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Hell to Pay "Depend upon it, Sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully." - Samuel Johnson Some time just before January 7th, 2002, an asteroid capable of pulverizing a good-sized nation flashed through the void, passing perilously close to Earth. Had it struck our planet, the impact would have had global consequences. The energy of the strike would have been equivalent to the explosion of a number of large atomic weapons. From the media perspective, it would have been the biggest story since the extinction of the dinosaurs. At some point in the next six months, a small, darkened corner of George W. Bush's consciousness will wish the thing had hit us. The apocalypse he and his fundamentalist buddies have been waiting for would have been at hand, and a number of potentially calamitous questions about to be put to his administration would have been avoided. Sadly for him, the planet spins on. Beneath the unpierced stratosphere, the electronic beams of news agencies like CNN and the Associated Press have begun to spread like a widow's web from city to city and house to house. Carried on this invisible wind are rumors of doom, negligence and greed. Each and every one of these rumors lead inexorably back to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, which will soon be issuing significant numbers of visitor passes to lawyers if the pattern holds much longer. Whichever part of the nation that never heard of the energy giant Enron Corporation has recently been introduced to the company in odious context. The story thus far is nothing less than astounding: Enron, a company valued in the billions on Wall Street, suddenly filed for the largest bankruptcy claim in the history of the known universe. 4,000 employees were abruptly shown the door after having been barred from dumping the company stock, meant to fund their retirement, while it was worth something. Meanwhile, Enron executives in the know were able to dump the stock, back when it was the gold standard on the Street, for a cool $1 billion. Apparently, Enron was ailing for quite a long time. The aforementioned executives were able to maintain the mirage of financial viability by stuffing the debt into what are called 'off-balance-sheet partnerships.' In essence, each of the executives built personal banking bunkers and hid what has been revealed to be staggering Enron debts within them, keeping fact that the company was hemorrhaging money off the publicly displayed balance sheets. This maintained the company's credit rating, and allowed it to continue doing business. This went on for four years, which means several things. It means most of the Enron executives were aware of and/or actively participating in this highly criminal and irresponsible activity. It means the stockholders, including 4,000 loyal Enron employees, were lied to. It probably means that the executives knew the stock value was doomed when they bailed out and cashed in several months ago. It means they let their employees lose the retirement funds they believed were growing within their Enron stock portfolios. It means a lot of people got screwed by a pack of sharp operators who didn't give a damn about anyone but themselves. All this could simply be chalked up as yet another story of corporate greed run amok, until the umbilical political and financial connections between Bush and Enron are illuminated. Enron's capo, Kenneth Lay, was perhaps the best financial friend George W. Bush has ever known. Lay and a number of Enron employees essentially bankrolled Bush's 2000 Presidential campaign, going so far as to lend Bush an Enron corporate jet for trips between whistle stops. Before Bush got White House stars in his eyes, he worked very closely with Enron on energy policy in Texas. This close connection led to the Bush administration's hiring of a number of influential individuals within Enron's orbit for important government positions: - Thomas E. White, Bush's Secretary of the Army, was once Vice-Chairman of Enron Energy Service, and held millions in Enron stock; - Presidential Advisor Karl Rove owned as much as $250,000 in Enron stock; - Economic adviser Larry Lindsay leapt straight from Enron to his current White House job; - Federal Trade Representative Robert B. Zoellick did the same; - SEC Chairman Harvey Pitts was hand-picked by Kenneth Lay for the position, due to his notorious aversion to governmental regulation of any kind. There are some thirty one Bush administration officials who had a line item for Enron in their stock portfolio, including Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. It is fair to say that the woebegone corporation held, and continues to hold, enormous influence over the day-to-day machinations of Federal government policy. One wonders if Bush's recent gutting of the Clean Air Act, a decision designed to improve the fortunes of companies like Enron, was the brainchild of people with deep connections to the energy industry. The trail of influence left by Enron leads also to the scabrous heart ventricles of Vice President Dick Cheney, who admitted recently to six separate meetings with Enron executives while formulating the Bush administration's energy policy. Cheney, a former executive of the Halliburton Petroleum interest, was in charge of creating this policy. For reasons soon to be exposed by subpoena, Cheney refused to detail the specifics of the creation of this policy, which included the multiple Enron meetings. The General Accounting Office was preparing to sue Cheney to reveal this information when the September 11th attacks took place. Those subpoenas may be dusted off and mailed within a month. In the meantime, the Justice Department is preparing a serious criminal investigation into the collapse of Enron. The Democratically-controlled Senate is planning hearings on the matter as well. Columnist Robert Scheer has referred to the Bush administration's involvement in the Enron debacle as "Whitewater in spades." One wonders if "Watergate" would be a more appropriate comparison. Bush's own dealings within the energy industry carry a disturbingly familiar echo to the Enron situation: once upon a time, he was a high-ranking officer of a petroleum interest called Harken Oil. On June 22, 1990, Bush sold his Harken stock and made $848,560, earning him a 200% profit. One week later, Harken announced a $23.2 million loss in quarterly earnings and its stock dropped sharply, losing 60 percent of its value over the next six months. Bush made a bundle while the other investors lost millions. Harken was Enron in miniature, and might have served as a warning to the American people if the press had chosen to pay any attention to it during the 2000 Presidential campaign. There is a school of thought, espoused primarily by Republicans, that any investigation into potentially dishonorable or illegal actions by the Bush administration is tantamount to treason. We are at war, undeclared though it may be, and Bush must be free to prosecute this war vigorously, so as to defend our freedom and bring the murderers of American civilians to justice. If reports recently aired on CNN have any credence, however, Bush and his people may well have to answer for actions that make the Enron catastrophe look like a jaywalking offense, actions that led directly to the incredible carnage in New York and Washington, D.C. In 1998, during the Clinton administration, the U.S.-based energy concern Unocal canceled plans to exploit massive natural gas deposits in Turkmenistan. They had planned to run a pipeline from Turkmenistan to Pakistan, where the natural gas could have been processed for Asian and Western energy markets. The idea was scuttled after Clinton ordered the cruise missile bombing of Afghanistan in response to a terrorist attack upon U.S. embassies in Africa which were planned and executed by Osama bin Laden. The pipeline would have had to pass through Afghanistan, and Unocal was given the message in Technicolor by Clinton's people that Taliban-controlled Afghanistan was not to be given any sort of financial boon. Apparently, the Bush administration found no moral dilemma in dealing with the Taliban to get to the gas. Immediately upon their arrival in Washington, a vigorous courtship of the Taliban was undertaken by Bush's people. In fact, if former U.N. weapons inspector Richard Butler is to be believed, the Bush administration had a vested interest in strengthening and stabilizing the Taliban regime, because a stable regime would compel investors to revive the Turkmenistan natural gas pipeline deal. The Taliban, demon of the moment, was the Bush administration's idea of a 'stable' government. Stable enough, anyway, to see the pipeline through. The connections between Bush and the Taliban became so close that the Taliban went so far as to hire an expert on U.S. public relations named Laila Helms, so as to smooth the way between the two regimes. Meetings between the two nations continued at a high level, the last of which occurred in August, scant weeks before the September 11th attacks. All of these actions were taken to exploit the vast energy reserves in Turkmenistan for the benefit of American energy corporations. The cozy relationship between Bush and the Taliban frustrated the investigative efforts of former Deputy Director of the FBI John O'Neill. O'Neill was the FBI's chief bin Laden hunter, in charge of the investigations into the bin Laden-connected bombings of the World Trade Center in 1993, the destruction of an American troop barracks in Saudi Arabia in 1996, the African embassy bombings in 1998, and the attack upon the U.S.S. Cole in 2000. O'Neill quit the FBI in protest two weeks before the destruction of the World Trade Center towers. He did so because his investigation was hindered by the Bush administration's connections to the Taliban, and by the interests of American petroleum companies. O'Neill was quoted as stating, "The main obstacles to investigating Islamic terrorism were U.S. oil corporate interests, and the role played by Saudi Arabia in it." After leaving the FBI, O'Neill took a position as head of security for the World Trade Center. He died on September 11th, 2001, trying to save people trapped by the attack, when the towers came down on top of him. The irony in this, simply, is horrifying. In essence, the Federal agent who knew more about bin Laden than any living American was kept from investigating terrorist threats against this country. He was hindered because the Bush administration was desperate to cultivate the favor of the Taliban, who held terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden in great esteem, so as to gain access to lucrative natural gas deposits in Turkmenistan. If these allegations prove true, Bush and his friends allowed this affinity to hamstring investigations that could have thwarted bin Laden's September plans. If these allegations prove true, everything since September 11th has been a massive cover-up operation in which American soldiers and thousands of Afghan civilians have died. If these allegations prove true, the Bush administration has the blood of thousands of American civilians on its hands. If these allegations carry even the faintest whiff of credibility, George W. Bush and members of his administration stand in taint of high treason and murder. On November 7th, 2000, a clear majority of Americans came to the conclusion that George W. Bush was unfit to govern this nation. For a variety of dark and controversial reasons, that conclusion was thrown over. Sometime soon, if the media's electronic web continues to carry these sordid stories of corruption, greed and death, the American people will come to fully understand the consequences of that failed election. It is one thing to coddle and court a corrupt energy company for political and financial gain. It is quite another to coddle and court a murderous terrorist-supporting regime, hindering anti-terrorism investigations in the process, for the purpose of exploiting valuable natural resources. The former cost a number of people their retirement funds. The latter has cost thousands of people their lives. One is criminal. The other is abominable. George W. Bush is deeply implicated in both. There will be hell to pay. Bush Is King Midas In Reverse, 12.21.01
- 'Ozymandias' by Percy Bysshe Shelley Once upon a time, a person's ability to effectively manage a budget, whether it be personal or business-oriented, was an essential aspect of the character analysis performed if said person wished to seek political office. Financial records would be disclosed and examined by a wide array of eyes. If said person appeared unable to handle his money, or the money of others, that person stood little chance of getting elected. Take the failed candidacy of Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis as a working example. His 1988 Presidential run was hamstrung almost immediately by the staggering economy of Massachusetts, and it reflected poorly on him throughout the campaign. A variety of other factors helped lead him to his inevitable slaughter at the polls, but the question of his fiscal abilities played no small role. The sluggish late-80s economy of Massachusetts was not entirely Dukakis' fault, any more than the foul state of Boston Harbor was. Since he was the Governor, however, the buck stopped with him. Somewhere between then and now, we seem to have lost the ability to effectively analyze the fiscal responsibility level of our candidates. The Presidency of George W. Bush is the newest, and perhaps most fearsome, example of this phenomenon. If the election game in 2000 had been played by 1988 rules, Bush would have never gotten out of Texas. The sad and sorry story of Arbusto Energy provides the first of what has become a long litany of evidence that suggests George W. Bush should on no account be allowed to handle other people's money in any capacity. Arbusto was created by Bush in 1978 in the wake of his failed congressional campaign using start-up money collected from well-to-do family friends. All in all, he raised some $4.7 million for his enterprise between 1979 and 1982, an astounding figure when one realizes that Bush was a total neophyte in the oil business. Astounding, that is, until one considers that his father was either running for President or sitting as Vice President at the time. His investors, clearly, were looking to get in good with the son of a man who would have considerable pull on their behalf in Washington, D.C. Over the course of the next several years, Arbusto traveled a snarled trail of near-bankruptcy before finally exploding in a cloud of dry Texas dust. Before the deal went down, Arbusto had its name changed to Bush Exploration in 1982, at which point its stock value cratered. Two Bush family friends who owned an oil business called Spectrum 7 came in and bought him out, making him the third-largest shareholder in that company. By 1986, Spectrum 7 also began to sink. In the best tradition of the deus ex machina, however, yet another angel descended to rescue the son of the sitting Vice President. A Republican Party fundraiser named Alan Quasha swooped in and acquired Spectrum 7, incorporating it into his bizarre little oil business, Harken Oil. Bush and his partners were given $2 million in Harken stock for the deal, and named as special 'consultants.' At this point, the story gets strange. Harken was anything but a big player on the world stage. Few had heard of the company before 1990, when Harken landed an impressive deal to drill for oil in the Persian Gulf emirate of Bahrain. Petrochemical business analysts were surprised, to say the least, as Harken had never before played with the big boys on the world stage. How, then did they land this contract? The answer likely lies somewhere along the hallways of power that led to Vice President Bush's White House office. It's nice to have friends in high places. Apparently, it's even nice to have family members there. Several months after landing this deal, all hell broke loose in the Gulf. Iraq invaded Kuwait, and the international oil community's financial situation was roiled. This did not bode well for Harken's new arrangement, but somehow George W. Bush managed once again to escape unscathed. I quote: "On June 22, 1990, George Jr. sold two-thirds of his Harken stock for $848,560-a cool 200 percent profit. The move was well timed. One week after Junior sold his stock, Harken announced a $23.2 million loss in quarterly earnings and Harken stock dropped sharply, losing 60 percent of its value over the next six months." In short, it seems clear that Bush knew Harken was in deep financial trouble, so he bailed on the stock before it became devalued, but failed to alert his investors of the impending calamity. Somehow he escaped SEC penalties for what appears to be nothing less than opportunistic profiteering at the expense of those who helped him get his businesses off the ground, a place they found themselves on several occasions. The rest, of course, is history. Bush got into baseball, and then into politics, never once getting called to task for the calamitous financial history he left in his wake. If asked today, Bush would likely respond that none of the circumstances behind the demise of Arbusto, Spectrum 7 or Harken were his fault. These things happen when one chooses to go wildcatting for oil with other people's money. He should not be held responsible for it, and indeed he has not. Yet today, as investigators and regulators sift through the shattered remains of the energy giant Enron Corporation, which last week flamed out in what will be recorded as the biggest business catastrophe in the history of human enterprise, fingerprints matching those of the sitting President are being discovered in all sorts of strange places. Enron, the enfant terrible of energy companies in the 1990s, spent the last several years hiding the fact that it was losing billions of dollars in revenue. They managed to obscure this by setting up a variety of hidden boxes controlled by Enron executives, into which were piled as much bad financial news as possible. This served to keep the losses off the books, until a few weeks ago, when a $1.2 billion shortfall was revealed. Enron stock plummeted, and some 4,000 Enron employees were shown the door, their pockets stuffed with stock options no longer worth the paper they were printed on. People who had depended on these stocks to fund their retirement are now investigating the requirements needed to sign up for Food Stamps, while the executives parachuted to the streets of Houston with millions of dollars to show for their deceit. Merry Christmas. This is the news you can read on the financial pages of every major newspaper in the country, but the back pages prove far more fascinating. Enron chairman Kenneth Lay, architect of this disaster, has for years been the single most important patron of George W. Bush. The two have been friends for years, and Lay is listed prominently as one of Bush's Pioneers, a title given to anyone who raised $100,000 or more for the 2000 Bush campaign. Bush was given the use of Enron corporate jets during the campaign. Karl Rove, consigliere to Bush, is a former Enron employee. Harvey Pitt, Bush's chairman of the SEC, was hand-picked by Ken Lay and Enron because of his business-friendly ideas on regulation. Most importantly, Enron was the primary player in the closed-door energy policy meetings run by Vice President Dick Cheney. Cheney has been stonewalling the GAO and Congress on providing details about these meetings, and was about to be served subpoenas about the matter when the September 11th attacks took place. How far did Enron's tentacles reach into the Bush administration before it vaporized will likely be a hot topic in the upcoming Congressional investigations into the matter. At best, the situation is uncomfortable for Bush. At worst, it is a political scandal that dwarfs the picayune Whitewater deal. Among certain circles, the name 'Enrongate' has already begun to circulate. If the worst is true, Bush will have a hard time getting out from under. This is not a situation where the illegal destruction of evidentiary documents will do the trick. The chain of evidence has names, and it will prove a messy affair if Bush tries to stuff Rove or Pitt into a document shredder. When the fact that there are thousands of former Enron employees walking the streets feeling betrayed and frustrated is added to the equation, the chances that someone will spill the beans rise exponentially. Bush may try at some point to resort to his favorite new toy, the Executive Order, in an attempt to stuff any investigation that gets too close, but it is doubtful that the increasingly fractious Democratic majority in the Senate will allow such a thing to stand for long. That, however, is the future. In the present we must attend to the central truth: any time George W. Bush gets within shouting distance of a company, it collapses. This is a troubling fact when one considers that Bush is currently at the helm of the American economy. In this, the axiom once again holds. Since the beginning of his tenure, the economy has begun to fall apart. While the September 11th attacks certainly play a part in this, the fact that economists announced recently that the country has been in recession since last March can not be ignored. Democrats will tell you that Bush's massive and ill-advised tax giveaway to rich people, an act that gutted the Clinton surplus and left little maneuvering room for the Federal budget, is the central factor in the economic slowdown. They are quite correct in this. Bush sees himself more as a corporate CEO than as a President. If his past and present management history holds any mirror to his soul, it can be said without qualification that he is the worst CEO in modern history, perhaps second only to lifelong chum Ken Lay. Everything he touches turns to dust. Perhaps, in 2004, the remarkable financial record of George W. Bush, Arbusto, Spectrum 7, Harken and Enron will stand as a warning when we consider the qualifications of those who stand for the office of President. People who lose vast amounts of other people's money while turning a tidy profit for themselves probably shouldn't be given the keys to the Treasury. Once upon a time, this was just common sense. More on the Bush-Enron Connection John Ashcroft: American Fascist "No one can terrorize a whole nation, unless we are all his accomplices." - Edward R. Murrow Attorney General John Ashcroft was called before Congress yesterday to give testimony regarding the unprecedented restrictions being placed upon the commonest of American liberties. With the passage of the PATRIOT Anti-Terror Bill, and through an Executive Order signed by Bush authorizing secret military tribunals for suspected terrorists, the latter of which was enacted with virtually no Congressional oversight despite the fact that it seems to violate the spirit, if not the letter of the Posse Comitatus Act, Ashcroft had some things to answer for. From the beginning of his testimony, Ashcroft was defiant in the face of some skeptical Democratic Senators. He waved a copy of an Al Qaeda terrorism handbook in their faces as proof positive that no restriction of freedom was too severe when considering the enemy he seeks. In his opening remarks, Ashcroft made the following statement: "To those who scare peace-loving people with phantoms of lost liberty; my message is this: Your tactics only aid terrorists - for they erode our national unity and diminish our resolve." There is no plainer way to say it - this is rank demagoguery of a strain so pure that it has not been heard in the political dialogue of this nation since the dark days when Richard Nixon and Joseph McCarthy made careers out of shattering innocent lives during highly publicized anti-communist Congressional hearings in the 1950s. In essence, John Ashcroft claims that if you question the unprecedented steps he and his Justice Department are taking, if you voice doubts about the concept of destroying freedom in order to save it, if you step out of the narrow line being drawn by he and Mr. Bush, you are a terrorist. If you dare to participate in that most fundamental American activity - dissent - you are aiding and abetting the murderous butchers who sent thousands of our citizens to death three months ago. No more grave an accusation can be leveled in this time, and no more base and groundless a charge can be or has been spoken. It is one thing to sit for weeks and hold your tongue for fear of being called unpatriotic, as many patriotic Americans did in the aftermath of September 11th. It is another again to be called a terrorist for defending the sanctity of the United States Constitution from men who come for it with erasers and redacting tape. Ashcroft claims that there are people who are scaring Americans with "phantoms of lost liberty." Let us examine some of these phantoms, and see if there is any flesh on the bone. The First Amendment of the Constitution reads as follows: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." The idea that it was unpatriotic to question Bush in the aftermath of September 11th received wide play and acclimation in the media, and still does in many circles. This skirted the edges of free speech restrictions forbidden by the First Amendment. Ashcrofts proclamation of December 6th, that anyone who speaks out against his and Mr. Bush's plans, fairly defines the reason this Amendment was created in the first place. Patriotic Americans will now fear to speak out against the government, the first fundamental responsibility of any citizen, for fear of an accusation that will taint them forever. It is intimidation in the raw of the first principle - the right to speak your mind, and to defy authority when it has gone awry. The Fourth Amendment to the Constitution reads as follows: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized." Section 213 of the PATRIOT Anti-Terrorism Bill is entitled 'Authority for Delaying Notice of the Execution of a Warrant.' Legal analysts have given this provision a snappier title: the "sneak and peek" section. Under 213, Federal officers can enter your home, search your belongings, and attach devices to your personal computer that record and broadcast back to them any and all keystrokes you make while online. They can do all of this without ever letting you know they were there. Ostensibly, this provision is aimed at true-blue terrorists. We don't want them to know we're watching. After Ashcroft's performance of December 6th, however, any belief we may have that he or his department will restrain themselves from using this provision to police ordinary Americans must be shaken to the core. If you speak out against Ashcroft, you are a terrorist. The next logical step is that you will therefore be treated like one. The Sixth Amendment to the Constitution reads as follows: "In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defense." One of the main reasons Ashcroft was ordered to appear before Congress was because of Bush's recent Executive Order authorizing the use of secret military tribunals to try - and potentially order the execution of - anyone suspected of being a terrorist. This is troubling on its face - secret trials with secret evidence followed by secret judgments. Read the Executive Order closely, however. The section entitled 'Definition and Policy' describes what manner of suspect would come before the tribunal: "(a) The term 'individual subject to this order' shall mean any individual who is not a United States citizen with respect to whom I determine from time to time in writing that: (1) there is reason to believe that such individual, at the relevant times, (i) is or was a member of the organization known as al Qaida; (ii) has engaged in, aided or abetted, or conspired to commit, acts of international terrorism, or acts in preparation therefor, that have caused, threaten to cause, or have as their aim to cause, injury to or adverse effects on the United States, its citizens, national security, foreign policy, or economy; or (iii) has knowingly harbored one or more individuals described in subparagraphs (i) or (ii) of subsection 2(a)(1) of this order; and (2) it is in the interest of the United States that such individual be subject to this order." It is (2) that gives pause. There are some 20 million non-citizens occupying and working in this country right now. They could be arrested, detained, tried and convicted in secret if someone decides "it is in the interest of the United States." If John Ashcroft, whose idea of treason extends to questioning his highly questionable actions, is representative of the attitude being brought to this anti-terrorism endeavor, the precepts laid out in the Sixth Amendment have suddenly turned appallingly fragile. One last thought: considering the lengths Ashcroft seems willing to go in order to stifle dissent, one wonders how difficult it would be to strip someone like you or I of our citizenship if we yell a bit too loudly. We would then be subject to (2) as well. If we have learned anything in the last three months, we have learned that the only thing sure to happen is the previously inconceivable. The phantoms Mr. Ashcroft so arrogantly disparaged seem to have some significant substance, after all. It comes to this: At the bottom, America is an idea, one represented and defended by the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the Amendments listed above. Destroy the idea and you have destroyed the nation. If we are to believe the hyperbole of the administration, those who attacked us on September 11th did so because they despise our freedoms. To destroy those freedoms in response to the attack is tantamount to surrender. I am not ready to surrender. Are you? Is Ashcroft? Is Bush? If not, then there are other motives at work here. Power, after all, is always hungry and in search of more territory to annex. Thus has it always been, which is why those Amendments are so vital. Fascism is defined as, "A system of government marked by centralization of authority under a dictator, stringent socioeconomic controls, suppression of the opposition through terror and censorship, and typically a policy of belligerent nationalism." The only thing probable is the unimaginable now. This definition cuts too close to the bone. The time has come to stand up and say no to this slow evisceration of the idea that is America, to say no to men like Ashcroft who hold our essential freedoms in such contempt. Never forget that it was Ashcroft, in the earliest iteration of the Anti-Terrorism bill, who advocated the suspension of habeas corpus. If there is a beating heart within the body of laws that protect our freedoms, habeas corpus is it. That alone should be enough to rouse us all. I intend to challenge, at every opportunity, the assertion by Mr. Ashcroft that dissention is equal to terrorism. I intend to continue my questioning of his contra-Constitutional program of restrictions until they are stopped. I beg you to do the same. I offer you the opportunity to add your name and voice to this fight. Send me an email here, and I will place your name on a list to appear on my website. By giving me your name, you sign a document that states your opposition to Ashcroft's Constitutional revisions while denouncing him for daring to call you a terrorist. You are an American patriot. Stand up and be counted as one. It is entirely possible that there will be trouble for you if you do this. Any fight for freedom has costs, and I cannot promise that you will not be made to pay for daring to speak your American mind here. All I can promise is this: You will have done the right thing. Stand up.
LUCKY
"Calamities are of two kinds: misfortune to ourselves, and good fortune to
others." The attacks of September 11th wrought a profound spiritual and psychological transformation upon the citizens of the United States of America. In the vernacular of the media, everything changed. We became aware of our vulnerabilities, and were faced with the dismal fact that the comfortable reality we had grown used to had been shattered forever. Fights with loved ones became more stressful; we had to make up and say everything that needed to be said, because we no longer knew if we would meet again after that person went to work. Airplanes became fearful symbols as they cut contrails across the sky, and ambulance sirens were harbingers of disaster. The mail was dangerous. Arab-Americans were potentially lethal, and even the most kind-hearted found themselves profiling total strangers they saw on the street. There are not enough hours in any lifetime to list all the ways American life has changed, but the simple fact of those changes stares back you from your bathroom mirror every morning. You are a different person, and so am I. Your soul is different. Your nation is different. There is one person in America who is not different, who has not changed, whose priorities are exactly the same as they were on September 10th, 2001. His name is George W. Bush. For example, when White House budget director Mitch Daniels came to Bush recently and informed him that America was in a recession, that the government was diving back into deficit spending that would amount to approximately $100 billion by 2005, and that Social Security would have to be tapped to cover the shortfall, Bush responded thusly: "Lucky me. I hit the trifecta." This comment refers to his statement, made during the campaign of 2000, that he would not tap the Social Security fund until the advent of war, recession, or national emergency. September 11th has come to embody all three, and Bush feels lucky to have it, apparently. The attack covers up the fact that he would have had to tap that fund to pay for his ruinous tax cut. He has avoided facing the truth of a broken vow. More than that, it reveals the fact that September 11th has changed Bush not at all. He is still the maladroit, inappropriate corporate profiteer he was in August. "Lucky me," says Bush, in the face of a horrendous torrent of woe that will sweep across all but the most fortunate and fortune-fattened few. America lives in terror today, both of their lives and of their jobs - not to mention those Americans who live in terror for the lives of their loved ones serving in Afghanistan - and George W. Bush is feeling lucky. This is our war leader. This is the man who is supposed to be the penultimate representative of the people. There he sits, feeling lucky that his mistakes are covered by the death of thousands. Are you feeling lucky to have him where he is? Let us review a list of all the benefits George W. Bush has garnered since the September 11th attack: 1. His odious fiscal mismanagement has been all but forgotten. Before September 11th, Bush was discovering himself to be in the unenviable position that Yasser Arafat finds himself in today. Arafat has been trying to balance himself between those who wish to make peace with Israel (the moderates) and those who wish to drive the Jews into the sea (the hardliners). Such a balance is doomed to fail, because both sides cannot be appeased at the same time. Bush was attempting much the same trapeze act on September 10th, between the moderate majority and the hard Right constituency to whom he owed his success, with the same dearth of success. This was becoming more and more obvious as the recession numbers rolled in after his ruinous corporate/rich people tax cut was passed. The recession we are now buried in began in March, roundabout the same time the Clinton budget surplus was gutted by that very tax cut. Things started to slide, and Bush's mismanagement became manifest. He had no answers and the wolves were circling. Now, that truth is gone. 2. Along the same vein, the fact that his tax cut basically kick-started this recession has been forgotten completely. America is so traumatized by September 11th that they have rallied behind Bush in an unprecedented fashion, giving him a 90% approval rating. The American people are nothing if not loyal in times of crisis, which essentially means that a ham sandwich would get a 90% approval rating if it were put in charge of this mess, and was made to look as if it were doing something. That 90% rating means Bush can blame this recession on the terrorists, and no one will call him on it, even though he is only half-right in that statement. Anyone who dares to do so will be labeled treasonous and smashed. 3. He can bury the shameful legacy of Ronald Reagan and his own father. Short of Nixon's crew, no more criminal and murderous a mob has ever occupied the White House than those who came in under the Reagan/Bush flag. Many of those players are working for George Jr. today. The wretched truth of their legacy was set to be exposed some weeks ago with the release of the Reagan Papers, but Bush put that on hold with an absurdly over-reaching Executive Order that buried them forever. The War on Terra has made this possible - no one in the media is paying attention to his actions, and it will be forgotten. .or maybe not. An organization called Public Citizen has sued Bush over his actions in regards to these papers. Interesting. 4. In the long term, Bush has erased the legacy of Franklin Delano Roosevelt by eviscerating the budget with his tax cut, thereby denying funds to social programs the Republicans have long desired to destroy. The September 11th attack has also erased this history, and given him further justification to loot the Treasury to give money to corporations operating safely in the black while the unemployed are sent to go pound sand. 5. Perhaps most importantly, Bush has managed to dramatically expand the powers of the same Federal government he and his Republicans have spent so many years denigrating. Those powers now have mastery over citizens' rights as described in the 1st, 4th, 5th, 6th, 8th, and 13th Amendments to the Constitution - those pesky parts about freedom of speech, zealous representation by counsel, security in person, home and thought, and the importance of avoiding cruel and unusual punishments. This trick has been accomplished with nary a cry of hypocrisy, and very little complaint from a cowed American populace. The early draft of the ruinous PATRIOT Anti-Terrorism Bill had a line item rescinding the right of habeas corpus, something that has not happened since the Civil War. As DU poster Warren Pease so eloquently put it, this is happening "as John Ashcroft rubs his hands in glee and imagines a new American Inquisition designed to resolve the secular humanist question once and for all." Big, Intrusive Government is suddenly a good thing, it seems. Lucky for Mr. Bush this is so. If not, people might not be so afraid to challenge the death of the American Dream he so completely represents. If you are American and you have a soul, September 11th changed you. It altered your priorities, it rearranged the way you look at the world. Not so for Mr. Bush. His agenda remains exactly the same as it was the day he took office, and damn the brave new world. Kill the social programs, give as much as possible to corporations, and hide the stained history that lifted him on high. He is lucky indeed. His luck is our misfortune. His 'trifecta' is our unemployment, our bread line, our war, our fear, our spiritual and psychological crisis. His luck is the target on our foreheads, bracketed and braced by terrorists who carry the death wind on their wings. His fortune is our ruin. Lucky us. The White House Is Closed - Richard M. Nixon Imagine the thoughts that pass through the mind of the fool who leaps the White House gates and charges the Residence. A fellow named Robert Pickett did this some months ago, managing to squeeze off a few rounds at the building before getting cut down by a Secret Service bullet. Clearly, he was not paying attention before he bolted. When you stand outside the White House on any given day, the sense that a thousand eyes are watching is overpoweringly present. The roofs of surrounding buildings hold cameras, sharpshooters and in all likelihood stockpiles of heavier artillery. The glass bubble on the roof of the Residence is clearly occupied, and has sight lines in all directions. The lawn of the White House itself is littered with obstacles, and arranged so defenders have a sweeping field of fire. Getting into the White House requires a process that puts one in mind of the Biblical story describing the difficulty involved in stuffing a camel through the eye of a needle. The lead in a pencil is enough to set off the metal detectors, and all bags are thoroughly searched. Secret Service moles come in with many tours, watching everything. Men in flak jackets patrol visibly. The White House is in all likelihood the most secure building on the face of the earth. Yet today, it's doors are bolted. The public has been barred, we are told, to defend against terrorist attacks. The same people, most notably the President, who are now barricaded inside what was once called the People's House are the same propagandists who are urging Americans to get back to normal, to shop, and to fly on airplanes. The President himself will soon appear in television commercials extolling the joys of commercial airline travel. Last week, under heavy duress, Bush signed into law legislation that places airline security under limited Federal control. Tens of thousands of current security employees must be screened, retrained or fired. Thousands of new Federal security officers must also undergo extensive training. Millions of dollars worth of bomb-detection equipment needs to be built from scratch and delivered to thousands of airport security checkpoints. Any true security to be derived from this compromise bill will not settle into place for well over a year. The President implores us to fly, to spend our money on plane tickets and board airplanes made naked by the lack of any true security, thanks in no small part to decades of willful neglect on the part of an airline industry that will take your money to the bank and deposit it next to the bailout they received from our tax dollars. The fortress that is the White House is closed, and the people who closed it 'for security reasons' beg us to use totally unsafe airplanes that not only stand unprotected, but are apparently prone to shivering into slivers, as evidenced by American flight 587. 'Wake Turbulence,' we are told, caused the Rockaway crash. There are some 3,000 Airbus-style aircraft currently in use in the commercial aviation fleet. If passing into the wake of an airplane that took off two minutes previous can shear both engines and the tail off an Airbus, the land surrounding the crowded airspace of a dozen airports would be littered with the hulks of crashed airplanes. Something seems amiss, but no matter. The President wants us to fly. Secure in his bunker, he's positive it is safe. Yet his House is still shuttered. The assumption is that, despite security measures of unparalleled seamlessness, it is impossible to protect the White House from terrorist threats. No wonder Bush was so dead set against Federalizing airline security. Thousands of Federal agents cannot even protect his relatively small house. What a low opinion of his protectors he must have. Perhaps his concerns are justified. After all, someone could conceivably pierce the White House security veil with an envelope filled with anthrax and release it throughout the Residence. This could be achieved far more easily in an airline terminal or aircraft, but that's apparently beside the point. Besides, Bush has little to fear from anthrax. It only got close to him that one time because poisoned letters meant to assassinate Senate Democrats passed through the same post office as his personal correspondence. Whoever is sending the letters seems a political ally of Bush, considering the choice of targets thus far. This must make him feel even safer in his House. Still, it remains closed. Just to be sure no anthrax is accidentally mailed to the Republican administration ensconced at 1600 Pennsylvania, Attorney General Ashcroft has set the mighty wheels of justice rolling towards A Crazed Loner somewhere in New Jersey. Be on the watch for him, whoever he is. If you hear him muttering imprecations about Daschle or Leahy, immediately report it to authorities. On no account allow this person anywhere near a Planned Parenthood clinic, lest another 170 threatening letters arrive on their doorstep. The women who run those establishments, who go there to monitor the health of their unborn children, who go there for affordable gynecological care, do not like to be threatened within the walls of these constitutionally protected establishments. Ashcroft, Ridge and Bush have done well to secure hypersecret credible evidence linking bin Laden and Al Qaeda to the Taliban, Iraq, Sudan, Somalia, the Philippines, and some 60 other nations around the world. The Crazed Loner sending anthrax to Democrats and other liberal touchstones proves far more elusive a target. Perhaps the administration has been too focused on overthrowing the judiciary, suspending Posse Comitatus, and cracking the intrusive restrictions outlined in the 4th, 6th and 13th Amendments to the Constitution to actively follow that trail.... America, be secure in the belief that all is well in hand. Get on those airplanes and fly, fly, fly. Be sure to catch those fabulous sales now that the turkey has settled. Have no fear. Don't come to Washington D.C., though. If the President cannot feel safe in his own home there, it is probably a good place to avoid. The Dawn Of A New Democratic Party
"The dead have been awakened-shall I sleep? - Lord Byron I spent yesterday climbing to the summit of this bald bulb of a hill called Mt. Monadnock, which rises incongruously from the level plains of southern New Hampshire. The day was bright and clear with little wind, a perfect day for a hike. I reached the top in under two hours and paused to absorb the view. New England lay before me to all points on the compass, brown and prepared for winter. Here and there were lakes and houses. In the distance something burned, sending a column of smoke into the air. The hard blue November sky was stitched with white lines that crossed each other in every direction, as if a deranged skywriter had decided to paint the air repeatedly with the letter 'A.' It took me a moment to understand what I was seeing: contrails from combat aircraft arriving and departing from various bases across the region. Even here, 4,000 feet above the world, the troubles that consume us hover above, close enough to touch. Then again, that is the rub. Once upon a time this nation seemed above the world, of it but beyond its scalding touch. We were protected by two oceans, vast treasure, armed guardians, and thousands of atom-tipped missiles buried in the earth. One day the sky fell in, and we found ourselves somewhere we had not been for generations. We found ourselves in the middle of things. We found ourselves to be vulnerable. A fundamental shift of comprehension has been fermenting within the minds of American citizens since September 11th. All of a sudden, the realization that each and every citizen has a stake in the actions and policies of this country has begun to take root. Simply, if justice fails, the common folk become targets. If economic privation goes unchecked, the common folk become targets. If extremism, American or otherwise, achieves too much power, the common folk become targets. If a liberal, progressive agenda is to achieve purchase in today's climate, this basic truth must be seized upon and repeated over and over again. The fellow who only reads the sports page, who hasn't voted for twenty years, or who votes Republican because he likes his tax cut, needs to have a finger thrust into his face. He needs to be made to understand that the next intelligence failure, the next proxy war, the next arms deal, the next corporate bailout, could result in his shattered corpse lying in the dust. This is brutal and cruel. It is also the truth. We are all on the firing line. We are the targets in this war. There are reasons for this that have nothing to do with people who hate our freedoms. This is the most dangerous idea in the world for those currently in power in America. It is an idea that has taken a slow burn through the populace. If it flares alight, people will not shop. They will not tolerate excessive tax cuts for financially healthy corporations. They will demand solutions that do not involve carpet-bombing with B-52s. They will not stand for the dissolution of their constitutional rights. In short, they will demand actions that will reap actual results, instead of actions that give only the illusion of progress. They will want to move forward as progressives instead of backwards as conservatives. They will know that their very survival depends upon it. Liberals and progressives must seize this time, must pour kerosene on that slowly burning idea, until it explodes into a pyre upon which will burn all of the sad, sorry, broken policies that brought us to this house of woe. But who is to do it? It has become an article of faith since January 20th, 2001, that the Democratic chieftains who walk the halls of power in Washington D.C. can not be trusted to fight for this agenda. When the results of the scandalous 2000 election were ratified in Congress, only the Black Caucus had the courage to turn their backs in protest. When religious extremist John Ashcroft stood for nomination as Attorney General, no true opposition was offered. Today, as the 4th, 6th and 13th Amendments to the Constitution are disposed of, as Posse Comitatus is replaced by clandestine military tribunals that know no civil authority, the Democrats stand almost completely silent. Only the timely defection of Senator James Jeffords has allowed Democrats to thwart Republican thrusts into the Federal larder and our environmental inheritance. Had Jeffords not jumped, there would be no stopping the GOP. Democratic Senator and Presidential hopeful John Edwards worked night and day to craft the abominable PATRIOT Anti-Terrorism bill, possibly the most invasive bit of work to come out of Washington since Lincoln suspended habeas corpus. Perhaps he believes that we must destroy freedom in order to save it, but it is more likely that he succumbed to political cowardice and went along for the ride to ensure a safe trip to the primaries in 2004. He is certainly not alone in this. On any other day, the anthrax sent to Senators Daschle and Leahy would be called assassination attempts. Today, these attacks are shrouded in the threatening veil of international terrorism, despite the fact that they almost certainly originated from the American Right. Even after this most dire of threats, the Democrats stand mute. Bush enjoys approval ratings that would make Jesus Christ Himself blush, a formidable obstacle for Democrats who may feel in their gut that the nation is on the road to Hell. Their timidity is our catastrophe. Thus, it falls to us. We must become the calcium in the withered Democratic backbone, and we must do it now. Writing to these people is useless. Protesting against the President will bear no fruit. Letters to the editor go unread. Emails to like-minded friends amount to political masturbation. We are a people made too comfortable by pleasant arguments and debates. The day has arrived where action is demanded, else all that happens from here on out can be lain at our own feet. The document in question says We The People for a good reason. Take heed of conservative successes. They ran for state representative positions, took over school boards, got jobs in local government and basically stormed the bulwarks of the Republican Party from the bottom of the walls. It took ten years, but they did it, and the Presidency of George W. Bush is but one reward they have reaped by their labors. The media is awash with the conservative viewpoint because they commandeered the dialogue after years of grass-roots work. This is another reward, one that ensures their continued success. To overcome this, we must become it. The only reason the Democrats moved to the right is because of the aforementioned conservative grass-roots revolution. The Party had nothing to counteract the surge of conservatism that blasted through Washington, no shock troops of their own, so they swung Rightward in order to survive. Now, the Parties are slowly becoming indistinguishable. They are not yet there, no matter what Ralph Nader says, but they are on their way and this can not be denied. It has been argued that true progressives will never find a home in the Democratic Party, because it has sold too much of its soul in a hard tack to the right borne of defensive strategy and political expediency. This leaves two alternatives: either abandon the Party completely, or roll up some sleeves and clean out the Augean stables. Despite its flaws, the Democratic Party is the best tool we have available for the propagation of the liberal, progressive agenda. The Party have faithful followers in every state, and unconquerable strongholds on both coasts. The Democratic political machine stands in every county in every state in the Union. There are doubtless men and women in the U.S. House of Representatives who would savor the chance to act upon principle, instead of from a core of self-defense, a chance we can give them if we get to work now. The time has come to invade this Party, to storm the battlements from the ground up. The Democratic Party can again become a bastion of true liberalism, as the Republican Party has become a bastion of ultraconservatism, if American progressives take it over from pillar to post. If we take back the Party, if we change the dialogue coming from the media through the brute reality of our strident and unyielding voices, if we tend and nurture that flame of new comprehension blazing in every American breast, we can achieve all that our dreams have whispered. Most within the Party will welcome this, I believe. Those who do not can be reminded of the wisdom spoken by an old politico named James H. Rowe: "The old bulls never quit until the young bulls run them out. The old bulls are dead." Master the issues. Walk down to your local Democratic Party office and find work. Take as much responsibility as you can, and make it your office. Run for positions on your school board, or within your local government, or stand for election to your state congress. If you can not do these things, find someone who is doing them and dedicate your energies to their success. Run the old bulls out, and harness the young bulls to plow new fields. Make the Party a home for everyone who knows in their heart that things must change in this country before the targets can be stripped from our backs. It will take time and patience. There is a window of opportunity to act in time for the 2002 elections, but the target should be 2004. Don't look to the Oval office, for working from the top down has bred a dizzying array of recent failures. Go from the ground up, one step at a time. What a paradise we can make of this world if given the chance. The chance will not come on its own. We must make it, take it, demand it, fight for it tooth and nail. Get to work. --11.19.01 about William Rivers Pitt... William Rivers Pitt was born in Washington, DC., and lived several years in Alabama before eventually moving to Boston. He was educated in English Literature at a small Jesuit college in New England, and after graduation spent two years in San Francisco pursuing an ill-conceived career in the law. Currently, he teaches English Literature, Journalism, Grammar and History at a small private high school outside of Boston. Pitt has been writing about politics off and on for years, but became devoted to the practice during the interminable months of the Clinton impeachment. Since the election and subsequent Supreme Court catastrophe, he has directed all of his energies to the fight the rising tide of conservative fundamentalism in American government. Pitt is currently writing a book of essays that will, when completed, span the course of American politics from the end of the Super Tuesday primary to Election Night 2004. Several of the essays to appear in this book can be read here. He is actively seeking publishers. email correspondence is welcome at w_pitt@hotmail.com.
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