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Introduction Greetings loyal readers! Despite small triumphs such as the election of progressive leaders in such countries as Brazil and Ecuador, fascism continues its relentless march elsewhere around the globe. The United States is reprising its treatment of its Japanese citizens during World War II, except for the change in ethnic groups. So many pundits and journalists these days are decrying the inevitability of war. Meanwhile, economies all over the world are falling apart while the Bush Administration tells us we're not entitled to know how they're running the country – a different spin on the "shut up and shop" rhetoric we heard in the months after September 11th. Meet the Propaganda Machine What's the difference between the government of the former Soviet Union under the leadership of the Communist Party and the present United States government under the Bush Administration? The Communists never admitted they had lied. The FBI has admitted that the terror alerts they have issued since September 11th were manufactured, and that the five men whose pictures were circulated just before the new year as terrorists who had illegally entered the United States were nothing of the kind. The FBI made no attempt to justify the former, but lamely claimed the latter story had been based on bad information from an informant. Let's face it – law enforcement gets bad information from informants all the time. This is hardly surprising, since most informants are criminals. So why is law enforcement so foolish as to rely on them, and even more foolish to publicize the information from informants without verifying such information? If you have the answer, please write me at the address below. Whatever the reason, the point is that intelligent people have no reason to believe any pronouncements by the Bush Administration or law enforcement. So when North Korea accuses Washington of having fabricated information on North Korea's nuclear weapons program, it is difficult for most thinking US Americans to simply dismiss such claims out of hand. Don't Believe the Hype The Bush Administration is hell-bent on war with Iraq, regardless of actual justification or lack of support of the international community. George Bush is so ignorant and so arrogant that he seems not to care whether he offends his own allies. Spurious George's saber rattling over North Korea has got the South Koreans losing control of their bowels. After all, it will be South Korea that will be incinerated by those missiles that the North Koreans are so busy testing right now. Tony Blair has alienated his entire Parliament with his uncritical support for the oilygarchy's plans to bomb Iraq into the Stone Age while stealing all its oil wells. Recently Time Magazine held an online poll asking who the most dangerous nation in the world is. The choices were Iraq, North Korea and the United States. When I voted, the good old US of A had racked up a score of nearly 69%. This result is interesting for a number of reasons. First, the Internet is an imperfect sampling medium due to the disproportionate access to it due to such factors as income, education, country of residence, etc. (Obviously the poor and uneducated citizens of the world do not have Internet access.) Second, a recent study suggested that most of the people voting in Internet polls are politically conservative. Let's face it -- conservatives tend to paint the world with a broad brush, see things in black-and-white, you're-either-with-us-or-you're-against us terms, and (as so regularly demonstrated by the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, everyone connected with The Weekly Standard, Fox News and a host of others), typically rely on lies, distortions, deception sophistry and just plain misinformation to demonize and defame anyone who fails to share their distorted view of the world and their misshapen sense of ethics. If conservatives, whose tendency toward denial and self-deception knows no bounds and enables them to justify their greed, avarice, brutality and unbridled self-interest in the name of capitalist freedom, can see the danger posed by the Bush Administration's foreign policy then you can bet this truth has been self-evident to the rest of the world for some time. The good news is that it is not possible for the United States to bully the world with impunity. Although the mainstream media refuses to cover it, there have been massive demonstrations all over the world against making war on Iraq and in support of the Palestinians, whose brutal occupation by the Israelis is being largely funded by the US taxpayer. Everyone else in the world can see the self-interest and the injustice, except for those who have been brainwashed by the media and choose to believe lies about people they have never met to justify the cruelty and barbarism they support. Yet as more and more people speak out, and more and more people take to the street, and more and more US Americans are out of work and suffering from the economic downturn that has been created by military spending on steroids, those who have been deeply asleep will start to wake up and join their brothers and sisters who are marching down the streets. History has shown time and time again that killing only leads to more killing, that oppression leads to terrorism, and that everyone's security is jeopardized by war. It is time to realize there is no glory in war – there is only glory in peace, cooperation and mutual respect. I have met several young children who comprehend this at the age of five. If five-year-olds can get it, our leaders can, too. Right now our leaders don't want to get it, because they are making so much money on the war machine. But millions of people marching in solidarity can make them get it. Thought is a palpable force. Millions of people working together directing thoughts of peace and love can shift consciousness on this planet. We have to ignore the media voices of inevitable war, and believe in our own power to change our world through organizing, thinking, education and focused prayer. Various groups have been coming together around the planet to meditate together at certain times for planetary peace and harmony. Together we can prove ourselves a force to be reckoned with. Nothing scares the power structure more than millions of people coming together with a peaceful, loving consciousness. Why? Because nothing is more of a threat to war than citizens of all opponents reaching out to each other in peace and war in defiance of their governments' visions of greed, control and destruction. Nationalism is everyone's enemy. We have to see ourselves as citizens of the world in solidarity with ordinary people around the world, for this is the only path to planetary salvation. Copyright 2003 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. In addition, the author wishes to thank those peer reviewers who responded with comments and suggestions for this article. |