Deborah Emin:

“….did you read that the judge who has been involved in the Schiavo case in Florida has been kicked out of his church, had death threats made against him and has had to be surrounded by security guards and I think his family does as well. He was described as this very mild-mannered, quiet guy who was thrust into a situation where he has been reelected even after his first decision in this case 5 years ago. The level of violence these Christian crusaders are capable of (yes, the word was chosen for that very reason) makes me realize that maybe we don’t need to fear only what is being unleashed in the Middle East but at home as well.”

Larry Geller from Honolulu: “Even in today’s paper, letter writers continue to pound Hawaii Senators Inouye and Akaka for selling out native peoples and voting (with Sen. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana) to drill for oil in the reserve. The three were the only Democrats to cross over.”

Here is the article I think I didn’t send you:
http://hawaiiislandjournal.com/stories/10b03a.html

Here we see that both Hawaii senators knew that they were voting against the wishes of their own constituents:
http://www.adn.com/front/story/6285659p-6161084c.html

“INCREDIBLE”

A letter to the Daily Kos from Denver residents Karen Bauer, Leslie Weise, and Alexander Young:

“This is incredible:

“Very rarely does the everyday public get a glimpse of what happens behind the scenes in a normally-secret Bush Administration. But Monday, March 28, the Secret Service called three everyday people into their offices to discuss why we were kicked out of a presidential event in Denver last week where Bush promoted his plan to privatize Social Security. What they revealed to us and our lawyer was fascinating.

“There we were — three people who had personally picked up tickets from Republican Congressman Bob Beauprez’s office and went to a presidential event. But as we entered, we were told that we had been ‘ID’ed’ and were warned that any disruption would get us arrested.

“After being seated in the audience we were forcibly removed before the President arrived, even though we had not been disruptive. We were shocked when told that this presidential event was a ‘private event’ and were commanded to leave.

“More astonishingly, when the Secret Service was contacted the next day they agreed to meet with us this Monday, March 28 to discuss the circumstances surrounding our removal. We had two big questions going into this meeting:

“How is the Bush Administration ‘ID’ing’ citizens before presidential events?

“Why was an official taxpayer-funded event called a ‘private event’ leading to citizens being kicked out?

“Most shocking of all, we got answers to both questions.

“The Secret Service revealed that we were ‘ID’ed’ when local Republican staffers saw a bumper sticker on the car we drove which said ‘”No More Blood For Oil.’ Evidently, the free speech expressed on one bumper sticker is cause enough to eject three citizens from a presidential event. (Similarly, someone was ejected from Bush’s Social Security privatization event in Arizona the same day simply for wearing a Democratic t-shirt.)

“The Secret Service also revealed that ticket distribution and staffing of the Social Security event was run by the local Republican Party. They wanted us to be clear that it was a Republican staffer — not the Secret Service — who kicked us out of the presidential event. But this revealed something else that should be startling to all Americans.

“After allowing taxpayers to finance his privatization events (let’s call them what they really are after all), and after using the White House communications apparatus to set them up, Bush is privatizing the ticket distribution and security staffing at his events to the Republican Party.

“The losers are not just taxpayers, but anyone who values the First Amendment. Under the banner of a ‘private event’ the Republican Party is excluding citizens from seeing their president because of the lone sin of
expressing the wrong idea on a bumper sticker or t-shirt.

“The question for Americans is — will we allow our freedom to be privatized?”

Joy, another ex-BCN listener writes:

“i know you did the film wmd and am just catching up on all the rest you’ve done!! great work!!! i don’t understand what’s up with move on?… i thought they were on ‘our’ side! I have been beside myself with the knowldege about what is really going on, and feel so helpless in the ‘big picture’. I call KGO radio talk shows (Ray Taliaferro and Bernie Ward ) and try to make points that listening audiences need to hear….but am quite discouraged by the success of the mind control the country is experiencing.

“I would like to help with getting your film at colleges. if i can. I’ll go to the website and log on, etc. to sign up. thank god for people like you who have stuck with it and are making a difference. personally, i am planning to move to new zealand! it’s a shame, but i really feel defeated.”

FROM DOWN UNDER

Rick Roser writes from Australia: If you have an interest in indigenous culture please have a look: http://www.aemaustralia.com/catalog

ON THE RED LAKE RESERVATION TRAGEDY

Betsy Rosenberg writes from Spokane, Washington:

“Reading Eric Black’s article (Minneapolis Star Tribune) could leave a person wondering whether to laugh, cry or scream with vexation. Just what is going on in the heads of people who want to reduce the problem of teenagers bringing guns to school to a racist matter? Doesn’t anyone realize that this is an attempt by who knows? Mass Media? The government? to divert people’s attention from the fact that our children are out of control?

“In the past four weeks at our city we have had two incidents involving guns in our high schools. In one, a freshman who had been expelled from one school returned (after being allowed to enter another high school) to murder the teacher who expelled him. He was stopped only a few feet from the door of her classroom, by people who recognized and reported him. In another instance, a man with two young daughters was living with a woman who had a teenage son. Upon discovering that the boy was molesting his daughters, this man went to the boy’s high school and attempted to find him and shoot him. He, too, was caught. He was placed in jail. The teenager was not charged. Surely not a few people wondered if it wouldn’t have been better if his attempt had been successful.

“Do you ever wonder if maybe, just maybe, these kids aren’t being treated too softly? Coddled too much? Everyone made a big deal out of what a hard life this kid from Red Lake had, but other people have hard lives, and they don’t kill as a result of it. As author Phillip Caputo said, ‘Sure, some people get dealt a bad hand. But these people did a lousy job playing the hand they’d been dealt.’ The same might be said of the Weise boy. No amount of hardship excuses murder, and someone needs to examine alternate ways of raising our kids, since so many kids are murderers.”

Dave writes: “Thanks for your article” (on Truth Rising?):

“Ignorance is the enabler. Ignorance comes from our corporate overnment-controlled media’s complicit silence. (Government controls the media; corporations control the government. Cozy arrangement…)

“We have assembled a collection of ‘Red Pills’ which have the potential to break through the matrix of lies.

“Will you help us spread the truth? Can you handle the truth? For example:
http://911blimp.net/vid_fakeOsamaVideo.shtml

“We’ve been lied to. We, like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, have the power to wake up any time we want to.

“Democracy. How bad[ly] do you want it?”

Wendy Meremark offers us thoughtful some comic relief, urging you check out www.HarryShearer.com to hear “WHAT IS A JOURNALIST” on his “Le Show.”

ON THE ROAD AGAIN

Thanks for tuning in this morning. I will be up at Brandeis University tomorrow afternoon to show WMD at 2 PM. On Saturday, I will be in the Poconos for a screening there. A full list of screenings is available at www.wmdthefilm.com.

Dan Rather rejoins CBS as a reporter tonight. “I moved from the ‘hard-news’ side of the street to what we called the ‘carpet-making, basket-weaving’ side of the street. It turns out it’s not basket-weaving at all. That was vastly overstated,” he said.

And farewell to attorney Johnny Cochran, who for many years was best known for his legal services to ordinary people in LA. I spent an evening in his company some years back in South Africa, and was impressed with his intellectual curiosity and broader social concerns. He was 67 when he died last night. (”I didn’t know he was that old,” commented comic Steve on Fox and Friends this morning.)

To share your thoughts, write dissector@mediachannel.org