there was a great article in the Hartford Advocate today.
Independents´ Day
Free Free and yourselves too
by Alan Bisbort - July 7, 2005
Something is rotten in Washington, D.C. The rot starts at the head,
of course, with the Bush-Cheney administration, but the stench from the
rot wafts into all corridors of power, both houses of Congress, the
U.S. Capitol, Supreme Court, the "think tanks," Farragut West and
McPherson Square — where the lobbyists and "journalists" co-mingle –
across the river at the Pentagon, where defense contractors make
national policy, up GW Parkway at the CIA, now a wing of the Oval
Office. No one affiliated with any of these entities is free from the
stench. Like people who’ve been stuck inside a tightly packed,
smoke-filled nightclub, their clothes reek of corruption and mendacity
and it escapes like halitosis every time they open their mouths.
On the Mall this July Fourth, some weird mutant version of the
Beach Boys got up and went desultorily through their string of ancient
hits (did Bush really sing "Bomb Bomb Iran" instead of "Barbara Ann"?).
The fireworks exploded like bombs over Fallujah, the crowds applauded.
But the mood was subdued in the nation’s capital, now ringed by so much
concrete and razor wire that it’s begun to resemble its "gulag" at
Guantánamo Bay.
This is why it’s a waste of time to watch "the Commander in Chief,"
or his malevolent minions speak, why it’s a waste of time to listen to
the pundits afterwards deconstruct the words as if there is anything to
be found, why it’s an exercise in masochism to read the accounts in the
newspapers the next day (though I did like the AP’s headline: "Bush
Says Bloodshed in Iraq ‘Worth It’"). Bush’s speech last week from Fort
Bragg was like O.J. Simpson vowing he’d find his wife’s killer. If
you’re already locked into their lunatic wavelength, you’ll be moved by
what they say. If not — and this now means 60 percent of the American
people — the words are like punches to the belly, slaps in the face,
kicks in the groin, boots up the ass.
Though all three major networks, plus Fox, let themselves be used
as tools by the White House, carrying the speech live, very few
Americans watched. Think about that. The four most- watched networks
aired the same event at the same time and still it only managed to
score a viewership roughly equivalent to a cable network rerun of
Sanford & Son. They’ve lost the heart and soul of America when even
the couch potatoes smell the rot and won’t watch. It is becoming clear
to them that we’re losing the war on terror because Bush was never
serious about fighting it.
To wit: A helicopter was shot down by al-Qaeda operatives in
Afghanistan last week, killing all 17 Americans aboard, including one
soldier from Connecticut. Is it churlish of me, then, to point out the
obvious? Had the Washington, D.C., establishment focused our once
prodigious military presence on the very breeding grounds of the
terrorists that masterminded 9/11 rather than being diverted by Bush’s
lies and misleading the nation into the quagmire in Iraq, that fight
would already be over, and the helicopter that went down would not have
been where it was, a sitting duck blasted by our real enemy, which
we’ve heretofore ignored.
The smell of rotting blood is making America sick, as are
Republicans, for their lockstep lunacy, and Democrats, for their craven
willingness to go along. In the spirit of Independence, then, it’s time
that all those who really love their country back away from party
affiliations altogether. Just declare yourself independent, pull away
from the daily dynamic of he said/she said and say "I said." Put your
country ahead of your party.
And speaking of independence, I am reminded of Jeff "Free" Luers
who, in 2000, was sentenced to 22 years in prison for burning three
SUVs at a car dealership in Eugene, Oregon. His act of arson, in which
no one was hurt, was intended, he said, to "call attention to climate
change and to protest oil wars and environmental destruction." While I
don’t dispute that "Free" broke the law — nor do I encourage others to
follow his example — he has already (as of June 12) served five years
for this offense and made restitution to the dealership. The average
prison sentence for arson in Oregon is five years. When his sentence is
compared to the 10 years given Abu Ghraib Prison torturer Charles
Graner or the 18 years the same judge gave another Oregon man for
molesting children, Jeff’s sentence is excessive. There is no other way
to look at this but that Jeff "Free" Luers is, yes, a political
prisoner.
Don’t take my word for it. Find out for yourself at www.freefreenow.org; or "meet" him by writing: Jeffrey Luers, # 13797671, Oregon State Prison, 2605 State Street, Salem, OR 97310.
