Saturday, July 31, 2004

I, Objector

Non-voters are often categorized as ignorant, indolent, and apathetic. But voters, as a class, often adopt those same characteristics.

Many vote the straight party because they are too lazy to think, too apathetic to inform themselves, and too ignorant of the issues—not to mention the proper role of government—to make enlightened choices, assuming they were allowed any.

If voting could change things it would be illegal

It's the same message every election year: "Get out and vote - It's your civic duty." Those who audit the sound bites of the candidates, read headlines about the debates and finally pull the lever at their local precinct are touted as moral, upstanding citizens; those who find among the candidates no agreeable representative, no platform worthy of espousal, and who then refuse to turn out on election day, on the other hand, are labeled apathetic and the legitimacy of their opposition is denied.

Clone Steak Safe, Unless It Isn't

George Orwell Lives On In Political Buzzwords

"Voluntary compliance" -- This term explains the Internal Revenue Service's
notion that taxpayers donate their money to the Treasury. According to the IRS
publication "Why Do I Have to Pay Taxes?": "Voluntary compliance means that each
of us is responsible for filing a tax return when required and for determining
and paying the correct amount of tax." Those who violate this compulsory
voluntarism can wind up in handcuffs.

"Compulsory Voluntarism" -- now there's an oxymoron for ya!

Why Americans Believe Only American Deaths Count in Iraq

"The privileging of American lives over those of other countries--soldiers and civilians--is one important way the U.S. government (and a corporate media biased in its favor) displays its nationalistic tendencies through the guise of the rhetoric of patriotism. "

Friday, July 30, 2004

Eating candy a U.S. capital offence

WASHINGTON—A government scientist finishing a candy bar on her way into a subway station where eating is banned was arrested, handcuffed and detained for three hours by transit police.

Hiding Behind the BAR

The Bush / Kerry War Ticket

Banking on Your Desperation

Vaccination parties geared to college-bound.

Terry Czekaj, mother of a 17-year-old high school graduate, hosted a meningitis party Thursday, putting out multicolored plates, a tower of plastic cups and homemade zucchini muffins.

--A "meningitis party"? Um, ok.....

Bush Using Drugs to Control Depression, Erratic Behavior

Baghdad is a city that reeks with the stench of the dead

Hail, the Conquering War Criminal Comes!

Wednesday, July 28, 2004

End Zero Tolerance

Relinked, because it's just so important!

Free Speech Behind the Razor Wire

 

Tuesday, July 27, 2004

student suspended for jaywalking

She said she was told she could not appeal the decision because it was a single-day suspension, but was assured it would not stay on Kelly's permanent record.

Well, that's nice.  I mean, common sense be damned, but it won't stay "on your permanent record."  Yeah, suuure!

Monday, July 26, 2004

Homeschooling for Liberty

To the rational thinker, handing off children to paid agents of government makes as much sense as hiring the hangman as your babysitter. Yet today otherwise sane people consider it normal to frog-march a terrified five-year-old child to the bus stop, and send him off into a penal system peopled with monsters and manipulators. "After all," the gulled parent says, "public school did me no harm!" Other than damaging your critical faculties to the point where you are unable to perceive the harm done to yourself ...

This is a joke, right?

"Planned Parenthood is proud to offer yet another t-shirt in our new social fashion line: "I Had an Abortion" fitted T-shirts are now available. These soft and comfortable fitted tees assert a powerful message in support of women's rights."

This is just sick.

The Official DNC/Boston "Free Speech Zone"

Last night, I had my first direct experience with the so-called free speech zone. It left me with one conclusion: whatever you do, do NOT go inside. It’s not only a blatant offense to free speech, but also highly dangerous and unsafe. I would suggest protesting anywhere in Boston but inside of it. No amount of hyperbole can accurately describe how disastrous the interior actually is. It’s like a scene from some post-apocalyptic movie – a futuristic, industrial detention area from a Mad Max film. You are surrounded on all sides by concrete blocks and steel fencing, with razor wire lining the perimeter. Then, there is a giant black net over the entire space.[Pictures of the Boston "Free Speech Zone"]

That’s not even the worst part. 80% of the space is actually beneath a construction site. You heard me, most of the zone is actually under a partially constructed building, broken up by gates, iron girders and wooden rafters, in the darkness. No helicopter will ever be able to see an aerial shot of the people assembled, negating the major points of mass protest: to let the rest of the public see your numbers. This forced'invisibility' is so painfully obvious, that it is hard to believe it resulted from pure negligence. What's more, the space fits only 1000 maximum by law, so the 1001st person who wants to express their rights, is shit out of luck. That’s not all. If you go inside, you won't be left safely alone with your fellow protesters. Right above you will be a suspended catwalk of wooden rafters traveling down the middle of the protest area. This strip is not only covered with reams of barbed wire, but officers (or national guardsmen) will be strolling above you just feet from your head.

After walking in, it took us about 2 seconds to agree; “there is no fucking way we are stepping into this trap”.And if you think that the civility of individual officers will make up for it, think again. As we were casually walking through the pen, our jaws open in dis-belief, a group of officers quickly surrounded us. Twenty-four of them. The first officer (Officer ‘Gately’) approached us swiftly, and declared, “Do you know that the willful destruction of public property in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a felony that carries 5 year in jail!” We were taken aback by this introduction. Other people in suit and ties were walking by, using the zone as a pedestrian shortcut. a bunch of peaceniks were walking through in our shorts and backpacks and we were immediately suspect of committing a criminal act. I guess this explains the meaning of the rule about those wearing ‘inappropriate clothing’ being searched. The overtly intimidating tone of the interaction didn’t cease, so we soon left. I called the BPD headquarters and asked to talk to the district 2 duty officer, in order to file a complaint about the rude treatment. When I asked him (Sgt. Ross) for Officer Gately’s ID#, he stated that he could not give me that information because after all, I could be “a member of the press, or an anarchist”. I guess myself (along with the press and anarchists) are no longer allowed to hold the police accountable for their actions.

A word of advice: Do not make the mistake of making your first visit to the free speech zone on your day of protest. It will be too late to realize what you are getting into. It’s crazy to think that this is happening in Boston, a city that fronts a reputation of being a cradle of constitutional values. The city has tried to force free speech into a cage where it cannot survive. The only reasonable response is to exercise our rights everywhere but the protest zone.By giving free speech an unacceptable location, the City of Boston has unwittingly declared that the entire city is now a free speech zone.

"SHOVE IT!"

Thank you Teresa Heinz, you classy lady!  You fit right in with Dick "Go Fuck Yourself" Cheney.  Bones will be bones.....

Keys removed from patient's sore leg

Okaaaay.

Politics creates hate and anger in people.

"I'm tired of explaining to deluded, naive 18-year-olds that no, I am not a coward or a traitor, and no, you aren't defending your country if you go into the military; you're defending the interests of whomever has control of the federal government.  You'll die for them, not the country.  "

Freedom of Speech, sort of....

Okay, Boys and Girls (and Moms and Dads), time for today's civics lesson. Which is the real First Amendment?

When home's a prison

"But they can be telling a pack of lies about you once these allegations have been made, and you've got no say in the matter."

Boys will be boys?  Oh, wait, that was years ago!  Now it's "boys will have an Anti-Social Behaviour Order." 

Saturday, July 24, 2004

Official US Body Count Is A Lie

Is Anybody Paying Attention?

Thursday, July 22, 2004

Here's something to think about!

Bring Them Home Now

"I support the troops" said the patriotic American.  Yes, Virginia, we all "support" the troops with our taxes. 

Stop The Draft Now

Did you know that if you are between the ages of 18 & 26 that you are going to be a victim of the Military Draft if the current Pro-Military & Pro-War Movement (known as the Bush Administration legacy) has their way in Spring 2005?  

Oops -- I Started a War!

Saturday, July 17, 2004

Another step toward world government

"Americans had best discover what these internationalists are up to, or our grandchildren may one day wake up and find out Granddad was napping while they lost forever what their ancestors had won for them on the battlefields of Saratoga and Yorktown. "

Friday, July 16, 2004

Torture and rumors of torture

 
If what it reports is true, then once again it looks like the Bush administration is worse than I had imagined--even though I thought I had taken account of the fact that the Bush administration is always worse than one imagines. Either Seymour Hersh is insane, or we have an administration that needs to be removed from office not later than the close of business today. The scariest part: "[Hersh] said he had seen all the Abu Ghraib pictures. He said, 'You haven't begun to see evil...' then trailed off. He said, 'horrible things done to children of women prisoners, as the cameras run.' He looked frightened."

'Secret film shows Iraq prisoners sodomised'

Young male prisoners were filmed being sodomised by American soldiers at the Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad, according to the journalist who first revealed the abuses there.
Seymour Hersh, who reported on the torture of the prisoners in New Yorker magazine in May, told an audience in San Francisco that "it's worse". But he added that he would reveal the extent of the abuses: "I'm not done reporting on all this," he told a meeting of the American Civil Liberties Union.
He said: "The boys were sodomised with the cameras rolling, and the worst part is the soundtrack, of the boys shrieking. And this is your government at war."
He accused the US administration, and all but accused President George Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney of complicity in covering up what he called "war crimes".
 
 
--this makes me sick!

None of Your Business!

Just say NO! 

Thursday, July 15, 2004

Man loses license after telling doctor about drinking

HIPPA HIPPA HOO HOO
 
HIPPA HIPPA HOO HOO
 
A REPORTIN WE WILL GO
 
TELLIN GOV ALL WE KNOW
 
HIPPA HIPPA HOO HOO

The Cult of Power

I tell you one and one makes three
I'm the Cult of Personality.......

It’s the "liberation" of the Iraqi people – and it isn’t pretty….

Wednesday, July 14, 2004

We judge you!

This is rich! And so timely to events my family have recently been through! Here we have a man, who served on the School Board for over 14 years, and only resigned after all the accusations of molestation surfaced, molesting boys. These (School Board members) sit in judgement of children and their families. How good it is to know how "lilly-white" THEY are!

Sex crime case against Faerber ends with apparent suicide

Thank you Faerber,Esq. for taking care of the end so nicely for the taxpayers of Collier County!

Naples Attorney and Former School Board Member Arrested for Sexual Battery on a Child

The Florida Department of Law Enforcement announces the arrest of 51-year-old Nelson Arthur Faerber Jr. of Naples, Fla. Special agents arrested Faerber at his law office in Naples Thursday afternoon. Faerber is charged with two counts of lewd, lascivious or indecent assault or act upon or in the presence of a child upon a person 12 years of age or older but less than 16 years of age (F.S.S. 800.04), two counts of sexual battery upon a person 12 years of age or older but less than 18 years of age by a person who is in a position of familial or custodial authority (F.S.S. 794.011 (8) (b)).

FDLE and the Collier County Sheriff’s Office began the investigation into allegations against Faerber in September 2002. Agents interviewed numerous witnesses and possible victims over the course of the investigation.

FDLE special agents are asking anyone who might have information regarding this case to call FDLE at 1-800-407-4880. FDLE is working with the State Attorney’s Office 20th Judicial Circuit on the investigation.

Faerber was booked into the Collier County Jail awaiting first appearance.

---nice work holier than thou former School Board member!!!!!!!!

Chip Implanted in Mexico Judicial Workers

Don't worry, don't fret, you'll get yours yet!

Police kill wrong man in bed

Oops!

Monday, July 12, 2004

Hey you, see me, pictures crazy,
All the world I've seen before me passing by,
I've got, nothing, to gain, to lose,
All the world I've seen before me passing by,

You don't care about how I feel,
I don't feel it anymore,
You don't care about how I feel,
I don't feel it anymore
You don't care about how I feel,
I don't feel it anymore,
You don't care about how I feel,
I don't feel it anymore.

Hey you, are me, not so pretty,
All the world I've seen before me passing by,
Silent my voice, I've got no choice
All the world I've seen before me passing by,

You don't care about how I feel,
I don't feel it anymore,
You don't care about how I feel,
I don't feel it anymore
You don't care about how I feel,
I don't feel it anymore,
You don't care about how I feel,
I don't feel it anymore
I don't see, anymore,
I don't hear, anymore,
I don't speak anymore,
I don't feel.

Hey you, see me, pictures crazy,
All the world I've seen before me passing by,
I've got, nothing, to gain, to lose,
All the world I've seen before me passing by,

You don't care about how I feel,
I don't feel it anymore,
You don't care about how I feel,
I don't feel it anymore
You don't care about how I feel,
I don't feel it anymore,
You don't care about how I feel,
I don't feel it anymore
I don't sleep, anymore,
I don't eat, anymore,
I don't live anymore,
I don't feel.

--Thank you System Of A Down for so completely capturing how I feel about you!

Saturday, July 10, 2004

9/11 Hijack 'suspects' alive and well

I don't recall hearing about this in the American media?
“Deadly assault weapons have no place in Massachusetts,” Romney said.

Last month, Ashland, MA purchased a Glock .40-caliber semiautomatic handgun for each officer in the department, along with 10 Bushmaster A2-type carbine rifles.

Infowars.com's Torture Photo and Article Archive

If this don't make you "proud to be an American" I don't know what will!

Bush Wins (America Loses); House Leaves Patriot Act As Is

Wow, this is really a big surprise! But, hey, so what! I mean what have YOU got to hide, eh? You must have something to hide if you're not in lock-step with this thing, right?

The Lie That Will Not Die

Cheney and the Iraq / al-Qaeda Link And Cheney says, "If you don't believe there's a link...then GO F**K YOURSELF!" Or words to that affect...

The city considers an admission fee for its popular new skate park

So, they finally build something that is for the kids. The kids finally have some place to go and hang out and actually get exercise. Wow, look at all the kids that are coming! Wow, look, they're all keeping busy and staying out of trouble. WAIT! We gotta charge for THAT!

Pentagon tries to squelch rumors of a new draft

Draft bill? What draft bill? Oh, that little thing? hehehe um, er, well, it's not REALLY a draft bill, it's a bill for fried chicken for all Americans! Yes, that's it! Fried chicken for all Americans! You're not opposed to feeding your fellow citizens now are you!?!?!?

Wall good. Wall good. Wall good. Wall good.

The International Court of Justice said Israel's West Bank security barrier is illegal and should be dismantled.

"The wall, along the route chosen, and its associated regime, gravely infringe a number of rights of Palestinians residing in the territory occupied by Israel, and the infringements resulting from that route cannot be justified by military exigencies or by the requirements of national security or public order," the court said, according to a report in Friday's Ha'aretz.

The U.N. court's decision is an advisement and not binding. Israel, the United States and several dozen European nations have argued that the court, based in The Hague, lacks jurisdiction in the matter. http://www.jta.org/

More Earth shattering, mind bending, mega-important news!

Daschle denies hugging Moore


David Bowie has a heart attack.

And we were just saying how great he looked!

1,000 died for "freedom and democracy"...so far...that we know of.

The Draft Is Fascist

"...if the Bush plan for Good’s conquest of Evil requires the draft — which after all is involuntary servitude imposed under threat of violence — then maybe something is wrong with the Bush plan. This is the mark of a closet totalitarian: the state’s presumptions and impositions are not to be questioned. If the freedom of the individual must be stolen, well, that’s how it goes. Now shut up and march."

Friday, July 09, 2004

"Fahrenheit" On The Brain

"Fahrenheit 9/11" is packed with missed opportunities. It argues obvious points far too weakly and never really digs very far, or very coherently, into the sinister underbelly of How It All Really Works.

And Moore never lays sufficient blame on the weak-kneed Demos, all of whom voted for BushCo's war and all of whom basically rolled over and begged for scraps when the GOP war machine steamrolled in and demanded the nation cower in fear so they could attack a wimpy volatile hate-filled pip-squeak nation that dared to threaten its global petrochemical interests.

Dumb and Getting Dumber

"So here we are, the country that has wrapped itself up in the mantle of moral, ethical, and intellectual superiority, a tribe increasingly cozy with the idea of global domination, and we can’t get up off our lazy asses and get down to a bookstore and buy a book...and read it." Column by Rodger Jacobs.

Thursday, July 08, 2004

Stomp your feet and get a fan club....

It never ceases to amaze me how some people can stomp their feet and throw a baby hissy fit when things don't go their way and they get rewarded for it. Where can you get that magic?

Don't make me go all Cheney on you!

Someone plans to disrupt the election.

Move along, nothing to see here...

Eminent Domain: Being Abused?

I can answer that question: YES!

Bring 'em home!

Wednesday, July 07, 2004

Evildoers

They serve, because they care!

Dude, what the hell?

Ever get so sick of hearing and reading about the crap going on in our country and beyond that you just want to vomit? Michael Moore, evildoer. VP Cheney, good smart man, kind-hearted lion. Kerry good, Bush bad. Police good, people bad. Courts fair and just, people as cattle herded through the system, bad. Government indoctrination centers (public schools) good, homeschooling bad ("I could NEVER teach my kids"). As I get ready to dive into another day among the cockroaches that scurry about, reveling in their importance, I pray to the all-mighty to give me strength and wisdom as I live in this Orwelian nightmare we call modern day Amerika. It'll be another good day if I can get through it without "pulling a Cheney"....that is, telling someone to "Go F**K YOURSELF!"

Be Afraid! Because Paranoia Is Patriotic

"Terror level - elevated! Terror level - elevated!" -- FNN

Kill 'Em All and Let God Sort Them Out

Tuesday, July 06, 2004

What is Education?

Whether it is "No Child Left Behind" or any other buzz-word, do people really understand what education is? I don't think they do! Many people think if you have a high school diploma or a GED, you are somehow "educated". Others consider a Bachelor's Degree necessary for completing an education. Actually, you can be very well educated without any of those things, if you know what education means!

Monday, July 05, 2004

Sunday, July 04, 2004

Mind your star-spangled manners, flag experts urge

Beach towels? You mean, you have to lay on it? And Walmart unveils its line of "America" clothing every June. And on that note, I'm heading out front to unfurl and fly the Gadsden!

Military Draft? Official Denials Leave Skeptics

Article published Jul 3, 2004
Military Draft? Official Denials Leave Skeptics

By CARL HULSE
New York Times

WASHINGTON, July 1 The Pentagon says no. The Selective Service System says no. And Congressional leaders say absolutely not.
Yet talk of reinstating the military draft persists around the country, driven by the Internet, high-profile moves by the military to shore up its forces and fears that all those solid reassurances about no need for conscription could quickly melt away if world events took a turn for the worse.
"The mood of, if not the country but a significant plurality of the country, is highly skeptical," said the founder of StopTheDraft.com, Barry Zellen, who has seen traffic to his site jump in recent months. "If the world spun madly out of control, where would they get the boots on the ground?"
Congressional aides say their offices receive a steady stream of telephone calls and e-mail messages inquiring about the status of the draft. Lawmakers themselves are regularly asked if Congress is preparing to re-establish the system, abolished by President Richard M. Nixon 31 years ago.
"Everyone says, `We've got young children, and we don't want them in the draft,' " said Bill Ghent, a spokesman for Senator Thomas R. Carper, Democrat of Delaware.
At the offices of the Selective Service System, which in 1980 resumed registering men at age 18 in the event the draft was ever resurrected, inquiries arrive daily along with a barrage of requests from news organizations for interviews about the idea of restoring mandatory military service.
"People think it is some big government conspiracy," said Harald Stavenas, a spokesman for the House Armed Services Committee, which gets its share of draft questions as well.
But top lawmakers, joined by Pentagon leaders and administration officials, say that there are definitely no plans to resume the draft and that the military is much better off relying on a substantially motivated volunteer force rather than on conscripts.
"The idea of bringing back the draft, I think the chances are slim and none and slim left town," one member of the House committee, Representative Ken Calvert, Republican of California, said this week after returning from Iraq. "People can relax about that issue."
The senior Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, Carl Levin of Michigan, agreed.
"I don't think we're going to need to reinstitute the draft," Mr. Levin said. "The combination of recruiting and retention is doing fairly well."
The roots of the anxiety about the draft can be traced to several developments, among them recent steps taken by the Defense Department to bolster forces stretched by service in Iraq and Afghanistan. Earlier this year the Pentagon issued an order requiring some soldiers to remain in uniform beyond their expected dates for leaving the service. This week the military announced that it would recall to the barracks 5,600 former active-duty soldiers with certain skills who have time remaining as reservists. And Congress is moving to expand the size of the Army and the Marines.
Lawrence J. Korb, an assistant secretary of defense in the Reagan administration, says unease about the prospect of a draft surfaces frequently in his travels around the country. He says unwillingness to accept official reassurances is attributable to public cynicism about the Bush administration's case for war in Iraq.
"I think it is skepticism that we have been misled so many times about this war: weapons of mass destruction, ties to Al Qaeda, a cakewalk," said Mr. Korb, now at the liberal Center for American Progress. "People are clearly worried and figure, `They are just waiting until the election is over to spring the bad news on us.' "
He and others said this could appear to those people to be nothing less than logical progression, after the military's resorting to an extension of tours of duty and the recall of former active-duty soldiers.
"I think what is behind the current public discussion is the sense the Defense Department is using coercion to maintain the service of those who might otherwise get out," said James Burk, a sociology professor at Texas A&M University who studies the intersection of military and public policy issues. "That kind of coercion has a resonance of what the draft is all about."
Neither Mr. Korb nor Professor Burk believes that compulsory service will be reinstituted without mobilization of a scale far beyond anything now needed. But neither do they believe that the buzz will subside.
"It will simmer on the back burner and in the chat rooms," Professor Burk said.
The issue has also been addressed on opinion pages of newspapers around the country. A column in The Seattle Post-Intelligencer called a draft a "poison pill" too unrealistic for the president to consider. Another, in The Chicago Tribune, said that with a military whose members are all volunteers, "we lose our sense of shared sacrifice as a nation."
Indeed, many editorials and op-ed articles focus on the idea that a draft would distribute the burden of war across racial and economic divides. In The Washington Post this week, Noel Koch, who as a Nixon speechwriter wrote a legislative message on the draft's end, said nonetheless that the draft had "shattered class distinctions" in the military, mixing high school dropouts with college graduates, rich with poor.
Seeking to blunt public speculation, the Web site of the Selective Service System carries a long notice saying in part that "both the president and secretary of defense have stated on more than one occasion that there is no need for a draft for the war on terrorism or any likely contingency, such as Iraq."
"Additionally," the notice says, "the Congress has not acted on any proposed legislation to reinstate the draft."
"The bottom line," said Dan Amon, a spokesman for the Selective Service System, "is it would take an act of Congress because we could not turn it on ourselves. And there is no mood or sentiment in Congress whatsoever for the draft."
Polls show there is little public sentiment for it either, no small consideration in the Congressional thinking. In a recent New York Times/CBS News poll, 70 percent of those surveyed were against reinstating the draft, and the opposition was shared almost equally among Democrats, Republicans and independents.
The speculation was initially spurred last year when the Selective Service System began trying to fill vacancies on local draft boards. That was accompanied by reports that the agency had received an extra $28 million in its budget.
But Mr. Amon said the draft board recruitment effort had been undertaken because of the expiration of the 20-year terms of members appointed after President Jimmy Carter re-established registration in 1980. And the $28 million was the agency's regular budget, cut to $26 million by Congress, he said.
E-mail messages circulating about a draft also point to legislation pending in both houses of Congress that would require either military or some other national service. But those measures, written by Representative Charles B. Rangel of New York and Senator Ernest F. Hollings of South Carolina, both Democrats, are much more a political statement than potential law, since they have no Republican support and no chance of passage this year.
Mr. Rangel acknowledges that his initial goal in introducing his measure was to stir opposition to the war in Iraq, his point being that privileged Americans including politicians would be far less eager to commit troops if their own sons and daughters had to fight alongside those who join the military to get ahead.
He said the inequality in the burden of warfare was being borne out by the "cruel" Pentagon decision to call back former active-duty soldiers. And he said Americans were right to remain vigilant about the possibility of a draft, given the Iraq conflict.
"If we are really saying we are going to stay there for as long as it takes and we don't have international people sharing the sacrifice," Mr. Rangel said, "sooner or later Americans have to say, `They are now talking about us.' "
Many of his colleagues reject that view, saying there are plenty of Americans willing to join the military on their own.
"You have drafts when you can't get the requisite numbers," said the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, Representative Duncan Hunter, Republican of California. "There is not now indications that you can't get the requisite numbers. But we watch those numbers every month."

A July 4th Quiz

Friday, July 02, 2004

The Story of an Innocent Detainee

June 30, 2004
In F.B.I., Innocent Detainee Found Unlikely Ally
By NINA BERNSTEIN

t took no more than a week for James P. Wynne, a veteran F.B.I. investigator, to confirm the harmless truth that only now, more than two years later, he is ready to talk about. The small foreign man he helped arrest for videotaping outside an office building in Queens on Oct. 25, 2001, was no terrorist.

He was a Buddhist from Nepal planning to return there after five years of odd jobs at places like a Queens pizzeria and a Manhattan flower shop. He was taping New York street scenes to take back to his wife and sons in Katmandu. And he had no clue that the tall building that had drifted into his viewfinder happened to include an office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Yet by the time Mr. Wynne filed his F.B.I. report a few days later, the Nepalese man, who spoke almost no English, had been placed in solitary confinement at a federal detention center in Brooklyn just because of his videotaping. He was swallowed up in the government's new maximum security system of secret detention and secret hearings, and his only friend was the same F.B.I. agent who had helped decide to put him there.

Except for the videotape — "a tourist kind of thing," in Mr. Wynne's estimation — no shred of suspicion attached to the man, Purna Raj Bajracharya, 47, who came from Nepal in 1996. His one offense — staying to work on a long-expired tourist visa — was an immigration violation punishable by deportation, not jail. But he wound up spending three months in solitary confinement before he was sent back to Katmandu in January 2002, and to release him from his shackles, even Mr. Wynne needed help.

The clearance process had become so byzantine that the officer who had set the procedure in motion could not hasten it. Unable to procure a release that officially required signatures from top antiterrorism officials in Washington, Mr. Wynne took an uncommon step for an F.B.I. agent: he called the Legal Aid Society for a lawyer to help the jailed man.

Now, for the first time, the F.B.I. agent and the Legal Aid lawyer, Olivia Cassin, have agreed to talk about the case and their unlikely alliance. Their documented accounts offer a rare, first-hand window into the workings of a secret world.

Within 10 days of the Sept. 11 attacks, the Justice Department instructed immigration judges that all cases designated as "special interest" were to be handled in separate closed courtrooms, without visitors, family or reporters, and without confirming whether a case was on the docket. The secrecy left detainees with little access to lawyers.

Visa violators would be held indefinitely, until the F.B.I. was sure the person was not involved in terrorism. As a visa violator under suspicion, Mr. Bajracharya was among hundreds placed in the special interest category, and his case was wiped from the public record.

Mark Corallo, a spokesman for the Justice Department, said that though he was unfamiliar with the case, the system of secrecy Mr. Bajracharya encountered is lawful and necessary. "The idea that someone who has violated our immigration laws may be of interest on a national security level as well is an unfortunate reality, post-9/11," he said. Closed hearings are legal as long as due process is provided, he said, and all abuses will be dealt with.

But Ms. Cassin, of Legal Aid, argues that under this secret practice, there is no way to know whether other noncitizens are even now being unfairly detained. "By its very nature," she said, "it can happen again without our knowing about it."

Mr. Bajracharya was finally returned to Nepal on Jan. 13, 2002. By then he had spent almost three months in a 6-by-9-foot cell kept lighted 24 hours a day. The unit of the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn where he was kept has become notorious for the abuses documented there by the Justice Department's own inspector general, who found a pattern of physical and mental mistreatment of post-9/11 detainees. Videotapes showed officers slamming detainees into walls, mocking them during unnecessary strip-searches, and secretly taping their conversations with lawyers.

Mr. Wynne would not comment on detention policies, and said that he should not be "held out as the one lone person who did the right thing." But during an extended interview approved by his F.B.I. superiors, he read aloud from phone logs documenting desperate messages from the man's family in Katmandu, his efforts to reassure the weeping detainee, and his own dawning recognition that no resolution was in sight.

"I told Purna that I would try to help him, that I wouldn't forget about him," Mr. Wynne explained. "I felt some - not responsibility, but I felt that there was no one else."

By telephone from Katmandu, Mr. Bajracharya recalled the fear, humiliation and despair he had experienced in prison. "I had nothing but tears in my eyes," he said through a translator. "The only thing I knew, I was innocent, but I didn't know what was happening."

He said he was stripped naked in the federal jail. "I was manhandled and treated badly," he said, becoming agitated. "I was very, very embarrassed even to look around, because I was naked."

The ordeal began when his videotaping aroused the suspicions of two detectives from the Queens district attorney's office, which has space in the same 12-story building where the F.B.I. occupies three floors. After taking him inside for questioning, they called upstairs to the F.B.I., and Mr. Wynne was dispatched to take over the interrogation. With no translator, Mr. Bajracharya tried to explain himself to half a dozen law enforcement officers, including two federal agents from the Immigration and Naturalization Service who verified his illegal immigration status.

It was Mr. Wynne, as the lead F.B.I. agent, who sent him to the federal detention center in Brooklyn pending a thorough investigation. The F.B.I. agent, now 50, describes himself as a lifelong New Yorker who does not take illegal immigration lightly. His specialty is international art fraud, not terrorism. But at a time of heightened anxiety about another terrorist attack, he maintained, it was reasonable to suspect the worst until he could check the man's history, discrepancies in his identity documents and questions about money wired to Nepal.

The questions were resolved within days. The Nepalese man did not show up in any terrorist databanks, and Mr. Wynne soon confirmed his explanation for a $37,000 wire transfer to Nepal. The money was from a recent legal settlement for injuries suffered when he was hit by a car in 1999. His records, roommates and former employees all vouched for the detainee's honesty.

On Nov. 1, 2001, the day Mr. Wynne wrote his report clearing Mr. Bajracharya, he told him through a translator that it would take about a week to get the matter resolved.

Over the weekend, pleading messages arrived from the detainee's sons in Katmandu: "Please help his father; he's not that kind of person - meaning a terrorist, I suppose," the F.B.I. agent said. On Nov. 5, he discussed the case with the head of counterterrorism in the United States attorney's office, and on Nov. 7 and 8, with a lawyer at the immigration agency.

"Because he was willing to leave - he wanted to leave - it didn't seem to me that it was a big hurdle to move him out of there," Mr. Wynne said.

But the weeks dragged on. Learning that a secret immigration hearing was scheduled for Nov. 19, Mr. Wynne thought a resolution was at hand. Instead, in a second conference call to the detainee after the hearing, he found him confused and distraught. It turned out that official F.B.I. clearance from Washington had not yet come through, and the matter had been adjourned to another secret hearing on Dec. 6.

At this point, the agent said, he realized he had been too optimistic. "You have to understand one thing: I'm in the Queens office; in Manhattan they were running this whole initiative, and there was a whole procedure set up for the clearances," he said. "I wasn't aware that there were so many levels that needed to sign off on this thing, frankly, when I filed my report."

The Monday after Thanksgiving, the F.B.I. agent called in Legal Aid. "This guy needed some help - it's as simple as that," Mr. Wynne said, insisting that anyone would have done the same thing. Ms. Cassin says she knows of no other F.B.I. investigator who has.

But by the time she spoke with the detainee, through a thick plexiglass barrier and under the eye of a prison video camera, she said, he was weeping all the time.

On Dec. 6, in a secret hearing room in the prison, she said, she watched him carried in by three burly officers of the Federal Bureau of Prisons, shackled so completely that he could not move. "He's tiny," she said. "His feet didn't even touch the floor."

She said government immigration lawyers agreed that since her client had been cleared by the F.B.I., he would be permitted a "voluntary departure." She was instructed to buy him an airplane ticket to Katmandu through a deportation officer. She did, but the first departure date was canceled without explanation.

Meanwhile, like other "high interest" detainees, Mr. Bajracharya was still in solitary 23 hours a day. "After a month or two, I started to scream that I was going to die if I didn't talk to anybody," he later recalled.

Ms. Cassin said she pleaded with the prison doctor to put him in the general prison population, but the doctor said he was crying so much he would cause a riot. Instead, on Dec. 11, a Muslim detainee was sent to share his tiny cell.

Expecting his imminent departure, Ms. Cassin and Mr. Wynne tried to fulfill the detainee's most insistent request: to go home looking like a respectable person, not a criminal. An assistant warden agreed to accept a box labeled "release clothing," containing the good suit he had worn when he came to America. Shortly before Christmas, Mr. Wynne made a special trip to deliver it.

But when Mr. Bajracharya was finally taken to the plane on Jan. 13, he was in shackles and an orange prison jumpsuit. "I wanted to wait for my clothes, at least the shoes and the jacket," he said, "but they took me by force."

Mr. Bajracharya's accounts of mistreatment fit the pattern reported by the inspector general. A spokesman for the United States attorney's office in Brooklyn, Robert Nardoza, said the office recently declined to prosecute abuses detailed in the reports "mainly because all of the witnesses had been deported and were unavailable to be interviewed."

Back in Nepal, which is riven by civil war, Mr. Bajracharya said he would be willing to testify against those who mistreated him if he were asked, though he fears what the government would do to him if he did so. Nonetheless, he remains grateful that he experienced America.

"What happened to me could have been an isolated incident," he said. "I still believe the American government is the best in the world."

Weeks after Mr. Bajracharya returned to Nepal, Mr. Wynne and Ms. Cassin managed to arrange delivery of his possessions by mail, including his camcorder. But when he tried to show his wife his travelogue of New York, all that remained on the tape was the pizzeria and the flower shop.

Mr. Wynne, sounding a bit sheepish, allowed that he had "probably erased" the rest, thinking it might fall in the wrong hands.

"Just an abundance of caution," he murmured.

Thursday, July 01, 2004

The Dog Did Not Bark ---Why?

Of all the stuff I've read and seen about 9/11, what is talked about below has been the most troubling to me. Even I, when I knew Bush was in Sarasota, and I heard about the planes, even I was immediatly fearful to have the president here, that he would of course be a target too. But, apparently, and oddly, the Secret Service was NOT concerned about this fact. Very, very odd....



Inspector Gregory:
"Is there any other point to which you would wish to draw my attention?"

Holmes: "To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time."

"The dog did nothing in the nighttime"

"That was the curious incident," remarked Sherlock Holmes.

From "The Adventure of Silver Blaze" by Arthur Conan Doyle



We've all seen the video. It figures prominently in Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11". It is the video of George Bush at Booker Elementary School being informed by Andy Card of the second impact of a passenger jetliner into the World Trade Center, then sitting there for several minutes reading about goats.

What damns the Bush administration is not what is in this video, but what SHOULD be in the video and is not. Ostensibly, Bush and Card are reacting to a surprise attack, but Bush does not act surprised, and Andrew Card does not act like a man delivering an unexpected piece of news but instead is merely delivering a progress report to which he already knows Bush will not have an immediate response.

There is one more thing that should be in this video and isn't, and that is the Secret Service, the protective detail whose one and only job is the President's safety.

The fictional Sherlock Holmes solved the crime in "Silver Blaze" deducing that it is the owner of the house who is the criminal. How does he know? Because the dog did not bark. The only criminal who could could carry out the crime and not arouse the dog was a criminal the dog already knew as a friend, the dog's owner.

Now let us turn our Sherlockian logic on 9-11. Hijacked aircraft were wandering across the eastern half of the country. In theory nobody could have known how many there are or if more planes were not in the process of being hijacked. How could they? Two of the planes had crashed into the World Trade Center. There is an airport only four miles from Booker Elementary School, and Bush's presence at the school was known to the public 24 hours in advance. Nobody would have assumed he was not a target.

And yet the Secret Service did not rush in and remove the President to a secure location, or at least to the safety of the armored Presidential Limousine. That's their job. That's what they do in the case of a real surprise attack with so many unknowns. They don't do anything else.

But the Secret Service did nothing. The dog did not bark.

Bush defenders try to explain away Bush's inaction as not wanting to upset the children. Michael Moore explains away Bush's inaction by suggesting he hadn't been told to leave. But Michael Moore failed to follow that line of reasoning through to its logical conclusion; where were the people whose job it is to get the President to a place of safety in event of attack, the people who would have, SHOULD have, pulled Bush out of there, children and public appearances be damned!

The Secret Service did nothing. The dog did not bark.

If the events of 9-11 were really a surprise to the United States Government, then there is no way that the Secret Service could know there wasn't a hijacked or stolen plane headed towards Booker Elementary School that very second.

The Secret Service did nothing. The dog did not bark.

The Secret Service should be in that video but they are not. From their inaction, it is clear that the Secret Service KNEW FOR A FACT THAT THE PRESIDENT WAS NOT A TARGET OF ONE OF THE HIJACKED PLANES. And the only way anyone could know that for a fact at that moment is to have known what the targets of the hijacked planes were, at that exact moment, standing there in the school.

The Secret Service did nothing. The dog did not bark.

Quod Erat Demonstradum, the Bush Administration was part of the 9-11 plot.

America Is Not a Free Country

America Is Not a Free Country

by Doug Newman

Independence Day is upon us. This July 4 we celebrate the 228th anniversary of our independence from Britain and our birth as a free nation. We watch fireworks, go to barbecues, go camping (at tax-funded state and national parks), go to baseball games (in tax-funded stadiums) and hear endless talk about how goldurned wonderful it is that we live in a free country.

Or do we live in a free country?

Consider the following.

In a free country, taxation would be well-nigh non-existent. You could keep what you earned and you could spend, save, invest and donate as you saw fit. You would have far more money with which to solve your own problems.

In a free country, there would not be 20,000-plus laws on the books infringing – and even denying – the right of the people to keep and bear arms. Crime would plummet as criminals would never know who was armed.

In a free country, you could educate your children as you saw fit, without asking anyone’s permission. You could home school you kids if you wanted. Catholics could send their kids to the Our Lady of Mercy School; Baptists could send their kids to the Obadiah Baptist School; Mormons could send their kids to the Joseph Smith school; Muslims could send their kids to the Allah Akbar School; believers in Mungabunga could send their kids to Mungabunga school. If you are not spiritual, you could send your kids to the Whitney Houston School--“Where the children are the future”--or to the Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young School--“Where we teach your children well.” Prayer, declining academic standards, evolution, creation, condoms, gay curricula, busing, standardized testing, bullying, discipline, dress codes and all the other debates surrounding education today would cease to be social issues.

In a free country, businesses would not be crushed in a regulatory vise grip. Millions of jobs would stay here in America rather than going to Honduras and Bangladesh.

In a free country, the military would be used strictly for national defense. We would not have troops in 135 countries. We would heed the Founders’ advice and steer clear of foreign alliances, which have been nothing but trouble anyway. We would withdraw from the United Nations and all its subsidiary organizations. Terrorism would cease to be a threat: When we stop throwing our weight around “over there,” hatred and resentment toward the United States will be far, far less.

In a free country, we would not have the world’s highest incarceration rate.

In a free country, jurors could judge not only the facts pertaining to a given case, but also the law relevant to that case. If Juror Smith thought Defendant Jones was being tried under a stupid law, Juror Smith could vote to acquit on that basis and that basis alone. The prison population would plummet.

In a free country, the value of money would be tied to gold or silver. The Federal Reserve Bank would be shut down. We would not see our savings and our futures eroded by inflation. And we would not owe bazillions of dollars to folks who already have bazillions of dollars.

In a free country, it would take neither a village nor a police state to raise a child. Government would not act in loco parentis for an absentee Mommy and Daddy. Parents would be responsible for raising their own children. Most of the problems we have with kids today – sex, drugs, violence – would be greatly minimized.

In a free country there would be no war on drugs. Drug profits and street crime would plummet. It would not be the government’s job to keep people off of drugs. It would be the job of parents, churches, Mungabunga temples, etc. Back when it was this way, there was almost no “drug problem” at all. (If the Mungabunga people smoke that hooch in their rituals, they would be free to do so without fear of DEA harassment.)

In a free country, we would not constantly be relinquishing our freedom in exchange for security. People would know that the greatest threat to their security comes from their own government.

In a free country, if a state decided it had had enough of rule by Washington, D.C., it could secede from the union without fear of reprisal.

In a free country, there would be no law forbidding what you could ingest into your body. If a certain medication worked, your doctor could recommend it and you could take it without fear of punishment.

In a free country, there would be no welfare state, no education state and no medical state. There would not be a permanent underclass, the quality of education would be vastly improved, and medicine would be far less expensive. Moreover, immigrants would know that coming to America would mean either sink or swim. Deadbeats would not come here looking for a handout. And all immigrants would, out of necessity, learn English.

In a free country, there would be no minimum wage. Millions of jobs would be created in the inner cities overnight. Congressmen, senators, and other government workers would be paid what they are worth.

In a free country, there would be no Selective Service System. Threats of a draft would meet with furious resistance, not lame justifications.

In a free country, there would be no Patriot Act. There would be no "sneak and peek" warrants. The authorities would have to obtain a warrant to review your bank accounts and e-mails. Habeas Corpus would be secure.

In a free country, there would be no surrender of sovereignty to entities like the UN, where we can be outvoted 2-1 by such paragons of personal freedom as Sudan and North Korea. Our troops would not be involved in UN sponsored wars. Moreover, things like NATO and the International Criminal Court would no longer have any relevance.

In a free country, there would be no “promise” of Social Security at age 62 or 65 or 67 or . . . how far back will they have moved it when you reach your golden years? You could take that same money and put it in the most profitable private sector investments you could find. Furthermore, you would not be constantly tracked by means of your Social Security Number.

In a free country, you would only be punished if you inflicted physical harm on somebody else. Rick Stanley would never have been arrested and Martha Stewart would be a free woman. Randy Weaver’s wife and son would still be alive. The Branch Davidians would be living in peace on the outskirts of Waco. Non-violent drug offenders would not waste away in prison, while convicted rapists and murderers went free.

In a free country, churches would truly be exempt from taxation, which would be minimal to begin with. The IRS would not have conducted raids on the Indianapolis Baptist Temple, Dr. Kent Hovind’s creation science theme park and other ministries that have not kissed up to the government in order to be tax exempt. Indeed, there would be no IRS.

In a free country, we would not have adopted nine of the ten “planks” of Karl Marx’s Communist Manifesto. How have we done this? (1)

In a free country, your property rights would not be under attack. (Plank 1) There would be no zoning laws. You could not lose your home or business for failure to pay taxes. There would be no EPA harassment of landowners over “wetlands” and other issues. The FEDGOV would not be the nation's largest landowner.

In a free country, there would be no progressive income tax. (Plank 2) Again, there would be no IRS. Period.

In a free country, there would be no inheritance tax. (Plank 3)

In a free country, there would be no confiscation of property of those who resisted the powers that be. (Plank 4) Consider what they did to my friend Rick Stanley. (2)

In a free country, there would not be a central bank. (Plank 5) There would be no Federal Reserve and there would not a multi-zillion dollar national debt.

In a free country, there would be no government control of communications and transportation. (Plank 6) There would be no FCC, DOT, ICC, etc. Airports would not be mini-police states.

In a free country, there would be no government intrusion in manufacturing and agriculture. (Plank 7) There would be no Department of Labor or Department of Agriculture. Your business could not be shut down for OSHA violations. There would be no federal farm subsidies or price supports.

In a free country, there would be no federal control of labor. (Plank 8) There would be no National Labor Relations Board, no minimum wage laws, no affirmative action or racial quotas.

The merger of agriculture and industry (Plank 9) is tough to explain in one short paragraph. The centralizers can only be happy that farming is increasingly controlled by conglomerates that are far more likely to kiss up to the FEDGOV than a family that has worked the same piece of land for three generations.

In a free country, the government would not be in control of education. (Plank 10) I am fond of pointing out to people that, while neither the Bible nor any of America’s Founding documents say anything about state education, you will find state education as a policy prescription of the Communist Manifesto.

So there you have it.

America is not a free country.

I know, I know, I know: I can vote this November and I can write this essay without fear of punishment. And, no, there are no death camps yet.

However, if this country continues on its present course, one day I will be imprisoned for dissing the FEDGOV and there will be death camps.

The incineration of 80 innocent people by the FEDGOV at Waco in 1993 was a trial balloon floated before a brainwashed nation. Grotesquely excessive forced was used for no good reason, and millions of Americans derisively giggled at “that cult.” When they came for the Davidians, we did not say anything because we were not Davidians.

Today, millions of Americans still buy the lie that America is a free country. Hitler knew the power of the lie: if you lie to people often enough, they will believe anything. And while we are not at the Hitler phase yet, we will arrive there if we keep (a) believing everything our government – or at least our preferred faction of the government – says and (b) believing we are a free nation. You cannot have it both ways.

Sadly, some people will not clue in until the death camp phase. I pray fervently that enough Americans wake up before then.

Scripture tells us to preach the truth without ceasing, for there will come a time when people will not want to hear the truth. Rather, they will surround themselves with ear-ticklers who will tell them whatever they want to hear, regardless of its veracity. (II Timothy 4:2-4)

People ask me from time to time if I get frustrated fighting the freedom fight in a society where so many will gladly relinquish freedom for a false sense of security. To be honest, the answer is yes. However, I must continue to fight this fight and leave the results to God.

Happy Fourth of July.