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Hightower Lowdown
"The difference between fact and fiction is that fiction must be believable."--Mark Twain
In This Issue
While most of the Democrats in Washington cower
The presidency is taking over the courts and Congress
Also in this issue:
- U.S. CORPS BACK CHINESE SUPPRESSION
- VERICHIP IMPLANTS AND TUMORS
- AN EXCLUSIVE PRIMARY
- OUR GAPING ECONOMIC DIVIDE
Do Something!
March's Lowdown
Giving corporations more power to buy politicians of their choice
"For too long," wailed the senator in a heart-tugging cry for justice, "some in this country have been deprived of full participation in the political process."
Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader of the U.S. Senate, has never been mistaken for a bleeding-heart liberal, so you can rest assured that his anguish over inequality did not concern the disenfranchisement of minorities or poor people--or any kind of people, for that matter. No, it is the tragic political deprivation faced by America's corporations that moved Mitch to such an outpouring of woe.
[read more]
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U.S. CORPS BACK CHINESE SUPPRESSION
George W claims that his military occupation of Iraq is about exporting freedom throughout the world.
In China, U.S. high-tech corporations and investment bankers are enthusiastically exporting freedom's opposite: suppression. U.S. firms are selling surveillance technology to dictators in Beijing, where the "market" for electronic police-state gadgets is expected to be worth more than $43billion.
In the city of Shenzhen alone, police are installing 20,000 surveillance cameras guided by advanced computer software with face-recognition and behavior-detection technologies. China Public Security Technology, which is implementing the program, is a Chinese company, but it's incorporated in Florida and receives financial backing from such U.S. investment funds as Pinnacle, Roth Capital, and Oppenheimer.
The same consortium is putting into operation a new system of residency ID cards in Chinese cities. These mandatory cards bear computer chips that divulge not just the names and addresses of bearers, but also their work history, religion, education, ethnicity, medical status, reproductive history, police record, landlord's phone number, credit history, purchases...and whatever else authorities decree.
The head of the Chinese company said, "We have a very good relationship with U.S. companies like IBM, Cisco, HP [and] Dell. All of [them] work with us to build our system together."
A Bush spokesman said, "It's not appropriate to interfere in the private decisions of Americans to invest in legally incorporated firms." Apparently, ethics stop when profit walks in.