Volume 5 Issue 11…Dedicated to the Dialogue on Race…March 22, 2002

by Yohannes Sharriff Smith

Oh what secrets the heart does hide!

What truths are buried deep inside!

Does it long for vengeance with an evil deed?

Does it pound for death with a murderous beat?

Is there crazed desire coursing through its veins?

Within lies a beast that has gone insane.

All it feels is hunger for blood.

To devour the soul

of an innocent is what the evil one dreams of.

Just biding his time moving amongst the passersby.

Unsuspecting are they,

until the moment before they die.

Feeling their warm electrified bodies in his grasp,

he chills them to the bone with his sinister laugh.

Screams excite him,

and terror in your eyes thrill him so.

He prolongs your death,

so your killer you will know.

With hands firmly around your neck,

your life he drains, and your soul he collects.

Bit of History

Born July 25, 1924, Frank Church was elected to the Senate from Idaho in 1956. A former military intelligence officer, Church was the fifth youngest member elected to the U.S. Senate. A McClellan 'Rackets' Committee member, Senate Majority Leader Lyndon B. Johnson appointed him to the Foreign Relations Committee (1959). Church gave the 1960 keynote address at the Democratic National Convention

Concerned about U.S. involvement in Vietnam, Church teamed with Senator John Sherman Cooper (R-KY) to sponsor an amendment prohibiting the use of ground troops in Laos and Thailand. In 1970, the second Cooper-Church Amendment limited the power of the president during a war situation. Thereafter, he was actively engaged in efforts to end the war in Vietnam.

In 1975, Church became chairman of the Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities. His committee was charged with investigating alleged CIA and FBI abuses of power. After years of official investigations, the CIA was cast in a negative light. No longer could Americans pretend that the bad guys were all on the other side and that the United States was the good guy.

Director of Central Intelligence (1966-1973) and Ambassador to Iran (1973-1977), Richard Helms' name appeared on many documents about Watergate intrigue, assassination plots, stockpiles of lethal toxins, medical experiments on unwitting victims, bio-terrorism against Castro and Lumumba, financial and technical assistance to police groups that tortured and killed local opposition, support for and then abandonment of fringe factions in hidden wars, injection of large sums of money in political systems of other countries to foment coups, etc.

In 1977, Helms pleaded no contest to charges he failed to testify fully and accurately about CIA activities. Church lost his Senate seat by less than one percent of the votes cast in 1979. After his defeat, Church practiced law in Washington, D.C. In 1984, he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and died April 7 at age 59. (Sources: Senate Select Committee Report on Covert Action in Chile 1963-1973; The Frank Church Papers - Boise State University; Inside the Department of Dirty Tricks, The Atlantic Monthly, August 1979 and http://www.encyclopedia.com/articles/05797.html.)

Parliamentary systems rely on debate to assure opposing views are addressed. Agreement is not a prerequisite. Support for an administration is not a litmus test for patriotism or credibility. The opposition's duty and responsibility is to inform their constituency of fallacies in logic or detrimental impacts of policies advanced by those in power. Although not modeled on the British system, America's governmental structure does accommodate this concept. Never more evident than during President Bill Clinton's two terms in office, with or without provocation, Republicans always rose to the occasion and in stridently vocal opposition.

Stopping the count of legally cast votes and selecting George W. Bush president, the U S Supreme Court ended the pretense of opposition and democracy in America. Post 9-11, unanimity became the order of the day. Now, opposing Bush is un-American, and no matter how innocuous, questioning his policies is "giving aid and comfort to the enemy." Democrats genuflect to support Bush efforts to cover over or not investigate the many unexplained events surrounding the 9-11 attack.

Democratic support for missile defense ignores the real nuclear threat. By not holding hearings on Election 2000 in Florida, they agreed to disenfranchise black voters across America. Reaching new lows, Democrats caved in on Homeland Security and the environment. Unwilling to touch bankruptcies at Enron and Global Crossing as deregulation failures, Democrats are looking the other way. Effectively muzzled, they surrendered to the Republican rhetoric: "To oppose Bush divides America," and became Bush's echo.

However, last Thursday 3-14-02, Senate Democrats, behind Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, found legs and stood as the "loyal opposition." Faced with fulfilling Bush's campaign pledge to appoint "only judges who strictly interpret or construct the Constitution," i.e. the 3/5 Compromise, they stopped the Charles Pickering nomination. For the first time, Democrats denied arch-conservatives the fruits of an election far less legitimate than Zimbabwe's.

In Zimbabwe, votes were counted, and Mr. Mugabe got a majority. Fundamentally flawed, Bush did not receive a majority in Election 2000, nor did he win. No Western nation objected to Bush, who was selected by "strict construction" judges like Pickering. Kudos to Democrats on the Judiciary Committee for realizing their duty to act as the "loyal opposition." John 2002

by John Burl Smith

A long simmering Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) investigation of the telecommunications industry 's financial and accounting problems boiled over last week. Facing flames from the SEC and Congress, WorldCom, the nations second-largest long-distance company and leading carrier of Internet traffic, sweated over questions about its business practices. Moving from obscurity by acquiring dozens of companies over the last 15 years, WorldCom stock dropped from a high of $ 62 in 1999 to a low of $7.93, after losing 12% last week. Huge bankruptcy filings by Global Crossing and Qwest Communication raised fears the dot com cancer or "Enronitis" has metastasized in the bowels of the telecommunications industry.

Symptomatic of Enron, Global Crossing and Qwest, WorldCom scrambles to answer a SEC 24-count bill of particulars on whether it improperly manipulated reports to make its finances appear sounder than they were in order to acquire millions of dollars in loans. Telecommunication analysis, Richard Klugman described the situation this way, "WorldCom was always an entrepreneurial company. If you're shooting from the hip, you're taking risks, and maybe you take a few too many risks with your accounting."

Electronic Data Systems (EDS) a computer company based in Plano, TX, is an example of why the SEC is investigating WorldCom. In February 1999, EDS agreed to pay WorldCom $7 billion to oversee billing and other basic services. Also EDS bought a WorldCom unit for $1.6 billion and took on 12,000 WorldCom employees. Quid pro quo, WorldCom agreed to buy $8.5 billion of communications services from EDS. Last week, as EDS shares dropped 36 cents to $63.90, speculation abounded that EDS may be a part of the SEC's WorldCom inquiry. John 2002

The Dark Knight-Batman/White Ninja/Zorro must remain mentally alert to defeat the forces of evil. Chess is his latest mental weapon. When queried for comments, the Dark One/Ninja/Zorro declared, "I will have something to say, after I beat you at chess today!"

Dropped into a hell hole, black veterans were point men on every number ten mission from Udorn, Thailand to Saigon. Vietnam veterans paid an awful price fighting America's ugliest war. Daniel Ellsberg's "Pentagon Papers" showed clearly that greed in government rides double with an uncritical press. Moreover, the Tonkin Gulf Resolution showed trusting citizens the heartless and devious manner in which Presidents, generals and politicians lie in order to commit impressionable, idealistic, but very ignorant, young people to do the killing they themselves duck.

Returning disabled to American terra firma, Vietnam veterans were spat upon. Their flesh and spirits consumed by Vietnam's meat grinder, once over, America's response to sick bodies and troubled minds was "let's put it behind us." Today, disabled veterans, such as myself, are the most neglected and abused. Victims of a system created to help those who actually served and fought, the Veterans Administration (VA) is dominated by those who stayed at home.

Vietnam veterans do not hate America, we hate what it has become under George W. Bush. Veterans' care is viewed as a business. Therefore, disability percentages, based on service connected injuries, are being reviewed and reduced. It is as if the VA thinks soldiers up on the line punched a clock, like the men who stayed at home and fought the drive time wars to and from suburbia. No one cares that some wounded veterans lay on battlefields, sometimes for days, where morphine was their ER and field hospitals were only an IV better. Returning home, killers hooked on pain killers that were freely given to cope with physical pain and mental anguish, America did not care that unlike those who stayed home, its young idealistic warriors came back confused, disillusioned and broken.

Post 9-11, a new war entertains America. Bush is singing the siren lullaby of patriotism to another generation of children. Although it began as a response to 9-11, the so-called "war on terrorism" has quickly turned the way of Vietnam. "The business of America is Big Business." A communist behind every tree fueled the "Cold War." Bush's "red scare" is a terrorist under our beds. A popular re-election issue, like "Homeland Security," veteran affairs is re-election financing and patronage for Republicans. Adding insult to injury, regardless of America's promises, Vietnam veterans were cut adrift to fend for themselves. Squeezed by reduced funding, new vets fight older vets for services. There were more homeless veterans in the shelter Bush visited two weeks ago than non-veterans. Ironically, active duty service personnel can get food stamps but homeless vets cannot. As Social Security protection fades, America's black veterans are like fast food containers or beer cans, refuse in a throwaway society. John 2002

Disgruntled feels: Crazy! Unmedicated, Andrea Yates drowned her five children, then dialed 911. Charged with murder and given a regime of powerful drugs, she pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. A Texas jury of her peers declared her sane and found her guilty. If Yates is sane, this society is evil. Take me out of this reality! Give me a straitjacket, and call me crazy!

Disgruntled wants to know: Architects of the New World Order crafted Bush's agenda. If his rhetoric, like missile defense and deficits, sounds familiar, these conservatives coached Ronald Reagan. Suffering with the early onset of Alzheimer's when elected, it was more evident when he left office. Now, according to the propaganda, he is the 20^th century's greatest president. What does that say about America's chief executives?

Disgruntled says: In a moment of monumental hubris and hypocrisy, Secretary of State Colin Powell declared the presidential elections in Zimbabwe 'fundamentally flawed.' When blacks were disenfranchised wholesale during the 2000 presidential election, there were no international monitors and Colin called it democracy.

Email davidturnley@hotmail.com News accounts revealed the recent formation of the Office of Strategic Influence (OSI), a government agency designed to unite various propaganda programs within the CIA, FBI and Department of Defense. The most controversial function of OSI is a policy to influence opinion in both friendly and unfriendly nations by distributing deliberately misleading information. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld is now mulling disbanding the brand new office because of negative publicity. On NBC, Rumsfeld went so far as to insist that, "The Pentagon does not lie to the American people. It does not lie to foreign audiences." His tanned, chiseled face then broke down in a fit of laughter before he insisted on "buying the next round."

Email: http://www.newsmakingnews.com/ "Patriotism means to stand by the country. It does not mean to stand by the President or any other public official, save exactly to the degree in which he himself stands by the country. It is patriotic to support him insofar as he efficiently serves the country. It is unpatriotic not to oppose him to the exact extent that by inefficiency or otherwise he fails in his duty to stand by the country. In either event, it is unpatriotic not to tell the truth, whether about the President or anyone else." -- Theodore Roosevelt.

Email michaeli@globalnet.co.uk The U.S. has a long history of human experimentation. Private firms and the military used unwitting human populations to test various theories. The extent to which human experimentation has been a part of the U.S. Biological Weapons programs will probably never be known. Some examples include the Tuskegee Syphilis Study, which began in 1932. Two hundred poor black men with syphilis were never told of this illness, and treatment was withheld, as many as one hundred died.

In 1997, The Plain Dealer reported an experimental vaccine with unknown health effects was given to 8,000 unwitting soldiers in the Persian Gulf War despite an Army review board's recommendation against doing so. The botulinum toxoid vaccine was meant to protect against chemical and biological warfare; it is now being studied as a possible source of the health problems known as "Gulf War syndrome."

Email www.nytimes.com In conversation with President Nixon in the Oval Office, Southern Baptist evangelist Rev. Billy Graham did not mince words in expressing his disdain for Jewish people and the media: "This stranglehold has got to be broken or this country's going down the drain." "You believe that?" Nixon asks. "Yes, sir," replied Graham. "Oh boy. So do I," Nixon agreed, then said: "I can't ever say that, but I believe it." "No, but if you get elected a second time, then we might be able to do something," Graham said. Later on, Graham remarked, "A lot of Jews are great friends of mine. They swarm around me and are friendly to me, because they know that I am friendly to Israel and so forth. But they don't know how I really feel about what they're doing to this country, and I have no power and no way to handle them." Nixon cautioned: "You must not let them know." The 83-year-old Graham profusely apologized for words that he now claims not to remember, but were captured on a 1972 audio-tape.

by Dot

Recently, I watched the movie Jacob's Ladder (1990) again. Starring Tim Robbins (Jacob Singer), Elizabeth Pena (Jezzie), Jacob's live-in girl friend, and Danny Aiello (Louis), his chiropractor, the movie's message is like beauty and evil, a matter of perspective or in the eyes of the beholder. Having seen it five times, questions remain. Because between the scenes and lines of dialogue, there are many ladders up or down which an active mind might travel.

Written by Bruce Rubin, directed by Adrian Lyne and produced by Alan Marshall, Jacob's Ladder is filled with subtle messages. It opens with a scene in the MeKong Delta (1961). Some American soldiers are sitting in their Vietnam jungle camp smoking marijuana and joking. Jacob Singer is a part of the group. Within moments, there is a bloody battle, and he is wounded.

From that horrific scene, we are flashed forward. Jacob awakens from that nightmare on a subway train wearing a Postal Service uniform. He sees demons and revisits scenes from that battle throughout the movie. Divorced, he is a mailman with a Ph.D. Jacob exhibits the classic symptoms of veterans haunted by wartime memories. His war buddies share his nightmares. They believe they were victims of an army experiment. When Jacob tries to uncover the truth, he is kidnaped, but escapes his captors by jumping from a moving vehicle.

Injured, he lies helpless in a gutter; Santa Claus rips him off before he is whisked away to a VA hospital, where he is trussed up like a turkey. Louis, his chiropractor, rescues him. Jacob asks Louis if he is dead, because he sees demons and feels the pain of hell. Louis assures him no one dies from a slipped disc and offers an alternative view of hell based on Meister Eckhart's philosophy. A 13th-century theologian, he felt the things that burned in hell were the parts of life one refused to let go of, i.e. attachments and memories. Hell burned them away. Rather than punish, it freed the soul.

Towards the movie's end, Jacob learns about 'the ladder,' a drug developed by the army to tap aggression. The army felt its recruits were too soft. Jacob's group was guinea pigs. But, rather than attacking some evil enemy without, they turned on each other. Brother against brother, there is poetic justice as Jacob sees the face of his aggressor. The evil came from within. With clarity, Jacob climbs the ladder by letting go.

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