[UA] Walter Cronkite exposes the Occult Underground

[Daniel Butler]

Well if Americans weren't sure why the Middle East hated them BEFORE
September 11th, this should narrow it down a bit.


----- Original Message -----
From: "Rich Ranallo" <ranallo at starchildren.co.uk>
To: <ua at lists.uchicago.edu>
Sent: Monday, September 29, 2003 2:35 PM
Subject: [UA] Walter Cronkite exposes the Occult Underground


> Not really, but the headline kinda freaked me out anyway.
>
> From Whom It May Concern,
> Rich Ranallo
>
> "Among the maxims on Lord Naoshige's wall there was this one: 'Matters of
> great concern should be treated lightly.'  Master Ittei commented,
'Matters
> of small concern should be treated seriously.'"
> -Hakagure
>
> http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0%2C1413%2C36~29003~1640999%2C00.html
>
> Cronkite: The new Inquisition
> By Walter Cronkite
>
> President Bush's televised answer to the growing concerns of many -
> including some Republicans - about the powers granted to him in the USA
> Patriot Act was to ask for even stronger measures, particularly the
expanded
> use of "nonjudicial subpoenas." That means a federal agency such as the
FBI
> can write its own subpoenas to conduct a search - no judges needed.
>
> Unfortunately, security and liberty form a zero-sum equation. The
inevitable
> trade-off: To increase security is to decrease liberty and vice versa. In
> the past, such trade-offs have been temporary - for the duration of the
> crisis of the moment. But today, we cannot see an end to the War on
> Terrorism, and that forces us to decide how secure we have to be and how
> free we want to be.
>
> By delivering the speech last week himself, Bush added presidential heft
to
> the issue and took some of the heat off of his attorney general, who is
seen
> by many as the heedless champion of security at any price.
>
> In his 2 1/2 years in office, Attorney General John Ashcroft has earned
> himself a remarkable distinction as the Torquemada of American law. Tomas
de
> Torquemada was the 15th century Dominican friar who became the grand
> inquisitor of the Spanish Inquisition. He was largely responsible for its
> methods, including torture and the burning of heretics - Muslims in
> particular.
>
> Now, of course, I am not accusing the attorney general of pulling out
> anyone's fingernails or burning people at the stake (at least I don't know
> of any such cases). But one does get the sense these days that the old
> Spaniard's spirit is comfortably at home in Ashcroft's Department of
> Justice.
>
> The Patriot Act is much in the news, as Ashcroft and his minions seek both
> to justify its excesses and strengthen them, thus intensifying its
dangerous
> infringements on the Bill of Rights.
>
> There was something almost medieval in the treatment of Muslim suspects in
> the aftermath of Sept. 11. Many were held incommunicado, without effective
> counsel and without ever being charged, not for days or weeks, but for
> months or longer, some under harsh conditions designed for the most
> dangerous criminals.
>
> It was in the spirit of the Inquisition that the Justice Department
> announced recently that it would begin gathering data on judges who give
> sentences lighter than called for by legislative guidelines.
>
> Nothing so clearly evokes Torquemada's spirit as Ashcroft's penchant for
> overruling U.S. attorneys who have sought lesser penalties in capital
cases.
> The attorney general has done this at least 30 times since he took office,
> according to the Federal Death Penalty Resource Counsel. In several cases,
> Ashcroft actually has overturned plea bargains negotiated by those
> government prosecutors.
>
> The New York Times editorialized that the attorney general seems to want
the
> death penalty used more often.
>
> Ashcroft is not alone in this. His boss, while governor of Texas, seemed
> never to have met a death sentence he didn't like. The two of them
represent
> a subdivision of the Republican Party known as the "social conservatives,"
> who often have favored the use of government power to police moral issues
> they view as modern heresies, such as abortion, homosexuality and
obscenity.
> They contrast with those Republicans who tend to resist such uses of
federal
> power and can generally be counted on to defend individual rights.
>
> What makes this administration's legal bloodthirstiness particularly
> alarming is the almost religious zeal that seems to drive it. So, what we
> are seeing now is a confluence of two streams of American thought. One of
> those streams represents those who believe security must have priority
over
> civil rights. The other stream represents those who believe that civil
> rights must be preserved even as we prosecute to the hilt the war on
> terrorism.
>
> Our liberty could drown in the resultant turbulence of these colliding
> currents.
>
> Walter Cronkite has been a journalist for more than 60 years, including 19
> as anchor of the CBS Evening News.
>
>


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