Rest in Peace America The Empire The WE News Archives

A king sits upon a throne; behind stands a figure veiled in black

It signifies that which will suffer misfortune at the height of greed and whose fall will be dangerous in proportion to the height attained. Apt to depend on false powers, attempts will be made to essay feats beyond nature. Ambition will lead into dangerous positions, and at a weak moment all will fall. Let this be taken as equally affecting physical, moral, and social welfare.

Translation of La Volasfera, Taurus 23

“BAGHDAD, The U.S. military has used poison gas and other non-conventional weapons against civilians in Fallujah, eyewitnesses report.

”Poisonous gases have been used in Fallujah,” 35-year-old trader from Fallujah Abu Hammad told IPS. ”They used everything — tanks, artillery, infantry, poison gas. Fallujah has been bombed to the ground.”

Hammad is from the Julan district of Fallujah where some of the heaviest fighting occurred. Other residents of that area report the use of illegal weapons.

”They used these weird bombs that put up smoke like a mushroom cloud,” Abu Sabah, another Fallujah refugee from the Julan area told IPS. ”Then small pieces fall from the air with long tails of smoke behind them.”

He said pieces of these bombs exploded into large fires that burnt the skin even when water was thrown on the burns. Phosphorous weapons as well as napalm are known to cause such effects. ”People suffered so much from these,” he said.”

Dahr Jamail Baghdad http://dahrjamailiraq.com/

But dark days are ahead my friends, and perhaps the best we can hope for as this maelstrom of evil engulfs us is that we do not succumb to its allure, lest we become, like those who murdered America, people without souls.

Elections stolen

1. HONESTY IS THE BEST POLICY died during the coup of 2000, when Americans nonchalantly stood by while an election was stolen.

This death provided the Bush dictatorship with the incentive to test the accuracy of Alexander Hamilton"s belief that, "Those who stand for nothing will fall for anything."

That accuracy was authenticated when both the American media and the American public unquestioningly embraced the lies that led the nation into the war against Iraq.

2. VERACITY IS THE HEART OF MORALITY (by Thomas Huxley) has been replaced by these words from Robert Burns: "Morality, thou deadly bane, thy tens o" thousands thou has slain."

Ironically this platitude was zealously enforced when Bill Clinton was President, after he was caught lying about his affair with a White House intern.

During the debate leading up to his impeachment trial, right-wing pundits incessantly chanted, "It"s not about the sexual activity. It"s about the immorality of lying."

Charles Manson now has the credentials to become president

Yet commensurate concerns over the immorality of lying about the existence of "weapons of mass destruction" in Iraq have been conspicuously absent.

And while Clinton"s lies wrought neither death nor destruction, the lies of George W. Bush have, to date, resulted in the deaths of over one thousand Americans, and the slaughter of over one hundred thousand Iraqis, many of them innocent men, women and children.

Yet, under the bizarre morality that recently caused the death of America, Clinton"s dishonesty is viewed with more disdain than Bush"s.

Ironically, if this "new morality" does not prevent a lying mass murderer from holding political office, then convicted killer Charles Manson has the credentials to become president.

It was allegedly this "new morality," that swayed the recent election.

But what does it truly entail?

Besides the egregious belief that lying about a sexual relationship is more immoral than lying about the motives for war, this "new morality" also claims to defend the rights of the unborn, yet is blissfully unconcerned about those already here.

Millions of children throughout the nation suffer needless pain because their parents lack health insurance and cannot afford to take them to the doctor.

Millions of the elderly suffer similar pain because they cannot afford the prescription medication they rely upon to survive.

Yet while universal health care is derided as a "socialist" concept by politicians bought and paid for by the insurance and health care industries, all Iraqi citizens are being provided with universal health coverage.

Pravda November 8, 2004 By David R. Hoffman, Legal Editor PRAVDA.RU

THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Born July 4, 1776 — Died November 2, 2004

This "new morality" vociferously rebels if taxes are raised even a single dollar to supply impoverished school systems with computers or up-to-date textbooks, or to feed and clothe the homeless and destitute.

Yet the expenditure of billions of dollars on a war based on nothing but lies does not even create a whimper.

Doing exactly that which Jesus himself condemned

Under this "new morality" a block of granite is more important than a human life.

The indiscriminate bombing of civilians and the torture and "disappearances" that occurred (and are still occurring) in United States controlled detention camps throughout the world did not inspire outrage, but the removal of a Ten Commandments monument from government property does, even though this monument can be openly displayed on private property.

While so-called "Christians" exploit this "new morality" to pontificate about "family values," and to condemn the "intolerance" shown by other faiths, they furtively seek, in the wake of America"s death, to establish a dogmatic Social Darwinistic theocracy themselves, building their so-called "faith" on the pillars of hatred, egomania, greed, lust for mortal power, and the selfish desire to force their beliefs upon others, many of the very evils that Jesus, the founder of Christianity, condemned.

Pravda November 8, 2004 By David R. Hoffman, Legal Editor PRAVDA.RU

THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Born July 4, 1776 — Died November 2, 2004

3. CRIME DOESN'T PAY holds true only when the crime opposes or offends the power structure.

It does not apply when stealing elections or waging illegal wars.

In fact, as the Bush precedent has demonstrated, all an incumbent president has to do to maintain office is dupe the people and the Congress into supporting an illegal war, mismanage this war until election time, then tell the people they should not change the "commander-in-chief" during wartime.

4. ALWAYS LEAD BY EXAMPLE has been replaced by, "Always be willing to shed anyone"s blood, except your own."

When the opportunity arose for Bush, and his partner-in-crime Dick Cheney, to personally participate in combat during the Vietnamese war, Bush instead used his family influence to perform some still nebulous National Guard Service, while Cheney obtained five deferments to avoid being drafted.

Yet today they stand on the decks of aircraft carriers and behind podiums in some of the most fortified buildings in the world, telling Iraqi insurgents to "bring it on."

5. PATRIOTISM IS THE LAST REFUGE OF A SCOUNDREL (by Samuel Johnson) has been replaced by the verity that patriotism is the FIRST refuge of a scoundrel.

The build-up to the Iraqi war illustrated how easily the Bush regime, through the repetition of words like "freedom and democracy," could distract people from the reality that the greatest loss of freedom Americans suffered in recent years was not because of some overseas enemy, but through the passage by lawmakers of the deceptively named "Patriot Act."

Now that America is dead, the "new morality" is determined to destroy what little remains of the Bill of Rights.

The irony is that patriotism is only expected of the poor and middle-classes, who make up the bulk of America"s military personnel.

Multi-national corporations, who outsourced jobs and threw employees out of work, and who retained ornate office buildings in the late United States while profiting from virtual slave labor in other nations, were never asked to be "patriotic," nor were they chastised for disloyalty when their practices harmed the national economy.

Instead they were rewarded with tax breaks and the financial windfalls that Bush's warmongering spawned.

6. WORK HARD AND YOU WILL BE REWARDED must now read, "It is not what you know, but who you know that matters."

Although Bush and his supporters have stridently condemned as "preferential treatment" affirmative action policies designed to help minorities who have been historically victimized by discrimination, no one condemns the fact that Bush has profited from preferential treatment his entire life, as have countless other politicians, pundits and celebrities.

Affirmative action is not being attacked because it provides "preferential treatment."

It is being attacked because it intrudes upon the nepotism, cronyism and sense of entitlement exploited by those born into wealth and power.

7. ALL LIFE IS SACRED was a common platitude in the late United States.

But the massacre of November 2, 2004 has replaced this myth with a paraphrase from George Orwell"s classic book ANIMAL FARM: "All lives are sacred, but some are more sacred than others."

In truth the lives of the expendable and exploited were never as valued as the lives of the expenders and exploiters.

And while the Iraqi war is a constant reminder of the absurdity of this platitude, the ordeals of Dr. Jack Kevorkian and Maurice Carter have graphically underscored its hypocrisy.

Dr. Kevorkian is currently imprisoned in the State of Michigan for helping the terminally ill end their lives, allegedly because his actions violated "the sanctity of life."

Yet, just over three months ago, an African-American man named Maurice Carter was also in a Michigan prison, serving a sentence for a crime that many believe he did not commit.

At some point during his twenty-eight years of incarceration, Carter contracted a liver disease that became progressively worse because of the inadequate medical treatment he received in prison.

When Carter supporters filed a petition to gain him a new trial, the judge hearing the case condescendingly joked about the severity of Carter"s illness.

Your dream of "checking and balancing" the corrupting influence of power to prevent the rise of evil was a noble endeavor.

Although Maurice Carter was ultimately released after being granted a medical commutation by Michigan"s governor, it was too late.

He enjoyed only three months of freedom before he died.

Yet few have condemned the hypocrisy of a government that makes it a crime to end the suffering of the terminally ill, yet causes terminal illnesses itself through inadequate medical care.

So rest in peace America.

As St. Paul said, "You fought the good fight."

But the majority of your people did not keep the faith.

Your dream of "checking and balancing" the corrupting influence of power to prevent the rise of evil was a noble endeavor.

But history has shown that evil can never be checked, that tolerance often sows the seeds of intolerance, and that the majority of people will always be susceptible to the machinations of madmen.