I'm reading the email chapters and it's loaded
with wisdom. Here's a short excerpt about Che
Guevara, whom the author uses as an example:

Che showed that when we have found a vision to
live by, no sacrifice will be too great for us,
not even our physical death-which explains the
French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre's remark that
he was "the most complete human being of our age."
His example would go on to inspire many, from the
European student demonstrators of 1968, to Nelson
Mandela in the 1980s, to the Zapatista rebels of
Mexico today.

What exactly was the heart of Che's vision, that
it still animates young people around the world?
His words on the revolutionary power of love hint
at one answer.
"Let me say, with the risk of appearing ridiculous,
that the true revolutionary is guided by strong
feelings of love. It is impossible to think of an
authentic revolutionary without this quality...One
must have a large dose of humanity, a large dose
of a sense of justice and truth, to avoid falling
into extremes, into cold intellectualism, into
isolation from the masses. Every day we must
struggle so that this love of living humanity is
transformed into concrete facts, into acts that
will serve as an example ..."

To quote him further, from his last letter to his
children: "Above all, try always to feel deeply
any injustice committed against any person in any
part of the world. It is the most beautiful quality
of a revolutionary."

Here is Mumia's contribution:

HELL ON EARTH
by Mumia Abu-Jamal
All Rights Reserved

When most folks think of Hell, they think of
depictions crafted by skilled artists, of fiery pits,
of an underworld, or of red, tailed, horned beings.

Whole religions have based their appeal on such
visions, and in turn used fear to build their
earthly mansions and cathedrals.

But as the brilliant philosopher Schopenhauer asked,
of Dante's Inferno, "For whence did Dante take the
materials of his hell but from our actual world?"
"And yet," he noted, "he made a very proper hell
of it."

There may well be a hell that is an underworld, but
who among us will dare deny that hell has been an
unquestionable reality on earth?

It is not to the theologians, or other religious
specialists, that one poses this question, but to
average, everyday people of the world. And one must
look, not to religious texts, but to literature,
and to the history of the world, to perceive this
reality.

A true history of the Americas, while seemingly
glorious for Europeans, can only be seen as hellish
for the so-called Indians. Their history is one of
massacre, genocide, and yes, holocaust.

To the remainders of this nation's original people,
a life of marginalization, of abject poverty, of
rule and ridicule by the descendants of the invaders,
must seem hellish indeed.

And speaking of genocides and holocausts, one
cannot ignore the experiences of millions of Jews,
Poles, and Romani (so-called Gypsies) in 1930s-era
Germany under the Reich. A Jewish poet, Kadya
Molodovsky, speaks of a searing, hellish experience,
in the poem "God of Mercy," which cries:

O God of Mercy
For the time being
Choose another people.
We are tired of death, tired of corpses,
We have no more prayers.
Penguin Book of Modern Yiddish Verse, Irring
Howe, Ruth R. Wisse and Khone Shmeruk, Eds. (Viking).

Decades before there was a holocaust in Europe
there was an African holocaust, in which whole
tribes were wiped out by colonizers. The term
"concentration camp" didn't arise from Nazi usage.
In 1904, German Gen. Von Trotha issued his notorious
Vernichtungsbefehl (or "extermination order") against
the Herreros of Southwest Africa (what is today
called Namibia). Von Trotha's troops poisoned their
wells, and drove the Herreros and their cattle into
the desert. A report made by the colonial army's
General Staff noted "the death rattles of the
dying and their insane screams of fury...resounded
in the sublime silence of infinity." Those few
thousand who survived were penned into concentration
camps. One of the colonial officials working with
Von Trotha was Imperial Commissioner Heinrich Göring,
whose son would one day rise to the hierarchy of
the Nazis. Hell? The Herreros knew hell perfectly,
as did millions of Africans the world over.

The English dramatist, Christopher Marlowes
(1564-1593), in his play, "Doctor Faustus," has
the devil respond to Faust's question, on the
location of hell, thusly:

Hell hath no limits nor is circumscribed
In one self place, where we are is Hell,
And to be short, when all the world dissolves,
And every creature shall be purified,
All places shall be hell, that are not heaven.

Marlowe's Mephistopheles speaks, not of an
underworld, but of the world at large: "...where
we are is Hell," he explains.

But enough about history and literature, for hell
lies, not in the earth, but in the hearts and minds
of men.

When a child in poverty dies of starvation, there
is hell.

When people groan under the boot of oppression,
there is hell.

Where there is injustice, there is hell.

The greatest Russian novelist Dostoyevsky described
hell as "the suffering of being unable to love."

This sounds like an apt description of far too much
of the human condition.
(c) 2001 MAJ

Chuckle. A false dilemma: the choices are not "oppress and poison the Colombian peasants," or "force more totalitarian government monitioring of or blood and urine." No, that is a classic false dilemma. A logical fallacy. A Falsehood. The sagacious congressmen and free press here forgot to mention the option that the US propaganda press always does its best to forget, or to smear: the option of returning to people their traditional freedoms is not mentioned.

Drug prohibition did not come down from heaven as a gift to mankind the value of which is unquestionable. Drug prohibition was thought up by narrow-minded controllers, petty tyrants, politicians . By an amazing coincidence, prohibition is implemented by taking away traditional rights from adults, and giving government more power. Prohibitionists want you to forget all that, though. Gung-ho drug warriors want us to believe that jailing drugs users is now and has eternally been the moral and righteous thing to do. Drug warriors are sadly deluded.

Always a set up, or pretext for more totalitarian controls, eh? You have to wonder how these clowns forgot to mention gettng peppered with vocal calls for legalization.

Maybe the drug (wars) these politicians are mainlining have affected their judgement?

8/29 Colombia: Many Colombians Back Decriminalization...
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v01/n1596/a05.html
''A bipartisan group of legislators introduced bills in Colombia's congress this month on the themes of legalization and decriminalization. The legislators said part of their motivation is the angry public reaction in Colombia to an intensified herbicide-spraying campaign, funded by the United States ...''

U.S. Exposes Anti-Narcotics Policy

Oh and Souder is an "expert."

Souder listed several initiatives to reduce drug consumption in the United States: suspending federal student loans for those found to have abused drugs; encouraging private companies to submit their employees to drug tests; and guaranteeing college loans for students who maintain good grades and avoid drugs.

So, by taking away educational opportunities for those that have fallen victim to drug addiction, by violating our constitutional rights and invading persons for their bodily fluids and guaranteeing student loans only to the goody two shoe graduates of D.A.R.E. programs, you will cut drug consumption in the US? Please vote this moron out of office.

Soulder must have gone to Nazi training camp as a youth. Why doesn't he also suggest that we tattoo drug user foreheads, shave their heads and make them wear the Star of David on their clothing ala Schindler's List.

In addition, "Ballenger emphasized that the United States spends $15 billion a year battling substance abuse.

FEDS WAY OF REDUCING DRUGS: suspending federal student loans for those found to have abused drugs; encouraging private companies to submit their employees to drug tests; and guaranteeing college loans for students who maintain good grades and avoid drugs.