Letter Never Sent Tell me when to go.

I’m surprised about this and glad. It’s about goddamn time. I’ve noticed that most polls have 25% of people or so in support of this decision and 75% of people disagree. Let’s have it say ‘One nation under Allah’ and see how many people support this.

Citing a concurring opinion in a Supreme Court decision, the 9th Circuit said, “The Pledge, as currently codified, is an impermissible government endorsement of religion because it sends a message to unbelievers ‘that they are outsiders, not full members of the political community, and an accompanying message to adherents that they are insiders, favored members of the political community.'”

The court said the 1954 insertion of “under God” was made “to recognize a Supreme Being” and advance religion at a time “when the government was publicly inveighing against atheistic communism” — a fact, the court said, the federal government did not dispute.

The appeals court noted that when President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the act adding “under God,” he said, “From this day forward, the millions of our school children will daily proclaim in every city and town, every village and rural schoolhouse, the dedication of our Nation and our people to the Almighty.”

A little perspective from The US Treasury web site:

The motto IN GOD WE TRUST was placed on United States coins largely because of the increased religious sentiment existing during the Civil War. Secretary of the Treasury Salmon P. Chase received many appeals from devout persons throughout the country, urging that the United States recognize the Deity on United States coins. From Treasury Department records, it appears that the first such appeal came in a letter dated November 13, 1861. It was written to Secretary Chase by Rev. M. R. Watkinson, Minister of the Gospel from Ridleyville, Pennsylvania, and read:

Dear Sir: You are about to submit your annual report to the Congress respecting the affairs of the national finances.
One fact touching our currency has hitherto been seriously overlooked. I mean the recognition of the Almighty God in some form on our coins.

You are probably a Christian. What if our Republic were not shattered beyond reconstruction? Would not the antiquaries of succeeding centuries rightly reason from our past that we were a heathen nation? What I propose is that instead of the goddess of liberty we shall have next inside the 13 stars a ring inscribed with the words PERPETUAL UNION; within the ring the allseeing eye, crowned with a halo; beneath this eye the American flag, bearing in its field stars equal to the number of the States united; in the folds of the bars the words GOD, LIBERTY, LAW.

This would make a beautiful coin, to which no possible citizen could object. This would relieve us from the ignominy of heathenism. This would place us openly under the Divine protection we have personally claimed. From my hearth I have felt our national shame in disowning God as not the least of our present national disasters.

To you first I address a subject that must be agitated.

And, so it goes. Pledges, and religious dogma brought to you by reactionary Americans. Some things never change.

Court: Judges Can’t Impose Death Penalty Even Scalia supported this. Who woulda thunk it?

Now the Gestapo goons have started visiting libraries checking what people have been reading. Can this possibly be getting any worse? Thanks to the ironically named ‘Patriot Act’ Bush Jr. signed into law our freedoms and liberties have been absolutely raped. These people make me sick. I wish the FBI and their masters nothing but frustration and disappointment. Hopefully one day people will wake up and demand their rights back. From the Washington Post:

The FBI is visiting libraries nationwide and checking the reading records of people it suspects of having ties to terrorists or plotting an attack, library officials say.

The FBI effort, authorized by the antiterrorism law enacted after the Sept. 11 attacks, is the first broad government check of library records since the 1970s when prosecutors reined in the practice for fear of abuses.

The Justice Department and FBI declined to comment Monday, except to note that such searches are now legal under the Patriot Act that President Bush signed last October. …

“It’s unfortunate because these records and this information can be had with so little reason or explanation,” Krug said. “It’s super secret and anyone who wants to talk about what the FBI did at their library faces prosecution. That has nothing to do with patriotism.”

Krug tells worried librarians who call that they should keep only the records they need and should discard records that would reveal which patron checked out a book and for how long.

Would you sell out your mother? Enjoy being part of a team? Kicking down doors? Beating up hippies and habibs? Carrying BIG guns? Boy, do we have the perfect job for you! Join the fast-paced world of Federal law enforcement! There are always openings for gung ho, patriotic self-starters! Send in your resume today!

Recently, our thug in chief, George W. Bush gave the greenlight to the CIA to capture or assassinate Saddam Hussein. Most likely, he will be assassinated. As pointed out by Al Martin, former CIA insider, the Bushes need to liquidate Hussein rather than capture him as he knows too much for someone who isn’t cooperative:

“He couldn’t be captured even though he was under indictment in the United States for a variety of charges and also under indictment in the World Court. But the United States couldn’t afford to have Saddam a prisoner and thus be able to talk about his relationship with the Reagan-Bush Regime.”

With the ‘War Against Terror’ Saddam Hussein has outlived his usefulness as the resident Mideast bogeyman. The US is now firmly entrenched in the Mideast and, more importantly, in Central Asia. They now have the justification of fighting terrorism. With that they can go wherever they like and no one will say anything about it out for fear of being labeled as supporting terrorists or as a rogue state.

Regarding the Middle East, the US military wanted to get bases in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. It wasn’t Desert Storm that made it possible to do so. The only reason that was possible was leaving Saddam Hussein in power. It gave the US the ability to build military bases on Saudi and Kuwaiti territory. Saddam was kept in power because of the larger US geo-economic and geo-military interests.

In order to exercise those interests, the United States had to have the ability to base ground troops in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, or the Arab Emirates. They had to have a rationale. This would also de-emphasize Israel, which is what the Republicans have wanted to do. The Republicans pay lip service to Israel only because of the American Jewish vote.

Due to the upcoming Gulf War 2 led by Bush Jr. and crew, Hussein might be planning on passing the reins of leadership to his son Qusai. This would make it harder for the US to create the necessary fervor to carry out the bombing of Iraq. From Stratfor.com:

By removing himself from the top leadership position, Saddam could make it more difficult for the United States to gain diplomatic support from European allies for an assault on Baghdad. And even if he were no longer president, the Iraqi strongman could still exert enough influence over his son to maintain control over the country. Finally, it would give Qusai the chance to weather Washington’s hostility, which if handled successfully could ensure the future of Saddam’s regime.

With the events of Sept. 11 now shaping U.S. policy in the Middle East, the impetus to oust Saddam and replace him with a U.S.-friendly regime in the oil-rich Persian Gulf country has grown stronger. Each day the Bush administration appears to be laying the foundations for Saddam’s removal.

Is it a little too convenient that Qusai was recently the target of an assassination attempt? This has obvious CIA fingerprints all over it. It was most likely carried out by the CIA or by one of their domestic Iraqi proxies, a terrorist cell on the payroll of the US government. The US would love to negate any attempt by Hussein to defuse the situation.

The real question is which family is more vile and disgusting, the Bushes or the Husseins? They deserve one another.

Was Diana murdered because she was pregnant with Dodi’s brown, muslim child? Sounds possible to me. Echelon was involved, of course.

Long-running conspiracy theories surrounding the death of Princess Diana in 1997 have been fuelled with new claims from the father of her lover, Dodi Fayed, that the Princess of Wales was pregnant with his child when she died.

Lawyers acting for Mr Fayed’s father, Mohamed Fayed, say an American-run international eavesdropping network intercepted telephone conversations in which Diana described her marriage plans and pregnancy.

Details of the conversations are reportedly contained in 1051 documents created by the United States intelligence organisation the National Security Agency, using material intercepted by the global eavesdropping network Echelon.

An Echelon station at Menwith Hill in north England was reportedly used to intercept Diana’s private phone calls.

…

The paper reports that Mr Fayed believes Diana was under American surveillance because her stance against landmines threatened US military interests.

Confiscation of Palestinian property? Israeli soldiers killing women and children? Israeli soldiers destroying and defecating on the Koran? Palestinians living in ‘refugee’ camps and Israeli-created ghettos? According to Judaism, the Jewish people are God’s chosen, special among all other people by the covenant of Abraham and by blood. Is this starting to sound familiar? History is full of irony. The once powerless gain mastery and fall prey to the same mistakes. I remember reading Chaim Potok’s The Chosen in high school and feeling proud of Israel. Now I am ashamed. It is obvious that the suicide bombers are murderers, but in this situation all power is with the Israelis. They are the ones who can decide how this will all turn out. Will we have an endless cycle of murder and genocide perpetrated by two desperate peoples?