What would it take?
It's a question we all have to answer. What would it take to make you get out and protest like they are in Ukraine? Do you need a copy of a bank check for $29,600,000 that was allegedly sent to cover the cost of the Texas-based vote rigging operation. Do you really even care that the Presidency was stolen, again? I know this sounds idiotic. But can you answer this question? If you knew that George Bush stole the election what would you do?

Below is a Thom Hartmann article in which he lays out the fact that what they are using to show fraud in Ukrainian election is the same thing that points to fraud in our election, the exit polls. Except in our country exit polls are skewed and wrong and if it was up to RNC head Ed Gillespie we will not use them again. But in the Ukraine they are used to show fraud. Isn't that ironic?

Notice the fact that A former Democrat Secretary of State (Madeleine K. Albright) and A current Republican Senator (John McCain) are involved with organizations that specialize in using, "exit polls and statistical analyses to challenge national elections in Ukraine, Serbia, Belarus, and the former Soviet republic of Georgia." It's good enough to use to overturn some other countries elections but nor ours. With both parties being involved it adds a special twist does it not. I always had it in the back of my mind, ever since Kerry won the primaries, that he and Bush are frat brothers.

How To Take Back A Stolen Election

"Never again!" says the slogan in an email I received from an activist friend. "Never again will we allow a stolen election in the USA!"

But how are we going to stop it?

The major American political parties have an answer - it's already working for them in the Ukraine - but it's very much a sword that can cut two ways.

Interestingly, it was first used in the US.

So it is a very hard question in this day and age to answer. You know the election was stolen and what do your do? I mean that hypothetically, of course. What would it take?
- posted by Mom/Dad @ 11:40 AM

 
Bush's reason for why 9/11 happened is now in the trash as well
'They hate our policies, not our freedom'

'Muslims do not hate our freedom, but rather they hate our policies [the report says]. The overwhelming majority voice their objections to what they see as one-sided support in favor of Israel and against Palestinian rights, and the long-standing, even increasing, support for what Muslims collectively see as tyrannies, most notably Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Pakistan and the Gulf states. Thus, when American public diplomacy talks about bringing democracy to Islamic societies, this is seen as no more than self-serving hypocrisy.'

Is the homeland safer?
Police, fire departments see shortages across USA

At least two-thirds of the nation's fire departments are understaffed, according to the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA), which sets firefighting codes and standards. The shortage is worst in rural volunteer departments that have trouble recruiting new members. But many big and medium-size cities that are more likely to be terrorist targets are also short-handed

[and]

In many cities, police and fire chiefs say, layoffs and attrition are leading to dangerously low staffing levels that could leave emergency workers unprepared and citizens unprotected during future terrorist attacks. The call-up of reservists and National Guard members for the wars in Iraq (news - web sites) and Afghanistan (news - web sites) also is taxing police and fire departments. Since Sept. 11, 2001, the National Guard has called up 4,153 police officers and 451 firefighters.

- posted by Mom/Dad @ 8:21 AM

 
Happy Thanksgiving!
The blogging here as on many other sites will be sparse until Monday. I will probably post but it won't be daily. I am trying to read up and form a strategy about what I believe the direction of my efforts should be to change this country back to what it was meant to be. There are so many problems from the environment to the SCLM to the coming economic problems to the lack of checks and balances and most importantly the lack of a true opposition party. I didn't even mention foreign policy. Here are a few things I've come across on the subject of the future of the Democratic Party and a couple of other topics:

Joe Trippi, Lutefisk and the Dems

New Democrat Network (NDN) Blog, POSITIONING FOR DEMOCRATS and POSITIONING FOR DEMOCRATS, PART II

An interesting book, We The Media by Dan Gillmor. It's about how the media is changing and hopefully for the better.

The Century Foundation gives a reality check on Scare Tactics: Why Social Security Is Not in Crisis.

It's time for more human friendly treatment from our government. I will leave you with two quotes from Theodore Roosevelt, who did change this country when it was going through a similar crisis like it it today. These are from his address to the National Progressive Party in August of 1912:

It seems to me, therefore, that the time is ripe, and overripe, for a genuine progressive movement, Nationwide and justice loving, sprung from and responsible to the people themselves, and sundered by a great gulf from both of the old party organizations, while representing all that is best in the hopes, beliefs, and aspirations of the plain people who make up the immense majority of the rank and file of both the old parties.

He then talks about a living wage:

In the third place, certain industrial conditions fall clearly below the levels which the public today sanction.

We stand for a living wage. Wages are subnormal if they fail to provide a living for those who devote their time and energy to industrial occupations. The monetary equivalent of a living wage varies according to local conditions, but must include enough to secure the elements of a normal standard of living--a standard high enough to make morality possible, to provide for education and recreation, to care for immature members of the family, to maintain the family during periods of sickness, and to permit of reasonable saving for old age.

Just a few things I will be poring over on this long weekend.
- posted by Mom/Dad @ 7:52 AM

 
What was Pappy Bush worried about in 1999?
What's Behind the Bush-Pinochet Friendship?

Former President George Bush is acting strangely these days, as if he may
have something to hide.

On April 12 The London Times reported that Bush had written a letter
supporting former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, whom British
authorities have detained since October while trying to decide whether to
let a Spanish magistrate extradite and try him for crimes against humanity.

I've always loved history. Makes you wondered what would have happened if his son didn't steal the election in 2000.

There is a conservative that admits heterosexuals have alreadey messed up marriage pretty bad
Conservatives urge broader look at factors threatening marriage

"That was the best argument same-sex marriage advocates had: 'Where were you when no- fault divorce went through?' " said Allan Carlson, a conservative scholar who runs a family studies center in Rockford, Ill. "Any thoughtful defender of marriage has to say, 'You're right. We were asleep at the switch in the '60s and '70s.' "

Yes, divorce is worse for marriage than gay marriage.

Olbermann's latest on the recount
Hanging Chads and Hanging Participles

In Ohio, the reality of the recount is beginning to sink in, and local governments aren’t happy about it. The Associated Press ran a story Monday afternoon in which its reporter quoted the incoming president of the Ohio Association of Election Officials, Keith Cunningham. “The inference is that Ohio election officials will not count every vote,” said the man who is currently head of the Board of Elections in Allen County (that’s the Lima area, northwest of Columbus). “That’s just insulting; it’s frivolous and simply harassment.”

American what?
American Fascism

What did the Fascist regimes in Italy, Germany, and Spain have in common? They consisted of a highly militarized state, backed by corporation and a wealthy elite, that rose to power through a false populism that exploited the public’s fear of foreigners and “moral degenerates.” This precisely defines the formula that Karl Rove designed to consolidate the Bush administration’s power in the recent election.

- posted by Mom/Dad @ 3:05 PM

 
The DA Writes an Op-Ed
Ronnie Earle speaks
A Moral Indictment

It is a rare day when members of the United States Congress try to read the minds of the members of a grand jury in Travis County, Tex. Apparently Tom DeLay's colleagues expect him to be indicted.

[and]

Yet no member of Congress has been indicted in the investigation, and none is a target unless he or she has committed a crime. The grand jury will continue its work, abiding by the rule of law. That law requires a grand jury of citizens, not the prosecutor, to determine whether probable cause exists to hold an accused person to answer for the accusation against him or her.

[and]

The thinly veiled personal attacks on me by Mr. DeLay's supporters in this case are no different from those in the cases of any of the 15 elected officials this office has prosecuted in my 27-year tenure. Most of these officials - 12 Democrats and three Republicans - have accused me of having political motives. What else are they going to say?

For most of my tenure the Democrats held the power in state government. Now Republicans do. Most crimes by elected officials involve the abuse of power; you have to have power before you can abuse it.

I'm done excerpting. It's short, go read it!
- posted by Mom/Dad @ 7:25 AM

 
Do you remember what happened 41 years ago today?

November 12, 1963

- posted by Mom/Dad @ 3:17 PM

 
Today's Roundup
An article like this makes me ask, Saddam was the bad guy, right? Children Pay Cost of Iraq's Chaos

These people are insane, Hawks push deep cuts in forces in Iraq and Increase in Iraq force is likely.

Do you know How the Ohio election was rigged for Bush? For the latest on the election go read Keith Olbermann's blog, Bloggermann. He is breaking the story that the Kerry/Edwards campaign has finally joined the recount in Ohio.

Check this one out, Scurrying to scuttle tax returns item. Just what I need, one of DeLay's lackeys looking at my tax returns,

The hang-up is because of a single line in the bill that would have given chairmen of the Appropriations Committees and their assistants access to people's income tax returns

[and]

I have no earthly idea how it got in there,'' Frist said on ''Fox News Sunday.'' ''But, obviously, somebody is going to know, and accountability will be carried out.''

Don't hold your breath on that accountability. I believe in Santa Claus more than that.

The cameraman who filmed the Fallujah Mosque shooting tells his story, Open Letter to Devil Dogs of the 3.1

The burdens of war, as you so well know, are unforgiving for all of us.

Heflin goes for recount vs. Vo in Texas Legislative race, Legislator Heflin requests vote recount.


- posted by Mom/Dad @ 1:12 PM

 
Good Weekend Stories
Who Lost Ohio?

"Iraqifying" the Quagmire

Are Mainstream Media Ignored And Irrelevant?

Will Iran Be Next?

Recount efforts in Ohio by Kerry intensify


- posted by Mom/Dad @ 8:37 PM

 
A few for the weekend
Chris Floyd
Ring of Fire

There is of course no space, nowhere to move or breathe in the sealed chamber of the American Infoglomerate -- the vast entanglement of corporate media and government propaganda that smothers the body politic with hysterical outpourings of diversion, drivel and deadening white noise. Here, events occur in a total vacuum: They have no history, no context, no consequences. Stripped of the heft and scope of reality, they can easily be molded and distorted to fit the prevailing political and business agendas. Amnesia, ignorance, confusion and fear are left to rule the day: excellent fuel for the stokers of the inferno, who use the heat to work their alchemical magic -- transforming human blood into gold.

John Dean
Does Bush Now Have Political Capital to Spend?

By all historical standards for an incumbent president, Bush merely (and barely) retained his job in 2004. He certainly did not receive the mandate some of his supporters have claimed for him. To the contrary, as many of them realize, Bush has almost no mandate whatsoever. Talk of political capital, then, is pure political posturing -- just as it was in 2000, and after the 2002 mid-term elections (where the GOP recaptured the Senate).

Martin Van Creveld
Why Iraq Will End as Vietnam Did

As Shakespeare once wrote, they have their exits and their entries. Between about 1975 and 1990, following the US defeat in Vietnam, military history was extremely popular among the US Armed Forces. After 1991, largely as a result of what many people considered the “stellar” performance of those Forces against Saddam Hussein, it went out of fashion; after all, if we were able to do that well there was not much point in studying the mistakes our predecessors made. Now that comparisons between Vietnam and Iraq have suddenly become very fashionable indeed, history is rushing right back at us. Here, I wish to address the differences and the similarities between the two wars by describing Vietnam as it was experienced by one man, Moshe Dayan.

- posted by Mom/Dad @ 2:06 PM

 
Powell lies again, More troops for Iraq, Herion and Iraqi elections
Really?
Nuclear Disclosures on Iran Unverified

Secretary of State Colin L. Powell shared information with reporters Wednesday about Iran's nuclear program that was classified and based on an unvetted, single source who provided information that two U.S. officials said yesterday was highly significant if true but has not yet been verified.

Escalation
US expected to boost troop levels in Iraq

Amid a spike in violence in Iraqi cities coinciding with the Fallujah offensive, the US military is now planning to boost combat forces to secure the country for elections in January.

So they're going to boost forces for the election. What about after the election? OK, you're a resistance fighter and you know more troops are coming, what do you do? Lay low. Then the troops move our after the election what do you do? Attack. Is that straight out of the Aft of War.

Success in Afghanistan
Afghan Poppy Growing Reaches Record Level, U.N. Says

Poppy cultivation in Afghanistan, the source of most of the opium and heroin on Europe's streets, was up sharply this year, reaching the highest levels in the country's history and in the world, the United Nations announced on Thursday.

"In Afghanistan, drugs are now a clear and present danger," said Antonio Maria Costa, director of the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime, on the release of the 2004 Afghanistan opium survey. "The fear that Afghanistan might degenerate into a narco-state is becoming a reality."

Juan Cole updates us on Fallujah
Did Fallujah Sink the Elections?

Among the justifications given by the US for its campaign against guerrillas in Fallujah was that it would prepare the way for elections in January. It was said that elections could not be held as long as major cities were not even in government control.

Who's running? When are the conventions? Who is Saddam Hussein endorsing? Next, on Hardball.
- posted by Mom/Dad @ 6:27 AM

 
Election Creep
UC Berkeley Research Team Sounds 'Smoke Alarm' for Florida E-Vote Count

Today the University of California's Berkeley Quantitative Methods Research Team released a statistical study - the sole method available to monitor the accuracy of e- voting - reporting irregularities associated with electronic voting machines may have awarded 130,000-260,000 or more excess votes to President George W. Bush in Florida in the 2004 presidential election. The study shows an unexplained discrepancy between votes for President Bush in counties where electronic voting machines were used versus counties using traditional voting methods - what the team says can be deemed a "smoke alarm." Discrepancies this large or larger rarely arise by chance - the probability is less than 0.1 percent. The research team formally disclosed results of the study at a press conference today at the UC Berkeley Survey Research Center, where they called on Florida voting officials to investigate.

'Stinking Evidence' of Possible Election Fraud Found in Florida

There was something odd about the poll tapes.

- posted by Mom/Dad @ 1:18 PM

 
Iran, Nukes, The Says Handful and Ohio
Are we supposed to act like the last two years didn't happen? This man is a proven liar wants us to believe that he's telling the truth this time:

The United States has intelligence that Iran is working to adapt missiles to deliver a nuclear weapon, further evidence that the Islamic republic is determined to acquire a nuclear bomb, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said Wednesday.

Look, there is one fundamental question that is never asked and therefore left unanswered. Why does Iran, or any country that doesn't have them want nuculear weapons? The reason it is a fundamental question is because of the way the non-answer is used. The non-answer is that eveyone just assumes that Iran or Syria or any country that doesn't have nukes is all of the sudden going to start nuking other countries if they get one. Therefore they cannot be allowed to have them. That is an incorrect assumption. Now the real answer goes back to Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD) and the idea that nobody wins a nuclear war, remember the movie War Games? Or in this case their assured destruction. So why do these countries want nuclear weapons? Let's start with another question and answer first. Do you think we would have attacked Iraq if they could have proven they had a nuclear weapon? The answer is no. Why not? Because, like North Korea has shown, once you have one you are now a member of the club and have to be dealt with and therefore can no longer be invaded or shall we say pushed around. If Iran gets a nuke and they automatically used it on the US or Israel what would happen to them? You know the answer. That's why the question is never asked and answered. A nuke is an insurance policy against the ivaasioin of their country. That is why they want one. Also becoming an upper echelon member in the world club means you can now use the swimming poll and the tennis court. Remember if you can't invade Iran how can you steal their resources and turn their people into Insurg.. I mean their country into a capitalist democracy? So to recap they don't want a nuke to blow up the world, they just want to be left alone.

Call your US Representative, if he's an R, and see is he is a member of the Shays Handful.

Scary but true voting stories from Ohio
Hearings on Ohio voting put 2004 election in doubt

Most importantly, the testimony has revealed a widespread and concerted effort on the part of Republican Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell to deny primarily African-American and young voters the right to cast their ballots within a reasonable time. By depriving precincts of adequate numbers of functioning voting machines, Blackwell created waits of three to eleven hours, driving tens of thousands of likely Democratic voters away from the polls and very likely affecting the outcome of the Ohio vote count, which in turn decided the national election.

- posted by Mom/Dad @ 10:48 AM

 
Democrat DA forces US House Republicans to change their rules
I happened upon C-SPAN last night and there they were, the House Republicans, trying to explain away the reason they are changing their rule disqualifying committee and subcommittee chairs and their leadership from still holding their seats if indicted. One interesting ploy about this is how they would always list leadership last when talking about this. Always committee chairs first. That's part of their plan to try and make it seem that they're not just doing this to protect DeLay, The Leader. For me though the funniest part of all of this is that when the Republicans made these rules back in 1993, before they took over the majority, they did this to try and show that they were less corrupt than the Democrats that were then in charge. In other words they were saying, "If you put us in charge we will hold ourselves to a higher standard than the Democrats or the average citizen". Now with their money man supposedly about to get indicted they are singing a different song. Now they are giving us the whole premise that their chairs and leaders are entitled to the same legal rights as anyone else, now that we are in the majority. Not that anyone is trying to deny them that in the first place. But the point is that back in '93 they were playing politics with the rules to make them out to be holier than thou, thou being the Democrats. Now they are admitting that when they are in the majority it is partisan DA's trying to change their leadership that is forcing them to make this change.

Two more of their tricks. They are trying to say they haven't changed anything just that the person will not have to automatically step down if indicted. Instead they have setup a Steering Committee to look into the charges if someone is indicted. If the committee determines the charges to be " frivolous or politically motivated, it could recommend to the Republican Conference that no action is required". In other words the party that thinks any indictment is frivolous or politically motivated will take no action anymore if there membership is indicted. Oh, maybe if they are a serial murderer or have a homosexual affair then maybe so but otherwise nothing will happen. The other trick is that they are trying to make this about Ronnie Earle and not about Tom DeLay. Amazing a DA in Austin can make the Republicans change their rules. Who knew the Democrats had such power? Josh Marshall has several posts on this at Talking Points Memo and Charles Kuffner has a little more plus Texas editorials on this, Rules are for other people.
- posted by Mom/Dad @ 7:31 AM

 
Iran, The Poor, The Draft and John Kerry
Here comes the Neocons Iranian exiles, Remember Chalabi?
Iran Got Warhead Design, Bomb-Grade Uranium -Exiles

Iran obtained weapons-grade uranium and a design for a nuclear bomb from a Pakistani scientist who has admitted to selling nuclear secrets abroad, an exiled Iranian opposition group said on Wednesday.

The group, which has given accurate information before, also said Iran is secretly enriching uranium at a military site previously unknown to the United Nations, despite promising France, Britain and Germany that it would halt all such work.

"(Abdul Qadeer) Khan gave Iran a quantity of HEU (highly enriched uranium) in 2001, so they already have some," Farid Soleiman, a senior spokesman for the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), told reporters.

They are going to try and run the exact same game again. Exiles that supposedly know what is going on in Iran. It worked before and it will work again. That is exactly what they are thinking. Are you going to buy it again?

This is some sick stuff here
Critics say EPA Study Would Have Harmed Low-Income Children

The Children’s Environmental Exposure Research Study (CHEERS) targeted families in Duval County, Florida and was to study the effects on small children of using chemicals and pesticides in the home. In addition to the one-time $970 payment, the EPA was offering incentives such as a free camcorder, VCR, t-shirts, bibs, and a framed certificate of appreciation. While the EPA’s website said it would not ask families to apply pesticides in their home to be part of the study, it does require that parents "maintain [their] normal pesticide or non-pesticide use patterns for [their] household." The EPA would then monitor changes in development of children in the house.

Put a pretty name on it and then throw in some cash and a few parting gifts and then go to a poor county and see how cheap you can bribe them out of their children's health. These are sick people.

Chris Hedges
Draft coming, students told

Reinstatement of the draft is imminent, war correspondent and author Christopher Hedges told a crowd of more than 120 students and residents yesterday at Manhattanville College.

"We are losing the war in Iraq very badly, but the Bush administration will not walk away from the debacle without trying to reoccupy huge swaths of the territory they have lost," Hedges said. While working for The New York Times, he covered fighting in Central America, the Balkans and the Middle East, including Iraq during the first Gulf War.

To regain territory lost in Iraq, it will take double or triple the current 140,000 troops, Hedges said during the last lecture in a series called "The Costs of War."

John Kerry is still working on the election
INSIDE THE ELECTION FRAUD BATTLE, Think Kerry Is Not Involved In This Fight? Think Again. Also: Fallujah = Operation Distract From Fixed Election.

The reality is, John Kerry has chosen a third, much smarter course – just as he said he would all along.

John Kerry realized that to launch a public campaign calling the vote into question would be disastrous. In fact, he likely realized he would we walking right into a Bush-set booby trap

- posted by Mom/Dad @ 1:25 PM

 
Some of these are graphic but so is reality
Look at these, if you have the stomach, Fallujah in Pictures and then read this, Counterinsurgency run amok.
- posted by Mom/Dad @ 11:54 AM

 
A Shrinking Circle
It is essential to test what you believe to be true or factual before putting it into practice. I think the best way to do that is by arguing, in a civil manner, your point with someone that disagrees with you. It has become even more obvious that this President does not agree with that premise. That is one of the many things that is so disheartening about what your President is doing. We knew before the election that this President was already pretty well insulated from those that didn't believe the way he does. Remember this from the Ron Suskind's NYT article before the election? Without a Doubt:

The circle around Bush is the tightest around any president in the modern era, and "it's both exclusive and exclusionary," Christopher DeMuth, president of the American Enterprise Institute, the neoconservative policy group, told me. "It's a too tightly managed decision-making process. When they make decisions, a very small number of people are in the room, and it has a certain effect of constricting the range of alternatives being offered."

Bush makes Nixon look open and honest. With the loyalty oaths and their unwillingness to allow dissent it should be no surprise that with every resignation and appointment this administration is becoming even more exclusive, or is reclusive? They do not want to test their ideas against someone that disagrees because they already know they're right! If he was so right his argument would stand up to scrutiny. This is part of what everyone supposedly likes about this President. He knows what he wants and when he makes up his mind, no matter if he is right or wrong, he doesn't change it. It's a steel trap. Justin Raimondo wraps it up in Triumph of the Neocons.
- posted by Mom/Dad @ 10:01 AM

 
Moral Values and Hypocrisy
"Let the one among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone..."
Moral values in voting and in practice

Believe it or not, the crazy liberals of Massachusetts have the lowest divorce rate in the country, even though they tend to care more about secular issues such as the economy and healthcare than "moral values" when voting in a presidential election.

When it's our guy...
Rule change to shield DeLay

Republicans have used Democrats? ethical lapses, including a check-kiting scandal at the House bank, to their political advantage. In 1987, then-Rep. Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) told The Washington Post: ?[You] now have a House where it is more dangerous to be aggressive about honesty than it is to be mildly corrupt. ? We have in Wright, [Majority Leader Tom Foley (D-Wash.)] and Coelho a third generation of Democratic leaders, the first that has never served in a minority. ? You now have a situation where I think people feel almost invulnerable.?

What a difference 17 years makes. None actually just switch the D for an R at the end of the names and it is the same game.
- posted by Mom/Dad @ 8:41 AM

 
Iraq's food, Arafat, Zinn, Farrell and more
Have you heard about this one?
Large corporations now own the Iraqi food supply

A new report [1] by GRAIN and Focus on the Global South has found that new legislation in Iraq has been carefully put in place by the US that prevents farmers from saving their seeds and effectively hands over the seed market to transnational corporations

A Post Arafat Update
Death, Delusion and Democracy

So the death of Yasser Arafat is a great new opportunity for the Palestinians, is it? The man who personified the Palestinian struggle - "Mr Palestine" - is dead. So things can only get better for the Palestinians. Death means democracy. Death means statehood. That the final demise of the corrupt old guerrilla leader should be a sign of optimism demonstrates just how catastrophic the conflict in the Middle East has now become. It's a bit like Fallujah. The more we destroy it, the crueler we are, the brighter the chances of Iraqi democracy. The more successful we are, the worse things are going to get. That's what George Bush said on Friday: that violence will increase as Iraqi elections grow closer - a total mind warp since the more violent Iraq becomes, the less the chances of any election ever being held.

The people's historian
Tomgram: Howard Zinn, The Missing Voices of Our World

History, looked at under the surface, in the streets and on the farms, in GI barracks and trailer camps, in factories and offices, tells a different story. Whenever injustices have been remedied, wars halted, women and blacks and Native Americans given their due, it has been because "unimportant" people spoke up, organized, protested, and brought democracy alive.

Maureen Farrell
The Next Big Thing

"Around the year 2005, a sudden spark will catalyze a Crisis mood. Remnants of the old social order will disintegrate. Political and economic trust will implode. Real hardship will beset the land, with severe distress that could involve questions of class, race, nation, and empire. Yet this time of trouble will bring seeds of social rebirth. Americans will share a regret about recent mistakes -- and a resolute new consensus about what to do. The very survival of the nation will feel at stake." -- From the Fourth Turning: An American Prophecy, by William Strauss and Neil Howe, 1997

Ooh, looks good!
From Austrailia
Bush threatens mankind, says Caldicott

"I don't know if we'll survive the next four years ... I don't think the Americans have, on the whole, the faintest idea - and I have to say also I don't think most Australians do either. But it's not just the threat from nuclear war. It's the threat of what's happening to the environment, the global warming which is occurring rapidly now, to ozone depletion, to species extinction, to deforestation - it's the whole thing."

What a headline
Dogs Eating Bodies in the Streets of Fallujah

The military stopped the Red Crescent at the gates of the city and are not allowing them in. They allowed some bodies to be buried, but others are being eaten by dogs and cats in the streets, as reported by refugees just out of the city, as well as residents still trapped there.

WOW!
- posted by Mom/Dad @ 1:48 PM

 
A couple of things you can do
These people need our help. Give a little or a lot, but give something.
Phone cards needed at Walter Reed

So sad...the number ONE request at Walter Reed hospital is phone cards. Because the priority of our government is to continue tax cuts for the likes of Paris Hilton, the government doesn't pay LD phone charges and these guys, many of them amputees, are rationing their calls home.

Our government can't provide phone service for the wounded. This administration is sick!

Watch this tonight
is wal-mart good for america?

FRONTLINE offers two starkly contrasting images: one of empty storefronts in Circleville, Ohio, where the local TV manufacturing plant has closed down; the other--a sea of high rises in the South China boomtown of Shenzhen.

- posted by Mom/Dad @ 9:59 AM

 
Hell no we won't go!
Former G.I.'s, Ordered to War, Fight Not to Go

Many of these former soldiers - some of whom say they have not trained, held a gun, worn a uniform or even gone for a jog in years - object to being sent to Iraq and Afghanistan now, after they thought they were through with life on active duty.

Wouldn't you?

From last week
Calif. settles with Diebold

"There is no more fundamental right in our democracy than the right to vote and have your vote counted," Lockyer said in a statement. "In making false claims about its equipment, Diebold treated that right, and the taxpayers who bought its machines, cavalierly. This settlement holds Diebold accountable and helps ensure the future quality and security of its voting systems."

How bad does Arlen want to be Chariman?
What Must Specter Do?

But such are Specter's sins that I would not recommend a mere recitation of creeds or a high-church "sprinkling." Nothing short of a Full Immersion will likely convince his critics. Imagine the scene: the Senate Republican Caucus gathers on the banks of the Anacostia River, and robed in white, the senior Senator from Pennsylvania, accompanied by Brother Frist and Brother Coburn and Brother Santorum and Brother Novak, wades into the greasy waters....

- posted by Mom/Dad @ 8:44 AM

 
Russell Mokhiber Returns
I'm not sure where he's been hiding but....
Scottie & Me is back

Mokhiber: You opened the briefing on Wednesday by offering the President’s best wishes to the U.S. Marine Corps on its 229th birthday. Are you familiar with the life of Major General Smedley Butler?

Scott McLellan: No, I’m not –

- posted by Mom/Dad @ 8:38 AM

 
Today's Roundup
As I look over the morning web sites about what is happening in our world and country It is amazing. We are now engaged in collective punishment in Iraq. It looks like we are back to, Vietnam style, destroying the village, and it's people, in order to save them, A city lies in ruins, along with the lives of the wretched survivors. None of this should be happening. Remember what your President told you 18 months ago? If not let me remind you, "Major combat operations in Iraq have ended." So here we are killing civilians to liberate a city. Or as Cursor puts it:

Although a Marine commander declared that "We have liberated the city of Fallujah," U.S. forces have launched new airstrikes.

They are teaching the Marines how to speak Orwellian. I'm sure it says in the military manual, as soon as you liberate a city call in airstrikes. For this administration to stand before you and claim that they are for a culture of life is disgusting. The slaughter of innocent civilians in Iraq since the beginning of the war is sickening. That does not even mention our soldiers, 59 US Soldiers Killed This Week, that have died because of this needless war. Remember, Saddam was not a threat to us. He and the Iraqi people had never done anything to America. He did not have an Air Force and was unable to defend his country in any way from our attack. He was an ex-CIA front man who had outgrown his usefulness. Oh yeah, and by the way, he didn't have any WMD.

It looks like our military strategy, which I spoke about last week, of telegraphing our move into Fallujah has really paid off for the resistance fighters in Iraq, Attacks Spread Through Iraq's Sunni Areas. With our main thrust in Fallujah the rest of the resistance has been able to coordinate attacks all over the country. Which leads me back to one of my recurring theories. What would happen if Iraq was pacified, elections were held, and democracy reigned. We would have to leave and Iraq would be run by Iraqis. Is that really what this administration wants?

Now to the domestic front. Bill Frist tells us too bad about 200 years of Senate rules, precedent and procedure, the Senate will do as I say or else:

"One way or another, the filibuster of judicial nominees must end," Dr. Frist, Republican of Tennessee, said in a speech to the Federalist Society, a conservative lawyers' group. "The Senate must do what is good, what is right, what is reasonable and what is honorable."

And we all know that Bill Frist knows what is good, right, reasonable and honoralbe. Don't we? This is just more proof that one-party rule is not democracy.

Someone at Zogby says, I Smell a Rat:

The first sign of the rat was on election night. The jubilation of early exit polling had given way to rising anxiety as states fell one by one to the Red Tide. It was getting late in the smoky cellar of a Prague sports bar where a crowd of expats had gathered. We had been hoping to go home to bed early, confident of victory. Those hopes had evaporated in a flurry of early precinct reports from Florida and Ohio.

Here is a good state of the election post.
Here are Some General Questions for the new AG nominee.
Colin is gone. Too bad he didn't leave when his dignity and reputation were still in tact. The only problem with this is what psychopath will they choose to replace him? Oh yeah, did you hear about the Purge at the CIA ? Welcome back to George Bush's America!
- posted by Mom/Dad @ 7:08 AM

 
More on the election and moral values
Here is why you're not hearing about the problems with the election in the SCLM
Letter from Peter Coyote on Black Box Voting news Black Out

On Friday I received a phone call from a good friend who works at CBS--I've known her for years and she is a Producer for some of the news programs, one well known one in particular. She tipped me off that the news media is in a "lock-down" and that there is to be no TV coverage of the real problems with voting on Nov. 2nd. She said similar "lock-down orders" had come down last year after the invasion of Iraq, but this is far worse--far scarier. She said the majority of their journalists at CBS and elsewhere in NYC are pretty horrified--every one is worried about their jobs and retribution Dan Rather style or worse. My source said they've also been forbidden to talk about it even on their own time but she was pissed and her journalistic and moral integrity as what she considers to be a gov't watchdog requires her to speak out, while be it covert and she therefore asked me to "spread" the word...She said that journalism and the truth is at stake. She said another friend of hers, a producer at MSNBC, said that an anchor by the name of Keith Olbermann had brought it up on his show on Friday eve and the axe came down. He's atleast fighting back and talking about it on his "Blog", but she said that people there are worried that he's going to be fired by higher ups. She said at this point the only way that the "real news" was going to be if the people started talking about it and made a big enough stink about it to our elected officials, the FEC, and "noise" to the international media, that our own media won't have any choice but to cover it. (Yes, this is really happening in the good ole' supposed "democratic" free press of the US of A). The only place you'll see this talked about right now is on the internet and on AirAmericaRadio.

Chris Floyd
Game Boy

We said it here over and over, going back to 2003: If the U.S. presidential election was close enough to be gamed, it damn sure would be gamed. And the chunks of evidence now rolling in -- like so many cracked shells of fact in a high tide of pompous drivel -- increasingly indicate that millions of votes were indeed monkeyed with on the way to amassing George W. Bush's teeny-tiny one percent majority last week.

Frank Rich
On 'Moral Values,' It's Blue in a Landslide

There's only one problem with the storyline proclaiming that the country swung to the right on cultural issues in 2004. Like so many other narratives that immediately calcify into our 24/7 media's conventional wisdom, it is fiction. Everything about the election results - and about American culture itself - confirms an inescapable reality: John Kerry's defeat notwithstanding, it's blue America, not red, that is inexorably winning the culture war, and by a landslide. Kerry voters who have been flagellating themselves since Election Day with a vengeance worthy of "The Passion of the Christ" should wake up and smell the Chardonnay.

- posted by Mom/Dad @ 9:30 AM

 
Iraq and the destrucion your tax dollars are causing
Heard of this?
Collective punishment, regrettable necessity

Whenever a neo-colonial power - or a puppet politician like interim Iraqi Premier Iyad Allawi - orders the widespread bombing of civilian areas, as in Fallujah, the rationale invoked is "regrettable necessity". What is never mentioned is the real objective: collective punishment.

Here is the letter referenced in that article
Letter from Fallujah to Kofi Annan

We know that we live in a world of double standards. In Fallujah the US has created a new and shadowy target-Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Al-Zarqawi is a new excuse to justify the US's criminal actions. A year has passed since this new excuse was dreamed up, and every time they attack homes, mosques and restaurants, killing women and children, they say, "We have launched a successful operation against al-Zarqawi." They will never say they have killed him, because he does not exist.

What's up in Fallujah you ask?
Eyewitness: Defiance amid carnage

I also saw four crippled US tanks and three abandoned Humvees.

In the Hasbiyyah area, I counted the bodies of at least six US soldiers lying on the ground.

Some of them were badly mangled with various bits blown off. Others were in better condition, as if they had taken small-arms fire.

I noticed two of the US soldiers were still clutching their guns tightly across their chests. But most of their weapons were missing.

The Banality of Evil
Iraq: the unthinkable becomes normal

Edward S Herman's landmark essay, "The Banality of Evil", has never seemed more apposite. "Doing terrible things in an organised and systematic way rests on 'normalisation'," wrote Herman. "There is usually a division of labour in doing and rationalising the unthinkable, with the direct brutalising and killing done by one set of individuals . . . others working on improving technology (a better crematory gas, a longer burning and more adhesive napalm, bomb fragments that penetrate flesh in hard-to-trace patterns). It is the function of the experts, and the mainstream media, to normalise the unthinkable for the general public.

- posted by Mom/Dad @ 7:43 AM

 
I'm sure any military expert would say that one of the best tactics in war is the element of surprise. So telegraphing this attack on Fallujah was probably not the military's decision. One thing it does is it gives the enemy a chance to escape, Rebel Fighters Who Fled Attack May Now Be Active Elsewhere. As we continue to kill those we came to liberate, 'Scores of civilians' killed in Falluja:

Muhammad Abbud said he watched his nine-year-old son bleed to death at their Falluja home, unable to take him to hospital as fighting raged in the streets and bombs rained down on the Iraqi city.

This one too, 'Body parts everywhere' in Fallujah . I think it is becoming more obvious by the day that this just isn't going to work. You can no longer look to Colin Powell for help either, Powell: U.S. Will Pursue Aggressive Foreign Policy:

"The president is not going to trim his sails or pull back," Powell told the newspaper. "It's a continuation of his principles, his policies, his beliefs."

Powell made no mention of any specific country or region, but said U.S. foreign policy had been "aggressive in terms of going after challenges, issues" and Bush was "going to keep moving in this direction.

Man, when you sell your soul there is a no return policy. Also your government is withholding casualty figures from you, :

The statement says there could be delays in announcing battlefield casualties as a matter of security. The statement says the Americans are trying to "prevent the anti-Iraqi forces and other terrorist elements from gaining useful battlefield intelligence."

So the war is here to distract you now. The election is over and nobody is watching anymore so let the thievery begin again. Be sure and listen to Air America to keep up with the election coverage. Also Dennis Kucinich had something to say about the vote count in Ohio, A Note On The Presidential Election in Ohio.

Who Would Jesus Bomb? (WWJB)
The 'Christian Nation' Bombs Again

The military machine is ravaging Fallujah in yet another "final clamp down" in neighborhoods not unlike our own. I worry about the people there who are like my mother, bedridden and on oxygen ? she could never simply "leave the city," as Allawi and his U.S. masters callously commanded women and children to do if they wanted to survive. I worry about the poor kids whose parents have no money and no car. I worry about the scared boys and girls in uniform who won't be breathing next weekend, all so that Bush can "win" by showing that he can control Fallujah. It hurts to know what's happening to human beings a world away, yet be unable to stop what Christians once consider the worst kind of sin.

- posted by Mom/Dad @ 9:48 AM

 
Then vs. Now
Here is the link, Free States vs. Slave States ~
Oh How Far We've Come...
- posted by Mom/Dad @ 1:33 PM

 

Then  
- posted by Mom/Dad @ 12:32 PM

 

Now 
- posted by Mom/Dad @ 12:31 PM

 
More on the Election and the Smokescreen
I am stuck between analyzing the election results, so far, or trying to deal with the fact that the election was stolen again. So I have decided to err on the side that the election results are not correct. I think anyone, whether you agree who won or not, can see that all the votes have not been counted. Remember they do not count absentee or provisional ballots unless it's a close election. And then there is spoilage:

The election in Ohio was not decided by the voters but by something called "spoilage." Typically in the United States, about 3 percent of the vote is voided, just thrown away, not recorded. When the bobble-head boobs on the tube tell you Ohio or any state was won by 51 percent to 49 percent, don't you believe it ... it has never happened in the United States, because the total never reaches a neat 100 percent. The television totals simply subtract out the spoiled vote.

With this in mind how can the election results be analyzed when all the votes have not been counted?

The smokescreen, er, I mean the invasion of Falluja has begun. This is being used to make sure that the media has something to report on instead of being able to pivot one bit to the problems with the election. The media will do whatever it can to make sure that war without end and fear are ramped up to make sure you don't see what is going on behind the curtain. There is only one person on TV, so far, who cares about this and it is Keith Olbermann.

Here are some interesting stats
Did Bush Lose... Again?

In Florida, the figures show that, in counties with one type of voting machine, voters with no Democrat or Republican party affiliation appeared to split their votes roughly 50/50 between Bush and Kerry, which was to be expected; yet in counties with another type of voting machine, unaffiliated voters seemed to vote nearly 100% for Bush!

Maureen Farrell
Another Rigged Election? The Elephant in the Voting Booth

On election night, Peter Jennings looked measurably surprised when he learned that President Bush had provided a tape of himself, sitting in the White House, commenting on his impending victory. It was an unprecedented move. No sitting president had ever addressed the nation while polls were still open. It was just not done. But there was George, exuding confidence, offering an election day reminder of our leader's legitimacy.

- posted by Mom/Dad @ 7:26 AM

 
Quotes, A Stolen Election and The Neocons Agenda

"A little patience, and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their spells dissolve, and the people, recovering their true sight, restore their government to it's true principles. It is true that in the meantime we are suffering deeply in spirit, and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public debt. If the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are at stake."

- Thomas Jefferson

"What country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not warned from time to time that its people preserve the spirit of resistance?"

- Thomas Jefferson

"Here in America we are descended in blood and in spirit from revolutionist and rebel men and women who dare to disssent from accepted doctrine. As their heirs, may we never confuse honest dissent with disloyal subversion."

- President Dwight D. Eisenhower

This election is over when "We The People" say it is. There was tons of fraud in this election. Read the articles below to see how. Also give to Black Box Voting if you want to help. Also watch this video Votergate. Why did Kerry concede? He knew there were problems. Well they both were in Skull and Bones together. Talk about a fraternity prank. The other thing is what happens if the election is proved to be stolen and then the candidate that really won didn't even fight to prove the fraud? This just gets weirder and weirder. To keep up check the links to the right and listen to Air America Radio. It must be getting believable because I even heard Al Franken talking about this on his show.

Thom Hartmann
The Ultimate Felony Against Democracy: Privatizing Our Vote

The hot story in the Blogosphere is that the "erroneous" exit polls that showed Kerry carrying Florida and Ohio (among other states) weren't erroneous at all - it was the numbers produced by paperless voting machines that were wrong, and Kerry actually won. As more and more analysis is done of what may (or may not) be the most massive election fraud in the history of the world, however, it's critical that we keep the largest issue at the forefront at all time: Why are We The People allowing private, for-profit corporations, answerable only to their officers and boards of directors, and loyal only to agendas and politicians that will enhance their profitability, to handle our votes?

Will Rivers Pitt
Worse Than 2000: Tuesday's Electoral Disaster

Everyone remembers Florida's 2000 election debacle, and all of the new terms it introduced to our political lexicon: Hanging chads, dimpled chads, pregnant chads, overvotes, undervotes, Sore Losermans, Jews for Buchanan and so forth. It took several weeks, battalions of lawyers and a questionable decision from the U.S. Supreme Court to show the nation and the world how messy democracy can be. By any standard, what happened in Florida during the 2000

Bob Fitrakis
None Dare Call it Voter Suppression and Fraud

Evidence is mounting that the 2004 presidential election was stolen in Ohio. Emerging revelations of voting irregularities coupled with well-documented Republican efforts at voter suppression prior to the election suggests that in a fair election Kerry would have won Ohio.

Where we are going if the Neocons are left in charge
Neocon Agenda: Iran, China, Russia, Latin America...

An influential foreign-policy neoconservative with long-standing ties to top hawks in the administration of President George W. Bush has laid out what he calls "a checklist of the work the world will demand of this president and his subordinates in a second term."

- posted by Mom/Dad @ 1:31 PM

 
If You Need Hope Read These Two Speeches
JFK
Commencement Address at American University in Washington, June 10, 1963

What kind of peace do I mean? What kind of peace do we seek? Not a Pax Americana enforced on the world by American weapons of war. Not the peace of the grave or the security of the slave. I am talking about genuine peace, the kind of peace that makes life on earth worth living, the kind that enables men and nations to grow and to hope and to build a better life for their children -- not merely peace for Americans but peace for all men and women -- not merely peace in our time but peace for all time. I speak of peace because of the new face of war. Total war makes no sense in an age when great powers can maintain large and relatively invulnerable nuclear forces and refuse to surrender without resort to those forces. It makes no sense in an age when a single nuclear weapon contains almost ten times the explosive force delivered by 11 of the Allied air forces in the Second World War. It makes no sense in an age when the deadly poisons produced by a nuclear exchange would be carried by wind and water and soil and seed to the far corners of the globe and to generations yet unborn.

MLK
Address delivered to the Clergy and Laymen Concerned about Vietnam, at Riverside Church

"A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death."

"War is not the answer. Communism will never be defeated by the use of atomic bombs or nuclear weapons. Let us not join those who shout war and, through their misguided passions, urge the United States to relinquish its participation in the United Nations."

"We can no longer afford to worship the god of hate or bow before the altar of retaliation. The oceans of history are made turbulent by the ever-rising tides of hate. History is cluttered with the wreckage of nations and individuals that pursued this self-defeating path of hate."

- posted by Mom/Dad @ 2:01 PM

 
The Friday Editorials
Chris Floyd
No Ways Tired

Yes, it's a hard blow for the world. Yes, it's a deep shame for American democracy, poisoned by lies, fear, greed and hysteria. Yes, it means that tens of thousands of innocent people will now be killed -- by more war, more neglect, more ignorance, more repression, more brutality, more hatred, more fanaticism. Yes, it means that the planet will be gashed with more wounds, smeared with more filth, left to wither and die. Yes, it's a giant step backward for the human spirit, back to the muck of arbitrary rule by vicious elites and their ham-fisted goons, their well-wadded courtiers, their yapping sycophants. Yes, it means that somewhere out there, in the blood-dimmed haze of a dark age falling, Lucifer and bin Laden are lighting cigars and raising a glass to toast the victory of their good friend George.

Paul Krugman
No Surrender

President Bush isn't a conservative. He's a radical - the leader of a coalition that deeply dislikes America as it is. Part of that coalition wants to tear down the legacy of Franklin Roosevelt, eviscerating Social Security and, eventually, Medicare. Another part wants to break down the barriers between church and state. And thanks to a heavy turnout by evangelical Christians, Mr. Bush has four more years to advance that radical agenda.

Bob Herbert
O.K., Folks: Back to Work

Democracy is a breeze during good times. It's when the storms are raging that citizenship is put to the test. And there's a hell of a wind blowing right now.

- posted by Mom/Dad @ 1:22 PM

 
What's Coming
I think John Kerry was close when he said more of the same. The part he left out though is that there is no holding back because there is no reelection worry. God, guns and gays. If you are for the first two and against the last one you are OK if not look out. Oh yeah, I almost forgot, the draft will be back too.

This theory everyone has that Bush won because of values is making me angry. This issue is a framed so that it implies that Bush won because those that voted for him have good moral values and those that voted against him don't. That is wrong and here is the proof.

As you will see below the whole "values" issue is just a smoke screen to cover what actually happened that isn't being reported. Remember it was actually Italian philosopher Giovanni Gentile who wrote the entry in the Encyclopedia Italiana that said: "Fascism should more appropriately be called corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power." As all three of the articles point out, we are now obviously ruled by corporatism. When corporations control the machines that count the votes and can kill without serious penalty those are definite signs we are there. We are not fascist yet but how much more can we take? Don't forget, "Those who cast the votes decide nothing; those who COUNT the votes decide everything."

Greg Palast tells us...
Kerry Won

Bush won Ohio by 136,483 votes. Typically in the United States, about 3 percent of votes cast are voided—known as “spoilage” in election jargon—because the ballots cast are inconclusive. Palast’s investigation suggests that if Ohio’s discarded ballots were counted, Kerry would have won the state. Today, the Cleveland Plain Dealer reports there are a total of 247,672 votes not counted in Ohio, if you add the 92,672 discarded votes plus the 155,000 provisional ballots.

Thom Hartmann
The Ultimate Felony Against Democracy

The hot story in the Blogosphere is that the "erroneous" exit polls that showed Kerry carrying Florida and Ohio (among other states) weren't erroneous at all - it was the numbers produced by paperless voting machines that were wrong, and Kerry actually won. As more and more analysis is done of what may (or may not) be the most massive election fraud in the history of the world, however, it's critical that we keep the largest issue at the forefront at all time: Why are We The People allowing private, for-profit corporations, answerable only to their officers and boards of directors, and loyal only to agendas and politicians that will enhance their profitability, to handle our votes?

Molly Ivins can always make me laugh though
Do you know how to cure a chicken-killin' dog?

So, fellow progressives, stop thinking about suicide or moving abroad. Want to feel better? Eat a sour grape, then do something immediately, now, today. Figure out what you can do to help rescue the country -- join something, send a little money to some group, call somewhere and offer to volunteer, find a politician you like at the local level and start helping him or her to move up.

Think about how you can lend a hand to the amazing myriad efforts that will promptly break out to help the country recover from what it has done to itself. Now is the time. Don't mourn, organize.

Maureen Dowd
The Red Zone

The president got re-elected by dividing the country along fault lines of fear, intolerance, ignorance and religious rule. He doesn't want to heal rifts; he wants to bring any riffraff who disagree to heel.
W. ran a jihad in America so he can fight one in Iraq - drawing a devoted flock of evangelicals, or "values voters," as they call themselves, to the polls by opposing abortion, suffocating stem cell research and supporting a constitutional amendment against gay marriage.

- posted by Mom/Dad @ 5:43 PM

 
I'm Still Digesting the New Reality
I had hoped Kerry was going to win but I never underestimated this administration and their ability to "win" this election. I'm trying to balance hope and optimism with disgust, anger and fear of the future. See you later today.
- posted by Mom/Dad @ 7:06 AM

 
Where I was yesterday and where we are now
Yesterday I worked my precincts polling place. That's why I didn't blog yesterday. I have done that now in the last two general elections and the primary this year. It's fun to watch the people that come in to vote.

Now to the election. It looks like my prediction was a little optimistic. Maybe. The one thing is this race is not over yet. I think the key is that this time we are going to count all the votes. Look at this recent post from dkos. I was wiped out when I got home last night and went to bed about 11;30 am and nothing was decided at that time. One thing I thought was interesting last night was the way the media I was watching (MSNBC and CNN) kept saying how Bush was debunking the exit polls. Why? They are trying to discredit the exit polls because if the exit polls are to be believed than there is something wrong with the election results. More on the exit polls. But MSNBC kept putting out their exit polling on issues that turned the election as gospel. Hmmm.

Also Remember and don't ever forget you cannot steal an election that isn't close. And the first defense of a good thief is a quick getaway. So whoever wants this over with quick may just not want any light shined on the situation. The other thing is that if Bush did win Ohio than that is fine. Let's just count all the votes and make sure this time. If Bush get's a second term he will be better off if he is legitimately elected this time. What's eleven days in the grand scheme of things.
- posted by Mom/Dad @ 7:06 AM

 
Prediction and a Poem
Kerry %53 Bush %47 Popular Vote

Kerry 311 Bush 227 Electoral College

Let America Be America Again

Langston Hughes

Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free.

(America never was America to me.)

Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed--
Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That any man be crushed by one above.

(It never was America to me.)

O, let my land be a land where Liberty
Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,
But opportunity is real, and life is free,
Equality is in the air we breathe.

(There's never been equality for me,
Nor freedom in this "homeland of the free.")

Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?
And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?

I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,
I am the Negro bearing slavery's scars.
I am the red man driven from the land,
I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek--
And finding only the same old stupid plan
Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.

I am the young man, full of strength and hope,
Tangled in that ancient endless chain
Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!
Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need!
Of work the men! Of take the pay!
Of owning everything for one's own greed!

I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.
I am the worker sold to the machine.
I am the Negro, servant to you all.
I am the people, humble, hungry, mean--
Hungry yet today despite the dream.
Beaten yet today--O, Pioneers!
I am the man who never got ahead,
The poorest worker bartered through the years.

Yet I'm the one who dreamt our basic dream
In the Old World while still a serf of kings,
Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true,
That even yet its mighty daring sings
In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned
That's made America the land it has become.
O, I'm the man who sailed those early seas
In search of what I meant to be my home--
For I'm the one who left dark Ireland's shore,
And Poland's plain, and England's grassy lea,
And torn from Black Africa's strand I came
To build a "homeland of the free."

The free?

Who said the free? Not me?
Surely not me? The millions on relief today?
The millions shot down when we strike?
The millions who have nothing for our pay?
For all the dreams we've dreamed
And all the songs we've sung
And all the hopes we've held
And all the flags we've hung,
The millions who have nothing for our pay--
Except the dream that's almost dead today.

O, let America be America again--
The land that never has been yet--
And yet must be--the land where every man is free.
The land that's mine--the poor man's, Indian's, Negro's, ME--
Who made America,
Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,
Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,
Must bring back our mighty dream again.

Sure, call me any ugly name you choose--
The steel of freedom does not stain.
From those who live like leeches on the people's lives,
We must take back our land again,
America!

O, yes,
I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath--
America will be!

Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,
The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,
We, the people, must redeem
The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.
The mountains and the endless plain--
All, all the stretch of these great green states--
And make America again!





- posted by Mom/Dad @ 3:18 PM

 
A Few Before Tomorrow
John Kerry
A fresh start for America

If you join with me on Tuesday, we will both defend our country and fight for America's families. We will unite Democrats and Republicans to succeed in Iraq and restore America's leadership in the world. We will once again stand up for the middle class and all those struggling to join it. We will never again allow the politics of fear to obscure our hope for the future. And together, we will lift up this nation with the confidence that our best days are still ahead.

Let's hope so
Reality Always Wins

If there's a fair election on Tuesday, the Democrats will win it by a country mile. On the other hand, if Bush/Cheney manage to subvert the race again, their dominion will go on and on. The right intends to rule not just for "four more years," but for as long as it will take the rest of America to drive them out. At this great fight we will prevail, eventually, because Bush/Cheney's project is impossible. They can't reverse the course of history. They cannot contradict reality. The world is what it is, however vehement their prayers. It doesn't matter how much slack the American press will keep on cutting them, or how insistently their pre-selected audiences keep cheering at them, or how "resolved" Bush keeps on saying he is. All their brutal steps and brilliant fakery will only lead them to the same gigantic bone yard where so many other glorious crusades have ended up.

Bob Herbert summarizes the Bush Presidency
Days of Shame

It was Dwight Eisenhower, a Republican, who said that "America's leadership and prestige depend, not merely upon our unmatched material progress, riches and military strength, but on how we use our power in the interests of world peace and human betterment."

That's as good a thought as any to carry with you into the voting booth tomorrow

Tora Bora
Did U.S. mistakes let bin Laden escape from Afghanistan 3 years ago?

Osama bin Laden's reappearance on Friday in a videotape has revived the controversy over how the al Qaida leader and many of his fighters escaped from American troops and their local allies in Afghanistan three years ago.

Bush has left our troops in a bad spot
GIs Lack Armor, Radios, Bullets

Correspondent Steve Kroft talks to a general, soldiers in Iraq, and their families at home about a lack of armored vehicles, field radios, night vision goggles, and even ammunition - especially for the National Guard and reserve units that now make up more than 40 percent of U.S. troops.

- posted by Mom/Dad @ 9:29 AM