April 25, 2002
SPEAK OUT!

Ari Fleischer and John Ashcroft - as Bush's shills -- have tried to scare Americans into keeping their mouths shut. You'd better watch what you say! said Fleischer. Disagreeing with the President only helps the terrorists! Ashcroft screamed. Neither wasted a second in exploiting the horror of September 11 to the absolute max.

The reason for that effort was because they know that nothing could be more damaging to them than people speaking out. In fact their program is beneficial to such a tiny minority, that if people talk among themselves freely about political matters, there is no way their regime can survive.

That's it. It's starting to happen and if you are plugged into the alternative news community online you can see and feel the effects beginning. People are talking. Rage is leaking from the pressure cooker. People are hearing other voices and realizing that large numbers are united against the war machine of George Bush, a large majority in fact. And the power of those numbers is becoming self-conscious.

Look what happened in Venezuela! That was a stunning defeat for the United States covert operations, even as they pretend they had nothing to do with it. The Bush regime is not infallible. Look what happened in Poland! In the Soviet Union! It has not been a good time for tyrants. They have to at least pretend they are democratic. The Reagan Bush movement can be seen as a counter-historical trend based on a temporary advantage of those who don't honor any of the normally accepted principles of civilization, such as fairness, honesty, peace, right to life (I'm talking about real right to life, of real living people, like peasants in Afghanistan or Colombia, not the bullshit line of the anti-abortionists).

Now this nasty little oligarchy has pushed the other 90% so far into a corner that -- by the laws of physics -- it is meeting resistance. Like a corporation it cannot moderate itself, it cannot change modes. It can only push forward in non-stop effort to acquire more power and money. Until it ultimately destroys itself.

Corporate meltdowns are breaking out of the tense silence that followed the Enron debacle. The monetary system is stretched to the breaking point. Things are falling apart. The Big Lie is bald faced. Americans are waking up to the plunder that has been carrying on with white hot intensity since the Reagan years.

Whatever your feelings about the believability of the White House about what happened on 9-11, it is undeniable - measurable - who benefited most, and how. Now that voices are being raised and dissent is beginning to find a voice, it would be wise to prepare ourselves for the possibility that there could be more horrors like those of 911. Whatever the causes of that lapse in security was - whether you believe every word of the White House, or in fact even more if you worship the President and John Ashcroft - you have reason to steel yourself against further disasters. Even if all the Al Qaeda are dead, I think it would be hard for our friendly autocrats to give up the luxury of nearly absolute power they have enjoyed for the past few months. And if there are more disasters, will it succeed in shutting your mouth? Will you cower and say the cause of freedom is not worth putting ourselves in danger for, so let us cooperate fully with Our Protectors. Our protectors! What a pathetic joke!

I say Speak Up! Let them knock down every skyscraper in New York, whoever they are and whoever lets them do it! Let them burn down all our cities. If we give up our Free Society, if we throw out the Bill of Rights, then we have already given up what made this country great. We will go down in history as the generation that gave America up to the fascists without a fight.

Speak up! Let them kill you, and me, and all the poor and middle class and all the Third World and all the people who believe as we do that freedom of expression, justice, equal rights, and all the other precious things they have effectively suspended - democracy itself!! (Remember December 2001? If only we had been as spirited as the Venezuelans!) If we are going to go down, let us go down fighting for what is really important. It isn't our BMWs and our ritzy homes - if you happen to have one… If what we have is not democracy, if it is not justice, then it is nothing. Nothing.

So SPEAK OUT!!