Why God Is Not On Our Side
Mood:  sad
Topic: Church and State
White Men to Return
To The Cold

Conversation With Bush Supporters Familiar
With SenderBerl's position

In recent days, I was able to speak with some people known to me who support President Bush and know my position otherwise on the president. I thought you could benefit from my notes from the meeting.

These people argue that President Bush is the only one willing to tackle regimes throughout the world likely and inclined to use WMD. Kerry, they believe, will not succeed in neutralizing a threat that they see as ultimately nuclear.

My first response is that if you build a platform for just action for the President you have to see if that platform is on a just foundation. I thus offered that Saddam Hussein was a man this country could have eliminated without the need of sending 300,000 troops overseas. The intent from Bush 41 leaving Saddam alive in the early 90s was to ultimately secure, after global media control was in place, global oil resources as the predicate for ultimate world domination and control. I reminded them that Clinton wanted to move against Saddam and Osama bin-Laden but shadow government interests always impeded any such intent by President Clinton. I reminded them that this was because these shadow government interests didn't want Clinton and his cronies securing a stranglehold on Iraqi oil. Thus, my point was that Saddam was kept around for many years until the environment was such that Bush 43 could move against him to secure the oil interest for Bush cronies.

I then asked the key question: did they think that the Bush administration would have moved against Iraq and taken the confrontational stance against Syria and Iran if Iraq and Iran were not major global oil producers?

Their answer was truthful. They said no.

I then said that then you can't justify the agenda when you acknowledge that the true motivation behind the seemingly just action of effectuating regime change is the oil. Then you know the agenda is pursued with unclean hands.

This group wanted Bush to win re-election because right after it he would pursue Syria, Iran and North Korea. I pointed out that first let's look at Iraq and remember that Bush's original agenda was to go into Syria and Iran had Saddam either used or possessed WMD. What I wanted these men to know is that if Bush was pursuing an agenda for good and G-d as some in the group truly believed that Bush would not have stumbled and failed as he did. Moreover, the US would not face the type of obstacles it now faces in the Middle East and throughout the world.

I said from the narrow one-dimensional plane it was a slam-dunk that leaderships willing to approve or covertly support WMD are wrong and should be removed. But I reminded them that in the Middle East the dynamics were anything but one-dimensional. If Bush was really bowing to G-d in the pursuit of the agenda, he would not have failed and I asserted that he would fail in obtaining re-election. I then pointed out the answer to why the polls were close.

I said look you guys believe that Bush will win handsomely over Kerry. That's great because if he didn't believe it himself, if he thought he were ten points plus behind Kerry into the Republican National Convention, then New York City may have experienced another bout of terrorism. But Bush believes he can win and that you do yourselves makes it legitimate. That had to be the intent of those behind Kerry wanting to remove the Bush danger and threat to this country. If I am right, I said, then you will now see a new Kerry, one that weekly encroaches on Bush until election eve 2004, where it will be Kerry over Bush.

So I made a wager Kerry over Bush. Moreover, they really believed that because of Bush's strength and commitment against terrorists, that this was the true dynamic behind why we faced no new terrorism. I asked them if they could deduce that with any further terrorism that Bush would then further militarily intercede in the Middle East. I said that was the basis of my highlighting that there would be no terrorism. I changed my mind in March 2004 and especially believed it was forthcoming in May 2004 when the White House agreed that there would be terrorism before the November elections. If you would remember this was when Kerry was strong against Bush (Abu Ghraib surfacing). Thus, since then, Kerry weakened, Bush strengthened, and now we were able to see a RNC without any terrorism. It is hard to prove that it would have occurred if the polls were negative against Bush, but what is not hard to prove is that gnawing reality that Bush even came to lead over Kerry as we moved in the RNC. It either proved Kerry an incompetent candidate, or it proved our point.

So what we have are Bush people believing that regimes in the Middle East are evil and likely to use and support WMD against American and global NWO interests. They believe that Bush is willing to take an unwavering stance to remove them while someone like Kerry will only result in these regimes gaining in power and confidence to ultimately invoke the use of nuclear weapons or other actions in contravention to US interests. They see the corruption of Bush and Cheney on other matters as a lesser evil and collateral consequence to Bush eliminating leaderships that pose such a serious danger.

Of course this secular position giving support and thus legitimacy to the Bush/N.W.O. agenda misses addressing the other dimensional dynamics that we all should be aware of at this point in history. Thus, I offered some truly important postulates to them. The first one was whether they had any feelings that Bush/N.W.O. control of oil contravened the idea that they were gifted with the oil by G-d? Secondly, and equally important, whether the Bush/N.W.O. intent to secularize the Middle Eastern oil nations, taking G-d and religion from its central role there, suggested that the Bush/N.W.O. agenda opposed G-d and thereby was likely to fail.

Here is where man gets muddied up. It calls into question the dynamic of Jacob in bible bowing to Pharaoh when approaching him and bowing again when leaving him and unlike his son, Joseph, never bringing up G-d in between, albeit without G-d both the descendants of Jacob and Egypt would have faltered, one worse than the other. Further complicating it is that man refuses or finds it impossible to see that what is seen as perceived enemies are messages parallel in time that man is pursuing the wrong course in the Middle East.

Thus, to simplify these complex dynamics addressed in full by me over the years on these web pages and within the bounds of this Website, I simply asked why then would the President and others with secular agendas under an umbrella of good find out time and time again that they stumble and fail. I then reminded them what I said in 1998: that this N.W.O. campaign highlighted by me in 1998 and 1999, before anyone could imagine it, would by design fail despite all the resources put forth to assure its success.

The bottom line is that this group reflects what man repeatedly does: make the same errors and fail to accept what he well knows but wants to forget: that by putting G-d in the background, the result will be the same. If Bush wins re-election, he will surely move to finish his original agenda, one he cannot win. I agreed that he would pursue it and I highlighted that if they thought there was no terrorism because the Middle East leaders feared Bush, they were going to see terrorism and that their predicate was the wrong one. Terrorism, the only response to superior militarily power, was in check to allow the people of the USA to bring in someone not subscribing to the agenda in pursuit by Bush and his oil cabal. If Bush wins re-election holding back terrorism serves no purpose because it is a given that Bush will move against, Syria, Iran and North Korea - in that order.

If Kerry wins, it would be a serious sign that Bush invokes G-d's name wrongfully, carrying forth policies for oil under the banner of good and G-d when seizing the oil contravenes its status and gift for the Arab/Islamic nations and the foundation for an effort to distance the world further from G-d. Thus, if Kerry wins, I trust that it will be a sign for the USA and Israel and others that Bush's agenda was wrong. While the N.W.O. group opposed to Bush winning a second term will believe that they deftly manipulated Kerry's win while containing Bush as the danger he and Rove and his cabal represent, the truth of it is that Bush would succeed without G-d's intervention, the N.W.O. design and effort to stop him putatively successful only because of it.

G-d has patience. He sees that Israel let the Rabin assassination pass and we in the USA let 9-11 pass. Evil succeeds without G-d's intervention. I also pointed out to the group that the N.W.O. building up China contravened G-d's agenda as well. China without G-d's intervention would have probably ruled the world. They are outstanding achievers on plateaus we admire, especially business, where they and Asia would control global commerce. But G-d made it that China and Asia were economically weak and secondary to the USA, but the N.W.O. reflective of their distance from G-d, failed to recognize the ultimate implications of making China and Asia strong. Ultimately they would undermine the N.W.O. single world government itself, and establish a little recognized historical fact that those from the Caucasian race are subject to defeat by the other races in the world. However, Caucasians who compromise a large segment of monotheism, who resided by necessity in the colder regions of the planet, received G-d intervention, and ironically the N.W.O., who today cause so many to turn their backs on G-d and promote hedonism, are replatforming China and Asia back into the place they would have otherwise held but for G-d's intervention. You may have to pause and think about this exclusive SenderBerl postulate, but in doing so, you come to recognize that the scope of the issues are multi-dimensional.

This postulate exhausted this group of men. While they stood by their position, I made them again aware that the issues before their noses were made by them to be as simplistic as the time when Israel said that G-d would help them destroy the evil Romans who wanted to destroy their connection with G-d. Biblical history attests that man must understand why Israel did not receive G-d's support against the Romans and why they lost big time and were expelled altogether from the land. Without such an understanding, man today has little chance of undertaking the correct course. If this group of men who know my position still only see it from one dimension, a narrow secular one, it seems more and more apparent that but for G-d's intervention, man will never see it, yet to say accept it.

Again, nations under monotheism throughout history either move to or away from G-d. When they move away from G-d they enter a portal to a dark and dire future. We are doing that and what personally upsets me is that Bush like Israel after the destruction of the two temples invokes war, battle, and mayhem, in G-d's name, to justify actions for good. The people of Israel when they waged war against Rome had very good reason to wage the war and believe that G-d would be on their side (even better reason than Bush does). However, they lost big and were thrown out of Israel.

G-d would never intervene for any nation following an agenda to dilute His name to nations declared by man to be worthy of attack and occupation. He surely will not allow them to enrich themselves from such an effort and endeavor and here demean His gift to nations continuing to make His name central to their government and lifestyle. This we knew in 1997 and 1998 (we knew it before then, but only published it in 97 and 98) and thus why Bush pounds the table in frustration. It is not that G-d is not with George Bush but George Bush opposes G-d. Between us, we know that Bush does not really believe in G-d. While he may pay homage at times to Him, no one who can order shock and awe and no one who could close down hospitals to wounded children, not to say allow troops to push buttons that kill and maim countless faceless children and innocents, can believe in G-d or truly desire to honor His name in the decisions he makes. Those decisions serve himself, his family and his cronies, first, second and third. G-d is nowhere to be found except where His name proves politically helpful.

Joseph Ehrlich
Sender, Berl & Sons Inc

Report: U.S. Lost 1.5 Mln Jobs to China in 1989-2003
Mood:  don't ask
Topic: Financial Woes
Original

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States lost nearly 1.5 million jobs between 1989 and 2003 because of increased trade with China, according to a report released on Tuesday by a government watchdog committee.

The report was prepared by the pro-labor Economic Policy Institute for the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, a congressionally-appointed panel that has pushed for a tough U.S. approach to China on trade.

The study estimates that imports from China displaced 1.659 million jobs between 1989 and 2003, while exports to that country generated only 199,000 additional U.S. jobs.

The job losses have accelerated and moved into unexpected new sectors as the trade deficit -- which reflects the gap between imports and exports -- with China skyrocketed to a record $124 billion in 2003, report author and EPI senior international trade economist Robert Scott said.

"The assumptions we built our trade relationship with China on have proved to be a house of cards. Everyone knew we would lose jobs in labor-intensive industries like textiles and apparel, but we thought we could hold our own in the capital-intensive, high-tech arena," Scott said in a statement.

The report puts a large portion of the blame for the growing U.S. trade deficit with China on that country's "refusal to revalue its exchange rate."

U.S. manufacturers and labor groups complain that Beijing's decade-old long practice of pegging its currency at 8.28 to the dollar gives Chinese companies an unfair advantage by artificially depressing the price of their goods.

Expected U.S. gains from Beijing's entry into the World Trade Organization in December 2001 "have yet to materialize" and instead China is increasingly competitive in more advanced sectors such as autos and aerospace where the United States has long had a big advantage, the report said.

Old-line industries such as textiles, apparel, furniture, rubber and leather have borne the brunt of the U.S. job losses, although computer, electronic, and semi-conductor sectors have seen China-related losses as well, the report said.

"It is hard to overstate the challenges posed by this export behemoth," the report said.

World On Brink Of Ruin
Mood:  quizzical
Topic: Financial Woes
World On Brink Of Ruin

Forbes | January 7, 2005
By Dan Ackman
NEW YORK - Alan Greenspan , that Matador of the Money Supply, the esteemed Impresario of Interest Rates, has suffered precious few slings or arrows over his many years as chairman of the Federal Reserve. Even the White House has had to offer its critiques off the record for fear of roiling the markets or upsetting the chairman's Elvis-in-Vegas-like following. So when the chief economist of one of the world's most prestigious banks calls Greenspan a bum, that's a big deal.

And yesterday it happened. Stephen Roach , the chief economist for Morgan Stanley & Co. (nyse: MWD -news -people ), one of the most powerful investment banks and one of the 50 largest companies in the world, says Greenspan has "driven the world to the economic brink."

Writing in an upcoming issue of Foreign Policy , Roach says that when Greenspan steps down as chairman of the Federal Reserve next year, he will leave behind a record foreign deficit and a generation of Americans with little savings and mountains of debt. Americans, Roach says, are far too dependent on the value of their assets, especially their homes, rather than on income-based savings; they are running a huge current-account deficit; and much of the resulting debt is now held by foreign countries, especially in Asia, which permits low interest rates and entices Americans into more debt.

The "economic brink" line is from the headline of a press release sent by Foreign Policy . In an interview this morning, Roach said, "That's a little extreme." He does admit the nation has prospered on Greenspan's watch. Still, he does not disavow the haymakers he directs at the chairman's chin.

"This is no way to run the global economy," Roach says. So far, the Fed has bucked the odds, Roach adds. But the longer the situation exists, the more chance there is that it will spell danger for the United States and the world.

Roach lays the blame for the peril at Greenspan's door. But first he takes out after his outsized reputation. Greenspan is not responsible for defeating inflation in the 1980s; Paul Volcker , his "tough and courageous predecessor," deserves more of the credit, Roach says. Greenspan's monetary policy deserves some accolades for the 1990s boom, but former President Bill Clinton 's fiscal policy and other factors were equally responsible, Roach says. Greenspan may deserve some praise for softening the recession that followed the stock market meltdown, Roach concedes, but the chairman's cure may result in "bigger problems down the road" and "the biggest bubble of all: residential property."

Many have credited Greenspan with saving the world following the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis. Time magazine went so far as to put the gnome of Constitution Avenue on its cover, under the headline "Committee to Save the World." Though it is the case that the world did not end, "In truth, the world weathered the Asian financial storm only to chart increasingly dangerous waters in the years that followed," Roach writes. "Global economic imbalances have intensified dramatically since 1999."

A good chunk of the U.S. prosperity is owed to these imbalances, Roach says: "Asian countries holding enormous stocks of U.S. dollars recycle this cash back into the United States by buying U.S. [Treasury bills]. This process effectively subsidizes U.S. interest rates, thus propping up U.S. asset markets and enticing American consumers into even more debt. Awash in newfound purchasing power, Americans then turn around and buy everything from Chinese-made DVD players to Japanese cars."

While the economist has nothing against DVD players, he does say, "Asia and Europe are increasingly dependent on overly indebted U.S. consumers, while those consumers are increasingly dependent on Asia's interest-rate subsidy. The longer these imbalances persist, the greater the likelihood of a sharp adjustment. A safer world? Not on your life."

Roach even questions Greenspan's political independence. He does not claim the chairman is a partisan Republican, but he does fault him for being a "cheerleader for policies such as tax cuts...that could make the endgame all the more treacherous."

Greenspan is to central banking what J. Edgar Hoover was to fighting crime. He will soon surpass the fondly forgotten William McChesney Martin as the longest-serving Fed chairman. But his term as a member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors expires in just over a year from now, and America will have to do without. Roach says, "Greenspan will be a tough act to follow." But the difficulty may not be living up to the chairman's reputation so much as cleaning up his mess.

How Much Rocket Fuel Is Safe For Children?
Mood:  incredulous
Topic: Environmental Politics
Drinking Water: How Much Rocket Fuel is Safe for Humans?

ETV | January 11, 2005

The Bush Administration appears to be making an attempt to allow more percholorate, a type of chemical found in rocket fuel, in our drinking water. The goal: to prevent a costly cleanup for military and aerospace companies.
The Pentagon has asked the National Academy of Sciences to create a panal to review how much percholorate is safe in drinking water. The Environmental Protection Agency had previously ruled that there should be no more than 1 part per billion of percholorate in drinking water to protect public safety. The Academy is trying to have that number increased to 20 times that amount.

Percholorate affects the hormone level in the thyroid gland. According to some studies, even small amounts of the substance can affect the brain development of small children. The affect is even greater if the water is ingested by pregnant women.

The Bush Administration was eager to side with the findings of the Academy and allow higher levels of percholorate in drinking water. 'We respect the (Academy) recommendations,' says Bob Hopkins of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. 'We will work with the agencies ... on how best to incorporate these findings into (regulatory) action.'

Environmental groups charge that 'The Academy was in a one-sided dialogue with just the industry folks and the Pentagon,' says Erik Olson of the Natural Resources Defense Council.

The final decision of the government has yet to be determined but all indications are that Americans will soon be drinking more chemicals in their water.

Reportedly According to Apparently Informed Sources (Keith Olbermann)
Mood:  mischievious
Topic: Inform Yourselves, People
NEW YORK — As of early Friday evening, at least 60 viewers and readers had forwarded me cut-and-pastes of— or links to— an amazingly intricate conspiracy theory on-line piece that intertwines the Presidential election, Homeland Security, the FBI, $29,000,000 in payoffs, Enron, and the Saudi Royal Family— seemingly everybody except the Visiting Nurse Association of Skaneateles, New York.

Each e-mail has come with the same question: could this possibly be true?

To summarize the story, Wayne Madsen, a former naval officer and now self-styled investigative journalist, has written that “according to informed sources in Washington and Houston,” computer experts were promised phenomenal amounts of cash, laundered via Saudi Arabia and the secret accounts of those who looted Enron, to pose as FBI and Homeland Security agents, infiltrate polling places around the country, and hack into electronic voting systems.

After Iran-Contra, nobody can discount the theoretical possibility of any international conspiracy to commit… well, to commit anything. But in the absence of verifiable facts, and in the middle of a sea of unidentified sources and usage of the words “reportedly” and “apparently,” it is often instructive to see if the writer, and the mere journalistic structure of what he’s written, can even maintain what artists like to call “verisimilitude” - the mere appearance of truth.

And as a work of journalism, the Madsen piece has several glaring problems that make even a doubter like myself cringe.

Mr. Madsen’s only readily recognizable germ of truth comes in the third paragraph of his piece: “There have been media reports from around the country concerning the locking down of precincts while votes were being tallied.” He then retells the still inexplicable walling off of the Administration Building in Warren County, Ohio, on the night of the election, on the pretext of a terror warning from the FBI that the FBI has since declared it never made.

But that has been the only such report of a “lock down.”

Madsen does not offer, nor has the media or even the Internet reported, any other examples - even unverified ones.

The Palm Beach Post reported last month that 73 schools which doubled as polling places in Palm Beach County, Florida, were to belocked down during voting— locked down in the sense that kids were to be escorted by teachers from class to class, and even to the bathroom. Additionally, the Associated Press and several other news organizations reported that Florida’s State Election Headquarters in Tallahassee was evacuated on the morning of Monday, November 1st, due to a suspicious package, and workers not permitted to return— locked out— until just before noon.

But short of those two examples— neither of which Mr. Madsen cites— his “media reports from around the country concerning the locking down of precincts while votes were being tallied,” are all the same: about Warren County. Journalistically, this is the equivalent of a news account of the unfortunate man who’s been hit by lightning six times, being inflated into “media reports from around the country concerning people being hit by lightning six times each.”

If there are other lockdown cases, Mr. Madsen should verify and report them.

It is also useful in these situations to look at an author’s other work. On October 20th, in what to the best of my knowledge was Mr. Madsen’s previous jaw-dropper, he wrote “Bush pre-election strike on Iran ‘imminent.’” This time the piece began: “According to White House and Washington Beltway insiders…”

Mr. Madsen then told of a blood-curdling plan for the U.S. to strike top Iranian Islamic leaders, a series of mosques, nuclear research sites, and at least one nuclear reactor - all of it to be accomplished before November 2, thus making the President “assured of a landslide win against Kerry.”

Now, I don’t claim to know everything in the news, but if we had bombed Teheran late last month, I think somebody would have mentioned it to me.

Returning to the current article, Mr. Madsen also strains logic in one very important area. It is his claim that “the leak about the money and the rigged election apparently came from technicians who were promised to be paid a certain amount for their work but the Bush campaign interlocutors reneged and some of the technicians are revealing the nature of the vote rigging program.”

There’s a discouraging journalistic fact here. Mr. Madsen has distanced himself further from the purported original source of the information (his “informed sources” “reportedly” got this from the “technicians”), to the point where this information is now, at best, third-hand.

And there is a hole in the center of this saga big enough to sink the plot of a Bruce Willis movie — the means by which the information came to see the light of day.

If untold numbers of operatives really were dispatched to polling places around the country to enact the most nefarious political plot in this country’s history, why would the ring-leaders reveal to any of them any of the following:

The total amount spent on the plan (Madsen drops the $29 million dollar figure in the first sentence)?
The primary source of the carefully laundered cash (Madsen sites “Five Star Trust”)?
The sources of “other money used to fund the election rigging” (Madsen lists “siphoned Enron money stored away in accounts in the Cook Islands”)?
Most importantly, having told their minions all of this damning information, having sent them out on an evil mission that if exposed could overturn an election and require the building of extra prisons just to hold all those who would be convicted in such an overarching scheme, why on earth would they try toget away with not paying them?

None of this is written to downplay the disturbing nature of the Warren County incident. Nor is it posited even to dismiss the many who see in the various failures of electronic voting around the country nearly four weeks ago not just incompetence, but malfeasance. Hell, if a shred of Mr. Madsen’s story is true, I’ll pay his expenses when he goes to pick up his Pulitzer Prize.

But in a time when serious investigations of what did or didn’t happen on November 2nd are vital to the sanctity of our voting process, reporting— in the mainstream media and on the Internet alike— has to be solid and reasoned.

I’d have to put Mr. Madsen’s story in the same category as the on-line report that I had been fired by MSNBC on November 12th for attempting to cover voting irregularities.

I might add as an additional caution that I just saw that report posted anew on another Website. And apparently I’m still standing.

Camps for Citizens: Ashcroft's Hellish Vision
Mood:  incredulous
Topic: Bill of Rights
Attorney general shows himself as a menace to liberty

LA Times 08/14/02: Jonathon Turley

Original Link: http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/opinion/la-oe-turley14aug14.story (members only)

Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft's announced desire for camps for U.S. citizens he deems to be "enemy combatants" has moved him from merely being a political embarrassment to being a constitutional menace.

Ashcroft's plan, disclosed last week but little publicized, would allow him to order the indefinite incarceration of U.S. citizens and summarily strip them of their constitutional rights and access to the courts by declaring them enemy combatants.

The proposed camp plan should trigger immediate congressional hearings and reconsideration of Ashcroft's fitness for this important office. Whereas Al Qaeda is a threat to the lives of our citizens, Ashcroft has become a clear and present threat to our liberties.

The camp plan was forged at an optimistic time for Ashcroft's small inner circle, which has been carefully watching two test cases to see whether this vision could become a reality. The cases of Jose Padilla and Yaser Esam Hamdi will determine whether U.S. citizens can be held without charges and subject to the arbitrary and unchecked authority of the government.

Hamdi has been held without charge even though the facts of his case are virtually identical to those in the case of John Walker Lindh. Both Hamdi and Lindh were captured in Afghanistan as foot soldiers in Taliban units. Yet Lindh was given a lawyer and a trial, while Hamdi rots in a floating Navy brig in Norfolk, Va.

This week, the government refused to comply with a federal judge who ordered that he be given the underlying evidence justifying Hamdi's treatment. The Justice Department has insisted that the judge must simply accept its declaration and cannot interfere with the president's absolute authority in "a time of war."

In Padilla's case, Ashcroft initially claimed that the arrest stopped a plan to detonate a radioactive bomb in New York or Washington, D.C. The administration later issued an embarrassing correction that there was no evidence Padilla was on such a mission. What is clear is that Padilla is an American citizen and was arrested in the United States--two facts that should trigger the full application of constitutional rights.

Ashcroft hopes to use his self-made "enemy combatant" stamp for any citizen whom he deems to be part of a wider terrorist conspiracy.

Perhaps because of his discredited claims of preventing radiological terrorism, aides have indicated that a "high-level committee" will recommend which citizens are to be stripped of their constitutional rights and sent to Ashcroft's new camps.

Few would have imagined any attorney general seeking to reestablish such camps for citizens. Of course, Ashcroft is not considering camps on the order of the internment camps used to incarcerate Japanese American citizens in World War II. But he can be credited only with thinking smaller; we have learned from painful experience that unchecked authority, once tasted, easily becomes insatiable.

We are only now getting a full vision of Ashcroft's America. Some of his predecessors dreamed of creating a great society or a nation unfettered by racism. Ashcroft seems to dream of a country secured from itself, neatly contained and controlled by his judgment of loyalty.

For more than 200 years, security and liberty have been viewed as coexistent values. Ashcroft and his aides appear to view this relationship as lineal, where security must precede liberty.

Since the nation will never be entirely safe from terrorism, liberty has become a mere rhetorical justification for increased security.

Ashcroft is a catalyst for constitutional devolution, encouraging citizens to accept autocratic rule as their only way of avoiding massive terrorist attacks.

His greatest problem has been preserving a level of panic and fear that would induce a free people to surrender the rights so dearly won by their ancestors.

In "A Man for All Seasons," Sir Thomas More was confronted by a young lawyer, Will Roper, who sought his daughter's hand. Roper proclaimed that he would cut down every law in England to get after the devil.

More's response seems almost tailored for Ashcroft: "And when the last law was down and the devil turned round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? ... This country's planted thick with laws from coast to coast ... and if you cut them down--and you are just the man to do it--do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then?"

Every generation has had Ropers and Ashcrofts who view our laws and traditions as mere obstructions rather than protections in times of peril. But before we allow Ashcroft to denude our own constitutional landscape, we must take a stand and have the courage to say, "Enough."

Every generation has its test of principle in which people of good faith can no longer remain silent in the face of authoritarian ambition. If we cannot join together to fight the abomination of American camps, we have already lost what we are defending.

New School Democrat
Mood:  hungry
Topic: Bored Quizzes

You Are a New School Democrat

You like partying and politics - and are likely to be young and affluent. You're less religious, traditional, and uptight than most Democrats. Smoking pot, homosexuality, and gambling are all okay in your book. You prefer that the government help people take care of themselves.

Government Looking at Military Draft Lists
Topic: Impending Draft
Government Looking at Military Draft Lists
Brownsville Herald | November 17 2004
t’s taken one year, seven months and 19 days of combat in Iraq for the Lone Star State to lose 100 of its own.

Texas is the second state, after California, to lose 100 service members, according to The Associated Press.

With continuing war in Iraq and U.S. armed forces dispersed to so many other locations around the globe, Americans may be wondering if compulsory military service could begin again for the first time since the Vietnam War era.

The Selective Service System (SSS) and the U.S. Department of Education now are gearing up to compare their computer records, to make sure all men between the ages of 18 and 25 who are required to register for a military draft have done so.

The SSS and the education department will begin comparing their lists on Jan. 1, 2005, according to a memo authored by Jack Martin, acting Selective Service director.

While similar record checks have been done periodically for the past 10 years, Martin’s memo is dated Oct. 28, just a few days before the Nov. 2 presidential election, a hard-fought campaign in which the question of whether the nation might need to reinstate a military draft was raised in debates and on the stump.

Read More...

Doggett said one type of “draft” was already being used by the military.

“I’m concerned that a very real form of the draft is there now for those already in the service,” Doggett said. “People are being forced to stay in beyond their commitment, and that’s an indication of being overextended.

“I want us to pursue policies that don’t overextend us and involve more international participation, so that Americans don’t have to do all the dying and endure all the pain for these international activities,” Doggett said.

Flahavan said the computer records check would help Selective Service with its compliance rates.

“From 1999 to 2000, it was dropping about a percent a year,” Flahavan said. “It’s now inching back up about a percent a year. Last year it was 93 percent.

“At the end of 2004 we anticipate about a 94 percent compliance rate,” Flahavan said. “We’re pleased we’ve got it back on the rise and that’s where we want to keep it — that’s our goal.”

Draft Gear Up?
Who Has To Register?
All male U.S. citizens and male aliens living in the U.S. between the ages of 18 and 25
Dual nationals of the U.S. and another country, regardless of where they live
Young men who are in prison or mental institutions do not have to regsiter while they are committed, but must do so if they are released and not reached age 26
Disabled men who live at home and can move about indiependently.
Myths
Contrary to popular belief, only sons and the last son to carry a family name must register and they can be drafted.
What Happens In A Draft
Congress would likely approve a military draft in a time of crisis, in which the mission requires more troops than are in the volunteer military.
Selective Service procedures would treat married men or those with children the same as single men.
The first men to be called up will be those whose 20th birthday falls during that year, followed by those age 21, 22, 23,24 and 25.
The last men to be called are 18 and 19 years of age.
Historical Facts
The last man to be drafted was in June 1973.
Number of Drafted for WWI : 2.8 million
Number of Drafted for WWII: 10 million
Number of Drafted for the Korean War: 1.5 million
Number of Drafted for the Vietnam War: 1.8 million
Source: Selective Service System

Dictator Bush - The Time to Be Scared Is NOW
Mood:  don't ask
Topic: Save Democracy
Mysterious ‘George W. Bush: Our Leader’ Clear Channel Political Public Service Billboard Graces Orlando Freeway



Raw Story | November 22 2004

A billboard recently put up in Orlando bearing a smiling photograph of President Bush with the words “Our Leader” is raising eyebrows among progressives who feel the poster is akin to that of propaganda used by tyrannical regimes.

RAW STORY confirmed the billboard’s existence Monday evening. At our behest, a member of an Orlando media organization drove past the billboard on two occasions and verified that it was indeed the one pictured.

The billboard pictured, which is on I-4, says that it is a “political public service message brought to you by Clear Channel Outdoor.”

The member, who declined to be named out of concern for their employer, discovered a second billboard bearing the same image along the same route, paid for by Charles W. Clayton Jr.

Clear Channel Outdoor Orlando said they could not respond to requests for comment this week because their press person was “away.” They referred calls to their San Antonio corporate parent, which did not return two messages for comment.

One Orlando resident penned a concerned letter to the (registration-restricted) Orlando Sentinel on Saturday about the billboard. As the site is restricted to members, the letter appears below.

“The first thing I thought was, when was the last time I have seen a president on a billboard?” wrote resident Dianna Lawson. “Didn’t Saddam Hussein have his picture up everywhere? What next, a statue?”

Reporters at the Orlando Sentinel told RAW STORY they’d also seen the photograph.

Others said they’d seen a similar sign in Jacksonville along I-95.

“We don’t do political advertising,” said Clear Channel sales representative Brad Parsons in Jacksonville. He said the photograph was bogus.

A second Jacksonville rep acknowledged the company did political advertising but only when paid for by a third party. When asked if he would look at the picture for verification, he declined to give out his email address.

The posted was first noticed by the liberal forum Democratic Underground.

Developing… Additional photographs forthcoming…

The letter in the Orlando Sentinel:

Billboard message

On my way to work Wednesday morning, I looked up and saw a giant billboard with a picture of George W. Bush and the words “OUR LEADER” under it. The first thing I thought was, when was the last time I have seen a president on a billboard? What is going on? Didn’t Saddam Hussein have his picture up everywhere? What next, a statue?

I am so concerned with our country and the division. I still stand by my vote, which was for John Kerry. George W. Bush has a lot of work to do to change the way I feel. Putting him up on a billboard does not make him a better president. His actions speak louder than words.

I wonder if anyone else finds the president’s picture on a billboard odd? I’m sorry, but it reminds me of countries with dictators, and it seems people are making him out to be the messiah, the savior of our world.

Fear, fear, fear. I’m tired of being afraid.

Dianna Lawson
Orlando

---------------------------

GUESS WHO ELSE HAS BILLBOARDS! THAT'S RIGHT! KIM JONG-IL AND SADDAM HUSSEIN!

Watch Out England, You're Next
Mood:  incredulous
Topic: Privacy
The home secretary has outlined plans for more far-reaching measures to tackle terrorism.

The proposals include special anti-terror courts without juries and the use of phone-tap evidence in trials.

David Blunkett told ITV1's Jonathan Dimbleby programme that any new legislation would wait until after the next general election.

But human rights group Liberty accused the government of resorting to "draconian law and order measures".

The home secretary said new civil orders were being considered which could be imposed against people suspected of "acts preparatory to terrorism" even if they had not committed an offence.


He said the breach of such orders would be a criminal offence which could result in imprisonment.

"We'd be able to use civil law, like anti-social behaviour orders, to say, 'If you step outside what we've precluded you from doing, if you, for instance, use this particular banking network... then we can move you from the civil into the criminal law', and then we can use the normal criminal justice process, " he said.

Read More...

BBC political correspondent Carole Walker said legislation will also be announced to set up a system of identity cards.

There will also be more measures to crack down on binge drinking.

Original