George Washington was born into a respectable planting family in Virginia. His father died when he was 11, leaving a widow and seven children. The young Washington received a grade-school education; however, he was unable to attend college. He had to go to work at age 16 as a surveyor and ultimately conducted more than 190 surveys on the Virginia frontier. When Washington was 20 years old, he petitioned the governor for a military appointment, and began to lead a series of military expeditions into the Ohio Country, where he engaged in battles with the French and their Indian allies. He was ultimately appointed a colonel, and in 1755 he became an aide-de-camp to the British General Braddock, who was leading an invasion into the French-held Ohio region. Braddock was killed and his army defeated during an Indian ambush; however, Washington was able to rally the troops and saved the lives of many soldiers. Two horses were shot out from under him, and four bullets pierced his coat as he maneuvered in the thick of the battle.

Only 23 years of age, Washington was appointed as Commander in Chief of the Virginia Regiment. He learned lessons from Braddock's defeat and trained his troops in both the rigorous discipline of British troops and the "bushfighting" tactics of Indian warriors. For the next three and a half years, he led his thousand "Blues" in constant combat operations on the Virginia frontier in the war against France. He knew most of his soldiers personally and was viewed as a father figure, even though most of the soldiers were older than him. He resigned his commission in 1758 to get married and to attend to his family's estate.

George W. Bush was born to high privilege; his great-grandfathers helped establish and earned enormous profits from the military industrial complex and, his grandfather helped finance Hitler's war machine. His parents were both raised in wealthy households attended by servants, and they spoiled George Jr., their first born. He was allowed to abuse his siblings, to torment and kill animals and to sustain mediocrity in his education. He required his father's "legacy" to get into Yale, where he organized physical hazing described in newspaper reports as "degrading, sadistic and obscene." He was arrested for theft, disorderly conduct, drunk driving and possession of cocaine.

In 1968, 296,406 American boys were drafted into military service, and 6,332 came home from Vietnam in body bags. Although he was 22 years old, a college graduate, and physically fit, Bush's father pulled strings to jump him over 500 waiting applicants and into the Texas Air National Guard, even though he could only answer 25 of the 100 questions on the pilot aptitude test. Bush declined to volunteer for Vietnam service, choosing instead to patrol the skies over Houston, Texas on weekends, until he grew bored and went AWOL.

In the management of his family's estate, George Washington brought to bear the same skills and energy he had used in creating the Virginia Regiment. Over the next 17 years, he more than doubled the size of Mount Vernon and, in 1766, to overcome the planters' dependence on English merchants, he abandoned tobacco as a cash crop. He began to grow wheat; he built his own mill to process it into flour; and he began to spin and weave locally produced linen and wool to clothe his workers. Washington built a schooner to harvest fish from the Potomac, and purchased a larger ship to transport his own products to European markets. He organized the Mississippi Land Company to obtain control over 2.5 million acres along the Ohio River, and he fought for the rights of Virginia veterans to receive land along the western rivers on the same basis as British regulars.

In 1978, having never worked at a real job, George W. Bush decided to venture into the oil business. He was 32 years old and had an uncle who was a wealthy Wall Street banker to give him a start. Spending more time in West Texas barrooms and on the golf course than the oil patch over the next 12 years, Bush was repeatedly on the verge of bankruptcy and was bailed out by Salem bin Laden, the brother of Osama bin Laden, and by other individuals and corporations seeking favors from his father, the Vice President. In 1990, Bush used insider information of impending losses to dump his corporate stock and illegally failed to report the sale to the SEC for eight months, during which time the value of the stock plummeted. Bush used the proceeds to pay off a half-million-dollar loan he had obtained the previous year to purchase a two-percent interest in the Texas Rangers, Dallas's baseball franchise. Although Bush had been restricted from having anything to do with managing the franchise, he ultimately ended up with almost $15 million when it was sold. Bush bragged that his success was due to hard work, and he denied he had ever profited from his family connections.

George Washington served in the House of Burgesses, and in 1769 he called for Virginia to boycott English goods and for an end to the slave trade. In 1774, he was elected as one of seven delegates from Virginia to the Continental Congress. The following year he was returned to the Second Continental Congress, receiving 106 of the 108 votes cast, and he was chosen to command the Virginia militia. In the Second Congress, after chairing four committees on military readiness, Washington was appointed as Commander in Chief of the Continental Army. He agreed to serve without pay, and for the next six years he was constantly with his soldiers in the field. During battles, he would appear on his horse among the front lines as bullets flew past and others fell dead and wounded by his side.

The war did not immediately go well for the Americans, and during the battle of Long Island, the siege of Fort Washington, and the Forage War, the British and Hessian troops often provided no "quarter" in putting to death all rebels who fell into their hands. The wounded had their brains dashed out, were run through with bayonets and their bodies were mutilated. American prisoners were imprisoned under conditions of great misery, including the holds of prison ships in New York harbor, where large numbers died after great suffering. In spite of these war crimes, Washington never denied quarter to the enemy and ordered that all prisoners be treated as human beings with the same rights that the rebels were fighting for. He wrote, "Treat them with humanity, and let them have no reason to Complain of our Copying the brutal example of the British army in their Treatment of our unfortunate brethren." Washington particularly ordered that Hessian soldiers were "innocent people in this war, and were not volunteers, but forced into this war." The Hessians were treated with such respect and humanity that they were allowed to march to the rear without escort, and 23 percent of all Hessian soldiers who survived the war chose to remain in America.

Following the American victory in Yorktown, Washington retired to Mount Vernon until he was called upon to attend and chair the Constitutional Convention. With ratification of the Constitution and establishment of the United States in 1789, Washington was twice unanimously selected by all electors and served two terms as the Nation's first president. Regarding the government, he said, "As Mankind becomes more liberal, they will be more apt to allow that all those who conduct themselves as worthy members of the community are equally entitled to the protections of civil government. I hope ever to see America among the foremost nations of justice and liberality."

George W. Bush jogged for Congress in 1978 and was decisively defeated. In 1990, he hired consultant Karl Rove to make him over from a failed featherweight businessman into a heavyweight political contender. Relying on policy teams to formulate positions, Rove reduced them to simple terms and phrases for Bush to memorize. The plan worked and Bush was elected in 1994 as Governor of Texas, a largely ceremonial job. The same formula almost succeeded in the presidential election of 2000 when Bush came within a half million votes of Al Gore in the popular vote; however, family connections again bailed him out. His father's former Secretary of State, James Baker flew into Florida where Bush's brother Jeb was governor, the chief vote counter chaired his reelection committee, and only a few hundred disputed votes separated the candidates. After the Florida Supreme Court found for Gore, Bush appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, where a majority appointed by President Reagan and his father ruled that the intent of the Florida voters was irrelevant and Bush was anointed as president.

Bush presided over a failed presidency and his public approval ratings were barely above 50 percent when al Qaeda attacked on September 11, 2001, much like lighting striking the well-insured building of a bankrupt company. As a "war president," Bush established an outdoor prison camp at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba where POW's were confined in chain-link cages open to the elements and denied the rights guaranteed by the Geneva Convention; he illegally held hundreds of undocumented immigrants in prison without access to counsel; he denied all due process to American citizens imprisoned as an "enemy combatants;" he established secret prisons in other countries; he ordered the kidnaping and "extraordinary rendition" of individual into other countries where they were brutally tortured; and he authorized the illegal use of torture in the questioning of prisoners in places such as Abu Ghraib, as long as it didn't produce organ failure or death, or was done in accordance with "military necessity." Even when Congress passed legislation, which he resisted, forbidding the torture of prisoners, Bush appended a "signing statement" in which he said he would follow the law only if and as he decided.

Although there is no evidence that George Washington ever declined as a child to lie about chopping down a cherry tree, his personal probity is a matter of history. He said, "There is but one straight course, and that is to seek truth and pursue it steadily." He hoped to possess "firmness and virtue enough to maintain what I consider the most enviable of all titles, the character of an honest man."

George W. Bush says, "I am the president, see? And I do not have to explain myself to anyone." However, when he does try to explain, it's like something from Through the Looking Glass: "'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said [to Alice], in a rather scornful tone, 'it means just what I choose it to mean, neither more nor less.'" Bush recently said, "when the President speaks, he better mean what he says." However, the record is increasingly clear - his words have no true meaning for the rest of us, except to signal that great danger lies ahead.

In his State of the Union speech on January 28, 2003, Bush stated that the International Atomic Energy Agency had confirmed that Iraq had an advanced nuclear weapons development program, when in fact the IAEA maintained it had destroyed the program; he stated that Iraq had purchased high-quality aluminum tubes "suitable for nuclear weapons production," when the IAEA and his own Energy Department had already concluded that they were not suitable for the refining of uranium; and he said, "The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa," when in truth the CIA had informed Bush that the allegations were "highly dubious."

On March 17, 2003, Bush told the American people that Iraq possessed some of the "most lethal weapons ever devised and that it had "aided, trained and harbored terrorists, including operatives of al Qaeda." These were all lies, as was his statement that "every measure has been taken to avoid war." Actually, every step was taken to ensure war. It came, and no weapons of mass destruction were ever found, or any evidence that al Qaeda had ever been active in Iraq.

In June and July 2003, former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson informed the media and the public that Bush had "twisted" intelligence on Iraq's nuclear program and had not dealt honestly with Wilson's findings during his investigation in Niger that there was no evidence that Iraq was seeking uranium. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney conspired to punish Wilson and to destroy his credibility by selectively leaking portions of a classified CIA National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq's efforts to acquire weapons of mass destruction. Acting on their direct orders, Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby secretly informed two reporters about those portions which supported the Administration's conclusion, while concealing evidence to the contrary. In a further effort to discredit Wilson, Libby went on to disclose that Wilson's wife, whom he identified by name as an undercover CIA operative, had arranged the trip. Undoubtedly acting at Bush's direction, his Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove and National Security Adviser Steven Hadley also secretly leaked the same information to other reporters.

CIA officers were furious when the leaks were published and demanded a criminal investigation. There was a public outcry, and a special prosecutor was appointed to identify and prosecute the leakers. Here's what Bush had to say: "I want to know the truth. ... I have no idea whether we'll find out who the leaker is." "I don't know of anybody in my administration who leaked classified information. If somebody did leak classified information, I'd like to know it, and we'll take the appropriate action." And finally, "If someone in my administration committed a crime, they will no longer work in my administration." When he was interviewed by the special prosecutor's investigators, Bush, accompanied by a criminal defense attorney, denied any prior knowledge that anyone on his staff had been involved in a campaign to discredit Wilson or that he had authorized the leaks. Did these words have any meaning other than a callow attempt to avoid responsibility?

As Commander in Chief, George Washington's letters to Congress always took the form of requests rather than demands, and he always acknowledged that his authority was granted by Congress. Once the war was won, there were those who wanted Washington to declare himself king. He told one such advocate to "banish these thoughts from your Mind" and said that the idea was "big with the greatest mischiefs that can befall my Country." King George III commented that if Washington was able to resist becoming king he would be "the greatest man in the world."

Washington sought to expand the powers of Congress, writing "if the powers of Congress are not enlarged, and made competent to all general purposes, that the Blood which has been spilt, and the expence that has been incurred, and the distresses which have been felt, will avail in nothing." He said, "The constitution vests the power of declaring war in Congress; therefore no offensive expedition of importance can be undertaken until after they shall have deliberated upon the subject and authorized such a measure."

George W. Bush has sometimes quipped that it would be so much easier to govern in a dictatorship; however, it is increasingly clear that the real joke is on the American people. Since taking office, Bush has virtually eliminated the public's access to government records; he has issued more than 100 "signing statements," upon signing bills of legislation essentially nullifying any part he does not intend to obey; he has refused to disclose the membership and deliberations of a secret energy panel which formulated government policy; he has suppressed any dissent within government agencies that contradicted his narrow-minded policies; he has punished "whistle-blowers" for revealing government corruption and illegal activities; he deployed the military to spy on non-violent protest groups; he authorized the secret and illegal wiretapping of the telephone conversations and e-mails of thousands of American citizens; and he has lied about it - repeatedly.

In establishing an imperial presidency, Bush seeks to avoid all accountability and oversight. He has used his "global war on terror" to expand presidential powers far beyond any grant by Congress, even denying that Congress has the power to limit him, if it interferes with his role as Commander in Chief of the military. More importantly, Bush has sought to deceive the American people about his crimes over and over and over, and the risk of harm posed by his criminality continues to increase.

The Reagan administration organized "readiness exercises" which called for the Federal Emergency Management Agency to round up and detain up to 400,000 "refugees" in the event of "uncontrolled population movements" over the Mexican border into the United States. In January 2006, the Army Corps of Engineers awarded a $385 million contract to a Halliburton subsidiary to construct detention centers in the United States to cope with "an emergency influx of immigrants into the US, or to support the rapid development of new programs." Each detention center is designed to hold up to 5,000 detainees, should Bush decide to declare martial law in the event of another terrorist attack or a natural disaster, such as another Katrina or an Asian Flu epidemic.

Bush has authorized the military to become engaged in "counter-terrorism" operations inside the United States and to conduct "special access" surveillance programs. The Pentagon's national Counterterrorism Center now holds the names of 325,000 "terrorism" suspects. It is unknown how many of these "suspects" are American citizens defined as terrorist "affiliates." The Pentagon's "Strategy for Homeland Defense and Civil Support" pledges to "transform US military forces to execute homeland defense mission in the ... US homeland." The military considers antiwar protests to be a "threat" and protestors as "those who would harm us." The Pentagon's Civilian Inmate Labor Program (which provides for the use of civilian inmate labor on Army installations) was recently revised. Are these the "new programs?" Should we fear our president?

In the fall of 1789, George Washington undertook a tour of the North, and the new citizens of the United States turned out in great numbers to greet their national hero. In the spring of 1791, Washington toured the South continuing to honor his pledge to visit all the states. One newspaper editorial criticized his being treated as a canonized American saint at every stop. Any fears that he would become king were put to rest when, after eight years in office, Washington quietly retired to Mount Vernon where he continued an active life, but took little part in politics. On December 12, 1799, Washington rode all day in a freezing storm attending to his plantation, but refused to change his wet clothes to avoid keeping his dinner guests waiting. He caught a severe throat infection and pneumonia and died on December 14, 1799. Washington was truly a great man.

George W. Bush's public approval ratings are now down to 36 percent and falling fast. Americans are increasingly concerned about the rationality of any decision he makes, particularly as he is aggressively and obsessively seeking to extend his war on global terror into an atomic attack on Iran and to further curtail the freedoms of American citizens. At 30 percent, the Republican-controlled Congress's ratings are even lower than Bush's, and it is likely that the Democrats will increase their representation in Congress in the fall elections, perhaps even achieving a majority. Impeachment and criminal indictment may be on the horizon. Bush is an ignorant and vindictive little man.

This George is no Washington. George Washington was the Father of His Country. George W. Bush could be the Destroyer of His Country. To preserve our freedoms, America must return to the ideology upon which the United States was founded, and Americans must demand that our elected leaders adhere to those ideals.

William John Cox, the author of "You're Not Stupid! Get the Truth: A Brief on the Bush Presidency," is currently a senior prosecutor for the State Bar of California. As a professional police officer he authored the Policy Manual of the Los Angeles Police Department and the Role of the Police in America for a National Advisory Commission during the Nixon administration. Acting as a public interest, pro bono, attorney, he filed a class action lawsuit in 1979 on behalf of every citizen of the United States petitioning the Supreme Court to order the other two branches of the federal government to conduct a National Policy Referendum; he investigated and successfully sued a group of radical right-wing organizations in 1981 that denied the Holocaust; and he arranged in 1991 for the publication of the suppressed Dead Sea Scrolls. He contributed this article to Media Monitors Network (MMN) from California, USA.

If he didn't mislead us when he acted outraged about the leak, what was he doing? It reminds me of the famous scene in "Casablanca" when the Claude Raines character closes the café saying, "I am shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on here!" A moment later, a croupier hands Raines his winnings. If Bush not only knew about the leak but authorized it, wasn't he being dishonest with us when he claimed he was "shocked, shocked" to hear about the leak?

As with the wiretapping flap, why didn't he just come forward and "cowboy up?" Why didn't he say, "I'll tell you who was responsible for the leak. It was me. And as president, I have every right to declassify material whenever I want to. I did nothing illegal, and nothing I need to apologize for." Then the lawyers could have debated the issue, but at least the president would have been honest with us.

Instead, after some pressure, the administration appointed an independent special prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald, to investigate.

That investigation reminds me of another movie: "No Way Out." In that one, Kevin Costner was put in charge of an investigation in which, unbeknownst to anyone else, he was the culprit everyone was looking for. President Bush has been saying that this investigation should run its course, but he's known all along who the big leaker was - him.

Now that it's public knowledge, the president has come forward and acknowledged that it was his decision to declassify the material and get the information - which turned out to be misinformation - to the American public.

But why did they leak it in the first place? If the administration really believed in the "intelligence" about weapons of mass destruction and that Saddam Hussein was seeking nuclear material from Africa, why not just say this was the case?

If it's not illegal for the President to decide to declassify something, why not just declassify it and tell everyone what's in it instead of secretly leaking it?

If they primarily wanted the threat from Iraq to appear greater than it really was, we should know about that. If they leaked the report to discredit one of their critics, Joseph Wilson, and/or his CIA wife, Valerie Plame, we should know about that. Now is not the time for more "movie acting."

Just tell us the truth.

When the wiretapping that the administration was secretly doing became public, President Bush said, "It was a shameful act for someone to disclose this very important program in a time of war."

Is it less shameful to leak information from classified documents? Last time I looked, that same war was going on.

Way back in 2003, White House spokesman Scott McClellan denied that administration officials had anything to do with the leaking of the identity of CIA operative, Valerie Plame. He said, "I'm telling you flatly that that is not the way this White House operates."

Oh, really?

It sounds exactly the way this White House operates - in shadows, in secrecy, in defining its own power. Their position has consistently been, "If you're against our policies and you do something we don't like, you're disloyal and hurting the war effort. If we do the same things, we're just doing our jobs."

So, what was my reaction when I found out that not only Vice President Cheney, but President Bush was behind this leak? I was shocked, shocked that such a thing could take place in this administration.


Lloyd Garver writes a weekly column for SportsLine.com. He has written for many television shows, while awake, ranging from "Sesame Street" to "Family Ties" to "Frasier." He has also read many books, some of them in hardcover.

More and more evidence of the workings of Caesar Bush are coming to public light. Just this week, in court filings by the prosecutor against the indicted I. Lewis Libby Jr., Dick Cheney's right hand man, another thunderbolt came forth. Mr. Libby testified that, in the words of The New York Times, "Mr. Bush, who has long criticized leaks of secret information as a threat to national security" himself approved Libby leaking just such information to the press in order to rebut a critic.

Democratic Senate Leader, Senator Harry Reid (D-Nevada) said that "in light of today's shocking revelation, President Bush must fully disclose his participation in the selective leaking of classified information," calling the President "the leaker in chief."

Not that the Democrats will do anything about this latest outrage, but the Republicans in the Congress are reaching certain limits to their self-censored sycophancy toward Caesar Bush. Also this week, Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales told a House Committee that the President may have the legal authority even to wiretap communications between Americans inside the United States without a court order. When pressured for his authority behind such breathtaking outlawry, he fell back on his usual Caesarean mantra - "his inherent [the President's] role as commander in chief." Sounds like the modern version of the "divine right of Kings".

This was too much even for the House Judiciary Chair, Republican F. James Sensenbrenner, Jr. (R-Wisconsin), who accused the Bush administration of "stonewalling".

Unbridled Presidential authority is un-American whether in peacetime, wartime or fighting a gang whose exaggerated power has served Bush and Cheney very well politically. How better to silence the Democrats, stifle or chill public dissent, distract attention from domestic necessities, until their post-Katrina debacle, enrich their donating corporate buddies with military contracts and concentrate more lawless power in the White House at the expense of the courts and Congress than by breaking our constitutional system of separation of powers?

Mr. Bush gave the "Go" signal for the leak without going through a conventional declassification process to determine how such "information might compromise methods or sources," according to Professor Jonathan Turley of the George Washington University Law School.

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-California) summed the leak up this way:

If the [Bush] administration believes it can tap purely domestic phone calls between Americans without court approval, there is no limit to executive power. This is contrary to settled law and the most basic constitutional principles of the separation of powers.

Still the Democrats do not have the modest fortitude to support Senator Russell Feingold's (D-Wisconsin) modest motion to censure George W. Bush. The Democrats are waiting for more incriminating material to spill out from the Executive Branch to add to the mounds of evidence already made public from U.S. and British sources.

For sure more will spill out. Whenever there are court cases like Libby's, where the defendant wants to defend only himself, there will be more damaging memos, emails, testimony and maybe confessions. When an awakened mainstream media is hungry in pursuit of such stories, you can be sure more will come out. Inside contacts and sources will increase. Retirements will increase as well to produce more whistleblowers.

If the House and Senate start exercising their constitutional rights to oversight, more power will be added to extract information from the gold mines of what Bush and Cheney did and when prior and after the invasion of Iraq.

At some point the Bush regime's luck, bred by secrecy, cover-ups and mendacity, will run out. The critical mass will be reached. And the American Caesar will fall, with or without the assistance of the pitiful Democrats.

Writing about the Democratic Primary race in Connecticut between Senator Joseph Lieberman and Ned Lamont, who calls the incumbent "Bush's favorite Democrat", Keith C. Burris of the Manchester, Connecticut Journal Inquirer declares, "Even in wartime, the power of government must be checked; even in wartime the president is not a law unto himself; even in wartime the people deserve to be informed by the free exchange of ideas. Even in wartime, the citizens may seek to change the government."

Especially during an unconstitutional, illegal war in Iraq started by George W. Bush! See http://www.DemocracyRising.US for more information.

First the Washington Post story:

Lacking Biolabs, Trailers Carried Case for War
Administration Pushed Notion of Banned Iraqi Weapons Despite Evidence to Contrary

By Joby Warrick
Washington Post Staff WriterM

Wednesday, April 12, 2006; A01
On May 29, 2003, 50 days after the fall of Baghdad, President Bush proclaimed a fresh victory for his administration in Iraq: Two small trailers captured by U.S. and Kurdish troops had turned out to be long-sought mobile "biological laboratories." He declared, "We have found the weapons of mass destruction."

The claim, repeated by top administration officials for months afterward, was hailed at the time as a vindication of the decision to go to war. But even as Bush spoke, U.S. intelligence officials possessed powerful evidence that it was not true. ...

Damien recently posted a link to the following information:

Outed CIA officer was working on Iran, intelligence sources say
Larisa Alexandrovna

Published: February 13, 2006

The unmasking of covert CIA officer Valerie Plame Wilson by White House officials in 2003 caused significant damage to U.S. national security and its ability to counter nuclear proliferation abroad, Raw Story has learned.

According to current and former intelligence officials, Plame Wilson, who worked on the clandestine side of the CIA in the Directorate of Operations as a non-official cover (NOC) officer, was part of an operation tracking distribution and acquisition of weapons of mass destruction technology to and from Iran.
Speaking under strict confidentiality, intelligence officials revealed heretofore unreported elements of Plame's work. Their accounts suggest that Plame's outing was more serious than has previously been reported and carries grave implications for U.S. national security and its ability to monitor Iran's burgeoning nuclear program ...

That Plame was "outed" raises serious questions but not merely about the competence of a regime already known to be incompetent. It's worse than that! There is no rational explanation for persisting in a WMD story known to be untrue even as Bush "leaks" information that disrupts Plame's operation. Revenge against Wilson is most certainly a factor, but Bush's motives for deliberately undermining the security of the U.S. must surely go beyond mere revenge. What are the motives for high treason? But, of course, that MSM will never ask that question until they face the emerging truth: Bush betrayed the United States.

These movements are firmly rooted in their people and at the same time they have an astounding maturity that combines the local and indigenous element with the global condition. They have a plan for the immediate and a plan for the future. They want to achieve what is achievable, today, taking the people along with them, make the necessary compromises and they have in certain cases the resources to fight the onslaught of finance and military muscle arranged against them, with their own resources.

The depression in the left-wing camp after the demise of the erstwhile Soviet Union has been put aside. It is a period of recovery. Whereas the media-savvy Chiapas-style movement combined a certain contemporariness with indigenous mass involvement in an era of combating "globalization", the current condition is best described by two developments of a different nature. Nepal and Venezuela represent this new development and have basically drawn a "line in the terrain of the whole world" so as to speak.

The Maoists in Nepal have proven repeatedly that while they can operate with impunity in the jungles and mountains and have virtually surrounded all the major centers (and can even knock out military helicopters from the skies) they can also come out of their hideouts and give interviews to the BBC and many other mainstream media and eloquently present themselves as having consistently asked for a constituent assembly and a multi-party system. Their demand for Nepal to come out of an archaic monarchist-feudal era run by palace buffoons and military thugs, rings true. They have also successfully aligned themselves with mainstream opposition parties to form a classic United Front against backward elements and toadies.

Theirs is a genuine armed struggle whose end goal is to end the armed struggle. They have clearly advanced in forming a parallel society in the countryside and are already running it and defending it. The fabled Royal Nepalese Army can do very little except to confine themselves to city centers and launch occasional forays and cause civilian casualties. The Maoists also admit to their mistakes openly, do not have illusions of marching into Katmandu at the head of a column of tanks and also do not expect a communist regime to emerge out of such a feudal developmental stage that Nepal is in.

The Maoists in Nepal also know that the Indian government (and its so-called Left wing allies) would not like to see a successful Maoist movement in Nepal and its impact on Indian Maoists. They also know what the nearly hysterical rants of the US Ambassador to Nepal amount to and they also know what the totally misguided policies of the government of China amount to. They see their struggle for basic democracy as defending the rights of the poorest sections of the Nepalese people who form the majority of Nepal's poverty-ridden population, while walking a very tight corridor of international intrigue and intrusion. They know how to negotiate. They know how to call a cease-fire and also go on the offensive. They know how to stick to their promises and they also expose the buffoon king every day, without much effort. Their maturity should be a lesson for those who in India have thumped their chests for nearly forty years announcing that liberation was imminent for the Indian peasantry. Their call for a democratic constitution born out of a constituent assembly-- no one should doubt.

Several continents away another story is emerging. Out of Latin America a spate of alliances and changes have started happening with Venezuela leading the foray with their Bolivarian revolution asserting the right of nations to develop their economies independent of the diktat of the policies of the US-led IMF and World Bank. Latin American nations are forming their own alliances regionally and no amount of demonizing and Hugo-bashing can detract from the fact that Venezuela is significantly more democratic and an open society, then the Latin America that the United States would like to see. In Venezuela, Argentina, Peru, and even in Uruguay, Brazil and Chile one can see a growing assertion of people and indigenous movements to come out of the centuries old stranglehold of US policies operating through tin-pot dictatorships and fascistic military putschists of the old era. The Monroe doctrine has been pitched and cannot be revived. Even the Sandinistas may soon be back in power. In Latin America, there is one important element to be recognized. For once, oil wealth is being turned into a resource to provide health, education, housing and food for the poor. In fact Venezuela even controls one of the largest oil companies operating in the US (Citgo) and has effectively offered discount gasoline to the poorer sections of the US population and it is actually a functional operation in many southern states, even though the United States hates to admit it.

The dilemma with pre-democratic (feudal Nepal) and "post-democratic"( post-feudal Venezuela and Latin America) is that both palace thugs and modern capitalists require the trappings of "democracy" to go about palace intrigue and capital accumulation. A subservient social class that can maintain this set-up for the kings and the Pinochets of the world have now been virtually made to run in both Nepal and Venezuela.

Methods of popular self-government (village people's committees) and barrio assemblies have been developed to run civic society more and more. What has radicalized both Nepalese society and Venezuelan society is the "decommissioning" of these "middle-forces" (the petit-bourgeoisie representatives) and their "democratic" institutions. These institutions relied on the legacy of "aid" "loans" and the attendant dependence and corruption to completely paralyze these economies. This has all come to a head. In Nepal, by the assertion of the Maoists through their ten-year consistent armed self-defense and widespread popularization of their struggles and in Venezuela by the brash but thoughtful assertion of Hugo Chavez to tear up old arrangements where Venezuela's oil billions went to a handful of wealthy families and instead use that wealth to fight poverty. Democracy from below is replacing democracy from above. The world is witnessing, in Nepal and Venezuela, a phenomena that is rare. Two different types of popular and pragmatic uprisings in a post-doctrinal era.

Rana Bose is a novelist, performance artist and engineer

In 1963, John F. Kennedy nominated Paul H. Nitze as Secretary of the Navy. This was actually a demotion for Nitze, who, as Carroll notes, had been at the very heart of American power for almost 20 years by then. He was in fact one of the godfathers of the Cold War, a Wall Street blue-blood turned high-level bureaucrat who served several presidents but was always driven by the same vision: projecting American dominance to the four corners of the earth, using an ever-expanding nuclear arsenal as the tip of the spear. For Nitze, thoroughly marinated in the "paranoid school" of U.S. political thought, no Pentagon budget was ever too big, no policy was ever too aggressive (including first-strike nuclear attacks), no restriction on American liberty was ever sufficient to stave off the demonic, all-powerful "evil empire" of the Soviet Union, which threatened, at every moment, to destroy America and its "way of life."

Nitze was the author of NSC-68, the document that more than any other engineered the militarization of American society and constituted the re-founding of the country as a "National Security State," controlled by the military-industrial complex and driven by a nightmare vision of exaggerated threats, craven fear, secrecy and deception, bellicosity and brinkmanship. This vision has waxed and waned in intensity at various times over the years, but it has never been displaced as the central dynamic of American power. The demonic, all-powerful enemy has now morphed from the Soviet Union to Islamic extremism, but the paranoid rhetoric and "Pentagon uber alles" philosophy of the Cold War has been seamlessly transferred whole cloth to the supposedly transformed "post-9/11 age."

And in the Bush administration, this nightmare Nitzean philosophy has reached its apotheosis in the war-making, liberty-gutting dictatorship of the Commander-in-Chief that George W. Bush proclaims more openly every day. Thus Nitze is one of the Founding Fathers of the new Bushist State, and Rumsfeld is one of his most dutiful sons.

All the more ironic then, that Rumsfeld began his career with a vicious smear of Nitze during his confirmation hearings for the Navy nomination. Rumsfeld was then a rookie Congressman from Illinois looking to make a name for himself. Nitze, who had been one of Kennedy's top advisors, had fallen out of favor with the young president. During two flashpoints that brought the world to the very brink of nuclear war -- in Berlin and Cuba -- Nitze had urged Kennedy to take military action, including nuclear first strikes if necessary. He derided the "morality questions" involved in taking the world to nuclear war, and accused Robert Kennedy (and indirectly the president) of "appeasement" for seeking peaceful solutions. For some reason, Nitze thought all this would win him a much longed-for nomination as Deputy Secretary of Defense -- the same position held much later by Paul Wolfowitz. But Kennedy had other ideas. Nitze was too powerful, too well-connected to jettison outright -- as Carroll's book makes clear, by this time the presidency had become in large part a prisoner of the Pentagon -- so he was palmed off with the Navy job.

And here he came into the crosshairs of young Don Rumsfeld. Any confirmation hearing is a good opportunity for the political opposition to score points off the sitting administration, but what could a hard-right, rampant Cold Warrior like Rumsfeld find to say against one of the chief architects of America's bristling, ever-expanding nuclear arsenal and its policies of aggressive "rollback" that even then beginning to ensnare the United States in the bloody quagmire of Vietnam? Here was a man after Rumsfeld's own cold heart. But the budding Bushist knew just what to do in such a situation: you lie. You come up with the most ludicrous, unsupported, impossible lie that you can think of -- then you launch it in the most public way possible. Yes, it's the old "Big Lie" gambit, consciously perfected by Josef Goebbels in Nazi Germany and now the chief mode of political discourse used by the Bush Administration. And although George W. himself was just a prep school cheerleader at the time, Rumsfeld was already honing the skills he would need to serve the master to come.

Rumsfeld accused Nitze -- of all people -- of being a pinko wimp who supported nuclear disarmament in the face of the implacable Soviet foe. What was the basis of this outrageous charge, which made about as much sense as calling Gandhi a war profiteer? It seems that years before, Nitze had attended a meeting of the National Council of Churches. At this conference, some people had spoken in favor of disarmament; others opposed it. In fact, the keynote speaker at the event was John Foster Dulles, then Secretary of State and one of the most aggressive and military-minded figures ever to hold power at the State Department (until the arrival of Condi Rice). It was, in other words, a very Establishment affair, where the great and good gather to pontificate and eat prime rib; "hardly a gathering of pinkos," Carroll notes. Nitze himself had a copious public record of speaking out against disarmament.

But none of these facts stopped Rumsfeld from publicly slandering Nitze at the hearings as a disarmer, a betrayer of national security, the kind of weakling who would cut and run in the face of the enemy. For Rumsfeld, the merest, fleeting association with any organization that so much as entertained the notion of pursuing peace over domination was enough to taint a nominee. Other Republicans followed the firebrand stripling's Big Lie and pounded Nitze -- one of the greatest champions of war, even genocidal nuclear war, in American history -- as a peacenik unworthy to head the Navy. Nitze survived the assault and won the confirmation vote, barely; but as Carroll writes, "the wound of the insult would never heal." As for Rumsfeld, his particular brand of ideological nastiness was noted -- and approved -- by powerful factions in the Republican Party, and when Richard Nixon brought the party back to power five years later, he found room for the hawkish hatchet man in the White House. Rumsfeld was a made man; he would remain entrenched in the bowels of the military-industrial, and often at the center of government, from that time until today.

And every step of the way, his career has been marked by mendacity, duplicity, smirking chatter and deadly ideological blindness -- for example, in the White House, he was a champion of the infamous "Team B" group that insisted that all of the CIA's intelligence about the Soviet Union's declining economy, its military weakness and its genuine desire to reach a new, peaceful accommodation to the West while reforming its own system was all false; Rumsfeld and his cohorts insisted -- on the basis of false evidence, manipulated evidence and no evidence at all -- that the "evil empire" was developing a whole range of new super-weapons that would be able to destroy the United States at a moment's notice. The fact that the CIA, the NSA, the DIA and the whole phalanx of America's intelligence services couldn't find any evidence for these weapons of mass destruction only proved how devious the Russians were in cloaking them. This group of "outside advisers" was formed by then-CIA Director George H.W. Bush; when he and goofy front-man Ronald Reagan took office in 1981, Rumsfeld and the B-teamers were able to "stovepipe" their twisted non-intelligence directly to the White House, which used it to justify gargantuan increases in military budgets and missile systems.

The Big Lie -- first deployed against his ideological soul-mate, Paul Nitze -- has served Rumsfeld well throughout his long career. And now he may cap this long and dirty record with the greatest irony of all: making Nitze's dream come true by launching nuclear weapons in an unprovoked first strike against a demonized Enemy -- Iran.

To anyone who has read the latest policy missive from the Democratic Party describing its approach to national security, the Democrats' stance is not suprising.

At least one leading Democratic foreign policy strategist is upset with the party's refusal to contradict the president. Zbigniew Brzezinski, the Carter administration über-hawk who become an Iraq dove, provided the bluntest commentary on why the Democrats shy away from confronting the Bush administration's war-based foreign policy. Brzezinski, appearing on the April 5 "Diane Rehm Show" on NPR, noted the traditional sad critique that Democrats fear being seen as weak or vacillating on issues related to national security. But then he put the real blame squarely where it belongs: on Bill and Hillary Clinton. The former president, he said, wants his wife to be president, and together they have determined that this goal can best be reached by Hillary disguising herself as the reincarnation of Maggie Thatcher. And since Hillary the Iron Lady II is the frontrunner for the 2008 nomination, she sets the tone for the rest of the party, said the former national security adviser.

Unfortunately, Brzezinski is on the mark. Despite the fact that former Vice President Al Gore is speaking out consistently against the war in Iraq, despite the fact that Representative John Murtha has called for an American withdrawal, despite the fact that even John Kerry is now demanding a deadline for a U.S. pullout, the Democratic establishment has avoided a forthright challenge to Bush. That was obvious when, following the State of the Union speech, the Democrats chose Virginia Governor Tim Kaine to give a befuddled, Mr. Nice Guy response, whose refrain was that the Democrats have "a better way."

In the last week of March, with great hullabaloo, the Democrats presented a 123-page document called "Real Security: Protecting America and Restoring Our Leadership in the World ." The party leaders designed the document as an answer to President Bush's wreckage-strewn disaster of a U.S. national security and foreign policy. Instead, the Democrats could only manage a mealy-mouthed mishmash of half-measures, tepid critiques and bravado disguised as toughness. Much of it is said to have been "produced by the House and Senate Democrats." But in fact the main architects of the document appear to have been a host of warmed-over Clintonians and the Hillary-linked Center for American Progress, a centrist thinktank. No surprise, then, that the self-same Center for American Progress, in its March 31 "Progress Report," attacked the media, including The New York Times , CNN, and others, for ignoring the "Real Security" document. In fact, if it was newsworthy at all, it was because it only confirmed that the Democrats are so weighed down by the likes of Hillary Clinton, Joe Lieberman, Jane Harman and Rahm Emanuel that they are utterly incapable of anything like bold new thinking on national security.

Rather than call for an end to the war in Iraq by setting a timetable, starting a drawdown of forces, and allowing the Arab League and the United Nations to play the lead role in stabilizing Iraq, the Democrats call for what can only be called "Bush Lite." Like Bush, they insist that the key to stabilizing Iraq is the endless quest to recruit, train, and equip Iraqi security forces. In the paper, they present no strategy for getting out of Iraq, instead calling on President Bush to come up with "a plan." That said, the Democrats' document goes on and on with things like "better pay for the troops," "more funding for body armor and other equipment," "reimbursing soldiers and families for body armor" and "more funding for up-armored Humvees." Is the biggest problem facing America in Iraq the fact that our troops need more body armor and tougher Humvees? As the Iraqi forces take over, the United States can begin what the Democrats call a "responsible redeployment" of U.S. forces, whatever that means. They certainly do not call for ending the war, and they don't even go as far the Center for American Progress' own, workable plan to get U.S. troops out of Iraq by the end of 2007.

Rather than call for an end to the so-called Long War, the war-without-end "global war on terrorism," the Democrats call for an escalation, including doubling the size of the U.S. Special Forces and instituting self-defeating sanctions-type measures such as a plan to "[bar] foreign subsidiaries of U.S. companies from doing business with countries considered sponsors of terrorism." And how do they suggest we deal with the Al Qaeda, the perpetrators of 9/11? They will "eliminate bin Laden, destroy terrorist networks like Al Qaeda, finish the job in Afghanistan, and end the threat posed by the Taliban." The document is mum on how this will be accomplished.

Rather than call for downsizing the bloated U.S. military, which under President Bush has enjoyed a breathtaking expansion that rivals Ronald Reagan's early 1980s buildup, the Democrats call for even more military spending, hiring more spies, increasing the deployable army by 30,000 troops, expanding the National Guard, and rebuilding "a state-of-the-art military by making the needed investments in equipment and manpower." They say: "The president's budget fails to include $21 billion in requested military needs-the largest amount denied since 9/11." So, giving the Pentagon the billions it wants is "a better way"?

Rather than trying to ease the national hysteria over homeland security, the Democrats want to escalate that, too, with vast new spending to make every possible terrorist target safe from attack. They want to spend billions more on intelligence, $8 billion more make ports, airports, mass transportation and other facilities super-secure, $5 billion more to boost police and fire resources, and so on. Nowhere in the document do they suggest dismantling the Homeland Security Department, repealing the USA Patriot Act, barring the U.S. military from involvement in law enforcement and domestic spying, dismantling the U.S. Northern Command in Colorado, and other measures to ensure that America's domestic response to terrorism is appropriate to the scale of the threat.

To their credit, the Democrats do criticize Bush for manipulating the intelligence used as a pretext for the war in Iraq, for invading Iraq without any plan for what would follow, for launching wars that created more terrorists than they killed, for unleashing a foreign policy that isolated the United States and alienated us from our traditional allies, and so on. But by paying exceeding deference to the party's hawks, and being overly careful not to give Republicans a chance to portray Democrats as peaceniks (heaven forbid!), the Democratic establishment has once again plopped itself down far behind the advanced ranks of its supporters. Poll after poll shows that American voters are disgusted with Bush's foreign policy and that they are no longer buying his snake oil. One recent poll -by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee no less-revealed that on issues of national security Americans favor Democrats over Republicans by 41 to 39 per cent, more than erasing the double-digit gaps that have long plagued Democrats on this issue. That, alone, ought to be evidence enough that the Dems can be far bolder than what turns up in the "Real Security" document. Sadly, because it lacks the bold thinking to distinguish them from the Bush worldview, the Democrats' latest paper, like the administration's own "National Strategy for Victory in Iraq" (November 2005) will soon be forgotten.

Robert Dreyfuss is the author of Devil's Game: How the United States Helped Unleash Fundamentalist Islam (Henry Holt/Metropolitan Books, 2005). Dreyfuss is a freelance writer based in Alexandria, Va., who specializes in politics and national security issues. He is a contributing editor at The Nation, a contributing writer at Mother Jones, a senior correspondent for The American Prospect, and a frequent contributor to Rolling Stone.He can be reached through his website: www.robertdreyfuss.com

Voters could toss Republicans from power in Congress this fall, or turn the White House over to Democrats in 2008.

Maverick reform-minded Democrats and Republicans might shake up their parties.

Or perhaps voter unrest will fuel a credible third-party presidential campaign.

''There is certainly a lot of anti-incumbency out there and neither of these parties is doing swimmingly well,'' said independent pollster Andrew Kohut of the Pew Research Center.

His surveys suggest a throw-the-bums-out mentality is on the upswing, especially among independent voters.

''If they stop fighting and bickering and put the American people's interests in front of where they should be, they could cure a whole lot of problems,'' said retiree Laliberte, an independent voter in Bangor, Maine.

Nearly half of independents say the Democratic and Republican parties are equally corrupt. An AP-Ipsos poll in December found nearly 90 percent of all voters believes political corruption is a serious problem.

''I don't see either party doing anything advantageous for the population,'' said real estate broker Heller, a conservative Democrat. ''I think the country is getting fed up. Big business is controlling everything.''

President Bush's approval rating is at the lowest point of his presidency, and the public gives even lower marks to Congress. Republican and Democratic congressional leaders are held in equally low esteem.

''I'm not happy with either party on national security,'' said Hirsch, a Republican-leaning businessman from Chicago. ''We have a lot of politicians but not a lot of statesmen.''

While polls suggest more voters want Democrats to control Congress than Republicans, the Democratic Party's approval rating is no better than Bush's. A George Washington University Battleground 2006 survey in February found that 84 percent of likely voters believe lawmakers in Washington put partisan politics above all else.

Nearly 70 percent of the public believes the country is on the wrong track, a level of pessimism that rivals the nation's sentiment in 1992, when Bush's father was defeated for re-election, and 1994, when Democrats lost control of Congress.

''The mood is sour,'' said Republican strategist Rich Bond.

''If some larger-than-life personality - let's say Colin Powell - decided he wanted to launch a third-party candidacy for some office, I think he'd be an impact player,'' Bond said. ''But he's not running.''

Bond said the third-party candidacies of Ross Perot in 1992 and Ralph Nader in 2000 and 2004 made it easier for future mavericks to gain ballot access. The organizing and fundraising power of the Internet also lowers barriers to third-party bids.

Still, it would take a special candidate. ''You really have to have the proper mix of gravitas and quirkiness,'' Bond said.

Who might that be?

-Sen. John McCain has the ''credibility and stature'' to make a third-party run, Kohut said. But the Arizona lawmaker insists he would run as a Republican, a self-styled reformer promising to change politics as usual. Some wonder whether McCain would bolt the GOP if denied the nomination. Not Bond. ''He's not the take-my-ball-and-go-home type,'' Bond said.

-Former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani also could cast himself as a straight-talking, battle-tested leader, the type of politician who will be in vogue in 2008, analysts said. Whether that would help him win the GOP nomination as a moderate is open to question, as is his potential as a third-party candidate.

-New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg could launch an independent presidential bid. The ambitious billionaire is raising his national profile as friends and associates privately muse about his potential as an outside-the-mainstream candidate.

Asked recently whether he wanted to be president, Bloomberg replied, ''Which letter of the word 'No' do you not understand?''

These and other politicians don't necessarily need to leave their party to take advantage of the public's sulky mood.

Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., is exploiting voter unrest inside the Democratic Party. His call to censure Bush has won favor with frustrated anti-war liberals who believe party leaders kowtowed to the White House on Iraq.

Still, Republican consultant Ken Duberstein said voters may be angry enough to support a third-party bid. GOP pollster Bill McInturff said a third-party candidacy depends on who Republicans and Democrats nominate in 2008.

If the prizes go to polarizing figures such as Democratic Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Republican Newt Gingrich, the pollster said, ''the gap in the middle would be pretty profound.''

I want to begin by congratulating you for all the work you do. I know it is often frustrating work. You are blessed to be able to see ahead to a world of cooperation and peace -- a world of justice and sustainable economies and meaningful democracies. You wonder why others cannot or will not see these things or reach out for them, and why they in fact oppose the obvious good -- why they take the part of the oppressor, the blindered war horse.

I would like us to take a few moments to consider why this work is so hard, and what we might do to move toward our common dreams more rapidly and with greater joy.

Some of you may be old enough to remember the Reagan Administration. Mr. Reagan and those around him believed in a very new kind of American hero. This new hero was a business hero -- not the fellow who built up a family furniture store on Main Street and supported the Little League and the Scouts; this new hero was not the woman who worked late hours to create a successful travel agency, nor was this new business hero anything like any of the hard-working Americans who built-up our middle class, advanced our standard of living and gave us the resources and leisure for the proper civic life of a democracy, with its leagues and Rotaries and Lions and Elks and VFWs and party conventions and all that glory.

No, the Reagan business hero was the corporate takeover artist.

Any regulations that might get in the way of these ruthless new capitalists were removed -- removed so that reptiles of uncommon greed and brutality might rule the earth, which they now nearly do.

What soon happened was that ALL corporations of medium size or larger had to look over their shoulders. How did a corporation protect itself in this environment from a hostile takeover? It had to close down any factories that were not earning obscene profits. Never mind that a factory had served a town well for a century, or that it provided a healthy and regular profit for its stockholders. If it seemed to be underperfoming by the new hypergreed standards, or if it could be closed in favor of opening a foreign plant that provided a slightly higher rate of return, then, in this new atmosphere, the company was derelict in its duty to its stockholders if it did not ruthlessly act.

Perfectly good and profitable factories were closed. Benefits to employees everywhere were attacked, and staffs were downsized, outsourced, computerized, downsized again, outsourced again to temp agencies that paid no health care or retirement, and on and on until America became a very different place. The gap between rich and poor is now wider than at any time in our history.

It is still a wealthy nation for many people, but poverty is on the rise, and those with jobs find themselves so overworked trying to make ends meet that there is little time for family or for the joy of living. Indeed, there is very little joy left in American life. Workers are not loyal to their companies, because companies treat them like expendable slaves, with no dignity or assurance that hard work will result in advancement or security.

We are living in the harsh world invented by a handful of corporate raiders whose values were completely foreign to the fairness and moderation that had so long served as the proper foundation of American success and the American dream of plenty for all. They were not a new kind of person, for there have always been among us a few reptilian hearts of uncommon greed. What was new was the political permission they received for their rape and rampage, which continues.

And so a new world devolved as if from a virus. The new business hero, a Horatio Alger on crack, did very well. The new model CEO derived from that moment -- the ruthless mercenary who would come in to reorganize a company and render it takeover-proof by rendering it inhumane. This executive was worth millions per year, we were told. In this way, a Darwinian system of corporate survival assured that the most carnivorous, rather than the most responsible, would rise to lead our most powerful commercial organizations. And if you need an explanation for Fox News or Enron, this is the history you need to remember.

These superwealthy predators now, through their political patronage, control both political parties. They control Congress and the White House. They control elements within your state house. They are not particularly smart people, as their current agent in the White House clearly demonstrates.

Here is how the takeover of corporations became the corporate takeover of American democracy: To get along and move up in one of these right wing business organizations, you have to be like the boss. The people working under you will then want to be like you to get along themselves. In Fox News, even reporters in local regions are told how to slant each story hard to the right. There is no pretense of journalism within the organization. And many people stuck in those jobs, who got into journalism with the idea of doing legitimate journalism, are sick to their stomachs every working day.

In this way, the right-wing leanings of a few people have distorted entire industries, including television news. Political leaders are quickly infected in this trickle down reptilism -- trickling down from the people who write the checks for political campaigns and who control political news.

And the reptilism trickles down further, to the weaker minds listening to talk radio or silly enough to spend too much time watching cable television news -- people who buy the lies, who are simply suckered into forking over their own political best interests to the con artists who attempt to pick their pockets at the same moment they are pointing out others who, they say, are the real trouble makers. About 25 percent of our people are susceptible to this kind of con, and they then give us problems by standing against any reasonable reforms. They have been spiritually twisted by the cheap poison of a hundred Rush Limbaughs into the angry, unthinking agents of the superrich.

On my long walk across America, a man driving a garbage truck told me that the biggest problem facing America today was the inheritance tax. I didn't have to ask him if he had a radio in his truck.

I remind you of all this because it is important to know that the reason our reforms are difficult is not because Americans are split into two camps, conservative and liberal. It is not like that at all. There are lots of conservatives and liberals in America, but we are not the two sides of the divide. True conservatives in our country don't have many political leaders to look to with respect. Among the last was Barry Goldwater. He believed that the government had no business in our bedrooms. He believed that a woman and her doctor didn't need the government's help in deciding her important issues. He would have laughed and then, I think, become very, very angry at Ashcroft's attacks on the Bill of Rights and his citizen-against-citizen snitching system. Goldwater believed that the only issue of importance regarding gays in the military was whether or not they could shoot straight.

What we are seeing now from the far right is not conservatism at all. It is fascism: the imposition of a national and worldwide police state to enforce a narrow world view that enriches and empowers the few at the expense of the many, and that gives no respect or honor to other cultures, ways of living, or opinions. To call that conservatism is a crime against the memory of America's great and true conservatives, who might think that government ought to be less involved in life than we old liberals would concur with, but who nevertheless stood for the core American values that today's right-wing leaders undermine at every opportunity.

We Americans are not split into liberals and conservatives. In fact, if you are running for office from the center, or from left of center, just do a better job of demonstrating how far right-wing your opponent is, and you will win more and more votes. You will win them from the vast number of people, most especially urban women and professional men, who identify themselves as Republicans for old time's sake, but who are very uncomfortable when forced to look squarely at the far right positions of many candidates running under the flag of the Grand Old Party. Given moderate alternatives, they will vote for them. That was exactly the truth that Clinton understood and exploited so brilliantly. He understood that Republicans are conservatives but the Republican Party is not. If you want to reflect upon how well he exploited this insight, remember that Hillary was a Republican when he met her.

If we Americans are split into two meaningful camps, it is not conservative versus liberal. The two camps are these: the politically awake and the hypnotized -- hypnotized by television and other mass media, whose overpaid Svengalis dangle the swinging medallions of packaged candidates and oft-told lies. It is all done to politically prolong the open season on us -- open season indeed, as the billionaire takeover artists bag their catch for the day. And in their bags are our freedoms, our leisure, our health care futures, our old age security, our family time, our village life, our family-owned businesses on Main Street, the middle class itself, and our position of honor and peaceful leadership in the world.

Once we understand what we are up against, and where the meaningful dividing lines truly run, our lives as reformers can be easier because we shall know how to proceed.

How to break the hypnosis is then the question. It is easy.

Pull any contractor out of his white pickup truck, turn down the talk radio blaring from it, and ask him, "Government good, or government bad?"

His glazed eyes will widen. "Government bad!" he will say.

Ok, good. You found one to play with.

Now, ask him what the town might do to make it safer for kids to get to and from school, and around town when they're not in school, without getting killed by traffic or getting in trouble. He will have a million ideas. Good ideas. He has no clue that he is being government -- if government is what happens when we get together to solve our common problems and to make life better for our communities.

You have broken his trance.

When a proposition is on the ballot, people talk about the mechanics of the idea, and the hypnosis is largely circumvented. You see quite progressive ballot propositions passing in otherwise quite unprogressive states. Why? Because people are problem-solvers at heart, and they enjoy it. They want to participate and be helpful and accepted as valuable players. It takes a lot of hypnosis to overcome that instinct, and a lot of hypnosis is what we have had. But we can get around it.

Government agencies, of course, have been the communitarian's worst enemies. Anything that smacks of bureaucratic rudeness or pushiness or counterproductive stubbornness does nothing but damage the idea that government is us -- we the people acting together to solve our problems as fellow citizens. That brand of government really needs to be stamped out whenever it shows its pinched, gray face. That is what can be done and must be done to prepare the ground for what must come next, which is a new engagement of citizens with the issues of interest to them in their communities. We should begin in our high schools. During the years from 13 to 19, lifelong civic values are formed.

We should start with our younger people. As community leaders, we should work with the popular history and civics teachers in our high schools to bring the issues of the day and the issues of the town into the classroom -- not to propagandize but to openly invite students to learn, research, and offer advice to the community on a wide range of issues. This is where the hypnosis falls apart. This is where democracy finds its feet again.

This summer I asked America's independent community radio stations to get involved with those same teachers in our high schools, to make students into community reporters and commentators. I reminded these indy news stations that they have the technology and the dramatic missions young people crave. I said young people will never become robots if they are enlisted in the cause of truth at an early age.

What we do in schools, we must also do in colleges and then in the general community. But if we only have the means to focus on the high schools, that is enough. These young people will be voting in only a few years. If we support their increased civic engagement as they move through college and into the community, we will have raised an army of citizens immunized against corporate hypnosis. Our victories for needed reforms will come naturally. With an engaged and informed citizenry, who knows what good we might do, and what great civilization we might yet again move toward?

True conservatives and liberals unite! Bring your issues and your opinions to our young people, and create a new expectation that they will get involved, get informed, and form a view of themselves as problem-solving citizens of a democracy. Our differences from the left or right are nothing compared to the differences between the politically awake and the hypnotized drones of the new colonialism that now stalks and shreds our civilization.

I urge you to think young, to link with moderates on the other side of the fence, and to approach the schools and teachers who can help you connect your young, rising citizens to the issues that will shape their lives.

If you believe that human beings, in addition to all their other instincts, want to help create and live in a happy, creative and cooperative world, then you must believe that people are to be trusted in their politics so long as they are encouraged to study everyone's experience and study the competing points of view -- and so long as they are raised with enough love and security to be capable of empathy. We need not force a liberal agenda on our society, any more than we need force our political opinions on our children. We can enjoy life instead of banging our heads against the old walls. If we encourage an awake thoughtfulness, democracy and justice will have all the victories our hearts can handle.

To read more of Doris Haddock's writings, visit GrannyD.com

Bush led the list, compiled by the Thomas Jefferson Centre for the Protection of Free Expression, for authorising the National Security Agency to tap the phones of US citizens who make calls overseas.

The wiretaps were conducted without authorisation from a federal court.

The White House defended the warrantless wiretapping programme as necessary to fight terrorism.

The Justice Department earned a Muzzle for demanding that Google turn over thousands of Internet records, prompting concerns that more invasive requests could follow if the government prevails.

"If individuals are fearful that their communications will be intercepted by the government, such fears are likely to chill their speech," the Jefferson centre said.

Other winners of the 15th annual awards include the Department of Homeland Security for barring an air marshal from expressing concerns about public safety; the Yelm, Washington state, City Council for banning the words "Wal-Mart" and "big-box stores" at public hearings; and students at the University of Connecticut who heckled conservative columnist Ann Coulter.

The centre, based in Charlottesville, Virginia, awards the Muzzles each year to mark the April 13 birthday of Thomas Jefferson, the third president and a First Amendment advocate.

The First Amendment of the US Constitution guarantees such basic rights as freedom of speech and the press.

As in the past, this year's winners reflect concern about "the overextension of government authority into areas that clearly affect our lives and chill and inhibit our ability to express views," centre director Robert M O'Neil said.

John W. Dean, who was Richard Nixon's White House counsel, remarked that the domestic spying exceeds the wrongdoing that toppled his former boss.

In the Google case, the Justice Department demanded search records to buttress its defense of a law aimed at protecting children from Internet pornography.

Google resisted turning over any information because of user privacy and trade secret concerns.

Other Internet providers - including AOL, Yahoo and MSN - complied with the government's demand.

"Google appears to be the only one that drew a line in the sand," O'Neil said. "We commend their insistence that aggregate data could end up identifying a particular subscriber."

The Department of Homeland Security won its Muzzle for taking air marshal Frank Terreri off flight duty after he e-mailed colleagues expressing concerns about air-security risks.

The federal policy curbing such activity was modified, and Terreri was allowed back on duty.

But he sued, contending the department's rules still restrict employees' right to free speech.

In Yelm, Washington, the city council banned discussion of a plan by Wal-Mart to build a super centre after many opponents sought to express their views.

When that did not squelch opposition, the council voted in June to prohibit citizens from using the terms "Wal-Mart" or "big-box stores" at public meetings.

Hecklers at the University of Connecticut earned a Muzzle for drowning out Coulter's speech in December.

People have a right to express their disagreement with a speaker, the free-expression centre said, but preventing fellow audience members from hearing the message is contrary to the First Amendment's spirit.

"We want to have a system that is secure and safe but welcoming to travel across the world," said Sec Chertoff. "Americans lose when we put up walls and keep people out."

Business leaders have voiced deep concerns over a decline in international visitors due partly to more bureaucratic US visa policies and a battered image overseas September 11, 2001.

US market share of international tourism is at an all-time low, dropping 35 per cent between 1992 and 2004, which translates into $286bn in lost revenue, according to the Travel Industry Association of America (TIA).

"We are using technology to reduce delays to legitimate travellers while raising the bar to keep out those who are not," said Sec Chertoff. "Pilot programmes already running demonstrate that it is possible to confirm the identity of visitors quickly and screen out potential threats."

The US State Department and the DHS in January announced a series of measures to streamline travel to the US, including reducing wait time for visas; and setting up a "redress" process to address travellers' complaints about their poor treatment at borders or consulates abroad.

Jay Rasulo, chairman of Walt Disney Parks and Resorts and chairman of TIA, called for an aggressive campaign to market the US as a destination to overseas tourists. TIA has approved $500,000 to put together a strategic plan by year end to tackle the issue of declining tourism.

While about 20 US states have overseas marketing campaigns, there has not been a unified US-themed one in 15 years. The issue has become urgent as countries such as Australia and Ireland market themselves aggressively and capture greater share of global tourism.

Mr Rasulo blamed the slow response from the US on lack of cohesiveness from the diverse travel industry, which broadly includes hotels, airlines, restaurants, car rental agencies, cruise lines and related businesses.

"The travel industry has not spoken with a single voice," said Mr Rasulo. "We hope we're changing the channel."

Travel industry leaders also voiced concern over controversial Congressional proposals to reform immigration laws.

"Some in Congress want to criminalise undocumented workers and their employers," said J.W. Marriott, chief executive of Marriott International, the world's largest hotel operator by revenue.

"Do you industry executives think of yourself as felons? But if we don't stand together and demand good, comprehensive immigration reform, we will be criminalised if we unknowingly employ illegal aliens."

The US hotels industry employed nearly 1.8m people in 2004, many of them immigrants. The sector will demand an additional 300,000 employees by 2014, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Mr Marriott added, "In our hotels, we can't get the work done without workers from other nations and we still have jobs to fill."

Copyright The Financial Times Ltd.

"The situation had degraded to the point where there was a possibility of injury to either a student or law enforcement officer. We certainly didn't want that to happen,'' said Capt. Will Griffin, one of the Army recruiters.

University officials had been aware for weeks that Students Against War planned a protest to prevent military personnel from participating in the school's biannual job fair held for students.

The student organization has become a bit of a cause celebre of the national anti-war movement ever since it was discovered that the group's protest of the same job fair last April landed it in a Pentagon surveillance file, which listed the protest as a "credible threat" to military facilities or personnel.

Universities that receive federal funds are required to allow military recruiters on campus. But campus officials had worried that Tuesday's protest would get out of hand as it had last April, when Students Against War protesters surrounded the table where military personnel sat, and hundreds of other demonstrators engaged in an angry protest outside. Some of the recruiters reported that their tires had been slashed and one employee at the career center was injured.

David Kliger, campus provost and executive vice chancellor, said the school was most concerned Tuesday about safety issues, but also wanted to preserve access to the recruiters for students who wanted to speak with them, while still allowing protesting students their right to free speech.

Kliger said officials had tried to engage the anti-war student group in discussions in the weeks leading up to the fair. But when talks broke down, officials began privately hoping for rain and brought in extra police.

The rain probably accounted for a decidedly smaller turnout -- about 100 students compared with about 300 a year earlier.

Still, the Army's Griffin said he sensed that some of the students were "looking for action" and decided to pack up their table before things got out of hand and someone got injured.

Students Against War members said they were pleased that their counter-recruiting effort forced the military personnel off campus, at least for the time being.

"We're saying it's not OK to recruit on high school campuses, it's not OK to recruit on university campuses,'' Marla Zubel, a UC Santa Cruz senior and member of Students Against War, said. "In order to stop the war, you have to make it more difficult to wage war."

But at least one student, Cody James, said he was disappointed that he couldn't get in to speak with the military personnel.

"It's frustrating,'' said James, a senior majoring in politics. "I'm not a Republican. I'm not a conservative. I don't support the war. It's about finding a career."

E-mail Diana Walsh at dwalsh@sfchronicle.com.