NEWS

I wrote the following letter to George Bush during the Christmas holidays but I didn't send it to him because I knew he wouldn't read it, and I didn't publish it here because I thought it was too negative for the Christmas holidays. Then too, I guess I felt guilty because I couldn't see the light at the end of the tunnel, which is what Christmas is really all about, isn't it? A great being came to earth to give us the simple message to love our neighbors and to love God, and by doing so, he planted the seeds for love and peace.

Now the holidays are over, save for January 6, the day the Magi(aka wise men, aka astrologers)visited the baby Jesus. I think I'll go ahead and publish this letter:

December 20, 2001

Dear Mr. President:

I'd like to feel cheerful during this season of celebration of our Lord's birth, but I just can't. Since you were appointed president by the Supreme Court last December, there has been no good news in America.

From the time you withdrew U.S. support for family planning funding for women in third world countries at the beginning of the year to our present war in Afghanistan and economic meltdown at the end of 2001, there has been absolutely no reason to celebrate.

From your failure to sign the Kyoto accords to your appointments of Gail Norton, Attorney General Ashcroft, and John Negropointe( to name just three of your bad choices), the news has been all bad. From your raiding of social security to your proposed big tax breaks for corporations, from the September 11 slaughter to the anthrax terror, the news has been completely dismal. From your desire to hold military tribunals to your authoritarian Attorney General's wish to take away our right to privacy and due process, rotten news has soured the airwaves and the print media. I've never seen such a rapid deterioration of the American way of life for the average citizen.

But there's more. How about the refusal to allow more funding for mental health? Or the collapse of one of your favorite corporations, Enron? I wonder if one former Enron employee can celebrate Christmas when her $700,000 retirement package is now worth 20,000 dollars. Or what about withdrawing from the ABM treaty so you can give the defense contractors billions to build Star Wars? Now all bets are off that China won't think they have carte blanche to build more missiles. Then there's your insistence that we drill in the Alaskan wilderness, instead of coming up with plans for alternative energy before the world's supply of oil runs out.

I hate to lay the blame for all of this on you and I won't. However, you and all the Bushes are certainly making us reap what you have sown. From the stolen election to your father's support of dictator Pinochet to his footsy playing with cult leader Sun Moon, to your grandfather's funding of the Nazis during World War II, the Bush family has much to atone for. Unfortunately, the American people have been caught up in your web of karmic retribution. All of us are suffering because of your family's sins. Shame on you.

Sincerely,

Psychic Vera

Patriotism is a Sham

I was a patriotic child. I was raised in a patriotic household. My father loved this country. He thought the United States was the best country in the world and California was the best state. Even his high school(and mine) was the best. And, of course, the Democrats were better than the Republicans.

I loved my father and so I proudly wore his opinions and felt a stirring in my breast when I saluted the flag.

Beginning with the Kennedy assassination, and confronting the Vietnam War, Watergate, the Reagan atrocities, the Bush opportunism, the attempted destruction of Bill Clinton, and now the idiocy and self-centeredness of Bush II, I no longer feel proud to be an American.

Patriotism is lost to me now. I'm no longer a naive child and it's impossible for me to hide from the truth. Writer Samuel Johnson on April 7, 1775 said, "Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel," and the scoundrels are the rich patrons of George Bush and other Republicans who are promoting the flag waving to take our eyes off the truth of their duplicity and selfishness. According to the great economist, Adam Smith, in 1776 he said the following about those in power and the rich:

"It is the highest impertinence and presumption, therefore, in kings and ministers to pretend to watch over the economy of private people, and to restrain their expense...They are themselves always, and without any exception, the greatest spendthrifts in society." From An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, Vol 1, book 1, chapter 2

"With the greater part of rich people, the chief enjoyment of riches, consists in the parade of riches, which in their eyes is never so complete as when they appear to possess those decisive marks of opulence which nobody can possess but themselves. An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, Vol 1, book 1, chapter 11, part 2.

It is has been primarily under Republican presidents, at least in the 20th century, that we've strayed from our founding fathers' ideals: One nation under God with liberty and justice for all has become : A Divided nation under Mammon with liberty and justice for the wealthy few (despite the feeling of unity many Americans felt after the terrorist attacks).

Perhaps this is simply the beginning of the end for this country. After all, every empire lives and dies within a cycle. The fall of the Roman Empire is always used as an example of this rise and fall in the cycle of nations.

Patriotism is another word for nationalism and nationalism is a retro destructive idea for the 21st century. Hey, we've moved into the Age of Aquarius. The world is everyone's oyster. The Europeans are ahead of us now by understanding this globalization and changing their currency into the euro. If Americans continue to delude themselves into thinking that we're the most perfect nation God ever created, we will be continually bombarded by terrorist attacks and unable to stop wars from erupting all over the planet. We can no longer remain isolationist or authoritarian in our foreign policy. We cannot grab everything for ourselves and then dirty up the planet for the rest of the world to clean up. This Cancer nation needs to grow up. How long will we remain fussy children clinging to our mothers' breasts?

Anthrax Letters Created for Fun and Profit?

According to Leonard Horowitz and his article long article, The CIA's Role in the Anthrax Mailings: Could Our Spies be Agents for Military-Industrial Sabotage, Terrorism and Even Population Control, the military industrial complex is behind the anthrax mailings. In order to make millions for the pharmaceuticals that manufacture medication and vaccines for anthrax and other communicable diseases, Horowitz says that individuals put anthrax in the U.S. mail. This extremely cynical argument may have some truth to it. Apparently, authorities have decided that the anthrax is homemade, possibly in U.S. Army's Dugway Proving Grounds in Utah, or its Ohio-based supplier and CIA-contractor, Battelle Memorial Institute (BMI).

When I found out a couple of weeks ago that Dugway in Utah may be the origin for the anthrax sent through the mails, I wondered if that the perpertrator that actually mailed the anthrax spores could be a Mormon. Some Mormons are as extreme as radical fundamentalists and would more than likely target Democrats, like Daschle or Leahy, rather than Republicans, for their lethal attacks.

According to Horowitz, the most likely companies behind the anthrax mailings are "Bioport (sole maker of anthrax vaccine), allied smallpox vaccine makers OraVax/Acambis, Baxter, Aventis, Bayer, and U.S. military contractor, Batelle Memorial Institute's Chemical and Biological Analysis Center with bioweapons research, development, and testing labs in West Jefferson, Ohio and Dugway Proving Grounds in Utah."

Apparently, there is also a link between the Bid Laden family, the Carlyle Group (George Bush I is a board member) and the vaccine maker, Bioport. Remember, Bush stopped the FBI from investigating the Saudis and the Bin Ladens before the Terrorist Attack in September.

Very sinister developments indeed.