Where do you spend most of your time?
Criticizing the president is not a new conception.
That it is in the best interest of the people to support everything the president does is what they would think is best for us, what they think they can make us believe.
But they cannot do this to everyone. As persuasive as television and the media can be in cultivating minds and culture catered from the top of the capitalist system on down, perhaps they don't realize that as long as there is a 'God', there will always be the devil's advocate.
Many have called it the 'dumbing down' of America. There is no question that the majority of citizens think the president is a good person, who does good things for us and for the world and is always looking out for his people. Maybe this is why things like capitalism and fascism in other countries and not the U.S. is taught in schools. In school, I was taught about fascism in countries like Russia, Germany and H.M's Britain. The rhetoric I got from school about the U.S. is that we are 'a country with which freedom rings and opportunity calls from every corner'.
I work in a care facility. One of my coworkers is a man from South Africa. He came to America to find opportunity and work and money to bring his family here. He has a hard time getting the concept of a defunkt government in the most powerful nation in the world around his head, but I try to help him understand. I used to be like him, a sort of lumpen proletariat but that changed after our government sold us out and fear became the new clouds in the sky and not real clouds. We have had many politcal discussions about the validity of this administration and especially about G.W.B. We've had arguments about the 9/11 attack and what it has to do with Iraq (or really what it doesn't). I tell him about PNAC and their neocon agenda for geopolitical advancement in the world. Mostly he sits on the fence and says well, you can't say that they're all bad or that the president doesn't do this for money or for oil. I gave him books by Noam Chomsky to read, which he did read, and even after he still sits on the fence about it because he wants to believe that America is truly a good place that ALSO has a good administration.
Then he watches Farenheit 911 from our generation's greatest liberal soothsayer Michael Moore and it was that film which began to start to change his mind. I don't feel jaded nor resentful that he got it from that film and not from me, but I am glad that he's beginning to get it. I want him to get it. Getting it is like a newfound freedom which at once is arresting with feelings of helplessness yet, it ironically will set you free mentally.
I can remember never really trusting the president. I watched Reagan, Bush and Clinton on television thinking to myself, there is something else going on here that doesn't make sense. My mind would think back to the Kennedy assasination. Why kill a president? Why kill John Lennon for that matter?
The Us Media Is Creating A World Of Make Believe
......... by George Monbiot
On Thursday, the fairy king of fairyland will be re-crowned. He was elected on a platform suspended in mid air by the power of imagination. He is the leader of a band of men who walk through ghostly realms unvisited by reality. And he remains the most powerful person on earth.
How did this happen? How did a fantasy president from a world of make believe come to govern a country whose power was built on hard-headed materialism? To find out, take a look at two squalid little stories which have been concluded over the past ten days.
The first involves the broadcaster CBS. In September, its 60 Minutes programme ran an investigation into how George Bush avoided the Vietnam draft. It produced memos which appeared to show that his squadron commander in the Texas National Guard had been persuaded to "sugarcoat" his service record. The programme's allegations were immediately and convincingly refuted: Republicans were able to point to evidence suggesting the memos had been faked. Last week, following an inquiry into the programme, the producer was sacked, and three CBS executives were forced to resign.
The incident couldn't have been more helpful to Bush. Though there is no question that he managed to avoid serving in Vietnam, the collapse of CBS's story suggested that all the allegations made about his war record were false, and the issue dropped out of the news. CBS was furiously denounced by the rightwing pundits, with the result that between then and the election, hardly any broadcaster dared to criticise George Bush. Mary Mapes, the producer whom CBS fired, was the network's most effective investigative journalist: she was the person who helped bring the Abu Ghraib photos to public attention. If the memos were faked, the forger was either a moron or a very smart operator.
It's true, of course, that CBS should have taken more care. But I think it is safe to assume that if the network had instead broadcast unsustainable allegations about John Kerry, none of its executives would now be looking for work. How many people have lost their jobs, at CBS or anywhere else, for repeating bogus stories released by the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth about Kerry's record in Vietnam? How many were sacked for misreporting the Jessica Lynch affair? Or for claiming that Saddam Hussein had an active nuclear weapons programme in 2003? Or that he was buying uranium from Niger, or using mobile biological weapons labs, or had a hand in 9/11? How many people were sacked, during Clinton's presidency, for broadcasting outright lies about the Whitewater affair? The answer, in all cases, is none.
You can say what you like in the US media, as long as it helps a Republican president. But slip up once while questioning him, and you will be torn to shreds. Even the most grovelling affirmations of loyalty won't help. The presenter of 60 Minutes, Dan Rather, is the man who once told his audience, "George Bush is the President, he makes the decisions and, you know, as just one American, he wants me to line up, just tell me where".(1) CBS is owned by the conglomerate Viacom, whose chairman told reporters "we believe the election of a Republican administration is better for our company."(2) But for Fox News and the shockjocks syndicated by ClearChannel, Rather's faltering attempt at investigative journalism is further evidence of "a liberal media conspiracy".
This is not the first time something like this has happened. In 1998, CNN made a programme which claimed that, during the Vietnam war, US special forces dropped sarin gas on defectors who had fled to Laos.(3) In this case, there was plenty of evidence to support the story. But after four weeks of furious denunciations, the network's owner, Ted Turner, publicly apologised in terms you would expect to hear during a showtrial in North Korea: "I'll take my shirt off and beat myself bloody on the back". CNN had erred, he said, by broadcasting the allegations when "we didn't have evidence beyond a reasonable doubt."(4) As the website wsws.org has pointed out, it's hard to think of a single investigative story - Watergate, the My Lai massacre, Britain's arms to Iraq scandal - which could have been proved at the time by journalists "beyond a reasonable doubt".(5) But Turner did what was demanded of him, with the result that, in media fairyland, the atrocity is now deemed not to have happened.
The other squalid little story broke three days before the CBS people were sacked. A US newspaper discovered that Armstrong Williams, a television presenter who (among other jobs) had a weekly slot on a syndicated TV show called America's Black Forum, had secretly signed a $240,000 contract with the US Department of Education.(6) The contract required him "to regularly comment" on George Bush's education bill "during the course of his broadcasts" and to ensure that "Secretary Paige [the Education Secretary] and other department officials shall have the option of appearing from time to time as studio guests".(7)
It's hard to see why the administration bothered to pay him. Williams has described as his "mentors" Lee Atwater - the man who, under Reagan's presidency, brought a new viciousness to Republican campaigning - and the segregationist senator Strom Thurmond.(8) His broadcasting career has been dedicated to promoting extreme Republican causes and attacking civil rights campaigns.
What makes this story interesting is that the show he worked on was founded, in 1977, by the radical black activists Glen Ford and Peter Gamble, to "allow Black reporters to hold politicians and activists of all persuasions accountable to Black people".(9) They sold their shares in 1980, and the programme was later bought by the Uniworld Group. With Williams's help, the new owners have reversed its politics, and turned it into a recruitment vehicle for the Republican party. Williams appears to have been taking money for doing what he was doing anyway.
These stories, in other words, are illustrations of the ways in which the US media is disciplined by corporate America. In the first case the other corporate broadcasters joined forces to punish a dissenter in their ranks. In the second case a corporation captured what was once a dissenting programme and turned it into another means of engineering conformity.
The role of the media corporations in the United States is similar to that of repressive state regimes elsewhere: they decide what the public will and won't be allowed to hear, and either punish or recruit the social deviants who insist on telling a different story. The journalists they employ do what almost all journalists working under repressive regimes do: they internalise the demands of the censor, and understand, before anyone has told them, what is permissible and what is not.
So, when they are faced with a choice between a fable which helps the Republicans, and a reality which hurts them, they choose the fable. As their fantasies accumulate, the story they tell about the world veers further and further from reality. Anyone who tries to bring the people back down to earth is denounced as a traitor and a fantasist. And anyone who seeks to become president must first learn to live in fairyland.
www.monbiot.com
References:
1. Quoted by Michael Massing, 27th September 2001. Press Watch. The Nation.
2. No author, 24th September 2004. Guess Who's a GOP Booster? The Asian Wall Street Journal.
3. CNN, 7th June 1998. The name of the programme was "Valley of Death".
4. Barry Grey, 16th July 1998. Why did CNN retract its nerve gas report? http://www.wsws.org/news/1998/july1998/cnn-j16.shtml
5. ibid.
6. Greg Toppo, 7th January 2005. White House Paid Commentator to Promote Law. USA Today.
7. David D. Kirkpatrick, 8th January 2005. TV Host Says U.S. Paid Him To Back Policy. The New York Times.
8. George E. Curry, 17th January 2005. Armstrong Williams: No Money Left Behind. New Pittsburgh Courier.
9. Glen Ford and Peter Gamble, 12th December 2002. America's Black Rightwing Forum. The Black Commentator, Issue 20.
The Burnside Bridgehead Redevelopment
The Portland Development Commission (PDC) is reviewing proposals from developers for a significant mixed-use "gateway" project at the East end of the Burnside Bridge. A redevelopment of this size is rare in the central city and offers an opportunity for a creative project that combines retail, commercial, housing and office space.
Unfortunately, two of the three proposals center on a big-box store (Home-Depot or Lowe's). Luckily there's a third, more creative proposal that we can support.
Click this link to send a message now >> (http://onwardoregon.org/burnside)
Why not a Home Depot?
1. This neighborhood can be an "affordable Pearl District." An urban mix of smaller-scale commercial, retail, office, and residential could thrive here, making it an exciting place to live and work. This development should "fire people's imaginations" and make them think, "Hey, wouldn't it be cool to live here?"
2. Walking/biking distance to downtown and inner SE jobs means that this should be sidewalk-friendly with lots of foot traffic. Big-box home improvement stores are nearly 100% automobile-centered. Who walks to Home Depot during lunch for a 2 by 4? You always drive there.
3. Multiple big-box home improvement resources are available within 15 minute drive (Mall 205 Home Depot, Fred Meyer Home Improvement Center at NE 67th and Glisan, etc.)
4. Locally owned businesses recycle more money locally. Big box stores create fewer jobs per square foot than other businesses. [See the Andersonville study at (http://www.civiceconomics.com/Andersonville/)].
Tell the PDC that you don't want a big-box store at the burnside bridge.
TAKE ACTION: Click this link to send a message now >> (http://onwardoregon.org/burnside)
Click this link to take action now!!
Portland Books to Prisoners is a 100% not-for-profit effort to correspond with inmates of the prison industrial complex and to send inmates reading materials free of cost. You can now donate online to this project!
We mostly carry books and texts by people of color and feminist revolutionaries, fiction-writers, and historians, but we also carry more traditional materials such as dictionaries and books on getting your GED, self-help, health, art, trade-fiction, and anarchist/marxist/leftist theory. Our short-term goals are to encourage literacy, to make prison-life more endurable, and to support prisoner interests as much to our abilities. It is also a space where individuals can come to educate themselves and discuss with others about the prison industrial complex and prison-life. It hasn't been our place to necessarily "radicalize" prisoners, but instead to use our resources/privileges as the un-incarcerated to pass along materials on requested-subjects. Books to Prisoners finds it necessary to fight the prison industrial complex, and is one effort within the larger prison-abolition movement.
Portland Books to Prisoners is located at 60 NE Sacramento St. (use the side entrance). Our worknights are 5-8pm every Monday and Wednesday. We could always use help and everyone is welcome! Even to just come read about the PIC. We can be reached at pdxbookstoprisoners@riseup.net (sorry no phone number yet). Donations are always appreciated: books (radical, feminist, people of color-centric, and dictionaries especially), stamps, packaging tape, wrapping materials (brown paper bags work!), and worthwhile magazines.
What is the prison industrial complex? "Over 1.8 million people are currently behind bars in the United States. This represents the highest per capita incarceration rate in the history of the world. In 1995 alone, 150 new U.S. prisons were built and filled." The prison industrial complex is a term used to define the interconnections between private business interests and government interests who use incarceration as a solution to social, political, and economic problems. It operates by convincing people public safety and security mean incarceration (and also through extreme police violence, media-induced fears about "random violence," and the displacement and colonization of people of color in this country). For example, according to the prison industrial complex, it is more publicly "safe" and "secure" to cage people than to invest in adequate housing and healthcare for everyone.
Private corporations such as Smith Barney, American Express, General Electric, the Correctional Corporation of America own prisons (and subsequently owns its prisoners) which provide extremely cheap, non-unionizing, non-striking laborers for Chevron data entry, TWA phone reservations, and lingerie-making for Victoria's Secret (for example) The cheaper the labor, the larger the profit. The PIC creates an economic incentive to build prisons and criminalize and incarcerate people.
Women of color and poor women represent the fastest growing prison population. Since 1980, the number of women in prison has risen by 400%-- 80% of whom report to have had incomes of less than $2000 a year, 92% of whom report to have had incomes less than $10,000 a year, 64% of whom are women of color.
The PIC is another instance of the institutionalized assault against people who don't have male privileges by a male-dominated economic and governmental system(s). 32% of women prisoners are convicted for killing their husbands, ex-husband, or boyfriend and serve twice as long sentences than men who kill their wives, ex-wives, or girlfriends.
1/3rd of women in the US report to have been physically or sexually assaulted by men. 92% of domestic violence are crimes committed by men against women. All of these statistics must be put into the contexts of the different experiences of women and everyone who doesn't experience male privileges within the US. For instance, transgendered folks often face the inability of being hired due to their gender, especially those of color. This leads many people to homelessness and/or to do streetwork which are both criminalized and bring upon police violence (and violence from individuals) and often times imprisonment. Instead of dealing with US's long history of and current use of the system of gender, institutional sexism and assault against all those who do not have male-privilege, or do not fit into the constructed gender binary of male and female, the PIC's answer is to incarcerate more and more trans people and women.
Instead of dealing with US's history of and current use of institutional racism and colonization of people of color, our entirely white-dominated economic and governmental system(s) chooses to criminalize people of color from the day they are born. While many prison activists point to the fact that violence occurs in less than 14% of all reported crime and that injury occurs in less than 3%, we must push further than that. We must understand that if our economic system chooses to exploit and to disallow access to it for people of color and the poor than continued violence, frustration, and disenfranchisement by many people can be considered understandable, if not justified.
While many prison activists point to the fact that the PIC is a racist institution just by looking at the statistics (while 1.6% of people in Oregon are African American, 10.24% of prisoners in Oregon are African American), we must go further. The PIC is a part of the colonization process of people of color in the US. For instance, the PIC works hand in hand with the processes of gentrification and policing. When wealthier, whiter people and their unaffordable new businesses feel welcome to move in, so do the police to protect them. Gentrification displaces residents by taking their neighborhoods and space and turning it into a white-centric space using the threat of the police and imprisonment against people of color. This is colonization in our neighborhoods and on our block. When people yell "bring the war home," they should be talking about actively fighting the process of colonization in our neighborhoods. One way to do this is to fight to abolish the prison industrial complex. What is Abolition? "Taking an abolitionist approach means radically shifting the way we think about providing for ourselves and living with each other. It means imagining social environments that provide all of us with basic necessities: a safe place to live, enough food, access to medical care for minds and bodies, access to information and the tools with which to understand and use that information, the resources to participate in whatever kind of economy we have, a means of expressing opinions/interests/concerns, and living free of bodily, psychological and emotional harm (both from individuals and from the state)."
"In order to figure out why people get locked up and under what circumstances, we need to look at what are sometimes called 'root causes'. This strategy requires looking at the competing priorities of the systems in which we live and understanding why they work well for some and horribly for others. The systems of race, class, gender, and sexuality, for instance, are commonly understood as privileging some people's needs and ideals over others. By exploring why and how those systems work for some and not for others, we can begin to develop a better understanding of how to include concrete steps in our work that deal with the negative effects of these systems on the people who are most often put in cages."
In short, abolition means changing and challenging how we relate to one another, and the concepts of public safety and security. For the anarchist/anti-authoritarian revolutionary movement to actively advocate abolition, we must listen to and take action based on the desires of those most effected by the prison industrial complex.
Prison-abolition is not single-issue; to fight for a life where human beings provide security for one another and without fear of imprisonment is to fundamentally advocate revolution. Taking actions and starting projects based on the desires of those most negatively effected by capitalism and other systems of domination must be at the forefront of all our political action if we mean to aid struggle instead of being in the way.
There are currently 12 prisons in Oregon with 4 more planned by 2008.
___________________________________________________________
Weekly events
Portland Books To Prisoners is an all-volunteer project dedicated to assisting in the education and literacy of people who are incarcerated. We are one of over a dozen not-for-profit groups around the country focused on this form of prisoner support. We receive and respond to all letters from people in prison by sending books in the subject areas requested. All books that we mail are donated. All funding for packaging materials and postage come from donations and fundraisers.
We feel that the prison industrial complex is a flawed system, which needs to be changed. One thing we can do to remediate its negative effects is to reach out in a human way to people being held prisoner in this system by providing resources they can use to educate themselves.
Mailing nights are 5-8 pm Monday and Wednesday nights. Work at these mostly consists of responding to request letters from prisoners by putting together packages. The workspace is at 60 N. Sacramento St; the entrance is on the right side of the house. It is located between MLK & Williams, one block south of Russell (near bus lines #6, #4, #33, or #40).
If folks want to get involved, but can't make mailing nights, there are lots of things that need to be done, such as taking packages to the post office, picking up books from drop boxes, organizing fundraisers, doing outreach work, etc. Whatever you can do is much appreciated!
If you want to donate books or bucks or stamps but can't make the mailing nights, there are drop boxes now at 6 locations:
* * Back to Back Cafe at 616 E. Burnside.
* * Laughing Horse at SE 37th & Division
* * In Other Words Bookstore at SE Hawthorne & 37th
* * Vinnie's Pizza N. Killingsworth btwn Haight & Vancouver
* * Rocco's Pizza SW 10th & Oak
* * Food for Thought Cafe @ PSU (basement of Smith)
* *soon there will again be a box at Reflections Mirror Image Bookstore, which is reopening sometime in November, 2004, at the corner of Haight St. and N. Killingsworth, (1 block west of Vancouver)
Our most common requests are for dictionaries and thesauruses, as prisoners work to educate themselves. We are primarily looking for donations of books with educational content; including history, black studies, indigenous studies, latina/o studies, women's studies, feminism, queer studies, foreign language learning, materials in Spanish and radical fiction. We do not want old textbooks, cookbooks, or old computer books. We also always need: packaging supplies, office supplies like tape and sharpies, zines, postage stamps, $, and BENEFIT SHOWS!! Copies of literature & flyers for mailing and tabling & flyering for events is always needed.
If you are interested in corresponding with socially conscious people in prison, (being someone's penpal) please contact Break The Chains - Prisoner Correspondence Project, by email at breakthechains02@yahoo.com or by snail mail at: POB 12122 Eugene, OR 97440 USA.
Portland Books To Prisoners
PO Box 11222
Portland, OR 97211
pdxbookstoprisoners@riseup.net
Inauguration Day, Silent Protest
Since our religious leaders will not speak out against the war in Iraq,
since our political leaders don’t have the moral courage to oppose it,
Inauguration Day, Thursday, January 20th, 2005 is “Not One Damn Dime Day” in
America.
On “Not One Damn Dime Day,” those who oppose what is happening in our name
in Iraq can speak up with a 24-hour national boycott of all forms of consumer spending.
During “Not One Damn Dime Day” please don’t spend money. Not one damn dime for gasoline. Not one damn dime for necessities or for impulse purchases.
Not one damn dime for anything for 24 hours.
On “Not One Damn Dime Day,” please boycott Walmart, KMart and Target. Please don’t go to the mall or the local convenience store. Please don’t buy any
fast food (or any groceries at all for that matter). For 24 hours, please do
what you can to shut the retail economy down. The object is simple. Remind
the people in power that the war in Iraq is immoral and illegal; that they
are responsible for starting it and that it is their responsibility to stop it.
“Not One Damn Dime Day” is to remind them, too, that they work for the
people of the United States of America, not for the international corporations and K Street lobbyists who represent the corporations and funnel cash into American politics.
“Not One Damn Dime Day” is about supporting the troops. The politicians put
the troops in harm’s way. Now 1,200 brave young Americans and (some
estimate) 100,000 Iraqis have died. The politicians owe our troops a plan—a way to come home.
There’s no rally to attend. No marching to do. No left or right wing agenda
to rant about. On “Not One Damn Dime Day” you take action by doing nothing.
You open your mouth by keeping your wallet closed. For 24 hours, nothing
gets spent, not one damn dime, to remind our religious leaders and our
politicians of their moral responsibility to end the war in Iraq and give
America back to the people.
*************
comment:
Take a fucking lesson ----
You know. We try all these ploys to motivate our government to hear us. Buy nothing day. Not One Damn Dime Day. We protest for a day (or two). We organize behind closed doors. We talk all this bullshit about what we hate, what needs to change - but no one has a fucking solution.
Take a fucking lesson folks. The reality is - we are all caught up in the throngs of apathy. You don't want to lose your job - the money that feeds gasoline to your car that gets you there. You don't want to loose your clothes that keep you looking good for your job - for your friends. You want that heat in your house - the lights on - the water - you have to work. Maybe we should take a lesson from the people of the Ukraine - who sat their asses out in the streets for weeks until the government recognized they weren't going to leave until something was done.
But you won't do it. You keep whining your cry-asses around about how fucked up this country is - and you won't take the necessary steps. No. The little stuff isn't enough. No matter how much you organize - no matter how big your posse is - no matter how big your arsenal - no matter what day you decide you are not going to purchase things - your minor contribution will not hault the power of this financial monster.
I say - just let this whole fucking system fall apart. People will die. People will starve to death - freeze to death - your money will mean nothing. Thats the only thing that can solve this fucking ugly mess we call a democracy.
Give me a fucking break. It never existed and never will.
18 Amazing Facts About Voting in the USA
Did you know....?
1. 80% of all votes in America are counted by only two companies: Diebold and ES&S.
http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/042804Landes/042804landes.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diebold
http://www.essvote.com/HTML/about/about.html
2. There is no federal agency with regulatory authority or oversight of the U.S. voting machine industry.
http://www.commondreams.org/views02/0916-04.htm
http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/042804Landes/042804landes.html
3. The vice-president of Diebold and the president of ES&S are brothers.
http://www.americanfreepress.net/html/private_company.html
http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/042804Landes/042804landes.html
4. The chairman and CEO of Diebold is a major Bush campaign organizer and donor who wrote in 2003 that he was "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year."
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/07/28/sunday/main632436.shtml
http://www.wishtv.com/Global/story.asp?S=1647886
5. Republican Senator Chuck Hagel used to be chairman of ES&S. He became Senator in a surprise upset, with votes counted by ES&S machines.
http://www.motherjones.com/commentary/columns/2004/03/03_200.html
http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/031004Fitrakis/031004fitrakis.html
6. Republican Senator Chuck Hagel, long-connected with the Bush family, was recently caught lying about his ownership of ES&S by the Senate Ethics Committee.
http://www.blackboxvoting.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=26
http://www.hillnews.com/news/012903/hagel.aspx
http://www.onlisareinsradar.com/archives/000896.php
7. Senator Chuck Hagel was on a short list of George W. Bush's vice-presidential candidates.
http://www.businessweek.com/2000/00_28/b3689130.htm
http://theindependent.com/stories/052700/new_hagel27.html
8. Kenneth Blackwell co-chaired George Bush's Ohio election campaign. As Ohio secretary of state, he left no stone unturned to surpress the democratic vote.
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/113004Y.shtml#1
http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/19/2004/894
http://67.15.90.110/article.pl?sid=04/10/29/1414219
9. Diebold's new touch screen voting machines have no paper trail of any votes. In other words, there is no way to verify that the data coming out of the machine is the same as what was legitimately put in by voters.
http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0225-05.htm
http://www.itworld.com/Tech/2987/041020evotestates/pfindex.html
10. Diebold also makes ATMs, checkout scanners, and ticket machines, all of which log each transaction and can generate a paper trail.
http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0225-05.htm
http://www.diebold.com/solutions/default.htm
11. Exit polls are usually excellent predictors of election results. Reputable analyses could not find an explanation of the discrepancy between exit polls and results of the 2004 presidential election.
http://ucdata.berkeley.edu/
http://www.buzzflash.com/alerts/04/11/Unexplained_exit_poll_discrep_v00l.pdf
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/23/international/europe/23ukraine.html?ex=1102245800&ei=1&en=3a3c24b7e64fe49
12. A Diebold subsidiary employed 5 convicted felons as senior managers and developers. These people helped write the central compiler computer code that counted 50% of the votes in 30 states.
http://www.wired.com/news/evote/0,2645,61640,00.html
http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2004/10/301469.shtml
13. Jeff Dean, senior programmer on Diebold's central compiler code, was convicted of 23 counts of felony theft in the first degree.
http://www.chuckherrin.com/HackthevoteFAQ.htm#how
http://www.blackboxvoting.org/bbv_chapter-8.pdf
14. Jeff Dean was served jail time for planting back doors in his client's accounting software and using a "high degree of sophistication" to evade detection over a period of 2 years.
http://www.chuckherrin.com/HackthevoteFAQ.htm#how
http://www.blackboxvoting.org/bbv_chapter-8.pdf
15. None of the international election observers were allowed in the polls in Ohio.
http://www.globalexchange.org/update/press/2638.html
http://www.enquirer.com/editions/2004/10/26/loc_elexoh.html
16. California banned the use of Diebold machines because the security was so bad. Despite Diebold's claims that the audit logs could not be hacked, a chimpanzee was able to do it! (See the movie here with the chimp http://blackboxvoting.org/baxter/baxterVPR.mov)
http://wired.com/news/evote/0,2645,63298,00.html
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4874190
17. All -- not some -- but all the voting machine errors detected and reported in Florida went in favor of Bush or Republican candidates.
http://www.wired.com/news/evote/0,2645,65757,00.html
http://www.yuricareport.com/ElectionAftermath04/ThreeResearchStudiesBushIsOut.htm
http://www.rise4news.net/extravotes.html
http://www.ilcaonline.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=950
http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0411/S00227.htm
18. Serious voting anomalies in Florida -- again always favoring Bush -- have been mathematically demonstrated and experts are recommending further investigation.
http://www.yuricareport.com/ElectionAftermath04/ThreeResearchStudiesBushIsOut.htm
http://www.computerworld.com/governmenttopics/government/policy/story/0,10801,97614,00.html
http://www.americanfreepress.net/html/tens_of_thousands.html
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/1106-30.htm
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2004/110904.html
http://uscountvotes.org/
THE BIG EMPTY
BY NORMAN MAILER
Corporations are stifling our lives. Not only economically, where they can claim, arguably, that they bring prosperity (and, frankly, I’m certainly not schooled enough in economics to argue that point pro or con), but aesthetically speaking, culturally speaking, spiritually speaking. They flatten everything. They are the Big Empty. One of the virtues of Fahrenheit 9/11 is that you could see all the faces of the Bush administration, those empty faces, those handmaidens and bodyguards of the Big Empty. And then Moore contrasted them to all the faces of American soldiers over there: innocent, strong, idealistic or ugly, but real faces, real people. Plus all those suffering Iraqis. Obviously, people in such torment are always dramatic and eloquent on film. Still, most of those Iraqis had different kinds of faces. That shade of alienation from natural existence had not yet gotten into their skin. They might be hard to live with but they were alive.
The war against the corporations is profound. They are deadening human existence. That, I think, is the buried core of the outrage people feel most generally. There is, after all, a profound difference between corporations and capitalism itself, at least so long as capitalism remains small business. The small businessman is always taking his chances. He leads an existential life. He’s gambling that his wit, his energy, and his ideas of what will work in the marketplace will be successful. He can be a sonofabitch, but at least he’s out there in the middle of life. He could be creating something that’s awful, but at least, he’s taking chances.
The corporation is the reverse, and turns capitalism inside out. The majority no longer give their first concern to the quality of their product. Since they have the funds to advertise on a large scale, it diminishes their need for a good product. Marketing can take over by way of language and image. Over the years this has produced a general deterioration of the real value of products for the same real money.
To win this war will take, at least, 50 years and a profound revolution in America. We’ll have to get away from manipulation. What we’ve got now is a species of economic, political, and spiritual brainwashing, vastly superior to the old Soviets, who were endlessly crude in their attempts. Our governmental and corporate leaders are much more subtle. I remember years ago when my son was around 15, he wore a shirt that said Stussy on it. And I said, “Not only do you spend money to buy the shirt, but you also advertise the company that sold it to you.” And he said, “Dad, you just don’t get it.” All right, he was right, I didn’t get it.
What we do have is the confidence that we breathe a cleaner spiritual air than the greedbags who run our country and so it is not impossible that, over decades to come, much that we believe in will yet come to be. But I do not wish to end on so sweet and positive a note. It is better to remind ourselves that wisdom is ready to reach us from the most unexpected quarters. Here, I quote from a man who became wise a little too late in life:
“Naturally, the common people don’t want war, but after all, it is the leaders of a country who determine the policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag people along whether it is a democracy, or a fascist government, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. This is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in every country.”
That was Hermann Goering speaking at the Nuremberg trials after World War II. It is one thing to be forewarned. Will we ever be forearmed?
Norman Mailer has, amongst other things, written 39 books, plays, poems, essays and movies, and co-founded The Village Voice. This essay is adapted from the transcript of an interview he gave New York magazine.
all work created by corrinne theodoru
all work created by corrinne theodoru
Bush - Fraternity President and Beyond
author: Messenger
*i got this from portland indymedia, i thought it was interesting maybe you will too.*
President Bush was a Fraternity President......do you know what that means?
I joined a fraternity in my first year of college, and it was
one heck of a lot of fun, week after week......keg parties....
purple passion parties.....TGIFs.....and much more. Another
rather remarkable thing about frat life was a file cabinet
they each had which contained the mid-term and final exams
for almost every course in the schools curriculum. I used the
stolen exams once and received an A+, but it didn't feel right
and I never used them again. (By the way, other notable
fraternity presidents who graduated at the top of their classes are
Kenneth Lay and Andrew Fastow.)
Our fraternity President (along with all the other fraternity Presidents)
made a run for election to the Student Body President, and we
frat brothers had specific, tried and true strategies to "sway" the
campus election. We had tricks to stuff the ballot boxes and it was
all great fun - and a needed diversion from drinking all that beer. But
quite frankly, it was nothing like the dirty tricks that have been exposed
in our past two National Elections.
These frat boys are a lot of fun, but not actually the noblest, most
moral or ethical citizens we have in our society. In fact, I would
have to say that it's incredibly appalling that this type of "frat
brother ethos" has forced upon the American people this Bush
Administration.
When news reports started appearing in 2000 of the voter fraud
that took place in Florida, I knew immediately where it came from-
his brother Jeb being the Florida Governor and Katherine Harris
being the Co-Chair of the Republican Party in Florida. You need
to realize, though, that in 2000 they had no idea that it would
come down to one state. When all the cameras and reporters
turned towards Florida, these "fraternity-like" voter fraud pranks
began emerging. It was so obvious to me that I sort of laughed it
off at the time. But these people in Florida were expecting to
get away with it unnoticed. Their pants were pulled down in 2000,
but remarkably, that hasn't stopped them - indeed the fraud has
escalated in 2004 since there was nothing done about 2000.
In 2000, Harris took 57,700 democrats off the voting rolls (and
by the way, those people were not allowed to vote in
2004 either). In Ohio, Kenneth Blackwell (Republican Chairman
of Ohio) almost tripled that number - 155,000 Ohioans had to
vote provisional ballots for a host of conjured up reasons.... plus
there looks to be massive irregularities in the electronic voting
systems.....and they had to wait in line in the rain sometimes six
hours or more.
The American people grumbled a bit in 2000, then sat back and
waited patiently for the 2004 election to vote this Administration
out of office, who seem to work on the theory that "Hey, Clinton
lied to the people....and a grand jury....and you let him get away
with it! Well, darlin, we'll show you some lyin....Texas style".
It is for the American people to decide whether they will allow a
severely adolescent phenomenon like "fraternity brotherhood" to
illegally place a President of the United States into office for a
second time, one who has taken this great nation to a status it has
never been before.
One can't help but wonder if the Supreme Court Judges have a
different opinion now of who they should have chosen in 2000.
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I must submit this anonymously because the ritual of the fraternity
into active membership was basically KKK style intimidation to
keep our mouths shut.
