From the March 2001 Idaho Observer:

Letter to Okanogan Valley Gazette Editor Gary DeVon

I'm hanging another banner in front of my establishment [see page 1] and want to explain why: I've been following Mark Alans' case closely and feel it boils down to Big Brother and corporate America wanting complete control over everything we say and hear through the media. Have you ever turned on the local evening news, CBS, NBC, and ABC.? You can flip those channels and within seconds you are going to get the same news reports. The only thing different is the Kens & Barbies reporting them. For those of you who don't believe in a controlled media here are a few quotes:

"There is no such thing, at this date of the world's history, in America, as an independent press. You know it and I know it. There is not one of you who dares to write your honest opinions, and if you did, you know beforehand that it would never appear in print. I am paid weekly for keeping my honest opinion out of the paper I am connected with. Others of you are paid similar salaries for things, and any of you who would be so foolish as to write honest opinions would be out on the streets looking for another job. If I allowed my honest opinions to appear in one issue of my paper, before twenty-four hours my occupation would be gone. The business of the journalists is to destroy the truth; to lie outright; to pervert; to vilify; to fawn at the feet of mammon, and to sell his country and his race for his daily bread. You know it and I know it and folly is this toasting an independent press? We are the tools and vassals of rich men behind the scenes. We are the jumping jacks, they pull the strings and we dance. Our talents, our possibilities and our lives are all the property of other men. We are intellectual prostitutes." ~JOHN SWINTON

"We are going to impose OUR AGENDA on the coverage by dealing with issues and subjects that WE choose to deal with." ~RICHARD M. COHAN, Senior Producer of CBS political news

"Our job is to give people not what they want, but what WE decide they ought to have." ~RICHARD SALANT, former President of CBS News

"The American people will never knowingly adopt Socialism. But under the name of "liberalism" they will adopt every fragment of the Socialist program, until one day America will be a Socialist nation, without knowing how it happened." ~NORMAN THOMAS, former Socialist Party candidate for U.S. president

"News reporters are certainly liberal (socialists) and left of center."

"The news media in general are liberals (socialists)." ~BARBARA WALTERS

Micro broadcasters are going up by the hundreds all over the country. The powers that be can't stand it and are frantically trying to figure out how to stop them. They only want you to believe what they tell you.

They wanted Mark, plain and simple!

Myself and many other individuals from Oroville, Spokane and Idaho were present at the 2-12-01 and 2-14-01 hearings.

The morning of Wednesday 2-14-01 Magistrate Judge Cynthia Imbrogno acknowledged that Mark Alan had received "considerable support" in favor of his OR release but she needed more time to review the letters. She told the court that she would have a written decision ready by 4:30 p.m. At 4:30 p.m., Judge Imbrogno ruled that Mark Alan was indeed a danger to the community and there was risk that he would flee prosecution. So much for all the letters of support from the community.

On Friday 2-23-01 at approximately 7:45 a.m. officials came to Marks' cell and told him he would be going to see the nurse for blood work, and T.B. test ect. When Mark questioned why they told him it was standard procedure for anyone who was going to the Federal Penitentiary. Hello, he hasn't even had a trial by a jury of his peers.

Could it be they have already made up their minds to the outcome? Mark refused the test.

Folks our country has been heading in the wrong direction for decades.

We better get our country back on track before it's too late. To all the cynics and people with their heads buried in the sand I say you better wake up and step up to the plate, you could be next. Whether it's water rights, private property rights, the right to bear firearms, usurping your hard earned dollar or just voicing your opinion.

I'm going to sign off with this quote,

"If you will not fight for the right when you can easily win without bloodshed, if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not so costly, you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all odds against you and only a precarious chance of survival. There may be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no chance of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves." ~WINSTON CHURCHILL

Sincerely For God and Country,

Jed Riddell
Oroville, Washington