|
Introduction Greetings loyal readers! What a moon cycle it has been. My prediction about what a spectacularly awful Mercury retrograde this last one was going to be came horribly true. My computer was completely fried for a few days, suffering from hardware and software problems. It is now usable thanks to my computer hero, Ted S. Hu of Banana Computer in Bridgewater, New Jersey. However, since we’re still in the orb of Mercury going direct on June 9, my machine is still burping and hiccupping on occasion. In keeping with sound astrological practice, however, I think I’ll deal with the burps and hiccups after the orb ends. (I only call Ted in when there’s a severe emergency, and he never lets me down. I love you, Ted!) Last Bush Administration Snow Job The latest Bush Administration Illusion Act is the super-fascist Office of Homeland Security. This is the greatest threat to our most basic freedoms that has ever occurred in the history of our nation. Nine separate agencies are now under the control of one powerful and well-funded (with our tax dollars!) agency that is accountable to no one. The federal authorities have the legal right to spy on us at will. If you do not believe at this moment that you can be reading this column regularly and not have your telephone tapped and your e-mail and web surfing habits monitored, then you are sorely mistaken. How do you think the FBI justifies its bloated $20 billion annual budget? If they mark one person as suspicious, they not only tap that person’s telephone, but they tap the telephones of every number that person calls, along with the telephones of every number that calls that person. The most amazing part of this fascist charade is the spin the media has put on it. They are actually telling us that this is GOOD for us, that this will protect us from terrorists. The only thing that can protect us from terrorists is world peace. The only way to achieve world peace is through social, political and economic justice. This implies sustainable economies and sustainable planetary development. But I digress. On June 10 it was announced that an American citizen is being held without the right to see a lawyer. We’re not talking about an immigrant; we’re talking about an American citizen. He has been labeled an enemy of the state. One wonders why a borderline mental defective who stole the White House due to his family’s social and political connections on the Supreme Court is not considered an enemy of the state. Why is a person with a foreign name not entitled to a lawyer and a person whose family conspires to steal elections by preventing disadvantaged minorities from voting (among other things) can have all the lawyers he wants? Let’s recap. There are approximately 3,000 immigrants that have been imprisoned since September 12 without the right to see a lawyer. The government insists these people are terrorists and therefore the government has the right to try them in secret. But most (if not all) of these people do not have any idea what they are charged with. Some are being held on minor immigration infractions, but the government still refuses to release them. (Kudos to the New Jersey judge who ruled the government is obliged to release the names of all such prisoners being held in New Jersey jails and prisons.) Now our illustrious buffoon of an Attorney General, John Ashcroft – the man who spent $8,000 of taxpayers money to cover up female breasts carved in stone – has decided that a US American citizen has no right to a lawyer. Are you worried yet? If you’re not, you should be. David McReynolds has done the research for us. (David McReynolds is a brilliant socialist who is a frequent Socialist Workers Party US Presidential candidate. Everything in his platform makes sense.) Here is a recent e-mail sent by David that was distributed through the Theater of the Oppressed Laboratory (http://www.toplab.org). Faithful peer reviewer Dan Utevsky tells me these executive orders have been around a long time, but I fully believe the Bush Administration is crazy enough to actually use them: -----Original Message----- The only thing I can add to José Martí’s insightful statement is that the second duty of a revolutionary is to educate others. The third is staying alive while speaking truth to power. Comrades, unite! Don’t fight the power – BE THE POWER. Copyright 2002 Marcy J. Gordon. All rights reserved. The author wants you to know you are free to copy and distribute this article for noncommercial purposes, provided you reproduce it in its entirety and credit the author. For quotation permission, please contact the author at mgordon@pipeline.com. |