So much for the fear factor? I didn?t say GW Bush wasn?t popular before of 9/11.
One of the things Bush is famous for, is not clemencying any death row prisoner. All before of 9/11.
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Published on Friday, February 18, 2000 in the Times of London
Bush Refuses To Save Death-Row Grandmother
by Damian Whitworth
A FRAIL, grey-haired great-grandmother will be taken from her cell on Texas's death row next Thursday to a chamber where onlookers will see her strapped to a stretcher and injected with $86 (?53) worth of lethal chemicals.
Three days after her 63rd birthday, Betty Lou Beets looks likely to become the oldest inmate - and only the second woman - to be executed in Texas since the re-institution of the death penalty in 1976.
She will also be the 120th person to be executed on the watch of George W. Bush, the Texas Governor, who has set a record pace in disposing of those incarcerated on death row. In the midst of the campaign for the Republican presidential nomination, Mr Bush finds himself assailed by the anti-death penalty lobby, which says that he is in danger of presiding over a miscarriage of justice. Beets claims she was a battered wife. (...)
Those clamouring for clemency have been joined by Sister Helen Prejean, whose non-fiction book about a man on death row, Dead Man Walking, was turned into a film. They point out that in five other states the sentences of battered women have been commuted. During the six years that Mr Bush has been Governor, his state has far exceeded any other in executing its prisoners. Just one sentence has been commuted, that of a man who was conclusively shown to have been in a different state at the time of the crime of which he had been convicted.
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Under the leadership of George W. Bush, Texas continues to rank dead last in virtually every social service area, yet first in executions. Texas has some of the poorest funded programs to help the mentally ill (who account for a good number of the prison population). Bush's response to this dead last ranking was to insist that the legislature pass a $5 billion tax cut.
Bush has been steadfast in his refusal to recognize the significance of international treaty law, specifically the right of foreign nationals facing the death penalty to receive notification of their right to consular assistance. Texas has the second-largest death row population of foreign citizens in the USA (after California). None of these individuals were informed upon arrest of their right to consular assistance, as guaranteed under the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations. Even a personal intervention by the US Secretary of State (in the Faulder case) was ignored by Bush, undermining the viability of international law, outraging nations allied to the USA and endangering the human rights of detained foreigners everywhere, including American citizens arrested abroad.
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All before of 9/11. Lets take a look at the time after 9/11:
The Bush White House is launching its own war room to try to win the propaganda war against "lies by the Taliban" while America is literally at sleep. The move comes as Bush launches a personal p.r. blitz at home as well, with speeches next week to Americans on homeland defense and the terror war at a time when some pundits claim the war isn't going all that well. The war room is the latest step in the public-relations side of the terror war. The concept of a war room in recent U.S. politics was launched by the Clinton White House - a round-the-clock rapid-response operation aimed at domestic political foes and personal scandals.
The Bush Administration is launching an intense propaganda war and is aiming it both overseas and here at home. However, the major target of such a campaign is the American public. We must be so panicked as to allow our liberties to be taken away.
The aftermath of the September 11 attacks has already paid huge dividends in realizing this goal. On October 27, Bush signed an "Anti-terrorism" bill into existence that severely eroded Americans? personal freedoms. Ironically, this terrible law has been officially dubbed the "Patriot Bill". President Bush and Attorney General Ashcroft asked for dictatorial powers to arrest people whom they consider terrorist, without charges, and for an indefinite period of time. Further, this law allows Federal and State government operatives to employ a wide range of sophisticated snooping techniques that should be alarming thinking Americans everywhere. The Russian KGB would have loved to have the powers of sophisticated eavesdropping capabilities that this law gives our authorities.
This law was passed without any further terrorist attacks. However, scare tactics abounded, keeping the propaganda pressure on the American public. This propaganda pressure of a new terrorist threat is continuing, as is the pressure for new erosions of personal freedom.
Let us now review some of these propaganda stories that are keeping the pressure on the American citizen so that he will allow more of his liberties, rights, and Constitutional protections to be eroded.
Study the nearly daily drumbeat of propaganda.
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NEWS BRIEF: :Anthrax Fear Grips Close To Epidemic Level", by Carol Marbun Miller, Miami Herald, 10/10/01.
"The escalating fear among some South Floridians about possible exposure to the lethal anthrax bacteria may be a more serious public health hazard than the infection itself, officials said Tuesday. In recent days, state public health offices have been flooded with hundreds of calls from fearful Floridians, authorities say. `From where the disease is at this point, probably the panic is more dangerous than the actual disease,' said David Roach, administrator of the Broward County Health Department."
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NEWS BRIEF: "FBI Issues A Terror Alert Codename 'Skyfall': Next Few Days", Drudge Report 10/11/01.
NEWS BRIEF: "FBI Issues New Terrorism Warning", by Karen Guillo, Associated Press Writer, Washington Post, 10/29/01 .
"WASHINGTON ?? The FBI issued a new terrorism warning Monday asking Americans and law enforcement to be on the highest alert for possible attacks this week in the United States and abroad. The alert was based on new information that was deemed credible but was "not specific as to intended targets or as to intended methods," FBI Director Robert Mueller said."
This wording was identical for the first warning on October 11 also. Neither FBI warning resulted in any attacks, but the American people had their consciousness heightened over the issue anyway. This kind of alert has the result of causing many people to change their lifestyles, thus changing society. Many Americans undoubtedly took this threat so seriously they experienced a "threat overload".
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NEWS BRIEF: "Representative Steve Buyer Suggests Limited Nuclear Retaliation", Yahoo News, October 18, 2001.
"U.S. Rep. Steve Buyer says that the United States should use tactical nuclear weapons against Osama bin Laden's terrorist network in Afghanistan if it is linked to recent anthrax incidents in the United States." This kind of suggestion will drive many Americans to drink, for they know that, if we are the first to use Weapons of Mass Destruction , we will open a very serious kind of Pandora's Box. If we cross that traditional "Red Line" first, then many other nations will suddenly feel free to use such weapons -- on us!
But, if the goal is to terrify the American population, then this kind of article makes excellent sense.
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NEWS BRIEFS: "Hoon hesitates to send Marine Force", The Times (U.K.), 10/24/01.
"The Vice-President, Richard Cheney, said that further attacks in the US were likely as the war on terror continued. 'For the first time in our history we will probably suffer more casualties here at home than our forces will overseas', he said."
If Americans were not panicked before, they certainly should be now! Vice-President Cheney actually said that civilian casualties in the war on terrorism might exceed those on the overseas battlefield. Americans simply have never faced this kind of scenario before. Since Capitalism is built on consumer and investor confidence in the future, this kind of statement really throws a dagger into the heart of the economic system. With consumers afraid to go out to grocery shop, afraid to go to shopping malls, and afraid to carry out routine daily tasks, US economy might just slip into the tank.
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NEWS BRIEF: "Bin Laden's nuclear threat", The Times (U.K.), 10/26/01.
"OSAMA BIN LADEN and his al-Qaeda network have acquired nuclear materials for possible use in their terrorism war against the West, intelligence sources have disclosed ... The knowledge that bin Laden has components for a nuclear weapons device in his arsenal is believed to lie behind the regular warnings from President Bush and Tony Blair that he would commit worse atrocities than the suicide assaults on New York and Washington if he were able to."
There were numerous reports that bin Laden may have small nuclear "suitcase" sized atomic bombs. If he does have them, entire cities could be annihilated. All the security in the world for a sports stadium would not suffice if bin Laden has a small nuclear device, for all he would have to do is to locate the bomb within a few miles from the stadium.
Perfect propaganda.
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Its controlled conflict and rumors of conflict. Controlled conflict and fear of conflict. A little postscriptum on the principles of military propaganda:
Since war is particularly unpleasant, the military is full of euphemisms. In the 1940's, America changed the name of the War Department to the Department of Defense. Under the Reagan Administration, the MX-Missile was renamed "The Peacekeeper." During war-time, civilian casualties are referred to as "collateral damage," and the word "liquidation" is used as a synonym for "murder."
In the wake of the first world war, veterans were said to be suffering from "shell shock." After the second world war, people began to use the term "combat fatigue" to characterize the same condition. In the wake of the Vietnam War, people referred to "post-traumatic stress disorder"- a phrase that is completely disconnected from the reality of war altogether.
and it's "effects"
