"Since
the terrorist attacks, any questioning of Bush’s
mental capacity is viewed as subversive activity. If
you’re a politician, you must resign immediately. If
you’re a member of the public, you may be subject to
an FBI investigation." |
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THE
KING HAS NO CLOTHES:
BUT SAYING SO MIGHT LAND YOU IN PRISON
Posted January 13, 2003
thepeoplesvoice.org
By:
Paul Joseph Watson
The hallmark of an effective
dictatorship, whether that be Stalinist Russia or Hitler’s Germany, is the
wholesale silencing of the opposing voice. Criticism of the government must
be eliminated because the foundation of despots crumbles when their
authority is questioned in a sober and educated manner. For those of us who
don’t live in countries like China or Zimbabwe, a benchmark of how healthy
our freedoms are is to judge how our government reacts to criticism. We
should therefore be alarmed that a growing pretext is being set whereby it
is either illegal or an act of political suicide to criticize President
Bush.
Prior to September 11, jokes
about George W. Bush’s questionable intelligence were the highlight of any
given evening at the comedy club. Bush’s own words provided enough
material to build on. Consider the following,
"I've coined new words,
like, misunderstanding and Hispanically."-Radio-Television
Correspondents Association dinner, Washington, D.C., March 29, 2001
"You teach a child to read, and he
or her will be able to pass a literacy test.''-Townsend, Tenn., Feb. 21,
2001
"Rarely is the question asked: is
our children learning." - Florence, SC, Jan. 11, 2000
"I think anybody who doesn't think
I'm smart enough to handle the job is underestimating."-U.S. News &
World Report, April 3, 2000
Since the terrorist attacks, any questioning
of Bush’s mental capacity is viewed as subversive activity. If you’re a
politician, you must resign immediately. If you’re a member of the public,
you may be subject to an FBI investigation.
In September of 2002, German Justice Minister
Herta Daeubler-Gmelin suggested
that Bush’s foreign policy was planned to distract from his domestic
problems, a tactic used by Hitler. The media hijacked the comments and
concocted headlines like ‘German Minister says Bush is new Hitler’.
White House spokesman Ari Fleischer, eager to childishly avenge German
non-cooperation in the war with Iraq, responded by labelling the comments as
"outrageous and inexplicable." Despite a public apology,
Daeubler-Gmelin was subsequently forced to resign from office.
As an aside, in a decidedly unsophisticated
propaganda crusade, the Bush administration has compared Saddam Hussein to
Hitler. Hitler’s projected 1,000-year Reich was to be built by invading
countries and setting up a pan-European empire. Ask yourself, how many
countries has Bush threatened to invade compared to Saddam Hussein?
Just a month after Daeubler-Gmelin resigned,
Francoise Ducros, a top aide to Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien, referred
to President Bush as "a moron" at the NATO summit in Prague. The
comment was made to a radio reporter and instantly became front-page news.
In stark contrast with their reaction to Daeubler-Gmelin, the White House
trotted out Flesicher to dismiss the comment as "something from someone
who doesn't speak for the Canadian government.'' They wanted to keep Canada
sweet because at that stage their unbridled support for a war on Iraq was on
the verge of being secured. Ducros apologized but was forced to resign
shortly after.
Just a day after Ducros quit, the British
satirical cartoon show, 2DTV, were
informed by the Broadcast Advertising Clearance Centre (BACC) that an ad
for their Christmas video had been banned. The commercial featured a
cackling Bush mistakenly putting the videotape in a toaster instead of a
video player. The BACC ruled that the ad was offensive to Bush’s
intelligence. This, despite the fact that the programme itself ‘offends’
Bush’s intelligence on a weekly basis. 2DTV produced a milder second
version of the ad but this too was banned because it portrayed the President
in a negative light. The realization that the man supposedly leading the
free world in a war against global terrorism was in fact quite stupid is
just too hot to handle.
The consequences of criticizing Bush were
fully understood by these politicians and companies. However, at least they
have a media platform on which to defend themselves. This saga takes on a
more sinister tone when individuals are persecuted for daring to stand up to
Bush.
A protest group called ‘Turn Your Back on
Bush’ experienced the full force of the new post-9/11 dictatorship after
they discovered the President was to fulfil a speaking engagement at Ohio
State University on June 14 2002. Lost in the muddy nostalgia of a pre-9/11
America, where groups had at least some rights to assemble, the protestors
thought they could rekindle the days where a Bush appearance went hand in
glove with a chorus of boos from a sizeable minority. Not so, Richard
Hollingsworth, Associate Vice President of Student Affairs, warned the group
that he was aware of their plans and that any protest would entail ejections
and arrests being made. He also threatened undergraduates that their diploma
would be stripped if they were to do so much as make a sound.
This had a massive chilling
effect and only a handful of students and others actually did turn their
back on Bush at the ceremony. One was ejected by police and his arrest was
probably only avoided because he was carrying a three-year-old child. This
enabled the Washington Post to state, "If there was a protest in the
stadium, it was not visible to reporters." The Post could then
concentrate on the sycophantic response of the audience to Bush’s every
sentence with glee.
Richard Humphreys, a resident of Portland
Oregon, was sentenced
to three years in jail after he made a joke about President Bush during
Bush’s March 2001 trip to Sioux Falls. The joke included the line "I
said God might speak to the world through a burning Bush," which was
taken as meaning Humphreys wanted to douse Bush in flammable liquid and set
him ablaze. A bartender overheard and immediately alerted the police to the
activities of this dangerous terrorist. The actual arrest was obviously made
before September 11 but the way that event changed the mindset of the
American authorities no doubt contributed to the ridiculous three year
prison term, which was handed out in June 2002. This story was originally
reported by CNN, who mysteriously chose to remove the article from their
website just a few weeks after its appearance.
If you think that was an overreaction, just
consider the
case of a student at Bellbrook High School in Ohio. The unnamed teenager
chose to wear a T-shirt with the words "not my president"
superimposed over a picture of President Bush. When a crosshair was added to
the design, two students came forward and complained to the school
administrators. The Assistant Principal then made the decision to call the
FBI because the high school kid could have been a terrorist planning to
assassinate Bush. What’s even more absurd is that the FBI actually treated
the case with the utmost significance and the investigation was eventually
turned over to the Secret Service!
These are the real threats to America - not
wide-open borders or Muslim fanatics - but high school children with
political T-shirts. The authorities seem really keen on protecting us from
terrorism, don’t they? In a gut-wrenching climax to the story, the two
kids who snitched on the teenage terrorist were praised as heroes. The
Assistant Principal said they had complied with the demand of the government
- that citizens stand together with homeland security and keep an eye out
for potential terrorist activity, for this, he was proud of them.
The liberties of Americans, as enshrined in
the Constitution and Bill of Rights, were erected on the foundation of logic
that the citizenry has to watch its government like a hawk. Any government
that is allowed to roam freely without checks and balances becomes
tyrannical. History has proven this over and over again. In the new America,
the government watches the citizens and in turn the citizens are told to
watch each other. Criticism of the government is outlawed and anyone that
does so is either ridiculed or thrown in jail. If America is to be rescued
from being the home base of a global fascist empire, we need put our foot
down. We need to criticize the government more than ever.
Then again, I might just be a terrorist and
you should really call the FBI for the good of the Fatherland.
"Published
originally at EtherZone.com : republication allowed with this notice and
hyperlink intact."
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