Pacific Free Press was launched in March 2007 by Dutch-Canadian Richard
Kastelein of V.O.F. Expathos, in the Netherlands along with Chris Cook- CFUV radio journalist and Editor in Chief of Pacific Free Press. Cook is based in , Victoria, British Columbia.
The mission of Pacific Free Press is simple: to dig out nuggets of truth from
the slag-heap of lies, ignorance and witless diversion that has buried
public discourse today. Pacific Free Press provides a new venue for
disseminating hard news and insightful, fact-based analysis of the
harsh realities too often ignored or distorted by the mainstream press.
These are the days of large, desperate measures. This is the era of dictators, threats and wars. Unmodified by reasoned debate, lacking the rule of law, this is the age of the mob and demagogue.
Once respected for its freedom, justice and economic opportunity, the United States of America today is reviled for being a police state at home and a perpetrator of illegal wars of abroad.
America’s bright beacon of liberty has been extinguished by the arrogance of neoconservativism. Loathed by a world grown fearful of its motives and actions, America is a shadow of its former self.
How did this happen? Where did we go wrong?
In a Soma-like six years, Americans have allowed men of dubious integrity to transform the U.S. into the very sort of bellicose monarchy above which this country originally was established to rise.
Article after Amendment, the United States Constitution has been
rendered irrelevant by George W. Bush who twice swore on the Bible to
uphold that document’s honor.
The majestic words, “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness” have
been corrupted by America’s military-industrial-complex, the insatiable
hunger of which can only be fed by war unending. That complex paid hand
over fist to “elect” a Commander in Chief who would lie about national
security to feed its appetite for federal subsidy of weapons, wars,
troops and mercenaries with which to fight them.
The Bill of Rights has been condemned to the ranks of “enemy combatant” all for a manufactured crisis
which has resulted the disaster of a shattered Afghanistan, Iraq and
Lebanon, a million angry Muslims and a snarling Shiite Crescent in the
Middle East ready to take over. The more threats of terror, real or
imagined, the better for Bush and Cheney as these threats serve the
twisted purposes of Washington DC’s delusional elite who are far
removed from the America that it was elected to serve.
The real-evil doers are still in power. "With all the lawsuits over
kidnapping and torture marching toward the Bush administration, you
might think the top officials running the global war on terror would be
worried ... Alas, no.” Writes Jeff Stein in this week’s Congressional Quarterly, “Ah, sweet mystery of Hill life.”
Earlier this month, in a last desperate gasp, Americans refused to be
enslaved. On November 7, 2006, Americans made a clear statement that
the path of George W. Bush and Richard Cheney is not the one down which
they wish to travel.
And yet within the halls of Congress and the polished rooms of
Washington power, frantic maneuverings for position in the new American
order take place hourly. All this is done by people who could care
less about the lives of those who depend on the deals that are done.
“Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss!”
Have we been fooled again? Is the newly elected Congress capable of
restoring the Constitution and the Bill of Rights? Can the illegal war
be brought to an end? Is the American voter capable of demanding the
Congress to do what they were elected to do?
Or are we facing overwhelming odds in a system so stacked against us
that we do not even have the right to ask for a new deck of cards until
another two years pass and we are dealt yet another hand full of jokers?
Did the November 7th act of national revulsion come too late?
Rome fell; the sun did at last set on the British Empire; and the
power of the Soviet Union crumbled under the weight of bankruptcy. Will
the United States of America fade into pathetic mediocrity?
Rather than working for peace, the United States, Britain and Israel
continue to force their fundamentalist views on the rest of the world.
But the world no longer takes seriously Bush’s bullying of a country in
which the might of the American army cannot contain insurgents in
Baghdad. The world cannot admire Cheney’s rogue state the illegal wars
and domestic consumption of which are financed by foreign loans.
America’s role as a super power has vanished. America’s pretensions to the high moral ground are greeted by disdain.
President George W. Bush cannot even visit the country he “liberated” and on which he has thrown away thousands of lives and billions of dollars. The war in Iraq is a failure. Like Hitler in his April 1945 Berlin bunker, Bush continues to deny that all is lost. And the names of Bush and his poodle, Blair are now synonymous with falsehood.
How can the United States make good the evil it has done? By having a “National Sorry Day”?
It is easy to point the finger at post-9/11 fears, or at hostile
nations. It is a cop-out to blame political partisanship or to lambast
incompetent, corrupt, elected officials and their corporate sponsors.
It is sheer laziness to sneer at media manipulators and the
federally-symbiotic “think tanks” which “spin” blindly delusional agendas.
It is vital that the true fault is faced.
Americans must swallow their pride and take a long, hard look in the mirror. We must ask ourselves, how did we allow this to happen? What did we do wrong? How can we stop George W. Bush?
Elizabeth Gyllensvard contributed to and edited this story.
... written by Tommye Rodrigues,
December 23, 2006
I do believe you touched on every critical point in this essay. Well done!
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Democratic leadership cowers; cowardice is ugly in grown men! written by Tommye Rodrigues,
December 23, 2006
Well done! I could not have said it half so well. But I have been trying anyway. What now?
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Bush Could Not Have Done It Alone! written by Tommye Rodrigues,
January 10, 2007
BUSH COULD NOT HAVE GONE TO WAR WITHOUT THEIR SUPPORT!
How easy it is for members of the House and Senate to send other Americans, many of whom have yet to celebrate their 21st birthdays, to their possible death; how easy to send others to war. Three thousand dead, when compared to the fifty thousand plus killed in Viet Nam, does not seem so horrible, as numbers go (unless one of them is your son, your daughter, your husband, your wife, or your father or mother). Yes, the new body armor is keeping our soldiers alive, keeping our death toll down - but, the new body armor that protects vital organs does not extend to arms and legs (and testicles). These "survivors" will, we know, have days when they question their “good fortune” at having survived death as they imagine facing the world as single or double amputees, some having lost arms, some having lost legs, and some having lost one of each or both of each.
How easy it is to vote to send others to a foreign land where they are then ordered to kill..... men, women, and children..... deeds that will change them forever. What does "war" really mean to our representatives in their comfortable offices in Washington, these representatives of ours in the House and Senate who were duped by the president into supporting what historians will one day call "The war that should never have been” or “The war that was the beginning of the end for America”? The war in Iraq does not, I promise you, mean to them what it means to the American soldiers who have been sent to fight it!
For that reason I submitted the petition below and it went online at Petitionsonline.com on January 5, 2006. Anyone over 18 anywhere in the world is eligible to sign this petition. Unfortunately, however, it is just one of many, many hundreds of petitions and is lost among petitions like the one asking WalMart not to close their fabric department.
Please read this petition and if you agree with me that it may help end the war in Iraq or may help prevent future wars, with Iran, for instance, PLEASE SIGN IT. If you agree that this madness, this political killing for unknown reasons (certainly not the reasons given us, but reasons the nature of which we can only guess at) - if you believe that this madness, this senseless killing must end, PLEASE SIGN IT! To sign this petition, go to: http://www.PetitionOnline.com/tjr91943/petition.html. Thank you. Tommye Rodrigues, 15 Merlin Path, Hendersonville, NC 28792, 828 685-0599, righton01@bellsouth.net. *******************************************************
*************
PETITION
BUSH COULD NOT HAVE GONE TO WAR WITHOUT THEIR SUPPORT
1,000,000 Americans Seek the Support of their political leaders in carrying out wars in which they involve the United States!
To: Members, U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senate:
Members of the House and Senate who vote in support of wars involving the United States must themselves each serve in the infantry, in the front lines of the country where the war is taking place, for at least six months. Members will be provided basic training in the use of weaponry they will be called upon to use. Their six-month service shall be done on a rotation basis with other members so the business of government will not be disrupted.
When members of the House and Senate ask other Americans, primarily young Americans, to risk their lives and to risk being maimed, ask them to kill men, women, and children in a foreign land, then they must themselves know first hand what is entailed in the fighting of a war.
No member of the House or Senate shall be excused from this duty under any circumstances and they cannot hire replacements. Sincerely, Your Name
Writings 
These are the days of large, desperate measures. This is the era of dictators, threats and wars. Unmodified by reasoned debate, lacking the rule of law, this is the age of the mob and demagogue.
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