Newsroom-l Public Journal

2004's Scariest Halloween Costumes

The Littlest Prisoner at Abu Ghraib

Your child will be the hit of the neighborhood costume parade in this recreation of the Abu Ghraib prisoner-abuse scandal's most indelible image. As an added bonus this easy-to-make costume will remind everyone on your child's trick-or-treat route of our national shame! Simply roll a cone from a sheet of 24"x38" black cardstock, making sure to cut out a hole for the face. Drape with two yards of black felt, and add leftover wires from your last lamp-rewiring project. VoilÀ! So easy, so quick, and so terrifying!

Total cost: Under $20.
Total time: Under two hours.

Bush hates free speech

The 'Morally Treasonable' Bush Administration

by Walter Brasch
Professor of Journalism
Bloomsburg University

On a blatant campaign of exploiting 9/11, and a subversive campaign to undermine the nation's civil liberties, George W. Bush expects to win a second term. Jingoism is encouraged; dissent is not tolerated.

As Texas governor, Bush established "protest zones" far removed from where he spoke. He continues that practice as President. Anyone with a message not in agreement with the administration's beliefs is isolated, some as much as a half-mile away, during presidential and vice-presidential public appearances. However, according to a ruling by the federal district court in Philadelphia, all persons, no matter what their personal or political views, must have equal access under the First Amendment guarantees of free speech and the right of assembly. That part of the Constitution has often been overlooked by the Republican administration and by local police.

In Columbia, S.C., a fifty-four-year-old man was arrested at a campaign rally for carrying a sign, "No More War for Oil." In Evansville, Ind., a photographer who had won the Pulitzer Prize, was charged with disorderly conduct and resisting arrest for holding a 30-inch by 40-inch sign, "Cheney-19th Century Energy Man." In Tampa, Fla., two grandmothers and a gay rights activist were arrested for peacefully holding protest signs. Near Pittsburgh, Pa., a sixty-five-year-old retired steel worker was arrested when he refused to go to a protest zone.

At every Bush or Cheney appearance, official or political, persons are pre-screened before being issued tickets, and then allowed into the rallies only if they aren't critics of any of the administration's policies. Thousands have been forced to sign loyalty oaths. In Albuquerque, Michael Ortiz y Pino, a Vietnam combat veteran, told the Associated Press he was also asked by the Republican organizers to identify if he was with any groups that were associated with veterans, pro-life/pro-choice, gun rights, or teachers. In Tucson, the Republicans demanded to know the race of some photojournalists before issuing them credentials. Those who question the necessity of providing personal data and social security numbers are told the Secret Service requires it. "We don't require that information," Tom Mazur, Secret Service spokesman, says. Heather Layman, spokesperson for the Republican National Committee, says, "We just want to assure a positive experience for those attending."

In Scranton, Pa., a woman was ordered to remove a small metal peace button from her lapel. "I was told it was an unauthorized symbol," says Jean Golomb, who bought it at a Hallmark store. In Saginaw, Mich., a woman was thrown out of a Bush rally because she had a rolled-up pro-choice T-shirt. Barbara Miller says she was told, "We don't accept any pro-choice non-Republican paraphernalia at this event." On Independence Day 2004 at an official presidential appearance, all of it paid by taxpayers, Nicole and Jeffrey Rank were arrested when they refused to turn their T-shirts inside out so an anti-Bush message didn't appear. Nicole Rank, an environmental scientist with FEMA, was later fired after receiving consistent ratings of "excellent."

In Hamilton, N.J., where Laura Bush was rallying the faithful to support the war in Iraq, a mother whose son was killed in Iraq was escorted out because she wore a T-shirt that declared, "President Bush You Killed My Son," and had the audacity to ask what the Republicans believed was a hostile question. Outside the auditorium, while talking with a reporter, she was ordered to leave, didn't do so, and then was handcuffed and arrested on defiant trespass charges. Their cases are just a few of thousands throughout the country.

In Bloomsburg, Pa., two peaceful reporters were ordered to leave the grounds of a state university at a Dick Cheney rally; they were never told the reason, nor would the paid staffers identify themselves. At the Republican convention, paid staff, police, and Secret Service constantly harassed reporters, especially those from smaller circulation newspapers and magazines, and those who may have seemed to be the least bit non-compliant with the Bush-Cheney philosophy. Police often say they are acting under orders of the Secret Service or requests of the Republican campaign.

Outside the site of the Republican National Convention, and posing no physical threat to delegates or speakers, the police arrested more than 1,800 persons, mostly on charges of parading without a permit and disorderly conduct, both of them violations in the same category as unpaid parking fines. They were taken to an abandoned bus terminal, placed in a holding area of chain-link cages with razor wire on top. The concrete floor was oily from years of diesel fuel and antifreeze spillage, washed over by massive amounts of Clorox. Many of those detained later complained of rashes. There were few benches inside the cages, each of which held 30-100 individuals, forcing most of those arrested to take turns sitting on the benches and to sit or sleep on the floor; blankets were not provided. Food was usually corn flakes, warm and sour milk, rotting apples, and near-stale cheese or bologna sandwiches; persons had to share them with each other and, sometimes, the roaches in their cells. There were no trash bins, and portable restroom facilities were filthy. They were held for up to 60 hours until the end of the convention. In contrast, petty criminals are often processed and released on bail within 24 hours.

Democrat-Republican Thomas Jefferson said that dissent is the highest form of patriotism. During World War I, reiterating statements he had made for several years, Republican Theodore Roosevelt wrote, "To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by the president, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public."

George W. Bush almost boastfully says he doesn't do much reading. Perhaps had he read and understood the words of two of this nation's greatest presidents, his "rent-a-thug" campaign workers might not have thrown three peaceful women out of a campaign rally in Medford, Ore., and then threatened them with arrests. Their offense? They wore T-shirts that said, "Protect Our Civil Liberties."

This President's opinion of dissent is perhaps the most compelling reason why he must not have another four years.

[Walter Brasch's forthcoming book is America's Unpatriotic Acts: The Federal Government's Violation of Constitutional and Civil Liberties (Peter Lang Publishing, January 2005.) You may contact Dr. Brasch at brasch@bloomu.edu or view his web site at www.walterbrasch.com]

Ashcroft Plans To Shut Down Porn Industry

By Mark Kernes
Senior Editor, Adult Video News (AVN)

We in porn are watching Ashcroft marshal his forces for a massive attack. We've seen a training seminar about 18 months ago where Ashcroft told all the Assistant U.S. Attorneys (AUSAs) in the states that ALL major porn prosecutions would now be coordinated through the Department of Justice, with the AUSAs themselves having little or no say in whether a prosecution would even occur, and no veto power whatsoever over them (which the AUSAs used to have).

We've seen Bruce Taylor, one of the Reagan/Meese era obscenity prosecutors, hired back at Justice, and Congress requiring, in the PROTECT Act, the hiring of 25 new obscenity prosecutors -- a fact that was not reported in ANY major-market news story on the Act. We've seen religious right groups becoming stunningly proactive in pushing restrictive zoning laws and other "time, place and manner" restrictions on adult businesses. They even have a 300+ page manual of boilerplate anti-sex business laws, so the politicians don't even have to do any work; they can copy the stuff verbatim and enact it! And that is happening all over the country, even in the major metropolitan areas like L.A., where the City Council enacted a very restrictive ordinance targeting dance clubs, and only backed down when it became clear that the club owners were prepared to spend millions on lawsuits against it.

During the first Bush presidency, in the aftermath of the Meese Commission, the DOJ began a campaign of multi-jurisdictional obscenity prosecutions, which drove almost all of the large adult mail-order companies out of business. Adam & Eve, which was indicted in at least five jurisdictions, only survived by spending millions defending itself. Fortunately, it had those millions to spend; most don't. A decade before that, in the days after Reagan took office, the DOJ launched MiPorn, a sting operation that resulted in indictments against almost all the major adult film producers of the time, and though most of the convictions were eventually overturned on appeal, the defense cost more millions, and some producers did go to jail. When Clinton took office, however, his attorney general gave no priority to the prosecution of sexual speech, and federal busts stopped. That's one major difference between a liberal and a reactionary administration.

The conservatives, backed by the evangelicals, are gearing up for a massive assault on constitutional rights, to a degree never before attempted in this country (except perhaps during the McCarthy era), and anyone who thinks they're shooting blanks hasn't been following the attacks on society's most deplored, and hence most vulnerable, groups -- the sex industry and the drug users. When those are successful, other targeted groups will follow, including journalists.

Both the adult video industry, through its trade organization, the Free Speech Coalition (FSC), and the dance club industry, through its Association of Club Executives (ACE), have mounted a massive campaign to register voters, and thanks to ACE Executive Director Angelina Spencer, clubs across the country have registered over 150,000 new voters. Both the FSC and ACE have created a flyer for distribution to all customers, noting that whatever party has power in the White House over the next four years is likely to pick four new Supreme Court justices -- and the flyer notes that Antonin Scalia is Bush's ideal justice.

Scalia wrote in a decision last spring, "I do not believe, however, that [adult bookstore] Z.J. Gifts is engaged in activity protected by the First Amendment. I adhere to the view I expressed in FW/PBS v. Dallas (1990): the pandering of sex is not protected by the First Amendment." [Citation removed] Talk about "judicial activism"! A Supreme Court justice has read sexual speech entirely out of "Congress shall make no law"! If that doesn't scare journalists, nothing will.

[Editor's Note: Adult Video News (AVN) is the trade magazine of the adult video industry. Many of its articles are reprinted on AVN.com.]

Duelfer Report: U. S. played into Saddam's plan for guerilla war

Boston.com / News / World / Study ties Hussein, guerrilla strategy

US may have played into plans, report says

By Bryan Bender, Globe Staff | October 11, 2004

[Excerpts]

WASHINGTON -- The ''shock and awe" attack that toppled Saddam Hussein in three weeks is often touted as a brilliant strategy that defeated Iraq with relatively few US casualties. But new information suggests that the United States may have played into Hussein's plans for a quick war followed by a long guerrilla insurgency.

The report last week of the Iraq Survey Group, based partly on interviews with captured leaders of the secretive Iraqi regime, said Hussein planned to have his troops and loyalists pull back after an initial US thrust and engage the Americans under terms more favorable to the Iraqis.

"Saddam believed that the Iraqi people would not stand to be occupied or conquered by the United States and would resist -- leading to an insurgency," said the 1,000-page report by chief weapons inspector Charles A. Duelfer. "Saddam said he expected the war to evolve from traditional warfare to insurgency."

The report said that from August 2002 to January 2003 Iraqi commanders across the country were ordered to hide weapons in the countryside. An index to the report says that a branch of Iraqi intelligence trained fighters from Syria, Yemen, Egypt, Lebanon, Lebanese, and Sudan in explosives and marksmanship at Salman Pak, near Baghdad. Indeed, intelligence officials said that instead of reading up on tank warfare, Hussein and some of his top generals are believed to have been boning up on books penned by Vietnamese communists on guerrilla warfare tactics.

The United States should not have been surprised, according to officials and outside analysts. Signs that a guerrilla war might be in the offing were apparent before the United States invaded. Nonetheless, the Defense Intelligence Agency and the intelligence branches of the Army, Navy, and Air Force do not appear to have given them much credibility or passed concerns up the chain of command, they said.

U.S. executing civilians in Iraq

A Tiny Revolution: Uh Oh

October 12, 2004
Uh Oh

Seymour Hersh spoke at Berkeley last Friday, October 8th. He told a story about recently receiving a call from an American lieutenant in Iraq who'd just witnessed other American soldiers massacring Iraqis.

I typed up what he said from the Real Video file here. The story begins at about 41:45.

HERSH: I got a call last week from a soldier -- it's different now, a lot of communication, 800 numbers. He's an American officer and he was in a unit halfway between Baghdad and the Syrian border. It's a place where we claim we've done great work at cleaning out the insurgency. He was a platoon commander. First lieutenant, ROTC guy.

It was a call about this. He had been bivouacing outside of town with his platoon. It was near, it was an agricultural area, and there was a granary around. And the guys that owned the granary, the Iraqis that owned the granary... It was an area that the insurgency had some control, but it was very quiet, it was not Fallujah. It was a town that was off the mainstream. Not much violence there. And his guys, the guys that owned the granary, had hired, my guess is from his language, I wasn't explicit -- we're talking not more than three dozen, thirty or so guards. Any kind of work people were dying to do. So Iraqis were guarding the granary. His troops were bivouaced, they were stationed there, they got to know everybody...

They were a couple weeks together, they knew each other. So orders came down from the generals in Baghdad, we want to clear the village, like in Samarra. And as he told the story, another platoon from his company came and executed all the guards, as his people were screaming, stop. And he said they just shot them one by one. He went nuts, and his soldiers went nuts. And he's hysterical. He's totally hysterical. And he went to the captain. He was a lieutenant, he went to the company captain. And the company captain said, No, you don't understand. That's a kill. We got thirty-six insurgents."

You read those stories where the Americans, we take a city, we had a combat, a hundred and fifteen insurgents are killed. You read those stories. It's shades of Vietnam again, folks, body counts...

You know what I told him? I said, fella, I said: you've complained to the captain. He knows you think they committed murder. Your troops know their fellow soldiers committed murder. Shut up. Just shut up. Get through your tour and just shut up. You're going to get a bullet in the back. You don't need that. And that's where we are with this war.

We don't need no stinkin' dope votes

By Jules Siegel

[650 words]

Doper support will be the kiss of death for Kerry, subscribers sneered on massively liberal dailykos.com when I posted the news that voters were being registered at the Washington State Hempfest. Do these people think that drug users don't vote? That they have no influence? That they still dress in bell bottoms and wear flowers in their hair?

The right wing is way ahead on this. Libertarians are almost uniformly in favor of immediate legalization. Even hard core conservatives are anti-drugwar. On far right FreeRepublic.com, a drugwar abuse item typically pulls about 75% outright antidrugwar comments. The culturally tolerant fiscal conservative could be Kerry's key swing voter.

William F. Buckley, the orthodox conservative's Pope, complained that marijuana laws are based on "moral fanaticism." "What is required," he said, "is a genuine Republican groundswell. It is happening, but ever so gradually."

Buckley pointed to a 2003 Zogby survey showing that 40% of Americans believes "the government should treat marijuana more or less the same way it treats alcohol: It should regulate it, control it, tax it and make it illegal only for children." In the National Review, Drug Policy Alliance's Ethan A. Nadelmann writes that 72% now favors fines rather than jail for simple marijuana possession. At least 50 million have tried grass.

Orthodox leftists, however, seem to be incapable of understanding the size and -- very important -- intensity of the anti-drugwar movement. They tend to support the enforced treatment model without fully understanding how nasty it is.

Even when they are drug users themselves, many still privately think of smoking marijuana as a vice that they regret. Anti-drugwar activists see it as self-medication, not just for physical pain, but for the otherwise usually intractable irritations of life in groups.

Many anti-drugwar activists in forums such as DrugWar.com plan either to vote for Nader or abstain because Kerry is just another cop, even though he's softened his positions on drug enforcement since the campaign began. These are outspoken opinion leaders with very effective media information programs. Any convincing statement of sympathy would instantly move them.

Kerry could come out for a complete review of all drug policy issues by a blue ribbon panel of renowned experts. He needn't demand legalization, decriminalization or any other specific action. If asked, he would answer that he wants to know the facts before offering any positions.

No independent panel has ever found marijuana worth criminalizing. Drugs such as heroin, cocaine and the amphetamines will always be controlled substances, I'm sure. But mandatory sentences are already under heavy attack from the local governments that can't afford to pay for them. Only D.E.A. shills deny that the drug war is an utter disaster.

Political campaigners don't care if illegal drug use is a vice or not, just how many net votes the issue will produce, and whether or not the number is worth the fire-alarms that taking a position will set off. Given the size of the prison and treatment industry, deafening sirens will suffocate any legislative drug reform enthusiasm.

Congressional Democrats are mostly either joined at the liver with the Republicans on drug policy, or too cowardly to speak out. Although it would be a devastating October surprise, Health and Human Services does not seem eager to use its power to reschedule marijuana as a therapeutically useful drug. The judiciary, however, is ripping mad about being throttled by Ashcroft's theological police.

Thus there's only one practical consideration left for the anti-drugwar side. Who will appoint the judiciary, including as many as three Supreme Court justices?

The Supreme Court can legalize marijuana by fiat. Think of it -- no negotiations and tortured lobbying, but genuine experts expounding on the facts, constrained by rules of evidence.

Pick one: Bush or Kerry. Which candidate is most likely to name judges who will interpret the Constitution of the United States according to facts in evidence rather than DEA propaganda?

JULES SIEGEL covered the youth culture for Playboy, the Village Voice and Rolling Stone. His essay "The Last Word on Drugs" is featured in Preston Peet's "Under the Influence -- the Disinformation Guide to Drugs" (The Disinformation Company, October, 2004).

Bush supporters harrass staff of Crawford newspaper that endorsed Kerry

Aftermath Of Last Week's Editorial Endorsement

[Excerpts]

The Iconoclast [Crawford, Texas] received considerable criticism this past week after its editors endorsed John Kerry for President.

We expected that perhaps a few readers might cancel subscriptions, and maybe even ads, but have been amazed at a few of the more intense communications, some of which bordered on outright personal attacks and uncalled-for harassment.

We have been told by several avid Bush supporters that the days when newspapers publish editorials without personal repercussions are over.

The new mode of operation, I am told, is that when a newspaper prints an editorial of which some sectors might disagree, the focus is now upon how to run the newspaper out of business.

Unfortunately, for the Iconoclast and its publishers there have been threats -- big ones including physical harm.

Too, some individuals are threatening innocent commercial concerns, claiming that if they advertise in The Iconoclast, they will be run out of business. We consider this improper in a democracy.

Several young members of our staff covering Tonkawa Traditions this past weekend were angrily harassed and threatened that they must leave, which cut short their ability to fully do their jobs and instilled in them considerable fear for their safety. These reporters had nothing to do with that editorial. They were part-time college students working to pay their way through school and better themselves.

Although several members of the community are upset at the newspaper, there are still those who want us to continue with local coverage as we have in the past. We do have concern for the safety of our staff, however, and find it troubling when they are bullied and cannot do their jobs.

-- By W. Leon Smith