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Bob Bites Back: U.S. Elections: Worst among established democracies

Over fourteen hundred international election experts gathered data last year and pronounced the United States last in election integrity among long-standing democracies. On a 100-point scale, the U.S. received an integrity rating of 69.3 percent -- one notch ahead of the narco-drug state Colombia at 69.1 percent and just behind the nearly-narco-drug state of Mexico at 69.8 percent, neither country with a long-standing democracy.

After CITIZENFOUR: Dossiers, Self-Exile & Stripping Impunity

 "There are a lot of people in this room that are
on watch lists, with huge dossiers," Edward Snowden's colleague Jacob
Appelbaum warned a packed audience of international journalists and
diplomats, business executives, software experts and others here in
Bangkok at the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Thailand.

"Not just me. Probably people you wouldn't imagine," Appelbaum said.

"I think that that's a problem. To have a secret police state society,
is really scary."

Appelbaum helped create -- and appears in -- "CITIZENFOUR" which won
Best Documentary at the Oscars on February 22 for portraying former
U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) subcontractor Snowden and the
information he smuggled out, revealing America's electronic spying on
the public worldwide.

The film was directed by Laura Poitras who Appelbaum assisted during
their joint initial interviews with Snowden online, encrypting their
conversations and confirming his NSA qualifications.

Appelbaum, a Californian, is based in Berlin.

End the US Blockade of Cuba and Military Occupation of Guantanamo Bay! An Interview with Manolo De Los Santos

This interview was conducted in Matanzas, Cuba. Part Two will follow in next week’s issue of BAR.

“Cuba is a country that has stuck its neck out for Black liberation struggles around the world.”

I met Manolo De Los Santos during a recent trip to Cuba organized by Code Pink, a grassroots peace and social justice movement working to end US funded wars and occupations. The interview took place in the coastal city of Matanzas, one of the sites of the 16th century Euro-American Human Trafficking Trade (termed by European traders and historians as the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade) at the Matanzas Evangelical Theological Seminary.

Good news: Your action now can help stop the algae blooms!

The Ohio legislature knows that you're concerned about the algae blooms that threaten our state's drinking water sources, so they're rushing to pass legislation to address solutions. But until they recognize a major culprit to our water pollution — factory farms — and that drinking water all over the state is impacted, the Clean Dirty Lake Erie Bill will never achieve its supposed goals. Tell your state legislators that they must protect our drinking water by reining in factory farm pollution.

A couple of weeks ago, I asked you to take action on the Ohio Senate Bill that they're calling the "Clean Lake Erie Bill," meant to address the hazardous algae blooms that left half a million Toledoans without water last summer. The senate has since passed the bill without any significant improvements. Indeed, the bill got worse. And now the Ohio House has introduced their own legislation — but this bill is just as bad, so we're calling it the "Dirty Lake Erie Bill."

Cuba joins "One Billion Rising" to end violence against women

What an honor to be in Cuba for the first celebration of One Billion Rising!

150 of us from the United States had travelled to Cuba with CODEPINK: Women for Peace in the largest delegation of Americans to visit Cuba since the December 17, 2014 announcement of opening of diplomatic relations between the U.S. and Cuba.

Realizing that our delegation called “To Cuba With Love” would be in Cuba on February 14, Valentine’s Day, we asked our host organization the Cuban Institute with the Peoples (ICAP) if there was a venue in Havana where we could dance in the worldwide campaign to end violence against women.

The dynamic ICAP director and member of the Cuban Parliament Kenia Serrano suggested that we have the dance at the annual Cuba International Book Fair held in the San Carlos de la Cabana fortress, the scenic fort located across the harbor from Old Havana.

Dance at a Book Fair we asked?

Not a Bug Splat, Not Chattel

U.S. drone "pilots" refer to people they burn to death in places like Pakistan as "bug splat" because they look like bugs being squished to death on the pilots' video monitors and because it's easier to murder bugs than humans.

Hence the need for the brilliant artwork made visible to a drone (http://notabugsplat.com):

The human brain is a funny thing. Numerous human brains know that every human is a human, yet insist that various types of humans must be "humanized" before they can be recognized as humans. That is, even though you know someone must have a name and loved ones and favorite games and certain weaknesses and a couple of quirks that friends find endearing -- because each and every Homo sapiens does have such things -- you insist on being told what the details are, and only then readily admit that in fact this particular human is a human (and millions of others remain in doubt).

A drone killer must know that children have eyes and noses and mouths, hair and fingers. But this artwork presents it to the troubled brain of the humanization dependent observer.

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