rony and Clone), a rush-to-our flag, glamour-boy for pseudo-patriotism wimps, and the President of all the other wimps in Hollywoodland's Actors Union, is in the forefront of the dissent versus patriotism war. "Family values" Disney is in on the retraining program too, but more on that later. Just remember when Popeye and Bluto (if those two sailors were drafted or enlisted of their own free will, why were they always on furlough, trying to make it with Olive Oyl!), even Bugs Bunny ( a fraud to begin with because he wasn't a bunny at all ... he was a hare!) went to war. Got that picture in your mind? Hell! if the Marlboro man hadn't died of cancer, we could have enlisted him in the war effort along with all the heart-tugging Nashville crowd of fraidy-cats.

People, they are just entertainers for goodness sake! It's their job to stir your emotions and tug at your heart strings. Did you ever hear of Willie Nelson (known as an "outlaw," because ostensibly, he's not a Nashvillian) doing a VETS AID instead of his bleeding' heart Farm-Aid? I rest my case your honor! The news media has fallen into the category of "info-tainment also --- entertainers. If we go to war with Iraq, there will be all the news from the front that is "fit to print." The question is, who will determine what is fit for prime time or the breakfast table? And what new logo will emblazon your TV screen for this war? Will it be a big seller like Budweiser?

Will the heroic Geraldo Rivera be there to tell you the body count in all its gory? Of course not! Like Wolf Blitzer, who became a household word, thanks to the sacrifices of our brave men and women in uniform, Geraldo will be pushing the same, tired self-aggrandizing agenda as usual! Operation Enduring Sameness?

As far as propagandists are concerned, Hitler had the movie makers in the motherland (homeland for us) all geared up to sell the people his vision of "homeland." Don't think for a moment that we didn't learn a lot from the Nazi war machine. When Dr. Mengele was drilling holes in live people's heads and tweaking their brains, we benefited from the experimentation, medicine benefited. Now we could teach them a thing or two.

Stalin had the greatest movie propaganda ever. He sold his people another five year plan, another, and yet another. Look how we sold ourselves on the fearful "domino theory" of communist domination of Asia, while selling out Taiwan, and Britain giving up Hong Kong (of course they had to give "back" Hong Kong because "the lease had expired" and the opium had run out years ago). Maybe now we should recall our Drug Czar, send him into Afghanistan and tell the Poppy growers to just say No!" You really can learn from history if your government does not suppress it or redact information from documents they don't think you can be trusted with.

What we don't seem to benefit from is history. And we have to sell the new homeland paradigm to an unenlightened, un-read generation, who already play DoD-provided war games on their computers (for recruitment). Not a very hard sell.

Journalists want to go to war. They want to bring back facts, right? What a noble, courageous gaggle of frauds! The administration won't ever let the news people or cameras get too close to the news. ABC owned Disney. ("Top Gun," "Black Hawk Down") is making a "documentary," entitled "The War in Afghanistan" with the help of the Pentagon. What that should read is with the urging, full support, and cooperative spin from the Pentagon. Jack Valente already enlisted Hollywood in the heroic effort. Don't you want to tear your little boy or girl away from the Disney Channel and hand them over to be part of the new "Jugend?"

If you don't cheer these efforts, you must be some kind of subversive unpatriotic, weak-kneed, psalm-singer. What the hell is the matter with you?

How about a Disneyland in Afghanistan or in Occupied Iraq? Cool!

NOT PRO-WAR, NOT ANTI-WAR, JUST NOT ANTI-PEACE! Don't want anymore Disabled Veterans unless the cause is JUST!

We need to know why we want to go and be the occupying force in the World's Second Largest Producer of Oil. Maybe there is a "JUST CAUSE!" All I am saying is CONVINCE US. How many barrels of Crude is a Dead GI worth?

And how many Media people will have the guts to tell the American people that there is no fair trade in that particular transaction. Rally 'round the flag when the flag needs rallying around. Remember the Nuremberg Rallies. Let's not go down that road again.

CHRISTOPHER P. WALSH, MSgt USAF (Ret)

Military Retiree Grass Roots Group

San Antonio, Texas. 20th Congressional District.

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Our legislators are making it HARDER to contact them, instead of using the Internet to foster democracy and make it EASIER to let them know what WE think they should be doing.

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