Pubdate: Mon, 15 Nov 2004
Source: Free Press, The (Houston, TX)
Copyright: 2004 The Free Press, Houston
Column: Unvarnished Truth
Contact:  http://www.mapinc.org/media/3222
Note: This newspaper does not have a website.
Author: Dean Becker
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/pot.htm (Cannabis)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/opinion.htm (Opinion)

BURNING BUSH

Without his dear savior, our esteemed leader would be resigned to
clearing brush 365.  Jesus loves Bush so much, that he created a
miracle on November 2.  The man who cannot pronounce a four-sylable
word, who cannot speak a full sentence without looking at his notes
has once again been selected to be the leader of planet Earth.

Tom Ridge has his color code for threats to America, a veritable
rainbow that ranges from peace to Armageddon.  So too do we now have a
more simple code, to determine patriotism.  Those who look in Bush's
face and see the eyes of God are patriots, red-blooded defenders of
the USA.  Anyone who perceives less than perfection in Bush's eyes is
a blue-blooded insurgent, intent on destroying the American dream.

The American dream lives on in the hearts of waitresses and truck
drivers as well as in the innards of CEO's, bankers and drug
smugglers.  Even though Bush has done absolutely nothing for the
working class, they felt that his soul was right and that he would
enable them to reach their dreams because after all, he is a Christian.

Compassionate conservative, a man of God, "one of us", that's what I
hear the redcoats say about their new King George.  If the death of
100,000 Iraqi innocents, the bombing of apartment buildings to perhaps
snuff a terrorist mastermind, if the strafing of families confused by
US designed traffic stops is Christian, then in my mind, god and the
Devil have traded sides.

I say it constantly, and sometimes encounter those who say I am
diminishing the horrors of war by saying: "the war OF terror is the
war on drugs, with afterburners".  Preemption?  We've been doing it
for nearly ninety years when we arrest people for what they might do
with baggies of plant extracts.  Snitches?  Chalabi in Iraq is a prime
example of those who profit by lying about concentrations of "chemical
weapons".   Like all informants, his data, his involvement and
alliances will remain mostly secret to protect "national security",
nevertheless, his "information" was responsible for sending us into a
year's long quagmire of death and destruction.  So too do drug
snitches get a free ride, money for each ounce found, protection from
arrest as they do all the drugs they desire with the "bad guys" and
protection when it all falls apart because the cops, DA's and judges
don't want to be smeared with the excrement of discovery.

War, glorious goddamned war beats in the heart of America.  The
military industrial complex and the prison industrial complex work
like two chambers in the heart of our nation.  Since WWII, we have
built the world's largest stockpile of nuclear and conventional
weapons.  We've also arrested tens of millions of non-violent drug
users.  We can't seem to get enough.

Despite the fact that nobody has ever died from using marijuana, the
toll of families destroyed, futures endangered and property forfeited
to the state keeps rising.  In 2003, we arrested 755,000 people for
baggies of pot, another great new record that will surely not satiate
the need for more blood of the innocent.

So what will it take to awaken the liberals that seem unwilling to
compromise with even those closest to their own ideals?  Representing,
(in my eyes at least,) the best of American independence, holding fast
to constitutional safeguards and the preservation of the nation, these
independents, be they Green, Lib, Democrat or even the occasional
maverick Republican or otherwise independent, should form alliances,
bend their credo just a smidge and work together to outwit the
corporate foxes that so gleefully raid the henhouse each day.  Neocons
get up early and pretend to pray, then they gather in secret to plot
the destruction of our nation, not 10 or 20 years down the road per
the old ways of governing; no, they plan for "Armageddon Now!"  Get
Christ on that chariot and bring on the rapture.  You see, Neocons are
cowards, they don't want to have to die, but they're perfectly happy
if your demise is required.

The two party system is the best friend of the military industrial and
prison industrial complexes and permits/mandates the institutionalized
messenger boys of government to continue their usurpation of our
rights, fortunes and futures on behalf of their corporate masters.

Wake up and smell the nation!

Please become part of the solution.  Listen to my half hour Cultural
Baggage radio show or the 4:20 Drug War NEWS on KPFT, 90.1 FM in
Houston, kpft.org.  Please visit www.drugtruth.net
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake