Global
I have just read your recent article, "The Year Democracy Ended", Nov. 30, 2003. I couldn't agree with you more. I am appalled by the arrogance of this administration and their underhanded tactics. Living in Texas, it's difficult to find people who share the same concern about our cowardly "leader" and his band of criminals.
I have amassed over 96 pages of articles and commentaries plainly exposing the dealings and lies of this administration. My motive is to collect as much information as I can before the 2004 election and hopefully get the word out. Sadly, I find there are many people in this country that just don't care or don't want to hear the truth. It's as if they are satisfied to keep their heads in the sand in hopes that everything will turn out okay.
I support your proposition that democracy has ended in America. I have proposed that America is now a Corporatocracy. The Corporatocracy is composed of the political parties, all three branches of government, the military, the media, and the corporations (energy, military, ag, pharm, etc.). Citizens no longer matter. Individuals are unimportant. Soldiers can be sacrificed. The environment exists only to provide raw materials and to absorb the toxic wastes (everything from Depleted Uranium to chlorinated biphenyls and carbon dioxide) produced by the corporations. In a bloodless coup that was bought with bribes and "pork" payoffs, the Corporatocracy has seized power. They have consolidated power with Patriot Act v. 1.0 and v. 2.0. Now they are acting to assure their continued dominance through touch-screen, papertrailless voting. The Bush administration is the cat's paw, the lickspittle of the Corporatocracy. Bush is not in power, Cheney is not in power, Ashcroft is not in power.
MISSOULA, MT - Today, at 8:40 am MST, President Bush signed into law the Healthy Forests Restoration Act of 2003 (HR 1904). Like the double-speak rhetoric offered by his "Clear Skies Initiative," which relaxes pollution standards for air quality, this legislation leaves homes and communities vulnerable to wildfire, severely limits public participation and does not ensure protections for ancient, old-growth forests or roadless wildlands.
"President Bush has ignored common sense home protection measures and limited citizen participation in order to increase commercial logging on 20 million acres of our National Forests, a stated goal of his administration since day one. You can rest assured that we will do everything in our power to stop projects that don't protect communities or restore our public forests," promised Matthew Koehler with the Native Forest Network in Missoula, Montana.
So far, over 420 of our troops have returned home dead.
For those who have never seen a buddy get killed in action, keep in mind that those killed are more than mere numbers, but fathers, sons, wives and husbands.
Those who have been in battle are best able to know the hardships this small segment of our citizens are asked to endure.
Perhaps a president who has seen active duty in war is best able to weigh the need for battle with the incalculable cost in human lives.
81 US soldiers died in the month of November in Iraq. A total of 107 Coalition soldiers died in the month of November
Published on Tuesday, December 2, 2003 by the Free Press (Columbus, Ohio) Was Bush's Turkey Breakfast in Iraq Aimed at Hillary? by Harvey Wasserman www.commondreams.org/views03/1202-14.htm
Try this site for most up-to-date casualties - lunaville.org/warcasualties/Summary.aspx
Dan Mullaley Dallas
But the global image of the smirking Texan carrying that turkey on a tray will now join the "greatest hits" album headlined by Bush's "Mission Accomplished" shot on the USS Lincoln, since which more than 100 US soldiers have died.
The Fox media annointed to accompany Bush to Baghdad were barred from any uncontrolled interviews with American soldiers.
Historically, Bush was merely replaying Lyndon Johnson's tragic 1966 visit to Vietnam's Cam Ranh Bay, after which tens of thousands of American and Vietnamese soldiers and civilians died in nine years of ghastly slaughter.
Johnson swooped into the huge US with top secrecy and security. The saturation photo op was meant to boost Johnson's plummeting polls. Having won in 1964 as a peace candidate, LBJ's 1965 decision to escalate the war in Vietnam remains a catastrophic pivot point in US history.
They are our heroes for staging an “electronic civil disobedience” campaign against Ohio-based voting machine maker Diebold Election Systems. Diebold has been sending out “cease and desist” letters in order to prevent website owners from linking to or posting some 15,000 internal Diebold memos that reveal the company was aware of massive security flaws in its e-voting software. What this means is that Diebold machines are easily hacked into – leading to an apparent large unexplained vote shift that delivered the Florida 2000 election to Bush. How do we know? Hackers invaded Diebold’s computers and leaked their internal memos to journalists and voting activists. Swarthmore students are pledging to keep access to these memos alive by disobeying Diebold’s letters.
The Free Press Salutes - Global democracy activists
Virtue and Freedom chear our Plains,
And Learning Largesses bestows,
And keeps unlicens’d open House.
We to the Nation’s publick Mart
Our Works of Wit, and Schemes of Art,
And philosophic Goods, this Way,
Like Water carriage, cheap convey.
This Tree which Knowledge so affords,
Inquisitors with flaming swords
From Lay-Approach with Zeal defend,
Lest their own Paradise should end.
The Press from her fecundous Womb
Brought forth the Arts of Greece and Rome;
Her offspring, skill’d in Logic War,
Truth’s Banner wav’d in open Air;
The Monster Superstition fled,
And hid in Shades in Gorgon Head;
And awless Pow’r, the long kept Field,
By Reason quell’d, was forc’d to yield.
This Nurse of Arts, and Freedom’s Fence,
To chain, is Treason against Sense:
And Liberty, thy thousand Tongues
None silence who design no Wrongs;
For those who use the Gag’s Restraint,
First Rob, before they stop Complaint.
Sesame Street thus becomes yet another advertising vehicle for McDonald’s, hooking a new generation of children on its high calorie, high fat, junk food — junk food that has helped cause an epidemic of childhood obesity and soaring rates of type 2 diabetes, hypertension and other serious illnesses among children.
Sesame Street is one of the most popular children’s television programs on PBS. Parents expect the popular children’s show to educate their children about letters, numbers and healthy lifestyles, not entice them to eat more empty calories.
Go to the site below to tell Gary E. Knell, CEO of Sesame Workshop, to stop running corporate sponsorship messages for McDonald’s before or after Sesame Street.
act.actforchange.com/cgi-bin7/DM/y/eVzn0FCm6x0JAe0gvg0A8
There are hundreds of imprisoned animals at the Franklin County Humane Society and the Animal Shelter in Columbus. They live in cages, get little love or exercise and have nothing to look forward to but a trip to the gas chamber – if no one chooses them for a pet. I’m sure most of them are healthy, but some may be a bit ragged around the edges and are the least likely picked for a new home.