- With the beatification and creation of a hero for the
American people we have received little to no news of anything happening
in the world. Coincidence (of which I am not a believer in) is an uncanny
thing. With no living heroes Public Relations firms have been busy creating
a hero for us. Life guard, GE spokesman, Guild Actors President, Governor
and President R.Reagan has been chosen.
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- Mostly the rhetoric has said over and over again that
"He made us feel good about ourselves" I guess that's the key.
As long as we're "feeling" good that's all that matters. War,
the 9-11 Hearings, massive unemployment, the outsourcing of millions of
jobs, prison abuses, and Summit Meetings, have all been shelved in the
Long Goodbye of muffled drums, a riderless horse, a frail widow, a flag
draped box, shell shocked Reagan children, flags, and foreign dignitaries.
Not to be outdone by England we can match them in pomp, pageantry and
history already being rewritten. Since most Americans receive their news
from TV sound bytes/infotainment this hasn't been hard.
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- Missing this week, is the astounding over kill in Georgia,
of emergency measures in six counties setting up a virtual siege. The
enemy? Americans who have the audacious tenacity to ask why global decisions
being made have the voice of the world's people left out of the process!
After all, those making the decions in elegant, moneyed surroundings don't
work for a living.
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- While there has been no expense spared staging a military
presence in Georgia (not on the news), one wonders where all this expertise
and weaponry and protections were for, we the people, on 9-11? Out to lunch---or
so it appeared, no one responded , as planes crashed across America killing
thousands. Not so, when it comes to protecting the world's elite at the
opulent resort of Sea Island. The measures taken include; ground-to-air
missiles, the deployment of tens of thousands of police and military personnel,
the navy and coast guard, with AWACs reconnaissance planes and fighter
jets continuously patrolling the air. The White House's very own Secret
Service (that means we're footing the bill) is running the entire operation.
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- The press and media are also being kept at a safe distance
(lest the herd get wind of plans for their future). They are 140 kilometers
away in Savannah. Kept at a safe distance the media reported via a closed
circuit television link. They also had to pay for the privilege of covering
the summit. No investigative reporting on this yet. >From embedded to
watching like the rest of us. Sound bytes on TV. No muckrakers need apply.
This would have Ida Tarbell rolling in her grave.
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- The Boston Globe, reports June 9-2004, that Boston police
were on hand in Georgia to study how law enforcement agencies responded
to potentially violent protests. But alas, they were disappointed in observing
how one uses stun guns, clubs, rubber bullets, and gas to silence freedom
of speech. Silly thought, but it was rumored that many stayed home due
to the thousands of military personnel, helicopter patrols, officers in
riot gear and federal agents with machine guns. Frankly, I think they were
all at Reagan's funeral, patriots that they are.
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- Deputy Superintendent Robert O'Toole, gearing up for
the big doings in Boston, said he was impressed with the security efforts
(for a handful of people), particularly the cooperation between federal
and local agencies. Now, if only we could get them to cooperate in sharing
information on terrorists planning to attack American landmarks we might
be getting someplace. As it is, this information sharing works well only
when targeting everyday-working-American citizens. Unarmed and peaceful
they are easier targets. The important is to "feel" safe not
free.
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- I'm a little confused. Airport GED personnel, are searching,
scanning, and doing body cavity searches of tourists to Disney World and
the elderly off to that last vacation before death --with 11 million illegal
aliens running around loose! Hundreds of thousands of other foreigners
are (thank you Congress) brought in to work at resorts or to replace Information
Technology workers at various businesses. Meantime, nursing mothers and
three year olds are suspects, while hundreds of thousands of pounds of
cargo make it onto planes (carrying passengers) with hardly a yawn. But
then I'm no security expert.
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- Up here in the Vermont and the New Hampshire area we
have those with Pilgrim blood being pulled over for random car searches.
State Representatives, veterans, professors, farmers, poets, loggers, sap
collectors etc, all are suspect! Mayflower papers not withstanding. Meantime,
we have suspected terrorists taking lessons on crop dusters and buying
box cutters. I can't figure it? It must be something about giving people
a uniform, a helmet, a shield, stun guns, gas, and flak jackets, that
turns them into Superstud! Newly created, this armored machine, replaces
the Superman of their comic book childhoods. "Look, up in the sky!
It's a bird! It's a plane! It's Superstud! Faster than a streak of lightening.
More powerful than a Patriot missile. Able to legally club defenseless
citizens. Yes. It's Superstud, in real life a token booth collector, and
bagger at your local market. Now given powers far beyond his once dreary,
non-descriptive life. Superstud, who can terrorize seniors, club students,
bash workers with his 3 foot club, and who, disguised as Joe Sixpack, slovenly
couch potato, fights a never-ending battle to stamp out truth and justice
for his corporate masters. The new Homeland way."
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- Deputy Superintendent O'Toole; getting himself in a
lather for the upcoming Democratic Convention in Boston, states that police
and city officials hope to keep things as "normal as normal can be."
Now normal doesn't mean what it used to mean. Normal for O'Toole and his
army of Superstuds, means that parts of Boston will be carved out in zones.
Trains won't run and highways will be shut down. He assures us that if
an incident get out of hand the riot police (Superstud to the rescue)
will be called in. Now in Florida, at the FTAA marches in Miami (Nov 03),
an "incident" could mean disembarking from your bus and carrying
your puppets and signs up the street. The devil is in the details. It
always depends on what one sees as an "incident". There were
approximately 250,000 (not shown on TV) protesters out in Italy when President
Bush recently went to see the Pope. No rampaging and no stun guns-clubs-tanks
or machine guns. And we're the land of the free?
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- Since November '03, had us busy with the round the clock
coverage of the phantom- bleached -specter from Never Never Land, and the
latest charges of alledged child molestation ; we missed any coverage of
our jobs being shipped out to every country in Central America, South America,
and the Caribbean. Citizens weren't a part of these secret negotiations.
Corporations instead were the key advisors. Most probably those costumed
as Superstud had little, to no idea, of what The Free Trade Area of the
Americas meant. How could they know that those they were clubbing or threatening
were there to protect the jobs of America's children? Their children. Instead
new jobs it appears will be prison guards, garbage men, snow makers, clerks,
Walmart greeters, Home Depot Associates, black jack dealers, politicans
and Speech Silencers. A look at the following site will show you what a
kinder, gentler, compassionate, silent democracy, looks like. Little
wonder they kept it off the nightly news.
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- http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2003/12/276133.shtml
and http://www.benfrank.net/nuke/ftaa112003/Police_Brutality_in_Miami.html
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- Now back to the beatification ceremonies.
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- I do so want to be a part of history.
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