‘Britain's New Statesman magazine
has put together a powerful package of stories detailing how the government of
George W. Bush's beloved disciple, Tony Blair, is "persecuting innocent
people, tearing up our freedoms and undermining the judiciary." The basis
of the stories is a new, blistering report from Amnesty International on the
degraded state of civil liberties in the UK today.’ 

Blair's
Dark Kingdom

‘The congressional elections this coming November is the
last chance for Americans to reaffirm the separation of powers that is the
basis of their civil liberties. Unless the voters correct their mistake of
putting both the executive and legislative branches in the hands of the same
party and deliver the House or the Senate to the Democrats, there is nothing on
the domestic scene to stand in the way of more power, and less accountability,
being accumulated in the executive. 

The Democrats have been a totally
ineffective opposition and might not inspire any voter response other than
apathy. Rather than vote for a cowardly party that is afraid to defend the
Constitution, voters might simply not vote at all. 

‘To their credit, Israel, AIPAC, the Bush Regime, powerful
families (with names like Koch), the numerous multi-millionaires in Congress,
powerful lobbyists, think tanks, major corporations, and the 1% of Americans
who harbor 38% of the nation's wealth have done a phenomenal job of convincing
a majority of the poor and working class that they are fortunate to have the
privilege of fighting over the remaining crumbs of the economic pie after the
ruling elite gorge themselves. 

Despite the 13% of Americans living in poverty, 46 million
without health insurance, and approximately 3 million homeless wandering our
streets, the gallimaufry ruling the United States according to the Golden Rule
(he that hath the gold maketh the rules) has artfully convinced "Main
Street" that it "doesn't get any better than this". 

‘The American Civil Liberties Union
has released documents that prove that top Department of Defense officials
endorsed interrogation methods at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp that the
FBI described as both abusive and illegal. 

“We now possess overwhelming
evidence that political and military leaders endorsed interrogation methods
that violate both domestic and international law,” said Jameel Jaffer, an
attorney with the ACLU. “It is entirely unacceptable that no senior official
has been held accountable.”’ 

‘Okay so the UAE was one of only
three governments to recognize the Taliban, and the UAE royals have been pals
and houseguests of Osama bin Laden, and the gold that was used to finance the
9/11 attack was transfered through Dubai, and the government has a history of
giving a nod and a wink to terrorists "traveling" through the
country, and two of the 9/11 hijackers were from the UAE, and...

Oh, well, "1984" is
fiction no longer.  There is no truth in the Bushevik Administration. 

‘A decade ago we had a significant succession of truly inspirational governors general; we looked to the ABC for excellence in broadcasting, to the universities to foster critical minds and to the CSIRO for scientific research of high integrity. 

If John Howard were a true conservative, he would have sustained those traditions. Instead, he has debauched them. Today we have an invisible governor-general, universities corrupted by their scrabbling for money, an underfunded ABC and a CSIRO where those who are genuinely concerned about global warming are expected to bite their tongues. 

‘With no political opposition to speak of, Howard's
conquests have been in cultural life, with historiography thrown in. Siding
with an unchanging clique of far-right commentators, he has effectively stifled
debate about Australia's bloody colonial past while deriding the "black
armband theory of history": that is, the truth of a genocidal racism that
continues to devastate the Aboriginal people. His patriotic, or "put out
more flags," campaign is pure George W. Bush. Schools have been ordered to
erect flagpoles, and on "Australia Day," January 26th, which
"celebrates" the "settlement" of another people's country,
flags are distributed and often displayed with gormless aggression. 

UN investigator briefed Downer on AWB

Foreign Affairs Minister Alexander Downer has confirmed he was
briefed on allegations against AWB a month before the UN oil-for-food inquiry
handed down its report.

It has been revealed Mr Downer met the UN oil-for-food
investigator Paul Volcker in New York in September last year.

----- Original Message -----

From: JR
To: Lindsay, Peter (MP)
Sent: Thursday, February 23, 2006 8:22 PM
Subject: Spam .....