A Word from The Scallion's Chief Editor: It's Coming ...

This Thursday marks the second anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia. Will the neocons continue to milk the tragedy, squeezing every last drop of latent fear from the bosom of the country? Will the Democrats jump on the bandwagon to make their own mileage ... or will they show too much class to stoop to the level of the Republicans ... or will they sit at home doing their nails and just ignore the whole thing until it blows over, again? Stay tuned, America, and watch how the domestic political drama plays out ...

Highlights and Headlines from “Democracy Now!” ...

* Today's Top DN! Stories (http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=03/09/09/1454224):
- Army Extends Duty for 20,000 Reserves
- More than $87B Needed for Iraq
- Amnesty Condemns Israeli Policies toward Palestinians
- Spanish Officials Arrest Al Jazeera Reporter
- RIAA Sues Over 250 Online Music Swappers

* Protest Planned Against Ashcroft's PATRIOT Act PR Visit to NYC (http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=03/09/09/1458257)

* Senator Hillary Clinton to Block Leavitt's Appointment to EPA (http://www.democracynow.org/index.pl)

* Congressman Obey Calls for Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz to Resign (http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=03/09/09/1454224)

* CIA Warned of “Chaos” after Invasion of Iraq; Polls Show that Americans Believe that Invading Iraq Increased Terrorism Threat (http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=03/09/09/1454224)

* Bush Slipping in Polls (http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=03/09/08/1547210)

* Ex-EPA “Clean Air” Officials Land Lobbying Gigs with Big Energy Firms (http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=03/09/09/1454224)

Who Says the Right Wing Is Afraid of Big Government?

September 8, 2003. While it is common knowledge that the right-wing political faction of the United States claims to be vehemently opposed to big government, it is less commonly known that the exact opposite is, in fact, true. This important fact bears repeating: the American extreme right LIKES big government. Since its nefarious inception, the actions of the Bush regime and the neocons supporting it confirm this observation daily. The key to understanding this right-wing preference for big government lies in understanding which facets of big government the right wing supports. While, unlike the liberal left, the right detests and abhors all forms of federally funded and administered social services for the less-than-wealthy, it applauds and adores surprisingly many facets that undeniably fit the category of “big government”: big military, big defense, big energy, big media, big entertainment, big pharmaceuticals, big airlines, big medicine, big produce and meat growers, big corporations, big industry, big business, big trade, big white collar welfare, big blank checks for big business cronies and big campaign contributors—in short, anything and everything having to do with big money. Some pretty big deceptions and distractions are needed to fuel this big agenda. When it comes to big money running big government, the neocon Republican party line is clear: “the bigger, the better.” The little guy need not apply—he hasn't a snowball's chance of avoiding obliteration by the neocons' big machine of big words and small-minded, short-sighted actions. And, when it comes to comparing the big government of the liberals with the big government of the conservatives, therein lies the difference.

Letter to the Editor: Conservative Media—It's What's on TV

September 7, 2003. What goodies are Rupert Murdoch and his conservative, corporate media colleagues cooking up for your television enjoyment these days? Aside from the usual mind-numbingly brainless “comedies,” desensitizing violence, and exploitative misogynistic female-breast-baring sex? Aside from the shout-down-the-dissenters, flag-waving, chest-thumping, egregiously right-wing-biased “news”? Aside from the intolerably stupid, exploitative “reality” shows that bring out the worst personality “features” in bottom-feeder types so desperate to get on TV that they shamelessly (shamefully?) prostitute themselves to the cameras?

While much of this splendid fare graces the airwaves of American network television (except, of course, for the titties and the more explicit violence), there is another swamp-like wasteland inhabiting the pay channels. Ah, yes, pay TV, where the viewer can pay a convenient one-time installation fee and convenient monthly fees thereafter to enjoy programming that is riddled with ... what else? Paid advertising. Reams and reams of paid advertising. Three minutes of paid advertising for every five minutes of programming, in some cases (remember: pay TV network providers refer to the paid advertisements as “content” and the programs viewers tune in to see as “filler”—the carrot to coax the viewer to sit still long enough to watch the ads). Pay TV is the noble realm of an insidious subculture designed to distract the viewing public from introspection and important issues while subtly reinforcing the right wing agenda. Aside from movie and premium channels, not to mention the endless-commercial shopping networks, there is a panoply of programming coaxing viewers that the most important thing they can do is concentrate on parting with their hard-earned cash. There are programs telling the viewing public what not to wear. Multiple channels offer every size and shape of feel-good do-it-yourself home and garden improvement programs, including how to decorate a room for under $1000 (whether or not you trade with your neighbors) and what it's like to hire professional designers to redo a room or garden for $10,000 and up. Pay TV offers all manner of baby, birthing, and adoption shows—gee, why aren't there any abortion shows? There are myriads of plastic surgery and inside-outside-weight-loss and/or fashion make-over shows. There are even “man” shows on Comedy Central and a brand new “channel just for men” that seems to forget that, until recently, ALL channels were for men—and men still write most of what's on TV and in movies (can you say “revisionism”?). There are historic home shows that depict homes out west without any mention of the abuses perpetrated on the Native Americans over that territory—abuses back in the Old West or abuses continuing until today. There are channels that devote hours to religious worship shows, Biblical prophecy, Biblical history, and Bible 101 shows (but screw evil Palestine and ignore them evil Palestinians). And a redundancy of channels dishes up the standard right-wing pap about evil Osama or Saddam, terrorism, the now-deceased World Trade Center towers, and everything the neocons want us to “know” about Jessica Lynch. Of the home shows, one particularly gruesome if entertaining specimen is called “Sensible Chic”: it displays rooms that wealthy people have lavished well over $50,000 on to decorate—making it clear to us mere mortals what we should expect never to have for ourselves—and then shows us how we can make our commoner selves cheap knock-offs of these extravagantly decorated rooms for a mere $2,000-$3,000 a pop. Yes, pay TV is unabashedly geared toward Middle America—a subpopulation that can consider spending a thousand or two on a room; a subpopulation that looks at the $50,000-$100,000 spent on Sensible Chic inspiration rooms as a year's salary. How many average viewers realize how many families scraping by below the poverty line would give their eye teeth for the money to decorate one cheap knock-off room, let alone an inspiration room? Yes, thoughts of food, shelter, and clothing for the needy get lost in the candy-land kaleidoscope of pay TV ...

Is your TV safe from right wing, corporate media?

Better yet, is your brain safe?

The writer, Zoe Owens, is a philosopher and author of such introspectively religious books as “Jesus Holy Christ Almighty.”

Bush Wars

September 5, 2003. Addressing a somewhat skeptical group of nonetheless handpicked reporters from his nice, squashy Blues Clues chair in the Oval Office, Mr. Bush summarized the various wars he has begun since buying office and obligingly gave the status of each.

“Well, lessee, which one did I start first?” Bush screwed up his face hard, evidently attempting to concentrate. “Oh, yeah. First was the war on the poor. Oh, whoops—I lied, again! The war on the poor came after the war on idiots what vote Democratic. Heck, Poppy 'n' 'em started that one before I even became Top Gun President Of The United States—that's Top Gun POTUS to you rabble. And the war on idiots what vote Democratic started I guess about the same time as the war on telling the truth and the war on honesty in all forms, especially with ourselfs, the Republican party. Then came the war on poor people. And after that, there's the war on women. And there's the war on Blacks, Latinos, and other minorities cluttering up our great nation. And there's the war on experts what don't tell us what I, Top Gun POTUS, want to hear when I need stat ... stat ... stat ... uh, numbers 'n' 'em to fob off on Congress and the dumb ol' 'Murrikin people whenever Turd-Blossom-Boy-Genius Karl Rover Boy tells me I need to force an agenda item through. I'm also proud of the war on corporate integrity, the war on the environment and all 'em nasty trees 'n' critters, and the war on making rich people pay taxes—not to mention the war on 'Murrikin babies and children, which includes the war on public education, the war on safe vaccines, and the war on anything what people poorer than me could use to help themself make a better life. Then, right after 9/11, I started the war on Muslims and the war on 'Murrikin civil liberties. And them great war efforts was helped by another great war effort: the war on fair and balanced media what actually tell both sides of the story and do 'investigative' reporting and what-not. And, when I wanted to start the war on Iraqi civilians, I ended up starting a couplea bonus wars: the war on the United Nations, the war on Europe and 'em Ruskies, and the war on all our used-to-was allies. Damn heathen furrners—who needs 'em anyway?! Oh, and right about the time I started the war on Iraqi civilians, I also started the war on 'Murrikin soldiers and veterans. Most recently, I started the war on federal employees—and now I'm starting a war on paying ordinary citizens fair pay for fair work, which means waging war on overtime wages. So, you can tell I'm having a lot of fun with this here Top Gun POTUS job Pappy done bought me to play with.

“OK, so that's the list so far—but I reserve the right to add more nifty fun wars as I see fit. All I hafta do is get the impulse to pick on some undeserving population, and—bling!—a cool new war. Is being POTUS the max, or what?! But I digress. I meant to tell ya the status of them wars, and that is 'TERRIFIC'! Yessiree, folks, each and every all o' them wars is going just full-guns fabulous. Heck, I just couldn't be having any more fun than I am now, so I hope you'll all vote for me again—or not. Poppy can buy me back in just like he did last time if I need him to—heck, he's used to bailing me out. But, hey, isn't everybody?”

Bush Administration Lavishes Money, Resources on Welfare

September 3, 2003. As part of the Bush administration's two-prong Welfare program—one for the rich and one for the poor—extensions have been made to both arms of the existing entitlements.

The increase in benefits for the rich arm of the entitlement program, known as “white-collar Welfare,” includes a hefty number of tax cuts and blank checks made out to Halliburton and other American corporations currently padding their pockets while pretending to rebuild Iraq. These new corporate benefits are expected to be funded via an additional $87B in taxpayer monies slated for the occupation and rebuilding efforts, which are well known to have nothing to do with benefiting any actual Iraqis. Unfortunately, more detail is not available regarding these and other lucrative expansions of white-collar Welfare entitlements: Attorney General John Ashcroft has advised against the release of any further information to the American public in the interest of maintaining national security.

To compensate for the increased revenues going to Welfare handouts for the rich, the administration is offering extended benefits to the poor. These new benefits fall under the category of Bush's noble new initiative, nicknamed “No Child Shall Be Left Unrecruited.” While exactly zero dollars of the modest sum earmarked for this important new initiative will go toward helping any actual poor people, the monies will instead be used to pay marketers and recruiters in their outreach missions as they strive to reach more and more poor children in more and more poor neighborhoods (http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=03/04/07/0312255&mode=thread&tid=45). The increase in the entitlement lies in the government's aggressive schedule for placing ROTC in each and every middle- and lower-class public high school, complemented by the reduction in the ROTC age limit so that increasingly younger children can be signed up for the nation's armed services. “Yep, we expect to have JROTC not in some but in all our proud high schools, and what a thing it is, too,” beamed George W. Bush as he explained the new benefits. “But then why should all the even younger chilluns hafta wait around and be jealous of the big-kid high school boys and girls? Well, they shouldn't—they should have the same opportunity to play with guns and indulge in government-sanctioned violence as the older kids. That's what equal opportunity is all about—and that's what America is all about. So, we're starting a brand spanking new program: JJROTC, or Junior-Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps. I still think they could have come up with a better name for it, like 'President Top Gun's Super Special New Corps of Junior Secret Agent Warrior Kids,' but they told me that was too many blame letters and didn't make a nice word like 'rotsy.' Oh, well. They can have their dang JJROTC in the dang grade schools, but that ain't gonna stop me from starting my very own PTGSSNCJSAWK chapters in all the kindee-gardens, nursery schools, and baby day care centers what them undeserving working mothers with jobs use to neglect their kids in all day long instead of staying home and babysitting them themself. At least, we in the American government can a-shore them of that level of instruction and care.” He paused to attempt to wipe a smarmy smirk off his face, “Y'know, these kids is gonna need PTGSSNCJSAWK and JJROTC and JROTC and ROTC 'cause, let's face it, once we privatize all the schools and eliminate decent free public education, serving in the military is gonna be the only option left for these less-wealthy-than-me kids. So I'm just out here trying to give 'em all the help I can, 'cause, brother, they gonna need it.”