"The President's approval ratings are right there with gonorrhea."—US Con-gressman Marty Seifer
Without freedom of thought, there can be no such thing as wisdom; and no such thing as public liberty without freedom of speech; which is the right of every man as far as by it he does not hurt or control the right of another; and this is the only check it ought to suffer and the only bounds it ought to know. . . . Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freedom of speech, a thing terrible to traitors. --- Benjamin Franklin
Hell came to Blacksburg, Virginia, Monday and before it was over at least 33 lay dead or dying. Black Monday is a day that will certainly live in infamy for years to come. A day surviving family and friends will have burned into their memories. A day politicians and pundits will remember and use in a million speeches for decades to come. No doubt a senseless, truly horrible, loss. Then again, so what?
On that same day in Iraq more than 140 were blown up, shot to pieces, bombed to tiny bits, or burned alive by our air and ground forces and nobody in government or the media gave a rat's ass. You'll never be reminded of it again and in fact most of you will never know about it. If the carnage we commit daily on Iraq was just an awful occurrence like it was at Virginia Tech it would be an even more horrible loss but it was no freak of nature. In fact when you consider that we've done the same thing or worse to these people that "We're only there to help" every day for over four years, Blacksburg is just a very tiny drop in the bucket America, pretty much just par for the course. In a country where every year there are at least 8,000 homicides as well as over 30,000 additional deaths by guns even without the Iraqi statistics what happens on campus is fairly insignificant, again pretty much par for the course, same ole, same ole. Oh and did I mention another 80,000 Americans will be wounded. If you are an American it is safer for you to be in Iraq than America! I can't say the same for the Iraqis, though!
"Imagine if Virginia Tech was repeated 3 or 4 times a day, seven days a week, every month, every year with millions more wounded. Then add to the mix no hospitals, no doctors, no nurses, and no medicine. No clean water, no electricity, no bridges and no gas for your car. Mix in armed foreign soldiers that kick in your door, don't speak your language and are trigger-happy. Scary men who may decide to rape your daughters and then kill everybody. They may take all the males away to concentration camps, then kill your livestock, destroy your home, your belongings and leave you stranded in the middle of a civil war! America: is it beginning to sink in yet to what we are and to what we have always been?"
We are not the good guys, we have never been the good guys; you do not get to be #1 by being the good guys. You get to be #1 by being the meanest, nastiest, evilest sons-of-bitches that ever drew breath. For you mythologists that demand proof that we are related to the great apes, America is and always has been the proof positive that we are descendants of the Killer Ape. We are the end product of the weapon like no other.
While America mourns and the media and politicians milk Virginia Tech for all it's worth; going way beyond merely beating a dead horse and this incident finally fades from our collective memory, we will still be in the Middle East slaughtering the residents at a far greater rate than Virginia Tech. Everyday, every month, every year, until the oil is gone, we'll be at it and electing a new president won't change that fact one iota. If it's going to stop you are going to have to stop it, yep...only YOU can stop the war!
—E.S.
In Other News
Well so much for free speech, eh Don? Don't get me wrong America if I were King of the world Don Imus would be nailed to a tree with Rush, Bill, Ann and everybody who has ever worked for Rupert Murdock. Having said that Don should be put back on the air and then jerked off for everything except the "Nappy Headed Ho's" remark. Why, I hear you ask? Well because there should be one standard for everybody, period. Everybody on this planet is a bigot in one-way or the other. Even your old Uncle Ernie is bigoted against fascists; don't like them a bit, nope!
As soon as that bit of filth spewed out of Don's mouth up jumped the devil in the form of Al and Jessie as well as countless other hypocrites and bigots. Where does Jessie—you remember Jessie and his Hymie Town statement—get off? Shouldn't Mr. Jackson the well known whore have been dumped for his racist bigoted statement against Jews or Al's "Diamond Merchants." How could these hypocrites still be jacking their jaws?
While we're at it why are Snoop and Eminem still spewing their hatred of gays, women etc on the airwaves? Shouldn't MTV and Saturday Night Live be shut down as well, shouldn't they? Say goodbye to Chris Rock, "Kid" Rock, Carlos Mencia and Borat, not to mention 99 out of every 100 rappers have got to go too. While Don was a little breeze they are hurricanes, are they not?
PC should apply to everybody or nobody period. One rule for all, that's what we're about, what makes America great right? Equal rights, opportunities and laws for everybody regardless of what your mama said or what your mythology says, no matter what, one law for all period! Personally I'm for Free Speech regardless of what is said. Don't like what Don or Ann or Bill or Rush has to say, then don't tune in, I don't listen to their lies and garbage so they don't affect me at all. Write the sponsors and say I'm boycotting your products until you stop supporting these monsters. Believe me General Motors and the other sponsors will hear you as it's all about their bottom line.
We either have Free Speech for all, or for nobody; we've chosen the latter for some but not others. One of [the] things I found interesting was that CBS and MSNBC stood firm behind Don until the sponsors started pulling out. When General Motors left that was it. I wonder why General Motors was sponsoring this enemy of the people to begin with, don't you? Why did they keep pumping money into his bigotry, racism, hatred, and fascism until now? Write them and ask them to explain it!
Ernest Stewart, a.k.a. Uncle Ernie, is a senior contributing editor to Cyrano's Journal Online. He is also an unabashed radical, author, musician, stand-up comic, DJ, actor, political pundit and for the last 5 years managing editor and publisher of Issues & Alibis magazine. Ernie's political awakening took place during the Vietnam Years, when, fresh out of the Army, he started digging up the actual facts behind our criminal intervention in Indochina. Since those days, he's been an untiring and outspoken educator about the political realities defining America, a task he now discharges preferentially via Issues & Alibis.