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Home To The World's Best Liberal Thought And Humor
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In This Edition
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. & Greg Palast follow the GOP's attempt to, "Block The Vote."
Welcome one and all to "Uncle Ernie's Issues & Alibis."
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 Or Is This A Joke? By Ernest Stewart Is this all necessary? Or is this a joke? Luney Tune ~~~ Alice Cooper We baked you a birthday cake! If you get a tummy-ache, and you moan and groan and woe, don't forget we told you so! An Ache In Every Stake ~~~ Larry, Moe & Curly "In direct refutation of this portrayal is the fact that relations between American soldiers and the Vietnamese people are excellent." ~~~ Major Colin L. Powell covering up the My Lai massacre ~ 1968 ~~~ Although I really liked Mr. Mxyzptlk, my favorite thing was the "Bizarro World" or "Htrae." Htrae, that's Earth spelled backwards! Bizarro world was a cube shape instead of an orb. There was the "Bizarro Code" which states, "Us do opposite of all Earthly things! Us hate beauty! Us love ugliness! Is big crime to make anything perfect on Bizarro World!" You get the picture? So could someone tell me please, when did America become the Bizarro world? We have, of course, been heading in this direction since the revolution but when did we arrive? Some point to Wilson, some to Eisenhower, others to Nixon or Reagan or the Bush dynasty. Still, we hadn't gone completely over the edge even at the time of the 12-12-2000 coup d'etat. Methinks sometime between then and now, we made the transit! We certainly had a Bizarro leader in the Smirkster, who from day one ran with the PNAC plans, even though they were written by the likes of James Danforth Quayle! All of the people who Bush surrounded himself with were certainly from the Bizarro planet. From Ashcroft, who lost an election to a dead man and often poured a bottle of Crisco over his head whenever he got a promotion, to Kindasleazy and Colon, although one must admit these last two did truly great Aunt Jemima and Uncle Tom impersonations; you couldn't have put together a more Bizarro cabinet if you tried! Our wars are right out of the Bizarro world, too. Osama and the Saudis attack and murder us; we attack and murder Saddam and the Iraqis. When the Taliban offers to turn over Osama to us, instead of saying thanks, we attack them. When the banks collapse from too much worthless money being printed, we up the ante by a trillion dollars, with even more cash "surges" to come! In one edition on the Bizarro world, a salesman is making money hand-over-fist selling Bizarro bonds that are, "Guaranteed to lose money for you!" Sound familiar, America? So, when exactly did the Bizarro World begin in America? Oh, and more importantly, when will it end? In Other News I really hate to be the one to have to break it to the Obamaphiles, but even if he wins, we lose. Noam Chomsky has been saying recently (see above) that voting for the lesser of two evils isn't necessarily a bad thing. Nor, I would add, is it necessarily a good thing! For many years I took that way out and voted for the lesser of two evils but no more. I wasn't going to vote until Cynthia got the nomination. Even as you wish upon a star that the real change that Barry talks about is real and coming, you know in your heart there will be no real change. The new boss is the same as the old boss! A very slight change perhaps, at least to the cosmetic level. A slight loosening of the hand-cuffs so they don't bite in too deep, "a kinder, gentler, machine-gun hand" but no real change. Our wars of imperial aggression will surely go on and spread to other countries. Not only will the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan not end but both candidates have plans of ramping up the war in Afghanistan and expanding it into Pakistan and beyond. Like Impeachment, the Demoncrats have taken Universal Healthcare off the table so don't expect to see a doctor if you haven't any employment coverage. That illegal, presidential, Praetorian Guard is going nowhere. When the 3rd Army steps down next year a new one will step up. All those odious, traitorous new laws will remain on the books, our Constitution and Bill of Rights won't be restored! There will be no punishment for our current crop of traitors, war criminals and international terrorists, not under Barry. He wants to reach out to these criminals and cum er, come together with them! Barry wants to be the black Ronald Reagan. Do ya'll remember the horrors of the Raygun years? Apparently Barry missed those while studying cocaine at Occidental, Columbia and Harvard Law? The rest of us didn't miss a thing that the "Gipper" did, from his support of South African apartheid to the "Iran Contra Scandal." Let's not forget the union busting or Department of Housing and Urban Development grant rigging, the "Lobbying Scandal," the "EPA Scandal" and the "Savings & Loan Scandal." Nor should we forget Raygun's bloody, stupid, unnecessary wars, from the Caribbean to the Middle East! I could go on and on but life is short! I have copiously mentioned this to you on dozens of occasions since Barry made the scene, so when it all comes to pass, when it hits the fan, America, "don't forget we told you so!" And Finally MY, My, My Lai! Look, who's crawled out from under his rock and into the light of day. Why it's Colin Luther Powell, the former State Department shill and Bush bagman. Colin came out from under the rock to praise Obama, not to bury him! Ya'll may recall the career of Colin. He was the Army's spin master of the My Lai massacre, which made his military career and propelled him all the way to his fourth star under Papa Smirk. He became Smirky's front man for our imperial invasions of Iraq. Colin, after all, had experience in planning illegal, imperial invasions like his 1983 invasion of Grenada and 1989 invasion of Panama for Rayguns, Weinburger and Papa Smirk. Colin is perhaps best remembered as Smirky's front man at the United Nations where he lied his ass off about aluminum rocket tubes and those mobile production facilities for biological weapons that were known to actually be hydrogen gas extractors for weather balloons. Powell, like the rest of the Junta and most of Congress, knew that Saddam had gotten rid of the WMD's (most of which we had given or sold to him) by 1993, ten full years before Colin's song and dance performance before the UN. So, I'm not surprised that the war criminal Powell would attach himself to a fellow traveler, the war criminal Obama. Are you? Sure McCain is a war criminal, too, with more war criminal experience than Obama and almost as much as Powell but Obama is somewhat black and McCain is incredibly white, ergo. Do you think that Colin is jockeying for a cabinet position? Mayhaps Secretary of War? Hmmm? I wouldn't be surprised if he were, would you? ***** We don't sell our readers new cars, fancy homes or designer clothes. We don't advocate consumerism nor do we offer facile solutions to serious problems. We do, however, bring together every week writers and activists who are not afraid to speak the truth about our country and our world. The articles we print are not for the faint of heart. As access to accurate information becomes more difficult and free speech and the exchange of ideas becomes more restricted and controlled, small publications and alternative presses disappear. Issues and Alibis may soon join that list. We aren't asking for much-not thousands of dollars a month, not tens of thousands a year. What we need is simply enough money to cover expenses for the magazine. A few thousand dollars a year. A few hundred dollars a month. We cannot continue to go into debt to publish Issues and Alibis but at the same time we cannot, in good conscience, go quietly about our daily lives, remaining silent in face of the injustices perpetrated by our leaders and our government. So we need your help. We need your spare change. A dollar, five dollars, whatever you can contribute. Every penny makes a difference. Ernest & Victoria Stewart *****  0-06-1936 ~ 10-17-2008 It's the same old song!  08-29-1922 ~ 10-19-2008 I wouldn't be caught dead looking like that! ***** The "W" theatre trailers are up along with the new movie poster and screen shots from the film. They are all available at the all-new "W" movie site: http://wthemovie.com. Both trailers are on site and may be downloaded; the new trailer can be seen with Flash on site. You can download in either PC or Mac formats. I'm in the new trailer as myself but don't blink or you'll miss me! The trailers are also available on YouTube along with a short scene from the film. ******************************************** We get by with a little help from our friends! So please help us if you can...? Donations ******************************************** So how do you like the 2nd coup d'etat so far? And more importantly, what are you planning on doing about it? Until the next time, Peace! (c) 2008 Ernest Stewart a.k.a. Uncle Ernie is an unabashed radical, author, stand-up comic, DJ, actor, political pundit and for the last 7 years managing editor and publisher of Issues & Alibis magazine. In his spare time he is an actor, writer and an associate producer for the new motion picture "W The Movie."  |
 Block The Vote Will the GOP's campaign to deter new voters and discard Democratic ballots determine the next president? By Robert F. Kennedy Jr. & Greg Palast These days, the old west rail hub of Las Vegas, New Mexico, is little more than a dusty economic dead zone amid a boneyard of bare mesas. In national elections, the town overwhelmingly votes Democratic: More than 80 percent of all residents are Hispanic, and one in four lives below the poverty line. On February 5th, the day of the Super Tuesday caucus, a school-bus driver named Paul Maez arrived at his local polling station to cast his ballot. To his surprise, Maez found that his name had vanished from the list of registered voters, thanks to a statewide effort to deter fraudulent voting. For Maez, the shock was especially acute: He is the supervisor of elections in Las Vegas. Maez was not alone in being denied his right to vote. On Super Tuesday, one in nine Democrats who tried to cast ballots in New Mexico found their names missing from the registration lists. The numbers were even higher in precincts like Las Vegas, where nearly 20 percent of the county's voters were absent from the rolls. With their status in limbo, the voters were forced to cast "provisional" ballots, which can be reviewed and discarded by election officials without explanation. On Super Tuesday, more than half of all provisional ballots cast were thrown out statewide. This November, what happened to Maez will happen to hundreds of thousands of voters across the country. In state after state, Republican operatives - the party's elite commandos of bare-knuckle politics - are wielding new federal legislation to systematically disenfranchise Democrats. If this year's race is as close as the past two elections, the GOP's nationwide campaign could be large enough to determine the presidency in November. "I don't think the Democrats get it," says John Boyd, a voting-rights attorney in Albuquerque who has taken on the Republican Party for impeding access to the ballot. "All these new rules and games are turning voting into an obstacle course that could flip the vote to the GOP in half a dozen states." Suppressing the vote has long been a cornerstone of the GOP's electoral strategy. Shortly before the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980, Paul Weyrich - a principal architect of today's Republican Party - scolded evangelicals who believed in democracy. "Many of our Christians have what I call the 'goo goo' syndrome - good government," said Weyrich, who co-founded Moral Majority with Jerry Falwell. "They want everybody to vote. I don't want everybody to vote. . . . As a matter of fact, our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down." Today, Weyrich's vision has become a national reality. Since 2003, according to the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, at least 2.7 million new voters have had their applications to register rejected. In addition, at least 1.6 million votes were never counted in the 2004 election - and the commission's own data suggests that the real number could be twice as high. To purge registration rolls and discard ballots, partisan election officials used a wide range of pretexts, from "unreadability" to changes in a voter's signature. And this year, thanks to new provisions of the Help America Vote Act, the number of discounted votes could surge even higher. Passed in 2002, HAVA was hailed by leaders in both parties as a reform designed to avoid a repeat of the 2000 debacle in Florida that threw the presidential election to the U.S. Supreme Court. The measure set standards for voting systems, created an independent commission to oversee elections, and ordered states to provide provisional ballots to voters whose eligibility is challenged at the polls. But from the start, HAVA was corrupted by the involvement of Republican superlobbyist Jack Abramoff, who worked to cram the bill with favors for his clients. (Both Abramoff and a primary author of HAVA, former Rep. Bob Ney, were imprisoned for their role in the conspiracy.) In practice, many of the "reforms" created by HAVA have actually made it harder for citizens to cast a ballot and have their vote counted. In case after case, Republican election officials at the local and state level have used the rules to give GOP candidates an edge on Election Day by creating new barriers to registration, purging legitimate names from voter rolls, challenging voters at the polls and discarding valid ballots. To justify this battery of new voting impediments, Republicans cite an alleged upsurge in voting fraud. Indeed, the U.S.-attorney scandal that resulted in the resignation of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales began when the White House fired federal prosecutors who resisted political pressure to drum up nonexistent cases of voting fraud against Democrats. "They wanted some splashy pre-election indictments that would scare these alleged hordes of illegal voters away," says David Iglesias, a U.S. attorney for New Mexico who was fired in December 2006. "We took over 100 complaints and investigated for almost two years - but I didn't find one prosecutable case of voter fraud in the entire state of New Mexico." There's a reason Iglesias couldn't find any evidence of fraud: Individual voters almost never try to cast illegal ballots. The Bush administration's main point person on "ballot protection" has been Hans von Spakovsky, a former Justice Department attorney who has advised states on how to use HAVA to erect more barriers to voting. Appointed to the Federal Election Commission by Bush, von Spakovsky has suggested that voter rolls may be stuffed with 5 million illegal aliens. In fact, studies have repeatedly shown that voter fraud is extremely rare. According to a recent analysis by Lorraine Minnite, an expert on voting crime at Barnard College, federal courts found only 24 voters guilty of fraud from 2002 to 2005, out of hundreds of millions of votes cast. "The claim of widespread voter fraud," Minnite says, "is itself a fraud." Allegations of voter fraud are only the latest rationale the GOP has used to disenfranchise voters - especially blacks, Hispanics and others who traditionally support Democrats. "The Republicans have a long history of erecting barriers to discourage Americans from voting," says Donna Brazile, chair of the Voting Rights Institute for the Democratic National Committee. "Now they're trying to spook Americans with the ghost of voter fraud. It's very effective - but it's ironic that the only way they maintain power is by using fear to deprive Americans of their constitutional right to vote." The recently enacted barriers thrown up to deter voters include: 1. Obstructing Voter-Registration Drives Since 2004, the Bush administration and more than a dozen states have taken steps to impede voter registration. Among the worst offenders is Florida, where the Republican-dominated legislature created hefty fines - up to $5,000 per violation - for groups that fail to meet deadlines for turning in voter-application forms. Facing potentially huge penalties for trivial administrative errors, the League of Women Voters abandoned its voter-registration drives in Florida. A court order eventually forced the legislature to reduce the maximum penalty to $1,000. But even so, said former League president Dianne Wheatley-Giliotti, the reduced fines "create an unfair tax on democracy." The state has also failed to uphold a federal law requiring that low-income voters be offered an opportunity to register when they apply for food stamps or other public assistance. As a result, the annual number of such registrations has plummeted from more than 120,000 in the Clinton years to barely 10,000 today. 2. Demanding "Perfect Matches" Under the Help America Vote Act, some states now reject first-time registrants whose data does not correspond to information in other government databases. Spurred by HAVA, almost every state must now attempt to make some kind of match - and four states, including the swing states of Iowa and Florida, require what is known as a "perfect match." Under this rigid framework, new registrants can lose the right to vote if the information on their voter-registration forms - Social Security number, street address and precisely spelled name, right down to a hyphen - fails to exactly match data listed in other government records. There are many legitimate reasons, of course, why a voter's information might vary. Indeed, a recent study by the Brennan Center for Justice found that as many as 20 percent of discrepancies between voter records and driver's licenses in New York City are simply typing mistakes made by government clerks when they transcribe data. But under the new rules, those mistakes are costing citizens the right to vote. In California, a Republican secretary of state blocked 43 percent of all new voters in Los Angeles from registering in early 2006 - many because of the state's failure to produce a tight match. In Florida, GOP officials created "match" rules that rejected more than 15,000 new registrants in 2006 and 2007 - nearly three-fourths of them Hispanic and black voters. Given the big registration drives this year, the number could be five times higher by November. 3. Purging Legitimate Voters From the Rolls The Help America Vote Act doesn't just disenfranchise new registrants; it also targets veteran voters. In the past, bipartisan county election boards maintained voter records. But HAVA requires that records be centralized, computerized and maintained by secretaries of state - partisan officials - who are empowered to purge the rolls of any voter they deem ineligible. Ironically, the new rules imitate the centralized system in Florida - the same corrupt operation that inspired passage of HAVA in the first place. Prior to the 2000 election, Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris and her predecessor, both Republicans, tried to purge 57,000 voters, most of them African-Americans, because their names resembled those of persons convicted of a crime. The state eventually acknowledged that the purges were improper - two years after the election. Rather than end Florida-style purges, however, HAVA has nationalized them. Maez, the elections supervisor in New Mexico, says he was the victim of faulty list management by a private contractor hired by the state. Hector Balderas, the state auditor, was also purged from the voter list. The nation's youngest elected Hispanic official, Balderas hails from Mora County, one of the poorest in the state, which had the highest rate of voters forced to cast provisional ballots. "As a strategic consideration," he notes, "there are those that benefit from chaos" at the ballot box. All told, states reported scrubbing at least 10 million voters from their rolls on questionable grounds between 2004 and 2006. Colorado holds the record: Donetta Davidson, the Republican secretary of state, and her GOP successor oversaw the elimination of nearly one of every six of their state's voters. Bush has since appointed Davidson to the Election Assistance Commission, the federal agency created by HAVA, which provides guidance to the states on "list maintenance" methods. 4. Requiring Unnecessary Voter ID's Even if voters run the gauntlet of the new registration laws, they can still be blocked at the polling station. In an incident last May, an election official in Indiana denied ballots to 10 nuns seeking to vote in the Democratic primary because their driver's licenses or passports had expired. Even though Indiana has never recorded a single case of voter-ID fraud, it is one of two dozen states that have enacted stringent new voter-ID statutes. On its face, the requirement to show a government-issued ID doesn't seem unreasonable. "I want to cash a check to pay for my groceries, I've got to show a little bit of ID," Karl Rove told the Republican National Lawyers Association in 2006. But many Americans lack easy access to official identification. According to a recent study for the Election Law Journal, young people, senior citizens and minorities - groups that traditionally vote Democratic - often have no driver's licenses or state ID cards. According to the study, one in 10 likely white voters do not possess the necessary identification. For African-Americans, the number lacking such ID is twice as high. 5. Rejecting "Spoiled" Ballots Even intrepid voters who manage to cast a ballot may still find their vote discounted. In 2004, election officials discarded at least 1 million votes nationwide after classifying them as "spoiled" because blank spaces, stray marks or tears made them indecipherable to voting machines. The losses hit hardest among minorities in low-income precincts, who are often forced to vote on antiquated machines. The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, in its investigation of the 2000 returns from Florida, found that African-Americans were nearly 10 times more likely than whites to have their ballots rejected, a ratio that holds nationwide. Proponents of HAVA claimed the law would correct the spoilage problem by promoting computerized balloting. Yet touch-screen systems have proved highly unreliable - especially in minority and low-income precincts. A statistical analysis of New Mexico ballots by a voting-rights group called VotersUnite found that Hispanics who voted by computer in 2004 were nearly five times more likely to have their votes unrecorded than those who used paper ballots. In a close election, such small discrepancies can make a big difference: In 2004, the number of spoiled ballots in New Mexico - 19,000 - was three times George Bush's margin of victory. 6. Challenging "Provisional" Ballots In 2004, an estimated 3 million voters who showed up at the polls were refused regular ballots because their registration was challenged on a technicality. Instead, these voters were handed "provisional" ballots, a fail-safe measure mandated by HAVA to enable officials to review disputed votes. But for many officials, resolving disputes means tossing ballots in the trash. In 2004, a third of all provisional ballots - as many as 1 million votes - were simply thrown away at the discretion of election officials. Many voters are given provisional ballots under an insidious tactic known as "vote caging," which uses targeted mailings to disenfranchise black voters whose addresses have changed. In 2004, despite a federal consent order forbidding Republicans from engaging in the practice, the GOP sent out tens of thousands of letters to "confirm" the addresses of voters in minority precincts. If a letter was returned for any reason - because the voter was away at school or serving in the military - the GOP challenged the voter for giving a false address. One caging operation was exposed when an RNC official mistakenly sent the list to a parody site called GeorgeWBush.org - instead of to the official campaign site GeorgeWBush.com. In the century following the Civil War, millions of black Americans in the Deep South lost their constitutional right to vote, thanks to literacy tests, poll taxes and other Jim Crow restrictions imposed by white officials. Add up all the modern-day barriers to voting erected since the 2004 election - the new registrations thrown out, the existing registrations scrubbed, the spoiled ballots, the provisional ballots that were never counted - and what you have is millions of voters, more than enough to swing the presidential election, quietly being detached from the electorate by subterfuge.
"Jim Crow was laid to rest, but his cousins were not," says Donna Brazile. "We got rid of poll taxes and literacy tests but now have a second generation of schemes to deny our citizens their franchise." Come November, the most crucial demographic may prove to be Americans who have been denied the right to vote. If Democrats are to win the 2008 election, they must not simply beat John McCain at the polls - they must beat him by a margin that exceeds the level of GOP vote tampering. |
 Is Akko Burning? By Uri Avnery THROUGHOUT ITS thousands of years of history, Akko has never been an Israelite town. Even according to the mythological story of the Bible, the Israelites did not conquer the city, which was already an ancient port. The first chapter of the Book of Judges, which contradicts much of the description given in the Book of Joshua, states unequivocally: "Neither did [the tribe of] Asher drive out the inhabitants of Akko. (Judges 1:31) Only a few of the world's cities can boast such a stormy and checkered history as Akko (Akka in Arabic, Acre in French and English), the main port of the country. It was a Canaanite-Phoenician town, traded with Egypt, rebelled against Assyria, confronted the Jewish Hasmoneans, was conquered by the Crusaders, served as a battle-ground for the legendary Saladin and the no less legendary Richard the Lion-Hearted, was the capital of the semi-independent Arab state of the Galilee under Daher al-Omar and withstood the siege of Napoleon. All these periods have left their traces in Akko, in the form of buildings and walls. A fascinating town, perhaps the most beautiful - and surely the most interesting - after Jerusalem. During some of these periods, there existed in Akko a small Jewish community, but it never was a Jewish town. On the contrary: among the Rabbis there was an ongoing discussion whether Akko, from the point of view of religious law (Halacha), belonged to Eretz Israel at all. This was important, because certain commandments apply only to the Land of Israel. Some rabbis believed that Akko did not belong, while others asserted that at least a part of the town did. (That did not prevent us in our youth from singing "Akko, too, belongs to Eretz Israel" - meaning the old Crusaders' fortress on the sea-shore, where the British held prisoners from the Jewish underground organizations.) In the 1948 war, Akko was occupied by the Israeli forces, and since then it has lived under Israeli rule: 60 years out of a history of 5000 years and more. This is the background of last week's events in Akko. The Arab inhabitants consider Akko as the town of their forefathers, which was forcibly occupied by the Jews. The Jewish inhabitants consider it a Jewish town, in which the Arabs are a tolerated minority - at most. For years the town was covered by a thin blanket of hypocrisy. Everybody praised and celebrated the wonderful co-existence there. Until the blanket was torn, and the naked truth was exposed. I AM a very secular person. I have always advocated a complete separation between state and religion, even in the days when that sounded like a crazy idea. But it has never entered my mind to drive on Yom Kippur. There is no law forbidding it, no law is necessary. For a traditional Jew, Yom Kippur is a day like no other. Even if one does not really believe that on this day God makes the final decision about the life or death of every human being for the next year and writes it all down in a large book, one senses that one has to respect the feelings of those who do believe. I would not drive on Yom Kippur in a Jewish neighborhood, just as I would not eat in public during Ramadan in an Arab neighborhood. It is difficult to know what the Arab driver Tawfiq Jamal was thinking of when he entered a predominantly Jewish neighborhood in his car on Yom Kippur. It is reasonable to assume that he did not do it out of malice, as a provocation, but rather out of stupidity or carelessness. The reaction was predictable. An angry Jewish crowd chased him into an Arab house and besieged him there. In a distant Arab neighborhood the loudspeakers of the mosques blared out that Arabs had been killed and that an Arab was in mortal danger. Excited Arab youngsters tried to reach the house of the besieged Arab family but were blocked by the police. They gave vent to their feelings by wrecking Jewish shops and cars. Jewish youths, reinforced by members of the extreme right, burned down the homes of Arab inhabitants, who became refugees in their own town. In a few minutes, 60 years of "co-existence" were wiped out - proof that in the "mixed" town there is no real co-existence, only two communities who hate each other's guts. IT IS easy to understand this hatred. As in other "mixed" towns, indeed as in the whole of Israel, the Arab public is discriminated against by the state and municipal authorities. Smaller budgets, inferior education facilities, poorer housing, crowded neighborhoods. The Arab citizens are the victims of a vicious circle. They live in crowded towns and neighborhoods that have turned into neglected ghettos. When the standard of living of the inhabitants rises, there is a desperate demand for a better environment and better housing. Young couples leave the neglected and underfunded Arab neighborhoods and move into Jewish areas, something that immediately arouses opposition and resentment. The same has happened to Afro-Americans in the USA, and before them to the Jews there and elsewhere. All the talk about equality, good neighborliness and co-existence goes up in smoke when Arab families live in a hostile Jewish environment. Reasons are always to be found, and the incursion of Tawfiq Jamal was only an especially grievous example. Such a situation can be found in many places on earth. Religious, nationalistic, ethnic or community sensitivities can explode at any time. It took a hundred years after the emancipation of the slaves in the US until the civil rights laws were enacted, and during those years there were regular lynchings. Another 40 years passed before a black candidate could come near the White House. The police in London is notorious for its racism, citizens of Turkish origin are discriminated against in Berlin, an African can play football for the French national team but has no chance of becoming president. In these respects, Akko is no different from the rest of the world. JEAN-PAUL SARTRE said that each of us contains a little racist. The only difference is between those who recognize and try to overcome him and those who give in to him. As chance would have it, I spent Yom Kippur, while the riots were shaking Akko, reading the fascinating book by William Polk, "Neighbors and Strangers," which deals with the origins of racism. Like other animals, ancient man lived from hunting and gathering. He roamed around with his extended family, a group of no more than fifty people, in an area that was barely sufficient for their subsistence. Every stranger who entered his territory was a mortal threat, while he tried to invade his neighbor's territory in order to increase his chances of survival. In other words: the fear of the stranger and the urge to drive him out are deeply embedded in our biological heritage and have been for millions of years. Racism can be overcome, or at least reined in, but that needs conscious, systematic and consistent treatment. In Akko - as in other places in the country - there has been no such treatment. In this country the racism is, of course, connected with the national conflict which has been going on already for five generations. The Akko events are just another episode in the war between the two peoples of this country. The Jewish extreme right, including the hard core of the settlers, does not hide its intention of driving out all the Arabs and turning the entire country into a purely Jewish state. Meaning: ethnic cleansing. It looks like the dream of a small minority, but public opinion research shows that this tendency is gnawing at a much wider public, even if only in a half-conscious way, hidden and denied. In the Arab community, there are probably some who dream about the good old days, before the Jews came to this country and took it by force. When Jews carry out a pogrom in Akko, whatever the immediate reason, it becomes a national event. The burning of Arab homes in a Jewish neighborhood at once arouses fear of ethnic cleansing. When the Arab young people storm into a Jewish neighborhood in order to save an endangered Arab brother, it immediately evokes memories of the 1929 massacre of the Jews in Hebron - which, at the time, was also a "mixed" town. THERE IS reasonable hope that at some future time we shall end the national conflict and reach a peaceful solution that both peoples will accept (if only because there is no alternative.) A Palestinian state will come into being side by side with Israel, and both peoples will understand that this is the best possible solution. (The Akko events should give rise to second thoughts in the mind of anyone who believes in the "One-State solution"' where Jews and Arabs would live in brotherhood and equality. Such a "solution" would turn the entire country into one big Akko.) But peace, based on two states living side by side, will not automatically solve the problem of the Arab citizens in Israel, a state that defines itself as "Jewish." We must be ready for a long, consistent fight over the character of our state. The extreme rightist Avigdor Liberman has proposed that the Arab villages on the Israeli side of the Green Line should be attached to the Palestinian state, in return for the Jewish settlement blocs beyond the Green Line that would be attached to Israel. That would not affect, of course, the Arab inhabitants of Akko, Haifa, Jaffa, Nazareth and the Galilee villages. But even in the villages near the Green Line, no Arab agrees to this idea. Although Liberman proposes to turn over the entire villages to the Palestinian state together with all their lands and properties, not a single Arab voice has been raised in agreement. Why? The million and a half Arab citizens in Israel do not like the government's policies, the flag and the national anthem, not to mention the treatment of the population in the occupied territories. But they prefer the Israeli democracy, the social progress, the National Insurance system and the social services. They are rooted in the life and mores of Israel much more deeply than they themselves recognize. They want to be citizens in this state, but on terms of equality and mutual respect. The Jews who dream of ethnic cleansing do not understand how large a contribution the Arab community makes to Israel. Like the other inhabitants of Israel, they work here, they contribute to the GNP, they pay their taxes like everybody else. Like all of us, they have no alternative - they pay value-added tax on everything they buy and they, too, get their salaries only after income tax is deducted. There are many questions that have to be recognized and discussed, and from which conclusions must be drawn. Is it desirable or not desirable, at this stage, for Arabs to live in Jewish neighborhoods and Jews in Arab neighborhoods? How can the Arab neighborhoods be elevated economically to the level of Jewish neighborhoods, in practice and not only in talk? Should every Jewish child learn Arabic and every Arab child learn Hebrew, as the mayor of Haifa proposed this week? Should Arab education receive the same status and the same budgets as, for example, the independent but government-funded Jewish Orthodox education system? Should autonomous Arab institutions be established? Finding solutions to these problems, or at least to some of them, is a vital part of the fight against racism - attacking its roots, and not only its symptoms.
Actually, there is no alternative: the citizens of Israel, Jews and Arabs, are "condemned" to live together, whether they like it or not. But, as the Akko events have shown again, the joint fabric is still weak. In order to change this, we must all have the courage to look the problem in the eye, to see it as it is, without hypocrisy or falsification. This is the only way we can find solutions.
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 No Laughing Matter By Victoria Stewart
I'm not a real political man
When Sarah Palin strode across the stage at the Republican National Convention, I knew John McCain-or whoever was in charge--had made a brilliant political decision. She was not chosen to appeal to Clinton supporters. She wasn't selected because of her foreign policy experience or even because of her age-or John McCain's. Sarah Palin is a savvy politician and a woman who understands strategy and the workings of power. From her Katie Couric interview to the McCain/Palin appearance with NBC's Brian Williams, Palin is the essence of sincerity. She is down to earth, charmingly befuddled by the "elite" media and deferent to John McCain. Her seeming lack of knowledge-and I say seeming because I do not believe she is as uninformed as she appears-endears her to a large segment of the voting public who don't know that much about foreign countries themselves. And you can be damned sure a lot of people don't read the newspapers. As governor of Alaska, Palin, we learned this week, has taken her daughters to some high-powered political events. The headlines focus on who paid for the trips and overlook the subtext of the story, which is about a woman, a small-town, self-identified Christian woman, introducing her daughters to the corridors of power. Granted a National Governor's Association meeting and Newsweek's Women and Leadership Conference might not be the epitome of political gatherings but to the women in this country who are struggling to work, bring up strong daughters and be good Christians, these trips are not only understandable but also laudable. In addition, the questions over the family's travel expenses seem trivial and mean-spirited when compared to the misdeeds of Wall Street. Palin has also been a member, it seems, of a group called "Feminists for Life," an anti-choice, anti-abortion group doing "outreach" for young women on college campuses. Feminism, which once strove to encompass the rights of all women to respect and dignity no matter what their lifestyle choices, capitulated to a corporate media defined niche and sacrificed its female-fueled grassroots power in order to play with the big boys. Even women who identified themselves as feminists in the '70's stopped using the "F" word by the late '80's, The pro-choice movement has been careful to avoid unfurling the feminist banner and, as evidenced by the campaign against Hillary Clinton, the image of the middle-aged, shrill "feminist" was powerful political ammunition. It takes a very cunning politician to turn feminism into a political asset. Arguments have been made that Sarah Palin is not a feminist and it is true she does not fit the stereotype of feminist nor does she share most of the political and social philosophies that have come to represent feminist politics-that corporate media co-option thing, again. It is incorrect, shortsighted, naïve and embarrassingly arrogant, however, to say she is not committed to the empowerment of women. Not because she actually is committed to that goal but because she has tapped into the marginalized and dissatisfied pool of American women who are, in the truest sense of the word, feminists but who have been ignored and forgotten by the upper echelons of female power brokers. Millions more women would rather have dinner with Sarah Palin than Gloria Steinem. Palin, like all political opportunists, knows how to identify a disaffected but powerful group and cultivate their support. She didn't pull in Clinton supporters. She pulled in the women Hillary Clinton couldn't reach; women John McCain couldn't reach either. And it has not hurt her cause to have the people who were decrying Clinton's treatment by the press and the pundits as misogynistic and bigoted using the very tactics they criticized against Sarah Palin. The public faces of feminism have not defended Sarah Palin when she has been subjected to sexist attacks. In fact, some of those people have indulged in appallingly sexist attacks against her themselves. The propaganda of the right about liberal elitism has been proved true. There have been lots of snickering and coy metaphorical winks about Palin on SNL. To portray the dangerous as banal is not funny. The people who don't like Palin and who believe we have a two-party system with genuine choices, see her as less threatening now, a little pitiable, maybe, because she couldn't have really understood that the joke was on her. She is not a woman to underestimate. Palin didn't do herself any harm on Saturday Night Live and the clever attempts at satire only reinforced the perception that she is a trouper, someone who can manage grace under fire and who will take the hits from the "left-wing" establishment. She appeared both strong and vulnerable. And sexy. A potent brew. We should be grateful for the financial meltdown. Without that, this woman who has a real and well-documented political agenda and a comprehensive understanding of the ideology of fundamentalists, jingoistic war-mongers and wealthy corporations, would easily propel John McCain into the White House.
She may do it still. Don't laugh at Sarah Palin.
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Thumb through the typical newspaper and chances are you won't find yourself in it. Not you personally, but working stiffs, regular folks, the hoi polloi. News corporations are in the business of mass media, yet they virtually ignore the masses, which just might be the one reason the masses increasingly ignore newspapers.
Last year, the Washington Post ran a front page story asking why the public is "gloomier than the economy." Not a single worker was interviewed! No mention was made about declining wages, lack of health care coverage, busted pension plans, or other real reasons that real people might feel a bit gloomy.
Also last year, The New York Times printed a story about the strength of the job market. Corporate representatives were interviewed - but not a single worker. Likewise, the Wall Street Journal did a piece decrying the fact that the promotion of free-trade deals keeps meeting "stiff resistance from organized labor." Not a single worker or labor rep was asked to explain their viewpoint.
In a study of economy-related articles in major news outlets throughout 2007, the Center for American Progress found that media barons focus on "elite sources" for their stories and ignore ordinary workers. The result is a dangerous, willfully-ignorant narrowing of our nation's democratic dialogue, excluding the perspective of the majority of Americans.
The real bias of the media is not the left or right, but to the thin strata of economic elites at the top of our society. So it's no wonder that the workaday majority is seeking other sources of news.
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One of my favorite mega medicines is colloidal silver. I've used it to cure everything from herpes to spider bite. But I hated spending $20 for two ounces at the health food store. So I was delighted to buy a small silver colloidal generator that ran off three 9 volt batteries for about $80. I used it for about two years. Then I built my own. So can you.
1. Go to the local bargain store and buy three 9 volt batteries (I got them for fifty cents apiece at Pic n Save).
2. Wire them together in the manner above (positive to negative to positive to negative to positive with two wires free). Alligator clips work good.
3. Get some pure silver. (Surely, you know some jewelry artist. Or buy a bit of silver wire at a jewelry store. You only need about four inches of silver wire.)
4. Attach two pieces of silver to the two free wires coming from the batteries.
5. Dip the silver into a glass of water. (Warm, distilled water works best.) Watch science in action as the electrical current destabilizes the water. Water molecules are torn apart. Free-ranging oxygen atoms bond into unstable triads (ozone!) and pull helpless microns of silver into ionized suspension. Tiny bubbles of pure hydrogen gas fizz up from one wire, as ionized silver streams off the other wire in ghostlike clouds. Beautiful, actually. Wait about five minutes or less. If you start getting brown stuff, that's silver dioxide and you've left it too long. (Brush the silver dioxide off the silver bits after you use them.)
6. Drink up. If it has a strong, yukky metallic taste, almost unbearable, you've got the right stuff. Make hundreds of dollars worth of silver colloidal for mere pennies.
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With Breast Cancer Awareness month fully upon us once again, retail stores have been invaded with everything pink, including "pink ribbon" candies and personal care products made with blatantly cancer-causing ingredients. Retail grocery stores like Safeway even hit up customers for donations at the cash register, promising to raise funds to find "the cure for cancer."
Consumers of course, have virtually no idea where the funds they donate actually go, nor do they know the truths about breast cancer they'll never be told by conventional cancer non-profit organizations. In this article, I'll reveal ten important myths about breast cancer, and the truths that can save your life.
Myth #1: Breast Cancer is not preventable
The Truth: Up to 98% of breast cancer cases can be prevented through diet, nutritional supplements, sunshine and exercise
It's true: Breast cancer can be almost entirely prevented through commonsense changes in diet, the addition of anti-cancer nutritional supplements, boosting vitamin D creation from sunlight, avoiding exposure to toxic chemicals in consumer products, pursuing regular exercise and eating a live foods diet.
The breast cancer industry -- which depends on the continuation of cancer for its profits and employment -- has so far refused to teach women even basic cancer prevention strategies (such as increasing the intake of vitamin D, which prevents 77% of all cancers). See: http://www.naturalnews.com/021892.html
Myth #2: Pink ribbon products are sold to raise money to support breast cancer victims
The Truth: Nearly 100% of the funds are used to recruit more breast cancer patients into highly-lucrative treatments that do more harm than good.
You know where all that money goes that you donate to the "search for the cure" and other cancer scams? Virtually none of it goes to actually teach women how to prevent cancer. The World Health Organization says 70% of all cancers are preventable, but the breast cancer industry helps zero percent of women actually prevent it.
Those funds actually go to recruiting breast cancer patients by offering "free" mammograms. This is the clever recruitment strategy of the cancer industry. It's sort of like a greasy garage mechanic offering a "free" checkup on your car's transmission. It's in his financial interest to find something wrong (or to break something), just like it's in the financial interests of the cancer industry to diagnose a women with cancer and scare her into expensive, high-profit treatments like chemotherapy, radiation therapy or cancer surgery. (Mammogram false positives are commonplace...)
Want proof of where these funds go? Check out this grant list at the Komen for the Cure organization, and you'll see it's almost entirely spent on recruiting more women with mammograms: http://www.komenphoenix.org/site/c.nsKZ...
When you read that list, note that there is not a single grant provided for nutritional education to teach women how to prevent cancer with vitamin D, cruciferous vegetables, anti-cancer herbs, supplements or to avoid dangerous cancer-causing food ingredients like sodium nitrite, MSG and chemical sweeteners.
Myth #3: The only proven treatments for breast cancer are chemotherapy and radiation
The Truth: Chemotherapy doesn't work and radiation causes cancer.
Chemotherapy is a fraud, plain and simple. It's as ludicrous as poisoning patients with mercury and calling it medicine (which is something doctors did a hundred years ago, by the way). There is absolutely no reliable scientific evidence showing that chemotherapy has any positive effect whatsoever on breast cancer. Try to find the science yourself: It doesn't exist!
Sure, there's evidence that chemotherapy shrinks tumors. Too bad, however, that tumor size is irrelevant. Artificially reducing the size of a tumor does nothing to reverse the physiology of cancer in a patient's body. It doesn't initiate the healing that needs to take place to reverse cancer and stay cancer free. And this doesn't even take into account the quality of life issues here: Chemotherapy doesn't help people LIVE any longer, but it sure does make them DIE longer!
Myth #4: Chemotherapy is safe and doesn't cause permanent damage to your health
The Truth: Chemotherapy causes vomiting, hair loss, muscle loss, brain damage, heart damage, kidney damage and liver damage. Much of this damage is permanent. Read these stories to learn more:
Cancer Drug Causes Permanent Brain Damage
Chemotherapy Causes Brain Shrinkage
Chemotherapy Found to Cause Permanent Brain Damage
Myth #5: Regular mammograms are the best way to detect cancer
The Truth: Mammograms harm 10 women for every one woman they help
Here's part of a story we published in 2006, called Breast Cancer Screening Harms Ten Women for Every One That it Helps.
"A new study by researchers from the Nordic Cochrane Centre in Denmark found that mammograms may harm ten times as many women as they help.
The researchers examined the benefits and negative effects of seven breast cancer screening programs on 500,000 women in the United States, Canada, Scotland and Sweden. The study's authors found that for every 2,000 women who received mammograms over a 10-year period, only one would have her life prolonged, but 10 would endure unnecessary and potentially harmful treatments."
Got that? For every 2,000 women receiving mammograms, only ONE would have her life extended at all. TEN women, though, would be harmed with chemotherapy, radiation or mastectomies.
What the study didn't point out, by the way, is that all these treatments are highly profitable for the cancer industry. That's the real reason why mammograms are pushed so aggressively onto women. It's not because mammograms detect cancer; it's because mammograms make them money.
To the breast cancer industry, a woman is nothing more than a piece of meat with a cash reward attached to it. The push for mammography is a marketing ploy designed to keep women scared, misinformed and lined up to be poisoned with chemotherapy while they shell out their life savings for treatments that, for most of them, aren't even medically justified!
That's why I say the breast cancer industry is, by any honest assessment, a crime against women. In America, husbands who beat their wives are considered criminals. They're arrested and locked away. But those very same men, when wearing a doctor's coat, can assault women with chemicals, slice off their breasts with scalpels and even kill those women... all with impunity. There's not a single breast cancer doctor who has ever been arrested for the death of a patient.
The true history of western medicine's violence against women
In time, of course, this will change. Medical violence against women is a crime, regardless of whether the weapon is a fist, a baseball bat or a syringe full of chemicals that will cause permanent damage to her vital organs. In time, chemotherapy will be outlawed and breast cancer doctors will be put out of work or prosecuted for their crimes against women. Perhaps they'll even be castrated as part of a "fitting" punishment.
To all the women reading this, note carefully the history of western medicine and its numerous assaults on women over the years. Do you know where the term "hysterectomy" comes from? It comes from the belief by male doctors that women's emotions were "hysterical," and they believed the best way to "cure" women of their hysteria was to violently cut her reproductive organs out of her body.
The procedure was widely adopted by male surgeons and used for well over a hundred years to treat women who were diagnosed as suffering from virtually every kind of emotional variance you can imagine. Doctors who didn't use scalpels to remove these organs from a woman's body often resorted to so-called "pelvic massages" -- a medicalized raping of the female patient by the male doctor, of course.
Even today, tens of thousands of hysterectomies are performed each year with no medical justification whatsoever. Doctors continue to view women's bodies as diseased and abnormal, surgically removing their breasts and reproductive organs for no justifiable reason whatsoever. It's even being done today as a cancer prevention procedure, against women who have no cancer at all!
Western medicine's treatment of breast cancer patients today is little more than an extension of hundreds of years of medical violence against women by the male-dominated medical establishment.
Want proof? Notice that cancer doctors never advise men to surgically remove their testicles as a way to "prevent" testicular cancer? That's because the male surgeons performing these operations prefer to maim women, not men.
If you have the stomach for it, read the rest of the truth about how conventional doctors and surgeons commit outrageous medical violence against women and children even today: http://www.naturalnews.com/019930.html.
Myth #6: BRCA-positive women should consider mastectomies to prevent cancer
The Truth: Cruciferous vegetables target BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes, preventing cancer with nutrition.
Women who are BRCA positive are being scared into utterly unnecessary double mastectomies -- a procedure that benefits no one except the surgeon. What nobody is telling these women is that cruciferous vegetables contain anti-cancer nutrients that specifically target BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes, protecting these women from breast cancer.
All it takes is a single ounce of fresh broccoli juice each day, or fresh sprouts, superfoods or other nutrient-dense foods or juices consumed daily.
Cancer doctors, of course, conveniently forget to tell women about these little facts. It would hurt their business if women knew how to prevent cancer on their own, at home, with everyday groceries and simple herbs.
Here's text from one study that might interest you. It shows that I3C (from broccoli) and genistein (from fermented soy) inhibit estrogen-stimulated receptor activity in a dose-dependent fashion:
"...we showed that I3C induces BRCA1 expression and that both I3C and BRCA1 inhibit oestrogen (E2)-stimulated oestrogen receptor (ER-) activity in human breast cancer cells. We now report that both I3C and genistein induce the expression of both breast cancer susceptibility genes (BRCA1 and BRCA2) in breast (MCF-7 and T47D) and prostate (DU-145 and LNCaP) cancer cell types, in a time- and dose-dependent fashion.
http://www.nature.com/bjc/journal/v94/n...
Conventional cancer doctors, of course, refuse to tell women about scientific evidence like this. If women could prevent breast cancer with I3C, why would they need cancer doctors? The answer, of course, is that they wouldn't. You can buy I3C, but the way, right here: http://www.vitacost.com/NSI-I3C-Indole-...
The FDA, of course, won't allow companies selling I3C supplements to tell you the scientifically-validated truth about their anti-cancer benefits. It's all part of the censorship and oppression that characterizes today's cancer industry. The U.S. government, of course, is the co-conspirator in this sad tragedy of misinformation.
It is the job of the FDA and the cancer industry to keep women stupid, uninformed and scared when it comes to breast cancer. The last thing they want is for women to be nutritionally literate.
Myth #7: The cancer non-profits are searching for a cure for cancer
The Truth: Even if one was found, they would never allow a cure to be publicized: It would destroy the cancer treatment industry.
It's the great scam of the cancer industry: We're searching for a cure, they claim! Never mind the fact that they've been using this same con since the late 60's, when they claimed to be only a few million dollars away from curing cancer forever.
The search for "the cure" is pure deception. It's a clever con to take money from people for all those silly pink ribbon activities, but the truth is that the cancer industry doesn't believe there's such a thing as cure. Just ask the FDA, the AMA or any state health licensing board: Anyone claiming to have a cancer "cure" is immediately considered a quack. Over the last several decades, countless doctors researching genuine cancer cures have been arrested, imprisoned or run out of the country. Read about Stanislaw Burzynski to learn about just one example: http://www.cancure.org/burzynski_instit...
Finally, even if they actually find a "cure" (which they won't, since that would destroy the profits of the cancer industry), do you think they would give it away for free? Of course not! They'd charge hundreds of thousands of dollars for it, milking the maximum profits out of a terrified population for their newest wonder drug.
Notice, by the way, that not a single conventional breast cancer non-profit group -- nor any drug company -- has announced that its breakthrough cancer drugs will be given away for free. And that leads me to this question: If they're not planning on giving away the cure for free, then why are you giving them money for free to pay for their R&D?
Why should people donate money to the wealthiest corporations in the world (the drug companies) who are going to take their money and use it to develop a new wave of drugs that are sold to cancer victims at outrageous price markups sometimes exceeding 550,000% of the cost of the chemical ingredients?
The truth is, anyone who donates money for any such "search for the cure" is being conned outright. There's a sucker born every minute, P.T. Barnum famously said. What he neglected to add is that most of them are now buying pink products and thinking they're helping find a "cure" for cancer.
Don't be suckered. Keep your money, or invest it in vitamin D supplements or anti-cancer herbs. You want to cure cancer? Cure it in your own body first. It's a lot less expensive, and you get to keep your hair, too.
Myth #8: There is no cure for breast cancer
The Truth: There are MANY natural cures for breast cancer available right now.
Just a few hours of research will turn up numerous natural cures for cancer: Vitamin D, cat's claw herbs, the Essiac formula, medicinal mushrooms, spirulina, cruciferous vegetables, green tea, graviola herbs, Chinese medicinal herbs, oxygen therapy, alkalizing water therapies and much more.
All these cures have one thing in common: They are ALL suppressed by the FDA and FTC. Telling the truth about anti-cancer foods, herbs or supplements is now a criminal offense in America.
Myth #9: If my mother had breast cancer, I'll get it too
The Truth: Breast Cancer is not caused by bad genes; it's caused by bad diets.
This is another common lie told to woman by cancer doctors to scare them into medically unnecessary cancer "treatments" (which can kill you or harm you). Did you know that radiation treatment for one breast actually causes cancer in the OTHER breast? See: http://www.naturalnews.com/News_000366_...
Your genes don't control your health, but what you put in your mouth and on your skin has near-total control over your health! If your parents had cancer, they were no doubt eating cancer-causing foods (processed meats) and not using anti-cancer foods, superfoods, herbs and supplements. They were also likely deficient in vitamin D, and they probably didn't drink fresh anti-cancer vegetables on a daily basis (www.JuiceFeasting.com). Lastly, they no doubt had regular exposure to cancer-causing chemicals: Cigarette smoke, chemical solvents, perfume chemicals, household cleaners, pesticides, skin care products, conventional cosmetics, etc.
Read the truth about processed meats: http://www.naturalnews.com/022288.html
Myth #10: Sunlight causes cancer
The Truth: Sunlight generates Vitamin D in your skin, which prevents 78% of ALL cancers.
The disinformation put out by the cancer industry about sunlight has reached a level of absurdity that's virtually unmatched in the history of medicine. If you believe what the American Cancer Society tells you (still being suckered?), sunlight causes cancer!
Yes, that's right: Sunlight causes cancer, they claim. According to the entire cancer industry (and most dermatologists, too), you'd be much better off hiding in a cave, or living your life under fluorescent lights or smothered in a layer of toxic sunscreen chemicals (which actually DO cause cancer, by the way).
Somehow, the human race has miraculously managed to survived 350,000 years of natural sunlight without be obliterated. This is nothing short of astonishing, given that sunlight is so deadly. It sort of makes me wonder how the human race survived at all, with sunlight striking any given area of the Earth, say, 50% of the time. Did our ancestors live underground?
The ploy here is so obvious that it's child's play to expose their strategy: Cancer industry authorities know that vitamin D prevents 77% of all cancers. Since sunlight exposure causes the skin to generate vitamin D in the human body (for free, no less), the cancer industry has come to the realization that in order for it to continue surviving (and exploiting cancer patients), it has to scare people away from anything that might actually prevent or cure cancer.
This is the whole reason behind the sunlight scare campaigns, of course. It's all just a clever profit strategy to keep people sick and diseased by enforcing widespread vitamin D deficiency across the human population. Note, too, that this deficiency is especially prominent in men and women of darker skin color, which means the cancer industry's whole campaign against sunlight is filled with disturbing racial overtones that smack of genocide. (Ever wonder why breast cancer is FAR more aggressive in black women and white women? It's the vitamin D deficiency caused by the skin color, of course. But cancer docs never tell their black patients anything about it...)
Remember this: Healthy people with abundant vitamin D levels in their blood don't get cancer and they almost never catch colds. They also don't need vaccines, by the way. These are three huge profit centers for conventional medicine: Cancer, vaccines and colds. This is why the industry goes to such great lengths to (hilariously) try to discredit the sun.
It's hilarious because the sun, of course, is the source of ALL life on our planet. Without the sun, there would be no plants, no bacteria, no animals, no fish and certainly no humans. The sun is the single most important source of life on our planet, and without it, we'd all die in a matter of a few hours (from the cold alone). That the cancer industry would declare war on the sun is just a disturbing example of how far removed modern medicine is from the real world.
Why the cancer industry is dangerous to women
The cancer industry people are living in a world of self-reinforced fictions, where sunlight is bad and chemotherapy chemicals are good; where food is useless but pharmaceuticals are essential. Almost everything said to you by a conventional cancer doctor is the opposite of what's real, and yet they believe their own delusions only because those delusions are so widely shared by their colleagues. It is circular logic at its worst, driven by arrogance and greed, and totally lacking any discernable degree of intellectual honesty or compassion for the value of a human life.
The cancer industry is, in a very real way, a danger to the safety of men and women alike. It is a kind of home-grown medical terrorism, through which the application of fear and disinformation results in massive corporate profits that are only exceeded by the body count of our dead women; our mothers, daughters, sisters, aunts and nieces who fall victim to conventional cancer treatments. They are being lost to a medical regime wielding weapons of mass destruction: Chemical weapons (chemotherapy), radiological weapons (radiation) and weapons of sharp steel (scalpels).
These weapons of medical violence are being directed at our women for one purpose only: To secure profits that go into the hands of a few wealthy men who sit at the top of these organizations, raking in fifty-million-dollar salaries while the cancer treatment centers send women home in body bags.
It is the ultimate act of cruelty to promise a woman "treatment" and then deliver poison.
It is the ultimate act of violence to promise a woman "healing" and then mutilate her body.
The cancer industry, as operated today, is ultimately a criminal organization engaged in acts of medical violence against women.
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Auburn Avenue Research Library
I am extremely pleased to participate in this reunion of some of the boldest, most idealistic, patriotic, inspiring young people that this country has ever seen. I celebrate who you are and what you have done to cause the United States Government and all of its instruments of power to write one of the most ignominious chapters in this country's history. I consistently use you as a gauge: if they would do it to the Black Panther Party, then all of America must know that they will, without hesitation, also do it to the rest of us. And so, it is incumbent upon those of us who know and want to know, to share the information about your experiences, because there were efforts as you well know, to denigrate your name and neutralize your mission of self-determination for Black people in this country, and to instill fear into the population-both black and white-at the very mention of the Black Panther Party for Self Defense.
I begin with this question: If the decision- and policy-makers at that time would do it when it was "illegal and un-American," as Senator Frank Church described the actions of those working inside the COINTELPRO framework, what are individual actors with access to power and technology within the government today capable of doing now? You, the members of the Black Panther Party, are living testament that too many individuals with access to power were willing to commit the highest crimes and misdemeanors in order to achieve their objective--and that was clearly stated in the opening document: to neutralize you. You are also living testament that even though the actions carried out against you were illegal, they were largely done with impunity. Who among the actors inside government--the coordinators, conceivers, managers, approvers--of these activities has been punished? And what we must never forget is what the U.S. government means when it uses the word "neutralize." I think you all know all too well.
Your experience with the Counter-Intelligence Program of yesterday is instructive today now that the Patriot Acts, the Secret Evidence Act, the Military Commissions Act, the Funding for the War on Terror Act are all carved into the law. Kathleen and Natsu and, of course, King Downing, and others can describe how vastly the legal landscape has changed. But there is one aspect of the operation to neutralize your good works and your good name that has not changed. And that's what I want to talk about today.
How many times has the corporate press used the word "spoiler" in reference to the 2000 Presidential election and every Presidential election since then and how many times have they reported accurately the number of black votes cast and not counted or the way in which black voters were disfranchised?
How many times did the corporate press use the word "conspiracy," not in conjunction with the September 11th tragedy, but in conjunction with those who want to know the truth about what happened on that day?
How many times did the corporate media lie to the people of this country and the world in the lead-up to the war against Iraq?
In the wake of accounts of torture and prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib, how many times were prisoner abuse and torture inside this country mentioned? How many times was Attica, the Angola 3, Chicago's Area 2, or the San Francisco 8 mentioned?
In this, an election year, how many times have stories on election integrity been written that inform and warn potential voters of the problems they might face at the polling place and what their rights are if they encounter them?
When we read accounts that the CIA stationed psychological operations agents inside the newsroom at CNN, we must understand that the Propaganda Matrix is real and the sad fact is that COINTELPRO could not have been as effective as it was without the cooperation and complicity of the corporate media, known as the 4th Estate. I read a very interesting piece recently that asked if the 4th Estate is really a Fifth Column.
During the 1999 Memphis, Tennessee trial on the murder of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. who joined Black Panther Party members as a target of COINTELPRO, and was murdered because of it:
On November 30, 1999 testimony in that trial reveals the lengths to which the government would go to eliminate a problem of conscience and the extent of cooperation between the government's operatives and the esteemed members of the journalistic community. The testimony on that date reveals the presence of the US military operating inside this country in civilian clothing. Testimony from one such operative revealed special operations forces charged with assassinations operating with instructions directly from the White House. The testimony included information on the role of Jeb Bush who, as Governor of Florida, saw to it that certain "civilian operations" went forward from the port of Miami, Florida. Including drug shipments from Colombia into the U.S.
The testimony in Dr. King's trial starkly portrays the collusion of the paragons of the press with suppression and omission of important information, regarding the murder of Dr. King as well as in the efforts to smear Dr. King and the movement he was leading. The testimony of Bill Schapp is frightening reading about propaganda and disinformation in the information lifeline of this country. He testified that approximately one-third of the entire CIA budget and hundreds of millions of FBI dollars are dedicated to media propaganda operations. That the CIA actually owned, at the time of the Church Committee hearings, about 250 media organizations and employed thousands of journalists actually on the CIA payroll. Mr. Schapp testified that the FBI had friendly journalists at AP, Copley News Service, U.S. News and World Report, and at the Atlanta Constitution, The New Orleans Times Picayune, The New York Times, The Christian Science Monitor, even The Washington Post. Schapp testified that Frank Wisner called control over information flows the "Great Wurlitzer."
And what is to be made of the Brasscheck TV claim that video they have posted shows the Prime Ministers of Australia and the soon-to-be Prime Minister of Canada giving the exact same speech in support of the U.S.-led war in Iraq?
Among the top 25 censored stories for 2009, according to Project Censored, include "Over One Million Iraqi Deaths Caused by U.S. Occupation"; "Security and Prosperity Partnership: Militarized NAFTA"; "InfraGard: the FBI Deputizes Business"; "ILEA: Is the US Restarting Dirty Wars in Latin America"; "Seizing War Protesters' Assets"; "Cruelty and Death in Juvenile Detention Centers"; "Marijuana Arrests Set New Record"; and in light of the bailout blowout, "Bush's Real Problem with Eliot Spitzer." A recent immigration court case uncovered what is, according to Sibel Edmonds-who is probably the most-gagged woman in the country right now--an illegal, covert CIA operation involving the intentional "Islamization" of Central Asia using Turkey as its front for the purpose of establishing US control over the vast energy resources of the region. All of this is to say that the corporate press do not inform us of the activities of our own government. Indeed, on Valentine's Day in 2003, a Florida Appeals Court ruled that the media can legally lie.
So, if it's the truth or real information we want, we have to go elsewhere-not the corporate press. In this election year, don't expect talk about civil liberties or human rights, don't expect discussion of a full employment economy or even of a single payer health care system, recently described by 5,000 physicians as the only morally and fiscally responsible way to deliver health care in this country.
Now we learn that special surveillance units have been formed to track our hip hop icons as was done with our cultural icons of the past, including Paul Robeson and Bob Marley. No wonder. We get more straight talk from political hip hop than we do from today's journalists charged with informing the people of their voting choices and policy options. Artists like Immortal Technique, who writes in his song on the media entitled "Fourth Branch:"
"It's like MK Ultra controlling your brain . . . "
Michael Franti writes:
"We can bomb the world to pieces, but we can't bomb it into peace."
Finally, Paris speaks to the character of our country when he asks:
"If you saw all the things that's wrong, would you stand tall and strong, or would you turn and walk away?"
You, members of the Black Panther Party saw all the things that's wrong, you stood tall and strong.
Thank you.
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 Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien Obama's New Advisor Stands By His War Crimes By Chris Floyd Just to be clear, Barack Obama's brand-new foreign policy advisor, Colin Powell, wants you to know that he continues to support the decision to launch a war of aggression against Iraq in March 2003 -- an act that, according to principles established by the United States and its allies at Nuremberg in 1945, is a war crime punishable by death. In fact, the only thing that Powell -- the wise and steady statesman, the "grown-up," the "moderate" -- can find to criticize in the conduct of the war he helped launch is the fact that it wasn't savage enough to begin with. We should have "surged" those sand monkeys from the git-go, he told CNN, as he aligned himself with the genocidal philosophy of noted moderate, grown-up legal philosopher Glenn "Gomer Says Hey" Reynolds, noted for his Augustinian endorsement of the "more rubble, less trouble" school of warcraft. From CNN, here are Powell's words from an exchange with reporters following his endorsement of Obama on Sunday: I'm well aware of the role I played [in the Iraq war]. My role has been very, very straightforward. I wanted to avoid a war. The president agreed with me. We tried to do that. We couldn't get it through the U.N. and when the president made the decision, I supported that decision. And I've never blinked from that. I've never said I didn't support a decision to go to war. Here is one outright lie right out of the gate -- a brazen, blazing, breathtaking lie: "We tried to do that [avoid the war]. We couldn't get it through the U.N." This is murderous bullshit of the highest order. Before the invasion, Bush and Powell claimed they were being forced to consider war because of Iraq's alleged non-compliance with past UN demands to destroy its WMD arsenal and programs. In late 2002, the UN duly authorized -- and Iraq accepted -- a vigorous program of inspections to verify compliance -- or discover non-compliance. This process was going on, successfully, with cooperation from the Iraqis, when George W. Bush ordered the UN inspectors out of the country, before they finished their work, so that he could launch a military invasion -- which was now unnecessary by the very criteria that he and Powell had set out publicly. But the kibosh on the UN process was necessary precisely to preclude the possibility that the inspectors would discover the truth: there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, there were no active programs to develop WMD in Iraq, and all such programs had been dismantled years before. (Both the Clinton and Bush Administrations had mountains of evidence to support this conclusion, and almost nothing to refute it. Yet both encouraged this blood libel to increase in hysterical virulence year after year.) For if the UN had been allowed to complete its work in 2003, then the Bush administration's main public casus belli, the threat of WMD, would have evaporated. So let's be clear about the facts. Bush and Powell did indeed get from the UN a perfect mechanism for avoiding war with Iraq -- if that had been their goal. Instead, Bush destroyed this process in order to launch the invasion -- and Powell supported that position. He still supports it today. He's "never blinked from it." Here's more from the moderate, honorable man, who is now completely rehabilitated in the eyes of "progressives" everywhere. (Indeed, even the Guardian on Monday proclaimed him a figure "of enduring moral authority."). Powell: And the war looked great until the 9th of April, when the statue fell, everybody thought it was terrific. And it was terrific. The troops had done a great job. But then we failed to understand that the war really was not over, that a new phase of the war was beginning. And we weren't ready for it and we didn't respond to it well enough... We now see that things are a lot better in Iraq. Maybe if we had put a surge in at the beginning, it would have been a lot better years ago..... It wasn't wrong to kneecap the UN and unilaterally invade a country that hadn't attacked you and slaughter their people and destroy their society and drive more than four million of them from their homes; no. What was wrong, according to the moderate grown-up, was not laying even more shock and awe on the victims from the beginning. "Surge" through even more of their houses, terrifying children and rounding up the menfolk in even larger concentration camps; "surge" them with even more hired sectarian killers; "surge" all over their sorry hides with even more "smart bombs" and "drone missiles" and 500-pound blockbusters; "surge" them with "fraternity pranks" like the Cabinet-approved regimen of physical and psychological torture that leaked briefly into the light at Abu Ghraib. Yes, the original invasion just wasn't tough enough, didn't kill and dispossess nearly enough people -- not for a moderate, steady figure of enduring moral authority like Colin Powell. Shoulda surged 'em harder. Shoulda closed our hearts to pity, as that guy with the funny little moustache used to say. (Now there's someone who knew how to surge!) Powell then goes on with the by-now ritual praise of General David Petraeus and the "surge": the campaign of ethnic cleansing, bribing and arming of sectarian extremists, death squads, local government torture, and "close air support" in civilian areas that -- along with the indispensable role played by Iran in supporting the allies it shares with Washington in the Iraqi government -- has "reduced" the violence in Iraq to a level that approximates the very worst civil conflicts since World War II. Of course, Obama shares this view of the surge, having recently declared it "a wild success." And we have every indication that Obama shares this further sentiment that Powell voiced in his remarks: And so, my concern was not my past or what happened in Iraq, but where we're going in the future. My sole concern was where are we going after January 20 of 2009, not what happened in 2003. Well, if I had committed a hanging offense in 2003, I'd want to concentrate on 2009 too. And Obama seems to concur; he wants to "move on," to avoid any unseemly "partisan" wrangles over the past. The fact that a gang of militarist extremists -- including good old moderate Colin Powell -- murdered a million innocent people in a blatant war crime committed in America's name is not something that would be "fruitful to pursue," to quote Obama's own ringing phrase about his adamant opposition to any impeachment proceedings against the Bush Faction. But beyond Powell's understandable anxiety to shift attention away from the period of his criminal complicity, look again at this passage from his statement. Meditate on it, let it sink in deeply: ...my concern was not my past or what happened in Iraq, but where we're going in the future. His concern is not "what happened in Iraq." This encapsulates perfectly the view of the entire bipartisan foreign policy establishment. They simply could not care less about what happened in Iraq: a million dead, four million dispossessed, social, economic, cultural ruin, torture, murder, destruction, suffering: It not their "concern." They do not give a damn. The only thing that matters is "where we're going in the future;" i.e., how can we -- not "we the people" but "we" the elite, "we" the deciders, "we" the wielders of imperial power -- retain our dominance, our privilege and the proper deference that is our due from the lesser peoples of the world. And now this man -- a willing and defiantly unrepentant conspirator in mass murder, a lifelong servant and abettor of the worst excesses of a rampant militarism that has destroyed the constitutional republic and replaced it with a hideous "commander-in-chief" state -- is now going to be whispering in the ear of our "transformational" president-to-be, providing the "foreign policy wisdom" that the young prince still lacks. This is the "change" we have been promised, the "change" that millions of people -- in America and around the world -- have desperately longed for: a proven liar and mass murderer, standing in the inner circle of power again, alongside the "anti-war" "progressive" -- just as he stood shoulder to shoulder with George W. Bush...and just as he would even now be standing shoulder to shoulder with manic militarist John McCain, if he were 10 points up in the polls.
Mr. Eric Blair once described this nightmare scenario very well: "Four legs good, two legs better."
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 Just To Be Clear.... By Cindy Sheehan I am having a little difficulty grasping what the term "San Francisco" values means. I thought I knew...I hope I know...I hope I am right. To me, a person with "liberal" San Francisco values would be for impeaching George Bush and Dick Cheney in defense of the Constitution and as justice for the millions of people who have been killed or displaced (Iraq, Afghanistan, Gulf States) because of their lies and crimes. To me, a person with liberal SF values would be against the use of torture. To me, a person with liberal SF values would be against funding wars that have killed/displaced millions of people. To me, a person with liberal SF values would be against spying on people's emails and phone calls without a warrant. To me, a person with liberal SF values would want to see a living wage paid, not minimum wage servitude. To me, a person with liberal SF values would not ignore the abominable homeless situation here, but would want policies that worked for economic security; shelter, food, healthcare, and education for all, not just for the plutocracy. To me, a person with liberal SF values would care more about the people afflicted with environmental ailments in Bayview/Hunter's point and not with building a stadium out there that few want, not even the team. To me, a person with liberal SF values would be adamantly OPPOSED to a bailout of the banksters and Wall Street welfare barons and FOR a bailout of our families, small businesses and communities. I am the candidate for Congress here in California's 8th District that has these progressive values. Nancy Pelosi is the candidate that exemplifies everything that is wrong with our country today. Vote for SF values. Vote for your values.
Vote for me, Cindy Sheehan.
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 Don't Worry It's Only Because it's an Election Year By Mike Folkerth Good Morning Middle Americans, your weekend addition of the King of Simple News is on the air. I devoted quite a little ink to the subject of inflation when I wrote my book. America runs on oil and inflation, neither of which can last long term. America also operates on the belief that man can counter the cause and effects of physics, and in particular, the first and second laws of thermodynamics. Putting all of this into a more scientific statement, "We're all hosed." The departure from reality that began in earnest in 1971 when the U.S. went off the gold standard has come home to roost. The very idea that we could inflate our way out of any problem is being shown for what it really was; moronic. Ron Paul put it well in an interview yesterday when he said, "If inflation and printing money out of thin air can solve all of our problems, why not just print money and send it out for everyone to spend and no one will have to work?" That is in fact what the governments of the world are attempting to do. My belief, and I'm gaining excellent company every day, is that the world monetary system is going to implode in the not so distant future. There are literally trillions and trillions of dollars or yen or kroner or deutsche marks around the world that are counting on collecting compounding interest each and every day. The word for that expectation is spelled, EXPONENTIAL GROWTH. Now since exponential growth is also spelled INFLATION and more importantly spelled MATHEMATICALLY IMPOSSIBLE, then we can pretty much determine that something real bad is going to happen. Of course, we could have determined that something real bad was going to happen in 1971 but, the overwhelming evidence that it wasn't going to happen by 1972 made it a perfect plan for the "crisis management" discipline of our leadership both then and now. Anything that can't go on forever won't. And it didn't. I believe that we have passed the last exit and will run out of gas well before we reach the next possible jumping off place. It's easy to want to believe those who say, "Hang in there until after the election, it's always like this in a big election year." Why didn't I think of that? I didn't think of it and I don't believe it because I'm semi-sane. I'm going to point out a just a few of the minor items that will trouble the next few years of our new president whether it is Barrack Obama, John McCain or Mickey Mouse. The first batch of the 78,000,000 baby boomers became eligible for Social Security this year. . . and there are 17 more years of them already lined up. In the next few years, all taxes being collected today will be required to fund Social Security and Medicare alone. The housing industry has totally collapsed; fewer homes were built this year than in 1945. The airlines for the most part are bankrupt. The banks for the most part are bankrupt. The auto industry for the most part is bankrupt. The Federal Government is for sure bankrupt. Eighty to eighty five percent of Americans are broke. The stock market and consequently our retirement funds are currently down some 40%. Our trade imbalance with the world is $700 BILLION per year and climbing. Americans have lost jobs each and every month for the past 9 months with no end in site, while some 100,000 immigrants enter the U.S. each and every month legally, looking for work. College educations have become so costly that the resulting employment can no longer justify the expenditure, while at the same time, many, if not most, of our highly educated jobs are being outsourced. We are fighting two wars and looking for more at a cost of American lives and $10 billion per month. And, we are running out of energy in a country where we are dependent on foreign nations for 70% of that use. All of the former minor issues are the good news. The bad news is that man cannot and will not trump the laws of natural physics including the first two laws of thermodynamics by printing more money and growing our domestic population; which if you haven't noticed, is the plan.
But, don't let any of this worry you, it's always like this in an important election year.
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 Dear Conservatives, Will You Help Save The Republic From Military Takeover? By Naomi Wolf Dear Conservative America: I am reaching out with a warning to you that is as heartfelt as the one I have been bringing my fellow citizens for months. But you are the most important audience of all for this, because you hold the key to whether or not we can save our republic in time. I have been arguing that we are seeing the classic building blocks being laid for a police state: My thesis in The End of America: A Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot is that we are seeing the classic 10 steps being set in place that always underlie a violent police state. My argument in its sequel, Give Me Liberty, is that we must rise up as tactically and effectively as patriots to stop this suppression of freedom. I hope to persuade you of the profound moral repugnance a true conservative should feel for the plans that are afoot in this nation. What is the newest news? The Army Times declared that "beginning Oct. 1 for 12 months, the (1st Brigade Combat Team of the 3rd Infantry Division) will be under the day-to-day control of U.S. Army North" ... "the first time an active unit has been given a dedicated assignment to NorthCom, a joint command established in 2002 to provide command and control for federal homeland defense efforts and coordinate defense support of civil authorities." They are tasked to help with "civil unrest and crowd control or to deal with potentially horrific scenarios such as massive poisoning and chaos in response to a chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear or high-yield explosive, or CBRNE, attack ..." What this means is that U.S. citizens can now be "controlled" by the military on our streets through technologies -- such as Tasers and rubber bullets -- that terrify and torment and stun but do not usually kill citizens the way that citizens in Iraq are terrified, tormented and stunned by U.S. military forces. Who will be "subdued," according to the blueprint, if and when this military unit takes to our streets? The first group of Americans to be subdued is likely to be protesters; then, going by the blueprint, you will see the military using Tasers to subdue people who ask whether there is a warrant permitting agents to burst into their home, as happened at the RNC. People could be Tasered while protesting when voters are turned away by the wholesale purges of quarter-millions of voters from the rolls that Robert Kennedy Jr. has been documenting; or, there is likely to be Tasering and other kinds of subjugation of people protesting corrupted voting machines. Why does this undermine American freedom? Federal laws, most notably the Posse Comitatus Act, have prohibited the military from being deployed within the United States for 200 years. Yet the Army Times reports that "expectations are that another, as yet unnamed, active-duty brigade will take over and that the mission will be a permanent one." The founders sought to keep soldiers off our streets because they knew how easily a standing army could subdue a population. That's why the National Guard is answerable primarily to the governors of states and hence to the people of the United States. But the military is answerable to the commander in chief. These are the president's troops. The president now has a personal army. One definition of a police state is when the leader has seized control of the military to police citizens domestically. Why listen to me? Not because I am a genius, but because this blueprint is so very predictive. Listen to me because everything that I warned would happen, according to the historical record, has happened, and I have documented the borne-out evidence of the crisis in Give Me Liberty. I warned that the executive would soon simply start to subvert the rule of law. See what the administration has done in response to congressional subpoenas. I warned that the torture we saw in U.S.-held prisons was certainly directed from the top -- a fact that Jane Mayer and others have fully documented since. I warned that within six months we would see the definition of "terrorist" expanded so that the "terrorists" in the news would soon look like heartland, mainstream Americans. We now hear that mere protesters at the RNC in Minnesota have been charged as terrorists. Another definition of a police state is when the leader seeks to seize control of big chunks of the national economy -- with no oversight or accountability. Sound familiar? Consider this, conservative business leaders: What matters to a would-be dictator -- look at Latin America -- is that the leader is able to intervene in the economy and essentially use his clout and his cronies to intimidate competitors or manipulate the economic playing field. Dictators do not care if there is no middle class anymore in their countries, or no upper-middle class. Indeed, they are well served by the kinds of economies you see all over Latin America in which the cronies of the regime vacuum up wealth and intimidate their less-connected peers, in which the middle and upper-middle classes sink into misery while the poor simply suffer with little infrastructure to support them. The coup has already taken place in terms of the laws that have been passed. With wiretapping, the mass arrests of protesters and the directive that allows the executive to seize control of all systems of government in the event of an emergency, the coup is in place, ready only for activation. Is the Bush team seeking to calm or whip up fear in the face of the economic meltdown? Look at how many times Bush, McCain and Palin use the phrase "We're in crisis mode." Then think of FDR, with nothing to fear but fear itself. The only way to stop the Rove-Cheney cabal from moving ahead with this coup without the headlines will be a principled and patriotic Republican revolution against this plan. That is why resistance from Republicans to the Paulson "rescue" was so very heartening. It will take Republicans to understand that criminals have seized control of the White House -- and I don't use that term rhetorically: There are distinct crimes this regime has already committed, and deploying our military to police us is yet one more. It will take Republicans across America to consider the lessons of history: In a police state, your politics do not protect you. How will commerce proceed in such an America? How will capital flow? How will elections unfold? How will liberty be anything more than an echo of a fair and valiant recent past? This is not a liberal nightmare. This is the nightmare of any true conservative patriot.
Please speak to one another about this crisis. Please see it for what it is. And please join our transpartisan rebellion against the paper coup which is all too soon to materialize as boots hit the ground in the United States for the first time in a century. Please stand up for true conservatism, and stand up for a free America.
Her essays have appeared in various publications including: The New Republic, Wall Street Journal, Glamour, Ms., Esquire, The Washington Post, and The New York Times. She also is the author of 'The End of America: A Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot' (Chelsea Green, 2007). |
 Worm's-Eye View Of The Debate By Mary Pitt The most memorable points made in the McCain/Obama debate, from my lowly viewpoint, was the plight of poor old Joe, the Plumber The story was that Joe has worked for a plumbing company for twelve years, 12 hours a day, seven days a week. Now he wants to buy the company and "give jobs" to other men. He is worried that, should he do well and earn over a quarter of a mil a year, he may have to pay a higher rate of taxes then he would now. Having some experience in running a small business and having employed up to seven people at any given time, the efforts of both my husband and me never came close to turning that much profit in a year. For that matter, we never, by each holding separate jobs at the same time, our individual wages never matched the figure that Joe has been earning for the past twelve years. Let's do some math: If Joe has truly worked twelve hours a day for seven days a week, if he was earning union wages, let's say conservatively, $25.00 per hour. Forty hours a week at that rate would garner a gross of $1,000 per week. The additional 44 hours per week would be paid at the overtime rate of $37.50 per hour for an additional $1,650, bringing the total to $2650 per week. Let's say the poor man became so exhausted with that pace that he took a liberal vacation, say four weeks a year, leaving him with 48 weeks per year for an annual gross of $127,200. Not bad, even after deductions for taxes and contributions to the medical plan, (the bulk of which would have been paid by the employer), and, oh yes, let's not forget the onerous Social Security contributions that would have ceased at about the $95,000 mark. Those of us at the bottom of the scale would tend to agree with Senator McCain when he said, "Congratulations, Joe, you're rich!" But Joe is an ambitious man and he wants to buy the business and give jobs to people. I would suggest that he first consult with a good accountant who can explain to him the business facts of life. He will learn that all the wages he pays will be deductible, including any health insurance he provides for his employees as a perk of the job. Of course, he will be required to pay the Employer's tax for Social Security and other taxes and licenses but those are a part of the cost of doing business and are also deductible.. (Should he opt to forego employee health insurance, those same employees are not allowed to deduct the cost of the plan they will have to carry privately.) At the end of the year, after the aforesaid accountant closes the books, making all adjustments to the books to be sure Joe gets all the deductions for depreciation on plant and equipment, as well as the rolling stock and finds all the loopholes that are legally allowed, the resultant figure will be the one on which Joe will pay income tax, under the Obama plan and assuming that he clears the magic figure of $250,000 a year, at about the same rate he is paying now on the lesser present-day income. It may compute to a slightly large amount than he is paying today but he would have double the income and could well afford to pay it. Of course, all this is contingent upon his knowing more about the business than simply how to do the work he is performing now. Many a hard-working, ambitious man in the home service business has done well, decided to own his own business and failed miserably within the first seven years. Let's hope that Joe is not one of them. But from the worm's-eye view of a worn-out old lady, Joe's attitude simply does not make sense. First, it appears to be stupid to deliberately earn less money because a higher income would result in more income taxes. You see, I am from the generation that learned early in life that being honest and paying taxes is the price for the privilege of living in a nation that allows one the freedom to gain wealth and to better the living standard for one's family. It is a matter of the ultimate expression of patriotism that one does one's duty to one's country whether that duty be serving in the military or simply paying the necessary taxes to sustain a free and democratic government. (Republicans are very big on patriotism these days but it does not extend to taxes.)
If Warren Buffet sees fit to complain that his tax rate is too low for all the privileges that he has enjoyed and the prosperity that he has had the opportunity to earn, surely old Joe the Plumber would be able to do the same. We can only hope that he will then be prepared to pay the proper homage to the nation that provided him with the chance to become truly wealthy and that his mindset can mature to the point that he will do it proudly.
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 I feel pretty, oh so pretty...
Dear Uberfuhrer Lieberman, Congratulations, you have just been awarded the "Vidkun Quisling Award!" Your name will now live throughout history with such past award winners as Marcus Junius Brutus, Judas Iscariot, Benedict Arnold, George Stephanopoulos, Ralph Nader, Vidkun Quisling and last year's winner Volksjudge Anthony (Fat Tony) Kennedy. Without your lock-step calling for the repeal of the Constitution, your support of our two coup d'etats, your Anti Obama, Arab, Democratic, Democracy rhetoric and campaigning with Sarah Palin, Iraq and these many other profitable oil wars to come would have been impossible! With the help of our mutual friends, the other "Political Whores" you have made it possible for all of us to goose-step off to a brave new bank account! Along with this award you will be given the Iron Cross 1st class with diamond clusters presented by our glorious Fuhrer, Herr Bush at a gala celebration at "der Wolf's Lair," formally "Rancho de Bimbo," on 10-31-2008. We salute you Herr Lieberman, Sieg Heil!
Signed, Heil Bush |
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Salon's Mike Madden today explores the reluctance of Harry Reid and the Democratic leadership to expel Joe Lieberman from their caucus and deny him ongoing Chairmanships "even if things break their way and the party winds up in control of more than 60 seats." In order to advance the argument, Madden decided to grant anonymity to "a consultant close to some Senate Democratic leaders" to enable the "consultant" to say this:
And while punishing Lieberman would please the party's base, if the leadership needs his vote, that could be counterproductive. "The need to satisfy Daily Kos is not as important as making sure you have the votes you need," said a consultant close to some Senate Democratic leaders.
Voters might not be that impressed by punishing Lieberman, either. "At the end of the day, who gives a shit if Joe Lieberman is allowed to be chairman or do X, Y and Z for the Democrats? People care about if there's going to be an effort to get them healthcare, and do something about energy and all that . . . . It might be gratifying in the short term to get him, but in the long run what does it really get you?"
It's always good to be reminded of how craven and empty are the people who steer the Democratic leadership in Congress.
First, I'm always amazed at what cowards so many of these "Democratic consultants" are who are willing to express their views only if they can hide behind a protective wall of anonymity when doing so. They're not demanding anonymity in order to leak incriminating information about the government or to criticize their bosses or because they are citizens engaged in other lines of work or even to further discussion. They simply want to denigrate people and express controversial views without being held accountable for what they say. That cowardice isn't merely a severe character flaw but is also rather reflective of how the Democratic leadership generally conducts itself.
Secondly, ponder what is being said here. Joe Lieberman isn't merely someone who has deviated from Democratic Party dogma (if such a thing exists). He has not only campaigned against Obama, but has been one of the worst disseminators of the McCarthyite slime thrown at him, linking him to Marxism and terrorism, and has spent much of the year running around South Florida trying to scare Jewish voters into believing that Obama is hostile to Israel. Lieberman hasn't just supported the Republican nominee -- along with other GOP candidates such as Sen. Norm Coleman -- but has led the way, as he tours the country with Sarah Palin, in the ugly and demonizing tactics on which the McCain campaign has come almost exclusively to rely.
If Democrats, even with large majorities in hand, are willing to continue to embrace and empower someone like Joe Lieberman, what message does that send other than making clear that they stand for nothing, care about nothing beyond perpetuation of their own power? If there's no line someone can cross, no idea or statement too reprehensible to express, while still being welcomed in the party, what does that say about the party?
Finally, the idea that voters would react poorly if Democrats removed Lieberman from their caucus is just absurd, the type of fact-free assertion in which "consultant[s] close to some Senate Democratic leaders" routinely traffic. Lieberman has tied himself to a sinking political movement and to discredited political ideas that are widely rejected and even despised. His approval ratings within his own state have even plummeted. Who are the people who are going to object if Democrats no longer want to empower him with powerful Committee Chairs and majority status in the Senate?
Those asserting this are the same people who claimed throughout 2006 -- idiotically, as it turned out -- that defeating Lieberman in the primary would destroy the Democrats' chances in the mid-term elections because Americans would perceive that the party was too liberal, too intolerant and too anti-war. These are the same people who make failure-filled careers out of insisting that the Democratic Party's optimal course is to stand for nothing and never take a position on anything. It's true that expelling the Right from power is the paramount objective -- right now, there's nothing more urgent than that -- but once that's done, targeting people who think and behave like Madden's anonymous "consultant close to some Senate Democratic leaders" will be the next imperative.
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Spent a weekend in Abilene, Texas, a town that voted 75 percent for the Current Occupant in 2004, and nothing bad happened to me at all, they were as friendly as could be. Any time I sat down, they put food in front of me, and all in all they were witty and well-spoken and good to be around. So it would've been rude to ask them, "Why did you vote to reelect that dope?" But I thought it.
Not that I haven't done dumb things myself. I have. And intend to keep on doing some of them. But the Current Occupant has slept through his own presidency. He has no idea what went wrong. He knows less about governance than a cat knows about a can opener. He cut taxes during a costly war and made serious debtors of our grandchildren and he has ignored the future as if it doesn't exist. He is now about as popular as wet socks and deservedly so. And here were the people who spawned him and we got along pretty well.
Of course it helped that I only stayed two days.
These Republicans are hardy people not given to endless self-examination of the sort that we liberal elitists practice (Why did I agree to come to Abilene? Why did I allow that woman to force that prime rib on me and the au gratin potatoes and the pecan pie? Should I have talked to her about torture?), and they stick with a position once taken and don't admire people who waver and hedge their bets and cover their butts. Abilene, Texas, would appear rather bleak to most people, a big khaki-colored desert with some oil wells and windmills and shopping malls and not much happening after dark, but people here are fiercely loyal to the place, and their loyalty is a great civic asset.
In a cohesive community like Abilene, so much business can be done on trust. A truck pulls up to the gate and the rancher herds 20 steers off to be slaughtered. He doesn't count them or weigh them. Pure trust. A handshake and a wave. A week or two later, he gets a check from the buyer, whoever that may be. No IDs are checked, no bonds posted, no 10-page contract signed and notarized. You simply are part of a culture that trusts a person unless he proves untrustworthy. This can be quite astonishing if you're from the city, but it's fundamental to a place like Abilene.
Probably Abileneans wouldn't really need a national government or a Constitution or a judicial system, they could do OK on their own as semi-nomadic Bedouins, defending themselves, keeping order, managing their herds, enduring primitive healthcare, educating their kids, making the best of their earthly sojourn, and looking to the next life as the real deal. They are a hardier strain and for them the urban America that most of us live in is laden with non-necessities. Public transportation, for example. In Abilene, people would be happy to give you a ride if you needed one. Why wait for a bus?
My fellow liberal elitists are more dependent on other people. I am, that's for sure. I need other people to fix my car, raise my vegetables, build bookshelves, launder my shirts and clean my house, and since I need those people, I should take some passing interest in the schools their children attend and the sort of medical care available. I don't believe in indentured servitude, and so I want to live in a society in which the women who launder and fold my shirts get a fair deal. I don't want my breakfast sausage to come from a packing plant like the one in Iowa that employed undocumented Mexicans and treated them like medieval serfs. So I'm a Democrat. It's the party that has a better record of looking after the interests of people who earn less than a hundred grand a year.
But it's good to be among the opposition and know them as fine upstanding people. At the dinner where I was forced to eat the prime rib, we all sat around afterward and sang "I'll Fly Away" and "God Bless America" and "How Great Thou Art" and "Home on the Range" and a dozen other songs we all knew, and it was a lovely evening a couple weeks before a big election. We still do know some of the same songs, we Americans. Deep down, we are loyal to each other. And the truth is marching on.
~~~ Mike Luckovich ~~~  |
W The Movie_teaser1
My father's father was a hard-working man
Acre by acre, it all disappears
My own father worked a 12 hour day
Acre by acre, it all disappears
I knew one day that it all would be mine
Acre by acre, it all disappears 
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Parting Shots...
 A Fly In The Anointment By Betty Bowers My dear friend Janet L. Folger at Faith2Action called me last night. As usual, she was furious - and drunk. Two of Fred Phelps' loud and vulgar relatives have been invited to speak at a debate about Amendment 2 (against so-called "gay" marriage) in Florida. As America's Best Christian, I have devoted my life - and your generous tithes - to adding a glossy, coy sheen to the message that Jesus hates people who are not exactly like me in every respect. I join Faith2Action in being appalled that those odious Phelps Sisters (not to be confused with the charmingly limber duo who juggled Fiesta(r) Ware while licking their own ankles in chiffon on the Lawrence Welk show) have been invited to Florida to rant and froth about Amendment 2. As a deliciously naughty Jesus is wont to remark, "Those gals are a pair of braying bumpkins no longer on speaking terms with mental health - or mirrors!" And, in contradistinction to me, Faith2Action, and Focus on Wringing Cash from Families, et al., these dowdy gargoyles lack the sophistication to couch their livid distaste for others in a more careful, media-friendly manner. As founder of the world's most profitable ex-gay ministry, BASH (Baptists Are Saving Homosexuals), I must support Amendment 2. After all, anything that can denigrate and delegitimize the hobby of being a homosexual, can only lead to less gays feeling secure and happy and, therefore, more likely to tithe at one of my many BASH franchises! (Look for my new BASH kiosk in Coral Gables!) Besides, since evangelical Christians have the highest divorce rates in the country (even higher than those dreadful Mary-Worshipers or hellbound atheists!), it behooves us to do everything possible to make sure that the gays don't show us up by having happy, long marriages! But I think the Phelps sisters have clearly gone several steps too far in their zeal for ostracizing homosexuals from their lives. One look at their bought-off-a-pegboard make-up, permed-over-a-kitchen-sink hair and unfortunate "House of Polygamist Compound" couture, it is clear that the one thing these gals need more than no gay marriages is a battalion of gay stylists! So close to Jesus, I've seen the Polaroid of Fred that Drove the Phelps Sisters to Crazyville,
Mrs. Betty Bowers |
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