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AUSTIN, Texas -- We cannot let pass without salute Martha Stewart’s remarks after being sentenced to five months in prison. In the long history of amazing things said by people in peculiar circumstances, you must admit, this ranks right up there. “There are many, many good people who have gone to prison,” she observed. “Look at Nelson Mandela.”

        We live in a great nation.

        Unfortunately, we are all likely to be driven batty if this presidential campaign gets any worse, which it is likely to do. Last week, I was on book tour doing one chat show after another and so got to experience first-hand the Republican orchestration of their talking points. And an impressive display it is. Truly, they speak with one voice, repeating the same thing over and over, never off-message -- just remarkable.

The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) has noted a recent wave of reports from across the country indicating that FBI agents are contacting Arab and Muslim Americans, including citizens, for what has been described as voluntary interviews.  ADC would like to remind members of the Arab, Muslim, and Arab-American communities that equal protection and due process rights are afforded to everyone, including non-citizens, in the United States.

Unlike previous initiatives, the FBI has not communicated to ADC any plans to conduct such interviews. ADC urges anyone who is contacted by the FBI to contact the ADC Legal Department and provide details of the incident by calling (202) 244-2990, sending a fax to (202) 244-3196, or via email to legal@adc.org.

Upon request, ADC will do its best to provide third party observers, in cases where potential interviewees would want such additional safeguards. Additional useful "Know Your Rights" information can be found on the ADC website at:  http://www.adc.org/index.php?id=275.

If you really were for a "free press," you would view the idea that someone would attempt to "stop Rush Limbaugh" as near treasonous!

YOU exemplify "newspeak" that George Orwell described in his prophetic novel "1984."

Dear Editor,

I was appalled to learn that President Bush refused to speak at the NAACP Convention this year. As a veteran, I find this sends a very disturbing message to the many minority soldiers in our military. The Pentagon estimates that blacks make up about 20 percent of our forces - many have already died in Iraq and Afghanistan fighting for our country.

How must the families of these soldiers feel when George W. Bush turns his back on one of our nation's leading civil rights organizations. Shame on you Mr. President.

Sincerely,
Major Robert Tormey
U.S. Air Force, Ret.

In Fahrenheit 9/11 Michael Moore rather rudely sets out to show George W Bush to be an illegitimate president, a fool, and hopelessly compromised and corrupted by big oil and its business links to Saudi Arabia. Whatever your politics you'll have difficulty convincing yourself that he doesn't succeed in these aims. Plenty of reviewers other than Hitchens have admired the film but, partly because Hitchens would want to think that his review (like all his opinions) was being taken more seriously than anyone else's, let's look only at his. It may also be a fair way in which to make a case against the adventurism of the COW (Coalition Of the Willing) attack on Saddam, and against the neocon world vision thing more generally. Hitchens is able to argue their case for them more ably than can the neocons themselves, and his rants against Moore are ones that most of the neocon, chickenhawk, Bush/Cheney apologists and puppetmasters would be proud to call their own if they were as smart.

Dear Freepress,

I want to let Fitrakis and Wasserman know that I applaud their intelligently written article and many useful references.

I have been dismayed by the reception of this film by moderate and even liberal critics.

During these perilous times, I have become something of a news junkie out of self defense. I had the same response when I read their disclaimers; don't these people read?

The body of evidence supporting the oil pipeline "connections" and the Bush/Saudi allegations is substantial as they have written. Where's the outrage? What are these people being threatened with that they aim their guns at their own?

The audience are expressing themselves with their wallets and obviously disagree with the pundits. Hopefully some of them will Google these issues and some will be journalists who will dig even deeper.

I was also struck by journalists who criticized the film for being entertaining and followed with a list of mind numbing statistics and boring information, inadvertently revealing their complete lack of understanding of the film media and perhaps a bit of envy.

The communities of east central Indiana are isolated from the realities of life in the middle east. We are rarely touched by the deaths of American soldiers--at least personally.

We read about Iraq, Israel, and Gaza on page 8A of our USA Today run-financed newspapers. The increasing terror of the middle east is mostly abstract to Indiana citizens.

Midwesterners are touched by the terror of higher gasoline prices. They know very well that Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and other middle east hot spots are sources of reasonably priced oil. American capitalism runs on low energy prices. Who had rather walk than ride?

As partisan politics goes, Midwest America voters are pragmatic in their solutions to most any problem--domestic and/or foreign.

Honesty and competence are values that Americans care about. The phrase, "an honest day's work," certainly works well in the heartland. All of life is an effort "to chase truths." Time never stays still.

If we, the citizens of this nation, prevent the Bush Administration and its apologists from placing their blood-stained hands upon our ears, turn away from the voices of caution rising in chorus from the Establishment and simply listen to the sounds of chaos emanating from Iraq, we will hear the infamous, unmistakable echo of Vietnam attempting to tell us the terrible truth: this war, too, is sound and fury signifying nothing.

Nothing but pointless and tragic death and destruction. Nothing but the systematic dehumanization of our soldiers and of the people of Iraq. Nothing but the absolute futility of a nation attempting to impose its imperial power upon a people who refuse to accept it.