Imagine being on the brink of adolescence in the year 2000, - only minimally aware of the world around you, and really not into the foibles of politics or politicians. Life was what it was, and you took it pretty much for granted. In fact, for you and other young teens in 2000; things seemed pretty good and getting better, because you were growing up in the richest and most powerful nation in the whole damn world.

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The United States has been in a prolonged Constitutional crisis since the Supreme Court showed it had been corrupted by partisan politics when the Bush vs. Gore ruling was issued in December, 2000. The Bush Administration began by Republican politicians thumbing their noses at the rule of law. The past seven years have been an unending assault on Constitutional government, American political traditions and personal freedom.

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Converging U.S. – Iran interests in Iraq are creating a common ground for an “Iranian option” for President George W. Bush that could be developed into an historical foreign policy breakthrough of the kind he has been yearning for in the Arab – Israeli conflict or India; however several factors are ruling out this window of opportunity, including his militarization of the U.S. foreign policy, obsession with the “regime changes” overseas, his insistence on exploiting to the maximum his country’s emergence as the only world power in the aftermath of the collapse of the former Soviet Union (USSR), an Iranian independent regional agenda that so far cold not be reconciled with his own, and a detrimental Arab feeling of insecurity of such a potentiality.

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The gingham dog and the calico cat

Side by side on the table sat;

'Twas half-past twelve, and (what do you think!)

Nor one nor t'other had slept a wink!

The old Dutch clock and the Chinese plate

Appeared to know as sure as fate

There was going to be a terrible spat.

(I wasn't there; I simply state

What was told to me by the Chinese plate!)

Eugene Field, Yale Book of American Verse

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Fatah leaders have been trading accusations over responsibilities for the group’s mid-June defeat in Gaza at the hands of the Hamas resistance movement.

Earlier this week, a committee appointed by Fatah’s PA leader Mahmoud Abbas to investigate Hamas’s takeover in Gaza issued a report indicting dozens of Fatah officers from the various Palestinian security agencies.

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There are arguments from both sides of the oil issue: either we are quickly running out of oil or we have adequate oil to meet our requirements for generations. Both sides offer evidence, witnesses, experts and documentation to validate their assertions. Some peak-oil projects, funded by oil companies, are highly suspect.

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[East Jerusalem, Occupied Territory, 27 July 2007] On the last day of my fifth trip to Israel Palestine, a religious Jew and former Infantry Lieutenant in the Israeli Defense Force/IDF who served six years in the occupied territories of Bethlehem, Hebron, Ramallah, Jenin and the Gaza Strip addressed over forty youth and a few committed middle aged and elderly supporters attending Sabeel's http://www.sabeel.org 2nd International Conference: 40 Years in the Wilderness…40 Years of Occupation…

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The inexorable reality is that any community that does not process feelings and build trust by doing so...is NOT, I repeat, NOT sustainable.

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For many years, American society has lived under a state of siege. We have constantly been bombarded, every minute of every day, with psychological conditioning that is meant to lead us into a state of hopelessness. We are addicted to the source of this Pavlovian conditioning - television. This medium serves as an extension of the government propaganda apparatus, pumping-up the fear and anxiety levels, until the people become numb, convinced that we are helpless in a roiling sea of great dangers. We are literally being scared to death, so that we will give-up, roll over, and play dead. They want our surrender to be assured before they take the final steps to murder our democratic-Republic.

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[Tel Aviv, Israel , July 28, 2007 ] I left the American Colony Hotel in East Jerusalem: Occupied Territory at 8 AM and arrived at Ben Gurion Airport fifty minutes later.

I only hire Palestinian drivers whenever I travel in Israel Palestine, and for the first time in all my five journeys, my Palestinian driver did not have to leave his car and go into the interrogation building.

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[Occupied West Bank, July 27, 2007] On Wednesday July 25th, the most numinous encounters occurred, because of being in the right place at the right time...

After Palestinian American Professor and justice and peace activist, Mazin Qumsiyeh spoke in Beit Sahour-a suburb of Bethlehem-at Sabeel's http://www.sabeel.org 2nd International Conference: 40 Years in the Wilderness…40 Years of Occupation…I was led to my following interviews.

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photo art

Strange how something happens and you're unaware that it "registers" with you. Later, perhaps, something will trigger that buried memory and things begin to fall into place.

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When we read articles like the one that informs us that the Iraqi oil workers have a union with 26,000 members you have to wonder what the reality of the situation was in Iraq during the time when Saddam Hussein was its President.

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What goes around comes around. I remember when The New York Times was struggling to suppress the monumental embarrassment of the Downing Street Memo, released by The Sunday Times in the UK on May 1, 2005. I’ll never forget that date because I supplied it to none other than Dr. Daniel Ellsberg on the occasion of his presentation detailing the Cheney-Bush administration’s lies that got US into Iraq. He paralleled those lies to the Gulf of Tonkin lies uttered by President Lyndon Johnson leading to the unnecessary deaths of 58,000 of our military in Vietnam. I called the date out to him from my seat in the third row left as he fumbled for it while delivering his presentation in an auditorium at William Patterson University in Wayne, NJ back in December 2005.

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The Hamas government crackdown on Mohamed Dahlan's corrupt security forces and affiliated gangs in the Gaza Strip in June appears to mark a turning point in the Bush administration's foreign policy regarding Palestine and Israel. The supposed shift, however, is nothing but a continuation of Washington's efforts to stifle Palestinian democracy, to widen the chasm separating Hamas and Fatah, and to ensure the success of the Israeli project, which is focussed on colonising and annexing what remains of Palestinian land.

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The presidential pardon of Scooter Libby, in the tradition of executive mercy for the privileged class , elicited outrage from liberal sectors of the ruling party. Calls for the impeachment of Bush, Cheney, Mrs. Bush, their dogs, and several members of the Bush family, have grown in vehemence as the president’s lame duck term nears its end. His reign of terror may soon be turned over to those critical of his more blatant expression of America’s role as self chosen ruler of the world. The opposition, while still desperately in need of a spinal transplant , has become slightly bolder as polls - and term limits - reveal that the president has become much weaker.

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Anyone who has traveled through Ben Gurion airport in Israel knows that it is a unique experience. For most Israeli Jews, the experience is comforting, a quick and accommodating entry into a nation created and developed for the Jewish people. For Palestinian-Americans and many activists working in occupied Palestine it is quite a different experience. Most of these travelers are held for hours and questioned repeatedly; some of who are stripped naked and in some cases (especially in the last two years) denied entry.

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Not to worry, this is not about truth seekers or conspiracy theories. It’s not about the long list of anomalies and discrepancies in the official story of 9/11. It’s not even about the undeniable fact that the events of 9/11 gave George Bush and his handlers the keys to the neocon kingdom of empire. It really is not.

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An invasion of Iran is imminent, because that is the only solution the Bush gang and the corporate mafia it serves can conjure to rally the American people behind their quest for global dominance. The Democratic Party is one with the Republicans in the mission to subjugate Tehran. Although the Iraq war failed to establish a New American Century, the century ain't over, and the imperial ambition remains. Barack Obama stands in the wings with a proposal to add 100,000 new troops to the military - reinforcements for a depleted and overspent machine that has been ground to a halt by Iraqi nationalists. When the ruling class demands unity of the people, they call for war....

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A few days ago, one of my closest friends hit me with a heavily loaded question.

“Are you a Communist?” she queried.

To which I replied:

I do not belong nor militate in any formal communist party in the U.S. Nor do I belong to any other political entity or party. Furthermore, I do not subscribe to a specific doctrine, ideology, or dogma. My allegiance is to my core principles and values, which are premised on honesty, justice, humanity, responsibility, critical thinking, open-mindedness, egalitarianism, compassion, a belief in a Higher Power of my understanding, and many of the teachings of Christ.

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From CounterPunch

Media Silence About the Carnage in Iraq.

A state-of-the-art research study published in October 12, 2006 issue of The Lancet (the most prestigious British medical journal) concluded that--as of a year ago--600,000 Iraqis had died violently due to the war in Iraq. That is, the Iraqi death rate for the first 39 months of the war was just about 15,000 per month.

That wasn't the worst of it, because the death rate was increasing precipitously, and during the first half of 2006 the monthly rate was approximately 30,000 per month, a rate that no doubt has increased further during the ferocious fighting associated with the current American surge.

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Photo: Palestinian Pundit

From Al-Ahram Weekly

As the war of words between Hamas and Fatah continues, Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas seems determined to organise presidential and legislative elections in the occupied territories, with or without Hamas's participation. Last week, Abbas succeeded in convening the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) Central Council in Ramallah in an obvious effort to get the council to endorse his recent measures against Hamas following the latter's takeover of Gaza 14 June.

The unelected (and ageing) council, which acts as a kind of PLO politburo, endorsed the anti-Hamas steps, including the dismissal of the Hamas-led government, the appointment of the Salam Fayyad government in Ramallah, as well as Abbas's call for early general elections. However, it was obvious that the council's recommendations were less than decisive, which may reflect a certain hope on the part of councillors that rapprochement between Hamas and Fatah remains possible.

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Pelosi and Reid

Leader Reid confesses Levin-Reed Amendment leaves troops in Iraq indefinitely

I attended the MoveOn.org rally on Tuesday night where Speaker Pelosi and Leader Reid discussed how they were going to "end the war" and "bring our troops home" with the Levin-Reed Amendment. When I asked if they meant all the troops, I was quickly told to, "shut up" and muscled aside by security. A fellow Marine Mom was treated in much the same manner and we couldn't get over how much like the Republicans the "Anti-Escalation" folks were acting. (Video link below.

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In this summer of angst and grim foreboding about what further assaults against common sense and common decency the Bush Administration might inflict upon the people of the world, how many times during the day do those of us -- still possessed of mind, heart and conscience -- take pause, hoping we've seen the worst of it, then, fearing we haven't yet, attempt to push down the dread rising within us, so that we might simply make it through the day and be able to rest at night?

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Palestinian teachers and students at a UN school in Gaza
protest against Israeli airstrikes on the previous day which
killed 18 Palestinians, mostly women and children, in Beit
Hanoun, Gaza. Israel's use of 'collective punishment' are
one of the reasons given by Britain's University and College
Union for a boycott against Israeli academic institutions.
(Hatem Omar/MaanImages)

From Electronic Intifada

In the last few weeks, university presidents across the US and Canada have rushed to issue statements about the proposed boycott of Israeli academic institutions by the British University and College Union. They view this boycott as a serious violation of academic freedom. Yet, given the general failure of these leaders to comment on any number of infringements of academic freedom that have occurred in recent years, including those close to home in the form of the politically-motivated denial of tenure to Norman Finkelstein and the colleague, Mehrene Larudee, who very publicly supported him, the harassment of Columbia University professors Joseph Massad and Rashid Khalidi, and the intimidation of faculty by Campuswatch, one might be excused for concluding that university presidents prefer to remain above the political fray and reserve their office for grave and important but non-controversial pronouncements on tsunamis. But now, even in the midst of the hot and hazy summer recess, university presidents have mobilized their most imposing academic rhetoric in expressing solidarity with Israeli academics and upholding the rights of all to engage in "an open exchange of ideas" and "freedom of association."

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We the People have "freedom of the press," but we do not have a free press.

We have a right to speak out and to assemble, but we don't know what to say, or where to say it. The Internet is opening a path for us to change these deficiencies.

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There is a large natural gas field off the coast of Gaza, and its 1.3 million population is systematically
starved, subjugated to non-stop military assault marginalized, and many liquidated for a reason.

His name is Ibrahim. He is a Muslim and the 34-year-old Palestinian husband of an American, a Christian minister, Reverend Dr. Mary Ethridge, DTh, who is several years his senior. Their marriage took place by “power of attorney” because he was never able to come to her, or she to him. Mary calls him her heart, and Ibrahim calls her his soul. They shared a dream. Until recently, Dr. Ibrahim Al-Majayda was the director of the American Cultural Center in Gaza City. “But now Ibrahim's life is at stake because of the Center and his relationship to me,” Mary wrote me. She asked if I could petition government officials and write an article to help get Ibrahim out of Gaza to safety.

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Photo: Galina Lukianova

From New Statesman

"It never happened..."

One of the leaders of demonstrations in Gaza calling for the release of the BBC reporter Alan Johnston was a Palestinian news cameraman, Imad Ghanem. On 5 July, he was shot by Israeli soldiers as he filmed them invading Gaza. A Reuters video shows bullets hitting his body as he lay on the ground. An ambulance trying to reach him was also attacked. The Israelis described him as a "legitimate target." The International Federation of Journalists called the shooting "a vicious and brutal example of deliberate targeting of a journalist." At the age of 21, he has had both legs amputated.

Dr. David Halpin, a British trauma surgeon who works with Palestinian children, emailed the BBC's Middle East editor, Jeremy Bowen. "The BBC should report the alleged details about the shooting," he wrote. "It should honor Alan [Johnston] as a journalist by reporting the facts, uncomfortable as they might be to Israel." He received no reply.

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Michael Parenti is an internationally known speaker and award winning author of 20 books and hundreds of articles. He's also a noted academic having taught at a number of colleges and universities in the US and abroad. Parenti is also one of the nation's leading progressive political analysts and social critics. He strongly opposes US imperialism, the shredding of our civil liberties, decline of our social state, and the Bush Doctrine of preventive wars on the world for predatory capitalism's need for new markets, resources and cheap exploitable labor.

Parenti's latest book, and subject of this review, is the newly updated eight edition of one of his most noted and popular earlier ones - Democracy For the Few. In it, he shows how democracy in the nation really works. It dispels the fiction Americans are practically weaned on from birth, taught in school to the highest levels, and get daily from the dominant media.

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"Jonah" by Barry Moser

From National Prayer Network

In the last decades, Jewish activists and leaders have worked to preserve Jewish identity with a plethora of writing, films, museums and art pieces about the Holocaust. Aggressively they warn that the Shoah can reoccur anytime because Gentiles are untrustworthy and irrationally hateful of Jews. This false lesson unites Jews and is also increasingly used to demonize Christianity. Countless Jewish opinion-makers falsely equate Hitler's malevolent desire to destroy Jews with Christians' benevolent desire to convert them. Here's proof.

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From Palestine-Info

In his speech before the anachronistic PLO body, known as the Central Council on 18 July, Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas said he intended to hold presidential and legislative elections as soon as possible. Abbas said he was awaiting a decision to this effect by the Central Council which was slated to discuss the present inter-Palestinian crisis stemming from Hamas's takeover in the Gaza Strip following a failed American-backed coup, led by former Fatah strongman Muhammed Dahlan, against the democratically elected government.

There is no doubt that going to elections is the right way of resolving an internal conflict. However, under current circumstances and in the absence of a Palestinian consensus, holding the elections would only consolidate disunity among Palestinians and exacerbate the already grave rift between Fatah and Hamas.

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Throughout human history certain patterns continue repeating themselves over and over again, becoming, if careful attention is paid to study them, a direct harbinger to what tomorrow’s cultures and societies will be like. The inevitability of what a future generation’s destiny will become is oftentimes discernable from the accumulated sins of the fathers that came before as well as those of the grandfathers that no longer exist, over years accruing and building upon each other until the future becomes the unstoppable rollercoaster birthed from the damage that was done in the past.

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Mainstream media form the most important unit in the overall process of war-profiteering; they act as the first and last line of cover for those in the government and beyond who are formulating and acting upon the most deplorable and unlawful of political and financial schemes. They're also the most efficient, effective, and reliable tool for procuring consent and marginalizing the opposition.

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On July 17, 2007, Bush quietly issued an executive order entitled "Executive Order: Blocking Property of Certain Persons Who Threaten Stabilization Efforts in Iraq." By this order, he made it a crime to commit, or to pose a significant risk of committing..., acts of violence that threaten "the peace and stability of Iraq," or undermine "efforts to promote economic reconstruction and political reform in Iraq and to provide humanitarian assistance to the Iraqi people."

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...eye opening checkpoint experiences...

[Jenin, West Bank, 23 July 2007] My driver with VIP plates and I left Jerusalem at 9:45 AM and what had once been an hour's drive took us nearly three, but the Palestinians we passed along the way stuck at the checkpoints might possibly still be waiting there...

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The reality of Vice President Dick Cheney’s unprecedented, awesome and totally illegal power and authority over the people of America, the United States Congress, the Supreme Court, and all bureaus and agencies of American government, serves not only to invalidate totally the Constitution and the very founding of the United States, but proves correct as well the fears the Founders voiced when recognizing the threat of political parties. Identifying what is right or wrong with this country and its government no longer matters. Evaluating what is lawful and what is not are now devoid of both a system of recognition and a remedy. Attacking what is constitutional and what is not is now irrelevant; “it’s just a goddamned piece of paper.” Healing and corrective measures available to repair severely damaged and crippled government functions are overridden by concerns of resultant political fallout and posturing.

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Mohammed Dahlan's 13 July 2003 letter to then Israeli defense minister Shaul Mofaz.

From Electronic Intifada

"Be certain that Yasser Arafat's final days are numbered, but allow us to finish him off our way, not yours. And be sure as well that ... the promises I made in front of President Bush, I will give my life to keep." Those words were written by the Fatah warlord Mohammed Dahlan, whose US- and Israeli-backed forces were routed by Hamas in the Gaza Strip last month, in a 13 July 2003 letter to then Israeli defense minister Shaul Mofaz and published on Hamas' website on 4 July this year.

Dahlan, who despite his failure to hold Gaza, remains a senior advisor to Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas, outlines his conspiracy to overthrow Arafat, destroy Palestinian institutions and replace them with a quisling leadership subservient to Israel.

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[Ramallah, July 24, 2007] Every time I come to Palestine I am amazed at the patience, endurance and family values of the occupied people. Last Saturday I traveled to Ramallah from Jerusalem; a trip that once took less than fifteen minutes and less than 15 kilometers. It took my driver an hour and a half to get me there...

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From Southwest Indian Foundation

Dear Friends

Good wishes from the Southwest. It is hot--it is extremely hot. We have been hovering around the 100 degree mark for a couple of weeks now. This by itself is not so bad, but when the wind blows, the dirt, dust, and grit are stifling.

We are in a drought. 2007 is considered one of the driest on record. The cattle are having trouble finding grass to stay alive. Although they are getting flooded east of us, we are bone dry. Please pray that we get some rain soon.

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Now that mainstream media bias is an established fact and recognized as such by the mainstream reading and viewing public, the revelation of Vice President Dick Cheney’s total unilateral control over all levels and branches of American government has not only raised eyebrows and concerns of dictatorship, but for those politically astute, begs the question as to why the Washington Post would be the journalistic vehicle to publish the four-part June 24 through June 27 series exposing this reality.

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From Palestine-Info

Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, the new Middle East envoy of the US-dominated Quartet of peace mediators, began his mission in Palestine on 23 July with "exploratory talks" with Palestinian Authority (PA) and Israeli officials.

The Bush administration, bullied by an extraordinarily powerful Jewish lobby, reportedly asked Blair to refrain from discussing "matters of substance" and "final-status issues" pertaining to the Palestinian question. Instead, the Bush administration asked Blair to focus on technical matters, including building PA institutions and mobilizing support for the Ramallah-based government.

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In his first year in office, the widely-followed Cook Political Report had this assessment of George Bush's early months as president: "Looking back over his first five months in office, President George W. Bush and his administration started off to a strong, fast start but now, his future seems far less certain. Not only are Bush's overall job approval ratings slumping, but his disapproval ratings are climbing (and) after a strong start, the last three months have been less than auspicious for this new President.

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Amr accused Hamas of "sheltering al-Qaida"

New analysis

In an interview with the pro-American London-based al Hayat newspaper this week, Nabil Amr, an aide to Palestinian Authority (PA) Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, lashed out at Hamas, calling the resistance group "criminal."

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[Jerusalem, July 22, 2007] I had no clue when I gave 'birth' to my website, exactly two years ago to this day, what I was really doing, but, after my first of five journeys to Israel Palestine and listening to many of the people who live here and seeing with my own eyes the facts on the ground and feeling in my own gut a little of what life is like under occupation, I got VERY PISSED OFF and had to DO SOMETHING!

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The greatest threat now is "a 9/11 occurring with a group of terrorists armed not with airline tickets and box cutters, but with a nuclear weapon in the middle of one of our own cities." - Dick Cheney on Face the Nation, CBS, April 15, 2007

A few days ago, a group of lawyers from western Massachusetts met with the local congressman, Democrat John Olver. Their request was that Olver take part in the urgent effort to impeach Bush and Cheney. Olver responded by saying that he had no intention of doing anything to support impeachment. He went further, offering the information that the United States would soon attack Iran, and that these hostilities would be followed by the imposition of a martial law regime here.

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Why people are not taking to the streets...

In these trying times of wars, famines and all sort of manmade disasters, I strongly believe that we ought to confront our popular apathy and the abundant arrogance of our business, political, religious and military leaders. It is time for some serious introspection; without it we 'the common people', will continue to be duped into the simplistic media view of the world, that of the good and the bad.

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...we know they killed Wellstone and did the whole
9/11 thing themselves, actually stole elections - but
still we drift toward fascism...

http://isthisheaven-mike.blogspot.com

Well. I'm sitting here in the Hampshire Hideout Cafe in the uninhabited regions of Iowa.

I'm in a booth against the wall, green vinyl.

I'm sitting alone, hand on my white coffee cup, turned toward the wooden door facing Main Street.

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The main responsibility for this disaster lies with the USA, EU and Israel. All progressive forces must deepen t