I've said many times that mankind has yet to achieve civilization. I've said that we live in tribal societies which are based on empowering non-living entities over human beings, which I believe to be fundamentally wrong.

We give power to flags, nation-states, and corporations. We give them the power to dictate to us how we live our lives. The inevitable result of this is that the state takes on a life, and a direction, of its own. It becomes a Golem -- a monster of our own creation that exists in a state of non-life, as one of the undead, which exists only to cause death and misery.

These monsters are fed by our racist hate, our petty greed, and our spiteful natures. They become a reflection of the people who act as the head of the corporation or state, and those who live and work under the Golem's shadow become tainted with its poison.

I ran into a perfect example of this with a former correspondent of mine, who shall remain nameless. This American person CC'ed me an email with what I perceived to be racist statements about Chinese people, stemming from a warped nationalist perception of what Chinese people are like, which comes from too much media brainwashing going all the way back to the 60's and talk of the Yellow Peril.

The statement I took offence to was "Spread the word before it's too late! We DO NOT WANT A CHINESE AMERICA!!!"

What if it had said, "We DO NOT WANT A BLACK AMERICA!!!"

Or, "We DO NOT WANT AN HISPANIC AMERICA!!!"

Or heaven forbid, "We DO NOT WANT A WHITE AMERICA!!!"

So I emailed this person, giving them a comparison of how Chinese and Western societies have acted toward others these last five hundred years. I then asked, based on my explanation of what I believe Chinese culture has represented these last five centuries, "What would be so bad about a Chinese America?"

Considering how the current US government is behaving, I think it's a valid question.

Mr. Racist refused to answer my question. Instead, he accused me of being a Communist Chinese Spy, and even of working for the NSA (I guess he wanted to cover all the bases).

He then went on to inform me that he was receiving his information from England (he talks to some spirit named Merlinus -- don't ask) and from the I Ching.

Huh?

The I Ching told him I was a Commie bastard Terrorist Spy?

The Ghost of Merlinus told him I was a Fed?

Boggled, I responded to his email, letting him know I wasn't some Charlie Chan Commie Bastard Spy Master hiding in the bushes. And I once again repeated my question, which he refused to answer -- what would be so bad about a Chinese America?

The next thing you know, this Mr. Racist is writing to internet papers, TV stations, radio stations and newspapers saying I'm a TERRORIST, committing treason, and must be stopped.  And he STILL didn't (or couldn't) answer the question.

How we got from an email on the dangers of nationalism to me being a Chinese Terrorist Spy I have no idea. But it was good for a laugh, and an little entertainment.

You're probably wondering why I even bothered to respond to this person. Well, I believe in reaching out to anyone who I think can be reached. Mr. Racist seemed like a smart enough guy, and well meaning, with his heart in the right place. From our correspondence, he seemed to understand the basic trap we're in at this moment in time, and he also seemed to understand that the Bush crime syndicate is a very real danger to us all.

The bottom line is, he means well. However irrational this outburst, the guy really does want to try and make a difference.

The problem is, he's a nationalist at heart, and can't drop his tribal isolationist mindset long enough to see past his own nose to understand how inherently racist and xenophobic he's being with his knee jerk reaction to Chinese culture.

If he'd said, "We DO NOT WANT A COMMUNIST AMERICA!!!", Hell, I'd be standing right alongside the guy saying, "Hell No!"

But he had to play the race card and use Chinese people as a boogeyman, doing Bush's work FOR HIM and demonizing us Yellow people with mucho gusto.

And rather than apologize or answer my question, he calls me a Terrorist.

Does this sound familiar to anyone?

Kind of like watching Bush and Rummy at work?

This is the danger of nationalism. You see, Mr. Racist, whether he'll admit it to himself or not, puts the concept of a White America founded and controlled by white people at the top of his agenda. Any thought of a colorblind nation that borrows the best from ALL cultures scares him. And he's not alone out there.

Christianity, in particular Evangelical and Southern Baptist Christianity, are a plague that's destroying the nation. They've been pushing precisely the kind of mindset we see in Mr. Racist. A reality tunnel where the idea of America is one of Christian Puritan Dead White Men running things, and anything else would no longer be America.

The Declaration of Independence states that ALL men are created equal, with certain inalienable rights. And yet America denies those rights to people in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan (they're keeping the dictator in place, aren't they?), and Palestine. And they get away with it, year after year.

Why?

Because back home, the Republican Party has used the Christian Coalition, the media, and Wall Street to make tens of millions of nationalist zombies exactly like Mr. Racist, who are scared of a Black America, a Yellow America, a Brown America, or even just a plain old power-sharing America.

This Nationalist pride is a truly dangerous thing. It makes people want to silence other people, and take away their inalienable rights. It makes them resort to the kind of smear tactics based on irrational nonsense that Mr. Racist engaged in. It makes people downright embarrassing to themselves, and to their country.

The prevalence of such nationalism in America is why we have a fascist, National Socialist form of government today in most parts of the Western World. Not just in America, but in Europe too. Check out this article from the Independent.

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/story.jsp?story=418675

" -- On the face of it, though, Blair and Mussolini would appear to have little in common: Mussolini was a serial womaniser who fought duels. He was also a serious intellectual and historian, even though he was from a poor family and did not go to university. Blair, on the other hand, is a pious, church-going family man who, though middle-class and Oxford-educated, does not know his history. Blair is called Tony - which hardly matches up to Benito as a name for a dictator.

Let the facts speak for themselves. Both men started out as left-wingers but to get power both moved right. Then, to keep power, they both moved righter still. Both marketed themselves as of the left. But their product was not of the left. It was something else.

People, especially people on the left, tend to forget - presumably because it is inconvenient to remember - that Mussolini was a revolutionary socialist before he was anything else. They forget, too, that he founded Fascism not as a right-wing dictatorship but as a left-wing revolutionary movement that provided an alternative first to socialism then to communism.

When, during the second Bill Clinton presidency, Blair and Clinton started holding summits on the Third Way, they really were verging on the truly Fascist. The Fascist Third Way between capitalism and communism aimed to abolish class war and replace it with class collaboration. This meant the promotion of the productive elements in society from whatever class and the abolition of the parasitical elements from whatever class.

The means by which the Fascists attempted to impose their Third Way was the corporate state. This did not involve the nationalisation of the workplace as in Marxist-inspired solutions, but its incorporation. Shareholders, whether in the form of the state or private individuals, still owned the means of production. Both workers and bosses, however, were members of the corporations that ran enterprises, with the state acting as referee if the need arose.

The Fascist corporate state was never really tried. But one finds traces of its corporatist ideas in Blair's Government. The Prime Minister has quickly but quietly dropped the phrase "Third Way" from the vocabulary. But he talks, with mounting frenzy, of "public-private partnerships" -- "

" -- like Mussolini, Blair has ended up declaring aggressive and legally dubious wars amid much protest from grassroots members of his own party. Neither his war in Kosovo nor that in Iraq had a UN mandate. In war, like Mussolini, Blair has played second fiddle to a greater force; in Mussolini's case Hitler, in Blair's case, first Clinton, and now George Bush.

But it is in the field of propaganda - or spin, as it is known these days - that the similarities between Mussolini and Blair are perhaps most apparent. Mussolini was a brilliant journalist and orator. It might be said that he was both the first tabloid newspaper editor and the first spin doctor. His aim was to instill faith in Fascism among Italians. For, as he was so fond of saying, Fascism was "a religious conception of life" and "faith moves mountains".

This idea of the political importance of myth creation came from an important late 19th-century work, La Psychologie des Foules (The Psychology of the Crowd), by the French socialist Gustave Le Bon. The crowd, argued Le Bon, was moved not by reason but by emotion. Blair, too, has created a myth - New Labour - that bore Labour to power and his speeches, especially at times of crisis, reflect the Mussolini creed, appealing more to emotion than reason. "If I believe this, you must believe it," he says in a trembling voice, his face full of anguish.

A phrase Mussolini often used to describe the Italian parliament was that it was "invincibly nauseous". Fascism transformed political participation from an isolated act involving the ballot box into a daily act of religious faith. Blair has not - heavens, no - abolished democracy as Mussolini did, but democracy has diminished under Blair. The Opposition languishes in torpid impotence. The Prime Minister appears increasingly to resemble some whacky kind of cult leader. He avoids debate in Parliament if he can. He talks to the people direct, via television, as Mussolini did via the piazza. Mussolini was famous for his balcony speeches - his "dialogues with the crowd". A modern Mussolini would not need to do anything so obvious as to tackle democracy head on. He could just side-step it with spin -- "

TOWING THE PARTY LINE

The GOP complains about China a lot, saying the one party system is tyrannical, and that China is evil because of it. And yet, according to the Washington Post, the GOP has been running something called the "K Street Project" for years.

www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A33669-2003Jun25?language=printer

Targeting Lobbyists Pays Off For GOP

Party Earns More Funds, Influence

By Jim VandeHei and Juliet Eilperin

Washington Post Staff Writers

Thursday, June 26, 2003; Page A01

Nearly a decade after Republicans launched a campaign to oust Democrats from top lobbying jobs in Washington, sometimes through intimidation and private threats, they are seizing a significant number of the most influential positions at trade associations and corporate government affairs offices -- and reaping big financial rewards.

Partly because of the "K Street Project" -- and partly because of GOP control of Congress and the presidency -- virtually every major company or trade association looking for new top-level representation is hiring or seeking to hire a prominent Republican politician or staffer, according to Republicans and Democrats tracking the situation.

This year, General Electric, Comcast, Citigroup and many other Fortune 500 companies have hired Bush administration officials and former GOP congressional advisers for top lobbying posts. A Republican National Committee official recently told a group of GOP lobbyists that 33 of 36 top-level Washington positions he is monitoring went to Republicans, according to someone who attended the meeting -- "

"This trend worries Democrats, who say it gives Republicans both an unfair legislative and fundraising advantage. Former representative Tony Coehlo (D-Calif.), who aggressively targeted business in Congress in the 1980s, said Republicans are "going too far" by pressuring companies to hire Republicans only and threatening retribution to those who disobey.

"They've put the fear of God in these businesses and few of them are able to withstand it," Coehlo said. Indeed, several top officials at trade associations and corporate offices said privately that Republicans have created a culture in Washington in which companies fear hiring Democrats for top jobs, even if they are the most qualified.

Republicans have done this with a few, well-publicized warnings to companies they felt were too cozy with Democrats. The most famous and ominous warning came in 1998 from then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) and then-Majority Whip Tom DeLay (R-Tex.). The two leaders held up a vote on intellectual property legislation in protest of the Electronics Industry Association's plan to hire a Democrat to run the group. The House ethics committee admonished DeLay for his tactics in the incident. It was a slap on the wrist by congressional ethics standards, and Republicans say that was a small price to pay for the fear it put in companies thinking about hiring a Democrat"

So unless a company hires a member of the Party, they will have problems. Problems like Adelphia and Imclone currently have. Donate to the Party, hire Party members, and walk away like Ken Lay walked away from Enron.

Sounds a lot like Hitler's set up with the SS, doesn't it?

Or the Soviet system of having both a Party and KGB representative on ships or in the decision making process of major industries.

I'm wondering what the K stands for. Klan Street?

Another good example of American double standards and the nationalism that allows them is this Moussaoui case. The only guy to date that's been charged with the events of 9/11 is one Zacarias Moussaoui. The government's case has suffered a serious setback, as the Judge is refusing to piss on the Constitution, and is allowing Moussaoui to call witnesses for his defense, which the government doesn't want him to be able to do.

You see, in the eyes of the Bush administration, constitutional rights don't apply to Brown people or Muslims. As Dick Cheney said, they "don't deserve" constitutional rights. Never mind that a right, unlike a privilege, is something that CAN'T be taken away, Dick, you moron. You're going to pay for this one day.

But I digress. What's interesting about the Moussaoui case is that the government is already saying that if they can't win fair and square, they're going to illegally double jeopardy Moussaoui by moving his case to a military tribunal, where they intend to try him again. And again and again, until they get the result they want, right to a fair trial be damned.

Read the article below. I'm not going to excerpt from it because you need to read it for yourself, so you can take note that the Post isn't even bothering to question the unfairness of trying this guy twice. They're just stating that it's going to happen as fact.

www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A34808-2003Jun26.html?nav=hptop_tb

This is nothing new though. They used to do this in the Deep South. It's called a lynching.

FEAR IS THE MIND KILLER

Frank Herbert was right. Fear is the mind killer. It's the little death that brings total obliteration. One must face one's fear, and let it pass through. In Mr. Racist's case, he's held his fear of a Yellow planet inside, and let it eat at him until it's become this cancer that's poisoned his brain and left a brain cloud where common sense should be.

And this is exactly what the fascists want.

Fascists rule through fear. They make you afraid of something. With Mr. Racist, it's Chinks like me. With others, it's Black people, or Latinos, or Muslims, or Jews. Or all of the above.

Then the Dictator personalizes his or her response to you, to make you feel you need them, and that THEY, and not just the State, are working tirelessly on your behalf.

Instead of "we will not rest", it becomes "I will not rest".

They create a cult personality, like they've done with Bush. On 9/11, he became your very own personal Ubermensch. The Superman who will not rest until Osama, Mullah Omar, Saddam, and every other person with a funny Islamic sounding name or a Turban has suffered.

Too bad that all three are still at large, and Bush hasn't delivered on a single promise.

He promised that Osama and Omar would be caught "dead or alive". Neither's been found. Mullah Omar is even taunting us by writing letters and edicts from his hidey-hole.

He promised to free the Afghan people. But nothing has changed for the better in Afghanistan. It's more lawless than before. There's more drug production. There's Warlordism everywhere but Kabul. There are negotiations with the Taliban to form a coalition government. Big difference.

Then there's Iraq. The Sanctions were supposed to be about disarming Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction in accordance with International law. It was never supposed to be about regime change.

But when Clinton realized that Saddam had disarmed, rather than lift the sanctions after UNSCOM certified that there were no WMD in Iraq, the State Department pulled the inspectors out before they could finish their work, to try and ensure a regime change in the future.

The fact that the sanctions have been lifted at this time when there's been no certification that Iraq's WMD are destroyed is proof that the sanctions were always about regime change, and never about WMD. And this goes against international law.

www.canada.com/news/story.asp?id=B7E04EA8-FFAF-4989-87B3-8CF010973C31

"VIENNA (AP) - Indirectly challenging a U.S. argument for war on Iraq, the UN atomic agency said Thursday that a find of parts from Baghdad's original nuclear weapons program appears to back its stance that the project had never been reactivated"

No Nuclear program.

And the so-called Bio-weapons trucks were balloon-making trucks, according to the State Department.

www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/06/26/1056449368283.html

"The State Department's intelligence division is disputing the CIA's conclusion that mysterious trailers found in Iraq were for making biological weapons, US government officials say.

In a classified memorandum dated June 2, the officials said, the department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research said it was premature to conclude that the trailers were evidence of an Iraqi biological weapons program, as President George Bush has done"

And not a single trace of Chemical weapons has been found.

But we knew this was the case going in, didn't we?

In the run up to the war, several papers reported that CIA people were complaining that the White House was trying to force them to make the "evidence" fit the Bush agenda.

And now that the investigation is underway, we KNOW this to be the case from Congressional testimony.

www.nytimes.com/2003/06/25/international/worldspecial/25INTE.html

?ex=1057118400&en=5fed60ddec789497&ei=5062&partner=GOOGLE

"A top State Department expert on chemical and biological weapons told Congressional committees in closed-door hearings last week that he had been pressed to tailor his analysis on Iraq and other matters to conform with the Bush administration's views, several Congressional officials said today.

The officials described what they said was a dramatic moment at a House Intelligence Committee hearing last week when the weapons expert came forward to tell Congress he had felt such pressure.

By speaking out, they said, the senior intelligence expert, identified by several officials as Christian Westermann, became the first member of the intelligence community on active service to make this sort of admission to members of Congress.

The House Intelligence Committee was examining questions concerning the Bush administration's handling of prewar reports on evidence that Iraq had illegal weapons and ties to terrorist groups.

Mr. Westermann, officials said, is an analyst in the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research, a small but important office at the State Department that is intended to provide the secretary of state with intelligence analysis independent of the C.I.A. and other agencies.

Mr. Westermann told lawmakers last week that while he felt pressure, he never actually changed the wording of any of his intelligence reports"

Making the evidence fit the agenda. Pure Hitler playbook material.

But there are still more big lies to cover. Saddam is just as absent as the WMD. Bush has brought no one, "to justice".

And even though Saddam is no longer in charge, nothing has changed for the Iraqi people. Bush lied about that too. They don't have water, power, or even food in a lot of places, just like under the sanctions. They certainly don't have democracy. Bush made sure of that when he cancelled the plan to form an Iraqi government. And Iraq is still under a military dictatorship like it was under Saddam.

So aside from Iraqi oil being sold to Israel, nothing has changed in Iraq.

I'm not the only one who's noticed what the Iraq invasion was all about. The Iraqi people know too. They don't intend to give up their birthright (the oil) without a fight.

www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A29385-2003Jun25.html

"Townspeople furious over civilian deaths during a demonstration in this southern Iraqi town chased down and killed six British military police, local police said Wednesday.

Abbas Faddhel, an Iraqi policeman in the town, said the British troops shot and killed four civilian demonstrators on Tuesday.

Armed civilians then killed two of the British soldiers at the scene of the demonstration - in front of the mayor's office - and then chased four other British soldiers to a police station, killing them after a two-hour gunbattle, Faddhel said"

www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A34789-2003Jun26.html

"An Iraqi oil pipeline was on fire on Thursday following an explosion, the sixth in the country in two weeks, a senior Iraqi oil official said.

"Early this morning another explosion damaged a pipeline near Al-Fatha near the River Tigris," Adal Al-Kazaz, director general of Iraq's Northern Oil Company, told Reuters. "I expect the incident to be another act of sabotage," Kazaz added"

www.news.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=700182003

A US SPECIAL operations soldier was killed and eight were injured yesterday when they came under fire in the south-west of Baghdad.

As Iraqis opposed to the US-led occupation again stepped up their attacks, two US soldiers were reported to have been abducted near Baghdad. Two Iraqis were killed when a US-led convoy in which they were travelling came under grenade attack.

In the last two days, assailants blew up a US military vehicle with a roadside bomb, dropped grenades from an overpass, destroyed a civilian vehicle travelling with US troops, blew up an oil pipeline and fired what was apparently a rocket-propelled grenade at a US army lorry.

The violence came as British officials in the south demanded the handing over of the killers of the six Royal Military Policemen who were gunned down on Tuesday.

While a military spokeswoman insisted troops were hunting for the gunmen, no British troops could be seen on the streets of al-Majar al-Kabir. Armed men from the local security force were instead driving around the town in pick-up trucks"

This is the difference between Iraqis and Americans today. Iraqis are smart enough to fight back when fascists move in and take over their country. Americans are so brainwashed that instead of taking back the Republic and then trying to create democracy, they cheer Herr Bush and give away their Constitutional rights without a fight.

That's what nationalism does. Stand by your country, right or wrong. Once the troops are at war, you have to support them, because they're Americans. Don't say the "N" word. The OTHER "N" words that is Nazi, and Nationalism. You can't call him a Nazi, because that would mean you're a Nazi too. God forbid. And you certainly can't admit to being a nationalist. You're a patriot. That's your story, and you're sticking to it.

It's time to outgrow nationalism, and start taking a world view for the PEOPLE. For ALL people, not just Americans, or Canadians, or Chinese, or Iraqis. Until we do so, people like Bush are Blair are going to continue to have a field day.

And guys like Mr. Racist will continue to do their work for them, until they grow up and outgrow their double standards, racism, and nationalist ideals.

I can only hope it happens sooner rather than later.

Peace