What has been termed, "positively Orwellian", by PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch, is indeed frightening. It seems that the self-appointed "Decider", George W. Bush, has decided to "end public access to research materials" at EPA Regional libraries without Congressional consent. In an all out effort to impede research and public access, Bush has implemented a loosely covert operation to close down 26 technical libraries under the guise of a budgetary constraint move. Scientists are protesting, but at least 15 of the libraries will be closed by Sept. 30, 2006.
"Public access to EPA libraries and collections will end as soon as possible", according to a report found online at PEER, an acronym for Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility. All total, nearly 80,000 documents, not in digital format, are being boxed up and placed in infinite limbo status by the Bush Administration. The scene from the Raiders of the Lost Ark, where the Ark of the Covenant was wheeled into a massive sea of identical box crates, inside an enormous warehouse, comes vividly to mind.
The suppression of information to the public and efforts to control the flow of information of the sciences has reached critical mass. Shades of the once science fictional book, Fahrenheit 451, are dangerously close to reality and the banning and burning of books looms all to surreal, but are more fact than science fiction now. Who could have ever envisioned that Ray Bradbury's vicious, futuristic, dystopian society would ever come to fruition; but it may indeed have done just that!
See, Bush positively does not want the American people to know about the real effects of global warming, mercury levels, air pollution, and any other topic, which if known about by the populous, would undeniably be dire for "Corporate America". Bush is unconcerned with your health, my health, the health of our children and the future of this planet we all call home. What he is concerned about is the gleaming health of the bottom lines of the corporate trough from which his completely corrupt and dangerous enterprise feeds.
Bush believes he is at the top of the evolutionary food chain (if he even believes in evolution) and can dictate the very nature of our environment and of the entire planet around us -- for his own immoral needs -- and we are being asked to sit idly by; ignorant, servile and likely very sick and ill! You may turn green from toxic poisoning and the ground may become red from scorching heat, but as long as companies such as Exxon/Mobile remain in the black, all is well in Bush's pernicious plans.
Conservation of our ecosystem is out of the question for Bush and his global marauders of all the Earth's resources. The only thing "conservative" about Bush is his own unyielding pursuit to conserve his master's big profit margins and the subsequent suffocation of America's right to know about that which affects our health, our country and our planet. Those big profit margins come at an enormous price tag, one that Bush has heaped most unkindly on the rest of us to pay for, but certainly not on those who put this buffoon in office!
At this rate, it may be irrelevant to think ahead to 2008 as a chance for emancipation and liberation from Bush's dream of a Pax Americana; as by 2008 there may not be anything left to govern or save from the Bush regime!
Honestly, what's next to be deemed a matter of national security or an unfortunate victim of bogus budget slashes to reward the ultra-rich and privileged few -- the alphabet?
For more information about PEER, visit the PEER group at http://www.peer.org and help put and end to Bush's "positively Orwellian" assault on access to public information that just might save your life and the planet!
Frank J. Ranelli is an editorial writer, a research author and critic. He is also a senior editor for OpEdNews. His erudite and chic style of writing has been lauded and extensively published in a variety of news outlets and across the Internet. These include the Naples Daily News, The Online Journal, Information Clearing House, Alternet, The Smirking Chimp, and the former progressive journal of thought, Wicked Philosophy. Frank is currently working on his upcoming book, Rise of the Authoritarians, and has been invited to participate in prominent philosopher Russell Blackford's anthology project, Voices of Disbelief.
