanquish and destroy the other in order to exist. Such insane reactionary forces give birth to equally insane counter-reactionary forces as indelible a fact as Newton's Third Law of Motion. The ensuing battle between these harebrained crazies is neither a Crusade nor a clash of civilizations. It is simply a clash of rabid fundamentalist dogmas.


In this clash of radical creeds, each camp will use whatever arms are available to it. These will either be state of the art weaponry, like Tomahawk Cruise Missiles, JDAMs, and Predator Drones etc., or, of necessity, the primitive weapon of plain old suicide attacks.


Either way, innocent human beings caught in the crossfire remain the chief losers.But even that is mild when compared to what may be in the offing. Talk of nuking Mecca to send one final message to the Muslim world has already done the rounds in the neocons' camp.


In turn, Muslim radicals too are desperately seeking the horrible nuclear weapon. The enlightened world citizenry needs to jolt itself into action before these lunatics on both sides decide to answer the call on one fateful night of full moon. Otherwise, the "End of Days" may not seem such a far-fetched idea.

Copyrighted : Anwaar Hussain

Contact Mr. Hussain at his web site: Fountainhead

Get the low down on the high side of Gen. Kline's war on a woman's right to abortion!

Go to the scathing essay "The company they keep in Kansas"

http://fightincockflyer.blogspot.com/2005/03/company-they-keep-in-kanas.html

Kansas Republicans are dreaming! Attorney General Phill Kline's gubenatorial inauguration parade, 2006. Note that the drawing shows Kansas women on their knees before Governor - elect Kline. They are asking him to not release their sexual medical records to the Kansas courts.

Get your Victory Garden against Bush going! Make it an act of resistance to Bush Country's joblessness and imperialist war!

"A WHITE ROSE RESISTANCE FAMILY PROJECT!"

BUILDING THE ANTI - FASCIST OPPOSITION TO A BUSH COUNTRY OF JOBLESSNESS AND IMPERIALIST WAR!

THE FAMILY GROUP BECOMES A

PARTISAN RESISTANCE FIGHTING UNIT!

Canning was an important annual family event during the Great Depression. Now many are discovering this fine old country tradition just to build the family unit into a cohesive resistance group! (Art work courtesy one of the finest web sites on the net for news and multimedia http://oldamericancentury.org )

Warm up activities before the demonstrations across the country!

"The Who" Opposition Banner in Austin, TX! (Photo courtesy: http://freewayblogger.com )