this is what i'm hunting down:
- Articles, editorial, letters about the demolition of the old Everett
building pertaining to environmental impact (esp. the onsite crushing
of the concrete)

- Articles concerning the Sherman Hills Development

- Hard numbers on job loss in South Haven. But not just an overall
number but 100 here, 50 over there, etc...

thanks a ton! you can either respond here or email me at mistresselaura@care2.com

In fact, I'd like to take some of these cats on a field trip. I want to get big yellow buses with no air conditioner and no seatbelts and round up Bill O'Reilly, Pat Buchanan, Trent Lott, Sean Hannity, Dick Cheney, Jeb Bush, Bush Jr. and Bush Sr., John Ashcroft, Giuliani, Ed Gillespie, Katherine Harris, that little bow-tied Tucker Carlson and any other right-wing conservative Republicans I can think of, and take them all on a trip to the ‘hood. Not to do no 30-minute documentary. I mean, I want to drop them off and leave them there, let them become one with the other side of the tracks, get them four mouths to feed and no welfare, have scare tactics run through them like a laxative, criticizing them for needing assistance.

I’d show them working families that make too much to receive welfare but not enough to make ends meet. I’d employ them with jobs with little security, let them know how it feels to be an employee at will, able to be fired at the drop of a hat. I’d take away their opportunities, then try their children as adults, sending their 13-year-old babies to life in prison. I’d sell them dreams of hopelessness while spoon-feeding their young with a daily dose of inferior education. I’d tell them no child shall be left behind, then take more money out of their schools, tell them to show and prove themselves on standardized exams testing their knowledge on things that they haven’t been taught, and then I’d call them inferior.

I’d soak into their interior notions of endless possibilities. I’d paint pictures of assisted productivity if they only agreed to be all they can be, dress them up with fatigues and boots with promises of pots of gold at the end of rainbows, free education to waste terrain on those who finish their bid. Then I’d close the lid on that barrel of fool’s gold by starting a war, sending their children into the midst of a hostile situation, and while they're worried about their babies being murdered and slain in foreign lands, I’d grace them with the pain of being sick and unable to get medicine.

Give them health benefits that barely cover the common cold. John Q. would become their reality as HMOs introduce them to the world of inferior care, filling their lungs with inadequate air, penny pinching at the expense of patients, doctors practicing medicine in an intricate web of rationing and regulations. Patients wander the maze of managed bureaucracy, costs rise and quality quickly deteriorates, but they say that managed care is cheaper. They’ll say that free choice in medicine will defeat the overall productivity, and as co-payments are steadily rising, I'll make their grandparents have to choose between buying their medicine and paying their rent.

Then I'd feed them hypocritical lines of being pro-life as the only Christian way to be. Then very contradictingly, I’d fight for the spread of the death penalty, as if thou shall not kill applies to babies but not to criminals.

Then I’d introduce them to those sworn to protect and serve, creating a curb in their trust in the law. I’d show them the nightsticks and plungers, the pepper spray and stun guns, the mace and magnums that they’d soon become acquainted with, the shakedowns and illegal search and seizures, the planted evidence, being stopped for no reason. Harassment ain’t even the half of it. Forty-one shots to two raised hands, cell phones and wallets that are confused with illegal contrabands. I’d introduce them to pigs who love making their guns click like wine glasses. Everlasting targets surrounded by bullets, making them a walking bull's eye, a living piñata, held at the mercy of police brutality, and then we’ll see if they finally weren’t aware of the truth, if their eyes weren’t finally open like a box of Pandora.

I’d show them how the other side of the tracks carries the weight of the world on our shoulders and how society seems to be holding us down with the force of a boulder. The bird of democracy flew the coop back in Florida. See, for some, and justice comes in packs like wolves in sheep's clothing. T.K.O.'d by the right hooks of life, many are left staggering under the weight of the day, leaning against the ropes of hope. When your dreams have fallen on barren ground, it becomes difficult to keep pushing yourself forward like a train, administering pain like a doctor with a needle, their sequels continue more lethal than injections.

They keep telling us all is equal. I’d tell them that instead of giving tax breaks to the rich, financing corporate mergers and leading us into unnecessary wars and under-table dealings with Enron and Halliburton, maybe they can work on making society more peaceful. Instead, they take more and more money out of inner city schools, give up on the idea of rehabilitation and build more prisons for poor people. With unemployment continuing to rise like a deficit, it's no wonder why so many think that crime pays.

Maybe this trip will make them see the error of their ways. Or maybe next time, we'll just all get out and vote. And as far as their stay in the White House, tell them that numbered are their days.”

Carpenter Alan Perkins walks past a sign put up by a resident living in a tented city in Bay St. Louis, Miss., on Thursday. The storm victim put up the sign after she called four times for FEMA's assistance and was always prompted to leave a message.

Friday 24 June 2005

After a marine or army recruiter visits Mammoth High School, students frequently ask me questions about my military experience in Vietnam. Eventually, these conversations lead to a single question: Should I enlist?

Advice can carry a heavy burden in shaping a seventeen-year-old's future: employment, culinary school, a community college, a UC, a tour in Iraq, an amputated leg, a lifetime full of nightmares, cancer from the hundreds of tons of depleted uranium used in US and British munitions, a flag-draped coffin.

Ryan (not the student's real name): "The recruiter said that my ASVAB (Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery) scores were so high that I could become a helicopter mechanic or even go to officer's candidate school."

"You know, if you enlist, you're going to end up serving a tour or two in Iraq or Afghanistan." There is an awkward moment of silence. "If you're smart enough to have options in the military, why don't you go to college?"

Ryan hesitates: "My folks said they could help me pay for books, but that's about it. They can't afford to ..." There is a pause - then a glimmer of hope: "The recruiter said that if I enlisted I would receive ten thousand dollars, an enlistment bonus, and thousands more in college tuition assistance when I get out." If you get out. He's looking for an opening. It's not "Should I enlist?" He wants to know why he shouldn't enlist.

"What do you think?" Ryan asks, while looking at the floor.

I think recruiters target poor kids. The chance of Ryan's being killed in Iraq or Afghanistan are minuscule. The chance of his losing a leg or arm or eye are probably less than two percent. Sadly, the chances of his suffering from exposure to radiation are probably astronomically high given the fact that hundreds of tons of depleted uranium munitions have been expended in Iraq during the first gulf war and Bush's crusade.

The idea of advising Ryan to not serve his country is repulsive to me. Americans have always served ideas bigger than themselves: "freedom," "opportunity," "liberty," "justice," "truth," "equality." Most of these ideas are enshrined in our Constitution: they are called the Bill of Rights.

"Ryan, you're not American's most powerful weapon and you're not an army of one. You also need to know that there were no weapons of mass destruction found in Iraq, there was no link between Saddam Hussein, al-Qaeda and 9/11, and the people in Iraq, at least the Shia, didn't vote because of Mr. Bush's Iraqi Freedom; they voted because the Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani issued a fatwa - a religious order - vote or go to purgatory or wherever Muslims go. They also voted because they wanted American troops our of their country." There is another prolonged pause.

"What the recruiter won't tell you, Ryan - or for that matter, what most American newspapers won't print - is that not only have we killed over a hundred thousand Iraqis, demolished many of their cities, allowed their museums to be ransacked, crippled their water and electrical system, desecrated their Qur'an; but we also sold over 200 state-owned Iraqi enterprises to foreigners, multinationals like Halliburton - and Iraqis aren't even entitled to any of the contracts to rebuild their own country. We've decimated their country and economy. And then there are the US prison camps - Abu Ghraib, Bagram Air Force Base, and Guantánamo Bay, Cuba - it's much worse than a "few bad apples," we're torturing people to death. Amnesty International has branded the US prison camps a human rights failure. Muslims around the world fear us and hate us. We've lost the moral high ground."

Ryan is intensely staring at his hands; his fingers are claws. He wants to know why he shouldn't enlist.

"Mr. Stapp, didn't you enlist during the Vietnam War?"

"Yes!"

"Why did you enlist?"

"For the GI Bill, so I could go to college - my family was poor; because I thought it was the right thing to do; I didn't know any better; I just signed up."

Ryan unlocked his fingers, placed his hands palm down on the desk, extended his fingers, slumped in is chair.

"Ryan, let me ask you this: why wouldn't the recruiter let you bring your enlistment papers to school for me to read?"

There is an tense silence. He still wants to know why he shouldn't join.

"Okay - if you are going to enlist, make sure you get everything the recruiter promises you - in writing. Your enlistment papers are a contract with Uncle Sam. If they promise you enlistment bonus money, or free tuition money, or officer's candidate school, make sure you get it in writing. And before you sign any enlistment papers, please bring a copy to school so I can read them and talk to you about what's in them, what they mean. And one other thing, promise me - promise me - if you do end up in Iraq and you encounter a destroyed Iraqi tank or armored vehicle, stay the hell away from it. It was probably destroyed with depleted uranium munitions, which means if you breathe any of the contaminated dust, you could get cancer. Of course, the army will deny that DU can cripple you, but over 200,000 troops who returned from the 1991 Gulf War are now dead or debilitated with ailments ranging from leukemia to kidney failure to brain damage: all attributed to service in Iraq - that's 1 in 3!"

"The recruiter said I would be stopping terrorism - stopping another 9/11."

I am almost shouting through clenched teeth. "Afghanistan was about stopping al-Qaeda and terrorism. The war in Iraq isn't about stopping terrorism. It's about oil or egos. According to a recently released secret British memo, the intelligence and the facts for going to war in Iraq were 'fixed' by the Bush administration eight months before the war was started. Today, ninety-five percent of the fighters in Iraq - fighting against American soldiers - are Iraqi nationals, not foreign fighters or bloodthirsty fanatics or insurgents. The Iraqis view the US-led forces as 'occupiers' not 'liberators.' We're increasing terrorism. Last year, terrorist incidents were at a 20-year high, and they have increased five times since then. We're making America and the world less safe." Ryan is looking at his hands again. I lower my voice: "Iraq is drifting into chaos and taking the US and the Muslim world with it."

Ryan stops listening. After a brief silence, he changes the subject: a few comments about teachers, friends, the end of the school year. There is a clumsy parting. "Take care, Ryan."

Ryan is a pragmatist and an unwitting patriot. A long time ago I taught a unit about war poetry. Talking to Ryan, I am reminded of the ending of Kipling's poem, "Epitaphs of the War" - "If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Kirk Stapp can be reached by email.

Click here to see an amusing animated cartoon by Mark Fiore >>

Child Malnutrition in Iraq Doubles

Let Them Eat Bombs

By TERRY JONES

London, England

A report to the UN human rights commission in Geneva has concluded that Iraqi children were actually better off under Saddam Hussein than they are now.

This, of course, comes as a bitter blow for all those of us who, like George Bush and Tony Blair, honestly believe that children thrive best when we drop bombs on them from a great height, destroy their cities and blow up hospitals, schools and power stations.

It now appears that, far from improving the quality of life for Iraqi youngsters, the US-led military assault on Iraq has inexplicably doubled the number of children under five suffering from malnutrition. Under Saddam, about 4% of children under five were going hungry, whereas by the end of last year almost 8% were suffering.

These results are even more disheartening for those of us in the
Department of Making Things Better for Children in the Middle East By
Military Force, since the previous attempts by Britain and America to improve the lot of Iraqi children also proved disappointing. For example, the policy of applying the most draconian sanctions in living memory totally failed to improve conditions. After they were imposed in 1990, the number of children under five who died increased by a factor of six. By 1995 something like half a million Iraqi children were dead as a result of our efforts to help them.

A year later, Madeleine Albright, then the US ambassador to the United Nations, tried to put a brave face on it. When a TV interviewer remarked that more children had died in Iraq through sanctions than were killed in Hiroshima, Mrs Albright famously replied: "We think the price is worth it."

But clearly George Bush didn't. So he hit on the idea of bombing them instead. And not just bombing, but capturing and torturing their fathers, humiliating their mothers, shooting at them from road blocks - but none of it seems to do any good. Iraqi children simply refuse to be better nourished, healthier and less inclined to die. It is truly baffling.

And this is why we at the department are appealing to you - the
general public - for ideas. If you can think of any other military
techniques that we have so far failed to apply to the children of
Iraq, please let us know as a matter of urgency. We assure you that,
under our present leadership, there is no limit to the amount of money we are prepared to invest in a military solution to the problems of Iraqi children.

In the UK there may now be 3.6 million children living below the
poverty line, and 12.9 million in the US, with no prospect of either
government finding any cash to change that. But surely this is a price worth paying, if it means that George Bush and Tony Blair can make any amount of money available for bombs, shells and bullets to improve the lives of Iraqi kids. You know it makes sense.

Terry Jones is a film director, actor and Python. He is the author of Terry Jones's War on the War on Terror . Visit Jones' blog at:
www.terry-jones.net

The Pentagon's Secret Stash
By Matt Welch
Reason Magazine

April 2005 Edition

Why we'll never see the second round of Abu Ghraib photos.
The images, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told Congress, depict "acts that can only be described as blatantly sadistic, cruel, and inhuman." After Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) viewed some of them in a classified briefing, he testified that his "stomach gave out." NBC News reported that they show "American soldiers beating one prisoner almost to death, apparently raping a female prisoner, acting inappropriately with a dead body, and taping Iraqi guards raping young boys." Everyone who saw the photographs and videos seemed to shudder openly when contemplating what the reaction would be when they eventually were made public.

But they never were. After the first batch of Abu Ghraib images shocked the world on April 28, 2004, becoming instantly iconic-a hooded prisoner standing atop a box with electrodes attatched to his hands, Pfc. Lynndie England dragging a naked prisoner by a leash, England and Spc. Charles Graner giving a grinning thumbs-up behind a stack of human meat-no substantial second round ever came, either from Abu Ghraib or any of the other locations in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo Bay where abuses have been alleged. ABC News broadcast two new photos from the notorious Iraq prison on May 19, The Washington Post printed a half-dozen on May 20 and three more on June 10, and that was it.

"It refutes the glib claim that everything leaks sooner or later," says the Federation of American Scientists' Steven Aftergood, who makes his living finding and publishing little-known government information and fighting against state secrecy. "While there may be classified information in the papers almost every day, there's a lot more classified information that never makes it into the public domain."

Officials have given two legal reasons for suppressing images of prisoner abuse: "unwarranted invasion of privacy" and the potential impact on law enforcement. The Freedom of Information Act's exemptions 6 and 7 (as these justifications are known, respectively) have been used repeatedly to rebuff the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which since October 2003 has unearthed more than 600 torture-related government documents but zero images.

The privacy objection is easily answered: Why not just obscure any identifying features? The law enforcement question, which has a firmer legal footing, is whether distribution of the images could "deprive a person of a fair trial or an impartial adjudication." Yet even there, the globally publicized photographs of Charles Graner, for instance, were ruled by a military judge to be insufficient grounds to declare his trial unfair. And Graner, sentenced to 10 years for his crimes, is the only one of the eight charged Abu Ghraib soldiers to contest his case in court.

"We've seen virtually no criminal investigations or criminal prosecutions," says ACLU staff attorney Jameel Jaffer, who plans to challenge the nondisclosure in court. "The vast majority of those photographs and videotapes don't relate to ongoing criminal investigations; on the contrary they depict things that the government approved of at the time and maybe approves of now."

Legalities are one thing, but the real motivation for choking off access is obvious: Torture photos undermine support for the Iraq war. In the words of Donald Rumsfeld, "If these are released to the public, obviously it's going to make matters worse."

The Abu Ghraib photos did more to kneecap right-wing support for the Iraq war, and put a dent in George Bush's approval ratings, than any other single event in 2004. Conservative New York Times columnist David Brooks wrote two glum pieces about "the failure to understand the consequences of American power"; The Washington Post's George Will called for Rumsfeld's head; blogger Andrew Sullivan turned decisively against the president he once championed; and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) warned: "We risk losing public support for this conflict. As Americans turned away from the Vietnam War, they may turn away from this one."

News analyses about the war coalition's crackup competed for front-page space with the Abu Ghraib reports for nearly two weeks, until a videotape emerged showing American civilian Nick Berg getting his head sawed off in Iraq. Suddenly, editorialists were urging us to "keep perspective" about "who we're fighting against."

By that time, the executive and legislative branches had learned their lesson: Don't release images. The day after the Berg video, members of Congress were allowed to see a slide show of 1,800 Abu Ghraib photographs. The overwhelming response, besides revulsion, was, in the words of Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John Warner (R-Va.), that the pictures "should not be made public." "I feel," Warner said, "that it could possibly endanger the men and women of the armed forces as they are serving and at great risk."

Just before former White House counsel Alberto Gonzales, author of two memos relating to interrogation methods and the Geneva Conventions, faced confirmation hearings to become attorney general, there were press whispers that the ranking Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, Carl Levin (D-Mich.), might choose the occasion to force more disclosure of torture photos. It didn't happen. "He and Senator Warner," says Levin spokeswoman Tara Andringa, "are on the same page."

As is, no doubt, a good percentage of the U.S. population. Public opinion of journalism has long since plummeted below confidence levels in government. Prisoner abuse wasn't remotely an issue in the 2004 presidential campaign, let alone an electoral millstone for the governing party. The mid-January discovery of photographs showing British soldiers abusing Iraqis barely caused a ripple in the States. Neither did the Associated Press' December publication of several new photos of Navy SEALs vamping next to injured and possibly tortured prisoners (prompting the New York Post to demand an apology from...the Associated Press).

As The Wall Street Journal's James Taranto put it, with great cynicism and possibly great accuracy, "if the Democrats really think that belaboring complaints about harsh treatment of the enemy is the way to 'score points with the public,' they're more out of touch than we thought."

Looking ahead to the next four years, there is little doubt that the administration, its supporters, and Congress will use whatever legal means are available to prevent Abu Ghraib-the public relations problem, not the prisoner abuse-from happening again. The Defense Department has commissioned numerous studies about America's problem with "public diplomacy" since the September 11 massacre; all those compiled since last May hold up the iconic torture images as the perfect example of what not to let happen again.

"The Pentagon realizes that it's images that sell the story," Aftergood says. "The reason that there is a torture scandal is because of those photographs. There can be narratives of things that are much worse, but if they aren't accompanied by photos, they somehow don't register....The Abu Ghraib photos are sort of the military equivalent of the Rodney King case....And I hate to attribute motives to people I don't know, but it is easy to imagine that the officials who are withholding these images have that fact in mind."

"There's a series of parts of the formula that are being considered. And when you couple that, those different cost drivers, affecting those changing those with personal accounts, the idea is to get what has been promised more likely to be or closer delivered to what has been promised."

As quoted by David Corn on tompaine.com:
http://www.tompaine.com/articles/express_train_to_disaster.php

by: Maynard Kaufman

Our decision to build a new house on part of our land near Bangor, Michigan, was prompted by an earlier decision to retire from farming as I passed my threescore and ten years.

The decision to build a passive solar house which was to be off the grid was informed by my work as an Environmental Studies professor at Western Michigan University, and reinforced by our values as members and organizers of Green Politics groups since 1987. As Greens we believe in living in harmony with nature, and this involved a commitment to renewable sources of energy where possible...

As members of an anti-nuclear group, "Palisades Watch," we had protested against nuclear power and did not want a house dependent on electricity generated with nuclear power or fossil fuels.

Beyond this, I have been a pacifist all my life and Barbara has been active in peace work in San Francisco and here in Michigan for many years. We understand the symbiotic connection between the development of nuclear power for electrical energy and for weapons. Moreover, our nation's addiction to oil has led us to war in Iraq, which has the world's second largest reserve of oil. Thus war is one of the "externalized" costs of oil, not included in the price we pay. Other such externalized costs include air pollution and the resulting acid rain caused by burning fossil fuels to generate electricity and, of course, global warming. The burning of fossil fuels adds carbon dioxide and other gases to the atmosphere and they trap the sun's heat and create the greenhouse effect which warms the atmosphere. These costs of climate change are also not included in the price, but will be paid by our children and grandchildren. Given this knowledge of how things are inter-related, decisions about how we provide shelter are not innocent or inconsequential. And, given the reality of externalized costs, responsible decisions cannot be made simply on the basis of the initial price.

The ethical issues implied in building a house also involve us in promoting passive solar design and the techniques of renewable energy. We welcome visitors and show them how the house works and are willing to be included in the annual tour of solar houses in southwest Michigan. We believe that the development of renewable energy is generally better for our society. It can create more jobs in the building of a new energy infrastructure. It can foster democracy as it makes local control of energy sources possible, And, as renewable energy sources are diverse and geographically spread out, they are less vulnerable to disruption by hostile powers. Thus renewable energy is a safer way to true homeland security. Dependence on oil, especially as it is pursued by the Bush Administration, leads to fascism, to a belligerent militaristic state under corporate control. Finally, and most importantly, supplies of oil are limited and it is prudent to use the remaining supply of cheap oil to create the infrastructure needed for the inevitable transition to renewable energy.

In December of 2000 we contacted Thom Phillips of Cascade Building and Design in Portage. He had been a student in my Appropriate Technology course at Western and went on to a successful career as a builder of conventional houses. We trusted his ability and were glad to see that he was enthusiastic about the prospect of building a passive solar house. This was a first for him and he did the research needed to build an energy-conserving house. We worked with him to design a floor plan and the type of house we wanted and by March of 2001 we had a building permit. We made an estimate of our anticipated energy needs, which were about one fifth of what
we had been using in our old conventional house, and Richard Oraweic of Back to the Future, Ltd., agreed to design and install our renewable energy system. The battery room on the east end of the house was constructed first and the photovoltaic panels were set up just east of that in April. We then had solar power to build the house and the project was under way.

We decided to build a saltbox style of house which is two stories high in the front, or south, side and one story on its north side. The basic dimensions are 32 by 40 feet, with the battery room and woodshed attached on the east end and a screened-in porch attached on the west end. The 16 by 40 foot "great room" along the south side includes kitchen, dining and living areas. The north side has space for bedroom, bathroom and closet, utility room and a cold pantry. A feature that opens up space in the house is a two-story open area in the center of the house. On the second floor it is separated with a railing from rooms on the west and east end which serve as a study, extra sitting room or extra bedrooms. There is also another bathroom upstairs for a total of nearly 1800 square feet. Cabinets and shelves were built by Conrad Kaufman.

I. Electricity from Sun and Wind.
The ten 100-watt Siemans photovoltaic panels are mounted on a Zomeworks tracker that follows the sun from east to west during the day and provides most of our electricity in spring, summer and fall. A Solar Boost 50 MPPT (Maximum Power Point Tracker) functions as the photovoltaic charge controller and shows both voltage in the batteries and the rate of charging. Since winters in Michigan are very cloudy but more windy, the Southwest Windpower Whisper H-80 wind generator, also rated at 1000 watts and mounted on 4-inch pipe 66 feet high, produces most of our electricity in winter. This so-called hybrid system, using both sun and wind, is an extremely necessary part of the total system. The electricity is generated as direct current and the four 6-volt Surrette batteries that store it, rated at 683 amp hours each, are connected for a 24 volt DC system.

The Sunfrost refrigerator, Sundanzer freezer, well pumps and all other pumps and fans that start and stop anytime automatically are all connected directly to the 24 volt DC system. A 2500 watt Trace inverter changes the DC current to 120 volt AC current for compact flourescent lights and other appliances "needed" for a middle class lifestyle, such as television, CD player, and a word processor. Needless to say, on cloudy and quiet days we exercise discretion about how many such appliances are used. Since the inverter itself uses about 15 watts to change DC to AC, it is wise that those appliances that go on and off automatically are on DC. At night the inverter is in its "search" mode but does not use any power. This efficiency of a DC system raises the possibility of an electrical system that uses only DC appliances. And since the cost of our inverter was about $2500 it might have been possible to bypass this cost with an all-DC system. Our system also requires both DC and an AC breaker boxs with switches for the circuits.

Another option, which we rejected because our house is about a quarter mile from the road, is to get connected to the commercial electrical grid and use it as storage of excess electricity from renewable sources and thus bypass the cost of the batteries, which was over $2000. This may be of value especially if the electric company is required to pay a fair price for the renewable energy put into the system. As far as I know this is not the case in Michigan, yet. But this option would be good for the conscience especially if more renewable energy is put into the grid than conventional electricity is taken out of it.

The total cost of our renewable energy system was nearly $25000 and the installer claimed that he gave us a good deal and that the cost should have been about $30000. Even if the subsidy of $3000 from the state, which encouraged renewable energy, is subtracted and if the (unknown) cost of building a power line in for a quarter mile were subtracted, it would still take many years at current prices for electricity to amortise the cost of the system. The system has worked without trouble or repair for over two years, but eventually we expect to pay for repairs. As rates for conventional electricity rise, renewable energy might be competitive in price, but at present this kind of system is justified on the basis of ethical rather than economic considerations.

II. Battery Room Ventilation.
Since batteries give off hydrogen gas when being charged, it is important that the battery room be properly ventilated. The batteries are in a plywood box on the floor and as long as there is no danger of freezing the lid is removed from the box and a window above the batteries is kept open in spring, summer and fall. It is good to remember that batteries also operate more efficiently when they do not get too cold. In cold weather, therefore, the lid is placed on the battery box and air from within it is exhausted by a small fan. At the same time a slightly larger fan mounted in the ceiling of the battery room is switched on to draw warm air from the main part of the house through an insulated duct. This warms the temperature in the battery room, creates a positive pressure in it, and helps to draw fresh air through the airtight house.

III. Heating System.
The heating system in "Sunflower" has three components: passive solar heating, the masonry stove, and the hydronic heating in the floor. The house is designed for passive solar input with many south-facing windows that have double panes of low-emissivity glass. The heat that enters through the windows is absorbed by the 5-inch thick concrete floor which is colored a dark brown with pigment fixed with acid, and by the brick masonry stove. Because the house is built very tight and extremely well insulated, it holds heat well for long periods. Keeping warm in winter is less of a problem than staying cool in summer. Curtains, especially on the east windows where the early sun shines in, help to curtail heat input. Trees shade the house from the low sun in the west. And, of course, windows and doors have screens so they can be opened. Summer temperatures in Michigan are usually moderate.

The "Heat Kit" masonry stove, built by Doug Fry of Sturgis, is situated near the center of the house facing the living room with the back of the stove in the bathroom and the chimney in the bedroom. The heat from the stove is radiated 24 hours or more into these rooms and the rest of the house. It's 17 inch by 17 inch by 17 inch firebox is designed to be fired once a day or every other day. Air for the stove is drawn in through an underground duct from the outside. When the stove is fired a damper in the chimney is opened all the way so the fire burns hot and as efficiently as possible. In two or three hours, after the wood, in dry little logs from 2 to 4 inches in diameter, is burned and only embers remain, the damper is closed to retain the heat in the stove.

The fire in the stove heats walls of ceramic brick on each side of the firebox which then radiate their heat through the bricks for many hours. Because the heated air has to travel up about five feet and then down to the floor before it can go up the chimney it is necessary that the stove be warm before it is fired. When it is cold it needs to be preheated with propane torches placed in small openings on each side of the stove. Once it has been fired the stove stays warm enough to start the fire again for at least 48 hours or as long as 60 hours. Firewood is a renewable resource and our stove uses only one and a half to two cords a year which we harvest from trees already dead. As for carbon dioxide, it will be given off either as a dead tree rots or as it is burned.

The cost of the masonry stove was nearly $7500, and this includes the chimney. This may be slightly more than the cost of a conventional forced air furnace with ducts and fans might have been, but the masonry stove will probably last longer and the radiated heat from the stove is much more gentle and comfortable than forced air. We consider the masonry stove the best investment in the house. Glass panels in the door of the stove allow us to enjoy the fire.

The third component of the heating system is the hydronic heat in the floor which is radiated by circulating hot water in "pex" tubing buried about an inch or two deep in the concrete floor. The hot water is circulated by "El Sid" pumps activated by two thermostats in different rooms of the house. This system is especially useful in late fall or early spring on cloudy days with limited solar input from the windows and when it is not yet, or no longer, cold enough to use the masonry stove. Because the heat is not immediate (it takes about twelve hours for the floor to warm up) it is necessary to plan in advance based on weather forecasts. Sometimes, but rarely, it is so bitterly cold that hydronic heat is used as a supplement to the masonry stove. Two sources for heating the water in this system will be discussed in the next section, but the third source, the heat source of last resort, is the propane-fueled water heater in the utility room. With this hydronic system the house could be left unattended for an entire winter without danger of freezing.

IV. The Hot Water System.
Hot water is pre-heated by two renewable sources. One is a loop that thermosyphons through the masonry stove and an 80 gallon storage tank on the second floor above and beside the masonry stove. This loop preheats water whenever the masonry stove is used. The second source of hot water is a set of two 20 inch by 144 inch solar panels that are mounted above the large south windows on the first floor. These panels serve to keep sunshine out of the house when the sun is high in summer, and, of course, they preheat water whenever the sun shines. In order to prevent freezing, the water circulating through the panels is a glycol mixture, and it is circulated with an "El Sid" pump powered by a small photovoltaic panel. The tubes from the panels give off their heat to the potable water in the storage tank through a heat exchanger as tubes circle around the outside of the 80 gallon tank. The hot water is pumped with another "El Sid" pump from this tank to the 40 gallon water heater on the first floor as demanded by the temperature differential between the two tanks.

The cost of the hot water system was $2000 for the solar panels, $1000 for the 80 gallon tank, and a little more than $2000 for the pex tubing, pumps, plumbing, hot water heater and controls. Part of this cost can be charged to heating the house and part of it to providing hot water for domestic use. At times the propane water heater switches on but propane use is modest: about 160 to 170 gallons per year and this includes propane used in the cook stove in the kitchen. The initial investment in this hot water system will be recovered in a few years, far sooner than the investment in the electrical system.

V. Other Energy-Conserving Features.
In order to conserve heat in winter and stabilize temperature in the house at all times, the north side of the house is earth-bermed up to four feet from the roof. Rainwater from the long (29-foot) north roof is collected in a 300 gallon tank set on the berm so it can be used for irrigation.

A cold pantry in the northwest corner of the house is insulated from the rest of the house and used to store canned goods and the freezer. A space under the floor of the woodshed, between the battery room and the main part of the house, has been made accessible with a trapdoor and serves as a root cellar. It is only four feet deep but works well to keep potatoes until spring. Since the energy used to produce the food purchased by the average American family is comparable to the energy used to heat the conventional home or to power the average family's automobile, it is good to build a house where food can be produced and preserved. Raising fruits and vegetables for household use is a vital component of a renewable energy system. A clothesline for the solar drying of clothes is a similar kind of easily overlooked renewable energy application.

This article written by Maynard Kaufman.
Photographs by Jon Towne.

http://www.studentsfororwell.org
*Ingsoc Condition Alert System*
Current Condition:*
Good*
*Students for an Orwellian Society*

/Because 2004 is 20 years too late./

*trap* *email*

*What is SOS?*

Students for an Orwellian Society (SOS) is a nationwide student group. Although SOS has always been a nationwide student group, there is evidence to suggest that it first appeared at *Columbia University*
. The mission of SOS is to promote the vision of a society based upon the principles of Ingsoc, first articulated by George Orwell in his prophetic novel, */1984/*
.

As an Oceania-wide organization, SOS has a number of local chapters. For a partial listing, see our *contact*
section.

George Orwell
George Orwell

*Successes*

As to be expected, SOS has been quite successful. Since the events of
11 September, we have been able to convince a number of figures in
national and local politics to help forward our aims. How could they do otherwise?

Our successes can be shown to fit into the three major ideals of Ingsoc as expressed by Orwell:

*War Is Peace*

o Oceania (commonly called the US and Britain) is at war with
*Afghanistan*
Iraq.
Oceania has always been at war with *Afghanistan*

*Iraq*
.

o Eurasia (commonly called Russia, Pakistan, etc.) is *allied
with Oceania*
in
war against Afghanistan. Eurasia has *always been allied*

with Oceania.
o US Congressman Charlie Rangel *has been arguing for*
a
return of military conscription (?*The Draft*
?) as?so he tells the public? a
way of /reducing/ war.
o It's not easy to *capture someone killed the year before*
?until
you harness the power of Ingsoc. When you've got Ingsoc on
your side, though, it's so easy that the US *did it again*
.
o Three cheers for *Homeland Security drone patrols*
!
o In order to fight terrorism, *we must cause it*
, says Donald
Rumsfeld.
o *It's okay*

that there were no *?weapons of mass destruction?*

in Iraq; that's *not why we went to war*
. It's
equally okay that there are *so many*
of *them*
in *Oceania*
.
o The Nobel prize committee has been considering *nominating
George Bush and Tony Blair*
for
their prestigious Peace prize.
o Just like in /1984/'s Room 101, the Miniluv operations in
Guantánamo Bay *were authorized to*

?exploit[] a prisoner's phobias, sometimes using muzzled
dogs in interrogations.? Doubleplusgood!
o *According to the Bush administration*
,

the *Duelfer report*
which
conclusively showed that there were no *weapons of mass
destruction* in Iraq actually
justifies the war in Iraq.
o ?I just want you to know that, when we talk about war, we're
really talking about peace.? ? *George W. Bush*
, 43rd
President of the United States
o ?Protecting [an] Islamic cultural center? *involves fighting
a war inside it*
, as the /New
York Times on the Web/ shows.

*Freedom Is Slavery*

o The *Anti-Terrorism Act*

ensures US citizens' freedom by ensuring the FBI's ability
to examine their activities.
o Security cameras have been placed around the Columbia campus
and around the *island of Manhattan*
.
o If you are buying postage, *do not ask for stamps without
flags on them*
. Such
would clearly be a sign of lack-of-patriotism, and we at SOS
are glad to see that the Post Office is cracking down on it.
o We encourage all true citizens of this country to join
*Operation TIPS*
, which, we
promise, will help further an Orwellian society in ways that
we at SOS cannot even begin to fathom.
o There's really nothing we can say about DARPA's *Total
Information Awareness*

project except to thank them for *all*

*their* *hard*

*work* .
o While Victory Gin is not (as far as we know) yet available,
the sale of *freedom fries*

is an important first step; freedom fries and freedom toast
are also now available *in Congress*
.
Also, check out *Victory Beer*
, and *W Ketchup*

o The truly Orwellian and praiseworthy Transportation Safety
Administration gets our thanks for *spotting
anti-Americanism*

in passengers' baggage.
o Flying while wearing certain buttons *may not be permitted*
. It is, apparently,
okay to wear a button saying, ?Hooray for Tony Blair,? though.
o Similarly, *carrying a note*
stating
that you do not have a bomb in your bag is equivalent to
saying that you /do/ have a bomb.
o When flying, you may use the toilet. However, if it is
occupied, /do not/ *wait in line*

for it to become free. Only a terrorist would do that.
o We've been notified that Apple Computer company, which once
made public anti-Orwellianism pronouncements, is now *coming
around to our side*
.
(Note: Link contains a quicktime movie.)
o The Junior Anti-Sex League is *offering grants*

to organizations which support its work.
o In London, feel *secure beneath the watchful eyes*
of
*Transport for London*
.

o We're pleased to see the *subpoena*

of the National Lawyer's Guild and other anti-war activists.
It's time to keep those activists *in their place*
.

o In the UK, the wrongly convicted are *charged for their
?food and lodgings?*
while in prison.
o A student in Washington state was disciplined and questioned
by the Secret Service for *drawing ungood pictures*
of the
President.
o On surveillance cameras: ?The value we gain in public safety
far outweighs any perception by the community that this is
Big Brother who's watching.? ? *Ron Huberman*
,

Executive Director, Chicago Office of Emergency Management
o Wearing a t-shirt which says ?Protect Our Civil Liberties?
is, of course, obscene, and will get you *kicked out of*
Bush
campaign rallies.

o Osama bin Laden's messages will *no longer be shown*
in Oceania. This
will improve the strength of the bloc.
o There is no dissent in this country. Those who disagree with
President Bush are merely *confused*
.
o The /New York Times/ published an *excellent piece of
doublethink*
in its
magazine section on Sunday 18 November. It is bad that
Al-Jazeera fails to take American positions seriously. It is
good that American media doesn't take Arab positions
seriously. And all this from *an Arab-American scholar*
who President
Bush the First once called ?more anti-Arab than the Israelis.?
o Government agencies are requesting that certain *government
reports be removed from public libraries*
. An
excellent indication that SOS is having influence at the
highest levels!
o The /Guardian/ reports that PR firms have *begun creating
false citizens*
to
try and shift the debate on certain key issues. Big Brother
is certainly pleased!
o Do not wear a ?Give Peace a Chance? t-shirt at the mall, or
carry a protest sign when passing through. It may *be
illegal*
.
o It's good to know that the recent pro-war rallies have been
*sponsored by Clear Channel*
?we
wouldn't want people expressing their opinions without the
help of media conglomerates!
o We're pleased to learn that the government has *been
removing*

information from websites which do not agree with the
current administration's policies. For example, the CDC's
website *no longer points out*

that condoms are an effective means of stopping sexually
transmitted diseases.
o *Thanks, **/Time Magazine/*
for
removing articles from your website!
o Reading an article critical of the government is a serious
form of thoughtcrime?and, fortunately, *the FBI takes such
things seriously*
!
o *Do not email President Bush*
.
o Youths in Arabic-speaking countries are encouraged to read
*/Hi/** Magazine*
.
o A *recent study*

showed that thanks to /Fox News/ and other Minitrue news
sources, *most Americans believe*

untrue things about the war in Iraq.
o We are proud to present a *special report*
on a
specific instance of doublethink in the /New York Times/.
o The FBI urges you *not to carry almanacs*
, lest you be
labeled a terrorist.
o The Civil War *will not be taught*

in US History courses in Georgia.
o ?Those who cast the votes decide nothing; those who *count
the votes* decide
everything.? ? Stalin, a man truly ahead of his time.
o In the grandest pro-Orwellian tradition, science is
(fortunately) *no longer a tool*

for objective truth, but rather one to *promote an agenda*
.
Huzzah!
o The UC-Davis /Aggie/ has published *an excellent article*
on SOS.
o It's a good thing that the Department of Homeland Security
has *asked its employees*

to be on the lookout for good photo-ops for the President.
o *It's okay*
for
the government to lie, *according to the*

General Accounting Office.
o Students who publicly and personally *question the Vice
President's wife*

are guilty of a crime.
o A teacher was arrested in Tampa, Florida because *a
bookmark*
she
was carrying is a concealed weapon.
o Thank the Department of Homeland Security for *not
forgetting Poland* but
instead *protecting us*

from dangerous 12-year-old Polish choir boys.

*Failures*

Any reports of failure are almost certainly lies, the work of
thoughtcriminals. Kindly ignore them. SOS does not fail.

*T-Shirt Design Contest*

We're considering printing SOS T-Shirts. Please email *Minitrue*
with your designs. If we like
one of them enough to print up a bunch, we'll send the artist a free
shirt or two, as well as some other incentives if we come up with any.
We're more inclined to print designs that use a small number of colors (one or two). The *rules and entries thus far*
have been posted.

*Posters*

It is the duty of all citizens to print out 300 posters weekly and place them around campus. We may be monitoring you at any time. For your convenience, we provide posters here. You need *Acrobat Reader*
, *version 5.0 or later*, to view them. This product is made by Adobe, a company which we *greatly admire* .

o *Report Thoughtcrime*

o *War Is Peace*
o *Freedom Is Slavery*

o *Ignorance Is Strength*

o *Big Brother Is Watching You*

The folks at SOS-Davis have *well over 100 different posters*
if you like.

*Flyer*

SOS is pleased to present a special *flyer about ROTC*
, the Reserve Officer
Training Corps and a truly Orwellian organization. We know you find it useful.

*News Service*

The SOS chapter at Berkeley has constructed a *goodspeak news service*
which will ?translate news pages about the present peace conflict in Eurasia into standard, Ministry of Truth-approved goodspeak?. You can also view the goodspeak versions of *The International Herald-Tribune*
,
*CNN*
,
or *FOX News*
.

*Sticker*

*Sticker* production is up 300% for the year.

*Events*

The *Empty Space Theatre*
in Seattle and the *Catalyst Theatre Company*
in Washington, DC held productions of /1984/. Both productions started in late January, 2004, and continued through the end of February. While not directly sponsored by SOS, these productions will help spread the word about Ingsoc, and for this, we salute them.

Similarly, *The Orwell Project* is
presented performances of /1984/ and /Animal Farm/ in February and early March at the Connelly Theater in New York City. Party members who attended a performance highly recommend it.

The *1984 + 20 Project* organized public
readings of /1984/ on April 4, 2004. See their website for more
information.

The *National Council of Teachers of English* is sponsoring a similarly-named but otherwise unrelated event called
*1984+20* , in which students will relate the issues raised in Orwell's work to the modern world.

*Contact Us*

We already know what you're thinking. There's no use hiding. To report incidents of aberrant behavior or thought among your classmates, please email *miniluv@studentsfororwell.org*
. Also, our group is so successful that sometimes we miss reports of our own success. If you find one, please email *minitrue@studentsfororwell.org*
. If our other ministries wish to hear from you, they will contact you directly.

For local contacts, the *MSCD* ,
*UC-Davis* , and *SUNY Stony Brook*
chapters have their
own web sites.

SOS chapters are also active at *Columbia* ,
*Oberlin* , *Penn State* ,
*NYU* , *UMass* , *Minuteman
High School* , *FSC*
, *CalTech* , *UVA*
, *RIT* , *Murray*
, *JHU* ,
*UC-Berkeley* , *MSCD* ,
*SUNY-Stony Brook* , *UC-Davis*
, *Bellevue CC* ,
*Trinity Chrisitan Academy* , *St. John's
College* , *BSSC*
, *Brandeis* ,
*Hopkins High* ,
*YIHS* , and a number of other schools. However, while we of course have a complete list of schools available, we do not list them here until we are contacted with information of their existence.

Saturday 04 December 2004

You asked for my evidence, Mr. Ambassador. Here it is.
David T. Johnson,
Acting ambassador,
US Embassy, London

Dear Mr. Johnson,

On November 26, your press counsellor sent a letter to the Guardian taking strong exception to a sentence in my column of the same day. The sentence read: "In Iraq, US forces and their Iraqi surrogates are no longer bothering to conceal attacks on civilian targets and are openly eliminating anyone - doctors, clerics, journalists - who dares to count the bodies." Of particular concern was the word "eliminating".

The letter suggested that my charge was "baseless" and asked the Guardian either to withdraw it, or provide "evidence of this extremely grave accusation". It is quite rare for US embassy officials to openly involve themselves in the free press of a foreign country, so I took the letter extremely seriously. But while I agree that the accusation is grave, I have no intention of withdrawing it. Here, instead, is the evidence you requested.

In April, US forces laid siege to Falluja in retaliation for the gruesome killings of four Blackwater employees. The operation was a failure, with US troops eventually handing the city back to resistance forces. The reason for the withdrawal was that the siege had sparked uprisings across the country, triggered by reports that hundreds of civilians had been killed. This information came from three main sources: 1) Doctors. USA Today reported on April 11 that "Statistics and names of the dead were gathered from four main clinics around the city and from Falluja general hospital". 2) Arab TV journalists. While doctors reported the numbers of dead, it was al-Jazeera and al-Arabiya that put a human face on those statistics. With unembedded camera crews in Falluja, both networks beamed footage of mutilated women and children throughout Iraq and the Arab-speaking world. 3) Clerics. The reports of high civilian casualties coming from journalists and doctors were seized upon by prominent clerics in Iraq. Many delivered fiery sermons condemning the attack, turning their congregants against US forces and igniting the uprising that forced US troops to withdraw.

US authorities have denied that hundreds of civilians were killed during last April's siege, and have lashed out at the sources of these reports. For instance, an unnamed "senior American officer", speaking to the New York Times last month, labelled Falluja general hospital "a centre of propaganda". But the strongest words were reserved for Arab TV networks. When asked about al-Jazeera and al-Arabiya's reports that hundreds of civilians had been killed in Falluja, Donald Rumsfeld, the US secretary of defence, replied that "what al-Jazeera is doing is vicious, inaccurate and inexcusable ... " Last month, US troops once again laid siege to Falluja - but this time the attack included a new tactic: eliminating the doctors, journalists and clerics who focused public attention on civilian casualties last time around.

Eliminating Doctors

The first major operation by US marines and Iraqi soldiers was to storm Falluja general hospital, arresting doctors and placing the facility under military control. The New York Times reported that "the hospital was selected as an early target because the American military believed that it was the source of rumours about heavy casualties", noting that "this time around, the American military intends to fight its own information war, countering or squelching what has been one of the insurgents' most potent weapons". The Los Angeles Times quoted a doctor as saying that the soldiers "stole the mobile phones" at the hospital - preventing doctors from communicating with the outside world.

But this was not the worst of the attacks on health workers. Two days earlier, a crucial emergency health clinic was bombed to rubble, as well as a medical supplies dispensary next door. Dr Sami al-Jumaili, who was working in the clinic, says the bombs took the lives of 15 medics, four nurses and 35 patients. The Los Angeles Times reported that the manager of Falluja general hospital "had told a US general the location of the downtown makeshift medical centre" before it was hit.

Whether the clinic was targeted or destroyed accidentally, the effect was the same: to eliminate many of Falluja's doctors from the war zone. As Dr Jumaili told the Independent on November 14: "There is not a single surgeon in Falluja." When fighting moved to Mosul, a similar tactic was used: on entering the city, US and Iraqi forces immediately seized control of the al-Zaharawi hospital.

Eliminating Journalists

The images from last month's siege on Falluja came almost exclusively from reporters embedded with US troops. This is because Arab journalists who had covered April's siege from the civilian perspective had effectively been eliminated. Al-Jazeera had no cameras on the ground because it has been banned from reporting in Iraq indefinitely. Al-Arabiya did have an unembedded reporter, Abdel Kader Al-Saadi, in Falluja, but on November 11 US forces arrested him and held him for the length of the siege. Al-Saadi's detention has been condemned by Reporters Without Borders and the International Federation of Journalists. "We cannot ignore the possibility that he is being intimidated for just trying to do his job," the IFJ stated.

It's not the first time journalists in Iraq have faced this kind of intimidation. When US forces invaded Baghdad in April 2003, US Central Command urged all unembedded journalists to leave the city. Some insisted on staying and at least three paid with their lives. On April 8, a US aircraft bombed al-Jazeera's Baghdad offices, killing reporter Tareq Ayyoub. Al-Jazeera has documentation proving it gave the coordinates of its location to US forces.

On the same day, a US tank fired on the Palestine hotel, killing José Couso, of the Spanish network Telecinco, and Taras Protsiuk, of Reuters. Three US soldiers are facing a criminal lawsuit from Couso's family, which alleges that US forces were well aware that journalists were in the Palestine hotel and that they committed a war crime.

Eliminating Clerics

Just as doctors and journalists have been targeted, so too have many of the clerics who have spoken out forcefully against the killings in Falluja. On November 11, Sheik Mahdi al-Sumaidaei, the head of the Supreme Association for Guidance and Daawa, was arrested. According to Associated Press, "Al-Sumaidaei has called on the country's Sunni minority to launch a civil disobedience campaign if the Iraqi government does not halt the attack on Falluja". On November 19, AP reported that US and Iraqi forces stormed a prominent Sunni mosque, the Abu Hanifa, in Aadhamiya, killing three people and arresting 40, including the chief cleric - another opponent of the Falluja siege. On the same day, Fox News reported that "US troops also raided a Sunni mosque in Qaim, near the Syrian border". The report described the arrests as "retaliation for opposing the Falluja offensive". Two Shia clerics associated with Moqtada al-Sadr have also been arrested in recent weeks; according to AP, "both had spoken out against the Falluja attack".

"We don't do body counts," said General Tommy Franks of US Central Command. The question is: what happens to the people who insist on counting the bodies - the doctors who must pronounce their patients dead, the journalists who document these losses, the clerics who denounce them? In Iraq, evidence is mounting that these voices are being systematically silenced through a variety of means, from mass arrests, to raids on hospitals, media bans, and overt and unexplained physical attacks.

Mr. Ambassador, I believe that your government and its Iraqi surrogates are waging two wars in Iraq. One war is against the Iraqi people, and it has claimed an estimated 100,000 lives. The other is a war on witnesses.

By David DeBatto / Salon

Dec. 8, 2004 | On June 15, 2003, Sgt. Frank "Greg" Ford, a
counterintelligence agent in the California National Guard's 223rd
Military Intelligence (M.I.) Battalion stationed in Samarra, Iraq,
told his commanding officer, Capt. Victor Artiga, that he had
witnessed five incidents of torture and abuse of Iraqi detainees at
his base, and requested a formal investigation. Thirty-six hours
later, Ford, a 49-year-old with over 30 years of military service in
the Coast Guard, Army and Navy, was ordered by U.S. Army medical
personnel to lie down on a gurney, was then strapped down, loaded
onto a military plane and medevac'd to a military medical center
outside the country.

Although no "medevac" order appears to have been written, in
violation of Army policy, Ford was clearly shipped out because of a
diagnosis that he was suffering from combat stress. After Ford raised
the torture allegations, Artiga immediately said Ford
was "delusional" and ordered a psychiatric examination, according to
Ford. But that examination, carried out by an Army psychiatrist,
diagnosed him as "completely normal."

A witness, Sgt. 1st Class Michael Marciello, claims that Artiga
became enraged when he read the initial medical report finding
nothing wrong with Ford and intimidated the psychiatrist into
changing it. According to Marciello, Artiga angrily told the
psychiatrist that it was a "C.I. [counterintelligence] or M.I.
matter" and insisted that she had to change her report and get Ford
out of Iraq.

Documents show that all subsequent examinations of Ford by Army
mental-health professionals, over many months, confirmed his initial
diagnosis as normal.

An officer at the California Office of the Adjutant General in
Sacramento, Calif., Sgt. Maj. Patrick Hammond, has known Ford for
over 15 years during their service in the California National Guard.
Hammond said, "I have never had any reason to question his honesty
and I don't do so now." This reporter served in the military with
Ford in Iraq for seven months and can also attest that he is sane and
level-headed.

Ford, who has since left the military, claims that his superiors
shipped him out of the country to prevent him from exposing the
abusive behavior. "They were determined to protect their own asses no
matter who they had to take down," he says.

Col. C. Tsai, a military doctor who examined Ford in Germany and
found nothing wrong with him, told a film crew for Spiegel Television
that he was "not surprised" at Ford's diagnosis. Tsai told Spiegel
that he had treated "three or four" other U.S. soldiers from Iraq
that were also sent to Landstuhl for psychological evaluations
or "combat stress counseling" after they reported incidents of
detainee abuse or other wrongdoing by American soldiers.

Artiga and other higher-ups in the 223rd M.I. Battalion deny Ford's
charges. But in the aftermath of the Abu Ghraib scandal, federal
agencies including the Department of Defense, the Army's Criminal
Investigation Command (CID), and the FBI are finally looking into
them. The Department of the Army's Office of the Inspector General
has launched an investigation, according to Ford and his attorney,
Kevin Healy, who have been contacted by investigators. If Ford's
allegations are proven, the Army would be faced with evidence that
its prisoner abuse problem is even more widespread than previously
acknowledged -- and that some of its own officers not only turned a
blind eye to abuses but actively participated in covering them up.

Ford spent his first weeks in Iraq at Balad Air Base, also known as
Camp Anaconda, about 50 kilometers north of Baghdad along the Tigris.
In early May, he was assigned to a THT that was headed for Samarra,
another 20 kilometers to the northeast. An ancient trading center
that dates to the Mesopotamian era, Samarra was known as a hotbed of
Sunni Arab loyalists, ex-Baath Party officials, and Islamist
extremists. The two-story police station the Army occupied was
located in the center of town, closely surrounded by taller
buildings, giving anyone who cared to fire on the Americans an
excellent field in which to do so. And fire they did. Almost every
night, Ford and his teammates would be forced to dive from their
bunks for cover as mortar rounds rocked the compound. The concussions
shook the foundation and broke whatever glass windows remained.
Fortunately, the Iraqi mortar crews proved wildly inaccurate, and no
Americans were killed, but several were wounded and the attacks never
let up. There was immense pressure on the THT to find out who was
behind the attacks and to supply the information to the "gunslingers"
of the 4th Infantry Division. It was in that environment that Ford
says he saw the incidents that led to the end of his long military
career.

Late last summer I met Ford for lunch on a sunny afternoon at the
Delta King Riverboat, which is tied to the docks in downtown
Sacramento. Ford has returned to his longtime job as a corrections
officer at Folsom Prison, and his wavy brown hair is longer than it
was when I knew him in Iraq. He has spent the past year trying to
clear his name, but apart from a few newspaper interviews he gave
after the Abu Ghraib scandal broke last spring, he has not told his
story to anyone until now.

Ford seemed calm and resolute as he talked about how the events that
took place in Samarra contradicted everything he thought he knew
about the military. For more than three decades, he said, he had
always served with "people that I knew I could depend on when it
really mattered. They were people that I would have sacrificed my
life to save if need be, and I knew they would do the same for me, no
questions asked."

He went on, "There were also rules and regulations to follow. Some of
the rules applied only in peacetime, some only in time of war. Some
always applied. You knew which was which. These simple, basic rules
were pounded into your head from the day you got off the bus at basic
training. You broke the rules, you paid the price. Period. Everyone
knew that simple fact, and everyone accepted it."

But Ford said those rules were savagely broken in Samarra in June
2003. He described multiple incidents of what he called "war crimes"
and "torture" of Iraqi detainees ranging in age from about 15 to 35.
According to Ford, his teammates, three counterintelligence agents
like himself -- one of them a woman -- systematically and repeatedly
abused several Iraqi male detainees over a two-to three-week time
period. Ford describes incidents of asphyxiation, mock executions,
arms being pulled out of sockets, and lit cigarettes forced into
detainee's ears while they were blindfolded and bound. These
atrocities took place in an Iraqi police station, Ford said. His
attempts to stop the abuse were met with either indifference or
threats by his team leader, who was himself one of the abusers,
according to Ford.

Ford clenched his fists tightly and shook his head slowly from side
to side. "I guess one of the things that pisses me off most is the
arrogance," he said. "The condescending attitude that my team had.
Some of the medics, too. Saying things like 'So what, he's just
another haji,' like they were scum or some kind of animal, really
just pisses me off."

Ford said he was fighting a raging battle with himself over whether
to report what he'd seen to his superiors at Anaconda or to confront
the team leader one last time. He felt "sick inside" about the
mistreatment of detainees, but he did not want to be a "rat," either.
Having worked as a corrections officer for almost 20 years, Ford knew
how he would be perceived among the troops if he snitched. "I didn't
want to have to watch my back at the same time I was dodging mortar
rounds from the Iraqis. I decided that I had to confront [the team
leader] and tell him, in no uncertain terms, that I would not stand
for any more of that kind of shit toward the detainees."

Ford said he found the team leader and had it out with him. "I told
him that if there was ever a court-martial over these incidents, I
would absolutely testify against him. I said that this kind of crap
has to stop or else I would report it to Artiga." According to Ford,
the team leader replied, "Fine, Greg, you do what you have to do." By
then, Ford said, he'd "had enough." He told the team leader that he
would be filing a complaint against him and the other agent as soon
as possible. He said the team leader told him he was "crazy"
and "seeing things" and no one would believe him anyway, so "knock
yourself out."

The next day, Ford said he rode with the rest of his team down to
Camp Anaconda, where the 223rd had its headquarters, as did the 205th
M.I. Brigade, which was made infamous by the Abu Ghraib scandal. Both
divisions were commanded by Col. Thomas Pappas. Upon his arrival,
Ford said that he immediately went to the company headquarters and
met with Artiga and 1st Sgt. John Vegilla. Ford said that it was
clear that Artiga knew he was coming. "I told them that I wanted to
request a formal investigation into allegations of war crimes
committed by my team against Iraqi detainees. I said I wanted to
request a removal of this whole team and their replacement by a
senior team, because they're bringing the house down. He looked right
at me and said, 'Nope, that never happened. You're delusional, you
imagined the whole thing. And you've got 30 seconds to withdraw your
complaint. If you do, it will be as if this conversation never took
place.'" Ford refused, and Artiga told him to "get out of here" and
that he would call him when the complaint was ready.

In an interview, Artiga denied making those statements. Vegilla did
not respond to interview requests.

A few hours later, Marciello, a senior counterintelligence agent,
arrived to accompany Ford from the transient tent where he was
staying to company headquarters to see Artiga and Vegilla. The slight
and bespectacled Marciello, who looks like a cross between Woody
Allen and Wally Cox, recently retired from the National Guard after
almost 35 years of service. According to Marciello, "Artiga then
instructed Vegilla to take Ford's M-16 and ammunition away from him
for safekeeping and said that he was revoking Ford's security
clearance. He [Artiga] also said that I was being assigned to escort
Ford 24 hours a day until further notice." Artiga then ordered Ford
to report immediately to Capt. Angela Madera, an Army psychiatrist,
at the base mental-health facility for a "combat stress evaluation."
Marciello says he escorted Ford to his meeting with Madera.

According to Marciello, he waited outside Madera's office for
approximately one hour while Madera interviewed Ford. After the
interview, "I escorted Ford back to his tent and then stayed with him
for the remainder of the day." To Marciello, Ford seemed frustrated
at the situation but calm and under control.

Marciello remembers being summoned the next morning, June 16, to
company headquarters by Artiga, who according to Marciello
was "really pissed" about the report Madera had written regarding
Ford. "He was pacing around in the office holding the report up,"
Marciello said. "Dr. Madera had diagnosed Ford as completely 'normal'
and 'not a danger to himself or others.'" Artiga was "just livid,"
Marciello recalls. "He took me in tow over to meet with Madera. Just
me and him. We practically ran over there. Once we got there, he held
up her report and asked her what she thought she was doing. He walked
right over to her and got right in her face. Then he told her that
this report cannot stay the way it is. He said that she will change
it to read that Ford is unstable and must be sent out of [the Iraqi]
theater immediately. He then said something to the effect that this
was a C.I. or M.I. matter and that he was telling her that she had
better see to these changes right now."

Artiga denied pressuring Madera to change her diagnosis and said he
did not recall whether Marciello or anyone else was in the room
during the meeting.

According to Marciello, "Madera was really shook up by the encounter
with Artiga ... She was trembling." With that, Marciello said, "Me
and Artiga just up and left Madera's office and headed back to the
company area. Artiga went back to the office and I went to find
Ford." Marciello found Ford in his tent and related what had just
occurred. "I told him to stay put and that I would return in a little
while." It was the last time Marciello saw Greg Ford.

The Geneva Conventions signed by the United States and 114 other
countries in 1949 give prisoners of war strict protections. They
cannot be assaulted, photographed (except for counterintelligence
purposes), threatened with physical harm, denied medical care and
medication, or deprived of food, water, clothing or sleep. They are
also entitled to have mail access and regular visits from the Red
Cross or other humanitarian groups.

The photographs from Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad that became public
in the spring showed interrogators flagrantly violating those
conventions. Seven low-level soldiers have since been charged, with
one conviction, but no one up the ladder has been held accountable.
Meanwhile, it has become increasingly clear that the mistreatment at
Abu Ghraib was symptomatic of a wider problem. The Department of
Defense is currently investigating more than a hundred allegations of
prisoner abuse. So far, not a single officer or high-ranking enlisted
soldier has been charged in any of them.

There are striking parallels between the conditions at Abu Ghraib
when the abuses took place and those at Samarra when Greg Ford says
he saw his colleagues torturing detainees. Both facilities were
suffering heavy casualties as the result of daily mortar attacks from
an invisible enemy. In both cases, the command became increasingly
frustrated at its inability to identify, locate and stop the
attackers and -- bolstered by directives from top military brass
to "set the conditions" for information collection -- allowed combat
troops and military intelligence operatives to use harsh tactics.
Both facilities were populated mostly by young reservists with no
combat experience. The majority of detainees, meanwhile, were
adolescents or old men of little to no intelligence value.

The M.I. units at both centers also shared a commanding officer, Col.
Thomas Pappas, who arrived in Iraq sometime in the middle of June
2003 and formally took charge of the 205th M.I. Brigade at an
elaborate change-of-command ceremony at Anaconda on July 1. The 205th
comprises Ford's 223rd M.I. Battalion and the 519th M.I. Battalion,
which played a part in the both the Abu Ghraib scandal and at least
one detainee death in Afghanistan, resulting in criminal charges
being filed. After Pappas ordered all members of the 205th to be
present at his change-of-command ceremony, three soldiers from the
519th were killed in a vehicular accident while traveling through
hostile territory from northern Iraq in order to attend.

The Army has already dealt with one case of abuse by soldiers
stationed at Samarra. At a recent court-martial in Fort Hood, Texas,
four enlisted soldiers from the 4th Infantry Division in Samarra were
convicted of manslaughter for forcing two handcuffed Iraqi men to
jump off a bridge over the Tigris River during an interrogation. One
of the Iraqis drowned. The soldiers' commanding officer, a lieutenant
colonel that regularly worked with agents of the 223rd, was
administratively disciplined for helping to cover up the incident.

Not long after Marciello left him, Ford said, Madera, accompanied by
an unknown male captain, entered Ford's tent and told him to get
ready because he was going to be "medevac'd" to Germany
immediately. "What the hell is going on here?" Ford remembered
demanding, but Madera told him to "be quiet," that he "had to leave,"
and that she would explain once they were airborne. She escorted him
to a waiting Humvee that took them to the base airstrip, where a C-
130 was warming up on the tarmac.

"Madera ordered me to lie down on a gurney that had been in the rear
of the Humvee so she could strap me down. I again asked what was
going on, only this time a lot more pissed off. I said that I was
perfectly able to walk." Ford said Madera insisted, telling him it
was the order of "[Lt. Col. Timothy] Ryan and Artiga" that he
be "bound and secured" when taken "out of country." "I saw that I had
no choice and finally said OK, anything just to get the fuck out of
there," Ford recalled. With the help of the male captain, who Ford
said identified himself as a medical officer, Madera strapped him to
the gurney.

Just then, Ford claimed, Ryan, Artiga's superior officer, pulled up
in his Humvee and walked over to where Ford was lying on the
gurney. "He looked down at me and said, 'Don't worry. We are going to
get you the best treatment available.' I was enraged at that point,
and it was a good thing I was strapped down. I just stared back at
Ryan with looks that I hoped could kill, but I didn't say nothing.
What was the point? He had won that round."

Ryan did not respond to interview requests for this story.

The propellers of the huge turboprop engines on the C-130 sent
scorching blasts of superheated air back toward the group, almost hot
enough to singe the skin on a face. (When I left Iraq from the same
tarmac a few months later, I did get burned from the blasts.) As
Ford's gurney sank into the steaming tarmac, Madera and the other
medical officer wheeled him up the long ramp and into the aircraft's
cavernous interior. Once they were airborne, Madera unstrapped Ford
and motioned for him to sit next to her on one of the hard benches
that run along the sides of the plane. "She told me that she was
forced to get me out of Iraq ASAP by Ryan and Artiga, who she claimed
were scared to death by what I might say. She also told me that she
wanted me to get out of Iraq as soon as possible because she feared
for my safety." Ford said Madera also told him, "These people are
serious and very scary." She apologized for having orchestrated such
an exit, but said there was no other way. "I told her that I
understood, but felt as though I had just been kidnapped." According
to Ford, Madera replied, "You were."

Madera did not respond to several requests to be interviewed for this
story.

The C-130 took Ford to Kuwait, where he cooled his heels inside
transient tents for two to three days and waited for the 223rd to
issue him an order. The order never came -- in violation of Army
regulations -- but eventually he boarded another aircraft, still
accompanied by Madera and the other officer but now acting on his own
volition, and flew to the Army Regional Medical Center in Landstuhl,
Germany. "The first thing they kept asking me at Landstuhl
was, 'Where are your orders?' How'd you get out of theater?' I mean,
I was probably asked that 50 times when I was there. Everybody asked
me that. They have a reception group that meets you there and even
the Air Force people when I was getting off the plane said, 'We don't
know how you got on this plane because you don't have any orders. We
don't have a single set of orders for you.'"

According to a senior official at the California National Guard
headquarters in Sacramento, Ford should have had what is known as
a "medevac" order from his unit in Iraq (205th M.I. Brigade) in order
to leave the country. No one is allowed out of a theater of
operations without either a medevac order or a standard set of
written orders authorizing travel to a destination. Ford had neither,
which is a violation of Army policy.

After a brief stay for evaluation at Landstuhl, Ford says, he was
flown to the United States, where he went first to Fort Sam Houston,
Texas, and then to Fort Lewis, Wash., where he was placed in the
Madigan Army Medical Center. At Fort Lewis, Ford filed a complaint
with the Army's Criminal Investigation Command, or CID, in which he
cited both the uninvestigated "war crimes" allegations and the
retaliation that he says followed.

At every stop along the way, from Kuwait to Germany to the United
States, Ford was evaluated by Army mental-health professionals and
given a clean bill of health. Doctors at each location confirmed
Madera's original diagnosis -- that he was mentally stable. Ford
supplied me with documents from all of the hospitals he visited,
showing diagnoses of "normal," "not delusional," "not paranoid," "no
evidence of hallucination," "stable mental condition," and other
similar remarks. There is nothing to suggest that any of the Army
medical personnel who evaluated Greg Ford after he made his
allegations in Iraq felt that there was anything wrong with him. Tsai
at the Army Regional Medical Center in Landstuhl, Germany, gave Ford
a final diagnosis of "Stable Mental Condition." Dr. Thomas Hardaway
of the Brooke Army Medical Center at Fort Sam Houston, Texas,
wrote, "there was not any indication of overt paranoia or delusional
quality to what he was saying about his circumstances." He went on to
say, "There is nothing on my initial screening evaluation indicating
any overt pathology or personality problems ... Release patient from
Behavioral Medicine Clinic."

Finally, in February 2004, eight months after he blew the whistle,
Ford was released from active duty and given an honorable discharge,
and in October, 10 months after his initial application, he was
formally retired from the Army.

Even if Ford's allegations of prisoner abuse turn out to be false,
the Army's treatment of him betrays an outrageous attempt to cover up
a potential scandal and a blatant disregard for its own rules.
According to both Ford and a credible witness, Marciello, Ford was
strapped to a gurney and bundled off to a mental ward on the basis of
a coerced diagnosis for an indefinite period of time, all before any
investigation was even started, much less completed. When a CID
investigator finally began pursuing the matter in the fall, Artiga
told the investigator that the 223rd had "looked into it" and
found "nothing wrong." If what Ford and his witnesses say turns out
to be true, then the officers involved could face criminal charges
ranging from threatening and intimidation, perjury, and assault to
false imprisonment, conspiracy and obstruction of justice. The list
of potential breaches of Army regulations is just as long,
including "conduct unbecoming of an officer," a serious offense in
the military.

In addition to Ford and the other soldiers treated by Tsai, other
Army whistle-blowers have also reported this type of mistreatment.
According to a May 25 report by United Press International, Julian
Goodrum, a decorated lieutenant in the U.S. Army Reserves, was
allegedly locked in a psychiatric ward as punishment for filing a
complaint over the death of a soldier in his command. He had also
testified before Congress about the poor medical care Reserve
soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan were receiving at Fort
Knox, Ky. After he escaped from the locked ward, he was charged with
being AWOL and was even given a $6,000 bill for room and board during
his involuntary hospital stay. Still another whistle-blower, Sgt.
Samuel Provance of the 205th M.I. Brigade, was stripped of his
security clearance and assigned to administrative duties in Germany
after reporting abuses at Abu Ghraib. Provance told me in recent e-
mails that he has been harassed by other soldiers and commanders
since he made his allegations and has become something of a pariah in
his unit.

In August 2004, Ford filed a report on his allegations of war crimes
and abduction with the Sacramento office of the FBI. That office
forwarded the report to the Bureau's headquarters in Washington,
which in turn passed it along to the Department of Defense. Ford says
he met with investigators from the DoD's Office of the Inspector
General in the last week of September. "It was obvious from their
line of questioning that their mission was to cover up for DoD and
the Army," Ford said. Special Agent Karen Ernst of the FBI's
Sacramento office told me that the Bureau "may" have jurisdiction in
the matter and is prepared to step in if the DoD "drops the ball on
this." Although she would not offer an opinion of Ford's case, she
did say that they only file reports if they believe the allegations
have "some merit."

The Department of the Army Office of the Inspector General has also
launched an investigation into Ford's allegations. Although by policy
they can neither confirm nor deny the existence of a current
investigation, Ford said that investigators have flown out to
California to interview him and have conducted several follow-up
interviews as well as requested documents and e-mail records from
him. Requests through the Freedom of Information Act to the Army or
the DoD for any reports relating to Ford and his allegations have
resulted in a flurry of letters stating essentially that the case
is "complex" and that it will take additional time to compile all of
the requested documents.

Neither the California Office of the Adjutant General in Sacramento
nor the state's Judge Advocate General (JAG) office would officially
comment, but staff at both places told me off the record that they
hoped Ford would be vindicated and the officers in question punished
for "abuse of authority."

According to an Army CID special agent who is familiar with Ford's
case, "This is a classic case of a whitewash. A coverup. The agent in
Iraq never even looked at the 15-6 investigation the 223rd supposedly
did. No one was ever interviewed until Abu Ghraib hit the fan." When
I asked him whether the CID was complicit in an Army coverup of the
case, he said, "Absolutely ... Do you have any idea how ugly this
case could get if they ever really looked into it? It would open up a
whole can of worms that they just don't want to touch." The agent,
who refused to give his name for fear of retaliation, added, "Based
on everything I know about this case, I believe Ford. I have seen too
many similar cases not to. It fits the pattern. Everyone involved in
this blatant coverup should be criminally prosecuted. For this to
have dragged on for over a year without being investigated is
ridiculous." In September, the CID conducted two telephone interviews
with Marciello, but no one else in the 223rd has yet been
interviewed, including myself.

His nightmarish experience with the Army in Iraq has changed him
forever, Ford told me as we sat on a bench near the fountain in front
of California National Guard headquarters in Sacramento. He said that
he intended to devote the next few years, and maybe even the rest of
his life, to working with individuals and organizations in the fight
for human rights and dignity. He specifically mentioned Amnesty
International and the World Organization for Human Rights. The latter
has formally requested that Attorney General John Ashcroft file
criminal war-crimes charges against high-ranking administration
officials, including Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and
President George W. Bush, over the revelations coming out of Abu
Ghraib. Ford said he hoped to join in pushing for that action.

(1rst In A Series On Amway Consumer Fraud Scandal)

Former Amway insider, Eric Scheibeler, has written a
must read new book called "Merchants Of Deception."
This one time member of the Amway motivational cult
has turned whistleblower and FBI witness and boy does
he have some tales to tell.

In the book, Scheibeler exposes an Enron sized fraud
with Amway raking In billions of dollars annually, and
the billionaire founding families Being the largest
soft money contributors to the GOP, with funds that
have Been generated from what may turn out to be one
of the largest consumer fraud scandals in history,
perpetrated by the world's largest multi-level
marketing company (MLM).

The former Federal Auditor has also has a website,
www.merchantsofdeception.com, that reveals the close
ties between Amway and Republicans.

As a life long conservative, Scheibeler was
discouraged to both discover and document that "the
GOP seems to have been hijacked by political payoffs
from an industry that is rife with consumer deception,
and bogus 'business opportunity' selling." He goes on
to say that it's "time this secret influence peddling
and the harm it causes consumers and our democracy are
revealed. I was on the inside for nine years. I saw it
with my own eyes. I also have the internal documents,
financials, and the audio and video tapes to prove
it."

Merchants of Deception exposes the company's deceptive
marketing of phony business opportunities and other
secret scams by Amway's top promoters to sell
so-called success tools to unsuspecting recruits all
over the world. It also contains first hand accounts
of the Kingpin's fraudulent recruitment practices that
have led to an endless stream of lawsuits.

In addition to writing a book and setting up a web
site, Scheibeler provided key documentation for the
May 7, 2004, NBC Dateline program that televised an
expose of the secretive and illegal pyramid business
run by Amway & Quixtar kingpins.

During its investigation, Dateline smuggled hidden
cameras into recruitment meetings in order to document
the company's deceptive claims and promises, and to
expose its multi-million dollar 'secret' business. The
expose verified the common allegation made in numerous
consumer lawsuits, that the company is merely a front
for a hidden pyramid business based on selling books,
tapes, and registrations to seminars and rallies to
new recruits, with nearly all participants losing
money.

According to Dateline, the FBI and the IRS are
conducting investigations into the scheme.

Republicans Will Do Anything For A Buck

Amway's billionaire founders, Rich DeVos and Jay
VanAndel, have been the largest soft money
contributors to the GOP on and off for the past 20
years. Together, DeVos and VanAndel gave $4,000,000 to
a 527, just 45 days prior to the last election. And
you can bet that they demand (and get) a bang for
every red cent.

Scheibeler's book reveals how GOP donations and
corporate promotion have resulted in a trade off for
political protection and tax reduction benefits for
the MLM. His web site provides a goldmine of
documentation to back up his claims, including
audiotapes.

By going to the site, you can hear Newt Gingrich
promoting Amway at a large event, or you can listen to
audio clips of then Texas Governor George W Bush.
There is even a clip sent by high-level kingpin
distributors from a private meeting within the White
House.

Scheibeler tells how some members of the GOP have been
paid as much as $100,000 for a single promotional
appearance at an Amway seminar. The list of high-paid
Republican speakers who have appeared at rallies over
the years, reads like a list of who's who in the GOP.
It includes former Presidents George Bush, Ronald
Reagan, Gerald Ford and former Vice Presidents Bob
Dole and Dan Quayle, along with other GOP heavyweights
like Gingrich, Oliver North, Senator Rick Santorum and
even the latest SE Regional Chairman for the
Bush-Cheney '04 campaign, Ralph Reed.

Scheibeler reveals just how much Republican law makers
have given back to Amway in return for the large
speaking fees and contributions, which includes tax
breaks and a blanket of immunity from investigations
into the company's illegal business practices. In
hindsight, it is more than evident that the money
bought a whole lot of regulatory protection for Amway.

Merchant's of Deception provides a good example of how
the racket works in the case of Newt Gingrich. His
speaking fees are reported to be in the $50,000 range.
The books explains how, after accepting speaking fees,
Gingrich arranged a reported last-minute modification
in a comprehensive tax bill that allegedly provided a
$283 million tax break to just one company -- Amway.

One report called the tax break a $283 million payoff.
"The payoff for Amway was not in the original House or
Senate version of the tax bill. House Speaker Newt
Gingrich intervened at the last minute to help get the
special tax break inserted in the bill." (San Antonio
Express-News Aug 12,1997).

Who Else Is Involved In The Amway Scandal?

Back in 1997, syndicated columnist Molly Ivins
described Amway's Lobbying power in Congress, "Amway
has its own caucus in Congress. Yes, the Amway caucus.
Five Republican House members are also Amway
distributors: Reps. Sue Myrick of North Carolina, Jon
Christensen of Nebraska, Dick Chrysler of Michigan,
Richard Rombo of California and John Ensign of Nevada.
Their informal caucus meets several times a year with
Amway bigwigs to discuss policy matters affecting the
company, including China's trade status," she said.

Ivins also noted that, "House Majority Whip Tom DeLay,
a onetime Amway salesman, also remains close to the
company." Which figures, because everybody knows
that if there's a buck to be made from a scam, DeLay
is sure to be lurking around in the shadows somewhere
nearby.

And the fund-raising power of this pyramid company is
not limited to the company's top dogs. The downline
distributors are often pressured to produce large sums
of money by soliciting small contributions from a
great number of people. And that money can add up
fast, considering that in 2000, Amway reportedly had
over 700,000 distributors.

In 1997, a request from Congresswoman Sue Myrick to
Amway Kingpin, Dexter Yager, for help in her fund
raising events, increased her campaign war chest by
more than $20,000 with small contributions from
distributors. The next year, another fundraiser aimed
at distributors brought in over $35,000.

W and Amway Are Tight

When it comes to W and Amway, it's a give and take
situation. They mutually provide "quid pro quo"
favors to each other. For instance, during the 2000
campaign, W used the company's voicemail network to
reach thousands of Kingpin Dexter Yager's distributors
with a personalized message from none other than Bush
himself.

Then last summer, when Amway co-founder Rich DeVos
attended a dinner party at the home of a friend in
Grand Rapids, MI, he got seated right across the
dinner table from W, according to the Orlando
Sentinel.

DeVos isn't shy about discussing his contributions to
Bush. "People ask Me sometimes why I support Bush,
"DeVos said, "I just tell them, 'Because When I walk
into the room, he says, "Hi, Rich." ' I've been a
friend to the family for a long time."

"I give the max," DeVos said proudly. "People talk
about buying access, But all I can tell you is that
politicians know the people who support them," he told
the Sentinel.

And DeVos ain't lying, he has been very generous to W
over the years. The $2,000 campaign Limit that he
gives directly to Bush, is but a fraction of what he
actually contributes. His wife, kids, and their
spouses, also make large donations to W and other
members of the GOP.

During the 2000 election cycle, DeVos, his wife, and
son contributed a combined sum of $760,000 to
Republican candidates and causes, and according to FEC
records, Amway itself contributed a whopping $1.3
million, with every dime going to Republicans.

Favored politicians are also aware that the Amway
perks don't necessarily end once they leave office.
For example, DeVos has remained such great friends
with President Ford over the years, that when Ford
travels, it's often on DeVos' private jet.

How Much Does W Protect Amway - Let Me Count The Ways

Scheibeler's reporting provides a well documented
expose of the Bush administration's direct involvement
in the regulatory protection of Amway, and verifies
that DeVos does get a lot of bang for every buck.

As we all know, there are rampant cases of improper
influence in the Bush White House. Right off the top
my head, energy and drug companies come to mind. But
Amway is different; its primary goal is not merely to
rip off tax payers. Its to literally protect its very
existence. The MLM completely relies on political
protection to prevent it from being shut down by
regulators and law enforcement.

And Bush has demonstrated that he was more than
willing to engage in the protection racket.

On his web site, Scheibeler is highly critical of the
FTC, and its current chairman, Bush appointee, Timothy
Muris, mainly because of the agency's utter refusal to
properly investigate and/or prosecute pyramid schemes,
despite the overwhelming number of well documented
complaints that have been filed with the agency.

Without a doubt, Amway's business practices are
flagrant violations of FTC rules. Three separate
federal court rulings have defined these types of
pyramid sales as illegal schemes, and there are any
number of websites on the internet that document the
financial harm caused to millions of people by Amway's
deceptive recruitment schemes. Yet, the Bush
administration has consistently ignored the company's
violations.

Scheibeler's web site attracts testimonials from Amway
victims all over the world. Complaints have come in
from Australia, New Zealand, UK, Germany, France,
Canada, and Slovakia. And the whole world watches as
the FTC turns a blind eye to the blatant exportation
of this "American" fraud.

In fact, it could be said that Bush has aided and
abetted Amway's criminal behavior. To begin with,
appointing Tim Muris to head the FTC was the
equivalent of setting a fox loose in the chicken coup.
Before his appointment, Muris was as an attorney with
the antitrust division of the law firm Howrey, Simon,
Arnold and White, LLP. And guess who the firm's
antitrust division counts as one of its largest
clients? Amway.

So here we have it, while Muris was at Howrey, and
while he was in charge of the FTC, his former law
partners were representing Amway in a class action
lawsuit initiated by a former Amway distributor that
alleged that the MLM's recruitment program was an
illegal pyramid scheme.

And there's more. The MLM's influence with the FTC
doesn't end with Muris, it extends beyond him. During
the Clinton administration, a company named Equinox
(an Amway clone), was prosecuted for violating the
pyramid scheme fraud statutes. One of Equinox's expert
witnesses was David Scheffman, and he testified
against the FTC and defended the scheme.

Scheffman claimed that the company's business model
was legitimate and not a pyramid scheme, based on the
assertion that company operated just like Amway. In
the end, Equinox lost the court battle and was shut
down, but guess where Scheffman ended up? Muris made
him the Chief Economist at the FTC.

Does the information above indicate any conflict of
interest violations within the Bush administration?
Probably not, since the term conflict of interest was
obviously deleted from the White House vocabulary when
Bush moved in.

By Evelyn Pringle
e.pringle@sbcglobal.net
Miamisburg, OH 45342