Lott's Strommin' On His Old Banjo

I just don't understand why everybody's picking on you, Senator Lott.

You're the first Republican to tell us what you really think in some time and you're getting flak from the Democrats...and your own Republicans!

You'd almost think that Republicans don't agree with what you said. But we know better, don't we? Things like not letting blacks vote in the 2000 election and kicking thousands of them off the voter registration lists, and playing the "race card" whenever and wherever possible disproves that silly idea, doesn't it?

After all, what did you say that was so wrong?

Just imagine what this country would be like if Strom Thurmond had been elected in 1948, Senator.

First off, I think that a Dixiecrat government wouldn't have allowed the Supreme Court to let that little black Brown girl win the Brown v Board of Education decision.

Oh Wait! Rehnquist, Scalia, O'Connor, Thomas, and Kennedy weren't a part of that court, so blatant partisanship might not have won out.

Still, it doesn't hurt to imagine.

Okay, if the Supreme Court hadn't let the blacks put their foot in the school door (and into white society), Dr. Martin Luther King wouldn't have come out of the woodwork agitating for civil rights, since the concept of "separate but equal" would have been been upheld as the law of the land by our highest court.

There would have then been no Montgomery bus protests, no need for Rosa Parks to sit in the front of the bus, no Selma protest marches or Birmingham riots with Bull Connor anxious to use dogs and fire hoses to stop the demonstrators.

There would have been no reason for J. Edgar Hoover to infiltrate civil rights groups or to try to smear Dr. King, in which case he might have been able to spend more time catching the real bad guys.

Hell...the 60's would have been just another decade like all the rest! Watts wouldn't have burned. Detroit wouldn't have crumbled. Harlem wouldn't have lost its quaint colored charm.

And without black people protesting for civil rights, white people probably wouldn't have had the nerve to protest against the war in Vietnam. I mean, we wouldn't have questioned the government when they said that they were just trying to stop communism from spreading throughout Southeast Asia.

Rebellious hippies wouldn't have flocked to Haight/Asbury because there would have been no reason to rebel. Kids would have believed what they were told. The world would have been as our government presented it.

Without protests at home, our soldiers would have known that they were fighting a good fight to free the people of South Vietnam from certain tyranny. Our boys, then, wouldn't have had to turn to drugs to escape the torment of knowing that people back home were questioning why they were even there.

So drugs wouldn't have gained the status they have in our society because white folks would have known that only ignorant black folks and beatniks used them. And the CIA would never have begun importing cocaine and heroin into our country to finance their extracurricular black ops around the world because there wouldn't have been enough drug users to make the trade worthwhile.

Richard Nixon would never have become President since he won by running against an unpopular Vietnam War. Without Richard Nixon, Watergate would never have happened and people would still have faith in government and believe that their representatives were truly representing them and not moneyed interest groups.

Then there are all those other interest groups that popped up trying to convince us that they, too, were different and needed special rights. That would never have happened if Strom had been elected.

Today, we wouldn't be so damn concerned about being Politically Correct since there never would have been movements for women's rights, gay rights, grey rights, welfare rights, children's' rights, fathers rights, grandparents rights, Native American rights, rights for the disabled, abortion rights, religious rights, ethnic rights, rights for the mentally ill, rights...rights...rights...ad nauseum.

We wouldn't have needed the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the Drug Enforcement Agency, the Office for Civil Rights, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. In fact most of the Department of Health and Human Services wouldn't be needed if we didn't have to focus on the differences between us all the time.

Let's face it. The rich and the poor have always existed and always will. Same with the young and the old, men and women, the weak and the strong. It's not the government's duty to change human nature.

We probably wouldn't have had a President Ronald Reagan, whose disdain of government created an atmosphere where people no longer believed that the government could, would or should do anything beneficial for people who weren't rich and powerful. We would never have elected someone like that who believed so little in government.

If Strom had been elected, blacks wouldn't have moved into our neighborhoods, screwed up our schools, destroyed our cities or taken our jobs. It just wouldn't have happened under President Strom, who could still be President today. Think about it, Senator! Strom Thurmond could be the world's first centenarian President. Now wouldn't that be something?

Okay, I know there would be a downside. We wouldn't have blacks in pro sports or have blacks entertain us on television or in the movies. But I could live with that. So...would a President Thurmond have been such a bad thing? I think not. Didn't we we all grow up hearing that life was so much better back in the "old days"? We all knew what our parents meant when they told us that.

Yes, I'm with you, Senator, and I think you're getting a helluva raw deal from everybody. I, too, think America would be a much better place if Strom had been elected in 1948.

Now...would you please get that colored boy over there to bring me another mint julep? I just want to sit here and listen to the darkies singing their spirituals back in their shacks.

It sure is a beautiful sound, isn't it, Senator? --Michael LaMartina, 12.12.02

Controversial Brit Fisk Talks To International Crowd At Purdue

Having read "Pity the Nation," seen his documentaries and read his reports in the London Independent, I had a chance to see Robert Fisk in person on his recent visit to the Midwest. Robert Fisk was speaking at Purdue University an engineering and land grant school 100 miles southeast of Chicago. I arrived early hoping to get a good seat. Good thing. Posters, all over campus, articles in the local and campus newspapers, and a topic of interest would attract a large crowd. A little after 7pm, the doors were just opening to let in a crowd of about 100 gathered outside. I grabbed a second row seat and watched as the auditorium quickly filled up.

Someone at this elite engineering school has not done the math. The auditorium holds only 400. It is quickly SRO and the campus police arrive to enforce the fire code regulations. Everything remains orderly. Purdue students may riot after basketball games, but this crowd is more studious. Several professors have assigned their classes to attend. These students, some from Chicago, many from Small Town, Indiana will be surprised at what they hear. Many members of the Jewish community are in attendance. Fisk is not viewed as a friend of Israel but they are there to learn.

Purdue has the largest number of foreign students among US universities. Many are from the Middle East and they are well represented. The international ties are deep at this university as they are at many American universities. Purdue has a tradition of development and partnership with foreign countries. Purdue has people on the ground in Kabul, Afghanistan trying to set up computer labs at the University. A former Peace Corp volunteer turned professor and Pashtun graduate student will try to beat the odds and do what they can in a trying environment. Perhaps the Hoosier locals in charge of venue should have expected a bigger crowd. But a larger venue would have cost more money, hard to come by with the state budget crises. The decision was made and it is too late to change. Hundreds left in the hallway are turned away. Luckily I got in. The speech is being video taped for the disappointed.

It is 15 minutes before the speech and Fisk, no tie and wearing a button down shirt with the top two buttons undone in Middle East style, is in the room chatting with the sponsors. A reporter from the student newspaper introduces herself to Fisk and the two settle on the steps leading up to the stage. Fisk is very approachable making time for a novice student trying to get a story. The student furiously scribbles notes as Fisk talks about his experiences as a journalist.

The crowd quiets as the introduction starts. “SEPTEMBER 11: Ask who did it, but for heaven’s sake don’t ask why” Fisk starts the speech with a bold stroke. “9-11 did not change the world. It is one of the outstanding, dangerous lies that we journalists have been propagating.” Fisk explains why US Middle East policy is more business as usual. The violence that goes on in the ME every day finally reached America. “Why do they hate us?” Fisk’s answer is not the same answer the Bush administration and American news media give us.

Fisk relates his recent beating at the hands of Afghans. His car broke down and they attacked him. Fisk explained that the British and Americans had been bombing the area and killed numerous civilians. The mob, he explained, was angry over the deaths of friends and relatives. Fisk looked like the people that were bombing them. This is the “why” story that Fisk complains the media never reports. By only reporting the “who” and the “what” (Afghans beat British Reporter), the media can portray Muslims as mindless terrorists.

As a result of reporting the “why” of the story, Fisk was widely attacked by pundits crying “Wimp!” and “Pandering to the terrorists”. Fisk received a flood of hate mail, some shared with the audience. Apparently, the Freepers write letters to foreign newspapers. Fisk related how difficult it was to get out a story on the Middle East that did not follow the mainstream script. In his view, the media is not serving its audience well. They are cheerleading the party line instead of reporting the cold hard facts, however unpleasant.

Fisk’s description of Afghanistan is chilling. After the defeat of the Taliban, the region is in absolute chaos and dangerous, primarily because of bands of lawless thieves and warlords. The promised nation building has not arrived. Think Mad Max, only wandering off the road can get you blown up by a land mine. The Americans may have disrupted Afghanistan as a base for bin Laden, temporarily. There is no indication that the resources needed to help Afghanistan recover from its status as a failed state will arrive anytime soon.

Fisk describes his harrowing trip up mountain roads to interview bin Laden. He is taken aback at the vitriol aimed at the US. Most terrorists use terror to achieve limited aims in the region. bin Laden tells Fisk that he will target the America. The meaning of those comments becomes clear on 9-11. On 9-11 Fisk’s plane is turned around from its trip to the US; He files his report from the plane. Fisk knows bin Laden is behind the attacks.

Fisk reiterates, “Iraq has absolutely nothing to do with 9-11 and bin Laden”. Fisk finds Hussein despicable, but questions Bush’s intent. His greatest fear is that Bush will try to redraw the political map, repeating the mistakes of the post-colonial British and French. Fisk admits, no one really knows the true objectives of the Bush administration in the ME. The US Iraq policy is not directly connected to 9-11. The truth will only out later.

Toward the end of his presentation, Fisk shows clips from documentaries. One was footage of the gruesome Lebanese civil war massacre of Arabs in a refugee camp. The film cuts to the to the truck bombing of American marines at Beirut airport in 1982. Unwarranted act of terror? Or retaliation for massacre? Fisk suggests that the two events are related. Does US media again fail to report the “why” of the story?

Another clip shows an Arab man fighting to keep his home. He is being forced to relocate from his family home (hundreds of years) to make way for Jews only settlements in the West Bank. Fisk is trying to portray the “why” part of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

After an hour and a half, the audience is still attentive as the floor is opened for questions. A student with a Midwest accent asks what students can do. Fisk replies that his question is asked at every presentation. He encourages students to get involved and to look for the “why” questions.

A young student from Syria asks why the dislocation of Arabs from Israel in 1948 did not meet more resistance or attention in the press. Fisk explained that after WWII, Europe was awash with refugees as political boundaries were redrawn and millions of people of different ethnic backgrounds were relocated. The relocations in Europe were so massive, that removal of Arabs from Israel was not even a thought. Fisk has made films of Israelis living in homes of displaced Arabs in Israel and then gone to Europe and filmed Europeans living in the house of the very same displaced Israelis. Musical houses, but the stakes are more devastating than musical chairs. Fisk admits that the Europeans made a mess of the region with their colonialism and the borders they left behind in the post-colonial period, his father’s war. As Americans enter the ME, will we make the same mistakes?

Another questioner asked for recommendations on a Homeland Security curriculum. Universities are positioning themselves to get grant money for security research. Purdue, an engineering school known for its computer security program wants to be a player. Fisk brushes aside the question.

Another questioner from Lebanon asked about the denial over the civil war in Lebanon. Fisk replied that the wounds of the civil war cut too deeply and the Lebanon was unable to talk about what had happened two decades ago. This is a perspective that is hard to internalize. My Lebanese friends are very bitter about the civil war but it is difficult to understand. Now I see why. The war is too painful to discuss. Not good.

The questions over, the audience rose to give a heartfelt standing ovation to Fisk for his presentation. Not everyone in the audience agreed with everything he said, for sure. However, the audience respected his candor, honesty and his willingness to speak to the truth and his mind. It was a refreshing change from the sugar-coated spin of the American media. The real lesson for me is that people will applaud if you give it your best effort and tell it like you see it. Even if people disagree, you still have their respect for laying it out.

The post speech coverage was excellent both in the school and the local papers. Purdue does not have a journalism school and relies on interested students to write the columns in the school paper. Young reporters are not as indoctrinated to the “script” and many times offer a less clouded description of the event without all the spin. Purdue coverage.

The Fisk speech did eventually attract response from the community. However, that is the very idea behind controversial speakers. They stimulate dialog. They cut through the secrecy and spin that is intended to give the government a free hand to follow their own predilections without input from the public. Whether you agree or disagree, the very dialog that the Bush administration tries to suppress occurs in spite of their best efforts.

Anyone interested in the ME would do well to hear Robert Fisk if the opportunity presents itself. His message is thought provoking and challenging. He does not follow the script of the American news media. He says what he thinks about Israeli policy. Not everyone wants to hear what he has to say. Then again, maybe people need to hear things they don’t like once in a while to re-evaluate their own position. Fisk suggests that the debate over the Palestine is being suppressed and that very suppression works against a reasoned process to achieve peace.

Fisk does not have all the answers. He makes that point clear. He is not arrogant. Despite his many prestigious awards, he remains humble and approachable. He willingly made time to give an interview to an aspiring reporter. He is totally committed to his reporting. He sees his role as reporting events and digging to find the explanations for why they happened.

Fisk has excellent insights into the ME and a perspective that cannot be found anywhere in the American Press. Even though I did not agree with everything he said, it was definitely worth the trip. I know I am not going to see him on network TV anytime soon, although one of his speeches was broadcast on CSPAN. I walked away more knowledgeable and yet understanding that nothing about the politics in the ME is simple.

--bakho, 11.27.02

Bush And Hitler? We Report, You Decide. Much fuss was made recently about the German justice minister who compared George W. Bush with Adolf Hitler. There would be no fuss and no controversy about it if there was not some truth in it. If anyone had compared Bill Clinton to Adolf Hitler, you could only laugh, no one even thought to think that, it didn't apply at all. Bill Clinton was and is a sincere promoter of peace and prosperity. But comparing Bush to Hitler is not totally out of the question.

Hitler was an insane and vicious madman, of low intelligence but with a persuasive charisma, on the far right politically, and who took Germany into wars invading other countries for supposedly great patriotic purposes, security of the republic, and empire-building. He was an egomaniac, a bully, a dictator, and a ruthless tyrant who believed in using domination, violence and killing to achieve his political aims. He had no sincere respect or concern for the national constitution, civil rights, individual freedoms, or a building a prosperous economy, and his regime brought great harm to his country. He became drunk with power and aimed to create a dominating world empire ruled by him.

Hitler presided over a major national disaster (the burning of the Reichstag, the national parliament building) which he was discovered later to have participated in creating. That event gave him the opportunity to declare an emergency and expand his dictatorial powers further, so as to enforce his fascist beliefs and goals into societal reality and gain personal benefits as well. He used the war-terminology "homeland" often, and whipped up fervent patriotism to support his wars. He used war as a means to distract people from domestic troubles and issues (the specific comparison the German justice minister made), kept the population of the country in constant fear, and exploited that fear for his own purposes. Hitler said in his writings that if you cannot create war then at least continue to propagate the idea that war is coming. Never leave people in peace, because when they are in peace, you are nobody. Then they don't need you; your very purpose is gone. They need you only when there is danger; so create danger. If there is not real danger, at least create the climate of a false danger.

A relevant story, reported to have been a conversation between George Bernard Shaw and a female dinner guest: Shaw asked, "If a man you just met offered you a million dollars to have sex with you, would you do it?" She thought a moment and said,"Well, yes I think I would." "OK, so if a man you just met offered you fifty dollars to have sex with you, then would you do it?" Shaw asked. "No, of course not!" she replied indignantly, "what do you think I am?" "We have already established that," Shaw responded, "now we're only haggling about the price!"

That's were we are with respect to a comparison between Hitler and Bush. Not about if he's like Hitler, but only about how much so. --R. E. Bell, October 4, 2002

Politics is not a pretty creature. --Oct. 7, 2002

Mr. Tully is a native of Washington D.C. who has worked on Capitol Hill, The Kennedy Center, and as a paperboy for the old Washington Star. He lives in Los Angeles where he writes for film and television and roots for the Redskins.

An open letter to George Walker Bush
by Alan Hale, August 27, 2002

Dear Mr. Bush,

You will have to forgive me, but there is simply no way that I can honestly address you as "President," since I believe that title should be reserved for those who are elected to that office – a statement that does not apply to you. I'll explain: as the son of a World War II veteran, the brother of a Vietnam veteran, and myself being a Naval Academy graduate and former Naval officer, I have a deep and abiding respect for the ideals upon which our nation was founded and which are contained within the Constitution.

I'm not sure you've ever read or understood the Constitution, but I have. There's plenty of language in there about the proper roles of the various branches of our government that you seem not to comprehend, but the most important words are the first three, "We the People." We the People did not consent to your "leadership" of this nation, but five of your friends on the Supreme Court said that that didn't matter, so I guess we're stuck with you.

And what has your "leadership" brought us? I could spend time discussing your performance on the environment or on our nation's economy, but those are long subjects. I'll mention, however, the irony in your promise this past weekend to "balance the budget." Mr. Bush, you were handed a balanced budget nineteen months ago, but you immediately squandered it on tax cuts and giveaways to your campaign contributors. As a result, my sons and I, and our respective generations, will be forced to waste hundreds of billions of dollars every year for the foreseeable future paying the interest on the national debt that you are running up.

What I'd really like to discuss is your performance as Commander in Chief of our nation's armed forces, which I believe has been abysmal, to the point of dereliction. As a point of reference, do you remember the USS Greenville, the submarine that collided with a Japanese fishing vessel a year and a half ago? Even though he was not personally culpable, the Commanding Officer of the Greenville – a fellow Naval Academy graduate, I might add – nevertheless accepted full responsibility for that tragic accident, because doing so is the very essence of what it means to assume command.

You should be held to at least the same standard. It has become quite clear over the past few months that you had received numerous detailed warnings, from both domestic and foreign sources, that an attack upon the U.S. was imminent, yet you did nothing to prevent it. Then, instead of accepting responsibility for the consequences of your inaction, as a true "Commander" would have done, you have in fact evaded all responsibility, to the point of blaming things on your predecessor and anyone who disagrees with you. Even worse, you have gone so far as to repeat sick jokes about "hitting the trifecta" that disgrace the memories of the 3000 innocent people who were murdered on that horrible day.

You have also completely squandered the goodwill and solidarity felt by the people of the world towards our nation after we were attacked. Because of your actions, people around the world now see the U.S. as, in the recent words of one British writer, "arrogant, hypocritical, self-absorbed, self-indulgent, and contemptuous of others." As one who has been proud to represent America when I've traveled abroad, these words sicken me, because I know that they don't represent the American people – but they do represent how you have portrayed us to the world.

Your actions have affected me personally as well. I have had the privilege of leading two delegations of American scientists and students on "science diplomacy" visits to Iran during the past three years. As a result of these and other such visits, we were making slow and painstaking, but nevertheless genuine, progress toward establishing a peaceful dialogue with the people of that country. But because of your insulting and, frankly, asinine "axis of evil" rhetoric you have managed to wreck our efforts, and render worthless all the time, energy, and resources many people on both sides have invested in trying to get this process going.

And now, of course, you are constantly beating the war drum about Iraq, even though that country has not attacked us and was not involved in last September's events, and even though you have offered nothing in the way of any hard evidence that that country poses a serious threat to us. You nevertheless seem intent on invading that country unilaterally and without provocation, apparently because, as your advisor Richard Perle put it, "the failure to take on Saddam after what [you] said would produce such a collapse of confidence in [you] that it would set back the war on terrorism."

So if I'm to take that at face value, my sons are supposed to go get killed in a war that you will start just so you can maintain some semblance of credibility after all your reckless rhetoric.

This is a family-oriented newspaper that will not print what I think about that. All I can do is humbly suggest that you go visit that black wall on the northwest corner of the Mall in Washington and read the names of the 58,000 Americans who died fighting in a war that you and Mr. Perle, among others in your administration who seem so intent on starting this new conflict, managed to wiggle out of.

If this is the kind of "leadership" we can continue to expect from you, then I fear for my sons, for our nation, and for our planet. These are all far too precious to entrust to someone who apparently has little, if any, understanding of the consequences of his words and actions and who moreover refuses to accept the responsibility for these consequences. So you'll just have to excuse this native New Mexican for not being among your fawning admirers as you make your visit to the Land of Enchantment. Perhaps some other time, if and when you ever manage to learn that this nation and planet belongs to everyone, and not just to those who pander to your worldview.

--Alan Hale is an astronomer who resides in Cloudcroft. He is an alumnus of New Mexico State University, and is co-discoverer of Comet Hale-Bopp.

By Maureen Farrell

Sometime between last fall and Christmas, scientists discovered an alternative universe. This wasn't confirmed nor publicized, mind you, but they're bound to announce it soon. Unless, of course, like Dick Cheney's energy task force meetings or President Bush's SEC files, it's being kept secret as matter of national security.

But no matter. Because anyone who's been paying attention hasn't missed the evidence that's been mounting steadily since last September. From the moment authorities discovered Mohamed Atta's "Terrorism for Dummies" manual and we learned about 72 virgins, Evil Doers' grooming tips, and how terrorists' passports (unlike black boxes) survive fiery crashes into buildings, things have become increasingly surreal.

If an alternative universe didn't exist, you see, jets would have been scrambled from Andrews Air Force Base, and, in the time it takes to say, "Payne Stewart," innocent lives would have been saved. The president wouldn't have fooled anyone with his "they hate us for our freedoms," schtick and Americans of all political stripes would have asked, "Why don't they go after Canada, then, eh?"

And how else could we explain Condoleezza Rice's insistence, that, despite warnings from French intelligence, G-8 Summit organizers and Tom Clancey novels, nobody could have predicted that terrorists would fly airplanes into skyscrapers? Because, in the alternative universe, on that very same day, CIA honcho John Fulton was conducting simulations of planes doing just that. As literature from this year's September 6th Chicago-based homeland security conference confirms: "On the morning of September 11th 2001, Fulton and his team at the CIA were running a pre-planned simulation to explore the emergency response issues that would be created if a plane were to strike a building."

Imagine that.

Of course, that's not the only strange incident that occurred that day. At the moment the first plane struck the first tower, bin Laden family members were meeting with members of the Carlyle group, the nation's fifth largest defense contractor, which includes the president's father as a board member. Equally surreal was the New York Times' account of Representative Porter Goss (R-FL) and Senator Bob Graham's (D-FL) September 11 breakfast with the head of Pakistani intelligence, who reportedly ordered that $100,000 be wired to Atta days before the attacks. Goss and Graham, you might recall, are co-chairs of the congressional committee investigating the attacks on New York and DC.

If that's not enough to convince you that weirdness prevails, consider this: if a post-9/11 parallel universe hadn't emerged, America would not be discussing first-strike nuclear policies or preemptive strikes against Iraq. Brent Scowcroft, Henry Kissinger, and Chuck Hagel wouldn't have suddenly and ironically become our nation's most vocal doves and G.W. would understand that declarations of war are Congress' department, not his. Cries of "Saddam gassed his own people!" wouldn't be shouted ad naseum, while Bush #41's role as Hussein's silent ally during that gassing wouldn't remain largely ignored. And if not for this brave new world, civil rights commissioner Peter Kirsanow wouldn't be openly anticipating suspension of civil rights, while America's attorney general would cringe at the thought of concentration camps for anyone.

In our former reality, lessons from Vietnam were firmly ingrained. States hadn't yet linked driver's license applications to selective service registration, and the Universal Military Training and Service Act, which would require young men to report for 6-12 months of military training, education and indoctrination, had not been introduced in the House. Likewise, homeland security camps, like the one held for troubled teens over the summer, were more likely to be found in a "Saturday Night Live" sketch than in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. And hypothetical dilemmas posed at the camp would be more parody than preparation. "If I have 40 acres of forest," one problem began, "how many search dogs will I need to find a fugitive?" If we weren't living in an alternative universe, you'd think I was making that up.

Then too, Frank J. Gaffney's nationally televised diatribes wouldn't be so glaringly at odds with foreign press reports regarding America's reputation worldwide. Wedding party bombings notwithstanding, Gaffney's claims that the citizens of Afghanistan are grateful for their American-sponsored liberation doesn't gel with Irish and American-made documentaries about U.S. war crimes in Afghanistan. And, if anything, newspaper reports of "cruel Americans" storming into homes and filming naked Afghan women, whose clothing was burned off during bombings, reveal, at the very least, an alternative truth.

And how, but for a separate reality, could we ever explain the media hype surrounding missing children -- despite FBI statistics that show that kidnappings are not on the rise? How else could a mother from Texas, whose infant was stolen the day before, warrant a nationally televised press conference -- especially when she doesn't speak English and her baby was returned unharmed? And in what kind of world do newspapers run front page stories on why parents should consider having their children implanted with microchips -- as our global satellite positioning system babysits America's most branded?

"We have [global positioning system] units for our cars," Applied Digital spokesperson Matthew Cossolo told the Philadelphia Inquirer. "If your car is stolen, we can locate it. Do we love our cars more than our children?" Translation: Have your kids "chipped" or you're a horrible person.

When the media reminds us, day in and day out, of how vulnerable our children are, we can overlook the Orwellian implications and understand why some people are clamoring for this device. In this alternative universe, however, we can also understand the implications of treating children like cattle, and why the Armageddon-minded view this chip as "the mark of the beast."

"Face it," wrote Garrison Keiller in Time, "a nation that maintains a 72% approval rating on George W. Bush is a nation with a very loose grip on reality." No kidding. These days, however, it's hard to know what's real and what's not - including approval ratings, which seem grossly over-inflated. But then again, before 9/11, could we have imagined a futuristic world where governmentally-monitored biochipped children participate in mandatory military training? Or where state-sponsored concentration camps were anything other than History's horror stories?

In his book, "They Thought They Were Free," Milton Mayor chronicled the thoughts and experiences of citizens in Nazi Germany and offered a glimpse of how the German people could have allowed the Third Reich to thrive. As one unnamed scholar reported:

"What happened here was the gradual habituation of the people, little by little, to being governed by surprise; to receiving decisions deliberated in secret; to believing that the situation was so complicated that the government had to act on information which the people could not understand, or so dangerous that, even if he people could understand it, it could not be released because of national security. . . .Each step was so small, so inconsequential, so well explained or, on occasion, "regretted," that, unless one were detached from the whole process from the beginning, unless one understood what the whole thing was in principle, what all these "little measures" that no "patriotic German" could resent must some day lead to, one no more saw it developing from day to day than a farmer in his field sees the corn growing. One day it is over his head."

Perhaps the Germans lived in an alternative universe, too.

--Maureen Farrell is a freelance writer who prefers the universe the way it was before the 2000 selection.

by Leslie Brenner

As Senate Foreign Relations Committee witnesses gave their differing opinions on what to do about Iraqi President Saddam Hussein during the recent hearings, most everyone could agree on several points: They're not certain what weapons of mass destruction [WMD] Hussein may have, where they are, or what WMD he may procure in the future, they don't know if Hussein would risk his own annihilation by attacking the United States or our allies, or, if so, when? While the senators and witnesses discussed a possible war with Iraq, I wondered if they'd ever read Graham Greene's, Our Man in Havana?

Greene's story is about an English vacuum cleaner salesman, Jim Wormold, who is haplessly recruited into the British Secret Service. Wormold soon discovers that espionage is more lucrative than selling vacuum cleaners, but he has nothing to report. So he creates an international network of fictitious agents and sends London drawings of a new bomb, which bears an odd resemblance to a vacuum cleaner. Wormold's game turns deadly, however, when bodies start piling up, as competing foreign powers try to obtain the nonexistent weapon.

Greene's indictment of Western intelligence is a fitting analogy here. Because based on the information the Bush administration has presented so far, we lack credible evidence that Hussein had anything to do with 9/11, that he poses an immediate threat to our national security, or that he intends to. We also lack a cohesive war plan, a coalition of allied and regional support, or an exit strategy if and when Hussein is deposed. In addition, war may further destabilize a region already in turmoil, cost thousands of American lives and, based on Gulf War casualty reports, hundreds of thousands of Iraqi lives, drive up deficit spending astronomically, cause extensive damage to Iraq's infrastructure, and alienate many of our friends and create new enemies. Given this set of circumstances, why is President George Bush so fixated on war with Iraq? Would war be worth it? Have we exhausted all the alternatives yet?

Most people would agree that Hussein is a dangerous, ruthless dictator and a criminal. He invaded Iran and Kuwait, he's enslaved and gassed his own people, he's producing chemical and biological weapons, he wants to build nuclear ones, and he defies international laws. As a result, since the Gulf War, the international community has maintained an arms embargo and crippling economic sanctions against Iraq, and Great Britain and the United States have bombed large swaths of Iraq almost weekly. The impoverished and brutalized Iraqi people, and the world, would be well-rid of Hussein.

But is the Bush administration justified in launching a preemptive strike, conceivably in violation of domestic, international and humanitarian laws? Earlier this year Bush released his Nuclear Posture Review, which redefines the use of nuclear arms as acceptable in some conventional warfare scenarios against terrorists and rogue states [i.e., Iraq]. We are currently researching small nuclear weapons, euphemistically termed "mini-nukes" and "bunker-busters," which we may use in a preemptive strike. In her recent book, The New Nuclear Danger, Nobel Peace Prize nominee Dr. Helen Caldicott says, a five-kiloton mini-nuke would have a blast radius of approximately one mile. By comparison, the approximately 13-kiloton bomb we dropped on Hiroshima during World War II had a blast radius of about one-and-a-half miles, killing an estimated 70,000 people and destroying almost nine-tenths of the city. The World Court recently ruled that "the threat or use of nuclear weapons is illegal in almost all conceivable circumstances." Meanwhile, Bush has also dismissed or ignored a number of international treaties and conventions, such as: the Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty, the International Criminal Court, and the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Before we march to war against Iraq, Bush needs congressional approval in order to avoid violating the United States Constitution. But Bush has yet to make a case for war to Congress, the American people, or our allies, as he continues to build-up our military presence in the Middle East [i.e., Qatar and the Arabian Sea]. This fall Bush is scheduled to present to Congress his National Security Strategy, which will detail an unprecedented preemptive-strike doctrine. Even though under international law a country has always had a right to defend itself against attack, therefore rendering a preemptive-strike policy unnecessary.

As the world's only superpower, the Bush administration is setting a dangerous example for other countries to follow. So, for whatever it's worth, I believe Hussein is to some extent besides the point. There's a much larger issue at work here and that's unrestrained American hegemony. Does President Bush have the right to strike at any perceived threat anywhere in the world, possibly using nuclear weapons, whether or not a threat ever materializes? Can the United States arrogate to itself the right to attack any country it chooses without provocation, without fear of punishment or reciprocal damage, and without being answerable to any other country, international body, treaty or law? As Hiroshima's Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba reportedly asked, does the United States–in particular President Bush–have the right to unilaterally "determine the fate of the world"?

Iraq must be very nervous right now, as it tries to second-guess what Bush may do? But if Iraq is nervous, so must Iran and North Korea be. After all, they may be next as Bush pursues his mysterious vacuum weapon and the bodies of innocent people pile up, in a war which may not end in our lifetimes.

Leslie Brenner is the research editor at House & Garden magazine in New York.