Authorities tell us that the world changed on September 11. As a result, university professors must watch what they say in class or be turned in to the "speech" police. Elected officials must censor themselves or be censured by the media. Citizens now report behavior of suspicious-looking people to the police. Laws now exist that erode our civil liberties. Americans now accept these infringements as necessary to win America's New War.

America, the world's only superpower, is stifled in its ability to defend human rights and democracy abroad because it has failed the fundamental test at home. Our combination of money and military might, and our willingness to use them, did not make us a superpower. We are the most powerful nation on the face of the planet because we have combined raw power with American ideals such as dignity, freedom, justice, and peace. These ideas and ideals are admired around the world and are more important, in my view, to our position of global strength than our ability to shoot a missile down a chimney. We might be feared because of our military, but we are loved because of our ideals.

It was a Nuremburg moment. Fueled by the 911 "terrorist attack," Ohio State University graduates, their families, and friends were mostly in the same frame of mind as Germans after the burning of the Reichstag: they were all geeked up for simple-minded nationalistic jingoism which Resident George W. Bush supplied. The Selected One dotted the i on a big-ol' script Ohio so big that Osama bin Laden could read it.

I ran into Yoshie Furuhashi at Hempfest on the Saturday before the June 14 graduation/indoctrination to the New World Reich rally. As usual, she was in hyperactivism mode. I did manage to catch the following words: "wouldya like to be a alternativecommencementspeaker at the turnyourbackonbush rally, bring your soundsystem?" I agreed to Yoshie's request as I always do. After all, she's being honored at Community Festival this year for her energetic and consistent activism at OSU this past year.

AUSTIN, Texas -- There' some stiff competition in the Stupidest Thing Said Yet department about the swoon in the financial markets. But among the heavy contenders we must surely count those who are now saying they know who's responsible, and it is us.

According to this theory, you, me and Joe Doaks made Ken Lay do it. Came as a surprise to me, too. Naturally, as a liberal, I just love guilt, so I was ready to sign right up for this one, but try as I may, I can't get it to make a lick of sense. Nevertheless, several of our heavy ponderers and The Wall Street Journal's editorial page insist that we did it.

It seems "we," a word they use rather promiscuously in my opinion, were seized by greed and folly in the '90s. "We" were so stupid we thought stock markets only went up, and "we" are whining like children only because "we" don't understand that in the big, tough, he-man world of capitalism, we must take risks.

Who you callin' "we," white man?

Let me count the ways this one is a crock. It's not as though the 1990s are exactly lost in the mists of time here. Children

Your abolition wardrobe is now available via the web, thanks to Bexley’s own national crusader for alternatives to the death penalty, Abe Bonowitz. His catalog of T-shirts, caps, buttons and bumper stickers can be found on the website for his organization, Citizens United for Alternative to the Death Penalty, www.cuadp.org. Prices are very reasonable and may help the organization stay alive. If you are in the Cleveland area, you may have seen the story and photo about Abolition-Wear in the June 9 Cleveland Plain Dealer Sunday Magazine. Their photo caption read, “Order your fashion statement before Ohio’s next execution on August 27.” Please help Abe gather original copies of the CPD Sunday Magazine: Send to: CUADP, PMB 297, 177 US Highway #1, Tequesta, FL 33469.

Just like Resident Bush interchanges the arch-enemies Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein, the former representing pan-Islamic fundamentalism and the latter pan-Arab secularism, the U.S. government’s campaign against terrorism relies on the slogan: “Any Arab will do.” In the government’s unending quest to track down the CIA’s former Al Qaeda assets, they’ve apparently gone to randomly picking up any Arab national who is a political activist. Federal authorities arrested Ahmed Benzouda on May 30 at his Urbana, Illinois apartment. Benzouda is a Moroccan citizen, just graduated from the University of Illinois’ Urbana-Champaign campus, and was in the country on a student visa set to expire in August 2002. While at the campus, Benzouda, a secular anti-authoritarian, anti-Islamic activist, participated in the Israel divestment campaign and Palestinian solidarity events.