To: tattletales@thenation.com 
From: bernardo.attias@csun.edu

	Please add me to the ACTA list of academics who have been openly
	critical of U.S. government policy in response to the terrorist
	attacks of September 11th.  I'm sure you meant to include my name
	the first time around, but just so I don't get missed when you
	compile your second list of true Americans, here are a few of the
	things I have said over the past several months to my students and
	colleagues:

	I said that it is a sad day for democracy in America when an
	attorney general who was judged by his fellow citizens less fit for
	public office than a corpse can get away with telling Americans
	concerned about civil liberty that we are aiding terrorists without
	being publicly humiliated by every Congressman present at the
	hearing.

	I said that it is a sad day for democracy in America when a
	president who was judged unfit for the presidency by more than half
	of his constituents can simultaneously launch a full frontal assault
	on American citizens' basic privacy rights and sign a presidential
	order preventing the publication of the presidential papers of
	previous presidents (including, of course, those of his father), all
	the while shrugging away a massive oil company swindle.

	I said that it is a sad day for democracy in America when a vice
	president who was judged unfit for heavy exercise by his doctors can
	hide behind executive privilege in order to censor the public record
	of his meetings with the aforementioned oil company, perhaps because
	the public record will show that when the CEO said "jump," the vice
	president asked, "how high?"

	I also pointed out that the actual threat posed to America by bin
	Laden and his ilk was being blown way out of proportion by our
	leaders for purposes that are fundamentally at odds with the
	American national interest.  I pointed out that the US was already
	spending 22 times as much on the military as our top 7 enemies
	combined prior to September 11th.  I said that if we need more than
	that to defeat an insane cult leader who lives in a cave and teaches
	his followers to blow up planes by lighting their shoes on fire then
	perhaps we are as weak as they say we are.

	I attended a teach-in in which I mentioned the futility of an
	all-out war on an abstract noun.  I pointed out the various ways in
	which US military policy, and specific actions of the CIA, had
	created the nightmare that is bin Laden, al-Qaeda, and the Taliban.

	At a conference I presented a paper in which I mentioned that the
	Pentagon website had just posted an announcement promising cash for
	ideas that would "help in combatting terrorism" (10/25/01) and I
	wondered aloud whether this meant that our military leaders were
	already out of ideas only three weeks into the bombing of
	Afghanistan.

	I have said and will continue to say many other things that are
	critical of U.S. policies that I disagree with.  I want to thank
	ACTA for keeping track of true Americans who care enough about their
	country to speak out.

	Bernardo Alexander Attias 
	Associate Professor 
	Communication Studies
	California State University, Northridge