Excerpt from "Trapped in New Orleans: First by the Floods, then by Martial Law": By day FOUR our hotels had run out of fuel and water. Sanitation was dangerously bad. As the desperation and despair increased, street crime as well as water levels began to rise. The hotels turned us out and locked their doors, telling us that "officials" had told us to report to the convention center to wait for more buses. As we entered the center of the city, we finally encountered the National Guard.

The guard members told us we wouldn't be allowed into the Superdome, as the city's primary shelter had descended into a humanitarian and health hellhole. They further told us that the city's only other shelter -- the convention center -- was also descending into chaos and squalor and that the police weren't allowing anyone else in.

Quite naturally, we asked, "If we can't go to the only two shelters in the city, what was our alternative?" The guards told us that this was our problem -- and no, they didn't have extra water to give to us. This would be the start of our numerous encounters with callous and hostile "law enforcement." http://www.counterpunch.org/bradshaw09062005.html


Playing chess with the devil: Did George Bush just take our queen?

If you want to know what is going on in America today, here's a clue: Just think of Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rove and their various corporate sponsors as world-class chess Grand Masters. Seen from this perspective, it becomes immediately obvious that they are playing a very deep game. And who are they playing it against? Us.

How would Chess magazine describe this match? "Just some average dumb smucks who haven't even played chess since high school are now playing up against the Grand Masters -- the ultimate Bobby Fischers -- of Machiavellian nastiness." Yeah, and who do you think is gonna win?

Too bad that the stakes we are playing for are our jobs, our freedom and our lives because we are going to lose this one. Badly.

Here is the action so far: Both our bishops were taken at the very start of play but these Grand Masters still have theirs -- plus they still have all of their castles and all their knights. We have NO knights. And with the loss of New Orleans, they have just jumped our queen. All we have left now are our pawns.

It's no surprise that the game started out badly for us. "What? Do I look like Boris Spassky or something?" After the 2000 election, the Bush gang used the Supreme Court to put our king in check but somehow we survived that one. Then they took our castles on 9/11, our bishops with the Florida/Ohio election fraud and our knights in Iraq. But what did it matter? We still had our queen.

Not any more.

When the port of New Orleans went down, we didn't even know what hit us -- but disabling a major Blue State port and getting Americans used to martial law was part of the Grand Masters' plan. "Might as well get used to losing, suckers," the Grand Masters told America. Yeah.

FEMA and Homeland Security treated us like animals in New Orleans. First they let us starve and then they ordered "shoot to kill". Our queen went down. Our king was in check again.

After the battle of New Orleans, we finally realized that in case of ANY future emergency, we are now on our own. Stock up on canned foods and flashlights guys. With the Grand Masters controlling the chessboard, there will always be a crisis. And we will always lose.

The Bush Grand Masters have beat us and tricked us and out-strategised us at every turn and now only some pawns -- you and me -- stand between them and their ultimate Check Mate.

Or we could kick over the chessboard and start playing a game that WE are good at -- Truth or Dare!

PS: We now know that if the Grand Masters can sweep New Orleans off the board, they will not hesitate to do the same to any other city in America. We need to start playing to win here. There is just too much at stake. But just exactly HOW should we play to win -- to rid ourselves of these Machiavellian chess masters who have insinuated themselves into the life of America, filling the media with images that make everything they do seem so benign, paternal-in-our-own-interests and right?

What actions -- within the limits of human decency (something the bush Republicans don't understand) -- can I take? Can any of us take? They know we are honorable -- unwilling to stoop to their level -- and they use that as a strategy against us. But even if we did stoop to their level, what would we do?

As Harry Potter once said, "At some point in one's life one has to chose between the easy way and the right way." The bush Republicans have chosen the easy way. But what is the right way? Passive resistance. Non-violent sit-ins? If every person who had ever been to New Orleans and loved that city sent a post card to the White House saying, "Resign, you murdering SOBs," would that do it? Or what if we sent all the Nawlins "refugees" to camp out on the White House lawn instead of at the Astrodome? Or if we paid our taxes to President Sheehan.

But first let's start with impeachment and any Senator who doesn't go along with it gets impeached too. And we turn off ANY media -- even wonderful progressive KPFA -- who refers to George Bush as "The President".

Then we start to play Truth or Dare with the corporate welfare queens who sponsor these evil Grand Masters. We form unions. We get single-payer healthcare. We eliminate massive corporate special interest election contributions. We dump the Patriot Act. We stop secret funds to the Pentagon and institute citizen-soldiers again. We get rid of the code of secrecy that now pervades OUR government. We check-mate King George, using some of the chess moves made legendary by the 1776 chess masters -- and we take our country back.