Hannah's Blog

Random Searches Redux

To follow up an August 14th post, here's information compiled by the Mad Cow Morning News:

From the Congressional Testimony of Steve Emerson on March 19, 1996:

"Held in the Washington area from June 19 to 21, 1991, the conference included? leaders representing nearly every radical fundamentalist group in the world attended, making the gathering the all-time All-Star terrorist conference in U.S. history? those present also decided to support one another in their respective Islamic confrontations with their non-Islamic hosts."

"In attendance at this spectacular meeting was Hamas chieftain Musa Abu Marzuk, Islamic Jihad leaders Ramadan Abdullah [Shallah] and Sami Al-Arian (the latter is still ensconced as a professor at the University of South Florida while the former now runs Islamic Jihad from Damascus), Al-Amoudi, now head of the American Muslim Council and a chief spokesperson for imprisoned Hamas chief Marzuk."

From the Congressional Testimony of Richard Clarke, October 22, 2003:

"From his home and office in Tampa Florida, Sami al-Arian, the indicted North American leader of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, allegedly coordinated the movement of fund from the government of Iran to suicide bombers in West Bank and Gaza? In Tampa, Florida, Sami al-Arian established the Islamic Academy of Florida. The February 2003 indictment against al-Arian says the school was used as a base of support for the Palestinian Islamic Jihad"?

From University Wire - USF Oracle June 13, 2002:

"[Former Justice Department prosecutor John] Loftus?s accusations against Al-Arian go even further than links with Jihad. Loftus said he believes Al-Arian had a link to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Loftus said Al-Arian was involved with a group called Baraka that he alleges laundered money to support the suicide pilots as they trained at Florida airports."

Loftus said evidence suggests Al-Arian may have personally played a part in the execution of the attacks. "It is a matter of record that an organization known as the Baraka group laundered the money to the skyjackers of Sept. 11. Sami Al-Arian incorporated Baraka in the state of Florida, which was dissolved on Sept. 28, 2001."

"The rumpled, balding figure was spotted darting into the offices of Republican power broker Grover Norquist last July... Sami Al-Arian emerged more than two hours later... Al-Arian was visiting the Islamic Institute, a Muslim outreach group cofounded by Norquist and housed within his office suite."

"In June 2001, Al-Arian was among members of the American Muslim Council invited to the White House complex for abriefing by Bush political adviser Karl Rove. The next month, the National Coalition to Protect Political Freedom - a civil liberties group headed by Al-Arian - gave Norquist an award for his work to abolish the use of secret intelligence evidence in terrorism cases, a position Bush had adopted in the 2000 campaign."

From The Washington Post February 22, 2003:

"Al-Arian's appearance at the White House came? as part of the administration's outreach to Muslims, officials said... The group that included Al-Arian was scheduled to be briefed by Vice President Cheney, but Cheney canceled. That morning, the Jerusalem Post had run a front-page article headlined, "Cheney to host pro-terrorist Muslim group."

"Rove, according to Al-Arian and other attendees, used the meeting to talk of White House efforts to embrace the Muslim community. Al-Arian said he sat in the front row.

"The [al-Arian] family said that Bush gave their lanky son, Abdullah, the nickname "Big Dude."'?

"Six days after Al-Arian's meeting with Rove, a delegation of Muslim community activists stormed out of the White House complex after the Secret Service ejected Al-Arian's son, an intern for then-Rep. David E. Bonior (D-Mich.). The Secret Service sent the son an apology on Aug. 13, 2001"...

"Bush signed an Aug. 2, 2001, letter to Al-Arian's wife, thanking her for a book she sent him and expressing "regret" about how her son was treated. "I have been assured that everything possible is being done to ensure that nothing like this happens again," Bush wrote."

From MSNBC
October 23, 2003:

"John Loftus, ex-DOJ official: About a year-and-a-half ago, people in the intelligence community came and said-guys like Alamoudi and Sami al-Arian and other terrorists weren?t being touched because they?d been ordered not to investigate the cases, not to prosecute them."

"But, who was it that fixed the cases?... the answer is coming out in a very strange place. What Alamoudi and al-Arian have in common is a guy named Grover Norquist? He is the guy that was hired by Alamoudi to head up the Islamic institute and he?s the registered agent for Alamoudi, personally, and for the Islamic Institute. Grover Norquist?s best friend is Karl Rove, the White House chief of staff, and apparently Norquist was able to fix things."...

"Think of the Muslim chaplain?s program that he set up as a spy service for al-Qaeda."

From The National Review, June 11, 2004:

"Alamoudi was a frequent visitor to the Clinton White House. The State Department paid him to represent the United States on six overseas speaking tours between 1997 and 2001. (His topic: religious tolerance.) The Clinton-era Pentagon selected Alamoudi to nominate the armed forces' first Muslim chaplains."

From The Boston Globe, February 27, 2003:

"Alamoudi attended the Rove briefing in the White House in [June] 2001; a year earlier, he was one of several Muslims invited to meet with candidate Bush in Austin, Texas..."

Saudi/Enron/Election connection

Special Report as published by Online Journal

Special Report

Saudis, Enron money helped pay for US rigged election

By Wayne Madsen
Online Journal Contributing Writer

November 25, 2004?According to informed sources in Washington and Houston, the Bush campaign spent some $29 million to pay polling place operatives around the country to rig the election for Bush. The operatives were posing as Homeland Security and FBI agents but were actually technicians familiar with Diebold, Sequoia, ES&S, Triad, Unilect, and Danaher Controls voting machines. These technicians reportedly hacked the systems to skew the results in favor of Bush.

The leak about the money and the rigged election apparently came from technicians who were promised to be paid a certain amount for their work but the Bush campaign interlocutors reneged and some of the technicians are revealing the nature of the vote rigging program.

There have been media reports from around the country concerning the locking down of precincts while votes were being tallied. In one unprecedented action in Warren County, Ohio, election officials locked down the facility where votes were being counted. The officials said this was in response to a Level 10 high-threat terrorist warning being issued by the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI for Warren County. George Bush won 72 percent of the vote in Warren County, much larger than his percentage of victory statewide.

The money to rig the election in favor of Bush reportedly came from an entity called Five Star Trust, largely based in Houston but a worldwide entity that is directly tied to the Saudi Royal Family. Five Star Trust was termed "a well-protected vehicle" that has been used to support both Bush and Osama bin Laden in the US and around the world.

Other money used to fund the election rigging was from siphoned Enron money stored away in accounts in the Cook Islands, which was once the base of one of the more questionable and Saudi-linked BCCI subsidiaries. Cook Islands banks also handled some of the weapons smuggling financing of the Iran-Contra scandal. A former Justice Department attorney who helped prosecute the BCCI case said the use of the Cook Islands by the Bush reelection team indicates they wanted the bank arrangements to be a "quick folding tent" operation that would cease to exist when the election was over. He said the Cook Islands was notorious for not requiring any documentation for such operations.

In fact, the Cook Islands has been a favorite location for various covert intelligence activities. This most recent use of the islands is a continuation of a scandal discovered in New Zealand in the early '90s called the "Winebox Affair." In 1992, a computer dealer named Paul White bought some secondhand computers and floppy disks from the Citibank office in Auckland, New Zealand, that had earlier sold them to a scrap dealer.

White later discovered the floppies (and 10 paper files) detailed a scheme to use the European Pacific Bank in the Cook Islands to bilk foreign governments and banks for a phony 15 percent tax bill assessed on various transactions by the Cook Islands government (at the time run by Tom Davis, a former US Army and NASA research scientist who was allegedly on the payroll of the CIA). European Pacific reaped millions of illegal dollars from the New Zealand Treasury and a number of Japanese banks, including Mitsubishi Bank. Paul White later died in a suspicious auto accident.

As detailed in the book "The Paradise Conspiracy" by New Zealand journalist Ian Wishart, the Cook Islands scheme also involved several CIA operatives, including Lawrence John Fahey, who had an interest in InterAir of Nevada, one of the airlines used by Ollie North to funnel arms to Iran. It also involved William Raupe, a CIA officer stationed under cover as a USAID employee at the US embassy in Suva. Raupe had once worked for Air America in South East Asia. Another CIA agent active in the Cooks was Robert C. Allen, known to New Zealand authorities as a US agent who was formerly with the CIA proprietary firm Bishop, Baldwin, Dillingham, Wong Ltd. In addition, along with the late former Treasury Secretary William Simon, Gerald Parsky was also involved in the European Pacific Bank's Cook Islands operations. Parsky is George W. Bush's chief fundraiser and adviser in California (he led Bush's 2000 California campaign) and supported Simon's son's unsuccessful bid for the governorship of California against Gray Davis and then again in the recall of Davis. Enron was involved early on with Arnold Schwarzenegger at a meeting in 2001 at the Beverly Hills Hotel at the same time Enron was bilking California utility customers with increases as high as 1000 percent This scheme eventually led to Davis's recall and his replacement by Schwarzenegger.

The Cook Islands-Citibank-European Pacific fraud appeared to have been cooked up to take the place of other "outed" CIA banking activities, including Nugan Hand Bank in Australia. European Pacific also involved assets of BCCI, in particular the Commercial Bank of Commerce in Rarotonga, Cook Islands, a BCCI subsidiary. MIchael Hand, a former Green Beret who reportedly served with Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage in Laos (and whose partner, Frank Nugan, was found shot to death in 1980 in Australia) later turned up associated with Euromac (European Manufacturing Center) Ltd., a British company that tried to sell nuclear trigger krytrons to Saddam Hussein before the first Gulf War. Nugan Hand's chief counsel, William Colby, a former CIA Director, was found floating in the Chesapeake in 1996.

The sale of nuclear material to Iraq was funded through Saudi operations in Houston, including those associated with George H. W. Bush, George W. Bush, James R. Bath, and Saudis Abdullah Taha Baksh, and Kamal Adham, as well as Lebanese businessman Ghaith Pharaon (who was also involved in the collapse of Miami's CenTrust S&L, a bank that had ties to Jeb Bush). This gang, along with Salem Bin Laden, the older brother of Osama, funneled over $1 million into failed Bush ventures, including Arbusto, Spectrum 7, and Harken Energy. Some of the Saudi money also financed Enron Oil and Gas Resources (later EOG Resources) in the Belspec Fusselman Field in Midland, Texas, a deal in which George W. Bush had a financial stake. In fact, Saudi planes in the 1980s landed in Houston with mountains of cash used to buy nuclear material for Saddam to possibly use against the Iranians. The money was laundered through Houston's Main Bank, a bank close to the Bush family. Skyway Aircraft of Houston, owned by Bath, was invested in by Abu Dhabi's ruler (the main owner of BCCI) and whose parent company in the Cayman Islands was used by Ollie North to collect foreign money for his Iran-contra enterprise.

Another person involved in the Cook Islands bank defrauding scheme was a Lebanese-American named Samir Bashout (alias Dr. Khalaf B. Bashout) who set up Midland International Bank and Trust Ltd in the Cook Islands with no real capital. Bashout's Midland had nothing to do with Midland Bank of the UK but may have been named for Midland, Texas, of George W. Bush fame. Bashout was later convicted of beating his wife in Rancho Park, Calif., amid a nasty divorce. She claimed he secreted away much of his money. Bashout's Metro Bank (Philippines) account in Los Angeles was found to contain only $10,000, not the $10 million he claimed to Cook Islands' authorities. US Treasury agent John Shockey alerted the Cook Islands internal auditor to Bashout's repeated attempts to bounce a check for $5 million. In January 2002, Hamilton Bank failed after it lost $500 million due to loan scandals and money laundering charges. The recipient of a $5.5 million loan was Metro Bank International, headquartered in Vanuatu, an offshore banking location similar to the Cook Islands. Metro Bank was thought to contain some of the billions of dollars laundered by the CIA and the Cook Islands International Trust Corp. on behalf of Ferdinand Marcos. Marcos's CIA intermediaries in the Cooks were Eldon William Morris, James Centers, and Dante Dominigo Agdeppa. Morris was under investigation by the Queensland Special Branch and the FBI in Hawaii and California.

Bashout was also involved in the defunct World Arabic Television News (WATN), an Arabic television network that attracted the attention of the Houston-based Arab Times newspaper as not delivering on its promises and defrauding investors.

Wayne Madsen is a Washington, DC-based investigative reporter. He was also the Operations Officer at Naval Facility Coos Head, Oregon from 1980 to 1982 and assisted the FBI and NIS in the investigation as a temporary special agent.

The views expressed herein are the writers' own and do not necessarily reflect those of Online Journal.
Email editor@onlinejournal.com
Copyright © 1998-2004 Online Journal?. All rights reserved.

War Crimes

The Geneva Conventions prohibit attacks on any medical facility or medical personnel, whether civilian or military. "Imagine the outrage if the opposition in Iraq attacked one of the medical facilities for American wounded. There would be calls for war crimes tribunals," stated Karen Parker, the attorney in this action. "Rather than being "quaint" as administration Attorney-General nominee Gonzales has said, the Geneva Conventions and human rights agreements are meant to prevent acts of barbarity in war. Besides preventing atrocities, they are meant to protect GIs from the psychological damage that afflicts people who carry out this type of action."

http://www.occupationwatch.org/article.php?id=7966

   November 26, 2004

     'Unusual Weapons' Used in Fallujah

Dahr Jamail

BAGHDAD, Nov 26 (IPS) - The U.S. military has used poison gas and other
non-conventional weapons against civilians in Fallujah, eyewitnesses report.

?Poisonous gases have been used in Fallujah,? 35-year-old trader from
Fallujah Abu Hammad told IPS. ?They used everything -- tanks, artillery,
infantry, poison gas. Fallujah has been bombed to the ground.?

Hammad is from the Julan district of Fallujah where some of the heaviest
fighting occurred. Other residents of that area report the use of
illegal weapons.

?They used these weird bombs that put up smoke like a mushroom cloud,?
Abu Sabah, another Fallujah refugee from the Julan area told IPS. ?Then
small pieces fall from the air with long tails of smoke behind them.?

He said pieces of these bombs exploded into large fires that burnt the
skin even when water was thrown on the burns. Phosphorous weapons as
well as napalm are known to cause such effects. ?People suffered so much
from these,? he said.

Macabre accounts of killing of civilians are emerging through the cordon
U.S. forces are still maintaining around Fallujah.

?Doctors in Fallujah are reporting to me that there are patients in the
hospital there who were forced out by the Americans,? said Mehdi
Abdulla, a 33-year-old ambulance driver at a hospital in Baghdad. ?Some
doctors there told me they had a major operation going, but the soldiers
took the doctors away and left the patient to die.?

Kassem Mohammed Ahmed who escaped from Fallujah a little over a week ago
told IPS he witnessed many atrocities committed by U.S. soldiers in the
city.

?I watched them roll over wounded people in the street with tanks,? he
said. ?This happened so many times.?

Abdul Razaq Ismail who escaped from Fallujah two weeks back said
soldiers had used tanks to pull bodies to the soccer stadium to be
buried. ?I saw dead bodies on the ground and nobody could bury them
because of the American snipers,? he said. ?The Americans were dropping
some of the bodies into the Euphrates near Fallujah.?

Abu Hammad said he saw people attempt to swim across the Euphrates to
escape the siege. ?The Americans shot them with rifles from the shore,?
he said. ?Even if some of them were holding a white flag or white
clothes over their heads to show they are not fighters, they were all
shot..?

Hammad said he had seen elderly women carrying white flags shot by U.S.
soldiers. ?Even the wounded people were killed. The Americans made
announcements for people to come to one mosque if they wanted to leave
Fallujah, and even the people who went there carrying white flags were
killed.?

Another Fallujah resident Khalil (40) told IPS he saw civilians shot as
they held up makeshift white flags. ?They shot women and old men in the
streets,? he said. ?Then they shot anyone who tried to get their
bodies...Fallujah is suffering too much, it is almost gone now.?

Refugees had moved to another kind of misery now, he said. ?It's a
disaster living here at this camp,? Khalil said. ?We are living like
dogs and the kids do not have enough clothes.?

Spokesman for the Iraqi Red Crescent in Baghdad Abdel Hamid Salim told
IPS that none of their relief teams had been allowed into Fallujah, and
that the military had said it would be at least two more weeks before
any refugees would be allowed back into the city.

?There is still heavy fighting in Fallujah,? said Salim. ?And the
Americans won't let us in so we can help people.?

In many camps around Fallujah and throughout Baghdad, refugees are
living without enough food, clothing and shelter. Relief groups estimate
there are at least 15,000 refugee families in temporary shelters outside
Fallujah.

_______________________________________________
More writing, photos and commentary at http://dahrjamailiraq.com

Ohio Results Analysis

Bob

From: Richard Hayes Phillips, Ph.D.
Date: November 19, 2004

Attached is my recently completed precinct by precinct analysis of the 2004 presidential vote in Cleveland. There are wholesale shifts of scores of votes from the Kerry column to other candidates, and astonishingly low turnouts in certain precincts and entire wards. The Ohio recount will prove these numbers to be fraudulent.

I may have identified only the tip of the iceberg. I note that there are 17,741 uncounted ballots in Cuyahoga County. Kerry's margin in Cleveland was reportedly 108,659 votes with a 49.89% turnout. The rest of Cuyahoga County had a 71.95% turnout. Such a turnout in Cleveland would have given Kerry a margin of 156,705 votes, left Bush with a statewide margin of 85,007 votes, and with 248,100 votes still uncounted, nobody would be conceding Ohio.

This is a situation that demands rigorous investigation. I can imagine Michael Moore going door to door in Ward 4, Precinct F, looking for the 215 Peroutka voters, or in Ward 4, Precinct N, looking for the 163 Badnarik voters. Or going door to door in Ward 6, Precinct C, to find out why the turnout was only 7.10% - or in Ward 13, Precincts D, F, and O, to find out why the turnout was only 13.05%, 19.60%, and 21.01%, respectively.

CUYAHOGA COUNTY CANVASS SHEET ? 2004 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION

THE FOLLOWING IS A PRECINCT BY PRECINCT ANALYSIS OF THE REPORTED VOTE TOTALS FOR THE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES IN THE CITY OF CLEVELAND, CUYAHOGA COUNTY, OHIO, IN THE 2004 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION. THESE ARE DATA READILY AVAILABLE ONLINE AT THE OFFICIAL WEBSITE OF THE CUYAHOGA COUNTY BOARD OF ELECTIONS. WHAT YOU SEE IS AN ACTUAL REPRINT OF THE CUYAHOGA COUNTY CANVASS SHEET.

IN ORDER TO CONDUCT THIS ANALYSIS I SET UP SEPARATE MICROSOFT WINDOWS FOR: (1) REGISTERED VOTERS, 2004; (2) VOTER TURNOUT, BY PERCENTAGE, 2004; (3) VOTE TOTALS FOR PRESIDENT, 2004; AND (4) VOTE TOTALS FOR PRESIDENT, 2000. BY CLICKING BACK AND FORTH ON THE WINDOWS I WAS ABLE TO COMPARE THESE DATA EASILY, IF TEDIOUSLY.

I HAVE DISCOVERED WHOLESALE ?IRREGULARITIES? IN THE REPORTED VOTES, SOME OF THEM HIGHLY SUSPICIOUS, OTHERS OBVIOUSLY FRAUDULENT. EVERY NUMBER I BELIEVE TO BE UNTRUE I HAVE HIGHLIGHTED IN RED, AND I HAVE WRITTEN A BRIEF ONE-LINE EXPLANATION, ALSO HIGHLIGHTED IN RED, IN THE RIGHT-HAND COLUMN NEXT TO THE HIGHLIGHTED NUMBER. THE FOLLOWING WRITE-UP IS THE BEST ESTIMATE I CAN MAKE AS TO HOW MANY VOTES WERE STOLEN FROM JOHN F. KERRY IN CLEVELAND, OHIO. IN SOME CASES THERE HAVE BEEN WHOLESALE SHIFTS OF VOTES FROM THE KERRY COLUMN TO THE BUSH COLUMN OR TO THIRD-PARTY CANDIDATES; TO ESTIMATE THE NUMBER OF VOTES TAKEN FROM KERRY, I HAVE ASSUMED THAT THE PROPORTIONS OF THE VOTE ALLOTTED ELSEWHERE IN THE WARD ARE CORRECT; IN FACT, ANY UNREPORTED VOTES COULD ALL HAVE COME FROM KERRY. IN OTHER CASES THE REPORTED VOTER TURNOUT WAS ASTONISHINGLY LOW FOR A PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION. FOR PURPOSES OF THIS ANALYSIS, I HAVE ADOPTED 50% AS AN ARBITRARY ESTIMATE OF THE TRUE VOTER TURNOUT FOR THE UNDERREPORTED PRECINCTS, AND HAVE ASSUMED THAT THE PROPORTIONS OF THE VOTE ALLOTTED ARE CORRECT FOR THESE PRECINCTS.

THESE ESTIMATES ARE JUST THAT. FORTUNATELY, OHIO HAS A PAPER TRAIL AND THERE WILL BE A RECOUNT. HOPEFULLY THE CORRECT NUMBERS WILL EMERGE. SOME, BUT NOT ALL, OF THE UNREPORTED VOTES WILL TURN UP AS PROVISIONAL BALLOTS OR UNCOUNTED PUNCH CARDS. WHERE WHOLESALE SHIFTING HAS OCCURRED FROM ONE COLUMN TO ANOTHER, I EXPECT THAT THE OHIO RECOUNT WILL PROVE, ONCE AND FOR ALL, ELECTION FRAUD.

LINE 1604 50% TURNOUT WOULD BE 129 VOTES, KERRY LOSES 25 VOTES.
LINE 1614 50% TURNOUT WOULD BE 166 VOTES, KERRY LOSES 38 VOTES.
LINE 1702 41 VOTES APPEAR IN BADNARIK COLUMN, KERRY LOSES 41 VOTES.
LINE 1709 70 VOTES APPEAR IN PETROUKA COLUMN, KERRY LOSES 70 VOTES.
LINE 1806 215 VOTES APPEAR IN PETROUKA COLUMN, KERRY LOSES 213 VOTES.
LINE 1814 163 VOTES APPEAR IN BADNARIK COLUMN, KERRY LOSES 162 VOTES.
LINE 1902 16 VOTES APPEAR IN PETROUKA COLUMN, KERRY LOSES 15 VOTES.
LINE 1903 50% TURNOUT WOULD BE 390 VOTES, KERRY LOSES 142 VOTES.
LINE 1909 50% TURNOUT WOULD BE 362 VOTES, KERRY LOSES 119 VOTES.
LINE 1910 50% TURNOUT WOULD BE 228 VOTES, KERRY LOSES 66 VOTES.
LINE 1912 50% TURNOUT WOULD BE 324 VOTES, KERRY LOSES 93 VOTES.
LINE 1915 50% TURNOUT WOULD BE 157 VOTES, KERRY LOSES 25 VOTES.
LINE 1916 50% TURNOUT WOULD BE 49 VOTES, KERRY LOSES 11 VOTES.
LINE 2002 50% TURNOUT WOULD BE 197 VOTES, KERRY LOSES 106 VOTES.
LINE 2003 50% TURNOUT WOULD BE 324 VOTES, KERRY LOSES 272 VOTES.
LINE 2004 50% TURNOUT WOULD BE 229 VOTES, KERRY LOSES 93 VOTES.
LINE 2011 50% TURNOUT WOULD BE 283 VOTES, KERRY LOSES 81 VOTES.
LINE 2006 NOT AN IRREGULARITY; BUSH DID WELL IN CLEVELAND 6F IN 2000.
LINE 2012 81 VOTES APPEAR IN BUSH COLUMN, KERRY LOSES 36 VOTES.
LINE 2023 50% TURNOUT WOULD BE 144 VOTES, KERRY LOSES 20 VOTES.
LINE 2103 50% TURNOUT WOULD BE 276 VOTES, KERRY LOSES 74 VOTES.
LINE 2111 50% TURNOUT WOULD BE 120 VOTES, KERRY LOSES 35 VOTES.
LINE 2122 50% TURNOUT WOULD BE 482 VOTES, KERRY LOSES 177 VOTES.
LINE 2207 51 VOTES APPEAR IN BADNARIK COLUMN, KERRY LOSES 51 VOTES.
LINE 2208 45 VOTES APPEAR IN BUSH COLUMN, KERRY LOSES 32 VOTES.
LINE 2209 27 VOTES APPEAR IN PETROUKA COLUMN, KERRY LOSES 26 VOTES.
LINE 2301 41 VOTES APPEAR IN BUSH COLUMN, KERRY LOSES 33 VOTES.
LINE 2316 87 VOTES APPEAR IN BUSH COLUMN, KERRY LOSES 68 VOTES.
LINE 2319 39 VOTES APPEAR IN BUSH COLUMN, KERRY LOSES 31 VOTES.
LINE 2412 50% TURNOUT WOULD BE 433 VOTES, KERRY LOSES 212 VOTES.
LINE 2513 35 VOTES APPEAR IN THIRD PARTY COLUMNS, KERRY LOSES 33 VOTES.
LINE 2521 50% TURNOUT WOULD BE 377 VOTES, KERRY LOSES 104 VOTES.
WARD 12 50% TURNOUT WOULD BE 6095 VOTES, KERRY LOSES 475 VOTES.
LINE 2704 50% TURNOUT WOULD BE 962 VOTES, KERRY LOSES 586 VOTES.
LINE 2706 50% TURNOUT WOULD BE 411 VOTES, KERRY LOSES 242 VOTES.
LINE 2708 50% TURNOUT WOULD BE 134 VOTES, KERRY LOSES 41 VOTES.
LINE 2715 50% TURNOUT WOULD BE 117 VOTES, KERRY LOSES 61 VOTES.
LINE 2717 17 VOTES APPEAR IN THIRD PARTY COLUMNS, KERRY LOSES 15 VOTES.
LINE 2723 50% TURNOUT WOULD BE 481 VOTES, KERRY LOSES 133 VOTES.
LINE 2724 37 VOTES APPEAR IN BADNARIK COLUMN, KERRY LOSES 36 VOTES.
LINE 2725 50% TURNOUT WOULD BE 28 VOTES, KERRY LOSES 7 VOTES.
WARD 14 50% TURNOUT WOULD BE 6878 VOTES, KERRY LOSES 1106 VOTES.
LINE 2902 50% TURNOUT WOULD BE 132 VOTES, KERRY LOSES 36 VOTES.
LINE 2908 22 VOTES APPEAR IN THIRD PARTY COLUMNS, KERRY LOSES 20 VOTES.
LINE 2919 50% TURNOUT WOULD BE 138 VOTES, KERRY LOSES 20 VOTES.
WARD 17 50% TURNOUT WOULD BE 6394 VOTES, KERRY LOSES 706 VOTES.
LINE 19O 50% TURNOUT WOULD BE 239 VOTES, KERRY LOSES 44 VOTES.

CLEVELAND KERRY LOSES 6032 VOTES

THUS, A NOT UNREASONABLE CONCLUSION IS THAT TAMPERING WITH THE NUMBERS HAS COST JOHN KERRY 6,000 VOTES IN CLEVELAND.

I AM NOT CLAIMING THAT THE FINAL RESULTS, WHEN ALL THE VOTES HAVE BEEN COUNTED AND RECOUNTED, WILL COME CLOSE TO MATCHING UP WITH THE ESTIMATES I HAVE GIVEN ABOVE. I HAVE MADE THESE ESTIMATES ONLY TO GIVE THE READER SOME IDEA OF THE MAGNITUDE OF THE PROBLEM. NOT ALL OF THESE IRREGULARITIES WILL TURN OUT TO BE FRAUD. BUT SOME OF THEM WILL. WHOLESALE SHIFTING OF SCORES OF VOTES TO THE COLUMNS OF THIRD PARTY CANDIDATES WHO RECEIVED LESS THAN ONE HALF OF ONE PERCENT OF THE STATEWIDE VOTE BETWEEN THEM, VOTER TURNOUTS OF 7.10%, 13.05%, 19.60%, 21.01%, 21.80%, 24.72%, 28.83%, 28.97%, 29.25% IN CERTAIN PRECINCTS, AND A VOTER TURNOUT OF 39.35% FOR AN ENTIRE WARD, ARE SIMPLY NOT CREDIBLE.

THERE MAY BE SOME CORRELATION BETWEEN THE PRECINCTS WITH ASTONISHINGLY LOW VOTER TURNOUT, AND THE REPORTS OF LONG LINES AT THE POLLING PLACES DUE TO A LACK OF ENOUGH VOTING MACHINES. PEOPLE ON THE GROUND IN OHIO SHOULD LOOK AT THE PRECINCT MAPS, CHECK THE NEWS REPORTS, TALK WITH LOCAL RESIDENTS, AND FIGURE THIS OUT.

I WISH TO EXPRESS MY DEEPEST APPRECIATION FOR THE GRASSROOTS EFFORT THAT HAS MADE AN OHIO RECOUNT POSSIBLE. I AWAIT THE RESULTS.

RICHARD HAYES PHILLIPS, Ph.D.
http://www.northnet.org/minstrel

Bob Fitrakis says some of these issues were raised in Saturday's hearings:

In Cleveland, where a public hearing was held on Saturday, November 20, there was a different pattern of voting irregularities. These include heavily Democratic wards with abnormally low reported rates of voter turnout, three under 20%. In Precinct 6-C where Kerry beat Bush 45 votes to one, allegedly only 7.1% of the registered voters cast ballots. In precinct 13-D where Kerry received 83.8% of the vote, only 13.05% reportedly voted. In precinct 13-F where Kerry received 97.5%, the turnout was reported to be only 19.6%.

One explanation comes from Irma Olmedo, who provided the Free Press with a written statement of her activities in the heavily Hispanic ward 13, which contained the three low voter turnout precincts.

?Ohio does not have bilingual ballots and this disenfranchises many Latino voters who are not totally fluent in English . . . there were 13 poll workers at the school and none knew Spanish. Some could not even find the names of the people on the list because they couldn?t understand well when people said their names. . . . Some people put their punch card ballots in backwards when they voted and discovered that they couldn?t punch out the holes. They had not read the instructions which were in English, that they had to turn the card around in order to vote,? Olmedo stated.

Olmedo translated at precinct 13-O, where 90% of the votes were for Kerry and only 53 votes were counted. The turnout of 21% was due to the lack of Spanish instructions and the misspelling of names: ?I noticed that one named Nieves was misspelled as Nieues and the pollworkers were not able to find his name, these people were told to complete a provisional ballot because their names were not on the list.?

In Cuyahoga County, according to the Secretary of State?s website there are 24,788 provisional ballots, most of them from the city of Cleveland, not its surrounding suburbs. Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell served as Co-Chair of the Bush/Cheney Ohio reelection committee.

There also seems to be an abnormally high vote count for third party candidates who received less than one-half of one percent of the statewide vote total combined. For example, in precinct 4-F, the right-wing Constitutional Law candidate Peroutka received 215 votes to Bush?s 21 and Kerry?s 290. In this precinct, Kerry received 55% of the vote where Gore received 91% of the vote in the year 200. These numbers suggest that Kerry?s votes were inadvertently or intentionally shifted to Peroutka.
2004 President

Stealing votes in Columbus
by Richard Hayes Phillips, Ph.D.
November 23, 2004

The Free Press on Election Day posted a disturbing story, later confirmed by the Columbus Dispatch. The Free Press reported that Franklin County Board of Elections Director Matt Damschroder deliberately withheld voting machines from predominantly black Democratic wards in Columbus, and dispersed some of the machines to affluent suburbs in Franklin County.

Damschroder is the former Executive Director of the Franklin County Republican Party. Sources close to the Board of Elections told the Free Press that Damschroder and Ohio?s Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell met with President George W. Bush in Columbus on Election Day.

The idea was to discourage turnout in Democratic wards by forcing voters to wait in long lines at the polling places. Such a strategy would be far more effective than encouraging turnout in Republican wards. Elections are all about margins. There are 74 wards in Columbus. George W. Bush won 12 wards, with a margin of 7.35%. John F. Kerry won 62 wards, with a margin of 37.62%. Affecting Kerry?s turnout would greatly reduce his margin of victory in Columbus, giving the Republicans a much better chance of overtaking Kerry given a strong enough showing in suburban and small town Republican strongholds.

COLUMBUS POPULAR VOTE (EXCLUDING PROVISIONAL BALLOTS)

Location Kerry Bush Others

Kerry Wards 141520 68.40% 63693 30.78% 1704 0.82%

Bush Wards 36228 46.01% 42015 53.36% 496 0.63%

Grand Total 177748 62.22% 105708 37.01% 2200 0.77%

In order to investigate this matter, I obtained from the Franklin County Board of Elections all the data I needed in order to calculate, ward by ward, and precinct by precinct: (1) The ratio of registered voters per voting machine. (2) Percent turnout, calculated as total ballots cast divided by the number of registered voters. (3) Percent for Kerry, calculated as votes cast for Kerry divided by votes cast for president. (4) Margin of victory or defeat for Kerry, calculated as the difference between the vote totals for Kerry and Bush.

The first thing I noticed was the distribution of turnout. There is a statistically significant difference between the turnout in the Bush precincts and the turnout in the Kerry precincts.

DISTRIBUTION OF TURNOUT

Percent Bush Kerry

Turnout Precincts Precincts

> 60 68 57

55-60 32 55

50-55 17 73

45-50 7 78

40-45 1 49

< 40 0 34

Total 125 346

Median Bush Precinct: 60.56%

Median Kerry Precinct: 50.78%

Best Bush Precinct: Ward 57, Precinct F

Bush 64.97% Kerry 34.82% Margin 30.05%

Best Kerry Precinct: Ward 17, Precinct D

Kerry 97.66% Bush 1.98% Margin 95.68%

Note: Ward 22, Precinct H was a tie.

As the above table shows, turnout was over 60% in 68 of 125 Bush precincts (54.4%), and over 50% in 117 of 125 Bush precincts (93.6%). By contrast, turnout was over 60% in only 57 of 346 Kerry precincts (16.5%), over 50% in only 185 of 346 Kerry precincts (53.5%), and under 40% in 34 of 346 Kerry precincts (9.8%).

Was the uneven distribution of turnout due to a lack of enthusiasm for the Democratic candidate? Or was it due to an uneven distribution of voting machines? To answer this question, I arranged the data, ward by ward, according to the ratio of registered voters per voting machine.

DISTRIBUTION OF VOTING MACHINES, TOP OF THE LIST

Ward Voters/ Percent Kerry Kerry

Machine Turnout Percent Margin

WARD 19 261.2 67.99 63.33 + 1491

WARD 65 265.1 60.10 44.33 - 496

WARD 30 266.4 56.25 52.50 + 147

WARD 72 267.4 62.33 39.42 - 774

WARD 22 274.1 60.21 54.89 + 465

WARD 28 276.2 58.48 82.04 + 2371

WARD 63 278.7 56.10 47.37 - 242

WARD 48 278.9 52.84 82.37 + 1909

WARD 46 279.8 58.22 55.19 + 981

WARD 70 285.5 61.17 50.95 + 79

WARD 06 292.9 47.44 91.29 + 2494

WARD 21 293.9 57.92 58.45 + 719

WARD 34 295.8 55.85 65.05 + 1051

WARD 69 296.4 57.97 41.98 - 1030

WARD 60 296.7 55.97 44.27 - 478

WARD 66 300.0 53.01 52.32 + 203

WARD 05 302.9 46.24 94.34 + 1854

WARD 62 303.2 57.96 55.68 + 760

WARD 45 303.8 57.89 55.47 + 1208

WARD 47 304.8 52.85 73.83 + 1534

WARD 20 306.2 61.96 71.46 + 1077

WARD 53 307.2 53.66 55.01 + 499

WARD 15 308.4 51.88 60.71 + 291

WARD 27 308.4 53.06 68.63 + 1283

WARD 56 308.6 55.71 82.75 + 4065

WARD 52 308.7 53.68 68.52 + 1610

WARD 10 311.5 57.18 47.58 - 560

WARD 67 313.1 54.17 48.03 - 221

WARD 64 313.6 52.73 47.88 - 153

WARD 57 314.2 56.81 48.74 - 155

WARD 50 316.4 59.54 77.14 + 1447

WARD 58 317.6 55.04 49.82 + 41

WARD 07 318.1 44.24 94.21 + 2332

WARD 36 318.7 53.31 50.57 + 91

WARD 43 319.9 56.27 58.53 + 475

WARD 73 320.6 58.23 44.18 - 1032

WARD 71 322.2 53.93 47.58 - 307

WARD 74 322.8 55.02 46.19 - 339

As the above table shows, the 38 wards in which the number of registered voters per voting machine was the lowest enjoyed high voter turnout. All but 3 of the 38 wards at the top of Damschroder?s list had a turnout above 50%, and 6 of the 38 wards at the top of the list had a turnout above 60%. All 12 of the Bush wards are included in the top of the list. The 26 Kerry wards in the top of the list are not his biggest strongholds. In only 13 of the 26 wards did Kerry exceed his city wide share of 62.22% of the vote, which makes 13 of 38 wards altogether. However, these Kerry wards did enjoy a high voter turnout. In 23 of the 26 wards, Kerry?s turnout exceeded that of his median precinct, 50.78%. Turnout exceeded 55% in 14 Kerry wards, and exceeded 60% in 3 Kerry wards. Clearly, Kerry enjoyed a higher turnout where the polling places had enough voting machines. What about the bottom of the list?

DISTRIBUTION OF VOTING MACHINES, BOTTOM OF THE LIST

Ward Voters/ Percent Kerry Kerry

Machine Turnout Percent Margin

WARD 38 324.4 48.15 67.32 + 546

WARD 35 327.5 50.90 92.36 + 2104

WARD 17 330.6 48.67 93.12 + 2465

WARD 42 330.6 46.34 70.77 + 966

WARD 14 333.4 49.37 81.31 + 2068

WARD 13 338.6 44.91 93.36 + 1702

WARD 44 340.7 48.87 72.98 + 3212

WARD 18 342.4 55.15 76.84 + 2043

WARD 51 343.6 46.93 88.59 + 1857

WARD 61 345.6 49.28 62.35 + 594

WARD 68 347.3 44.61 75.43 + 950

WARD 04 348.6 37.69 91.75 + 1643

WARD 32 348.7 55.11 58.82 + 456

WARD 26 349.3 41.34 89.69 + 1692

WARD 33 350.1 52.64 69.19 + 1803

WARD 54 350.6 52.77 59.82 + 668

WARD 49 353.9 50.76 54.45 + 370

WARD 25 354.6 52.90 91.57 + 3872

WARD 24 356.9 48.99 68.47 + 991

WARD 37 356.9 44.37 58.99 + 441

WARD 02 357.1 52.56 69.94 + 1517

WARD 11 365.4 49.14 58.80 + 531

WARD 31 367.0 45.05 69.86 + 1000

WARD 29 369.2 45.65 61.09 + 417

WARD 16 369.5 44.61 75.98 + 1732

WARD 09 373.4 35.06 68.71 + 497

WARD 39 374.4 46.29 70.06 + 711

WARD 55 377.3 43.55 88.64 + 1644

WARD 59 381.2 48.32 54.16 + 288

WARD 08 381.8 41.52 68.99 + 974

WARD 40 381.8 42.41 78.15 + 1205

WARD 03 396.9 44.69 84.66 + 1728

WARD 41 400.5 40.22 65.95 + 1110

WARD 23 400.9 47.57 73.47 + 1252

WARD 01 407.1 44.37 68.50 + 744

WARD 12 423.9 41.81 86.47 + 1557

As the above table shows, the 36 wards in which the number of registered voters per voting machine was the highest suffered low voter turnout. All but 8 of the 36 wards at the bottom of Damschroder?s list had a turnout below 50%, and 2 of the 36 wards at the bottom of the list had a turnout below 40%. All 36 of the wards at the bottom of the list were won by Kerry, and they include most of his strongholds. In 29 of the 36 wards, Kerry exceeded his city wide share of 62.22% of the vote. However, these wards suffered a low voter turnout. In only 7 of the 36 wards did Kerry?s turnout exceed that of his median precinct, 50.78%. Turnout was below 45% in 14 of the 36 wards, and was below 40% in 2 Kerry wards. Clearly, Kerry suffered a lower turnout where the polling places did not have enough voting machines.

A similar pattern is evident when examining the data for individual precincts. I have arranged the data in the same manner as above, precinct by precinct, according to the ratio of registered voters per voting machine. The 61 precincts with the lowest ratio of registered voters per voting machine are shown below:

PRECINCTS WITH THE MOST VOTING MACHINES

Ward & Voters/ Percent Kerry Kerry

Precinct Machine Turnout Percent Margin

60-G 166.0 65.06 40.99 - 56

22-H 176.3 63.52 49.23 0

63-I 180.0 53.52 52.10 + 14

28-G 185.7 57.99 76.34 + 170

69-G 190.0 53.16 48.33 - 10

63-E 192.3 62.05 43.75 - 41

52-H 192.7 52.08 70.76 + 133

70-C 199.5 63.73 50.47 + 12

67-K 212.7 64.58 42.16 - 61

65-G 213.8 61.57 40.15 - 153

46-F 215.7 65.84 39.71 - 85

30-C 216.7 66.00 50.95 + 10

65-D 219.3 65.65 44.08 - 50

33-H 221.7 52.48 78.03 + 195

72-D 228.0 67.21 38.30 - 136

46-I 228.2 64.68 54.96 + 76

69-D 228.6 64.48 47.81 - 29

28-E 229.0 69.98 88.23 + 488

21-E 231.0 68.57 58.93 + 142

19-D 232.0 66.55 58.87 + 142

64-D 235.3 58.50 47.33 - 20

46-A 235.7 61.53 48.85 - 10

71-A 236.3 67.14 42.19 - 69

10-E 238.6 67.73 36.63 - 211

56-C 239.3 63.51 74.67 + 224

57-D 240.0 67.33 43.50 - 102

19-G 241.0 68.36 58.66 + 117

21-F 242.0 66.63 57.98 + 105

57-H 242.3 63.82 50.22 + 6

15-B 242.5 62.47 54.62 + 68

34-E 242.7 63.32 59.04 + 90

60-F 242.8 64.37 37.18 - 155

10-H 244.0 64.07 49.46 - 2

66-F 244.3 66.85 46.42 - 32

57-K 245.0 68.42 46.31 - 75

18-D 246.7 67.97 71.49 + 217

72-A 247.0 64.68 40.13 - 122

18-E 247.3 62.89 75.84 + 308

65-H 247.3 50.27 54.86 + 40

48-D 247.5 56.67 83.70 + 380

14-D 249.7 56.88 79.48 + 252

19-C 250.0 72.00 59.55 + 139

70-E 250.0 51.11 65.83 + 167

46-B 250.8 58.13 51.94 + 27

60-D 251.5 63.62 45.02 - 61

45-I 251.6 52.31 56.31 + 85

64-H 252.8 54.70 52.28 + 26

48-E 253.0 58.50 62.33 + 78

73-E 253.1 60.78 49.67 - 1

06-E 254.0 50.49 94.43 + 453

70-D 255.3 66.41 50.30 + 11

66-D 255.6 55.79 48.52 - 18

69-C 255.8 54.50 36.10 - 186

42-C 256.0 61.98 57.14 + 74

46-L 256.0 66.54 57.84 + 162

10-P 256.5 65.30 35.33 - 190

47-F 257.7 50.84 76.96 + 211

45-H 259.8 60.59 44.03 - 183

19-B 261.0 70.11 60.80 + 164

52-B 261.5 62.43 62.21 + 159

69-I 261.5 68.36 37.80 - 169

As the table above shows, of the 61 precincts with the most voting machines per registered voter, 26 were won by Bush, 34 were won by Kerry, and one was a tie. Again, Bush enjoys disproportional favoritism. Bush won 125 precincts and 26 of them (20.80%) are represented here. Kerry won 346 precincts, only 34 (0.98%) are represented here, and they are not his major strongholds. In only 12 of the 34 Kerry precincts did he exceed his city wide share of 62.22% of the vote, which makes 12 of 61 precincts altogether. Most of these precincts enjoyed high voter turnout. In all 61 precincts, turnout was above 50%. In 42 of the 61 precincts, turnout was above that of Bush?s median precinct, 60.56%. Of these 42 precincts, 22 were won by Bush, and 20 were won by Kerry. This proves once and for all that the Kerry precincts could have enjoyed a voter turnout similar to that of the Bush precincts, if only they had been supplied with enough voting machines.

And what of the precincts with not enough voting machines? The 60 precincts with the highest ratio of registered voters per voting machine are shown below:

PRECINCTS WITH THE FEWEST VOTING MACHINES

Ward & Voters/ Percent Kerry Kerry

Precinct Machine Turnout Percent Margin

12-A 551.7 34.50 84.96 + 407

01-B 540.0 34.57 68.41 + 211

25-B 507.7 41.56 91.33 + 522

23-B 501.0 41.38 79.13 + 363

41-C 490.0 38.91 60.53 + 127

60-E 481.0 40.47 51.05 + 15

11-A 476.7 35.24 74.80 + 252

18-A 475.0 48.77 80.46 + 430

59-D 464.3 45.51 59.46 + 123

03-D 462.3 46.21 79.15 + 374

03-A 461.0 37.09 92.37 + 442

54-C 459.7 40.54 63.82 + 159

40-A 458.0 40.90 77.10 + 312

10-U 455.0 52.00 53.15 + 85

12-B 453.3 38.60 92.31 + 445

61-C 449.7 43.66 70.31 + 234

49-E 447.3 38.75 52.70 + 30

55-B 446.0 42.38 91.80 + 473

23-A 444.0 45.12 81.76 + 381

09-B 439.8 28.82 68.66 + 195

02-A 439.7 38.06 80.32 + 308

57-A 437.3 42.91 65.41 + 176

31-C 437.0 39.97 65.07 + 160

16-E 436.7 41.98 68.50 + 205

32-C 436.3 43.54 60.99 + 128

74-F 436.3 45.23 51.86 + 25

54-A 435.7 46.82 67.77 + 218

11-D 435.0 47.28 55.67 + 81

69-H 433.8 54.76 40.93 - 167

53-G 432.7 45.30 68.49 + 219

10-C 431.0 39.68 81.80 + 321

69-J 428.8 47.00 47.44 - 38

67-A 427.3 54.37 41.99 - 108

16-C 427.0 40.28 77.13 + 475

29-A 426.0 36.85 70.81 + 196

04-C 423.3 32.44 89.46 + 332

41-D 423.0 42.47 64.75 + 165

36-G 421.0 37.29 66.52 + 156

08-D 419.7 51.55 69.47 + 253

42-A 417.7 40.30 81.64 + 321

57-B 417.0 48.28 57.87 + 97

73-B 415.0 41.69 46.41 - 29

26-A 413.0 41.81 89.88 + 403

02-B 412.3 53.27 69.54 + 263

52-E 412.0 46.60 87.39 + 431

08-A 411.6 30.95 79.75 + 381

73-J 411.6 63.56 42.62 - 189

44-A 409.7 48.90 86.36 + 434

57-G 409.0 43.60 50.00 + 7

33-C 407.0 47.42 64.11 + 170

46-J 405.7 47.99 66.38 + 197

44-B 405.3 45.97 81.37 + 348

44-G 405.0 37.22 79.02 + 348

71-B 404.3 42.04 49.80 + 1

49-D 403.7 45.33 51.58 + 22

24-B 402.7 45.45 65.50 + 174

39-A 401.0 46.05 67.51 + 398

55-D 400.7 42.43 87.38 + 382

10-A 400.3 39.72 55.91 + 60

45-J 398.8 57.30 58.77 + 165

As the table above shows, of the 60 precincts with the fewest voting machines per registered voter, only 5 were won by Bush, and 55 were won by Kerry. Again, Bush enjoys disproportional favoritism. Bush won 125 precincts, and only 5 of them (4.00%) are represented here. Kerry won 346 precincts, 55 (15.9%) are represented here, and they include his major strongholds. In 41 of the 55 Kerry precincts, he exceeded his city wide share of 62.22% of the vote. None of these precincts enjoyed high voter turnout. In only 7 of the precincts was turnout was above 50%. Of these, 4 were won by Kerry, and 3 were won by Bush. Turnout was below 45% in 34 precincts, below 40% in 16 precincts, below 35% in 5 precincts, and below 30% in one precinct.

It is important to understand what these numbers mean. The polls in Ohio were open from 6:30 A.M. to 7:30 P.M. That is 13 hours, or 780 minutes. If there are 400 registered voters per voting machine, and turnout is 60%, each voter has less than 3.5 minutes to vote, and that is assuming a steady stream of voters, with no rushes at certain hours. It also assumes no challenges to voters at the polls. If there are 550 registered voters per voting machine, and the turnout is 60%, each voter has 2.4 minutes.

All of this amounts to theft of votes. It has been shown above that the Kerry precincts enjoyed a voter turnout similar to that of the Bush precincts when supplied with enough voting machines.

It is an easy matter to calculate, assuming the same vote percentages for each ward, how many more votes John Kerry would have gotten with a 60% voter turnout. This is not an unreasonable number. The median Bush precinct enjoyed a turnout of 60.56%. The turnout was 66.31% for Cincinnati, city wide.

I am aware that because the Franklin County Board of Elections did not purge its voter rolls, there are more registered voters than adults listed as living in Franklin County by the United States Census. There are many ?registered? voters who are dead or have moved away. One might expect, therefore, a lower percentage of voter turnout in Cleveland than in Cincinnati. However, 60% of the voting age population is a reasonable figure. Presidential elections have surpassed this figure four times in my lifetime: 1952 (61.6%), 1960 (62.8%), 1964 (61.9%), and 1968 (60.9%). In 1992 the figure was 55.9%, and the 2004 election was probably more hotly contested.

PROJECTED COLUMBUS RETURNS WITH 60% TURNOUT

Ward or Percent Kerry With 60% Gain or

Precinct Turnout Margin Turnout Loss

WARD 01 44.37 + 744 + 1006 + 262

WARD 02 52.56 + 1517 + 1732 + 215

WARD 03 44.69 + 1728 + 2320 + 592

WARD 04 37.69 + 1643 + 2616 + 973

WARD 05 46.24 + 1854 + 2406 + 552

WARD 06 47.44 + 2494 + 3154 + 660

WARD 07 44.24 + 2332 + 3163 + 831

WARD 08 41.52 + 974 + 1408 + 434

WARD 09 35.06 + 497 + 851 + 354

WARD 10 57.18 - 560 - 588 - 28

WARD 11 49.14 + 531 + 648 + 117

WARD 12 41.81 + 1557 + 2234 + 677

WARD 13 44.91 + 1702 + 2274 + 572

WARD 14 49.37 + 2068 + 2513 + 445

WARD 15 51.88 + 291 + 337 + 46

WARD 16 44.61 + 1732 + 2330 + 598

WARD 17 48.67 + 2465 + 3039 + 574

WARD 18 55.15 + 2043 + 2223 + 180

WARD 19 67.99 + 1491

WARD 20 61.96 + 1077

WARD 21 57.92 + 719 + 745 + 26

WARD 22 60.21 + 465

WARD 23 47.57 + 1252 + 1579 + 327

WARD 24 48.99 + 991 + 1214 + 223

WARD 25 52.90 + 3872 + 4392 + 520

WARD 26 41.34 + 1692 + 2456 + 764

WARD 27 53.06 + 1283 + 1451 + 168

WARD 28 58.48 + 2371 + 2433 + 62

WARD 29 45.65 + 417 + 548 + 131

WARD 30 56.25 + 147 + 157 + 10

WARD 31 45.05 + 1000 + 1332 + 332

WARD 32 55.11 + 456 + 496 + 40

WARD 33 52.64 + 1803 + 2055 + 252

WARD 34 55.85 + 1051 + 1129 + 78

WARD 35 50.90 + 2104 + 2480 + 376

WARD 36 53.31 + 91 + 102 + 11

WARD 37 44.37 + 441 + 596 + 155

WARD 38 48.15 + 546 + 680 + 134

WARD 39 46.29 + 711 + 922 + 211

WARD 40 42.41 + 1205 + 1705 + 500

WARD 41 40.22 + 1110 + 1656 + 546

WARD 42 46.34 + 966 + 1251 + 285

WARD 43 56.27 + 475 + 506 + 31

WARD 44 48.87 + 3212 + 3944 + 732

WARD 45 57.89 + 1208 + 1252 + 44

WARD 46 58.22 + 981 + 1011 + 30

WARD 47 52.85 + 1534 + 1742 + 208

WARD 48 52.84 + 1909 + 2168 + 259

WARD 49 50.76 + 370 + 437 + 67

WARD 50 59.54 + 1447 + 1458 + 11

WARD 51 46.93 + 1857 + 2374 + 517

WARD 52 53.68 + 1610 + 1800 + 190

WARD 53 53.66 + 499 + 558 + 59

WARD 54 52.77 + 668 + 760 + 92

WARD 55 43.55 + 1644 + 2265 + 621

WARD 56 55.71 + 4065 + 4378 + 313

WARD 57 56.81 - 155 - 164 - 9

WARD 58 55.04 + 41 + 45 + 4

WARD 59 48.32 + 288 + 358 + 70

WARD 60 55.97 - 478 - 512 - 34

WARD 61 49.28 + 594 + 723 + 129

WARD 62 57.96 + 760 + 787 + 27

WARD 63 56.10 - 242 - 259 - 17

WARD 64 52.73 - 153 - 174 - 21

WARD 65 60.10 - 496

WARD 66 53.01 + 203 + 230 + 27

WARD 67 54.17 - 221 - 245 - 24

WARD 68 44.61 + 950 + 1278 + 328

WARD 69 57.97 - 1030 - 1066 - 36

WARD 70 61.17 + 79

WARD 71 53.93 - 307 - 342 - 35

WARD 72 62.33 - 774

WARD 73 58.23 - 1032 - 1063 - 31

WARD 74 55.02 - 339 - 370 - 31

GRAND TOTAL +16788

Thus I conclude that the withholding of voting machines from predominantly Democratic wards in the City of Columbus cost John Kerry upwards of 17,000 votes. A more detailed calculation could be done on a precinct by precinct basis, but that is not necessary here. The purpose is to illustrate the magnitude of the conspiracy.

Matt Damschroder did not act alone. There are 74 wards and 472 precincts in Columbus, Ohio. It is not possible for one person to have delivered all the voting machines, and it is unlikely that nobody else was involved in planning where to deliver them. Anyone who associated with Mr. Damschroder on or shortly before Election Day should be investigated for possible complicity.

Richard Hayes Phillips, Ph.D.
Canton, New York

Privacy

Finally, an objection to homosexual marriage I can deal with. One of those Old Testament fundamentalists explained his position quite clearly on the evening news. He said he doesn't want to see men being intimately affectionate in the stands when he takes his son to a baseball game. I can agree with that. I don't want to see it either.

In fact, I don't want to see heterosexual couples or groups engaging in intimate behavior in public. I don't want to see their private parts either; nor do I want to see them fondling other people's private parts. I don't even want to see married couples' intimate behavior (Al Gore kissing Tipper on the lips went too far) and I particularly don't want to see politicians kissing other people's babies. That's an unsanitary practice that should be abhored.

But, what I find really outrageous is people in the middle of an airport concourse (how more public can you get) being forced to take off their shoes and allow themselves to be "patted-down" like some criminal that's just been hauled off to jail. No, I don't want to see that and I'm sure not going to submit to such an invasion of my privacy.

If I were ever to take a trip on a commercial airliner (which I haven't yet), I would be prepared for the possibility of a crash and my immediate death. How that crash came about would not concern me significantly, though I would be momentarily annoyed if the failure to shut a door allowed an incompetent to take the pilot's place. On the other hand, the probability of having to undergo a body search, a violation that would stay with me the rest of my life, ostensibly to prevent a recurrence of something that only happened once in all of human history, is more than enough to convince me that it's just not worth it. Bad enough that I have to see a stream people go through the humiliation whenever I go to meet someone arriving on a plane.

In short, there's lots of behaviors that ought to be private that I don't want to see in public. The question is whether the proper response is "there oughta be a law" or to just use my eyelids for the purpose for which they were intended--i.e. to close my eyes and shut out the offending view.

It seems to me that we are relying increasingly on making behaviors illegal at the same time that we indulge all kinds of behaviors that are disgusting and should, therefore, be carried out in private. The fact is that many necessary bodily functions are unpleasant when they have to be witnessed by others (flossing the teeth is one, in case you need a mild example). Which is why we have defined categories of public and private and designated one or the other as appropriate, albeit in a somewhat arbitrary fashion.

What is perceived as disgusting in one culture may be perfectly acceptable in another. But there are behaviors which universally disgust and even their designation has to be taught (as every parent of infants surely knows). And it's the failure to teach which behaviors are appropriate to the public and private realm which seems to be responsible for the increasing effort to regulate human behaviors and relationships by law.

So, while I can agree with the fellow who doesn't want to see guys hugging and kissing in the stands, I've got to tell him that preventing people from entering into legal relationships for mutual support is not the solution. Their legal status has nothing to do with how people behave in public; nor in private, for that matter. Lots of people whose public behavior is inoffensive, are pure hell to live with in private. Primarily because, I would suggest, they haven't been taught to respect the right of the other to be secure in his or her person--i.e. the right to privacy. A right, by the way, which our government doesn't recognize either.

Fascism on Fox

From Sean Donahue
Monday, November 22, 2004 4:55 PM:
-----------------------------------------------------
In one of the oddest moments of my brief journalistic career, I have been invited to discuss American Fascism and the rise of George W. Bush tommorow night on Fox News Radio on the Alan Colmes show at 11:15 p.m. EST. The program should be available on one of
the following two websites:

Alan Colmes website: http://www.alan.com/index2.html
FoxNewsRadio: http://www.foxnews.com/alancolmesradio/

Apparently the producer of the program read the following commentary that I posted on the NarcoSphere section of the NarcoNews website.

Sean Donahue

AMERICAN FASCISM

"American fascism will not be really dangerous until there is a purposeful coalition among the cartelists, the deliberate poisoners of public information, and those who stand for the K.K.K. type of demagoguery."

-- Henry Wallace, "The Dangers of American Fascism,"
The New York Times, Sunday, April 9, 1944

"Third Worlders see it first," Buffy St. Marie sang on a recent album. And the first signs of the rise of Fascism in the U.S. could be seen in Colombia two years ago.

In 2002, Alvaro Uribe, backed by a narco-traffickers, multinational corporations, and unreconstructed Fallangists won Colombia's presidential election by exploiting middle class fears of guerilla kidnappings and urban car bombings. Uribe immediately launched a
harsh crackdown on dissidents, workers, and campesinos, in the name of fighting terrorism and crime and making Colombia safe for investors. The Bush administration and its fellow travelers at the Miami Herald and similar daily rags praised Uribe for his dedication to imposing order in Colombia, and asserted that his critics were anti-democratic because
Uribe was an elected leader. (1) In response, Hector Mondragon, one of Colombia's bravest and most insightful social critics, asked,

"Is it not Fascism because there was an election? Weren't Hitler and Mussolini elected? What was Hitler's popularity during the Holocaust? This is what Fascism is like. Fascism is popular. The middle class loves it. The enemies of the state are being eliminated. The streets are being cleaned. And the middle class applauds. The city has never looked so
good. The tourists can say what they said when they went to Germany in 1937: 'Why do people speak so poorly of the government? Germany has never been so beautiful.' Or Colombia.'"

Or the U.S. What did the Fascist regimes in Italy, Germany, and Spain have in common? They consisted of a highly militarized state, backed by corporations and a wealthy elite, that rose to power through a false populism that exploited the public's fear of foreigners and "moral degenerates." This precisely defines the formula that Karl Rove designed to
consolidate the Bush administration's power in the recent election.

Pollsters and pundits cited "moral values" as the key issue for majority of Bush supporters in the 2004 election. The "moral values" these voters were talking about were a strict and exaggerated code of masculinity that emphasized men's control of their own sensual desires and of women's bodies. Abortion, contraception, and same sex sexual relationships
(especially between men) represent deep threats to this "moral" order. This equation of morality with hyper-masculinity also creates a mindset that demands unquestioning support for the military. Civil liberties issues come into play here as well - those who resist controls on their behavior must have some sort of deviant desires that they want to be able to play out freely.

This hyper-masculine order is at the core of Fascism. "Sexual deviants" were among the first targets of the Holocaust. In Colombia, when right wing paramilitaries take over a region they instill fear and establish their dominance by launching "social cleansing" campaigns that target gays, lesbians, prostitutes, street vendors, the homeless and drug users - all people who in some way threaten a "moral" code based on strength and masculine self-control.

Fascism views dissent differently than more subtle, liberal systems of control. Traditionally on a domestic level the U.S. has operated primarily through exercising hegemony - creating the illusion of consensus around a dominant ideology to limit debate by drowning out or marginalizing dissent. If dissent grows too strong, its co-opted through subtle reform.
Fascism replaces hegemony with totalitarianism, crushing dissent. Dissidents become the enemy. "You are either with us or against us."

The totalitarian desire to impose order and define the boundaries of acceptable thought meets the moralistic drive to suppress sensual desires in the war on drugs. As a former alcoholic and cocaine addict who ostensibly kicked his habits by accepting Jesus into his life, George W. Bush presents himself as the central figure in a morality play in which drug use is
portrayed as a failure of self control that can only be remedied through accepting a rigid structure into ones' life. The user is defined as a sinner, and by extension therapeutic approaches to drug addiction are rejected on the theory that they fail to address the
addict's moral failure. The fact that most of the drugs defined as illicit can create mental and
physical states that can lead to testing and transcending sexual and ideological boundaries serves as evidence that using these drugs is a sin. Sugar, caffeine, and television, being drugs that aid in the institution of control, are of course treated differently.

With the second Bush administration, the rise of Fascism in the U.S. is nearly complete. We're now in a position of needing to resist its consolidation.

____________
NOTES

1. Uribe clearly won a solid and "fair" victory in wealthy and middle class enclaves. However, in the countryside and in poor urban barrios, armed factions controlled the voting. In guerilla held areas, the ostensibly Marxist FARC and ELN suppressed the vote. And in paramilitary controlled areas the right wing AUC threatened to carry out one killing for every vote for a candidate other than Uribe. The "opinion polls" frequently cited as evidence of Uribe's popularity in the U.S. and Colombian press are conducted by telephone or by internet - methods that clearly exclude the poor majority in a country where over 60% of the population lives on less than two dollars a day.

No More Indulgence

Sorry everybody,

Perhaps I should explain why I am using that phrase as a sign-in. It is an effort to indicate that I share the sorrow which has resulted from what Americans have been doing around the world.
However, as I used the tell my kids, sorrow is an easy emotion. I never wanted to hear "sorry" from them. What I wanted was an admission that they had done something either stupid or bad and a pledge that they wouldn't do it again.

Sorry everybody,

Perhaps I should explain why I am using that phrase as a sign-in. It is an effort to indicate that I share the sorrow which has resulted from what Americans have been doing around the world.
However, as I used the tell my kids, sorrow is an easy emotion. I never wanted to hear "sorry" from them. What I wanted was an admission that they had done something either stupid or bad and a pledge that they wouldn't do it again.

In this case, unfortunately, the majority of the American people, especially Democrats, can't make such a pledge, because they haven't done anything bad.

Then, why, you might ask, are they wailing and gnashing their teeth and heaping ashes on their heads? Good question. Further posts will be an attempt to answer.
******************************
So why are Democrats wailing and gnashing their teeth? It's a matter of pride, power and prejudice.

What pride, you ask. Well, when someone has been abused, humiliated, beaten and robbed and prefers to conclude that it was all somehow his own fault, that he failed to prevent all these things being done to him, then he obviously prefers not only to think of himself first, but to assume that he is in control of his fate. That, of course, was Job's failing. He refused to see that what was happening had nothing to do with him. And just so, many if not most Democrats feel content to accept responsibility for something they didn't do, rather than make sure it is set right.

In other words, Democrats are more interested in the power they might wield in changing other people's minds (next time) than in exercising the right they now have to see that the laws are enforced and that the evil-doers are punished.
What evil-doers, you ask. Well, for starters there's a warlord occupying our White House and the White House is not where such a person belongs. Of course, his confusion about his role may be understandable, considering that he got a whole Department of Defense which now refers to its members as "warfighters." (Perhaps that's just a lame attempt to refute the role of "peacekeeper" that some people envision for the Department of Defense, but it certainly reflects an attitude that needs to be examined).

In any event, that Democrats prefer pride and power over a realistic assessment of what the world is all about, may just be an unintended consequence of the prejudices of the brain. What do I mean by that? Well, the brain, when it's left to do its thing on automatic--i.e. without conscious review to check for new input--prefers information that agrees with what's already there, that reinforces what it's learned before and, as a result of that reinforcement, generates the satisfaction of being right.
In this particular instance, our attitude towards the major presidential candidates, having our assessment that the democratic candidate was not the "best he could be" confirmed by the electoral results makes us feel better than we should, considering that our government has been hijacked by a bunch of thugs.

It's sort of like saying, "I knew I should have just stayed in bed this morning" when some dodo just ran into your car as you drove through an intersection on a green light.

OK, you say, so what are the Democrats supposed to do? A fair question, but before I answer it, I do want to point out that the Democrats have been guilty of one thing--being too indulgent.

Now, you may think that indulgence is a good thing. It's not. Indulgences are bad. Not so long ago, it was pretty common for Catholics to earn themselves "indulgences" by performing good deeds ahead of time, in order to make up for the sins they were certain to commit. Indulgences are sort of an insurance policy where Catholics are concerned.

However, most people tend to see their own indulgence of other people's bad behavior as a virtue. Letting others get away with stuff they would not do themselves is considered being liberal, charitable, magnanimous in not being overly judgemental. But is it really? Couldn't it just as easily be a sign of laziness?

Wouldn't it be more charitable to set some standards of good behavior and hold our friends and relatives to them? Want an example? Well, there's the so-called "war on drugs," or rather, the war on "illegal" drugs. It's important to make that distinction, because our consumption of legal drugs is going through the roof. Indeed, the use of the qualifier, "illegal" can't help but send the message that taking drugs is good, as long as they have been FDA approved.

In any event, while it has been reported that the warlords of Afghanistan have been transformed into simple gangsters, nothing is being done about the drug lords who are busy importing those poisons, heroine and cocaine, by the ton into the United States. For that to be going on, surely somebody's being indulgent about behavior that doesn't affect them personally. Somebody's looking the other way--some dock worker, some customs inspector, some trucking outfit, some seller of glacine baggies. The poison doesn't get from the poppy fields of Afghanistan to the streets of red America by itself.

But then, we have become indulgent about a lot of poisons. Plants we don't like are to be attacked and killed with herbicides. Critters we don't like are to be attacked and killed with pesticides. It isn't that we've become a society that's fixated on death; we just indulge it.
*******************************

I started out this morning castigating the Democrats for their wailing and gnashing of teeth at having "lost" something that was actually stolen. But, they are not alone in their wailing and gnashing of teeth. There's thousands of people bemoaning the death of their loved-ones in Iraq, never mind all those who lost dear ones on September 11, 2001. And then, of course, there's all those people left behind and bereft by the forty five THOUSAND people killed on our roads and highways every year.

Is there wailing and gnashing of teeth about that? If so, it's obviously not doing any good because the carnage continues year after year. And who are the victims of this carnage? Well, the majority are in the same age group as are the people being killed over in Iraq. And why? Because the people who supposedly loved them, were indulgent.

After all, who taught them to drive poorly? Who lent them the family car? Who took them to get a diver's license and who then adjusted the family schedule so they could get a job so they could pay off a portion of the cost of a car and a portion of the insurance that would bail them out of the hospital when they landed in the hospital, as they most surely would? Right. Indulgent parents who were relieved not to have to be bothered with providing adequate supervision, transportation and standards of behavior that would keep their children safe. Indulgence is not a virtue.
Indulge is what lazy people do. And then when their indulgence has bad consequence, they indulge themselves even more by turning to some "comfort food."

It occurs to me that conservatives may actually have a point when they rail about liberals. But, because they are using the wrong word, they manage to overlook that they share in the characteristics they decry. What they should really be addressing is their own indulgence and lazy attitude, heaping scorn on liberals for behaviors that they engage in in spades.

Who, after all, has allowed the makers of munitions to get away with using free depleted uranium so the producers of this waste could avoid disposal costs? Who has looked the other way as the air and water was the preferred waste-disposal venue? Who has permitted the castigation and intimidation of other nations over a few deadly munitions while paying for the production and storage of the largest arsenal on the face of the earth? Yes, who's paid for it, just as they pay for their teenager's deadly cars? That's right, tax-paying middle America.
And why? Because it is perceived to be good to be indulgent, to let people do what they want, even if it's bad for them in the long run.
So what's in order? Well, I know what I intend. I intend to expend some righteous anger, like Jesus in the temple driving the money-changers out. It isn't about money; it's about indulging behavior where it doesn't belong--changing money in the temple.
There will be no more indulgence from this quarter.

Sy Hersh agrees

In his new book, Chain of Command, Sy Hersh makes the following observation:
""There are many who believe George Bush is a liar, a President who knowingly and deliberately twists facts for political gain. But lying would indicate an understanding of what is desired, what is possible, and how best to get there. A more plausible explanation is that words have no meaning for this President beyond the immediate moment, and so he believes that his mere utterance of the phrases makes them real. It is a terrifying possibility."

The following is what I posted on May 28th of this year.

After speculating some more about his mental state, I think he's one of
perhaps many people whose brains do not recognize the relationship
between cause and effect. They know that things happen, but they cannot
figure out why. Perhaps because their brain doesn't keep track of the
sequence of events.

The psychiatric community refers to it as pre-frontal lobe syndrome and
the speculation is that it's a consequence of some physical insult or
injury of apparent insignificance. However, I'm beginning to think that,
given the large number of people who seem to have it, it may well be a
normal genetic variant. Sort of like people having musical talent or
not.

Pre-frontal lobe syndrome is often mis-diagnosed as borderline
personality disorder or even schizophrenia because the people who suffer
from not being able to recognize the relationship between their acts and
the consequences they experience, tend to react to any effort to teach
them with punishment or restrictions as if they were attacked.
All their behaviors are in the moment, prompted by their immediate
environment.

Because of that, they are actually quite easy to handle or manipulate
because they mirror the behavior of those around them. So, when people
are nice to them, they respond in kind. This mirroring behavior also contributes to the behavior not being recognized as such because most people like for others to follow their lead and to repeat what they've told them. That's interpreted as "being
supportive."

Problems only arise when there's no follow-through, in
terms of action, to the apparent agreeement. The lack of follow-through
is, however, to be expected since the person doesn't even know that
there's supposed to be a consequence to his agreement.
In a clinical environment, individuals with this syndrome are a source
of much frustration because their mirroring conversation with the
treatment staff gives the impression that they are making progress and,
as soon as they are separated from the staff, the behavior reverts to
mirroring the behavior of other patients, many with much worse problems.
This mirroring behavior may also give the impression of empathy. But
because there is no cause/effect realization, the impression is empty.

Anyway, a couple of weeks ago we speculated that what we were
considering was narcicism. But I don't think that's right because
Narcisus, although he fell in love with his image, i.e. himself, the
inability to recognize the relationship between cause and effect also
makes it unlikely that the individual can recognize that his interest in
himself has or has not been met. I'm not sure there even is a self.
Which would make sense, for example, of the shrub's apparent
astonishment at the conditions of being president--not having to answer
any questions. That's probably important because it's something he's
never been able to do.

He doesn't answer questions at news conferences not because he doesn't
want to, but because he doesn't know how. Sometimes his brain latches on
to a particular word it recognizes and then it produces a number of
related words that have been stored together with it and which may or
may not make sense in the present situation.

I think the reason the shrub has nicknames for people is because he
doesn't recognize them as individuals and he can't remember their names.
What he can do is repeat what he's been told, as long as the speech
isn't too long. The reason he often stumbles in his speeches is because
he's not actually reading. He's reciting from memory. Probably would
have made a good movie actor who has to be able to repeat the same line
over and over, without much change in inflection, as long as the "takes"
are not too lengthy.

If you look at the "Remind Us" video, you'll see what I mean about his
ability to say the same thing over and over again. He really got hooked
on that "Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction" line.

You know, once you've had an experience, there's a temptation to see the
same patterns again and again and it take a real act of will to view a
new situation objectively. On the other hand, this effort to be
objective may actually blind you to recognizing what you've seen before
as what you saw before.

I had charge as a Guardian ad Litem of a little girl in state custody
for ten years. Because she was in state custody, there was an effort to
address her "problems" with behavior in one institutional setting after
another. As a result I got to be real familiar with various "treatment"
programs and because she had no family, even got to participate in some
"family counselling" sessions that were part of one of the programs.
Anyway, absolutely nothing worked. None of the medications and none of
the restrictive environments. The odd thing was that in the eight years
it took me to catch on, she never ever misbehaved in my presence. That
is, she responded to me just as I treated her. (This, by the way,
annoyed her care-takers because she was often "abusive" with them. They
didn't like my questioning the ability of a patient to be abusive to a
person in authority either).

Long story short, it finally occurred to us (me and child psychiatrist
and psychologist) that perhaps a really supportive environment where all
her behavior was positively directed might do the trick--i.e. let her be
discharged from involuntary confinement when she turned eighteen and the
state could no longer hold her unless they could prove she was a danger
to herself or others. And it worked. Even in a State Mental Hospital
with few resources, she was able to learn to care for herself by rote
and to be peacable long enough to earn her release. That is, when she
was treated kindly, she responded well. You may say, duh. But that's not
how our society is increasingly organized. People tend to be punished
for missteps, rather than rewarded for being nice. Nice is
expected--except of course from the wardens.

Those who are treated well function OK. Those who suffer abuse at an
early age are likely to turn to what we call crime--to become aggressive
when frustrated or punished and to take what they want whenever they
want it.

Since it's quite possible for such people to function in an authoritarian
society, it seems quite reasonable to suggest that this "incapacity"
represents a normal genetic variant.
The mistake lies in trying to make people do things they can't; like
ride a bike when they lack the sense of balance required, or the
capacity to anticipate that if they ride down a steep incline at full
speed, they're likely to fall. Having fallen off a bike many times
myself, I am pretty sure that the Shrub's injuries to his face are the
result of going down hill too fast and then trying to come to a sudden
halt.

If I am correct and there are a lot of people like that out there,
making fun of him is not going to persuade them to vote against him. It
may well be that people recognize themselves in him. Can't figure out
why he should be made fun of since their loved ones have the same
problem and are such good people, in the sense of doing everything they
are told.
He should be rewarded for doing what his mommy and his advisers tell
him.

Election Review

For those who might have missed it, the recount in Ohio is going forward
and the votes in Florida are being looked at closely.

Cobb & co have collected the necessary funds to get started, but still
need $20,000 to meet their initial budget.  Go to
http://www.votecobb.org/    to contribute or get otherwise involved.

1400 more volunteers are needed to monitor the recount in Ohio,  If you have
friends or family nearby, get them to contact Holly at 319-337-7341.

Letters to the editor are still needed to break through the media
white-out of this issue.
For ideas on what to say, you can go to
http://www.votecobb.org/recount/be-the-media

In addition, Cobb & co are investigating New Mexico.  From where I sit,
a multipronged assault is definitely preferable to putting all our eggs
in one basket.  If there's one thing that needs to be accomplished, it's
to COUNT THE VOTES.

For a master list of links to evidence regarding the stealing of the
2004 election, go to shadowbox. Anything that interests you there would
make a good letter to a publication, since the major media aren't keen
on covering it yet.

http://shadowbox.i8.com/stolen.htm

http://www.letters.prinews.com

Lesson in Red and Blue

The summer that Joshua, our oldest grandchild, was seven,
he helped me build a stone dam across the brook below our house
in rural New Hampshire.  His main job was to crank the handle
of the kind of small winch known as a come-along in order to
keep the tension on steel chains running from a large tree to
slabs of granite, some as long as eight feet and weighing
several tons; my job was to use long steel levers to maneuver
the granite forward on rollers placed on sheets of plywood.
Each slab had to be moved about fifty or sixty feet from where
they had been dumped after being hauled from an old barn
foundation.
        At the start of our project, I explained to my young
helper the basic mechanical principles involved in our work.
A practical and pragmatic child, Joshua quickly articulated a
basic principle of his own: that the come-alongs with blue handles
were superior to the ones with red handles.
        Let me explain that the brand of come-alongs I use is
available in two models: the kind with a red handle has a twelve foot
long cable and a lifting capacity of one ton; the model with the
blue handle is idientical except that the cable passes around a
pulley, which means it can lift two tons but has only half the
effective pulling length.
        Joshua disliked using the come-alongs with red handles
because it took him twice as much effort as the ones with
blue handles.  But he understood why I wanted him to start
each new pull with that model: to take up the slack in the
hundred or so feet of heavy chain between the tree and the
stone being moved.  Once the chain was taut, I would attach a
blue-handled device to make his work easier.  Why couldn't he
use the blue-handled come-along to take up the slack?  He
could--but that would double the amount of time and effort
it would take for me to unwind the cable.
                        * * *
        Joshua will come of voting age in time for the 2012
election.  Perhaps by then our political system will be so polarized
that there will be only two levers in each voting booth: one with a
red handle, the other with a blue.  If that comes to pass, I
think he'll be able to apply the essential lesson he learned at the
age of seven: that if there's heavy lifting to be done, if
you really want to get things moving, it's better to pull the blue
handle.

Iraqi Dispatch

The Iraqi Resistance Spreads

November 16, 2004
The Ester Republic
www.esterrepublic.com

Dahr Jamail and Salam T.

While the US military says it now controls Fallujah and is simply
“mopping up” what is left of the Iraqi resistance, over 400 soldiers
wounded in the fighting have been flown out of Iraq to US air bases in
Germany.

As giant C-141 transport planes carrying wounded and maimed American
soldiers roar over the Iraqi desert, armed men carrying rocket propelled
grenades and kalashnikov machine guns roam freely in the streets of
Mosul, the third largest city in Iraq.

After the US military withdrew from inside Mosul, looters with
mattresses tied to the tops of cars and pushing desks in wheelbarrows
emptied the abandoned American base of its contents.

The horrendous situation afflicting civilians in Fallujah, which the
Iraqi Red Crescent Society refers to as a big disaster, didn’t seem to
concern a contractor from India who works supplying US bases in Iraq.

“One thing I feel is that in Fallujah, most of the insurgents are there
and nobody bothered to clear them off,” he said, speaking on condition
of anonymity, “So many innocent people were killed and no actions were
taken.” He then added, “So one way is good to clear those insurgents.”

The Iraqi Red Crescent Society states that scores of civilians have died
in Fallujah. Thousands of families remain trapped in the city with no
source of food, clean water or electricity. They report outbreaks of
cholera, as well as children bleeding to death because there are no
medical facilities left in the city. Red Crescent attempts to get relief
supplies through the US military cordon around the city have been nearly
impossible.

Due to the disaster in Fallujah, Muqtada al-Sadr has announced that his
followers will boycott the elections, scheduled for January. The Islamic
Party of Iraq is seriously considering boycotting them as well. Ayad
al-Azi, spokesman for the Islamic Party of Iraq, said, “The Americans
called for all the civilians to come to the mosques in Fallujah and they
detained all of the men and let the women and children go. We are
calling for all the people in the world to look at this humanitarian
disaster.” He added, “We are strongly considering withdrawing from the
elections.”

With over 30 US troops dead and what US-appointed Iraqi security advisor
Ayad Daoud claims are 1,000 insurgents killed in Fallujah, the goal of
their operation, capturing the Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi,
has escaped them.

But Zarqawi isn’t the only one to have escaped, as up to 80 percent of
the resistance fighters in Fallujah may have left before the siege even
began.

“The Iraqi government announced there are fifteen cities not under their
control,” said Dafer al-Ani, an Iraqi political analyst, “Fallujah and
Samarra are just the start, and there is serious resistance all over
Iraq now outside of the government’s control. If we are talking about
Fallujah and Ramadi, they are using street fighting.”

He continued, “It’s not their [the Iraqi resistance] aim to keep
controlling the cities. They are just making the enemy lose as much as
possible and then pulling out to go to other cities. What everybody
knows is the resistance in Fallujah, they left before the siege of
Fallujah, and what they left was less than twenty percent of the
resistance there. And we can see what losses they caused for the
occupation forces around the country.”

The Iraqi resistance now controls large areas of Ramadi, Samarra,
Haditha, Baquba, Hiyt, Qaim, Latifiyah, Taji, Khaldiyah, and Baghdad,
along with fighting in the holy city of Kerbala.

Having been closed on November 7, Baghdad International Airport remains
closed indefinitely. Along with the borders of Syria and Jordan being
closed under US-appointed Ayad Allawi’s announcement of martial law in
Iraq, people here are now left with no exit from the liberated country.

A Letter

author unknown

A Letter

I am writing this letter to the people in the red states in the middle of the country -- the people who voted for George W. Bush. I am writing this letter because I don't think we know each other.

So I'll make an introduction. I am a New Yorker who voted for John Kerry.

I used to live in California, and if I still lived there, I would vote for Kerry. I used to live in Washington, DC, and if I still lived there, I would vote for Kerry. Kerry won in all three of those regions.

Maybe you want to know more about me. Or maybe not; maybe you think you know me already. You think I am some anti-American anarchist because I dislike George W. Bush. You think that I am immoral and anti-family because I support women's reproductive freedom and gay rights. You think that I am dangerous, and even evil, because I do not abide by your religious beliefs.

Maybe you are content to think that, to write me off as a "liberal" -- the dreaded "L" word -- and rejoice that your candidate has triumphed over evil, immoral, anti-American, anti-family people like me. But maybe you are still curious.

So here goes: this is who I am.

I am a New Yorker. I was here, in my apartment downtown, on September 11th. I watched the Towers burn from the roof of my building. I went inside so that I couldn't see them when they fell. I had friends who were inside. I have a friend who still has nightmares about watching people jump and fall from the Towers. He will never be the same. How many people like him do you know? People that can't sit in a restaurant without plotting an escape route, in case it blows up?

I am a worker. I work across the street from the Citigroup Center, which
the government told us is a "target" of terrorism. Later, we found out
they were relaying very old information, but it was already too late. They
had given me bad dreams again. The subway stop near my office was
crowded with bomb-sniffing dogs, policemen in heavy protective gear, soldiers.
Now, every time I enter or exit my office, all of my possessions are X-rayed to
make sure I don't have any weapons. How often are you stopped by a
soldier with a bomb-sniffing dog outside your office?

I am a neighbor. I have a neighbor who is a 9/11 widow. She has two children. My husband does odd jobs for her now, like building bookshelves.
Things her husband should do. He uses her husband's tools, and the two
little girls tell him, "Those are our daddy's tools." How many 9/11 widows and orphans do you know? How often do you fill in for their dead loved ones?

I am a taxpayer. I worked my butt off to get where I did, and so did my parents. My parents saved and borrowed and sent me to college. I worked my way through graduate school. I won a full tuition scholarship to law school. All for the privilege of working 2,600 hours last year. That works out to a 50 hour week, every week, without any vacation days at all. I get to work by 9 am and rarely leave before 9 pm. I eat dinner at my office much more often than I eat dinner at home. My husband and I paid over $70,000 in federal income tax last year. At some point in the future, we will have to pay much more -- once this country faces its deficit and the impossible burden of Social Security.

In fact, the areas of the country that supported Kerry -- New York, California, Illinois, Massachusetts they are the financial centers of the nation. They are the tax base of this country. How much did you pay, Kansas? How much did you contribute to this government you support, Alabama? How much of this war in Iraq did you pay for?

I am a liberal. The funny part is, liberals have this reputation for living in Never-Neverland, being idealists, not being sensible.

But let me tell you how I see the world:

I see America as one nation in a world of nations. Therefore, I think we should try to get along with other nations.

I see that gay people exist. Therefore, I think they should be allowed to exist, and be treated the same as other people.

I see ways in which women are not allowed to control their own bodies. Therefore, I think we shouldgive women more control over their bodies.

I see that people have awful diseases. Therefore, I think we should enable scientists to try to cure them.

I see that we have a Constitution. Therefore, I think it should be upheld.

I see that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Therefore, I think that Iraq was not an imminent danger to me.

It seems so pragmatic to me.

How do you see the world?

Do you really think voting against gay marriage will keep people from being gay?
Would you really prefer that people continue to die from Parkinson's disease?

Do you really not care about the Constitutional rights of political detainees?

Would you really have supported the war if you knew the truth, or would you
Have wanted to spend more of our money on health care, job training, terrorism preparedness?

I am an American. I have an American flag flying outside my home. I love
my home more than anything. I love that I grew up right outside New York City. I first went to the Statue of Liberty with my 5th grade class, and my mom and dad took me to the Empire State Building when I was 8. I love taking the subway to Yankee Stadium. I loved living in Washington DC and going on dates to the Lincoln Memorial. It is because I love this country so much that I argue with my political opponents as much I do.

I am not safe. I never feel safe. My in-laws live in a small town in Ohio, and that town has received more federal funding, per capita, for terrorism preparedness than New York City has. I take subways and buses every day. I work in a skyscraper across the street from a "target." I have emergency supplies and a spare pair of sneakers in my desk, in case somethng happens while I'm at work.

Do you? How many times a month do you worry that your subway is going to blow up? When you hear sirens on the street, do you run to the window to make sure everything is okay? When you hear an airplane, do you flinch? Do you dread beautiful, blue-skied September days? I don't know a single New Yorker who doesn't spend the month of September on tip-toes, superstitiously praying for rain so we don't have to relive that beautiful, blue-skied day.

I am lonely. I feel that we, as a nation, have alienated all our friends and further provoked our enemies. I feel unprotected. Most of all I feel alienated from my fellow citizens, because I don't understand what you are thinking.

You voted for a man who started a war in Iraq for no reason, against the wishes of the entire world.

You voted for a man whose lack of foresight and inability to plan has led to massive insurgencies in Iraq, where weapons are disappearing into the hands of terrorists.

You voted for a man who let Osama Bin Laden escape into the hills of Afghanistan so that he could start that war in Iraq.

You voted for a man who doesn't want to let people love who they want to love; doesn't want to let doctors cure their patients; doesn't want to let women rule their destinies.

I don't understand why you voted for this man. For me, it is not enough that
He is personable; it is not enough that he seems like one of the guys.

Why did you vote for him?

Why did you elect a man that lied to us in order to convince us to go to war? (Ten years ago you were incensed when our president lied about his sex life; you thought it was an impeachable offense.)

Why did you elect a leader who thinks that strength cannot include diplomacy or international cooperaton?

Why did you elect a man who did nothing except run away and hide on September 11?

Most of all, I am terrified. I mean daily, I am afraid that I will not survive this. I am afraid that I will lose my husband, that I will never have children, that I will never grow old and watch the sunset in a backyard of my own. I am afraid that my career -- which should end with a triumphant and good-natured roast at a retirement party in 2035 -- will be cut short by an attack on me and my colleagues, as we sit sending emails and making phone calls one ordinary afternoon.

Is your life at stake? Are you terrified?

I don't think you are. I don't think you realize what you have done. And if anything happens to me or the people I love, I blame you.

I wanted you to know that.

Shame!

Troops -- Ashamed and Shaming

Dear Editor,
Whatever the rationale for the re-embedding of the press with the troops
assaulting the people of Iraq, what I want to know is why American soldiers
cover their faces with bandanas, like wild west bandits, and smother their
captives with "capture hoods."
If the soldiers were outfitted with dust masks, that would make sense,
since the uranium oxide particles they are breathing in are almost certain
to make them ill long after they come home. But those bandanas are surely
not standard-issue and can have only one purpose--to keep the troops from
being recognized by the American public.
Lest you think that individual soldiers and marines are protecting
themselves from being retaliated against, I think we can be pretty sure,
based on the evidence, that ALL the military personnel, native and foreign,
have become targets of retaliation. The Iraqis have no personal animus
against those they target with their IEDs. That's about the only thing
that makes this confrontation a war; there's nothing personal about it.
The capture hoods are another matter. Like the rolls of plastic body bags,
the hoods with which captives are disoriented and made to fear for their
lives ARE standard issue. Which leads me to the question, who comes up
with such inhumane and degrading behaviors? The policies which contenance
the use of suffocation to subdue a civilian population, one that is already
stressed to the breaking point, are simply disgusting and shameful. They
make me ashamed to be an American.

Special Report re:9/11

Special Report

A Conservative Christian Republican says listen to whistleblower Sibel D. Edmonds

By Karl W. B. Schwarz
Online Journal Contributing Writer

Download a .pdf file for printing.
Adobe Acrobat Reader required.
Click here to download a free copy.

November 20, 2004?The following is an open letter to Eliot Spitzer, Attorney General for the State of New York and William Casey, Chief Investigator for the Attorney General?s Office. In fact, this was hand delivered to Mr. Spitzer's office before it was published as was a three-part expose I have written titled Pop Goes the Bush Mythology Bubble. That three-part article will break soon and is in the hand of investigators at this time.

Sibel D. Edmonds was one of the many multilingual translators hired by our FBI to help track down terrorists and anticipate their next moves. At least, that was the plan and the purported "job description."

Once Sibel was working inside the FBI she uncovered something, tried to go public with it when Attorney General John Ashcroft and her FBI superiors would not, and the Bush-Cheney-Ashcroft team slapped a gag order on her so you could not hear what this lady has to say. What she has to say directly relates to 9-11 and it totally disputes the Bush Mythology they want Americans to believe.

So listen up, America. Here is what Sibel uncovered?she found "drug trafficking, money laundering, foreign names and American names directly involved in the financing of the 9-11 attacks on WTC (World Trade Center) and the Pentagon." It was not the Saudis, folks. Americans were involved and Bush does not want you to know that. That exposes the Bush Mythology as the lie that it is.

Some of the names on our list are also on the list that Sibel Edmonds knows and found inside the FBI. We came at the problem through telecom fraud, international securities fraud and kept finding trails that led to the Caspian Basin, Pakistan, and former BCCI (Bank of Credit and Commerce) scam artists. Some of you might remember BCCI and that many called it Bank of Crooks and Criminals International and did so for good cause.

There was something else "odd" about what Sibel Edmonds found. The facts did not surface out of counter-terrorism (Richard Clarke's group); they surfaced out of ongoing investigations by the FBI, some of which date back to 1998.

The following was sent to me and is appearing here with Sibel's permission. As an American citizen, you need to read it carefully, think, and understand that for the past 38 months you have been lied to by the Bush administration, the world has been lied to by the Bush administration, and that 9-11 happened for a reason that will soon be made known.

You also need to understand that the last thing the 9-11 Commission was looking for was The Truth. Eight of the ten 9-11 Commissioners have so many conflicts of interests, are directly or indirectly benefiting from Bush defense, homeland security and energy policies, they should have never been named to the 9-11 Commission. Their specialties on the 9-11 Commission were not the truth; they were "omission by intent" and "whitewashing."

You also need to come to grips with the fact that it is both sides of the aisle in Washington that are perpetuating this myth that they want all Americans and the rest of the world to believe. My next article will expose the conflicts of the eight 9-11 commissioners that should have barred them from even being considered for the job, much less accepting the appointments to be involved in a cover-up.

Here is the letter that Sibel D. Edmonds and 24 other former federal employees signed and are prepared to tell all to a grand jury. I have over 200 former federal employees, with some overlap on the signatories below, also willing to tell all to a grand jury.

Date: September 13, 2004

To The Congress of The United States:

The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States ended its report stating that "We look forward to a national debate on the merits of what we have recommended, and we will participate vigorously in that debate." In this spirit, we the undersigned wish to bring to the attention of the Congress and the people of the United States what we believe are serious shortcomings in the report and its recommendations. We thus call upon Congress to refrain from narrow political considerations and to apply brakes to the race to implement the commission recommendations. It is not too late for Congress to break with the practice of limiting testimony to that from politicians and top-layer career bureaucrats?many with personal reputations to defend and institutional equities to protect. Instead, use this unique opportunity to introduce salutary reform, an opportunity that must not be squandered by politically driven haste.

Omission is one of the major flaws in the Commission's report. We are aware of significant issues and cases that were duly reported to the Commission by those of us with direct knowledge, but somehow escaped attention. Serious problems and shortcomings within government agencies likewise were reported to the Commission but were not included in the report. The report simply does not get at key problems within the intelligence, aviation security, and law enforcement communities. The omission of such serious and applicable issues and information by itself renders the report flawed, and casts doubt on the validity of many of its recommendations.

We believe that one of the primary purposes of the Commission was to establish accountability; that to do so is essential to understanding the failures that led to 9/11, and to prescribe needed changes. However, the Commission in its report holds no one accountable, stating instead "our aim has not been to assign individual blame." That is to play the political game, and it shows that the goal of achieving unanimity overrode one of the primary purposes of this Commission's establishment. When calling for accountability, we are referring not to quasi-innocent mistakes caused by "lack of imagination" or brought about by ordinary "human error." Rather, we refer to intentional actions or inaction by individuals responsible for our national security, actions or inaction dictated by motives other than the security of the people of the United States. The report deliberately ignores officials and civil servants who were, and still are, clearly negligent and/or derelict in their duties to the nation. If these individuals are protected rather than held accountable, the mindset that enabled 9/11 will persist, no matter how many layers of bureaucracy are added, and no matter how much money is poured into the agencies. Character counts. Personal integrity, courage, and professionalism make the difference. Only a commission bent on holding no one responsible and reaching unanimity could have missed that.

We understand, as do most Americans, that one of our greatest strengths in defending against terrorism is the dedication and resourcefulness of those individuals who work on the frontlines. Even before the Commission began its work, many honest and patriotic individuals from various agencies came forward with information and warnings regarding terrorism-related issues and serious problems within our intelligence and aviation security agencies. If it were not for these individuals, much of what we know today of significant issues and facts surrounding 9/11 would have remained in the dark. These "whistleblowers" were able to put the safety of the American people above their own careers and jobs, even though they had reason to suspect that the deck was stacked against them. Sadly, it was. Retaliation took many forms: some were ostracized; others were put under formal or informal gag orders; some were fired. The commission has neither acknowledged their contribution nor faced up to the urgent need to protect such patriots against retaliation by the many bureaucrats who tend to give absolute priority to saving face and protecting their own careers.

The Commission did emphasize that barriers to the flow of information were a primary cause for wasting opportunities to prevent the tragedy. But it skipped a basic truth. Secrecy enforced by repression threatens national security as much as bureaucratic turf fights. It sustains vulnerability to terrorism caused by government breakdowns. Reforms will be paper tigers without a safe channel for whistleblowers to keep them honest in practice. It is unrealistic to expect that government workers will defend the public, if they can't defend themselves. Courage is the exception, not the rule. Unfortunately, current whistleblower rights are a cruel trap and magnet for cynicism. The Whistleblower Protection Act has turned into an efficient way to finish whistleblowers off by endorsing termination. No government workers have access to jury trials like Congress enacted for corporate workers after the Enron/MCI debacles. Government workers need genuine, enforceable rights just as much to protect America's families, as corporate workers do to protect America's investments. It will take congressional leadership to fill this hole in the 9/11 Commission's recommendations.

The Commission, with its incomplete report of "facts and circumstances," intentional avoidance of assigning accountability, and disregard for the knowledge, expertise and experience of those who actually do the job, has now set about pressuring our Congress and our nation to hastily implement all its recommendations. While we do not intend to imply that all recommendations of this report are flawed, we assert that the Commission's list of recommendations does not include many urgently needed fixes, and further, we argue that some of their recommendations, such as the creation of an "intelligence czar," and haphazard increases in intelligence budgets, will lead to increases in the complexity and confusion of an already complex and highly bureaucratic system.

Congress has been hearing not only from the commissioners but from a bevy of other career politicians, very few of whom have worked in the intelligence community, and from top-layer bureaucrats, many with vested interests in saving face and avoiding accountability. Congress has not included the voices of the people working within the intelligence and broader national security communities who deal with the real issues and problems day-after-day and who possess the needed expertise and experience?in short, those who not only do the job but are conscientious enough to stick their necks out in pointing to the impediments they experience in trying to do it effectively.

We the undersigned, who have worked within various government agencies (FBI, CIA, FAA, DIA, Customs) responsible for national security and public safety, call upon you in Congress to include the voices of those with first-hand knowledge and expertise in the important issues at hand. We stand ready to do our part.

Respectfully,

Costello, Edward J. Jr., Former Special Agent, Counterintelligence, FBI
Cole, John M., Former Veteran Intelligence Operations Specialist, FBI
Conrad, David "Mark," Retired Agent in Charge, Internal Affairs, U.S. Customs
Dew, Rosemary N., Former Supervisory Special Agent, Counterterrorism & Counterintelligence, FBI
Dzakovic, Bogdan, Former Red Team Leader, FAA
Edmonds, Sibel D., Former Language Specialist, FBI
Elson, Steve, Retired Navy Seal & Former Special Agent, FAA & US Navy
Forbes, David, Aviation, Logistics and Govt. Security Analysts, BoydForbes, Inc.,
Goodman, Melvin A., Former Senior Analyst/ Division Manager, CIA; Senior Fellow at the Center for International Policy
Graf, Mark, Former Security Supervisor, Planner, & Derivative Classifier, Department of Energy
Graham, Gilbert M., Retired Special Agent, Counterintelligence, FBI
Kleiman, Diane, Former Special Agent, US Customs
Kwiatkowski, Karen U., Lt. Col. USAF (ret.), Veteran Policy Analyst-DoD
Larkin, Lynne A., Former Operation Officer, CIA
MacMichael, David, Former Senior Estimates Officer, CIA
McGovern, Raymond L., Former Analyst, CIA
Pahle, Theodore J., Retired Senior Intelligence Officer, DIA
Sarshar, Behrooz, Retired Language Specialist, FBI
Sullivan, Brian F., Retired Special Agent & Risk Management Specialist, FAA
Tortorich, Larry J., Retired US Naval Officer, US Navy & Dept. of Homeland Security/TSA
Turner, Jane A., Retired Special Agent, FBI
Vincent, John B., Retired Special Agent, Counterterrorism, FBI
Whitehurst, Dr. Fred, Retired Supervisory Special Agent/Laboratory Forensic Examiner, FBI
Wright, Ann, Col. US Army (ret.); and Former Foreign Service officer
Zipoli, Matthew J., Special Response Team (SRT) Officer, DOE

CC:

Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Chairman Pat Roberts & Vice Chairman John D. Rockefeller
Senate Committee on the Judiciary, Chairman Orrin G. Hatch & Ranking Democratic Member Patrick Leahy
Senate Committee on Armed Services, Chairman John Warner & Ranking Member Carl Levin
Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs, Chairman Susan Collins & Ranking Member Joseph Lieberman
House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Chairman Porter J. Goss & Ranking Member Jane Harman
House Committee on the Judiciary, Chairman F. James Sensenbrenner, Jr. & Ranking Member John Conyers
House Armed Services Committee, Chairman Duncan Hunter & Ranking Member Ike Skelton
House Committee on Government Reform, Chairman Tom Davis & Ranking Member Henry A. Waxman
House Select Committee on Homeland Security, Chairman Christopher Cox & Ranking Member Jim Turner
Senator Charles Grassley

For the record, Congress has not made a move to address the foregoing.

As we are all witnessing right now, whistleblowers that would make the system stay honest are being strongly discouraged and even purged from federal employment. In a recent memo by new CIA Director Porter Goss, one of those involved in the 9-11 cover-up and one of the three persons (Senators Graham and Kyl, Congressman Goss) that Pakistan ISI head Lt.Col. Mahmood Ahmed was meeting with in Washington when 9-11 happened, issued this warning to CIA employees. Remember that it was this Pakistani lieutenant colonel that wired $100,000 to Mohammed Atta shortly before 9-11.

GOSS MEMO MANDATES CIA EMPLOYEES TO SUPPORT BUSH POLICIES

Tue Nov 16 2004 21:18:43 ET

Porter Goss, the new intelligence chief, has told Central Intelligence

Agency employees that their job is to "support the administration and

its policies in our work," a copy of the internal memorandum shows.

The NEW YORK TIMES is planning to lead Wednesday's paper with the memo,

newsroom sources tell DRUDGE.

MORE

"As agency employees we do not identify with, support or champion

opposition to the administration or its policies," Goss said in the

memorandum, which was circulated late on Monday. He said in the document that he was seeking "to clarify beyond doubt the rules of the road."

That, ladies and gentlemen, is "Controlling the Mythology" and silencing dissent so they can continue to operate our government above the law and in secret.

I do not have subpoena powers, but Eliot Spitzer does and some, if not all, of the above facts and sets of circumstances warrant being looked into. He is welcome to everything we have on 9-11 matters and the RICO investigations that led to the facts that are presented in my book.

The US Government has put their mythology on the table and apparently many (89 percent in the CNN poll) are not buying it. The foregoing has yet to be investigated and how the trails all started converging on 9-11 and NYC without having to guide them that way might be very telling.

Please sign the Justicefor9-11.org petition if you, too, demand the truth and justice regarding September 11, 2001. There is much truth to be found and we have a national capital that is full of people that have an aversion to the truth. It is time that we as American Citizens get to the bottom of what they fear so much and why they fear the truth.

It is time for all Americans to wake up.

Karl W. B. Schwarz lives in Little Rock, AR and is the author of "One-Way Ticket to Crawford, Texas, a Conservative Republican Speaks Out." He is the President and Chief Executive Officer of Patmos Nanotechnologies, LLC and I-nets Security Systems, a designer of intelligence and communications UAV systems. You can email him here.

The views expressed herein are the writers' own and do not necessarily reflect those of Online Journal.
Email editor@onlinejournal.com
Copyright © 1998-2004 Online Journal?. All rights reserved.

You may not alter or remove any trademark, copyright or other notice from copies of the content.

Irrational Florida

Irrational Florida Vote

What I want to know is what possible rational explanation there could be
for the fact that almost 600,000 new voters, who registered as Democrats in
Florida between 2000 and 2004, are supposed to have voted for the
Republican for President. We're not talking about traditional Dixiecrats
here, who still haven't mastered the art of saying what they are and voting
accordingly. We're talking about new voters. It doesn't make any sense.
What difference does it make, you may ask? Well, on the national scene,
probably not a whole lot. We take care of most of our public
responsibilities on the local level. But, on the international stage, it
matters a lot that the people who have been trained to protect us are over
in Iraq, shooting up civilians and their places of worship, in pursuit of
some half-baked scheme to find a new foothold for our country's military
assets.
No wonder the Europeans aren't anxious to get involved in Iraq. They're
busy planning for when the Americans are gone and their military bases can
be used for something else. If the answer to my question is that the
election in Florida was stolen, then it's a theft that has put America's
standing as a world leader at risk. Shame on those who would let it go
uncorrected.

Shut Up in Arabic

Inchev

     As U.S. Forces Raided a Mosque

Dahr Jamail

BAGHDAD, Nov 19 (IPS) - An eyewitness commentary to IPS through a U.S.
raid on a Baghdad mosque Friday gives a vivid picture of what a
'successful raid' can be like.

U.S. soldiers raided the Abu Hanifa mosque in Baghdad during Friday
prayers, killing at least four and wounding up to 20 worshippers.

At 12:30 pm local time, just after Imam Shaikh Muayid al-Adhami
concluded his talk, about 50 U.S. soldiers with 20 Iraqi National
Guardsmen (ING) entered the mosque, a witness reported.

?Everyone was there for Friday prayers, when five Humvees and several
trucks carrying INGs entered,? Abu Talat told IPS on phone from within
the mosque while the raid was in progress. ?Everyone starting yelling
'Allahu Akbar' (God is the greatest) because they were frightened. Then
the soldiers started shooting the people praying!?

Talat said he was among a crowd of worshippers being held back at
gunpoint by U.S. soldiers. Loud chanting of 'Allahu Akbar' could be
heard in the background during his call. Women and children were
sobbing, he said.

?They have just shot and killed at least four of the people praying,? he
said in a panicked voice. ?At least 10 other people are wounded now. We
are on our bellies and in a very bad situation.?

Talat gave his account over short phone calls. He said he was witnessing
a horrific scene.

?We were here praying and now there are 50 here with their guns on us,?
he said. ?They are holding our heads to the ground, and everyone is in
chaos. This is the worst situation possible. They cannot see me talking
to you. They are roughing up a blind man now.? He evidently could talk
no further then.

The soldiers later released women and children along with men who were
related to them. Abu Talat was released because a boy told him to
pretend to be his father.

Other witnesses gave similar accounts outside the mosque. ?People were
praying and the Americans invaded the mosque,? Abdulla Ra'ad Aziz from
the al-Adhamiya district of Baghdad told IPS. He had been released along
with his wife and children. ?Why are they killing people for praying??
He said that after the forces entered ?they went to the back doors and
we heard so many bullets of the guns -- it was a gun bigger than a
Kalashnikov. There were wounded and dead, I saw them myself.?

Some of the people who had been at prayer were ordered by soldiers to
carry the dead and wounded out of the mosque, he said.

?One Iraqi National Guardsmen held his gun on people and yelled, 'I will
kill you if you don't shut up',? said Rana Aziz, a mother who had been
trapped in the mosque.. ?So they made everyone lie down, then people got
quiet, and they took the women and children out.?

She said someone asked the soldiers if they would be made hostages. A
soldier used foul language and asked everyone to shut up, she said.
Suddenly, she laughed amid her tears. ?The Americans have learnt how to
say shut up in Arabic, 'Inchev'.?

Soldiers denied Iraqi Red Crescent ambulances and medical teams access
to the mosque. As doctors negotiated with U.S. soldiers outside, more
gunfire was heard from inside.

About 30 men were led out with hoods over their heads and their hands
tied behind them. Soldiers loaded them into a military vehicle and took
them away around 3.15 pm.

A doctor with the Iraqi Red Crescent confirmed four dead and nine
wounded worshippers. Pieces of brain were splattered on one of the walls
inside the mosque while large blood stains covered carpets at several
places.

A U.S. military spokesperson in Baghdad did not respond to requests for
information on the raid.

So Weak

So Weak

by Oscar Carter

It was so weak when the GOP
Tried to push him aside and said "He's angry"
Eight Democrats tryin' to beat. He's saying
"You've got the power to change things and not me!"
One speech in my living room
I realized this is the man to give support to
Vermont Governor, Howard Dean
But, it'll be lots of work to take back this country

Tune into FOX and watch the hoodwink
For those who don't think
It's fair and balanced like a Tilt-A-Whirl
That high spin zone never stops, like the ride where the floor drops
And, that Ann Coulter
Come on! Will someone PLEASE feed that girl.
Hot pants on fire way they tell lies
Big ones Karl Rove tries
Like "This election's about values."
Al Franken's got the liars pegged.
This story's got legs. You try to tell it and they'll just sue.
Gonna 'venge my Pa, and Shock and Awe
I say my plan's without a flaw
Attack Iraq, it's central to the War on Terror.
Folks see the news, they get the blues
I couldn't fill my Daddy's shoes
Becoming obvious
Our actions were in error.

So, why run a candidate who can't determine where he stands.
Trying hard to describe all his big plans
He tends to pander 'stead of sticking to his principles
Can't see why that wouldn't work?
Well, he soon will
I like the guy who's not afraid to roll up his sleeves.
I bought a sticker for my car and a t-shirt.

It was so weak when the GOP
Put those ads on the air
that said we're all freaks.
Same plays for the DLC
But Jo-mentum built to terminal velocity
In every Iowa living room
They ate up the negative ads
with a big spoon
On caucus day he let out the Scream
The networks wasted no time in making him sorry.

J. "F'ing" Kerry's the one they're pickin'
Electability meme's where your brain stops tickin'
Nobody's home. But, the light's on.
Mortgaged my maison
Six point four million loaned to my campaign
All the pundits agree he's "presidential".
And, 'Nam's essential
Rove snickers. Swift boat vets will nullify.

And, CBS checks Bush's record
His past is checkered
With favors from his Daddy's richest friends.
In hours Freepers start to criticize
Document's typesetting and font size
The feeding frenzy is now focused on Dan Rather
The networks gorge on memos forged
Perverted org-y staged by George's campaign designed
To make me think it's blather.

So, let's run a candidate who can't determine where he stands.
Trying hard to describe all his big plans
He tends to pander 'stead of sticking to his principles
Can't see why that wouldn't work?
Well, he soon will
I like the guy who's not afraid to roll up his sleeves.
Still got a sticker on my car and a t-shirt.

It's been one week since Election Day
Ohio's up in the air
Zogby said it's going Kerry's way.
Six days his concession speech
He said "...not enough votes to put a win within reach."
Three days in my living room
Realized this Party's dead
but, what could we do?
Yesterday heard you telling me
That we've still got the power to take back this country

We've got the power to take back this country
We've got the power to take back this country
Can't wait for '08. We're already punching.

DU in Bosnia

Bosnians say NATO brought ?Angel of Death?

Many Bosnians blame high cancer rates on NATO?s use of depleted uranium munitions in 1995, but scientists remain divided over the alleged link.

By Ekrem Tinjak, Faruk Boric, and Hugh Griffiths for IWPR (18/11/04)

In the Sarajevo suburb of Hadzici, the local imam, Hazim Effendi Emso, looks out over an overflowing cemetery. The field in the middle of this grimy industrial suburb of Sarajevo is dotted with new graves. ?It is only recently that the number of funerals has increased. Almost every day, a funeral,? he said sadly. The birth and death dates etched onto recent gravestones show a number of those buried here died in middle age. Many are from the Hadzici district of Grivici. ?A large number of the people from Grivici died of cancer but it was only this year that we started keeping records on deceased people,? the Imam continued. In the remote Romanija mountains, 64 kilometers north of Grivici, some 1?000 meters above sea level, a different local religious leader faces the same problem. Branko, a Serb Orthodox cleric in Han Pijesak, in Republika Srpska, RS, points to a map on the wall of the head teacher?s office. "This is the village of Japaga. Around 100 people live here but in 1996 many people died from cancer,? he told IWPR. ?The first was the army base cook, Mrs Ljeposava, who died aged 45, as did Mrs Todic. Then it was Budimir Bojat, who died aged 60, and Goran Basteh who died at 45, all from cancer.? The priest turned from the map to papers on the table. ?Every year in Japaga at least one young man dies of cancer,? he continued. ?This is not normal in such a small village.? At first glance, the communities of Hadzici and Han Pijesak appear very different. One is a mainly Muslim settlement in an industrial zone while the other is a series of Serb mountain villages in one of Europe?s last unspoilt wildernesses. But residents of both communities say they suffer from an abnormally high cancer rate and they believe it is the result of Depleted Uranium (DU) munitions, which were used during NATO?s September 1995 airstrikes on Bosnia.
Depleted uranium, a legacy of war

The UN describes DU as a by-product of the process used to enrich natural uranium ore for use in nuclear reactors and weapons. It is an ?unstable, radioactive heavy metal? that emits ionizing radiation of three types - alpha, beta, and gamma. The US, together with other NATO member states, uses DU in armor-piercing shells for both tanks and planes. NATO aircraft used DU against the Bosnian Serb army in August and September 1995 to bring a quick end to the vicious three-year conflict in the former Yugoslav republic. ?The aim was to disrupt the Bosnian Serb forces? command and control structure and degrade their fighting capabilities,? a NATO source in Sarajevo said. ?We were not trying to destroy the army.? According to NATO, from 5-11 September 1995, their planes fired 5?800 DU shells in the vicinity of Han Pijesak and Hadzici. More than 90 per cent of all such ammunition fired in Bosnia during the airstrikes fell in just these two locations. NATO states a total of 2?400 DU rounds were directed at the Han Pijesak army base, next to the village of Japaga. A further 1?500 were fired at the Hadzici tank repair facility, close to Grivici. Scientists of the UN Environmental Program, UNEP, discovered DU contamination in air, water, and ground samples taken from Hadzici and Han Pijesak in October 2002. ?We found DU ammunition on the ground and we found DU dust in buildings that were being turned into shops in Hadzici,? Pekko Haavisto, chief of the UNEP mission, told IWPR. ?In Hadzici we also found two wells that had small amounts of DU in the water, eight years after the conflict. ?At Han Pijesak army base, we found DU dust in buildings, tanks, and other equipment and we were concerned that conscripts using this equipment might be affected.? However, the UNEP did not agree that its findings had confirmed Bosnian fears that local high rates of ill health were linked to the NATO bombing campaign. ?The extremely low exposure identified in the mission indicates it is highly unlikely that DU could be associated with any of the reported health effects,? said a report by the UN body in 2003. But locals in Han Pijesak and Hadzici do not agree with this conclusion. They insist that DU contamination must be responsible for what they say are abnormally high rates of cancer.
No one takes up decontamination money

Although the UNEP recommended in its report that buildings and ground affected by DU should be decontaminated, an initial investigation by IWPR showed that little or nothing was happening. When IWPR visited the RS Han Pijesak army base, targeted years before by NATO, we found a destroyed T62 tank still rusting close to the perimeter fence. The sentries who stopped us from going any further said as far as they knew, the sites affected by DU munitions had not been decontaminated. "We walk across that ground often and nobody has ever warned us of the dangers," one sentry added worriedly. In the Federation, the complaints are similar. ?We moved back in 1997, two years after the bombing,? Suljo Drina, of Grivici, said. ?But the ground was never decontaminated. Now my father has throat cancer.? In 2002, the Federation government allocated 138?000 Bosnian convertible marks (?70?560) to decontaminate the Hadzici sites, and the Sarajevo canton authorities were asked to contribute an additional 123?000 marks, but nothing has yet been done. The money, it appears, never reached its intended beneficiaries. ?We just don?t have the money,? Mustafa Kovac, head of civil defense headquarters of Sarajevo canton, added. ?We need equipment to measure radiation, equipment to protect our staff, and we need to provide training for them - but there are no funds.? Pekko Haavisto, of the UNEP, told IWPR that the EU had offered to fund the clean-up process but the money had not been taken up locally. "The UNEP also told authorities in the Republika Srpska and the Federation at a training seminar that we could offer on-site training during any decontamination process,? he said, ?but nobody came forward with a request.?
Information black hole fuels public fears

Bosnian doctors say a lack of publicized research into the health effects of DU has created a climate of distrust. ?What confuses me is that the UNEP report said radiation levels in the contaminated areas in Bosnia were harmless,? Dr Zehra Dizdarevic, Sarajevo?s health minister, told IWPR. ?But on the other hand there were 24 recommendations in the same report about how the area could be protected from contamination and cleaned up. ?It is difficult to establish whether somebody is suffering from cancer because they live near a still-contaminated area. With no research, nobody can deny this claim, either. ?The UNEP report said that more scientific work was needed and that all health claims should be investigated. Yet this has not happened.? Dr Lejla Saracevic, director of the Sarajevo radiology institute, agrees that lack of reliable information is a serious problem. ?There has not been any serious research on this issue,? she said. ?Although the Federation government has set up an expert working group, of which I am a member, there is a lack of funding and general interest, which means nothing has been done.? RS doctors largely share these concerns about a lack of information. ?While there has been considerable increase into cancer-related disease in Han Pijesak since the war, without research as a part of a serious investigation, I cannot say that this is due to DU,? said Dr Ljuboje Sapic, a lung disease specialist at the health centre in Han Pijesak. ?The little research that has been done on DU is still based on assumption and conjecture,? Sapic added. ?We need statistics and hard facts.? In fact, all Bosnian health officials interviewed by IWPR said the lack of statistical data was a major obstacle in establishing cancer mortality rates in the areas affected by NATO bombing. The dearth of such statistics means it is difficult to track the rate of the alleged increase in cancer during the post-war period. ?I can tell you we have had an increase in the number of cancer patients but we cannot confirm or deny a link to depleted uranium,? said Dr Bozidar Djokic, director of the health center in Han Pijesak. ?We have no statistics with which to make a comparison.? Colleagues in the Federation echo this. ?When we say that there is an increase of sick people, it does not mean anything,? said Dr Saracevic. ?How can we quantify an increase, when we do not know exactly how many sick people there are now, compared to last year, or the preceding years? ?We also know the people who lived in Hadzici during the bombardment are now living in the Serb entity. They should be medically examined too, if we are to get to the bottom of this.? After the 1995 Dayton peace agreement awarded Hadzici to the Federation, most Serbs from there were obliged to resettle in RS. Many now live in the small town of Bratunac, in eastern Bosnia.
Bosnia?s deadly Bratunac

IWPR traveled to Bratunac. Although we could find no official statistical data to confirm an increase in cancer rates there, local doctors produced much anecdotal evidence. According to Dr Svetlana Jovanovic, of Bratunac?s health center, since 1996 approximately 650 of the 7?000-odd people who left Hadzici have died and been buried in the town?s fast-filling cemetery. Dr Jovanovic claims that after examining the bodies, she believed 40 of these 650 had died from cancer or leukemia. ?If approximately 7?000 people from Hadzici moved here, we can estimate that the malignancy rate is unusually high compared to the overall estimated mortality rate in the country,? Dr Jovanovic said. ?But we don?t have any statistics from elsewhere to make official comparisons and conclusions.? What is beyond doubt is that the overall mortality rate in Bratunac is much higher than it is in Bosnia as a whole. In 2002, the death rate in the country was 7.9 per 1?000. In Bratunac, for the period 1996 to 2003, it was 11.2. More people die in Bratunac than in the rest of Bosnia. The question is why.
Skepticism over DU risk

The 2003 UNEP report, as we said earlier, would not be drawn on the issue of DU and cancer. Citing insufficient information, it concluded that ?due to the lack of a proper cancer registry and reporting systems in Bosnia, claims of an increase in the rates of adverse health effects stemming from DU could not be substantiated?. Scientists from the World Health Organization (WHO) also are skeptical regarding claims that DU may be a health hazard to Bosnia?s population. "From the information we have at the moment we don?t believe civilians are at risk," said Dr Mike Repacholi, the WHO?s Geneva-based radiation program coordinator. He admitted, however, that the research deficit made final conclusions hard to draw. ?We have gaps in knowledge where we need focused research in order to make a better assessment of health risk,? he said. The International Atomic Energy Authority (IAEA) takes much the same line. Tiberio Cabianca, of the IAEA?s nuclear safety department, was part of the 10-day UNEP mission to investigate DU in Bosnia in 2002. ?From a radiological point of view, the IAEA does not view DU as a health threat to the civilian population in Bosnia and Herzegovina,? he said. ?From our samples, we found that DU munitions had contaminated local water supplies and we also found DU dust particles suspended in the air. However, contamination levels were very low and did not represent an immediate radioactive risk.? However, the UNEP?s Pekko Haavisto qualifies that conclusion, recalling the considerable time lapse between the period immediately after the NATO bombing campaign, when contamination would be highest, and the time of the scientific study. ?When we conducted our 10-day study, our experts could not find any direct impact on human health. But this was 2002, so we could not say what the health impact was in the years previously,? he said. ?We did not carry out any tests until eight years after the bombing. The UNEP report was based on mainstream scientific thinking on DU that says that DU has a limited health impact outside the immediate contamination zone. But there is a group of scientists who think that lower levels of DU radiation have a greater effect, and they have criticized our report.?
Disagreement over measuring contamination

But some scientists say the problem is all in the measuring mechanism. One scientist who believes DU is far more hazardous than has previously been acknowledged is Dr Chris Busby, of the British Ministry of Defence?s oversight committee on depleted uranium. Busby conducted his own studies in Kosovo, where DU was also used. ?The UNEP say small amounts of DU in the air are harmless, however this is not the case,? he told IWPR, adding that in his view, ?they used the wrong risk models?. ?The conventional risk model is based on a whole human body or organ versus one DU particle,? he explained. ?But when a DU particle is inhaled, what happens is that a very small area of tissue will be exposed. It?s not the whole body we should be measuring the effect of DU against, but the few affected cells.? Professor Malcolm Hooper, emeritus professor of medicinal chemistry at the University of Sunderland, agrees that this is a better way of measuring the strength of contamination. ?Depleted uranium is a health hazard for the local population because DU particles are first washed into the water system. Then, when the sun comes out, light and heat stimulates the particles and they are suspended in the air once again,? he told IWPR. ?The UNEP report was totally compromised. They went in seven years too late and the sites they went to had been sanitized - the destroyed vehicles and much of the visible ammunition had been removed.? Finally, Professor Hooper recalled the controversy surrounding former Italian soldiers who served in both Bosnia and Kosovo. The first suggestion of a link between DU and cancer followed the mysterious deaths of a number of young Italian soldiers who had served there. Italian TV dubbed it Balkans Syndrome and the foreign press soon picked up the story, feeding a media frenzy. Fears over DU in Bosnia first surfaced in December 2000, with the reported death from cancer of Salvatore Carbonaro, aged only 24. Carbonaro was the sixth Balkan veteran to die from cancer and differed from the other five in that he had only served in Bosnia, not in Kosovo. Until then, NATO had not even admitted it had used DU in Bosnia. But in December 2000 Italy?s defense minister, Sergio Mattarella, admitted that the alliance had, adding that Rome had only just been informed of this. Mattarella then ordered an inquiry, under Professor Franco Mandelli, to investigate the potential association between cancer incidence and DU. A member of Mandelli?s team, Dr Martino Grandolfo, told IWPR that it had found a statistically significant excess of Hodgkin?s Lymphoma - a form of leukemia. ?The percentage of cases of Hodgkin?s Lymphoma amongst Italian troops who served in Bosnia and Kosovo is more than double the amount found in soldiers who stayed in Italy,? he told IWPR. ?But at the moment, we don?t know why this is.? The number of Italian Balkans veterans who have since died from cancer rose to 27 by July 2004 - and campaigners claim that the real figure is even higher. ?The figure is actually 32 or 33, and the number of veterans living with cancer is in the hundreds,? Falco Accame, a former naval officer and military researcher, who is chair of Italy?s Anavafaf veterans? group, told IWPR. The public outcry has forced the government to establish a DU parliamentary commission in the Italian senate to investigate further. But Accame told IWPR that in the meantime, aside from the compensation paid to the dead servicemen?s families, the state had not formally recognized any link between DU and cancer. ?As was the case with [health concerns over] cigarettes and asbestos, we cannot be certain that DU is responsible for the deaths of all these soldiers,? Accame added. ?Instead, what we are dealing with here are probabilities.? However, this official unwillingness to admit any link between DU and cancer may be changing. In a landmark judgment on 10 July 2004, a Rome court ordered the Italian Defense Ministry to pay ?500?000 in compensation to the family of Stefano Melone, a Balkans veteran who died of cancer in 2001. The court declared Melone had died ?due to exposure to radioactive and carcinogenic substances? and listed DU among those substances. The dead soldier?s widow Paola Melone told IWPR that this was ?a historic case?, adding that a civil court had ?now acknowledged that DU is a carcinogenic agent and listed it as one of the possible causes? of her husband?s death. ?This case has set a precedent and we are organizing a conference here in Italy for other dead serviceman?s families, to help them with pending cases,? she added.
In Bosnia, inexplicable deaths continue

Back in Bosnia, however, there is no such talk of court cases, parliamentary commissions, or even of decontamination. As the debate rages over cause and effect in Italy, locals in Bosnia say people are continuing to die inexplicably. Ahmed Fazlic-Ivan, vice-president of the Grivici district, lives 300 meters from the bombed Hadzici tank repair plant. ?We only learned about DU in 2002, when the UN inspectors came here," he told IWPR. ?My father died of lung cancer in March of this year. There are 700 people living in Grivici and 56 have died in the last two years, most of them from cancer or diabetes. "Here we often say that Azrael, the Angel of Death, has come to Grivici - and that he takes everyone away.?
Ekrem Tinjak and Faruk Boric are Sarajevo-based journalists. Hugh Griffiths is an IWPR investigations coordinator.

This article originally appeared in Balkan Crisis Report, produced by the Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR). Balkan Crisis Report is supported by the UK Foreign Office and the US State Department.

Iraqi Dispatch--more of the same

Slash and Burn

She lays dazed in the crowded hospital room, languidly waving her
bruised arm at the flies. Her shins, shattered by bullets from US
soldiers when they fired through the front door of her house, are both
covered by casts. Small plastic drainage backs filled with red fluid sit
upon her abdomen, where she took shrapnel from another bullet.

Fatima Harouz, 12 years old, lives in Latifiya, a city just south of
Baghdad. Just three days ago soldiers attacked her home. Her mother,
standing with us says, ?They attacked our home and there weren?t even
any resistance fighters in our area.? Her brother was shot and killed,
and his wife was wounded as their home was ransacked by soldiers.
?Before they left, they killed all of our chickens,? added Fatima?s
mother, her eyes a mixture of fear, shock and rage.

A doctor standing with us, after listening to Fatima?s mother tell their
story, looks at me and sternly asks, ?This is the freedom?in their
Disney Land are there kids just like this??

Another young woman, Rana Obeidy, was walking home with her brother two
nights ago. She assumes the soldiers shot her and her brother because he
was carrying a bottle of soda. This happened in Baghdad. She has a chest
wound where a bullet grazed her, unlike her little brother who is dead.

Laying in a bed near Rana is Hanna, 14 years old. She has a gash on her
right leg from the bullet of a US soldier. Her family was in a taxi in
Baghdad this morning which was driving near a US patrol when a soldier
opened fire on the car.

Her father?s shirt is spotted with blood from his head which was wounded
when the taxi crashed.

In another room a small boy from Fallujah lays on his stomach. Shrapnel
from a grenade thrown into their home by a US soldier entered his body
through his back, and implanted near his kidney.

An operation successfully removed the shrapnel. His father was killed by
what his mother called, ?the haphazard shooting of the Americans.? The
boy, Amin, lies in his bed vacillating between crying with pain and
playing with is toy car.

It?s one case after another of people from Baghdad, Fallujah, Latifiya,
Balad, Ramadi, Samarra, Baquba?from all over Iraq, who have been injured
by the heavy-handed tactics of American soldiers fighting a no-win
guerilla war spawned from an illegal invasion based on lies. Their
barbaric acts of retaliation have become the daily reality for Iraqis,
who continue to take the brunt of the frustration and rage of the soldiers.

Out in front of the hospital three Humvees pull up as soldiers alert the
hospital staff that some of the wounded from outside of Fallujah will be
brought there. One of the staff begins to yell at the soldier who is
doing the talking, while a soldier manning a machine gun atop a Humvee
with his face completely covered by an olive balaclava and goggles looks on.

?We don?t need you here! Get the fuck out of here! Bring back Saddam!
Even he was better than you animals! We don?t want to die by your hands,
so get out of here! We can take care of our own people!?

The translator with the soldiers does not translate this. Instead he
watches with a face of stone.

The survivors of those killed and wounded by the US military in Iraq, as
well as those who care for them, are left with feelings of bitter
anguish, grief, rage and vengeance.

This afternoon at a small, but busy supply center set up in Baghdad to
distribute goods to refugees from Fallujah, the stories the haggard
survivors are telling are nearly unimaginable.

?They kicked all the journalists out of Fallujah so they could do
whatever they want,? says Kassem Mohammed Ahmed, who just escaped from
Fallujah three days ago, ?The first thing they did is they bombed the
hospitals because that is where the wounded have to go. Now we see that
wounded people are in the street and the soldiers are rolling over them
with tanks. This happened so many times. What you see on the TV is
nothing-that is just one camera. What you cannot see is so much.?

While Kassem speaks of the television footage, there are also stories of
soldiers not discriminating between civilians and resistance fighters.

Another man, Abdul Razaq Ismail arrived from Fallujah last week.

While distributing supplies to other refugees he says, ?There are dead
bodies on the ground and nobody can bury them. The Americans are
dropping some of the bodies into the Euphrates River near Fallujah. They
are pulling the bodies with tanks and leaving them at the soccer stadium.?

Nearby is another man in tears as he listens, nodding his head. He can?t
stop crying, but after a little while says he wants to talk to us.

?They bombed my neighborhood and we used car jacks to raise the blocks
of concrete to get dead children out from under them.?

Another refugee, Abu Sabah, an older man wearing a torn shirt and dusty
pants tells of how he escaped with his family while soldiers shot
bullets over their heads, but killed his cousin.

?They used these weird bombs that put up smoke like a mushroom cloud,?
he said, having just arrived yesterday, ?Then small pieces fell from the
air with long tails of smoke behind them. These exploded on the ground
with large fires that burnt for half an hour. They used these near the
train tracks. You could hear these dropped from a large airplane and the
bombs were the size of a tank. When anyone touched those fires, their
body burned for hours.?

The comparison of Iraq to Vietnam is becoming more valid by the day here.

Conscientious Objector-how to register

It makes me really sad to have to do this.

REGISTERING AS A CONCIENTIOUS OBJECTOR
(adapted from http://www.oz.net/~vvawai/general/co-info.html)

Here's how to register as a conscientious objector, for those in the age range to be concerned.

IMPORTANT! Where it says "moral, ethical and/or religious beliefs" below, do NOT include the and/or, just use the subset of those reasons that match your own. For example, if you are not religious, write "moral and ethical beliefs," if you are religious, use "moral, ethical, and religious".

Please pass it on and repost - I'm going to be only available for occasional drive-by posts:

1 - LETTER TO SENATORS and REPRESENTATIVES
Send a certified letter to your congressional delegation (based on your U.S. address), declaring yourself to be a "conscientious objector to war
based on deeply held moral, ethical, and/or religious beliefs".

MAKE A COPY of this letter and any response he receives. It will be needed for an affadavit.

2 - WRITE TO OFFICIALS

IF YOU'RE CURRENTLY ON ACTIVE DUTY
He must write to his commanding officer and declare yourself to be a "conscientious objector to war based on deeply held moral, ethical and/or
religious beliefs." This will prompt a change in subsequent orders, security clearance and initiate an investigation of the objector. At any time the active duty objector has the right to request reassignment to noncombatant duties or alternative service.

IF YOUR ARE NOT YET REGISTERED WITH SELECTIVE SERVICES SYSTEM
Write a letter to the SSS and declare yourself to be a "conscientious objector to war....".

At the time you register (which you must if you are in the right age range), you must write on the registration form, " I am a conscientious objector to war..."

MAKE COPIES OF THE LETTER, the REGISTRATION FORM and the REGISTRATION RECEIPT for use in the affadavit.

IF YOU ARE REGISTERED ALREADY with the SSS
If you are registered with the SSS but have not sought CO status, write the letter of CO declaration to your congressional delegation and notify the SSS of a change in status. Every time you change address you need to notify the SSS within 10 days and at the same time REPEAT
the declaration that you are a "conscientious objector to war..."

The persistent repetition is very important and will help to solidify your claim.

Once again KEEP COPIES of anything sent or received.

3 - WRITE an AFFADAVIT
Prepare an Affidavit, which is sworn before a Notary Public and witnessed by two (2) registered voters who are not related to the objector.

ATTACH the letter of declaration to the your congressional delegation, and the notification to the SSS (or commanding officer), as well as any other written communications as supporting documents, with the statement:

"I am a conscientious objector to war based on deeply held moral, ethical and/or religious beliefs and have informed my congressional delegation and the Selective Service System (or commanding officer) accordingly as proven by the
attached documents."

5 - FILE the AFFADAVIT
File it in federal district court or in any civilian or military proceeding related to the objector's claim.

6 - DISTRIBUTE COPIES of the AFFADAVIT
Give copies of the Affidavit to your parents, teachers, boss, coworkers, religious leaders, and legal counsel, because these individuals may be contacted by Selective Service or military investigators and asked to confirm your claim.

7 - TELL FAMILY, FRIENDS AND ACQUAINTANCES ABOUT BEING A CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTOR TO WAR.
During the First Gulf War there were over 2500 active duty personnel who applied for CO status but only 10% of these applications were approved because the objectors could not prove they had told anybody about their beliefs.

8 - GET LETTERS from FRIENDS, FAMILY, ETC.
Get some of these people to write letters in support of the CO application and keep these letters as part of a permanent file in addition to the documents described above.

Georgie and Condi

Rebuilding Iraq

Rebuilding Iraq

Dear Editor,
Every community that's sent a National Guard unit over to the Persian Gulf
knows that they've taken their heavy construction equipment with them.
Whether this has resulted in a significant loss of assistance during
national disasters here at home, is as yet unknown.

What also seems to be generally unknown is why all this equipment was
shipped over there in the first place.Now the explanation is that it is
needed to rebuild Iraq. But, under the initial scenario Iraq wasn't
supposed to be destroyed. So what was the real reason?

Since some of the units were initially put to work building roads in
Kuwait, their mission would seem to have been just that. But, how come
Kuwait, whose income from oil sales we fought a war to protect, can't build
its own roads?If they don't have the technical know-how, why couldn't
that have been contracted out all along? Doesn't make much sense, does it?

Well, what does make sense is that the original plan was for the Americans
to build fourteen permanent military bases in Iraq and that's what they
needed the heavy construction equipment for.

Now, since it seems that the Iraqi people are no more interested in having
military bases in their land than Saddam Hussein was, I sort of doubt that
they are going to want to have their houses rebuilt by the vandals who
destroyed them either.I mean, if somebody broke all the windows in your
house, tore out the plumbing and crashed in the ceiling, would you trust
them to fix it?

Hearts, Minds & Body Parts

There has been some consternation in the national media that the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people are not being won.
While some might answer that what is wanted is their oil, never mind their hearts and minds, it's becoming increasingly obvious that the hearts and minds of people who want to be free are not available to be "won."
Having been deprived of their liberty, the Iraqi people obviously prefer death.
How long will it take for their killers to become aware of that? So far, they don't seem to have a clue.
The pictures here have been retrieved from
http://fallujapictures.blogspot.com/

In looking through the site, I wondered how come so many of the dead Iraqis were barefoot. The report by Haifa Zangana explains it.

What drives the fighters in flip-flops

Falluja is not unique. Collective punishment is escalating in Iraq

Haifa Zangana
Wednesday November 17, 2004
The Guardian

In a statement that directly echoed George Bush, Qasim Daoud, Iraq's interim minister of state for national security, told a news conference at the weekend: "Mission accomplished ... Falluja has been liberated". He proudly recited the list of the dead - 1,400 terrorists, foreigners and Saddamists. And what about civilians, the women and children trapped in the fighting zone. Any casualties? He avoided the question.

At the same time, thousands of Iraqis demonstrated in Baghdad, Basra and Heet in support of the people of Falluja. Many were arrested, some were beaten. The US-appointed Allawi regime responded by imposing new curfews. The US military is still struggling to contain a spreading wave of resistance, in Najaf and now Mosul.

Around Falluja, camps have been erected to receive displaced women and children. Men aged 15-50 were not allowed to leave the city, so 150,000 wait in anguish for news of fathers, husbands and sons.

Will they survive the US military's wrath? Many will not. The execution-style killing of the wounded Iraqi inside a mosque by a US marine, captured by NBC television, was one of many, according to an eyewitness interviewed by al-Jazeera television yesterday.

Yet all members of Allawi's regime have greeted the suffering of Iraqi civilians with complete silence. The dignified voice of Firdus al-Abadi, spokeswoman for the Iraqi Red Crescent in Baghdad, has haunted us for days. Appealing for relief supplies, she said simply: "Conditions in Falluja are catastrophic." The Red Crescent suggested yesterday that as many as 800 civilians had died during the bombardment.

The plight of the people of Falluja is not unique. Since the nominal handover of sovereignty on June 30, we have witnessed an escalation of Israeli-style collective punishment of Iraqi cities. Civilian carnage, coupled with enormous damage to homes and infrastructure, has became our daily reality.

In Tall Afar, in the north, US troops cut off water for three days last month and blocked food supplies to 150,000 refugees. Then in Samarra, residents cowered in their homes as tanks and warplanes pounded the city. Bodies were strewn in the streets but could not be collected for fear of American snipers. Of the 130 Iraqis killed, most were civilians. Hospital access was denied to the injured. And Qasim Daoud hailed the massacre as a "very clean" operation.

Every day of occupation brings fresh atrocities. But the architects of that occupation claim that it is Iraqis themselves who are beyond the reach of democracy. They are "militants" and "insurgents", bent on terror ising their own people and destroying hopes of reconstruction. Why can't they get involved in the peaceful democratic political process?

But they did, and they continue to do so. Over the last 19 months there have been protests, appeals, initiatives to set up a reasonable programme for elections, the opening of human rights centres, lecturing at universities, even poetry writing. This torrent of activism is still being practised by a broad variety of political parties, groups and individuals who oppose the foreign occupation. And they have been ignored. Newspapers were closed. Editors were arrested. Demonstrators were shot at, arrested, abused and tortured.

On the fourth day of the ground attack on Falluja, last Friday, joint Shia-Sunni prayers were held in the four mosques in Baghdad, and were massively well attended. Inter-communal prayers were the hallmark of the 1920 revolution, revived early this year by the Iraqi National Foundation Congress, a loose umbrella organisation of academics, cross-sectarian clerics and veteran political leaders. Early on, Allawi set the tone for building democracy in the "sovereign" Iraq by insisting: "We will stand up to destroy the terrorists." This language has become the daily currency of the interim ministers, who like children in a school choir echo their instructor, the US military spokesman.

But time after time, it has been shown to be false. Most fighters in Iraq are Iraqis who are outraged to see their country's resources robbed while they live in slums, drink water mixed with sewage and have no say in the political process. Nineteen months after "liberation" they can see how little the liberators have done to ease their suffering. No wonder an increasing number of Iraqis are either joining or supporting the resistance, realising that, as in the past, they must fight on their own.

The overwhelming popular support for the people of Falluja is a salute to young fighters wearing flip-flops, who carry ancient weapons, and yet continue to resist.

Western governments, led by the US and UK, supported Saddam's regime against the will of the Iraqi people for decades. They are committing a similar crime now.

· Haifa Zangana is an Iraqi-born novelist and former prisoner of the Saddam regime

?There are dead bodies on the ground and nobody can bury them. The Americans are
dropping some of the bodies into the Euphrates River near Fallujah. They
are pulling the bodies with tanks and leaving them at the soccer stadium.?

Ohio Testimony

Ohio Voters Tell of Election Day Troubles at Hearing
By Reginald Fields
The Cleveland Plain Dealer

Sunday 14 November 2004

Tales of waiting more than five hours to vote, voter intimidation, under-trained polling-station workers and too few or broken voting machines largely in urban or heavily minority areas were retold Saturday at a public hearing organized by voter-rights groups.

For three hours, burdened voters, one after another, offered sworn testimony about Election Day voter suppression and irregularities that they believe are threatening democracy.

The hearing, sponsored by the Election Protection Coalition, was to collect testimony of voting troubles that might be used to seek legislative changes to Ohio's election process.

The organizers chose Ohio because it was a swing state in the presidential election as well as the site of numerous claims of election fraud and voter disenfranchisement.

"I think a lot of us had a sense that something had deeply went wrong on Nov. 2 and it had to do with the election process and procedures in place that were unacceptable," said Amy Kaplan, one of the hearing's coordinators.

Kaplan said the hearing gave everyday citizens a chance to have their concerns placed into public record.

Both a written and video report on the hearing will be provided to anyone who wants a copy, especially state lawmakers who are considering mandating Election Day changes, Kaplan said.

Many of the voters who testified were clearly Democrats who wonder if their losing presidential candidate, Sen. John Kerry, was able to draw all the votes that were intended for him.

"I call on Sen. Kerry to un-concede until there is a full count of the votes," said Werner Lange of Trumbull County, who claimed that polling places in his Northeast Ohio neighborhood had half the number of voting machines that were needed.

"This caused a bottleneck at polling stations, and many people left without voting," he said.

Others said they were testifying not on political grounds but out of concern for a suspicious election system that should be above reproach.

Harvey Wasserman of Bexley said he tried to vote absentee with the same home address he has used for 18 years but was told he couldn't because his absentee application had the wrong address.

"But the notice telling me I had the wrong address arrived at the right address," he said. "I wonder, how many of these absentee ballots were rejected for no good reason?

"My concern is not out of the outcome of the election," Wasserman said, "but that this could go on and an election could be stolen. And we simply can't have that in a democracy."

Columns

Bob Fitrakis

Document reveals Columbus, Ohio voters waited hours as election officials held back machines
November 16, 2004

One telling piece of evidence was entered into the record at the Saturday, November 13 public hearing on election irregularities and voter suppression held by nonpartisan voter rights organizations. Cliff Arnebeck, a Common Cause attorney, introduced into the record the Franklin County Board of Elections spreadsheet detailing the allocation of e-voting computer machines for the 2004 election. The Board of Elections? own document records that, while voters waited in lines ranging from 2-7 hours at polling places, 68 electronic voting machines remained in storage and were never used on Election Day.

The Board of Elections document details that there are 2886 ?Total Machines? in Franklin County. Twenty of them are ?In Vans for Breakdowns.? The County record acknowledges 2886 were available on Election Day, November 2 and that 2798 of their machines were ?placed by close of polls.? The difference between the machines ?available? and those ?placed? is 68. The nonpartisan Election Protection Coalition provided legal advisors and observed 58 polling places in primarily African American and poor neighborhoods in Franklin County.

An analysis of the Franklin County Board of Elections? allocation of machines reveals a consistent pattern of providing fewer machines to the Democratic city of Columbus, with its Democratic mayor and uniformly Democratic city council, despite increased voter registration in the city. The result was an obvious disparity in machine allocations compared to the primarily Republican white affluent suburbs.

Franklin County had traditionally used a formula of one machine per 100 voters, with machine usage allowable up to 125 votes per machine. The County?s rationale is as follows: if it takes each voter five minutes to vote, 12 people an hour, 120 people in ten hours and the remaining three hours taken up moving people in and out of the voting machines.

Once a machine is recording 200 voters per machine, 100% over optimum use, the system completely breaks down. This causes long waits in long lines and potential voters leaving before casting their ballots, due to age, disability, work and family responsibilities.

A preliminary analysis by the Free Press shows six suburban polling places with 100 votes a machine or less, and only one in the city of Columbus meeting or falling under the guideline.

The legendary affluent Republican enclave of Upper Arlington has 34 precincts. No voting machines in this area cast more than 200 votes per machine. Only one, ward 6F, was over 190 votes at 194 on one machine. By contrast, 39 Columbus city polling machines had more than 200 votes per machine and 42 were over 190 votes per machine. This means 17% of Columbus? machines were operating at 90-100% over optimum capacity while in Upper Arlington the figure was 3%.

In the Democratic stronghold of Columbus 139 of the 472 precincts had at least one and up to five fewer machine than in the 2000 presidential election. Two of Upper Arlington?s 34 precincts lost at least one machine. In the 2004 presidential election, 29% of Columbus? precincts, despite a massive increase in voter registration and turnout, had fewer machines than in 2000. In Upper Arlington, 6% had fewer machines in 2004 One of those precincts had a 25% decline in voter registration and the other had a 1% increase. Compare that to Columbus ward 1B, where voter registration went up 27%, but two machines were taken away in the 2004 election. Or look at 23B where voter registration went up 22% and they lost two machines since the 2000 election, causing an average of 207 votes to be cast on each of the remaining machines. In the year 2000, only 97 votes were cast per machine in the precinct. Thus, in four years, the ward went from optimum usage to system failure.

Jeff Graessle, Franklin County Election Operations Division Manager, told the Citizen?s Alliance for Secure Elections (CASE) Ohio voting rights activists that Franklin County does not use a simple 100 votes per machine guideline. Rather, they allocated their machines in the 2004 election based on a new criteria determined by ACTIVE registered voters. Hence, an affluent area like Upper Arlington which has shown a consistent pattern of voters is rewarded with more machines and fewer losses. A less affluent area of Columbus where voters miss voting at more elections and may only come out in a hotly tested election, like Bush-Kerry, are punished with fewer machines.

Of course, there?s a direct correlation between affluence and votes for Bush and below medium income areas and votes for Kerry. Franklin County, Ohio?s formula served to disenfranchise disproportionately poor, minority and Democratic voters under the guise of rewarding the ?likely? voter or active registered voters.

--

Sermon from Austin

SERMON: Living Under Fascism

There is only one thing I disagree with in this essay and that is the suggestion that fascism has taken over America without a shot being fired. Lots of people have been shot by "law enforcement personnel" in the last few years and everytime one of these incidents is reviewed and found to be "justified" it sends a message to the citizens that they'd better take care to "behave" themselves if they don't want to be next. The intimidation of the majority by singling out minority individuals who have no real clout is characteristic of totalitarian regimes.
And then, of course, there are the convicted miscreants who are dispatched by being quietly shot full of poison instead of bullets. The the chief executionary in Texas, the former governor, took such delight in that function, should have given us pause, and still does.

SERMON: Living Under Fascism
by Davidson Loehr

You may wonder why anyone would try to use the word 'fascism' in a serious discussion of where America is today. It sounds like cheap name-calling, or melodramatic allusion to a slew of old war movies. But I am serious. I don't mean it as name-calling at all. I mean to persuade you that the style of governing into which America has slid is most accurately described as fascism, and that the necessary implications of this fact are rightly regarded as terrifying. That's what I am about here. And even if I don't persuade you, I hope to raise the level of your thinking about who and where we are now, to add some nuance and perhaps some useful insights.

The word comes from the Latin word ?Fasces,? denoting a bundle of sticks tied together. The individual sticks represented citizens, and the bundle represented the state. The message of this metaphor was that it was the bundle that was significant, not the individual sticks. If it sounds un-American, it?s worth knowing that the Roman Fasces appear on the wall behind the Speaker?s podium in the chamber of the US House of Representatives.

Still, it?s an unlikely word. When most people hear the word "fascism" they may think of the racism and anti-Semitism of Mussolini and Hitler. It is true that the use of force and the scapegoating of fringe groups are part of every fascism. But there was also an economic dimension of fascism, known in Europe during the 1920s and '30s as "corporatism," which was an essential ingredient of Mussolini?s and Hitler?s tyrannies. So-called corporatism was adopted in Italy and Germany during the 1930s and was held up as a model by quite a few intellectuals and policy makers in the United States and Europe.

As I mentioned a few weeks ago (in ?The Corporation Will Eat Your Soul?), Fortune magazine ran a cover story on Mussolini in 1934, praising his fascism for its ability to break worker unions, disempower workers and transfer huge sums of money to those who controlled the money rather than those who earned it.

Few Americans are aware of or can recall how so many Americans and Europeans viewed economic fascism as the wave of the future during the 1930s. Yet reviewing our past may help shed light on our present, and point the way to a better future. So I want to begin by looking back to the last time fascism posed a serious threat to America.

In Sinclair Lewis's 1935 novel "It Can't Happen Here," a conservative southern politician is helped to the presidency by a nationally syndicated radio talk show host. The politician - Buzz Windrip - runs his campaign on family values, the flag, and patriotism. Windrip and the talk show host portray advocates of traditional American democracy ? those concerned with individual rights and freedoms ? as anti-American. That was 69 years ago.

One of the most outspoken American fascists from the 1930s was economist Lawrence Dennis. In his 1936 book, The Coming American Fascism ? a coming which he anticipated and cheered ? Dennis declared that defenders of ?18th-century Americanism? were sure to become "the laughing stock of their own countrymen." The big stumbling block to the development of economic fascism, Dennis bemoaned, was "liberal norms of law or constitutional guarantees of private rights."

So it is important for us to recognize that, as an economic system, fascism was widely accepted in the 1920s and '30s, and nearly worshiped by some powerful American industrialists. And fascism has always, and explicitly, been opposed to liberalism of all kinds.

Mussolini, who helped create modern fascism, viewed liberal ideas as the enemy. "The Fascist conception of life," he wrote, "stresses the importance of the State and accepts the individual only in so far as his interests coincide with the State. It is opposed to classical liberalism [which] denied the State in the name of the individual; Fascism reasserts the rights of the State as expressing the real essence of the individual." (In 1932 Mussolini wrote, with the help of Giovanni Gentile, an entry for the Italian Encyclopedia on the definition of fascism. You can read the whole entry at http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/mussolini-fascism.html)

Mussolini thought it was unnatural for a government to protect individual rights: The essence of fascism, he believed, is that government should be the master, not the servant, of the people.

Still, fascism is a word that is completely foreign to most of us. We need to know what it is, and how we can know it when we see it.

In an essay coyly titled ?Fascism Anyone?,? Dr. Lawrence Britt, a political scientist, identifies social and political agendas common to fascist regimes. His comparisons of Hitler, Mussolini, Franco, Suharto, and Pinochet yielded this list of 14 ?identifying characteristics of fascism.? (The following article is from Free Inquiry magazine, Volume 23, Number 2. Read it at http://www.secularhumanism.org/library/fi/britt_23_2.htm) See how familiar they sound.

1. Powerful and Continuing Nationalism

Fascist regimes tend to make constant use of patriotic mottos, slogans, symbols, songs, and other paraphernalia. Flags are seen everywhere, as are flag symbols on clothing and in public displays.
2. Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights

Because of fear of enemies and the need for security, the people in fascist regimes are persuaded that human rights can be ignored in certain cases because of ?need.? The people tend to look the other way or even approve of torture, summary executions, assassinations, long incarcerations of prisoners, etc.
3. Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause

The people are rallied into a unifying patriotic frenzy over the need to eliminate a perceived common threat or foe: racial, ethnic or religious minorities; liberals; communists; socialists, terrorists, etc.
4. Supremacy of the Military

Even when there are widespread domestic problems, the military is given a disproportionate amount of government funding, and the domestic agenda is neglected. Soldiers and military service are glamorized.
5. Rampant Sexism

The governments of fascist nations tend to be almost exclusively male-dominated. Under fascist regimes, traditional gender roles are made more rigid. Opposition to abortion is high, as is homophobia and anti-gay legislation and national policy.
6. Controlled Mass Media

Sometimes the media are directly controlled by the government, but in other cases, the media are indirectly controlled by government regulation, or sympathetic media spokespeople and executives. Censorship, especially in war time, is very common.
7. Obsession with National Security

Fear is used as a motivational tool by the government over the masses.
8. Religion and Government are Intertwined

Governments in fascist nations tend to use the most common religion in the nation as a tool to manipulate public opinion. Religious rhetoric and terminology is common from government leaders, even when the major tenets of the religion are diametrically opposed to the government's policies or actions.
9. Corporate Power is Protected

The industrial and business aristocracy of a fascist nation often are the ones who put the government leaders into power, creating a mutually beneficial business/government relationship and power elite.
10. Labor Power is Suppressed

Because the organizing power of labor is the only real threat to a fascist government, labor unions are either eliminated entirely, or are severely suppressed.
11. Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts

Fascist nations tend to promote and tolerate open hostility to higher education, and academia. It is not uncommon for professors and other academics to be censored or even arrested. Free expression in the arts is openly attacked, and governments often refuse to fund the arts.
12. Obsession with Crime and Punishment

Under fascist regimes, the police are given almost limitless power to enforce laws. The people are often willing to overlook police abuses and even forego civil liberties in the name of patriotism. There is often a national police force with virtually unlimited power in fascist nations
13. Rampant Cronyism and Corruption

Fascist regimes almost always are governed by groups of friends and associates who appoint each other to government positions and use governmental power and authority to protect their friends from accountability. It is not uncommon in fascist regimes for national resources and even treasures to be appropriated or even outright stolen by government leaders.
14. Fraudulent Elections

Sometimes elections in fascist nations are a complete sham. Other times elections are manipulated by smear campaigns against or even assassination of opposition candidates, use of legislation to control voting numbers or political district boundaries, and manipulation of the media. Fascist nations also typically use their judiciaries to manipulate or control elections.

This list will be familiar to students of political science. But it should be familiar to students of religion as well, for much of it mirrors the social and political agenda of religious fundamentalisms worldwide. It is both accurate and helpful for us to understand fundamentalism as religious fascism, and fascism as political fundamentalism. They both come from very primitive parts of us that have always been the default setting of our species: amity toward our in-group, enmity toward out-groups, hierarchical deference to alpha male figures, a powerful identification with our territory, and so forth. It is that brutal default setting that all civilizations have tried to raise us above, but it is always a fragile thing, civilization, and has to be achieved over and over and over again.

But, again, this is not America?s first encounter with fascism.

In early 1944, the New York Times asked Vice President Henry Wallace to, as Wallace noted, ?write a piece answering the following questions: What is a fascist? How many fascists have we? How dangerous are they??

Vice President Wallace's answer to those questions was published in The New York Times on April 9, 1944, at the height of the war against the Axis powers of Germany and Japan. See how much you think his statements apply to our society today.

?The really dangerous American fascist,? Wallace wrote, ?? is the man who wants to do in the United States in an American way what Hitler did in Germany in a Prussian way. The American fascist would prefer not to use violence. His method is to poison the channels of public information. With a fascist the problem is never how best to present the truth to the public but how best to use the news to deceive the public into giving the fascist and his group more money or more power.?

In his strongest indictment of the tide of fascism he saw rising in America, Wallace added, ?They claim to be super-patriots, but they would destroy every liberty guaranteed by the Constitution. They demand free enterprise, but are the spokesmen for monopoly and vested interest. Their final objective toward which all their deceit is directed is to capture political power so that, using the power of the state and the power of the market simultaneously, they may keep the common man in eternal subjection.? By these standards, a few of today?s weapons for keeping the common people in eternal subjection include NAFTA, the World Trade Organization, union-busting, cutting worker benefits while increasing CEO pay, elimination of worker benefits, security and pensions, rapacious credit card interest, and outsourcing of jobs ? not to mention the largest prison system in the world.

The Perfect Storm

Our current descent into fascism came about through a kind of ?Perfect Storm,? a confluence of three unrelated but mutually supportive schools of thought.

1. The first stream of thought was the imperialistic dream of the Project for the New American Century. I don?t believe anyone can understand the past four years without reading the Project for the New American Century, published in September 2000 and authored by many who have been prominent players in the Bush administrations, including Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Richard Perle and Donald Kagan to name only a few. This report saw the fall of Communism as a call for America to become the military rulers of the world, to establish a new worldwide empire. They spelled out the military enhancements we would need, then noted, sadly, that these wonderful plans would take a long time, unless there could be a catastrophic and catalyzing event like a new Pearl Harbor that would let the leaders turn America into a military and militarist country. There was no clear interest in religion in this report, and no clear concern with local economic policies.

2. A second powerful stream must be credited to Pat Robertson and his Christian Reconstructionists, or Dominionists. Long dismissed by most of us as a screwball, the Dominionist style of Christianity which he has been preaching since the early 1980s is now the most powerful religious voice in the Bush administration.

Katherine Yurica, who transcribed over 1300 pages of interviews from Pat Robertson?s ?700 Club? shows in the 1980s, has shown how Robertson and his chosen guests consistently, openly and passionately argued that America must become a theocracy under the control of Christian Dominionists. Robertson is on record saying democracy is a terrible form of government unless it is run by his kind of Christians. He also rails constantly against taxing the rich, against public education, social programs and welfare ? and prefers Deuteronomy 28 over the teachings of Jesus. He is clear that women must remain homebound as obedient servants of men, and that abortions, like homosexuals, should not be allowed. Robertson has also been clear that other kinds of Christians, including Episcopalians and Presbyterians, are enemies of Christ. (The Yurica Report. Search under this name, or for ?Despoiling America? by Katherine Yurica on the internet.)

3. The third major component of this Perfect Storm has been the desire of very wealthy Americans and corporate CEOs for a plutocracy that will favor profits by the very rich and disempowerment of the vast majority of American workers, the destruction of workers? unions, and the alliance of government to help achieve these greedy goals. It is a condition some have called socialism for the rich, capitalism for the poor, and which others recognize as a reincarnation of Social Darwinism. This strain of thought has been present throughout American history. Seventy years ago, they tried to finance a military coup to replace Franlkin Delano Roosevelt and establish General Smedley Butler as a fascist dictator in 1934. Fortunately, the picked a general who really was a patriot; he refused, reported the scheme, and spoke and wrote about it. As Canadian law professor Joel Bakan wrote in the book and movie ?The Corporation,? they have now achieved their coup without firing a shot.

Our plutocrats have had no particular interest in religion. Their global interests are with an imperialist empire, and their domestic goals are in undoing all the New Deal reforms of Franklin Delano Roosevelt that enabled the rise of America?s middle class after WWII.

Another ill wind in this Perfect Storm is more important than its crudity might suggest: it was President Clinton?s sleazy sex with a young but eager intern in the White House. This incident, and Clinton?s equally sleazy lying about it, focused the certainties of conservatives on the fact that ?liberals? had neither moral compass nor moral concern, and therefore represented a dangerous threat to the moral fiber of America. While the effects of this may be hard to quantify, I think they were profound.

These ?storm? components have no necessary connection, and come from different groups of thinkers, many of whom wouldn?t even like one another. But together, they form a nearly complete web of command and control, which has finally gained control of America and, they hope, of the world.

What?s coming

When all fascisms exhibit the same social and political agendas (the 14 points listed by Britt), then it is not hard to predict where a new fascist uprising will lead. And it is not hard. The actions of fascists and the social and political effects of fascism and fundamentalism are clear and sobering. Here is some of what?s coming, what will be happening in our country in the next few years:
The theft of all social security funds, to be transferred to those who control money, and the increasing destitution of all those dependent on social security and social welfare programs.
Rising numbers of uninsured people in this country that already has the highest percentage of citizens without health insurance in the developed world.
Increased loss of funding for public education combined with increased support for vouchers, urging Americans to entrust their children?s education to Christian schools.
More restrictions on civil liberties as America is turned into the police state necessary for fascism to work
Withdrawal of virtually all funding for National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting System. At their best, these media sometimes encourage critical questioning, so they are correctly seen as enemies of the state?s official stories.
The reinstatement of a draft, from which the children of privileged parents will again be mostly exempt, leaving our poorest children to fight and die in wars of imperialism and greed that could never benefit them anyway. (That was my one-sentence Veterans? Day sermon for this year.)
More imperialistic invasions: of Iran and others, and the construction of a huge permanent embassy in Iraq.
More restrictions on speech, under the flag of national security.
Control of the internet to remove or cripple it as an instrument of free communication that is exempt from government control. This will be presented as a necessary anti-terrorist measure.
Efforts to remove the tax-exempt status of churches like this one, and to characterize them as anti-American.
Tighter control of the editorial bias of almost all media, and demonization of the few media they are unable to control ? the New York Times, for instance.
Continued outsourcing of jobs, including more white-collar jobs, to produce greater profits for those who control the money and direct the society, while simultaneously reducing America?s workers to a more desperate and powerless status.
Moves in the banking industry to make it impossible for an increasing number of Americans to own their homes. As they did in the 1930s, those who control the money know that it is to their advantage and profit to keep others renting rather than owning.
Criminalization of those who protest, as un-American, with arrests, detentions and harassment increasing. We already have a higher percentage of our citizens in prison than any other country in the world. That percentage will increase.
In the near future, it will be illegal or at least dangerous to say the things I have said here this morning. In the fascist story, these things are un-American. In the real history of a democratic America, they were seen as profoundly patriotic, as the kind of critical questions that kept the American spirit alive ? the kind of questions, incidentally, that our media were supposed to be pressing.

Can these schemes work? I don?t think so. I think they are murderous, rapacious and insane. But I don?t know. Maybe they can. Similar schemes have worked in countries like Chile, where a democracy in which over 90% voted has been reduced to one in which only about 20% vote because they say, as Americans are learning to say, that it no longer matters who you vote for.

Hope

In the meantime, is there any hope, or do we just band together like lemmings and dive off a cliff? Yes, there is always hope, though at times it is more hidden, as it is now.

As some critics are now saying, and as I have been preaching and writing for almost twenty years, America?s liberals need to grow beyond political liberalism, with its often self-absorbed focus on individual rights to the exclusion of individual responsibilities to the larger society. Liberals will have to construct a more complete vision with moral and religious grounding. That does not mean confessional Christianity. It means the legitimate heir to Christianity. Such a legitimate heir need not be a religion, though it must have clear moral power, and be able to attract the minds and hearts of a voting majority of Americans.

And the new liberal vision must be larger than that of the conservative religious vision that will be appointing judges, writing laws and bending the cultural norms toward hatred and exclusion for the foreseeable future. The conservatives deserve a lot of admiration. They have spent the last thirty years studying American politics, forming their vision and learning how to gain control in the political system. And it worked; they have won. Even if liberals can develop a bigger vision, they still have all that time-consuming work to do. It won?t be fast. It isn?t even clear that liberals will be willing to do it; they may instead prefer to go down with the ship they?re used to.

One man who has been tireless in his investigations and critiques of America?s slide into fascism is Michael C. Ruppert, whose postings usually read as though he is wound way too tight. But he offers four pieces of advice about what we can do now, and they seem reality-based enough to pass on to you. This is America; they?re all about money:
First, he says you should get out of debt.
Second is to spend your money and time on things that give you energy and provide you with useful information.
Third is to stop spending a penny with major banks, news media and corporations that feed you lies and leave you angry and exhausted.
And fourth is to learn how money works and use it like a (political) weapon ? as he predicts the rest of the world will be doing against us. (from http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/110504_snap_out.shtml)

That?s advice written this week. Another bit of advice comes from sixty years ago, from Roosevelt?s Vice President, Henry Wallace. Wallace said, ?Democracy, to crush fascism internally, must...develop the ability to keep people fully employed and at the same time balance the budget. It must put human beings first and dollars second. It must appeal to reason and decency and not to violence and deceit. We must not tolerate oppressive government or industrial oligarchy in the form of monopolies and cartels.?

Still another way to understand fascism is as a kind of colonization. A simple definition of ?colonization? is that it takes people?s stories away, and assigns them supportive roles in stories that empower others at their expense. When you are taxed to support a government that uses you as a means to serve the ends of others, you are ? ironically ? in a state of taxation without representation. That?s where this country started, and it?s where we are now.

I don?t know the next step. I?m not a political activist; I?m only a preacher. But whatever you do, whatever we do, I hope that we can remember some very basic things that I think of as eternally true. One is that the vast majority of people are good decent people who mean and do as well as they know how. Very few people are evil, though some are. But we all live in families where some of our blood relatives support things we hate. I believe they mean well, and the way to rebuild broken bridges is through greater understanding, compassion, and a reality-based story that is more inclusive and empowering for the vast majority of us.

Those who want to live in a reality-based story rather than as serfs in an ideology designed to transfer power, possibility and hope to a small ruling elite have much long and hard work to do, individually and collectively. It will not be either easy or quick.

But we will do it. We will go forward in hope and in courage. Let us seek that better path, and find the courage to take it ? step, by step, by step.
First UU Church of Austin Sermons

Ohio Info

http://indyvoter.org/index.php

Here are a few articles on the types of voter suppression/disenfranchisement that we are hoping to call attention to:

Kerry Won. Greg Palast, Tompaine.com
http://www.tompaine.com/articles/kerry_won_.php

Did Kerry Concede Too Soon? Bob Fitrakis, The Free Press
http://www.freepress.org/columns/display/3/2004/981

Was the Ohio Election Honest and Fair? Institute for Public Accuracy
http://www.accuracy.org/press_releases/PR110304.htm

Worse Than 2000: Tuesday's Electoral Disaster, William Rivers Pitt,
Truthout
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/110804A.shtml

None Dare Call it Voter Suppression and Fraud, Bob Fitrakis, Free Press
http://www.freepress.org/columns/display/3/2004/983

Faces of War

The PBS Newhour last night featured an interview with a journalist who's just returned from observing the election in Afghanistan. He reports that it was riddled with fraud, made easy by the simple trick of providing the wrong kind of ink. Instead of marking a voter for a couple of days, it washed off with water right away. Perhaps someone forgot that in some parts of the world people still wash their hands many times a day.

Fraud has to be a little more sophisticated in this country to work. No doubt the result is the same.

The reporter also explained that the warlords are no longer running the country. They've all been transformed into gangsters. They collect taxes from the marijuana and poppy farmers and from those who export the drugs and rule, as gangster usually do, through intimidation.

Which isn't all that different from what's happening in America. Only, we still have a warlord in the White House. In fact, he's the chief warlord. He's got his finger on the most destructive implements of war ever invented. Blowing up little children and desecrating the holy places of Islam is just the tiniest taste of what's going on.

Election Fraud Updates Here

http://washingtondc.craigslist.org/pol/48347849.html

http://www.blackboxvoting.org/ (scroll page to get whole story)

Sloppy Post

Washington Post's Sloppy Analysis

By Sam Parry
November 12, 2004

The Washington Post and the big media have spoken: Questions about Nov. 2 voting irregularities and George W. Bush?s unusual vote tallies are just the ravings of Internet conspiracy theorists.

In a Nov. 11 story on A2, the Post gave the back of its hand to our story about Bush?s statistically improbable vote totals in Florida and elsewhere. While agreeing with our analysis that Bush pulled off the difficult task of winning more votes in Florida than the number of registered Republicans, the Post accuses us of overlooking the obvious explanation that many independents, ?Dixiecrats? and other Democrats voted for Bush.

Mocking us as ?spreadsheet-wielding conspiracy theorists,? Post reporters Manuel Roig-Franzia and Dan Keating signaled their determination to put questions about Bush?s victory outside the bounds of responsible debate. Yet, if they hadn?t been so set in this agenda, they might have avoided sloppy mistakes and untrue assertions.

In an example of their slipshod reporting, Roig-Franzia and Keating state that we focused our data analysis on rural counties in Florida. They suggest that Bush?s gains in these rural counties might be explained by the greater appeal of son-of-the-South Al Gore in 2000 than Bostonian John Kerry in 2004.

But we didn?t focus on rural counties in Florida. Rather we looked at the vote tallies statewide and zeroed in on Bush?s performance in the larger, more metropolitan counties of southern and central Florida, where Bush got the vast majority of his new votes over his state totals in 2000.

It was in these large counties where Bush?s new totals compared most surprisingly with new voter registration because Democrats did a much better job in many of these counties of registering new voters. In other words, Bush outperformed Kerry among a relatively smaller ratio of Republicans to Democrats in many of these counties.

Also undermining the Post?s claims, Kerry actually improved on Gore?s total in the smallest 20 counties in Florida by 5,618 votes -- 50,883 votes for Kerry vs. 45,265 for Gore, a 12.5% increase. So, even the Post?s notion that Gore?s Southern heritage made him more attractive to rural Floridians doesn?t fit with the actual results.

Simple Question

We began our analysis of the vote totals with one simple question: Where did Bush earn his new votes? Since one of every nine new Bush voters nationwide came from Florida, we thought this battleground state was a good place to examine county-by-county tallies.

We also didn?t go into the analysis expecting to find statistical oddities. We were open to the possibility that Bush?s totals might have fit within statistical norms.

What we found, however, led us to report that Bush?s vote tallies were statistically improbable ? though not impossible. Contrary to the Post?s claim, we did take into account the Dixiecrat element, which is why we didn?t focus on the Bush totals from Florida?s panhandle or the smaller, rural counties.

Our analysis found that of the 13 Florida counties where Bush?s vote total exceeded the number of registered Republicans for the first time, only two were counties with fewer than 100,000 registered voters. In 2000, Bush?s vote total exceeded the number of registered Republicans in 34 counties ? not 32 as the Post inaccurately reported ? but in 2004, this total shot up to 47 counties.

Rather than a rural surge of support, Bush actually earned more than seven out of 10 new votes in the 20 largest counties in Florida. Many of these counties are either Democratic strongholds ? such as Miami-Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach ? or they are swing counties, such as Orange, Hillsborough, and Duval.

Many of these large counties saw substantially more newly registered Democrats than Republicans. For example, in Orange County, a swing county home to Orlando, Democrats registered twice as many new voters than Republicans in the years since 2000. In Palm Beach and Broward combined, Democrats registered 111,000 new voters compared with fewer than 20,000 new Republicans.

However, in these three counties combined, Bush turned out about 10,000 more new voters than Kerry, a feat made all the more remarkable given that Kerry improved Democratic turnout in these counties by 21 percent.

No Landslide

Historically, increases like those Bush registered throughout Florida and across much of the country occur when there are huge swings in voting patterns caused by national landslides.

In 1972, for instance, Richard Nixon won millions of votes from Democrats who two elections earlier had supported Lyndon Johnson. But in 2004, the Democratic ticket didn?t suffer a hemorrhage of votes, actually turning out about 5 million more voters nationwide than in 2000.

Nor was that the case in Florida. In county after county in Florida, Bush achieved statistically stunning gains even as Kerry more than held his own. Bush earned nearly 35 percent more votes statewide than he did in 2000, which was already a huge surge for Bush over Bob Dole?s 1996 Florida turnout.

Contrary to assertions in the flawed Post article, the most surprising numbers actually don?t come from small rural counties in the state, but rather from large counties, including Orange county (mentioned above), Hillsborough (Tampa), Brevard (Cape Canaveral), Duval (Jacksonville), Polk (next to Orange county), and heavily Democratic Leon (Tallahassee) and Alachua (Gainesville). These are not tiny Dixiecrat counties with longtime registered Democrats who haven?t voted Democratic in years.

Rather, these seven counties have large, diverse populations that collectively saw Bush turn out 1,025,493 votes, exceeding the 946,420 registered Republicans. In these counties, Bush turned out nearly twice as many new votes than the number of newly registered Republicans. In these same counties, Kerry got more than 200,000 new votes, meaning that Bush?s tally can?t be attributed to crossover Democrats.

While Bush?s totals are not statistically impossible, they do raise eyebrows. Our question was: where did these gains come from? We are not claiming that the surprising numbers are evidence of fraud, but we do believe the tallies deserve an honest and independent review.

It also should be the job of journalists to probe questions as significant as the integrity of the U.S. voting system, not to simply belittle those who raise legitimate questions. The fact that Internet journals and blogs are doing more to examine these concerns than wealthy news organizations like the Washington Post is another indictment of the nation?s mainstream press.

Back to Home Page

Mocking us as ?spreadsheet-wielding conspiracy theorists,? Post reporters Manuel Roig-Franzia and Dan Keating signaled their determination to put questions about Bush?s victory outside the bounds of responsible debate. Yet, if they hadn?t been so set in this agenda, they might have avoided sloppy mistakes and untrue assertions.

In an example of their slipshod reporting, Roig-Franzia and Keating state that we focused our data analysis on rural counties in Florida. They suggest that Bush?s gains in these rural counties might be explained by the greater appeal of son-of-the-South Al Gore in 2000 than Bostonian John Kerry in 2004.

But we didn?t focus on rural counties in Florida. Rather we looked at the vote tallies statewide and zeroed in on Bush?s performance in the larger, more metropolitan counties of southern and central Florida, where Bush got the vast majority of his new votes over his state totals in 2000.

It was in these large counties where Bush?s new totals compared most surprisingly with new voter registration because Democrats did a much better job in many of these counties of registering new voters. In other words, Bush outperformed Kerry among a relatively smaller ratio of Republicans to Democrats in many of these counties.

Also undermining the Post?s claims, Kerry actually improved on Gore?s total in the smallest 20 counties in Florida by 5,618 votes -- 50,883 votes for Kerry vs. 45,265 for Gore, a 12.5% increase. So, even the Post?s notion that Gore?s Southern heritage made him more attractive to rural Floridians doesn?t fit with the actual results.

Simple Question

We began our analysis of the vote totals with one simple question: Where did Bush earn his new votes? Since one of every nine new Bush voters nationwide came from Florida, we thought this battleground state was a good place to examine county-by-county tallies.

We also didn?t go into the analysis expecting to find statistical oddities. We were open to the possibility that Bush?s totals might have fit within statistical norms.

What we found, however, led us to report that Bush?s vote tallies were statistically improbable ? though not impossible. Contrary to the Post?s claim, we did take into account the Dixiecrat element, which is why we didn?t focus on the Bush totals from Florida?s panhandle or the smaller, rural counties.

Our analysis found that of the 13 Florida counties where Bush?s vote total exceeded the number of registered Republicans for the first time, only two were counties with fewer than 100,000 registered voters. In 2000, Bush?s vote total exceeded the number of registered Republicans in 34 counties ? not 32 as the Post inaccurately reported ? but in 2004, this total shot up to 47 counties.

Rather than a rural surge of support, Bush actually earned more than seven out of 10 new votes in the 20 largest counties in Florida. Many of these counties are either Democratic strongholds ? such as Miami-Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach ? or they are swing counties, such as Orange, Hillsborough, and Duval.

Many of these large counties saw substantially more newly registered Democrats than Republicans. For example, in Orange County, a swing county home to Orlando, Democrats registered twice as many new voters than Republicans in the years since 2000. In Palm Beach and Broward combined, Democrats registered 111,000 new voters compared with fewer than 20,000 new Republicans.

However, in these three counties combined, Bush turned out about 10,000 more new voters than Kerry, a feat made all the more remarkable given that Kerry improved Democratic turnout in these counties by 21 percent.

No Landslide

Historically, increases like those Bush registered throughout Florida and across much of the country occur when there are huge swings in voting patterns caused by national landslides.

In 1972, for instance, Richard Nixon won millions of votes from Democrats who two elections earlier had supported Lyndon Johnson. But in 2004, the Democratic ticket didn?t suffer a hemorrhage of votes, actually turning out about 5 million more voters nationwide than in 2000.

Nor was that the case in Florida. In county after county in Florida, Bush achieved statistically stunning gains even as Kerry more than held his own. Bush earned nearly 35 percent more votes statewide than he did in 2000, which was already a huge surge for Bush over Bob Dole?s 1996 Florida turnout.

Contrary to assertions in the flawed Post article, the most surprising numbers actually don?t come from small rural counties in the state, but rather from large counties, including Orange county (mentioned above), Hillsborough (Tampa), Brevard (Cape Canaveral), Duval (Jacksonville), Polk (next to Orange county), and heavily Democratic Leon (Tallahassee) and Alachua (Gainesville). These are not tiny Dixiecrat counties with longtime registered Democrats who haven?t voted Democratic in years.

Rather, these seven counties have large, diverse populations that collectively saw Bush turn out 1,025,493 votes, exceeding the 946,420 registered Republicans. In these counties, Bush turned out nearly twice as many new votes than the number of newly registered Republicans. In these same counties, Kerry got more than 200,000 new votes, meaning that Bush?s tally can?t be attributed to crossover Democrats.

While Bush?s totals are not statistically impossible, they do raise eyebrows. Our question was: where did these gains come from? We are not claiming that the surprising numbers are evidence of fraud, but we do believe the tallies deserve an honest and independent review.

It also should be the job of journalists to probe questions as significant as the integrity of the U.S. voting system, not to simply belittle those who raise legitimate questions. The fact that Internet journals and blogs are doing more to examine these concerns than wealthy news organizations like the Washington Post is another indictment of the nation?s mainstream press.

Florida Recount

by hannah

Dear Editor,
What we need to be concerned about are the different results in Florida
depending on whether people's votes were recorded on touch screens or
recorded on paper ballots and READ by the optiscan manchines that were also
in use in 2000.
Based on the voter registration rolls on which voters either choose to be
designated as democrats, republicans or other (IND, Lib, etc), there are
expectations on how the vote will come out.
So, in counties that have moved to touch-screen machines, it was expected
that there would be
1,435,385 Votes for Bush
1,567,297 Votes for Kerry
with Kerry winning by about 130,000
In actual fact, because turnout was higher and independents had a vote too,
the vote came out as follows:
1,845,876 Votes for Bush
1,982,210 Votes for Kerry
with Kerry still winning by about 140,000
HOWEVER, in the counties that use the optscan, the results were a little
different.
The votes expected were:
1,337,242 Votes for Bush
1,432,425 Votes for Kerry
with Kerry winning by less than 100,000
The actual returns were a lot different:
1,950,213 Votes for Bush
1,445,675 Votes for Kerry
with Bush winning by half a million. Note that Kerry still got a little
more than the expected. It's the higher turnout and the independents that
supposedly gave Bush the added 500,000. Does that make sense?
Are you going to argue that evangelicals suddenly discovered that they
needed to vote? Did the Republicans never turn out their base before? Is
it significant that Duval and Alachua counties showed the same anomalous
behavior in 2000?
How do we settle these question? COUNT THE BALLOTS BY HAND. It would be
ironic if the touch-screens that everyone was so worried about are not a
problem, but the fact is that we have no way of testing them at this point.
THE PAPER BALLOTS CAN BE AUDITED BY HAND--NOT HOW MANY THERE ARE, BUT WHAT
THEY HAVE WRITTEN OR MARKED ON THEM. We already know that many of the
so-called "over-votes" which resulted in significant "spoilage" in 2000
were actually the result of dirty ballots.

Electronic Red Herring

Electronic Red Herring

by hannah

Dear Editor,
The touch-screen voting machines manufacture by Diebold are a red herring.
The New York Times' pronouncement that the concern about their part in
election fraud has been debunked by some experts is simply irrelevant,
because these machines, as far as we can tell at this point, are not the
source of fraudulent election returns.

The controversy over these new machines has made most everyone forget that
the older optiscan systems, which are supposed to be replaced, perhaps
because they actually have an auditable paper ballot, are also produced by
Diebold and its clone ES&S.
While the Diebold touch-screens have been decertified in California, the
Diebold optiscans are still in use in some California districts, as they
are in Florida, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Ohio, North Carolina and
elsewhere. And it should be of some interest that there are reports that,
only in districts where these Diebold machines were in use during the
recall election, there were some very peculiar results. Specifically,
virtual unknowns got votes in distant counties, leading to the suspicion
that votes were skimmed from the front-runner and distributed down the
ballot.
In the 2000 election we were distracted by all kinds of blatant
disruptions. This time our attention has been distracted by the
touch-screen machines. And some people even argue that the similarity
between the 2004 and 2000 results validates the returns, regardless of how
illogical they seem.
Maybe it was just a prank by some soft-ware programmer that wondered what
would happen if he had every sixth Democratic vote assigned somewhere else.
Maybe there was no intentional fraud.Nevertheless, the results are just
too bizarre to be explained by chance.Fortunately, we do have paper
ballots that can be manually checked. But, that won't help us if nobody
bothers to look.

Evidence of Fraud

"Nov. 12, 2004 | Brookville, Ind. -- A hand recount of ballots cast using optical scanning technology gave a Democrat enough extra votes to bump a Republican from victory in a county commissioner's race.

The erroneous tally was caused when the Fidlar Election Co. scanning system recorded straight-Democratic Party votes as votes for Libertarians in southeastern Indiana's Franklin County.

The recount Thursday pushed Democrat Carroll Lanning from fifth to third in the three-seat commissioners race, while Republican Roy Hall fell to fifth."

Letter of the day

How often have we been told that we shouldn't mix apples and oranges; that the two are not comparable. And still, that's what CNN seems to have done on election night.

If the reports are correct, then the exit polls CNN had commissioned and put up all night were suddenly taken down in the early hours of the morning and "corrected" with numbers that came, not from the mouths of people who had just voted, but from the machines in which their votes were supposed to be accurately recorded.

Whether or not those later numbers are an accurate representation of what the voters did, mixing the information from the mouths of voters with what was spewed out by the machines resulted in, at best, a fruit salad of information; at worst, a mish-mash, since we could no longer tell which was which.

Fortunately, unlike a fruit salad, the ballots on which voters recorded their intent can actually be disaggregated manually and read by individuals whose integrity is not in dispuste. Let's hope the optiscan counties in Florida do that. And soon.

Basic Report from columbus

Subject: Basic report from Columbus

I worked for 3 days, including Election Day, on the statewide voter
protection hotline run by the Ohio Democratic Party in Columbus,
Ohio. I am writing this because the media is inexplicably
whitewashing what happened in Ohio, and Kerry's concession was
likewise inexplicable.

Hundreds of thousands of people were disenfranchised in Ohio. People
waited on line for as long as 10 hours. It appears to have only
happened in Democratic-leaning precincts, principally (a) precincts
where many African Americans lived, and (b) precincts near colleges.

I spoke to a young man who got on line at 11:30 am and voted at 7
pm. When he left at 7 pm, the line was about 150 voters longer than when
he'd arrived, which meant those people were going to wait even
longer. In fact they waited for as much as 10 hours, and their
voting was concluded at about 3 am. The reason this occurred was
that they had 1 voting station per 1000 voters, while the adjacent
precinct had 1 voting station per 184. Both precincts were within
the same county, and managed by the same county board of elections.
The difference between them is that the privileged polling place was
in a rural, solidly republican, area, while the one with long lines
was in the college town of Gambier, OH. Lines of 4 and 5 hours were
the order of the day in many African- American neighborhoods.

Touch screen voting machines in Youngstown OH were
registering "George W. Bush" when people pressed "John F. Kerry" ALL
DAY LONG. This was reported immediately after the polls opened, and
reported over and over again throughout the day, and yet the bogus
machines were inexplicably kept in use THROUGHOUT THE DAY.

Countless other frauds occurred, such as postcards advising people
of incorrect polling places, registered Democrats not receiving
absentee ballots, duly registered young voters being forced to file
provisional ballots even though their names and signatures appeared
in the voting rolls, longtime active voting registered voters being
told they weren't registered, bad faith challenges by
Republican "challengers" in Democratic precincts, and on and on and
on.

I was very proud of the way so many Ohioans fought so valiantly for
their right to vote, and would not be turned away. Many, however,
could not spend the entire day and were afraid of losing their jobs,
due to the severe economic depression hitting Ohio.

I do not understand why Kerry conceded and did not fight to ensure
that all Ohioans would have a chance to vote, and for their vote to
be counted.

John Burns Writes

Letter from John Burns

John Burns is an activist whose "Greetings From the Road" column is regularly featured on the Howard Dean Was Right blog. He sent in the following letter last week

It is against the law to campaign closer than 100 feet from a polling place in Ohio. Normally this distance is marked with small U. S. flags or a notice. The flag was present at our polling place and we respected it.

Nevertheless, a poll worker came out and gave me a dirty look. She soon returned with her supervisor, who told myself and Carolyn from MoveOn that we had to move because we were too close to the polling area. Carolyn asked where we needed to go and the polling supervisor pointed to the street corner some 300 feet away.

I asked the supervisor what legal distance was required for campaigning. She said 100 feet. I told her that it looked like the posted boundary was accurate, and the corner was far beyond 100 feet. Unless we got an accurate measurement that showed an error, I was going to abide by the boundary posted by the Franklin County Board of Elections. When I asked her if she had a tape measure, she and her sidekick went back inside.

Twenty minutes later, two police officers showed up. I figured it was time to break out the camcorder. I was kicking myself for not recording the earlier encounter with the polling place supervisor.

Allegedly, someone had called the police and reported that I was on school property within 100 feet. I assured the officer that this was not the case. In fact, I mentioned that I hadn't left the sidewalk and had stayed outside the boundary posted by the Franklin County Board of Elections. He wouldn't tell me who had called in the report. I told him that whomever it was had lied. I suspect it was the polling officials.

Just then a female police captain arrived and asked the other police what the "judge" had said. Apparently, the police had called a judge before talking to me. They ended up leaving us for a pow-wow with the polling place supervisor. After that, they walked away without saying anything to me. I followed the police captain to her cruiser, asking her questions she didn't want to answer. I got it all on tape.

We did find some irregularities with the voter lists. It became obvious after my wife, Karen, and I compared notes, that for some husband-wife teams who claimed they had voted together only had one vote recorded. We called the voter protection hotline and reported the problem to the Franklin County Democratic Party. To my knowledge no one has looked into this irregularity. We documented the problem and turned it in to the Kerry/Edwards folks.

This election could have been lost due to a number of separate issues that chipped away at the votes. Here is another example of a problem that is undefined in scope. Note who is on the ballot that should not be:

Ralph Nader's name is second from the top on this Franklin County Ballot

The Columbus Dispatch reports that "no one can determine how many Ohioans intentionally did not cast a vote in the presidential election or how many this year lost their presidential vote by supporting independent Ralph Nader, whose name was mistakenly included on ballots in a handful of locales."

What has been reported is that almost 93,000 votes will go uncounted due to Nader being "accidentally" included on the ballot as well as other issues.

When I called the author of the newspaper article and pressed him on his statement, he admitted to me that the Nader votes were not counted as per the instructions of Kenneth Blackwell. Other issues include fewer voting machines in Democratic downtown areas than ever before (yielding longer lines and fewer votes).

Needless to say, there is some smoke here in Ohio. Hard to say if there is enough smoke that this place will burst into fire. We exceeded all goals set for this state; however, Bush and Company either got out the vote better than we did, or did a number on us.

George Bush's last stop on election eve was here in Columbus, Ohio. My friend Leni tells me George Bush met one-on-one?behind closed doors?with Kenneth Blackwell. This was not reported by the press.

Best Wishes for Peace and Believable Elections,

?John Burns
Columbus, Ohio

Exit Poll Mystery

This analysis doesn't explain everything, but is a good start.
Download file

Exit Poll Graphic

Bob Fitrakis

And so the sorting and discarding of Kerry votes begins
November 10, 2004

Bob Fitrakis

And so the sorting and discarding of Kerry votes begins
November 10, 2004

Are the provisional ballots in Ohio being thrown out? A new rule for counting provisional ballots in Cuyahoga County, Ohio was implemented on Tuesday, November 9 at approximately 2:30 in the afternoon, according to election observer Victoria Lovegren.

The new ruling in Cuyahoga County mandates that provisional ballots in yellow packets must be ?Rejected? if there is no ?date of birth? on the packet. The Free Press obtained copies of the original ?Provisional Verification Procedure? from Cuyahoga County which stated ?Date of birth is not mandatory and should not reject a provisional ballot.? The original procedure required the voter?s name, address and a signature that matched the signature in the county?s database.

Lovegren described the clerks as ?kind of disturbed? after the new ruling came down. She said that one of the clerks told her, ?This is new. This just came down. They just changed it in the last thirty minutes.? According to Lovegren, 80 yellow-jacketed provisional ballots piled up in the hour and 45 minutes she observed. By Lovegren?s tally, three provisional ballots were rejected because the registered voters? registration had been ?cancelled.? The rest, she said, were being discarded because of no date of birth.

In 2000, an estimated 9% of Ohio?s provisional ballots were rejected and not counted, according to Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell. Many election observers are predicting the number will be much higher this year due to directives from Blackwell?s office.

An earlier analysis in the Free Press of the 155,428 unofficial provisional ballots recorded at the Secretary of State?s website found that a clear majority, 85,096, came from the 15 counties Kerry won. An additional 17,038 came from urban Hamilton County, home of Cincinnati, and Wood County, where Bush won with 53% and 53.5% respectively. Traditionally, Hamilton County?s provisional ballots are disproportionately cast in the African American majority wards of the central city and not in the affluent Republican-dominated suburbs. Thus, nearly two-thirds (65.7%), or 102,134, provisional ballots come from areas where the provisional ballots are likely to be pro-Kerry.

The official county-by-county board of elections? final tally will begin on Saturday, November 13, the 11th day after the election and be completed by the 15th day. Following this canvassing period, 11-15 days after the election, an automatic recount would ensue if the gap between Kerry and Bush narrowed to less than one quarter of one percent, an estimated 16-19,000 votes, depending on how many are actually counted.

During the canvassing, Bush will no doubt lose 3,893 votes from the infamous ward 1B in Gahanna, Ohio where a ?computer glitch? counted 4,258 votes for Bush from 638 voters. But it is unlikely that Kerry will draw within the needed automatic recount margin.

At the end of the canvass, candidates including Kerry have five days to apply for a paid recount, according to election attorney Donald McTigue. McTigue served as U.S. representative Dennis Kucinich?s campaign treasurer during the Democratic presidential primaries. The recount would be held within five days, and gives any candidate who applies, Kerry or others, the right to physically inspect the polling place materials including 92,672 ballots that failed to record a vote for President.

Under Ohio law, like Florida law in 2000, the recount can include these ballots, many of them punch cards with the notorious ?hanging chads? and optically scanned ballots where marks may have gone slightly astray but a vote for president is clearly evident.

Overseas ballots postmarked by Election Day and late absentees just prior to the election also remain to be counted. During a recount, candidates may also inspect authorizations to vote, to make sure that the machine tallies are in line with the actual votes cast. They also may examine voter registration forms to argue for improperly rejected provisional ballots.

Local boards of elections may amend election results if obvious mistakes are pointed out. It will cost $10 per precinct in Ohio, or an estimated $120,000, to recount the whole state.

The official tallies are due at the Secretary of State?s Office by December 1. The Secretary of State must certify the election under Ohio law by December 3.

U.S. representative Dennis Kucinich complained in an article on CommonDreams.org that ?Dirty tricks occurred across the state, including phony letters from Boards of Elections telling people that their registrations through some Democratic activist groups were invalid and that Kerry voters were to report on Wednesday because of massive voter turnout.?

The Free Press, in its November 7 article ?None dare call it voter suppression or fraud,? pointed to possible voting anomalies in Miami County, Ohio where nearly 19,000 new ballots appear to have been added after 100% of the precincts had reported. The additional votes were at virtually the exact same ratio as earlier Bush votes, 65.8% for earlier votes and 65.77% for the latter. Kerry?s vote percentage was identical, despite the nearly 19,000 new votes at 33.92%.

Roger Kearney of Rhombus Technologies, Ltd. told the Free Press, ?The report you saw the following morning at 9 a.m. was probably either the 60 or 80 percent report.? Kearney?s company is the reporting company for vote results for Miami County; he claims that the problem was not with his reporting and that the additional 19,000 votes came before 100% of the precincts were in.

As for the statistical anomaly that showed virtually identical ratios after the final 20-40% of the vote came in, Kearney offered no explanation and said he merely reports the results given to him.

Miami County reports its votes in 20 percent blocks instead of a continuous running tally. ?I watch as Steve Quillen, the Board Director, put floppy disks that he had taken from the tabulating computer and put them into the reporting computer. He did this at about 20%, 40%, 60%, 80% and 100% of the count ... I looked at each of these reports. When the final one came out about midnight, we copied the report file onto my floppy disk. I came home and immediately posted it to the website. The page is still on our website exactly as it was shortly after midnight ... No one had access to this computer but me.?

Kearney told the Free Press that the software used at the Miami County Board of Elections for counting the votes is from Elections Systems & Software (ES&S). The strong Republican ties of ES&S are well established in the public record. (See for example, ?Diebold?s political machine? at motherjones.com).

Such statistical anomalies may be examined if Kerry has the courage to demand a recount, or if other candidates who have legal standing to request a recount are curious. McTigue told a gathering of suburban Democrats that Kerry may recount eight counties of interest, and other candidates may recount the rest of Ohio.

Unless the opportunity is seized, more than 100,000 votes will likely go uncounted, and statistical anomalies and ?computer glitches? will remain unexamined.

--
Bob Fitrakis is a Professor in the Social and Behavioral Sciences Department at Columbus State Community College. He has a Ph.D in Political Science and a J.D. from The Ohio State University Law School. He is the author of seven books, an investigative reporter, and Editor of the Columbus Free Press (freepress.org). He has won ten major investigative journalism awards including Best Coverage of Politics in Ohio from the Ohio Society of Professional Journalists. He served as an international election observer in the 1994 presidential elections in El Salvador and was the co-author and editor of the report to the United Nations. He served as legal advisor for eight polling locations on Columbus' Near East Side for the Election Protection Coalition.

Sorry Everybody

http://www.sorryeverybody.com/gallery/129/

Iraqi Dispatch

Regretably, none of Dahr's information should come as a surprise to readers of this Blog.

*Dahr Jamail*

*Violence is taking a heavy toll in Iraq, but everyday economic
difficulties could be hurting people more.*

*BAGHDAD, Nov 9 (IPS) - * Violence is taking a heavy toll in Iraq, but
everyday economic difficulties could be hurting people more.

Nearly 20 months into the occupation, Iraqis find themselves in a
desperate situation, with countless struggling to survive.

U.S. President George W. Bush said at a speech at the U.S. Army War
College May 24 this year that the United States wants ?freedom and
independence, security and prosperity for the Iraqi people.?

Prosperity now looks like 70 percent unemployment. A recent study found
that if the food ration programme set up by Saddam Hussein's regime
during the U.S.-led sanctions was disbanded, more than 25 percent of
Iraqis would starve to death.

Bush had also praised ?a growing private economy? in Iraq after the
former governing council approved a new law ?that opens the country to
foreign investment for the first time in decades.?

But Antonia Juhasz, project director at the International Forum on
Globalisation based in San Francisco in the United States says that
orders to this effect by the disbanded Coalition Provisional Authority
have allowed the economy of Iraq to be sold from under Iraqis.

In a paper 'The Hand-Over That Wasn't: Illegal Orders give the U.S. a
Lock on Iraq's Economy', she wrote that order no. 39 allows for ?(1)
privatisation of Iraq's 200 state-owned enterprises; (2) 100 percent
foreign ownership of Iraqi businesses; (3) 'national treatment' -- which
means no preferences for local over foreign businesses; (4)
unrestricted, tax-free remittance of all profits and other funds; and
(5) 40-year ownership licences.?

Iraqis are therefore not given preference in reconstruction efforts in
their own country. Foreign corporations such as Halliburton and Bechtel
have been allowed ?to buy up Iraqi businesses, do all of the work and
send all of their money home,? Juhasz said.. ?They cannot be required to
hire Iraqis or to reinvest their money in the Iraqi economy. They can
take out their investments at any time and in any amount.?

The consequences of those decisions are being felt in Iraqi homes. Abu
Ahmed al-Hadithi, 40, sells vegetables in the al-Adhamiya district of
Baghdad. ?The economic situation is very bad now,? he said as he stood
waiting to sell some cucumbers. ?The costs of gas and food are going up
so high. So even if we make more now, everything is costing more.?

The vegetables he sells now are imported. ?I make less profit now, I
have nine people to take care of, and it has made my life very
difficult,? he said.

This is the consequence of order no. 12 of the Bremer orders as they
came to be called after former U.S. administrator in Iraq L. Paul
Bremer. The order suspends ?all tariffs, customs duties, import taxes,
licensing fees and similar surcharges for goods entering or leaving Iraq.?

Juhasz says this led to ?an immediate and dramatic inflow of cheap
foreign consumer products -- devastating local producers and sellers who
were thoroughly unprepared to meet the challenge of their mammoth global
competitors.?

Another critical factor leading to the dismal economic situation in
occupied Iraq is that little has come by way of the promised
reconstruction funds.

Anthony Cordesman from the Centre for Strategic and International
Studies in Washington says that as of June 25 this year, ?the Programme
Management Office (PMO) data show...out of 18.4 billion dollars in aid,
11 billion dollars has been apportioned, 7.6 billion dollars has been
committed, 4.8 billion dollars has been obligated, and all of 333
million dollars has actually been spent.?

This has meant idle factories, and Abu Gouda, 50, knows what that means.
The ex-factory worker too is now selling vegetables in al-Adhamiya market.

?I make between 8,000-10,000 dinars (five to seven dollars) a day, and
this is just enough to feed my family of seven,? he said at his
vegetable stall. ?Things have become so difficult for us, this is what I
have to do to take care of my family.?

The charity Christian Aid says the U.S.-controlled coalition in Baghdad
is handing over power to an Iraqi government without properly
investigating what it has done with some 20 billion dollars of Iraq's
own money. Many Iraqis say the economy is suffering because of the
security situation.

?We have no security and this means our economy cannot function,? said
Sabah Ahmed, a former local official, now unemployed. ?People are in a
critical situation because of the increase in prices. The gasoline,
transportation, everything is going up so much.?

Another former official is trying to sell sweets, but does not sell
many.. ?Before people used to eat so many sweets, but now they are
buying less because nobody can afford them.? (END)

Florida Recount

A map of Pennsylvania and its various voting systems.

Florida Recount

Dear Editor,
What we need to be concerned about are the different results in Florida
depending on whether people's votes were recorded on touch screens or
recorded on paper ballots and READ by the optiscan manchines that were also
in use in 2000.
Based on the voter registration rolls on which voters either choose to be
designated as democrats, republicans or other (IND, Lib, etc), there are
expectations on how the vote will come out.
So, in counties that have moved to touch-screen machines, it was expected
that there would be
1,435,385 Votes for Bush
1,567,297 Votes for Kerry
with Kerry winning by about 130,000
In actual fact, because turnout was higher and independents had a vote too,
the vote came out as follows:
1,845,876 Votes for Bush
1,982,210 Votes for Kerry
with Kerry still winning by about 140,000
HOWEVER, in the counties that use the optscan, the results were a little
different.
The votes expected were:
1,337,242 Votes for Bush
1,432,425 Votes for Kerry
with Kerry winning by less than 100,000
The actual returns were a lot different:
1,950,213 Votes for Bush
1,445,675 Votes for Kerry
with Bush winning by half a million. Note that Kerry still got a little
more than the expected. It's the higher turnout and the independents that
supposedly gave Bush the added 500,000. Does that make sense?
Are you going to argue that evangelicals suddenly discovered that they
needed to vote? Did the Republicans never turn out their base before? Is
it significant that Duval and Alachua counties showed the same anomalous
behavior in 2000?
How do we settle these question? COUNT THE BALLOTS BY HAND. It would be
ironic if the touch-screens that everyone was so worried about are not a
problem, but the fact is that we have no way of testing them at this point.
THE PAPER BALLOTS CAN BE AUDITED BY HAND--NOT HOW MANY THERE ARE, BUT WHAT
THEY HAVE WRITTEN OR MARKED ON THEM. We already know that many of the
so-called "over-votes" which resulted in significant "spoilage" in 2000
were actually the result of dirty ballots.

Expert Advice

Thomas Paine wrote over 200 years ago: "The right of voting for representatives is the primary right by which all other rights are protected. To take away this right is to reduce a man to slavery."

It is our belief that there is nothing more fundamental to the preservation of our republic than fair, open, and honest elections utilizing a secret ballot with one, and only one vote for each eligible citizen. However, it is historical fact that election fraud has existed since the inception of our country, and those motivated by malice and greed can be expected to continue their attempts to rig elections into the forseeable future. The basic techniques are outlined in the Chicago Rules Of Election Fraud. Or see a demonstration of how a computer can control an election at WheresThePaper. In the test election there you get honest results but Mary Smith always wins in the "real" election no matter how many votes you give John Doe.

Of course, if you want to play with real election software you can learn how to rig or edit any election here that uses Diebold voting equipment. You'll need to download and install the Diebold vote-tally software and you'll need Microsoft Access, which comes with Microsoft Office. Most any teenager can do this.

It should never be forgotten that murder and intimidation have always been a part of American elections. Some examples:

? In April 2002 a candidate for sheriff in Pulaski County, Kentucky, killed the incumbent, his political opponent, before the election.

? In 2000, a man Tennessee prosecutors said was consumed by a thirst for political power was sentenced to life in prison for the 1998 shooting death of his election opponent, a state senator.

? In Georgia, former DeKalb County Sheriff Sidney Dorsey is accused of ordering the 2000 murder of the man who defeated him for re-election. Prosecutors say four men carried out the murder on Dorsey's orders.

However, one need not propose a massive conspiracy to rig an election in order to suggest that all reasonable precautions must be taken to protect the integrity of our elections. Most of the precautions and procedures one finds in elections today were put in place as a result of hard-won experience with fraud and intimidation. After all, the classical dirty political machines, e.g., Tammany Hall in New York, Daley in Chicago, LBJ in Texas, gained, or remained in power by relying on the local ward bosses to somehow stuff the ballot box as needed. It would be foolish in the extreme to suggest that simply switching to computer voting will automatically eliminate, or even reduce such election fraud. In fact, all the evidence suggests that computer voting will make election fraud possible with an ease and scale heretofore impossible to achieve.

The idea that a well funded adversary such as the intelligence service of a foreign government would be interested in tampering with the results of a U.S. election should not be lightly dismissed. Such an effort would be cheaper than the rent on the Lincoln Bedroom in the White House and more sure of a "positive" result than the $500,000 the Chinese are reported to have donated to the Clinton campaign.

Since the problems of the presidential election of 2000 there has been an accelerating movement towards the use of computers in elections for a multitude of functions including voter registration, ballot generation, ballot counting, transmittal of election results, and etc. That movement has been fueled by the Help America Vote Act of 2002, or HAVA, that has authorized $3.9 billion to be spent over three years to help state and local governments upgrade their election equipment. These billions of dollars have voting machine manufacturers slobbering at the public trough with little regard to the future of our democracy.

In working with IEEE to establish national standards for voting equipment I have also been struck by the lack of any cost-benefit analysis for these systems. Present Direct Recording Electronic (DRE) voting machines are little more than very expensive toys. As that has become ever more apparent, there has been a growing national demand that these toys print out a paper backup that voters can verify and canvass boards and poll watchers can audit. What benefit is there then to placing very expensive DRE's with ballot printers (~$4,000 each with a design life of twenty elections), and say a minimum of five DRE's per precinct, to replace paper ballots? Further, paper ballots are still needed for absentee voters.

Other than some possible convenience for county clerks, I have yet to see any advantage to thousands of very expensive ballot printers located in every precinct over centrally printing paper ballots and distributing those paper ballots to the precincts. And paper ballots require very little in the way of technical and computer expertise, commodities woefully short in most county clerk's offices.

Further, a Caltech/MIT study undertaken after the contentious presidential election in 2000 found that hand-counting paper ballots was the most accurate of the four methods (hand counting, optical scan, DRE, punch card) evaluated. DRE's were among the least accurate.

It is also quite clear that the classical Congressional approach of throwing money at a problem under the Help America Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA) was completely backwards from the methods that should have been used when the issue is as basic to our democracy as voting. Under HAVA $3.9 billion was allocated to purchase voting equipment but virtually nothing was appropriated for research, testing, and development. Thus, instead of a period of testing equipment and developing standards prior to deployment, election officials have now spent billions on electronic voting equipment for which no standards exist and which have undergone only fragmentary testing. As a result both the manufacturers and election officials are extremely defensive about their actions and products, which clearly lack the features and security the evolving standards will require.

Also, what has been swept under the carpet is the fact that the traditional functions of poll watchers and citizen election judges in monitoring ballot counting have been completely eliminated with electronic voting. Voters touch a screen and everyone "trusts" the machine does the count accurately or, at best, the voter feeds a ballot into a black box and "trusts" the machine to count accurately. However, in practice there is virtually no way for election judges or poll watchers to verify the numbers produced by computer voting machnes.

In addition, the amount, and cost, of training and expertise demanded of local election officials to competently run electronic elections has been totally neglected. From my perspective it would seem that a cost-benefit analysis of electronic elections is still required and quite likely to show computer voting is not an effective or safe method.

Computer security

Top

Voting by computers is based on the premise that the average county clerk can maintain a computer system and network that is more secure and error-free than anything the United States Department of Defense has been able to establish. And those who know the least about computers appear to be most in favor of their use in elections, i.e., if you don't know a bit from a byte or a gate from a flip-flop then the government will give you billions to buy voting computers. Realistically, however, most county and parrish clerks are as familiar with computers as they are with handling nitroglycerin and it is probably safer to give them the nitro as they are likely to be more careful with it.

As the premise that county clerks are generally aware of and capable of providing secure computer facilities is obviously fallacious, wondrous new opportunities have been opened up for the mass rigging of elections. Computer technology provides numerous opportunities that were previously forestalled simply by the logistics of handling and counting paper ballots at individual precincts. It is as though we are not only giving these clerks nitroglycerin, we have partially frozen it first.

There is also a correlation between election districts that are rushing into computer voting and voting irregularities. At present it is unknown whether the election problems are associated with the voting machines or the election officials. Of course, in these times, the blame will be placed on the computers and technicians as it would be unthinkable for incompetence in a public official to be admitted.

It is also our experience that when vendors of computer voting equipment, e.g., Diebold, are queried they have two standard responses: (a) the enquiry must be from someone who is technologically ignorant, or (b) if the technical qualifications of the enquirer are unquestionable they are met with silence or outright rejection.

On August 14, 2003, Walden O'Dell (Figure 1) told Republicans in a fund-raising letter that he is "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year." That prompted Ohio Democrats, among others, to question the propriety of allowing O'Dell's company to calculate votes in the 2004 presidential election as well as a clever satire of Diebold Election Systems.

Alachua Anomaly?

I have been looking at the numbers from the polls in the counties in Florida, specifically Alachua County because that's a place, after living there for seventeen years and being politically active, I know something about.

The site where you can see the data yourself is http://ustogether.org/Florida_Election.htm.

The data she presents is for 2004 for all the counties in Florida, devided according to the kinds of tabulating machines they use. Like New Hampshire, Alachua County uses optical scanners from Diebold. If you look at the numbers across the line, you will see that the Democrat won. If you go further down the page and call up the numbers for 2000, you'll see that the Democrat won in 2000 as well. Alachua County has long been a Democratic sea in a conservative part of the state.

From 2000 to 2004 registration in Alachua County increased quite significantly. Republicans added about 7000, Democrats added about 10,500 and Independents increased their numbers by about 8000. About 75% of registeredvoters went to the polls in 2000. This year that increased to 78%. If we assume that 22% of each group stay at home on election day, then you get the number in the ?expected vote? column. If you assume that every single person registered as a Republican went to vote, both this time and last, then the actual number of Republican votes was 2000 and 8000 more than the number of registered voters in 2000 and in 2004. In other words, we have to believe that 6000 more non-Republicans voted for Bush this time than voted for him last time.

At the same time, even though Democratic registrants increased by over 10,000, we are supposed to believe that 9,500 Democrats stayed home this time, just as 14,000 stayed home in 2000. That there were still more Democratic than Republican votes may be accounted for by Independents. Although, if any Republicans stayed home, there weren't a lot of Independent to fill the hole.

Although there is every reason to dismiss Alachua County as unimportant from our perspective because the Democrat carried it, I think it deserves a closer look. How do we account for the fact that Republicans garnered over 16,000 more votes than expected and Democrats only took in 6,000? Where did those extra 16,000 votes come from?

By the way, these totals are not reflected in other county-wide races for the U.S. Senate, State Attorney and Sheriff which run in the 86,000 to 90,000 range. So, a lot of people obviously came out just to vote for the top of the ticket and more selectively for other positions.

So what do I think? Well, I think that just as the DFA blog doesn't like certain words (like Y!go) and rejects them, the program that runs the optical scanner can not only reject certain votes (called spoilage), which nobody seems to pay much attention to, but may also be able to send some votes (maybe every fifth or tenth) for one candidate to another's column. If the percentage is low enough in counties where the opposition is strong, then this leakage is not likely to be noticed. In a tight state-wide race, however, it is almost certain to throw the win to the favored candidate, while in a race where the candidate is so bad that everyone votes against him (I give you Benson in NH), the margin will be large enough so the leakage is insufficient.

Let us hope that Ralph hasn't lost all his marbles and that is what he is setting out to prove by calling for a manual recount in New Hampshire. As a candidate and a loser he has standing to challenge the results. Winners don't. I don't know who else does.

Seems like a good question for the lawyers.

BTW, since Georgia used optical scanners as well, one is led to wonder if that accounted for the unexpected loss by Cleland and Barnes. Sometimes what we don't see is more important than what we do see, especially if what we do see has been structured as a diversion.

Graphic Election

Nahoko Takato

Love her or hate her...
One woman's single-handed efforts to make the world a better place are an inspiration to many. But when she faced execution as a hostage in Iraq, her fellow Japanese overwhelmingly heaped scorn and derision upon her

By Nao Shimoyachi
Staff Writer

Nahoko Takato became famous on the night of April 8 this year, when the Arab satellite broadcaster Al-Jazeera aired video footage of her and two other Japanese held blindfolded at gunpoint in Iraq.

Nahoko Takato

The 34-year-old volunteer worker had been captured in Fallujah -- along with photojournalist Soichiro Koriyama and freelance writer Noriaki Imai -- by militiamen who demanded the withdrawal of Japan's Self-Defense Force troops from Iraq as a condition of their release.

With public opinion in Japan already split down the middle by the dispatch of those troops in February, the plight of the three civilian hostages took center stage in a renewed national debate over the government's decision to contribute to U.S. President George W. Bush's "coalition of the willing.''

However, despite the Japanese government rejecting the captors' demand, the hostages were released unharmed after being held for nine days. During that time, Takato repeatedly pleaded that she had been working to help Iraqi children and was not an enemy of the Iraqi people.

Her release, though, was not to be the end of Takato's ordeal. After returning to Japan, she suffered severe stress disorder caused not so much by having been a captive, but more because of harsh public criticism that the three had been irresponsible to enter Iraq despite a Japanese government warning to civilians not to do so.

A native of Chitose in Hokkaido -- the home base for most of the initial contingent of troops sent to Iraq -- Takato grew up in an environment where, in her 40-student elementary-school class, "all but two were from SDF families." Four years ago, at age 30, she quit her job running a karaoke shop and went to Calcutta in India to do volunteer work with the Missionaries of Charity founded by the late Mother Teresa. She also spent time at hospices for AIDS patients in Thailand and Cambodia.

Takato went to Iraq for the first time in May 2003. Since then, she has worked with local people to organize the provision of medical supplies to hospitals in cities such as Fallujah and Ramadi, and has also helped street children in Baghdad. It was during her fourth stay in Iraq that she was taken hostage.

Takato has recently resumed her work for Iraqi people, using some of the 8 million yen left from money sent to the three former hostages from people across Japan. Although the volatile security situation now prevents her entering Iraq itself, she spent both August and October in Amman, Jordan, coordinating her new projects to rebuild schools in Fallujah and provide job training for street children in Baghdad.

While now being deeply wary of the Japanese media, Takato granted The Japan Times this exclusive interview before flying out once more to Jordan in late September. This week, she also responded by telephone to comment on last weekend's execution of the 24-year-old Japanese hostage Shosei Koda in Iraq.

It is roughly six months since you were taken hostage in Iraq. How do you feel now about your time in captivity?

A still from a video broadcast April 8, 2004, shows a blind-folded Naoko Takato (center) kneeling beside fellow hostages Noriaki Imai (left) and Soichiro Koriyama (right). Their captors threatened to execute them after three days unless Japan withdrew its troops from Iraq.

Before that, I was always asking myself what I could do. But now, I feel more like, "You have to do this." I feel more obligations. Even if I get a job here in Japan, or go back to India, or wherever I go, the experience of having been taken hostage will never leave me.

I was derided by the Japanese people. I was told, "You are sticking your nose into something you have not been asked to do." But if I tried to avoid such criticism in the future, I would never be able to move on, never feel at ease, never get back to my normal life. I can't even fall in love in this state. Things are different now.

Are you still struggling with all that?

The incident had a huge impact and made me aware of a lot of things. One is how Japanese regard people who work for other countries. Yes, I had been told that I was neglecting domestic issues. There is that kind of a culture here. But even when I helped to make Braille books and read out aloud for blind people in Japan, I was told -- in a sarcastic tone -- "How admirable!"

I have also become more aware of the value of human life. I knew about other people's deaths: those of friends and AIDS sufferers. Then, that became about my life too, and I have started thinking about human life through my own life. When I grasped the hands of those dying whom I cared for in India, Thailand and Cambodia, I could feel that human souls never die even if their bodies do.

This feeling has become stronger after the [kidnapping] incident because I might well have been killed. But we -- Imai, Koriyama and I -- all knew too well that our captors had suffered a lot in the past year, too.

Is that what you were thinking when you were being held? Weren't you scared?

Of course I was scared. I couldn't stay rational when I was captured. I froze. When you are in real shock, you can't do anything. The most horrible part was the video shoot. Before that, we [three hostages and our Iraqi captors] were in a good mood, talking about local restaurants and other stuff. I had a hope that we might be able to get out soon. Then, heavily armed men came in and they were so angry! I was scared, but I had known Iraqis were in a terrible situation since before I entered Iraq.

When I learned in an Internet cafe that two Japanese diplomats were killed in Tikrit last November, I cried a lot and Iraqis in the cafe asked me why I was crying. When I told them why, they asked me back, "Do you know how many Spanish were killed on the same day? What about Iraqis? Americans?" They told me that's what a war is about. I was ashamed of myself because that reminded me I was acting like a foreigner, even after I had witnessed so many Iraqis dying terrible deaths.

You avoided appearing in the media very much, and stayed at home for months after the incident. What were you thinking during that period?

The only people I could share my feelings with were those who knew Iraq, who had been there. When I started talking about Iraq, I couldn't control myself. I kept talking about what was happening in Fallujah and how many died in Fallujah, things like that.

There was a critical information gap. Fallujah is seen as a den of vice by the rest of the world. I wanted Japanese people to know what was really happening there.

Fallujah was the first city I visited when I went to Iraq for the first time in May 2003. There, I heard from Iraqis who had been marching peacefully in protest against Americans occupying a local elementary school, about their being shot at by American troops. About 18 people were killed. How can Americans do that? I have American friends. I could not believe what I saw at the hospital there.

What I most wanted to convey during the period when I largely shut myself away at home was why the hostage-taking happened: the background to it. People kept asking me about the incident, but I wanted to talk more about why it happened.

Hostage-taking continues in Iraq, and some hostages have been killed, including Shosei Koda who was beheaded last weekend. What is your view on this, and what do you think of the hostage-takers?

I never met Shosei Koda. I don't know how and with what feelings he entered Iraq. So, I can't comment on that. When I was captured, many different people -- old friends I hadn't seen for ages, and people I had never even met -- spoke about me. The result is a totally different Nahoko Takato. I don't want to do the same thing to other people myself.

What I believe is that there are no national boundaries where human life is concerned. You can't say which life is good and which life is bad. This is an issue of human life.

As for the hostage-taking in general, it isn't known who is really behind it. I guess our case was one of a few, including the one in April involving Junpei Yasuda and Nobutaka Watanabe, that were the result of pure resistance -- I mean resistance movements by local Iraqis. In the cases after that period, such as the killing of South Korean Kim Sun Il in June, I think foreign fighters were playing no small part. Things are getting complicated.

Let me make this clear. Fallujah was the first place where, as early as April, people stood up against American occupation after the fall of Baghdad. I guess foreign fighters crept in around that time, taking advantage of the mess and lack of international attention.

Why do you think the situation in Iraq has become so bad?

That's because all foreigners -- the occupation forces, the foreign radicals and people like me -- just haven't cared enough about the condition of postwar Iraq. We should have noticed that the situation never improved after the war. A faint sign was there early on, but no one paid attention. Information has been very limited and international opinion stands by the aggressors: the Japanese, the Americans, the British, all of them.

I blame myself for not having made enough effort to let people know the facts. I was shocked that some reporters did not know the name of Fallujah until the hostage incident, whereas the city had always been at the center of the Iraq problem.

Why did you start volunteer work?

From being young, I never had a clear image of any profession I wanted to follow. They always ask you what you want to become when you grow up, you know. I had a clear image of what I wanted to be, but that was not connected to a particular profession. I have great respect for Seiho Tajiri [head of the Japanese-African American Society in Atlanta, Ga., who had been living in the U.S. for 40 years when, in 1993, Takato says she "learned how to live" by following him around "carrying his bag" for a year] and Mother Teresa, whose ways of life do not fall into a certain category of profession. I was also interested in Buddha, not the religious Buddha but the private Buddha when he was still Siddhartha: how he agonized over people's suffering, poverty and illness and forsook everything he had to search for the meaning of life. I wanted to find an ideal way of life rather than live for a profession.

Why did you choose to go to India?

I had several other options. I wanted to go to Africa very much, and I was interested in Vietnam, too. When I quit my job at 30, I made up my mind that I would stay someplace for at least a year. Then I saw a video of Mother Teresa, which greatly inspired me. Plus, her organization accepts all people regardless of religion. If you want to work there, all you have to do is turn up and give your name and address. Of course, you have to listen to what they have to say before starting your work, though (laughs).

What motivates you to offer your own time, money and effort to other people?

Former Baghdad street youths who Takato helped to find jobs learning the trade of joinery.

In the end, it is all for myself and, perhaps, for my family. We never went a day without quarrels. My parents and I were very bad at expressing love. We can't be honest about our feelings when we are close. When we are apart, I think about my parents and write letters to them. Things go smoothly.

In Japan, I was wearing "armor," especially when I was running the karaoke shop. I was in fighting mode because, you know, I had to make a profit (laughs). I got really tired of controlling my feelings in such a way, and I started wanting to be alone.

I stopped wearing that armor when I went to India. When you are with lovely orphans and see people dying, you can't control your feelings. Lots of feelings just poured out of me: I wanted to love those kids, I felt sad, I felt lonely. And I didn't have to control those feelings. I finally found myself at ease.

But it was more than that this time [after her captors released her and Takato returned to Japan]. I have never cried so hard before.

What do you mean?

I had a lot of feelings swirling around inside me. I cried when thinking about the people in Fallujah. I was very frustrated and sad. I felt powerless. I also felt sorry for my family. I was sad when Japanese people spurned me. I cried and cried. I didn't know anyone could cry as much as I did. The only memories I have about that time are of me crying. I don't remember what I was doing or where I was sleeping at home. I don't even remember that Imai came to see me. There is an SDF drill site just across from my house and the sounds of the SDF exercises and shells brought back what happened in Iraq. I would pull a duvet over me to try to shut out the noises.

How else were you affected by the criticism you faced in Japan?

I can't help feeling powerless when I think of people in Fallujah. I survived while thousands of people died. I survived, but I had been shutting myself away at home. I blame myself when I read news reports about Fallujah.

I fell into a cycle of self-disgust and started feeling that the people who accused me were right. All I had done in Iraq felt meaningless. My soul was completely destroyed. I wondered why I had to live. I was nothing more than a physical object in which blood was circulating.

How did you recover from that state?

I received a lot of letters of encouragement, not only from Japan but from abroad. There were Americans who even asked me to come over to their homes for a change. But the biggest factor was when I opened my e-mail inbox for the first time in a while and found e-mails from Iraqis.

Why do you act as an individual rather than participating in a group?

People often say they can't help because they can't speak English, because they don't belong to an NGO, because they don't have nursing qualifications. I was labeled as a "volunteer activist" by the media. What is that? "Volunteer" and "activist" have totally different meanings. When I saw those news articles, I was afraid people might think I was doing that kind of stuff because I am an activist. I hated it. Our daily lives are connected with international society: Every action, from drinking juice to eating a hamburger. After they had killed 1.5 million people, the United Nations recently lifted the economic sanctions imposed on Iraq. Who are the member states? It's us. Even if you are not a doctor, nurse or NGO member, there should be something you can do. I wanted to be sure and show that there was something I could do.

Do you think an individual can make a difference?

Individuals run organizations. An organization involves "dry" parts, such as fundraising and info-collection. Take a humanitarian operation -- you can't do anything with that dry part alone. When you don't have a tractor and need one, you might have to negotiate with local people. There are a lot of "wet" parts. And I think those wet parts are very important.

The same can be said of a nation. The government thinks from the point of view of the national interest. But at the same time, it shouldn't neglect individuals. A nation is not only about a flag. It has to include individuals.

What do you think of the Japanese government deploying the SDF troops in Iraq?

There is no doubt that Iraqis need international assistance. But I feel the military side is too prominent in delivering humanitarian assistance in Iraq. For Iraqis, a military force is a military force. When a U.S. Humvee arrived at a local school to deliver notebooks, kids stepped back. Teachers and staff members went home. The American soldiers were not going to kill them, they were doing humanitarian work. But, still, they were scary. The same can be said of Iraqis. I saw Iraqi girls shrink away when they saw Mujahedeens holding guns. Men in military fatigues with guns are scary for Iraqis because they have had so many horrible experiences due to the military.

So, what do you think Japan should do?

I think there are a lot of things Japan can do as the sole victim nation of atomic bombs. My friends asked Iraqi students about depleted uranium, and 90 percent of those asked knew about it: that it causes diseases and that it affects farm products that harm our bodies if we eat them. As the only nation to have experienced the horror of atomic bombs, Japan should help to study the situation, find out ways to solve the problems and clear the contamination all over the land -- if the SDF has that ability.

What are you going to do in Jordan?

I have two projects. One is to rebuild schools in Fallujah. I wanted to do something at the place where I was taken hostage and where, at the same time, a lot of people were being killed. This is a kind of tribute project to the people of Fallujah. But we can't enter Fallujah. The situation is getting worse and worse. The aerial bombing never stops and Iraqi friends tell me half the population has fled and now live in poultry sheds and suburban resort hotels. We were scheduled to start work on a school on Aug. 31, but we could not. One of the important purposes of this project is to create jobs and stop young Iraqis from becoming fighters in the war. So I didn't want our project to be stalled. As a result, we are thinking of rebuilding a school in Ramadi where the situation looks calm now. And when the situation improves in Fallujah, we will move there and rebuild schools there.

The other project is giving vocational training to street children in Baghdad. Our job-training programs for them have taken off -- at a barber's shop, a carpenter's shop, a steel factory and a blacksmith's workshop. Some are learning how to cook.

Do you want to go back to Iraq someday?

Yes. I do very much because I have such a strong tie to Iraqis now. This is more than sympathy for Iraqis. It was a fatal encounter. If I look at the hostage incident in a positive way, I think I was shaken by Iraqis who said, "You saw the tragedy of Fallujah. You heard the tragedy of Fallujah. Now it is time for you to understand it with your body."

My connection with Fallujah is such that I can never ever say goodbye just because security is bad in Iraq. My dream is to attend the weddings of the boys [street children she has cared for]. I really want to be there when they get married.

What are your long-term plans?

Other than Iraq? My mind is now preoccupied with Iraq. But I think I will live in Japan in the future. It's just that I am not strong enough to live in Japan now. I don't get complained about in India and Iraq for what I do. But in Japan I can't bear it when people keep asking me, "Why do you have to go abroad?" "Are you crazy working in a dangerous country like Iraq?" "What is volunteer work?"

What would you like to do in Japan?

I want to open a free school for drug users and dropouts. Then, I want to do agriculture and farming. I don't mean commercial agriculture, but growing some vegetables and milking cows in a field near my house. This is to do with my own experiences. I think I must consider why I needed glue-sniffing and pills and why it was that I was able to quit them.

When did you take drugs?

I started when I was a sixth-grader. I quit when I was 16. At my junior high school many of the boys belonged to motorcycle gangs and girls started working or got married soon after graduation. I was among the few who went to high school. I was angry at everything around me: parents, teachers and society. I realized that when I saw street boys in Baghdad yelling, "There is nothing interesting in the world!" I was able to get out of that game when I found something interesting other than sniffing glue. It was a music band I joined at high school. A natural high makes you far happier than using drugs.

Is that what you tell the street children in Baghdad?

No way! Hopped-up boys would never listen to a story like that. I don't get mad if I catch them sniffing glue. But I blow up when I catch them wasting food or breaking a promise. I overdo it, using broken Iraqi, because I believe it's important to make them understand that I am angry.

But you are trying to straighten those Iraqi boys out, aren't you?

I didn't set out to help them directly. I just showed them there is an exit. The first step was to win their trust. I visited the boys every day, sitting next to them, listening to their stories, smoking and singing together. I had to show that I wasn't going to abandon them. That seriousness and devotion was necessary. Then I rented a house and invited them over to have them take a shower. I told them to wash their clothes, fold them and wear them again. When you live in the streets, you don't wash your clothes. You throw away things easily. I tried to get them to understand a rehabilitation process through washing. When they clean themselves up, they become interested in fashion. They go to the market to find nice clothes. Adults see them differently, which gives the boys confidence. As a result, they now spend less time sniffing glue.

What would you do if you were captured in Iraq again? How would you want your family and the government to act?

I will probably be dead next time. But even if I was killed, I think my family would happily tell you that they had no complaint about that because Nahoko knew what she was doing.

The Japan Times: Nov. 7, 2004

Matter of Trust

http://www.markfiore.com/animation/prizes.html

It's a Matter of Trust

Dear Editor,
Towards the end of the presidential campaign it got really hard to avoid
the incumbent's advertisements in a swing state like New Hampshire.
So, one night as I was fixing dinner, what did I hear but "It all comes
down to who do you trust?" And, before I could stop it, I heard my brain
answer,"yes, I can trust you to lie."
Maybe that's what a lot of people figured--that the incumbent hadn't done
any of the things he promised before. So, it probably couldn't hurt to let
him try to get out of the mess he and his cronies have gotten us into.
Kerry and Edwards, and Howard Dean before them, for that matter, are
gentlemen who tell the truth. Why should they be saddled with cleaning up
after this crew? It was nice of them to offer, but it really wouldn't be
fair, would it?

DU Review

This is the most comprehensive review of the depleted uranium issue I've found so far.

Breathing Uranium Oxides: Global Medical Crisis of Depleted Uranium

Stop Using Uranium Munitions Now!
--by John Lewallen 1.

I begin my report on the health effects of uranium munitions with a heartfelt personal appeal: stop using uranium munitions now!
If you are the President of the United States, or under the President's command, you are commiting a war crime by using, or ordering the use, of uranium munitions.
If you are a soldier about to use a uranium bullet, missile or bomb, don't do it. The uranium oxide vapors unleashed when you pull the trigger put both you and your target in a battlefield gas environment of tiny, deadly, mutagenic uranium oxide particles. These tiny uranium oxide particles made when up to seventy per cent of the uranium projectile you shoot burns on friction and impact will stay in the environment as long as the Earth exists, bringing death, a host of diseases, and mutation to many living creatures.

Summary:

Uranium is the leading deep-penetration metal used today in United States military munitions worldwide. Uranium combines superior density with the tendency to sharpen and burn on impact. The first wartime use of uranium munitions was in 1991, when United Nations forces used an estimated 320 tons of uranium munitions in Iraq, primarily in anti-tank munitions in desert warfare. 2. These munitions contributed to the complete neutralization of the Iraqi tank forces, so much so that during the 2003 U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq, many Iraqi tanks were abandoned unused.
All commentary on uranium munitions is colored by the fact that U.S. armed forces worldwide are fully committed to the use of uranium munitions. The official U.S. military position is that uranium munitions pose no toxic or radioactive health danger to anyone. 3.
In fact, as has been known by the U.S. military since 1943, when the inventors of the atomic bomb described uranium vapor as an agent of chemical and radiological warfare, breathable uranium is a horrific weapon with both chemical and radiological toxicity. 4. Extensive testing of uranium munitions show that from ten to seventy per cent of the uranium vaporizes on impact, in particle sizes ranging down to the microscopic. 5.
Today in 2004, thirteen years after the first massive use of uranium munitions, countless thousands or millions of its victims cry in vain for relief as the United States and other military forces continue to use uranium munitions. Anyone seeking to end this suicidal chemical and radiological gas warfare is confronting one of the biggest institutional lies in history, the lie that uranium munitions pose no long-term or widespread health hazard. This lie is so huge, and has so many tentacles and subtleties, that it has become institutional orthodoxy in the United States.
The truth, as it is being pieced together by dedicated, disciplined, peer-reviewed scientists worldwide, is too horrifying for most people to contemplate. The vaporized, ceramic uranium oxides which billow as smoke from an impacting uranium munition have poisoned the human environment with minute, undetectable uranium oxide particles which will remain radioactive and toxic for the lifetime of Earth. Unlike natural uranium, which is soluble, breathed uranium oxide particles are insoluble, and become lodged in the human body if breathed, remaining there for many years, causing a host of diseases. Uranium oxides are mutagenic, attacking the genetic code which allows the human race to reproduce without crippling mutation. 6.
Today the United States military forces are fully committed to a munition metal which, based on U.S. Veterans Affairs disability statistics on veterans of the 1991 Gulf War, will, along with the effects of other toxins in Iraq, disable one out of three battlefield troops who use uranium munitions within a decade of their exposure. To repeat: ONE-THIRD OF THE VETERANS OF THE 1991 GULF WAR ARE DISABLED TEN YEARS AFTER THE WAR. 7.


THE AGES-OLD CLASH OF SPEAR AND SHIELD

"Briefing on Depleted Uranium," Colonel James Naughton, U.S. Army Materiel Command, March 14, 2003:
(Image of burned, blackened, and shattered Iraqi tank on screen)
"Why do we use it (depleted uranium)? This is the result. What we want to be able to do is strike the target from farther away than we can be hit back, and we want the target to be destroyed when we shoot at it. We don't want to see rounds bouncing off. We don't want to put our soldiers in the position that you see, if you watch 'Kelly's Heroes,' where they load tank rounds with paint in order to blind the target. And I'm sure everybody in here has probably seen 'Kelly's Heroes' once, because in World War II we faced a problem of not having the overreach we have today.
"We don't ever want to go back to that. And we don't want to fight even. Nobody goes into a war and wants to be even with the enemy. We want to be ahead, and depleted uranium gives us that advantage. We can hit, and they can't hit us." 8.

The story of how uranium munitions, and uranium armoring, became today's state-of-the-art metal of war worldwide begins with the ages-old desire of military forces to have superior spears and shields: spears that will fly farther than the enemy's and penetrate the opponent's best armor, and armor that will stop any spear the enemy can throw.
In the 1960s tungsten carbide was the primary metal used by the U.S. armed forces for armor-piercing projectiles. Tungsten carbide could not reliably penetrate the double-and triple-plated armor developed in the 1960s, touching off a scramble to invent a better armor penetrator. That decade the military began experimenting with uranium as an armor-piercing metal. Tungsten carbide continued to be favored over uranium, for two reasons: problems in developing a consistent alloy, and penetration tests that failed to show clear superiority of uranium over tungsten carbide against older-model Soviet tanks.
In the early seventies, it became clear that the latest-generation armors would be impenetrable by tungsten carbide. Also, tests by the Air Force and Navy using small-caliber uranium rounds (20-,25-, and 30mm) clearly showed the penetration superiority of uranium rounds.
Extensive Army testing for a better tank round metal for the 105mm M68 tank gun led to the XM774 Cartride Program in 1973, which used an alloy of uranium and titanium in an improved design that allowed the uranium core to withstand high acceleration without breaking up.
In the words of John Pike of : "Since the selection of depleted uranium for the XM774 cartridge, all major developments in tank ammunition have selected depleted uranium, including the 105mm M833 series and the 120mm M829 series (the latter being the primary anti-armor round used in the Gulf War). This pattern continues today, with the latest generation of the 105mm M900 series and the 25mm M919 for the Bradley Fighting Vehicle." 9.
When a uranium round is fired, friction and impact vaporize from ten to seventy per cent of the uranium, depending on what the round hits. Uranium is pyrophoric, meaning it burns on friction and impact. Also, unlike tungsten which dulls when it penetrates, uranium rounds shatter and burn as they penetrate armor, sharpening the round as it goes. In 1991, uranium munitions turned Iraqi tanks into hellish crematoria thick with breathable, burning particles of uranium.
Today very few people know the full extent of the use of uranium, depleted or fully radioactive uranium, as a metal of penetration by the world's armed forces. A cloak of secrecy and web of deception make it impossible for an ordinary soul to know when, where, and how much uranium has been used on bullets, artillery rounds, bombs and missiles worldwide.

The Groves Memo: Gas Warfare With Uranium Vapor

In 1943, the Manhattan Project scientists, racing to beat Hitler in inventing the atomic bomb, realized the Germans might use vaporized uranium as a gas warfare agent, or that U.S. forces might want to use it. Here is a quote from the "Groves Memo" written by Drs. James B. Conant, A.H. Compton, and H.C. Urey to General L.R. Groves on October 30, 1943 (the "material" referred to is uranium):

"As a gas warfare instrument the material would be ground into particles of microscopic size to form dust and smoke and distributed by a ground-fired projectile, land vehicles, or aerial bombs. In this form it would be inhaled by personnel. The amount necessary to cause death to a person inhaling the material is extremely small. It is estimated that one millionth of a gram accumulating in a person's body would be fatal. There are no known methods of treatment for such a casualty.
"Two factors appear to increase the effectiveness of radioactive dust or smoke as a weapon. These are: 1) It cannot be detected by the senses; 2) It can be distributed in a dust or smoke form so finely powdered that it will permeate a standard gas mask filter in quantities large enough to be extremely damaging. An off-setting factor in its effectiveness as a weapon is that in a dust or smoke form the material is so finely pulverized that it takes on the characteristic of a quickly dissipating gas and is therefore subject to all the factors (such as wind) working against maintenance of high concentrations for more than a few minutes over a given area....
"Areas so contaminated by radioactive dusts and smokes, would be dangerous as long as a high enough concentration of material could be maintained...they can be stirred up as a fine dust from the terrain by winds, movement of vehicles or troops, etc., and would remain a potential hazard for a long time....
"Particles larger than 1 micron in size are likely to be deposited in nose, trachea or bronchi and then be brought up with mucus on the walls at the rate of 1/2-1 cm/min. Particles smaller than 1 micron are more likely to be deposited in the alveoli where they will either remain indefinitely or be absorbed into the lympatics or blood." 10.

The Clouds of Hell: Baghdad, October 1, 2003

The Uranium Medical Research Centre, a nonprofit research group, sent a bold team of sample-collectors into Baghdad in the fall of 2003 to collect soil, water and urine samples for uranium contamination testing. Here is part of their report on the U.S. battlefield cleanup effort in Baghdad, October, 2003:

"The most disturbing circumstance was observed in the U.S. occupied base in south-western Baghdad in the Auweirj district. It is close to the International Airport and hosts one of the largest Coalition bases around Baghdad....The area was subject to considerable aerial bombing and rocket fire prior to the Coalition ground forces' arrival followed by several ground skirmishes along the main routes to the International Airport and western entrances to the city.
"Leaving the downtown core for Auweirj requires crossing one of the elevated bridges over the Tigris Rover. The raised bridge provides a long view towards the south/southwest. On October 1, the team's third day in Baghdad, this view was interrupted by an enormous dust cloud hovering over a several hectare area, rising upwards of 300 meters (1000 ft.). The cloud slowly traversed Auweirj...Auweirj contains a wealthy residential neighbourhood...Some of the highest overall ambient air and ground surface radioactivity readings were measured in Auweirj...
"As the team's vehicle approached Auweirj, the cloud was blanketing the Coalition-occupied base, depositing a layer of fresh dust on people, houses, automobiles, and the highway. We had to turn on the windshield wipers. Departing the Coalition-occupied base was a long, steady stream of tandem-axle dump trucks carrying full loads of sand, heading south away from the city. Returning from the south was a second stream of fully loaded dump trucks waiting to enter the base....The soil removal was lofting tonnes of fine, light dust into the local environment, which was then falling back to inundate square kilometores of residential neighbourhoods and Coalition occupied facilities." 11.

A Deadly Pack of Pentagon Lies: Michael Kilpatrick, M.D.

Representing the U.S. Department of Defense Iraq Deployment Health Support Directorate, Dr. Michael Kilpatrick made the following statements on March 14, 2003:

"Depleted uranium is 40 percent less radioactive than natural uranium around us. And so when it's outside the body it's just not an issue. It's only when it's internalized--either by inhaling the dust, the oxide, as Colonel Naughton said when there is penetration of armor, it does self-sharpen and it does create an oxide dust. And there are people who were in or on the vehicles that were struck in friendly fire, who did inhale that oxide, and we have not seen any medical consequence from that....
"When DU does strike armor and that oxide is created, it falls to the ground very quickly--usually within about a 50-meter range. As Colonel Naughton said, it's heavy. It's 1.7 times as heavy as lead. So even if it's a small dust particle, it's still very heavy. And it stays on the ground....
"Our studies in the United States over 15 years have not shown depleted uranium going from the soil into the groundwater. It just does not move from the round that is in the soil. And the bottom line is there is going to be no impact on the health of the people in the environment, or people who were there at the time it was shot."12.

The Vanishing Urine Samples
In 1991 the victorious Gulf War veterans returned outwardly unscathed from the Iraqi battlefields, having taken only small numbers of visible casualties. However, they had been exposed to a staggering array of toxins, including rushed vaccinations and breathable vapors from uranium munitions. That same year Dr. Asaf Durakovic, who at the time was also a Colonel in the U.S. Army, became aware that Major Doug Rokke, who had been doing cleanup work to remove U.S. military vehicles destroyed by "friendly fire" in Kuwait and Iraq, was seeking medical treatment for several U.S. and British soldiers who were showing a wide array of symptoms which suggested the possibility of poisoning by inhaled uranium oxides.
Both Maj. (also Dr.) Rokke and Col. Durakovic were under specific orders to protect U.S. troops from the health hazards of uranium munitions. Dr. Durakovic, Director of Nuclear Medicine at a VA hospital, immediately agreed to treat the sick troops. An expert in the toxicology of uranium and other radioactive materials, Dr. Durakovic took urine samples from the sick soldiers, and sent them by registered mail to a lab in Aberdeen, Maryland for analysis of uranium content, broken down into the different uranium isopopes, which could indicate the source of the contamination.
"The urine samples never arrived in Aberdeen," Dr.Durkovic recalled in a 2003 interview. "All my inquiries were futile. Patients had renal surgeries, they were very sick, and some died."
Dr. Durkovic then had to endure constant verbal attack from many quarters to continue his work of protecting U.S. troops from battlefield uranium vapor contamination. The same thing happened to Major Rokke.
Then began an internal struggle of the soul within the United States military establishment, as the impulse to find out the truth and protect human health gave way first to the deeper military instinct to cling to the superior metal of penetration at all costs, and now also to the chilling knowledge that everyone in a responsible position who has claimed that uranium munitions pose no significant chemical or radiologcal hazard to human or environmental health is potentially liable for damages and guilty of crimes under U.S. and international law.
Today, Dr. Asaf Durakovic and Major Doug Rokke, are two leaders of an international movement to stop the use of uranium munitions. As Director of the Uranium Medical Research Center, Dr. Durakovic brings his lifelong expertise in the medical effects of radiation to the field study of the leavings of uranium munitions in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere. Every serious student of the health and environmental effects of uranium munitions is well-advised to read Dr. Durakovic's two key articles, "Medical Effects of Internal Contamination With Radiation," and "Undiagnosed Illnesses and Radioactive Warfare." 14. These two scientific, peer-reviewed articles thick with references to actual research studies offer an ordinary person the best basis for sorting out the truth about the health effects of uranium munitions from the multitude of misunderstandings, lies and distortions.
Doug Rokke has become "The Flying Squirrel," his nickname as a B52 pilot in Vietnam, a short and very energetic speaker hopping, shouting and gesticulating in an Oct. 2,2003 speech before the Humboldt County, California, Veterans for Peace. Major Rokke believes a lot of his superior officers are lying war criminals who should be brought to prosecution, and he read written, signed orders and statements to lie and cover-up the horrible toxicity of uranium munitions. 15.

The Disappearing Medical Records
In 1995, Congressman Christopher Shays (R-CT), contacted his friend Robert Newman, a retired journalist, to help him investigate a strange new disease, or diseases, sweeing through Gulf War veterans.
"The Congressman was receiving a disturbing number of letters and e-mails from sick veterans in his district complaining that, when trying to get treatment at veterans hospitals, they were told, 'It's all in your head.' They weren't getting any help," Mr. Newman recalled in a 2001 interview. 16. Congressman Shays held fifteen hearings on what came to be called "Gulf War Syndrome" for the committe he chaired, the Subcommittee on Security, Veterans Issues, and International Relations, beginning March, 1996. After interviewing veterans and experts in various fields, the subcommittee concluded that Gulf War Syndrome was caused by radiation and/or chemical substances they encountered during their military service in Iraq, such as PB and untested vaccines they were forced to take.
"We learned that the medical records of nearly all the veterans had disappeared," Newman said. "For the five years or so it took Congress to launch this investigation, the Defense Department and Veterans Administration took their time responding to veterans who sought treatment or compensation. In the end, the requests were refused. At best, they took folks in but insisted the symptoms were just due to stress.." 17.

Disability Compensation Without Investigating Cause
In October, 1998, Congress passed two laws based on the findings of the 14 bipartisan members of Congressman Shay's subcommittee. "The gist of those laws," Robert Newman explained, "is this. One stipulates that even without medical records, the illneses of Gulf War veterans must be recognized as due to their service in the Middle East, and the Defense Department and the Veterans Administration are required to offer prompt and appropriate treatment and compensation. The other one...prohibits the administration of any experimental drugs to soldiers without their consent."
This law opened the way for the Veterans Administration to award full disability to 221,000 Gulf War veterans with a host of symptoms by September, 2002, with thousands of cases still pending. It also diverted attention away from any scientific inquiry into the causes of Gulf War Syndrome.
When Hiroshima newsman Akira Tashiro interviewed Robert Newman in 2001, he was still devoted to monitoring the Veterans Administration for just treatment and compensation for Gulf War Syndrome victims. "The laws are absolutely inadequate," Robert Newman said, because full treatment and compensation would cost an impossibly large sum of money. Based on what he had learned about the probable long-term medical effects of breathing battlefield uranium vapors, Newman expressed worries that, for the next ten years, cancer and neurological disorder will increase among Gulf War veterans. 18.

Mutant Science: The 1998 Rand Report
A prime example of what one might call "Mutant Science" --truth chopped up and spliced with lie to make the Big Institutional Lie--is the 1999 Rand Report which concluded, and I quote,
"Although any increase in radiation to the human body can be calculated to be harmful from extrapolation from higher levels, there are no peer reviewed published reports of detectable increases of cancer or other negative health effects from radiation exposure to inhaled or ingested natural uranium at levels far exceeding those likely in the Gulf. This is mainly because the body is very effective at eliminating ingested and inhaled natural uranium and because the low radioactivity per unit mass of natural uranium and DU means that the mass of uranium needed for significant internal exposure is virtually impossible to obtain....Large variations in exposure to radioactivity from natural uranium in the normal environment have not been associated with negative health effects." 19.
The 1999 Rand Report on Depleted Uranium, prepared by a research think-tank on contract with the U.S. Department of Defense, provides the "scientific basis" for the Pentagon's claim that uranium munitions pose no hazard to human health or the environment. It is a review of the literature, brushing aside such evidence as Major Rokke has gained by doing actual clean-up and testing of uranium munitions as not being "peer-reviewed published reports."
It says first, "any increase in radiation to the human body can be calculated to be harmful from extrapolation from higher levels." In reality, since 1991, worldwide evidence of horrific casualties with multiple symptoms has been found wherever uranium munitions have been used.
The lack of "peer-reviewed published reports" linking negative health effects to inhaled battlefield uranium vapors is a flat-out lie; see Dr. Durkavoic's two key studies referred to above.
"...the mass of uranium needed for significant internal exposure is virtually impossible to obtain." This is blatantly untrue, both because battlefield concentrations of uranium vapor are massive, and because even one minute particle of uranium oxide lodged inside a person's body can cause the destruction of dna in adjoining cells.

Toxic Forever, Radioactive for The Expected Lifetime of Earth
As the armies of the United States range across the Earth showering bullets, artillery rounds, bombs and missiles, it is known only to insiders what type of uranium is being used, how much, or where. Quoting the Rand report, "The material generally used by the U.S. Department of Defense is 40 percent less radioactive than natural uranium." 20. However, Uranium Medical Research Center field investigations found that natural uranium bombs and munitions had been used by the United States in Afghanistan during 2002, heavily contaminating the population and environment. 21. Even the March, 2003 Pentagon briefing on uranium munitions noted that some reactor-generated "transuranics" are used in uranium munitions, indicating that nuclear reactor waste is used in uranium munitions. 22.
Whether the munition is natural or so-called "depleted uranium", the tons of breathable, alpha-emitting uranium oxides being generated as I write will penetrate throughout the entire environment and remain, virtually undetectable, chemically and radioactively toxic for the lifetime of Earth.

The Big Lie is Institutional Truth, The Truth is Heresy: Dan Fahey and Dr. Robert Gould

Anyone seeking to rescue the human race from this ongoing suicide mission to permeate the biosphere with breathable uranium oxide particles is confronting one of the most elaborately constructed institutional lies in history.
Consider the work of Dan Fahey, "an independent policy analyst on the uses and effects of depleted uranium munitions." 23. Dan Fahey's credentials are similar to mine: I am also an independent policy analyst studying the health and environmental effects of using uranium munitions. I have a record of military analysis writing going back to my book "Ecology of Devastation: Indochina" (Penguin Books, 1972), an ecological analysis of the U.S. war in Indochina, including early information on the effects of the herbicide Agent Orange. Today I finance my research and writing with my cottage industry, the Mendocino Sea Vegetable Company.
Dr. Robert Gould, President of Physicians for Social Responsibility, recommended Dan Fahey as an authoritative expert on uranium munitions to me. In a phone conversation with me, Dr. Gould rejected the idea that uranium munitions pose a major danger to the human race. "It's not Hiroshima," he said. (In fact, the 320 tons or more of uranium munitions used in Iraq during the 1991 Gulf War constituted the greatest environmental release of vaporized radioactivity in human history until the recent hostilities in Afghanistan and Iraq, much greater than Hiroshima. 24.)

At an October, 2003, meeting of activists which I facilitated in Philo, California, Dr. Gould heard information brought by Humboldt County Veterans for Peace, who had just heard a speech and received information about uranium munitions from Dr. Doug Rokke.
Dr. Gould sent me this email message on November 19, 2003:
"As I mentioned at the teach-in, I believe that DU is a toxic material because of its heavy-metal and radioactive qualities, and I think it should be banned as a weapon, that there should be good studies of civilians and soldiers and that clean-up should proceed without waiting for the results of these studies. But I don't believe that DU is the most toxic material around (compared with highly radioactive waste, for example), and I think that much of the material presented at the teach-in is overstated based on available evidence and knowledge of the chemistry, and when so presented, obscures other significant potential contributors to observed health effects (oil fires and leaks, release of CW agents from warfare, the legacy of dirty Iraqi industrialization, immunization of troops, nutritional effects of sanctions, etc.) Particularly since most of 'us' will agree on 'what needs to be done,' I remain puzzled by the apparent need for many in the progressive movement to put out such limited monocausal 'science' to convince people, since there are abundant credible arguments (as in the Dan Fahey material I sent you prior to the meeting) that better make the points."
Reading Dan Fahey's initial assessment on uranium munitions used in Iraq during 2003, this researcher has concluded that I am witnessing the Big Institutional Lie being used to delude, and to keep the uranium munitions reform movement from making any serious efforts to stop the use of uranium munitions.
Dan Fahey's assessment begins by noting that although "there is little known about the actual quantities of DU released or the locations of contamination, it appears approximately 100 to 200 netric tons was shot at tanks, trucks, buildings and people in largely densely populated areas." As Tedd Weyman noted in the "Iraq Gulf War II Field Investigation Report," "there is a significant discrepancy between the independent reports that rely on official government and defence department numbers (i.e. 100-200 metric tonnes) and the 1000 to 2000 metric tonnes of DU attributed to estimates by unnamed United Nations Environment Program and Pentagon sources." 26.
Mr. Fahey denounced the "pre-war propaganda" of lies used by the White House and Pentagon early in 2003 "to justify the use of DU munitions as a military necessity, and to dismiss concerns about the health and environmental effects of the use of DU munitions." Quoting a January 2003 White House report which stated that "scientists working for the World Health Organization, the UN Environmental Program, and the European Union could find no health effects linked to exposure to depleted uranium," Dan Fahey noted that "scientists from these organizations never looked for health effects linked to exposure in DU in any post-combat environment." Fahey went on to document several of the lies used by Dr. Michael Kilpatrick at the March 14, 2003 press conference on uranium munitions, which, he wrote, "perhaps reflected an urgency to deflect criticism and concern about DU on the eve of war."27.
Mr. Fahey's vigorous critique of the Big Pentagon Lie that uranium munitions pose no major hazard to human or environmental health is followed by an equally vigorous assertion of that lie. Mr. Fahey does not want to see uranium munitions banned, or use of uranium munitions stopped. Dan Fahey's policy recommendations are limited to better informing U.S. troops about uranium munitions, bioassays of U.S. troops with extreme battlefield exposure, revelation of when and where uranium munitions have been used, cleanup of "DU sites," and more studies of the problem. Mr.Fahey urges a health assessment of all the troops who, in his estimate, were extremely exposed to uranium munitions in 1991, who, he wrote, are just 900 in number. 28.
Then Dan Fahey's report attacks "anti-DU activists and people using the DU issue to further other political agendas or raise money." First, Mr. Fahey quotes an unnamed source from the "UK Green Party" making various unfounded claims about uranium munitions. Then he tars Drs. Doug Rokke and Asaf Durakovic with the same brush, to discredit and dismiss their devoted life's work to discover and reveal the true health effects of uranium munitions. Dan Fahey accuses Doug Rokke of making "exaggerated and unsubstantiated claims." 29.
Then comes this blood-chilling paragraph by Dan Fahey, independent researcher on depleted uranium munitions:
"The old myth that large quantities of DU are used in missiles and bombs has taken a new twist with the claim that 'non-depleted uranium' is being secretly used in hard target, deep penetration, and DBHT (deeply buried hard target) weapons that combine uranium with high explosives. Citing unspecified 'government reports and independent research,' the Uranium Medical Research Centre (UMRC) claims these new warheads contain '100s to1000s of kilograms' of uranium that is 'extracted from the nuclear fuels and nuclear weapons production cycles prior to the uranium enrichment phase.' UMRC claims that secret use of uranium is responsible for illnesses in Afghanistan, but this assertion is undermined by the lack of any evidence that any missiles or bombs used in Afghanistan contain any natural or depleted uranium." 30.

Is The United States Military Using Uranium in Bombs and Missiles?

The full scope of U.S. military use of uranium munitions is secret. So how the hell does Dan Fahey, an independent researcher like me, know that it is an unsubstantiated "myth" that uranium is used by the U.S. in bombs and missiles?
The Uranium Medical Research Centre discovery that non-depleted uranium was used in bullets and bombs in Afghanistan is based on field work and sophisticated urine analysis for the different isotopes of uranium. First the UMRC found that the isotope content indicated natural uranium contamination in Afghanistan, not depleted uranium. Testing further, the UMRC found ceramic uranium in the urine of Afghans, indicating that the extreme heat of burning munitions had produced the uranium. This, according to Dr. Durakovic, has made some Afghan valleys permanently uninhabitable. 31.
Dr. Doug Rokke also is sure there is uranium in many of the bombs and missiles used by US armed forces today. His evidence and proof? Here's a verbatim email Dr. Rokke sent me on April 2, 2004: "Primary on-site radiological measurements, photo, video, direct observations, and discussions with military personnel verify DU is in all of these weapons--from 50 cal through bunker busters. And heck, we did a lot of work too."
Major Rokke has been taken part in U.S. military uranium munitions testing, clean-up, and remediation efforts since 1991. Here is his current list of uranium munitions used in weapons, part of his May 4, 2004 article titled "Immediate Action Required on Depleted Uranium":
"DU is used to manufacture kinetic energy penetrators- giant pencils or rods. Each kinetic penetrator consists of almost entirely uranium 238. The United States munitions industry produces the following DU munitions with the corresponding mass of uranium 238:
7.62 mm with unspecified mass
50 caliber with unspecified mass
20 mm with a mass of approximately 180 grams.
25 mm with a mass of approximately 200 grams.
30 mm with a mass of approximately 280 grams.
105 mm with a mass of approximately 3500 grams.
120 mm with a mass of approximately 4500 grams.
Sub-munitions / land mines such as the PDM and ADAM whose structural bodies contain a small proportion of DU.
Cruise missiles with unknown quantity of DU
Bunker buster bombs with unknown quantity of DU. 32.

A Call to Action: Stop Using Uranium Munitions Now!

In today's competition for attention to issues, the issue of uranium munitions is easily buried and forgotten. Dr. Robert Gould, President of the Physicians for Social Responsibility, advised me to worry about something more dangerous like "high-level radioactive waste" in the email quoted above. In order to cause effective change, groups such as Veterans for Peace and Physicians for Social Responsibility will need to focus on uranium munitions, and organize long-term, relentless campaigns to end the use of uranium munitions. Is this going to happen?
The only Congressional bill dealing with the hazards of uranium munitions--the "Depleted Uranium Munitions Study Act of 2003" (HR 1483, sponsored by Rep. McDermott)--is, in my view, not worthy of support. In calling only for studies of the problem and cleaup of US uranium munitions test sites, it deludes and defuses the worldwide effort to halt the ongoing catastrophe of uranium munition use.
How likely is it that the U.S. military, fully committed to uranium munitions and uranium armor as state-of-the-art, involved in shooting wars in several nations worldwide now--how likely is it that they are going to drop their radioactive munitions and be like "Kelly's Heroes" again, with the second-best metal of war in the world?
I actually dropped the topic in despair last fall, until I heard that my future son-in-law was about to be deployed to Iraq with his private company. Now we're talking about the genetic integrity of my bloodline! So I tossed off a brief piece, "Do Not Force Our Children to Breathe Uranium!" My daughter's fiance quit that job and stayed out of Iraq.
It is time for everyone on Earth to stop using uranium munitions now! A campaign of nonviolent noncooperation, informed by group effort, seems the most effective strategy. The Big Institutional Lie is going to keep uranium munitions poisoning people and environments for some time, but we can, in small and big ways, refuse to pull the trigger on uranium munitions.

Notes

1.John Lewallen is a writer and peace activist focused in 2004 on uranium munitions and their health and environmental consequences. His published books include "Ecology of Devastation: Indochina" (Penguin Books, 1972), and "High-Altitude Nuclear War" (NuclearPress.com, 2002), an analysis of today's great-power nuclear weapons confrontation available from Amazon.com Books. He supports himself with income from his cottage industry, the Mendocino Sea Vegetable Company, and maintains the website .

2. "Briefing on Depleted Uranium," Colonel James Naughton, March 14, 2003 . The use of 320 tons of uranium munitions in Iraq during the 1991 Gulf War is a U.S. Department of Defense estimate. An authoritative Iraqi estimate is that 800 tons of uranium munitions were used by the U.S. and allied forces during the 1991 war, with more than 300 tons used in western Basra, Iraq (Dr. Jawad Al-Ali, Director of the Oncology Center, Basra, Iraq, "Effects of wars and the use of depleted uranium on Iraq," Japan Peace Conference, Naha, Okinawa, Jan.29-Feb.1, 2004 .

3."Briefing on Depleted Uranium," March 2003.

4. "Memorandum to:Brigadier General L.R. Groves, from Drs. Conant, Compton, and Urey," Oct. 30, 1943, declassified June 5, 1974, supplied by Major Doug Rokke , hereinafter referred to as the "Groves Memo."

5."RAND Report on Depleted Uranium," RAND, 1999, p.4, hereinafter referred to as the "RAND Report" .

6. Durakovic, Asaf, "Undiagnosed Illnesses and Radioactive Warfare," Croatian Medical Journal, Vol.44, No.5, 2003, pps. 520-532.

7. See the National Gulf War Resource Center website for the latest Veterans Affairs disability statistics .

8. "Briefing on Depleted Uranium, 2003."

9. John Pike, , page on "Depleted Uranium," is my source for this thumbnail history of uranium munitions as a super-metal.

10. Groves Memo.

11. Weyman, Tedd, Iraq Field Team Lead, "Abu Khasib to Ah'qua: Iraq Gulf War II Field Investigation Report" , p. 14.

12. "Briefing on Depleted Uranium, 2003."

13. Dr. Asaf Durakovic, audio interview, 2003 .

14. Durakovic, Asaf, "Medical Effects of Internal Contamination With Uranium," Croatian Medical Journal, Vol. 40, No. 1, March, 1999; and "Undiagnosed Illnesses and Radioactive Warfare," Croatian Medical Journal, Vol.44, No.5, 2003, pps. 520-532.

15. Major Doug Rokke, Oct. 2,2003 speech for Veterans for Peace, Humboldt County, California, on video.

16. Tashiro, Akira, "Discounted Casualties: The Human Cost of Depleted Uranium," published 2001 in Hiroshima, Japan, by The Chugoku Shimbun, p. 34.

17. Ibid., p. 35.

18. Ibid.

19. Rand Report, Chapter 3, p. 1.

20. Rand Report, p. 2.

21. Durakovic, Asaf, "Undiagnosed Illnesses and Radioactive Warfare," section on "Afghanistan Uranium Studies."

22. "Briefing on Depleted Uranium," March, 2003.

23. Fahey, Dan, "The Use of Depleted Uranium in the 2003 Iraq War: An Initial Assessment of Information and Policies," June 24, 2003, available at .

24. Durakovic, Asaf, "Undiagnosed Illnesses and Radioactive Warfare."

25. Fahey, Dan, op. cit., p.1.

26. Weyman, Tedd, op. cit., p.11.

27. Fahey, Dan, op. cit., p.2.

28. Ibid., pp.8-10.

29. Ibid., p.11.

30. Ibid., p.12.

31. Dr.Asaf Durakovic, audio interview, 2003, available at .

32. Major Doug Rokke,"Immediate Action Required on Depleted Uranium," May 4, 2004.

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Mendocino, CA 95460

Revenge of Red America

As long as the Potus (President of the United States) had merely been selected, his disasterous decisions and unprovoked aggression against other nations, did not reflect badly on the American people. It could be argued that they did not know what he would do.
However, now that twenty-five percent of eligible voters supported him at the polls and fity percent chose to go along, the majority of the American people must take responsibility for the damage done in their name. And it's a real shame.
How did we come to this?

What I have about concluded is that Red America has taken its Revenge. For what you ask?
Well, how about the fact that, except for the quadrennial election hype, their concerns have been virtually ignored?
How about the fact that while the coastal regions have become more vibrant and thriving, "fly-over country," as it is often referred to in D.C., is continuing to lose population; their children are moving away because the opportunities down on the farm are few and getting fewer; and any newcomers are the "wrong kind of people," illegal immigrants who are often the wrong color and don't share the values of people who want things to be as they were?
How about the fact that small businesses have virtually disappeared from most towns and hamlets and the regional Walmart, which promised to feature American products with pride, has renegged and flooded the market with cheap imports from China?
How about the fact that the transportation system (bus, train and plane) has been almost completely dismantled? What is Red America supposed to think when it comes to have a look how its taxes are spent in D.C. and finds that all the assets it used to enjoy have been relocated to the coasts?
While we might like to think that people who are hurting are not inclined to inflict injury on those who aren't, that's not how it actually works. When people are hurting, it actually makes them feel better to know that others are feeling their pain.
So, what I would argue is that the vote for the Republican Potus is not an endorsement. Rather it's a calculated act of revenge, based on the perception that the coastal regions still haven't understood the devastation in the heartland. At least, if their off-spring are killed and maimed in Iraq, they'll have the satisfaction of knowing that they count.

War Crime Potus

One of the columnists in the Boston Globe this morning makes the point that
our potus sees the world in black and white. He's got it exactly right.
But, it isn't a matter of ethical certainty; it's a matter of reinforcing
the moral values (inherent superiority) of whites.

When a couple of white cops in Cleveland can look at long lines of voters,
waiting patiently in the rain to punch their ballots, and call them all
"felons," then it's pretty clear what the new euphemisms really mean.
I, for one, have absolutely no interest in being "united" with the crooks
that are running this country. The potus is a convicted war criminal and
needs to be shunned. And every single legislative and judicial initiative
his cronies come up with needs to be opposed.
I am not crying in my tea cups, not even on my key-board. And I'm not
angry. I am disgusted and ashamed that three quarters of the people in this
country (the 25% that voted for him and the 50% that stayed home) have now
given their seal of approval. May they come to regret it sooner, rather
than later. No matter how often they shout it, American is no longer number
one--it has joined the long line of countries whose leadership is corrupt.
At least now we will learn what that really means.

Security Disgust

I am so tired of hearing about security. Twenty years ago when I was first running for public office in Florida, that was the issue recommended to me by the city manager. I was too naive then to realize that his interest lay in getting rid of a pesky citizen who kept questioning his recommendations to the City Commission.

I lost the race and continued to bother the bureaucrats, as an elected official, who's role is restricted to acting in concert with a majority of his/her colleagues, is incapable of doing. Having discovered the advantage held by the lone citizen, I only ran for office when it was certain I would lose but could make a point by participating in the political discussion.

Security is a condition experienced by people who are either locked in their houses or in some sort of public facility. Government officials prefer a "secured" situation because that makes it easy to know where people are at.

On the other hand, insecurity or a concern for one's safety is most often a consequence of government officials having scared the citizenry nearly to death. It doesn't take much. I can clearly recall a bright Sunday morning when out stroll through an historic African American neighborhood was interrupted by a police van whose occupants were quick to advise that we "shouldn't be walking through this dangerous neighborhood." The idea that, if they knew of actual specific dangerous people, they should have already arrested them, instead of trying to scare us away, seemed entirely foreign to their thinking.

Things seem not to have changed much. Witness the account in the previous post where white police officers post themselves at a polling place to provide "security" to poll volunteers who had absolutely no inkling that there was any threat to their safety around--and had more than six hours of experience to back them up.

Of course, security and safety are not quite the same thing. Things and people that are "secured" are not thereby assured that they won't be attacked. Indeed, as most residents of "secure" facilities (mental hospitals, crisis facilities and jails) will readily attest, the indicence of aggression against them is generally rather high. If people can't get out, more often than not, their condition is similar to that of the sitting duck.

All of which leads one to suspect that calls for security in Iraq have nothing to do with preventing aggression against the indigenous population. Rather, what it means is that there, as here, the ideal is for people to stay at home and wait for instructions and do what they are told. In other words, security is the obverse of liberty. Why people should prefer the former to the latter is beyond me.

God, Guns and Gays

Howard Dean, erstwhile candidate for President of the United States, clearly stated that electoral contests ought not to revolve around god, guns and gays. But, there seems to be a wide-spread consensus that's exactly what happened. The question is why? What's the connection between god, guns and gays, other than that these three one-syllable words all begin with the letter 'g'?

Gods, regardless of whether or not they are real, are obviously superior beings whom man aspires to emulate. The question is how? And that's where the gun comes in. Guns, just the latest version of any weapon which allows him to extend his power and reach, enable man to threaten or exterminate any man who might refuse to recognize or challenge his god-like superiority.

But what does this have to do with gays? Well, the fact is that, in addition to the use of weapons to threaten or dominate other men, man has traditionally defined his superiority in his relationship to women. That is, in the union between a man and a woman, the relationship was that of a superior to an inferior. The inferiority of women being clearly evident from the fact that they are not men.

It is this relationship of superior to inferior that is threatened by the union of same-sex individuals, male or female. It is a threat that is not just theoretical because if some individuals can find mutual and social support as equals, then the inequality enshrined in traditional heterosexual unions becomes both more obvious and less likely to be accepted. Given an options of choosing between being subservient and being free, most people are likely to prefer freedom, thereby undermining the very principle of superiority upon which society is assumed to be based.

If society is made up of superiors and inferiors then relationships based on the equality of individuals, regardless of gender, are indeed a threat to the traditional arrangements.

On the other hand, Howard Dean was mistaken when he argued that the people, whose interests have traditionally been encapsulated in the terminology of gods, guns and gays, have a greater interest in education and health coverage for their children. If their children were really a priority concern, they would bust their buts to satisfy these interests, instead of going out and acquiring another gun and another pick-up.

Health coverage for children is a social interest and arises out of the recognition that disease is infectious and a threat to everyone with whom sick children come in contact. The only thing superior men want FROM their children, rather than FOR their children, is their obedience. And, since sickly children are less likely to be able to do what they are told, they might as well be left to expire. Ditto for the women who get worn out by their reproductive efforts. There's no need for divorce, if women die prematurely and can be replaced by a sturdier substitute.

If this interpretation is correct, that the traditional value being protected is the "natural" superiority of the male, then what's truly objectionable about gays is their commitment to an egalitarian existence. Whether this is a civil rights issue is questionable. The notion that some humans are naturally superior and others are inferior is not likely to be change by writing some new laws. Of course, if we don't even recognize that traditional social organization assumes that some people are naturally superior to others, inequality is bound to persist.

The question we should be asking is whether society is better off supporting relationships in which the participants assume unequal positions, or those in which the participants are exactly the same. I would, of course, argue that the latter are preferable. Inequality can only be sustained by a greater or lesser amount of force or coercion and societies which have to rely on the use of force are bound to be unstable in the long run. On the other hand, humans are social creatures and regardless of how often particular social organizations collapse, others are sure to take their place.

Way To Win

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Mark Crispin Miller: 'Reality always wins'
Posted on Monday, November 01 @ 10:24:44 EST
Bush/Cheney have to lose, as all such crackpot movements must. In fact, it wouldn't be inaccurate to call them losers ? as that is clearly how, deep down, they see themselves, for all their would-be macho swagger.

By Mark Crispin Miller, AlterNet
The aide said that guys like me were "in what we call the reality-based community."... I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. "That's not the way the world really works anymore," he continued. "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality ? judiciously, as you will ? we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors ... and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.'
-- Ron Suskind talking to senior Bush advisor, The New York Times Magazine
If there's a fair election on Tuesday, the Democrats will win it by a country mile. On the other hand, if Bush/Cheney manage to subvert the race again, their dominion will go on and on. The right intends to rule not just for "four more years," but for as long as it will take the rest of America to drive them out. At this great fight we will prevail, eventually, because Bush/Cheney's project is impossible. They can't reverse the course of history. They cannot contradict reality.

The world is what it is, however vehement their prayers. It doesn't matter how much slack the American press will keep on cutting them, or how insistently their pre-selected audiences keep cheering at them, or how "resolved" Bush keeps on saying he is. All their brutal steps and brilliant fakery will only lead them to the same gigantic bone yard where so many other glorious crusades have ended up.

Bush/Cheney have to lose, as all such crackpot movements must. In fact, it wouldn't be inaccurate to call them losers ? as that is clearly how, deep down, they see themselves, for all their would-be macho swagger. Here they are, completely dominant in all three branches of the federal government, triumphant in state legislatures coast to coast, and over-represented all throughout the corporate media; and yet they always sound like livid also-rans, compulsively attacking those whom they've already beaten. Sitting through their last convention, with its incessant nastiness and choral jeering, you would never know that the Republicans had been declared the winners of the previous election. Like Nixon, they cannot help but play the rabid underdog, always right yet somehow always wronged.

So if they're such a bunch of losers, how did they get so far so fast? How is it that they seem to be beyond us, leaving us all feeling paralyzed and stranded, here in "the reality-based community"? How did we let it happen? And what does it portend for the United States, and all the world, after Election Day?

From the get-go, this incredible regime has seized the state in broad daylight, while at the same time very deftly hiding it. Bush/Cheney have half-masked their subversive coup not just by planning it behind closed doors (this regime being, of course, more secretive than any other in our history), but, more fundamentally, by catering to the Establishment's desire to see no evil.

When governments go mad, not many eminent observers will allow themselves even to see it, much less comment on it. Rather than shout out the awful truth ? i.e., that the emperor is not just naked, but insane ? those with large investments in the status quo would much prefer to hold that there's a method to the madness, that the man on top is crazy like a fox ("Come on, he's only saying that, to please his base!"), or that he's just a figurehead, with wiser others close at hand to keep him an eye on him. To claim otherwise would be alarmist and naive, while those professionals in the know know better than to think that what has obviously happened here has obviously happened here. Thus the pundit comes across as a more reasonable person than those scary few who tell the truth out loud; and yet that soothing view is founded less on any rational analysis than on the pundit's sense of his own rationality, which he projects, complacently, onto the zealots at the top.

Such calming fantasy is surely not unique to high-end bloviators. All of us are prone to see things as we'd rather see them; and so it's only natural that most of us have looked away, and tried to change the subject, as the world has taken this apocalyptic turn. Of course, American democracy depends upon the press to counteract this self-delusive tendency; and yet the American press has been especially resolved not to perceive the clear and present danger. So have the Democrats, despite their formal status as the opposition party. Unrestrained by any check or balance, then, the Bushevik machine has rolled right over us, so that we're almost out of breath, just at the moment when we need to scream our loudest at this fatal pressure.

Many good Americans have clammed up not because the Busheviks have cunningly concealed their revolutionary program: on the contrary. It is Bush/Cheney's very brazenness that has long awed the opposition into silence. First of all, the rational have often been intimidated by the sheer outrageousness of Bush & Co.'s deeds and claims:
The president remembers 9/11, and takes great pride in what he did that day.
What? Bush? George W. Bush ? who, although forewarned repeatedly, did nothing to prevent the terrorist attacks, and ran away on 9/11, and later worked like mad to stop, then thwart, a full inquiry?
This nation is now safer, thanks to Bush.
This nation? Safer? With a president whose henchmen purposely exposed an intel agent dedicated to preventing terrorists from sneaking bio-weapons, poison gas and atom bombs into this country? A president who has done almost nothing to secure our ports, borders, tunnels, railways, highways, airways, nuclear reactors and petro-chemical facilities? A president who might as well be working as the top recruitment officer for the international Islamist movement?

We have been daunted not just by the scale of Bush & Co.'s transgressions, but also by their stunning quantity. How could anyone keep up with so profuse a record of big lies and gigantic wrongs? No previous White House, however tarnished, could approach Bush/Cheney's for the scope or the diversity of its corruption: not McKinley's, not Harding's, not even Nixon's, not Ronald Reagan's (contrary to the rightist propaganda, Clinton's was among the least corrupt administrations in modern history). Nor has any prior leadership ? in this country, at any rate ? so often said one thing and then done differently, or claimed the opposite of what it actually had done. From the moment they siezed power, just after having posed as "moderate" and/or "conservative" for months, Bush/Cheney hit the ground goose-stepping, making every revolutionary change they could, and just as readily lying about every one. To find a government of comparable perverseness would require that we depart the realm of history altogether, and turn instead to George Orwell's nightmarish Oceania, where Bush's "Healthy Forests" and "Clear Skies," his "Help America Vote Act" and his "culture of life," and all his automatic plaudits for "democracy" and "freedom," would sound just as natural as they sound demented in the world we live in now.

In the face of so perverse a movement, what can any reasonable person say? While argument against it is essential, arguing with it is impossible, as it does not share with us any premises of rational exchange. To all points of dissent, it says, "Who cares what you think?" To all contrary evidence, it says, "I believe what I believe is right." And to the offer that we might at least agree to disagree, it says: "Go fuck yourself." Rage is finally all there is to it; and so there is more to do than just rage back at it, as that alone will only keep them going and ourselves stuck in an endless shouting match, in which we're always made to sound defensive, although in the right.

We're forced into this posture because Bush & Co. control the cameras and the microphones, and write the daily scripts, and therefore get to speak out first, and have the last word, too. But it is not just through such institutional advantage that Team Bush keeps its would-be prosecutors up against the wall. The Busheviks forever cloud the issue, and try to sieze the high ground, by projecting onto everybody else the raging evil that they feel within themselves.

This is, on the one hand, an exquisitely disorienting ploy: the criminals imputing their own criminality to those whom they have robbed and beaten and would surely kill if they could get away with it. In the heat of battle (which is all the time, as far as they're concerned), such pre-emptive noisy indignation fools a lot of people into thinking that the innocent are guilty and vice versa, as when Bush accuses Kerry of endangering the troops, or when Cheney claims that Edwards doesn't care about the safety of the nation. It is a most effective tactic, and therefore one that always must be thwarted and exposed ? ? and now especially, as the Busheviks, demonstrably intent (again) on stealing the election, are charging that the Democrats are trying to steal it.

What have Bush/Cheney not done in their struggle to protract their reign against the will of the electorate? The endless trickery in Florida, where the Bush-controlled electoral machine has been reformed in no way since 2000; the activities of Sproul & Associates in Colorado, West Virginia, Oregon, New Mexico, Nevada, North Dakota, Arizona, Pennsylvania and wherever else the firm was hired by the Republicans to disenfranchise Democratic voters through the use of bogus "registration drives"; the theft of sensitive computer files from Democratic offices in Akron and Toledo, among other places; the vanishing of tens of thousands of absentee ballots sent from Democratic precincts; the RNC's employment of a multitude of goons to drive off Democratic voters on Election Day; these and many other problems or anomalies are solid evidence of a Republican conspiracy ? and yet it is Republicans who are complaining of a Democratic plot to do that very thing.

Far more concerned, as usual, with "balance" than with truth, or with the health of this republic, the American press has largely failed to give these scandals the attention they require, preferring instead to warn feebly of the danger "on both sides," as if just one side were not doing it.

Thanks to journalistic gutlessness, Bush/Cheney's election theft tactics may succeed. If so, it will succeed because it is not just a tactic. Those who rant about a Democratic plot, or many of those mad Republicans, may well believe that they are threatened by the ruthless forces of John Kerry ? just as Bush apparently believes that "freedom's on the march" both in Iraq and in Afghanistan, or just as Cheney may be telling what he thinks to be the truth when he insists that there are horrid weapons to be found eventually beneath the sands of outer Babylon. Paranoids make winning propaganda, but it is never finally clear, to them or anybody else, just how much of their own spin is mere pretense on their part, and how much they believe sincerely. That very ambiguity, in fact, may help explain why such ferocious propaganda often is so catastrophically successful. When the Nazis did their rabble-rousing, were they not themselves among the rabble they were rousing? When the Islamists deliberately use Bush's war on the Iraqis in their propaganda for worldwide jihad, are they not convinced of their own righteousness?

Bush/Cheney also are, of course, supreme manipulators; and yet they too are also true believers. Their projective impulse, then, is more than just a clever tactic, but, as well, a symptom of their paranoid world view.

To make such rancorous and demonizing propaganda, then, one must have a little of that demon in oneself. But do real democrats, or true republicans, require such propaganda? Have Bush/Cheney sped so far ahead of us because theirs is the only way to win? If so, we might as well give up. If we should ever try to see things as Bush/Cheney does, that effort to be like them would destroy us just as surely as their victory itself would do us in. Far from imitating them, this approach to governance must be opposed in its totality. We must answer every falsehood with the truth, and do so with the necessary moral force of righteous indignation. And this cathartic process must begin with a frank definition of the danger that the people face. We in "the reality-based community" believe whole-heartedly in this community, and fully honor that reality; and that reality today includes the threat of Christo-fascism. That movement is opposed to everything that this republic stands for: free thought, free speech, freedom of religion, freedom of assembly, popular self-government, the right to vote, equality before the law and the pursuit of happiness.

In defense of these essential rights, Bush/Cheney and their followers must be thwarted and contained. This fight cannot be won by arguing with them, because they won't engage in argument, or even tolerate it. Nor can it be won by merely raging at them, as such anger only serves to make them madder. The way to victory is to stand up and say no to them, and tell them that the rest of us stand proudly for the visionary line of our forefathers. Like Jefferson and Madison, we know that this world can and must be bettered for the sake of all who live here now, and all who will live after us. Such optimism is the very spirit of America, however painfully we are divided at this moment.

© 2004 Independent Media Institute.

Reprinted from AlterNet:
http://www.alternet.org/election04/20360/

Marcie Speaks in Iowa

Marcie Stout's Letter to President Bush

Dear President Bush,

I am writing you this letter to explain to you, in simple terms from one
simple American to another, why you will not be receiving my vote in this
election.

I know, I know. It must be heart wrenching for you to be losing a
democratic woman?s vote in a swing state. I?m sure you will lose all of
about five seconds of sleep knowing I won?t vote for you. And that?s ok.

But at the very least, I feel compelled to let you know why you are
losing it.

You see, Mr. President, back in 2000 when I voted for you, you made me
one promise: you were going to restore honor and dignity to the White
House. After facing long months of hearing about President Clinton?s
Oval Office infidelity and the non-stop barrage of news covering the
impeachment process, I was ready for a leader that would have the honor
and decency to tell the truth to the American people, regardless of how
difficult it was. I was ready for a leader who would make me proud to
be an American. Mr. President, you haven?t fulfilled your promise. Not
only have you let me and my fellow Americans down, but you have done this
world a tremendous disservice.

In all fairness, I should tell you that there were select moments that
you did make me feel like I could trust you. When you stood on TV with
tears in your eyes and in the rubble of the towers, I felt your genuine
emotion for that moment. When you promised you would do whatever it took
to get the people who orchestrated that horrible event (Osama bin Laden
in case you forgot). When you went into Afghanistan to get Bin Laden
like you promised and remove the Taliban regime (which you knew was
sponsoring and/or facilitating terrorist training camps). After 9/11,
you acted swiftly and decisively and I believed in you.

Then came weeks, months and now years of not finding Osama bin Laden and
you changed your story and said "I don?t really care where he is." ARE
YOU KIDDING ME? How can you say you don?t really care where the world?s
most wanted and dangerous terrorist is? He claimed responsibility for
killing over 3,000 of our people and YOU DON?T CARE WHERE HE IS? It was
that moment ? the moment when you changed YOUR story (I think your
administration calls that "flip-flopping") that I knew you couldn?t be
trusted. Then came the quagmire of Iraq. This supplemented by your white
trash "bring em? on" Texas rhetoric taunting the terrorists when our
soldiers are being blasted apart with roadside bombs.

Now here we are less than 9 days away from what is being coined as the
most important election of our lifetime. You have spent the greater part
of this election attacking your opponent--you claim he is unfit for command
because he "changes his mind all the time political gain" and the 527 groups
you claim not to support attack him for his record in Vietnam.

Allow me to give you my
opinion on why I disagree with your assessment of John Kerry, why I think
you have failed miserably as Commander-in-Chief, and why on November 2nd,
John Kerry will be the new President of the United States.

The truth is, you attack John Kerry to divert the attention away from the
fact that you are a stubborn a#s (in all fairness to your party, I should
say elephant?s a#s) who won?t admit when he?s made a mistake.
You prey on the fears of Americans that change in government could cause
another terror attack.

So, what happens when you can?t be re-elected in 2008? Should we amend
the Constitution so you can STEAL every election until you die since you
are obviously the only person who can protect us from terrorists?

John Kerry is not a so-called "flip-flopper". You distort the fact that
he voted for the war then and now he?s against it. He and the other 400+
members of Congress only had ONE POSITION: they believed YOU! John Kerry
believed you when you said the threat was real. He voted to give you the
AUTHORITY to use force if necessary. He did not vote for you to ABUSE
THAT AUTHORITY and wage war WITHOUT A PLAN FOR PEACE and a TRUE COALITION to help us.

I know, I know. Darn me for forgetting to show my ever-lasting
appreciation for the handful of troops and peanuts other countries have
sent. And damn the French too. God knows they?ve NEVER helped us out
when we needed a hand before (see also: the chapter in your 8th grade
history book about the American Revolution). Darn me for not thanking
Poland and their 2400 troops (whom you so adamantly reminded John Kerry
of during the first debate).

But hey, I don?t blame you for not wanting to die in a useless war like
Vietnam. Only now you?re sending our sons, daughters, mothers and
fathers off to be wounded and/or killed in another one. Tell me, Mr.
President, how will you allow them to be treated when they get home?
Will they be "injured enough" mentally and physically to receive medical
care? Will you help their families make ends meet when they suffer from
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and cannot function to work? Will our
VA?s be fully functional and well staffed to deal with the wounded
soldiers (8000 of them and climbing daily), many of who have lost limbs?
How can we trust you when you haven?t ever seen the horrors they?ve seen?

It doesn?t matter how you spin it, John Kerry has.

And how dare you lead the American people to believe that John Kerry
doesn?t care about our security and troop safety. In the debates, you
condemned him for voting against your $87-billion dollar misappropriated
MONEY PIT. You honestly expect us to believe that a man who has been
shot at in real life combat wouldn?t want other troops to have the body
armor and supplies they need? John Kerry voted against it the funding AS
IT WAS WRITTEN in that bill. Of course he wanted our troops to be
protected, but does that also mean that you get a $20 billion dollar
slush fund for no-bid contracts which was also lumped into that bill?
Our troops need to be protected and John Kerry knows that-- LEST YOU
FORGET WHO SENT THEM OVER TO IRAQ WITHOUT THE PROPER EQUIPMENT AND ARMOR TO BEGIN WITH?

You and Dick Cheney have stated that John Kerry has "consistently come
down on the wrong side of law enforcement and national security issues".
I know you?re hoping that the sheep of America won?t take the time to do
the research on your bulls---. Well, in less than 5 minutes on the US
Senate homepage, I found 2 pieces of legislation that John Kerry voted FOR
that you failed to mention:

Amendment to S429
To provide additional pay and benefits for active duty, guard, and
reserve forces, such as augmenting Imminent Danger Pay and Family
Separation allowance, and for modernization of equipment, weapons, and
technology needs of the National Guard and Reserves in recognition of
those currently involved in conflict Operations and the needs of their
family members left behind.

Amendment to S418
To raise the caps and provide direct first responder funding to
localities and for high threat areas through the Department of Homeland
Security's Office of Domestic Preparedness in 2003 and 2004, to restore
funding for the Edward Byrne Memorial State and Local Law Enforcement Act
("Byrne Grant" program) and the Local Law Enforcement Block Grant
Program, and to reduce the deficit, by reducing the size of newly
proposed tax cuts.

During the debates and throughout your presidency, you?ve espoused that
every child conceived has a right to be born into this world. Assuming
that?s true, what then can we offer them once they?re here? A stray
"smart bomb" that veers into their mosque or schoolhouse? Or perhaps you
just were talking about the right of American children to be born. What
then, do we have to offer our own children? A world where everyone hates
us? A world where we can do whatever we want, take what isn?t ours to
take and impose our will on every nation we possibly can all in the name
of "freedom"?

I know you claim we?re making progress in Iraq, Mr. President, but a
great deal of Americans don?t see it that way. And on November 2nd when
the majority of American people decide it?s time you head back to
Crawford to find another job, try not to be too hard on yourself. I
mean, lots of people lose their jobs. I?ve seen people get fired
for missing $10.00 out of their cash drawer at the local Dairy Queen.
You just happened to have lost millions of jobs, $130 billion dollars-
give or take $20 billion (and climbing, now to $225 billion) in Iraq and
roughly 15,000 innocent human lives (and climbing as noted above). Is this
what you call progress?

My vote goes to Kerry.

Sincerely,
Marcie Stout
Ames, IA

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Helpful hints for election day.

VOTE EARLY IN THE DAY

BRING A LIGHT CHAIR FOR SITTING IN LINE

BORROW A TRANSPORT CHAIR FOR OTHERS WHO CAN'T STAND LONG (volunteer needed to push between polls and parking area)

OUTFIT YOURSELF WITH A CLIP-BOARD AND SAMPLE BALLOT TO PASS AROUND

BRING SNACKS--TAKE PICTURES--HAVE FUN WE'RE HAVING A PARTY!!!!!

Undecided Deciders

Here are some links to forward to friends and relations who still have questions about tomorrow's election:
http://www.markfiore.com/animation/message001.html

http://www.markfiore.com/animation/question001.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/17/opinion/17sun1.html?ei=5070&en=e17030b0b3f76244&ex=1099108800&oref=login&pagewanted=print&position