39 Iconoclast

2006, THE LONE STAR ICONOCLAST

Vol. 7, No. 36

SEPTEMBER 27 2006

$1.00 Per Copy

CRAWFORD, TEXAS

We could be facing the biggest cover-up andthe biggest crime of our century in regardto 9/11 and whats going on here.

Byron De LearW

Page 3

ByronDe Lear

e could be facing the biggest cover-up andthe biggest crime of our century in regardto 9/11 and whats going on here.

Byron De Lear

Bell SpeaksTo DentonDemocrats

Page 6

Chris Bell, CandidateFor Texas Governor

Actual Costs,True Costs,

Net Costs Of WarPage 8

Presenting ANew Version OfRocky Horror

Page 11

Declare PeaceFor Crying Out Loud!

That WhichThinking

People FearPage 14

Page 11

AlternativeTorturePage 13

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GUESTCOMMENTARY

The Devil InGeorge W. Bush

ByCaptain

Eric May

2 Wednesday, Sept. 27, 2006 THE LONE STAR ICONOCLAST Online: www.lonestaricon.com

Iconoclast Hard Copy To Go Monthly

U.S. Billionaires Pledge $50 Million To Nuclear Reserves

Venezuelan President Refers To Bush As Devil At U.N.

Hazardous Liquid Spill Causes Evacuations In CrawfordCRAWFORD A train de-

railment that caused hazardousliquid to spill in Crawford led tothe temporary evacuation ofroughly half the citys popula-

tion last Tuesday.The 300-plus of the 700 resi-

dents returned to their homesby 10 p.m. four hours after thederailment occurred. No inju-

ries were reported, according tothe railways spokesperson.

At about 6:20 p.m., 23 cars ofa southbound Burlington North-ern Santa Fe Railroad freight

train jumped the track.An initial report stated that

the chemical was a vinyl acetate,a corrosive chemical used tomanufacture other industrial

chemicals in paints, glues, andplastics.

However, in a later report,railroad officials said that the liq-uid was ethanolamine, a chemi-cal found in herbicides,cosmetics, and textiles.

Regional hazardous-materi-als teams contained the spill,and through the clean-up pro-cess, the air quality was moni-tored.

Crawford residents have be-come used to disruptions totheir smalltown life-styles in theyears since President George W.Bush purchased on his nearbyvacation ranch.

The president was not vaca-tioning there when the accidenthappened.

Joe Faust, spokesman forBNSF Railway, said that corpo-rate investigators were stillstudying the cause of the derail-ment Wednesday.

The crash site was also exam-ined by state and federal envi-ronmental authorities.

CRAWFORD Beginningsoon, THE LONE STAR ICONO-CLAST, which began publicationin the winter of 2000, will alterthe frequency of its hard copy(print edition) to monthly,while at the same time ex-panding material of its onlineedition.

According to publisher W.Leon Smith, More and morereaders are going online toread THE ICONOCLAST, whilefewer are reading the printedition, which has promptedthis change. After analyzingour product and our reader-

ship, it is our feeling that thewave of the future on publica-tions such as THE ICONOCLAST iswith the Internet.

Smith explained that manyreaders who subscribe to theprint edition also read the pa-per online, because they donthave to wait sometimes two orthree weeks to receive the hardcopy in the mail. Once we postthe latest edition online, itsavailable immediately, he said.

We still want to maintain ahard copy presence, and thereare some items that can per-haps best be handled with ac-

tual paper in hand, he said, sowe plan to revamp the contentof the print edition, while at thesame time increasing materialto be consumed online. Too, thisallows us to shift more attentionto a product people will be ableto access sooner.

The subscription price ofTHE ICONOCLAST print editionwill be decreased to accom-modate 12 issues a year whilesome content on the onlineedition will become fee-basedto provide revenue to help payexpenses. Current subscrib-ers of the print edition will

have their subscriptions ex-tended in time to make upthe difference in number ofcopies received, unless theyrequest a partial refund.

We look forward to provid-ing additional postings, per-haps daily, said Smith, whichshould make for a fresherproduct.

The newspapers online edi-tion can be accessed at.

Smith noted that nextweeks ICONOCLAST will be thefirst monthly edition, for themonth of October.

UNITED NATIONS Thepresident of Venezuela referredto the president of the UnitedStates as a devil and the U.S.as an empire during a speechbefore the United Nations Gen-eral Assembly last Wednesday.

The devil came here yester-day, Venezuelas Hugo Chavezsaid, referring to George W.Bushs speech on Tuesday. Hecame here talking as if he werethe owner of the world.

President Chavez added thathe believed President Bush sup-ported a false democracy of theelite. He also suggested thatthe U.N. representatives con-sider reading a book by Ameri-can leftist dissident NoamChomsky called Hegemony orSurvival: Americas Quest forGlobal Dominance.

The American empire is do-ing all it can to consolidate itshegemonistic system of domina-

tion, and we cannot allow themto do that, said Chavez. We can-not allow world dictatorship to beconsolidated.

Chavez continued called the60-year-old U.N. system worth-less because of the U.S. govern-ment influence over it acriticism echoed by IranianPresident MahmoudAhmadinejads speech to the as-sembly late on Tuesday.

As long as the UN SecurityCouncil is unable to act on behalfof the entire international com-munity in a transparent, just anddemocratic manner, it will nei-ther be legitimate nor effective,Ahmadinejad said in a speechhours before Bush spoke.

Ahmadinejad also defendedthe nuclear energy aspirations ofhis country as peaceful. Iran is amember of the U.N.s nuclearenergy watchdog group, the In-ternational Atomic Energy

Agency (IAEA). Iran has en-riched only 3.6 percent of itsuranium-235, according toIAEA. Weapons-grade ura-nium must be enriched tocontain at least 90 percenturanium-235.

In his speech Tuesday, Presi-dent Bush defended himself,saying his Middle East policieswere effective in marginalizing

terrorists and supporting democ-racy.

Afghan President HamidKarzai said in his speech to theU.N. Wednesday that military at-tacks alone would not would notstop terrorists operating in hiscountry. He also called for moreinternational aid for Afghanfarmers to curb to drug trade.

The presidents of Pakistan,

Afghanistan, and the UnitedStates are to meet on Sept. 27 totalk about how the three coun-tries can work together, theWhite House said late last week.

Pakistani President PervezMusharraf and Afghan PresidentKarzai have disagreed on howeach country is dealing withTaliban militants on their sharedborder.

VIENNA U.S. billionairesTed Turner and Warren Buffethave pledged $50 million for thecreation of an alternative reserveof enriched uranium for use by theinternational community.

The reserve itself is intended toprevent individual countries fromoperating their own enrichmentprocesses which could fall intomilitaristic hands.

The Vienna-based nuclear

watchdog, the InternationalAtomic Energy Agency (IAEA), isto run the proposed reserve.

The billionaires donation de-pends on the agencys ability to at-tain $100 million in credit or inlow-enriched uranium from mem-ber states.

IAEA member countries haveexpressed support in the nuclearreserve, but say that the nuclearfuel market will still be controlled

by dominant powers.Argentina, Australia and South

Africa have plans to start their ownuranium production. Iran has al-ready done so to the chagrin of theUnited States and Israel.

Former U.S. senator and cur-rent head of the Nuclear ThreatInitiative Sam Nunn said the re-serve would be an important toolto increase global security fromnuclear weapons.

Online: www.lonestaricon.com THE LONE STAR ICONOCLAST Wednesday, Sept. 27, 2006 3

Repeal The 22nd Amendment?Congressional Candidate Byron De LearTakes On Bush War Machine In California

Byron De Lear

BY W. LEON SMITHICONOCLAST EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

STUDIO CITY, Calif. As theNovember general election rollsnear, some perplexed voters areattempting to ascertain the dif-ference between Democratsand Republicans, especially indistricts where the lines be-tween the two are becomingblurred.

In Southern California, in-cumbent U.S. Rep. HowardBerman (D) has adopted muchof the neoconservative policythat even some Republicanshave come out against. Here,some deem Berman theLieberman of the West.

According to the Green Partycandidate for the 28th Congres-sional District of Southern Cali-fornia, Byron De Lear, hisDemocratic opponenthas distanced himselffrom progressives by vot-ing with Bush to block atimetable for troop with-drawal from Iraq, andeven more telling, in 2005co-sponsored legislationto repeal the 22ndAmendment to the Con-stitution, which setsterm limits on the presidency.

De Lear wants the GreenParty to be represented in Con-gress to clean up the prob-lems deposited byunaccountable office holders ofthe two major parties.

Never has a philosophy of acountry shifted so radically asit has under George Bush whohas championed the use of tor-ture, secrecy, and military pre-emption. With the potentialthreat of nuclear war facingAmericans today, a new voice oftempered reason is needed,said De Lear, the son of an op-era singer father and concertpianist mother who in 2004 quithis job in production for 20thCentury Fox and founded Glo-bal Peace Solution, an organiza-tion committed to brokeringpeace resolutions throughoutthe Middle East.

De Lears television talkshow, Global Peace Network,has been broadcast via satellitethroughout North America, Eu-rope, and the Middle East. Now,De Lear has shifted his focus toending the war in Iraq, invigo-rating the American economy,and taking a full court pressapproach to tackling the ill ef-fects of global warming.

De Lear says that the UnitedStates is headed down a path ofdestruction, but that the upcom-

ing mid-term elections canmake a difference.

As we move forward into the21st century and embrace anewfound ability to foster coop-eration with our global commu-nity in ways and means neverseen before, a great manypeople around the world aretalking transformation andchange, making human rights,dignity and humanitarian idealsthe primacy of good governance.It is imperative for America totake part in this change. On theother hand, George Bush is try-ing to set up an Imperial Presi-dency with unconstitutionalactions such as unwarrantedwiretapping of Americans, devi-ous signing statements, and jus-tifying torture. My opponent,Rep. Howard Berman, not only

marches in lockstep with Bushswar in Iraq, but has even co-sponsored legislation (H.J. RES25) last year to repeal the 22ndAmendment to the Constitutionremoving term limits from theWhite House. It is time for thepeople to stand up and stop thedismantling of core Americanvalues before the coup is com-plete. We must act.

De Lear agrees with the wis-dom of retired military leadersJohn Murtha and John Kerryand calls for a responsible,phased withdrawal from Iraq.He understands that the Iraqipeople cannot stand up until theU.S. military stands down. Headds, While Americans havecalled for Congress to hold theBush Administration account-able for crimes and abuses ofpower, Howard Berman hasbeen silent.

In an interview with ICONO-CLAST publisher W. Leon Smith,De Lear explains why the fed-eral government needs to beheld accountable:

**********ICONOCLAST: Ive been

reading a lot of your campaignliterature and it looks very ex-citing.

DE LEAR: Were running areal viable, green-blooded cam-paign and were working with aton of the progressive Demo-

crats down here. Youre wellaware that Howard Berman hasshown himself to be a real Bushsupporter and supporting hisagenda in the Middle East andvoting to repeal the 22ndamendment to the Constitution,which would, of course, createa bit of an imperial presidency.

ICONOCLAST: Im sure itwould.

DE LEAR: Just inexplicableactions. He needs to be held ac-countable for them.

ICONOCLAST: Ive workedup a list of questions. Would youlike to give them a shot?

DE LEAR: Sure.ICONOCLAST: Most of your

campaign literature focuses onyour battle with Democratic in-cumbent Howard Berman forthe 28th California Congres-

sional District. You describehim as the Lieberman of theHouse. Do you feel that he isaligning himself with the Presi-dent in order to stave off votesgoing to the Republican, StanleyKesselman, in this race, or hashe indeed moved into the neo-con camp?

DE LEAR: Well, in this dis-trict here in Southern Califor-nia, the 28th CongressionalDistrict, it winds up votingabout 75 percent of the timeDemocrat. I would consider himnot necessarily to triangulate, ifyou will, with StanleyKesselman. I think that HowardBerman has a personal pro-waragenda and I think he is for-warding the neo-con agenda inthe Middle East and this istransparent in his voting recordand vote after vote in regard tothe over-militarizedunilateralism that is being ex-pressed in the Middle East. Hehas shown himself to be sittingwhere Lieberman was sitting,right next to Bush. Indeed, I re-member hearing, recently, thatthere was an event in Washing-ton D.C. I forget what the par-ticular event was, but it was aRepublican sponsored eventand Berman and Liebermanwere the only two Democrats atthe event.

ICONOCLAST: Why do you Continued On Next Page

Why shouldnt our votes becounted as religiously asthe I.R.S. counts our taxdollars?

Byron De Lear think he would advocate theabolition of the 22nd Amend-ment?

DE LEAR: This is a truly in-explicable event for him to wantto repeal the 22nd Amendmentof the U.S. Constitution. The22nd Amendment of the U.S.Constitution, of course, is theterm limits on the White House.I think that Howard has a sensethat this kind of an authoritar-ian or totalitarian expressionout of the Executive Branch istolerable. I consider this to bedirectly antithetical to progres-sive ideology. I think term lim-its is a necessary component,especially when youre talkingabout the Commander-in-Chiefof this nation.

ICONOCLAST: The wordsprogressive and Democratused to be generally regardedas somewhat synonymous, butwe are hearing more and morehow many Democrats are aban-doning that descriptive term.Do you feel that the Green Partyis in some ways expressing thevalues that the DemocraticParty used to espouse?

DE LEAR: Yes I do. Yes I do.And I think that it really comesdown to the fact that as GreenParty candidates we do not takemoney from corporations. NowI take it even one step further. Iidentify with the Latin definitionof the word corporation, corpus,meaning body. So I did not take

money from 527 tax. I did nottake money from unions. And Ido not take money from multi-national conglomerates. But,increasingly, weve seen howthe Democratic leadership is asjust as corporate handled as theRepublican leadership. Now, Iconsider this to be the preemi-nent issue for our nation to con-tend with. It is thecompromising and polluting in-fluence of big money in our cor-ridors of power.

Recently there was an articlethat talked about how themoney on K street youreobviously familiar with the JackAbramoff scandal, how he hadthese Republican operativesgoing to Indian tribes and pull-ing money out of the Indiantribes in order to finance theRepublican agenda. Well, I readan article recently that themoney now is shifting on Kstreet. The money now is notgoing behind Republican candi-dates, but rather, in anticipationof a Democratic success in themidterm elections. The moneynow has shifted to the otherside of the aisle. We make theargument at Green, and I makethe argument as a real progres-sive, that America should nothave a K street.

ICONOCLAST: In the GreenParty rebuttal to the 2006 Stateof the Union Address, you


Repeal The 22nd Amendment?pointed to a need for account-ability. You also went into eco-nomics, saying that the moneyspent in Iraq could have gone toguarantee Social Security andprovide universal health care,and you blame Democrats forendorsing the war. Can you ex-plain this further?

DE LEAR: I think that youconsider the amount of moneythat is being spent in Iraq, itsbetween $250 million a day tohalf a billion a day, depending onestimate you use. With half abillion dollars a day spent on acompletely dysfunctional andnon-sustainable policy, we aretruly shortchanging the peoplehere at home. The United Stateis the only industrialized nationthat doesnt have universalhealth care and yet we spendtwice as much on universalhealth care than any other na-tion. And, thats obviously get-ting back to the strangleholdthat the pharmaceutical andmedical industries have uponour political structure. So, weneed to break that strangle holdand I consider this to be a trans-partisan issue and most Ameri-cans are aware that corruptionhas been institutionalized.

Now, in the case of the Iraqwar, weve got a lot of big corpo-rations that make money off ofthat war. In fact, the corporationthat Dick Cheney used to be theCEO of, right, Haliburton. Theseare very well known concepts,but the idea is that instead ofjust complaining about it, andrailing against it, we actuallyneed a plan to sever those fis-cal appendages that have at-tached themselves to ourpolitical system. A legislative,incremental step that gets ustowards separation of buck andstate is what I like to call it an incremental legislative stepwould be the clean money effort,which has come on-line inMaine, a blue state, and in Ari-zona, a red state.

So, you have this trans-parti-san aspect where clean moneyhas come on-line in Maine andin Arizona and in those states,60 percent more women run foroffice; 40 percent more minori-ties run for office. It has com-pletely shown itself to be acontribution to a reinvigorationof our democratic structures.What clean money provides foris public financing of cam-paigns. You dont have to go tocorporations to get your money,but rather, you get it from thegovernment because youvegone out and gotten like $5 do-nations from like 2,500 peoplethat you come to and they write Continued On Next Page

From Previous Page

$5 checks for you. What it does,the effect, is that it reattachesthe politicians directly to thepeople.

ICONOCLAST: In Texas, themiddle and lower income fami-lies are suffering financially, butwe never hear the word reces-sion anymore. According to ourgovernment, the economy isbooming. There seems to besome sort of disconnect be-tween the classes. What is theeconomic climate in California?

DE LEAR: Well, you hit itright on the head, Leon. Its afamily feud is whats going on.And, outsourcing is a perfectexample of that. Theyll talkabout the economy booming,but whose economy are theytalking about? Theyre not talk-ing about the middle and lowerincome wage earners, are they?Theyre talking about the factthat in the 80s, I believe, the ra-tio between a CEO and an aver-age worker in a corporation wassomething like 40 or 50 to one.Now its upwards of 600 to one,that a CEO is making 600 timeswhat the average worker forthat corporation is making.

You have Wal-Mart, whodoesnt let the workers unionizethere and 60 percent of everysingle American walks throughWal-Mart once a week. Seventypercent of the products in Wal-Mart are made in China by ques-tionable labor practices, sowere being forced to subscribeto a system of consumerism thatis making us buy products thatare made by virtual indenturedservants. This is something thatwe need to face. We need to facethe music of this.

I mean, in California, for ex-ample, Howard Berman, my op-ponent, was a strong endorserof NAFTA. NAFTA has been anunmitigated tragedy for this na-

Green Partys Byron De Lear says Democrat is in league with GOP.

tion. California has lost morejobs to NAFTA than any otherstate in the union. And in addi-tion to that, it put two millionMexican farm workers out ofwork, which has completely ex-acerbated the immigration situ-ation. So, we have these tradeagreements that are written byfinancial ministers or the folksthat are sitting in corporateboard rooms, authorizing thesetrade agreements and wereleaving the people behind. Ithink that outsourcing is an un-American activity. And, withouta truly humanitarian and fairtrade version of these interna-tional trade agreements, weregoing to continue to fractureand pull our nation apart.

ICONOCLAST: If Neo-consare run out of Dodge during themidterms elections, do youthink that the issue of impeach-ment will become a dominanttheme in the months that fol-low?

DE LEAR: If elected, I willforward the call for impeach-ment proceedings to begin be-cause there is a laundry list ofillegalities and unconstitutionalactions taken by this adminis-tration, and, as I said in thatstate-of-the-union rebuttal, wehave mechanisms to deal withpoliticians and their highcrimes.

One of the high crimes that Italk about is the usage of de-pleted uranium as a weaponssystem. Depleted uranium is atoxic and radioactive ordinance.Its used to destroy tanks. Itcomes out of Apache helicop-ters. But, this is a waste by-product of nuclear power. Whenthere is a depleted uranium spillin the United States, space suitscome out to clean it up. And yet,were spraying it indiscrimi-nately over the Middle East un-

der the illusion that were pro-tecting ourselves against weap-ons of mass destruction. But, inthe end, depleted uranium couldbe collected as a substance inthe Middle East and redeployedon our own shore because it istoxic and it is radioactive. Itcauses birth defects. It causescancers. It could be the ingredi-ents of dirty bombs.

The reason why I bring thisup, Leon, is because lack of fore-sight in the Bush administrationis no excuse for what I wouldconsider treasonous behavior ifwe ever saw this material rede-ployed on our own shore. Thatmaterial could make the basicingredients for dirty bombs andthat would be cause for an im-peachment as well. The reasonwhy I just bring up the D.U. situ-ation is because nobody evertalks about this.

ICONOCLAST: I was going toask what are your thoughts onissues that are not currently inthe public eye, such as depleteduranium poisoning and whatmany deem as a Federal Re-serve System that caters tocorporatism?

DELEAR: Yes. I was on thefirst military tour of Los Ange-les, conducted by the Citizensfor Social Responsibility. In thatmilitary tour, we went to severalmilitary sites. During the 50sand 60s, Los Angeles used to bethe recipient of 10 percent of theentire Department of Defensebudget for the United States be-cause of all the military relatedindustries in Los Angeles. Wevisited several of the sites herein Los Angeles and many ofthose sites are contaminated.Indeed, Los Angeles is home tothe worlds only uncontainedpartial nuclear meltdown. AThree-mile Island is right herein our backyard and nobodyknows about it.

But, what we learned on thattour is that the Pentagon is theworst polluter on the planet. ThePentagon pollutes more, pro-duces more hazardous waste,than the top five petrochemicalcorporations in the United Statecombined. The situation that wehave is that the environmentalimpact of the Department ofDefense is regulated by itself.

Now, I spoke with an EPA, En-vironmental Protection Agencyexecutive, whose in charge ofcleaning up sites she wantedto remain anonymous, for obvi-ous reasons, because the EPAoperates under the purview ofthe Bush Administration, cur-rently. She said that the solutionis, and its kind of a no-brainer,is to have the Pentagon regu-lated by an independent agency.Not to have the Pentagon regu-

late its environmental impact byitself. These are the kinds ofbroad-stroke changes that weare going to need to invest in andvote for in order to reconstituteour nation into a sustainableexpression and more impor-tantly, the kind of government ofthe people and for the peoplethat the framers intended.

Right now, its a governmentof the dollar. Im not necessarilysaying that corporate interestsand the peoples interests do nothave some overlap, but increas-ingly, day by day, as we move for-ward into the 21st century, thoseinterests are separating. I thinkit can be seen clearly, that whenyou have multi-national con-glomerates that have offices inall the nations all over theplanet, that that isnt necessar-ily the decentralized Americaninterests anymore. It becomesan interest in an agenda that hastranscended our sovereign in-terests as Americans. I believethat 98 percent of the politiciansthat get elected wield the larg-est campaign war chest. Itsbegging the question, why arewe even counting votes any-more?

ICONOCLAST: Thats an-other question, about the voting.You know that voting machinesare being demonized as unreli-able. Do you think that paperballots ought to be used?

DE LEAR: Yes, I do. I actuallyhave made the call for a consti-tutional amendment that thesacrosanct institution of ourvote is the foundation of our Re-public. Its a cornerstone of ourRepublic and it needs to be se-cured and protected. In the in-terest of securing the vote, weneed to do two things, in myopinion. We need to provide forindependant verification of bal-lot results, in other words, weneed to know that what the bal-lot results say are verifiable byan independant means. Now,about a third of the votes cast inthe United States are done on avoting machine and those votingmachines are run by proprietarycomputer codes that are ownedby private interests. Theyreowned by the corporation andwe have no opportunity to lookat that computer code. This isunconscionable. This is un-American.

In addition to that, voting stan-dards are as wide and varied asthe states are themselves. Iveheard that in some circles,theres upwards of 13,000 differ-ent voting standards across theUnited States. When youre vot-ing for various singular federaloffices like in the form of thePresidency, why should you


Repeal The 22nd Amendment?From Previous Page

Byron De Lear (second from right) stands by rights at theSouth Central Farm, May 26, 2006, in California.

have such an unequal playingfield? Why is it that African-Americans have to wait sixhours in the rain in Ohio? Andhere in Sherman Oaks in Cali-fornia, I just go walk in and walkout and vote. Well, there needsto be an effort to level the play-ing field. We need to standard-ize the American votingexperience.

Of course, that standardiza-tion also must be rigorously andindependently implemented sothat we can actually verify thosevotes. This is worthy of a con-stitutional amendment, Leon.Why shouldnt our votes becounted as religiously as theI.R.S. counts our tax dollars?Overnight, we saw how ATMmachines and UPC barcodemachine have completelyproliferated all over the land-scape and in our stores andin our banks and now we justaccept them as an everydayfeature in our lives. I believethat we should have the samekind of mot ivat ion thatbrought those devices andinnovative technologies intoour lives. We should have thesame motivation to be ap-plied to securing and edify-ing the American vot ingexperience by providing forindependant verification ofballot results and standard-izing it nationally. When youbuy a 2x4 in St. Louis, its thesame 2x4 in Los Angeles. Adollar in New York is worththe same dol lar inSacremento . Our vote isworth this kind of treatmentto be protected and it needsto be protected by a constitu-t ional amendment . Theamendment to the Constitu-tion should be protecting andsecuring this most sacro -sanct institution of our Re-public.

ICONOCLAST: Regarding9/11, there is a big movementon r ight now to have anindependant reinvestigationof what happened. Do youthink that that should takeplace?

DE LEAR: Oh, absolutely.I found it shocking that in thecommission report on 9/11that we didnt find any sub-stantive or detailed descrip-tions of what had occurred onWorld Trade Center buildingnumber 7. Now, if your read-ers or audience doesnt know,building number 7 was a 42-story office building that wasa few blocks away from theTowers. In the afternoon of 9/11, this office building fellcompletely straight downinto its footprint, exactly as

if it had been demolished.And yet , nothing had im-pacted on this office building.

Now, we heard that the rea-sons why it had done thiscompletely symmetrical freefall at almost the rate of freefall as if you dropped a steelI-beam free falling just to theground. I think it was just al i t t le b i t s lower. In otherwords, the only thing thatwould created that kind ofspeedy free-fall would be anoffice building that had beenpre-prepared with demoli-tion. But, the reason why weheard that this building fell isbecause there was a fire onthe 12th floor. And, yet in thehistory of the planet, we havenever seen just a mere fire onthe floor of a steel-enforcedoffice building would cause itto fall. Especially in the man-ner in which it fell, which wasstraight down, symmetricallybalanced, completely free-falls, as if it had been set upby demolition. So, that wasthe real smoking gun to me,Leon. When I realized that, Isaid that there is somethingodd here. There is no waythat this building could havefallen in this manner. You cangoogle it on the Internet andyou can see the footage frommany different angles of thisbuilding, how it completelyfell just straight into its foot-print.

When I realized that therewas something odd in regards tobuilding seven, then what cas-caded and fell forth from thatdisconnect in the logic was thatmaybe these other buildingswere prepared with demolitionexplosives as well. Then whenyou start to connect those dots,you realize that there are someserious holes in the investiga-

tion of 9/11. And, I think that thefirst thing that the Americanpeople deserve is a trulyindependant investigation. If itwere up to me, I would focus onbuilding number seven and ex-plain why that building camedown in the manner that it did.

Certainly, on the day of 9/11,there was mass chaos going onand there is no way that workerscould have gone into that build-ing and prepared it for demoli-tions on that day. That obviouslymeans that the building had to bepre-prepared.

Thats my attitude on 9/11. Wecould be facing the biggestcover-up and the biggest crimeof our century in regard to 9/11and whats going on here. But,Im not willing to make the as-sertion that this is the case.What I am willing to say is thatwe need to have that investiga-tion reopened and like I men-tioned earlier, I would have itfocus on what is referred to asWTC7, or World Trade CenterBuilding 7.

ICONOCLAST: Is there any-thing that you would like to addthat I havent asked you?

DE LEAR: Were interestedin sending the first Green toWashington D.C. We think thatthis would be a huge boon fornot only the Democratic Partyand the Republican Party, butfor planetary civilization. Itwould be a huge boon for every-body to break the kind oftweedle dee left, tweedle dumright partisans rancor betweenthe Im right, youre wrong poli-tics that are going on in D.C. to-day.

Please encourage support ofour candidacy to help get themessage out with campaign do-nations. As I mentioned earlier,we do not take money from cor-porations. So, we need the

peoples help to send the firstGreen to Washington D.C. andwe have a confluence of issuesin this district that has put to-gether this anti-war coalitionmade up of progressive Demo-crats; made up of Green; madeup of community leaders thatcan get together the 50,000 votesor so that would actually suc-ceed in sending the first Greento Washington D.C.

We always hear about the glo-bal war on terrorism. We alwayshear that this is the greatestthreat right now to our nation.But, there are a great many in-tellectuals and scientists andacademicians around the planetthat know the truly most dan-gerous catastrophe looming onhumanitys horizon is globalwarming and we need a new

breed of legislator to comeonline to tackle the ill effects ofglobal warming on the scale ofFranklin Delano Rooseveltsnew deal. Our wartime mental-ity needs to be directed to thatthreat, not at the concept thatour foreign policy in the MiddleEast for the better part of 80-90years has caused this clash ofcultures right now.

I think we need to redefinewhat our relationship is to theinternational community. Reat-tach ourselves politically to theinternationally community andrise to the dream that thedreamers dreamed when theythought of the concept ofAmerica in the first place. Ithink that this is going to comefrom a new breed of legislatorto get that done.

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Chris Bell Speaks To Denton DemocratsBY STEPHEN WEBSTERINVESTIGATIVE REPORTER

DENTON On Saturday,Sept. 16, Chris Bell, Democraticcandidate for Texas Governor,made a stop in Denton for theannual Donkey Festival, put onby the Denton County Demo-crats. The festival attracted atotal of 225 people and offeredhome-style barbecue and re-freshments, live music, dancing,and speeches from state and lo-cal candidates. It was the mostwell-attended, profitablefundraising event the Demo-cratic Party has had in DentonCounty, a Republican strong-hold, in over a decade.

Bell was not the only state-wide candidate to stop at theevent. Texas Attorney Generalcandidate David Van Os, whohas been on a county-by-countyWhistle Stop Tour for the lasteight months, gave a speechand served up brisket while alocal country band crooned.Fred Head, running for Comp-troller of Public Accounts, alsospoke to the crowd, primarilyaddressing the issue of inflatedhome appraisals in the state.

Im making a pact with thepeople of Texas, said Bell dur-ing his speech. The moms anddads who get up every morningjust trying to make the lives oftheir children a little bit better.They need a governor who under-stands that a budget is a moraldocument. If you give me thebully pulpit and the veto pen, I willlead a new Texas revolution!

Rick Perry can run aroundthe state saying hes proud ofTexas until hes red in the face,continued Bell. But until wemake improving public schoolour number one priority; untilwe get serious about providinghealth care insurance for everyyoung person growing up here;until we get serious about stop-ping the Trans-Texas Corridor,which is eating up our land andsetting up a new toll system;Texas will continue to be mor-ally out of balance.

Bells speech went on for about15 minutes, and he was regaledrepeatedly with cheers from theaudience. Afterward, he tooktime to speak with THE LONE STARICONOCLAST about his campaignfor the office of Governor.

**********ICONOCLAST: Your former

seat in Congress, in Houston,was eliminated by Tom DeLaysvoter redistricting in Texas.How did you feel about thatwhen it happened?

BELL: Well, redistrictingwas a very long, drawn outbattle. It was bad for the stateand unprecedented when it oc-curred. There had never been amid-decade redistricting in our

Chris Bell, Democratic Party Candidate For Governor

history. It was bare-knuckle poli-tics and I understood that. Ivealways sort of had an opinionthat, if it is politics, law or sports,if you beat me fair and square, Iwont like it, but Ill accept it. Inthat particular case, to comeand find out that the deck wasstacked before the game everbegan, was incredibly upsetting.That is what lead to me filing anethics complaint [againstDeLay] about the way he con-ducted himself in order to set upthat redistricting.

ICONOCLAST: Were littlemore than six weeks away fromthe election. How do you feelabout your chances?

BELL: I couldnt be anymore pleased with the cam-paign so far. In the most recentstate-wide poll, I am only fivepoints behind Perry. We werehoping to be in second place bythis point in the campaign, andwe are. Were doing a lot betterthan we thought we would. Ithink everybody is waking up tothe fact that Rick Perry is ex-traordinarily vulnerable. If wecan keep the Democratic baseunited and bring over some dis-affected Republicans and Inde-pendents, and there are a lot ofthem out there, were going towin in November.

ICONOCLAST: What is thenumber one issue for your cam-paign?

BELL: Education. If Imelected, we will draw up a plan

to give Texas the best publiceducation system in the nationwithin 10 years. I think it is areachable goal, but only if youhave a governor who is willingto lead. We need to move awayfrom the high-stakes nature ofstandardized testing. Folkshave had it with our over reli-ance on the TAKS test.

ICONOCLAST: Do you wantto get rid of it?

BELL: I dont think we canget rid of it entirely, but we cancertainly get away from thehigh-stakes nature of the test-ing. It is not the test itself thatis causing the problems; it is allthe things that are tied to it. If itis a question of a child movingon through school, and how theschool will be ranked, andteacher merit pay So muchis riding on that test. Obviously,an overabundance of time isgoing to be spent drilling thekids on the test, not necessarilythe subject matter.

Nothing is going to changeuntil you say, Look, were notgoing to make all these deci-sions based upon the TAKS testany longer. If it is just a stan-dardized test that provides asnapshot of where these kidsstand, I dont see any big prob-lem with that. I dont think wehave to be spending millions ofdollars on the TAKS test. I thinkthere are other standardizedtests that will do the job. I alsowant to give teachers an across-

the-board raise of $6,000. It is notmuch, but it is a good start.

ICONOCLAST: How do youfeel about the Trans-Texas Cor-ridor; the plan to expand Inter-state 35 and turn it into amassive toll road?

BELL: I oppose it. I want tosee it brought back to the legis-lature. I think if it is, it will bevoted down and will not go for-ward. I think it is a gross mis-use of the Eminent Domainprocess, which is supposed to beused for the public good, not forthe good of multi-billion dollarboondoggles that primarily ben-efit European contractors. Mostpeople see it as a giant landgrab, and it wasnt studiedenough before it was voted on.A lot of my friends in the legisla-ture werent given enough infor-mation, and there wasntenough time to study it. Thereis lots of secrecy shrouding thecontracting process. The factthat the person who was repre-senting the major contractor inthe Trans-Texas Corridor cycledback onto the Governors staff,to me, means the anger peopleare feeling about the project isvery well justified in this case.

ICONOCLAST: Recently youropponent, Kinky Friedman, cameout in favor of legalizing mari-juana to reduce prison popula-tions. How do you respond tothat?

BELL: I dont support the le-galization of marijuana. I thinkyou can lower the prison popula-tion by providing more treatmentprograms. I do think way toomany people are in prison be-cause they are addicted to drugs.I think we should be trying to treatthose people for that addiction sothat we wont be spending mil-lions of dollars for those individu-als to be taking up bed space. Ithink that is the responsible wayto approach that issue.

ICONOCLAST: You said youwant to bring in disaffected Repub-

licans. How are you swaying themfrom voting for Carole Strayhorn, aformer Republican?

BELL: First of all, Im run-ning as a Democrat. If Republi-cans are looking forcommon-sense leadership, Icertainly invite them to checkout my campaign. Im the can-didate who is out there trying toput common-sense solutions onthe table. I think many Republi-cans will be looking at theDemocratic column this elec-tion. Meanwhile, the Republicanslice of the pie will be dividedthree ways. I think it is prettyclear that Kinky Friedman istrying to run to the right of[Strayhorn and Perry], and ob-viously Strayhorn and Perry areRepublicans. Im the onlyDemocrat in the race, and I amthe only one that stands for re-storing common-sense to theGovernors office of Texas.


Quit Denying Climate Change,Say British Scientists To Exxon

Edwards SupportsImmigration Reform

WASHINGTON U.S. Rep-resentative Chet Edwards to-day supported House passageof three immigration and bordersecurity bills HR 6094, HR 6095,and HR 4830 to deter illegal im-migration and bolster bordersecurity. Many of the provisionsin the bills passed today weretaken from HR 4437, the BorderProtection, Antiterrorism, andIllegal Immigration Control Actwhich passed the House withEdwards support in Decemberof 2005.

I believe these bills are apositive step in the right direc-tion to protect our borders andto reduce illegal immigration bytoughening penalties againstsmugglers, by making it easierto deport alien gang membersand by clarifying the right of lo-cal and state law enforcementofficials to work with federal of-ficials on a voluntary basis onimmigration cases, saidEdwards.

HR 6094, the Community Pro-tection Act, prohibits alien gangmembers from being admittedinto the United States and al-lows certain gangs to be auto-matically eligible fordeportation. It also allowslonger detention of dangerousaliens and ensures the removalof criminal aliens. Its provisionsare identical to parts of theHouse-passed immigration andborder security bill, HR 4437.

HR 6095, the ImmigrationLaw Enforcement Act, declaresthat state and local law enforce-ment officers have the inher-ent authority to voluntarilyapprehend any illegal immi-grants and transfer them to fed-eral custody. The current law,the Illegal Immigration Reformand Immigrant ResponsibilityAct of 1996, supported byEdwards in 1996, already saysthat state and local police canchoose to assist in the enforce-ment of federal criminal immi-gration laws. Edwards has alsovoted to end the policy of catchand release for illegal aliensunder HR 4437 and voted to de-port criminal illegal aliens un-der the Illegal ImmigrationReform and Immigrant Respon-sibility Act of 1996.

HR 4830, the Border TunnelPrevention Act, creates newcriminal penalties for con-structing illegal tunnels underthe U.S. border, and doublespenalties, up to 20 years impris-onment, for smuggling illegalimmigrants, drugs, weapons ofmass destruction, or other ille-gal items if done through an il-legal tunnel. Edwards voted toestablish the same criminalpenalties for smuggling people

under HR 4437 last December,but this bill extends those pen-alties to the smuggling of drugs,weapons of mass destruction orother illegal items.

Edwards concluded, Istrongly believe that Congressshould pass these measuresinto law this year and not post-pone final action until next year.Securing our borders againstunlimited illegal immigrationand potential terrorists must bea top national priority, and weshould work on a bipartisan ba-sis toward that end.

Edwards is a member of theHouse Homeland Security Ap-propriations Subcommittee,where he has been active infunding an increase of 1,500 Bor-der Patrol agents and new bor-der technology. In 2005, he ledthe fight to add $16 million forwork at L-3 Communications inWaco to prevent the groundingof the Customs and Border Pa-trol surveillance fleet of 16 P-3aircraft.

LONDON Britains top scientific academytold the biggest oil company in the world to quitfunding organizations that fight the majorityof scientists whose evidence supports the ideathat humans effect climate change.

The Royal Society scientists also chastisedExxonMobil in a letter to its UK branch for itsinaccurate and misleading statements onglobal warming, including its own corporatecitizenship reports.

These statements are not consistent withthe scientific literature. It is very difficult toreconcile the misrepresentations of climatechange science in these documents withExxonMobils claim to be an industry leader,states the letter.

ExxonMobil confirmed that it received theSocietys letter on climate change, but refutedclaims its reports were inaccurate.

The academy has reported that the Irving,Texas-based company last year sent almost $3million to about 40 groups to askew the factsover climate science.

However, the academy has never challengeda company on its scientific claims head-on be-fore.

In related news, UK billionaire Sir RichardBranson pledged $3 billion to fund renewableenergy projects that global warming.

The money, Branson said, would be funneledfrom his five airline and train companies overthe next 10 years. He said a conversation withformer U.S. Vice President Al Gore and the $1billion in fuel costs his companies have paidover the last three years drove him to this newfinancial commitment.

Bransons announcement occurred duringan annual conference of business and politi-cal leaders thrown by former President BillClinton, called the Clinton Global Initiative.

Branson isnt the only business owner con-cerned about global warming. The latestVistage Confidence Index found that abouttwo-thirds of American CEOs who run smalland medium sized businesses fear climatechange, too.

The question is whether that concern willtranslate to the willingness to support legisla-tion and regulatory requirements that impacttheir businesses, said Dan Barnett, chief oper-ating officer of Vistage International, the worldslargest CEO membership organization.

To The Editor:Does this make any sense

to you????I have to have insurance on

my car the government says,but I dont have to have anyinsurance on my child.(carworth more than kid?)

If I carry a switchbladeknife I go to jail buty car-rying a gun is just fine.

At 18 I can enlist in thearmy and go overseas and getshot at. But at 18 I cant get ashot of gin.

The whole countr y wi l lpanic if a cute kitty falls downa well, but we dont seem tocare when homeless live un-der our highways,

We will take vitamins anddo power walks, and swim tostay healthy and in shape.Then we will get in our SUV,go on a cell-phone and yackwhile cutting thru traffic at 80miles per hour.

We will get on the internetand talk to some person inAustralia for 2 hours, thenignore our neighbor whenthey wave at us.

We will yawn and flip thechannel when they are talk-ing about Enron cheating thegovernment out of millions,but get hot under the collarwhen someone gets $75 too

LLLLLETETETETETTERS TO THE EDITORTERS TO THE EDITORTERS TO THE EDITORTERS TO THE EDITORTERS TO THE EDITORmuch on welfare.

I f that other presidentfrom the political party wedont like made a mistake wewould shout shame on himfrom the highest rafters anddemand action be tken. Buti f our guy messed up b igtime, it is just a mistake andno actions have to be taken.After all, no one is perfect.

We will not blink an eyewhen some politician says hewants to spend a b i l l ionbucks per plane so he canbring a few hundred jobs tohis congressional district.But we go tsk tsk tsk whenwe read that our young mili-tary recruits are paid so lowthey qualify for food stamps.

We go ye-hahhaa when ourhigh school footbal l teamgets a new stadium andlocker rooms. But boy do wegripe when we get the tax billfrom the School District.

We feel sorry for the poor,as long as they do not moveclose to us.

We watch TV and see an ar-t ic le about a Union andspend 5 minutes raving toour spouse about Unions be-ing l iberal and r uiningAmerica, then we go down toWalmart and buy a ChineseTV made in a Communist

Country.We want to cut government

spending down to nothing,but by golly our Social Secu-rity check had better be thereby the 3rd..

We will go out to Las Vegasand loose $500 on the craptable without raising an eye-brow, then walk 3 blocks far-ther to save a dollar on thebuffet.

We wil l buy the kids of fbrand soda, and immatationorange juice, but spend $4.00at an ice house to get ourbrand of cigarettes, when youcan get a package ofSMOKES for $1.49.

A lot of men will take careof their car perfectly, but putoff going to the doctor whenthey have chest pains.

Some folks will tip a cock-tail waitress $10, but closethe window when a streetperson tries to bum 50cents.

And where is the brains ofa parent who dresses nice togo to a store in cold weatherwearing a jacket and slacks,but is carrying a baby with nojacket and no shoes . Andthen they wonder why thelittle one comes down withanother cold

And....am I the only personwho ever wondered aboutthem putt ing aspir in in aplastic wrapped child-proofbottle that old people cannotopen, but then they put bul-lets in a paper box?

Kennsabe

Dear Editor:Selling America Piece by

Piece

As our Federal Govern-ment moves us c loser tobankr uptcy, Americanswould be shocked to learnthat foreign organizationsare buying our infrastruc-ture at an alarming rate.

Recently a Spanish-Aus-tralian group paid $3.8 billionfor the rights to lease an In-diana toll road. This vitallyimportant asset built by U.S.taxpayer dollars will now bestuffing the coffers of foreigninterests. Indiana residentswill be facing higher taxes toreplace this lost revenue.Most likely, this will come inthe form of floating publicbonds.

Other states have partici-pated in sel l ing off infra-structure, for example, anAustralian companys leaseof a Virginia highway, and aSpanish-American partner-ship leasing a Texas toll roadfrom Aust in to Seguin .Americans were infuriatedto learn of the Dubai portsdeal , however, only s ix-months later congress al-lowed the Arab nat ion ofOman to operate U.S. ports.To learn more about this sell-out o f America v is i twww.thenewamerican.comand read the art ic leAmerica For Sale for moreinformation on this danger-ous practice.

We must immediately con-tact our representatives anddemand they oppose thissel l ing of in frastr ucturepiece by piece.

Lawrence L. Swanberg,Victorville, CA


Actual Costs, True Costs, Net Costs Of WarIn the fall the war was always there but we did not go to it any more.

Ernest Hemingway, In Another Country

BY BONHOMME RICHARDSPECIAL TO THE ICONOCLAST

Congressman Chet Edwardsswirled the ice cubes in his tea,glanced at the ceiling, andframed his next thought.

He behaved as if he could stillhardly believe it, that which hadhappened in his latest re-elec-tion bid.

He spoke with incredulity ofhis latest opponent,neoconservative State Legisla-tor Arlene Wohlgemuth.

She just isnt smart enoughto be a Congresswoman...Hereshe went to the state AmericanLegion convention and toldthose people that if elected toserve in the House of Represen-tatives, she would go after thisbloated tax and spend VeteransAdministration system.

He rattled the ice cubes againand took a quick gulp of the tea,glancing at the ceiling and its airconditioning ducts that werechoogling frosty air over hissweat-soaked dress shirt. Helooked at the people in thissmall Central Texas town thathad contributed time and effortto his re-election bid two yearsago, putting out signs, answer-ing phones, stuffing envelopes.

They had gathered in a bar-becue restaurant on Highway 6to visit with the newly re-elected Congressman. Edwardsshrugged again, looking as if hejust couldnt believe thatWohlgemuth would actually ap-proach the oldest and most pow-erful lobbying organization forveterans benefits in such a way.

Originally known as theGrand Army of the Republic, theAmerican Legion members inCongress that had beenwounded and maimed in theCivil War would stand in the wellof the House Chamber andwave the bloody shirt whilemaking their pleas for veteranspensions and health care. Theywould literally stand there withthe bloody tunic or trousersthey were wearing atGettysburg or Shiloh, Antietam,or Manassas when they lost thatarm or leg, long before the vot-ers in their district sent them toD.C. to look after their interests,vote their consciences, serve onkey committees, ride herd onthe Federal budget.

Thus accoutered, they wouldwave, or simply hold aloft thebloody garment as they spoke ofthe need to augment, bolster,increase, authorize, or approvegovernment spending to carefor Americas veterans that hadsuffered wounds and survived.

Hence, journalists and oppo-sition members seeking to

bowdlerize, parody, or mimictheir remarks often called theirtactics waving the bloodyshirt.

Certainly, the reality of theFederal budget shows whichside of the dispute won the con-test. The VA enjoys the largestslice of the pie after the Depart-ment of Defense each year.

Freedom isnt free,Edwards concluded, giving hisshoulders a quick shake underthe restaurants busy air condi-tioning system, so taxed underthe late fall conditions of nearone hundred degree days thatlingered and lingered and lin-gered, a system that madepeople shiver when they drankthat ice cold iced tea after com-ing in parched and overheatedfrom the world outside.

He could have been a mer-chant in a Broadway delicates-sen or a grower in a big valleyCalifornia coffee shop, a lumber-jack in an Oregon tavern or coalminer in a Pennsylvania restau-rant.

Heres a man that under-stands, and lives by, the num-bers.

As a member of the key com-mittee that writes the checks forVA budgets, a subcommittee ofthe House Appropriations Com-mittee, he gave a quick and dirtyexplanation of the true costs ofwar. Its the kind of question thatalways comes up when thosefaced with the reality of makingbudgetary matters come trueare asked how some compli-cated goal shall be accom-plished.

How indeed? The moneydoesnt just fall out of the sky.

Its the old, old story of howmuch did it truly cost to put thatglass of lemonade on the plankout front of the suburban Jonesresidence on that happy sum-

mer day when Billy and Susiehad the lemonade stand.

Well, you know, they usedMoms sugar and lemons, Dadpaid the water bill, the rent andproperty taxes, and, truth betold, he even mowed the lawnwith a mower he bought atSears and had furnished withgasoline. Then he turnedaround and edged the curb witha weed whacker he got at AceHardware, pruned the shadetrees and watered the grass.

This is not to mention the in-tangible costs such as Dads ex-pertise with tuning the mowersengine, changing and gappingits spark plug, cleaning its airfilter, and sharpening its blade,or Moms ability to keep a cleankitchen with no roaches in spiteof the use of granulated refinedsugar with which to make lem-onade!

After all, while Billy and Susiewere playing lemonade stand,Mom and Dad were not gettingany younger and they needhealth care as much as Billy andSusie.

They were playing with realmoney.

True cost for a 10-cent glassof lemonade: Twenty-five cents.

Approximately.So, his opponent had walked

right into the haymaker, thatperennial conundrum, thatgreat equalizer that seeks itsown level and puts reformersand crusaders both great andsmall in their places withaplomb.

It was one of many harbin-gers of the beginning of the endfor that energetic crowd ofneocon world beaters. Therethey went, shaking up a littledust in a blaze of glory, that newmajority of the Texas Republi-can Congressional delegation.They left the Lone Star State

with a fire in their bellies andcame back home, many of them,people like House MajorityLeader Tom DeLay, Sugarlandexterminator extraordinaire - awell known and self-admitted St.Andrewss Old Course golf en-thusiast, with mud in their eyes.

Congressman Edwardsspoint was simple and straight-forward on that day two yearsago as he celebrated the goodresults of a tough campaignagainst a tough opponent.

If the major employer in town,the one that provides the bestprospects of a career with re-tirement benefits, health care,and an opportunity for advance-ment on merit with no barrierserected by the vagaries of a cor-porate global market place, is tobe the Armed Forces - and it is -then, The potential recruits willbe watching to see how the sys-tem treats the veterans of theArmed Forces.

Another quick rattle of the icecubes and subsequent crunchby healthy molars in a thirstymouth. Hed been riding andguiding, walking and talking allday long in his district up anddown the Brazos River valley.He still had stops scheduled inMeridian, Cleburne, and Burle-son. He had started with anearly breakfast at Bryan nearhis old alma mater in Aggieland.

If the veterans are treatedwith dignity and respect, equita-bly and fairly, if their needs aremet without a lot of problemsand friction, then the potentialrecruits for military service willbe motivated to take advantageof employment with that largestof corporations, the U.S. Depart-ment of Defense.

If not, Edwards concluded,shrugging and rattling the icecubes again, glancing aroundthe assembled crowd drawn uparound the tables amid the nap-kin holders and ketchup bottlesand barbecue sauce dispensers,

Then you wont be getting thecream of the crop, to say theleast.

And what of the back endcosts of war?

One had best believe, if war isthe major employer in town, thatthey are calculable and predict-able, part of a cost of doing busi-ness, the casualties andfatalities to be regarded as in-dustrial accidents.

According to the VAs own fig-ures published on the internet,of 26 million veterans in the U.S.,five million rely on VA MedicalCenters for health care, up from2.9 million in 1995.

That increase represents awhopping 58 percent growthrate - one that is explosive, tosay the least.

In 2005, the VA forecasted a$2.6 billion shortfall for meetingthe growing healthcare needs ofU.S. Veterans. The VAs patient-to-doctor ratio has grown from335 to 1, to 531 to 1, between 2000and September 2004.

That ratio represents an evenmore explosive 63 percentgrowth rate of patients to doc-tors.

On any given night, there arean estimated 200,000 to 250,000homeless veterans living on thestreets, in their cars, publicparks, river banks, creek bot-toms, bayous, and national for-ests.

More than 500,000 will expe-rience homelessness over thecourse of a year. Seventy per-cent of these are chronic alco-hol and substance abusers, 45percent suffer from mental ill-ness, and 56 percent are AfricanAmerican or Hispanic, accord-ing to the VA.

Reports of veterans living intent cities in the public squaresof Philadelphia, New York, andWashington that have appearedin THE NEW YORK TIMES andWASHINGTON POST represent

Continued On Next Page


Actual Costs, True Costs, Net Costs Of WarFrom Previous Page

nothing particularly new.After all, the graves of Conti-

nental Soldiers of the AmericanRevolution form geometric pat-terns in the squares of Philadel-phia. They were buried a fewfeet from where they died oftheir wounds, gangrene, orpneumonia. Similar graveyardsand similar camps existthrough the eastern U.S. Takea look. You will find them every-where from Bunker Hill to Chat-tanooga, Vicksburg and NewOrleans.

To be considered homeless bythe VA, an individual must nothave a roof over his head. Thismeans that residence in ahomeless shelter, SalvationArmy or rescue mission, sub-standard housing such as acheap hotel or motel, a campershell, a barn, or a shed in theback of someones propertydoes not qualify ashomelessness.

VA qualifies its analysis bystating, Many other veteransare considered near homelessor at risk because of their pov-erty, lack of support from fam-ily and friends, and dismal livingconditions in cheap hotels or inovercrowded or substandardhousing.

Now, why would a veteranchoose to live in a cheap hotelor motel?

They dont.Society has made that choice

for them. As a chronic alcoholor substance abuser, many areconvicted of felony DWI or drugpossession and sent to punitivetreatment centers or statejails. Most big city landlord as-sociations do backgroundchecks on prospective tenantsand reject those applicants withfelony records involving sub-stance abuse. Most major profitcenters, the ones likely to bepaying enough of a living wageto attract a veteran to the workforce, are located in major met-ropolitan regions, ergo...

According to the U.S. Bureauof Justice Statistics 225,000 Vet-erans were incarcerated as of1998, according to a websitemaintained by the National Vet-erans Foundation.

Who killed Cock Robin.How has the Bush adminis-

tration and the Republican ma-jority Congress responded tothese seemingly emergent con-ditions?

According to RosemaryMetrano, one of many counse-lors at the Benefits Section ofthe VAs ubiquitous toll-freenumber - 1-800-827-1000 - thepurse strings were tightenedconsiderably in 2003, the year ofthe Bushite Invasion, the yearthe Iraq War began in earnest

with the no-bid private sectorassistance of Kellogg, Brown &Root, et. al.

Congress restricted incometo $32,285 for a married veteranand $26,902 for a single veteranhoping to receive medical carebenefits if they are are not adju-dicated service connected ata percentage level of zero to l00percent with an injury or expo-sure to chemical agents.

A recent study of inpatientsat VA facilities indicates thatnearly all have annual incomesof $15,000 or less, according tothe National Veterans Founda-tion website.

Todays veterans of the IraqWar are limited to two years ofmedical services, not a lifetimeguarantee of a medical safetynet, the kind Congress providedby public law to World War II,Korean, and Vietnam-era vets;after two years, veterans mustre-apply for benefits.

The best strategy, then, is tomake a claim for service con-nection.

That may be done at any time,but Its better to do it as soonas he feels there may be some-thing wrong, Ms. Metrano toldTHE ICONOCLAST.

One clue she offered is to getcopies of ones service medicalrecords and medical reviewboard, if any, on the day of sepa-ration. These are often goldmines of information for thoseinitiated in the significance ofcertain types of notations,things the veteran himself maynot have understood at the timethey were made.

Not everyone is in agreementwith the figures provided by theVA, however.

Kirt P. Love, director ofDesert Storm Battle Registry,an outfit founded in 1997 to co-ordinate Gulf War records,medical data, veteran advocacy,and deployment health, claimedin an interview at Camp Caseythat homeless veterans nownumber in the neighborhood ofabout 300,000 each night.

A self-described gadfly ofCongressional committees thathas given intereviews to everypublication from Time to THEWALL STREET JOURNAL, Love nowgives a Crawford address aftersix long years of living in Wash-ington influencing thegovernments policies regard-ing the returning veterans of themideast wars.

I spent two years living in myVolkswagen beetle, he said atone point. After six long years,Ive come home. Im going tocontinue to work, but Im goingto work from behind thescenes.

At Camp Casey?Thats what the man said.

His goal: To acquire about 250acres of land on which to houseveterans for their readjustmentto society. Some would adaptreadily, some would with a littlehelp, and others would need tobe allowed to live in the backof the property for awhile, ormaybe the rest of their lives.

In any case, this proposed tri-age would be allowed to workaccording to the rules of theranch, or camp, or self govern-ing veteranss community, how-ever it may evolve.

One problem with the VA isthat They insist on a turnkey,finalized plan. Tentative plansor proposals are out of the ques-tion as far as the VA is con-cerned, Love said.

Love is a native of the Cop-peras Cove area, a veteran ofthe Desert Storm war, and anessentially no nonsense, hu-morless young man that definesVA and governmental policies interms of the games people play.

If they can make you angry,they can make you leave, eitherwith security guards or by de-mand. Either way, you dont gettheir services.

He explained that the VA isone hundred percent open toextending its health services toveterans that will admit to men-tal problems or substanceabuse addictions.

In the absence of anger, VAtypes perceive no threat of vio-lence, and hence become muchmore open to providing services.

But at what cost?In other words, those that will

bear the stigma of these condi-tions - habitual drunkenness ordrug addiction or both - are ableto obtain assistance with littleformal resistance. Neverthe-less, the waiting time for an ap-pointment for medical care atmost VA Medical Centers isabout six months due to the doc-tor-to-patient ratio traffic jam.

Is this dynamic relevant? Ac-cording to a New England Jour-nal of Medicine survey, 60percent of those returning withsymptoms of PTSD are unlikelyto seek treatment due to fearsof stigmatization or loss of ca-reer advancement opportuni-ties.

In any case, mental healthspending adjusted for inflationhas increased by 25 percentsince 1999.

The end result of substanceabuse treatment in a VA Medi-cal Center, said Love, is ratherunderwhelming in some cases.After an extended stay in a do-miciliary, the impaired veteranis sent out on the streets againto make his way.

He claims its more of thesame, by and large.

Clean? Sober?

Love is skeptical as to howlong a vet can hold out under theconditions of homelessness andlow pay.

Asked, then, if mental andsubstance abuse impairment iscaused by homelessness, or ifhomelessness is caused bymental and substance abuseimpairment, he looked puzzled,then responded with a sigh.

I guess that after awhile aman gives up hope and his re-sistance to...Oh, I dont know. Itsa tough question to answer.

How about Hemingwaysdouble dicho, Man can be de-feated, but not destroyed; mancan be destroyed, but not de-feated.

That ones a little bit easierto answer.

A present dispute, he says, isthe VAs insistence that it willpay no more than seven dollarsa night to shelters that acceptveterans in their domiciliaries.

Yet the streets and highways,the bridges and river banks arenot safe places for the veteranto stay.

Love insists that illegal aliensthat are flooding the nationalong the I-35 and U.S. 281 ac-cess corridors are often verycriminal in their nature. He andhis colleagues see a very realthreat in the competition be-tween illegal aliens and home-less veterans for availableresources.

Theyre drug dealers anddrug smugglers. They will nothesitate to kill the homeless vet-eran, just in competition for aplace to stay.

Another major dispute Loveharbors for local VA policy isthat the Waco VA Medical Cen-ter insists that PTSD patientsmust accept care for substanceabuse, when they often feel nopersonal need for any suchthing. Love claims those thatwill not admit to a drinking ordrug problem receive little pa-tience or cooperation from thecenters administrators andmedical staff.

After all, staff members runthe place and they see it thatway. They are backed by VA poli-cies. They say they cant domuch for those that wont get offthe booze and the dope. Lovesays he doesnt see where that

is always the problem, that ab-stinence is offered as a pana-cea, a golden bullet, somethingthat cant hurt, but often doeslittle good in solving the rootproblems he sees among fellowveterans.

His plans for the next day in-clude attendance at a seminarand panel investigation at Ft.Hood into the state of the PostTraumatic Stress Disorderproblem among returning IraqWar veterans.

Its somewhat of a struggle tochange public perception to anacceptance that PTSD is a com-bat injury, not a mental defect,though it is an injury of a psy-chological nature.

Men that are normal in allother ways still suffer the ef-fects of survivor guilt, exagger-ated startle effect, suspicionand hostility toward strangers,a reluctance to form personalrelationships with the newguy, difficulty maintaining amarriage or intimate relation-ship, and a seeming inability tohold down jobs when there arepersonality clashes with thosein authority.

Does he know of any home-less vets that would be availableto be profiled by THE ICONO-CLAST?

He glanced around CampCasey, its tents, its neat rows ofcrosses and freshly rolled creekgravel drives.

If I see any, Ill send themyour way.


Record Number Of Hispanic, African AmericanStudents Enrolled At The University Of Texas

Military Coalition PresentsAward Of Merit To Rep. Edwards

Congressman Chet Edwards (second from right) receives award.

WASHINGTON, D.C. TheMilitary Coalition (TMC), an in-fluential Washington, D.C.-based consortium of 36 militaryand veterans groups, presentedits highest award on Sept. 14, toU.S Representative ChetEdwards who has championedthe causes of health care andsurvivor benefits for militaryfamilies. The awards ceremonywas held at the Veterans of For-eign Wars Memorial Building onCapitol Hill.

Representatives ChetEdwards (D-TX) and WalterJones (R-NC) received TMCs2006 Award of Merit for sponsor-ing bipartisan legislation to pro-tect military beneficiariesagainst large, unwarranted feeincreases for military healthcoverage. Joe Barnes, also aTMC Co-Chairman and Na-tional Executive Secretary ofthe Fleet Reserve Association,praised Edwards and Jones fortheir role in convincing Con-gress to find other ways to re-duce Defense health costs otherthan dramatic increases in ben-eficiary fees.

Theyve set a great examplein working closely together tohighlight this as a bipartisan is-sue thats important for thecountry, said Barnes. With re-cruiting, retention and readi-ness already at risk in this timeof war, their efforts have helpedCongress maintain perspective

on the reality that military fami-lies already pay large, up-frontpremiums in service and sacri-fice for their health coverage -premiums far larger than anycivilian will ever pay. Congressis now rightly examining optionsto contain military health costswithout shifting so much ofthem to beneficiaries.

Edwards said, It is a greathonor to be recognized by theMilitary Coalition who fights ev-eryday for our military and vet-erans. I believe our nation has amoral obligation to keep ourpromises to those who havekept their promise to defend ournation. We cannot attract thebest and brightest to fight ourwar on terrorism in the yearsahead if they see us breakingfaith with those who served inyears past. To win the war onterrorism, we must keep faithwith our warriors.

TMC also presented its an-nual Freedom Award to Mr.John Conger, RepresentativeEdwards legislative director, forhis work in promoting supportfor military benefits issues be-hind the scenes.

TMC represents the interestsof more than six million mem-bers around the world, includingactive duty, National Guard, Re-serve, and retired members andveterans of the seven uniformedservices, plus their families andsurvivors.

AUSTIN A record highnumber of Hispanic and AfricanAmerican students are enrolledand attending classes at TheUniversity of Texas at Austin forthe 2006 fall semester, accord-ing to a preliminary report bythe universitys Office of Insti-tutional Research.

Total enrollment of all stu-dents of all ethnic groups thisfall is 49,738, slightly higherthan the 49,696 recorded for the2005 fall semester. This total,based on preliminary figures,

includes 37,069 undergraduate,11,361 graduate, and 1,427 lawstudents, said Maryann Rud-dock, associate vice presidentand director of institutional re-search.

Included in the 2006 total fallenrollment are the highest num-bers ever recorded for Hispanicand African American studentpopulations on campus - 7,453Hispanics (15 percent of the stu-dent population) and 1,939 Afri-can Americans (3.9 percent ofthe student population). The

previous record high enroll-ments for these two ethnicgroups were 7,289 Hispanics in2002 and 1,911 African Ameri-cans in 1996.

The 15 percent Hispanic fig-ure for the 2006 fall semester re-flects a 6.3 percent increase overfall 2005, when 7,013 Hispanicsaccounted for 14.1 percent of thestudent population.

The preliminary fall 2006 fig-ures show a 5.2 percent increasein African American studentsover fall 2005, when 1,843 AfricanAmericans accounted for 3.7percent of the student popula-tion.

White students remain a ma-jority on campus, accounting for56.6 percent of the student popu-lation. The 28,132 white studentenrollment total for fall 2006 re-flects a 1.4 percent decreasefrom fall 2005, when 28,537 wereenrolled. The 7,181 Asian Ameri-can students enrolled this fallsemester represent 14.4 percentof the student population, a 0.8percent increase over fall 2005.

Texas Landowners FileOpen Records Request

AUSTIN Over 175 Texaslandowners Open RecordsRequests were hand deliv-ered to the Texas Departmentof Transportation today de-manding the release of thesecret contract to constructthe Trans Texas Corridorsigned betweenTxDoT and the foreign ownedConcesiones deInfraestructures deTransporte, S.A. and ZachryConstruction Corporation.

If they are going to paveover my land, I have everyright to know whats in thatsecret deal, said Carol Fox,a landowner in ruralWilliamson County.

On Tuesday of this week,over 125 landowners met inJonah, Texas, to discuss astrategy to protect their landand their homes from beingdestroyed by the new superhighway.

TxDoT and the Spanishcompany signed the agree-ment over a year ago. The At-torney General has ruled it isnot protected information andmust be released to the pub-lic, but both the State andCintra-Zachry sued to keep itsecret.

We believe governmentshould be transparent andanything they agree to do thataffects our land should bemade public, said Dan Byfield,one of the organizers of the

event in Jonah. If they aregoing to condemn my land, Ihave a right to know, Byfieldsaid.

For over a year, the AG andCintra-Zachry have been incourt battling over whetherthe contract is public informa-tion. On Oct. 10, there will be ahearing to decide that very is-sue. The landowners that havefiled the open records requestwant to place themselves inthe position to intervene inthat lawsuit so their interestsare represented.

Construction for the new su-per highway, set to begin nextyear, will take up to 146 acresper mile and with 4,000 milesbeing built, that translates into584,000 acres needed that willaffect close to one million Tex-ans. Most of those acres will betaken by condemnation plac-ing thousands of Texas citi-zens in the position of havingto go to court to fight the State.

Landowners are under-standably upset. Im willing tofight the state on this becauseits possibly my private prop-erty theyre going to take,stated Fox. Ill be there nextmonth, if the judge allows it.

If allowed to intervene,Foxs legal fees will be paid byStewards of the Range and theAmerican Land Foundation,two private, nonprofit groupsthat support private propertyrights nationwide.

Perry Announces $1.8 MillionFor Statewide Child ID Program

WACO Gov. Rick Perry hasannounced the award of $1.8million to the Sheriff s Associa-tion of Texas to provide ChildIdentification Kits that will allowTexas parents to easily recordand store their childs finger-prints, DNA and physical char-acteristics. This informationcan save precious time in assist-ing law enforcement authoritiesin the event that thechild goes missing.

Through a collaborative effortwith the National Child Identifi-

cation Program, the AmericanFootball Coaches Associationand the Texas Association ofSchool Administrators, Child IDkits will be disseminated acrossthe state to K-6th grade stu-dents with a letter to their par-ents explaining the significanceof the kit. Each kit will containan inkless fingerprint card, twoswabs to obtain a childs DNAfrom their saliva, and a lami-nated wallet card to keep an up-dated photograph and physicaldescription of the child.

Nearly 800,000 children gomissing every year acrossAmerica, most of whom areteenage runaways.

Since it was founded in 1997,the National Child ID Programhas distributed more than 15million ID kits throughout theUnited States, making it thelargest program of its kind andthe only Child ID program togain the backing of the FBI.

The grant, along with private

donations, will support the dis-tribution of 2 million kits to par-ents and guardians of schoolaged youth from Kindergartenthrough the 6th grade. Thesefunds are awarded under theState Criminal Justice PlanningFund and are distributed by theGovernors Criminal Justice Di-vision. The funds support pro-grams that enhance thecriminal and juvenile justicesystems.


Declare Peace For Crying Out Loud!

Presenting A New Version Of Rocky HorrorAs Uncle Hugh used to say, Lawmen interrogate you. Out-

laws just beat hell out of you.

The disconcerting thingabout being a writer is, theresa chance youll never die.

At least your work wont.And some of it needs to die.In fact theres a large body

that ought to be shot.Thats usually the stuff that

lives forever, and your childrenread it when you grow old, thensay in disillusioned, whisperedtones among themselves, onceyouve gone to bed, that you area moron.

I realized that this week whilethe Congress of my native landdebated just how much torturewas enough.

Essentially our benevolentleadership decided that we canonly torture a little; you cant killthe suspect, but you can makehim wish he were dead.

But, if you accidentally domake him dead, its okay.

Just dont do it again.If you can help it.And for this John McCain is a

hero?It is, indeed, strange to be a

lonely voice crying in the intern-ment camp, trying to point outthat if the enemy thinks he willbe well treated, well fed and wellrested, that he will be restoredto the safety and comfort heknew before he faced the peril-ous distress of war, he might,just might BE MORE WILLINGTO SURRENDER, YOU SLACK-JAWED, HAM-HANDED,BEETLE-BROWED, GAP-TOOTHED, RIB-GNAWING,IMBICILIC THUGS!

But if hes going to be sub-jected to greater horrors thanthe face of war, why not, Kipling-like, simply go to his God like asoldier?

Who elects these mad clowns,anyway?

The monthly meeting of Idi-ots Anonymous?

High there. My name isGeorge, and Im an idot.

Hi, George . . . uh . . . thatsidiot, George. But thats okay.Nobody here can spell, either,Gorge.

Second, there was neighborBushs embarrassing babblebefore the U.N.

(No, Hugo. Hes not the devil.The devil is a lot smarter thanthat.)

We are not at war with Islam?But Islam is definitely at war

with you, George.Considering how hes man-

aged Iraq, he doesnt seem tothink hes really at war withanybody.

Look, you dont get to pickwho goes to war with you.

Just ask Pope Hindenburg I.Its not how you meant it; its

how they took it.And it just may be that no one

believes that you harbor no Wit-ticisms of Mass Destruction.

I swear, that boy must havebeen wormy when he was achild.

All this reminded me of myfirst post-World Trade Centerattack column, and what a naveprophetic dunce I was when Isaid.

Kill them all.I know you are too decent to

say it, even though you mightfeel it.

But I can say it for you.You pay me to say the things

you would not ordinarily think. Iam not a nice guy.

So . . .If they would make of us

Rome, let us be Romans.Crucify them.From Kabul in the east to Tri-

poli in the west, let the fires oftheir burning cities and townsilluminate our banquets. Leavenot one stone standing uponanother; sow the earth with salt.Boil their armies in flaming oiland harry their widows and or-phans into the desert wilder-ness so nothing remains buttheir bloody footprints etchedacross the endless sands totheir bleached white bones.

Show neither mercy to theguilty nor compassion for theinnocent.

Tear the pages from their li-braries, bring down their placesof worship and obliterate theirseats of learning.

Then rip out the tongues andhack off the thumbs of those whospeak and write their lan-guages, so that a generationhence, passing strangers willstand amazed at the desolatewastes that were once theirhomelands and wonder to them-selves, What men were these?

But we wont.Thank God.We know better, I hope, than

to make manifest the evil thatthose hateful broadcast imagesdredged from our souls darkestplaces, and we will push themback into our nightmares.

The gentle reason that holdssuch thoughts at bay will de-mand again that we be betterthan our enemies, and ourhearts will emerge from the bit-ter crust where we would like toencase them.

We know better.

We will pity the oppressedcountrymen of our enemies,and when the war is over, we willgive them succor.

We will do as decency de-mands.

If they had the capabilities todo as I have suggested, theywould. We have those resourcesin abundance, but we wont. Atleast I hope we wont.

Not for their sake: for ours.Whether they know better, we

do, and that makes all the dif-ference.

It is my fervent prayer thatwe will not let them win. Thatfor the most part, we will go on,saddened, but essentially un-changed; our society will re-main open, mobile and free. Ourstyle, our attitudes, our way oflife will not be diminished.

And they will continue to envyus.

We will treat those respon-sible as they are: criminals, psy-chopaths no different than theneighborhood gun thug whoshoots down an unarmed con-venience store clerk for a hand-ful of change. We will find them,arrest them, try them and treatthem no less decently that wetreat any other criminals.

We will even defend them.Because we are not the

people they believed they wereattacking.

We, those they so contemptu-ously hurled from the brokenskies, are their sole appeal froman unimaginable agony. We willcontain ourselves and continueoffering a reasoned defense,even from ourselves.

Unless they have pushed usbeyond the brink of the decencywe live by.

Then we will bombHiroshima; we will eviscerateNagasaki; we will rain hell itselfon Hamburg.

For the sake of their children,they should pray we do not for-get who we are.

Yeah, pretty stupid, hunh?Those who say everything

changed after that day are right.September 12, 2001, dawned

on the birth of a cringing, vi-cious cowardice, of a moral andspiritual decline from which wemay never recover.

But on that day, when I wrotethe above column, I was stillhopeful.

It never occurred to me thatfive years hence we would bedebating whether the GenevaConvention was a good idea.

That mere suspicion shouldconsign the noble aims ofLocke, Jefferson, Franklin,Madison to the garbage heap ofa pitiful history.

That we would usher in a newInquisition in the name of the

Prince of Peace.That we learned nothing from

Bataan or Burma.That a former guest of the

Hanoi Hilton would compro-mise on the ethics of torture.

That the collective voice ofthe Democratic Party would bethankful that, thanks to this ca-pitulation of Republican reason,they do not have to take a standon the morality of torment forfear of losing an election.

I may seem strange to quote

the Rocky Horror PictureShow at this point, but the fi-nal verses of that farcical com-edy have been going throughmy head all week.

And super heroes?Come to feast?To taste the flesh?Not yet deceased?And all I know?Is still the beast isFeeding

Richard OBrien

The majority of Americanswant their troops out of Iraq ina safe, timely fashion.

Despite its unwillingness tobring them back home, the U.S.government has the power todo so.

The main obstacle for troopwithdrawal has been the Bushadministration and its Repub-lican allies in Congress.

The administrations argu-ment for keeping troops in Iraqis that civil war would immedi-ately break out there once ourforces leave, and overtime, ter-rorists would use thiscrumbled Middle Eastern na-tion to launch more attacks onus and our allies.

So the choices President Bushgives us are we either stay thecourse or cut and run.

But who does he think weare? Are we not adults?

Why must policy choices al-ways be between two violent,cynical options?

No, the real choice is be-tween the death process andthe peace process.

The death process continuesa war that destroys Iraq quicklyand the United States slowly.

The peace process, on theother hand, rebuilds Iraq andthe United States throughmore responsible, fair, and se-cure means.

The latter choice has beenstrongly championed by theDeclaration of Peace, a nation-wide campaign calling for Con-gress to take a stand for a morehumane policy toward Iraq.

According to its website, theplan Declaration of Peace hasbrought to the table includes:

Establishing an Iraqi-ledinternational peace process tocreate a roadmap to peace andsecurity;

Bringing U.S. troops homeand closing the U.S. bases;

Reconstruction and rec-onciliation in Iraq; and

Creating a peace dividendby diverting funding for war tomeeting human needs at homeand abroad.

The Declaration of Peacesnon-violent campaign kickedoff with candlelight vigilsacross the 350 U.S. communi-ties last Thursday on the Inter-national Day of Peace.

For the last seven days, thecampaign which boasts 400 re-ligious groups as members hasseen its participants hostmeetings, mass bicycle rides,dances, nonviolence teach-ins,fund-raising dinners, congres-sional lobbying, and civil dis-obedience.

Organizers say that so far,the Declaration of Peacedocument has received over12,000 signatures online andthousands more from signersin person. Eight Democraticmembers of Congress but noRepublicans have signed on tothe pledge.

The organizers also say thatif by Thursday, Sept. 28, Con-gress fails to establish a planto end the U.S.-led occupationin Iraq, more nonviolent ac-tions will resume.

And when this peace move-ment succeeds, it will join thegood company of other nonvio-lent power movements such asthose in Serbia, Georgia,Ukraine, Beirut, and Bolivia.

However, real success de-pends on sustaining this peaceparadigm worldwide over thelong haul.

Let us hold steady this lightof hope, and declare peace for crying out loud!

Nathan Diebenow


How Lucky Can One Buffalo Hunter Be?Billy Dixon and his four sur-

viving companions waited forhelp on Sept. 13, 1874, or the re-turn of the huge war party,whichever came first.

For the second time in threemonths, the 23-year-old WestVirginian was up to his ears inIndians. Buffalo, not frontier im-mortality, was Dixons game,but he had an uncanny knack ofwinding up in death-defying di-lemmas.

By the winter of 1874, thenorthern tip of Texas wasswarming with buffalo hunterseager to collect the four-dollarbounty for every shaggy hide.Old Adobe Walls, site of a fiercefight with five tribes a decadeearlier, sprang to life with a gen-eral store, blacksmith shop, andsaloon.

This alarming activity at-tracted the attention of QuanahParker, the Quahadi Comanchewar chief who grasped the stra-tegic significance of the HighPlains. If the white intruderswere not evicted immediately, itwas only a matter of time untilthe prized hunting groundswere lost forever.

Parker rallied the same affili-ated bands that had driven theKit Carson-led column back toNew Mexico in 1864. To boostthe braves morale, the cleverchief supplied them with thebullet-proof war paint recentlyperfected by his medicine man.

At the crack of dawn on June27, 1874, 700 Indians struckAdobe Walls intent on slaugh-tering the hated hunters in theirsleep. But most of the 29 tran-sients had been up for hours fix-ing a roof that collapsed duringthe night. Booming volleys fromtheir 50-caliber Sharps repelledthe attack and held their owncasualties to three men trappedin a wagon.

Rather than risk a second all-out assault, the Indians re-sorted to hit-and-run raids forthe next two days. Superior fire-

power and abun

39 Iconoclast

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