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The Voice is pissed. I cannot fathom the fact that the press, the Democrats, hell, all Americans have let Junior Bush get away with all the shit he has. They don't jump on him for his cocaine abuse, jail time, AWOL record, the fact he drove several oil companies into bankruptcy while pocketing hundreds of millions himself, his Texas oil ties and their new refineries in the Iraq region and those are all on top of the BIGGEST travesty in American, hell, in the history of DEMOCRACY, that is stealing the election in 2000 with Florida (where of course his brother is governor). I am pissed! The apathy of the American people is deafening.

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SETTING EXAMPLES

*While this piece may seem unpopular and un-American, I assure you it is not. As an American, I am often times ashamed of the deceit and treachery our government uses around the world and the way we act as though, just because we're the keepers of Democracy, we have a patent on the word, idea, and implementation. I do not believe it is our responsibility to enforce our ideas of Democracy and our form of it to nations that otherwise are not interested, save for our involvement. If a nation requests assistance in forming a Democracy, then as a member of the world I believe we have a duty to assist. But Iraq hasn't asked. The president of Venezuela not only did not ask for the help of George Junior and the American government yesterday, but he emphatically told us, ". . .keep your hands off of Venezuela!" I think that's pretty clear. Perhaps we should take a lesson as should the leaders of nations all over the world. This piece was written some time back and for the sake of not changing my opinions from then, I will not alter it.*




The nation still reels from the events occurring this past Tuesday, September 11, 2001. Indeed, like Franklin Roosevelt said following the Japanese invasion of then (illegally) obtained island nation-turned US possession Hawaii, this was a day that will live in infamy.

Already the death toll is within spitting distance of 5,000, nearly double the numbers from that chilling December day in 1941 and the Titanic tragedy combined. Firefighters, law enforcement agencies, emergency relief teams, canine units, and regular citizens, in addition to foreign teams of rescue workers and some military units on their ways, work around the clock, fighting against faith and hope, clinging onto the fantasy that some may still be alive, buried feet under the settling rubble of steel rebar, concrete, glass, and debris. Chances are they won't find another victim of the World Trade Center attacks alive--or the Pentagon's for that matter--but like the resolve American's tend to show during each crisis and disaster, either home or abroad, will not waiver. (Author's interjection- Max has pulled up a step stool here beside of me and has decided that this bright Sunday morning is best left for 2 year-olds to growl at the lion flanking the drawer handles on my desk!) This resolve comes from a history-long determination to not only do what we feel necessary, right or wrong, to defend and commit that resolve, but from liberties much too precious for us to consider up for any negotiation.

Without assigning myself a full fledged American history lesson, suffice it to say that America was conceived from rebellion and attack. Indeed, not only did the early settlers come to this land and lay down "squatters" rights of sorts, but shortly thereafter their setting up housekeeping, they were embroiled in a war with the British who, using the same logic the settlers, a.k.a. Americans, used, wanted what they felt was rightfully theirs as it was Englishmen who conquered it in the first place. After successfully pushing back the redcoats and staking self-justified claim (after all, they did beat the British in a war, not that, should have mattered seeing how the British had even less of a claim to this land than those settlers did) on the land once picked for life support by Indians (Native Americans, if indeed we know for sure they are the actual natives to this land) the early settlers began their full fledged assault on the remainder of the continental North American landmass (I assume it wasn't called a continent by the name North America at the time). The treaties and deeds that they acquired would hardly stand up in the sophisticated legal system we have these days, but somehow the deed, used very liberally, obtained from the Indians for under twenty bucks (in baubles and beads) for Manhattan became the first tragedy in our nation's history occurring on that phallic shaped island.

Through the years, Americans have not only stolen land (and imprisoned royalty and leaders as in the case of Hawaii) but murdered and tended to affairs without request in a countless number of skirmishes the world around. We've assisted in the killing of perhaps millions in Vietnam, hundreds of thousands in Japan and Germany and Italy, and imposed our very own acts of treason and terrorism in places like Cuba, Iran, Iraq, the former Soviet Union, Afghanistan, and scores of other nations. We've condemned and fought a tyrannical, devilish dictator in Germany for allegedly (we had no proof of concentration camps at the time and little outside news reports to this very day) murdering thousands, perhaps alleged millions, of Jews (who, if you notice, seem to turn up in most bloody wars in the 20th century in some form or another--and I might add are a good portion of the reason we're in this situation now--the Jews and Islams can't get along) while all the time sanctioning our very own dens of inhumane murder and torture right here in our own backyards with the Japanese. We've sentenced hundreds of thousands of Cubans to death because we believe that Fidel Castro is not the legitimate leader of that nation, although he just leads a coalition not too unlike the one that "formed" this nation. We've funded and supported Nicaraguan contras without telling our people and then lied when it came time to look like the heroes and rid the Iranians. We spent fifty years condemning our own people for being communist sympathizers (whatever the hell that term means) and looking toward the former Soviet Union as the big red menace, only to realize that hand had played itself out with the American people and mend the fences (but only after we'd funded, trained, and supported Osama bin Laden and his Afghani rebels in their bitter and gruesome battle with the former Soviet Union) we'd spent trillions upon trillions of dollars, not to mention those unimportant lives, building. I guess "our" government should have listened to some wise old adages like the one about leading horses to water but not making them drink or the other barnyard reference that comes to mind about the chickens coming home to roost.

I'm scared. Frightfully scared. But this isn't something new for this proud American. I've been scared since I was old enough to think for myself and come out of the shadows and closet about the close-mindedness. I'm scared that the government can tell us who to love. I'm scared that the government can indict without across the board fair justice (i.e. John Gotti not being allowed his counsel of choice in Bruce Cutler--they knew they's never defeated Mr. Cutler and probably wouldn't). I'm scared that our government can take our tax money and vote themselves raises substantially above what the rest of Americans can expect. I'm scared that this government can make choices to "defend freedom" in nations where we've no business. And I'm scared that someday, because of this arrogance, that it won't be our government that suffers. It will be us, the people who make up this country and are supposed to lead it, who will be left with our dicks in the wind. We say we can't let it happen. Yet last November the boundaries were finally established when we let one faction of the bi-cameral-like political system steal the very thing which makes us and all democracy strong.

I'm scared my son won't have an America to tell his children about. We're taught about the values and ideals and time honored traditions that this country is supposed to stand for from the time we're old enough to recite the pledge of allegiance. But are we one nation? Are we under a God? And its because of the last line of this credo that I refuse to take part; we are not indivisible and certainly not fulfilling liberty and justice for all.



Originally written September 16, 2001
Copyright 2001 Nicholas Yaekle

ALL THE NEWS THAT'S FIT TO PRINT

With the recent Katie Couric interview on Dateline NBC last evening, I found it somewhat appropriate to dust off this old chestnut from about a year ago that I wrote concerning the disgraced New York Times reporter Jayson Blair. Haven't proof-read or submitted this to anyone so please excuse typos or errors when I transferred it from my PALM to WordPerfect.
Nick Yaekle
March 6, 2004

Discredited! One Man’s Deceit; One Newspaper’s Fall
By Nick Yaekle
May 11, 2003

"If you see it in the Sun, its so."
Words that have set the pace for millions of children from generations not so long passed and their faith and belief in the legend of Santa Claus. The Sun, once New York's premiere newspaper, is now defunct, having been pushed from the wires by New York's, and the nation's if not the world's, most respected and accurate newspaper, The New York Times. It printed an editorial sometime during the early twentieth century in response to a little girl named Virginia's query as to whether Santa Claus did indeed exist. If you're familiar with this letter and the story and legend that has since followed, you're aware that her exasperated father advised her to write a letter to the New York Sun, and if indeed The Sun were to proclaim Santa real, then Santa did exist. Newspapers, after all, wouldn't print lies or myths or anything other than factual unless explicitly stated as Op-Ed or the staple letter to the editor. Newspapers, I'm sure he explained to his inquisitive daughter, check their facts and re-check them for authenticity, accuracy and then double re-check them for detail and source.

People depend on the newspapers of the world to report our surroundings for current state and for historical purpose. While most newspapers tend to write reports with some political bias and scatterings of jaded opinion pieces, the reason and cause of newspapers remains the same--news reporting. And some papers, in keeping with local traditions, tend to have fewer things to report than those in larger metropolitan areas and might report to the interested parties that Doc Brown was once again driven home from Charlie's bar and that farmer Glenn had managed to harvest his final crop before the torrential downpours hit the area last evening, leaving the waters of the Hoolahoo River out of their banks. Filling the news is a tradition nearly as long as Benjamin Franklin's first newspaper itself.

I am not a journalist; not by trade nor by education. I have my education in English communications but as far as understanding the inner-workings and trappings of the day-to-day operations of a small newspaper, let alone arguably the world's best known, perhaps most respectable, newspaper, I may be at a layman’s loss. I can use deductive reasoning and logic and common sense to know what I know about the organizations serving news around the world. Bias, I am savvy enough to weed out.

Today, on the front page of The New York Times home page on the internet, one 14 page article linked to an editor's note and a cited 14 page link to yet another article, the editors and publishers of the esteemed news vehicle which prints "All the News That's Fit to Print" acknowledged and admitted that on May 1, 2003, Times staff reporter Jayson Blair had fabricated, lied, and plagiarized at LEAST in 36 of the 73 articles he'd written for the paper since October 2002. Blair, 27, had climbed the ranks in the regarded organization as first an intern and eventually, due to short staffing during the recent disgraceful skirmish in Iraq, been elevated to homeland staff reporter, covering areas in Texas, Ohio, West Virginia, and around his hometown in Virginia and the Washington D.C. area.

Blair was allegedly using his laptop computer to access around-the-clock news wires and photo archives accessible by password and user name to Times reporters. Additionally, according to reports released by The Times in their own paper, he was using his cellphone to call into the office under the guise he was on assignment when indeed he was sitting in the comfort of his New York apartment. The fact that he had neglected to turn in substantial receipts for travel expenses was apparently chalked up to expected dedication of one tapped with the holy grail of being able to call themselves a New York Times reporter.

Further, the article makes hearty mention of the fact that Blair is African-American. The relevance of this fact seems somewhat contrived; is its purpose to point out a view of "see what happens when he hire a black?" or to be viewed as a badge for the hiring practices of The New York Times or better yet, is this an inroad to play the proverbial Johnny Cochran-like "race card" should The Times be able to forge some RICO or otherwise inane lawsuit against the enterprising journalist.

The suit should come from shareholders of The New York Times toward the management staff and the editors who allowed the integrity of the paper to be compromised while all along aware of the reported inconsistencies and inaccuracies in many of his articles, as well as lack of “evidence,” if you will, of any business travel on Mr. Blair's part. If I were a shareholder or upper management of The Times, I would certainly be interested in answers to some questions pertaining to the accountability of my editors and hands-on management.

I commend The Times for “front paging” their own faux pas. I suppose they’ve hired a political strategist or public relations guru to aid them on their course of action; by choosing the “honesty is the best policy” route they probably lost fewer readers, if any, and perhaps gained some for their brutal candor about their mistakes, misgivings, and careless fact-checking.

What’s most interesting, if not disturbing, is the depth in which the paper went about revealing Mr. Blair's work history and habits, as well as a few well placed allusions to his drinking scotch and smoking too many cigarettes. They also planted notions on a couple of occasions the idea that Blair was able to work hours deemed impossible by most and always full of energy and enthusiasm. Perhaps this is a not so well cloaked attempt to allude that Mr. Blair was on some sort of drug, perhaps one commonly known as an upper like amphetamines or cocaine. Or maybe it is the most convenient outlet to subtly discredit any talent or success Mr. Blair may possess.

Mr. Blair's depth of deceit and intricate details are tripped only by his own sloppiness, (another possible reference to possible drug use) was reported by the editors and staff of The New York Times. If this is true, how could Mr. Blair have gotten away with it for so long? The paper also reported that while it was commonly believed that Mr. Blair had finished his education and received his degree in journalism, contact with his college confirmed that Mr. Blair had yet to complete over a year’s worth of course work to be eligible for his bachelor’s degree. Again, I ask, if this is true, why hadn’t the human resources department found this when they should have been verifying facts pertinent to his hiring and continuing employment. It makes one wonder how often prospective employers really do check resume’ facts! (By the way, if there are any hospitals seeking a good doctor, I have my medical degree from Harvard. . .)

I guess my question is this, as succinct as I can put it. What gauge do we use to judge credibility and authenticity and to what sectors, public or private, are those standards held within accountability? To explain, how is it that we are expected to accept the “lies” the government tells us (not conspiracy ones, but ones later admitted buried within a Freedom of Information Act document) and feign patriotism while our government continues to wield its wrath the world over, in the name of homeland security and national security interests? Aside from the alleged plagiarism of Mr. Blair, was any harm really committed? Don’t Americans feel more secure when we’re told of the good from our newspapers instead of all the crime and strife and injustice? How would it feel in the morning to wake up to a newspaper where the most negative thing within the entire front page section was that there was a 20% chance of showers later on that evening?

We rely on the news media for goings-on in our surroundings. The public dependency on news wires has become so great, that the balance of power, financially and politically, as well as socially, hangs somewhere between these wires. Americans have strayed from reading and experiencing and have gone the way once outlined by Ralph Waldo Emerson in his speech to a Harvard graduating class entitled “The American Scholar.” We have dis-learned the ability to form thought and opinion without the bias and egging-on of our leaders, media, and our entertainment industry. We have become mere man-thinking, not thinking man. Sadness surely falls over the memory of Emerson as he surely hoped that within some reasonable time, his prediction of a society so clouded with the thoughts and ideas of others would tire itself and maybe, with some glimmer of hope, revert to times when independent thought and action was our only bastion of freedom and the last avenue to true inner peace.

Mr. Blair resigned from The New York Times. I simply find the fact that I even know about the man and the circumstances to which he allegedly resigned not only distasteful, but dirty and wrong. We are human, and as human, are expected to make mistakes and learn from those. We should not be sentenced, especially in public, for our private misgivings and bad choices. I believe that somehow, Mr. Blair’s civil rights have been violated and his privacy invaded when The New York Times chose today to expose not only his professional shortcomings, but also when they made mention of their take on issues in his life which are perhaps deemed by some as self-destructive.

I do not take the side of Mr. Blair. Had Mr. Blair chose to be a novelist, it is likely his name would have never been heard outside of the realm of his immediate circle of friends and limited fans. And he could have created a world in which to play and create and be God, had he chosen the fiction writing field as his choice of occupation. But when the water settles and the wheat is separated from the chaff, Mr. Blair was a minion of truth, and he led us astray with his incredulous ways, thus possibly scarring the elite profession of New York Times writers, good bad, present, past and future, for many, many years to come.

To: The New York Times
Attn: Mr. Jayson Blair
New York City, New York USA

Dear Mr. Blair,
I told my son I would write to ask you a question. You see, he’s at an age where he is beginning to question that which he cannot see. His faith in what I tell him as his father is beginning to be cracked by his friends and peer pressure. The other day he asked me if there was really an Easter Bunny. I explained to him about faith, and believing, and growing up, and all those good things. But I told him, in the tradition of patriotism and truth and the American way, that we would write a letter to The New York Times and ask them if there was an Easter Bunny. I told him if he saw it in The Times, it was so. I kindly request that you answer his question here within the pages of your esteemed and highly respected and accurate newspaper so that he and all the other children of America can maybe, if just for an extra year or so, still have faith in what it is we stand for, why we stand for it, and continue to be a child in a world that no longer lets four-year olds be children.

Humbly and with faith,
Nick Yaekle

Democratic National Committee

Democratic National Committee

The Voice of the Disenfranchised SiteMeter

The Voice of the Disenfranchised

COMING SOON. . .


The Voice of the Disenfranchised (original since 1994) weighs in on the disgrace the Democratic Party brought upon ourselves when the Democratic Leadership Council sanctioned the crucifixion of Vermont Governor Howard Dean.

Also, The Voice speaks about the Fascist-like and Communist approach of George Jr. In his demands to Congress to install a Constitutional Amendment which would, for the first time in history, condone, promote, and encourage (not to mention legalize) discrimination against a peoples in this nation. If we, as a collective nation, wish to preserve and protect the "sanctity" and "institution" of marriage (as defined by Bushie- LEGAL joining of a man and a woman), shouldn't the first step be OUTLAWING the majority practice of divorce? Many more families have been ripped apart by a divorce than by gay folks tying the knot.

Finally, before the supposed "COMING SOON" short mentions, I do wish to take this opportunity to salute San Francisco, California Mayor Gavin Newsom for having the testicular fortitude to "legalize" a ceremony that shouldn't be legislated as law to begin with. Also, congratulations to Massachusetts Senator John F. Kerry on his clinching of the delegates and essentially (save for my candidate, The Reverend Al Sharpton and home(state)boy Dennis "The Menacing Elf" Kucinich) assuring his party's nomination for candidacy for the office of President of the United States. If I can't have Jed Bartlett, I'll happily settle for a Catholic, war-hero, liberal, Massachusetts senator with the initials JFK (oh, the conspiracies begin to roll. . .Kennedy WAS on the island and WASN'T killed and he's come back to reclaim his office--and from the God-help-him looks of John Kerry, it indeed could even be a Jack Kennedy risen from the grave! And you thought the Mel Gibson Christ-O-Rama flick was controversial!

STAY TUNED!!!

Happily email me (or otherwise) at nyaekle@wowway.com or yaekle@hotmail.com
March 2, 2004 Columbus, Ohio USA 11:51pm EDT

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