Tag Archives: your vote

Obama hugs Dick Cheney and says torture works!

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Obama doesn’t want to prosecute criminal torturers and rallies CIA dogs at rally! Obama says torture works and says Banned Techniques Yielded ‘High Value Information’ Barack Obama hugs Dick Cheney, and says, ‘You did well! We just need to step back some for a while and change (HINT, HINT… code word for do nothing). You understand, don’t you?’

Thanks liberals! You really solved the problem with your votes. Good work. No need to do anything else. Problem solved.

No seriously? Isn’t Barack Obama enough to turn your stomach? Black Man talk with forked tongue. White Man in Black Face talk with forked tongue.

Boy is this a sick country! We’re going nowhere but fast! With liberals like these, who needs Dick Cheney?

Barack and Dubya walk hand in hand

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barack Obama Commander in Chief
WELL, YES HE IS NOW… He is co- Commander in Chief.

It should be becoming increasingly clear to the public by now that both Dubya and Barack have the same programs to ‘rescue the economy’ through increasing government debt, ‘surging’ in Afghanistan, and green lighting Israel’s slaughter in Gaza. Did I mention that they both plan to stay in Iraq, though after the inauguration it will be Barack totally in command of this operation? Does anybody seriously still believe that Barack is somehow against keeping Iraq an occupied country with US troops? Really? Then what kind of dope are you are on would be my question to you?

U.S. could be facing debt ‘time bomb’ this year is the Barack plan for ‘change’, as Obama sugar coats the Democrats plan to bailout the corporate elites with a shallow promise to supposedly create 3,000,000 jobs. Sure you will, Barack, and you will throw the US government into bankruptcy along with your Republican and your Clintonite buddies screwing us, the working public, over royal. It’s clear who your real friends are, and it ain’t us.

And the con game that Barack is playing about not being in office yet with an inability to change US government policy towards Israel’s invasion of Gaza is totally phony. Shoot! Barack and his Buddies are already plotting out space wars with China in the years ahead even. Obama Moves to Counter China With Pentagon-NASA Link (Update1) It’s just pure gullibility on the part of anybody that actually believes that Obama is not able to intervene in regards to Israel bombing and invading Gaza. The same type of gullibility that made some folk think that Dennis Kucinich was some sort of DP Golden Boy, too. Not much a menace to the gun toting Barack-Hillary group at the top of the party is Dennis. He can’t even open his mouth having caught the same bug that must be ailing Barack on this matter.

And Bush and Obama are walking hand in hand on the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, continuing US torture of POWs, and threatening the Russians, too. Surprising isn’t it, that President Mr. BIG CHANGE has not muttered one word about ending official US government policy of torturing its POWs? He plans merely to cover it up and pretend otherwise. Barack is as much war without end as the Republicans he is now copying like a parrot for.

Don’t get it wrong. Obama will enter into office with a virtual bombardment of meaningless ‘change’ rhetoric, since that is his forte. He’s good at saying nothing real while doing a shuffle. You can continue to fall for it if you want, but think how stupid you will feel down the line? Your only excuse will be…. At least he wasn’t Dick Cheney and Dubya. Small consolation though for you inactivity while you made excuses for this crew. Barack and Dubya are walking hand in hand now, and that’s what your vote bought.

How my vote was stolen

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How I lost my vote to EARLY VOTING. Alright, to be less dramatic: How my vote is now in somebody else’s pocket.

Following the prevailing advice, Obama’s for example, among others, I voted early. But against the most important precautionary warnings, I wasn’t able to use a paper ballot. You can’t, for EARLY VOTING. In El Paso County, for some reason, early voting is all electronic.

Why do I presume there is something inherently wrong with the Diebold touch-screen voting machines? The problem is, no one can make a case for how the computers involved can be defended from corruption.

While it sounds unfair to consider electronic voting devices guilty until proven otherwise, imagine we were talking about a leaky boat. If experts can point to the holes, it would become the obligation of the designers to demonstrate how their perforated vessel is going to stay afloat. Can we agree that we might require some such proof before we put our destiny in their hands. Isn’t that fair enough?

Let’s also admit that reassurances from inexperts, who maintain that no such holes exist, do not hold water. Especially when they’re backed by party bosses who profess expertise, minus technical degrees. And cling to power, mysteriously unaccountable to their constituents. Think about the issue of building the County Jail, in spite of the incredible local outcry.

In much of the country, electronic voting devices, manufactured by GOP-backers Diebold for example, or otherwise, have been taken out of the election loop. Many state legislatures have taken heed of the 2004 election experiences, and popular outcry, and banned “black box voting” altogether. Colorado is not one of those wised-up states. What better indication do you need that to be “conservative” really means to be an idiot?

Really. The “conservative” take on the Diebold anti-democratic vote theft of 2004 is to say “balderdash.”

At least our Secretary of State was made to provide paper ballots to all who request them. Except in El Paso County, for early voting.

In all three early voting centers in Colorado Springs, your only option is to use the Diebold touch-screen machines. When I asked about a paper ballot, I was told that I would be able to verify my vote on a paper receipt generated by the machine.

Here’s how it works. After you make your choices on the touch-screen, and after you scroll through the completed ballot on the screen, you have the option to make a print out of your votes on a cash-register-like roll of paper located inside a compartment beside the Diebold screen. There, behind a small plastic window, you can see a line by line record of your votes, in three inch length glimpses. Each time you touch the “print” button, the paper advances with the next three inches of your votes. Eventually it line feeds into the upper portion of the compartment, presumably to accumulate until the roll is replenished. Exactly like a cash register, actually.

Now if you’ve used a cash register, you might also know that it often keeps two separate tapes. One for the customer, and an abbreviated one for the sales tax records. The latter is compressed to save paper, but in substance they are identical. But a programmable point of sale machine could produce different tallies, if such was desired.

Likewise, the Diebold print-out which you see but cannot touch behind the plastic, needn’t be the print-out being archived. As simple as that.

Interestingly, the printout visible under the plastic is more a translation of your vote, in plain English, than a coded abbreviation of what your vote represented. Meaning, to reassure you that your vote is recorded according to your wish, the paper trail sacrifices being in a format easily tabulated by an auditor. In fact, it’s hard to imagine the rolls processed at all. Even the election volunteer giving my tutorial explained that the roll is kept only for extenuating circumstances. I was not polled upon emerging from the election center, to survey how El Paso County’s early voters are leaning. So, will there be any call for election workers to review the roll of paper representing my vote?

Now I cannot remember for certain, but it seemed that the push “print” operation was optional. Because of the numerous ballot initiatives this year, the ballot was particularly long. I had to push “print” at least a half-dozen times. That’s rather strange, isn’t it, if printing would not be optional? But then, what kind of a paper trail would represent each Diebold unit, if the rolls only recorded the votes which only particular users were concerned to see in print?

Thus my choices for office holders and local amendments are now recorded with Diebold. They will be counted on other electronic devices, and communicated to central devices. Experts have pointed to man-in-the-middle vulnerabilities where results can be processed at intermediary points-unkown before being retransmitted to their official destinations.

These are the vulnerabilities which other states have determined pose a risk to democratic elections. El Paso County officials, GOP bureaucrats determined that things remain exactly as they are, are plenty happy to stick to their tried and true Diebolds.

Perhaps they know that El Paso County is expected to fall in line with the GOP, and thus no one is planning to challenge the results anyway. Even if this were true, what about the local issues on the ballot. Might the public not want to verify the votes on the sales tax measure? The county administrators themselves benefit from that tax increase. Might taxpayers want to audit that vote, in case it’s really the citizen’s preference not to raise a regressive tax that weighs more heavily on those with less money? The county has been in financial trouble because of the breaks it’s been giving to the wealthiest of clients. Why should they make up the shortfall on the backs of the needy?

Don’t give El Paso County your vote to do with what they please. Cast a paper ballot which remains traceable to your authentic vote. If you believe that your only role in this Democracy is the right to vote, at least, make certain it counts.

Taking the boob back

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Angelina JolieI think that it is just so great that Angelina Jolie is breast feeding the baby in this picture. It’s time for the babies of the world to rise up and reclaim those boobs!

However don’t those sun glasses look kind of stupid on her since now all the macho men will probably want their Significant Others to wear them, too, when breast feeding? Oh well… People these days need role models such as Jolie is doing here just like the La Leche League would want her.

Remember! Hot Babes in your neighborhood want you to breast feed! Oh, Mama! Those babies deserve to have their breasts back, now don’t you think, Mama?

Which leads us to the most important international question of our times… Does Sarah Palin breastfeed her new child, too? This apparently is an international secret of the most hidden and clandestine kind? Or does she just use formula and candy nuggets?

Inquiring American citizens want to know so that they can cast an informed vote for Motherhood. We know that Jolie, a liberal, breastfeeds quite openly, but what about Sarah? I cannot cast a vote for the McCain ticket without this information. Can you?

Greg Palast suggests election theft theft

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Steal back your voteOne fifth of all Colorado voters have already been purged from the rolls. The Republican Secretary of State Donetta Davidson who accomplished this now heads the US Elections Assistance Commission where she purged the report which examined voter fraud.
 
But why be discouraged by GOP election fixing? Greg Palast has accompanied his upcoming Rollingstone expose with a comic book STEAL BACK YOUR VOTE.
 
1. Don’t mail in your ballot. 2. Vote early. 3. Register and re-register.
4. Do not accept a Provisional Ballot. 5. Assist voters in swing states.
6. Go to the polls with friends. 7. Prepare for: No Vote Left Behind!

Greg Palast explains:

DON’T DON’T DON’T MAIL IN YOUR BALLOT
For those of you who mailed in your ballot, please tell me, what happened to it? You don’t know, do you? I can tell you that officially, three-fourths of a million absentee ballots were never counted last time, on the weakest of technical excuses. And you won’t even know it. Furthermore, tens of thousands of ballots are not mailed out to voters in time to return them—in which case you’re out of luck. In most states, new voters must now include a photocopy of your ID. Which is, like, nuts. Every time I hear of a voter going “absentee” to avoid computer screens, I want to “go postal” myself.

VOTE EARLY … VERY EARLY
Every state now lets voters cast ballots in designated polling stations and at county offices in the weeks before Election Day. Do it. Don’t wait until Election Day to find out you have the wrong ID, your registration’s “inactive,” or you’re on a challenge list. By Election Day, there’s little to do but hold up the line.

REGISTER AND REGISTER AND REGISTER
Think you’re registered to vote? Think again. With all this purg’n going on, you could be x’d out and you won’t know it. Check online at http://www.votersunite.org/info/RegInfo.asp. Then register your girlfriend, your wife, your mailman and your mommy. Contact the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, Rock the Vote, and your local party organization, and commit to a couple of days of door-to-door registration, especially in minority neighborhoods or at social service agency offices. And if you’ve served the time, you can sign: in almost every state, ex-cons can vote.

VOTE UNCONDITIONALLY, NOT PROVISIONALLY
In 2008, they’ll be handing out provisional ballots like candy, especially to Hispanic voters. If your right to vote is challenged, don’t accept a provisional ballot that will likely not get counted no matter what the sweet little lady at the table tells you. She won’t decide; partisan sharks will. Demand adjudication from poll judges on the spot; demand a call to the supervisor of elections; or return with acceptable ID if possible. And be a champ: defend the rights of others. If you’ve taken Step 1 above and voted early, you have Election Day free to be a poll watcher. Run into trouble —you’ve been caged or purged or challenged—call Election Protection at 1-(866) OUR-VOTE. Then challenge the challengers, the weird guys with Blackberrys containing lists of “suspect” voters. Be firm, but no biting.

OCCUPY OHIO, INVADE NEVADA
The revolution will not be podcast. Let go of that mouse, get out of your PJs and take the resistance door-to-door—to register the vote, to canvass the voters, to get out the vote. Donate time to your union (if you’re not in a union, why not?) or to the troublemakers I’ve already listed here and on our site. This may seem a stupendously unoriginal suggestion, but I know of no other method more effective for confronting the armed and dangerous junta that has seized the White House.

DATE A VOTER
Voting, like bowling and love, should never be done alone. As our sponsor, the Rev. Jesse Jackson, says, make a date to ‘Arrive with Five.’ And keep this comic book in your holster – with our 800 numbers and your photo ID in your hand. And Bobby, make sure your ID says, “Robert Kennedy JUNIOR” or your vote is toast.

MAKE THE DEMOCRACY DEMAND: NO VOTE LEFT BEHIND!
I have this crazy fantasy in my head. In it, an election is stolen and the guy who’s wrongly declared the loser stands up in front of the White House and says three magic words: “Count the votes.” You can have all the paper ballots in the world, but if you don’t demand to look at them, publicly, in a recount, you might as well mark them with invisible ink. Democracy requires vigilance The Day After. That’s when you check in at www.stealbackyourvote.org one more time.

Palin gets natural lip gloss from NPR

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Palin-McCain Couric interview
We may all be eagerly awaiting the Thursday VP debate trainwreck, with finally a sense that sanity cannot but otherwise prevail on coverage of the Sarah Palin dunce cap corner. But Americans don’t have to look far to see that media bemusement with Palin is not unanimous, in fact NPR is still fawning. Nina Totenberg’s recent profile of Palin was as facetious as Palin herself. And the NPR website transcript suggest the staff don’t want to leave a record of Totenberg’s unbending endorsement. Morning Edition listeners get propaganda, websurfers get something more palatable than pure barf.

Totenberg knew she could not ignore the public’s growing repudiation of Palin, fueled by Palin’s self-immolation on ABC and lampooned by MSNBC, SNL and everyone in between. In her Morning Edition report, Totenberg began by paying lip service to her uphill task, putting the proverbial –you’d think a little too cliche at the moment– lipstick on a pig, paraphrased as sugarcoating. And then laying on the sugar anyway. In the excerpt below, the words in bold are actually Totenberg’s emphasis, not mine!

There’s no way to sugarcoat this. After a BRILLIANT debut at the Republican Convention and a speech that ELECTRIFIED the delegates and the country, Sarah Palin is STRUGGLING in her second act — as a candidate seeking to persuade uncommitted voters that she’s prepared to be vice president of the United States.

She draws HUGE crowds, though not as huge as G.O.P. staffers would like you to believe, still, by most standards, they’re ENORMOUS — five, ten, fifteen, even twenty thousand! People, particularly women, are thrilled to see someone SO like themselves up there and SUCCEEDING. And she remains a SPUNKY speaker.

Let’s see. Nina Totenberg concedes that sugarcoating will be impossible, then piles it on: “brilliant,” “electrified,” “huge crowds,” “enormous.” Not as huge as someone would have you believe, but ENORMOUS? Did you know huge was less than enormous? And then: “someone so like themselves,” “succeeding.” Now would either of those descriptions fit the Sarah Palin you’ve seen? She’s SO like you? She’s succeeding? Of course Totenberg doesn’t say she thinks so, nor that YOU think so, but simply that people do. Particularly women. Really Nina?

Then there’s a sample of Palin’s “spunky” speech:

[PALIN:] “Okay Pennsylvania. Over the next forty days, John McCain and I, we’ re gonna take our message and our mission of reform to voters of every background, in every party, or no party at all, and with your vote, we’re going to Washington to shake things up.”

Now I think it’s one thing to clean up Palin’s English, maybe even to prettify the grammar, but quite another to add or delete words. Compare the above semi-corrected transcript of Palin’s eruditeness to NPR’s.

Further on, Totenberg covers Palin’s energy policy expertise, playing a portion of Palin’s speech where she takes credit for a natural gas pipeline. Totenberg debunks, sort of:

News reports DO INDEED give her credit for the pipeline agreement, but suggest that Palin has left so many financial and land-rights problems unresolved that the pipeline might never be built.”

Totenberg sites “News reports” to substantiate Palin’s claims, the NPR website transcript changes this to “Media reports,” but isn’t this the same as arguing “Some People Say” to back up a statement without having to validate or invalidate it yourself?

(I recall NPR confronting Senator McCain about his ad accusing Barack Obama about advocating sex-ed for preschoolers. NPR cited Factcheck.org for contradicting McCain’s charge, to which the GOP candidate merely countered that the so-called “Factcheck.org” was entitled to their different view of the facts. Never did NPR feel compelled to provide investigation of its own into the facts. Do we need a news program to be so objective that it can be detached from reporting what is fact or what is misrepresentation?)

Also highlighted in the speech is her son, in Iraq, her Down Syndrome baby boy, and on the stage when we were with her, two of her three daughters, who with their mother worked the rope line for a few minutes afterwards. And then there’s Palin’s husband Todd, affectionately known as “The First Dude,” who’s a commercial fisherman, oil field worker, union member and close adviser to his wife.

[PALIN:] “He is the four time winner of the Iron Dog, the world’s longest snow machine race, two thousand miles! And the more John McCain hears about that Iron Dog Race, the more often he says Todd’s crazy.

Did you know Todd Palin’s moniker was coined out of “affection?” Whose? On the radio broadcast, it was just “The First Dude” which mirrors recent national news photo captions, usually sarcastic. However the NPR website transcript specifies “Alaska’s First Dude,” which might have made Totenberg’s suggestion more credible. I don’t know, we’d have to consult Palin’s Alaskan constituents.

Here is part of NPR’s written version of Nina Totenberg’s report, submitted for comparison. Palin Tries For Second Act On The Road. Perhaps NPR is not submitting such as being a literal transcript. Indeed even some of their quotes of Sarah Palin are not the words she actually spoke. By the way, the original web transcript did not include the disingenuous preface “There is no way to sugarcoat this.” This was added a day later. The transcript also omits Palin’s extra embellishments about her husband. In effect NPR listeners heard a vastly aggrandizing report than NPR has decided to put on record.

Morning Edition, September 30, 2008 · There is no way to sugarcoat this. After a brilliant debut at the Republican National Convention and a speech that electrified the delegates and the country, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin is struggling in her second act — as a candidate trying to persuade uncommitted voters that she is prepared to be vice president of the United States.

Palin draws huge crowds. They aren’t as huge as GOP staffers would like you to believe, but they’re still enormous by most standards — 5,000, 10,000, 15,000, even 20,000 supporters. Many people, particularly women, are thrilled to see someone like themselves on stage, and Palin is a spunky speaker, especially when she promised that she and McCain would go to Washington to shake things up.

“John McCain and I are going to take our message and our mission of reform to voters of every background, in every party or no party at all,” she said at a recent campaign rally in Pennsylvania.

…

Media reports give her credit for the pipeline agreement, but suggest that Palin has left so many financial and land-rights problems unresolved that the pipeline might never be built.

Palin also spoke of her eldest son, who is serving in Iraq, and her infant son, who has Down syndrome. And she introduced her two young daughters, Willow and Piper, who joined her on stage and later helped her work the rope line, as well as her husband, Todd. Affectionately known as “Alaska’s First Dude,” Todd Palin is a commercial fisherman, oil field worker, union member and close adviser to his wife.

The family introductions took at least a couple of minutes in an 18-20 minute speech that was nearly identical to the one she gave at the Republican National Convention.

Your vote just doesn’t count in the two party dictatorship

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Hydra …Dictatorships have gotten wise. It is easier to run a dictatorship when you present the public with two parties instead of one. Dictatorial Power no longer resides in just one single individual in today’s dictatorship, but within one power bloc instead. The public face of today’s dictatorship is a bureaucratic assemble of hacks, not just the face of one Supremo.

Take the current American dictatorship for an example (though Mexico’s current dictatorship is run exactly the same way, and if the American public was more familiar with Mexico would be just as illustrative as the American dictatorship itself is), where dictatorial power resides in a bureaucratic assemble of a bloc of bipartisan DP-RP hacks. We shall look at the present US government drive towards war with Russia as our example.

The public face of the American dictatorship comes in condensed form through the faces of about 6 individuals; Obama, Biden, Cheney, Bush, McCain, Lieberman (very possibly the VP selection by McCain). All have been appointed more than truly elected, and all are united in the need for the US to attack Russia. Russia confronts not El Supremo but rather a six headed hydra of global business domination centered in the US.

A modern day American dictatorship is the viper we can all see publicly, but it is multi-faced, and not that of just one Gran Prepotente (Big Shot). Unfortunately, the public has a hard time truly understanding that the face of America’ modern dictatorship is truly not much different from dictatorship’s of the past, where Mr. Power Hog ruled over all.

In the past, the dictator put on a show election, but that is still how it is done today with the multi-headed Dictator Bloc, too. The show currently is in the pageantry at Denver and St. Paul. In both cases, your vote really need not be bothered to be counted, since the selection was already made for you by raw economic power, which you have none of.

Dictatorship has always resided in ownership, and today’s multi-headed hydra dictatorship for all its apparent differences with the past is no different. The dictatorship owns all; press, soldiers, police, banks, oil, money supply, jobs, the water and air your life depends on. Rebel, and they’ll take off the shirt on your back and the pants you wear, and give you those of their own which they will now own.

Well what about our example of the American dictatorship confronting Russia? It is obvious to see for all that should look and think, that the 6 headed hydra of Obama, Biden, Cheney, Bush, McCain, Lieberman all have obtained ‘consensus’ to rule just like a one headed El Supremo style dictatorship would. They are all for using the Pentagon and NATO to attack Russia. Your vote doesn’t count in the 2 party dictatorship! It’s because the America you live in is a dictatorship. Vote if it makes you feel good but don’t be under any delusions about it.

HYDRA

British and French imperialists are the problem, too

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Together with the US, the British and French governments make up a trio of warlord imperialists that rule over the entire world in a not so benign manner at all. We in America often want to blame it all on George W. Bush and the US neo-cons, but they rule the world with the help of people like Tony Blair, Gordon Brown (current PM of Britain) and France’s Nicolas Sarkozy (the Dubya of France). Also in tow, are the Right Wing governments of Germany and Italy.

How do these gangsters operate? We can see the French fomenting war alongside the US in the Horn of Africa and in Chad-Sudan. Djibouti says France to send ships over Eritrea clash And we can see the Brits working together with Bush and Obama to threaten to extend the Middle East fighting into Syria and Iran. Bush and Brown’s warning to Iran

Why this grand alliance of gangsters? The answer is quite obvious and simple. All 5 of the these countries (US, France, Germany, Italy, Great Britain) are ruled over by the multi-national corporations HQ ed in those locales. Goodbye Democracy everywhere, as the corporate world determines for all of us the shape of the world we live in. It is not a pretty picture.

Lesson? The ‘presidential election’ is only about image changes, and not much else. There will be no real change coming about through voting to put Barack Obama into the office. Vote Obama, and you have done nothing.

In Britain, they thought getting Tony Blair into office would solve the problem of the conservative Tories. Then they thought getting Blair out and Gordon Brown in would help solve the problem of stopping British participation in all the US wars. Delusions! Nothing has changed.

If you want real change in the world, you can’t find it in simple ways. Your vote in the election will not do anything. Your message of putting Barack Obama in office will be nothing more than saying to the powers that be, that YES, they can manipulate you at will. Just like putting Carter and Clinton in office did nothing positive in the past, another corporate Democrat in office mouthing off sweet nothings ‘for the people’ will do nothing, too.

Until the populations of all the imperialist countries come alive, the world will be constantly engulfed in bloodshed, poverty, ecological destruction, and war. Passively mailing in your ‘vote’ accomplishes next to nothing at all. You must open your mouths, make your protests public and loud, and be vociferous in opposing society run by enslaved enterprise.

Cynthia McKinney and Cindy Sheehan together in Mexico City!

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Below, we reprint 2 speeches made in Mexico City Friday, just yesterday, April 4, 2008. The speech Greed … by Cindy Sheehan, and another speech by Cynthia McKinney that is without title.

Cynthia McKinney
Segundo Encuentro Continental de los Trabajadores
Mexico City, Mexico, April 4, 2008

Brothers and Sisters in the Movement

I am happy to be here in Mexico City where the people all over Latin
America are on the move:

On the move for justice, self-determination, and peace.

I love that you have created a Power to the People movement with your
votes that is stronger than the mightiest military force on the
planet!

With the power of your vote you have taken your countries back.

Now, all we have to do is to count all the votes in the United States
and Mexico!

In the 2000 U.S. Presidential election, an estimated six million
people went to the polls and voted, but their votes weren’t counted.

In 2000, and again in 2004, Democrats helped to install Republicans
into power rather than fight for the victory that the voters had
given them.

As a result of this kind of collusion, the Democratic majority in our
Congress has failed to impeach Bush. They have failed to institute a
livable wage, stop the multiple wars the U.S. is fighting right now,
and they have failed to protect human rights anywhere in the world,
including even at home.

That’s why I left the Democratic Party.

I refused to become complicit in war crimes, crimes against humanity,
crimes against the peace, spying on the American people, and ripping
our Bill of Rights to shreds.

And so I declared my independence from the U.S. leadership that gave
us tax cuts for the wealthy and a country 53 trillion dollars in debt
and Hurricane Katrina.

To my brothers and sisters at this Conference and in the United
States, I say:

Hands off Haiti!

Hands off Bolivia, Nicaragua, and Argentina now making a claim for
the Falklands!

Hands off Venezuela and Ecuador!

No to Plan Mexico; No to Plan Colombia! Hands off Pemex!

And finally, it was on this date, 40 years ago, that Dr. Martin
Luther King, Jr. was murdered.

We now know that Dr. King was murdered as part of a conspiracy that
included his own government. Hatched in the bowels of the Pentagon,
where so many other regime change operations have been hatched, the
government of the United States launched regime change at home on
Black America. We blacks in the United States have long known the
pain and the consequences of having authentic leadership snatched
from us; of having someone else pick our leaders before we pick them
ourselves.

I am proud to join this international movement for
self-determination; for justice and for peace. Despite today’s
difficulties, we must never let our dream be deferred. We in the U.S.
gain inspiration from your successes here so we can carry the
struggle to every nook and cranny of the United States.

Que vivan los pueblos de america!

Cindy Sheehan -Key Note Speech “GREED”
Segundo Encuentro Continental de los Trabajadores
Mexico City, Mexico, April 4, 2008

First of all I would like to thank the International Labor Council and the Electrician’s Union for such a warm welcome and I would like to assure you all, my brothers and sisters that I represent millions of North Americans who are in solidarity with you, because we are also plagued with an illegitimate President!

Once, a couple of years ago, I was getting a pedicure in the deep south in the USA, of all places, and my pedicurist was a Latina from Mexico. She lived two hours from where she and her husband owned the shop and she left her young son home with her mother-in-law for six days a week, while she and her husband toiled at the shop. She was very sweet and sympathetic to my situation as a mother whose son was killed in Iraq, but she looked up from my feet at one point and asked me: “Why do you Americans have to have everything. If you all weren’t so greedy, I could still live in my country with my family.” Greedy? Hmm? Her earnest and passionate comment gave me much to think about.

Dictionary.com defines greed as the rapacious desire, especially for wealth or possessions

Greed is also one of the seven deadly sins and I know more than most Americans that the same twisted drive for, not just a fair share of prosperity, but ALL the prosperity is what caused my son’s death and, similarly, my nail persons’ need to have to leave the beloved country of her birth.

Greed is not what drives Latin Americans to try and cross the border to go north, existential necessity is; but corporate-capitalist greed is what makes the dangerous journey necessary. Building walls on the border is not the way to solve the immigration “problem” just as invading two countries and killing innocent civilians was not the way to solve the terrorism problem. Healing the systems of oppression that cause immigration is the way to solve the “problem.” People in Latin America want the right to not have to emigrate. Like my pedicurist, they want to be able to make a good living in their own countries.

In a study done by the Economic Policy Institute in 2004, it was found that 5% of the US population owns 58% of the wealth and only 1.2% of the wealth is owned by 40% of our citizenry. I am sure if a similar study were done, this disparity would be much wider in these days of irresponsible corporate bailouts while Americans are losing their homes at the rate of 250,000 a month and the war economy has made the fat cats astronomical profits while robbing our communities of essential services and needed infrastructure improvements. The Milton Friedman model of disaster capitalism, which Naomi Klein exposes so well in her book, Shock Doctrine, is responsible for economic disaster from New Orleans to Baghdad and the basic underlying root sickness of this is greed.

Statistics can be easily manipulated as we know the statistics reporting the “success” of free trade agreements such as NAFTA are. Facts, numbers and experiential data cannot be so easily manipulated, though. In the years since the Clinton administration (with the support of my Congressional opponent, Nancy Pelosi) foisted NAFTA on our continent, both Mexico and the US have lost farmland and good paying jobs. Many of our manufacturing jobs have gone overseas to Indonesia or China and the Wal Martization of our cultures creeps up on us unchecked and corporations such as Wal Mart have been the main beneficiaries of NAFTA to the detriment of working class people in both countries.

What can we do to improve the situation and reclaim our prosperity from the control of the 21st Century Robber Barons and slave-traders?

First of all, “free” trade treaties should be replaced with fair trade agreements. Small business owners and workers should be protected from being crushed under the heels of multi-national corporations. Any agreement should have protection for workers. A worker who makes shoes, computers, cars, or grows crops should make the same livable wage in Mexico or China, as they would in America. There would be no incentive for off-shoring jobs or relocating manufacturing plants if workers in China made the same wages as workers in America.

All workers should be guaranteed the basic human right of being able to belong to a union. Unions elevate the conditions of workers and families and should remain a strong political force for good and not allow them selves to be beaten into submission or weakness by governmental or corporate pressure. (But aren’t the corporations and governments so intimately linked these days in their fascistic oppression of us average citizens?)

The fragile ecology of our planet must be protected in these agreements and the same standard of sustainability and environmental protections should be uniformly recognized and practiced globally.

Small farmers should be protected from the encroachment of “agri-giants” and their lands protected from the eminent domain of greed.

I know there are many more solutions and a comprehensive platform of “No human left behind” would guarantee the rights of all humans to safe and plentiful food and drinking water; shelter; good and free education; sustainable employment; security and safety from US corporate-militarism; and the basic rights that were guaranteed of: life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

For far too long, the United States of America has greedily gobbled up too much of global wealth and resources and our chickens of greed and violence are coming home to roost. As alarming as these trends are, we North Americans are only slightly beginning to feel the ravages of what we have been manufacturing and exporting for years: death and destruction. A new paradigm of global sharing and caring must be implemented and today is the beginning.

Today, as we commemorate and mourn the death of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr who was assassinated 40 years ago in Memphis, Tn; and as I mourn the murder by the war machine of my son Casey, who was killed in Sadr City, Baghdad 4 years ago today—we must renew our commitment to peace and justice to honor their sacrifices and the sacrifices of others who have also gone before us. We just celebrated the birthday of Cesar Chavez who dedicated his life to the most marginalized and exploited of workers and I am constantly inspired by the devotion of people like Dr. King, Casey and Cesar Chavez andI hope that we all take inspiration to rededicate our lives to peace and justice.

We must build upon the coalition that we have gathered here in this beautiful and historic place to include every group that we are a part of. We can no longer say that we have to focus on “one” issue, because all the issues are the same. My country is waging deadly and lost-cause occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan and so many groups in my country say that we have to focus on bringing our troops home and not become “distracted” by other issues. Profound economic inequality and unchecked greed is the root cause of these occupations as it is the root cause of the occupation of Palestine by Israel and all the violence in the world’s hot-spots today.

In our coalition, we must educate our brothers and sisters that equalizing prosperity and neutralizing greed are the solutions to these acute problems.

I also stand here in solidarity with my brothers and sisters who are working in the Legitimate Government of Mexico to prevent the illegitimate government from privatizing PEMEX. The oil of Mexico belongs to the people of Mexico, and if I can’t be here with you all to block the crimes with my body then I will definitely be with you in spirit.

Thank you for allowing me to speak. It has been an honor to be here.

I am voting against McCain

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I’m voting against McCain.
 
Saying there isn’t any difference between the candidates is like stating there’s no difference physically or philosophically between you and me, or me and Eric or you and Eric.

The Anti-Immigrant crowd are howling for Obama’s blood as well. They’re suggesting absurdly that his father planned to smuggle a future terrorist into america in the womb of an American citizen.

The Wall is so unworkable just as a physical engineering problem, it’s clear to you, clear to me, and probably clear to each and every candidate for any office higher than Dog Warden that it’s a massive, expensive Feel-Good giveaway to construction workers, until after the election at least.

Any one issue, like the Wall or the War or Health Care or Wiretapping, … they all converge on one simple, monstrous Elephant in the Parlor fact…

Allowing any Bush Annointed Bush Replacement, such as McCain, to win even by the slightest of margins, will be seen by the 19% Jackass Squad as an overwhelming mandate to Implement every stinkin’ one of the Chimp’s signing statements and Executive Orders, to replace the Constitution, as Bush put it “stop waving the Constitution in my face It’s just a goddamned piece of paper” yeah, THAT Constitution, with the so-called Patriot Act.

There’s plenty of criticism of the Constitution from the left as well, it seems to be somewhat of a dinosaur, it has regressive Articles, some of which were stricken from the use but not from the letter of the law, like a black man being worth 1/3 of a White man in the census.

BUT the Patriot Act in conjunction with the Signing Statements, the Executive Orders, the Attorney General refusing to enforce Contempt of Congress citations or subpoenas from Congress, the Supreme Court backing his sorry ass on that, the Vice President saying he’s neither Executive Branch nor Legislative, but instead is some kind of Super-Executive above all laws…
Pure retrogressive.

The trend wipes all legal issues raised since the Code of Hammurabi.

“Badges? We don’ need no steenkeeng Badges!” or warrants, or probable cause, or finding somebody guilty UNDER THE LAW, or a legitimate reason to invade any country on earth…

Any vote that will put that Jackass McCain on the throne will be a vote for the utter destruction of America and every place and person on Earth that the American Empire can take down with it.

It will be a vote for Absolute Rule, “we told you to, that’s why” Rule.

Tony, man, I love you brother, but pissing away your vote for Nader would be even worse than voting directly for McCain. Even worse than sitting home and refusing to vote.

Nader could have done something truly hellified in the political sphere by running for Congress, in the 60s or even today.

Under the Constitution the Congress would have an extreme hold over the power of the presidency. He had the support in and out of Congress to do it.

And the support to have effected some real hard-core changes over the past 40 years.

40 years of that kind of working for change would translate into a real chance for being President. I just get the feeling, though, that not putting in that kind of time or effort shows that he really doesn’t want to be the President.

He doesn’t actually want, at least in any way that’s obvious, to have the responsibility or be in the position of change.

Voting for him would be voting for No Change, save for the change in the number of milestones on the road to a collective National Grave.

I personally ain’t ready to do that.

You see the political situation here in the Springs, you saw it in Highland and University Parks, Houston, El Paso, and even in other countries, like in the Distrito Federal in Mexico. The situation of no change except for steady worsening.

No, Obama isn’t going to Save America. Not just no, but hell to da fuck no…
Despite the “Cult-like Supporters” slur, everybody or most everybody who intends to vote for him realizes that.

Voting for No Change, though, Guarantees the Damnation of America.

Who is going to win Election 2008?

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Usual suspects
Who’s going to win in 2008? It’s a tough question to face. As sure as election year is upon us, someone in the current lineup is going to be elected. Who do I think it will be? I don’t want to separate who I want to predict as winner with who I’d like to see win. So who is that?

Much as I root for Kucinich, he’s been successfully ignored by the media. Kucinich will fold into the party as per usual to endorse whoever will be the Democratic nominee. In the end having accomplished what? Did Kucinich truly expand the dialog among Democrats or just pander to the disenchanted across the window of opportunity they might have had to mount a third party?

Who does that leave among the contenders who are not agents of corporate rule? I’m rather inclined to agree with Ralph Nader that John Edwards might be the least beholden to corporate interests, hence the most promising candidate. Michael Moore think so too. So he’s my pick. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to vote for him.

The Democrats promise nothing and deliver it. While at the grassroots level it’s hard to argue that Democrats aren’t being responsive to their constituents, in the Colorado legislature as an example, further up the party it would seem to make no difference. Democratic governor Ritter vetoed our progressive labor bill. Our Democrat representatives in DC are but handservants to the Republicans and their lobbyists.

Cynthia McKinney for PresidentIt’s time to vote for a third party candidate, no matter who is saying it won’t work. Throw your vote away sooner than throw in with corporate rule!

American Cowards, a big herd

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An article by Conn Hallihan titled Death at a Distance: The US Air War indirectly highlights the political cowardice of the American people as a whole, the politicians of both the corporate parties that the American people have been glued to for so long, and the Pentagon itself. The article focuses on how the Americans are turning to using pilot less drones to bomb targets located in civilian areas.

This has certainly become the American Way, another cowardly war fought by technocratic cowards, directed by political cowards, and tolerated quiescently by a cowardly American population as a whole, that flat out refuses to up its level of currently minuscule protest against what is being done in its name.

This Wednesday I got a brief glimpse of the cowardly rats gathering together once again to move towards yet another expansion of the US military-industrial complex in something called Fort Carson Piñon Canyon expansion. Only the people directly effected by losing their ranches seem all that motivated to oppose yet more base, more bombs, more soldiers. The rest of the Colorado population appears to hardly give a rat’s ass about the issue, and that’s who was gathered inside the city government building to nod and pose for the cameras…rat’s asses. And the rat’s ass king who was there at this meeting has got to be Senator Ken Salazar.

What is the relationship between pilot less aircraft murdering children in foreign lands from way up high and this planned expansion of one of The Springs’ local bases? My short answer is that you are just another American coward if you don’t get out and try to fight these creeps on both issues. Many of you liberal do-nothing voters put Ken Salazar into office with your votes, and yet most of you haven’t the courage to get out and do anything to stop this King of political cowards from getting off the political hook for his constant double speak.

I’m not advocating that you do this, but Democratic Party liberals really ought to be burning down their local party HQ instead of voting for your creeps once again. Instead, you seem to be just another part of this long herd of American Cowards supporting continual war. Get off your asses and demand that America stop murdering kids in foreign lands with pilot less drones and by starving them and their parents. You don’t need this damn Fort Carson at all. Your vote doesn’t count so don’t use the fact that you vote to excuse your complicity through your constant inaction.

Harry Reid underlines again that Democratic Party is not an opposition party

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Harry Reid, Democratic Party senator from Nevada and Senate Majority Leader, gave his approval in an interview this Sunday, to Bush’s plan to increase US troops in Iraq.

This comes just days after Nancy Pelosi appointed the utterly ignorant Silvestre Reyes to head up the House Intelligence Committee, where he promptly stated that he also supported a troop increase, and not withdrawal. The Democrats as a whole are utterly enthusiastic about continuing this war, even as they in the same breath blame Bush and the neocons for it. Can it be underlined any more, that the Democratic Party is not an oppositional party to the Republicans? Only their powerless rank and file voters are against the Iraq occupation to some degree or other. But so what? These people most often act as if paralyzed beyond being able to vote. Otherwise, they go about their business as if it didn’t much matter at all to them.

The Democrats are not just a non-oppositional party in regards to the Republican plan to continue the occupation of Iraq. Harry Reid is great case in point. His pretense of being something different than a Republican in donkey suit is rather ludicrous. An example is him stating strongly that the Democrats are going for an increase in the US minimum wage. How? He is going to try tying getting the increase to legislation giving members of the Congress yet another pay raise! Pay raises they don’t deserve and shouldn’t get.

Reid is a Mormon. That being said, can any even mildly liberal person actually think that he represents possible progressive change because he is a Democrat too? Any visit to his Senate website shows nothing but the most mealy mouthed rhetoric on other issues such as immigration, women’s rights, labor, environment, etc. Cases in point, he is opposed to radioactive waste being dumped in Nevada at Yucca Mountain, yet supports nuclear reactors. He wants to grab more of the boondoggle ‘Homeland Security’ funds for Nevada. He supports building a giant Border wall while talking of ‘reform’. He is for better medical care for people, yet can’t voice support for universal coverage. Wants to help women out, yet can’t support abortion rights for them. No opposition to the use of torture, etc. No defense of habeus corpus. He supports phoney ‘war on terror’ that actually makes us more endangered by it.

In short, he is a mealy mouthed, fork tongued Democratic Party hack, who is planning to do absolutely nothing to block the Republican assault on the American and Iraqi people. The Democratic Party is not an oppositional party, and Reid is what you get, Liberals, when you continue to cast your votes for these asses. Get out of the Democratic Party and demonstrate if you want change. You have to spend more time in opposing the corporate hacks that run this country, than by just going out and voting for one of them or the other.

The majority of Democratic Party politicians are not going to oppose this war in any meaningful way.

Everything Has Changed, Nothing Has Changed

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The Corporate Party of Damage Control has won a stunning victory over the Corporate Party of Total Corruption! Liberals are dancing and shouting, ‘Down With Fascism!’, all the while ignoring all the cooperation that is being talked about by these two groups of friends. The Republicans are becoming more ‘conciliatory’, while the Democrats are expected to become more ‘stern’. Rumsfield has been cast temporarily aside, and Bush has just told the nation on TV that he plans to be less abusive to his wife, Representative Pelosi. Yes, everything has changed, and yet nothing has changed. Hope rises up eternal, even as reality suggests little and crashes its oppressive weight down upon us still.

Watching Bush’s press conference this afternoon, was like watching Ted Haggard in his last week of pastorhood, or Enron’s management team in their last weeks before the topple. Yes, but the Fundamentalist churches haven’t evaporated out of existance, and the corporate criminals are still there bigtime running the US economy down to the bone with the profits flowing into their pockets, and our corrupt corporate pretend-democracy still holds supreme power in America. Liberals, your votes count for nothing when you vote where democracy doesn’t really exist. Deluded first that fascism was implanted solidly, now deluded that their votes have turned the tide.

The anitwar movement needs to be on its toes now. The Bush team is into national unity mode once again, and want to work better with the Democrats. What better way than attacking ‘the terrorists’ once again? That’s the Christian-Judeo way, is it not? We can expect bombings to begin on Iran and probably Syria within weeks. And the Democrats will join along with Bush on this one for sure. Let’s hope all those Democratic Party liberal voters can bring themselves into the streets instead of just a weeping into their tea? Let’s pray that they can do better than just ‘vote’. Let’s hope that they began to reject ALL the wars, and not just the more expensive of them.

Liberal Democrats, your votes will not be counted

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Election fever is once again in the air. All around us we see Liberal Democrats with their yard signs and bumperstickers as the delirium builds. And once again, they will try for change by promoting their Tweedle Dees against the others guys’ TweedleDumbs. If there any content to be found, it is simply in that the Democratic Party ‘loyal oppositionists’ seem to have rather more polite candidates, as opposed to the ruder ones the Republicans run. All the election paraphernalia is generally without differentiating slogans, or even differentiating colors. Yet this is somewhat deceptive, as the opposing religious brethen have convinced themselves that this is a battle of socialism versus fascism! Yes, that’s what it is in fantasy land America. Sad to say, but both sides just go on simply ignoring that it is the corporate world that funds both these 2 political parties, and that the corporate world is not about to give up the charade that having both these parties dominating the electoral game provides.

Both groupings have constructed a paranoid view of the other. The Republicans are going to steal the vote at the machines again, shouts the liberal Democratic Party cadre. Bush is a Fascist! And the Republicans swear that Al Gore and the now silent, Michael Moore, are socialist devils. And well, Al Franken is a Judas socialist devil we suppose. The Democrats side with the ‘Islamo Fascists’, you see (if you are a true believing dittohead). So, now it is in quite in vogue to fascist-bait these days, no matter what angle you come from. Perhaps this is an Israeli idealogical import? If you’re not with us, you are against us… sort of a Moses style, religious world view. Both the liberal and conservative American religions love this stuff!

Well here’s the thing. Most people are not with either of these 2 religious camps anymore. The great American agnostic majority is beginning to form, and they don’t like the fact that their votes don’t count. The Repubilcan Right wants a Christian Republic declared, but Bush doesn’t deliver. The Democratic Party liberal wants the US out of Iraq and a stop to the bankrupting of our country through the Pentagon welfare system. And the Democratic Party hierarchy says NAY. Or whatever the sound a donkey makes? The corporations funding both parties want neither a theocracy, nor a society without ample, Pentagon based corporate welfare. So Liberal Democrats, your vote won’t count, just like the Right Wing Christian votes will not be counted, neither. Neither one of your two world views is the core values of your respective corporate funded political parties.

So why continue getting religion, if your vote won’t count, Liberals? Howard Dean, DP chair, already told you that it don’t make a difference if the Democrats do win. You heard it from the donkey’s mouth! Your votes will not be counted, and it has nothing to do with the Diebold machines. It has nothing to do with gerrymandering voter registration lists. It has nothing to do with fascism. It has all to do with corporations not listening to consumers. When you vote Demcoratic Party, you are consuming a corproate ideological product. Consider it yet another mass produced hamburger taken in. So you don’t like the secret sauce and complain to management. They are laughing at you, not changing their product line.

Big liberals going to pressure the corporate board of Democratic Party Unlimited in Gall? I just visited the Progressive Democrats of America website, and they are calling for … get this!… that the Democrats should CENSURE Bush and Cheney! Not jail him, nor even impeach him. What backbone, what pressure they apply! These liberal nuns at PDA want Dean to demand a slapping of Dick and Dubya’s wrists with the rulers! Oh such torture! Bush and Cheney must be shaking in their combat boots. lol. Well, Liberals, the Republicans will shoot you down just like so many quail! OOps, your own party will do it for them, won’t they? Ask Dean. The answer is there already.

So please get off your butts, and stop campaigning. Your vote will not be counted. Try something else.

Come to a book burning!

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The Bookman would like to announce, on the eve of its 15th Anniversary, a long overdue, grand attention-getting idea: A GET WITH THE PROGRAM- BOOK BURNING!
 
Let’s draw national attention and put Colorado Springs on the map for what it is: the Mecca of modern American fundamentalism. You hear it from world citizens more and more, they’re less worried by Islamic Fundamentalists than they are by American Fundamentalists!

Doesn’t Colorado Springs embody this scary Modern America? Teach creationism, perpetuate bigotry, all children left behind, screw their education with CSAPs, pump their ears with pornographic rap, trap their attention with Xboxes and Playstations, fill them with fat, sugar and BGH, send no one overseas to see the rest of the world unless they are carrying M16s and shooting everyone especially women and children.

In light of current times and the local uneducated landscape, we’re hosting a community book burning! We invite everyone to cast your votes for which books to destroy. We have a ton of them to burn, they’re not selling. Oh the crappy ones sell just fine, but the intellectual titles, who wants ’em?

Contrary to popular wisdom, the lauded, feted, quickly gentrifying westside, our home neighborhood, is as uneducated and uncultured as the rest of Colorado Springs. And that’s amazingly ignorant by any standard! We may as well be South Dakota Springs for as backward as we are. And those folks don’t know their asshole from, well, from your asshole apparently.

In keeping with local ordinances against open fires, we’ll actually destroy the books by conducting book baptisms instead of burnings. We’ll use large trash containers full of water. Same effect, same religious significance, book destroyed. Plus we’ll be keeping the idiots away from fire.