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The Bigger Picture
3.2.02
NYPD's Serpico: SOMETHING STINKS ABOUT BUSH 911 FABLES!!
-- 'On 9/11, the most powerful nation in the world, equipped with the
most sophisticated spying technology available and a $396 billion
defense budget was brought to its' knees by a handful of rouges with 99
cent box cutters.
'In my opinion, there is something very foul smelling about that. I
believe that in time, the truth will come out.
'The mayor of New York, Time Magazine's man of the year, ordered
thousands of tons of WTC steel sold and melted down before a proper
investigation of the greatest crime scene the country has ever witnessed
could be conducted.
'Much of it was sent to South Korea where Bush/Bin Laden's Carlyle Group
has a massive investment. Something foul smelling about that too.' --
Frank Serpico, legendary NYPD detective and world-renowned "good-cop" whistleblower
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http://www.pogo.org/whistle/prfserpico.htm
The Paul Revere Forum:
National Security Whistleblowers Speak
February 27, 2002
Canon House Office Building, Room 402
Remarks by Frank Serpico, retired New York City Police Detective
LAMP LIGHTERS
Good morning and welcome to all of our speakers and guests. I am honored
to be here today among such a courageous group of people of conscience.
I feel I am finally with my peers and do not have to explain myself.
I am particularly fond of the name POGO, not only for the great and
necessary work this organization is doing but also because I once had a
dog named Pogo. He was my loyal companion, and although quite small,
warned me of intruders.
In today's forum, we pay homage to revolutionary war hero, Paul Revere.
I must confess that since the first time I heard myself referred to as a
whistle-blower, I cringed, and I am still uneasy with that term. It
sounds demeaning. Demeaning for so noble a cause.
When Paul Revere was given the task of riding to Lexington to warn Sam
Adams and John Hancock that the British troops were coming to arrest
them, it is said that as he approached the house where they were staying
the sentry asked him not to make so much noise, to which he cried
"Noise?!? You'll have noise enough before long." After successfully
warning the citizenry, he was himself arrested.
Revere lit or arranged for the lamps to be lit and hung high in the
tower. He was a lamp lighter and that is the term I much prefer than
whistle-blower. LAMPLIGHTER. We can still holler and shout but we have
to light the lamps that shed the light on corruption, injustice,
ineptitude and abuse of power. When we do, you will see the villains
scurry into the woodwork the way roaches do when you turn on the light.
Some of you are fortunate enough never to have witnessed roaches and
poverty. However, they do exist feeding off the crumbs of the poor. We
may be told "don't make so much noise" and we can reply, "you'll soon
hear noise enough before long," and we may be arrested as Revere was.
<SNIP>
We must support and inspire each other. It is no small task we
undertake. Government oversight is dealing with "the little big guys." I
say little big guys, because I remember in my ordeal, confronting
corruption in the NYPD, when the big shots were exposed they became like
little babies or babbling idiots in front of the cameras.
Today it is becoming harder to speak out, with the inception of the
Patriot Act, the president has legislated free speech to be a crime.
Frightfully reminiscent of the McCarran Act or Internal Security Act of
1950 which also involved our national safety and individual liberties.
But being a man of conscience, President Truman vetoed the act on the
grounds that it "would make a mockery of our Bill Of Rights and would
actually weaken our internal security measures." His veto however was
overturned and the rest is history. And unfortunately history repeats itself.
It would behoove all of us to review those McCarthy hearings. One of
it's victims was W.E.B. Dubois, the NAACP's Director of Research. He was
indicted after calling upon the United Nations to hear the crimes of the
U.S. government against it's own people. Hoover's FBI set up shop and
conducted hearings for the next twenty seven years. One of the
provisions of the McCarran Act, was its authorization of concentration
camps for "emergency situations."
Today, as always, it is clearly a case of ordinary citizens against the
corporate giants like Enron, the Carlyle group and the so-called war on
terrorism. Just last week John Poindexter, of Oli North and Iran contra
guns for hostages fame was appointed to head the new 'big brother'
Information Awareness Office. God help us. It reminds me of a verse in
one of my favorite poems -- Crow's Theology, by Ted Hughes:
Crow realized there were two Gods-
One of them much bigger than the other
Loving his enemies
And having all the weapons
But it took David just one well placed stone to take down the giant. On
9/11, the most powerful nation in the world, equipped with the most
sophisticated spying technology available and a $396 billion defense
budget was brought to its' knees by a handful of rouges with 99 cent box
cutters.
In my opinion, there is something very foul smelling about that. I
believe that in time, the truth will come out.
The mayor of New York, Time Magazine's man of the year, ordered
thousands of tons of WTC steel sold and melted down before a proper
investigation of the greatest crime scene the country has ever witnessed
could be conducted.
Much of it was sent to South Korea where Bush/Bin Laden's Carlyle Group
has a massive investment. Something foul smelling about that too.
In my opinion, an 85% approval rating only proves one thing. Einstein
was correct when he said: "Two things are infinite, human stupidity and
the universe, and I am not sure of the latter."
In closing, my admiration and thanks to Uri Avnery, Israeli Journalist
and decorated war hero and the hundreds of other courageous Israeli
soldiers who are refusing to fight against unarmed Palestinian civilians
and children, citing the Israeli occupation of Palestine as, "oppression
in the extreme."
Never has there been a greater need for Lamp Lighters than today. Never
has there been a greater need for independent thinkers who are informed
enough to know that most of our not so mainstream media is partisan,
corporate owned and yielding to government pressure. We must hold our
lawmakers accountable and our courts responsible, or democracy and
freedom of speech in America will soon become extinct. Never have there
been agencies better suited to investigate, expose, and seek to remedy
systemic abuses of power, mismanagement, and subservience by the federal
government to powerful special interests than POGO and its affiliates,
our faithful watchdogs.
Thank you.
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