Springsteen makes statement about media, government and the Dixie Chicks

The Dixie Chicks have taken a big hit lately for exercising their basic right to express themselves. To me, they're terrific American artists expressing American values by using their American right to free speech. For them to be banished wholesale from radio stations, and even entire radio networks, for speaking out is un-American.

The pressure coming from the government and big business to enforce conformity of thought concerning the war and politics goes against everything that this country is about - namely freedom. Right now, we are supposedly fighting to create freedom in Iraq, at the same time that some are trying to intimidate and punish people for using that same freedom here at home.

I don't know what happens next, but I do want to add my voice to those who think that the Dixie Chicks are getting a raw deal, and an un-American one to boot. I send them my support.

Another bad idea from the Republican Party

AUSTIN, Texas -- Boy, there is no shortage of creatively terrible ideas from the Republican Party these days. Those folks are just full of notions about how to make people's lives worse -- one horrible idea after another bursting out like popcorn -- and all of them with these sickeningly cute names attached to them.

Consider the Family Time and Workplace Flexibility Act (Senate version) and the Family Time Flexibility Act (House version). The Bush administration is leading the charge with proposed new rules that will erode the 40-hour workweek and affect more than 80 million workers now protected by the Fair Labor Standards Act.

To hear the Republicans tell it, you'd think these were family-friendly bills, something like Clinton's Family Leave Act, designed to help you balance the difficult combined demands of work and family. With such a smarm of butter over their visages do the Republicans go on about the joys of "flexibility" and "freedom of choice" that you would have to read the bills for maybe 30 seconds before figuring out they're about repealing the 40-hour workweek and ending overtime.

'There IS no rest of the world' Leaked White House Transcript (5)

PRESIDENT BUSH: Alright! Alright! Alright! Saddam Hussein, down the toilet. Good work guys. That'll teach that towelhead son-of-a-bitch to mess with my daddy.

VICE PRESIDENT CHENEY: Yessir, yessir, yessir, it's all over but the shouting now, men. No more yapping from those peacenik creeps. No more stupid jerking around at the UN. Oil prices plummeting. Rebuilding contracts all around. Life is sweet. Fuck the Democrats. Fuck Tony Blair. It's on to Teheran.

KARL ROVE: Democrats? What Democrats? Fox, MSNBC, Clear Channel, the networks, that's where the power is at. All those gas bag lap dogs creaming themselves and wiping it up with the flag. George, you're going down in history. We got the whole world groveling at our feet. I love those frogs and krauts whining about the big bucks already rolling in from that beautiful Iraqi oil. Boys, we got it all.

VICE PRESIDENT CHENEY: I must say, Karl, your idea of using Putin to slip Saddam that five billion bucks to turn tail was a master stroke. The Republican Guard took that money and ran. Saved us months of hassle and billions of dollars. What genius!

The decline and fall of American journalism

Until Judith Miller's piece showed up on the front page of the New York Times on April 22, I'd thought the distillation of disingenuous U.S. press coverage of the invasion of Iraq came with the images of the April 9 hauling down of Saddam's statue and of Iraqis cheering U.S. troops in the square in Baghdad in front of the Palestine Hotel.

These were billed as the photos and news footage that showed It Was All Worthwhile, up there in the pantheon with Joe Rosenthal's photograph of the raising of the U.S. flag on Iwo Jima and the images of the Berlin Wall going down.

Now, I'm certain there were plenty of Iraqis in Baghdad on April 9 delighted at the possibility that the Age of Saddam had drawn to a close. And probably there were some Iraqis prepared to wave at Saddam's conquerors riding in on their tanks. The problem is that the news photographs aren't there to prove it.

I've yet to see the image reproduced in any mainstream American newspaper that I've come across, but I have seen photographs on the Web of the entire square when that statue was being pulled down by a U.S. tank, and

Ohio Ballots, Computers, and Private Contractors

The Toledo Blade reports that Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell is moving ahead with a plan to put computerized voting machines in all 88 Ohio counties by 2004.  County election officials, we are told, will able to choose a ballot vendor from a list of pre-selected private corporations that program electronic voting machines. The state will write all the purchase contracts and pay for the machines.  

This project is billed as vast improvement over current non-standardized voting systems. Officials also claim it is designed to protect Ohio from the ballot mess in Florida that threw the 2000 presidential election into the hands of the Supreme Court.  

However, it's worth asking whether or not the vote recording and counting process, so crucial to fair elections, should be placed in the hands of private contractors who are not accountable to citizens?  "You'd think in an open democracy," writes attorney Thom Hartmann in a recent article on CommonDreams.org, "that the government - answerable to all its citizens rather than a handful of corporate officers and stockholders - would program, repair, and control the voting machines."  

U.S. Easter celebrations hail the New Caesar

As the Freep goes to press this Easter weekend, amidst the rituals of a predominantly culturally Christian nation, the perils of the Bush administration’s imperialist occupation of Iraq were thrust into the mainstream media limelight. The Columbus Dispatch ran a New York Times article on its front page pointing out that which the Free Press has been pointing out for nearly a year, that the U.S. is planning a long-term military occupation of Iraq. The Pentagon is demanding long-term access to four key military bases in Iraq.

Alas, the shroud of Iraqi liberation is ripped away and the resurrected body of the new Roman Empire exposed. As the Times explained, “A military foothold in Iraq would be felt across the border in Syria, and in combination with the continued United States presence in Afghanistan it would virtually surround Iran with a new web of American influence.”

Why four died in Ohio: Governor Rhodes and his relationship with the FBI

Ten days after Governor James A. Rhodes assumed office on January 14, 1963, a Cincinnati FBI agent wrote Director J. Edgar Hoover a memo stating: “At this moment he [Rhodes] is busier than a one-armed paper hanger . . . . Consequently, I do not plan to establish contact with him for a few months. We will have no problem with him whatsoever. He is completely controlled by an SAC [Special Agent in Charge] contact, and we have full assurances that anything we need will be made available promptly. Our experience proves this assertion.”

Why would the FBI assert that the newly-inaugurated governor of Ohio is “completely controlled”? Media sources like Life magazine noted the governor’s alleged ties to organized crime and the Mafia in specific. Gov. Rhodes’ FBI file, obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request, suggests that it may be because of the FBI’s extensive knowledge of Rhodes’ involvement in the numbers rackets in the late 1930’s that the Bureau could count on his cooperation.

Michael Moore Was Right

There are no weapons of mass destruction: Bush's war was launched on a fiction. The fictional president has lied about just about every conceivable topic since he was appointed to the office, against the will of the voters of America.

I don't know if most Americans are even mildly aware of the scope of Bush administration lies. The television stations are co-opted into the propaganda stream. FOX is the worst, and Clear Channel radio stations. NBC is also horrid. They will not challenge Bush and his anti-democratic policies that favor the hugest and the richest. It's an Orwellian 1984 world out there now.

Bush and Company knew there would be no WMDs, since 1995, when Saddam's son-in-law Hussein Kamal defected and brought with him extensive documentation that the weapons programs were no more. UN inspectors knew, and they told the world that they had shut down Iraq's WMD programs, and that Iraq posed no threat at all to the superpower of the United States.

ComFest Funds a 'Grand' Tree Planting

Last Autumn, The Community Festival provided $1,000 to fund the planting of dozens of trees in Iuka Park, between Summit St. & North 4th. Several species, including paw paw, ironwood, beech, tupelo, & swamp white oak were planted. The work has been done in conjunction with the Iuka Ravine Association, and currently includes added mulching and chicken wire surrounds. ComFest regulars Maynard G Krebs (dubbed "The Ranger of Iuka Ravine" by an area neighbor) and Bill Winkle are seeing to the latest efforts. If you'd like to help them care for young trees, contact: billwinkle1@hotmail.com and use "Iuka Park Trees" in the subject line.

Poem

In the end there will be no humanity.
There will be nothing left.

This is our fate
as we have chosen it.
This is the end
we strive to achieve.
Look at what we have gained and all that we've lost,
and tell me that we've evolved.

Look at the evil in half of the world,
and tell me America isn't involved.

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