It seems hardly a week goes by
without another astounding revelation of the Bush Regime's agenda to
intervene without limit into the lives of Americans, and everyone in
the world, to further its right-wing, psychopathic agenda. Here's the
latest grim news:
Bush plans to screen all Americans for 'mental illness': As reported in the British Medical Journal, under another Orwellian program entitled, in Bush Newspeak, 'The New Freedom Initiative',
Bush wants all Americans, including pre-school children, to be examined
by armies of psychiatrists and those showing signs of potential
"disruptive or aggressive behaviours and emotional disorders", and
treated with a range of new, expensive antidepressants and
antipsychotic drugs available exclusively from -- surprise! --
pharmaceutical companies that have contributed three times as much to
Bush as to Kerry. This is a flagrant invasion of government into the
private medical histories and choices of Americans -- Big Brother
doping up American children. The plan, developed in Texas, has been
decried there as a massive payoff to the drug companies, and this new
initiative makes it a national program. An executive who blew the
whistle on kickbacks from pharma companies to the Texas legislators was
fired for his indiscretion, the BMJ reports.
More foreign journalists terrorized, deported by US Customs:
The Guardian tells the increasingly common story of harassment,
detention and intimidation of British and other 'friendly nation'
journalists when they attempt to enter the US. Although this treatment
is mild compared to the now-routine despicable, arbitrary and sometimes
lethal abuse that people born in the third world face at the US border,
it is evidence that the megalomanic and paranoid Homeland Security
brownshirts are now treating every non-American, and every American
with a foreign-sounding name or appearance as an enemy of the state,
and treating them accordingly. It's a government-run hate factory run
amok.
In other depressing and under-reported US news:
Balance of payments debt reaches another record:
A statistic watched closely by economists, but not really understood by
the media, is the Net International Investment Position (NIIP), the
cumulative total of foreign investment and trade deficits. The Center
for American Progress analyzes the unprecedented degree to which the
US, and global, economy depends on willingness of the US's trade
partners to continue to finance the US's insatiable demand for foreign
goods and services, especially in the increasingly weak US dollar. See
my earlier articles for the explanation of the danger. But take a look at the chart above to see how far it's gone, surpassing $2.5 trillion
dollars, a fourth of the entire US economy, last year. Imagine what
would happen if the foreign creditors get nervous and decide to call in
their debt, or at least denominate it in some other currency. Imagine
what will happen when
interest rates spike, and the interest on this debt alone suddenly
exceeds the lenders' ability to repay it without slashing domestic
spending and massively increasing taxes. That's exactly what happened
to Argentina, and to the Asian 'tiger' economies. Except this time, the
bankrupt debtors will take the creditors with them.
Heard the latest about anthrax?: There has been surprisingly little blather from the Bush machine about the recent revelations (in the 9/11 report
etc.) that Al Qaeda has planned, and still plans, an anthrax-based
bioweapons attack on US soil. The group claiming responsibility for the
Madrid bombings said that Operation "Winds of Black Death", involving a
planned attack on the United States, was 90% complete. Attorney General
Ashcroft has described the statement as coming from an Al Qaeda
spokesman. But while senior government and all military personnel now
get the (still risky and somewhat unreliable) anthrax vaccine, plans to
administer or at least stock vaccine for all Americans appears to have been abandoned.
So while Homeland Security wastes time (and America's reputation)
harassing harmless foreigners and torturing Iraqi inmates, this real
threat to Americans' security is ignored. It's almost enough to make
you think they are perversely hoping for another 9/11, or worse, to get
re-elected.
Scary stuff. Michael Moore and Ralph Nader were both up in Canada this
week urging Canadians not to make the same mistake as Americans by
electing a Conservative government here on Monday. As I've reported already,
even if the Conservatives get a plurality they won't be able to forge a
lasting governing coalition. Michael and Ralph have their work cut out
for them in their own country, however. I'll have more to say about
both of them next week.
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1:23:28 PM 
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MADE IN CANADA
trust your
instincts 
