Something to contemplate: columnist Mark Morford's reflections on the second anniversary of the September 11th tragedy.

Do you remember? The days immediately after 9/11? That rich feeling of global sympathy and sincere concern and this powerful, overarching sense that maybe, just maybe, if we work together and reach out to each other without snide bias or prejudice, we can re-make the world in an entirely new, politically purified, blazingly conscious, peace-seeking vision? No? It's OK. Neither does anyone else.

The article is a reflection (as irreverent as all of his columns) on the choice that was given to us, whether we knew it or not, to respond to tragedy with a headlong rush to peace, or a headlong rush to war, not just nationally but also in our hearts.

Something beautiful: a lovely collection of September 11th, 2001 tributes and memorials from around the world days after that tragedy. It has been reposted to remind us of the love the US received in the aftermath of our loss.

Today is the second anniversary of the attacks on the World Trade Center, and there are several very cynical comments about how that event has become obscenely politicized. My favorite cynical comments are Mark Fiore's "A Nation Remembers II" (markfiore.com) and John Carroll's 'A Special Speech to the Nation' (SF Gate).

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Today's World Views Column (SF Gate) is even more excellent than usual. The first portion points out that the US isn't the only country that ever suffered on a September 11th, discussing the US-backed overthrow of Allende in Chile. There is then a compilation of both sympathy and concern around the world for the US, which now seems bent on using the terrorist attacks as a pretext for expanding its control by force around the world.

The latest World Opinion Roundup (Washington Post) may be even better. It has more translations from the foreign press, including comments like:

"In the last two years, has the U.S. found more opponents or sympathizers, more friends or enemies, more stability or insecurity? . . . This is what needs to be evaluated by the people of the United States."

"Somehow when Asians or Arabs commit terrorism, that is a crime against humanity. When Americans, Europeans and Israelis bomb, burn and brutalize the colored people, that is a war against terrorism or (as in Iraq) a war of liberation. Such hypocrisy and racism must be condemned."

It is a terrible burden for Americans to be so completely convinced that we are always on the side of GOOD that anything our forces or government does, not matter how bad an atrocity, must be justified and rationalized, no matter how implausibly.

The overthrow of Allende; the training of death squads; the arming of dictators, including providing chemical weapons to Saddam Hussein; - so many sad examples come to mind...

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Speaking of arming dictators, the Project Censored folks have released their latest collection of important news that was ignored or mishandled by the mainstream, corporate media. A great summary is available as The San Francisco Bay Guardian's latest cover story. There's a lot that's important and worth knowing about, but one bit that especially ticked my fancy:

...the U.S. government covertly removed 8,000 of the 11,800 pages of the weapons declaration the Iraqi government had submitted to the United Nations Security Council and the International Atomic Energy Agency.

But the Iraqis released copies of the full report to key media outlets in Europe. It turns out that the missing pages may have contained damning details on 24 U.S.-based corporations, various federal departments and nuclear weapons labs, and several high-ranking members of the Reagan and Bush administrations that, from 1983 until 1990, helped supply Hussein with botulinum toxins, anthrax, gas gangrene bacteria, the makings for nuclear weapons, and associated instruction. Among those implicated: Eastman Kodak, Dupont, Honeywell, Hewlett-Packard, Bechtel, the U.S. Department of Energy and Department of Agriculture, the Livermore, Los Alamos, and Sandia nuclear weapons labs, and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfield.

Yes, a lot of it is that good. Yes, you should read the article. If you like it, you should probably also buy the book, which contains additional details on their top stories, plus great essays about media control, fake celebrity news that dominates your local outlets instead of information that's relevant to your life, and more.

I'm going to try really hard to make this the last item of the evening, but there's just too much good stuff out there: this is This Modern World on the false linkages between September 11th attacks and Iraq, plus actual linkages between terrorism suspects and the Saudi government. It's a fascinating and worthwhile compilation. I'll restrain myself to print just one excerpt, from a great article at the Christian Science Monitor

In his prime-time press conference last week, which focused almost solely on Iraq, President Bush mentioned Sept. 11 eight times. He referred to Saddam Hussein many more times than that, often in the same breath with Sept. 11....Polling data show that right after Sept. 11, 2001, when Americans were asked open-ended questions about who was behind the attacks, only 3 percent mentioned Iraq or Hussein. But by January of this year, attitudes had been transformed. In a Knight Ridder poll, 44 percent of Americans reported that either "most" or "some" of the Sept. 11 hijackers were Iraqi citizens. The answer is zero.

Truthout and the Independent present a new article dated today on the US and UK backing down on their WMD claims.

The "current and serious" threat of Iraq's WMD was the reason Tony Blair gave for going to war, but last week the Prime Minister delivered a justification which did not mention the weapons at all. On the same day John Bolton, US Under-Secretary of State for arms control, said that whether Saddam Hussein's regime actually possessed WMD "isn't really the issue".

I'm glad I don't take heart medication, because the threat of popping over this about face would be high. Also on the same page: a revelation that the unaccounted for weapons may be mere bookkeeping glitches.

Ex-inspectors now say, five months after the U.S. invasion, that the notorious "unaccountables" may have been no more than paperwork glitches left behind when Iraq destroyed banned chemical and biological weapons years ago.

Elsewhere on truthout you'll find a Newsweek poll shows a drop of support of Bush's policies in Iraq, and a great speech by Senator Byrd, which I feel compelled to quote a tiny bit from here:

Does it really come as a surprise to anyone that many of our allies are reluctant to commit their own troops to the aftermath of a pre-emptive war, considering how the Administration tried to bully them during our headlong rush to war against Iraq? While the White House was furiously trying to twist arms in Berlin, Paris, Ankara, and Moscow to gain acquiescence to a war in Iraq, millions took to the streets to protest the President's policy toward Iraq.

According to polls released by the Pew Research Center on March 18, 2003, the day before the war began, opposition to a war in Iraq was at 69 percent in Germany, 75 percent in France, 86 percent in Turkey, and 87 percent in Russia. Yet the White House scoffed at this opposition and belittled the need to unify the world in confronting Saddam Hussein. Could it be that our troops are now paying the price for the Administration's bullheaded rush to war without the broad and active support of the international community?

[Feel free to act out raising your hand and desperately trying to get the teacher's attention to answer that one.]

A friend has been forwarding me excerpts from the blog Cal Pundit. Entry I like best so far: Democratic Foreign Policy, a very short list of very big policies that Democrats suggested, Bush rejected, and now Bush is attempting to use.
He has many other good entries in the September archive.

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Another item from the reading of the same friend: a subscriber's only Salon.com article amusingly entitled "Would you like some freedom fries with your crow, Mr. President?" about Bush's belated attempts to drag the UN into Iraq now that things aren't going well.

International ANSWER already has commentary up about Bush's address today. In short: Bush lied, Bush lied some more, and Bush is lying now. A 'Bring the Troops Home' protest is being planned for October 25th in Washington, D.C., which will coincide with the anniversary of the hopelessly misnamed "Patriot Act." Regional rallies are planned for September 25-28 for an end to all occupations, including that of Palestine, whose 2nd intifada has an anniversary that weekend. Follow the links for additional details.

My e-mail exchange with my colleague who considered all San Francisco anti-war protesters on Day X to be violent continues. (Her perception will require considerable discussion, as it's not based on available information. I've canvas(s)ed a few other folks, and they are likewise mystified. If the interfaith prayer service and yoga demonstrations were violent, we aren't using the same definition of violence!) Here is some of the text of my discussion of our exchange on one of my mailing lists:

As an alternative to blocking traffic and chaining oneself to Bechtel HQ, such activities as 'practicing peace,' reducing consumption, and going to the farmer's market were suggested [by my correspondent].

I've been doing those things most of my life, yet I've noticed that wars keep happening anyway. So I want to try a new approach. I'm attaching my last missive in the discussion, which proposes a collaborative project beyond just plain e-mail writing. If you're interested, opt in my sending me a message at home.

---------------[body of the response sent to correspondent follows]

I like ALL of your suggestions!! And I share your values on these activities. I don't own a car; I volunteer in my community; I support organic farmers. But... Did doing these stop the war?

None of my personal good habits stopped the war. I think many of these things benefit us, and benefit those around us. I think they make the world a better place. But I don't think they make war profiteering less profitable. I don't think they keep the poor from being exploited or bombed. I don't think they are enough to preserve our wild places or ensure that we breathe fresh air.

Every day we come to work on public transit and eat our organic lunches, while Bechtel makes millions of dollars in Iraqi oil trust fund money. I let them do it. You let them do it. Our elected representatives let them do it.

Years from now, I'll be explaining this to my niece. "Well, Bechtel made hundreds of billions of dollars in Iraqi oil money, profiting directly from the US' illegal attack on a sovereign nation, while I was eating organic yogurt and cleaning up my local park." And she'll look at me like I'm speaking Hungarian. And then she'll open her textbooks, and read about how we - grown ups like you and me - did nothing but pen a letter to our congressman once or twice and then went back to using environmentally friendly soap on our dishes, disassociating ourselves from the wars that we're funding.

If people are to criticize people who blocked traffic or chained themselves to Bechtel's front doors, forcing the company HQ to close for a day and costing the company hundreds of thousands of dollars in ill-gotten gains and interrupting their self-righteous, pro-war posturing for a day, I think we'll need to come up with something better than environmentally friendly soap, or not wasting food.

The protesters had a direct impact on a company engaging in a crime. You or I shopping at the farmer's market did not.

We are CONSENTING to the way the world is being run. We are CONSENTING to the way our country is being run. We are RESPONSIBLE for the state of the world around us. I respect the little steps, but that's what they are -- little steps. The personal gestures you have described are little steps. This mailing list is just a little step. It is not a solution. If we are satisfied with the little steps, if we stand still to admire the path we've taken, we will never arrive at our destination - a better, just, peaceful world.

I don't want to discourage you. But I want you, and all of us, to think bigger. We cannot afford to be self-satisfied while landmines maim children in Afghanistan and warmongers get rich off the resources of the poor. We're all in this together.

In the spirit of making a bigger step forward and doing it together, I'm going to make a proposal. I'm going to distribute this proposal to the mailing list, and encourage the people on the mailing list to find like minded friends and involve them. My proposal is that we develop a list of strategies that directly impact the war situation in a concrete way, that we involve others to make our efforts more significant, that act upon our ideas to test their efficacy, and that we publicize our effective ideas widely to encourage others to join us. I would be willing to submit the results of our efforts to magazines and on-line journals for publication.

The ideas would have to be original and on-topic: ideas about topics like conservation that we are already familiar with would have to have some unusual and direct application to make them apply. Some of the ideas may involve some effort -- some time to appear at public meetings to promote a resolution, some time and money mailing educational materials to a group willing to support our effort, money to take out an ad in a newspaper contesting misinformation about the war, evenings spent volunteering with a group that's doing effective peace work. But if our ideas are worthwhile, the effort is worth it.

So that was my response, and I'm opening up the options of our mailing list to see what we can come up with.

Protesting works elsewhere, and is a longstanding traditional method of expressing public dissent. I don't think it should be abandoned (although my correspondent notes that the protests didn't stop the war). Nor do I think letter writing (the point of this particular mailing list) should be abandoned: it's a favorite tool of the right wing, because it's simple and it works. But I'd like to brainstorm and work up other options.

I was up until 1 this morning discussion options with S. I spent much of Friday afternoon discussion options with another motivated colleague. We have a few good ideas. It will be worthwhile to discuss our options and see what we come up with.

If you missed it, scathing criticisms from British weapons experts about the infamous WMD dossier are coming out, and they're not pretty. (Washington Post) I like the British understatement so often implied:

But Jones said his staff's concerns were by and large ignored and not reflected in the final draft of the document, in a process he called "very unusual."

I don't think folks here would just limit themselves to "very unusual."

It's a scathing good read.

An average of 10 U.S. troops a day are getting wounded (Washington Post) in the don't-call-it-a-quagmire Iraq occupation. 1,124 soldiers have been wounded since the attack on Iraq began. More than half of those were after 'hostilities' ended May 1st, a triggering of reduced benefits for the soldiers by the Bush Administration. Sadly, there are some disturbing comments about the need for amputations caused by the shrapnel injuries the soldiers are enduring.

The Washington Post also has a feature called Faces of the Fallen, a multimedia feature of U.S. troops who died in Iraq. Just when you're trying to adjust to the large number of tiny faces on the screen, I realized that I was only look at one of three pages of tiny faces. Oh...

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In the face of this kind of suffering of U.S. troops, shouldn't all the folks that were pro-war being DOING something for them? Our government is already doing something -- that is, cutting benefits. But perhaps something more supportive would be, oh say, signing up to relieve all those National Guards soldiers who are stationed in Iraq, so they can return to their families?

Oooh, too good not to quote: an excerpt from Stan's blog:

Slogan of the day: seen outside Little America during Ashcroft's visit - "We're one moustache away from Hitler." Displayed beneath picture of Pres. Shrub.

After circulating an enthusiastic endorsement of a great locally made protest documentary among the folks on my activist mailing list, I received a message that I didn't expect.

The attack on San Francisco's financial district puzzled me. Why target a city many of whose people opposed the war? I imagined Mr. Bush enjoying a hearty chuckle at our expense -- if he paid any attention to it at all. I felt at the time -- and still feel -- that anyone who came into SF that day for the express purpose of making life difficult for San Franciscans ought to put in some time cleaning Muni trains, picking up trash on public streets and planting flowers & trees in low income neighborhoods. I wonder if they had bothered to vote in the last election? Not as much fun as kicking up a rumpus in the streets, of course, but in the long run, probably more useful.

I was rather mystified: attack? What attack? Sure, there were protesters blocking traffic in downtown San Francisco the day after the bombing of Iraq started, and massive demonstrations against the government's attack on Iraq and its people, but the only complaint I heard from anyone I knew personally was from an attorney who was held up in traffic half an hour. Half an hour! That's ordinary traffic delays for around here. (SF is too dense for sensible folks to drive to, for the most part.) There was some property damage, but not much, and only at a few buildings of either government offices or war profiteers. "Attack" is really a strong word for traffic disruption, considering that our country was bombing another country at the cost of thousands of civilian lives. But I've heard these kinds of complaints before. So I responded:

My protest on Day X was to stay home, so I can't really speak for the protesters who came downtown. However, the folks who participated in the major civil rights protests of the 1960s faced exactly the same criticisms: that they were alienating their allies, and failing to inconvenience only those who had done them wrong. But the civil rights protests both generated publicity for a good cause, and raised the consciousness of those who were consenting to the status quo. I think that both of those purposes are legitimate. I think those same methods and purposes were also legitimate for the anti-war protests.

Also, the only real disturbance they caused was traffic disruption. Which should have been a completely reasonable price to pay in exchange for an end to the war. Protesters all over the world used the same tactics, and their governments listened. The fact that protesters here weren't successful, while the folks in Barcelona, Sydney, Berlin, and other places were, doesn't mean it wasn't worth trying.

In a day when you literally can't buy advertising on television for anti-war messages (as MoveOn tried to do, and was refused by every major network), I'm not sure what other options were available to show that there was dissent in this country. After the initial Day X protests in downtown SF, protesters did focus their efforts on the HQs of the war profiteers, so there were others who shared your concern about the protests not sending a message to the right people. They changed their approach. (Though you may not have read about that, because protests that don't disrupt traffic aren't newsworthy! United we stand!)

The peace movement is looking for ways to stop both the doctrine of might-makes-right and the war profiteering. They're open to suggestion. (Voting alone isn't enough - too many of our elected officials surrendered their war powers to Bush, and then signed the Patriot Act!) If you know a way to stop the killing and war-profiteering, speak up!

I think that protesting, voting, and writing to government representatives are all part of a package to get change. But we need more. We especially need media reform, so people can make informed choices and have an outlet for their opinions.

Meanwhile, the war profiteers are taking money from the Iraqi people's accounts for their work in Iraq, which the Iraqi people have had little say in. Only the politicians in the Bush Administration who received fat donations from the profiteers and granted them no-bid contracts are able to decide what the future democracy of Iraq needs. Which isn't the best start.

And every day, as the war profiteers rake in Iraqi oil money, we... go to work. Eat meals. Live our lives. Silently accept the status quo. Really, stopping traffic now and then to express the injustice of the situation doesn't seem very contemptible.

Remember when U.S. forces opened tank fire on the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad, the designated hotel for all non-embedded journalists? The Pentagon, though unable to keep its stories straight about how the hotel came under fire, has investigated itself and found itself not at fault for the deaths of two journalists and injuries to many others.

Act surprised.

A factual summary by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ.org) notes the many inconsistencies in the Pentagon's story, and observes (without the sort of rude tone I would be tempted to use) that the Pentagon and just about everyone else knew that hotel was filled with journalists, some of whom were filming from their balconies immediately before the attack, providing evidence that the gun battle the military claimed to be participating in was occurring at the time the tank fired, and that no gunfire was coming from the hotel.

In a tribute to award-winning Reuters cameraman Mazen Dana, who was killed this week in broad daylight by U.S. troops (Washington Post), the US government's self-serving conclusion is discussed:

Mazen's death came just days after a U.S. military inquiry exonerated a tank crew for firing on a Baghdad hotel housing journalists on April 8, killing a Ukrainian-born Reuters cameraman and a Spanish cameraman. The investigation concluded the tank crew had reason to believe hostile forces were using the building to direct fire on the Americans.

That is little comfort to the families of those killed. They don't believe the Pentagon's version. Many of the 100 journalists in the hotel that day deny the tank crew came under any fire.

(Additional links to articles, including a short compilation of stories on Dana's death can be found at Urbana-Champain Indymedia.)

God told me to strike at al-Qeada and I struck them, and then He instructed me to strike at Saddam, which I did, and now I am determined to solve the problem in the Middle East. If you help me, I will act, and if not, the elections will come and I will have to focus on them.

-George Bush, during Middle East Peace Negotiations (more at The First Stone)

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It's the end of another week, and another chance to take stock of the world.

Before you become too depressed, there are some good things to consider. Now that we're moving into fall, you should take stock of your involvement in your community and try to decide whether or not you're satisfied with your actions. Whether you feel informed. Whether you are volunteering enough. Whether you are making your views heard. Whether you will look back on this very eventful time in history and wish you were more engaged.

Take a moment to try to think back and remember, before the media bombarded you with corporate idealism, as to what YOU think the world should be like. And then figure out how you can make that image real.

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As the World Trade Organization and the September 11th memorials overlap, it's time to think, act, and plan a way to make the world a better place. Sweatshops, undermined environmental regulations, exploitation, and exported jobs overseas aren't things that serve any of us but the 'captains of industry'/Enrons/WorldComs.

There is a host of activities going forward during "A WEEK FOR PEACE & GLOBAL JUSTICE SEPTEMBER 6-13, 2003" including candle light vigils, anti-exploitation/polluter/war profiteer protests, and more. Additional information is at Act Against War dot Org.

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The San Francisco Video Activists' Network is screening its brilliant film, We Interrupt This Empire, a documentary about the Bay Area protests against and media coverage of the early days of the invasion of Iraq.

I saw it on Thursday at the Roxie Cinema, after many days of obsessively watching the Quicktime trailer over and over again. (As an added bonus, the screening I attended was a benefit screening for Food First and UNORCA, the latter an organization sponsoring buses to bring Mexican farmers/indigenous workers to protest the WTO's ministerial meeting in Cancun (Indymedia Mexico City/Chiapas) and the adverse impact they are already feeling from prior trade negotiations.)

It's worth seeing. The inanity and bias of the media; police violence; the thrill and humor of the protests; police cars with the Anarchy symbol spray painted on them; ranting, misinformed pro-war protesters... It is documented with wit AND good editing!

The documentary is running with a couple of shorts, including a hysterical subtitled sendup of scenes from Lord of the Rings.

SEE IT.

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Follow the demonstrations against the WTO in Cancun at Espora.org (an Indymedia host site).

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Stay Informed: Don't sedate yourself with network television news! For a completely reasonable price you could subscribe to any of the fabulous 'alternative' (meaning non-corporate) news magazines that grace our better newsstands.

The September 1st/8th issue of The Nation is excellent, and not just because hysterical movie poster cover about the California recall election debacle. It also has great articles on how the Bush Administration is censoring health and science information (about AIDS prevention, global warming, the air quality in New York after September 11th, and more); how the US lags behind other nations in recognizing gay unions; McGovern baiting (including some great quotes by McGovern, who notes that the change his candidacy stood for went forward even though he lost); dirty dealing in the Phillipines by the government with regard to 'terrorism,' and some darned good essays on photography, among other things.

The September 1st issue of In These Times includes a detailed list of Bush's lies about the war; an article on how even Republicans object to the so-called Patriot Act; and a rather spooky article about "Psyops," or how public relations firms stage international news events to manipulate the public. *shudder*

There are MANY great news sources: these just happen to be the two paper publications I have in front of me at the moment. Non-corporate news magazines don't seem determined to persuade me to buy wasteful objects, don't have ads suggesting that my life will be perfect if I change floor waxes or make my spouse's shirts whiter; and they actually contain NEWS about people, including working class people and others who are not completely aligned with corporate interests. Such publications can provide a completely different, authentic view of the world when compared to the 'store openings and celebrity gossip are news' networks. Try one! Try two! Support as many as you can!

In the midst of Bush's month-long AWOL from his duties as president during wartime (and crises like the worst blackout in U.S. history), the Department of Defense announced last week it intended to cut the pay of the 148,000 U.S. troops in Iraq and the 9,000 still in Afghanistan. These troops were to receive increases in imminent danger pay (from $150 to $225 a month) and family separation allowance (from $100 to $250).

Read the rest of Bisbort's editorial at Truthout.org.

Torture is coming up again, now in an article originally published in Newsweek, of all places.

First of all, as a Lebanese torturer—er, interrogator—of my acquaintance once told me, the real challenge comes if someone is telling the truth: “How do you know?” And what if that truth doesn’t fit with what you really want to hear? ...What if, for instance, there really are no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq because they really were destroyed to keep United Nations inspectors from finding them? The United States now has captured 37 of the 55 most-wanted Iraqis in the famous pack of cards. That’s what all of them are saying, and lesser-known scientists have told the same story. Yet still the WMD beat goes on.

Read the entire article at Truthout.org. If there's anything the US doesn't need, it's to further dirty its hands with new sources of unreliable intelligence tortured out of captives who will say anything to stop the torture...

The venerable Iraqometer has undergone an update. The war financial cost meter now skips all those pesky decimal places and goes straight to 'billions'; there is now a purple heart to designate wounded US soldiers, as well as a separate statistic for the number of troops currently in Iraq; and, painfully, there is a meter that measures how many days it has been since there has been an American killed.

Ouch.

Of course, as it has, the WMD meter reads zero.

A big, glaring zero.

[S asked me today if I thought a WMD or two might conveniently appear immediately prior to the 2004 election. Golly. By then, I don't think anyone (aside from the 30% or so of Americans who already think WMDs were found) would think the Bush Administration didn't fly it in or build it on the spot. But American politics work in unusual and inexplicable ways. I know this, because I live in California, where an action movie actor is running for Governor during a bitter recall battle lead by a party that couldn't manage to get a single, state-wide seat in the last election. Because losing once hurt so badly, they need to do it again? Or because they REALLY want to inherit the woeful finances of a state tapped out by an energy scam/dot com bust/war economy? Inexplicable ways, I tell you...]

Much heralded by the Democratic Party's mailing list, The Washington Post's Weapons of Mass Destruction Feature provides a lovely compilation of the entire, can't find 'em, doubt-ridden, WMD saga.

A good essay to read: Beware the bluewash: The UN must not let itself be used as a dustbin for failed American adventures, by George Monbiot (Guardian UK). The premise: that if the U.S. can unload the mess it's made onto others, the Bush Administration can wash it's hands and get back to campaigning to keep the presidency in 2004.

Interesting aside that I hadn't considered: with the occupation raging, the US can't yet invade anyone else. And to think I've been seeing the occupation so negatively. :-/

"My son signed up to defend the Constitution.... This war has nothing to do with the Constitution."
-- Susan Schuman, mother of a Massachusetts National Guard soldier stationed in Iraq

Military families have started an organization called the Bring Them Home Now Campaign. They have a great links page, and updates (complete with profanity) about how no one signed up for occupation.

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A new site to monitor: Occupation Watch.org.

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Iraqbodycount.net has a new editorial tabulating Iraqi civilian injuries from a review of over 300 sources.

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"We've adopted a new strategy for a new kind of war. We will not wait for known enemies to strike us again. We will strike them in their camps or caves or wherever they hide, before they hit more of our cities and kill more of our citizens.'' -- President Bush, in this New York Times article.

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Maureen Dowd summarizes the Bush Administration rhetoric on how well things are going:"Yep, we've got 'em right where we want 'em. We've brought the fight to their turf, they're swarming into Iraq and blowing up our troops and other Westerners every day, and that's just where we want to be." (Common Dreams/NYT) If this is what the plan was...

Also of import: Naomi Klein's report on how governments are using the War on Terror to kill dissidents, union members, and anyone who is inconvenient. (Common Dreams) The first time this came up, there were only a few countries taking the initiative to pretend that human rights only exist when they say so: now many nations are on the bandwagon.