VelvetRevolution.us is a new coalition/movement in America dedicated to coordinating the activities of scores of grassroots and progressive organizations under one umbrella to effect change on a national level. We will be powerful because we will lead millions of citizens, without fear, to save and protect our beloved democracy.

VelvetRevolution (VR) will be a social and political movement that is not afraid to inform the citizenry, and act against power grabs, media bias, fraud, disenfranchisement and injustice. We will be able to act on a dime and be prepared beforehand for predictable outcomes of those in power. All those who are founding members of VR have been involved in the post-election fight for electoral fairness. Two of VRs’s first calls to action will be electoral reform and a divestiture campaign against the four major vote machine companies which we will give 20 days to meet our demands or we will unleash the power of the economy on them through the sustained action of millions of citizens. Companies that do not support democracy do not deserve to stay in business in America.

Hundreds of people gathered in Columbus Ohio’s Short North Arts District on December 4, to protest Ohio’s passage of State Issue One, the so-called “Marriage Amendment.”

The march, which coincided with the area’s monthly “Gallery Hop,” was sponsored by the Human Rights Campaign in conjunction with Ohioans for Growth and Equality.

Participants gathered in the parking lot of the Donato’s Pizzeria at 970 N. High Street, who provided free pizza. Those who had registered online beforehand were provided with bright yellow sweatshirts emblazoned with “Ohio – The Heart of Discrimination” and “Issue One is Not Justice For All.”

As participants checked in, they were divided into groups and assigned one of three start-up locations nearby in which to form lines. The young and the old, mothers with children, people in groups and alone – all turned out to show their support.

The latest polls show that most Americans are critical of the war in Iraq. But the option of swiftly withdrawing all U.S. troops from that country gets little media attention.

So far this year, many news outlets have lapsed into conjecture on what George W. Bush has in mind for the Iraq war. At the end of a recent lengthy editorial, the New York Times noted that “there’s speculation about whether President Bush intends to use the arrival of a new elected government [in Baghdad] as an occasion to declare victory and begin pulling out American troops.”

Right now, that kind of speculation amounts to a smokescreen for a war-crazed administration. Its evident intention is for large numbers of U.S. troops to stay in Iraq for a long time.

Predictably, as Seymour Hersh reports in the Jan. 24 edition of the New Yorker, “Bush’s re-election is regarded within the administration as evidence of America’s support for his decision to go to war. It has reaffirmed the position of the neoconservatives in the Pentagon’s civilian leadership who advocated the invasion.” According to one of

If you live outside the DC metropolitan area, you likely heard little about a man who parked his van in front of the White House this past Tuesday, threatening to blow it up if his political demands were not met.

There was never any need to worry. The FBI quickly assured the media, and therefore the public, that this is not an act of terrorism. After all, how could it be? The man in the van was white.

But wait. White males can be terrorists, too. Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols became terrorists when they blew up a moving van full of explosives outside a federal building.

Perhaps there were other criteria that led the FBI to quickly discount a man parking his van claiming to be full of explosives outside the White House and threatening to blow it up if his demands were not met as not an act of terrorism. Reviewing what the government considers terrorism should bring some light on this subject.

Over 1500 men, all Muslim, were rounded up after 9/11 under the guise of fighting terrorism - making all 1500 suspected terrorists. How many were charged or convicted? None.