Actually, if Dan and the others had stood up, they could have defeated the Bushies—but they lacked the courage to stand up. That is the present failure of our media and our society—people have lost the courage to stand up and demand their freedom of speech and the freedom to speak the truth—they’d rather bow to the Bush team’s lies.

Then you have the National Press Club feting one after another of the Bush team, and allowing such ignorant imbeciles as Joe Scarborough to be host of important events. Scarborough is nothing but a name-calling, swilling pig at the trough of big money, right-wing zealots and a person with a mouth that won’t stop making a fool of itself trying to act intelligent. The other night he invited a man who had criticized him—and then proceeded to keep hammering him, not letting him talk and then made more and more ad hominem attacks on him. Finally, the man said, “Joe, we took your show off our station because your ratings were so low, no one wanted to listen to your rantings.” I agree, we’ve had enough of the bullying by the Bush regulars and their media supporters; it is time others stood up as some of us in the internet ezine world have done.

Just an example of how it is working. I was pleased to be on PRI “The World” as a guest, talking about how the Muslim world see Bush, the U.S. and what can be done to improve our image in the Muslim world. The section of the show gave 50% of the time to Professor Esposito of Georgetown, he is a Catholic who has made a reputation and a lot of money off of Islam, but can’t really grasp its essence; Bill Quandt, a fine political scientist who knows a lot about the secular Arab World, he received 40% of the time; then I, a major Muslim scholar and former Director of The Islamic Center in Washington, DC, and the only American to ever hold a major position in the Islamic World, was allowed 10% of the time. Of course, since Esposito and Quandt are both bought men, they make a living in Washington, DC by being “politique”, they glossed over the real outrage 99% of all Muslims feel about Bush and American foreign policy toward the Muslim world, and 100% of all Muslims are outraged by the desecration by American trops of the Holy Book from God, The Qur’an.

again, Esposito and Quandt brushed over it, said, “democracy” is taking hold and will help solve the problem. My point was that this outrage is like a spreading flu virus, an epidemic that will take decades and perhaps centuries, if it is ever forgiven or forgotten in the Muslim world;one must remember that most Muslim children still remember well facts about the Crusades, whereas most American children can hardly tell you who Eisenhower was (this is based on a study done 3 years ago that showed 70% of the American students didn’t know who Eisenhower was!).

So, even NPR, and PRI are running with fear, CNN, and others have long since capitulated, as has the NY Times and Washington Post—so all we have left are we few on the internet, and at some point, we’ll be shut down, and some of us will probably be “persons of interest” and possibly arrested for sedition and speaking out—as happened in Nazi Germany as the Hitler Nazis took away more and more rights, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly and every other human thing of value before WWII and during that war. Bush has an “endless war” going on, with his slippery use of “terrorism”, so that this open-ended war will eventually lead him to be able to impose “martial law,” for the “sake of safety of our country.” It is coming, and there is no major media outlet in the US to speak against it, just as there was none courageous enough to speak against Hitler as he took more and more power and abused the German nation more and more.

I hope that more people in the media will speak up; if not, then we are doomed to fascism that will make Franco, Stalin and Hitler look like amateurs, because we have technology today that even Orwell could not imagine, technology Franco, Stalin and Hitler would have loved to have had.