By: William Rivers Pitt

"In my own country I am in a far-off land I am strong but have no force or power I win all yet remain a loser At break of day I say goodnight When I lie down I have a great fear Of falling." - Francois Villon

There once was a dream called America.

In the beginning, it did not reside on a particular patch of earth. It had no borders, no mountains, no rivers, no forests. It had no seas, crops, roads, or cities. It claimed no army, nor navy, nor air force. No nuclear dragons were coiled in the soil, waiting for the order to spring. It had no people, rich or poor.

The dream that was America was born in turbulent days surrounding the final collapse of the Stuart monarchy in England. King James II believed it within his purview to dismiss, ignore and override Parliament, who were the representatives of the People. He held citizens in prison without charging them or bringing them before a magistrate. He deigned to have them tried before secret courts. Troops loyal to him entered private homes as they pleased. Citizens who did not practice the religion of the King knew fear.

When William of Orange marched on London in 1688, trailed by an army once loyal to James and backed by the will of Parliament, the last Stuart monarch was sent across the English Channel to live in disgrace in France. It is believed that he threw the Great Seal of the Stuarts into the frigid waters, a final symbolic drowning for a disgraceful era.

From that day forth, England was to be ruled by the People, through their representatives in Parliament. Parliament was to rule the King, and not the reverse. A Bill of Rights was drafted, in which was enshrined the first true habeas corpus laws protecting the basic rights of citizens against the infringements of government. Troops could no longer enter private homes, citizens could not be held without charge or trial, and true religious freedom was at long last established.

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by Patrick Healy

A conservative academic group founded by Lynne Cheney, the wife of Vice President Dick Cheney, fired a new salvo in the culture wars by blasting 40 college professors as well as the president of Wesleyan University and others for not showing enough patriotism in the aftermath of Sept. 11.

''College and university faculty have been the weak link in America's response to the attack,'' say leaders of the American Council of Trustees and Alumni in a report being issued today. The report names names and criticizes professors for making statements ''short on patriotism and long on self-flagellation.''

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by Robert Fisk

The Northern Alliance's sudden victories in Afghanistan may be good news for the West but the bad news is not far behind. The Uzbek, Tadjik and Hazara gunmen who make up this rag-tag army have a bloody reputation for torturing and executing prisoners which – if resumed in the coming days – will plunge America and Britain into a moral abyss.

Chilling stories of more than 100 pro-Taliban Pakistani fighters shot dead after their surrender in Mazar-i-Sharif – and of Alliance gunmen "roaming the streets'' of the abandoned city – will not come as a surprise to those who are aware of the atrocities committed by America's new allies during the 1992-96 fighting in Kabul.

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by Harley Sorensen

If you throw a frog into a pot of hot water, they say, he will jump out immediately. If you put that same frog into a pot of cold water and then turn on the heat, he'll stay there until he boils to death.

I have no idea whether that story is true, but it does make a point.

While we have little difficulty recognizing immediate threats, more subtle dangers often escape our attention.

A few weeks ago, Congress passed and President George W. Bush signed the grossly misnamed "USA Patriot Act of 2001." Some congressmen -- but not all -- read the act before they voted on it, according to published reports.

The "Patriot Act" is a direct result of the national panic and suspension of good judgment that has followed the events of Sept. 11. It is one of those subtle dangers that often escape our attention.

What is in it? Here are a few of the things Rep. Patsy T. Mink of Hawaii said about it in the House last month:

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The Not-So 'Broad Front' Looking to Rule Post-Taliban Afghanistan
by Laura Flanders

As fighters from the Northern Alliance dare further into northern Afghanistan, the Bush administration is struggling to answer the tricky question of who would govern Kabul if the Taliban abandon the capital. Secretary of State Colin L. Powell is going to take up the issue today in New York, when he meets with his Russian counterpart, representatives of Afghanistan's six neighbors, and United Nations officials.

There's been much talk about how to establish a broad-based post-Taliban government that would guarantee the rights of women and ethnic minorities. Powell has been particularly clear that he doesn't want to see a repeat of what happened last time the elements that now comprise the Northern Alliance entered Kabul in the 1990s. What followed then was a brutal internecine civil war that left that city and most of the country in ruins. Washington didn't use the words then, but each group did its best to "ethnically cleanse" their region. Afghan women call it the "dark times" of abduction, forced "marriage" and rape.

"We have seen what has happened previously when you had an uncontrolled situation and two forces arriving in Kabul at the same time not meaning each well," Powell told NBC this weekend.

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by Robert Reno

THERE WERE TIMES in recent weeks when sober Americans might have felt they were being whipped into a state of hysteria more appropriate to a Nuremberg rally than for a long, messy war on the illusive enemy of terrorism.

This took the form of an unseemly obsession that if we don't keep chanting how great America is, how great New York is, how great Rudy Giuliani is and how masterfully George W. Bush has performed in his hour of crisis, we will cease to believe it. After all, what did our enemies expect? And what did Americans expect? That the congenitally combative Giuliani would collapse in a quivering heap, that New Yorkers would abandon their city, give up their rent-stabilized leases and home equity, that America would weary of the prospect of a war on terrorism as interminable as the one in Vietnam and that Bush, sober all these years, would lock himself in the Oval Office with a jug of Jim Beam? What sort of people do they imagine we are?

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by Paul Krugman

REMEMBER California's energy crisis? It illustrated the political strategy of the Bush administration before September 11. The basic principle of this strategy was that crises weren't problems to be solved. Instead, they were opportunities to advance an agenda that had nothing to do with the crisis at hand.

It is now clear that, at least as far as domestic policy is concerned, the administration views terrorism as another useful crisis.

Let's recall the California story. Between November 2000 and June 2001, a shortage of electric generating capacity, exacerbated by the puzzling fact that much of this capacity stood idle, led to power outages and extremely high prices.

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by Robert Kuttner

THE ADMINISTRATION is trying to move a global trade agenda that was blocked two years ago in Seattle by protesters in the streets and skepticism in the Third World. This time, the World Trade Organization talks have been moved to the Persian Gulf state of Qatar, a despotic oil emirate where protesters, foreign and domestic, are simply not permitted.

But it remains to be seen whether the current talks will produce what the US government considers progress and whether such progress is really in the national or the global interest.

At the Qatar meetings, one big issue dividing the Americans from developing countries is access to cheap drugs. Poor countries cannot afford the huge markups pharmaceutical companies charge for a few cents worth of chemicals. If they pay the price, their people do without.

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