Jam Choke, ravaging the Young and wringing the Bell, wroted:

From: John Young <jya@pipeline.com> Subject: Re: Fw: Jim Bell Sentenced (fwd)

Now, is it not true that we've self-censored ourselves into believing Jim is just a fool, rather than a gutsy guy willing to do what most of us will not, instead preferring covert self-censorship over the all-too-easily opposed group-think kind.

Spin-doctor alert. No need to announce yourself, Jim. Your name is in the From: header. Jim Bell plea bargained period. Had he had one iota of the 'guts' you so blithely banter about the case would be going to trial. Plea-bargaining = capitulation = self-censorship Spoken like a free man... I've sat at a lot of border crossings 'psychically willing' my sweat back into the pores of my body. I've been pulled over by the Men in Black on dark roads late at night, within sight of the towers where the Iron Curtain is personified in a chambered round which serves as a local currency price-tag on free speech. I've sat in courtrooms in which justice was an unwanted intruder and mere mention of it caused the dogs of war to growl and bare their teeth. (e.g. 'Bell' County, Texas) I've waited for interminable hours while interrogators were being brought in from distant places to shake me up, down and sideways to find a small vulnerable spot that could be ripped open with the one-sided sword of dark authority. I know the tune Bell's persecutors were playing. It is a dark and scary tune most effective when played to an audience of one. Anyone who thinks that Jim was imprisoned in America is a fool. Jim was in a Gulag, in Auschwitz, in a sweat box in a distant jungle. Bell was the target of an insidious physical, mental and emotional attack threatening the most deep-seated human impetus of all--survival. The methods used against Bell are the same methods used by despotic regimes throughout history and by the mind-benders who serve them. I've been the target of wanna-be local Nazis and I've been the target of the real McCoys. The hands pulling the strings in Jim's case were not amateur. They were the same hands that have massaged the minds of prisoners of war, defectors, political prisoners and compromised spooks. Anyone who believes that Jim received his right to legal counsel is likewise a fool. The difference between Bell's attorney and McVeigh's attorney is that established heavyweights get paid $15 million to sleepwalk their client to a conviction. The lightweights get paid with future political favors. Bell was unconstitutionally imprisoned, drugged, and subjected to sensory deprivation torture as punishment for exercising his right to think and speak freely. Anyone who attempts to justify this with weak claims that Bell was 'asking for it' is also justifying McVeigh's counter-attack on the Waco murderers, who, for those of you who are paying attention, are continuing to 'ask for it.' The Sympatico AP-BOT received bets on the times of demise of even some of the lowliest government paperwork shufflers involved in Jim's case. The Netcom AP-Bot received belated bets on the times of demise of *all* of the government casualties in the OKC offensive. (Definitely a political statement...) Jim's political statement *has* made a difference in the implementation of, and experimentatin with, AP-BOTs. His persecution has made those steps both real and meaningful for the participants. There is currently an AP-BOT accessible from an Eternity Server which is serving as a test of the ability of underground InterNet activity to become widespread and remain covert and untouchable in its operation. (For each unit bet on the choice of the individual, it is *required* to generate an extra unit which is automatically used to bet on the demise of the Big Guy. This requirement is designed to take the exercise beyond the realm of being merely a 'fun game.') Anyone who easily dismisses Jim Bell as a 'loon' is probably not in great danger of dropping their dime. Wavy Gravy is a loon. The Smothers Brothers were loons. Lenny Bruce, Cheech and Chong, Timothy Leary, Babba Ram Das, Ginsberg, Kerouac, Guerva, Patton... They were all capble, to a different extent, of knowing when it was safe to relax their anus, and when it was unwise to do so. When the government puts your ass in a vice and makes keeping your cheeks tight a condition of loosening it, the decision to spit or sing, or merely to remain passive, is an individual decision. It does not increase my respect for anyone if they choose to use someone else's trials and tribulations as a stick to beat their own tough-guy drum. Just as there are no athiests in foxholes, there are no tough guys in Gulags. There are only survivors...and not all who leave alive are survivors. Plain and simple: Jim Bell is a political pri$oner of the men, women and children who steal your money at gunpoint. Jim Bell's human and civil rights were violated more over vague public speech involving those who control the money spigot than were those of Terry McNichols over the violent deaths of over a hundred citizens. God help us all if anyone ever bombs the Treasury. UncleMonger