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Election 2008: Who decides, the people or the programmers?
Ernest Partridge
In another week, more than 100 million American citizens will go to the polls to choose their next president. -Or so most of those citizens believe, along with all of the corporate media and, of course, the candidates.
But might it be possible that the decision next Tuesday lies, not with those 100-plus million voters, but instead with a few dozen programmers who write the secret software for the voting machines that will record some 30 percent of the votes, and also for the computers that compile (i.e., collect and report) 80 percent of the "official election returns? The very idea is too horrible to contemplate, and so it is not contemplated; not by the media, not by most of the public, and not by the Democratic Party.
A presidential selection by anonymous programmers is not contemplated, much less discussed and publicized, in the face of compelling evidence that the 2004 presidential election, along with numerous congressional elections during the past decade, were in fact stolen.
Targeting Dissent: The San Francisco Eight
Stephen Lendman
Throughout much of American history, dissent was never tolerated if thought to threaten entrenched interests. Especially in times of war, economic crisis, or social stress. During the great Red Scare from 1917 - 1920. Under the 1917 Espionage Act that barred mailing materials advocating insurrectionist or forcible resistance, and the 1918 Sedition Act that banned criticism of the government and ongoing war effort. Later targeting those on the left by the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), the Smith Act, and during the age of Joe McCarthy. Post-9/11, anti-war activists, Latino immigrants, and Muslim Americans viciously targeted. The San Francisco Eight as well.
Former Black Panthers. On January 23, 2007, arrested in early morning raids in California, New York and Florida. Charged with the 1971 killing of a San Francisco police officer and various conspiracy acts from 1968 - 1973. A racist frame following decades of harassment and a ruthless vendetta against the Black Panther Party.
Voter Intimidation in Odd Places
Even, in Safe States, hints of fear and intimidation
Daniel Patrick Welch
Swampscott, Massachussetts, isn't the place you'd pick for right-wing hatemongering. Sandwiched between the industrial cities Lynn and Salem on Boston's North Shore (and somewhat wealthier and more conservative than both) Swampscott is a seaside bedroom community many people pass through on their way to and from Boston. In fact, M was doing just that when she came face to face with the kind of right wing tactics that have become infamous in swing states.
A woman--we'll call her M the Voter--takes the train to work in Boston, and parks at the station in Swampscott. A proud Obama supporter, she has a sticker prominently displayed on her car. She returned from work to find a sheet of paper stuck under her windshield. It read, in large caps, INDICTMENT. Below, the poster was more specific, informing her that she had been "listed in our registry" and "relevant information will be recorded and forwarded to the proper authorities."
DEFINITIONS: THE BOURGEOISIE
Gaither Stewart
“We are not fighting against men or a kind of politics but against the class which produces those politics and those men.” (from Dirty Hands, a political play by Jean Paul Sartre, first performed in Paris on April 2, 1948.)
“It takes a day to make a senator and ten years to make a worker.” AND, as Caligula says to the senators: “It is much easier to descend the social ladder than to climb back up.” (from the play Caligula by Albert Camus, first performed in Paris in 1945, words I include here just for fun, mockery and a hint of warning.)
(Rome) It’s a capricious irony of history that the word bourgeois, which pinpoints the capitalist class, is perceived by nearly everyone, including the bourgeois themselves, as an epithet and is almost universally rebuffed!
OBAMA: CHANGE YOU CAN BELIEVE IN--NOT! Part 2
Kellia Ramares
[In Part Two of her series on an Obama presidency, Kellia Ramares reveals appalling connections between Obama and his foreign policy advisors that spell anything but change in America's imperial, geopolitical relationships.--CB]
A Truth To Power Exclusive
To read Part One of this series CLICK HERE
Visit Kellia's "No Pitch" JOURNALISM BLOG
During a debate on January 31, 2008, Sen. Barack Obama said, "I don't want to just end the war, but I want to end the mind-set that got us into war in the first place."1 That is an excellent idea. But Obama's other words, the Democratic Party Platform, and the advisers he has chosen for his foreign policy team indicates that the January statement is just a bunch of pretty words. He will not reverse the trend of American military interventionism that is so costly in lives, money, and American standing in the world. As Michael Rubin, resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, has written, "much of the Democrats' anti-war rhetoric has more to do with politics and anti-Bush sentiment than it does with ideological opposition to the use of force."2
Messy Elections: Can we trust the results?
The U.S. Can Be the Greatest Democracy on Earth, but Right Now it is Far From It
By Kevin Zeese, Director, www.TrueVote.US
For a country that considers itself the “greatest democracy on Earth,” the U.S. sure does run messy elections.
This year about one-third the public is voting early (something Marylanders will be voting on in a referendum on Election Day), as a result we are seeing election meltdowns in slow motion. Here is a sample of what is occurring:
Public Enemy Number One
Stephen Lendman
A note before beginning. This article focuses on today's financial and economic crisis. Not affairs of state, war and peace or geopolitics. No guessing who's number one under those headings. That said:
With so many good choices, it's hard just picking one. But given the gravity of today's financial crisis, one name stands out above others. The "maestro," as Bob Woodward called him in his book by that title. The "Temple of Boom" chairman, according to a New York Times book review. Standing "bestride the Fed like a colossus." Now defrocked as the "maestro" of misery. Alan Greenspan. From August 11, 1987 to January 31, 2006, as head of the private banking cartel euphemistically called the Federal Reserve. That Ron Paul explains isn't Federal and has no reserves.
The Biggest Heist in History
Len Hart
The bailout is the biggest overt theft in history. Only healthy banks get funding --so why do they get a bailout? The 'bailout' is yet another monumental instance in which 'wealth is spread around' to those who do not need it, did not create it, did not earn it, and did not do anything productive to create it! Why doesn't Bush and his 'base' just load up a convoy of armored trucks at Ft. Knox --then drive like hell to the border?
Most big recipients of 'bailout monies' are using the 'bailout' to gobble up smaller, less favored banks. In simpler times, we might have called them the "Savings and Loan". In "It's a Wonderful Life" with Jimmy Stewart, it was called the "Building and Loan". If you've seen this classic film, you will recall that when the Great Depression came, it was the "Building and Loan" that was faced with collapse --not Potter, the richest man in town who sought to own it all.
Laying Palin's Wardrobe Bare
Mathew Maavak
The US presidential campaign has already descended into a make-believe world of cosmetic saturnalia, and in this looney world, one should not be surprised if the Republicans pull off another White House coup on Nov 4.
This campaign has been disrobed to the level of slipshod slip-ups.
The initial kerfuffle generated by the $150,000 spent on the Palin wardrobe has now degenerated into a scandalous $22,800 paid to the vice presidential candidate's make-up artiste, Amy Strozzi.
Remember Remember the Fourth of November
Gabriele Zamparini
"Everything has to change so that nothing changes." - Giuseppe Tomasi Di Lampedusa, Il Gattopardo
The color of money. Senator Barack Obama's campaign has now raised more than $600 million, almost equaling what all the candidates from both major parties collected in private donations in 2004.
Where do you think that awful lot of money comes from?
"Many of these large donors come from industries with interests in Washington. A New York Times analysis of donors who wrote checks of $25,000 or more to the candidates' main joint fund-raising committees found, for example, the biggest portion of money for both candidates came from the securities and investments industry, including executives at various firms embroiled in the recent financial crisis like Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers and AIG. (...) More than 600 donors contributed $25,000 or more to [Obama] in September alone, roughly three times the number who did the same for Senator John McCain."
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