THOLOS OF ATHENA

May 6, '08
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Mayor, Council members, the America I believe in does not torture.

The mayor insists that you are all people of conscience. I take that to mean that noone on this council would stand by and watch another human being tortured without trying to stop it. Is that wishful thinking?

Time after time, Condoleezza Rice has denied that the U.S. tortures detainees in its custody.

In 2005, she said, “The United States does not condone, permit or tolerate torture under any circumstances.”

She also said, “Torture and conspiracy to commit torture are crimes under U.S. Law wherever they may occur in the world.”

“Crimes. . . .”

Now, thanks to recent revelations and by the President's own admission, we know that the U.S. not only condones torture, but the current program was authorized by Bush's most senior advisors. Rice herself chaired the secret meetings that included John Ashcroft, Colin Powell, Donald Rumsfeld, George Tenet, and Dick Cheney.

So while Miss Rice was telling Congress and the American people that “torture and conspiracy to commit torture are crimes under U.S. Law,” she was telling the C.I.A., “It's your baby, go do it.”

In open defiance of all ethical, moral and legal precedents, George W. Bush flatly admits that he was aware of these meetings, that he approves of torture.

This is just one snapshot in a catalog of lies, abuses of power, and violations of law by this administration.

As I said in my last appearance, virtually every legal organization in the land has urged not only Congress but all members of the legal community to speak up in defense of the rule of law.

Countless other individuals and groups that advocate in behalf of our Constitution and civil rights are doing the same. Over a million signatures have gone to Congress urging them to begin impeachment proceedings.

86 cities and towns have passed resolutions calling for impeachment. The Vermont senate has passed such a resolution.

These are not wild-eyed fanatics and neither am I.

This is not and should not be treated as a petty or partisan issue. I believe it is our civic duty to use the power vested in us as Americans to impeach a president and vice president who commit crimes.

To that end, citizens of this town have presented you with the most obvious means for you to act in behalf of the oath you took to defend the Constitution and the rule of law, an oath you swore to the people and to God.

The Mayor has staunchly argued that he and you take your oath seriously, without explaining why he or you can see no reason to act on it.

Thus, in the face of overwhelming evidence that something is seriously amiss, we have no more than your word.

Thank you.

The Mayor talked and laughed quite a bit with the City Attorney during my talk--they're such cut-ups! Then, he called on one of the older council members to offer a defense, of sorts. The man fell back on his service in the Air Force to say that he knew what it really meant to defend the Constitution and that it gave him the right to disagree with people like me, and so on. For the life of me, and those with me, we could not discern what that had to do with honoring his obligation to his oath of office in the current circumstance. Just another case of using one's military service to intimidate and show some kind of superiority, I suppose.

I will address his remarks in my next talk.

ANOTHER SWIFT BOATED

Ever the cockeyed optimist, I had almost begun to think perhaps we were on the threshhold of a new and brighter America with our Democratic candidates competing to replace the outlaw regime in Washington. Then came the madcap blowup over Obama's pastor, with Hillary gutter-sniping alongside the scumbags at Fox News and all the other quacks posing as journalists, from George Stephanopoulos to Tim Russert.

It must have slipped Hillary's mind that the same Reverend Wright she was now piously condemning had been summoned to council the Clintons at the White House during the Monica scandal. At some point, the girl came up for air, noticed a familiar taste in her mouth--blood. Feeling thus invigorated, she beat her chest and threatened to obliterate Iran, thus signaling her full-throated embrace of the thug mentality of John McCain and the Bush Administration.

So now that Barack is getting his craw full of what it really means to run for President of America, the question is whether it is already proving too much for him. Based on his lackluster responses to Chris Mathews' inane questions on Fox News, it almost looks like he's down for the count.

The real shame and disgrace is the spectacle of our man withering like a frail violet amid the swarming flies. So this is how he faces down Hillary? What will he do when it's McCain, who hasn't even started in on him, yet? I'm expecting at least an apology per week. Suddenly, we're back in the John Kerry campaign, swift boated to smithereens.

The hatchet job on Kerry's stellar war record was so thoroughly done that he seemed to go into a kind of paralysis that prevented him from offering a proper and righteous response. There he was in a nationally televised debate with W.--the real shirker and fraud--yes, had him in his sights!--and let slip the golden opportunity of asking the cud-chewing frat boy point blank where he was when he apparently went AWOL during his Air National Guard service.

This caving in that "liberals" seem to have developed into a fine art--I almost wonder if at the bottom of it lies some deep-seated self-loathing, a desperate need to lose, peculiar only to Democrats.

I watched Reverend Wright's sermons, the ones in question, and his subsequent performance at the National Press Club. Apart from having an ego the size of Montana and seeming to positively relish the sudden notoriety heaped upon him, I am struggling to figure out what in blazes all the noise is about. As far as I can tell, here is a man who is telling the history of his people, a man who has been to school, whose intelligence is far-ranging and deep, who also has the temerity to speak the truth about why this country is so reviled in the world that it might cause someone to want to fly planes into our buildings.

Instead of distancing himself and repudiating his pastor Barack should have come out swinging as Kerry should have done: "Yes, my pastor is irreverent. He says controversial things--which is his right to do! Get over it, America. Grow up! My pastor is not me. I am not him. Sometimes I agree with him and sometimes I don't. Now, let's talk about health care. Let's talk about ending this illegal war."

But no, we liberals are just too nice for that.

ON MICHAEL MOORE'S FILM, SICKO

The film exposes the brutality of this country. Ambulances cruising seedy neighborhoods in search of places to dump the uninsureds like so much garbage. It's amazing. You can drive around any modern city and see huge medical complexes, hospitals, clinics of every size and specialty; and I always think to myself, "Now, there's everything you need right there if ever you're sick or injured. . .if. . . .IF--you can pay for it."

In this country, those fine shining citadels are off-limits to around fifty-million Americans. And really more than that, probably far more, if you count the numbers who naively think that just because they're "insured," that their policies will actually cover them for any procedure, when, in reality, they may not be covered at all. The whole insurance industry is a flim-flam.

Europeans would not put up with this insanity for five minutes. The only reason we do so here is because the majority of the population appear to be rather easy pickins for just about every charlatan and scam artist on the planet, beginning with our own government, which, starting with Ronald Reagan (himself an overgrown child), and continuing right through the current regime, quickly caught on to the extent to which the average American is the most simple-minded gullible pushover imaginable. You can tell them just about anything and they will buy it hook, line and sinker. Behold how easy it was to sell them the Iraq War.

Americans so believe the myths of their country that they can brook no criticism or even the suggestion that something sinister and rotten might underlie the shiny exterior; hence, we have three weeks of near-hysteria, verging on foaming at the mouth, over Obama's learned pastor, instead of reasoned discourse about education or health care or how to get us out of this insane war.

The real malady, I fear, is bone-deep and probably can't be repaired by normal, rational means. Reason and facts have been thrown overboard, replaced with fables and magical thinking. The economy, the country itself, will collapse. It is already in a free-fall. The oil companies--mega-flim-flam war profiteers--are reporting record high profits. Bear-Stearns gets bailed out while hundreds of thousands lose their homes; the people, having bought into their own bullshit, have been duped and fleeced as predictably as a yokel in a game of three-card monte. By the time they figure out what hit them, the rats will have stuffed their carpetbags full of boodle and moved on to the next place.

But no, they won't figure it out, after all. What is more apt is they will stand there with their twittering cellphones, jaws flapping in surprise, while the apes at Fox News pin it all on Tom Hayden and the Sixties; and the wars for freedom will grind on because that's the way we drink our health and good order. . . .

And after noon the well-dressed creatures come
To sniff among the dead
And have their lunch

And all the many well-dressed creatures pluck
The swollen avocados from the dust
And stir the minestrone with stray bones

And after lunch
They loll and lounge about
Decanting claret in convenient skulls*

*After Lunch, by Harold Pinter

Ah, ye admonitions and warnings! why stay ye not when ye come? But rather are ye predictions than warnings, ye shadows! Yet not so much predictions from without, as verifications of the foregoing things within. For with little external to constrain us, the innermost necessities of our being, these still drive us on.

--Herman Melville, Moby Dick, p.163

Ahab is Ahab; and we have not tried hard enough to throw off the fate that is ready to meet us. How many admonitions and warnings have the people received? At Tholos of Athena, we have tried to put all these cautions into perspective, since we began writing about this war, five years ago. If Melville was right in thinking that “depths outlast heights”; he surely must have meant that the depths of the moral life outlast human prowess. The examined life is superior to the obsession that robs us of our humanity. The idea that God will no longer bless a country that repeats its crimes and abuses, is not a new concept. In only seven years, we have begun to follow Ahab onto the high seas of paranoia. The end is fast approaching in the frenzy of Wall Street, in the criminal complicity of Congress, in the outright criminality of the current president. How many people have to be enslaved, occupied, dispossessed, orphaned, widowed, killed and maimed, before the Empire's House of Cards comes crashing down?

We should remember the admonitions and warnings of Martin Luther King Jr. that are found in his famous speech, Beyond Vietnam-A Time to Break Silence:

...There is at the outset a very obvious and almost facile connection between the war in Vietnam and the struggle I, and others, have been waging in America. A few years ago there was a shining moment in that struggle. It seemed as if there was a real promise of hope for the poor--both black and white--through the poverty program. There were experiments, hopes, new beginnings. Then came the buildup in Vietnam, and I watched this program broken and eviscerated, as if it were some idle political plaything of a society gone mad on war, and I knew that America would never invest the necessary funds or energies in rehabilitation of its poor so long as adventures like Vietnam continued to draw men and skills and money like some demonic destructive suction tube. So, I was increasingly compelled to see the war as an enemy of the poor and to attack it as such. [...]

At this point I should make it clear that while I have tried in these last few minutes to give a voice to the voiceless in Vietnam and to understand the arguments of those who are called "enemy," I am as deeply concerned about our own troops there as anything else. For it occurs to me that what we are submitting them to in Vietnam is not simply the brutalizing process that goes on in any war where armies face each other and seek to destroy. We are adding cynicism to the process of death, for they must know after a short period there that none of the things we claim to be fighting for are really involved. Before long they must know that their government has sent them into a struggle among Vietnamese, and the more sophisticated surely realize that we are on the side of the wealthy, and the secure, while we create a hell for the poor. [...]

A true revolution of values will lay hand on the world order and say of war, "This way of settling differences is not just." This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation's homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into the veins of peoples normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged , cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice, and love. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death. [...]

We can no longer afford to worship the god of hate or bow before the altar of retaliation. The oceans of history are made turbulent by the ever-rising tides of hate. And history is cluttered with the wreckage of nations and individuals that pursued this self-defeating path of hate. As Arnold Toynbee says: "Love is the ultimate force that makes for the saving choice of life and good against the damning choice of death and evil. Therefore the first hope in our inventory must be the hope that love is going to have the last word" (unquote).

Americans have been admonished and warned for years now, about the losing position the US military is in, as its forces continue the occupation and brutalization of Iraq. In 1966, the Israeli general, Moshe Dayan, was given permission to tour the American frontlines in Vietnam, and his memoirs serve as springboard for the military historian, Martin Van Creveld. And Creveld sums up the US dilemma well, in a 2004 article, Why Iraq Will End as Vietnam Did.

The...most important reason why I think Vietnam is relevant to the situation in Iraq is because the Americans found themselves in the unfortunate position where they were beating down on the weak. To quote Dayan: "any comparison between the two armies...was astonishing. On the one hand there was the American Army, complete with helicopters, an air force, armor, electronic communications, artillery, and mind-boggling riches; to say nothing of ammunition, fuel, spare parts, and equipment of all kinds. On the other there were the [North Vietnamese troops] who had been walking on foot for four months, carrying some artillery rounds on their backs and using a tin spoon to eat a little ground rice from a tin plate."

That, of course, was precisely the problem. In private life, an adult who keeps beating down on a five year old--even such a one as originally attacked him with a knife--will be perceived as committing a crime; therefore he will lose the support of bystanders and end up being arrested, tried and convicted. In international life, an armed force that keeps beating down on a weaker opponent will be seen as committing a series of crimes; therefore it will end up losing the support of its allies, its own people, and its own troops. Depending on the quality of the forces--whether they are draftees or professionals, the effectiveness of the propaganda machine, the nature of the political process, and so on--things may happen quickly or take a long time to mature. However, the outcome is always the same. He (or she) who does not understand this does not understand anything about war; or, indeed, human nature.

The spread of abnormal American aggression is treated as if it were nothing out of the ordinary in the debate of our presidential candidates. Political Kingmakers in the two parties don't hesitate to bring along another Commander-in-Chief who is willing to "obliterate" smaller countries; while we cross our fingers and hope the new president isn't another psychologically damaged individual. "Talk not to me of blasphemy, man;" says Ahab, "I'd strike the sun if it insulted me." This is exactly the America that the rest of the world dreads.

No sooner had General Petraeus told us that recent security gains were fragile and reversible, than there was a reversal. US collaborator, Prime Minister al Maliki, tried to send Iraq's military to disarm part of the militia of nationalist leader, Muqtada al Sadr. The government soldiers (many of them Shia) tore off their uniforms in Sadr City, and ran, and bugged out of their units when they were sent into Basra.

Leila Fadel of McClatchy Newspapers reports from Sadr City, the Shia enclave in Baghdad, where part of Muqtada al Sadr's nationalist militia is faced off against American troops.

"[Abu Youssef] returned one more time [to his little store] and asked to take the cigarettes to sell and support his family until he could come home.

"Tell him to stop coming here," Bowen said.

Bowen said he didn't feel bad for seizing Youssef's home. "They have the power to stop this shit and no one does. The power is in the people: it's always been with the people, but no one wants to stand up."

Spc. Brodie Berkenbile, 20, of Athens, Tenn., said he'd fire a sniper rifle from his rooftop if a foreign army took over. But this is different.

"We're trying to help them," he said.

US forces have now pulled into the outskirts of Sadr City, where they exchange sniper and small arms fire with Muqtada's Shia militia. American troops have been forbidden, for political reasons, to describe the enemy as al Sadr's people. Higher authority insists that they describe the enemy as "insurgents" or "special groups."

Brian Cloughley, a former UK army intelligence officer, writes about an Egyptian peddler whose boat pulled up "too close" to a [US] Navy contracted ship on the Suez Canal, and was clumsily killed--according to the AP report--"by one of the warning shots".

It doesn't matter that some poor Egyptian, trying to make a few cents by selling trinkets to people on passing ships in his country's Canal (a trade that has existed for over 130 years), is murdered by trigger-happy mercenaries. It's all part of the great con-trick, the idiot "war on terror". And it shows that the Bush-Cheney mentality is alive and thriving throughout the armed forces and intelligence agencies and among those responsible for anonymous brutal attacks which take place in Africa, the Middle East and, especially Pakistan. Members of the special forces are accountable to nobody for what they do.

Have we reached that fateful point where we are saturated with admonitions and warnings? What have we done for our soldiers, who are caught by stop-loss in Iraq and Afghanistan? Some of our professional soldiers and National Guard are on their 4th tour. They have once more been shipped back to this war, to meet occupation duties and demoralizing urban combat. If they could put the bad memories and losses behind them; they would. Where then, is the evidence that Americans support their troops?

The gist of it, is that Ahab is not interested in the petty battles of life, but rather in the grand confrontation, in pursuit of the Leviathan; certainly the wars that have come thus far do not meet his criteria of striking at the embodiment of evil, laying hands at last, on the wholeness of revenge, as the rolling sea subsides and the darkness of blood spreads over it.

But whose blood?--whose lungs washed with salt water?

STEERING now south-eastward by Ahab's levelled steel, and her progress solely determined by Ahab's level log and line; the Pequod held on her path toward the Equator. Making so long a passage through such unfrequented waters, descrying no ships, and ere long, sideways impelled by unvarying trade winds, over waves monotonously mild; all these seemed the strange calm things preluding some riotous and desperate scene.

At last, when the ship drew near to the outskirts, as it were, of the Equatorial fishing-ground, and in the deep darkness that goes before the dawn, was sailing by a cluster of rocky islets; the watch--then headed by Flask--was startled by a cry so plaintively wild and unearthly--like half-articulated wailings of the ghosts of all Herod's murdered Innocents--that one and all, they started from their reveries, and for the space of some moments stood, or sat, or leaned all transfixed by listening, like the carved Roman slave, while that wild cry remained within hearing. The Christian or civilized part of the crew said it was mermaids, and shuddered; but the pagan harpooners remained unappalled. Yet the grey Manxman--the oldest mariner of all--declared that the wild thrilling sounds that were heard, were the voices of newly drowned men at sea.

(Melville, p. 514)

April 15, 2008


Mayor, Council-members, I always thought there was a difference between saying and doing. . . .

I have come in these past weeks and tried to point out what seem to be outrages committed against the Constitution and the rule of law, by the Bush Administration.

Thus far, neither the mayor nor anyone on the council has challenged me on the facts I've brought before you, other than to express no interest in doing anything about it.

Suppose I'm right, and the Bush Administration has indeed violated laws or otherwise posed a threat to the Constitution? Wouldn't you be obligated to act according to your sworn oath to speak up in defense of the Constitution and the rule of law?

By not acting, by not speaking out, all of you, each of you, appear to say that you can find no violations of law, no usurpation of power by the Bush Administration, no threat or even the appearance of a threat, to the Constitution. Nothing's wrong. Everything's fine.

And you have strenuously argued that you are all people of conscience and that you take your oath to defend the Constitution seriously. . . .

Recently, the National Lawyers Guild voted unanimously calling for impeachment of the President and Vice President, citing the oath they took to defend the Constitution.

"It is time," they said, "for the legal community to rise up in defense of the rule of law."

The American Bar Association, the largest and most conservative legal arm in America, has stated that the Bush Administration has violated the FISA law in its warrantless wiretapping program.

They also called on Congress to override Bush's claim to the right to torture prisoners in U.S. custody.

The American Association of Jurists has said that the war in Iraq is not a war in self-defense, but a war of aggression, thus a violation of the U.N. Charter--which makes it a war crime. Past president of the U.N. Koffi Annan agrees.

George W. Bush himself has claimed, in written documents and public statements, that his administration need not obey the laws passed by Congress, nor be subject to judicial oversight.

But here in Fort Worth, we see no threat to the Constitution, no violations of the law.

In Fort Worth, we believe the National Lawyers Guild is wrong. The American Bar Association is wrong. The Center for Constitutional Rights is wrong. Human Rights Watch is wrong. Koffi Annan is wrong. And Britain's third most senior judge, who called Guantanamo a "monstrous failure of justice". . .is wrong.

And surely no one here would stand by and watch another human being tortured without trying to stop it. Because we're all people of conscience here.

Thank you.

The mayor was absent this day, so I mailed him a copy of the speech with this note attached:

Dear Mr. Mayor,

Sorry not to see you at Tuesday morning's meeting. I knew how sorely disappointed you would be to miss the latest chapter in my project to get you and the Council to do the right thing. So I thought I'd drop it in the mail in the off-chance that you might actually have three spare minutes to read it.

Very best wishes and regards,

etc.

April 7, 2008


Diane spoke, as well, on both the impeachment issue and on gas drilling. She addressed the safety and environmental threat posed by all the urban drillers, high pressure used in the wells and the very real threat posed by the massive tons of toxic waste pumped into injection wells.

She got the Mayor defensive on gas and I guess I made him pretty defensive by questioning whether the Council has a conscience, since they refuse to move on our proposed resolution.

During the early part of the meeting, Councilman Espino referred to an event celebrating Cesar Chavez, which took place at an elementary school by the same name. I quickly inserted a phrase related to that at the end of my speech, which elicited a smile from Espino.
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Mayor, Council members, good evening. Allow me, if you will, to recite the names of towns where conscience still resides:

Amherst, Massachusetts
Santa Rosa, California
Binghamton, New York
Detroit, Michigan
Bristol, Vermont

Oberlin, Ohio
Chapel Hill, North Carolina
Tacoma Park,
Maryland
and Stockbridge, Massachusetts—Norman Rockwell's hometown.

These are just a few of the 86 towns in the country that have passed resolutions calling for the impeachment of George W. Bush and Richard B. Cheney.

Why? Why did they do it? In almost every instance where these resolutions passed, some by unanimous vote, the reason most often put forward was simply this: Because all those council members felt that in good conscience, they could not ignore the oath they took, similar to yours, to protect and defend the Constitution.

Your collective indifference on this matter must therefore be viewed alongside those city councils whose members have followed the dictates of conscience—men and women, brave and true, who did not want history to record that they were silent on an issue of such magnitude.

The argument that this is not a local matter is simply wrong. This is a local issue. Citizens from this city may be sent or have been sent to Iraq to fight in an illegal and unjustified war. Some of our people have been killed. Others perhaps will be.

This is a local issue.

More than half our taxes--54%--now go to pay for war and military. Tax funds from this city that we could have spent here have been squandered in Iraq. Money that could have gone for low income housing, for teachers, for universal health insurance—or just to fix all the roads—a huge problem around here.

This is a local issue.

Warrantless wiretapping is happening in every city and town, including ours. A local issue.

When the President vetoes a bill that would have prevented torture, he does so in our name. So torture is a local issue.

And now, they are enlisting the same arguments and lies used to start a war in Iraq to persuade us to attack Iran. If that comes to pass, believe me, that, too, will be a local issue.

You are our most direct body to give credence to the voice of conscience. The fact that Congress has failed to defend the rule of law, the fact that other Texas towns cower in silence, does not absolve you of responsibility. If anything, it places the greater burden on you to step forward and let right be done.

In the name of our mutual hero, Cesar Chavez, I ask you to please let history show that the people of Fort Worth do have a conscience and were not silent during this profound moral crisis.

Thank you.

April 1, 2008

Mayor, Council members, I appear for the tenth time asking you to pass a simple resolution calling for the impeachment of the President and Vice President of the United States.

In my remarks awhile back, I raised the question of whether you take seriously your oath to defend the Constitution. At which you seemed to take offence. The Mayor spoke for you, so I assume you were all equally offended.

We're all familiar with the husband who loudly protests his allegiance to his wife and children, but then fails to show up when those who depend on him need him most.

And it seems to me that now is one of those times in the life of our Constitution. . . when those who have sworn to defend her can show how seriously they take that oath. Or not.

I think it's safe to say that we are in the midst of a Constitutional crisis. That's how the Watergate era is typically described, and there is no question that the abuses of power of the current regime far surpass those for which Nixon was impeached.

There's a new film now called Taxi To The Dark Side, about an Afghan taxi driver tortured to death by our military. The film has won numerous awards, including an Oscar for best documentary film. This man, this taxi driver, it turns out, was probably innocent of any crime.

The film also shows that this was no isolated incident. Over one hundred prisoners have died in suspicious circumstances while in U.S. custody during the war on terror. We know people have been tortured at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, and other places around the world.

Meanwhile, on March 8, George W. Bush became the first American President to use the veto power to preserve the right to torture. And that is just one item on a list that includes warrantless wiretapping of citizens, lying to Congress and the American people, invading a sovereign country for no apparent reason.

You say you take seriously your oath to protect the Constitution, and, again, all I can say is I can't imagine a better opportunity to demonstrate the truth of that statement.

It's easy to get mad at me. The question is why you should find it so difficult to be outraged at those in high places who threaten our Constitution and subvert the rule of law.

Having said that, I wish to add that I have only the utmost respect for all of you and the work that you perform here. It's only because I happen to hold in such high regard your sense of morality and integrity that I bother to come down here at all, and why, even now, I find it so difficult to accept that this cause is hopeless.

Thank you.

Fog still holds the haunted. The dull telephone
Wires didn't help us much when we tried to speak,
Years after we parted. And still, sometimes, a phrase
Begins to meet new ink; as if the Muse heard
A trumpet lower its voice to murmur your name.
The cat puts down her chin. The frost gathers
A winter, so long, since I heard your music.

Sweet Valentine, it's been so long since I froze.
A man stopped me, "Could you help me get a little
Food or coffee?" the formal bumps into the informal,
The rave, and the trumpet solo. This silence cries
For jazz in blue's city in blue's land. It needs
A message suddenly from two seagulls out of the fog,
So close you could touch them, and white, like alabaster.

My cousin, Jasper, is always sending me these diatribes based on religion. I won't say what his religion is; it's more or less liberal, I guess, but trying to have a normal discussion with him is like pulling teeth. As far as I can tell, he virtually has no opinions of his own. No kidding. He truly doesn't appear to know what to think about anything. He won't vote or participate in politics in any way. His religion forbids it, he says. It's almost like his beliefs and delusions have so clouded his mind over the years that he's finally turned into a zombie.

And this has happened to literally millions of people around the world. Millions of people, it seems, have had their brains snatched out of their noggins by the hocus-pocus of religion.

As I see it, the idea of Jesus being martyred on a cross so the rest of us can be “forgiven our sins” is simply ridiculous. Of what possible use is that to anyone? What is the point of a religion that doesn't move one to try to make the world a better place? I think of Martin Luther King, Jr., whose religion caused him to be an activist for civil rights; and the actor Martin Sheen's Catholicism, which compels him to work for peace.

I saw Sheen at a peace conference in Crawford, Texas awhile back. When he was introduced, he stood up and said, “You all know what I do for a living. This is what I do to live.” Then, he and Cindy Sheehan proceeded to hold a requiem mass for the dead in Iraq--the first real religious moment I've experienced in a long time.

Weren't the disciples proactive in trying to make things better? Wasn't their leader an activist, himself? So much is made of Jesus' birth and death, yet nobody talks much about what he did between the time he was a helpless baby and when he became helpless again as a condemned criminal on the cross. But didn't he, in fact, spend the best part of his short life advocating for the poor, the downtrodden, the hungry, for those in prison? Didn't he plea for peace instead of war in the Sermon On The Mount? And wasn't he finally put to death for challenging the ethics of the state? Isn't that the real message of his life? What other lesson is relevant for us, if not that one?

EASTER

Jasper recently dropped me a line citing, in his opinion, a certain discrepancy concerning Easter. Some 2,000 years ago, according to my cousin, the day began at sunset rather than midnight. “So if Christ was crucified on Friday evening,” he asked, “how could he have arisen on the third day?”

“Beats me,” I replied.

Curious, I did a little research and found that there is rather an intricate method for “calculating” the exact day when Jesus rose from the dead. It goes like this. First you determine when the Vernal Equinox occurs, or the first day of Spring (Between March 21st and 22nd). Then look for the next full moon. Resurrection Sunday falls on the following Sunday. Simple.

The writer on this site happily notes that this was rather inconvenient for merchants doing their annual planning for sales. But, as he says, the resurrection is one thing not determined by commerce, but by the movements of the sun and moon. So it agrees with the “divinely ordained purpose of heavenly lights as markers for times and seasons.”

Well, that sounds pretty good, but somehow, I have a feeling the merchants are doing just fine on Easter.

To me, the notion of dryly debating on which day somebody “rose from the dead” in the same way that historians might argue over, say, a timetable for the life of Shakespeare, or the last words of Robert E. Lee, seems completely removed from reality. If we accept as fact (beyond what is proven historical record) some particular detail of the Biblical epic, then, it seems to me we are in the impossible position (in which so many evangelicals and the like have placed themselves) of accepting as literal truth all the phantasmagoria, the allegories and myths of the Bible, or whatever “holy” book or prophet's version of things you've settled on as your basis.

And if we are to believe the Bible is the literal “word of God,” then surely we must accept that God really is the deranged, homicidal maniac presented to us in countless passages, from Genesis to the book of Revelations. This is a God whose ego-driven flights of anger could spell the doom of men, women, children, newborn babies, birds, cattle, koala bears, you name it. This God would put witches and homosexuals to death, approves of slavery, made a willing accomplice of Abraham in the murder of his son. He kills with plagues, boils, disease, hailstones, fire, drowning, turns people to salt—in short, uses every means at his disposal. Might as well say you believe the coldly psychotic fiend going around punching out people's brains with a pneumatic cow killer in the film No Country For Old Men is none other than God himself.

THE DEBATER

I recall my own father debating the Jehovah's Witnesses who came to his door, happily in his element, I imagine. He, too, fancied himself something of a Bible scholar, and I suppose he was. And that's good. I think it's a fine thing to know the Bible, undoubtedly a majestic and poetic book. But I don't think one should necessarily know it any more than one should perhaps know the Quran or the Upanishads or the Bhagavad Gita . In fact, I would hope one would be just as familiar, if not more so, with such books as All Quiet On The Western Front, Slaughterhouse Five and A People's History Of The United States. Surely, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn qualifies as one of the most religious books I've ever read.

I think my old Dad, bless his soul, was as “right”--and as mistaken--as the humble Jehovah's Witnesses at the door. What we have is simply millions upon millions of magical thinkers all equally convinced that they are right. . .pitted against each other. My father, getting himself up in the armor of his voodoo to do battle with the charlatans on the porch, clutching their magical book and their leaflets—what do they call them? “Tracts.” Periodically, the disagreements and bickering between this group of magical thinkers and that one breaks out into real actual war that destroys cities and maims and kills hundreds of thousands of people.

And that's what we have now in the Middle East. We have the Christian magical thinkers making war on all the Muslim magical thinkers. So, too, with Israel's nonstop aggression and slaughter of Palestinians—the basis for which may well be that passage in the “Good Book” where God hands over the land of Canaan forever to Abraham and his descendants.

And, as it happens, we just posted our four-thousandth American death in Iraq. On Easter Sunday! Imagine that. The Iraqis have lost over a million, the highest percentage of which happen to be women and children. I wonder how many of the survivors woke up Easter morning wondering which day precisely Jesus popped up out of his tomb and walked around. . . .

Happy Easter, all you Iraqi children!

THE WITNESSES

Speaking of Jehovah's Witnesses, I always enjoy talking to them, myself, as a matter of fact. I tend to get the same two black ladies appearing at my door--about three times a year. I think I've become their special project. I like them not so much for the foolishness they've stoked away in their heads, but mainly because they're so sweetly well-intentioned about the make-believe they're so determined to perform. Never intrusive, always acting with the utmost decorum and kindness. And always dressed in their Sunday best—which, for most of the people on my street would be sad weeds, indeed. And I love them for that, too.

And it's rather comforting, I must say, to have a couple of grandmothers showing up at my door who so ardently yearn to save me, even though I'm quite sure in the end, it would have to be on their terms rather than mine. And if saving me meant counting on either of them for a blood transfusion, say, then I imagine the odds of my survival in that moment would go right in the crapper.

But they're so childlike, they can't help it, I guess. It's what often happens to people who completely surrender to their delusions. They're just not as deceitful or as cunning as the rightwing Evangelicals.

Another reason I like them is because I happen to know a little about their history. The Witnesses historically have suffered terrible abuse at the hands of mainstream religions in this country, including mob violence and lynchings. So I can't help having a special sympathy for them, as I tend to have for the underdogs.

Thus, have they come by their belief in church/state separation by hard experience, which deserves high praise in this day when it seems like all the religious nuts are doing their best to infiltrate our schools and our government. Just recently, we were treated to the spectacle of a presidential candidate suggesting we should change the Constitution to bring it more into line with “God's standards.”

God's standards. . . .

* * *

I always smile brightly at the two ladies and welcome them to my door. I usually offer tea. I reflect back to them all the love they seem to be beaming at me. And they always look a little sheepish when I smilingly remind them how important it is to get out and vote in the next election, and that I still believe in science and Darwin's Theory, rather than the goofy pseudo-science of “Creationism.”

Only, I leave that last phrase unstated, of course.

It would be more tolerable for the rest of us on the left, if playwright David Mamet had snarled like Christopher Hitchens, when the moment came to defect to the right wing. But we only feel a light breeze of urbanity and complacency. The high emotion of an apostate would still be jarring, but not as unsettling as this.

But Mamet reckons that the facts have changed--and he feels that he is one to change with the times--and what is untoward now is being a "brain-dead liberal". And no, he hasn't passed liberalism and gone further to the left, like Harold Pinter, one of his colleagues in the theatre.

For Mamet, the society we live in is just fine, on balance; and the liberal mind exaggerates the corruption prevalent in government, and the so-called evils the nation has committed, and the exploitative habits of business, which are blown out of proportion by a liberal's faith. He is comforted himself by the idea that the liberal nonsense about people being generally good at heart is well and truly nonsense.

Mamet has learned that it's good to be successful; and it's no skin off his nose that the haves are better off than the have-nots.

What is so disillusioning about the defection of this man who wrote Glengarry Glen Ross, is what my friend r'giap writes:

a living art is about remembering so deeply you cannot forget the present & understand all the implications of the future

so when a david mamet turns--he has only to turn his vest as the french would say. a real playwright worthy of that name--harold pinter, the scenarist, dennis potter & the writer john le carre & the great edward bond have moved so far to the left that they make me look like a liberal.

What so astonishes about Mamet's essay "Why I Am No Longer a Brain-Dead Liberal" is the lightness of the tone, the glibness in parts of it, with its aftertaste of complacency.

Here is the language the playwright uses to describe his epiphany:

These cherished [liberal] precepts had, over the years, become ingrained as increasingly impracticable prejudices. Why do I say impracticable? Because although I still held these beliefs, I no longer applied them in my life. How do I know? My wife informed me. We were riding along listening to NPR. I felt my facial muscles tightening, and the words beginning to form in my mind: Shut the fuck up. "?" she prompted. And her terse, elegant summation, as always, awakened me to a deeper truth: I had been listening to NPR and reading various organs of national opinion for years, wonder and rage contending for pride of place. Further: I found I had been--rather charmingly, I thought--referring to myself for years as "a brain-dead liberal," and to NPR as "National Palestinian Radio."

This is, to me, the synthesis of this worldview with which I now found myself disenchanted: that everything is always wrong.

[...]

I found not only that I didn't trust the current government (that, to me, was no surprise), but that an impartial review revealed that all the faults of this president--whom I, a good liberal, considered a monster--were little different from those of a president whom I revered.

Bush got us into Iraq, JFK into Vietnam. Bush stole an election in Florida; Kennedy stole his in Chicago. Bush outed a CIA agent; Kennedy left hundreds of them to die at the Bay of Pigs. Bush lied about his military service; Kennedy accepted a Pulitzer Prize for a book written by Ted Sorenson. Bush was in bed with the Saudis, Kennedy with the Mafia. Oh.

I have to stop and take a breath here, at the place where Mamet so glibly makes an equivalence between JFK and George W. Bush. What first comes to mind is a famous line by the poet William Blake:

A fool sees not the same tree a wise man sees.

But in this case it is worse. The fool covers his eyes and cannot claim to see the tree at all.

I don't know if Sorenson wrote the damn book or not; but I do know that Mamet's comparison of Kennedy and Bush is trite, and obscene right down to the roots. Bush was strung out, while in the Air National Guard; it wasn't JFK who got so coked up that he couldn't pass his physical or perform his military duties. JFK had roughly a thousand days in office and sent a relatively small number of troops into Vietnam. George Bush has sent a huge force, 130,000+ into Iraq, completely destroying that country, and has thus far, killed about a million people. The phrase "Bush was in bed with the Saudis" functions as a figure of speech; and unfortunately Kennedy was literally in bed--not with the Mafia--but with women who were, in point of fact, in bed with Mafia dons. The Kennedys were the enemies of the Mafia. The big military escalation in Vietnam didn't come until after President Kennedy was assassinated. What have I left out? The ballot boxes Mayor Daley controlled in Chicago? A little amateurish compared to Jeb Bush's fix at the state level in Florida, and a conspiracy wired all the way up to the Supreme Court.

Mamet has rationalized the truth away; and the worst, most insidious falsification, is to equate the outing of CIA agent Plame to the Bay of Pigs. The outing of Valerie Plame--let us remember--functioned as a pre-meditated obstruction of justice; and its object was to derail any investigation of George W. Bush's major crime against peace, which,--until a greater horror comes along,--is America's biggest contribution to the Crimes of the Century. And insofar as the Bay of Pigs is concerned, history records that the CIA criminally misinformed the President about "the facts on the ground" in Cuba. And then, when things went wrong on the beaches,--something the Agency had discounted,--those Agency spooks tried to strongarm the President into making a commitment that amounted to a really dangerous and costly escalation of war. The CIA was acting like a rogue then, trying to finesse its own agenda over the better judgment of the President.

In a hostile world where the privileged class feels especially threatened, Mamet admires those marvelous young men and women who protect the privileged. Imagine yourself having a conversion experience like his, after which your hatred of corporations will turn into pure love.

And I began to question my hatred for "the Corporations"--the hatred of which, I found, was but the flip side of my hunger for those goods and services they provide and without which I could not live.

"Aha" you will say, and you are right. I began reading not only the economics of Thomas Sowell (our greatest contemporary philosopher) but Milton Friedman, Paul Johnson, and Shelby Steele, and a host of conservative writers, and found that I agreed with them: a free-market understanding of the world meshes more perfectly with my experience than the idealistic vision I called liberalism.

And thus it was that Mamet saw God. And the man became as a prophet. And Mamet saw a Wheel away in the middle of the air. A Wheel within a Wheel. And the Little Wheel runs on faith. And the Big Wheel runs like the Chicago School of Economics.

"If Barak was a white man, he would not be in this position. And if he was a woman, he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is. And the country is caught up in the concept."
--Geraldine Ferraro

An exchange of emails between me and Benny the firecracker salesman regarding Geraldine Ferraro's comment that blew up in the press, causing her to resign from the Clinton campaign.

Hey, Benny,

What's up? I thought about what you said at the bookstore last night about Geraldine's stupid comment. I still tend to think she's being racist, here. She went on FOX News the next day to defend her remarks and made them again--this time, I suspect, to a more receptive audience. She made exactly the same statement in 1988 about Jesse Jackson in his run for President. So Geri's been down this road before. There's a sort of pointlessness to it which characterizes all racist language and behavior, because it focuses on just this one aspect of the person (in this case, skin color), to the exclusion of all their other traits. So if she's not being racist, why can she only think of that one thing to say about the person running for high office? And why does it come out sounding so critical? In this day and age it's about as relevant as saying that John McCain is in this race because he's white. The correct response is "So what?" Ferraro thinks of herself as a nice modern liberal woman, but underneath, there's a little dark stain of bigotry that she just can't wash out no matter how she tries to spin it.

--G.

Benny's Response:

I tend to avoid self-satisfied, overbearing Yankee ladies. Neither Ms. Ferraro nor Hillary would be impressed with me. I'm proud of that. Ferraro's comment has the ring of factual commentary, however. The thing is that it was thoughtless to spout to the media because the aftermath was inevitable. The response is the same as when she commented on Jesse Jackson and it will be the same if the old bag lives long enough to utter it concerning another black presidential candidate. She did not say he was in because he was black. She said he was lucky. She said the country, the kids, the college students, the activists, were enthralled by a black that talked, behaved, and had everything in common with a Sierra Club-Oprah Winfrey-style male person. We like our own selves for finding a black person we can back for President of the United States. We're ok. We're decent liberal people and here's the proof that we're alright. We're endorsing and voting for a Negro for President. It's new, it's kind of a cult, and we love it. You saw it at the Fort Worth Convention Center. That's why new voters are joining in like never in history. And I goddamn well hope we can elect the Jaycee-acting rock-star bastard because it appears we're just too fucking stupid to do any better. Additionally, if he were to suggest a real black leader, like Cynthia McKinney (who does her Presidential campaigning at the Spiral goddamn Diner) as his Vice-Presidential nominee, his race for the Presidency would end before nightfall. So, yeah, he is, in fact, lucky to be where he is. Being smart won't get you there. Remember Kucinich, and Gravel, and Richardson, and Edwards? Pray for peace.

--Benny.

To Benny:

Well, maybe so. What's funny--if you go back and look close at what Geri actually said, she said: "If Barak was a white man, he would not be in this position. And if he was a woman he would not be in this position. . . ." Hm. Hillary Clinton is a woman (I think), and, uh, she's in this position. So why isn't Ms. Ferraro making the same statement about Hillary that she made about Barak, only perhaps with some slight variations?--i.e.--"If Hillary was a man, she would not be in this position. If she was a black woman, she would not be in this position. If she was a black man (blacker than Barak), she would not be in this position. If she was a man and her first name was Bill, she would not be in this position." And so on. I'm sure there's even more possibilities for John McCain, such as, "If John McCain wasn't a decrepit old white man, he would not be in this position. If John McCain hadn't sung, "Bomb, bomb, bomb Iran, he would not be in this position." And so on. Make up your own.

--G.

Waking up to Hillary Clinton winning Texas and Ohio last Wednesday wasn't the greatest way to start my day. Roughly akin to the effects of a slightly bad hangover.

Okay, it's not that Barak isn't any less fraudulent than Ms. Clinton on certain key issues, like fixing health care or his promise to end the war.

Quick--what's the current euphemism for leaving in place the mammoth Green Zone, the airbase, the colossal embassy project, upwards of sixty-thousand troops and an equal or even greater number of private contractors, including Blackwater? Bet you thought the proper term for that was "occupation," didn't you? Well, you'd be wrong. No, apparently, we Democrats don't care for that term anymore. Barak likes to call it a "phased withdrawal;" Hillary prefers "orderly withdrawal."

But "withdrawal" from what? From Iraq? Dream on. We will be there indefinitely. Count on it. From the addiction to war, then? Not likely. About the only way to accomplish that is to lock the candidates (not just McCain, but Clinton and Obama) in a room where they can't get their hands on the money or the weapons or our troops' lives; yep, it's cold turkey or nothing.

Still, I'm inclined to think that between the two, Barak is our best hope for positive change. He brings none of the old baggage that Hillary brings, one of which is, well. . .Bill.

I think Barak will be more successful at uniting all the disparate factions of the party as well as the Congress. Hillary simply doesn't have that skill.

Moreover, Barak's resume as it stands at this point in his young life is still relatively unsullied by a lot of aberrant, stinky behavior. On that, at least, Hillary is right--her resume by comparison is much more complete.

THE ODD ENDORSEMENT

Speaking of which, there's something about Clinton's campaign that's got me kind of stumped. It's her support by so many women calling themselves "feminists," beginning with the endorsement by the National Organization For Women (N.O.W.), who on their website, offer the same tired excuse for her voting to authorize the war that Hillary her own self keeps throwing out, the one that goes, "If I'd only known then what I know now," blah, blah, blah.

I wonder how Dennis Kucinich knew, and Russ Feingold, Robert Byrd, Paul Wellstone, Patrick Leahy, Ted Kennedy, and Barbara Lee, and. . .Oh, yes, Barak Obama--who spoke out against it while he was still a Senator in Illinois.

In fact, in the months leading up to her vote, Hillary was briefed by former arms inspectors, strategic analysts and others who told her that Bush's claims of WMD in Iraq were hogwash. So her insistence that she lacked sufficient intelligence and therefore voted in ignorance is simply not supported by the facts. And what does it say about a candidate for President who, by her own admission, doesn't know all the facts before she throws down the gauntlet for war?

OTHER PEOPLE'S CAVES

But forget the intelligence or alleged lack thereof. I'd just like to know what gives us the right to go mucking around in other people's caves? Jesus, man, we got nukes by the tens of thousands buried in caves right here in our own country. Something tells me this obscene collection of "End Times" hardware poses a slightly greater threat to world peace than the minuscule stockpile of some pissant dictator.

By the way, has anyone noticed where all the threats to use nuclear weapons have been coming from lately? Has it been Iraq? Certainly not. What about Iran? Nope. North Korea? Honk. Try again.

Hint: check out Bush's "Nuclear Posture Preview" that targets China, Russia, Iraq, Iran, North Korea, Libya and Syria for a potential first strike. And how about John McCain singing "Bomb bomb bomb Iran"? Oh yes, and then we have Mrs. Clinton saying that where Iran is concerned, she thinks nukes ought to be "on the table."

Now that's one helluva "feminist" position, if I ever saw one.

THE MEANING OF HILLARY'S VOTE

The real question is when did it become acceptable to invade other countries when they not only haven't attacked us, but never posed a threat to us? The vote to authorize the war in Iraq assumed that, from now on, preemptively invading countries will be considered a perfectly reasonable thing for us to do--anytime we decide it's reasonable.

And this is the real meaning of Hillary's vote and the votes of all those who authorized this illegal war. Her vote showed a total disregard for the U.N. Charter, and for long established principles of international law; and it should call into question her fitness for the job of President.

And it's just one reason I find her a strange choice for women calling
themselves "feminists." N.O.W.--an organization that I highly respect, and to whom I've actually given money--ought to know better.

OTHER EYESORES

Shall I go into her tenure as a corporation lawyer on the board of WalMart? She doesn't like to talk about it, much, but it's been thoroughly hashed out, if anyone cares to read the record. The board she sat on was rabidly anti-union. The Walton family got rich off the backs of slave laborers. Their long list of abuses includes widespread discrimination against women. Somehow, I had the idea that might be of some concern to feminists. Well, what do I know? I'm just a guy.

How about the safety and well-being of children? Isn't that also rather high on the list of feminist concerns? I always thought so.

Yet, Hillary looked the other way while her husband kept tightening the screws on the sanctions in Iraq, the result of which was some 5,000 children dying per month. Despite the horrors the sanctions caused among the civilian population, both the U.S. and U.K. governments continued to block efforts to get them lifted. In ten years, roughly a million people died, including many elderly who perished from malnutrition and the sick, from lack of medicine.

When Madeleine Albright was asked on 60 Minutes if she thought half a million children dying as a result of the sanctions was worth it, she famously replied that it was. Now, there's a good feminist for you.

And it's widely believed that some of the old baggage that Hillary is likely to bring with her as President will be--Madeleine Albright.

A PROBLEM FROM HELL

By now, we're all familiar with the famous Hillary ad that shows a little girl asleep and seems to imply that Barak Obama could be responsible for the deaths of millions of American children asleep at that hour. Apparently, Hillary's vast experience, compared with Obama's, better qualifies her to answer phones in the middle of the night.

Marc Cooper, writing in the Huffington Post, reminds us of the "calculated indifference of the Clinton Administration" during the Rwandan genocide, when some 800,000 people were being systematically slaughtered.

The phone, Cooper writes, was ringing off the hook at the White House, but nobody answered it.

"I don't know where Hillary was then, but her husband and his entire experienced foreign policy team, from the brass in the Pentagon to the congenitally feckless Secretary of State Warren Christopher--just let it ring."

This is all well documented in Samantha Power's Pulitzer prize winning book, A Problem From Hell.

HILLARY'S BIZARRE ENDORSEMENT

Lately, Hillary has taken to saying that not only is she better qualified than Barak Obama to be Commander-In-Chief, but so is the Republican candidate, John McCain!

Well, this is almost more than I can stomach. You know, I just can't seem to recall another instance of a candidate of one party recommending the nominee of the other party, for President. Now, that's a new one right there, boy.

So Hillary thinks McCain would make a better president than someone else running in our own party. Specifically, he would make a better Commander-In-Chief. Well, okay, let's look at that a minute.

First of all, McCain's entire foreign policy position is basically the same as the current resident of the White House, George W. Bush. McCain's entire war policy position is identical to Bush's. Quick show of hands. How many think George W. Bush has made an outstanding Commander-In-Chief? Well, gee, I don't see too many hands out there, other than pure nitwits.

McCain says the "surge" is working. McCain says we could be in Iraq for a hundred years. Well, Jeez, that's something, isn't it.

Now, John McCain is cozying up to Pastor John Hagee, and he has this man's enthusiastic support for President. Pastor Hagee heads the Cornerstone Mega-church in San Antonio, Texas, with around 19,000 members.

Hagee thinks Hurricane Katrina was God's punishment of the entire city of New Orleans for gay sin. He calls the Catholic religion "a great whore" and links the Church to Hitler and the Nazi movement.

Hagee is the founder of Christians United For Israel. They believe Islam and all those who live by the Koran have a scriptural mandate to kill Christians and Jews. The gentle pastor also thinks God will send a blood bath to America for its support of a two-state solution in Israel/Palestine.

He also thinks it would be a good idea to just go ahead and launch a preemptive attack on Iran and help bring on Armageddon.

McCain says he's proud of Rev. Hagee and the pastor's positions on Israel.

And other than herself, John McCain is Hillary Clinton's recommendation for the position of Commander-In-Chief of our country.

HILLARY CLINTON, MACHO FEMINIST

Gloria Steinem, perhaps the most famous feminist in America, who supports Clinton for President, says of her favorite candidate that she "actually enjoys conflict." I think Gloria may be onto something, there.

"I am so grateful," Steinem continues, "that (Hillary) hasn't been trained to kill anybody. And she probably didn't even play war games as a kid."

Perhaps Ms. Steinem has forgotten the words of Charles Edward Montague, of which I'm certain the two Clintons are familiar: "War hath no fury like a noncombatant."

Open your eyes, Gloria: Hillary and Bill have been playing at war games with quite fatal consequences for at least twenty years that I know of. She parroted the Bush Administration's lies about WMD in Iraq in 2002, and did the same last year with Iran, even though reports from the International Atomic Energy Agency and the latest National Intelligence Estimate both said there was no truth in the claim.

In March, 2008, referring to Iraq, Hillary Clinton, the feminists' candidate for President of the United States, told an audience in Austin, Texas, "We have given them the gift of freedom, the greatest gift you can give someone. Now, it is really up to them to determine whether they will take that gift."

To date, our "gift" to the Iraqis has claimed close to 2.1 million lives.

I spoke, followed by Diane. With this one, I finally managed to prick the ire of the Mayor, who took umbrage with my assertion that their silence on this matter seemed to imply that he and the Council felt no "moral obligation" to the Constitution.

He said, "You're entitled to your opinion, Mr. Harper, but, I can assure you, we take our oath of office very seriously here." I put up my hand and said, "Can I respond?" To which he said, "No, sir, you can wait till next week." Which I thought was kind of amusing, in that now he apparently takes for granted that I will be returning yet again.

Diane got up then and did some nice cleanup for me, telling the Mayor that she was certain that "Mr. Harper meant no offense toward you or this council." Her speech was really quite good. She's much better at speaking extempore than I am. I'd be lost without something written out in advance.

My next speech will be a response to his angry remarks. Meanwhile, here's the one that inspired them:

Good morning. I appear for the ninth time asking the Council to pass a resolution to impeach the President and Vice President of the United States.

Last week, after reminding us again that the Council still had no interest in passing this simple resolution, the Mayor added that an election was "around the corner," thereby suggesting that everyone simply overlook the crimes and corruption of the Bush administration and move on.

Frankly, I find this attitude so paradoxical as to defy understanding.

One can only imagine the public outcry if this apparent low regard for the rule of law translated into similar tolerance for crack dealers and prostitutes roaming Hemphill Street.

But when it comes to an equally stalwart defense of law and order as it applies to those in positions of power, apparently even the best among us are impotent.

Such an attitude lead one of the judges in the Nuremburg Trials to conclude that indeed there were enormous crimes, but there were no criminals. Why? Because so few people were willing to stand up and say, "No."

So the question is--how do we reach men like these, who never get blood on their hands, but who lay plans that result in the shedding of blood?

How do I convince you that by looking the other way, as you ask all of us to do, you are signing your approval of a system in which the law applies to some, but not to others? Petty thieves and prostitutes go directly to jail. The rich and powerful who advocate torture, who lie and cause the deaths of thousands, apparently get a free pass.

Plato said, "what is valued is practiced, what is not valued is not practiced."

I am just a commoner of the town. My voice doesn't hold nearly the sway with this Council that the gas drillers' voices do. But you. You are the keepers of the law. You are the law.

You can say all you want that you have no interest to speak out in its defense. By your silence, you can imply that you have no moral obligation to the Constitution. But I believe in doing so, you harm not only the citizens and this town, but you harm yourselves, as well. You don't know that, now. But you might one day.

Thank you.

For months now, local republican officials, helped at first by Karl Rove, have been taking fascism for a test drive in Alabama. The state has seen outrageous political prosecutions, some politically inspired violence, and even a news blackout in Northern Alabama, that only this Sunday interrupted a CBS 60 Minutes Report, while it was being aired. A republican, Jill Simpson, familiar with republican Governor Riley's organization, blew the whistle on the conspiracy to frame former governor Don Siegelman, a democrat, for bribery. In the midst of these political upheavals, Jill Simpson's car was run off the road and totaled, and her house "caught on fire". Simpson had gone to nearby Georgia to file an affidavit, because she felt that was an appropriate precaution. This criminal conspiracy against Siegelman occured because he had cried foul over voting irregularities in the 2002 election that ousted him from office, and because he was starting to make another run, in 2005, for the office of Governor of Alabama.

In May 2007, one month before Don Siegelman was sentenced to an extended prison term, an Alabama Republican attorney, Jill Simpson, issued an affidavit claiming political interference in the outcome of the 2002 Alabama governor's race and naming Karl Rove as having taken an interest in the matter.

Because this accusation came out at the same time that the US Attorneys scandal was breaking, and because Siegelman had been prosecuted by two Bush-appointed attorneys, there was immediate speculation that the prosecution might have been the product of a politicized Justice Department.

(Muriel Kane and Larisa Alexandrovna, Raw Story, November 26, 2007)

With offices of Attorney General at federal and state levels in their hands, and the connivance of willing prosecutors and judges and election officials, this method of going after political opponents has become the essence of what Bush administration operatives call "lawfare": republican political war using all available jurisprudence.

WHNT in Huntsville Alabama was purchased by Oak Hill Capital Partners from the New York Times Company early last year. Oak Hill is owned by the Bass brothers, Bush fundraisers at the "Pioneer" level – raising over $100,000 for the Bush-Cheney campaigns in both 2000 and 2004. Lee Bass is perhaps the best known member of the Bass family for his role in George W. Bush’s failed energy venture called Spectrum 7 and later for his bailing out of Harken Energy. (Alexandrovna)

Aside from WHNT, no other CBS affiliate reported any blackout of the 60 Minutes segment on Siegelman. That's odd, isn't it?

Looks like Nader's getting ready to piss all over this election. Well, okay. Maybe it'll finally force Obama to stand up and say something real. I don't know about Hillary. She's so stuck on the tape-loop in her head that she may not be capable of an original thought at this point. The presence of a true progressive standing alongside her is liable to cause her to break out in hives. For Obama, maybe it'll serve as a wake-up call.

So, c'mon in, Ralph, what the hell. But brace up, my friend. You're going to be villified for this.

I just hope he can get in and debate the other two stick figures. Then we'll see something worth looking at. I've heard he's got lawyers willing to work cheap to sue the networks to make it happen. But hey, I guess this s.o.b. is really serious about getting this bunged out democracy back on her feet. It'll take some doing. She's full of spiders and black mold, but there may be some life in her, yet. I say: Let 'er rip!

Diane spoke this time, then me. The Mayor responded at the end, for the first time, saying, as usual, that the City Council had no expressed interest in impeaching the President. Then he added that an election was just "around the corner," that we should all vote responsibly, and that change would come about through the "normal" process.

My speech went as follows:

Mayor, Council members, I appear for the eighth time asking you to pass a resolution to impeach the President and Vice President of the United States.

I would like to point something out about the war in Iraq, which I think most Americans tend to forget or may not be aware of. Iraq had a combined total of zero attacks against Americans in all the decades of Saddam, except when Bush invaded their country.

War plans with Iraq were drawn up in the first month of the Bush Administration, and so was the illegal wiretapping of Americans--7 to eight months before 9-11.

Since we invaded, we have systematically bombed that country, turning Iraq's cities and towns into free-fire zones. We've leveled entire neighborhoods. We've killed women, children, families, by the hundreds of thousands.

We've raped, pillaged, and tortured. Mercenaries payed for with our tax dollars indiscriminately gun people down in the streets.

We've used white phosphorous and cluster bombs, both banned by the U.N., on civilians. White phosphorous, by the way, spreads on the skin and catches fire. It cannot be extinguished or washed off with water, so the flesh is simply burned down to the bone.

I could bring pictures in here and show you what that looks like, and I think everyone in here certainly ought to know what it looks like. All I can say is it's gruesome to look at.

The systematic extinction of the Iraqi people is without any apparent motive; it is simply violence for the sake of violence.

In fact, the invasion and occupation of Iraq now rivals the great crimes of the last century. The human toll--2.1 million, by the latest estimate--exceeds the number killed in the Rwandan genocide in 1994. And is approaching the number who died in Cambodia during the Khmer Rouge era of the 1970's.

Your silence and your expressed disinterest regarding these and other crimes that are done in your name and mine, speak volumes. If you know your history, you'll find that all criminal regimes rely heavily on the silence and tacit approval of their citizens.

By failing to act now to bring these men to account, we lay the groundwork for future presidents, Democrats or Republicans, to do the same or worse. If impeachment is not an option now, I doubt it ever will be again.

Some things transcend politics. Do we not owe an example to our children, at least, to speak up when wrong occurs? I appeal to you--to your "better angels"--to do the right and decent thing, and pass this resolution.

Thank you.

Not much to report this time. Those who had planned to show up and speak did not make it till the meeting adjourned. It ran short this time, only an hour and a half. That was a disappointment. I barely made it in there myself in time to speak. Only about ten minutes to spare. Ben made it in.

When the Mayor called me up, he said his little piece again, but with a little more humor this time: "Mr. Harper, we're still not interested." I just chuckled by way of reply. Then I said my piece. Ben noted that everyone seemed to listen attentively.

"Mayor, Councilmembers, I appear for the seventh time asking you to pass a resolution to impeach the President and Vice President of the United States.

Last week, Attorney General Mukasey stated that he will not enforce a contempt of Congress citation against Harriet Miers and White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten for refusing to testify before Congress.

As you recall, Miers and Bolten ignored subpoenas to appear before a Congressional committee to answer legitimate questions about the firing of nine U.S. Attorneys.

In response, the House Committee approved contempt citations against Bolten and Miers.

Now when asked if he will enforce those citations, the Attorney General says no. When asked if he was under instructions by the President of the United States not to enforce Congressional citations, Mukasey refused to give a direct answer.

This Attorney General has already tried to block a Congressional investigation into missing CIA torture tapes.

Then, when asked last week by John Conyers, Chair of the House Judiciary Committee, if he intended to open a criminal investigation into the CIA's admitted use of waterboarding, Mukasey said no he would not.

The power of the subpoena--to call officials before us--is one of the most fundamental safeguards in our system of government. If Congress' right to require testimony is effectively thrown out, then our country's leaders--Democrat, Republican, or Independent--will be immune from accountability from now on.

With no one to rein them in, the President and Vice President continue on their way. On Wednesday, the White House issued a statement saying it may approve the use of waterboarding again--"depending on circumstances."

On Thursday, Cheney defended the CIA's interrogation practices and claimed that the U.S. doesn't torture.

He went on to say that the President's decisions have always reflected the values of the American people.

Are these your values? A President who ignores Congressional subpoenas and contempt citations. Torture. Invasion of other countries based on lies. The existence of places like Guantanamo, condemned by every human rights group in the world. An attorney general who apparently has no use for the rule of law.

The Vice President says these are your values. Is that true?

Your silence seems to say. . .yes.

Thank you.

1923: From The Timely Death of President Harding
by Samuel Hopkins Adams

Independently Charles R. Forbes was carrying on a highly profitable line of graft. He was another personal appointment, Harding having met him while on a Senatorial junket and been charmed with his bonhomie. Chiefly because he wanted his jovial playmate at hand, the President offered him several appointments, which he declined. There was nothing in them but the salary. Salaries did not interest the ambitious applicant; he was out for bigger money. He tried for the Shipping Board and settled for the Veterans Bureau. Nearly half a billion dollars a year was alloted to this agency. He got to work upon it. He chose as counsel for the Bureau Charles F. Cramer, a California lawyer.

[...]

The first intimation of a break in the program came by letter from Europe. Colonel Charles R. Forbes, travelling for his health, resigned. It was an ominous note. Harding failed to recognize its import. He urged his old crony to reconsider; but Forbes knew now that he could never stand up to the threatened Senatorial investigation.

Resignations may be interpreted one way or the other. A bullet is definitive. At dead of night in the house which he had bought from the President, Forbes' right-hand man, Cramer, shot himself. A Department of Justice agent was early on the spot. He hurried to the White House and got Harding out of bed.

"Mr. President: I have a letter for you."

"Who's it from?"

Charles F. Cramer. Mr. Cramer is dead."

"Yes, I know." (How he knew is a matter for surmise. Cramer was alone in the house when he killed himself. Had he perhaps called up the President and given notice of his intention?)

"Here is the letter, sir. It was found in his room."

"Take it away. I don't want it."

The message was destroyed, unread, by Harry Daugherty, to whom the F.B.I. man delivered it.

Shortly after the tragedy Forbes returned from Europe. A chance visitor, misdirected in the White House, was horrified at breaking in upon a scene of violence. The President of the United States had a man by the throat, shaking him and gasping out:

"You yellow rat! You double-crossing bastard!"

The victim was Charley Forbes.

It was the President's first positive disillusionment. Always a self-persuasive optimist, Harding might have been able to convince himself that Forbes' disloyalty was a sporadic instance, not symptomatic of a general condition of rottenness. But now disturbing reports that struck nearer to home reached his ears, matters about which informed circles had been gossiping for months. Like the proverbial injured husband, the President of the United States is always the last to hear news affecting the honor of his house. Too many people are interested in keeping information from him.

Harding sent for Jess Smith

Poor Jess was in eclipse. He had been evicted from his sanctum of power in the Department of Justice and banished to his native Ohio by Harry Daugherty, presumably because his loose-tongued bragging of easy money had become dangerous. Wretched in exile, he crept back to Washington. Possibly the first inkling of his error was when he was summoned to the White House.

The President had chosen his subject shrewdly, Under inquisition the pulpy grafter broke down and, in his slobbering, sputtery speech, told Harding what Washington's political underworld had successfully concealed from him for nearly two years. There is reason to believe that his revelations did not include his boss, Harry Daugherty, who was spending that very night under the White House roof.

"Go home," the President bade his visitor. "Tomorrow you will be arrested."

Jess returned to the hotel apartment that he shared with Daugherty and blew his brains out. Either before or, more probably, after the act, all his papers were conveniently burned."

(The Aspirin Age, pp 92-7)

"Like the proverbial injured husband, the President of the United States is always the last to hear news affecting the honor of his house. Too many people are interested in keeping information from him." (my emphasis)

In this respect, at least, Harding seems innocent compared to today's Top Gun. It used to be lonely at the top, before torture was patented in the Justice Department. This was before the White House became an octopus of crime. This was before the crime against peace, the highest crime forbidden in the United Nations Charter, became no obstacle to an American president. Harding's were heady days when shame, disgrace, and humiliation were potent shadows that could cause a person possessed of some conscience to collapse, physically and mentally. Poor Harding suffered a nervous breakdown and coronary thrombosis that sent a blood clot to his brain when he discovered that his poker playing buddies, whom he appointed to government office, were all crooks.

Of Harding, Samuel Hopkins Adams writes:

Maneuvered by the politicians, the American people selected to represent them one whom they considered an average man. But the job they assigned him is not an average job. When he proved incapable of meeting its requirements, they blamed him and not themselves.

Well, tough going this time around. Can't say what went wrong exactly. But it was back to the old animosity. The black councilmember, Hicks, was up to her old antics, making moon faces at the crowd, covering her mouth with her hand, as if to keep from bursting out laughing as I spoke. Yes, it's true. This is a city council member in a medium big city, behaving like a buffoon! Having absolutely no regard for decorum or tolerance for speech beyond that which she's apparently grown accustomed to. It's hard to believe.

There were more people in the room this time, and the whole place felt chilly as I made my little speech. The Mayor didn't say anything to me, but for some reason, the surreal atmosphere combined with the sense of derision bubbling under the surface, got to me a little, I guess.

Ben was there. Man, I was glad to see him after it was over--one friendly face in the crowd! As we stood outside, I saw Hicks walking out of the chambers, chatting with her buddies. I almost said something to her. I wanted to ask her why she behaves so childishly when I get up to speak, but I held back. Maybe I'll speak to her next time if she pulls that stunt.

If there is a next time. Yeah, I thought about not going back. Had a sleepless night thinking about it, wondering what the point of the whole thing is. But I knew a time would come when I would surely get demoralized. Well, that time is already here! After just six times! Christ, what a wimp! I knew when I started this so-called project, it was not going to be easy. I guess I held out some hope that more people would eventually join the effort. I mean, it would just be so much easier to do this if there was a crowd of people involved! Well, that's a fantasy. Nobody's got the stomach for this sort of thing. Not in cowtown. It's so much easier and jazzier to stand in a crowd, holding a sign, singing Pete Seeger songs.

But it doesn't seem right to quit after just six times. If I quit now, it's out of fear. I can't give them the satisfaction of running me off. No, I can only quit when it's really time to quit.

So, here's the 6th speech:

Mayor, Councilmembers, I come before you for the sixth time to ask you to consider a resolution to impeach the President and Vice President of the United States.

I guess the question is whether we wish to live in a country as good as its promise. And what is that promise? The promise of our country is inscribed in the Constitution, which our leaders, our lawmakers, not just the ones in Washington, but in every city and town, have taken an oath to defend.

Yes, even mayors and city councilmembers take this oath, the first thing they do when they assume office. They don't take an oath to repair roads or drill gas wells or even build schools. No, the first thing they do is take an oath to defend the law.

So what does it mean, this oath? Is it merely symbolic, devoid of any real meaning? Like the phrase, "Support Our Troops" that so many throw around, then look the other way when our young people are forced to return again and again to the killing ground, and even when army suicides are at an all-time high?

My dictionary says an oath is "a solemn promise." And it lists the word "covenant" as "a solemn agreement."

So it seems this oath that you took, to protect and defend the Constitution, is equal to a covenant. That seems pretty serious, does it not?

I understand your hesitancy to act in this matter. When all around us are in agreement that it's okay to drill gas wells all over our city, though it threatens our water and the safety of our citizens, then pretty soon, gas drilling becomes normal.

And when all around us appear to agree that it's okay to invade other countries or create gulags like Guantanamo, or torture people, then pretty soon, that, too, becomes normal.

And after awhile, the voice of conscience is a fragile echo.

Listening to Attorney General Mukasey dodge and equivocate and then literally shrug at the question of whether waterboarding amounts to torture, I had to wonder what on earth any oath or covenant was worth to this man. Let along the Constitution.

And looking at all the offenses of Bush and Cheney, it seems the oath they took is equally worthless.

And if that's true, then where does that leave the promise of our country? It seems that it leaves it in our hands.

The failure to speak up is the worst crime of all, isn't it?

Thank you.

By the end of this 2008 election cycle, Americans could feel like they've gone through some kind of hallucinatory experience. Having recently read Dr. William Sargant's book, Battle for the Mind, I've turned my thoughts to his concerns about prolonged periods of focused anxiety, that can lead even whole populations toward an emotional breaking point, compromising people's normal faculties of judgment, leaving them vulnerable, and open to the masterstroke of what is called, in psychological terms, a "conversion experience".

Dr. Sargant was an English psychiatrist who was treating shell shocked soldiers and severely traumatized air raid personnel during the heavy Blitz of London in World War II. One of the most intense periods for casualties from combat exhaustion was during June 1944, at the time of the D-Day landings in Normandy.

Some of these showed all the usual symptoms of anxiety and depression observed in the peacetime psychiatric practice. Others were in a state of simple but profound exhaustion, generally accompanied by a very marked loss of weight. Still others made gross and unco-ordinated, yet regular, jerking and writhing movements, which were accompanied by a temporary loss of speech or a stammer, or perhaps an explosive form of talking. One group of patients had reached various degrees of collapse and stupor. It was in these acute cases that Pavlov's Conditioned Reflexes and Psychiatry, which we were studying for the first time, proved most enlightening: parallels between their behavior and that of Pavlov's dogs when subjected to experimental stresses leaped to the eye. (William Sargant, Battle for the Mind, p. 48)

Pavlov's experiments on dogs demonstrated that fundamental changes would begin to occur in the animal's brain function, as a series of increasing demands placed on a dog by the lab assistants began to break down the animal's ability to cope, and pushed it over the threshold of nervous collapse. The point of breakdown could be reached sooner and more predictably, when any kind of physical debilitation was added to the dog's ordeal: starvation and weight loss, also exhaustion, the excitation of loud noises, discomfort and duress, and sleep deprivation.

This mounting stress and anxiety, which anticipates a nervous collapse, is described by Pavlov as "inhibitory"--meaning that it is interfering with normal brain function. It is also described as a protective function of the test animal's brain. And once this stage of collapse is reached, the dog is wide open to re-conditioning, because a heightened suggestibility exists in this condition.

Sargant and his colleagues found a way of helping their shell shocked patient by using ether and other drugs to loosen inhibition, and guiding him through therapy sessions, where it was suggested to the soldier that he was presently experiencing a battlefield trauma much like the one he had actually experienced. One patient was told that he was trapped in a burning tank and had to make his way out. This procedure that drew insights from Pavlov's work, required the doctor to agitate the patient to the point of emotional collapse. But the catharsis seemed a great relief to each patient. The therapy succeeded by making the patient re-experience the strong emotions that were associated with the trauma. This was how Dr. Sargant explained it. This cleansing of the wound--so to speak--was the exact requirement to lift away obsessive thoughts and depression. Physical symptoms of combat exhaustion, like partial paralysis and speech disruption, were also relieved.

What Pavlov described as "a rupture in higher nervous activity", can be brought about in stages, leading to a point where habitual responses are no longer possible for the brain. Where human beings are concerned, brainwashing can be made permanent by systematic follow-up and reinforcement. Repetitious messages and rituals can wear down the mind; but Dr. Sargant warns us that the most radical break from habitual response is a potent process, whose aim is the sudden, fundamental conversion of belief. Whether in the milder form that can be witnessed under a revival tent, or in the most ruthless example under Stalin, whose proof was seen in "show trials",--where defendants were converted to the belief that they really were "enemies of the state",--the key to the conversion is still what Pavlov described.

In Battle for the Mind, Sargant recognized that the religious conversions by 18th Century "fire and brimstone" preachers like John Wesley and Jonathan Edwards relied, as well, on the excitation and ultimate inhibition of brain function, and the ratcheting-up of anxiety to a point of exhaustion. While on a break from his wartime duties, he had picked up a copy of Wesley's Journal of 1739-40.

Wesley placed real stress on his congregation during the sermons. The preacher would build it up to a fearsome climax, warning the agitated, and sometimes angered sinners before him, of impending damnation and eternal hellfire. He would prompt them to make the immediate decision for repentance and salvation. It was put as an inescapable choice between one thing or the other: either salvation or damnation. The argument was structured as a decision requiring action "right now". Many hearing these words were physically worn down victims of the Industrial Revolution, severely stressed men with their wives. Those who faced this oratory were warned that they dare not leave their seats or go outside the church, without making the necessary decision.

Dr. Sargant was intrigued when he read reports about "holy rollers" in the United States, concerning religious rituals of "sudden conversion", when people would fall to the floor, or sometimes drift off into semi-hypnotic states before collapsing or shaking. After the war, he decided to travel to the American South to see for himself.

Wesley appreciated the danger of stirring up crowds, reducing them to penitence, and then leaving others to do the work of re-conditioning. While touring the Irish Catholic countryside in 1750, he was asked to preach at Mullingar, but refused because:

I had little hope of doing good in a place where I could preach but once, and where none but me could be suffered to preach at all.

In 1763, similarly, he wrote from Haverfordwest:

I was more convinced than ever that preaching like an apostle, without joining together those that are awakened and training them up in the ways of God, is only begetting children for the murderer [the devil].

When investigating a North Carolina religious snake-handling cult in 1947, it was easy for me to see what Wesley had meant. The descent of the Holy Ghost on these meetings, which were reserved for whites, was supposedly proved by the occurrence of wild excitement, bodily jerkings, and the final exhaustion and collapse in the more suggestible participants. Such hysterical states were induced by means of rhythmic singing and hand clapping, and the handling of genuinely poisonous snakes [which] brought several visitors unexpectedly to the point of sudden collapse and conversion. But a young male visitor--the "murderer" [devil] incarnate--was attending these meetings with the deliberate object of seducing girls who had just been "saved". The fact is that when protective inhibition causes a breakdown and leaves the mind highly suggestible to new behavior patterns, the conversion is non-specific. If the preacher arrives in time to preach chastity and sobriety, well and good; but the "murderer" had learned that on the night that followed a sudden emotional disruption, a sanctified girl might be as easily persuaded to erotic abandon as to the acceptance of the Gospel message."..."Two very opposite types of belief could, in fact, be implanted at the close of the revivalist meeting: by the preacher or by the "murderer". (Ibid pp 221-2)

Dr. Sargant writes that humor has some power to fend off this kind of assault against our faculty of judgment; but that our strong and primal emotions--fear, guilt, and especially anger--are dangerous to us as we face these techniques of political or religious conversion.

After the Towers came down in New York, didn't we become subject to the idea of terror? American brains were converted to the belief that Iraq and its leader were behind the attack, a belief founded on nothing that was real. As time passed you could ask most anyone in the U.S. what the impact would be on our liberties, in the event of another major attack on our soil. You would be told that democracy and the Bill of Rights would be downgraded; and one of our own generals said as much, publicly. And fundamental rights were downgraded, even in the absence of such an attack. In 2001, in the first weeks after the Towers in New York were pulverized, there began a widespread falling off of brain function.

It occurs to me that the unsolved case of the anthrax letters, biological agents sent to some Members of Congress, started as much panic in Washington as the 9/11 attack did. Congress then passed the Patriot Act, on faith alone, without reading it. And what unfathomable power has been connected to our al-Qaeda enemy, since that time? From all accounts it adds up to this: some money provided by individuals in Saudi Arabia, logistical assistance from some adjunct of Pakistan's security apparatus, and most fearsome of all, the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. And roughly a dozen men with box-cutters.

There may be little to distinguish the New Leader from the old one, at the point where everything turns on abstraction, where history and true conditions are kept from the public, where primal emotions are inflamed, where logic is poisoned, and law and decency are perverted. There is a reflection of this in George Orwell's 1984, in which those techniques are adapted to the masses in a mass-marketed way, toward the manipulation of public opinion--not merely by falsification and propaganda--but by engineering on a psychological level, that constantly increases the stress it has put on its citizens.

It occurs to me that the whole process of choosing American presidents has, in effect, become a kind of emotional and psychological simplification. It comes down not so much to a public capacity to decide which of two evils is the less evil, but to an engineered result, that has steered the harried voters to a president they cannot help but select. If we are lucky we may be able to preserve the thinking part of our brains, and our heads will not be turned, while the seducer walks casually among us.

This was a morning meeting. Ten a.m. My pal, Ben, was there, and Nell, a retired nurse. The place was packed when I first got there, hardly an open seat in the house. They were there to usher out the retiring City Manager and welcome in the new one. By the time the Citizen Presentations rolled around, the hall had pretty well cleared out.

Up to this point, the Mayor had seemed pretty jolly, perhaps because the agenda, as usual, was filled with numerous applications for gas drilling throughout the city. I get the feeling the Mayor really loves gas drilling. As he called my name, the blood seemed to drain from his face, replaced with the old sour expression I've come to know and love, a look that suggests a case of severe indigestion from eating too much red meat. Again, he gave me his little "pep" talk, almost the exact same one he handed me the last time I spoke, vis, "You've been here several times, now. I'm not sensing any enthusiasm on this council to do what you're asking. I can't keep you from speaking, but I ask you to keep your remarks brief." I gave him a polite reply. Then I spoke:

Mayor, Council members, last time I was here, you told me you had no interest in passing a resolution to impeach the President and Vice President of the United States. No interest.

As you pointed out, I've come in several times to speak to this issue. Today marks my fifth. Each time I've tried to present the facts as clearly as I could. I've not exaggerated anything. There was no need--it seemed clear to me that the facts would speak for themselves.

We have a president and vice-president who have committed egregious blunders and breaches of the law. That's a fact. They have lied to Congress, the U.N., and the American people, in order to launch a vicious attack against a sovereign country, which has resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people. Those are facts.

Through a long list of abuses of human rights, they have soiled the high regard others held for us, and shamed our country before the world.

I have shown how this unnecessary war has caused a drain on the coffers of every city, including this one. And how the skewed priorities of this administration threatens the very infrastructure of our nation.

I don't believe this is an unreasonable request.

A simple resolution calling for impeachment is not impeachment itself. It is simply a principled stand. It is a voice from one city. . .saying that we don't like it when presidents lie to us. We don't think it's right or moral to attack countries that have not attacked us, and never planned to.

We don't want a government that spies on our citizens. Or one that runs Soviet style gulags where people are put away for years without the most basic right to a lawyer and a fair trial. And we don't believe in torturing people.

But the Mayor insists you have no interest in pursuing this resolution. Can that be true?

According to Plato, reason and justice cannot be a matter of personal conduct alone; they must become attributes of society at large. So we all have an interest in this, do we not?

The city cannot wrap itself in a protective cocoon that insulates it from the affairs of the nation. The crimes our national leaders commit, they do so in our name.

So long as we are silent, so long as we remain "disinterested," I believe they will take our silence and our disinterest for acquiescence and complicity. And they will commit more and greater offenses.

This is not about Republicans and Democrats. Surely, you can't think that you owe these men your allegiance. The only allegiance, the only love you owe, is to the Constitution (here, I held up a copy of it, showing it to them), which you have sworn to defend.

Yet, you say you're not interested.

Dante said, "The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who, in times of great moral crisis, maintain their neutrality."

That last bit was suggested by Ben. But before I could unload it on them, the timer beep sounded and the Mayor abruptly cut me off--the first time he's done so, though I've gone over the time limit very slightly in previous talks. I guess he's trying to tell me something.

Well, I'll try to get Dante's quote into the next speech.

Before I left the podium, I held up my dog-eared copy of the Constitution again and said, "I'll just leave this with you. Maybe you can read it if you find the time."

Then I handed it to the City Secretary.

The council met this morning and I was there. This time, one of the news outlets was on hand with a camera setup, so maybe I got myself on TV. I had a feeling before I went up there that the Mayor was going to say something to me. I had no idea what it was going to be, but I felt it coming. I think it's because he kept looking over at me now and then as the meeting progressed. The idea that he was going to say something gave me the jitters, so I tried not to think about it too much.

One thing that was kind of hard to watch during the meeting was the number of park lands that went up before the City Council that the gas companies want to drill under and get out the gas. One after another went before them. No objections. All passed speedily, routinely, with hardly a comment from anyone. And that's a regular part of every meeting, now--every week.

Well, sure enough, after he called my name and as I was on my way up there, he said, "Mr. Harper, this makes several appearances you've made here regarding impeachment." Here he paused and glanced around at his cohorts. "I'm not sensing any interest on the council to impeach the President. I can't prevent you from speaking, but I would ask you to keep your remarks brief."

I wish I'd had the presence of mind to say, "Maybe I can change your mind." Instead, I just smiled and said, "I appreciate that." To which he said, "Thank you." Then I gave my spiel.

I will say that, for some reason--perhaps because the Mayor finally spoke to me and I answered civilly, that maybe a little ice was broken. But I did notice that all the members seemed to pay closer and more polite attention to me this time than previously, even including those who had been the most rude before. Maybe they were thinking, "Well, let's give the guy a nice listen, here, 'cause he's not coming back after what the Mayor told him."

Who knows what's in their minds, other than poking more holes in the Barnett Shale? Anyhow, I look upon the Mayor's attempt to discourage me not as discouragement, but as progress, and thus, it seems imperative that I appear before them at the next meeting.

I did manage to come in under the three minute timer, so at the end, I looked up and added, "You have all sworn to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States. It seems to me that that should come before paving roads or drilling gas wells." After which, they just looked at me. I thanked them and sat down.

Here's the speech:

Mayor, Council members, I come before you for the fourth time to ask you to pass a resolution calling for the impeachment of George W. Bush and Richard B. Cheney.

This past Friday, January 11th, marked the sixth anniversary of the prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where over 800 men and boys have been held without charge or access to any judicial review.

On Friday and Saturday, thousands of people around the world turned out to protest Guantanamo, including the Philippines, Sweden, Paraguay, Bahrain, Ireland, the United Kingdom and Israel.

The Bush Administration claims these detainees are "enemy combatants." In fact, many were not picked up on or near any battlefield. Only ten percent have been charged with a crime. None have been convicted in a court of law. According to military records, the U.S. has not even accused the majority of them of fighting U.S. Forces or its allies.

The Bush Administration insists the prisoners are treated humanely. He continues to claim that we do not torture.

But according to former interrogators and FBI reports, prisoners at Guantanamo and other places have been subjected to horrible abuses that amount to cruel and inhuman treatment and torture.

The Bush Administration has claimed that summary hearings before three military officers are a sufficient substitute for courts of law.

But such hearings have relied on secret classified evidence, and in many cases, the accused was never told what he was accused of that would make him "an enemy combatant." They've been denied lawyers, they've not been allowed to produce witnesses or evidence apart from their own statements. And the government claims the right to rely on confessions obtained through torture.

So these "trials" are like something out of Kafka or the Third Reich. They contradict every principle the U.S. has held since its