Barbwire by Barbano: Talking Treason --Ashcroft in Nevada

John Ashcroft has come to Nevada, so it's time to talk a little treason.

The Attorney General of the United States made a non-public speech in Gomorrah South a couple of weeks ago. Selling proposed enhancements to the Big Brother Law, the Orwellianly-named Patriot Act, he spoke before a carefully selected group of law enforcement officers and shut out the public.

Outside in the rain, a soggy collection of patriotic political strange bedfellows brought to life the ancient proverb that the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Wingnuts from the Sparks Addams Family marched side by side with the American Civil Liberties Union and Sen. Joe Neal, D-North Las Vegas.

Neal quoted Benjamin Franklin's famous statement that anyone who sacrifices liberty for security will have neither.

Dr. James Tate of the Coalition to Prevent the Erosion of Human Rights told the crowd that the 700-page Patriot Act "was ready one week after 9/11," the Las Vegas Mercury reported. "Anyone who knows our federal government knows they don't work that fast. This thing was ready in advance. The biggest threat of terror in the world today comes from 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.," he said.

More than a decade ago, Travus T. Hipp, the greatest radio talk show host who ever lived, warned that softshoe fascism was loose in the erstwhile land of the free and home of the Atlanta Braves. He decried the erosion of freedom spawned by government increasingly serving corporate interests. Time has proven his warning correct.

SMOKING GUNS

America gets a toxic lump
of coal for Christmas

Links and references to much more about this sordid tale

Recent evidence brought to light by Judicial Watch, those wonderful folks who pushed the Clinton/Lewinsky impeachment, revealed that VP Cheney's March 2001 secret meetings with energy execs reviewed the oil fields of Iraq and companies wanting a piece of the action. A strategy to take over a middle eastern oil nation was spawned by the grotesque Henry Kissinger in 1975. Bush the First rejected it during his foray onto the sands of Babylon, dismissing it as crazy.

Paul Wolfowitz updated it and sold it to Dubya and his handlers, who stated that the only thing needed was a catalyst, according to reports. The planes-as-cruise-missile hijackings of 9/11 provided just that.

The last century saw the evolution of three forms of government which still dominate the world today: fascism, communism and capitalism.

As longshoreman-philosopher Eric Hoffer noted back in the 1950s, communism and capitalism, taken to their logical maturity, end up in the same place: everyone working for one big centralized organization. You get to Orwell's 1984 no matter which fork in the road you take.

Yogi Berra has been proven prescient once again.

On local TV this week, you can see how the Patriot Act has impacted one local soul trying to produce a musical event. A lady named April Clark has been sore abused trying to put together a concert at a Washoe Valley golf course. She's been subjected to FBI background checks and other indignities.

Reminds me of a recent statement by Rolling Stone Keith Richards who still chuckles at incidents from the 1960s when, in the face of real threats to life and limb, both western and eastern governments were "more afraid of a bunch of guitar players."

Actor Johnny Depp recently took Dixie Chicks-style heat for calling the U.S. a big dumb puppy that would bite its masters in the ass. (My expansion on his actual statement.)

North Korean Big Brother Kim Jong Il knows there's only one way to make sure that the softshoe fascists in the U.S. government don't screw with you: nukes. Otherwise, our record as a nation for more than 200 years is clear — we'll use military power to serve profit.

Our citizenry won't complain too much as long as they get a piece of the action. Now, we're starting to consume ourselves as softshoe military-industrial fascists, with the complete cooperation of our one-party government, ship U.S. jobs to fourth-world countries while turning us into a nation of Wal-Mart workers and shoppers.

Every time someone questions their depredations, Dubya, Ashcroft and their fellow jackboots milk 9/11 emotionalism while draining the economic and political vitality from this nation.

In the brave new world of the gospel according to Kissinger, neighbors inform on neighbors. Librarians report who's reading subversive books like Harry Potter. Dissent is tantamount to treason.

So if we're going to be accused of treason, we might as well merit the charge. The day has now arrived when even common-sense-gun-control liberals must admit that we may soon have to start shooting against the storm troopers foisted upon us by our own government.

Softshoe fascism in the guise of democracy is now fact. If they're going to keep their boots polished, all we can do in response is to keep our powder dry.

ON THE PUBLIC AIRWAVES. A representative of the Coca-Cola Co. will be among the guests tomorrow on Sam Shad's Nevada Newsmakers. Wonder if they'll discuss the company's depriving poor hamlets in India of water in order to sell bottled beverages? (Click here for more information. Also read "A Price on Every Drop," the cover story in the November-December 2002 issue of Mother Jones magazine.)

This Tuesday. Mr. Shad's guest lineup proves eerily prescient: freshman Nevada Atty. General Brian Sandoval and the abovementioned Ms. Clark. Joining me on the pundit panel will be retired Washoe County Library Director Martha Gould and attorney Keith Lee.

The show airs at 12:30 p.m. on KRNV TV-4 and repeats at 9:30 p.m. on cable channel 12 in Sparks-Reno-Carson and channel 19 in Douglas County. Audio will air on KKKOH radio next Sunday morning at 9:00 a.m. Speaking of that neo-fascist radio station...

FAN MAIL. "Are you aware that on the first paragraph of Sam Shad's description, it names his radio show as being on KKKoh 780am?" wrote a reader.

I responded that my use of KKKOH is absolutely intentional. I've been typifying that particular hate radio outfit in that manner for many years.

In the boys' locker room, if the K fits, wear it. Mr. Shad's enterprise represents KKKOH's only two hours of balanced debate out of 168 hours of otherwise undistinguished, undistinguishable (but certainly extinguishable) weekly programming.

Be well. Raise hell.