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Is Bush Vulnerable? George W. Bush defied historical odds by his party's winning seats in Congress in a midterm election even in a bad economy. He is truly on top of the world now, the unopposed leader of a monolithic government in which all branches are controlled by his extreme right wing faction. And his faction is using all the power it has to consolidate a still tighter hold on power. The Bushies are in the process now of packing the courts with the kinds of judges who will hold partisan advantage over the law, like Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas in the Bush vs. Gore decision. He also has the power of the incumbency, and all the power of government at his fingertips to use toward achieving his own re-election, which seems a foregone conclusion to most observers at this stage of the game. Could it be possible that he is vulnerable? You bet he is. In early 1991, Bush's father had approval ratings in the 80s. He was the commander in chief during the Gulf War. He seemed unbeatable. Few Democrats wanted to throw away their political careers on a sure loss. That left an opening for an unlikely young man from Arkansas who ended up giving Bush a trouncing, in spite of a well-financed and organized smear campaign based on his tendencies as a philanderer that was already in full swing at that time. Almost unapproachable in 1991, and with the advantage of incumbency, Bush was defeated the very next year. In 1972 Richard Nixon was elected in one of the largest landslides in presidential history. Few knew at that time how much the Nixon team had manipulated the Democratic side of election to defeat opponents like Muskie through a well-organized dirty tricks campaign. But by the election of 1972, the break-in at the Democratic headquarters in the Watergate building was already publicly known. The fact that the burglars were agents of the Nixon re-election team was publicly known, but it had not had any visible negative effect on Nixon's power or electability. Less than two years later, his presidency was history. Such are the vicissitudes of political fortunes. George W. Bush is riding a wave of triumph now, but it is a wave. His ascendancy is not immutable. Bush very well may triumph in this next period as well. He may succeed in winning that second term, surpassing his father for the first time in his life. But he does have vulnerabilities. Bush actual performance is extremely dismal. A strong economy in the previous two terms was wrecked almost instantly by the fiscally irresponsible policies of the Bush regime. What is called a "tax cut," was really a marathon of corporate welfare, a bonanza for Bush's big donors, and it wrecked the fiscal integrity of the country for some time to come. The bad effects of those moves are not over, they are barely begun. They may very well catch up to Bush. Bush is opposed to the majority on almost every issue, including environmental protection, corporate corruption, management of the economy, civil liberties, abortion, even the war policies that have been the single theme on which he has based his presidency and secured his support, is in opposition to a majority of Americans. They are being dragged along reluctantly. This too may run out on Bush. These other issues are increasing in intensity and may reach a threshold at which the public demands satisfaction. All of Bush's success flows out of 9-11. His approval ratings had fallen below 50% by September 11, based on Bush's abysmal management of the economy and his extreme right wing agenda that favored corporate interests over public welfare on every issue. September 11 turned him into a big hero based on his performance in a few speeches that won over a majority of very frightened people in need of a hero. So far he has been able to parlay that patriotic fervor into one war for oil and now another. It remains to be seen how long that little trick will last. People may grow weary of all these wars, while conditions at home continue to deteriorate. Like his father, Bush's power is based on deception. He was not elected by telling what he really believed in. He essentially coopted the Democrats issues and called them his own. It did not concern him that he was lying. He proceeded to break his campaign promises one by one once in office. So far it hasn't caught up to him, again primarily because of the war smokescreen which keeps the public so riled up people can't focus on less dramatic issues. Like his father's Gulf War, Bush's Afghanistan and Iraq wars are also based on deception. They are trumped up, sold as wars to make Americans secure from attack, when they are really transparently about control of oil resources. Like his father, Bush has trouble with "the vision thing," as his father put it. As the phrase reveals, to them "the vision thing" is merely a product to be sold, a PR device to be used as a tactic in a campaign. That is as deep as any of it ever goes for them. It is all about manipulating the public, leading them on with grand themes that resonate, while hiding your true motives. Their real agenda is also all about war and plunder, but that doesn't sell so well, so it has to be dressed up. Bush's campaign promises are no more real than his campaign's smearing of McCain during the primary campaign of 2000, when they spread rumors that he had gone crazy as a war prisoner, that his adopted daughter was an illegitimate child by a woman McCain had had an affair with, that his wife was a drug addict. It's all about political tactics. But there are problems with such tangled webs of deception. They do sometimes come back to haunt the perpetrators. The Bush's multiple careers of deception and plunder may yet catch up to them. It could happen before the next election. And if it does, that justice will be very sweet. One of the best things Bush has going for him now is the extreme gutlessness of the Democrats. Even given all of Bush's weaknesses as a president, he cannot defeat himself. There must be an alternative. And so far the field is not looking very promising. Few Democrats have risen above the behavior of sheep. They like their opulent lifestyles and are not eager to put their lives on the line. Nevertheless, though the Democrats currently on the horizon are uninspiring at best, it is still possible that these extreme times may yet bring forth a leader equal to the challenge and the tremendous need of the people for an alternative to the corporate oligarchy now in control of America. Crazier things have happened. --David Cogswell, 11.14.02 Why Bush Needs To Draft Your Kids To Drive His Military Operations The Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld clique has a vision for the future that is singlemindedly militaristic. None of this sweet talk about a Great Society or any of that liberal wimp crap from these tough guys. They see everything strictly in terms of its potential military use on the geopolitical chessboard. Seen in this view, the young people of the nation are a tantalizing resource for populating their armed services, to drive their military operations and bring their vision of global domination into reality. With that purpose in mind, a bill called The Universal Military Training and Service Act of 2001 was introduced in the House in December 2001, to re-enact the military draft. For the text of the bill go to Thomas: Legislative Information on the Internet and do a search for HR 3598. The stated purpose of the bill is "To require the induction into the Armed Forces of young men registered under the Military Selective Service Act, and to authorize young women to volunteer, to receive basic military training and education for a period of up to one year." Under Section 8 the grounds for "deferments" are listed. High school students will be allowed to finish high school. No deferment is mentioned for college education. Presumably the "education president" prefers military indoctrination to that "liberal education" dished out by those college institutions infested by those "leftist professors." The Bushies want to get the kids right out of high school before they've had a chance to get a focus on the adult world. These holdovers from the Nixon administration want to haul the world back through time to the Nixon years, before things went seriously off track in their view. They want to cure "The Vietnam Syndrome" by diving back into more wars and this time do it right, squash the opposition at home and succeed in their dreams of global domination. Of course, they avoided war themselves and they will have ways to keep the sons of the elite out of harm's way. The others are fodder. They are dinosaurs from a previous era, machine age relics in the global village of electronic media. They see our country as a military machine and they want your children as fuel. --11.11.02 Bush And His War Party Give Business A Bad Name Not the supermarket tabloid, but another Star: TheStar.com is currently posting a powerful indictment of the business community by David Olive called CEOs find war talk a good fit. Bush has the tacit support of the business community in his plans to attack Iraq again, and Olive poses the question: Why? The GOP, in conventional wisdom the "business party," the "conservative" party, has an absolutely abysmal economic record in its short, disastrous time in control of the White House. Quoting a "statistical report card" of Bush presented by Rep. Henry Waxman of California, Olive tells us: The federal budget has gone from an $87 billion surplus, excluding Social Security, in 2000 to a forecast 2002 deficit of $314 billion — the sharpest budget decline in history. The U.S. jobless rate has soared from a 30-year low of 3.9 per cent in October, 2000, to 5.7 per cent. Median household income, which peaked in 2000, has since declined in every income group except households earning more than $150,000. In this year's second quarter, a record number of Americans, more than 400,000, filed for bankruptcy. Other social indicators tied to economic performance are heading in the wrong direction. The number of Americans without health insurance rose by 1.4 million last year to more than 41 million people. Health insurance and prescription drug costs are rising far faster than the inflation rate. After dropping to a 28-year low by 2000, the crime rate jumped 2.2 per cent last year; and illicit drug use increased 13 per cent in 2001. Of course, the "bad economy" is good for some. Who? The super rich, who are increasing their lead on everyone else in this little economic catastrophe, and who just happen to be Bush's consituency. They pay him so much money he doesn't need the rest of us. Why then do businessmen support Bush's war? "The majority of Fortune 500 CEOs have kept shamefully silent on the world's most urgent issue," says Olive, "focusing instead on lobbying against Congressional efforts to rein in excessive CEO compensation. Their silence implies consent." The part of the business community that supports the war couldn't care less about regime change, or even weapons of mass destruction, but sees the war as a way to "jump start" the economy, says Olive. Ignoring the fact that corrupt accounting and other criminal corporate behavior has fueled the catastrophe on the stock market, Richard Salsman, president of Intermarket Forecasting Inc., blames it on the failure of the government to wage war in the Middle East. "Those business leaders who openly push for a military confrontation in Iraq explicitly tie victory over Saddam to a resurgence in the stock market," says Olive."Their motive appears to be not so much 'regime change' in Iraq as an opportunity to jump-start a recovery in swooning share values." There it is. Blood for dollars. Isn't there a better project for stirring up economic activity. Remember Roosevelt's public works projects? There are no end of productive jobs that need doing. Things you could do with the money being poured into the defense department to make weapons to destroy civilizations and mass murder populations. What about the search for less deadly energy sources? The trouble with the Bush administration is still, ase it was with Poppy, "The Vision Thing." These men are barbarians. They see only killing and death. They are tied to fossil fuel fortunes and are determined to keep America hooked on oil till the last drop. These are not "pro-business" interests. It amazes me that people who consider themselves businesspeople can see the Bush mob as pro business. Business has gotten a bad name, but there is nothing inherently unethical about doing business. There is nothing inherently murderous or tyrannical about it. A group of extreme and amoral people has gradually taken control of the political and economic systems of the U.S., but there are also truly creative business people who are not fascistic, and whose business activities actually create value and contribute to the general welfare of the community. In this sphere, real creativity, initiative, integrity do count. There are people who succeed in business without using lobbying money to fix the game and give them unfair advantages. These are the people who need to come forward now and reassert leadership in the business community. The true business leaders who are not thieves and manipulators like Ken Lay and his ilk, are the people who actually create the world the next generation will inherit. Their role is essential in the community. It is from that kind of initiative that the alternative energy systems will be developed, that ways to ward off environmental catastrophes will be found, that an enhanced -- not destroyed -- environment can be passed on to our heirs. Actually, there are rumblings that this may be happening on a small scale. Olive says a small group of businesspeople called Business Leaders for Sensible Priorities, led by Ben Cohen of Ben & Jerry's, has mounted an anti-war campaign. In full-page newspaper ads this group asks: "How can blowing up buildings and killing people (in Iraq) be good for business, unless it's the body-bag business?" The fascists, the mobsters, the tough guys, the hawks, the psychos don't have to be creative because they can always rely on force. At least that's what they think. But the game always runs out on bullies. Sooner or later they will be sobbing that they will take their ball and go home. This childishness has gone on long enough. Let's throw the bastards out! --10.25.02 NYC ANTI-BUSH RALLY. "Another World Is Possible" NYC. Sunday, Oct. 6, 2002-- I don't know how many people were there. I don't know how to estimate crowd numbers and I never trust the corporate media reports on such things, but the crowd stretched as far as you could see at the East Meadow of Central Park near 97th Street and Fifth Avenue. And the feeling was tremendous. There was a sense of jubilation that so many people had come out together to speak out against the war. The day was perfect. It was warm, sunny. The city never looked better. The human heart of the city was vibrant as people from all sides gathered at Central Park. It was uplifting and hopeful to see so many people from children to very old people, of all colors and nationalities coming together to try to stop the further killing of Iraqi people. The rally was organized by Not In Our Name. There was a stage set up with some musical performers and a string of speakers who took only about a minute each to voice their feelings about the war. The actor Gabriel Byrne was one of the first speakers. He spoke out angrily and eloquently against Bush's war. "He's not even an elected leader. Why is this guy speaking for us who lied his way into power?" Byrne said. "If they believe violence is going to lead to peace, they don't understand history," he said. A clergyman said, "I'm going to tell you why we are resisting this war. It's because of our refusal to surrender our moral imagination, to give in to the culture of death. We reject the idea that the lives of Iraqi children are worth any less than American children. "We are very near to a spiritual and moral breakdown in this country," he said. "There is poison in our culture. A lot of it comes from our so-called leaders..." A Black Muslim said, "If he were alive today, which side do you think Moses would be on, the side of the people or the side of the big corporations? If Jesus were alive, which side do you think he would be on, the side of the people or the side of the big corporations? If Muhammad were alive today, which side do you think he would be on, the side of the people or the side of the big corporations?" The crowed shouted back "The people!" in each case. "Then that's the side we have to be on. Be strong in your faith. Be not deceived by the lies..." Susan Sarandon said, "I am so happy to be here, to see you all here. I was almost convinced by the mainstream media that I was going out of my mind, that no one cares about this war. George Bush makes it all sound very simple: 'You are either with us or against us.' I don't know who 'us' is, but if George Bush were here today I'd like him to see, this is what democracy looks like! This is what an intelligent citizenry does! We question! We demand answers! We will not give our sons and daughters for a war for oil! We can imagine the people whose faces we will never see whose lives will be destroyed by this war. We do want to live in a world where countries respect each others wishes and after this war there will be no interntional law, only the rule of the stronger. Do we want to be the next Rome? "Look around you," she said. "Look at yourselves, take pictures, because when you read about it tomorrow it won't look like this." Actor Tim Robbins also spoke. He said, "I don't care much for any kind of fundamentalism. Any religion that turns to violence loses me. And what is our fundamentalism? Our fundamentalism is business. The idea that profits are more important than people's lives. The unfettered spread of our business interests throughout the world. "We resist profit at the cost of human life," Robbins said. "This war is being used to distract us from Enron and Halliburton, scandals that connect this administration with what is wrong with the American economy." Some of the most eloquent and inspiring speakers were high school kids from Stuyvesant High School in New York. They lined up on the stage at one point and two of them spoke to the crowd. It was amazing. They had the brightness and energy of youth, the sense of great possibility. They looked much like the kids you see on TV, but with a great difference. You will never see kids like these on network TV because these kids were politically conscious, aware of what is going on, of how their world is being hijacked and desecrated by a bunch of oil mobsters, and they are angry and determined not to let it happen. "We are taking this pledge [the Not In Our Name Pledge] because this is our world," said one high school girl. "We will be here long after George Bush and his crowd are gone." The sight of those young people, so self-assured, so dedicated, intelligent, aware and articulate, was one of the most hopeful signs I have seen in a world that has grown more and more dismal in the last few years. It was one more aspect of the world that the corporate media does not want you to know exists. But out there on the street today you could see it for yourself and feel it in your flesh and bones, the possibility that, as they say, "another world is possible." --David Cogswell, Oct. 7, 2002 *** Man in the High Castle Things have gone beyond all but the most bizarre science fiction. Kurt Vonnegut is no longer out there. A Miami Herald report has The White House "express[ing] outrage" (note that the story is framed from the point of view of the White House) at a comment by German justice minister, Herta Daeubler-Gmelin that suggested that Bush's "diverting attention from his domestic problems ... [is] a classic tactic. It's one that Hitler used." This is bizarre in so many ways it comes rushing at you with disorienting intensity. The irony. The odd fact that a major German government official is quoted in the American media comparing Bush to Hitler is a telling sign of how much the world has changed. And for the White House to even address itself to such a comment means it is taken seriously by many people, obviously by the Bush administration itself. And then to have Ari Fleischer, Bush's Jewish Goebbels, answer with haughty indignation is a fascinating twist. The minister's statement in itself is not terribly extreme. He said it is a classic tactic to wage war to divert attention from domestic problems, and so it is. And it has been used by many heads of state, before and after Hitler. That Bush is using war to divert attention from domestic problems would be agreed upon by a wide variety of people. Even Republican strategists have openly said Bush wants to try to focus the elections on his performance as a war leader in order to take the debate away from the domestic issues on which the Democrats have an advantage. But the very mention of Hitler's name in context with the foreign policy of the Bush administration is seen as an outrage. Americans are still holding on to the naive faith that "it can't happen here." (Sinclair Lewis wrote a novel with that title in the 1930s about a fascist takeover of the U.S. Not nearly as far-fetched as it once seemed.) Fleischer framed his objection in terms of the political relationship between the two countries, rather than actually taking issue with the content of the statement itself. Fleischer's statement is not essentially, "The statement is untrue." It is rather, "How dare he say such a thing!" In past times such a statement about an American president would not even be considered worthy of addressing. Interesting that now when a presidential press secretary actually makes an official gesture of indignation, it happens to be a time when the statement cannot be laughed off, when it actually rings true. Philip K. Dick wrote a novel called The Man in the High Castle that is framed in an alternate reality, as if the axis powers had won World War II and set up the United States with a German sector in the east and a Japanese sector in the west. Philip K. Dick wrote in science fiction magazines and was known as a science fiction writer, but appreciation for him as a literary artist has grown as his visions of the future have increasingly proved prophetic. Dick's writing was so far ahead of its time it has only in recent times become the subject of many films, such as Bladerunner, Total Recall and The Minority Report. His previsioning of cybernetic technology, global corporate fascism and the identity crises of 21st century humanity were uncanny in their accuracy. His novel Simulacra touched on some of the same themes. The book jacket says, "Set in the middle of the twenty-first century, The Simulacra is the story of an America where the whole government is a fraud and the President is an android..." One wonders if the White House will have as good luck silencing voices of opposition in Germany as it has here. Agents of Cataclysm Overflowing with arrogance, short on imagination, the Cheney-Rumsfeld contingent pushes the world to the brink of war by David Cogswell Donald Rumsfeld is quoted in The Daily News as saying that the U.S. could fight a war in Iraq, while tied up with whatever is required in Afghanistan, and still be ready to take on China if China decides to make a move on Taiwan. Rumsfeld sounds like the Cowardly Lion. "I'll fight ya with both hands tied behind my back." Now here is a scenario where U.S. forces are fighting in Iraq, and Afghanistan, and Rumsfeld is actually suggesting the U.S. would happily take on China if China decides to forcibly re-unite Taiwan into the mainland. Though unsavory, this is not an unlikely scenario. The U.S. foreign policy explicitly supports the "One China" policy, which means that it has recognized for years that Taiwan is part of China, just as Hong Kong is, and should ultimately return just as Hong Kong did. The Chinese government is itching to recover Taiwan, and soon. But aside from the fact that the U.S. has supported this policy, for whatever reason, does Rumsfeld really think the U.S. is ready to go to war against China while it's already fighting multiple wars? Of course these leftover Nixonians Rumsfeld and Cheney are lunatics, that we know. And they are trying desperately to drag us back to 1974 and redirect the world in the direction they envisioned before that third-rate burglary screwed everything up. But now we have a situation where these fools are dead set on attacking Iraq no matter if the whole world opposes it. They have Tony Blair behind them and practically no one else, not even Tony Blair's party, and certainly not a vast majority of the British population. Even with the skewed polls we are used to seeing in the U.S., a majority opposes the administration's plan to attack Iraq without an international consensus. And the administration is not one step in a journey of a thousand miles toward achieving that. Their massive arrogance in their behavior on every front has ratcheted up anti-American sentiment around the world to seething, explosive levels. Now Rumsfeld himself is envisioning a situation in which they are taking on Iraq and then going to war against China. Rumsfeld, in his Dr. Strangelove mindset, probably welcomes this scenario because China is getting more powerful by the minute. So he probably would like to provoke a conflict as soon as possible while the odds are at their best. Of course the idea of peaceful coexistence with China eludes him. Rumsfeld can envision simultaneous wars with Iraq and China while policing Afghanistan, but perhaps his vision stops there, as though real events would conform to his imagined scenario. But think for a moment what would happen at that point. With America tied up in wars with Iraq and China, what do you think would happen to the massive reservoir hatred of America that is growing daily with each one of the administration's acts of arrogance, with each military incursion into another country, with each slap in the face to the international community? Even Rumsfeld would have to acknowledge that the U.S. would have some vulnerability when it is at war with Iraq and China. Has he not noticed that Russia is also opposed to the war against Iraq and has made gestures of trade with Iraq? The Iraq policy has succeeded in uniting Russia with China, the countries of Europe, the Middle East, Africa, South America. At the moment U.S. vulnerability becomes apparent, the international hatred toward the U.S. will be unleashed. The dam will break. The U.S. is already engaged in Colombia and the Phillipines and has troops deployed in numerous countries around the world. These same characters in the Nixon administration thought the U.S. could defeat Vietnam with their massive military superiority. They unleashed dreadful weapons of mass destruction and mass murder, wrecked that country about as much as they could, and the Vietnamese never capitulated. They had nowhere to go. It was their homeland and they would not tolerate U.S. control that kept them in barely survivable conditions. They had nothing to lose. So the U.S. lost, because it really had nothing to win. The Vietnam struggle became an attempt by the power structure of the U.S. to demonstrate to people of the Third World that resistance to U.S. control was hopeless. But it failed and demonstrated instead that oppressed people can be astonishingly resilient. Rumsfeld and Cheney are dying to replay that scenario in a way that restores their failed vision of the 1970s. If they succeed in going forward with their war plans it will be disastrous beyond anything that is being publicly discussed. We could be in a situation analogous to the people at the beginning of the 20th century looking forward to the worldwide wrack and ruin of two world wars and destruction and mass murder that had never been contemplated before. As they bluster over war with Iraq, the Bush administration has succeeded in uniting the world against the U.S., in consolidating a vast anti-American bloc. This opposition is now only a war of words. When they go ahead with their war plans, it will escalate. Remember, this defense establishment -- massive as it is -- was rendered utterly helpless and unprepared against a small group of men armed only with boxcutters, if you believe their own account. Rumsfeld and Cheney are locked in a vision that was already retrogressive when they were trying to implement it in the 1970s. Already world history had moved beyond the colonial world order they sought to enforce. Now through corruption of political processes they have been returned to power, though opposed by substantial democratic majority. The administration has thwarted the will of that majority at every turn, favoring a small corporate clique over the interest of millions of people on every issue. But the centerpiece of their program is and always has been war, and they are approaching the implementation of that vision for war with the upcoming attack on Iraq. The stage is set and they are fully intent on going ahead no matter who opposes them. They fully expect civil disturbances to erupt and have already put into place plans for domestic military policing, internment camps, capturing of those they deem to be enemies without due process of law. They are going ahead without regard to consequences. They have many contingency plans in place, but they can only consider so many possibilities. They are not like the chess genius who can plan ten moves ahead, but more like the player of average intelligence who can plan two, maybe three moves ahead before the multiplicity of alternative scenarios becomes unmanageable. Here in real life we have a chessboard of almost unimaginable complexity and dynamism. And these men, appropriately called "dinosaurs" by Nelson Mandela, are about to unleash their ultimate destructive power. It seems apparent that they do not have the capacity to imagine the possible consequences of their action. What we are very possibly witnessing is the opening acts of a scenario that could be titled The Fall of the Empire. After the sample of destruction shown to America on September 11, 2001, what must concern all sane people is how much will they bring down with them? --Sept. 15, 2002 *** Cogswell's Not Kidding, I Heard NPR/BBC, Too Reading the article by David Cogswell (below) - - I heard the same show yesterday driving to the grocery store and actually just stopped and listened to this in the parking lot at Tom Thumb and that's how I heard it. I was telling my daughter about it this morning. I was really almost shocked that NPR/BBC was having that on there. They were just shutting people off, mid-sentence. ZAP! "Thank you, bye," when listeners were attempting to describe how much they are upset with the crap going on. And each successive person who got on said the same thing. NOBODY was in favor of war. One woman said well, we supported the Taliban and we produced Osama, and we supported Saddam. Why is it that we support people and countries and then they're the bad guy and we have to kill them? ZAP! Off the air. IT wasn't veiled at all. It was scary. --Bush Watcher, 9.9.02 RADIO ROULETTE Messages Derailed Amping up the War Propaganda by David Cogswell Riding in the car today, poking around on different stations I came upon a program being broadcast on WNYC 93.9 in New York. It was a joint venture of NPR and the BBC, normally a relatively high-level collaboration. This was a call-in show, not overtly political, but covertly as I was to discover. It had an American woman and a British man taking the calls and discussing with the callers. The subject was "Remembering 9-11." During the time I listened to it, a very disturbing pattern emerged. It was very pronounced and could not have been my imagination, though of course another listener may disagree with my interpretation. These were middle American people calling. I presume they were screened at least to the extent that someone spoke to them for a moment and asked them what they were going to talk about, as is the case with most call-in shows. So it wasn't entirely random, whoever gets through. It was slightly select. But what I heard was a manipulation of the direction of the conversation that was not at all subtle by the radio personalities. One was a woman from Utah who had worked in the construction business on projects for the U.S. government in various countries. One was in the Middle East. Later she was moved to Indonesia. She talked of how in the Middle East she got used to coming into work every morning and asking if there were any bombs that day. On some mornings the answer would be no and they would wonder if they were going to be bombed. Other days the answer would be yes and they would send them home. She got used to not feeling safe, she said. She mentioned how there were a number of bombings during that time and they were always attributed to Bin Laden. Then she went to Indonesia and it was the same thing, she said. She got used to feeling unsafe and thought it must be that way in many places. Then on the day the World Trade Center was bombed, she thought, "Now it's in my country too. I will not even feel safe in my own country." The interviewer seemed pleased with this and kept, it seemed, trying to lead her in the direction of supporting the government's war policies. She seemed close to it, discussing her fear, her sense of outrage when it hit her own country." The man asked her, "When you had that feeling, did you feel like the country has a right to defend itself?" She was hesitant. She agreed part way. "Well, the country has a right to defend itself, but we don't have the right to attack any country we want to. They were talking about countries that harbor terrorists and now it seems like they just want to attack any country who … " "THANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR CALLING, we're going to take the next caller, Hello, you're on the air…" The next voice was another woman, sounding middle aged and very midwestern. She said she is an American but she was in Canada at the time of the attack. The man asked her what she remembered from 9-11. She shared the feelings of most people, of horror, fear, outrage, anger and she too felt like you could no longer feel safe in America, "and the Canadians I know feel the same way." Again the announcer seemed pleased and attempted to lead from the point of insecurity to a comment on the question of war. He said, "So you said you feel insecure now. Do you think the president should have to take a poll to decide whether the country can defend itself?" Here the woman's voice began to rise with emotion. "See, you're talking about polls now, and that is something that really upsets me…" He held on here, she seemed to be leading to the right place. The woman continued, her voice rising a little more now. "I hear about these polls, and all the people I talk to, I mean even on your show today no one is supporting the war - I mean maybe there was one person, but where do these polls come from?" "THANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR CALLING, next caller, hello you're on the air…" said the announcer. I kid you not. I may have a couple of words wrong but this is what I heard in the few moments this travesty was playing on my radio this afternoon. And it wasn't AM talk radio in Texas. This was NPR and the BBC. The rulers are really turning up the war propaganda to full amperage right now. It's amazing. The resistance to war is a lot stronger and more pervasive I think than they expected. The politicians from a fairly wide spectrum, including people like Kissinger, James Baker and Dick Armey, some of my favorite fascists, must be responding to quite a lot of pressure. My guess is the public sentiment against the war is so powerful they really fear social disruption if they plow into this thing now as they were intending to, unilaterally with most of the world aligned solidly against the U.S. The incidents in Portland were underreported in the mainstream, but they could not get away with ignoring them entirely. The administration is very frustrated and is trying everything it can, including amping up the propaganda machine, e.g. the corporate mass media. --09.08.02 Dear Jerry, You make very good points in Why A Green Vote Is A Bush Vote. It's true, the broader picture does matter. There is a difference between Bush and Gore, and keeping Bush and his cronies across the country out of office must be the number one priority for both Gore and Nader supporters. There has to be a way for that majority to get together to prevent the worst from happening again. I wrote a letter to the Nader people in the last days of last election. I said, essentially, what you should do would be an 11th hour call to the Gore camp. Get him to commit to some things in exchange for your support. You are powerful now. This is your moment of power. It will pass, but now you can use it to save your country. Right now you have the power to swing the election. And right now, keeping Bush out is paramount. You can save your country from Bush. The differences between supporters of Gore and supporters of Nader were minor compared with the differences between Bush and either. Nader may have been right that Gore was majorly sold out to major corporations in a way that was comparable to Bush. But only comparable. That fact came nowhere near equating the two, which was what Nader tried to do. And that was -- as you point out -- no better than a lie. It's not really about Gore and Nader, whether they could ever agree. It's about bringing together the supporters of Gore and Nader, who consitute a big majority of Americans. We have to get together to beat Bush. We can, and it's just too stupid not to. There is no justification for people who are supporters of either man to allow relatively small differences to divide us to the benefit of Bush. Republicans are not normally the brightest people, but how stupid are the the rest of us if we let them rule us? Both Gore and Nader have their points. Nader came much closer to really discussing the real issues that matter to regular Americans. That's a service to us all. But he was essentially outside of the system, which gave him that luxury. He had little to lose because he didn't have a prayer of actually winning. Gore was more compromised, was too careful, went along with the corporate program too much, didn't have the guts to really stand on his convictions. He was compromised by being so entrenched within the system, but because of it, he had a chance to actually win the White House, instead of Der Fuhrer from Texas. I don't disagree with the Greens on most of the issues, except their politicking. I even agree with most of Nader's criticisms of Gore. But in terms of the realities of politics in the world as it is right now, the Greens are idealistic to a fatal flaw. They act only as a spoiler now, dividing the community that is most sympathetic to their causes. So in the end their ideas on the issues ended up counting for nada. Zilch. Instead they made it possible for their diametric opposite to take power and really shaft all of us. It sucks. You're right. I doubt if anyone in the Nader camp even read my letter, certainly not Ralph himself. And of course they didn't do what I envisioned. Their big moment of power passed, and they let their power manifest negatively. In the end it was not an affirmation of anything. It was a negative action, the power to withhold. "I'll take my ball and go home." They had a chance to save us from Bush and they didn't. Even if they were right about everything else they said about Gore and the sellout of the political parties to major corporations, they did not have to do that. They accomplished nothing, proved nothing. Or maybe they did prove something, how bad it could get under George W. Bush. The fact that Nader's adherence to principle was so rigid that he could not bring himself to make a political compromise that would have materially and radically improved our prospects was his downfall as a presidential candidate. He's still very valuable in terms of what he can bring to the dialogue, his knowledge, his ideas, his clear statements of the issues. But in terms of political strategies, he wasn't really ever in the game. At this point what is important is how are we -- the majority -- going to get together to beat George Bush. Who our standard bearer is is less important than the fact that we unite behind someone and don't let our disagreements divide us and give power to the major enemy of both groups. I was never a great fan of Al Gore, but after the Democratic convention, only one fact was relevant. Al Gore was the only man who could stop George Bush from claiming the White House. My message to the Nader people was not on ideological grounds, but practical. If the common goal is to create a viable opposition to the corporate elite that has largely coopted both parties, we can either start a new party, or take over the Democratic party. As Jim Hightower said, "People talk about creating a third party, I wish we had a second one." In many ways taking over the Democratic party seems better. There is an infrastructure already in place. That way we are not fragmenting our base. We are only really talking about the majority, the working people, claiming one political party for itself. Why not use the Democratic party? It has nothing better to do. All it takes is people becoming activists, instead of sitting on their butts and letting other people do it. If you want to take back the government, a good place to start would be to take over the Democratic Party. I still love Ralph Nader. I think he is a great American, but I don't care what he says about this stuff, because as a political strategist he has proven himself to be worse than a disaster. When he said it didn't matter whether Bush or Gore was president, he was deadly wrong, and a great many people will die, or will suffer greatly for the difference. When he said it didn't matter if the court struck down Roe vs Wade, it would then only go back to the states to decide, he was being extremely calloused to the women who live in states like Alabama. The statement "our responsibility is to the Greens, the broader picture doesn't matter," pretty much sums it up. If that's how you feel vote Green and we'll see you in Hell. David, July 29, 2002 THINKING THE UNTHINKABLE. Another October Surprise? Is Blair really ready to sacrifice his political career to follow Bush into a war on Irag? Or is there another 'provocation' waiting in the wings? Bush will take Tony Blair down with him in his desperate attempt to wage a "massive assault" against Iraq. The Guardian of London reports that "Whitehall sources confirmed that Tony Blair had decided Britain must back any US assault and had ordered defence planners to begin the preparations for a new war in the Gulf." Blair is apparently going ahead with his plan to follow Bush though he is unsure of any way to legally justify the war to his countrymen. That could be a political problem for him in Britain where war hysteria is not quite as surefire a way to induce sheeplike obedience from politicians and citizens as it seems to be in the U.S. Blair could be determining his own political demise by following Bush's desperate attempt to get the flags waving again and divert attention from his corporate crimes and those of of his best friends, and his colossal incompetence to manage the affairs of government. Whitehall sources are quoted as saying, "President Bush has already made up his mind. This is going to happen. It is a given. What we are waiting for is to be told the details of how and when and where." Britain is ready to commit 20,000-30,000 troops for Bush's war. Are the British ready for this kind of commitment? Will British mothers and fathers happily send their sons off to fight a war because George Bush has "made up his mind"? About what? What is this war about? Is it just something Bush has to work out with his father, who was so sensitive about "the wimp factor" that he thought he had beat with the Gulf War, but which was brought up again when he didn't "finish the job"? Of course it's a play for global domination based on control of energy sources. But will the Brits buy it when Blair tries to sell it to them? In the U.S., Bush is confident he can rally people behind him and sweep his right wing cronies into office with a war. There is so much bad news now about his presidency it will require something really huge to divert attention. Besides, war is all the Bushes really know about. Junior is a one-trick pony, and he's about to go into his act again.... A year ago Bush's mismanagement of the economy was pushing him into a corner. His tax cut had essentially given the treasury to his rich corporate buddies and the resulting fiscal disaster was rapidly descending on the country. The destruction of Social Security that his secretary of the treasury Paul O'Neill had called for was already assured by the removal of its financial support. His so-called approval ratings were dropping steadily and fell below 50% by September. Things were looking abysmal for the administration. The Democratic party was sharpening its talons and closing in for the kill when Bush returned from his month-long vacation in August. Then came September 11. This year is a mid-term election year, with control of Congress at stake. The domestic situation has further degenerated. The economy is in free fall. Corporate crime is exploding through of the walls like a massive termite infestation. Working Americans, who have been abused and cheated for decades, are now losing whatever support allowed them to look away from the problem in the past. The administration is desperate for a distraction, something that will create so much noise and hysteria that no one will be able to think about the disasters its policies are bringing upon the nation. This year the administration is planning another action, this one much more massive than last summer's plans against the Taliban. This time it will be against the Bush family's old nemesis in Iraq, and another justification would come in real handy. That means American citizens should brace themselves. There is every reason to expect another earthshaking, soul-rattling event to take place at any time, probably in September or October. I hate to be the bearer of bad news. This is an exercise in thinking the unthinkable. I hope I am wrong, but all the signs point to it. Brace yourself. Something's coming. Something big. --July 22, 2002 Lullabyes of our Times: A Study in Damage Control Sunday's New York Times Week in Review section led with a giant feature by Kurt Eichenwald called "Could Capitalists Actually Bring Down Capitalism?" It's a daring question for the empire's number one newspaper to raise, though the insertion of the word "actually" in the headline tips you off that it doesn't mean for you to seriously consider the question in literal terms. The Times starts dancing away from that ugly proposition right in the headline, in case the timorous suffer a stroke over the Sunday morning croissant. The paper would not dare to mention such blasphemy if it weren't already being raised so blatantly by the calamity brought on by the core of the capitalist power structure, starting with the president, the vice president, and working downward. It doesn't take a very penetrating examination of the text to see that the writer, or the editors, do not want to seriously ask the question, but only to tentatively allude to the desperate, obvious problem, then dismiss it as quickly and painlessly as possible. It is the kind of treatment you give to an a-or-b proposition when you cannot accept one possible answer and must direct the reader to the other conclusion. In other words, the Times did not raise the issue, the issue is already raised by the near-catastrophic financial problems brought on by the greed and corruption of the president's cronies and other like-minded elites. The Times is leading us close to the edge, then dashing back quickly to the safety of conventional thinking and the comfort of accepting the status quo as inevitable and stable. Unfortunately it is a status quo that is self-destructing before our eyes. The article leads with a big cheer for capitalism, in case anyone should doubt the paper's dedication to all that is correct and proper: "Over the last few centuries, capitalism has been the heartiest contender in the global bout for economic supremacy..." Never mind that capitalism is the only context in which "a global bout for economic supremacy" has any relevance. Communism is an idea out of a book that never existed in real life. The Soviet Union was an authoritarian state capitalist bureaucracy far more determined by Stalin than Marx. Socialism is a principle for managing a society, not for global domination. In terms of global domination, capitalism is the only game in town. By leading off with simplistic, categorical uses of these concepts, as if they were teams on a football field, the article is ensured of never seriously considering the real questions now facing humanity. The life-or-death economic and political questions now facing the world are not simple black-and-white propositions like "who is going to win, capitalism or communism?" but about how to civilize and temper capitalism - to pull it out of the stone age - before it destroys not only itself, but brings down civilization. (Incidentally, if you don't have the print version of the Times, the first paragraph is all you get online. See The NY Times on line. After that tasty tidbit you are told you can purchase the article for $2.95. So you'll have to take my word for the remaining content. It's very appropriate to be charged at the gate for an article about whether capitalism is destroying itself.) The article goes on to allude to how Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal initiated regulatory devices that saved capitalism from being destroyed by its own degeneration into barbarism, though it significantly never mentions either Roosevelt or The New Deal, but only says that Congress passed the laws that brought about the Securities and Exchange Commission. These protections "turned out to be as permanent and impenetrable as smoke," Eichenwald says, and "At bottom the system still relied on faith." He leaves out the chapter in which the regulations were dismantled by free market fundamentalists, deregulators and privatizers. The regulations did not turn into smoke on their own. In fact they remained in place for decades and functioned quite well, based not on faith but on the very fact that faith was not warranted when it came to capitalists refraining from corrupt practices driven by greed. "By the late '90s, as is now becoming clear, that foundation of personal integrity had been eroded by easy profits..." Eichenwald says. In his Cliff notes interpretation of history, it was the overwhelming success of capitalism itself, leading to "easy profits" that led to this critical juncture, not the intentional removal of regulations in order to free the corporations to do whatever they wanted, with a wink toward corrupt practices as long as plenty of the booty ended up in the coffers of the politicians who rigged the game. Then we get to the greatest disclaimer of all: "The fact that their companies are, in all probability, bad apples among many, many honest corporations makes little difference." Whew! Many many Honest Corporations! What planet is he living on? The double superlative is the verbal equivalent of sweating bullets. He is in some very dangerous territory here actually suggesting the obvious fact that the biggest capitalists in the game have driven the world close to the brink of financial calamity. The unavoidable inference that these corrupt practices are representative of major corporations in general is not a bite that the Times is ready to chew at this moment. Go back to sleep, little darlin's, and mama will sing you a lullabye. -- July 17, 2002 Death of the Dinosaurs: Fascism, Freedom and the Internet If I were a business consultant I would tell the corporate media what consultants are telling companies in every industry: evolve or die. If I were making historical predictions I would say the major media will not die, they will change. They are self-correcting systems from a financial standpoint (and only from a financial standpoint). As they increasingly fail to communicate with their audiences, it will affect their bottom lines, and probably already has. As organs of the corporate state, the major media must bend over backwards to avoid letting certain ugly truths become widely known. As income disparities become ever greater, corporate corruption of the government becomes increasingly pronounced, and human rights violations become ever more extreme, the ugly truths that must be hidden become large and larger, until it becomes almost impossible to hide them. As the outrages grow in number and intensity and an ever larger number of people become victims of the insatiable greed of the corporate state, the gap between what is reported and what is real continues to widen. As the 5,000-year-old Chinese Book of Changes says, continuing increase inevitably leads to decrease. In all processes there is a breaking point. Now that the Internet provides an alternative medium of communication, the major media can no longer monopolize information. Increasingly, people have alternatives. This is the death knell of the major media as we know them. The major media now are in a situation analogous to the clerks in the 12th Century who were an extension of the church, which proved its dignity by its resistance to change, or to the secular writers of the 17th Century who wrote only for the elite governing classes, reflecting back to them their own unshakable religious ideology and belief in the divine right of kings. Those closed systems were eventually broken by external forces, such as the rise of printing, the spread of education, the growth of a middle class, and eventually the flowering of democracy. When advertising was introduced into newspaper publishing in the early 19th century, it subsidized production costs and made it nearly impossible for a publication that did not take advertising to compete with one that did. Advertising kept the price for the reader low. But over time it also had a tendency to restrict the content of the publication. Having the publication become more accountable to its advertisers than to its readers subtly changes its ultimate mission. Over time it has changed the character of publishing. Today most magazines and papers and broadcast media are thought of primarily as business enterprises. They are targeted to the affluent because that is who the advertisers stand to make the most money from. The whole communications environment has been tilted toward the affluent minority for so long people barely notice it. No one alive has seen much else. That segment of the population is protected from the harsher aspects of life, and the corporate media shield it from knowledge of harsher things the government spends the public's money on. The concentration of wealth and power that has taken place in recent decades has created widening disparities that must eventually exert social pressure. People do not die willingly. The affluent and privileged sector to which the media cater, is becoming more a more concentrated minority. The media are losing touch with a larger and larger part of the population that is being left out of economic prosperity. Enter the Internet. The Web creates a democratizing force that stands in opposition to the massive power of today's global corporations to centralize and accumulate wealth and power -- and quite possibly the equal of that force. Perhaps its nemesis. To an extent, the Web levels the playing field. While monopolistic corporate power has concentrated to a greater degree than ever before, the Internet makes it possible for people with limited capital to play with big guys, in some ways. To some degree, it reduces the advantage given by money in almost every field of activity. A Web site can be maintained for a modest amount of money, which allows a single entrepreneur the opportunity to stand on an equal footing in some ways to CBS or ABC. Since the major media have more or less abdicated the responsibility of seriously talking about many of the most pressing issues of the time, that job has fallen to a vital network of independent media that is driven more by politics and passion than selling products. This is not a small distinction. Of course a small enterprise doesn't have the means of promoting itself and making its message heard that the major corporations have, but smallness has advantages as well. A major corporation is unshakably tied to the profit-seeking imperative. A corporation exists only to maximize shareholder wealth. It cannot act in any way that runs counter to that purpose. That severely restricts what it can say, and on a more fundamental level, shapes its world view. It is a viewpoint that is increasingly alien to its audience. A medium of communication that is primarily motivated by profit cannot risk alienating its advertisers, who are the source of much more of its income than its readers. So while the small enterprise may not be much of a threat to the major media in commercial terms, in terms of ideas and information, in terms of social history, it has a distinct advantage. Though there are exceptions, an establishment publication or broadcast medium today cannot speak in plain terms, for example, about the connection between the slaughter of innocents in the Palestinian territories by Israel and the weapons that are provided for the purpose by U.S. taxpayers. As a commercial enterprise it is too tightly bound up within the system itself. A few major advertisers pulling their ad schedules can put the paper in trouble. The entity seeks primarily to succeed as a business, but fails as a medium of communication that could enable its public to make informed decisions about financing mass murder. When the slaughter makes so much noise it can't be ignored, the networks must acknowledge it. But when it is mentioned on the news it must be slurred around, obfuscated, hidden behind technical terms and cliches that turn it into mush, that filter out the human suffering that is underlying the reality the words represent. Then quickly it is interrupted with an upbeat commercial message to take your mind off the gruesomeness and on to some quick pleasure. The major media have long since failed as the constitutionally designated fourth estate, which is essential to the healthy functioning of democratic government. They are increasingly failing to address themselves to the vital interests of their readers. They continue to be successful as commercial enterprises, dispensers of entertainment, distraction, and as means for selling products. They are now in danger of losing their audiences in an erosion as rapid as the Bush regime's rollback of the civil rights of Americans. It is yet to be seen how rigid these media systems are, and how well they will adapt to the lightning pace of change of the 21st Century. The present situation is in some ways historically unprecedented. Many have speculated that the Web will have more impact on culture than the printing press. Some have gone much farther and said the Web will change human society more than anything since the invention of agriculture. For the purposes of a discussion about media, the invention of the printing press is quite momentous enough. It drastically transformed human society. It changed reading from a monopoly of the elites, to a more general practice. It unleashed information, gradually placing knowledge and power in the hands of the general population and laying the groundwork for democracy. Gradually the writer was freed from being a servant of the governing elite, whose only purpose was to reinforce that elite's world view. Knowledge and power flowed out of the church and the monarchies. Today's corporate media are like the clerks of the court whose purpose was to bolster and protect the dogma of the church and the divine right of kings. They cannot allow a free flow of new ideas into their systems because the ideas would be destructive to the systems themselves. Originality is ruled out by definition. It is a tight system of rules that keep the thinking within very limited categories. They may be successful in the market system, but in the system of ideas, they are constricted. The public will not allow themselves to be dumbed down if they know there is an alternative. It's getting harder and harder to contain harmful information. Some say that was what broke the Soviet Union. It is certainly putting some pressure on the corrupt bureaucracies of Washington. As Orwell pointed out, the rise of tyranny is closely bound up with the decay of language. If you can control the language, you've won the game. There is no way for an idea that is outside the system of ideas of the major media cartel to surface on their programs. The venerable New York Times -- the most important paper in the empire -- adheres so rigidly to tradition that a reporter in that paper cannot refer to a person in a second reference without a title such as Mr., Mrs., Miss., or Ms. If the paper refers to Ringo Starr for example, it says "Mr. Starr," even though "Ringo Starr" is a stage name, hardly at home in a formal setting that hearkens back to the men's clubs of the early 20th Century. In a second reference to Sid Vicious, the reporter would presumably be required to say "Mr. Vicious," which is probably as good a reason as any why you don't see much coverage of such people in the New York Times. As the Paper of Record, the Times is the keeper of history, so every morning it must theoretically proclaim and document the most important events of the previous day, even if its entire audience has heard those events in a hundred TV and radio broadcasts and several editions of tabloids already the day before. Just as its editorial style encumbers its ability to talk about contemporary events, it is handicapped in its ability to accommodate a broad range of events in the 21st century for which there are no precedents. How does, for example, the Times deal with a stolen presidential election? More or less by denial. Since the Times and its brethren cannot discuss the stolen election as a stolen election, it must talk about it as though it were legitimate, and then fall into its standard patterns of language to refer deferentially to "the president" exactly the same as if he had actually been elected, or worse -- ordained. When its own research shows that the operation was a heist, it must be polite to the extent of entirely avoiding anything that would be embarassing to the perpertrators, who just happen to be wearing titles like "the president" now. As events become ever more extreme, it puts the Times at a greater distance from the real world of its readers. In the past, the major media has been very successful in enforcing ideas upon the public. If the polls commissioned by the major TV networks and newspapers tell us that a huge majority "approve" of "the job the president is doing," that judgment the becomes the accepted reality. But it is not at all sure how long the major media will retain its perceived authority as the gap between what they report and what the population can see for itself widens. Under the Bush administration, the corporate state's drive to seize power and nullify democratic power has been unleashed and gone into runaway. A corresponding reaction is taking place in the population, a change that is not reflected in the major corporate media because the self-consciousness of that social change would be anathema to the corporations that own the media. That changing awareness, which is little more than a natural reaction to the pressures of the corporate state to marginalize the majority, is finding a channel for expression on the Internet. As Mussolini said explicitly, fascism IS corporatism. That is the process we are now witnessing: the ever increasing accumulation of wealth by an ever decreasing number of corporate entities; the turning over of the government to these entities; and their use of it as an instrument of war, by which they further enhance their profits and power. We should come down off our high horses about it, drop our pretensions and get over our naive belief that it can't happen here. It is happening. Call it what you will, this is the process Mussolini called fascism. It played out in Italy and Germany and Japan and it is now playing out in the U.S. and elsewhere in the world. If we don't like it, we can oppose it. If we ignore it, and deny its existence we are sitting ducks. The major media have already ceased to exist as much more than some kind of background drone we've all become accustomed to. As they become more and more remote from their audiences, they become like a deaf and blind person speaking to an empty room. In his essay "Why Write?", Jean Paul Sartre said that writing is essentially a joint process requiring at minimum two people, a writer and a reader. The reader is as essential as the writer, because a writer cannot write for himself alone, cannot possibly read his own writing. He knows what he meant, cannot know what it is like for the reader. "The results which we have obtained on canvas or paper never seem to us objective. We are too familiar with the processes of which they are effects," he said. "In reading one foresees; one waits. One foresees the end of the sentence, the following sentence, the next page." Sartre called the writing/reading process an act of generosity between two free people. People are not forced to become writers or readers as they may be forced to plow fields or operate machines in factories. It is a process that is inherently free and democratic. In history, the rise of printing and the spread of reading into the masses is inseparably intertwined with the rise of democracy. It is essentially one process. When a newspaper becomes an organ of an oppressive state, it has sown the seeds of its own destruction, not necessarily as a dispenser of products or as a propaganda vehicle, but as a true medium of communication. The creative process can only exist in a free environment. A writer who identifies with oppressors, will kill his own creative spark, cut himself off from his source. Sartre cites a historical example, one Drieu la Rochelle who agreed to produce a Nazi review for the Nazi government during the occupation of France. Sartre says: "The first few months he reprimanded, rebuked, and lectured his country-men. No one answered him because no one was free to do so. He became irritated; he no longer felt his readers. He became more insistent, but no sign appeared to prove that he had been understood. No sign of hatred, nor of anger either; nothing. He seemed to have lost his bearings, the victim of a growing distress. He complained bitterly to the Germans. His articles had been superb; they became shrill. The moment arrived when he struck his breast; no echo, except among the bought journalists whom he despised. He handed in his resignation, withdrew it, again spoke, still in the desert. Finally, he said nothing, gagged by the silence of others. He had demanded the enslavement of others, but his crazy mind he must have imagined that it was voluntar-y, that it was still free. It came; the man in him congr-atulated himself mightily, but the writer could not bear it. While this was going on, others, who, happily, were in majority, understood that the freedom of writing implies the freedom of the citizen. One does not write for slaves. The art of prose is bound up with the only régime in which prose has meaning, democracy. When one is threatened, the other is too." --by David Cogswell The views expressed are the writer's own and do not necessarily reflect those of Bush Watch. More Cogswell for the industrial strength version... Bush Watch is a non-advocacy site paid for by Politex, a non-affiliated U.S. citizen. Editorial Policy: All entries are dated and documented as needed. Text (c) Politex. Permission of author required for reprinting. Duration of working link not under our control. Updated daily at various times. 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