From a great friend to all America I send you these words:

Secret FBI Report Questions Al Qaeda Capabilities

No 'True' Al Qaeda Sleeper Agents Have Been Found in U.S.

By Brian Ross / ABC News

A secret FBI report obtained by ABC News concludes that while there is no doubt al Qaeda wants to hit the United States, its capability to do so is unclear.

"Al-Qa'ida leadership's intention to attack the United States is not in question," the report reads. (All spellings are as rendered in the original report.) "However, their capability to do so is unclear, particularly in regard to 'spectacular' operations. We believe al-Qa'ida's capability to launch attacks within the United States is dependent on its ability to infiltrate and maintain operatives in the United States."

And for all the worry about Osama bin Laden's sleeper cells or agents in the United States, a secret FBI assessment concludes it knows of none.

The 32-page assessment says flatly, "To date, we have not identified any true 'sleeper' agents in the US," seemingly contradicting the "sleeper cell" description prosecutors assigned to seven men in Lackawanna, N.Y., in 2002.

Overblown Sleeper Cell Threat?

"Limited reporting since March indicates al-Qa'ida has sought to recruit and train individuals to conduct attacks in the United States, but is inconclusive as to whether they have succeeded in placing operatives in this country," the report reads. "US Government efforts to date also have not revealed evidence of concealed cells or networks acting in the homeland as sleepers."

It also differs from testimony given by FBI Director Robert Mueller, who warned in the past that several sleeper cells were probably in place.

"Our greatest threat is from al Qaeda cells in the United States that we have not yet been able to identify," Mueller said at a Senate Select Intelligence Committee hearing in February 2003. "Finding and rooting out al Qaeda members once they have entered the United States and have had time to establish themselves is our most serious intelligence and law enforcement challenge."

When the secret report was issued last month, on Feb. 16, Mueller testified at a hearing before the same committee that the lack of evidence concerned him. "I am concerned about what we are not seeing," he said.

The report does cite several cases in which individuals have been seen as potential sleeper agents, including a member of the Saudi Arabian Air Force training at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas.

The Saudi was sent home after it was discovered he provided information to al Qaeda figures in Saudi Arabia, including "coordinates on landmarks in the US," the report says.

"It's not surprising because we believe the Saudi military is infiltrated at the junior officer level in Saudi Arabia," said Dick Clarke, a former White House counterterrorism czar and now an ABC News Consultant. "And there are so many of them who come here for training."

New Al Qaeda Recruits

The report also says al Qaeda is shifting tactics because its leaders are aware of profiles singling out adult Arab males.

"Al-Qa'ida places a premium on operatives who are not, or at least appear not to be, Arab, particularly those with European or Asian features, according to various detainee reporting," the report reads. "Detainees also report that al-Qa'ida is interested in recruiting US citizens to participate in US operations, particularly African-American converts to Islam."

But the report continues that "US recruits are hard to find and al-Qa'ida detainees have reported that US citizens can be difficult to work with, one senior detainee claimed that US citizens and others who grew up in the West, were too independent and thought they knew more about US operations than senior planners."

In addition, women and married couples with children are being actively recruited, according to the report.

"A senior al-Qa'ida detainee instructed an operative who is currently in US custody, to settle in the United States with his family and maintain a low profile before eventually conducting an attack," the report reads. "Al-Qa'ida operatives have also married US women to obtain US visas and foreign documentation from other countries, according to sensitive reporting."

No Solace in No Evidence

The FBI says it takes no solace in the lack of evidence, or about what it is not seeing.

"Individual operatives who possess a clean passport, have not come to the attention of intelligence agencies overseas, and lack a criminal record are unlikely to attract the attention of security agencies in the United States, unless they are in contact with known extremists," according to the report. "Al-Qa'ida has altered its operative profile, making it more difficult to screen visa applicants at embassies and individuals entering the United States at airports and other border crossings."

And the report suggests that instead of actual sleeper agents, lying in wait, al Qaeda may rely on disaffected Americans or other sympathizers, who might pick easier, softer targets such as shopping malls.

Clarke warned, "We have reason to believe that techniques like that and others we shouldn't talk about are well known to terrorists around the world."

ABC News' David Scott contributed to this report.

Why?? I just do not understand.............. What is a teacher to do when his administration one days blames the teachers for the schools problems. Then on the next he blames the parents. Both times he does this in front of both parties. I have a major problem with idots in power but I guess that this is the new America. Our land of the free and home of the brave is nothing more than the land of the beer drinking, pot smokeing, mental defective morons. God, why did you make America, if you were going to turn this nation into a fuckup? Please help us and bring unto this nation honesty and a leader who is not a twit.

Bush's 'Transformational' Democracy

By Robert Parry, September 22, 2004

George W. Bush's advisers call him "a transformational president," meaning that they believe his election to a second term on Nov. 2 will cement Republican political control for the foreseeable future. Some outsiders might consider the boast hyperbole, but this prediction of conservative hegemony should not be underestimated. The conservatives have been building toward this objective for at least the past 30 years. Indeed, if one views the emerging conservative dominance from the perspective of the past three decades, it is an impressive - and, to many, a chilling - vista.

Combined with the rise of Bush family dynasty, this historical development suggests that the United States may be moving toward a significantly different form of government, far less open to disagreement and debate, a process where even mainstream Democrats, such as Al Gore and John Kerry, can expect to be turned into caricatures of themselves and made effectively unelectable.

This emerging political future came into sharper focus for me as I spent the last five months researching and writing a book on the ascendance of the two George Bushes to the pinnacle of U.S. political power. Entitled Secrecy & Privilege: Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq, the book examines how the two George Bushes have intersected with scandals and other major political events over the past 30 years.

Besides tracing how the Bushes crisscrossed these events, the book examines the broader question of how the United States reached today's political crossroads. While George H.W. and George W. Bush played significant roles at many turning points, they also were beneficiaries of a sophisticated Republican strategy, which took shape in the late 1970s.

'War of Ideas'

The Republican strategy centered on building a political/media infrastructure to fight what conservatives call "the war of ideas," a concept that they do not mean in a metaphorical sense. Their goal has been to "win" this "war" by crushing their enemies.

The conservatives began building their "war" machine in the 1970s mostly for defensive reasons, to protect a future Republican president from "another Watergate" and to neutralize anti-war protests against some future Vietnam. But this well-funded network of think tanks, media outlets and attack groups also had an offensive capability that George H.W. Bush exploited in the 1988 and 1992 campaigns and that George W. Bush used effectively in the 2000 and 2004 campaigns - as well as during the run-up to war in Iraq to silence political objections to his planned course of action.

Indeed, the younger George Bush - with his thin appreciation for the value of free-and-open debate - may be the perfect vessel for transforming the U.S. political process into a more authoritarian system envisioned by some hard-line conservatives. After Election 2000, Bush joked that "If this were a dictatorship, it would be a heck of a lot easier - so long as I'm the dictator."

While the United States is not headed toward a traditional dictatorship nor even a tightly controlled "democracy" on the model of Vladimir Putin's Russia, Republicans do envision the nation undergoing a transformation into a new political model that would ensure their party's control of all levers of American power for a generation or more. In effect, the transformation would mean that any candidate without the blessings of the powerful conservative echo chamber will have about as much chance of winning as the Washington Generals do against the Harlem Globetrotters. The contest might be mildly entertaining, but the outcome will never be in doubt. Elections will become largely ceremonial affairs.

The deconstruction of the Democratic candidates - or even moderate Republicans - will fall primarily to the conservative media, including Fox News, the Wall Street Journal's editorial pages, the Washington Times, Rush Limbaugh, well-funded Internet sites, and an army of over-the-top conservative commentators on TV, radio and in newspaper columns.

Mainstream journalists, trying to protect their own careers, will mostly play along or stay silent. No one will want to risk taking these Republicans on, as CBS News and Dan Rather recently learned when they were deceived about the origins of four memos purportedly written by Bush's former National Guard commander.

Double Standard

While there's virtually no career risk in running bogus accounts against Democrats - such as the ugly attacks on Kerry's Vietnam War record by the "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth" - there is a huge downside for journalists if mistakes are made in criticizing a Bush.

As I discovered in researching Secrecy & Privilege, this phenomenon of "protecting the Bushes" is another feature of the emerging political process. Other related findings in the book include:

• During the Nixon-Ford administrations, the elder George Bush was viewed as a Mr. Fix-It with gold-plated connections. Richard Nixon turned to Bush in 1973 during Watergate to lead the Republican National Committee and to throw investigators off the Watergate trail. President Gerald Ford later put Bush in charge of the Central Intelligence Agency to stop the flood of politically damaging stories about CIA abuses.
• In fall 1976, CIA Director Bush deflected a scandal about a terrorist bombing in Washington that killed Chilean dissident Orlando Letelier and an American co-worker. Though in possession of incriminating evidence pointing to the U.S.-backed Chilean government, Bush's CIA steered investigators away from the real killers while Ford almost surged from behind to catch Democratic challenger Jimmy Carter.
• As CIA director, the senior George Bush also set the stage for the "politicization" of the CIA's analytical division by letting in conservative ideologues for the so-called Team B experiment, the first step in a systematic exaggeration of Soviet military power and the gutting of the CIA's tradition of analytical objectivity. In 1991, Bush named Robert Gates, a key "politicization" figure, to run the CIA.
• George H.W. Bush brought disgruntled CIA veterans into U.S. domestic politics during the 1980 campaign. After Bush was picked as Ronald Reagan's running mate, these former CIA officers carried their intelligence skills - and their determination to oust President Carter - into the Reagan-Bush campaign. One of Bush's key operatives was former clandestine services chief Ted Shackley, the CIA's legendary "Blond Ghost."
• Shackley and other CIA veterans coordinated with Bush in monitoring President Carter's Iran hostage negotiations in 1980. New evidence also supports allegations that senior Republicans went beyond keeping track of Carter's progress in gaining a last-minute "October Surprise" release of 52 American hostages. Senior Republicans, including CIA personnel, appear to have met directly with Iranian representatives and disrupted Carter's negotiations. The hostages were finally released after Reagan was sworn in as President on Jan. 20, 1981.
• In 1992, while seeking reelection, President George H.W. Bush succeeded in containing a congressional probe into the 1980 hostage controversy by hiding behind shaky or false alibis. In January 1993, the Russian government delivered a classified report to the U.S. Congress corroborating allegations that senior Republicans, including Bush, met with Iranians in 1980. But the House investigative task force, headed by Reps. Lee Hamilton and Henry Hyde, kept the Russian report secret from the U.S. public.
• During the 1992 campaign, President George H.W. Bush personally encouraged his subordinates to dig up dirt about Bill Clinton's anti-war activities and his student travels to Eastern Europe. Bush's pressure led to an illegal search of Clinton's passport file at State Department archives and the leaking of a baseless criminal referral that opened the door to attacks on Clinton's patriotism.
• George W. Bush adopted similar hardball tactics in his campaigns. In Campaign 2000, the younger George Bush was aided by a powerful conservative news media that had been constructed in the quarter century since Watergate. A key feature of that right-wing machine has been the Washington Times, a publication financed by South Korean theocrat Sun Myung Moon. Secrecy & Privilege unearths evidence that Moon's fortune has relied on illegal money laundering and that investigations of this criminal conspiracy have been short-circuited by Republican administrations.
• During the Florida recount in 2000, George W. Bush's campaign paid the expenses of Republican operatives who were flown to Florida and staged a riot that stopped the counting of votes in Miami. Campaign documents also show that Bush picked up the tab for a post-riot celebration that included crooner Wayne Newton signing "Danke Schoen."

'Perception Management'

Beyond those specific findings, Secrecy & Privilege shows how the elder George Bush injected CIA-style propaganda strategies - such as the concept of "perception management" - into the U.S. political process. In covert operations, intelligence operatives use "perception management" techniques to control how a target population perceives events by tailoring propaganda "themes" to exploit the population's cultural weaknesses or biases. Working with former CIA officers who joined him in the White House in the early 1980s, then-Vice President Bush helped craft secret policies for manipulating U.S. public opinion and for hiding controversial policies from the public's view.

The evidence now shows that Bush played a key role in carrying out clandestine U.S. foreign policies in Central America and the Middle East. Some of those policies were exposed in the Iran-Contra Affair in the late 1980s, but the emerging conservative political/media infrastructure helped the Reagan-Bush administration limit the Iran-Contra disclosures in ways not available during the Watergate scandal a little more than a decade earlier. The impact of the conservative Republican political/media strategy was compounded by a corresponding failure of liberals and Democrats to respond in kind. Secrecy & Privilege reveals that Democrats, including President Bill Clinton, repeatedly sought accommodation rather than confrontation with Republicans, apparently out of false hope that meaningful bipartisanship was possible.

Toward that end, national Democrats often joined in shutting down investigations of alleged Republican wrongdoing, such as occurred with probes of the Iran-Contra scandal, the Iraqgate evidence of Reagan-Bush coddling of Saddam Hussein, and the October Surprise allegations of Republican interference in Jimmy Carter's 1980 hostage negotiations.

Democratic Reward

The Democrats were "rewarded" for these bipartisan gestures with an even more powerful dose of the Republican attack strategies. Clinton's presidency was pounded with allegations of wrongdoing over his Whitewater real estate investment and a host of other minor issues, such as the firing of employees in the White House Travel Office. Though those allegations led to no charges against Clinton, the scandal frenzy eventually led to Clinton's 1998 impeachment for lying about a sexual relationship with White House intern Monica Lewinsky. Clinton survived a trial in the Senate in 1999, but Clinton's legacy was forever tarnished and Vice President Gore's campaign to succeed Clinton was badly damaged by the impeachment fallout.

In Campaign 2000, mainstream journalists joined with their conservative colleagues in bashing Gore out of what appeared to be a sense of frustration over Clinton's survival. From the New York Times to the Washington Times, the national press corps exaggerated Gore's alleged proclivity for exaggeration, creating what became a decisive issue in the minds of many American voters who came to doubt Gore's honesty. [See Consortiumnews.com's "Al Gore vs. the Media" and "Protecting Bush-Cheney."

Campaign Sequel

Campaign 2004 is turning out to be a kind of sequel to Campaign 2000, with the potent conservative machine churning out personal attacks against Sen. John Kerry's integrity, honesty and patriotism. At the Republican National Convention in New York, some delegates wore band-aids with purple hearts to mock Kerry's war wounds and reinforce the attacks on Kerry's heroism from the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.

Kerry, who won the Bronze Star and the Silver Star for heroism in Vietnam, had skippered a Swift boat in the Mekong Delta during Operation Sealords, one of the most hazardous assignments in the Vietnam War. Vice Adm. Elmo Zumwalt, Navy commander in Vietnam, estimated that sailors in Operation Sealords suffered a 75 percent casualty rate.

But the conservative news media and mainstream news outlets, such as CNN, let themselves be used to promote the dubious Swift Boat Veterans for Truth charges challenging Kerry's heroism and honesty. The impact on Kerry's reputation was devastating, sending him into freefall in some national polls and making him the subject of public derision.

For his part, George W. Bush refused to specifically denounce the attacks on Kerry, saying only that all political advertising from independent groups should be banned. In effect, Bush was equating the spurious attacks on Kerry's war record with questions raised by some liberal groups about how Bush slipped past better-qualified candidates to get a position in the Texas Air National Guard and then failed to fulfill even those duties. This summer's dismantling of John Kerry is a sign of what the "transformed" American political system may look like for years to come.

Robert Parry, who broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for the Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s, has written a new book entitled, Secrecy & Privilege: Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq. Copies can be obtained from the publisher at www.secrecyandprivilege.com .

When Fascism Comes to America

I. When Fascism Comes to America, It Will Be Embraced by FOX News

"The American fascist would prefer not to use violence. His method is to poison the channels of public information. With a fascist the problem is never how best to present the truth to the public but how best to use the news to deceive the public. . ."- Former Vice President Henry A. Wallace, the New York Times, April 9, 1944

"Fox is not objective. Fox is a Republican propaganda machine." - Roger Ebert

In 1944, Henry A. Wallace, one of three Vice Presidents to serve under Franklin D. Roosevelt, assessed the threat of fascism in America and predicted that the time might come when the media was in collusion with the ruling power. "American fascism will not be really dangerous until there is a

purposeful coalition among the cartelists, the deliberate poisoners of public information. . . ," he wrote.

Decades later, during the first Gulf War, the media dutifully regurgitated propaganda while those in power did, in fact, "use the news to deceive the public." But the public remained so fully gullible that by the time the Bush Cartel's "Operation Iraqi Freedom" hit TV screens, the "deliberate poisoners of public information" didn't even have to break a sweat to fool us twice.

And although those who relied on FOX News were found to be the most misinformed, it wasn't until a series of FOX e-mails was leaked to the press that anyone grasped how "purposeful" the intent to mold opinion actually was. "[Bush's] political courage and tactical cunning are worth noting in our reporting through the day," FOX News chief John Moody e-mailed staffers on June 3, 2003, in one of many instances where reporters were instructed to glowingly praise G.W. Bush as Fearless Leader Extraordinaire.

"The President goes to Charlotte to talk about job training. Buoyed by the 300K job figure last week, he can boast his policies are working," Moody wrote on April 4, 2004.

The Democratic presidential candidate, however, was not granted the same "fair and balanced" courtesy. Though Moody instructed FOX staffers give each candidate equal time, the pro-Bush/anti-Kerry bias was obvious. "John Kerry may wish he'd taken off his microphone before trashing the GOP," Moody e-mailed staffers on March 12, 2004. ". . . his coarse description of his opponents has cast a lurid glow over the campaign."

"Kerry, starting to feel the heat for his flip-flop voting record, is in West Virginia," Moody explained four days later, as if reciting GOP talking points.

Meanwhile, well before the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth became a household name (Thanks largely to FOX and other cable outlets), Murdoch's minions began picking at Kerry's military record. "Ribbons or medals? Which did John Kerry throw away after he returned from Vietnam. This may become an issue for him today. His perceived disrespect for the military could be more damaging to the candidate than questions about his actions in uniform," Moody wrote on April 26, 2004.

(Ironically, one day later, long before the Swift Boaters made their perfectly-timed dent in Kerry's approval ratings, Moody decided, in a rare but inexplicable moment of fairness, "Let's not overdo the appearances by Kerry's swiftboat mate John O'Neil. While his appearances so far have been OK, he represents one side of the 30 year recollections of what Kerry did, or didn't do, in uniform. Other people have different recollections.")

In Jan. 2004, Laurence W. Britt identified 14 basic characteristics of fascist regimes and while the list is disquieting for obvious reasons, oddly enough, many also pertain to Moody's memos. Powerful and continuing expressions of nationalism? Check. Avid Militarism? Check. Disdain for the importance of human rights? Triple check.

Other Moody musings include:

• "Err on the side of doing too much Iraq rather than not enough. Do not fall into the easy trap of mourning the loss of US lives and asking out loud why are we there? The US is in Iraq to help a country brutalized for 30 years protect the gains made by Operation Iraqi Freedom and set it on the path to democracy. Some people in Iraq don't want that to happen. That is why American GIs are dying. And what we should remind our viewers." (4/6/04)
• "For perspective, the pictures coming out of Fallujah are a journalistic landmark. Beyond Gulf War I, beyond the first night of the attack on Baghdad, we are seeing very up close and, literally, from a GI-eye's view, a military operation in real time. Try to explain this to viewers, who may take this incredible visual moment for granted. Also, let's refer to the US marines we see in the foreground as 'sharpshooters' not snipers, which carries a negative connotation." (4/28/04)
• "Into Fallujah: It's called Operation Vigilant Resolve and it began Monday morning (NY time) with the US and Iraqi military surrounding Fallujah. We will cover this hour by hour today, explaining repeatedly why it is happening. It won't be long before some people start to decry the use of "excessive force." We won't be among that group. . . More than 600 US military dead, attacks on the UN headquarters last year, assassination of Irai [sic] officials who work with the coalition, the deaths of Spanish troops last fall, the outrage in Fallujah: whatever happens, it is richly deserved." -- (4/ 4/04).
• "More serious and more important is the US military's end of waiting game for Fallujah. If, as promised, the coalition decides to take Fallujah back by force, it will not be for lack of opportunities for terrorists holed up there to negotiate. Let's not get lost in breast-beating about the sadness of the loss of life. They had a chance." (4/22/04)
• "[T]he pictures from Abu Graeb [sic] prison are disturbing. They have rightly provoked outrage. Today we have a picture -- aired on Al Arabiya -- of an American hostage being held with a scarf over his eyes, clearly against his will. Who's outraged on his behalf?" (5/5/04)
• "The so-called 9/11 commission has already been meeting. In fact, this is the eighth session . . . this is not 'what did he know and when did he know it' stuff. Do not turn this into Watergate." - (3/23/04)

Can you imagine if any of the "liberal" organizations were discovered to have such blatant bias? ("I've never heard of any other network nor any other legitimate news organization doing that," Walter Cronkite said of the memos.) Is FOX News an example of the government/media collaboration Wallace warned of? "The American fascists are most easily recognized by their deliberate perversion of truth and fact," Wallace wrote. "They distort, you decide," the Village Voice opined.

II. When Fascism Comes to America, American Fascists Will Get Richer

"Most American fascists are enthusiastically supporting the war effort. They are doing this even in those cases where they hope to have profitable connections with German chemical firms after the war ends. . .[They] do not hesitate surreptitiously to evade the laws designed to safeguard the public from monopolistic extortion. American fascists of this stamp were clandestinely aligned with their German counterparts before the war, and are even now preparing to resume where they left off, after 'the present unpleasantness' ceases." -- Vice President Henry A. Wallace, the New York Times, April 9, 1944

"Bush-Nazi Dealings Continued Until 1951."
- The New Hampshire Gazette, Nov.7, 2003

In 1942, the New York Tribune featured a front page story entitled "Hitler's Angel has $3 million in US bank," referring to Nazi industrialist Fritz Thyssen and his ties to Union Banking Corporation. Later that year, Union Bank official Prescott Bush was charged with "Running Nazi front groups in the United States."

Chances are, however, when Vice President Wallace railed against those profiting from alliances with the Germans, few comprehended the role these "American fascists" would play in U.S. politics. "After the seizures in late 1942 of five U.S. enterprises he managed on behalf of Nazi industrialist Fritz Thyssen, Prescott Bush, the grandfather of President George W. Bush, failed to divest himself of more than a dozen 'enemy national' relationships that continued until as late as 1951, newly-discovered U.S. government documents reveal," the New Hampshire Gazette explained. "Furthermore, the records show that Bush and his colleagues routinely attempted to conceal their activities from government investigators."

But the family's war profiteering did not begin and end with soon-to-be Senator Prescott Bush. In his book American Dynasty, former Nixon strategist Kevin Phillips reported that dynasty founders Samuel Prescott Bush and George H. Walker were both "present at the emergence of what became the U.S. military-industrial complex," in which the Bush family has been enmeshed ever since.

In a January, 2004 Los Angeles Times editorial, Phillips spelled out why this matters. "Between now and the November election, it's crucial that Americans come to understand how four generations of the current president's family have embroiled the United States in the Middle East through CIA connections, arms shipments, rogue banks, inherited war policies and personal financial links," he wrote.

Meanwhile, author Dan Briody exposed one of the more blatant examples of impropriety. "George Bush Sr. is working for this company [the Carlyle Group] that is the 11th largest defense contractor in the country at the same time his son is in office waging war," he said on NPR. "It is clearly a conflict of interest. And conflicts of interest lead to potential corruption."

Citing Dwight D. Eisenhower's prescient parting shot, Briody also explained: "The best way to explain the Carlyle Group is to use a euphemism that Dwight Eisenhower employed back in the 1960s, when he was leaving office. He warned the country of something called the military/industrial complex and that is probably the best way to describe what the Carlyle Group does." (Eisenhower also warned that "The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist" and that "We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes").

"A fascist is one whose lust for money or power is combined with such an intensity of intolerance toward those of other races, parties, classes, religions, cultures, regions or nations as to make him ruthless in his use of deceit or violence to attain his ends, " Wallace wrote. "Essentially. . . four generations of Bushes corrupted U.S. foreign policy through international business ventures that benefited the family," Mother Jones explained. The full weight of Eisenhower's warning has never been more fully appreciated.

III. When Fascism Comes to America, We Will Have Been Warned

"[American fascists] use every opportunity to impugn democracy. . . They claim to be super-patriots, but they would destroy every liberty guaranteed by the Constitution.." -- Former Vice President Henry A. Wallace, the New York Times, April 9, 1944

"From the very way in which this administration was brought into office -- by fiat of a stacked Supreme Court. . . through just about every policy pursued since then, Bush and his minions have demonstrated a deep and alarming contempt for this country's constitution and its freedoms." -- Geov Parrish, Jan. 29, 2002 Nearly 70 years ago, Sinclair Lewis warned against the dangers of fascism in America. Nine years later, Vice President Wallace did the same.

Describing American fascists who "are patriotic in time of war because it is to their interest to be so," FDR's Vice President added, " but in time of peace they follow power and the dollar wherever they may lead." Decades later, G.W. Bush's Vice President would become the poster boy for similar shadiness. While serving as Halliburton's CEO, Dick Cheney conducted $73 million worth of business with "worse-than-Hitler" Saddam Hussein, helping him rebuild the oil fields destroyed during the first Gulf War -- back when Dick Cheney was Secretary of Defense. And while Benito Mussolini said that "Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power," the 1983 American Heritage Dictionary extended the definition to include the kind of snarling seething "patriotism" we've experienced since Sept. 11, 2001.

Defining fascism as "A system of government that exercises a dictatorship of the extreme right, typically through the emerging of state and business leadership, together with belligerent nationalism," American Heritage appeared to be forecasting our current political climate. How bad has this belligerence been? In case you've forgotten:

• "Once the war against Saddam begins, we expect every American to support our military, and if they can't do that, to shut up. Americans, and indeed our allies, who actively work against our military once the war is underway will be considered enemies of the state by me. Just fair warning to you, Barbra Streisand, and others who see the world as you do." -- Bill O'Reilly, The O'Reilly Factor (2/26/03)
• "We believe your very public criticism of President Bush at this important -- and sensitive -- time in our nation's history helps undermine the U. S. position, which ultimately could put our troops in even more danger. As a result, we have decided to cancel the April 26-27 programs in Cooperstown commemorating the 15th anniversary of Bull Durham." -- -- National Baseball Hall of Fame President Dale Petroskey to Tim Robbins. (4/11/03)
• "I think the world today, at least the US and to some extent Britain now, is experiencing this kind of Big Brother thing. . . It's not what we thought we were gonna be doing, a lot of the people's civil rights have been compromised, and we don't know what's going on. If I keep speaking my mind, will I be deported? I'm not very happy with the state of things. Music is being banned, and we have people in control of the radio stations who are the same people in control of the concert halls. They're also tied into the [US] administration and are sponsoring pro-war rallies. It's not good.. . . " -- Neil Young, The Guardian (5/22/03)
• "Contrary to the belief of so many plainly silly conservatives, it is entirely possible to love this country and be disgusted with its political leadership. . . and if one regards the Constitution as one of the greatest political documents ever created, as I do, it is in fact a duty to criticize the Bush administration. . . Most Americans, however, do not pause to consider such things, especially in a moment of national hysteria, and the hate mail and death threats began to pour in. . . I was astounded, though perhaps not surprised, at how many outraged Americans reminded me how much blood was spilled to defend our freedoms and then in the next sentence denied me one of those freedoms. It is a constant source of wonder to me how frequently Americans speak of the need to defend freedom, often with war, while at the same time being so quick to surrender that freedom in the interests of security, cheap gasoline or whatever." -- Richard M. Berthold (who earned instant infamy for saying the wrong thing at the wrong time). History News Network (11/25/02)
• "The unmistakable odor of 'patriotic correctness' turned news organizations red, white and blue. Soon there would flags flying in the graphics and in the sets and lapels of anchor people. As the government moved to war mode, most of the media returned their focus to Washington, marching in step in a stunning display of conformity and deference. Australian-born media tycoon Rupert Murdoch showed his true American patriotism by declaring that it was important that the world learned to "respect" America's war in Iraq. Mr. Murdoch gave several interviews in the run up to the attack on Iraq expounding his pro-war beliefs. All of his newspapers backed the war, and his newscasts pumped their coverage full with patriotic music and computer animation." -- Danny Schechter, Intervention Magazine (9/11/03)

And that's just for starters.

Recently, the St. Petersburg Times joined others who've sensed a faint whiff of fascism in the American air. "The 'man on horseback' mentality, the belief that a leader's strength is more important than where it leads them, defines a population that is vulnerable to dictatorship," Martin Dyckman wrote. "But let no one believe that it couldn't happen here, as has happened so often elsewhere."

Which brings us back to Sinclair Lewis. "Where in all history has there ever been a people so ripe for a dictatorship as ours!," he wrote in It Can't Happen Here.

Many of us remember watching the Vietnam War in our living rooms. We can tell you exactly where we were when John F. Kennedy and Bobby Kennedy were shot. We recall what we were doing (driving our father's Ford LTD without his permission) when we first heard that Nixon resigned. We remember Watergate and the Iranian hostage crisis and Iran/Contra, too. And while some things, like the My Lai massacre and "four dead in Ohio" left an indelible mark, we always felt that the country, regardless how troubled and torn, would be fine.

But something is different now.

And while it's difficult to define, it has something to do with those whose "lust for money or power" make them "ruthless" in their "use of deceit or violence to attain [their] ends." It also has to do with fear and nationalism and a shift within the American public, for which we have the "deliberate poisoners of public information" to thank. But most of all, it it has to do with the sense that, yes, it can happen here. And, like never before in most of our lives, the time seems tragically "ripe."
by Maureen Farrell, September 21, 2004

What is the problem with the world? A friend sent me the following:

Best Comeback Line Ever

This was in the Washington Post.... the headline was "Best Comeback Line Ever."

In summary, the police arrested Patrick Lawrence, a 22-year-old white male, resident of Dacula, GA, in a pumpkin patch at 11:38 p.m. on a Friday night. Lawrence would be charged with lewd and lascivious behavior, public indecency, and public intoxication at the Gwinnett County courthouse.

The suspect explained that as he was passing a pumpkin patch he decided to stop. "You know, a pumpkin is soft and squishy inside, and there was no one around here for miles. At least I thought there wasn't," he stated in a phone interview.

Lawrence went on to say that he pulled over to the side of the road, picked out a pumpkin that he felt was appropriate to his purposes, cut a hole in it, and proceeded to satisfy his need. "I guess I was just really into it, you know?" he commented with evident embarrassment.

In the process, Lawrence apparently failed to notice a Gwinnett County police car approaching and was unaware of his audience until officer Brenda Taylor approached him. "It was an unusual situation, that's for sure," said officer Taylor. "I walked up (to Lawrence) and he's just working away at this pumpkin."

Taylor went on to describe what happened when she approached Lawrence. "I just went up and said, 'Excuse me sir, but do you realize that you are screwing a pumpkin?"

"He froze and was clearly very surprised that I was there, and then looked me straight in the face and said, "A pumpkin? Damn...is it midnight already?"

This whole issue burns me from top to bottom. How, why or what in the hell was this guy thinking. I am in a state of total dismay. Has America, the country that elected W; gone so far into the shitter that you can now fuck a pumpkin instead of a real life person. It is logical to me that the rest of the world hates American Culture. If the article above is a sample of that culture I HATE IT TOO!!!!!!

Furthermore, I have an issue with stupid people. If you are one of them continue to read this.... If you are a good person you will do one of two things, your choices are: (1) neuter yourself now so that you do not breed. (2) Jump off the nearest tall building or lift you lower lip over your head and swallow.

Goodbye and may whatever gods you like, like you back.