And thanks for the link to Grieve. Intro to that:

"Shut your mouth"
As radio giants censor antiwar musicians, TV networks bully pro-peace actors, and Attorney General John Ashcroft prepares a new assault on civil liberties, a climate of intimidation creeps over America.

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By Tim Grieve

March 24, 2003 | As the United States marches toward Baghdad and braces for terrorist reprisals back home, Attorney General John Ashcroft may see in America's orange-alert fears and us-against-them attitude a target of opportunity he cannot resist. The man who pushed the USA PATRIOT Act through a terrified Congress in the days after Sept. 11, 2001, may be planning a new assault on civil liberties in the wake of the war on Iraq.

In February, the Center for Public Integrity uncovered a confidential Justice Department draft of the Domestic Security Enhancement Act of 2003. The legislation picks up where the PATRIOT Act left off -- more wiretaps and secret searches, government access to credit reports and other personal records, a database of DNA samples, and provisions allowing the attorney general to revoke the U.S. citizenship of anyone who provides assistance to a group the government considers a "terrorist" organization.

The draft drew a barrage of criticism from across the political spectrum. The Lawyers Committee for Human Rights called it a "Department of Justice wish list" that would "endanger core civil liberties," while William Safire denounced it as both an "assault" and an "abomination."

Although the 120-page draft had the detailed look of a proposal ready for congressional consideration, the Justice Department quickly downplayed it as merely the brainstorming of low-level staff. When pressed about the proposed security measure at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing earlier this month, Ashcroft devolved into an odd exploration of the self-referential passive voice: There was nothing to discuss with the Senate, the attorney general said, because "no final discussion has been made with the attorney general."

But that was early March -- before U.S. armed forces moved into Iraq, before intelligence officials declared additional terrorist attacks a "near certainty," before a recent round of court decisions signaled increased judicial acceptance of the administration's war on terror, and before a smattering of news reports showed signs that Americans may be adopting for themselves the with-us-or-against-us approach the administration has taken with foreign countries and internal dissenters alike.

It is a target-rich environment for Ashcroft now, and civil libertarians fear that he may be ready to fire soon. Last week, a remarkable alliance of more than 65 advocacy groups -- ranging from the American Civil Liberties Union and the NAACP to the American Conservative Union and the Gun Owners of America -- took the unusual step of writing to Congress to oppose legislation that has not yet been introduced. The theory: If they wait until the moment of crisis when Ashcroft unveils what they're calling PATRIOT Act II, it will already be too late.

"Last time around, the attorney general announced that he was sending up a bill and that he expected Congress to enact it within three days," the ACLU's Timothy Edgar said of Ashcroft's post-9/11 push for the first PATRIOT Act in an interview with Salon. "They ended up taking six weeks, but they still didn't have a single hearing, and members were unable to obtain a complete text of the legislation even after they voted on it."

Edgar said he hopes the groups' preemptive strike will put Congress on notice of the "broad and deep concern" about PATRIOT II, and that Congress will have the courage to question the need for the new law enforcement powers in it. But in the climate of intolerance, intimidation and fear now swirling around the war on terror, he also knows that this may be wishful thinking.

There's also [link|http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2003/04/02/hell/index.html| Briefing for a descent into Hell] - which may require watching the ad too, but only Once per day.. Free sample:

Briefing for a descent into hell
A wide-eyed extraterrestrial is instructed about how a man named Bush became the most powerful leader on Earth -- and how he led the planet into chaos.

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By Fred Branfman

April 2, 2003 | Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of the Bush administration's war against Iraq is that so many otherwise sensible observers discuss it as if it were a rational decision about which reasonable people can disagree. To gain some needed perspective, it is useful to recall Doris Lessing's classic science fiction novel, "Briefing for a Descent Into Hell."

The book revolves around a group of beings from another planet who are sent to save Earth, known for its "aggressiveness and irrationality." They must save our beleaguered planet because they have learned what we have not: that everything is interconnected. They must save us to save themselves. During the "briefing," the beings are told about their mission, and then memories of their own home are erased from their consciousness -- because remembering the sane place they came from while living on Earth would drive them mad.

The following is what might occur if the Briefer from Lessing's novel were compelled to explain our planet's current crisis to one of the beings who has volunteered to help save it. The discussion begins after the being has spent several hours watching the war on satellite television. The innocent, sad-eyed extraterrestrial creature is filled with queries about this troubled place called Earth, so we will call him the Questioner.

The Questioner: Excuse me, I've just watched several hours of TV coverage of the war in the nation called Iraq. I saw howling mobs in something called the "Arab world" chanting "Death to America!" and live coverage of buildings being blown up by this America's bombing and shelling, civilians screaming and sobbing over dead relatives after these attacks, captured American soldiers with bewildered expressions, and reports of whole cities going without food or water and fears of epidemics.

Of course too, were we the 'Nation' we tell our kids we are: this group of diseased Yahoos would have been extirpated just after the Impeachment.

What Impeachment ?! I don't believe there's enough collective guts - even yet - for the Murican Peepul / a few decent actual Representatives to even contemplate
A) We were/are Wrong
B) We let this cabal sidle into power, pass "PATRIOT" and start down the fascist path - and now we shall eject them.


Share your mourning for such a Great Idea, only 200 years old - about to be lost to sloth and rampant greed, for mere shiny trinkets in large warehouses. It's truly the death of irony that so much has been written in the past about just such a scenario! / and.. that we have more lectronic 'communications' than ever in history: and so little communication. Dumbth shall be listed on the epitaph as proximate cause; with complications due to sloth and cupidity.

(Thanks, Studs Terkel - boldfaced quote)


Ashton