- I want to start by saying I do not believe in Apocalyptic
prophecy. I don't believe in taking the words found in Bronze Age books
as the verbatim word of any deity. But I DO believe we're in for one Hell
of a ride over the next few years.
There are some who still insist I'm overreacting in my complaints about
US Foreign and Domestic policies, and that thing's aren't as bad as I make
them out to be. I complained that HR 1646 (the Patriot Act) was going
to lead to trouble, and that there would be more fascist legislation on
the way. Then came HR 5170 (The Homeland Security Act), which was even
worse.
What people should take note of is that the Chinese government just tried
to pass the same kind of legislation in Hong Kong. People took to the
streets in large numbers to protest the legislation, and the Chinese government
listened. The legislation has been watered down.
http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGAW2T0QHBD.html
HONG KONG (AP) - After stirring up a huge political fight with a planned
anti-subversion law, Hong Kong government leaders on Tuesday announced
a scaled-back version that appeared intended to appease critics who fear
for the territory's freedoms.
-
- Opposition lawmaker Cyd Ho said the government seemed
to have backed down amid massive public discontent, but she would remain
skeptical until she sees "the fine print" of the latest plan.
-
- "If people didn't react so strongly these past three
months, these clarifications or compromises would not have happened at
all," Ho said.
-
- Tens of thousands have protested against the law, which
has drawn criticism from business leaders and foreign governments in addition
to the usual human rights activists who grumble that Hong Kong's government
acts like a puppet to Beijing.
-
- I don't recall seeing a single major street protest against
either HR1646 or HR5170. Likewise in Canada, not a single street protest
against Bills C24, C35, C36, and C42. We know not what we do.
Media censorship runs rampant. Even Dan Rather has admitted that the American
media is engaged in heavy self-censorship.
<http://thememoryhole.org/media/rather.htm>http://thememoryhole.org/media/rather.htm
It is an obscene comparison--you know, I am not sure I like it--but you
know there was a time in South Africa that people would put flaming tires
around people's necks if they dissented. And in some ways the fear is that
you will be necklaced here, you will have a flaming tire of lack of patriotism
put around your neck. Now it is that fear that keeps journalists from asking
the toughest of the tough questions, and to continue to bore in on the
tough questions so often. And again, I am humbled to say, I do not except
myself from this criticism.
-
- What we are talking about here--whether one wants to
recognize it or not, or call it by its proper name or not--is a form of
self-censorship. It starts with a feeling of patriotism within oneself.
It carries through with a certain knowledge that the country as a whole--and
for all the right reasons--felt and continues to feel this surge of patriotism
within themselves. And one finds oneself saying: "I know the right
question, but you know what? This is not exactly the right time to ask
it."
-
- There has never been an American war, small or large,
in which access has been so limited as this one. Limiting access, limiting
information to cover the backsides of those who are in charge of the war,
is extremely dangerous and cannot and should not be accepted. And I am
sorry to say that up to and including the moment of this interview, that
overwhelmingly it has been accepted by the American people. And the current
administration revels in that, they relish that, and they take refuge in
that.
-
- In British universities, they have something that's called
the D-Code. It's an unwritten 'law', essentially a code of etiquette,
that is suggested to the students in the high profile schools. A family
member who went through the British system explained this to me in great
detail.
-
- Basically, the students are given a set of informal guidelines
as to what's 'improper' to discuss if one wants to advance to the upper
echelons of society as a British lawyer, politician, or journalist. They're
made to understand that certain issues are sensitive and not in the national
interest to talk about. If you want to move up in station and be one of
the 'boys', you don't talk about certain things. It's not a law, but it's
self-imposed censorship; the guidelines of which are openly discussed in
the posh schools.
-
- Dan Rather is saying the same thing is now happening
in America, and admits that he too is guilty of adopting a policy of self-censorship.
-
- But we're going beyond self-censorship and into the era
of the Freedom From Information Act. The Bush family is trying to create
a great big memory hole where World War II, Korea, and Vietnam used to
be. They're trying to do the same to Election 2000.
-
- I strongly recommend reading the story at the URL below.
-
- http://thememoryhole.org/pol/florida-ballots.htm
-
- According to the Memory Hole and Palm Beach Post, the
Election 2000 ballots are probably going to be destroyed in June. Doh.
I guess they REALLY don't want that recount to happen, even if it's not
for another century or two after the Bush family is dead and gone. They
want to rewrite history and destroy their legacy of Nazi collaboration,
drug dealing, and political corruption.
-
- Between Nixon, Ford, Reagan and Bush 41, four GOP Presidents
managed to reduce the budget for the National Archives by 99%. The result
of this has been that getting the millions of pieces of paper from WW II
declassified is STILL not complete. I could be mistaken, but I believe
they're still working on the 1940's, and haven't even gotten to Korea or
Vietnam yet.
-
- Some of you are probably thinking I'm wrong because you've
seen paper from Korea and Vietnam. Well, this is because someone has made
a request for those papers, and managed to bump the requested papers to
the front of the line. If no one requests specific papers using the Freedom
of Information Act, the people at the National Research Archive just keep
chugging along, using the declassification guidelines suggested by the
DOD Historical Records Declassification Advisory Panel. They do so in
more or less chronological order.
-
- During the Clinton era, there was a flurry of activity
in declassifying government documents. He signed an Executive Order that
mandated the release of all documents 25 years old or older, and got various
departments of government busy creating guidelines for what to declassify
ASAP. This is one occasion where an Executive Order was actually put to
good use.
-
- According to History News Network, the Bush administration
has now shut down the DOD Historical Records Declassification Advisory
Panel.
-
- http://hnn.us/comments/7561.html#records
-
- No new guidelines, no new important paper on WW II and
Wall Street's collaboration with Adolph Hitler. No more paper on Prescott
Bush and his collaboration with Nazis, let alone paper on G H W Bush and
Iran Contra. The Bush legacy is safe from further damage, for now.
-
- This goes along with Bush's earlier reversal of the Clinton
policies, which goes back to before 9/11/01. Bush and Ashcroft have reversed
the government's stance, and now take the position that rather than finding
reasons to release documents, departments of government should try and
find reasons NOT to release documents. John Ashcroft has guaranteed that
he will back any government employee blocking the release of documents.
-
- I think it is fair to say that we now live in the age
of the Freedom From Information Act.
-
- Go back to sleep. Sleep is dark. Dark is good. Embrace
the dark. Eat more fertilizer from FOX News. Do not adjust your TV set.
You need no conscience. TV is your conscience. Be a mushroom, not a
whiner. Join the crew. You'll love it. It's a way of life!
-
- As if that wasn't enough, we now have a parallel to the
early days of Germany under Hitler. Hitler conducted a program of Jewish
control, where Jews had to register with the government. Today, Muslims
are being fingerprinted and ordered to show up for questioning and registration
with the INS.
-
-
- And now, Robert Mueller is taking an inventory of Mosques
in America.
www.msnbc.com/news/864367.asp
"AS PART OF the effort, NEWSWEEK has learned, Mueller's top aides
have directed chiefs of the bureau's 56 field offices to develop 'demographic'
profiles of their localities - including tallying the number of mosques..."
Field offices learned of the new project earlier this month when they received
a six-page questionnaire that, in a section headlined VULNERABILITY, asked
about the number of mosques in their communities. When FBI executive assistant
director Wilson Lowery Jr. briefed congressional staffers on the project
last week, and explained that mosque tallies would be used to help set
investigative goals, 'there were a lot of eyebrows that went up,' said
one of those present. The approach raised concerns that the FBI was engaging
in a new form of religious 'profiling.' "It's frightening to hear
that this is actual policy," said Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the
Council on American Islamic Relations. "This just shows how they are
viewing every Islamic community in the country with suspicion.
To be fair, they're not asking the infamous Jewish Question. They're asking
the Muslim Question instead. As Reverend Niemoller said, first, they came
for the Communists. America came for them a long time ago, under McCarthy.
They're onto trade unionists now, with all this invoking of the Taft Hartley
Act during Labor Disputes, and the union busting in HR 5170. And at the
same time, they're after the Muslims, many of whom are Semites.
Let me defend that last statement. Semite refers to people descended from
Shem. Shem beget the Jewish people, but those who know their Bible know
that Shem also beget Joktan, who beget many of today's Arabs, Egyptians,
and Muslims in general. There are more Semitic Muslims than Semitic Jews,
but both are Semitic. The Palestinians, Syrians, Lebanese, Jordanians,
and many Egyptians are ALL Semitic people.
If all us people don't start opposing this nonsense, pretty soon there'll
be no one left to speak out for you and me. Well, probably me before most
of you, but there you have it.
I'm sure there are many who will scoff and say the Jews had it much worse
in Germany. And they did. MUCH worse. But it didn't happen overnight
in Germany either. Fascism has this tendency of sneaking up on you via
mission creep.
Signs of the Apocalypse? Maybe not.
But it was a cute title.
Anyway, see you at camp!
STATE OF THE UNION
Hats off to Karen Hughes for writing a fantastic piece of political spin.
Much better than the dribble that was being written for Bush these last
few months. But I still have to rate the speech somewhere between, 'bogus,
dude', and 'most heinous'.
Let's start with the positive things, which Bush SHOULD be given credit
for if he follows through.
-
- "1.2 billion dollars in research funding so that
America can lead the world in developing clean, hydrogen-powered automobiles.
-
- A simple chemical reaction between hydrogen and oxygen
generates energy, which can be used to power a car producing only water,
not exhaust fumes. With a new national commitment, our scientists and engineers
will overcome obstacles to taking these cars from laboratory to showroom
so that the first car driven by a child born today could be powered by
hydrogen, and pollution-free. Join me in this important innovation to make
our air significantly cleaner, and our country much less dependent on foreign
sources of energy."
-
- Bush has committed more than a billion dollars to research
and development of a sustainable, renewable energy source. I applaud him
for this. I just wish it were a more significant amount of money. Why
can't we spend the same amount on saving the world through finding SUSTAINABLE
energy sources that we spend on invading other people's countries for an
UNSUSTAINABLE resource?
Even if Bush pulls off the Iraq war for 60 billion, which he won't, it
means he's spending 50 times as much money pursuing a dead end as he is
trying to find a solution to the dead end trap.
Does this make sense for anyone except Exxon, Chevron, BP, Unocal, and
G W Bush?
Bush also talked about AIDS.
-
- "I ask the Congress to commit 15 billion dollars
over the next five years, including nearly ten billion dollars in new money,
to turn the tide against AIDS in the most afflicted nations of Africa and
the Caribbean."
-
- Again, he's to be commended for this, even if more could
be done. It's a big step in the right direction, if the bill makes it
through Congress. IF the bill passes, Bono and the AIDS activists will
get 4/5 of what they asked for, which is pretty darn good.
What bothers me about the AIDS money is that it's a pound of cure. Those
who know about the Special Virus Cancer Program Report Number Eight know
what I'm talking about. If you don't know, you should. Do a Google on:
SVCP AIDS Gallo Visna HTLV
This State of the Union Address was a brilliant piece of political writing.
As good as it gets. Every major voting demographic got to hear what they
wanted to hear. Karen Hughes did an amazing job in taking an impossible
position and spinning it into something that sounded really, really good
to the general public. The problem is, none of these feel good sound bites
amount to a hill of beans if the legislation doesn't get passed, and if
it doesn't, the GOP has no one to blame because they control both houses
and the White House.
The public is trained only to listen to individual issues one at a time,
and to sound bites. Bush got in ALL the rights sound bites, in ALL the
right places, on ALL the right issues, for ALL the right demographics.
And he looked good doing it.
A mea culpa: I was dead wrong when I predicted Bush would push the Mars
mission. Sorry about that. It seemed from the press coverage that they'd
push it, but they didn't. They were probably concerned that the research
into nuclear powered space vehicles would contradict the environmental
message, and dropped it.
But I was bang-on about appealing to the two big voting blocs, especially
seniors who they hit the hardest with this speech.
-
- "The American system of medicine is a model of skill
and innovation with a pace of discovery that is adding good years to our
lives. Yet for many people, medical care costs too much and many have no
coverage at all. These problems will not be solved with a nationalized
health care system that dictates coverage and rations care. Instead, we
must work toward a system in which all Americans have a good insurance
policy; choose their own doctors, and seniors and low-income Americans
receive the help they need. Instead of bureaucrats, and trial lawyers,
and HMOs, we must put doctors, and nurses, and patients back in charge
of American medicine.
-
- Health care reform must begin with Medicare, because
Medicare is the binding commitment of a caring society. We must renew that
commitment by giving seniors access to the preventive medicine and new
drugs that are transforming health care in America.
-
- Seniors happy with the current Medicare system should
be able to keep their coverage just the way it is. And just like you, the
members of Congress, members of your staffs, and other federal employees,
all seniors should have the choice of a health care plan that provides
prescription drugs. My budget will commit an additional 400 billion dollars
over the next decade to reform and strengthen Medicare. Leaders of both
political parties have talked for years about strengthening Medicare I
urge the members of this new Congress to act this year.
-
- He starts the pitch by speaking directly to seniors with
political code by saying, 'adding good years to our lives.' Then he goes
on to say Seniors four times in three paragraphs. Repetitiion, repetition,
repetition. But it's all bogus.
Note that this plan is NOT currently a law. It's just an idea Bush threw
out there, which neither party will ever back, but which sounds really
good when he says it. He knew going in that it would never pass both Houses,
so he knew he could say it safely, without ever having to make it law.
But the damage is done. Many seniors now think Bush is going to put $400
billion into health care, because they won't follow up to find out the
whole thing is a sham.
It's such a sham, in fact, that both Houses have already ruled it out,
according to NY Times.
www.nytimes.com/2003/01/30/politics/30MEDI.html
Bush appealed directly to seniors AND young people on this one too -
-
- "A growing economy, and a focus on essential priorities,
will also be crucial to the future of Social Security. As we continue to
work together to keep Social Security sound and reliable, we must offer
younger workers a chance to invest in retirement accounts that they will
control and they will own."
-
- Think about this one for a minute. Bush wants to allow
people to take some of their Social Security money and allow them to invest
it themselves. This is coming from a guy who brought us Enron. What happens
to people who put their social security money into the next Enron lose
all their retirement money? Enron's collapse only affected a few thousand
employees. But now, Bush wants to turn all of America into one big Enron
retirement bubble.
There was also a big lie about education -
"To lift the standards of our public schools, we achieved historic
education reform which must now be carried out in every school, and every
classroom, so that every child in America can read, and learn, and succeed
in life."
While it's true that Bush DID sign an historic education reform that he
drafted with Ted Kennedy, he left something out when talking about his
Leave No Child Behind bill. He left out the fact that after signing the
bill and it's $28 billion budget, he only allocated $21 billion for the
Bill in the 2003 budget and left the other $7 billion behind.
Bush peppered this speech with talk of terror and terrorism. He uses the
words terror, terrorism or terrorist sixteen times in the speech. Seven
times out of sixteen usages of the root 'terror', the word appears in the
same paragraph as the words 'Iraq' or 'Saddam Hussein' or both. I guess
if you can't find proof that Saddam's linked to terror, neuro-linguistically
linking Saddam and Iraq to the word 'terror' is the next best thing.
Interestingly, the names Osama Bin Laden and Mullah Omar aren't spoken
a single time in the entire speech. Osama who?
The remainder of the speech makes no sense when taken as a whole, and when
compared with recent comments made by the White House.
The White House insists that Iraq isn't about oil, but about WMD.
"Saddam Hussein had biological weapons materials sufficient to produce
over 25,000 liters of anthrax enough doses to kill several million people."
"Saddam Hussein had materials sufficient to produce more than 38,000
liters of botulinum toxin."
"Saddam Hussein had the materials to produce as much as 500 tons of
sarin, mustard, and VX nerve agent."
-
- "It would take just one vial, one canister, one
crate slipped into this country to bring a day of horror like none we have
ever known. We will do everything in our power to make sure that day never
comes."
-
- "The budget I send you will propose almost six billion
dollars to quickly make available effective vaccines and treatments against
agents like anthrax, botulinum toxin, Ebola, and plague."
OK, Bush sort of has a point here. Saddam definitely has or had the raw
material to make these things, and we know this beyond any reasonable doubt
because Reagan, Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld gave him some of it. They even
got Wackenhut to set up a biochem lab for Saddam at one point.
We also know Bush has a point because Bush 41 sent billions to Saddam disguised
as agricultural aid, which was revealed by former Rep (D-Texas) Henry Gonzalez
(now deceased) when he read from the Chicago court case:
No. 90 C 6863 The People of the State of Illinois ex rel William C Harris
vs The Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System
According to the transcript of Gonzalez' Congressional record, as much
as $250 billion was funneled to Saddam through Banco Nationale de Lavaro,
a.k.a. BNL. This was the most underreported story of the Iran Contra era.
Many thanks to Sherman Skolnick for turning me on to the Chicago BNL case.
What people forget is that just because Saddam got money and raw material
doesn't mean he made weapons. For all we know, the White House is counting
large shipments of common household goods, and from records of those shipments,
extrapolating how much of any given substance Saddam could potentially
make.
For example, a large supermarket chain would have close to the same weapons
making capabilities in terms of raw materials, just from stuff that's stockpiled
in their warehouses. They'd certainly have as much if not more Ricin and
cyanide than Saddam from their beans and fruit pits.
The inspections need time to work. We don't know what Saddam does and
doesn't have for certain, he's NOT a threat to the United States, and two
successive teams of weapons inspectors have found no illegal WMD except
for half a dozen warheads with no delivery system.
For allowing the inspectors in, the sanctions should be lifted, so that
Saddam's not the people's only source of income. This would give the Iraqi
people some wiggle room to organize political change under the watchful
eye of the world.
But we're talking about oil. Is it oil, or not? Is it about control of
energy, or not?
If it's not about oil, why did Bush get such a huge round of applause for
saying, "Join me in this important innovation to make our air significantly
cleaner, and our country much less dependent on foreign sources of energy."
If fuel cells will make the US much less dependent on foreign sources of
energy, doesn't that mean they're currently dependent on those foreign
sources?
They are. In fact, until a few months after 9/11, the US was STILL buying
10% of its oil from Saddam, despite his Axis-of-Evilness. So they were
helping support and maintain a so-called Axis-of-Evil dictator with big
money, even after 9/11.
Then they stopped buying Saddam's oil 'on principle.'
-
-
- But being the unprincipled bastards they are, they couldn't
even stick to not buying from Saddam, because the US is so darn dependent
on foreign oil. According to the Guardian and many other newspapers, the
US is once again buying large quantities of Iraqi oil; even as they prepare
to commit further acts of genocide against Iraqi civilians over and above
the nearly two million we've already killed with sanctions.
-
-
-
- www.observer.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,882512,00.html
-
- "After the loss of 1.5 million barrels per day of
Venezuelan production in December the oil price rocketed, and the scarcity
of reserves threatened to do permanent damage to the US oil refinery and
transport infrastructure. To keep the pipelines flowing, President Bush
stopped adding to the 700m barrel strategic reserve.
-
- But ultimately oil giants such as Chevron, Exxon, BP
and Shell saved the day by doubling imports from Iraq from 0.5m barrels
in November to over 1m barrels per day to solve the problem. Essentially,
US importers diverted 0.5m barrels of Iraqi oil per day heading for Europe
and Asia to save the American oil infrastructure..."
-
- "On Friday, Pentagon sources said US military planners
'have crafted strategies that will allow us to secure and protect those
fields as rapidly as possible in order to then preserve those prior to
destruction."
-
- "The US economy will announce zero growth this week,
prolonging three years of sluggish performance. Cheap oil would boost an
economy importing half of its daily consumption of 20m barrels.
-
- But a cheaper oil price could have been reached more
easily by lifting sanctions and giving the US oil majors access to Iraq's
untapped reserves.
-
- Instead, war stands to give control over the oil price
to 'new Iraq' and its sponsors, with Saudi Arabia losing its capacity to
control prices by altering productive capacity."
-
- Zero growth. Why? Partly because oil has gone up, which
means energy for manufacturers goes up, which means it costs more to make
goods that have to be sold into a declining economy for a price that the
manufacturer can't raise, because the market is too soft.
Starting to get the picture?
The only way manufacturers could stay profitable with high oil prices is
to cut out some of the middlemen who add 'value' to products as they're
passed along to consumers. But to do this would mean people losing jobs,
so rather than lose those jobs and the votes that go with them, we're going
to kill millions of people. This will work short term, but not long term,
because the oil is running out and will be in full production decline by
2012.
It's all about keeping the voting middle class happy by keeping jobs out
there, in the service sector as opposed to the manufacturing base, that
shouldn't exist in the first place. Those jobs are dependent on manufacturing
or agriculture being available to produce goods at a certain base price.
And that price is maintained by having control of oil.
After the touchy-feely get vote part of the speech, Bush started to get
into blood and thunder modeÉ
"In each case, the ambitions of Hitlerism, militarism, and communism
were defeated by the will of free peoples, by the strength of great alliances,
and by the might of the United States of America. Now, in this century,
the ideology of power and domination has appeared again, and seeks to gain
the ultimate weapons of terror. Once again, this Nation and our friends
are all that stand between a world at peace, and a world of chaos and constant
alarm."
This is just ridiculous. Hitlerism? They're afraid to even use the word
Nazism or National Socialism, because those words apply precisely to the
course this administration is taking. So now it's HITLERISM. Focus on
Hitler and the Holocaust, and not on the economic principles of National
Socialism that this administration is mirroring.
As for defeating militarism, what do you call a nation that spends 800
billion gross on National Defense, whose military industrial complex is
tied intimately to government, who spend more than the next ten nations
combined on defense, and who've conducted genocidal wars of aggression
nonstop since the Korean War?
-
-
- Sounds pretty militaristic to me. Just look at who made
out on the corporate side of the speech. Eli Lilly, Wyeth, Bioport, and
everyone else involved in biochemical weapons and vaccines made out large.
Raytheon and everyone else involved in missile defense made out large
too. Two thirds of the speech was war related. If you ask me, militarism
won.
The last two sentences of the last paragraph from the speech are absolutely
true. America and its friend in the British Isles are about all that stand
between a world at peace and a world of constant alarm. Without them dominating
people, building WMD, killing people, and selling weapons to every dictator
on earth, the earth would be pretty darn peaceful. Those dictators couldn't
function with support from Western arms dealers, could they? And the USA
is the biggest arms dealer on earth.
"America is working with the countries of the region South Korea,
Japan, China, and Russia to find a peaceful solution, and to show the North
Korean government that nuclear weapons will bring only isolation, economic
stagnation, and continued hardship. The North Korean regime will find respect
in the world, and revival for its people, only when it turns away from
its nuclear ambitions."
Alice in Wonderland time again. The possibility that North Korea has nukes
and a ton of biochem warheads is the only thing that's stopped a war against
North Korea. And if nuclear weapons only bring isolation, economic stagnation
and hardship, why are the world's Nuclear powers richer and less isolated
than everyone else?
Last but not least, there's this touchy-feely, warm and fuzzy initiative
that sounds great, but is really a merger of Church and State -
-
- "Our fourth goal is to apply the compassion of America
to the deepest problems of America. For so many in our country the homeless,
the fatherless, the addicted the need is great. Yet there is power wonder-working
power in the goodness, and idealism, and faith of the American people.
-
- Americans are doing the work of compassion every day
visiting prisoners, providing shelter to battered women, bringing companionship
to lonely seniors. These good works deserve our praise & they deserve
our personal support & and, when appropriate, they deserve the assistance
of our government. I urge you to pass both my faith-based initiative and
the Citizen Service Act to encourage acts of compassion that can transform
America, one heart and one soul at a time.
-
- So, tonight I propose a new 600 million dollar program
to help an additional 300,000 Americans receive treatment over the next
three years."
-
- On the first point, Bush shut down 50 programs for the
homeless in 2002, leading to a doubling of the number of homeless families
in NYC alone, so he's being a hypocrite playing the homeless card.
On the third point, the very first Executive Order he passed in 2001 was
his faith-based initiative. So now, rather than have faith neutral organizations
administer to drug addicts, Bush is going to push Jesus on them.
If you ask me, those addicts had better start praying regardless of their
faith, because the numbers don't add up, and the only way this program
works is by divine intervention.
600 million over three years to treat 300,00 addicts. That's 200 million
a year to treat 100,000 addicts, or $2000 per addict to cover methadone
programs, treatment center office rental, counselors fees, food, shelter,
prescriptions, advertising, and addiction program publications. The drug
treatments ALONE will cost more than 2000 bucks, unless they're going to
ignore Heroin addicts and treat mostly cocaine addicts.
-
-
- Which also makes no sense, considering cocaine use is
diminishing or holding steady depending who you talk to, and heroin and
PCP use is on the rise. Thanks to Bush's refusal to spend war on drugs
money on using the troops to fight opium farming in Afghanistan, instead
spending the money on public image Super Bowl commercials, opium production
in Afghanistan has gone from 75 tonnes in 2001 to more than 3000 tonnes
per year in 2002. >From the sounds of this new treatment program, they
won't be able to treat a single Heroin addict with any reasonable degree
of care.
-
- I'll fill you in on a little secret. Prayer does not
help combat heroin withdrawl. No amount of goodness, idealism, and faith
is going to stop the shakes, the sweats, and the heebie-jeebies associated
with three days of cold turkey Hell.
-
- Medication is needed, and needed badly, for most heroin
addicts to kick. It's a physical addiction, with brutal physical symptoms
that can't be treated by asking Jesus or Allah or Jehovah or Buddha to
help. That's the reality of the thing. And no amount of prayer is going
to make this initiative work.
In summation, this State of the Union Speech was excellent politics, and
the most cynical piece of work to hit the State of the Union since Bush
senior. It was a play to the polls with no real value for policy, because
half these initiatives are going to die in Congress. It's what we call
shuffling deck chairs on the Titanic.
But at least the chairs will all be in a row when the ship goes down.
Peace
|
