Pat Shannan's MUSINGS
WHY DO YOU THINK THEY CALL IT "PROGRAMMING?"
Comedian Henny Youngman said, "When I read about the evils of drinking, I gave up reading." The same might be said of a large portion of the populace who read about the evils of government. News commentators pretend to believe what they tell us, and we pretend to believe them. But truth doesn't change because it is believed, or not believed by a majority of the people. The alleged "polls" earlier this year showing President Clinton's "rising popularity" (in the midst of the impeachment hearings) and "acceptance" by upwards of 70% of the people were a joke.
Looking back over the last seven years, the collected lies of William Clinton test the hard drive of memory. So, what else is new? Politicians are expected to tell self-serving lies. It's the nature of the beast. Conservative, Christian Americans rushed to the polls in 1980 to elect their new "political savior" - Republicrat Ronald Reagan, whose two biggest planks were stopping both "out-of-control government spending" and those dreadful abortions which then totaled over nine million since being legalized. Eight years later, before an even phonier conservative, George Bush, moved into the White House, the Reagan Administration had "outspent" (if you believe governments "spend" anything of substance) all of the 39 presidents who preceded him all totaled together. And by then the accumulated number of legalized abortions had topped 30 million.
It's the old salesmen's slogan: "If you can't dazzle 'em with brilliance, baffle 'em with baloney!"
Yet a far more dangerous faction to the nation than lying politicians is a large group of intellectual prostitutes masquerading as "news reporters." The national news media have become nothing more (and certainly nothing less) than a colossal megaphone for government policy. Associated Press is the American version of the Soviet Union's news agency Isvestia, whose fabrications we used mock a generation ago. TV's Rather, Brokaw, and Jennings are the high-tech version of the same.
Have you ever wondered how three national TV networks, purportedly independent of one another, can continue to run the same stories, in the same order of importance, night after night, week after week?
They told us Randy Weaver's daughters, ages 10 and 16, were firing automatic weapons at U. S. Marshals from the windows of their rustic cabin during an eight-hour standoff. From the ensuing trial and Senate hearings, we learned the truth that the terrified girls were in no way involved in that initial skirmish on August 21, 1992, which, incidentally, lasted more like eight seconds. The same government, which fed the baloney to the news media morons, later paid $3.1 million to Weaver and his children for its transgressions.
After learning the truth about the impotence of ANFO, filming actual unexploded bombs in the debris at the Murrah Building, and seeing the blatant evidence of the columns being destroyed from the inside at the third floor level, the professional deceivers continued to report the "party line" distortions and assist in the convictions of Tim McVeigh and Terry Nichols. This is not news reporting but public relations hyperbole.
The classic P.R. campaign was the coverage of the Montana Freemen in 1996. Headlines and defamatory character assassinations grew from the grand jury indictment, written, of course, by government prosecutors. An indictment is but a mere accusation, but the media lords trumpeted it to the world as fact, and the Montanans were demonized in the eyes of the public forever.
Once caught in a cover-up, governments use diversionary tactics to take the spotlight off the incriminating segments, and its roboton media lackeys begin to focus on secondary issues. The current "investigation" will follow the same pattern.
For six years the Waco spotlight has been on exactly who started the fire. The government accusation has long been the lie that the Davidians did it in a planned mass suicide. I call it a lie because the nine surviving Davidians said so, and we have seen no reason yet to believe that they have lied to us.
(Following the Fort Worth church shooting this past September, Janet Reno further portrayed her innate hypocrisy by saying, "The thought of gunfire in a place of worship should be inconceivable." A.P. - 9/16/99. Has she forgotten that Mt. Carmel was a place of worship before her agents shot it pieces and burned it down, or does she just think we have?)
The world now has the evidence that the FBI started the fire with its pyrotechnic incendiary devices, which was a well planned out event to drive the Christians from their church and shoot them down in cold blood as they fled. This has been the big cover-up that is falling apart. But what were they doing there in the first place? What will be ignored is the no-knock search warrant initiated through an agent's fabricated lies and served up by 75 blood-thirsty, hyped-up maniacs armed to the teeth in a violent, unprovoked raid of "Showtime."
There will be no real investigation because the government is not looking for the truth here. The fact that those in charge are ignoring Richard Mack 's application to be part of the investigative team is indicative of that. Not only would the former Arizona sheriff get to the bottom of this case but his mere presence on the team would assure us that if there were anything unsavory going on behind the scenes, we the people would be the first to know about it. He told us that himself and has proven to us in the past that he can be trusted to seek truth and justice. Those in charge of an honest investigation would jump at the chance to have Rich Mack on the team. John Danforth won't dare.
You can count on John Danforth being in charge of nothing more than a patch-up of the cover-up, and the so-called news reporters will search no further and report no more than what is spoon-fed off the wire to them from their handlers.
WHAT'S UP WITH Y2K?
Although the century doesn't end for another 13 months (at the end of year 2,000, not 1999), revelers will welcome the new millenium at the end of this month. But will their New Year's morning hangovers be intensified by no faucet water with which to wash down their aspirins? Will they awaken to a home with no heat or lights? Will the car start? Will there be total chaos or just a temporary inconvenience for a few days? Or no change at all?
The talking heads on the electronic box are finally admitting that not all government computers are fixed. What is cheered and welcomed as wonderful news by some - that the IRS cannot repair its system in time - is being sold as bad news to the masses: They won't be able to process refunds!
The U. S. Airlines seem to be silently sweating it, but the news from Europe is more illuminating. There it was announced that the more than 5,000 daily flights across the continent will be reduced to 350 on New Year's Day. Now with that foreknowledge, what fool is going to board one of those flights?
We just don't know what the boundaries of turmoil will be, and we cannot know before January 1st for one simple reason. Chicken Little is a known liar, and it has become our learned habit not to trust anything he/she says.
CAPITOL HILL CRIMINALS
After researching public records, newspaper articles, civil court transcripts, and criminal records, Capitol Hill Blue discovered that: * 29 members of Congress have been accused of spousal abuse. * 7 have been arrested for fraud. * 19 have been accused of writing bad checks. * 117 have bankrupted at least two businesses. * 3 have been arrested for assault. * 71 have such bad credit they can't qualify for a credit card. * 14 have been arrested on drug-related charges. * 8 have been arrested for shoplifting. * 21 are current defendants in lawsuits. * And in 1998 alone, 84 were stopped for drunk driving, but released after they claimed Congressional immunity. Capitol Hill Blue did not list the names of all the individual members of Congress accused of the various crimes, but did note that some were "serial offenders" with extensive tracks records of fraud or violence.
For example, reported Capitol Hill Blue, Rep. Corrine Brown (D-FL) has a "long, consistent record of deceit," including tens of thousands of dollars in unpaid bills, allegations of bribery, and numerous lawsuits against her. And Rep. Jim Moran (D-VA) faces charges that he beat his wife, has a history of barroom brawls while mayor of Alexandria, and has publicly stated that he likes "to hit people."
(Sooooo, what else do you expect from a good, red-blooded Irishman?)
Judging the Book Cover
The story goes that one day late in the last century, a not very prosperous-looking lady in a faded gingham dress and her husband, dressed in a homespun thread bare suit, stepped off the train in Boston and took a short carriage ride to Cambridge. They walked timidly without an appointment into the outer office of the president of Harvard University.
The secretary could tell in a moment that these backwoods country hicks had no business at Harvard and would do her best to quickly dispense with this riff-raff. She frowned her best unwelcome look.
"We want to see the president," the man said softly. "He'll be busy all day," the secretary snapped. "Then we'll wait," the lady replied.
For hours, the secretary ignored them, hoping the couple would finally become discouraged and go away. They didn't. The secretary grew frustrated and finally chose to disturb the president, something she always regretted doing. "Maybe if they just see you for a few minutes, they'll leave," she told him.
He sighed in exasperation and nodded. Someone of his importance obviously didn't have the time to spend with these people, and he detested gingham dresses and homespun suits cluttering up his outer office. The pompous president, stern-faced with dignity, strutted toward the couple.
The lady told him, "Our son attended Harvard for one year. He loved Harvard. He was happy here. But about a year ago, he was accidentally killed. And my husband and I would like to erect a memorial to him, somewhere on campus."
The president wasn't touched, he was shocked! "Madam," he said gruffly, "We can't put up a statue for every person who attended Harvard and died. If we did, this place would look like a cemetery".
"Oh, no," the lady explained quickly, "We don't want to erect a statue. We thought we would like to give a building to Harvard."
The president rolled his eyes. He glanced at their ragged appearance and retorted, "A building? Do you have any earthly idea how much a building costs? We have over seven and a half million dollars in the physical plant at Harvard."
For a moment the lady was silent. The president was pleased. He could get rid of them now, but the response was not exactly what he had anticipated.
The lady turned to her husband and said quietly, "Is that all it costs to start a University? Why don't we just start our own?" Her husband nodded silently. The president's face wilted in confusion and bewilderment.
And Mr. and Mrs. Leland Stanford walked away, traveling to Palo Alto, California where, in 1891, they completed and opened the university that bears their name.
The Scriptures are shallow enough for a babe to come and drink without fear of drowning and deep enough for theologians to swim in without ever reaching the bottom.-- St. Jerome