From the August 2005 Idaho Observer:

We’ve come a long way, baby!

This is the 100th edition of The IO. Since rolling off the press for the first time in January, 1997, we have only missed one month from unforeseen events (an ill-timed computer crash November 12, 2001).

Let’s go back to 1997 for just a moment. We were still stinging from Waco, Ruby Ridge, OK City and the murder of White House Chief Counsel Vince Foster; the spotted owl was the symbol of vanishing property rights; Hillary Clinton was promoting federalized healthcare and Joyce Riley was trying to alert the nation to the true causes of Gulf War Illness and; common law courts and militias were forming. Aside from the destructive domestic policies of the Clinton administration, the nation was preoccupied with a plethora of personal Clinton scandals: Whitewater, Paula Jones, Monica Lewinsky (and others) plus we had the Clinton Chronicles—documentation strongly suggesting Arkansas Governor Clinton’s involvement in Iran/Contra cocaine and his notorious association with arms dealers, drug traffickers and the Bush family. In hindsight we can see that the Clinton era, however damaging it was to property rights, due process of law and our national pride, was an eight-year diversion so that the neocons could work behind the cloak of buffoonery to set America up for the final act—which is currently playing itself out.

I remember attending a campaign event for Constitution Party presidential candidate Howard Phillips in 2000. He equated a vote for Democrat Al Gore as a vote to launch America off the cliff at 80 miles per hour and a vote for Republican GW Bush as a vote to launch America off the cliff at 40 miles per hour. It was a fairly lucid comment that made sense at the time since we were finally going to be rid of that socialist rascal Clinton. But I would hazard to say that, since GW took office in 2001, the pedal has been to the metal and the car of our country hit cliff’s edge at about 200 m.p.h. a few years back and is currently floating—downward—in mid air—and will inevitably crash violently when it reaches the bottom of our national abyss.

Any discussion on what life in America would have been like, had the Supreme Court chosen Gore to be the president in 2000 (or if vote fraud had been tilted toward Kerry in 2004), is an absolute waste of time. For our sins of apathy and tolerance of federal abuses at home and abroad, the Bush mob was the rightful heir to the dubious throne of an American empire that had fallen from international grace.

By comparison, the Clinton era seems like the good ol’ days. Going back through nine-and-a-half years of past editions, it’s as if we were reporting property rights, the budding police and surveillance state, judicial, executive and legislative anarchy, growing numbers of chronically ill and neurologically-damaged people, widespread chemical contamination of air, land and sea, looming domestic and global economic collapse and another world war in anticipation of what now IS (depending, of course, on what the definition of IS is):

Under Bush the illusion of private property rights has evaporated.

Under Bush the police and surveillance state has come into its own.

Under Bush judges no longer observe any authority besides their own, executive authority is limited only by imagination and lawmakers are active participants in boundless legislative orgies all over this land.

Under Bush chronic illness and brain damage have elevated from epidemic to national emergency status.

Under Bush we have reached the point where no place on earth is exempt from the presence of toxic chemicals.

Under Bush we are experiencing a multitude of domestic and international credit/fiat money-based financial bubbles—any one of which could burst at any time triggering a global economic collapse of unprecedented severity.

Under Bush the community of nations has been forced to divide into two military camps: The U.S., Great Britain and Israel versus everyone else. For the first time since the fall of the Iron Curtain, the possibility of global thermonuclear war is becoming more and more likely with each passing day.

Now, I realize that all sounds pretty grim and does not allow for putting a positive "spin" on the title of this month’s editor’s column—at least not in the "God-bless- America-land-of-the-free-home-of the-brave-defenders-of-liberty sense. But, in a practical and more historically-accurate sense, we have come a long way. Though I wish with all my heart that America could return to the good ol’ days, we all now know that there never have been any good ol’ days—the process of our ultimate betrayal began before the Declaration of Independence was written. It just so happens that the end of the American illusion will likely come on our watch—under Bush.

We have all been growing and learning and are drawn to one another by our search for historical truth, our love of true freedom, our concern for the future and our undying resistance to injustice, tyranny and oppression. For whatever reasons, the conditioning all Americans begin receiving shortly after birth did not take in us and whatever illusions we may have believed have all but completely fallen away by now.

The handful of us willing to change our beliefs based upon compelling new information has come a long way. Our country may be on the verge of crashing and the world may be perched on the edge of the final conflict of the industrial age, but we have risen to the challenges as they came.

Think back to 1997 again. Recall where you were, what you were doing that year and how you saw our world. Fast forward to the present and compare. I thought the world was such a mess then that we would never make it to 2005. Thanks for sticking with us—We have come a long way together. Looking forward to the 200th edition, DWH