QUOTE:
80 Eyes on 2,400 People :
If terrorists come to tiny Dillingham, Alaska, security cameras
will be ready. But privacy concerns have residents up in arms
http://ktla.trb.com/news/la-na-secure28mar28,0,422794.story?coll=ktla-news-1
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QUOTE:
Sheila Samples :
9/11 -- Eliminating The Impossible.:
I said I'd never do it -- say what I think about
that terrible morning of September 11, 2001. I've
seen what happens to those who question the elaborate,
tangled explanations the Bush administration
offers about what happened, how it happened,
who did it
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article12571.htm
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QUOTE:
Explosive Testimony:
Revelations about the Twin Towers in the 9/11 Oral Histories:
An interview with Professor David Ray Griffin
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article12564.htm
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QUOTE:
Long Live The 9/11 Conspiracy! :
Anyone still care about the heap of disturbing, unsolved
questions surrounding Our Great Tragedy?
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article12562.htm
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QUOTE:
Iran: Scenarios of an American strike
The risks are great if Washington's neo-cons choose
military options to prevent Iran from blocking
US imperial designs for the Middle East
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2006/788/special.htm
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QUOTE:
Soviets “R” US
by Zbignew Zingh
Who really won the Cold War? Why does it matter?
After the Great Reagan Rapture that occurred after
the Gipper's death in 2004, it behooves us to reflect
on who was the victor and who the vanquished when
the post WWII conflict known colloquially as the
“Cold War” fizzled to its conclusion. Obviously, from
a geo-political perspective, the clear “winner” was the U.S.A.
I do not mean the American people were the “winner,”
but, rather, that those who own most of, and who make
all the important decisions in this country, were the
hands down winners. As for the rest of American's citizens,
however, the matter is more complicated.
Remember, first of all, that the Soviet Union that
crashed in the latter decades of the 20th Century
was hardly a bastion of “Marxism”. The political,
economic and social systems that existed at the end
of the Soviet Union's life were as close to its communist
roots as, dare we say, America's current brand of
“constitutional government” resembles that laid out
by its founders. There is a popular perception among
Americans -- a perception nurtured by our culture
conformity machines -- that the Cold War was worth
the effort, and that the outcome was a foregone conclusion
because “we” had the superior political, economic and social
systems and “they” had inferior ones. That is, so goes
the popular wisdom, “we” are still here as the Cold War
victors, and “they”, the Soviet losers, have disappeared.
However, although the Soviet Union is truly gone, has
not its DNA gotten into us? Take, for example, the hallmark
“one party rule” that characterized the 20th Century
SU Here, in the United States of the 21st Century, do
we now have anything different? The Republicans control
all three branches of government and they are busy
stocking the federal judiciary with life-time appointments
who meet Republican litmus tests. Although one can
argue that the Democrats and the Republicans are
“different” parties, there is no dispute that the core
power brokers in both parties closely resemble one
another. Both parties' financial lifeblood come from
the same corporate and upper class donors, both parties
tread lightly around the same special interest groups.
Neither party offers anything different than gradations
of the same elite-oriented policies. It is not terribly novel
to state that the Democrats and the Republicans are
merely different shades of the same party.
Even within the context of the elections that are held
in the United States, can we seriously contrast what we
have today with what the Soviets had in their day? There
are barely any contested elections at the local level in
America, just like in the Soviet Union. And at the
national level, the Republican and the Democrats do
their level best to keep off the ballot anyone who is not
vetted and approved by their think-alike national
committees. Thus, in America, too, we can choose only
from an approved list of candidates, just like Soviet
citizens of yore. There, the voters' choices were restricted
by the Party. Here, the parties restrict the candidates
to the lesser of two similar evils. The quality of
“choice” seems remarkably 'soviet'.
Of course, in the old Soviet Union one never knew
whether your vote was even counted. This is 21st
Century America: after the Florida 2000
disenfranchisement of the African-American voter
and our blind rush to install unverifiable Black Box
computerized voting machines, do we need to pursue
that comparison any deeper?
Citizens of the old SU knew that theirs was a
society of widespread domestic surveillance and
eavesdropping. 21st Century America, have
you not become the same? Who listens to your
digital phone calls? Who monitors your email?
Who tracks where you travel on which airlines,
what you buy at the bookstore and where you
use your credit cards?
In the Soviet Union, people... even Citizens...
could be arrested in the dead of night, disappear,
and never be seen again. There was no right of
'habeas corpus'. It is 2004 in America. People...
even citizens... have been arrested in the dead of
night, they disappear never to be seen again, and
you literally have no right of 'habeas corpus.' Are
our rights today any stronger than those of citizens
in the old Soviet Union? There was virtually no free
speech in Soviet times. Do we have free speech
when it can only be exercised in razor wire enclosed
“free speech zones?”
The Kremlin surrounded the Motherland with a
chain of totalitarian satellite countries that protected
its geopolitical interests. The White House now guards
its geopolitical interests with a global chain of totalitarian
satellite countries. We even station our soldiers in
those countries to guarantee their obeisance, just like
the Soviet Union did with its soldiers stationed in its
satellite states.
Diplomacy was not the strong suit of the old Soviet
Union. Some will recall Nikita Khrushchev banging
his shoe on the podium while addressing the United
Nations. They would 'bury us' capitalists with their
superior politico-economic system, said Mr. Khrushchev.
Now, George Bush and his minions shake their fists
at the United Nations and insist that Western
Judeo-Christian Capitalism will bury Islam and all
other opposition in the world. Our respective applications
of diplomacy, therefore, are not very different, are they?
The Soviet Union was known for its seamless welding
of the State and the Economy. In America, unless
State and Economy have been welded together, too.
Our stock and commodity markets are as manipulated
as hand puppets, and the hands within the puppets are
the Federal Reserve Bank, the Treasury Department,
the various federal commodities trading boards, the
national reserve banks, the network of interlocking
Fortune 500 boards of directors, a few ex-officio
committees and a handful of financial moguls. Many
in America believe that what the Fed Chairman does
and says on any given day dictates what any investor
should buy or sell, and they believe that the manipulated
highs and lows of the stock exchanges give the signal
whether to buy stock or to sell. Curiously, however,
the same ones who believe that will also profess the
double-think that we have a 'free market economy'.
Our 'free market economy' is as manipulated as
was the Soviet 'government economy'. For better
or for worse, there is no Adam Smith 'invisible hand'
directing our economy today – there are only
invisible puppeteer hands, just like in the old controlled
economies of the Soviet Block. In the Soviet Union,
huge, state-sanctioned companies dominated the
country and the business of the little people. In
America of the 21st Century, is not the same just
as true? The 'state imprimatur' is not as visible with
Microsoft or Boeing or Fox or Hearst or DuPont or
Monsanto or Bechtel or Westinghouse or GE or Disney,
but are they not, in the government's tacit approval
of their virtual stranglehold on their respective markets,
state-sanctioned companies as huge and as stifling and
as powerful as any were in Soviet Russia?
The Soviet Union was derided for its manipulation
of economic statistics. Its Three, Five and Ten Year
Plans were the butt of capitalists' jokes. Why do we
in the United States not laugh when today we are fed
distorted and misleading economic data and statistics?
We are told good jobs are being created when we know
that you need to work three of them just to pay the rent.
We are told that globalization creates work as our jobs
are outsourced, our wages decreased and our pensions
devalued. We are told our incomes are rising while it
seems like we have less disposable income every year.
We are told in the financial pages of the newspaper
that oil prices in 2004, though high, are relatively
cheap when compared to the 1970s when the price
of oil is adjusted for inflation. At the same time, on
another page of the same newspaper, we are told
that nothing really costs more than before because
there is virtually no inflation. Are America's citizens,
therefore, conned no less than were the Soviet Citizens
by an endless stream of misleading, manipulated
economic data and statistics?
And for the sake of industry, what did the Soviet
Union do to Mother Russia's environment? It trashed
it, utterly, wantonly, recklessly. And for the sake of
profit, what does America today do to Mother Earth?
It trashes it, utterly, wantonly, recklessly.
There was religion in the Soviet Empire. There was
a state-sanctioned orthodox church run by state
approved leaders who urged submission to the
will of the Government. In the 21st Century
American Empire, are we trending toward
state-sanctioned religion where approved churches
get 'vouchers' and government funding for
'good works', and where craven religious leaders
urge their flock to Kill and Maim and Conquer for
Caesar, in the name of God?
In the Soviet Union it was hard to know what
was the truth. The media was consolidated in
the hands of a few. The choice in newspapers,
television and radio media was pathetic. Do we
really need to compare the consolidated media
of 21st Century America with the Soviet Union?
The similarities make us wonder.
As the dying Soviet Union collapsed on itself,
its social systems, its very quality of life began
to decay. What of us, America, in the early 21st
Century? Our public schools collapse and we
have no money for our teachers. Our libraries,
our roads, our medical care system, our railroads,
our inner cities, our social safety nets, our
universities, all are slowly starving for lack of
funds. Many countries top the U.S. now in the
quality of education, child mortality, vacation
time, medical care and social support systems.
You can see America's decay just as you could
see it in the waning days of the Soviet Empire.
In the SU, life expectancy began to trend downward.
It is trending downward in America too. You can
feel it, you can see it, you can hear it in conversation
everywhere.
The Soviets had their Gulags. Now, we have
Abu Ghraib. Camp X-Ray in Guantanamo Bay.
Secret prisons in Afghanistan, Diego Garcia and
Camp Bondsteel. Are not people held in secret right
here in the United States, without charge, without bond,
without access to counsel? How are we different
from the Soviets and their prison camps? Were
their tortures qualitatively worse? Are our
'intentions' qualitatively better? On close examination,
the similarities are stronger than the differences.
The Soviets developed a cult of heroes. Immense
heroes of the Revolution. Larger than life political
leaders. They had cults of adoration for the designated
governmental figurehead. And what of America,
vintage 2004? We have our strutting warrior hero
president, our manly-jawed Terminator governor,
our cultish, fawning legions of leader-worshipers
who will brook no dissent and tolerate no slight of
Our Rulers' reputations or intentions. It is all
very Soviet, is it not?
There was a curious feature of the Soviet soul as
that empire's star began to set. Its people became
depressed. They became withdrawn. They became
apathetic as they waited, sourly, for The Fall. Look
around you, America. Look deeply into the eyes and
souls of your compatriots. How are you and they
feeling? How are you and they acting? What is your
personal expectation for the future?
Look in the mirror. Do you see a Soviet Citizen?
It is the end of the Cold War. We have met the
Soviet Empire, and we became them.
Zbignew Zingh can be reached at Zbig@ersarts.com.
This Article is CopyLeft, and free to distribute, reprint,
repost, sing at a recital, spray paint, scribble in a toilet
stall, etc. to your heart’s content, with proper author
citation. Find out more about Copyleft and read other
great articles at www.ersarts.com.
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