letterneversent.com

The membership rolls of Masonic organizations has been on a steady decline for the past 40 years. After reading The Historical Illuminatus trilogy by Robert Anton Wilson I became interested in the Masons and did some research on them. While it does seem shrouded in mystery it didn’t seem to be worth the trouble to find out by joining. Not to mention the requirement that the male initiate has to believe in a supreme being. Since it’s a fraternity, exclusively male, I’m assuming they do not believe in a female supreme being. Also, the masons always came off as being a little right-wing which is not appealing. Anyway, there was a interesting article on freemasonry in the washington post.

A few police chiefs are standing up to the federal government in its pursuit of a police state. They are questioning the constitutionality of an order by the FBI to investigate Muslims in their jurisdictions. It’s good to know there are still some good guys left in this world.

Ever aware of the power of the media (look on the television) the US government is spending an “eye-popping” 500 million dollars to create an arab language satellite news channel to compete with Al Jazeera. Canada is looking better and better every day.

Judd Apatow, creator of the excellent shows Freaks & Geeks and Undeclared, was on Fresh Air yesterday. It was a great interview. You can listen to it in real audio here. I was capping these for my own archival purposes and then Fox Family (now ABC family) stopped showing them. So if anyone has access to tapes or mpegs of this show I would love to watch them! I’ve still only seen a few complete episodes. That reminds me, Disney’s purchase of Fox Family now places them effectively in bed with Pat Robertson. That is unfortunate even though Disney is not known for its integrity.

Look, even the government likes to check out our site to get the scoop. I got a hit from the Department of Justice, (19 November 17:11 US Dept of Justice, Rockville, United States ). I have had some hits from the military before for some stuff I posted about some people involved in the Iran-Contra scandal, but never from the ironically named Department of Justice. If I turn up missing you know where to look (scared laugh). That reminds me, if you ever get hassled by ‘the man’ for opposing an unjust war or some crazy government policy you have to know your rights. At the ACLU they have some brochures in arabic, spanish, and english about what your rights are when your are approached by the police or the secret police, the FBI.

Some good links from antiwar.com:

• US bombs kill 1000 more civilians in Kunduz this past weekend. Will we stop when we kill as many innocent people as the terrorists did? I’m guessing the answer is no.

• Al-Qaeda’s Nuke Plans Were a Joke, Literally
• US Efforts to Make Peace Summed Up by ‘Oil’

Are Americans getting the full picture of the war? Hell no! Not unless they work at it. You have to give our government credit for one thing, America is number one for propaganda! Doesn’t that make your chest swell with pride? If you’ve seen Manufacturing Consent it can be explained like this: totalitarian regimes maintain control through force, so-called democracies like our own maintain control through the skillful manipulation of information which is called propaganda. People don’t have a clue about the barriers to freedom unless they are able to hear about them somehow. The media is complicit and helps to maintain control. If someone has an inkling that something is not right and this feeling is not at all represented in the media they will feel like they must be mistaken. The result is that society is atomized and people are isolated from one another and afraid to speak out.

Creating panic through planted disinformation.

U.S. Kills 150 civilians with carpet bombs in Afghan town You have to use newspapers outside the U.S. to get the news. What is the death toll now? I wish I had some numbers.
The anti-war protests are getting louder and louder. In the UK, 100,000 people marched in an anti-war rally. That’s amazing. Here in Austin, the group Austin Against War has been organizing. The people are mobilizing against this stupidity. A 16 year old girl registered her feelings about this war by poking the Prince of Wales on the cheek 3 times with a red carnation. For her act of protest she could be given fifteen years in prison.

America, the uber rogue state, accused 5 other countries of developing chemical/biological weapons. The United States while supporting controls of chemical weapons in theory stops short when it comes to inspections of its own plants and facilities. The United States rejected a legally binding inspection plan under the terms of the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention signed by 144 nations. “American officials shocked other countries last July by rejecting more than six years of negotiations on enforcement measures of the 1972 treaty, arguing they were ineffective.” The United States has become a ‘rogue-state’ operating unilaterally wherever, however, and whenever they wish. We will not stop terrorism until we destroy its roots, United States-style state-sponsored terrorism. U.S. foreign policy has caused all of these problems. The U.S. throws its weight around in the world supporting the causes of its resident transnationals and then it is suprised when something catastrophic happens as a result. In more shadiness, the islamic militant group, Hizbullah, said the U.S. offered to forgive them for past attacks against westerners in return for dropping its struggle against Israel. The U.S. has a dirty past when it comes to the Mideast. If you want a glimpse of some of the terrorism and covert action that the U.S. is responsible for there is a good article titled, A History of Folly. It describes some of the background behind this latest debacle and this new ‘war against terror’. Most likely the U.S. will use this same reasoning to engage in war against Iraq, Indonesia, Libya and whomever else it likes. This will be a war without end. It echoes of 1984. The Pentagon is building a case for future military playthings. Next is Iraq. This Machiavellian thinking has gotten us nowhere.

In other news:

• The new ‘PATRIOT Act’ allows formation of a DNA database
• Secrets of MI5/MI6, the British secret police

The Human Cost of the Afghan War. I can’t imagine having bombs dropped on my country and neighbors for 6 weeks and then being invaded by the world’s largest military power. This is not even to mention the million or so people who might starve this winter thanks in part to the United States and the Taleban. If this has taught us anything, these terrorist attacks and now this war, it’s that human life is cheap. There is no thought given to human life. The Northern Alliance massacred 500 people, the United States has killed who knows how many, 5000 people died in the World Trade Center, and the Taleban has killed at least 150 deserters. This is not even over. Our government no doubt has plans to kill many more people in order to somehow ‘even the score’. Then the cycle continues. Human life is seemingly worthless. According to Fox News, civilian casualties are ‘not news’, but what would you expect from them?

This is something that always struck me as funny about anti-abortionists. As most anti-abortionists are fundamentalist christians, they are most likely pro-death penalty and pro-war. This is despite the self-applied moniker of ‘pro-life’. Pro-life would suggest something quite different, at least a bit more consistency. If you were pro-life you would be against execution, eating meat, and warfare. I think anti-abortionists are more about getting upset that people are having sex without horrible consequences.

Why can’t I see what bin Laden says on television? Bush and co. say it’s not good for the war effort. We don’t want the terrorists to spout their vitriol. Where are we living? Nazi Germany? China? The decision about what we are allowed to see and read is being made by a group of people who have their own motives and interests. I thought we were supposed to be the shining light of freedom and openness in the world. I guess not. I found some good links at www.antiwar.com. You should check it out.

The more information that comes out the more it would appear that we’re sliding inexorably towards fascism. When I read this I felt like I was living in a bad dream. Hollywood and the White House are getting cozy again. Hollywood wants to cash in on patriotic zeal and the White House are eager to use the media power of Hollywood. Basically, the White House brought some rules over about how to tell the story of this war. In any other country, this would be considered the skillful manufacture of propaganda. Here are the administration’s “talking points” (Is this some sort of corporate speak? This term just started appearing like 3 years ago), I will take the liberty of translating into real words when necessary:

• The war is directed against terrorism, not Islam. Don’t point out Islamic opposition to the ‘war’.
• Americans must be called to service. Americans must obey
• Support for the troops is needed. If you dissent, you are a murderer
• The terrorist attack was a global attack, which requires a global response. We have the right to take this perpetual war anywhere we want.
• This is a war against evil. Anyone who disagrees with this war is evil
• We have a responsibility to reassure our children. Brainwash the children.
• Instead of propaganda, the war effort requires “concrete information told with honesty and specificity.” We need propaganda that doesn’t look like propaganda.

Jean Baudrillard has an interesting analysis about the WTC crash as a spectacle. If you can read french get the whole thing here.

An advertising call to arms! It’s always time to make a quick buck.

Some German teachers got into some big trouble for daring to question the American War. That’s a definite downside to teaching. You have to always toe the official line.

Why is the Mideast less then thrilled with the United States? Look to history. We’ve been fucking that whole region over for 50 years. Political coups, assassinations, invasions. You name it. This reminds me of the last chapters of Empire of the Sun by J.G. Ballard. There is a good exchange between Jamie, the young protagonist and Mr. Tulloch, an adult prisoner at the same Japanese internment camp.

“Mr. Tulloch, is the war over?” Jim asked. “Really over?”
“The war…?” Tulloch seemed to have forgotten that it had ever taken place. “It better be over, lad – anytime now the next one’s going to begin.”

That passage just reminds me how much of the past is a sick joke. In the past fifty plus years since the last World War there has never really been peace. There has not even been an attempt at peace. The United States has been fomenting war and destruction non-stop. Our military has become nothing but a hired gun for the multinationals that own the country.

Shortly before September 11, the Bush administration ordered the FBI to back off on the bin Laden family. Yes, the Bushes and the bin Ladens have an intertwined family history including Bush 1 getting paid by the bin Ladens through the Carlyle Group. It’s funny how this stuff is never reported in the United States. I don’t even try to watch the television ‘news’ anymore. It is completely useless for the gathering of any real information and only serves as a spigot for the ideas and themes that are useful to those in power.

I read a great interview with Jim Garrison from October 1967 while he was investigating crimes involved with the Kennedy assassination. He made some astute observations that are becoming more and more true:

But I’ve come to realize that in Washington, deceiving and manipulating the public are viewed by some as the natural prerogatives of office. Huey Long once said, “Fascism will come to America in the name of anti-fascism.” I’m afraid, based on my own experience, that fascism will come to America in the name of national security.”

In accordance with this observation we have more evidence of this free-fall to fascism as if any further proof were necessary. A cornerstone of american jurisprudence, attorney-client privilege has become yet another casualty of the ridiculous war on terror. The Justice Department will now monitor communications between detainees and their attorneys. Mind you, these are people who haven’t even been charged! Patrick Leahy was one of the few senators to say shit about it. Looks like 99% of the Senate is worthless. Terrorism is a vague term that can be used to label anything not sanctioned by the government. Piracy is terrorism. Hacking is terrorism. Direct action is terrorism. Graffitti is terrorism. Smoking cannibis is terrorism. Any unlawful act can be labeled terrorism. Where will it end?

• National Security Liars. (Haven’t gotten all the way through this, but its interesting)
• Big Brother is coming. Look busy.
• The Bush infatuation with keeping their dirt little secrets secret. Impeach Dick Cheney!
• “Terrorism Bill does too much and not enough.”

By the way, if anyone has any extra information I may have missed on this and other subjects please forward it to me. Also, feel free to link to this page anywhere you like.

The Pentagon has hired Rendon Group, a public-relations firm to make sure they look good while killing people and destroying their homes. Cost to tax-payers: $397,000. What assholes.

Don’t be a Jihad Joe!

Many people are not aware that a coup d’etat was planned against FDR in the summer of 1933 by many of America’s leading capitalists. It was secretly financed and organized by leaders of the Du Pont and Morgan business empires. The plan was to remove FDR and replace him with the popular general Smedley Butler.

The plotters attempted to recruit General Smedley Butler to lead the coup. They selected him because he was a war hero who was popular with the troops. The plotters felt his good reputation was important to make the troops feel confident that they were doing the right thing by overthrowing a democratically elected president. However, this was a mistake: Butler was popular with the troops because he identified with them. That is, he was a man of the people, not the elite. When the plotters approached General Butler with their proposal to lead the coup, he pretended to go along with the plan at first, secretly deciding to betray it to Congress at the right moment.

What the businessmen proposed was dramatic: they wanted General Butler to deliver an ultimatum to Roosevelt. Roosevelt would pretend to become sick and incapacitated from his polio, and allow a newly created cabinet officer, a “Secretary of General Affairs,” to run things in his stead. The secretary, of course, would be carrying out the orders of Wall Street. If Roosevelt refused, then General Butler would force him out with an army of 500,000 war veterans from the American Legion. But MacGuire assured Butler the cover story would work:


“You know the American people will swallow that. We have got the newspapers. We will start a campaign that the President’s health is failing. Everyone can tell that by looking at him, and the dumb American people will fall for it in a second…”

The businessmen also promised that money was no object: Clark told Butler that he would spend half his $60 million fortune to save the other half.
And what type of government would replace Roosevelt’s New Deal? MacGuire was perfectly candid to Paul French, a reporter friend of General Butler’s:


“We need a fascist government in this country… to save the nation from the communists who want to tear it down and wreck all that we have built in America. The only men who have the patriotism to do it are the soldiers, and Smedley Butler is the ideal leader. He could organize a million men overnight.”

Indeed, it turns out that MacGuire travelled to Italy to study Mussolini’s fascist state, and came away mightily impressed. He wrote glowing reports back to his boss, Robert Clark, suggesting that they implement the same thing.

This is an interesting episode from history. Smedley Butler is a fascinating character. He wrote a good piece called War is a Racket which is amazingly relevant to our current situation. Here’s a quote from it:

I helped make Mexico, especially Tampico, safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefits of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912 (where have I heard that name before?). I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. In China I helped to see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested.

I first read about Smedley Butler and the plot against FDR in the excellent Studs Terkel oral history of the great depression, Hard Times. I was really surprised I had never heard of it. After I looked into it I became less surprised. The corporations and elites that run this country would not be very comfortable with the implications of that story. That business and capital would ever try to destroy freedom and democracy. Well, they do it every day. The fascists in America have gotten smarter in the intervening years since 1933. Now they just make sure the guy they choose to be president is bought and can be easily controlled. Both Gore and Bush were no threat to the status quo. Like in 1933, big business has a stranglehold on the media only this time they have their tentacles in television and the internet in addition to radio and the newspapers. Corporate lobbyists make a mockery of the legislative process by providing proposed legislation that business has written on its own. Washington “think-tanks” and policy centers are nothing but places to spend corporate cash under cover. They make it look like these think-tanks are independent organizations. They are far from it.

Our Criminal in Chief, in an unsurprising move, has passed a new executive order making it harder to see a past president’s records. Of course, this has been done in the name of ‘national security’, that well-worn chestnut of newspeak. The term ‘national security’ has the power to invoke all the requisite seriousness and legitimacy without the need for further elucidation. This has not been done in the name of national security. In fact, there have long been strict measures to prevent the disclosure of information vital to national security. The sole reason for this move should not escape anyone. It is to protect the puppet-masters of the Bush administration. Many of the people installed in the Bush administration are part of the same cabal that was the real brains and power behind each of the last five Republican presidents. A few have been around since the time of Richard Nixon. The last thing they want is to have the records of Ronald Reagan released to journalists and historians. That would be very embarrassing for them if the world saw a little glimpse of the truth. The nearly uninterrupted line of power and influence that has perverted the notion of an elected representative government into a thirty year war against the principles that support our democracy.

I ordered some stickers for Letter Never Sent from stickernation. If you want one or two let me know.

Some losers in the Delta Force got wounded in a firefight with some Taliban fighters. The American military always sound like such whiners. They always have some excuse why they got whooped. Even though we spend 4% of our GDP on the military and our annual military budget is somewhere around the obscene territory of 325 billion dollars a year. Most of this money is simply a tax-payer funded handout to defense contractors. Welfare, in other words. If you’re gonna be stupid enough to join the military don’t be surprised when all the crap you’ve been fed doesn’t hold up. American dupes die just like everyone else. Remember: live by the sword, die by the sword.

Surgeon General David Satcher will be stepping down soon. He got into trouble with the Republican politburo recently for supporting findings of science over dogma.

“Satcher drew criticism from the White House during the summer after his office released a report that said there was no evidence showing the success of abstinence-only programs, which promote sexual abstinence while barring discussion of birth control. The report called for schools to encourage abstinence among students, but also teach the value of birth control. Additionally, the report found that there was no evidence that a gay person could become heterosexual.”

Conservatives are so ridiculous. They must be the most miserable people in the world. They’re intent on turning the world into a joyless, sterile prison. They refuse to acknowledge reality and are hostile to common sense and reason.

Anyone who has actually seen a hard copy of Letter Never Sent may notice the absence of people who contributed to its creation. I wish they would contribute because I think some people would like to see thoughts other than my own. I plan on bugging the hell out of a few of my friends to contribute. I have my own ideas about what I like to write about but I’d like to see what some of my friends would write about if given the chance. It would be nice to have some commentary on something other than what the government is currently doing to make things suck more.

Sheesh.Green Party USA coordinator detained at airport. Prevented by armed military personnel from flying to political meeting in Chicago.

I thought it would be neat in light of the current situation to share some anti-war quotations. If anyone can send me some good pro-war quotations I would like to look at them for curiosity’s sake. I have a pet theory that no great writers or artists have had a conservative temperment.

“Man is the only animal that deals in that atrocity of atrocities, War. He is the only one that gathers his brethren about him and goes forth in cold blood and calm pulse to exterminate his kind. He is the only animal that for sordid wages will march out…and help to slaughter strangers of his own species who have done him no harm and with whom he has no quarrel. ..And in the intervals between campaigns he washes the blood off his hands and works for “the universal brotherhood of man"–with his mouth.” - Mark Twain

“Either war is obsolete or men are.”
–R. Buckminster Fuller

“The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, but he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them.” -George Orwell

“Nationalism is an infantile disease. It is the measles of mankind.” - Albert Einstein

“Patriotism is the willingness to kill and be killed for trivial reasons.” - Bertrand Russell

Give me the money that has been spent in war and I will clothe every man, woman, and child in an attire of which kings and queens will be proud. I will build a schoolhouse in every valley over the whole earth. I will crown every hillside with a place of worship consecrated to peace. - Charles Sumner

It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets. - Voltaire, War

War is only a cowardly escape from the problems of peace. ~Thomas Mann

There is nothing that war has ever achieved that we could not better achieve without it. - Havelock Ellis

The pioneers of a warless world are the [youth] who refuse military service. - Albert Einstein

The objectives are clear….. the propaganda war is in full effect! (Affects late 80’s rapster pose) CNN reports for war duty. The head of CNN, Walter Isaacson, tells his reporters to make sure they emphasize why we’re bombing Afghanistan (ok, well, Afghan civilians at least) in the first place! They started it!

“As we get good reports from Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, we must redouble our efforts to make sure we do not seem to be simply reporting from their vantage or perspective. We must talk about how the Taliban are using civilian shields and how the Taliban have harbored the terrorists responsible for killing close to 5,000 innocent people.”

For those of you who cannot read between the lines I will translate:

Do not report on civilian casualties. Stay on message: America good. Taliban bad.

Anyone interested in the working relationship between the supposed free media and the corporate/government power structure should read or watch Noam Chomsky’s Manufacturing Consent.

I can’t for the life of me figure out why CNN is trying to compete with FoxNews for the same viewers. FoxNews is so insipid and without value. It is worse than unwatchable. I have severe reservations about anyone who enjoys watching it. Not to mention the fact that few FoxNews viewers find significant, the fact that Rupert Murdoch and some other luminaries of the Right Wing have extremely cozy relations with the brutal Communist government of The People’s Republic of China. (Exhibit a, b, c) Just goes to show how the American religion of Capitalism has no respect for morality, freedom, or humanity. In fact, American corporatism has much in common with Chinese-style communism.

Favio. If you read this send me an email.