1. Mao Zedong by Jonathan Spence (books on tape)
2. Hitler's Second Book: the Unpublished Sequel to Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler
3. Karl Marx by Werner Blumenberg
5. Why the Rest Hates the West by Meic Pearse
6. Weather the Underground: The Explosive Story of America's Most Notorious Revolutionaries (DVD documentary)
7. Panther: a Pictorial History of the Black Panthers
8. Fidel Castro by Clive Foss
9. The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels
10. Terrorism and the Liberal State by Paul Wilkinson
11. Osama: The Making of a Terrorist by Jonathan Randal
I thought I would save some of our tax money by "going public". Now the FBI can monitor a government dissident without wrangling with those "wrong-headed" librarians who still believe in the Bill of Rights. Incidentally, I highly recommend Weather the Underground. It provides compelling evidence that the FBI murdered Black Panther Party leader Fred Hampton.
Sculpting the psyches of their loyal subjects to create its "base" of war-mongers, racists, worshippers of consumerism, religious fanatics, xenophobes, and complicit accomplices in the murders of millions of human beings around the world, the ruling class of the United States has cemented their hold on power and ensured the continued growth of their staggering wealth. However, evidence continues to emerge to indicate that these Ugly Americans are a minority in the United States with a waning potency. Sagging poll numbers for the Bush regime, increased public support for Bush's impeachment (http://www.impeachpac.org/?q=node/6), increased opposition to the illegal occupation in Iraq, the indictments of Delay and Scooter Libby, and Patrick Fitzgerald's ongoing probe do not bode well for the Bush regime or its cheerleaders.
Despite their recent setbacks, the "true believers" in the American Empire's agenda are wreaking havoc on the world. That is why I continue to participate in protests; educate, persuade, and inform through my dissident writing; maintain Thomas Paine's Corner; support and participate in the ACLU and Amnesty; network with other writers and activists; produce a periodic email newsletter which reaches over 2,000 people; continue to educate myself; teach my children to think critically and act morally; recycle; and boycott corrupt corporate entities like Wal-Mart. I have taught myself Spanish (which has been characterized as the language of the poor and oppressed) so that I can communicate with my Hispanic immigrant clients in my job as a loan counselor. I donate regularly to charities like Oxfam. I vote and write to my representatives in government, despite the seeming futility in doing so. I practice my spiritual values like honesty, responsibility, compassion, loving as an act of will, empathy, assertiveness rather than aggression, hard work, frugality, the use of violence only in defense of family or self, and respecting others and myself. If you have read my writings before, then you are already familiar with my efforts for social justice, peace, intellectual freedom, and human rights. At the risk of sounding repetitive, I have enumerated them again to demonstrate that we do not have to accept the status quo in the US, and that we are not powerless.
On 11/1, I participated in the Center for Constitutional Rights' Fast for Justice. In a largely symbolic act, activists fasted for 24 hours to show solidarity with the hunger strikers at Guantanamo Bay. The US government has denied these people basic human rights and justice for over three years. If they did commit acts of aggression against our nation, try them, prove it, and punish them. If their innocence is determined, pay them reparations for their suffering and release them. Holding them indefinitely under abusive conditions seriously bastardizes the grand ideals of our Constitution and places our own citizens in jeopardy of similar treatment by other nations.
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