Advertisement

ACORN is not the nut here

ACORN has been through some scandals of its own making, but it is currently all over the news because of a pair of absolutely fraudulent and nationally coordinated attacks.

One of these attacks involves accusations of voter fraud. But, of course, "voter fraud" almost doesn't exist, and federal prosecutors have lost their jobs because they couldn't find evidence of its existence to satisfy the Bush White House. In fact, the accusations against ACORN are not about voting, but about voter registration.

It's the war crimes, Mickey

1. WMD Lies

Time to create the economy we want; multiple crises in the U.S. presents an opportunity for real change

The rage over the bailout of Wall Street is still boiling. In fact, the boil is just beginning. Last week the bailed out massive insurance giant AIG had a party for their executives – the bill $440,000 – this, after an $84 billion tax payer bailout. After the party the Federal Reserve gave them $38 billion more! It is good the population is angry because we are at the beginning of this financial crisis not at the end. And, if the people get angry enough and organized enough this crisis will become the opportunity for a paradigm shift to a democratized economy built on new, clean energy sources.

During the bailout debate 50,000 letters were sent to Congress and the media through my organization’s site, the Campaign for Fresh Air and Clean Politics (www.FreshAirCleanPolitics.net). And, we were one among many. This is just the beginning of our effort. We are now in the process of thinking through our economic agenda and seeking input from people on that topic. You can support these efforts by responding to a brief survey and donating to our efforts.

The Palin-Biden debate: high time to move beyond clichés

One should rightly assume that the weight of the US financial crisis, the full impact of which is just beginning to unravel, and the widening military debacles in Iraq and Afghanistan, would compel new thinking amongst leading US politicians. And then again, maybe not.

Aside from tactical and rhetorical differences, presidential candidates and their vice-president-hopefuls are yet to strictly champion and act upon a truly different leadership strategy: Barack Obama’s current foreign policy visions are more or less those of President Bush in his second term. Republican candidate John McCain, however, advocates a less solid and increasingly confusing set of principles: he strives to distance himself from a discredited, unpopular president, position himself as a man of experience and resolve, yet pander to the religious right and defend a hawkish strategy that is no less destructive than that championed by the neoconservative-designed Bush Doctrine, which led to two major wars and a near-complete loss of US credibility and leadership abroad.

GOP attacks on American voters turn desperate, ugly and dangerous

The GOP assault on American voters has hit full stride as the economy and John McCain tank in synch.

With just over three weeks until election day, the Republicans have mounted an all-out attack against newly registered voters and the organizations working to sign them up. As many as 75% of these new voters are expected to vote Democratic, but the attacks have also spread to long-established voters as well. Recent calculations show more than a million more newly registered Democrats in Ohio than Republicans.

The usual drumbeat claiming massive voter fraud has become ceaseless at Fox "News" and other right wing media mouthpieces.

As expected, the assault centers in Ohio, which once again could decide the presidency, but has manifested throughout the nation:

Struggle: A Documentary

Struggle: a Documentary set primarily in Ohio examines several conditions that lead to George W. Bush's victory in the 2004 Presidential election. This film places the audience right in the action with a unique "street level" perspective on the struggle to Protest Publicly or Vote Democratic in this American Society. Come see it at the Free Press Second Saturday Salon, Oct. 11.

The Producers of Struggle Struggle the Movie will be releasing segments of the film over the next month up until the eve of the 2008 Election. This film is a critical observation of an Electoral System in chaos which has produced subsequent fraudulent elections of President George W. Bush, and threatens to deliver another fraudulent result in the 2008 Presidential Election.

Struggle is the most recent "Street Level" Documentary from Mental-Rev Productions, directed by Roger Hill and in association with The Free Press www.freepress.org.

What's in an article?

BUY A HAND-SIGNED, 11x14 PRINT OF THIS CARTOON

Cindy, Charlotte, and our Constitution

As you watch the presidential debates, here's a game to play that won't even get you drunk (unless you want to add tequila shots to it): every time you hear John McCain tell a lie write down $10 under the name Charlotte, and every time you hear Barack Obama agree with John McCain write down $10 under the name Cindy. You can also play this if you're broke by writing down 10 hours.

When you're done you can still plan to vote for Obama, with rapture or a clothespin or anything in between. You can still plan to do everything you can to deny Republicans as many seats as possible in both houses of Congress. But you can do something more as well. One thing you can do is send a powerful message to the woman who has managed the war funding, the Wall Street funding, the Bill of Rights shredding, and the elimination of the power of impeachment from our Constitution over the past two years.

CINDY:

I came to know Cindy Sheehan in May 2005, and -- like most people who know her -- I immediately loved her. She is a very friendly and loving person, and you cannot work on a project with her without being

Unofficial referendum in Vicenza, Italy: 95% opposed to new U.S. base

On October 5, 2008, Vicenza overwhelmingly said no to a second U.S. military base. In a referendum that had officially been suspended just four days before it was to take place, 24,094 voters, determined to express themselves, showed up to cast their votes. The referendum asked local residents if they agreed with the City of Vicenza taking up measures to purchase the Dal Molin area, the site of the proposed base, in order to designate its use in the public interest and to protect the environmental integrity of the site. With a resounding no to the new base, 23,050 voters, or 95.66%, voted in favor of the referendum.

The people of this city in northern Italy had been asking to have a say in this issue that has dominated local politics since May of 2006, when news of the proposed base first began to leak out. More than two years later, it had finally been called following a vote by the newly-elected city council this past June. Vicenza´s mayor, Achille Variati, had been elected in a runoff vote in April of this year on a platform that opposed the base and supported a local referendum.

As the date of the referendum neared, a campaign against this expression

Brace yourself

Call it, what, our crapshoot democracy?

The looming election — the process itself, not merely the feints and jabs of the candidates — is actually getting some mainstream media attention, as in, ahem, voting public, excuse me, but maybe you should be aware that irresponsible self-interest has been detected in the vicinity of our polling places and some bad choices have been made lately (electronic voting is unreliable) and, well, how badly did you want your vote counted?

In September, for instance, the Washington Post sounded this subdued, hapless warning: “Faced with a surge in voter registrations leading up to Nov. 4, election officials across the country are bracing for long lines, equipment failures and confusion over polling procedures that could cost thousands the chance to cast a ballot.”

Got that? Election Day could be chaos in many places. Election officials are bracing themselves. Crazy, untested equipment, too darn many new voters. Should the rest of us be bracing ourselves too?

Pages

Subscribe to Freepress.org RSS