tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38099218344224659242024-02-08T04:49:00.385-08:00Political ManifestoJonahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15577475980551169039noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3809921834422465924.post-7299417107008722612007-03-15T03:56:00.000-07:002007-03-15T03:59:54.253-07:00Political Manifesto<span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">This was written just before the 2004 US Presidential election</span><br /><br /></span> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Finally the time has come.<span style=""> </span>I am going to let it all pour out.<span style=""> </span>The weight is too great, the responsibility too dire.<span style=""> </span>We else could I do?<span style=""> </span>All I ever do.<span style=""> </span>I can write what I think.<span style=""> </span>But this is different; this isn’t about my opinion, though that it certainly is, it isn’t about sharing my views, it is bigger than that too.<span style=""> </span>This is about history and the future, our country and our way of life.<span style=""> </span>This is about the stage that will be set for our children, their children and the world at large.<span style=""> </span>I don’t come remotely near overstatement.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Some of you know already what I am going to say, perhaps you taught it to me.<span style=""> </span>But many of you will be surprised or doubtful, skeptical.<span style=""> </span>After all, our country is divided down the line – but please hear me through.<span style=""> </span>My fingers tingle to write it.<span style=""> </span>The world hinges on these issues and fate is far from decided.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;">I have never given time to politics—always a messy subject.<span style=""> </span>There were more relevant pursuits.<span style=""> </span>But with the election of G. W. Bush and the 911 attacks, politics immediately became important: the place of <st1:country-region><st1:place>America</st1:place></st1:country-region> in the world was in jeopardy.<span style=""> </span>Why?<span style=""> </span>Suddenly it seemed that there was much more going on than met the eye.<span style=""> </span>I started paying attention.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;">When I was in school, as an English student, I was taught how to read, really read.<span style=""> </span>What is really being said, hermeneutics.<span style=""> </span>Levels of meaning, things said and things implied.<span style=""> </span>Suspicious and restorative understanding – and the dialectical interplay of the two.<span style=""> </span>Essentially what this means is I was taught, as most of us, to see through smokescreens and propaganda, to discriminate between opinion and so-called facts, to notice when what is said is a distortion of what has been done or departs from it totally.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;">I have been fortunate.<span style=""> </span>I haven’t owned a television in a long time. <span style=""> </span>My news has come through NPR (National Public Radio), Time magazine, and various newspapers.<span style=""> </span>When I do see the tv, I am shocked at what most of us encounter as ‘news’.<span style=""> </span>There is so little substance, so little trust in the viewer to make up their own minds on the issues—the issues are hardly represented.<span style=""> </span>It is this dependence on the major media corporations that has influenced that mass understanding of our politics.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;">This is an unfortunate digression, but I’ll let it stand.<span style=""> </span>I simply want to give an explanation for why things have come to be the way they are, in part.<span style=""> </span>A movie, <i style="">Bowling for Columbine, </i>is on the subject, and perhaps the most important movie I’ve ever watched with regard to American culture.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style=""> </span>I’m not a democrat or a republican – I am an independent.<span style=""> </span>I don’t like any of the rigged organized parties.<span style=""> </span>Neither really represents me.<span style=""> </span>I see as perhaps Noam Chomsky sees.<span style=""> </span>What concerns me is not discussed on the news, in the papers, vaguely touched upon on NPR.<span style=""> </span>It is more widely acknowledged abroad, in books and in the underground, well, at least far left wing.<span style=""> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;">The very essential elements, the rudiments of our democracy are being eroded.<span style=""> </span>We have become fascist.<span style=""> </span>Our government is in the control of “neo-conservatives.”<span style=""> </span>They aren’t even conservative; they are extreme.<span style=""> </span>They are elite, dishonest, and power hungry.<span style=""> </span>We know this: they are wealthy.<span style=""> </span>They are dishonest; for heaven sakes, Dick Cheney, in front of the nation said he had never met J. Edwards, when they sat next to each other a few days prior.<span style=""> </span>They had met three times – fact (If there are facts).<span style=""> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;">We have a president who was not democratically elected.<span style=""> </span>That is frightening.<span style=""> </span>The Supreme Court at the top, to the citizen’s right to vote at the bottom, the entire scope of our political system is corrupt.<span style=""> </span>The media, which is supposed to be the leveler, the tell-tale, even they are biased and skewed.<span style=""> </span>The manipulation of the <st1:state><st1:place>Florida</st1:place></st1:state> election is direct testimony to my point:<span style=""> </span>the primary tenant of democracy is the people’s right to vote.<span style=""> </span>In <st1:state><st1:place>Florida</st1:place></st1:state>, that was taken away from tens of thousands of people, intentionally, politically, and illegally, yet it stands and most people don’t know it.<span style=""> </span>(A documentary investigating the circumstances in <st1:state><st1:place>Florida</st1:place></st1:state>, <i style="">Unprecedented, </i>should be taught in history classes.<span style=""> </span>It is infuriating, but also enlightening to the realities of our present political system.)<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Our democracy is eroding.<span style=""> </span>Our political parties are self serving.<span style=""> </span>This is not a government of the people, but a power struggle, a government by a few, for a few, a government which doesn’t pay heed to history, who don’t walk their talk.<span style=""> </span>The “chickenhawks”—all men who promote war but never actually fought, the children neither. <span style=""> </span>Bush went AWOL, no, what’s more, he was a deserter in wartime.<span style=""> </span>If we can’t see that this is the likely fact, than we aren’t watching our new critically.<span style=""> </span>People hide only what is unflattering.<span style=""> </span>Who served with Bush?<span style=""> </span>Where is one memory?<span style=""> </span>Nothing.<span style=""> </span>Just like his protected, classified history, governor, businessman, ect.<span style=""> </span>He is a ‘public’ official.<span style=""> </span>How can his report be hidden, why, and why do we allow it?<span style=""> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style=""> </span><i style="">Hijacking Catastrophe</i> is a movie that most perfectly represents my own skepticism, my own feelings of betrayal by my government.<span style=""> </span>We have gone to war for NO reason (that has been given by the White House.<span style=""> </span>There were no WMDs.<span style=""> </span><span style=""> </span>We didn’t just wake up to the fact that Saddam was a bad guy.<span style=""> </span>He was a bad guy when Reagan supported him, as he gassed and murdered.<span style=""> </span>But, now it suits a political agenda.<span style=""> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;">But what is the agenda?</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;">If you listen, what is said doesn’t make sense.<span style=""> </span>We aren’t safer when more of the world hates us. (Certain countries, I forget, 80% of their citizens supported us, today it has reversed, less than 20%.<span style=""> </span>On 911, the world was an American, look at the world today.)<span style=""> </span>We are building permanent, not temporary bases in <st1:country-region><st1:place>Iraq</st1:place></st1:country-region>. ??<span style=""> </span>All our bases in Afganistan are built along the proposed/new oil pipeline.??<span style=""> </span>We didn’t catch Osama, but Saddam, who had nothing to do with it—meanwhile, Bush family friends, the Royal Saud’s support terror, and most of the hijackers were Saudis.<span style=""> </span>The Bin Ladins were flown out of the country on 9/12.<span style=""> </span>This should be very, very troubling.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;">But what do we really know?<span style=""> </span>Not much I think.<span style=""> </span>It is hard to distinquish between fact and appearance.<span style=""> </span>I have tried not to judge.<span style=""> </span>But recently I learned of some documents, the “Wolfowitz Doctrine” which he wrote under Bush Sr, that made everything much simpler.<span style=""> </span>We have heard so much B.S., so many stories that don’t add up, so much confusion, but there are several documents written long before hand, that promote a political agenda for the “Next American Century.”<span style=""> </span>Wolfowitz is the undersecretary of Defense under Donald Rumsfeld.<span style=""> </span>They also served under Reagan and Bush Sr.<span style=""> </span>It was under Bush were Wolfowitz was asked to write a new proposal for international policy.<span style=""> </span>In it he laid out a highly controversial (it would be for the few know about it).<span style=""> </span>It promotes unilateralism, preemption, a break from reliance on the United Nations, and a drive to control dwindling resources.<span style=""> </span>Does any of this sound familiar?<span style=""> </span>It is TOO clear.<span style=""> </span>This is written.<span style=""> </span>This was kept quiet because they knew it wouldn’t be popular.<span style=""> </span>It is Empire.<span style=""> </span>With <st1:city><st1:place>Clinton</st1:place></st1:city> they were out of office, but worked for the Project for the New American Century (I may be getting some of these names confused.).<span style=""> </span>But with G.W. Bush, many, more than have of their group were appointed posts in the new White House.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Most troubling, is that the doctrine admitted that the shift would be extremely slow…..unless, unless some great catalyzing event, “the next <st1:place>Pearl Harbor</st1:place>” occurred, then they would be able to move forward rapidly.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;">I am frightened.<span style=""> </span>This is doctrine, not hearsay.<span style=""> </span>It is there.<span style=""> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;">I could go on, but I hope the point is made: these neocons have a specific agenda—it isn’t what is being said or talked about on the main stage –but it is there all the same.<span style=""> </span>Unlike what is on the public stage, it actually, unfortunately fits to a tee.<span style=""> </span>We are seeing it enacted everyday.<span style=""> </span>Even the “Shock and Awe” of the <st1:country-region><st1:place>Iraq</st1:place></st1:country-region> campaign was a tactic proposed by Wolfowitz.<span style=""> </span>Devistation and psychological intimidation.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Why?<span style=""> </span>Why pursue such a silly, archaic anachronism?<span style=""> </span>Power, I reckon.<span style=""> </span>But at such cost.<span style=""> </span>It defiles our constitution, our national character, our promotion of freedom, our promotion of democracy.<span style=""> </span>The neo-cons succeed through subterfuge; they lie.<span style=""> </span>They could never find support in the open.<span style=""> </span>No one wants an empire but the powerful.<span style=""> </span>Somehow they have tricked us not to not see it.<span style=""> </span>The major media organizations, NBC, FOX (obviously), the newspapers, are all owned by Republican supporting millionaires.<span style=""> </span>The line of impartiality has eroded.<span style=""> </span>Still, we aren’t looking forward; we are to busy being afraid, to busy looking after our own, or, that’s what we think we are doing.<span style=""> </span>And every day we are more endangered, more hated.<span style=""> </span>Everyday the rest of the world slowly awakes to the dawn of American Empire –that we are the one’s to be feared; we hold the power and Iraq proves our willingness to use that power, and we don’t need a good reason.<span style=""> </span>“They needn’t love us, so long as they fear us.”<span style=""> </span>Another lesson of history.<span style=""> </span>Everyday we show our hand to the world, but everyday, war and patriotism are promoted on the news; American flags sprout up everywhere.<span style=""> </span>“Iraqi Freedom”—as we build permanent, not temporary bases there.<span style=""> </span>We go ever farther into debt by a man who has known something of bankruptcy, by a man who was NOT elected.<span style=""> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Jeb Bush and his Secretary of State Harris undermined the most fundamental right of democracy: the right to vote.<span style=""> </span>Tens of thousands of citizens, who had every right to vote, were denied.<span style=""> </span>They were “purged” from voter registration lists as convicted felons, an archaic law, a racist law from the nineteenth century ratified shortly after the emancipation of the blacks.<span style=""> </span>It said that convicts couldn’t vote—there limiting the black vote.<span style=""> </span>The punishment of a crime in prison, not the loss of citizenship.<span style=""> </span>The right of a citizen, any citizen, is to vote.<span style=""> </span>Ex-convicts should be encouraged to vote, not further disenfranchised.<span style=""> </span>But further, the records were skewed.<span style=""> </span>The purge list, which was now understood to be upward of one hundred-thousand people, over fifty-percent black and Hispanic, was comprised of ninety-two thousand innocent people.<span style=""> </span>An individual list in one county, which decided to inspect their list, found that of over six-hundred names to be purged, only thirty-four of them were actually felons.<span style=""> </span>This is a crime against our constitution, our civic rights.<span style=""> </span>It was no oversight, but an intentional and documented manipulation of the vote.<span style=""> </span>Bush didn’t win <st1:state><st1:place>Florida</st1:place></st1:state>, but was given <st1:state><st1:place>Florida</st1:place></st1:state>, by political manipulation.<span style=""> </span>Jeb Bush’s Secretary of State and the Chairman of the Election Committee, happened also to campaign for George Bush.<span style=""> </span>Fair and Unbiased??</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;">I am actually angry.<span style=""> </span>I don’t understand a woman like Harris—how could you consciously sell out our constitution for personal gain??</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;">These are sad, sad things.<span style=""> </span>We don’t have a democratically elected president.<span style=""> </span>Our President has changed our national policy from one of compliance with foreign nations to one who is unilateral.<span style=""> </span>We persecute war criminals, but don’t allow the investigation of our own people –why?<span style=""> </span>We are now above the law.<span style=""> </span>We don’t obey it:<span style=""> </span>Abu Graib—I think perhaps the low point of my national pride, ever.<span style=""> </span>However, if we elect (???) George Bush president, I will concede the election the title. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;">My friends abroad know more than many of us.<span style=""> </span>The news that is blocked from us is free to them.<span style=""> </span>They can’t understand.<span style=""> </span>I was in part motivated by my friend Martina.<span style=""> </span>It seems so obvious to them.<span style=""> </span>She sent me an article that I will attach with this email.<span style=""> </span>But for us it is so complicated; we are so mislead.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;">I am only beginning to understand what is happening and has been happening.<span style=""> </span>It was only because Bush is such a bad, bad liar that I started to look around and ask questions.<span style=""> </span>Only then did I start to get the intrinsic importance that politics play in my life.<span style=""> </span>This is my government.<span style=""> </span>I am an American.<span style=""> </span>When I travel in the world, and I say I am from the U.S.A, the policies that Bush makes affects how people will view me.<span style=""> </span>It has always been positive—until now.<span style=""> </span>I think of 1930’s <st1:country-region><st1:place>Germany</st1:place></st1:country-region>: Would I have wanted to be ignorant then?<span style=""> </span>To have been a German and not known, to have supported Hitler, or, worse, to have known and done and said nothing.<span style=""> </span>I don’t want to be that person, and I have been, ignorant at least, occupied by other things.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Does it offend you or seem “unpatriotic” to compare ourselves to <st1:country-region><st1:place>Germany</st1:place></st1:country-region>, or Bush to Hitler.<span style=""> </span>(Hitler at least was elected.)<span style=""> </span>Think seriously.<span style=""> </span>Yes they killed millions in cold blood, but we do no differently abroad: the killing we have done in <st1:place><st1:city>Guatamala</st1:city>, <st1:country-region>Nicaragua</st1:country-region></st1:place>—we armed them.<span style=""> </span>Remember that it is us who have armed armies who kill all over the world.<span style=""> </span>We play both sides.<span style=""> </span>We supported Saddam; now we persecute him.<span style=""> </span>We encouraged the Shiites (?) to go against Saddam in the first Gulf War, then abandoned them to laughter.<span style=""> </span>We trained militants who fight with Osama.<span style=""> </span>We armed him too.<span style=""> </span>The blood that is on our hands is laundered, but easily traceable; this wasn’t so long ago.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;">And yes, we have even blown up one of our own vessels to rally support for the (first or second WW, I don’t remember, but it is in the history books now).</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;">I, and we as a people, cannot afford the luxury of ignorance or disengagement.<span style=""> </span>This is undoubtedly the most intense and important election of many generations.<span style=""> </span>Voter registration is unprecedented.<span style=""> </span>People are becoming concerned on both sides.<span style=""> </span>What are we voting for?<span style=""> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Personally, I am voting against empire, fascism, financial irresponsibility and dishonesty.<span style=""> </span>I am voting for renewed international relations, viable medical reform, and renewed interest in the lower class (raised min. wage, health care, education, socialism).<span style=""> </span>I don’t like or dislike Kerry.<span style=""> </span>Kerry is not the point of this election for me.<span style=""> </span>This is a fight to protect the nature and integrity of our democracy and our character.<span style=""> </span>Are we really a macrocosm of those pictures that came out of Abu Graib Prison?<span style=""> </span>Are we that perverse?<span style=""> </span>Are we as dishonest and ignorant as George Bush, as power hungry as Wolfowitz, as unethical as Jeb B. and Harris?<span style=""> </span>I say no.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;">[In 1994 Jeb Bush was asked, if elected, what he would do for the black community.<span style=""> </span>His answer was two words: “Probably nothing.”<span style=""> </span>???<span style=""> </span>In 2000 he infringed upon tens of thousands of blacks ability and right to vote.<span style=""> </span>This is not trivil.<span style=""> </span>This is how G.W. was put in office—a presidency founded on fraud from the beginning.]<span style=""> </span>- an aside.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;">I always pull for the underdog.<span style=""> </span>I am skeptical.<span style=""> </span>It deeply hurts me; I can’t understand how half of <st1:country-region><st1:place>America</st1:place></st1:country-region> supports Bush.<span style=""> </span>These are you, my friends and family.<span style=""> </span>Until now, I have been able to leave it as a difference, I like Elle MacPherson; you like Christy Brinkley, nothing more.<span style=""> </span>But now, it is not just that—so much is at stake, so much is in the balance. <span style=""> </span>I am begging, begging to at least have an open ear.<span style=""> </span>This letter is all I have.<span style=""> </span>Our votes are our voices and stamp upon the future.<span style=""> </span>What do we stand for?<span style=""> </span>The Republican ideals are good: small government, private enterprise.<span style=""> </span>I agree, that for many of us, a republican vote is personally a good choice.<span style=""> </span>But this year much more is at stake than our pocketbooks, not that G.W. has helped them.<span style=""> </span>Everything that is worth being truly patriot about is on the line, regardless of whether in made the <st1:time hour="8" minute="0">eight o’clock</st1:time> new.<span style=""> </span>I am willing to stake everything I am and believe in upon that.<span style=""> </span>I know it in my heart; I know it in my head.<span style=""> </span>I’m asking for your support.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Phew.<span style=""> </span>I feel much better.<span style=""> </span>Sorry to put this on many of you.<span style=""> </span>I am sorry if you disagree.<span style=""> </span>I love you all.<span style=""> </span>But I had to do this.<span style=""> </span>I couldn’t stand by.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Bush has used fear to manipulate the populace:</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 9pt;font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;">“The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leader.<span style=""> </span>That is easy.<span style=""> </span>All you have to do is tell the people they are being attacked and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger.<span style=""> </span>It works the same in any country.”</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 9pt;font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;">This was said by the Nazi Reich Marshal Hans Goering (sp.) at the Nuremburg War Trials.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Humm…</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;">-jonah</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <div style="border-style: none none solid; padding: 0in 0in 1pt;font-family:trebuchet ms;color:-moz-use-text-color -moz-use-text-color windowtext;"> <p class="MsoNormal" style="border: medium none ; padding: 0in;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> </div> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;">PS -<span style=""> </span>Some of the best information I have obtained came from these sources:</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><i style="">Hijacking Catastrophe-</i> documentary; an investigation into Bush policy.<span style=""> </span>I am buying a copy to send around.<span style=""> </span>Write if you want to watch it and I’ll send it to you.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><i style="">Bowling for Columbine </i>-<span style=""> </span>documentary; a round about debate on the impact of the media and propaganda, the use of fear to control.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><i style="">Unprecedented –</i> the investigation of the Florida 2000 election.<span style=""> </span>Very disturbing.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;">I like NPR, weekly periodicals ( I find they are more thoroughly researched than dailies, and handle more serious topics.) Time, Newsweek, The Atlantic Monthly, Harpers ect. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Small independent newspapers.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Thanks Martina, Stu, Wendy, Adam for pressing these issues.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span>Jonahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15577475980551169039noreply@blogger.com1