Frank Morales' piece, “Bush Moves Toward Martial Law”—about a provision in the 2007 Defense Authorization Bill which makes it easier for the president to declare martial law, which you can also read about in Rosebud #42, below—has been re-printed on hundreds of web sites all over the world in the last few days. The web site www.towardfreedom.com received so many hits for the piece that their server couldn’t handle it and they had to re-route the link back to San Francisco Indymedia. Another web site reported that the piece has received in excess of 500,000 hits. Again, this is an example of how there are two medias; almost two realities, now; for you won’t find information on this maneuver by the Bush administration in any mainstream papers as of today. Why, I don’t know, because it’s an unprecedented and unacceptable undoing of American law which everyone needs to know about. Please read if you haven’t already…

As I got my little girl ready for school this morning, the radio was playing, talking about the dead. “Two more American soldiers killed in Iraq…” My little girl wasn’t listening, so excited was she about putting on her Halloween costume for the party at school today. I helped her pull on her stockings, puff out her sleeves, comb her hair—“increased violence in Baghdad…”—put her tiara on. And I thought of the mothers of those dead American soldiers, how their children were just gone. A child is such an investment of time and love, worry, care, lifting, carrying, cooking, cleaning, nursing, prayer. And now their children were just gone. I don’t know if these mothers support the war in Iraq. But even if they do, it has to be the worst thing in the world. If your child is killed in war, killed in hatred, because of a breakdown of goodness. It has to be the worst thing there is on earth to bear. It has to feel like the end of the world.

Bob Dylan said it all in "Masters of War."

Vice President Dick Cheney said, of Rep. Charles Rangel yesterday, “Charlie doesn’t understand how the economy works.” I’m sorry, but that's racist (Rep. Rangel is of course black). And wrong. I actually don’t know how the economy works, but I do know that you can’t spend more than you have, which is what this government is doing. Throwing our money down a killing hole in Iraq.

We’re on precarious ground now. And who’s in charge? Men who can’t keep their tempers under control. Vice President Cheney, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld. Did you see that story in the Times about how Rumsfeld won’t play squash by the rules? Pushes everybody out of the way (reminds me of that steroid-case in "The Wedding Crashers" who knocks the wind out of Vince Vaughn). Nobody wants to play with him. Mothers of small children respond to this sort of behavior with what is known as a “time-out.” Which is what this Secretary of Defense needs. Permanently. Henry Kissinger called Rumsfeld “the scariest person I have ever met,” and just imagine who he’s met. Who he *is*.

And what of the president. He’s just a big question mark, isn’t he? And perhaps will always be. I knew guys like him in college, at Yale. He reminds me of one guy—he belonged to the Deke fraternity too—who I used to help with his homework, for extra cash. He had an assignment once where he had to go to the Yale art gallery, pick an artist, and write a five-page paper on his work. So he comes back and I ask him, who’d you pick. “Circa,” he says.

“You know, Circa,” he says emphatically, after I just look at him. “He’s got a lot of paintings in there."