"The heart of the sons of men is full of evil, and madness is in their heart..." ~Eccl. 9:3

In the "American Dictionary Of The English Language, 1878," Noah Webster defined buggery as "a crime against nature; the unnatural and detestable crime of carnal intercourse of man or woman with a beast or of human beings unnaturally with each other; sodomy." And up until approximately 40 years ago all Americans believed that sodomy was unnatural and destestable and our society was such that it required people who engaged in it to keep that behavior out of 'sight,' and most importantly, away from our children. So how is it that in a relatively short time span Americans have not only come to accept sodomy as something 'natural, normal, and healthy' but are allowing their children to be instructed on how to become, in effect, 'buggerers'? The subversion and perversion of American social mores didn't occur either naturally or honestly. It was slyly contrived at by morally insane intellectuals and their acolytes.

Moral insanity is not to be confused with intellectual insanity, which is caused by chemical imbalances and such. Morally insane people retain their intellectual powers but set their will toward evil. They refuse to yield to the demands of their consciences and they discard their obligations of moral responsibiity towards everyone but themselves and the selfish ends they are in pursuit of. They follow dreams of their own fancy. They act as if truth were lies and lies were truth. Reality is redefined and redescribed to suit their pleasures and ungodly desires.

Comment: Sounds like a mighty fine description of the inhabitants of the White House, including the buggery part. Jeff Gannon, anyone? Bohemian Grove?

America's morally insane prevaricaters are the souless progeny of Lenin, who said, "(we) repudiate all morality that proceeds from supernatural ideas (religion).....everything is moral that is necessary for the annihilation of the old, exploiting social order..." (end quote) In other words, Natural Law, moral standards, truth, wisdom handed down through the ages, commonsense.....all are swept aside or perverted in favor of the evil whims, fancies, and lies conceived of in the corrupted minds of Lenin's maddened sons and daughters in order that they can annihilate America's traditional social order.

We know these blackhearted schemers in general terms like Leftists or Liberals. But more specifically, they are, for instance, neo-Marxist professors, activist judges, Hollywood actors/actresses, and the Dem. Progressive Caucus of the US House of Representatives. Read what the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) say with regards to the Progressive Caucus: (quote) "The DSA is the largest socialist organization in the US and a principle affilliate of the Socialist Internationalist. DSA's members are building progressive movements for social change while establishing an openly socialist presence in American communities and politics. DSA is working in conjunction with the Congressional Progressive Caucus, a network of more than 50 progressive members in the US House of Rep." (end quote) Among the Dem. Progressive Caucus members are Bernie Sanders, Pelosi, DeFazio, Waxman, and Lewis. Go here to see a complete list: http://www.rfcnet.org/archives/socialists.htm

The strategic goals being implemented within America by America's communist subversives were articulated in 1963 by the Hon. A.S. Herlong, Jr. of the Fla House of Representatives and are in the Congressional Record, Vol 109, 88th Congress, 1st Session. http://www.restoringamerica.org/
documents/45_goals_of_communism.html Among other things, they conspired to get control of our schools; to debase our culture by degrading all artistic expression {ie.dung art, vomit art, crosses upside-down in urine, shapeless sculpture, etc);to take control of media (entertainment and news sources); eliminate obscenity laws on the contrivance that they infringe on free speech; capture one or both political parties; break down cultural standards of morality by promoting porn and obscenity; present homosexuality, degeneracy, and promiscuity as 'normal, natural, and healthy" (note that homosexuality is bracketed with degeneracy); infiltrate churches and replace revealed religion with 'social religion'; discredit the Bible; eliminate prayer and all religious expression in schools on the ground that it violates 'separation of church and state" (which does not exist in our Constitution); discredit traditional family; encourage promiscuity and easy divorce."

The preceeding list is a damning indictment against America's blackhearted sons of destruction. It clearly evidences their cruel hypocrisy, gross deceptions, lies, and their outright evil. It also demonstrates how very successful they've been in underrmining and perverting our culture. In fact, they've been so sccessful that our culture has been turned into a sewer. We are not only a promiscuous, porn-saturated, fornicating, diseased culture of divorce, but one that celebrates 'buggery' and teaches it to its children.

Comment: While American culture is pretty much a sewer, we think the reasons are a little more complex than "communist conspiracy". After all, the corporations that own the media are heavy backers of that most Christian of presidents, GW. So while the corporate owners are supporters of Bush, they are secretly lefties.

There are many nasty games being played in the United States these days. One of the nastiest is the hypocrisy of the media. The news is completely dominated by the right, by Christians, by Zionists. Everything that appears on the news is shaped and played to pander to the policies of the Bush administration. People from the former Soviet bloc say the media is far worse in the US today than it was in the Soviet countries as far as being shills for official power. At the same time as the news is dominated by the right, it is true that the "entertainment" on US TV is playing to the basest instincts of the organic portal. This allows the right to scream and rant about how "liberal" the media is while set the agenda on the news. It is a slick trick. There is no defence for the waste products that wash across the screens of America's TVs and movie theatres. But they are being funded and distributed by the same people that take out billboard extolling GW as "Our Commander-in-Chief".

So we are not looking at a left-wing conspiracy; we are looking at right-wing hypocrisy. Jeff Gannon, anyone?

Ours has become a 'culture of death" wherein we mindlessly celebrate killing our unborn as a 'liberating right' while simultaneously celebrating the destruction of the traditional family via divorce. But we also celebrate with 'pride' the extinguishing of life through the depositing of it in the human bodies' 'repository for waste matter".

Comment: And the US goes into foreign countries that are no threat to the security of the US and bomb and kill innocent civilians. The culture of life indeed. The culture of life in the US is a culture where not even the basic needs of its population are taken care of: no health insurance, no guaranteed employment, a measly two weeks of vacation time, if you are lucky, a growing split between the richest and the rest of the country. These are manifestations not of a culture of life, but of a culture of entropy.

Further evidence of their heinous 'culture of death' victories over America's traditional culture can be seen in the mind-boggling statistics regarding the plague of STDs sweeping our nation. The ASHA (http://www.ashastd.org/stdfaqs/statistics.html) reported these statistics for 1998: approx. 65,000,000 cases of STDS, with relatively few curable at a cost of 8 billion a year to treat; 15,000,000 new cases every year; two thirds of all STDs are in the 25 or younger category; 1 in 4 occur in teens" (end quote) The CDC reported that it costs approximately $100,000 to treat just one AIDs patient, with an additional $20,000 yearly for drugs. Disease is not the only consequence of the bizarre social engineering that America's communists are subjecting our culture to. A growing contagion of sex crimes is another. Go here: http://www.obscenitycrimes.org/news/
Porn-Crime-Link-RWP.cfm to read about the links between porn and sex crime.

Looking at these deadly statistics, can we believe anything other than that the Left are insane monsters? They've knowingly unleashed the destructive forces of sexual license upon America knowing in advance what the deadly outcome would be. These are the maddened offspring of past and present genocidal murderers, butchers who are responsible for exterminating 100,000,000 plus people and counting: Mao, Lenin, Stalin, Hitler (was a socialist), Pol Pot, Kim Jung II, and Castro.

Comment: According to the Historical Atlas of the Twentieth Century, during the past 100 years there have been approximately 2 billion deaths (including civilians) resulting from war, tyrannical governments, and man-made famine. When these figures are broken down into deaths caused by Communism vs Capitalism, they are almost equal, with the figure slightly higher for Capitalism. Oops! Looks like the genocidal murderers aren't only Commies!

Furthermore, since when was the "Left" holding the positions of power in the US? The Republicans and the Democrats are two right-wing parties by the standards of the rest of the world. They are both beholden to corporate interests, both in the pocket of Israel. When was the last US socialist president in power? Or at the Department of Defense or in the State Department or heading the World Bank?

Either Kimball and her ilk live in a dream world or they are quite comfortable making things up. Then, again, the ten commandments don't prohibit lying.

And to promote and enforce their agenda of moral degeneracy, death, and destruction, America's communists formed up an army of organizations to do their bidding. Among just a fraction of these are the ACLU, GLAAD (Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation); Lambda Legal, AFT (Am. Federation of Teachers), NEA (Nat'l Educators Assoc.); NOW; NARAL; Gay Straight Alliance Network; and GLSEN (Gay, Lesbian, & Straight Educators Network). All of these, plus many more are boldly listed on the Communist Party USA website: http://www.cpusa.org/ The Human Rights Campaign, yet another 'gay' activist group, is found on various progressive websites, and it actively works against the appointment of strict Constitutionalist judges.

Comment: Wow! Those commies certainly were clever. I wonder if Mrs. Kimball thinks that the idea that Bush and gang were behind 9/11 is a "conspiracy theory"?

Americans,these evil people are teaching your children to become fornicating sodomites (buggerers). They don't care that your children are becoming diseased in the process. Keep in mind what Lenin, one of their "fathers" said to them: ".....everything becomes moral in pursuit of the annihilation of their (our) culture." Everything becomes 'moral', even turning children into diseased degenerates.

Our Founders knew well the dangers posed to societies in which sexual license, including sodomy florished. So feared was the corrupting influence of sodomy, that many states imposed the death penalty upon any man or woman who engaged in it (go to link at bottom of page for info).

Comment: So is she calling for the reinstatement of the death penalty for this horrendous crime? She has already labeled the "Left" as "insane monsters". The next step is to start rounding them up and putting them in front of firing squads. Why bother even putting them into jail?

In 1814, legal author John David Michaelis wrote:

"If we reflect on the dreadful consequences of sodomy to a state, and...the extent to which this abominable vice may be secretly carried on and spread, we cannot, on the principles of sound policy, consider the punishment as too severe. For if it once begins to prevail, not only will boys be easily corrupted by adults, but also by other boys; nor will it ever cease; more especially as it must thus soon lose all its shamefulness and infamy and become fashionable and the national taste; and then . . . national weakness, for which all remedies are ineffectual, most inevitably follow; not perhaps in the very first generation, but certainly in the course of the third or fourth. . . . To these evils may be added yet another, viz. that the constitutions of those men who submit to this degradation are, if not always, yet very often, totally destroyed, though in a different way from what is the result of whoredom. Whoever, therefore, wishes to ruin a nation, has only to get this vice introduced; for it is extremely difficult to extirpate it where it has once taken root because it can be propagated with much more secrecy . . . and when we perceive that it has once got a footing in any country, however powerful and flourishing, we may venture...to predict that the foundation of its future decline is laid and that after some hundred years it will no longer be the same . . . powerful country it is at present."

This bears repeating: "Whoever, therefore, wishes to ruin a nation, has only to get this vice introduced...."

Comment: Jeff Gannon, anyone?

We now know who is responsible for purposely introducing sodomy, promiscuity, obscenity, porn, and moral degeneracy in general into our culture, and to what ends they've done so. And now we must, with grim determination purge our culture of it, eject socialists from public office, and do everything that lies within our power to replace moral degeneracy with moral virtues.......honor, honesty, dignity, fortitude, personal responsibility and accountability, diligence, valor, integrity, fidelity, and self-sacrifice. We must return to America's founding moral anchor... our Christian based worldview.

Comment: When were there ever "socialists" in office in the US? Are they talking about Bernie Sanders? And what exactly does she mean "everything in our power"? The moral virtue of smoting your enemy? Or the moral virtue contained in our Bible reading for the day at the top of the page?

History shows that the so-called "moral anchor" of Christianity, both as it manifested in the US as well as in the rest of the world, was not so secure as she would have us believe. Remember the Inquisition? Remember the slaughter of America's native population? This moral anchor is about as moral as Bush's culture of life is about life.

"The general principles on which the fathers achieved independance were...the general principles of Christianity." ---John Adams

"The religion which has introduced civil liberty is the religion of Christ and His Apostles.....This is genuine Christianity and to this we owe our free constitution of government." ---Noah Webster

If we do not, our fate and the fate of our great nation will be to continue free-falling into an abyss of dementia, debauchery, disease, and impotency.

Shall this become us? "Our parents, worse than our grandparents, gave birth to us who are worse than they, and we shall in our turn bear offspring still more evil.' ---Horace (BS 65-8)

William Penn said, "If we will not be governed by God, we must be governed by tyrants."

We have two choices: God our Creator, or godless man with his infernal social engineering.

(Washington) Despite assurances by the Bush Administration that the gay hustler who posed as a journalist was given only limited access to the White House new evidence shows that over a two year period he visited 196 times.

James D. Guckert, who wrote under the name Jeff Gannon, was Washington bureau chief for Talon News, a conservative online news outlet associated with another Web site, GOPUSA.

Questions began to circulate within the White House press corps almost as soon as "Gannon" arrived on the scene.

During news conferences he was regularly called on for questions by President Bush. But, invariably "Gannon's" questions would show an extreme right-wing and often anti-gay agenda. On one occasion he asked Bush how he could work with Senate Democratic leaders “who seem to have divorced themselves from reality.”

White House press secretary Scott McClellan also would regularly call on "Gannon" whenever he would be under more aggressive, hostile questions from the press.

During last year's election campaign "Gannon" wrote in Talon that Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry “might someday be known as ‘the first gay president.'"

He then noted that Kerry has enjoyed "a 100% rating from the homosexual advocacy group Human Rights Campaign since 1995 in recognition of his support for the pro-gay agenda.”

While the White House press corps winced at "Gannon's" lack of objectivity and began to wonder if he were an Administration "plant", John Aravosis, who operates the AMERICAblog Web site, began to probe his background.

Aravosis and other liberal bloggers discovered that "Gannon" was really J.D. Guckert and that he owned a number of extreme conservative websites. They also found that Guckert owned gay sex sites - all with a military theme and all offering his sexual services.

Following his exposure Guckert quit Talon and GOPUSA and Talon subsequently closed.

McClellan, responding to media questions earlier this year said "Gannon" received only infrequent day passes, and denied that he had been a GOP "plant".

But, Democrats in Congress took up the issue. Democratic Reps. Louise Slaughter of New York and John Conyers of Michigan filed a freedom of information request and were given Secret Service records of Guckert's visits.

Today's revelation that "Gannon" had visited the White House nearly twice weekly raises even more questions.

The Bush White House gay sex scandal heats up, as new revelations show that fake reporter and male prostitute Jeff Gannon "slept over" on numerous occasions at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Gannon had previously advertised his services on the internet as a male prostitute "top" at $1200 per weekend.

White House overnight trysts were not uncommon, according to Secret Service logs of Jeff Gannon's White House entries and exits, requested by Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-NY) and Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) using the FOIA (Freedom of Information Act).

Since "Jeff Gannon" has given the term "media whore" a whole new definition, the question arises -- could "Jeff Gannon" be President George Bush's Lewinsky albeit in gay apparel?

White House logs furnished by the Secret Service show that fake reporter Jeff Gannon (a.k.a James Guckert) stayed overnight at the White House on many occasions - even when press conferences or briefings were not scheduled.

These records reveal that the White House is like a Gay Roach Motel -- they check in but they don't check out.

WASHINGTON - Fears that an unidentified aircraft had entered restricted space near the White House prompted security officials to move President Bush from the Oval Office to an underground shelter Wednesday.

The brief scare lasted only a few minutes before officials determined it was a false alarm, White House counselor Dan Bartlett said. Some White House staff members were moved out of the West Wing and tourists were rushed from the East Wing.

"There was an indication that an aircraft has entered the no-fly zone,'' White House press secretary Scott McClellan said. "There's an investigation to determine what it really was.''

Security officers toting shotguns took up positions around the White House compound during the incident.

"There was a report of a possible violation of restricted air space and it was cleared,'' said Lorie Lewis, a spokesperson for the Secret Service.

McClellan said Bush was working in the Oval Office at the time. Bush was taken to the underground bunker. He was there "a very short amount of time,'' McClellan said.

Vice President Dick Cheney was not at the White House at the time but arrived minutes after the scare ended.

At least, if a revolution is a reversal of policy brought on by popular revolt against a self-satisfied, arrogant elite that has lost touch with people's lives and concerns, another revolution could indeed be brewing in France. If so, it starts in the ballot box, in the national referendum to be held next May 29 to ratify the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe.

The French government is one of only nine out of 25 European Union members that have dared submit the Constitution to a popular referendum. The political and media elite never doubted that voters would obediently vote "yes for Europe". They were victims of their own Europhoria, which has made them deaf to the rising revolt of the masses against a policy of "competition über alles" that subordinates all human concerns to "the free market".

The awakening to reality began on February 4, when 82% of delegates in France's largest trade union confederation, the CGT, voted to endorse the "no". This was a blow to the CGT's own leadership, which had come out for "yes". The rumblings began to be heard in the ranks of the Socialist Party, whose first secretary François Hollande had railroaded through an internal party referendum which narrowly endorsed the Constitution before anyone had had time to read it.

A note of panic crept into the "yes" campaign as polls began to show the intention to vote "no" rising steadily above the crucial 50% mark. Jack Lang trotted out his vast stable of celebrities to endorse the "yes" position by their charismatic presence. Jacques Delors warned of "cataclysm". Everything from the memory of Auschwitz to Paris's bid for the 2012 Olympics has been evoked as proof of the need to approve this Constitution. Everything but the text itself.

For decades, citizens have been told that each new step in European construction was necessary to ensure peace and consolidate the European model of social solidarity. Now the French are waking up to the fact that they have been sold a bill of goods.

The post-World War II ideal of uniting Europe to prevent another war long since been attained. It is now being exploited to win assent to a project that threatens to link Europe to the external wars waged by the United States. Far from preserving the "European model", the Constitution has been designed to transform Europe into the vanguard free trade area in the neo-liberal globalization process.

Already, the 1992 Maastricht Treaty dictated strict monetarist discipline to the member States, ruling out not only socialism but even Keynesian economic policies. At the time of the September 1992 French referendum on that Treaty, few actually read it -- and those who did can understand why. It was not written to be read by the general public. It is highly unlikely that the French would ever have knowingly chosen the policies dictated by that Treaty. But a slim majority of voters, notably on the left, were won over by promises that after Maastricht established monetary union, the next thing on the agenda would be the long-awaited "social Europe". The opposite has happened. The obligation to follow EU rules has led to business failures, transfer of industries abroad, cutbacks in social services, reduced purchasing power and mass unemployment.

What's wrong with it

It is easy to find people who voted for Maastricht who vow not to make the same mistake twice. This time around they are reading the text, and drawing their own conclusions.

To mention just a few things they find wrong with this Constitution:

* No one is sure quite what it is. Jurists point out that it is just another international Treaty, not a real Constitution. But since it has been presented to the public as a Constitution, people naturally judge it as such.

* It is extremely long, 482 pages in the English version, in four main sections totaling 448 articles, plus an endless series of annexes and protocols. Except perhaps for jurists with time on their hands, reading it is rough going.
* Unlike any normal Constitution, it goes beyond defining institutional structure to spell out in considerable detail the policies the European Union must follow. The principal objective of the Union, which conditions all others, is "a highly competitive market economy" where "competition is free and undistorted". Experience shows that in practice, this means "undistorted" by State intervention on behalf of social equality.

* Only military spending is exempted from the imposed austerity. Article I-41, on the "common security and defence policy", calls for improvement of military capabilities, and specifies that "commitments and cooperation in this area shall be consistent with commitments under the North Atlantic Treaty Organization". The European Union is tied to NATO, the United States' prime institutional instrument for controlling European foreign policy.

* Moreover, it is tied to current U.S. foreign policy doctrine, notably by the stress on combatting "terrorist attacks" (Article I-43) and on military contributions to the "fight against terrorism" (Article III-309). The missions foreseen mesh perfectly with U.S.-led foreign wars. The drafters of this text seem to envision the European Union as the "good cop" alongside the U.S. on the same worldwide beat.

* The Constitution is "concluded for an unlimited period" and can be amended (Article IV-443) only by an extremely tortuous process requiring unanimity of all Member States.

* The EU Charter of Rights -- supposed to be a main selling point -- falls short of both the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and most Western European national constitutions, including those of France, Italy and Germany. Example: where the French Constitution guarantees the right to work, in the sense of the right to gainful employment, the EU Constitution guarantees the right to look for work. The EU Constitution guarantees the "right to strike" not only to workers, but also to employers: thereby introducing "lockout" into French jurisprudence.

All this may look good to "new Europeans" in ex-Soviet bloc countries who are eager to swing from one extreme to the other. For the working class in Western Europe, it spells regression.

Public services

The primary focus of the revolt has been defense of public services. The vast majority of French people are attached to their public services as an essential factor in their high quality of life and social solidarity. France has perhaps the best medical system in the world, and with it the longest life expectancy. The Paris Metro is a model of urban transport. The railroad and postal systems are incomparably more efficient than the privatized systems in Britain and other countries. The country's resolutely secular school system and rich cultural life are indispensable elements of social cohesion.

To provide all citizens with equal access to such vital services as utilities, transport and postal communication, a broad base is needed to allow the proceeds from the most profitable operations to be used to cover the costs of less profitable operations, such as service to remote rural areas or disadvantaged populations.

This means government regulation. If such services are wide open to private capital, private firms will take over the profitable parts, leaving the non-profit operations to the State. They will be drastically reduced or shut down. By the laws of the financial market, private companies must use profits to pay their shareholders a better return than they can get on other investments. A narrow profit is not enough. In the private sector, serving the public is a slogan, not a necessity.

The Constitution's advocates lie outright when they claim that it protects public services. The starting point of the "non" campaign has been to expose this deception. The text never mentions "public services", and certainly no "right to public services". Article III-166 refers to "services of general economic interest":

"Undertakings entrusted with the operation of services of general economic interest or having the character of an income-producing monopoly shall be subject to the provisions of the Constitution, in particular to the rules on competition, insofar as the application of such provisions does not obstruct the performance, in law or in fact, of the particular tasks assigned to them. The development of trade must not be affected to such an extent as would be contrary to the Union's interest."

This passage introduces the "economic" fox into the chickencoop. As is frequently the case, the language is obscure, but can be read to give primacy to "the rules on competition" and the "development of trade". Article III-167 goes on to specify that "any aid granted by a Member State or through State resources in any form whatsoever which distorts or threatens to distort competition by favouring certain undertakings or the production of certain goods shall, insofar as it affects trade between Member States, be incompatible with the internal market." The few exemptions mentioned do not include public services.

Enter Frankenstein

As luck would have it, just as the pre-referendum campaign was getting underway, public attention was drawn to a draft Directive on liberalization of services that perfectly illustrated the implications of the "internal market where competition is free and undistorted" (Article I-3). Known by the name of its author, EU Commissioner Frits Bolkestein, a former head of Shell Oil and a right-wing Dutch political leader, it soon won the nickname of the "Frankenstein directive". The main feature of this proposed legislation is the "principle of origin". Services sold abroad would submit to the rules of their country of origin. This means that companies in France or Germany, for instance, could hire services from Poland or Slovakia under the lower wage and looser professional standards of the "country of origin".

The "social Europe" promised by politicians for years would mean harmonizing social standards upwards, eventually aligning all Member States with those having the highest levels of worker protection, wages and benefits. The United Kingdom -- whether Labor or the Conservatives -- has persistently blocked all such attempts. Now, the Bolkestein directive makes it quite clear that the thrust is toward bringing standards down to the lowest levels.

This would wipe out the social gains of over a century in countries such as France, Germany and Belgium. It would also imperil France's public services, by forcing them to compete with cheaper offerings from poorer countries, outside French regulations.

Conservative and Socialist leaders alike in France fell over themselves condemning this directive. The catch is that when it was first introduced last year, those same leaders endorsed it heartily. This purely opportunist change of heart could not fool anyone.

To add to the embarrassment of the "yes" faction, there was Mr. Bolkestein himself, almost the perfect caricature of the arrogant reactionary. He, who was the first Dutch political leader to openly complain of Muslim immigration in his country and who fiercely opposes Turkey's entrance into the EU, blasted the French as "nationalist" for distorting his name as "Frankenstein". To illustrate the merits of his directive, Bolkestein told a French audience that he would be delighted to import a Polish electrician, since it was hard to find one where he has a vacation home in northern France.

The mayor of the nearest town wrote to Bolkestein sympathizing with his plight, and pointing out that the French had invented a remedy for his woes: the yellow pages of the telephone directory, where he could find at least 13 electricians. The local members of that trade thereupon demonstrated their presence by cutting Bolkestein's current. This is the sort of direct action the French tend to relish.

Bolkestein's appearance was so counterproductive as to help compensate for the media blackout of serious "no" arguments. Yet some polls indicate that most journalists disagree with their editors and publishers and plan to vote "no".

Enthusiastic "black sheep"

This is just another indication of the deep split between rulers and ruled. The groundswell for the "no" has come from the grassroots, with a proliferation of neighborhood meetings examining the text. In Paris, activist groups have sprung up distributing leaflets critical of the Constitution at Metro stations, and report that two out of three passersby stop to discuss the issue. Television gives considerable news time to trivial pro-Constitution appearances of leaders of the conservative UMP, the Socialist Party and the Greens (whose party very narrowly endorsed the "yes"), while remarkably well-attended and enthusiastic meetings for "no" go unreported. On April 14, while President Jacques Chirac was warning a selected group of young people on an evening-long television show that if France rejects the Constitution she will be the "black sheep" of Europe, an enthusiastic crowd packed the big Zenith theater in Paris for a "non de gauche" meeting organized by the French Communist Party (PCF). Speakers included dissident Socialists and Greens, Trotskyists, Left Republicans, and a range of grass roots activists. The hero of the anti-globalization movement, José Bové, reminded the audience that in 1789, French peasants stormed the chateaux without waiting to see what the rest of Europe thought or did. When France has a great progressive idea it can take it to the world.

What idea? In the simplest terms, it was expressed by an academic, Marie-José Mondzain, when she said that a growing majority of citizens reject a world where everything and everybody can be bought and sold. They are those who have neither much to sell nor the fantasy of being able to buy everything, and those who prefer to spend their lives giving and sharing. She had clearly struck the right note with the audience, which rose to its feet in a long standing ovation.

Six days later, Socialists crowded into a Paris gymnasium in defiance of their Party leaders with the slogan, "This time it's NO". Both meetings displayed the same resolute rejection of neoliberalism, the same electric enthusiasm, sustained applause and standing ovations for speakers. But this gathering was perhaps even more promising. In case the "no" wins, there is a chance that the revolt might overtake the Socialist Party itself, which has a real possibility of influencing the future course of France and Europe. And the dissident Socialists promise to unite their campaign with others, the PCF, Greens, and above all ATTAC ("Association pour la Taxation des Transactions Financières pour l'Aide aux Citoyens"), whose advocacy of an international Tobin tax has blossomed into a full-scale critique of neo-liberal globalisation, and which has been the main "think tank" for the present revolt.

What next?

What will happen if the "no" wins?

ATTAC president Jacques Nikonoff observed that contrary to the official alarmism, the European Union will go on functioning according to most recent of its treaties, the Treaty of Nice, until 2009. The juridical situation will be unchanged. Politically, the French "non" will create a salutary shock wave through Europe. It will stimulate a real debate on basic economic issues that have been muffled for twenty years by "TINA" -- there is no alternative. The worst measures will be stalled, or at least not written into an iron Constitution. The prospect will open to enact radical transformation in the foundations of the EU -- upwards social harmonization, the universal right to social services, a progressive industrial policy, opposition to all forms of neocolonialism, cancellation of Third World debt, dissolution of NATO, etc.

The most active of the dissident Socialists, Henri Emmanuelli, made the point that European leaders had created an impossible mess by rushing unprepared into "irresponsible" enlargements. When the Union was enlarged to take in Greece, Spain and Portugal, considerable funds were allocated to help bring them up to European standards. No such measures were taken for the new Eastern European members. This inevitably has led to competition for jobs and industry instead of solidarity between Member States. Emmanuelli noted that the United States pumps up its economy by massive deficit spending -- pouring the money into the military. In contrast, the EU could have invested constructively in raising standards in its new Member States -- but this is prohibited by the rigid budget balancing rules laid down in Maastricht. The ban on deficit spending has led to stagnation and tension between Member States.

In an effort to quell the rebellion in the ranks, François Hollande hauled out the scarecrow Jean-Marie Le Pen. In fact, Le Pen has been relatively inconspicuous recently. This, suggested Hollande, was because dissident Socialists "were doing Le Pen's work for him" by opposing the Constitution. Hollande even went so far as to ask French television to invite Le Pen and other far right-wingers to defend the "no". The "no" must be stigmatized as a far right, nationalist rejection of "Europe".

The blackmail, "you agree with the National Front", does not seem to be working. If anything, it is deepening the bitter division among Socialists. As for the argument, "a yes vote is a yes for Europe, a no vote is against Europe", this is also worn out. As a young trade unionist put it, "our generation has grown up with Europe. There is no question of saying yes or no to Europe. The question is: what sort of Europe?"

Moreover, it should be reasonably obvious that the present course of tearing down social benefits in the name of "Europe" is leading to a backlash. Emmanuelli warned that those who thought we could just go on indefinitely allowing unemployment to rise in countries like France and Germany had forgotten the past. Unregulated competition leads inevitably to a revival of nationalism. The best way to block the rise of the extreme right in Europe is to vote "non".

A more positive constant theme, very particular to this country, is the reference to France's revolutionary tradition. Most French people really don't want a society based on "a highly competitive free market"; they'd rather go back to "liberté, égalité, fraternité". At the large meetings one can feel the same wave of excitement and confidence: we've done it in the past, and we can do it again! France will show the way to a progressive, social Europe that can really be a model for the world!

Against this, the "yes" camp argues with authority (Elizabeth Badinter: "the leaders who wrote this Constitution know better than the common run of mortals"), celebrity (Jack Lang's reality show of big names), outright deception (pretending that this Consitution protects public services) and fear: "you can't vote like Le Pen! what will the neighbors think?"

For twenty years, Le Pen has been used as a bogeyman by the official left to cover its own steady retreat to the right. Now it seems that a reinvigorated left may be prepared to stand on its own principles, without the bogeyman. Le Pen can retire.

In a joint statement approved by the cabinet meeting and released by the French presidential Elysee palace, France and Germany reaffirmed "their belief that when the constitutional treaty comes into effect, it will be an important step in terms of asserting Europe's weight in the international arena and reinforcing its ability to act for peace and security in the world."

"Our two countries are pleased that, for the first time in the history of the European Union, the community of fate between the member states will be embodied in a constitution," the statement said.

The constitution will help reinforce "the sphere of activity of European defense through the expansion of the scope of the Union'smissions," it said.

The statement came one month ahead of a crucial May 29 referendum in France on the EU constitution, while some 20 recent surveys all showed that the majority of French voters would reject the European constitutional treaty, which must be approved by all the 25 EU member states.

During the joint news conference after the cabinet meeting, Chirac called on French to vote "yes" at the May 29 referendum over the EU constitution, saying it "will allow France to be stronger in Europe and will strengthen Europe's position in the world."

He warned that if the French "no" camp wins the referendum, France would take "responsibility for interrupting 50 years of European construction ... France will find itself on the platform while the train passes us by if the 'no' camp triumphs."

Schroeder also pled for the yes to the referendum, saying that France, being the "berceau" of the European idea, "should remain loyal to its promises."

"In both the political and economic arenas, Europe's voice would lose strength, it would have trouble making itself heard, it would be weaker," Schroeder said.

"I remain confident, I think that in France and Germany, the 'yes' will win out ... as far as I'm concerned, it's not just a question of reasoning but a question of heart," he added. [...]

The green zone must die. On that point everyone agrees: the Americans who created it, the foreigners who shelter in it, the parliamentarians who sit in it and, not least, the insurgents who bomb it.

This fortress by the Tigris, home to the US and British embassies and Iraqi government offices, is an unloved, unlovely complex created two years ago as the nerve centre of the occupation. Purely on aesthetic grounds you have to sympathise with those who rain rockets and mortars on to its sandbagged reinforced-concrete roofs.

US diplomats say they look forward to Baghdad becoming secure enough to no longer warrant a special zone. "This place most evidently sucks and one day we will get rid of it," said one. He sighed. "But for now we have to keep it. There is no alternative."

What bothered him was the symbolism of US forces still occupying Saddam Hussein's Republican Palace when Iraq was supposed to be a sovereign state. Coalition commanders now bristle at the term "occupation". The green zone, so named because of the trees and grass on this side of the river, is in reality a maze of 12ft concrete slabs, razor wire and bunkers.

The foreign contractors, troops and diplomats who call it home savour the relative safety and a couple of discreet pubs, but complain about cabin fever. Hungry for dispatches from the real world, they quiz visitors about "out there" and fantasise about entering it. The 10,000 Iraqis who also live in the zone need passes to enter and must negotiate several checkpoints, as if they are in quarantine.

In the red zone, known to inhabitants as the rest of Iraq, fortress-like creations have enfolded the hotels, offices and homes of westerners and government officials. They are as ugly as the green zone but do not arouse the same loathing.

Most foreign journalists live outside but we are compelled, grumpily, to visit to interview politicians and diplomats. Entering and leaving, we and our drivers and interpreters are potential targets for assassins and kidnappers.

On the way in there are five security checks, apparently more than for the White House. Some frisks are more thorough than others. "Mmmm, that's the only sexual thrill I've had in quite a while. Thank you, thank you kindly," one colleague told an Iraqi guard.

The convention centre which hosts the national assembly is worn and gloomy but the reason we hate it so is the lack of any cafe, vending machine or drinking water. People bring in Pringles and Coke, but as stashes dwindle they scoff behind pillars to avoid sharing.

Fed up with security hassles and occupation symbolism, the assembly voted earlier this month to move into a building occupied by the defence ministry in the red zone. There is talk of moving the Americans to the airport, itself a fortress, and reopening bridges and roads to ease the capital's traffic jams.

Last week an assembly member named Fattah al-Sheikh said he was roughed up and humiliated by US troops on his way in. One allegedly grabbed him by the throat, another handcuffed him, and a third kicked his car.

"I was dragged to the ground," he told parliament, weeping. "What happened to me represents an insult to the whole national assembly that was elected by the Iraqi people. This shows that the democracy we are enjoying is fake."

Denouncing Americans comes naturally to an ally of the militant cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, but Sheikh's story outraged the entire assembly and it adjourned in protest. Brigadier General Karl Horst of the 3rd infantry division expressed regret and promised "a thorough investigation".

Some checkpoint GIs are models of courtesy and cheer, who dip into Arabic phrase books. Others stare blankly and bark orders. Once I overheard a sergeant instructing a private about a queue of shuffling Iraqis. "If one of them goes nuts, shoot him." His comrade's eyes brightened. "Yesssss!"

Prosecutors in Rome will begin inspecting a car pierced by gunfire in Iraq when American soldiers mistakenly killed an Italian intelligence agent at a Baghdad checkpoint last month.

The Toyota Corolla was flown aboard an Italian air force cargo plane from Baghdad to the Practica di Mare air base near Rome where the prosecutors will inspect it, a base spokesman, Capt. Diego Simondini, said today.

The anger Italians felt over the March 4 shooting of Nicola Calipari – a hero for having just won the release of hostage Giuliana Sgrena – flared anew this week after reports that US investigators concluded American soldiers bear no blame for the “friendly fire” death.

On Tuesday, Premier Silvio Berlusconi told Parliament the US-led probe was not over.

As Italy and the US try to resolve differences over the conclusions, prosecutors are going ahead with their own probe.

Testimony from the two survivors of the shooting – an agent who was driving the Toyota and the ex-hostage – have clashed from the start with the US military’s account.

The Americans maintain soldiers at the temporary checkpoint near Baghdad fired warning shots in the air, then shot at the engine block because the car was going too fast.

The survivors insist they saw a beam of warning light virtually at the same time gunfire erupted, and the Italian military intelligence agent has testified he was driving slowly.

Analysis of the gunfire damage to the vehicle is expected to provide crucial information about how close the soldiers were to the car and from what angle they fired. Photos of the car shown on Italian TV show its side windows shattered and bullet holes on the side of the vehicle.

Berlusconi sought on Tuesday to quell an outcry over the reported US conclusions. Hours later, US Defence Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, acknowledged the Italians who participated in the joint probe have not signed off on the report.

The Americans are hoping for a joint report.

Calipari and the other agent had picked up the Toyota at Baghdad airport for their mission to obtain Sgrena’s release, and were heading to the airport to fly back to Rome with her.

An Italian air force cargo plane delivered the Toyota Corolla to a base near Rome days after reports suggested America had cleared its soldiers.

Rome is still investigating the death of agent Nicola Calipari, who died as his car approached a US checkpoint.

Ex-hostage Giuliana Sgrena called the reported findings a "slap in the face".

Prosecutors are due to examine the car at the Practica di Mare air base, the Associated Press news agency reports.

Testimony from Ms Sgrena, a journalist for communist newspaper Il Manifesto, and a second intelligence agent who also survived, appears to conflict with what US soldiers said about the shooting.

Analysis of bullet damage to the vehicle is expected to provide key data on how close the soldiers were to the car and from what angle they fired.

The Italians had been heading for Baghdad airport after Ms Sgrena's liberation.

'Insult'

Pentagon officials are hoping for a joint report into Calipari's death but they had to acknowledge on Tuesday that Italian prosecutors had not completed their investigation.

Reports that US investigators had found their troops "not culpable" caused outrage in Italy.

Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi apologised to parliament for the "unfortunate leak" suggesting the investigation was over.

For Giuliana Sgrena, freed on 4 March with Calipari's help after being held for a month by Iraqi militants, the leaked US findings were "incredible".

"The greatest disappointment would be if our authorities were to accept this insult without reacting," she said.

"All the words said about Calipari would turn into hypocrisy... and Nicola would have been our government's hero just for one day."

WASHINGTON -- While US investigators have concluded that American soldiers who shot and killed an Italian intelligence officer at a Baghdad checkpoint followed instructions for dealing with potential threats, Italian government said the inquiry will continue.

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and General Richard Myers, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, acknowledged yesterday that Italian officials who participated in the investigation have still not signed off on the report's conclusions. They provided no details about the report at a Pentagon briefing.

But a senior US defense official said the investigation into the March 4 friendly fire shooting is expected to raise concerns about the rules of engagement in Baghdad. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the report has not been finished.

''My latest information is that they have not come to a final agreement on a joint report," Rumsfeld said of US and Italian investigators.

''It's an investigation, it was done together, intimately, and I think that we'll just have to wait and see what they come out with," he added. [...]

Many uncomfortable, unanswered questions remain over the killing on March 4 of Italian secret intelligence agent Nicola Calipari by American soldiers near Baghdad airport, immediately after Calipari had negotiated the release of Giuliana Sgrena, the unembedded correspondent from Il Manifesto, a communist Italian daily, who had been held hostage for one month and was wounded in the US firing.

On Monday, a report leaked to Reuters and Agence France-Presse correspondents at the Pentagon, in the afternoon (dead of night in Europe, to prevent major reaction), quoted unnamed army sources as saying that an investigation had cleared US soldiers of any wrongdoing.

According to the leak, American soldiers followed rules of engagement to the letter and therefore were not to blame. The Pentagon ruled that its soldiers used hand and arm signals, flashed white lights and fired warning shots to try to stop the Toyota Corolla carrying Sgrena and Calipari, which was "speeding" toward "a checkpoint". The soldiers then shot into the Toyota's engine block when the driver did not stop. Calipari was not part of the engine block, but he was shot anyway: a "horrible accident".

The driver of the car has insisted that the Toyota had been driving slowly (no more than 40km/h), and had received no warning from the American soldiers, and that the Italians had advised the Americans they were carrying diplomatic personnel.

In Washington, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and General Richard Myers, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, said on Tuesday that Italian officials who participated in the investigation had not signed off on the report's conclusions. They provided no details about the report. "My latest information is that they have not come to a final agreement on a joint report," Rumsfeld said of US and Italian investigators.

In an interview by the Tg3 newscast in Italy on Monday night, Sgrena said: "It seems to me that in this way the Italians are to be blamed for everything, and this is also a slap in the face of the Italian government."

What really happened
The Sgrena case - or hit, as many Italians put it - has convulsed a country overwhelmingly against the war on Iraq, not only because of the tragic death of Calipari but because it has revealed in graphic detail to Italians and Europeans the grim reality faced by ordinary Iraqis, Sunni or Shi'ite. Iraqi civilians are now kidnapped by the hundreds. Iraqi civilians are routinely shot at by young, nervous American soldiers at checkpoints - as any correspondent who has covered Iraq knows so well. Iraqi civilian deaths are not even acknowledged by the Pentagon (remember Myers: "We don't do body counts").

Independent journalist Naomi Klein had a long conversation with Sgrena - hit by a four-inch (10-centimeter) bullet that injured her shoulder and punctured her lung - when she was still convalescing at a Rome military hospital after returning to Italy on March 5. Klein then gave an extensive interview to Democracy Now! about the meeting. To start with, Sgrena affirms she was not traveling on the road the Pentagon says she was. And there was no US checkpoint ordering them to slow down.

Sgrena says she was on a secure road - used by diplomats and US officials - that comes straight from the Green Zone in central Baghdad. Saddam Hussein used this road to go from his top presidential palace straight to the then-named Saddam International Airport. This is a secured road connecting the Green Zone with the huge Camp Victory military base attached to Baghdad's airport. Sgrena told Klein, "I was only able to be on that road because I was with people from the Italian Embassy." This explains why Sgrena "thought we were finally safe, because the area where we were was under the control of the United States".

Anybody who has covered the Iraq war has known - or has seen - checkpoint hell, where nervous American soldiers fire on anything that moves. The Toyota Corolla with Calipari and Sgrena was hit by only between eight and 10 rounds. Both Calipari and Sgrena were sitting in the back seat. Calipari was hit by a direct shot in the temple.

There was no checkpoint, Sgrena told Klein. "It was simply a tank parked on the side of the road that opened fire on us. It was not a checkpoint. They didn't try to stop us, they just shot us. They have a way to signal us to stop, but they didn't give us any signals to stop and they were at least 10 meters off the street to the side."

The crucial part is that Sgrena says the Toyota was shot from behind - which contradicts the Pentagon version of soldiers shooting in self-defense. According to Klein, "Sgrena really stressed that the bullet that injured her so badly came from behind, entered through the back of the car. And the only person who was not severely injured in the car was the driver, and she said that this is because the shots weren't coming from the front ... They were driving away."

This might explain why the Pentagon apparently blocked the Italian government from inspecting the Toyota, even though the Italian government had bought the car from the rental agency after the shooting.

Sgrena is 100% sure: "It was not self-defense. The soldiers were to the right of us on the side of the road, they started to shoot from the right and kept shooting from behind. Most of the shots came from behind. Calipari was shot from the right and I was shot in the shoulder from behind. When we stopped, they were behind us. We could see that all the back windows of the car were broken from behind ... They didn't try to stop the car and they shot at least 10 bullets at the level of people sitting inside the car. If Calipari had not pushed me down they could have killed me."

Calipari was a top agent and leading Middle East negotiator working for Sismi (Servizio per le Informazioni e la Sicurezza Militare), the Italian equivalent of the US Central Intelligence Agency. He had already refused the idea of a raid by the US Delta Force ("too dangerous") to rescue Sgrena. He went the negotiation route - and he secured Sgrena's release, in all probability, according to reports, via an US$8 million ransom paid in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates (the Silvio Berlusconi government in Italy denies it). The Bush administration, as is well known, does not negotiate with "terrorists".

Calipari had also a few months ago negotiated the freedom of the so-called two Simonas, Simona Torretta and Simona Pari. When they came back to Italy, the two Simonas not only denounced the US occupation, but praised the Iraqi resistance. Not exactly a popular script in Washington.

You report, we decide
The Foxification of US - and global - media has a corollary: the Pentagon considers independent journalism an act of subversion. An investigation by the Paris-based Reporters Without Borders has reached the same conclusions. Most covering the war on Iraq remember how the Pentagon intentionally targeted the media-saturated Palestine Hotel in Baghdad on April 8, 2003, killing a Ukrainian and a Spanish journalist. Four months later, the US Army absolved itself from any possible mistake. Eason Jordan, a top CNN executive for more than a decade, was forced to resign after saying that the Pentagon targeted journalists in Iraq. As far as the Sgrena tragedy is concerned, Reporters Without Borders has called for a UN-led independent investigation - to no avail.

Ann Cooper, executive director of the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), said, "We are deeply troubled by the reported disagreement between US and Italian officials." The CPJ calls for "a thorough and credible investigation to determine what happened, who is responsible, and what steps are being taken to prevent similar incidents from occurring again in the future". The CPJ has conclusively determined that at least nine journalists and two media workers have been killed by the US military in Iraq since March 2003. At least four journalists were killed at checkpoints.

The Berlusconi government at first said the Pentagon had not been fully briefed on the Italian negotiations to liberate Sgrena. Then Gianfranco Fini, the Italian foreign minister, was forced to acknowledge "differences" between the US and Italian versions. Fini admitted that Calipari was issued US military passes and was in contact with the US military leadership. But he refused the possibility of an ambush as "nonsense". On the night of the shooting, according to Fini, the US military knew about the Toyota (the Pentagon says no) because it had been informed by the top local Italian liaison official, General Mario Marioli. But the military didn't know the car was carrying Sgrena, Fini said.

The joy of absolution
There may be endless speculation over the circumstances surrounding the death of Nicola Calipari. But there are two things the case has accomplished. 1) The Berlusconi government is now toeing the Bush line: there will be no negotiations to liberate any possible future Italian hostage. 2) For any independent journalists, Iraq is now the ultimate minefield. It's virtually impossible to guarantee the safety of any non-embedded journalist, so that means no independent reporting.

Once the report is officially released, absolving the US military of any wrongdoing, one can expect the matter to end there, certainly as far as the US and Italian mainstream media are concerned, and the Pentagon will proceed with its occupation of Iraq, far from prying eyes.