Featureless Features

Some of us may have been shocked to have read The New York Post’s coverage of trouble at #OWS.  As a native born Neu Yawker I'm used to the Post's peculiar way of, uh, I think they call it reporting.  I did a little research and I’m gonna say, the NY Post twists a story with clear intent to spread propaganda and to sow seeds of discontent, divide and conquer, create media stars and generally distract from the fact that #OWS is astonishingly, beyond comprehensionally, ragingly SUCCESSFUL!  Now, I’m not there so I can only make assumptions based on what I read and what I already know.  So I present the NY Post’s coverage of what was “important” today, followed by what I found on #OWS:

Occupy Wall Street kitchen staff protesting fixing food for freeloaders

By SELIM ALGAR and BOB FREDERICKS

Last Updated: 10:58 AM, October 27, 2011

Posted: 1:43 AM, October 27, 2011

The Occupy Wall Street volunteer kitchen staff launched a “counter” revolution yesterday -- because they’re angry about working 18-hour days to provide food for “professional homeless” people and ex-cons masquerading as protesters.

For three days beginning tomorrow, the cooks will serve only brown rice and other spartan grub instead of the usual menu of organic chicken and vegetables, spaghetti bolognese, and roasted beet and sheep’s-milk-cheese salad.  [Sounds almost as good as Guantanamo Bay!  BTW--Haven't we seen that guy before?  Like early on in this movement as a former Wall St. hot shot who knew better than anyone else what to say and do next?]

They will also provide directions to local soup kitchens for the vagrants, criminals and other freeloaders who have been descending on Zuccotti Park in increasing numbers every day.

It goes on but there’s nothing really relevant until this little paragraph sneeks up:

As the kitchen workers met with the “General Assembly’’ last night, about 300 demonstrators stormed from the park to Reade Street and Broadway, where they violently clashed with cops.

Officers made at least 10 arrests when rowdy demonstrators refused to get out of the street and stop blocking traffic. A dozen cops on scooters tried to force them back to the sidewalk.

There were no reported injuries.

The demonstrators said they were angry over the violence in Oakland.

Huh?  That’s it?  Then there’s a video which purports to be about the drummers being difficult, but if you’re really bored you can watch it to find out they’ve already worked things out (with one exception, brought to you by the NY Post!)  Also sidebars about, hold your breath, the repuglican’s talking point for today:  #OWS is controlled by, gasp, ACORN!!!!

Read more if you can stand it, here: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/manhattan/zuccotti_hell_kitchen_i5biNyYYhpa8MSYIL9xSDL#ixzz1c25h9iiT

I am sure there are grievances and difficulties for people living there, as the temperature drops and supplies and energy gets low, but if you go to #OWS’s web site, the lead story’s headline is what was given only a passsing mention in Rupert Murdoch's disinformation sheet:

#ows Takes The Streets In Solidarity With #occupyoakland

Posted Oct. 27, 2011, 2:53 p.m. EST by OccupyWallSt

Last night hundreds marched through the streets of NYC, chanting "New York is Oakland, Oakland is New York." We circled City Hall, ran in the streets, refused to be kettled or have our voices silenced, marched up broadway, North on 6th Ave, circled around on Bleecker, and marched south against traffic on 6th ave, running past police barricades, running past our fear, running in solidarity with each other and #occupyoakland.

Further down are reports about many different solidarity actions for Oakland and significantly, announcements of vigils for Scott Olsen.  There’s a post from Cairo, a report titled “Drumming and the Occupation” and one called “Where Do We Go From Here?”  All the rest of the web home page is about getting more information and learning how to DIY.  As for the NY Post, there’s no “there” there.  I got the story and it wasn’t from them.

http://occupywallst.org/

#OWS Fnks Are Outed

What can you say about people who betray your trust?  Not a whole lot.  What can you do?  That depends on how egregious the betrayal.  In these times when a stark, survivalist mentality seems normal, it would seem "right action" requires a bit of thought and investigation. It does occur to me, however, that if the agency which is supposed to be tracking cyber crimes COMMITS them, an investigation would make sense.

Meet the Guy Who Snitched on Occupy Wall Street to the FBI and NYPD

By Adrian Chen

Oct 15, 2011 4:47 P

The Occupy Wall Street protests have been going on for a month. And it seems the FBI and NYPD have had help tracking protesters' moves thanks to a conservative computer security expert who gained access to one of the group's internal mailing lists, and then handed over information on the group's plans to authorities and corporations targeted by protesters.

Since the Occupy Wall Street protest began on September 17, New York security consultant Thomas Ryan has been waging a campaign to infiltrate and discredit the movement. Ryan says he's done contract work for the U.S. Army and he brags on his blog that he leads "a team called Black Cell, a team of the most-highly trained and capable physical, threat and cyber security professionals in the world." But over the past few weeks, he and his computer security buddies have been spending time covertly attending Occupy Wall Street meetings, monitoring organizers' social media accounts, and hanging out with protesters in Lower Manhattan.

As part of their intelligence-gathering operation, the group gained access to a listserv used by Occupy Wall Street organizers called September17discuss.  […]  On Friday, Ryan leaked thousands of September17discuss emails to conservative blogger Andrew Breitbart, who is now using them to try to smear Occupy Wall Street as an anarchist conspiracy to disrupt global markets.

What may much more alarming to Occupy Wall Street organizers is that while Ryan was monitoring September17discuss, he was forwarding interesting email threads to contacts at the NYPD and FBI, including special agent Jordan T. Loyd, a member of the FBI's New York-based cyber security team. 
[…]  On September 26th, Ryan forwarded another email thread to Agent Loyd. But this time he clued in the NYPD as well, sending the email to Dennis Dragos, a detective with the NYPD Computer Crimes Squad.

[…]  Interestingly, it was Ryan who revealed himself as a snitch. We learned of these emails from the archive Ryan leaked yesterday in the hopes of undermining the Occupy Wall Street movement. In assembling the archive of September17discuss emails, it appears he accidentally included some of his own forwarded emails indicating he was ratting out organizers.

"I don't know, I just put everything I had into one big package," Ryan said when asked how the emails ended up in the file posted to Andrew Breitbart's blog. Some security expert.

[…]  Did the FBI and/or NYPD ask him to monitor Occupy Wall Street? Was he just forwarding the emails on out of the goodness of his heart? In a phone interview with us, Ryan denied being an informant. "I do not work with the FBI," he said.

Ryan said he knows Loyd through their mutual involvement in the Open Web Application Security Project, a non-profit computer security group of which Ryan is a board member. Ryan said he sent the emails to Loyd unsolicited simply because "everyone's curious" about Occupy Wall Street, and he had a ground-eye view. "Jordan never asked me for anything."

Was he sending every email he got to the authorities? Ryan said he couldn't remember how many he'd passed on to the FBI or NYPD, or other third parties. Later he said that he only forwarded the two emails we noticed, detailed above.

[…]  But regardless of how many emails Ryan sent—or whether Loyd ever asked Ryan to spy on Occupy Wall Street—Loyd was almost certainly interested in the emails he received. Loyd has helped hunt down members of the hacktivist collective Anonymous, and he and his colleagues in the FBI's cyber security squad have been monitoring their involvement in Occupy Wall Street.

http://gawker.com/5850054/

#Occupy Key West?

I've come back to Key West after having spent the 10th anniversary of 9/11 in NYC, with friends and strangers and a lot of folks taking a break from the smarmy cynicism that poisons too much conversation.  There  is such beauty in mourning and we mustn't ever let anyone tell us to "move on."  Yes, being dysfunctional is not good but as long as one is still participating in the real world, who is to say what is dysfunctional?  I love New York.  I will always be a New Yorker and completely understand when people are proud of their hometowns.  Nowadays, there seems to be more to be proud about, since communities all over America, Canada, Europe and many places without media to cover them, even the Tundra are participating in Occupy Together on October 15!

Living in Paradise has a surprising set of difficulties unique to organizing an event in this place.  Very few people have one job, and many jobs are for the tourists, meaning the ability to have a demonstration might be easier if this was a factory town or a college town. But we're a tourist town and holidays and weekends are prime time to make money.

In spite of that, this Saturday, October 22 a group of leaderless people will hold an Occupy Key West event at Mallory Square,  beginning with an open mike and ending with a march, location yet to be determined.

This Occupation is sponsored by those of us Key West citizens who have had enough of the lies, the obscuration, the degeneracy of any true faith that justice is equal for all the people. We CAN'T BELIEVE that justice is blind in a Bubba land.

We, the 99% want the Occupation of OUR OWN institutions, built and paid for  by We, the People!

We want jobs that have nothing to do with patronage.

We want to stop the outright scandalous behavior that becomes acceptable once you have achieved a certain status. When you look at the patronage and interconnecting favors and debts which weave a very complicated pattern between certain tribes in the Paradise known as Key West, well, it could, rather should give you pause.  Perhaps it's more useful to let the more ambitious ones slug it out and just pick up the pieces of what's left.  Sounds like a wrecker way of doing things!  Then you can put some time into assessing which tribe to join.  The facts are that this island has always been occupied!

When you finally get your mind set on a particular set of strategies to accomplish the goal you have already decided on, the next step is get it together.

I will present myself to tout le monde on Duval Street astride my faithful, never complaining tricycle, Jezebel, who will be all tricked out with signs which will let  people know that Saturday night at 5:00 something very special is going to happen on Mallory Square.

We, the 99% will reclaim our public square, our public streets and the lovely little parks which appear like out of a dream.  We will pass around a megaphone or mike or use the human megaphone to proclaim the right to gather to peacefully petition our government for a redress of grievances, to be determined by the General Assembly which will beheld just prior to the march.

We will inform our neighbors, new friends and old friends that our lives are facing irreversible changes not because of our poor choices or lifestyles but because the ones who hold all the power are capable of doing whatever they want or serves their purpose which is ultimate power. FACE IT. We don't matter any more to them with their electronic heartbeats and bunkers where you can ride horseback.

The time has come for all of us to know where we stand.  Howard Zinn said you can't stand still on a moving bus. We must acknowledge change is inevitable and adapt.  Hopefully, the ruling class will recognize this as well.  I'm heartened by the growth of the web site by those in the 1% who side with we, the 99%.  You can see their posters here: http://westandwiththe99percent.tumblr.com/

Change is coming, for all of us.  Let's try to handle it gracefully.
For more on Occupy Together and to find events near you, go to: 
http://www.occupytogether.org/

Wall St., Meet the 99ers

Self defined as the 99% who pay taxes and get screwed with less than 1% of the profits, a determined and disciplined group of mostly early 30 year olds attempted to occupy Wall Street.  Even the benches were fenced in!!!  After a day of playing hide & seek with the NYPD, the radicals settled in at "Liberty Park" on Broadway just north of Wall.  Although the afternoon was fraught with chaos and potential police riot, once this detente was reached everyone settled in.  I took a break and returned around 1:00 am.  Some were sleeping, a group of about 6 played with one of those little balls you kick around, there were clusters of folks around a guitarist or singer, some danced.  It all,  it was peaceful  I hope the morning will bring new recruits to the occupation of Wall Street.

Finally got the photos downloaded--more details will come about today's events and the people there.

O

https://occupywallst.org/

Wizard of Wiki Betrayed by a Corporate Whore

This is really important stuff.  It exposes how evil the forces are, that there is NO moral code they live by.  They'd shoot their own child in the head if it got what was necessary.  EVIL!
Assange Accuser Worked with US-Funded, CIA-Tied Anti-Castro Group

By: Kirk James Murphy, M.D. Saturday December 4, 2010 9:20 pm

Yesterday Alexander Cockburn reminded us of the news Israel Shamir and Paul Bennett broke at Counterpunch in September.   Julian Assange’s chief accuser in Sweden has a significant history of work with anti-Castro groups, at least one of which is US funded and openly supported by a former CIA agent convicted in the mass murder of seventy three Cubans on an airliner he was involved in blowing up.

Anna Ardin (the official complainant) is often described by the media as a “leftist”. She has ties to the US-financed anti-Castro and anti-communist groups. She published her anti-Castro diatribes (see here and here) in the Swedish-language publication Revista de Asignaturas Cubanas put out by Misceláneas de Cuba. From Oslo, Professor Michael Seltzer points out that this periodical is the product of a well-financed anti-Castro organization in Sweden. He further notes that the group is connected with Union Liberal Cubana led by Carlos Alberto Montaner whose CIA ties were exposed here.
[...]  In Cuba she interacted with the feminist anti-Castro group Las damas de blanco (the Ladies in White). This group receives US government funds and the convicted anti-communist terrorist Luis Posada Carriles is a friend and supporter.  Wikipedia quotes Hebe de Bonafini, president of the Argentine Madres de Plaza de Mayo as saying that “the so-called Ladies in White defend the terrorism of the United States.”
 [...]  Luis Clemente Faustino Posada Carriles (born February 15, 1928) (nicknamed Bambi by some Cuban exiles)[1] is a Cuban-born Venezuelan anti-communist extremist. A former Central Intelligence Agency agent,[2] Posada has been convicted in absentia of involvement in various terrorist attacks and plots in the Americas, including: involvement in the 1976 bombing of a Cuban airliner that killed seventy-three people;[3][4] admitted involvement in a string of bombings in 1997 targeting fashionable Cuban hotels and nightspots;[5][6][7] involvement in the Bay of Pigs invasion; [and] involvement in the Iran-Contra affair…
Luis Posada Carilles is so evil that even the Bush administration wanted him behind bars:
Who is Julian Assange’s chief accuser in Sweden?  She’s a gender equity officer at Uppsula University – who chose to associate with a US funded group openly supported by a convicted terrorist and mass murderer.  She just happens to have her work published by a very well funded group connected with Union Liberal Cubana – whose leader, Carlos Alberto Montaner, in turn just happened to pop up on right wing Colombian TV a few hours after the right-wing coup in Honduras. Where he joined the leader of the failed coup in Ecuador to savage Correa, the target of the coup.  Montnaner also just happened to vociferously support the violent coup in Honduras, and chose to show up to sing the praises of the Honduran junta. [...]
[...]  Rape is a hideous crime.  Yet in Assange’s case his alleged victim – the gender equity officer at Uppsula University – chose to throw a party for her alleged assailant – after they’d had the sex that even Swedish prosecutors concede was consensual.  Barrister Caitlin again:

[The] phenomena of social networking through the internet and mobile phones constrains Swedish authorities from augmenting the evidence against Assange because it would look even less credible in the face of tweets by Anna Ardin and SMS texts by Sofia Wilén boasting of their respective conquests after the “crimes”.
In the case of Ardin it is clear that she has thrown a party in Assange’s honour at her flat after the “crime” and tweeted to her followers that she is with the “the world’s coolest smartest people, it’s amazing!”. Go on the internet and see for yourself. That Ardin has sought unsuccessfully to delete these exculpatory tweets from the public record should be a matter of grave concern. That she has published on the internet a guide on how to get revenge on cheating boyfriends ever graver. The exact content of Wilén’s mobile phone texts is not yet known but their bragging and exculpatory character has been confirmed by Swedish prosecutors. Neither Wilén’s nor Ardin’s texts complain of rape.

Small world, isn’t it?  Julian Assange is the human face of Wikileaks – the organization that’s enabled whistle-blowers to reveal hideous war crimes and expose much of America’s foreign policy to the world.

He just happens to meet a Swedish woman who just happens to have been publishing her work in a well-funded anti-Castro group that just happens to have links with a group led by a man at least one journalist describes as an agent of the CIA: the violent secret arm of America’s foreign policy.
And she just happens to have been expelled from Cuba, which just happens to be the global symbol of successful defiance of American foreign policy.
And – despite her work in Sweden upholding the human right of gender equity – in Cuba she just happens to end up associating with a group openly supported by an admitted CIA agent who himself committed mass murder when he actively participated in the terrorist bombing of a jetliner carrying a Cuban sports team…an act that was of a piece with America’s secret foreign policy of violent attacks against Cuban state interests.
And now she just happens – after admittedly consensual sex – to have gone to Swedish authorities to report the sex ended without a condom…which just happens to be the pretext for Interpol to issue a “Red Notice” informing the world’s police forces of charges against Julian Assange.
Who just happens to be the man America’s political class – the people who run America’s foreign policy – have been trying to silence.  And who happens to be the man some of them have been calling to have murdered.
With a lust for vengeance like that, one could be forgiven for concluding they’ve just happened to have taken a page from Anna’s revenge manual.


http://my.firedoglake.com/kirkmurphy/2010/12/04/assanges-chief-accuser-has-her-own-history-with-us-funded-anti-castro-groups-one-of-which-has-cia-ties/

Blackwater in Pakistan

From The Nation comes Jeremy Scahill's latest, very important article.  He discusses the "covert operations" perpetrated by Blackwater and other mercenary war opportunists like DynCorp within the framework of official government policies, now exposed by Wikileaks, connecting the dots.  It's all so reminiscent of  our "special advisers" in Vietnam and the terrible toll it took on our country.  We're neck deep in the big muddy, but the big fools say to push on.

The (Not So) Secret (Anymore) US War in Pakistan

Jeremy Scahill

Despite sustained denials by US officials spanning more than a year, US military Special Operations Forces have been conducting offensive operations inside Pakistan, helping direct US drone strikes and conducting joint operations with Pakistani forces against Al Qaeda and Taliban forces in north and south Waziristan and elsewhere in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, according to secret cables released as part of the Wikileaks document dump. According to an October 9, 2009 cable classified by Anne Patterson, the US ambassador to Pakistan, the operations were "almost certainly [conducted] with the personal consent of [Pakistan's] Chief of Army Staff General Kayani." The operations were coordinated with the US Office of the Defense Representative in Pakistan. A US special operations source told The Nation that the US forces described in the cable as "SOC(FWD)-PAK" were "forward operating troops" from the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), the most elite force within the US military made up of Navy SEALs, Delta Force and Army Rangers.

The cables also confirm aspects of a Nation story from November 2009, "The Secret US War in Pakistan," which detailed offensive combat operations by JSOC in Pakistan. In response to the Nation story, Pentagon spokesperson Geoff Morrell called it "conspiratorial" and explicitly denied that US special operations forces were doing anything other than "training" in Pakistan. More than a month after the October 2009 cable from the US embassy in Pakistan confirming JSOC combat missions, Morrell told reporters: "We have basically, I think, a few dozen forces on the ground in Pakistan who are involved in a train-the-trainer mission.  These are Special Operations Forces.  We've been very candid about this.  They are—they have been for months, if not years now, training Pakistani forces so that they can in turn train other Pakistani military on how to—on certain skills and operational techniques.  And that's the extent of our—our, you know, military boots on the ground in Pakistan." According to the October 2009 cable, Morrell's statement was false.

[...]  The ability of US special operations forces to operate in Pakistan is clearly viewed as a major development by the US embassy. "Patient relationship-building with the military is the key factor that has brought us to this point," according to the October 2009 cable. It also notes the potential consequences of the activities leaking: "These deployments are highly politically sensitive because of widely-held concerns among the public about Pakistani sovereignty and opposition to allowing foreign military forces to operate in any fashion on Pakistani soil. Should these developments and/or related matters receive any coverage in the Pakistani or US media, the Pakistani military will likely stop making requests for such assistance."

Such statements might help explain why Ambassador Richard Holbrooke lied to the world when he said bluntly in July 2010: "People think that the US has troops in Pakistan, well, we don't."

A US special operations veteran who worked on Pakistan issues in 2009 reviewed the Wikileaks cables for The Nation. He said he was taken aback that the cable was not classified higher than "SECRET" given that it confirms the active involvement of US soldiers from the highly-secretive, elite Joint Special Operations Command engaging in combat—not just training—in Pakistan. And offensive combat at that. JSOC operations are compartmentalized and highly classified.

[...]  In 2006, twelve "tactical action operatives" from Blackwater were recruited for a secret JSOC raid inside Pakistan, targeting an Al Qaeda facility. The operation was code-named "Vibrant Fury." Which raises another issue: the activities described in the October 2009 cable very closely align with what a US military intelligence source, a US special forces source and a former Blackwater executive told The Nation in November 2009, namely that JSOC was running an operation in Pakistan where "members of an elite division of Blackwater are at the center of a secret program in which they plan targeted assassinations of suspected Taliban and Al Qaeda operatives, 'snatch and grabs' of high-value targets and other sensitive action inside and outside Pakistan.… The Blackwater operatives also assist in gathering intelligence and help direct a secret US military drone bombing campaign that runs parallel to the well-documented CIA predator strikes." The arrangement, which involved a web of subcontractors, allowed the Pakistani Frontier Corps—the force cited in the cable—to work with JSOC operators while simultaneously denying that Americans were involved.[...]

 [...]  In November 2009, Capt. John Kirby, the spokesperson for Adm. Michael Mullen, Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told The Nation, "We do not discuss current operations one way or the other, regardless of their nature." A defense official, on background, specifically denied that Blackwater performs work on drone strikes or intelligence for JSOC in Pakistan. Captain Kirby told The Nation if it published the story it would "be on thin ice." The US embassy and Pakistan's interior Minister Rehman Malik both denied Blackwater was operating in Pakistan.

In January 2010, on a visit to Pakistan, Defense Secretary Robert Gates, appeared to contradict that line, telling a Pakistani TV station, "They [Blackwater and another private security firm, DynCorp] are operating as individual companies here in Pakistan," according to a DoD transcript of the interview. As Gates's comments began to make huge news in Pakistan, US defense officials tried to retract his statement. As the Wall Street Journal reported, "Defense officials tried to clarify the comment…telling reporters that Mr. Gates had been speaking about contractor oversight more generally and that the Pentagon didn't employ [Blackwater] in Pakistan."[...]

[...]  Since the Nation story originally ran, Blackwater has continued to work under the Obama administration. In June, the company won a $100 million global contract with the CIA and continues to operate in Afghanistan, where it protects senior US officials and trains Afghan forces. Earlier this year, Blackwater's owner, Erik Prince, put the company up for sale and moved to the Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates. Whether Blackwater or former Blackwater operatives continue to work in Pakistan is not known. What is clear is that there is great reason to believe that the October 2009 cable from Ambassador Anne Patterson describing US special operations forces activities in Pakistan represents only a tiny glimpse into one of the darkest corners of current US policy in Pakistan.

I urge you to read the full story here:  

http://www.thenation.com/blog/156765/not-so-secret-anymore-us-war-pakistan 

Kucinich Tells it Like it IS

This is the way we need to go.  There are no easy solutions, no wiggle room.  Just pack it up and say, "Sorry, folks, we bombed your country and now we have no solutions.  But you can do it without us.  We're just making more trouble than it's worth."  This is from The Raw Story:

Kucinich to force Congress to vote on withdrawing from Afghanistan after news Obama will extend war to 2014

By Eric W. Dolan

[....] Representative Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) blasted President Barack Obama Wednesday over reports that he is planning to de-emphasize the July 2011 deadline for the withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan.
"When the new 112th Congress convenes in January, I will immediately enter a privileged resolution that will force Congress to vote on setting a withdrawal date," Kucinich said. "The withdrawal of our troops must be driven by Congress, not the corrupt president of Afghanistan."
[...]  "Expanding the timeline constitutes a de facto expansion of the war without Congressional approval," said Kucinich.
The new policy is to be unveiled at a NATO conference in Lisbon next week, where the United States and other NATO countries are set to discuss their commitment to Afghanistan. The United States hopes to introduce a plan to begin the withdrawal of military forces from Afghanistan by 2014, senior officials told McClatchy.
[...]  "The Obama Administration must withdraw our troops now," said Kucinich. "Our presence there is counterproductive, it keeps our troops in harms way and it opens to the door for the expansion of the massive corruption of the Karzai regime."
[...]  "The War in Afghanistan is longer than any other war America has ever fought," said Kucinich. "The war has cost U.S. taxpayers more than a trillion dollars. The death toll is rising. More than 1300 Americans have died, thousands more wounded and countless Afghan civilians have died. The civilian death toll is rising, and there are fewer than 100 Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan.
"To top it all off," he added, "we recently learned that Karzai has openly admitted to accepting bags of cash from Iran."

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/11/kucinich-tears-report-afghan-pullout/

Stop the excuses while blood runs in the streets and the "lucky" ones come home too traumatized to live a decent life.  Stop it!

Make The Supremes Sing a New Song

Have you had enough of the corporate take-over of America?  If this last election didn't rub it into your nose enough that money buys power and democracy is an illusion, just wait.  The next few months are gonna make you long for the Reagan era (gag).

Citizens United was a disaster for our ability to hold fair elections since it granted "personhood" to corporations, allowing big money to give however much it could to the candidates who would sing the song they picked.  But we do have some options, and MovetoAmend.org is leading the way.  Please sign the petition and contribute, if you can.  The corporations have bought the Supremes but We, the People still can reclaim our power if we stand together and overrule the Supremes.  It is our Constitutional right to do so.  Use it or lose it.

Sign the petition and please forward the link to everyone who still believes in justice for all, not JUST US!

http://movetoamend.org/please-contribute

Lead by Example

We, the People were lied to about 9/11 and the reasons to bomb people in Afghanistan, then Iraq.  There has never been any reason to go to war with these countries since the "attack" of 9/11 was perpetrated by Saudis and a couple of misfits, none from those two countries.  Yet we have destroyed them.  Why?  Oil and now, we are learning about precious minerals in Afghanistan, plus pipelines, et al, et nauseum.

If we are to have any credibility in the future of this planet, we must take the lead in holding accountable every single leader who led us down this road to disaaster.  I think that begins with the former president-select, George W. Bush.

Monday, December 29, 2008 

Obama's Duty To Prosecute Bush For War Crimes

Indeed, the rule of law is the "strongbox that keeps all our other values safe." We can write laws that say we have certain freedoms and rights, and we can build courts and elect lawmakers, but if there is no rule of law, then we lose our rights bit by bit until they are no longer recognizable.  While the goppies will cry "partisan witch hunt," even the Bush State Dept. recognizes that no democratic society can tolerate abuses when people are tortured or kidnapped under rendition in violation of our rule of law or tolerate the failure to prosecute in compliance with our Constitution.
Signing the petition drafted by budhydharma and Docudharma is not in defiance of our President-Elect Obama, but rather a sign of support for the difficult times that he and Holder will face when performing their clear constitutional duties.
As President, Obama will have the constitutional duty to faithfully execute our laws.
The constitutional oath of office will require President Obama to faithfully execute the office of President and preserve, protect and defend our Constitution. Our constitution also requires that our presidents "shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed."  The principle of the rule of law is partially based on this Faithfully Execute clause which requires our President to comply with laws, our Constitution and treaties because our Constitution established a government of laws, not of men and women.
The Geneva Convention is one of the laws which must be faithfully executed.

Posted by Edger at 8:00 PM

Obama's Duty To Prosecute Bush For War Crimes
by Patriot Daily at Docudharma, Monday December 29, 2008 at 14:14:19 PST
http://ooibc.blogspot.com/2008/12/obamas-duty-to-prosecute-bush-for-war.html

8 Good Reasons to Vote

There is too much to lose if we let ourselves become deluded into thinking "they're all the same."  Yes, Obama and the Dems have let us down but just imagine what this country will turn into if the tea baggers and repuglicans take over Congress.

They already own the Supremes and have essentially given the richest 2% complete power over the electoral process by granting corporations the right to spend as much as they want to on campaign funding.  How do you think that will INFORM citizens?  Tax and spend, they scream, while laughing all the way to their jets and island hide-a-ways.

No, dear citizens, we must get out and VOTE and this article knocks down the bullshit.  This is from Campaign for America's Future

Eight False Things The Public “Knows” Prior To Election Day

By Dave Johnson, October 22, 2010 - 1:07pm ET

 
[ ...]  This stuff really matters.
If the public votes in a new Congress because a majority of voters think this one tripled the deficit, and as a result the new people follow the policies that actually tripled the deficit, the country could go broke.
If the public votes in a new Congress that rejects the idea of helping to create demand in the economy because they think it didn't work, then the new Congress could do things that cause a depression.
If the public votes in a new Congress because they think the health care reform will increase the deficit when it is actually projected to reduce the deficit, then the new Congress could repeal health care reform and thereby make the deficit worse. And on it goes.

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