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Just now, as I have my TV tuned on CNN, I am hearing hecklers telling U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld "you are fired" for the failures of the war against Iraq. Rumsfeld was addressing the National Press Club and after the hecklers were taken away he continued to praise the excellent work of the American military occupation of Iraq by mentioning that some hundred new newspapers are now circulating in the new Free Iraq.

I have also just finished to read Timothy Shire's article "Power and courts" in which he stresses the importance of the rights of people over the rights of money. We cannot buy democracy with money, and we cannot export democracy in Iraq by destroying its economic and social infrastructure first and then spending another $87 billion for this coming year.

We have today in Saskatoon the trial of the "Scandal of the Century" dealing with the malicious prosecution of Richard Klassen and of his family members who were falsely accused twelve years ago by the Saskatoon police of sexually abusing their foster children.

There is a connection between the war in Iraq and the malicious prosecution of the Klassen family, and this connection is the lack of democracy in our world turned upside down by an ever richer oligarchy. I hear and read that democracy is casting our vote at election time so that our social problems can be fixed by the elected politicians, but the reality is that democracy is not casting a vote but being civil to one another, and another reality is that our elected politicians cannot fix our social problems as most of them are mouth pieces of corporative interests.

In this world turned upside down you can only think what $87 billion can do when you realise that in today's world three billion people live on less than two dollars a day, and you can only think of the social tribulations the Klassen family had to experience as Saskatoon cop Brian Dueck made a successful career out of his malicious prosecution against the Klassens.

References

Pertinent articles published in Ensign

Shire, Timothy Power and courts September 9, 2003 Ensign

Daytona Beach News-Journal Tin Cup - An $87 Billion Appeal for Credibility September 10, 2003 Editorial, http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0910-13.htm

Media coverage of Klassen/Kvello trial http://www.injusticebusters.com/2003/Klassen_civil.htm

Shah, Anup Poverty Facts and Stats June 22, 2002 Global Issues That Affect Everyone, http://www.globalissues.org/TradeRelated/Facts.asp