Global
It all came out the way it was supposed to. America showed the world it could have an election shorn of front-page accusations of ballot fixing. Horrible senators like George Allen and Conrad Burns lost narrow races. The Republicans got a pasting. A man who called Alan Greenspan "a political hack" and George Bush "a liar" will be Senate majority leader. A woman elected to Congress with the help of thousands of San Franciscan homosexuals, some of them married by Mayor Gavin Newsom, will be Speaker. Who wouldn't want Harry Reid instead of Bill Frist, or Nancy Pelosi instead of fatty Hastert? It's a nice change.
It's also the role of elections in properly run Western democracies to remind people that things won't really change at all. You can set your watch by the speed with which the new crowd lowers expectations and announces What is Not To Be Done. Nowhere is there an item on the Democrats' "must do" list saying, "Reverse plunge toward fascism. Rescind Patriot Act. Dump the Military Commissions Act. Restore habeas corpus and the Bill of Rights." Pelosi says impeachment is off the table.
It's also the role of elections in properly run Western democracies to remind people that things won't really change at all. You can set your watch by the speed with which the new crowd lowers expectations and announces What is Not To Be Done. Nowhere is there an item on the Democrats' "must do" list saying, "Reverse plunge toward fascism. Rescind Patriot Act. Dump the Military Commissions Act. Restore habeas corpus and the Bill of Rights." Pelosi says impeachment is off the table.
"After the first challenge, this one big guy stood over me and pointed his finger," Anne Schultz e-mailed me. "Shaking a bit with anger, he said that he could throw me out in a minute for disrupting the election. The woman was on her way out of the polling place, and I asked her to stay until this was resolved, which she was glad to do. I reminded him that I wasn't disrupting the election, I was simply doing what was within my rights, but after that the cozy relationship I thought I'd established with the judges, with the help of bringing donuts, went rather to hell."
This is democracy raw, warts exposed. It's not the kind you see on TV - all sanitized numbers and gleeful winners - but the real deal, one vote at a time, a power struggle in every precinct, as fair as it has to be (and no fairer).
This is democracy raw, warts exposed. It's not the kind you see on TV - all sanitized numbers and gleeful winners - but the real deal, one vote at a time, a power struggle in every precinct, as fair as it has to be (and no fairer).
The American media establishment has launched a major offensive
against the option of withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq.
In the latest media assault, right-wing outfits like Fox News and the Wall Street Journal editorial page are secondary. The heaviest firepower is now coming from the most valuable square inches of media real estate in the USA -- the front page of the New York Times.
The present situation is grimly instructive for anyone who might wonder how the Vietnam War could continue for years while opinion polls showed that most Americans were against it. Now, in the wake of midterm elections widely seen as a rebuke to the Iraq war, powerful media institutions are feverishly spinning against a pullout of U.S. troops.
In the latest media assault, right-wing outfits like Fox News and the Wall Street Journal editorial page are secondary. The heaviest firepower is now coming from the most valuable square inches of media real estate in the USA -- the front page of the New York Times.
The present situation is grimly instructive for anyone who might wonder how the Vietnam War could continue for years while opinion polls showed that most Americans were against it. Now, in the wake of midterm elections widely seen as a rebuke to the Iraq war, powerful media institutions are feverishly spinning against a pullout of U.S. troops.
AUSTIN, Texas -- There's been so much in print about how Daddy 41's people are back in the saddle, I was terrified when I saw a photo of Dan Quayle among the pack. If they've called back Dan Quayle to lend intellectual heft, we're all dead ducks. Fortunately, it was just a file picture of Quayle with the old team.
It does seem that we may be going back to the typical modus operandi of Dubya. Poppy Bush has helped Junior out of the Vietnam War, his failures in the oil business and other efforts all of his "adult" life.
Unfortunately for us and for the world, the people from the first Bush administration who initially joined this administration were Dick Cheney and Don Rumsfeld. Not exactly the most diplomatic, forward-looking, helpful people to be guiding Dubya.
It does seem that we may be going back to the typical modus operandi of Dubya. Poppy Bush has helped Junior out of the Vietnam War, his failures in the oil business and other efforts all of his "adult" life.
Unfortunately for us and for the world, the people from the first Bush administration who initially joined this administration were Dick Cheney and Don Rumsfeld. Not exactly the most diplomatic, forward-looking, helpful people to be guiding Dubya.
Have the Democrats learned nothing? Electing a majority leader by 'secret ballot'? Or, is this particular nonsense in sync with other inexplicable strategies, particularly the Dem's decision to use Internet voting in the presidential primaries of 2000, 2004 and 2008?
With all the problems the electorate has faced with a voting system that is completely non-transparent (i.e., "secret"), it defies imagination why House Democrats would resort to a "secret ballot" to elect their majority leader. So much for demonstrating the courage of their convictions.
A 'secret ballot" election is the perfect set-up for those who want to rig an election. See: Vote Fraud 101 - "When elections are conducted by secret ballot, there exists no hard evidence of how people voted. "Voters hand over to election officials a pile of anonymous ballots. For those with the appropriate incentive, substituting ballots is duck soup." Source: me
The secret ballot was created in Australia in 1856. It came to America in the 1880's. And ever since then, in elections here and around the world, nobody really knows anything for sure.
With all the problems the electorate has faced with a voting system that is completely non-transparent (i.e., "secret"), it defies imagination why House Democrats would resort to a "secret ballot" to elect their majority leader. So much for demonstrating the courage of their convictions.
A 'secret ballot" election is the perfect set-up for those who want to rig an election. See: Vote Fraud 101 - "When elections are conducted by secret ballot, there exists no hard evidence of how people voted. "Voters hand over to election officials a pile of anonymous ballots. For those with the appropriate incentive, substituting ballots is duck soup." Source: me
The secret ballot was created in Australia in 1856. It came to America in the 1880's. And ever since then, in elections here and around the world, nobody really knows anything for sure.
“The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer.”
---Henry Kissinger, New York Times, October 28, 1973
Baghdad’s kangaroo court has issued a verdict that virtually guarantees that Saddam Hussein will launch his journey into the hereafter from the platform of a gallows. Convicted of “revenge killings of 148 people, deportation of 400, and razing of orchards,” (1), and still facing a charge of genocide that resulted in the deaths of 180,000 Kurds, Hussein is undoubtedly a malevolent individual.
Yet to ensure public furor against Hussein (and to distract the hoi polloi from focusing upon those guilty of similar crimes), the corporate media have conveniently jettisoned several important aspects of history down the Memory Hole:
1. Hussein committed his crimes with the tacit approval and complicity of the United States government because he was waging a war against their enemy, Iran.
2. Numerous members of our own power elite (Democrat and Republican alike) share responsibility for an ongoing United States genocide against the Iraqi people that began with the Gulf War (2).
---Henry Kissinger, New York Times, October 28, 1973
Baghdad’s kangaroo court has issued a verdict that virtually guarantees that Saddam Hussein will launch his journey into the hereafter from the platform of a gallows. Convicted of “revenge killings of 148 people, deportation of 400, and razing of orchards,” (1), and still facing a charge of genocide that resulted in the deaths of 180,000 Kurds, Hussein is undoubtedly a malevolent individual.
Yet to ensure public furor against Hussein (and to distract the hoi polloi from focusing upon those guilty of similar crimes), the corporate media have conveniently jettisoned several important aspects of history down the Memory Hole:
1. Hussein committed his crimes with the tacit approval and complicity of the United States government because he was waging a war against their enemy, Iran.
2. Numerous members of our own power elite (Democrat and Republican alike) share responsibility for an ongoing United States genocide against the Iraqi people that began with the Gulf War (2).
Abstract
Democracy needs to defend itself from the many immediate threats - technology, imperialism,
global economic powers, human passivity and reactionary religion. Reactionary religion has
taken the lead worldwide in rejecting pluralism and democracy, viewing both values as gateways
to secularism and decadence. Both modernism and post-modernism have failed to fully address
the success of the continued political advances of the religious right worldwide.
A new, postmodern politics of meaning is needed to address basic human needs currently served
by the cosmology of traditional religious orthodoxy. Progressive thinkers in philosophy, religion
and in critical theory must work dialectically to retain the good of religion and spirituality, the
need for ultimate meaning, and the challenge of reducing negative, anti-democratic impulses.
These impulses are embodied in theocracy and a fear of life. Until religion is totally reinvented
or evolves to a higher level we will have to defend many democratic values from religious
extremists. A live and let live political philosophy is a good defense of democracy.
Plan Events on December 10th, Human Rights and Impeachment Day - December 10 is Human Rights Day, and this year we're making it Human Rights and Impeachment Day. Slogan: "Putting Impeachment on the Table." We encourage you to organize a town hall forum or rally on this day for the impeachment of Bush and Cheney. You can create a public listing of your event here. You will be able to communicate with the people who sign up for your event, and to edit the listing for your event, changing or filling in details later. Be sure also to invite your Congress Member or newly elected future Congress Member to speak.
Here are resources that will make your event easy and effective:
December 10
Collect Signatures on Petitions - Collect millions of them, especially in front of your Congress Member's offices. Use this to build local organizations as well as a national list of names.
Petition
Join a Congressional District Impeachment Committee -Organize locally to lobby your Representative:
Here are resources that will make your event easy and effective:
December 10
Collect Signatures on Petitions - Collect millions of them, especially in front of your Congress Member's offices. Use this to build local organizations as well as a national list of names.
Petition
Join a Congressional District Impeachment Committee -Organize locally to lobby your Representative:
CORNUCOPIA, WI: The Cornucopia Institute, the nation's most aggressive organic farming watchdog, has filed a formal legal complaint with the USDA asking them to investigate allegations of illegal “organic” food distribution by Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. Cornucopia has documented cases of nonorganic food products being sold as organic in Wal-Mart’s grocery departments.
“We first noticed that Wal-Mart was using in-store signage to misidentify conventional, nonorganic food as organic in their upscale-market test store in Plano, Texas,” said Mark Kastel of The Cornucopia Institute. Subsequently, Cornucopia staff visited a number of other Wal-Mart stores in the Midwest and documented similar improprieties in both produce and dairy sections.
Cornucopia notified Wal-Mart’s CEO Lee Scott in a letter on September 13, 2006 alerting the company to the problem and asking that it address and correct the situation on an immediate basis. But the same product misrepresentations were again observed weeks later, throughout October, at separate Wal-Mart stores in multiple states.
“We first noticed that Wal-Mart was using in-store signage to misidentify conventional, nonorganic food as organic in their upscale-market test store in Plano, Texas,” said Mark Kastel of The Cornucopia Institute. Subsequently, Cornucopia staff visited a number of other Wal-Mart stores in the Midwest and documented similar improprieties in both produce and dairy sections.
Cornucopia notified Wal-Mart’s CEO Lee Scott in a letter on September 13, 2006 alerting the company to the problem and asking that it address and correct the situation on an immediate basis. But the same product misrepresentations were again observed weeks later, throughout October, at separate Wal-Mart stores in multiple states.