Well, if there are "social improvements" occurring in America , they are
occurring precisely because the people you label pc are out there.
They're not happening in a vacuum or through some mysterious
teleological evolution. I for one have trouble distinguishing between
the U.S.'s assassination attempts on individuals such as Zhou En-Lai,
Sukarno or Nehru in the 50's and 60's and attempts on the lives of the
Sandinista directorate or Saddam Hussein and Slobodan Milosevic. If you
read the State Department press releases on Nehru or Mossadegh or Nasser
or Sihanouk, they read very much like the campaigns waged against
current enemies.

As for the domestic situation brightening as regards freedom of
expression, I don't see recent events as being encouraging. And I'm not
just talking about Philadelphia or the recent positive Wall Street
report that the U.S.'s prison population has now topped two million. One
of the ways Joe Brennan and I spent countless hours in the 80's was to
produce a one hour weekly alternative news program. One of the things we
did was to offer video taping services to many groups free of charge. We
got three old video cameras and taped lectures, demonstraions etc. We
ended up working very closely with CISPES, the Committee in Solidarity
of El Salvador. One day we were to meet our liaison with CISPES in a
safe house in the Shaw section of Washington, DC. We arrived to find
that three Salvadoran campesinos who had been brought into the country
to speak to groups of sympathetic Americans. They looked at us very
warily as well they should. While we were listening to the Salavdorans
tell us of murdered family members, murders at the hands of U.S. funded,
trained and intelligence fed security forces, a group of young CISPES
volunteers came in and one of them casually said that the FBI was parked
outside again. (Even though the mainstream U.S. media tried to put a
game face on, it was revealed that the overwhelming number of atrocities
committed during the so-called civil war in El Salvador were at the
hands the U.S. proxy forces such as the Treasury police and the Atlacatl
battalion.) Anyway, I asked myself how did the volunteer know it was the
FBI? Well, its now legal legend that CISPES filed a court action against
the FBI for illegal surveilance and violation of the groups civil
rights. They were joined by a mere 299 other groups from the sanctuary
movement and elsewhere. The FBI countered that they considerd these
groups terrorists cells. The agrieved groups prevailed but you may as
well wipe your ass with the decision. The FBI has continued such
activity unabated. Actually, they've accelerated it---tremendously, and
all in the name of national security; and with the advent of CARNIVORE
to supplement ECHELON the situation seems seriously retrograde from
these quarters. If you travel to Cuba, you can still find yourself
"interviewed" by the CIA at the Miami airport. This is in direct
violation of U.S. Federal law and the CIA charter forbidding CIA
activity on U.S. soil, yet I have never heard of a CIA officer ever
getting even a reprimand for this clearly felonious behavior. When I
contact the media about such activity, they act like I'm crazy claiming
that no such statutes exist. And I can't even begin to scratch the
felonious and murderous surface here.
But one more anecdote. A week after the incident in the CISPES safe
house CISPES called us to tape an emergency protest outside the
Salvadoran Embassy which I then believe was on California St. As
perpetually happened Salvadoran students had been murdered while in the
custody of the Treasury police. We showed up and the atmosphere was
pretty charged. I tried to tape the inside of an unmarked car with two
INS officials in it and they leapt out, one reaching for his gun. They
called me over but I told I had a demonstration to shoot. By taping the
tapers and the legalized thugs, we prevented many unnecessary beatings
of protesters. There are literally dozens law enforcement agencies and
intelligence services in Washington so you can get your ass kicked in
any number of venues. Anyway, our CISPES liaison wasn't there. But as we
were packing up she arrived. We asked her where she had been. She said
she had spent the night in the Baltimore City jail because she was
caught riding in a stolen car. It turns out the that the FBI had
infiltrated CISPES (as was later demonstrated in court) and the
infiltrator/FBI informant had either actually stolen a car or set it up
with the local cops to make it look like a legitimate bust. Our liaison
had given a lecture in Baltimore and after the lecture had accepted a
ride from this new CISPES member who in fact was working for the FBI or
was actually an agent. They "interviewed" our CISPES liaison all night
until her lawyer arrived and then the police declined to press charges.
Our liaison had a lot of experience with these tactics, didn't spill any
information and said she knew that as soon as her counsel arrived she
would be released. The dead were in El Salvador. The protestors here
could expect beatings and unlawful arrest and all sorts of legal
harassment. And after all these years, I'm still a little nervous for
everyone involved except law enforcement and intelligence for putting
these minor little anecdotes out over the net. Now think Phillie. Carlo
Parcelli