THE END OF AMERICA State of —BOOK REVIEW— he End of America: Letter of Warning to an American Patriot (2007, Chelsea Green) is Disunion T a well-researched and informative survey of the attacks on American democracy during the Bush We Vote No NUMBER OF Administration. Best-selling author Naomi Wolf FEDERAL DOLLARS (The Beauty Myth) provides a solid compilation allocated to security for of examples that illustrate a “fascist shift” in our ESTIMATED NUMBER FEBRUARY 2008 VOL. 6 NO. 2 the DNC: OF PEOPLE society today: Rights being trampled on, voices 50,000,000 being silenced, and powers being abused, right that will attend the DNC: 35,000 here in the good old USA. Described by readers NUMBER OF U.S. as a pamphlet in the tradition of Paine’s “Common CITIES Sense,” the book is a very handy summary of AGE where protests or actions that Noam Chomsky MESA STATE HOUSING: the real state of our union in a tight 155 pages. occured on ‘Super The “fascist shift” Wolf refers to, consists wrote his fi rst book on A CLASSIST SYSTEM Tuesday’ including GJ: Anarchism: of ten steps that are universal tools for would-be 6 dictators trying to close down an open society, such 10 as we consider ours to be. Yes, all ten are visible in PERCENT OF PERCENT OF U.S. TV the U.S. today, from arbitrarily detaining citizens, THE AMERICAN to establishing secret prisons and developing STATIONS POPULATION that are owned by paramilitary forces. Wolf addresses each of the that are racial/ethnic ten steps in turn, showing with a multitude of minorities: minorities: 3.15 examples how these and other activities taking 34 place in post-9/11 America have chillingly NUMBER OF MEGA paralleled tactics and policies seen during NUMBER OF the transformations of Italy under Mussolini, MEDIA COMPANIES AMERICANS that control 90% of all Germany under Hitler, and Russia under Stalin, arrested in 2005 for drug among others. These similarities range from the media: offences: 6 broad, such as the arbitrary detention of citizens 1,846,400 who have criticized or questioned policies or TOTAL NUMBER simply fi t a profi le, to the very specifi c, such as the NUMBER OF methods of “interrogation” used at Guantanamo OF AMERICAN AMERICAN SOLIDERS and in prisons run by Hitler’s Germany. SOLIDERS For those who would insist that “it can’t killed in Iraq: killed in Iraq in January: 3960 happen here” because of how our government is 40 structured or how uniquely dedicated Americans are to democracy, Wolf has a crucial observation: both Mussolini and Hitler came to power legally in * Sources for the State of Disunion can be found at lass appears all over the world and Costs per semester for dorm living “fragile parliamentary democracies,” manipulating www.gjredpill.org has existed since the beginning of range from $2,007.47 (Walnut Ridge the system to indoctrinate their agenda. Steps C written history. College is the time to Apartments, where a meal plan is not taken under the Bush Administration that leave class, age, sex, and race out of it and required) to $4,593.10 (a ‘super-single’ could be seen similarly include the Military CALL TO ACTION create equal opportunity for all students in the new hall). Pinion’s nickname, the Commissions Act, which denies habeas corpus The Red Pill is looking for volunteers: graphic designers, to acquire an education, right? Wrong. Pinion Projects, illustrates the class division to those detained as “enemy combatants,” and writers, poets, cartoonists, artists, and photographers are The ever-changing dorm situation at between the old and new dorms. Grand the Defense Authorization Act of 2006, which modifi es the President’s abilities to declare needed. Get your work published now. Help distribute Mesa State has given rise to a classist system. Mesa Hall, also know as “The New Dorms,” martial law and deploy troops within the U.S. The Red Pill in your community, church, and school: Even now, the Board of Trustees has decided are fully equipped with fl at screen TVs in Wolf demonstrates a strong understanding contact us at [email protected]. You can also do to build another new dormitory; construction every pod, a computer lab, and conference of the topic, correlating each stage in the “fascist your part to keep us in print by donating time, paper, will begin just after the Saunders Field House rooms. Tolman resident, Justin Reed, shift” to a new level of acceptance and submission renovations (capped at almost $41 million), said there are fi ve computers available in in the people. She stops short of predicting martial fi lm, copies, and of course money (it doesn’t print itself). and before Houston Hall renovations. With Tolman, one of which makes an incredibly law or a massive crackdown on opposition in this 85 percent of Mesa State’s budget going strange clanking sound when you turn it on. country, but challenges the reader to seriously toward buildings, why not another new dorm, MSC students, Luke Hurt and Pat consider what direction America is taking and whether Americans have forgotten the forefathers’ even though the kitchen at the cafeteria is Warnes, roommates in Monument Hall, gave apprehension of the rise of a tyrant in America, insuffi cient for more students. Members of TRP their opinion. Warnes said he picked whether it be the current President or a future one.• The Red Pill is collectively produced by Grand Junction the Board of Trustees want to accommodate Monument because it’s “better” than the Alternative Media, with the aim of publishing stories and ‘everyone’ with a variety of housing choices old dorms, and he looked down on sharing ideas that the mainstream media won’t cover. It is distributed to better comfort the needs of all students, a bathroom with 20 other dudes. Hurt and free, collects no advertising, and is completely staffed by which has had the effect of segregating Warnes both said that their parents make be the media! the poor students from the ‘more affl uent’ good money; Hurt estimated that his make volunteers. All materials are copyleft, no rights are reserved. students, and rent’s not gettin’ any cheaper. PHOTOCOPY AND DISTRIBUTE AT WILL! “CLASS” ON SECOND PAGE www.gjredpill.org www.gjredpill.org “CLASS” FROM FIRST PAGE KNOW YOUR MEDIA! WHERE DO YOU GET $110,000 a year. bragging. “I don’t like the way they make me Sophomore feel.” When speaking about students from YOURYOUR NEWSNEWS Walnut Ridge apartments, he said, “They’re Monkey Bjerk, a uring the past twelve years, U.S. media resident of Tolman below us (Tolman, Pinion and Rait).” He said they’re like homeless people, sitting ownership rules have been relaxed several times, Hall, said that the D first in 1996 with the Telecommunications outside the cafeteria hoping for a bite to eat. new hall is “set Act, and then again in 2003. The first move by the up like a freakin’ Both Bjerk and Reed described similar scenarios; they each had friends who lived in Federal Communications Commission was met hotel.” He says with some opposition by the public but eventually he picked Tolman the old dorms with them last year. This was passed. This caused a wave of media mergers because it’s “a hell in which a handful of multi-billion dollar companies of a lot cheaper” year, their friends owned by a media conglomerate. The big four are Fox Tolman Computer Lab moved into the took control of a vast majority of our major sources and his parents of information. And when the FCC moved to relax (owned by News Corp.), CBS (owned by Viacom), are just blue collar rich dorms and are ABC (owned by Disney), and NBC (owned by no longer friends. the rules once again, over three million citizens citizens. When voiced serious concerns about the further limiting of General Electric). The most interesting of these analyzing the This classism is insthe GE/NBC deal. There is an obvious conflict causing cliques American voices in the public arena. Media activists housing situation, took their complaints straight to the FCC and to of interest when one of the world’s largest weapons Bjerk said he’s not to ruin social manufacturers (and the manufacturer of a gattling relationships— Congress, eventually resulting in the Senate passing sure if there is a (by an overwhelming majority) a resolution to revoke gun which exclusively uses Depleted Uranium shells, class difference, when will it spreading radioactive waste throughout Iraq and start affecting the changes. Activists sued the FCC for ignoring but the new and Leaky Tolman Hallway public opinion on the matter and won in a Federal Afghanistan) owns the news group that people get most the old halls the educational of their news about these wars from. You never hear process? district court in Philadelphia. The changes were are defi nitely officially abandoned in 2004. The original ownership anything too critical of the war effort on any of NBC’s Thanks to broadcast or cable outlets. GE very recently signed a Grand Mesa Computer Lab forming cliques restrictions were put in place for the obvious reason on campus, like the class structure $193 million contract with the Defense Department, of Mesa State that a healthy democracy needs a multitude of voices a North vs South to be heard in order for freedom of thought and so it would not be in their best financial interest to campus. He noted undoubtedly that “a lot housing, the allow NBC to report any bad news about the war.