A most excellent, albeit, romantic, ALTERNATIVE vision for society. Even though I consider it highly unlikely that the human race will ever let go of its' individual greed; A necessary pre-requisit to permit such a drastic change in societal practices, I believe William Morris was on the right track with his account of an imaginary utopian society:
Project Gutenberg Etext of News from Nowhere, by William Morris
Download and read here:
http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext02/nwsnw10.txt

Jail for desenting Bloggers who don't register when they reach 500 viewers/readers.
http://infowars.net/articles/january2007/180107bloggers.htm

Information Clearing House
Excellent Independent Media Source

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/links.htm

The True Face Of This Administration Fully Revealed
by Welshman
Tue Jan 16, 2007 at 07:05:18 AM PST

Yesterday, whilst searching for a quotation to add as a comment to my diary on Daily Kos, I saw an item from the New York Times picked up via Huffington Post.

I read it with such deep disgust that I felt it needed the widest possible circulation. It has been something of a frustration that I have had to wait until today to post it because it needs to be out there and known to every Kossack, to every political   more...commentator and, above all, to every representative in Congress.

The article quoted a comment by a senior administration official that was outrageous. So appalling was it, and so revealing about the mindset behind the White House political tactics, that I cannot imagine in any other democracy that the person who made this statement would not immediately be told to resign from his non-elected high office of influence.

Buried in the middle of the NYT article headed "Pressure Builds Over Plan for Troop Increase" is the following report:

Mr. Bush's National Security Adviser, Stephen J. Hadley, said in an interview on "Meet the Press" on NBC that the White House has sufficient money under its control to deploy the troops as planned, and he suggested that once the troops are in place, Congress would be reluctant to cut off funding.

"I think once they get in harm's way, Congress's tradition is to support those troops," Mr. Hadley said.

Just in case the meaning of this is not instantly clear, let me spell it out with as much objectivity as I can muster.


Hadley is saying that the opposition of the recently elected majority in the House of Representatives and the Senate to the escalation of troop numbers in Iraq can be circumvented by using existing money, unallocated and unapproved for the purpose, to put young American women and men under fire, in "harms way", to force the continuation of such funding.


There are no words that I can bring to bear to express my disgust. This is not just an ugly and cynical piece of political exploitation but it has to be the sickest and most repugnant manipulation that has ever been publicly acknowledged by any administration of any Western Government.


Like the worst atrocities of the very insurgents, whose vile acts have fuelled so much hatred amongst our people, Hadley is saying that the White House will use the military men and women of its own nation as hostages in return for a demand that Congress pays a ransom in the form of approving the Iraq appropriations bill.


There is not a mother or father in the United States who hears this and who at this very moment is witnessing the notification, assembly and redeployment of their children that cannot but weep for them. And weep for the state of their nation.

For More: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/1/16/9288/25225  less

As a people, Americans are remarkably familiar with all facts which make in their own favor. - Whatever makes for the wealth or for the reputation of Americans, and can be had cheap! will be found by Americans.
America is false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future.

Your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciations of tyrants,   more...brass fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade, and solemnity, are, to him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy - a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages.

Go where you may, search where you will, roam through all the monarchies and despotisms of the old world, travel through South America, search out every abuse, and when you have found the last, lay your facts by the side of the everyday practices of this nation, and you will say with me, that, for revolting barbarity and shameless hypocrisy, America reigns without a rival:

There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices, more shocking and bloody, than are the people of these United States, at this very hour.
Frederick Douglass, "What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?" 5 July 1852 - http://douglassarchives.org/doug_a10.htm  less