Bob Fitrakis
Tuesday, October 31, 2006
Stealing elections:They say it's God's plan, but does the Devil make 'em do it?
Hey Folks,
I know Bob & Harvey - top notch intellects with irreproachable integrity and energetic scholarship. If they say this is possible, it IS possible. And the Uke Man isn't the only one saying that; these guys have a national audience that listens respectfully to what they have to say.
Time will tell, and as some or all of this shit comes down - and I'm sure some of it definitely will - the more people among us who know what to look for, the better.
If it ALL comes to pass, it seems to me that our options are two: rebellion or kissing our asses goodbye.
- Uke Man
For more of Bob & Harvey go to: http://www.freepress.org/index2.php
A loaves & fishes/Holy Ghost victory for the GOP in November?
by Bob Fitrakis & Harvey Wasserman
October 17, 2006
The polls all point to a Democratic sweep in November. The news pours in about pedophile Republicans and Team Bush contempt for their fundamentalist bedmates. Iraq implodes. Deficits soar. Katrina lingers. Scandal is everywhere.
On the other hand, there are rumors of an "October Surprise." An attack on Iran. A new terror incident. Osama finally captured.
Gas prices are down, the stock market up.
None of it dampens the Democrats' euphoria. They think they are about to win. In conventional terms, they should.
But think again. Please.
It will take just two Biblical fixes for the GOP to keep the Congress, and thus solidify their power in this country, possibly forever: a loaves and fishes vote count, a Holy Ghost turnout.
We coined the phrase "loaves and fishes vote count" to describe the tally in Gahanna, Ohio, 2004. This infamous precinct in suburban Columbus registered 4258 votes for George W. Bush where just 638 people voted. The blessed event occurred at a fundamentalist church run by a close ally of the Reverend Jerry Falwell.
These numbers were later "corrected." But they reflect a much larger reality: the 2004 election was stolen with scores of dirty tricks for whose second coming the Democrats have yet to fully prepare.
In the two years since the fraudulent defeat of John Kerry, we've unearthed an unholy arsenal by which that election was stolen. They include: outright intimidation, wrongful elimination of registered voters, theft, selective deployment of (often faulty) voting machines, absentee ballots without Kerry's name on them, absentee ballots pre-punched for Bush, absentee ballots never mailed, touch screens that lit up for Bush when Kerry was chosen, lines for black voters five hours long while white voters a mile away voted in fifteen minutes, tens of thousands of provisional ballots pitched summarily in the trash, alleged ex-felons illegally told they could not vote, Hispanic precincts with no Spanish-speaking poll workers, deliberate misinformation on official web sites…and that's not even the tip of an iceberg whose bottom we may never see.
Thanks to a federal lawsuit, we have finally been able to look at some of the actual ballots from Ohio 2004. Just for starters, researchers Stuart Wright and Dr. Richard Hayes Phillips have found a precinct in Delaware County where 359 consecutive voters allegedly cast ballots for Bush. Dr. Ron Baiman found another precinct in Clermont County where a random inspection found 36 straight replacement ballots, a phenomenon that can be accomplished only by divine intervention or outright fraud.
These initial snippets have been unearthed with no cooperation or participation from the Democratic Party. The official Democratic spin is that they have "looked into the matter." But public records indicate that they have yet to visit the actual ballot storage facilities to examine the public records from the 2004 election.
In sum, we see no indication that the Democrats are prepared for the inevitable…that Karl Rove will steal again, and more, in 2006.
In Ohio alone, four election boards have already eliminated some 500,000 voters since the 2000 election---ten percent of the state's electorate---from the registration rolls in four Democratic counties. No similar purges have occurred in rural Republican counties. The Democrats have said or done very little about it.
To date there is no logical explanation from John Kerry as to why he conceded with 250,000 votes still uncounted while Bush's alleged margin was just half that. Nor have we heard about Democrat plans to monitor the ever-larger numbers of electronic voting machines deployed throughout the United States with no paper trail and no transparency for programming codes and memory cards that are privately owned, with no public inspection allowed.
Which is brings us to the Holy Ghost turnout. As Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., has reported in Rolling Stone Magazine, in Georgia 2002, U.S. Senate incumbent Max Cleland went into Election Day with a very substantial lead in the polls. He proceeded to allegedly lose by a substantial margin. Church-state operatives like Ralph Reed attributed this astonishing turn-around to an alleged last-minute mass turnout of evangelical voters.
Similar things were said about Florida and Ohio 2004.
But it never happened. There are no visual reports or other reliable indicators of extraordinary lines or massive late-in-the-day crowds at the polls. Throughout all those election days, it was every bit as quick and easy to vote in rural precincts that gave Bush his miraculous victory as it was impossible to do so in your average black neighborhood. But there was no extraordinary turnout of last-minute Bush voters.
What happened instead hearkens to the Holy Ghost, made manifest in electronic voting machines that cannot and will not be monitored. The miraculous pro-Bush margins give new meaning to the phrase "ghost in the machine." While the Democratic vote count was slashed and trashed in urban precincts, the rural voting stations, through the miracle of untrackable electronics, materialized just the right number of GOP votes to keep the Men of God in the White House (where it's recently reported they dare to mock those earthly evangelicals who allegedly gave them their margin of victory).
There's absolutely nothing to prevent this from happening again in 2006. Major studies from the Conyers Committee, the Government Accountability Office, Princeton University, the Brennan Center, the Carter-Baker Commission, and esteemed others, have all come to the same conclusion: it takes just one individual with inside access---or even just a wi-fi machine---to change the outcome of any election anywhere.
Electronic voting machines can be pre-programmed, re-programmed, re-calibrated, electronically adjusted, hacked, jimmied, jammed or otherwise blessed with a few well-placed electrons and---LO AND BEHOLD!---a Democratic landslide can be born again to a Republican deliverance.
We already see the signs. The corporate bloviators predict a last-minute surge for Bush. The Fox/Rove media machine has planted suggestive stories at the New York Times and elsewhere about the alleged hidden powers of the GOP juggernaut. They will, they say, once again turn out those invisible legions of evangelical voters when and where necessary.
Every two years, Rove leaks some story that is implausible and easily refuted: four million new evangelical voters are identified nationwide; or, a late surge of homophobic Old Order Amish rush to the polls in Ohio; or shy and reluctant right-wing Republican women flood the polls at closing and slip out unseen without speaking to exit pollsters (but, they are only shy in the early evening in Republican counties).
And the Democrats? They say they are also turning out voters. But what happens when their names are miraculously gone from the new electronic registration rolls? When there aren't enough machines in their precincts on which to vote? When they press a Democratic name on their touch-screen and an anointed Republican's lights up? Or when techno-gods from private partisan vendors barge in unchallenged to "adjust" the e-machines in the middle of the voting process.
So far, the Democrats have heaped abuse on those who dare to warn of all this.
But as it is written, so it shall be: unless there are armies of trained, dedicated citizens prepared to monitor this upcoming election, electronic and otherwise, the Holy Ghosts will vote, the loaves & fishes will multiply and be counted, and the GOP will once again emerge with total control of the checks and the balances---this time, perhaps, for all Eternity.
Bob Fitrakis & Harvey Wasserman are co-authors, with Steve Rosenfeld, of WHAT HAPPENED IN OHIO?, just published by The New Press. Fitrakis is of counsel and Wasserman is a plaintiff in the King-Lincoln lawsuit that has preserved the Ohio 2004 ballots. Fitrakis is an independent candidate for Ohio governor, endorsed by the Green Party; Wasserman is author of SOLARTOPIA! Our Green-Powered Earth, A.D. 2030.
I know Bob & Harvey - top notch intellects with irreproachable integrity and energetic scholarship. If they say this is possible, it IS possible. And the Uke Man isn't the only one saying that; these guys have a national audience that listens respectfully to what they have to say.
Time will tell, and as some or all of this shit comes down - and I'm sure some of it definitely will - the more people among us who know what to look for, the better.
If it ALL comes to pass, it seems to me that our options are two: rebellion or kissing our asses goodbye.
- Uke Man
For more of Bob & Harvey go to: http://www.freepress.org/index2.php
A loaves & fishes/Holy Ghost victory for the GOP in November?
by Bob Fitrakis & Harvey Wasserman
October 17, 2006
The polls all point to a Democratic sweep in November. The news pours in about pedophile Republicans and Team Bush contempt for their fundamentalist bedmates. Iraq implodes. Deficits soar. Katrina lingers. Scandal is everywhere.
On the other hand, there are rumors of an "October Surprise." An attack on Iran. A new terror incident. Osama finally captured.
Gas prices are down, the stock market up.
None of it dampens the Democrats' euphoria. They think they are about to win. In conventional terms, they should.
But think again. Please.
It will take just two Biblical fixes for the GOP to keep the Congress, and thus solidify their power in this country, possibly forever: a loaves and fishes vote count, a Holy Ghost turnout.
We coined the phrase "loaves and fishes vote count" to describe the tally in Gahanna, Ohio, 2004. This infamous precinct in suburban Columbus registered 4258 votes for George W. Bush where just 638 people voted. The blessed event occurred at a fundamentalist church run by a close ally of the Reverend Jerry Falwell.
These numbers were later "corrected." But they reflect a much larger reality: the 2004 election was stolen with scores of dirty tricks for whose second coming the Democrats have yet to fully prepare.
In the two years since the fraudulent defeat of John Kerry, we've unearthed an unholy arsenal by which that election was stolen. They include: outright intimidation, wrongful elimination of registered voters, theft, selective deployment of (often faulty) voting machines, absentee ballots without Kerry's name on them, absentee ballots pre-punched for Bush, absentee ballots never mailed, touch screens that lit up for Bush when Kerry was chosen, lines for black voters five hours long while white voters a mile away voted in fifteen minutes, tens of thousands of provisional ballots pitched summarily in the trash, alleged ex-felons illegally told they could not vote, Hispanic precincts with no Spanish-speaking poll workers, deliberate misinformation on official web sites…and that's not even the tip of an iceberg whose bottom we may never see.
Thanks to a federal lawsuit, we have finally been able to look at some of the actual ballots from Ohio 2004. Just for starters, researchers Stuart Wright and Dr. Richard Hayes Phillips have found a precinct in Delaware County where 359 consecutive voters allegedly cast ballots for Bush. Dr. Ron Baiman found another precinct in Clermont County where a random inspection found 36 straight replacement ballots, a phenomenon that can be accomplished only by divine intervention or outright fraud.
These initial snippets have been unearthed with no cooperation or participation from the Democratic Party. The official Democratic spin is that they have "looked into the matter." But public records indicate that they have yet to visit the actual ballot storage facilities to examine the public records from the 2004 election.
In sum, we see no indication that the Democrats are prepared for the inevitable…that Karl Rove will steal again, and more, in 2006.
In Ohio alone, four election boards have already eliminated some 500,000 voters since the 2000 election---ten percent of the state's electorate---from the registration rolls in four Democratic counties. No similar purges have occurred in rural Republican counties. The Democrats have said or done very little about it.
To date there is no logical explanation from John Kerry as to why he conceded with 250,000 votes still uncounted while Bush's alleged margin was just half that. Nor have we heard about Democrat plans to monitor the ever-larger numbers of electronic voting machines deployed throughout the United States with no paper trail and no transparency for programming codes and memory cards that are privately owned, with no public inspection allowed.
Which is brings us to the Holy Ghost turnout. As Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., has reported in Rolling Stone Magazine, in Georgia 2002, U.S. Senate incumbent Max Cleland went into Election Day with a very substantial lead in the polls. He proceeded to allegedly lose by a substantial margin. Church-state operatives like Ralph Reed attributed this astonishing turn-around to an alleged last-minute mass turnout of evangelical voters.
Similar things were said about Florida and Ohio 2004.
But it never happened. There are no visual reports or other reliable indicators of extraordinary lines or massive late-in-the-day crowds at the polls. Throughout all those election days, it was every bit as quick and easy to vote in rural precincts that gave Bush his miraculous victory as it was impossible to do so in your average black neighborhood. But there was no extraordinary turnout of last-minute Bush voters.
What happened instead hearkens to the Holy Ghost, made manifest in electronic voting machines that cannot and will not be monitored. The miraculous pro-Bush margins give new meaning to the phrase "ghost in the machine." While the Democratic vote count was slashed and trashed in urban precincts, the rural voting stations, through the miracle of untrackable electronics, materialized just the right number of GOP votes to keep the Men of God in the White House (where it's recently reported they dare to mock those earthly evangelicals who allegedly gave them their margin of victory).
There's absolutely nothing to prevent this from happening again in 2006. Major studies from the Conyers Committee, the Government Accountability Office, Princeton University, the Brennan Center, the Carter-Baker Commission, and esteemed others, have all come to the same conclusion: it takes just one individual with inside access---or even just a wi-fi machine---to change the outcome of any election anywhere.
Electronic voting machines can be pre-programmed, re-programmed, re-calibrated, electronically adjusted, hacked, jimmied, jammed or otherwise blessed with a few well-placed electrons and---LO AND BEHOLD!---a Democratic landslide can be born again to a Republican deliverance.
We already see the signs. The corporate bloviators predict a last-minute surge for Bush. The Fox/Rove media machine has planted suggestive stories at the New York Times and elsewhere about the alleged hidden powers of the GOP juggernaut. They will, they say, once again turn out those invisible legions of evangelical voters when and where necessary.
Every two years, Rove leaks some story that is implausible and easily refuted: four million new evangelical voters are identified nationwide; or, a late surge of homophobic Old Order Amish rush to the polls in Ohio; or shy and reluctant right-wing Republican women flood the polls at closing and slip out unseen without speaking to exit pollsters (but, they are only shy in the early evening in Republican counties).
And the Democrats? They say they are also turning out voters. But what happens when their names are miraculously gone from the new electronic registration rolls? When there aren't enough machines in their precincts on which to vote? When they press a Democratic name on their touch-screen and an anointed Republican's lights up? Or when techno-gods from private partisan vendors barge in unchallenged to "adjust" the e-machines in the middle of the voting process.
So far, the Democrats have heaped abuse on those who dare to warn of all this.
But as it is written, so it shall be: unless there are armies of trained, dedicated citizens prepared to monitor this upcoming election, electronic and otherwise, the Holy Ghosts will vote, the loaves & fishes will multiply and be counted, and the GOP will once again emerge with total control of the checks and the balances---this time, perhaps, for all Eternity.
Bob Fitrakis & Harvey Wasserman are co-authors, with Steve Rosenfeld, of WHAT HAPPENED IN OHIO?, just published by The New Press. Fitrakis is of counsel and Wasserman is a plaintiff in the King-Lincoln lawsuit that has preserved the Ohio 2004 ballots. Fitrakis is an independent candidate for Ohio governor, endorsed by the Green Party; Wasserman is author of SOLARTOPIA! Our Green-Powered Earth, A.D. 2030.
Back in the Classroom
Hey Folks,
Today (Tuesday) I’m off again to Thomas Worthington High School to open their speaker series for the Political Radicalism class. I’ve been organizing my thoughts.
Some years ago when I first undertook this responsibility, I was billed by the course’s founder, Tom Molner, as a “Secular Humanist.” To be perfectly honest, I accepted the characterization because for years I’d heard people I found repulsive (e.g. TV Evangelists and rabid “Conservatives”) complaining about these Secular Humanists. That worked for me.
Nevertheless, I really was clueless as to what I actually was thought to be. Over the years of ignorance I’ve continued to be myself and gradually learned what I “was.”
Early on, I guess I was confused because the political right so hated “secular humanists” that I thought they must be really far-out, hard-line, in-your-face, radical people; and how could that be me?
Secular Humanism, as I understand it now (for whatever that’s worth), is so sensible and mild that it is no wonder I was confused by the vicious attacks against it. Really, it’s simple: I believe in science – i.e. learning and knowing via our senses and the scientific method. To do that, I need to keep an open mind and think for myself. I need to recognize that learning is an endless process and that knowledge – while always growing - is always incomplete. And to continue growing, I need to avoid passive adherence to dogma and taking things on faith.
At some point it dawned on me that this approach was seen as a threat to folks who don’t believe in science, who don’t want to learn and know via their senses; who – for whatever reason – cannot accept the open-ended, forever incomplete search for knowledge and truth; who need, instead, the certainty of transmitted dogma or “received truth.”
I knew there were people like this – quite a few of them - and it was obvious that they didn’t agree with me; but it WAS surprising that – in America – they would feel threatened and threatened to such a high degree of agitation. I guess I was naïve, but I’m learning.
I had passively accepted the dogma, the underlying mythology inculcated during my youth regarding this nation. I had “taken on faith” that this was a free and tolerant society, that we all had the right to our opinions and, though we might disagree, we would “fight to the death for your right” to have your views, that we all were free to embrace any religion or no religion (and be respected in the process).
So, it was a difficult lesson to learn that there actually WERE millions of people who would fight (some to the death) to marginalize, demonize, or eradicate my views, my knowledge, my religion (or lack thereof). It was difficult to accept that anyone (in the official “America”) would want to impose their personal “faith” on everyone else – especially since they didn’t want anyone else imposing strange personal faiths on them (remember: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you"??).
Beyond that, it was even more difficult to imagine that (in America) not being able to force everyone else into one's personal orthodoxy would be understood as persecution. But I’ve learned.
I’ve learned by using my senses to observe and to keep my mind open, by challenging dogma and official myths when discrepancies in their doctrine are perceived – rather than burying the discrepancies to protect the dogma.
And I intend to keep at it. It’s the only way that makes sense to me. Nobody knows any more than I do about ultimate matters – certainly not the charlatans who enthrall their fearful sheep preaching the evils of evolution, contraception, gays, stem-cell research, feminists, college professors, flag burners, socialists, communists, vegetarians, hippies, Mexicans, liberals, and (gasp!!!!!) Secular Humanists.
- Uke Man
Today (Tuesday) I’m off again to Thomas Worthington High School to open their speaker series for the Political Radicalism class. I’ve been organizing my thoughts.
Some years ago when I first undertook this responsibility, I was billed by the course’s founder, Tom Molner, as a “Secular Humanist.” To be perfectly honest, I accepted the characterization because for years I’d heard people I found repulsive (e.g. TV Evangelists and rabid “Conservatives”) complaining about these Secular Humanists. That worked for me.
Nevertheless, I really was clueless as to what I actually was thought to be. Over the years of ignorance I’ve continued to be myself and gradually learned what I “was.”
Early on, I guess I was confused because the political right so hated “secular humanists” that I thought they must be really far-out, hard-line, in-your-face, radical people; and how could that be me?
Secular Humanism, as I understand it now (for whatever that’s worth), is so sensible and mild that it is no wonder I was confused by the vicious attacks against it. Really, it’s simple: I believe in science – i.e. learning and knowing via our senses and the scientific method. To do that, I need to keep an open mind and think for myself. I need to recognize that learning is an endless process and that knowledge – while always growing - is always incomplete. And to continue growing, I need to avoid passive adherence to dogma and taking things on faith.
At some point it dawned on me that this approach was seen as a threat to folks who don’t believe in science, who don’t want to learn and know via their senses; who – for whatever reason – cannot accept the open-ended, forever incomplete search for knowledge and truth; who need, instead, the certainty of transmitted dogma or “received truth.”
I knew there were people like this – quite a few of them - and it was obvious that they didn’t agree with me; but it WAS surprising that – in America – they would feel threatened and threatened to such a high degree of agitation. I guess I was naïve, but I’m learning.
I had passively accepted the dogma, the underlying mythology inculcated during my youth regarding this nation. I had “taken on faith” that this was a free and tolerant society, that we all had the right to our opinions and, though we might disagree, we would “fight to the death for your right” to have your views, that we all were free to embrace any religion or no religion (and be respected in the process).
So, it was a difficult lesson to learn that there actually WERE millions of people who would fight (some to the death) to marginalize, demonize, or eradicate my views, my knowledge, my religion (or lack thereof). It was difficult to accept that anyone (in the official “America”) would want to impose their personal “faith” on everyone else – especially since they didn’t want anyone else imposing strange personal faiths on them (remember: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you"??).
Beyond that, it was even more difficult to imagine that (in America) not being able to force everyone else into one's personal orthodoxy would be understood as persecution. But I’ve learned.
I’ve learned by using my senses to observe and to keep my mind open, by challenging dogma and official myths when discrepancies in their doctrine are perceived – rather than burying the discrepancies to protect the dogma.
And I intend to keep at it. It’s the only way that makes sense to me. Nobody knows any more than I do about ultimate matters – certainly not the charlatans who enthrall their fearful sheep preaching the evils of evolution, contraception, gays, stem-cell research, feminists, college professors, flag burners, socialists, communists, vegetarians, hippies, Mexicans, liberals, and (gasp!!!!!) Secular Humanists.
- Uke Man
Monday, October 30, 2006
"They were so much 'many' then; they're 'fewer' than that now."
Hey Folks,
More from the “free” press!!
Now, I don’t have enough information to determine the motive behind this article being screwed up (ignorance? stupidity? politics? self-censorship? fear? collaboration?), but it clearly IS screwed up, and another example of how we are brainwashed to see things the way we are “supposed” to see them.
My comments are in red.
- Uke Man
Brazil president readies for runoff vote
By MICHAEL ASTOR, Associated Press Writer
RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil - Facing a surprisingly rough campaign, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has revived the populist rhetoric he had largely shed since taking office. Apparently, Silva was elected by appealing to the majority in his country - the regular people, but was losing support as a result of reneging on his campaign stance.
Fiery speeches contrasting the lives of Brazil's poor with the wealthy elite have left many Brazilians wondering whether he would push the country to the left if he wins a second four-year term in Sunday's runoff election. The "elite" are a small group; the "poor" are a large group. What (who?) is meant here by "many"? Obviously, the poor would "hope" for rather than "wonder" about a turn to the left - as in Venezuela; are the poor or the wealthy "wondering"? From whose perspective is this story being told?
Silva, a former union firebrand [ not a union "organizer," a "firebrand" - hmmm ... fire is destructive, isn't it! hmmmm ...] and Brazil's first working-class president, faced similar fears four years ago [ there's the answer as to perspective; it IS the "elite," the minority, who are "wondering" - the story is from THEIR perspective] but calmed them by adhering to market-friendly, pro-business policies that won praise even from conservatives. Oh, I see. He got elected by promising to aid the powerless majority, but then behaved well by actually serving the small, conservative, wealthy minority - who now fear he might - to get elected - actually serve the majority of people who voted for him in the first place and desperately NEED his attention.
But with his administration engulfed in corruption scandals, Silva has returned to his traditional base — the poor — rallying them with claims that his opponent, Geraldo Alckmin, would sell off cherished state assets and eliminate popular programs such as Family Allowance, which gives needy families monthly subsidies. OK, sounds familiar: make promises to the people / get elected / screw the people / lose support / make promises to the people and/or scare them ...
"The rich don't need the Brazilian state. The ones who need it are the poor people of this country," Silva said at rally on Sao Paulo's poor east side. "The poor are the ones who need public universities because the rich can pay — or even study in Paris."
While few believe [ here we go again: "few"!! Well the elite are already the "few." So, we are given a report on the view of a few of the few - THEIR perspective - as if THAT is what matters in a so-called "democracy."] Silva would adopt the radical populism of Venezuela's Hugo Chavez [How could he! Helping the mass of people rather than the few would be ass-backwards!] , they worry that he could entrench divisions in Brazil, which has one of the world's widest gaps between rich and poor. This is the wackiest sentence in the piece! These vultures don't worry that outrageous divisions exist; but ONLY that the victims of "one of the world's widest gaps between rich and poor" might think about it too much and stay angry about it.
"It's very easy to mobilize the poor. What's hard is to demobilize them after the election," said Bolivar Lamounier, director of the Augurium political consulting firm. "I'm afraid if he wins a second term, which looks likely, he will be tempted to take an authoritarian turn." So, according to the political consultant, the problem isn't the situation of the poor; and exploiting the poor to get elected is OK; the problem is puting the poor back in their cages after the election - democracy at work again!! (Notice how his tone reflects that of one on high explaining to another of the anointed the fine points of manipulating lesser beings, farm animals, or characters in a video game).
According to a poll released Thursday, Silva was leading Alckmin 63 percent to 37 percent — even better than his 2002 victory of 61 percent to 39 percent over Jose Serra. The poll interviewed 2,000 voters and had a margin of error of 2 percentage points. Hmmmm ... it seems weird that 63% of those polled on the election support a turn to the left, but "many" of those the reporters polled fear it.
In the first round on Oct. 1, Silva fell just short of the 50 percent needed to avoid a runoff. Polls had predicted he would win outright but then news media ran photos of $770,000 in cash that members of his party allegedly planned to spend on purchasing an incriminating file about Alckmin and his allies. Well, Silva's guys are crooks, but crooks trying to get the goods that prove Alckmin is a crook. Doesn't it seem strange that this stuff is seen as indicting only one of the crooks? - sounds like Foxxx News (and what happened to Dan Rather) to me.
Although Silva was never personally implicated, the expose reinforced suspicions of government corruption — suspicions driven home by Alckmin in his campaign speeches. Silva most likely IS corrupt - and Alckmin probably is too - but neither side really cares about that; the scary possibility is that one crook - in order to get elected - will chum up the masses and then not be able to calm them back into submission.
It was then that Silva stepped up the class-driven rhetoric.
He called Alckmin a tool of the rich and out of touch with the common man, while his allies painted a corruption scandal enveloping Silva's party as an elitist-driven conspiracy.
"The raw and naked truth is that, in the elite's political program ... the poor have not been included," Silva said at a Sao Paulo rally. "During elections the poor are worth more than bankers, but after the elections the poor are not even invited in for coffee."
The first-round vote split the nation along geographic lines, with Silva winning handily in Brazil's poor north while Alckmin took the industrialized south, including Sao Paulo, the state he served as governor.
In the second round, Silva counterattacked with an appeal to national pride, claiming that Alckmin would privatize government-run companies that are sacred cows to many Brazilians — oil giant Petrobras, Banco do Brasil, the national post office.
Alckmin called the president a "liar" to his face during their first debate — but Silva hammered away at the theme, and analysts say many of Brazil's 125 million voters believed him. Now the "many" really IS the "many."
"It's not very difficult with the low level of education in Brazil to motivate this prejudice," Lamounier said [Yeah, they're so stupid that when you screw them , they think you screwed 'em!]. "It was very hard to carry out privatization in Brazil, and while it made good business sense, when poor people got their phone bills or light bills they just saw that things cost a lot." There are plenty of people with more education than Mr. Lamounier who would call him a flunky of the elite (check out economist/author Greg Palast).
Alckmin has played on fears that Silva, like Chavez, could rewrite the constitution to give the poor more power. Silva has denied any attempt to split the country along class lines. Two shitheads at work: one wants to make sure the majority has minimal political power; the other vows not to split a country that is already split by "one of the world's widest gaps."
His socialist fire has already inflamed prejudices among upper-class Brazilians. Well, at least the PREJUDICE is admitted - notice, again, that helping the masses as opposed to the elite few is characterised as "fire" and "inflaming."
"If he's elected I hope he gets impeached during his first days in office," said Remo Dalla Zanna, a 67-year-old economist. "He's not the kind of person I want governing my country [ notice "my country" - John Jay, I believe, said of the USA that it "should be run by the people who own it."] . I don't want a crude and ignorant union leader. No one I know is going to vote for him." Well, I guess that means he'll surely win - how many voters does a member of a small elite group "know"?.
The poor majority [ the reason he'll win ], in large part, remains Silva's devout power base.
"With Lula, things have gotten much better for the poor," said Celsinha Coqueiro de Sousa, a 52-year-old maid, "and I hope they will get even better." Well!! isn't that just what you'd expect from some crude, ignorant, working-class peasant ?!! - - - - Uke Man
Associated Press writer Hellen Berger contributed to this report from Sao Paulo.
More from the “free” press!!
Now, I don’t have enough information to determine the motive behind this article being screwed up (ignorance? stupidity? politics? self-censorship? fear? collaboration?), but it clearly IS screwed up, and another example of how we are brainwashed to see things the way we are “supposed” to see them.
My comments are in red.
- Uke Man
Brazil president readies for runoff vote
By MICHAEL ASTOR, Associated Press Writer
RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil - Facing a surprisingly rough campaign, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has revived the populist rhetoric he had largely shed since taking office. Apparently, Silva was elected by appealing to the majority in his country - the regular people, but was losing support as a result of reneging on his campaign stance.
Fiery speeches contrasting the lives of Brazil's poor with the wealthy elite have left many Brazilians wondering whether he would push the country to the left if he wins a second four-year term in Sunday's runoff election. The "elite" are a small group; the "poor" are a large group. What (who?) is meant here by "many"? Obviously, the poor would "hope" for rather than "wonder" about a turn to the left - as in Venezuela; are the poor or the wealthy "wondering"? From whose perspective is this story being told?
Silva, a former union firebrand [ not a union "organizer," a "firebrand" - hmmm ... fire is destructive, isn't it! hmmmm ...] and Brazil's first working-class president, faced similar fears four years ago [ there's the answer as to perspective; it IS the "elite," the minority, who are "wondering" - the story is from THEIR perspective] but calmed them by adhering to market-friendly, pro-business policies that won praise even from conservatives. Oh, I see. He got elected by promising to aid the powerless majority, but then behaved well by actually serving the small, conservative, wealthy minority - who now fear he might - to get elected - actually serve the majority of people who voted for him in the first place and desperately NEED his attention.
But with his administration engulfed in corruption scandals, Silva has returned to his traditional base — the poor — rallying them with claims that his opponent, Geraldo Alckmin, would sell off cherished state assets and eliminate popular programs such as Family Allowance, which gives needy families monthly subsidies. OK, sounds familiar: make promises to the people / get elected / screw the people / lose support / make promises to the people and/or scare them ...
"The rich don't need the Brazilian state. The ones who need it are the poor people of this country," Silva said at rally on Sao Paulo's poor east side. "The poor are the ones who need public universities because the rich can pay — or even study in Paris."
While few believe [ here we go again: "few"!! Well the elite are already the "few." So, we are given a report on the view of a few of the few - THEIR perspective - as if THAT is what matters in a so-called "democracy."] Silva would adopt the radical populism of Venezuela's Hugo Chavez [How could he! Helping the mass of people rather than the few would be ass-backwards!] , they worry that he could entrench divisions in Brazil, which has one of the world's widest gaps between rich and poor. This is the wackiest sentence in the piece! These vultures don't worry that outrageous divisions exist; but ONLY that the victims of "one of the world's widest gaps between rich and poor" might think about it too much and stay angry about it.
"It's very easy to mobilize the poor. What's hard is to demobilize them after the election," said Bolivar Lamounier, director of the Augurium political consulting firm. "I'm afraid if he wins a second term, which looks likely, he will be tempted to take an authoritarian turn." So, according to the political consultant, the problem isn't the situation of the poor; and exploiting the poor to get elected is OK; the problem is puting the poor back in their cages after the election - democracy at work again!! (Notice how his tone reflects that of one on high explaining to another of the anointed the fine points of manipulating lesser beings, farm animals, or characters in a video game).
According to a poll released Thursday, Silva was leading Alckmin 63 percent to 37 percent — even better than his 2002 victory of 61 percent to 39 percent over Jose Serra. The poll interviewed 2,000 voters and had a margin of error of 2 percentage points. Hmmmm ... it seems weird that 63% of those polled on the election support a turn to the left, but "many" of those the reporters polled fear it.
In the first round on Oct. 1, Silva fell just short of the 50 percent needed to avoid a runoff. Polls had predicted he would win outright but then news media ran photos of $770,000 in cash that members of his party allegedly planned to spend on purchasing an incriminating file about Alckmin and his allies. Well, Silva's guys are crooks, but crooks trying to get the goods that prove Alckmin is a crook. Doesn't it seem strange that this stuff is seen as indicting only one of the crooks? - sounds like Foxxx News (and what happened to Dan Rather) to me.
Although Silva was never personally implicated, the expose reinforced suspicions of government corruption — suspicions driven home by Alckmin in his campaign speeches. Silva most likely IS corrupt - and Alckmin probably is too - but neither side really cares about that; the scary possibility is that one crook - in order to get elected - will chum up the masses and then not be able to calm them back into submission.
It was then that Silva stepped up the class-driven rhetoric.
He called Alckmin a tool of the rich and out of touch with the common man, while his allies painted a corruption scandal enveloping Silva's party as an elitist-driven conspiracy.
"The raw and naked truth is that, in the elite's political program ... the poor have not been included," Silva said at a Sao Paulo rally. "During elections the poor are worth more than bankers, but after the elections the poor are not even invited in for coffee."
The first-round vote split the nation along geographic lines, with Silva winning handily in Brazil's poor north while Alckmin took the industrialized south, including Sao Paulo, the state he served as governor.
In the second round, Silva counterattacked with an appeal to national pride, claiming that Alckmin would privatize government-run companies that are sacred cows to many Brazilians — oil giant Petrobras, Banco do Brasil, the national post office.
Alckmin called the president a "liar" to his face during their first debate — but Silva hammered away at the theme, and analysts say many of Brazil's 125 million voters believed him. Now the "many" really IS the "many."
"It's not very difficult with the low level of education in Brazil to motivate this prejudice," Lamounier said [Yeah, they're so stupid that when you screw them , they think you screwed 'em!]. "It was very hard to carry out privatization in Brazil, and while it made good business sense, when poor people got their phone bills or light bills they just saw that things cost a lot." There are plenty of people with more education than Mr. Lamounier who would call him a flunky of the elite (check out economist/author Greg Palast).
Alckmin has played on fears that Silva, like Chavez, could rewrite the constitution to give the poor more power. Silva has denied any attempt to split the country along class lines. Two shitheads at work: one wants to make sure the majority has minimal political power; the other vows not to split a country that is already split by "one of the world's widest gaps."
His socialist fire has already inflamed prejudices among upper-class Brazilians. Well, at least the PREJUDICE is admitted - notice, again, that helping the masses as opposed to the elite few is characterised as "fire" and "inflaming."
"If he's elected I hope he gets impeached during his first days in office," said Remo Dalla Zanna, a 67-year-old economist. "He's not the kind of person I want governing my country [ notice "my country" - John Jay, I believe, said of the USA that it "should be run by the people who own it."] . I don't want a crude and ignorant union leader. No one I know is going to vote for him." Well, I guess that means he'll surely win - how many voters does a member of a small elite group "know"?.
The poor majority [ the reason he'll win ], in large part, remains Silva's devout power base.
"With Lula, things have gotten much better for the poor," said Celsinha Coqueiro de Sousa, a 52-year-old maid, "and I hope they will get even better." Well!! isn't that just what you'd expect from some crude, ignorant, working-class peasant ?!! - - - - Uke Man
Associated Press writer Hellen Berger contributed to this report from Sao Paulo.
Happy Halloween
Hey Folks,
If you're from Ohio, this is a hoot!!! My guess is that even if you're not from Ohio, you can appreciate it.
But first, check out this DeWine ad: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QbZ_w-LSytg . I bet that the three crusty biddies are Mike's old girl friends. Mike knows how to pick 'em!!
-Uke Man
Politicians’ revenge: when ads attack back
Sunday, October 29, 2006
MIKE HARDEN
Forget Haunted Hoochie and the other Halloween fright sites in Central Ohio. Last night I dreamed I was trapped in a catacomb where all the political TV ads of 2006 came to life.
Greeted at the entrance by a trio of pinch-faced crones, I was led to a torture chamber where a writhing figure was being stewed in a cauldron.
"Eye of newt and toe of frog," one of the witches recited of the recipe.
"Then throw in Sherrod Brown, the dog," a second cackled.
The trio screeched in unison, "We don’t trust you, Sherrod Brown," whacking him down into the broth with spatulas the size of canoe paddles.
Thunder crashed and lightning flashed, but behind a curtain churning the storm machine I glimpsed Ohio Republican Party Chairman Bob Bennett, dressed as Elmer Fudd, chanting, "Be afwaid. Be vehwy, vehwy afwaid."
A spindly, aged man grabbed me by the lapels, imploring, "You’ve got to help me. I can’t find my way home."
"But you’re Bob Shamansky," I said. "You’ve got three homes. You ought to be able to find one of them."
"No, forget the Sham," hissed Emily Kreider. "Help me find a polling place where I can vote — retroactively."
A thunderous rumble echoed down the passageway. I looked up to glimpse a squadron of giant Macy’s Parade figures bumping their heads on the ceiling. There was Bob Taft, Tom Noe and Bob Ney.
"Make them disappear, for God’s sake!" Mike DeWine pleaded. "The Democrats are eating my lunch."
"Very well," answered the Good Witch of the Right, waving a wand and suddenly obscuring the figures in a gray plume.
"More smoke," DeWine commanded. "I think we need some more smoke. Don’t you think it makes it look more dramatic? "
I crawled from under the smokescreen and followed the faint strains of the movie theme from The Godfather into a semi-darkened den where a graying former political Capo di tutti capi held court behind a huge walnut desk.
"Don Celeste," his visitor began.
"It’s Dick," the godfather interrupted. "Cripes, Ted, I’m your brother."
"Forgive me, godfather. The Republicans are killing me. They’re running bad 8 mm footage of me taken with the same camera that shot Bigfoot. They say I’m just like you. Tax, tax, tax. Family tradition."
"Your point?" the godfather asked.
I crawled on.
"Pssssst!" I heard from a dark recess. "It’s Zack Space."
"Right," I answered. "And this here is Moon Unit and Dweezil."
"No, that’s really my name. You’ve got to save me from Joy Padgett."
"What’s she look like? "
"Little apple-doll lady. A real Tupperware Madonna. Drives a car with Terry Anderson’s stuffed head as a hood ornament."
I crawled on, buoyed by the sight of a faintly glowing exit sign in the distance. To reach it, I would have to make it past Mary Jo Kilroy’s bad-hair-day photo and three howling dogs.
My hands and knees were cut and scraped, but I didn’t look as bad as the GOP’s autopsy photo of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
I burst into the chill October air, gasping for just a breath of clean air. I would have paid good money for a Fred Ricart commercial.
Behind me, I could hear faintly the closing moments of the Kilroy ad for The Pryce Is Wrong. At the end of it, someone had supplanted Bob Barker’s pet-friendly goodbye:
"Make this a better world. Please remember to spay and neuter all politicians."
mharden@dispatch.com
If you're from Ohio, this is a hoot!!! My guess is that even if you're not from Ohio, you can appreciate it.
But first, check out this DeWine ad: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QbZ_w-LSytg . I bet that the three crusty biddies are Mike's old girl friends. Mike knows how to pick 'em!!
-Uke Man
Politicians’ revenge: when ads attack back
Sunday, October 29, 2006
MIKE HARDEN
Forget Haunted Hoochie and the other Halloween fright sites in Central Ohio. Last night I dreamed I was trapped in a catacomb where all the political TV ads of 2006 came to life.
Greeted at the entrance by a trio of pinch-faced crones, I was led to a torture chamber where a writhing figure was being stewed in a cauldron.
"Eye of newt and toe of frog," one of the witches recited of the recipe.
"Then throw in Sherrod Brown, the dog," a second cackled.
The trio screeched in unison, "We don’t trust you, Sherrod Brown," whacking him down into the broth with spatulas the size of canoe paddles.
Thunder crashed and lightning flashed, but behind a curtain churning the storm machine I glimpsed Ohio Republican Party Chairman Bob Bennett, dressed as Elmer Fudd, chanting, "Be afwaid. Be vehwy, vehwy afwaid."
A spindly, aged man grabbed me by the lapels, imploring, "You’ve got to help me. I can’t find my way home."
"But you’re Bob Shamansky," I said. "You’ve got three homes. You ought to be able to find one of them."
"No, forget the Sham," hissed Emily Kreider. "Help me find a polling place where I can vote — retroactively."
A thunderous rumble echoed down the passageway. I looked up to glimpse a squadron of giant Macy’s Parade figures bumping their heads on the ceiling. There was Bob Taft, Tom Noe and Bob Ney.
"Make them disappear, for God’s sake!" Mike DeWine pleaded. "The Democrats are eating my lunch."
"Very well," answered the Good Witch of the Right, waving a wand and suddenly obscuring the figures in a gray plume.
"More smoke," DeWine commanded. "I think we need some more smoke. Don’t you think it makes it look more dramatic? "
I crawled from under the smokescreen and followed the faint strains of the movie theme from The Godfather into a semi-darkened den where a graying former political Capo di tutti capi held court behind a huge walnut desk.
"Don Celeste," his visitor began.
"It’s Dick," the godfather interrupted. "Cripes, Ted, I’m your brother."
"Forgive me, godfather. The Republicans are killing me. They’re running bad 8 mm footage of me taken with the same camera that shot Bigfoot. They say I’m just like you. Tax, tax, tax. Family tradition."
"Your point?" the godfather asked.
I crawled on.
"Pssssst!" I heard from a dark recess. "It’s Zack Space."
"Right," I answered. "And this here is Moon Unit and Dweezil."
"No, that’s really my name. You’ve got to save me from Joy Padgett."
"What’s she look like? "
"Little apple-doll lady. A real Tupperware Madonna. Drives a car with Terry Anderson’s stuffed head as a hood ornament."
I crawled on, buoyed by the sight of a faintly glowing exit sign in the distance. To reach it, I would have to make it past Mary Jo Kilroy’s bad-hair-day photo and three howling dogs.
My hands and knees were cut and scraped, but I didn’t look as bad as the GOP’s autopsy photo of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
I burst into the chill October air, gasping for just a breath of clean air. I would have paid good money for a Fred Ricart commercial.
Behind me, I could hear faintly the closing moments of the Kilroy ad for The Pryce Is Wrong. At the end of it, someone had supplanted Bob Barker’s pet-friendly goodbye:
"Make this a better world. Please remember to spay and neuter all politicians."
mharden@dispatch.com
Sunday, October 29, 2006
Sorry
Hey Folks,
I'm sorry the blog went bare today (Sunday, October 29).
Blogger.com was inert all day long!! Couldn't post anything!!!
- Uke Man
I'm sorry the blog went bare today (Sunday, October 29).
Blogger.com was inert all day long!! Couldn't post anything!!!
- Uke Man
Speading "democracy" on the mushrooms
Well Folks,
The election is nearing, and most agree it’s important. Will the Democrats replace the Republicans? Will Nancy Pelosi or Bella Lugosi end up Speaker of the Mouse? Will the Monkey Man in the White House menagerie eat a banana in celebration or will Dennie Hastert throw up his kielbasa?
Will it be Morning in America or Mourning in America? Will we all be Raptured or Ruptured? Is Obama the savior, come at last to cast the Beast into the six-hundred-sixty-six foot deep lake of fire? Or is Bush here for two more years?
Will gays be allowed to get married? Will Rick Santorum be freed to have sex with more than one dog? Will the money we don’t have for Social Security be used to attack Iran? Will raising the minimum wage destroy Capitalism as we know it? Will the CIA dispatch Pat Robertson to assassinate Hugo Chavez? Will we finally support our troops with armored jock straps? Will we still be afraid, very, very, very afraid?
Will the “will of the people” be thwarted again by crooked voting machines? Or in new and improved ways? Will the price of gasoline go up or down after the election? Will anyone who supports taxes be elected? Will the new judges be activists or pacifists? And what about the children!!
Now, I guess all of this is important to someone - but I’m looking at this upcoming election a little differently. Generally I don’t even call it an election – it’s a test, one we’ve failed regularly for some time. Rick Santorum might be on to something with his man/beast preoccupation.
We’re taught that humanity is special. In one book it says god took five days of practice working up to making us - his pride and joy; and THEN he put so much effort into our creation that he took the next day off (he was self-employed) to rest up.
We’re supposed to be special because we walk “upright” (although that never made sense to me – just like that stuff about having opposable thumbs – it always seemed to me that if humans could, for example, put their elbows in their ears, THAT would “prove” we were “special” – we’re such a modest species).
We’re special, too, because we “think” – unlike the beasts (yeah, I know, Rick and other dog-lovers say dogs think, but animal-lovers have stars in their eyes ). We’re “rational” – or we must have been once, back in the “Age of Reason” anyway. We recognize “time” and comprehend our eventual demise. We’ve been to the Moon and invented hair transplants, buttocks enhancement, and right-turn-on-red (after stop).
We’re special !! Or so we’re told. I’m beginning to wonder.
So … for me this election is important too. It will answer that old question we used to hear women periodically ask their men in the old black-and-white movies: “Well, what are you? A man or a mouse?” To put it another way: “What are we? Humans? Or just another kind of beast?
The Bush machine has been purring right along quite successfully for six years without a hitch by dealing with us as if we were only stupid animals. The R’s throughout the country, too, have been doing quite nicely - thank you - for a long time now, via the same approach.
What’s that Duhbya said, ”Fool me once … uh … shame on you. Fool me … uh … can’t fool me again.” Like most things the dauphin utters, it seems to be untrue. This election will determine whether it is or not.
For just as long, the Democrats have stood bravely forth as the loyal opposition jellyfish; going along and pretending not to (at least as much as they felt it was personally prudent to pretend). Now how these stalwarts actually behave – should they win as the polls predict – or how they react – should Kkkarl Rove, Diebold, et.al. succeed in stealing the election again - will shed light on the advisability of our putting faith into the “democratic electoral process.” Likewise, how we react to that illumination will tell whether we are actually men or truly beasts.
If we act at the polls out of fear, hatred, faith, prejudice, ignorance, greed; or on the basis of thirty-second mud slides (“Don’t vote for Rapunzel !! She let her hair down. If her hair can’t count on her, how can we?”), we have no right to be called “special.”
If the Republicans steal the election and we don’t hit the streets, we have no right to be called “special.”
If the Republicans steal the election and the Democrats don’t hit the streets, and we don’t go after both of them, we have no right to be called “special.”
If the Democrats win the election and give us a new/improved Republican Light (with extra Lieberman) and we don’t hit the streets, we have no right to be called “special.”
Two quotations come to mind:
“Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public” - H.L. Mencken
“As my old Pappy used to say, ‘You can fool all of the people some of the time and some of the people all the time, and those are pretty good odds.’ ” - Brett Maverick
I’m betting with Mencken and Maverick.
- Uke Man
The election is nearing, and most agree it’s important. Will the Democrats replace the Republicans? Will Nancy Pelosi or Bella Lugosi end up Speaker of the Mouse? Will the Monkey Man in the White House menagerie eat a banana in celebration or will Dennie Hastert throw up his kielbasa?
Will it be Morning in America or Mourning in America? Will we all be Raptured or Ruptured? Is Obama the savior, come at last to cast the Beast into the six-hundred-sixty-six foot deep lake of fire? Or is Bush here for two more years?
Will gays be allowed to get married? Will Rick Santorum be freed to have sex with more than one dog? Will the money we don’t have for Social Security be used to attack Iran? Will raising the minimum wage destroy Capitalism as we know it? Will the CIA dispatch Pat Robertson to assassinate Hugo Chavez? Will we finally support our troops with armored jock straps? Will we still be afraid, very, very, very afraid?
Will the “will of the people” be thwarted again by crooked voting machines? Or in new and improved ways? Will the price of gasoline go up or down after the election? Will anyone who supports taxes be elected? Will the new judges be activists or pacifists? And what about the children!!
Now, I guess all of this is important to someone - but I’m looking at this upcoming election a little differently. Generally I don’t even call it an election – it’s a test, one we’ve failed regularly for some time. Rick Santorum might be on to something with his man/beast preoccupation.
We’re taught that humanity is special. In one book it says god took five days of practice working up to making us - his pride and joy; and THEN he put so much effort into our creation that he took the next day off (he was self-employed) to rest up.
We’re supposed to be special because we walk “upright” (although that never made sense to me – just like that stuff about having opposable thumbs – it always seemed to me that if humans could, for example, put their elbows in their ears, THAT would “prove” we were “special” – we’re such a modest species).
We’re special, too, because we “think” – unlike the beasts (yeah, I know, Rick and other dog-lovers say dogs think, but animal-lovers have stars in their eyes ). We’re “rational” – or we must have been once, back in the “Age of Reason” anyway. We recognize “time” and comprehend our eventual demise. We’ve been to the Moon and invented hair transplants, buttocks enhancement, and right-turn-on-red (after stop).
We’re special !! Or so we’re told. I’m beginning to wonder.
So … for me this election is important too. It will answer that old question we used to hear women periodically ask their men in the old black-and-white movies: “Well, what are you? A man or a mouse?” To put it another way: “What are we? Humans? Or just another kind of beast?
The Bush machine has been purring right along quite successfully for six years without a hitch by dealing with us as if we were only stupid animals. The R’s throughout the country, too, have been doing quite nicely - thank you - for a long time now, via the same approach.
What’s that Duhbya said, ”Fool me once … uh … shame on you. Fool me … uh … can’t fool me again.” Like most things the dauphin utters, it seems to be untrue. This election will determine whether it is or not.
For just as long, the Democrats have stood bravely forth as the loyal opposition jellyfish; going along and pretending not to (at least as much as they felt it was personally prudent to pretend). Now how these stalwarts actually behave – should they win as the polls predict – or how they react – should Kkkarl Rove, Diebold, et.al. succeed in stealing the election again - will shed light on the advisability of our putting faith into the “democratic electoral process.” Likewise, how we react to that illumination will tell whether we are actually men or truly beasts.
If we act at the polls out of fear, hatred, faith, prejudice, ignorance, greed; or on the basis of thirty-second mud slides (“Don’t vote for Rapunzel !! She let her hair down. If her hair can’t count on her, how can we?”), we have no right to be called “special.”
If the Republicans steal the election and we don’t hit the streets, we have no right to be called “special.”
If the Republicans steal the election and the Democrats don’t hit the streets, and we don’t go after both of them, we have no right to be called “special.”
If the Democrats win the election and give us a new/improved Republican Light (with extra Lieberman) and we don’t hit the streets, we have no right to be called “special.”
Two quotations come to mind:
“Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public” - H.L. Mencken
“As my old Pappy used to say, ‘You can fool all of the people some of the time and some of the people all the time, and those are pretty good odds.’ ” - Brett Maverick
I’m betting with Mencken and Maverick.
- Uke Man
Happy Days ????
Hey Folks,
You may have heard from me before that, in my view, every society/culture/civilization’s “Prime Directive” is to further its own existence while maintaining or accentuating the disparate benefits and degradations of its various citizens.
Furthermore, this is accomplished by inventing a mythology to justify, disguise, or distract from the blatantly depraved, prejudicial, or otherwise unsavory reality of the system.
This Orwellian reality is evident today in the Bush regime’s attempts to replace science and the “reality based community” with “faith” – faith in the leader and faith in the leader’s god - "Watch the Wizard, not the man or the depravity behind the curtain."
Well, listening to NPR Saturday, I heard a piece discussing a memoir from the 50’s. It struck me how clearly it demonstrated the disconnect between what really was and what the culture had created for itself to believe.
Give a listen and see what you think:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6394288
- Uke Man
You may have heard from me before that, in my view, every society/culture/civilization’s “Prime Directive” is to further its own existence while maintaining or accentuating the disparate benefits and degradations of its various citizens.
Furthermore, this is accomplished by inventing a mythology to justify, disguise, or distract from the blatantly depraved, prejudicial, or otherwise unsavory reality of the system.
This Orwellian reality is evident today in the Bush regime’s attempts to replace science and the “reality based community” with “faith” – faith in the leader and faith in the leader’s god - "Watch the Wizard, not the man or the depravity behind the curtain."
Well, listening to NPR Saturday, I heard a piece discussing a memoir from the 50’s. It struck me how clearly it demonstrated the disconnect between what really was and what the culture had created for itself to believe.
Give a listen and see what you think:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6394288
- Uke Man
Saturday, October 28, 2006
Faith(less) Healing
Hey Folks,
More evidence that this is the "Greatest Nation on the face of the earth" and that "if you don't support the president, you don't support the troops."
- Uke Man
September 4, 2006
Health Policy Malpractice
By PAUL KRUGMAN
( a ukethanks to Phyll)
Let me tell you about two government-financed health care programs. One, the Veterans Health Administration, is a stunning success, but the administration and Republicans in Congress refuse to build on that success, because it doesn't fit their conservative agenda.
The other, Medicare Advantage, is a clear failure, but it's expanding rapidly thanks to large subsidies the administration rammed through Congress in 2003.
I've written about the V.A. before; it was the subject of a recent informative article in Time. Some still think of the V.A. as a decrepit institution, which it was in the Reagan and Bush I years. But thanks to reforms begun under Bill Clinton, it's now providing remarkably high-quality health care at remarkably low cost.
The key to the V.A.'s success is its long-term relationship with its clients: veterans, once in the V.A. system, normally stay in it for life.This means that the V.A. can easily keep track of a patient's medical history, allowing it to make much better use of information technology than other health care providers.
Unlike all but a few doctors in the private sector, V.A. doctors have instant access to patients' medical records via a systemwide network, which reduces both costs and medical errors.The long-term relationship with patients also lets the V.A. save money by investing heavily in preventive medicine, an area in which the private sector - which makes money by treating the sick, not by keeping people healthy - has shown little interest.
The result is a system that achieves higher customer satisfaction than the private sector, higher quality of care by a number of measures and lower mortality rates - at much lower cost per patient.
Not surprisingly, hundreds of thousands of veterans have switched from private physicians to the V.A. The commander of the American Legion has proposed letting elderly vets spend their Medicare benefits at V.A. facilities, which would lead to better medical care and large government savings.
Instead, the Bush administration has restricted access to the V.A. system, limiting it to poor vets or those with service-related injuries. And as for allowing elderly vets to get better, cheaper health care: "Conservatives," writes Time, "fear such an arrangement would be a Trojan horse, setting up an even larger national health-care program and taking more business from the private sector."
Think about that: they won't let vets on Medicare buy into the V.A. system, not because they believe this policy initiative would fail, but because they're afraid it would succeed.
Meanwhile, the Bush administration is pursuing a failed idea from the 1990's: channeling Medicare recipients into private H.M.O.'s. The theory was that H.M.O.'s, by bringing private-sector efficiency and the magic of the marketplace to health care, would be able to do what the V.A. has achieved in practice: provide better care at lower cost.But the theory was wrong.
Years of experience show that H.M.O.'s actually have substantially higher costs per patient than conventional Medicare, because they add an expensive extra layer of bureaucracy and also spend heavily on marketing. H.M.O.'s for Medicare recipients prospered for a while by selectively covering relatively healthy older Americans, but when the government began paying less for those likely to have low medical costs, many H.M.O.'s dropped out of the Medicare market.
In 2003, however, the Bush administration pushed through the Medicare Advantage program, which offers heavy subsidies to H.M.O.'s. According to the independent Medicare Payment Advisory Commission, Medicare Advantage plans cost the government 11 percent more per person than traditional Medicare. Oh, and mortality rates in these plans are 40 percent higher than those of elderly veterans covered by the V.A.
But thanks to the subsidy, membership in Medicare Advantage plans is surging.On one side, then, the administration and its allies in Congress oppose expanding the best health care system in America, even though that expansion would save taxpayer dollars, because they're afraid that allowing a successful government program to expand would undermine their antigovernment crusade and displease powerful business lobbies.
On the other side, ideology and fealty to interest groups make them willing to waste billions subsidizing private H.M.O.'s. Remember that contrast the next time you hear some conservative going on about excessive spending on entitlements, and declaring that we need to cut back on Medicare and Medicaid benefits.
More evidence that this is the "Greatest Nation on the face of the earth" and that "if you don't support the president, you don't support the troops."
- Uke Man
September 4, 2006
Health Policy Malpractice
By PAUL KRUGMAN
( a ukethanks to Phyll)
Let me tell you about two government-financed health care programs. One, the Veterans Health Administration, is a stunning success, but the administration and Republicans in Congress refuse to build on that success, because it doesn't fit their conservative agenda.
The other, Medicare Advantage, is a clear failure, but it's expanding rapidly thanks to large subsidies the administration rammed through Congress in 2003.
I've written about the V.A. before; it was the subject of a recent informative article in Time. Some still think of the V.A. as a decrepit institution, which it was in the Reagan and Bush I years. But thanks to reforms begun under Bill Clinton, it's now providing remarkably high-quality health care at remarkably low cost.
The key to the V.A.'s success is its long-term relationship with its clients: veterans, once in the V.A. system, normally stay in it for life.This means that the V.A. can easily keep track of a patient's medical history, allowing it to make much better use of information technology than other health care providers.
Unlike all but a few doctors in the private sector, V.A. doctors have instant access to patients' medical records via a systemwide network, which reduces both costs and medical errors.The long-term relationship with patients also lets the V.A. save money by investing heavily in preventive medicine, an area in which the private sector - which makes money by treating the sick, not by keeping people healthy - has shown little interest.
The result is a system that achieves higher customer satisfaction than the private sector, higher quality of care by a number of measures and lower mortality rates - at much lower cost per patient.
Not surprisingly, hundreds of thousands of veterans have switched from private physicians to the V.A. The commander of the American Legion has proposed letting elderly vets spend their Medicare benefits at V.A. facilities, which would lead to better medical care and large government savings.
Instead, the Bush administration has restricted access to the V.A. system, limiting it to poor vets or those with service-related injuries. And as for allowing elderly vets to get better, cheaper health care: "Conservatives," writes Time, "fear such an arrangement would be a Trojan horse, setting up an even larger national health-care program and taking more business from the private sector."
Think about that: they won't let vets on Medicare buy into the V.A. system, not because they believe this policy initiative would fail, but because they're afraid it would succeed.
Meanwhile, the Bush administration is pursuing a failed idea from the 1990's: channeling Medicare recipients into private H.M.O.'s. The theory was that H.M.O.'s, by bringing private-sector efficiency and the magic of the marketplace to health care, would be able to do what the V.A. has achieved in practice: provide better care at lower cost.But the theory was wrong.
Years of experience show that H.M.O.'s actually have substantially higher costs per patient than conventional Medicare, because they add an expensive extra layer of bureaucracy and also spend heavily on marketing. H.M.O.'s for Medicare recipients prospered for a while by selectively covering relatively healthy older Americans, but when the government began paying less for those likely to have low medical costs, many H.M.O.'s dropped out of the Medicare market.
In 2003, however, the Bush administration pushed through the Medicare Advantage program, which offers heavy subsidies to H.M.O.'s. According to the independent Medicare Payment Advisory Commission, Medicare Advantage plans cost the government 11 percent more per person than traditional Medicare. Oh, and mortality rates in these plans are 40 percent higher than those of elderly veterans covered by the V.A.
But thanks to the subsidy, membership in Medicare Advantage plans is surging.On one side, then, the administration and its allies in Congress oppose expanding the best health care system in America, even though that expansion would save taxpayer dollars, because they're afraid that allowing a successful government program to expand would undermine their antigovernment crusade and displease powerful business lobbies.
On the other side, ideology and fealty to interest groups make them willing to waste billions subsidizing private H.M.O.'s. Remember that contrast the next time you hear some conservative going on about excessive spending on entitlements, and declaring that we need to cut back on Medicare and Medicaid benefits.
"We can all go to hell together, or we can go separately."
"The climate is not that pleasant, but all our friends will be there."
"Christian Country" my ass !!!
Famous Americans and one Roman Pagan said the following:
1. "While we assert for ourselves a freedom to embrace, to profess and observe the religion which we believe to be of divine origin, we cannot deny an equal freedom to those whose minds have not yet yielded to the evidence which has convinced us." - James Madison
2. "Neither religion nor liberty can long subsist in the tumult of altercation and amidst the noise and violence of faction." - Samuel Adams
3. "I hate polemical (hostile) politics and polemical divinity." - John Adams
4. "the government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion..." - In a treaty with the Muslim nation of Tripoli initiated by Washington, completed by John Adams, and ratified by the Senate in 1797, the Founding Father of the U.S. so declared this.
5. "As to Jesus of Nazareth ...I think the system of morals and his religion as he left them to us, the best the world ever saw, or is likely to see; but I apprehend it has received various corrupting changes, and I have...some doubts as to his divinity; though it is a question I do not dogmatize upon, having never studied it, and think it needless to busy myself with it now, when I expect soon an opportunity of knowing the truth with less trouble." - Benjamin Franklin
6. "I do not worry whether or not God is on my side; I worry that I am on God's side." - Abraham Lincoln
7. "Let every man speak freely without fear, maintain the principles that he believes, worship according to his own faith, either one God, three Gods, no Gods, or twenty Gods; and let government protect him in doing so."
- John Leland, a Baptist evangelist who worked with Jefferson and Madison to secure religions freedom in Virginia.
8. I never told my religion nor scrutinized that of another. I never attempted to make a convert, nor wish to change another's creed. I have ever judged of the religion of others by their lives." - Thomas Jefferson
9. He believed that a separation of church and state was necessary to protect the church, because the ambitions and vices of men could pervert the church, turning faith into a means of temporal (secular) power.
- Roger Williams, founder of Rhode Island
10. "When a religion is good, I perceive that it will support itself; and, when it cannot support itself, and God does not take care to support [it]. so that its [believers] are obligated to call for the help of a civil power, it is a sign ...of its being a bad one." - Benjamin Franklin
11. "I write with freedom, because, while I claim a right to believe in one God, I yield as freely to other that of believing in three. Both religions, I find, make honest men, and that is the only point society has any right to look to." - Thomas Jefferson
12. Every man is acocuntable to God alone for his religions opinions, and ought to be protected in worshipping the Deity according to the dictates of his own conscience." - George Washington
13. On the Great Seal of the United States appear the words, "Annuit Coeptis" or "Providence has favored our undertaking." Name the phrase's source. - Virgil, in Georgics
14. "The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my legs." - Thomas Jefferson
1. "While we assert for ourselves a freedom to embrace, to profess and observe the religion which we believe to be of divine origin, we cannot deny an equal freedom to those whose minds have not yet yielded to the evidence which has convinced us." - James Madison
2. "Neither religion nor liberty can long subsist in the tumult of altercation and amidst the noise and violence of faction." - Samuel Adams
3. "I hate polemical (hostile) politics and polemical divinity." - John Adams
4. "the government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion..." - In a treaty with the Muslim nation of Tripoli initiated by Washington, completed by John Adams, and ratified by the Senate in 1797, the Founding Father of the U.S. so declared this.
5. "As to Jesus of Nazareth ...I think the system of morals and his religion as he left them to us, the best the world ever saw, or is likely to see; but I apprehend it has received various corrupting changes, and I have...some doubts as to his divinity; though it is a question I do not dogmatize upon, having never studied it, and think it needless to busy myself with it now, when I expect soon an opportunity of knowing the truth with less trouble." - Benjamin Franklin
6. "I do not worry whether or not God is on my side; I worry that I am on God's side." - Abraham Lincoln
7. "Let every man speak freely without fear, maintain the principles that he believes, worship according to his own faith, either one God, three Gods, no Gods, or twenty Gods; and let government protect him in doing so."
- John Leland, a Baptist evangelist who worked with Jefferson and Madison to secure religions freedom in Virginia.
8. I never told my religion nor scrutinized that of another. I never attempted to make a convert, nor wish to change another's creed. I have ever judged of the religion of others by their lives." - Thomas Jefferson
9. He believed that a separation of church and state was necessary to protect the church, because the ambitions and vices of men could pervert the church, turning faith into a means of temporal (secular) power.
- Roger Williams, founder of Rhode Island
10. "When a religion is good, I perceive that it will support itself; and, when it cannot support itself, and God does not take care to support [it]. so that its [believers] are obligated to call for the help of a civil power, it is a sign ...of its being a bad one." - Benjamin Franklin
11. "I write with freedom, because, while I claim a right to believe in one God, I yield as freely to other that of believing in three. Both religions, I find, make honest men, and that is the only point society has any right to look to." - Thomas Jefferson
12. Every man is acocuntable to God alone for his religions opinions, and ought to be protected in worshipping the Deity according to the dictates of his own conscience." - George Washington
13. On the Great Seal of the United States appear the words, "Annuit Coeptis" or "Providence has favored our undertaking." Name the phrase's source. - Virgil, in Georgics
14. "The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my legs." - Thomas Jefferson
Friday, October 27, 2006
Yep, No racism in this country !!
Hey Folks,
You know, periodically we hear how racism is a thing of the past in the US of A. Yeah, right.
White people say that - and some Black, Republican Uncle Toms who make a living working propaganda for the Man say it too. But it's bullshit just the same.
Talk is cheap; and behavior contradicts the talk. Check out the story below. But first check out the political ad put out by the National Republican operation aimed at Harold Ford, the Tennessee son of a Black man and a White woman, which - in this country - makes him "Black."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vZF5ZTu2Go
Now, I'm sorry, but anybody with a brain can see what these Republican fucks are doing in this ad: racism as old as slavery: "this Negro is aiming to despoil white women!!"
The fact that there are plenty of White people (and some Black people too) willing to publicly deny this ad is racist, proves my point. The story about the Masons just underlines it.
- Uke Man
Masons struggle with racial separation
By JAY REEVES, Associated Press Oct 23
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. - The Masons, the storied fraternal order whose members have included Mozart, George Washington and John Wayne, has become entwined across the Deep South with the remnants of another tradition in these parts: strict segregation.
Nationwide, Masonic groups operate in a separate-but-supposedly-equal system in which whites typically join one network of Masonic groups, called Grand Lodges, and blacks typically join another, called Prince Hall.
But in the South, it goes further: White-controlled Grand Lodges in 12 Southern states do not even officially recognize black Masons as their brothers — the Masonic term is "mutual recognition" — and in some cases, black lodges have taken similar stands.
Masons have quietly debated race relations for years, and the issue is increasingly coming into public view.
In Alabama, some dissident whites have split from the lodge system, and Republican Gov. Bob Riley's membership in an all-white lodge has drawn fire in his campaign for a second term. In North Carolina, white Masons recently voted down a bid to recognize members of the black group as fellow Masons.
"Only the states of the old Confederacy, minus Virginia and plus West Virginia, don't have mutual recognition," said Paul Bessel, a Maryland Mason who wrote a book on the topic. "There are, I'm sorry to say, some Masons who are racists. But the vast majority don't feel that way."
Grand Lodges and Prince Hall groups coexist with few problems and officially recognize each other in 38 states and the District of Columbia, with members free to mingle and attend each other's meetings. Frank Chandler, a leader of the black Masonic group in Delaware, was happy to see mutual recognition granted in his state last month.
"The importance of it to me is that this is 2006. If we as black folks and they as white folks can't live together, we're got real problems," said Chandler, a retired Delaware state trooper.
But Bessel said the separation in the Deep South is entrenched and remains in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and West Virginia.
It also extends to Shriners, the men who wear funny red hats and operate a network of 22 charity hospitals for children. Shriners draw all their members from Masonry, and many of their policies are based on Masonic rules, Bessel said.
The Masonic movement, also known as Freemasonry, began in Enlightenment-area England and is known for its white aprons and architectural symbols. It came to the United States more than 250 years ago. Mainstream Masonry was controlled by whites, so blacks began meeting at lodges of their own in the 1770s; the organization that resulted was later named for one of the founders, Prince Hall.
The all-black lodges flourished alongside their white counterparts. White Masons in Washington state, briefly considered admitting Prince Hall Masons in 1890, Bessel said, but the resulting uproar kept most such proposals on hold until 1989, when the Grand Lodge of Connecticut passed a resolution formally recognizing black Masons.
Since then, 37 other state organizations have granted mutual recognition.
In Alabama, where critics say Grand Lodge members rejected a move to recognize black Masons in 1999, a few white Masons have formed a group outside the old system.
The issue also has become political, with Democrats accusing Alabama's governor of racism for his membership in an all-white lodge. Riley said he didn't know there were two separate Masonic groups and hadn't heard of mutual recognition until questioned recently by an Associated Press reporter.
This fall, white Masons in North Carolina refused to grant recognition to Prince Hall Masons. The vote was 681 for recognition and 404 against — just short of the two-thirds majority required, according to Ric Carter, editor of the state's Masonic newspaper. Black Masons in North Carolina granted recognition of white Masons in 2004.
The whites' refusal to reciprocate "raises the ugly head of racism, segregation, all over again," said the leader of Prince Hall Masons in North Carolina, Milton G. "Toby" Fitch Jr., a state judge and former majority leader in the North Carolina House.
"The best analogy I can give is Baptist churches: You have black Baptist churches, and you have white Baptist churches. But they both recognize each other as being Baptist. We are talking about accepting the fact that `you practice Masonry and I practice Masonry.'"
The head of Prince Hall Masons in Arkansas, Cleveland Wilson, said neither black nor white groups there have discussed mutual recognition. Extending Masonic brotherhood would be nice, he said, "but we're fine without them."
"I'm of the attitude that since they haven't shown any interest, I'm not interested either," Wilson said.
You know, periodically we hear how racism is a thing of the past in the US of A. Yeah, right.
White people say that - and some Black, Republican Uncle Toms who make a living working propaganda for the Man say it too. But it's bullshit just the same.
Talk is cheap; and behavior contradicts the talk. Check out the story below. But first check out the political ad put out by the National Republican operation aimed at Harold Ford, the Tennessee son of a Black man and a White woman, which - in this country - makes him "Black."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vZF5ZTu2Go
Now, I'm sorry, but anybody with a brain can see what these Republican fucks are doing in this ad: racism as old as slavery: "this Negro is aiming to despoil white women!!"
The fact that there are plenty of White people (and some Black people too) willing to publicly deny this ad is racist, proves my point. The story about the Masons just underlines it.
- Uke Man
Masons struggle with racial separation
By JAY REEVES, Associated Press Oct 23
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. - The Masons, the storied fraternal order whose members have included Mozart, George Washington and John Wayne, has become entwined across the Deep South with the remnants of another tradition in these parts: strict segregation.
Nationwide, Masonic groups operate in a separate-but-supposedly-equal system in which whites typically join one network of Masonic groups, called Grand Lodges, and blacks typically join another, called Prince Hall.
But in the South, it goes further: White-controlled Grand Lodges in 12 Southern states do not even officially recognize black Masons as their brothers — the Masonic term is "mutual recognition" — and in some cases, black lodges have taken similar stands.
Masons have quietly debated race relations for years, and the issue is increasingly coming into public view.
In Alabama, some dissident whites have split from the lodge system, and Republican Gov. Bob Riley's membership in an all-white lodge has drawn fire in his campaign for a second term. In North Carolina, white Masons recently voted down a bid to recognize members of the black group as fellow Masons.
"Only the states of the old Confederacy, minus Virginia and plus West Virginia, don't have mutual recognition," said Paul Bessel, a Maryland Mason who wrote a book on the topic. "There are, I'm sorry to say, some Masons who are racists. But the vast majority don't feel that way."
Grand Lodges and Prince Hall groups coexist with few problems and officially recognize each other in 38 states and the District of Columbia, with members free to mingle and attend each other's meetings. Frank Chandler, a leader of the black Masonic group in Delaware, was happy to see mutual recognition granted in his state last month.
"The importance of it to me is that this is 2006. If we as black folks and they as white folks can't live together, we're got real problems," said Chandler, a retired Delaware state trooper.
But Bessel said the separation in the Deep South is entrenched and remains in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and West Virginia.
It also extends to Shriners, the men who wear funny red hats and operate a network of 22 charity hospitals for children. Shriners draw all their members from Masonry, and many of their policies are based on Masonic rules, Bessel said.
The Masonic movement, also known as Freemasonry, began in Enlightenment-area England and is known for its white aprons and architectural symbols. It came to the United States more than 250 years ago. Mainstream Masonry was controlled by whites, so blacks began meeting at lodges of their own in the 1770s; the organization that resulted was later named for one of the founders, Prince Hall.
The all-black lodges flourished alongside their white counterparts. White Masons in Washington state, briefly considered admitting Prince Hall Masons in 1890, Bessel said, but the resulting uproar kept most such proposals on hold until 1989, when the Grand Lodge of Connecticut passed a resolution formally recognizing black Masons.
Since then, 37 other state organizations have granted mutual recognition.
In Alabama, where critics say Grand Lodge members rejected a move to recognize black Masons in 1999, a few white Masons have formed a group outside the old system.
The issue also has become political, with Democrats accusing Alabama's governor of racism for his membership in an all-white lodge. Riley said he didn't know there were two separate Masonic groups and hadn't heard of mutual recognition until questioned recently by an Associated Press reporter.
This fall, white Masons in North Carolina refused to grant recognition to Prince Hall Masons. The vote was 681 for recognition and 404 against — just short of the two-thirds majority required, according to Ric Carter, editor of the state's Masonic newspaper. Black Masons in North Carolina granted recognition of white Masons in 2004.
The whites' refusal to reciprocate "raises the ugly head of racism, segregation, all over again," said the leader of Prince Hall Masons in North Carolina, Milton G. "Toby" Fitch Jr., a state judge and former majority leader in the North Carolina House.
"The best analogy I can give is Baptist churches: You have black Baptist churches, and you have white Baptist churches. But they both recognize each other as being Baptist. We are talking about accepting the fact that `you practice Masonry and I practice Masonry.'"
The head of Prince Hall Masons in Arkansas, Cleveland Wilson, said neither black nor white groups there have discussed mutual recognition. Extending Masonic brotherhood would be nice, he said, "but we're fine without them."
"I'm of the attitude that since they haven't shown any interest, I'm not interested either," Wilson said.
Yeah, we better cut back - in OTHER countries !!
Hey Folks,
I have this fantasy that some future winter, when people are suffering from 112 degree heat in Minneapolis, a vigilante group will arrest Rush Limbaugh, strip him naked, stake him down on his back in Death Valley over a hill of fire ants, pour honey all over him, and leave him talking to himself about how there is no global warming and how eco-nazis hate Bush and are trying to destroy the economy (which – by the way – is "booming"), while yellow-jackets and deer flies gradually get wind of the delicious honey-sweat-fear aroma.
If he’s lucky, Rush’ll still be high on Oxycontin.
I have this fantasy that some future winter, when people are suffering from 112 degree heat in Minneapolis, a vigilante group will arrest Rush Limbaugh, strip him naked, stake him down on his back in Death Valley over a hill of fire ants, pour honey all over him, and leave him talking to himself about how there is no global warming and how eco-nazis hate Bush and are trying to destroy the economy (which – by the way – is "booming"), while yellow-jackets and deer flies gradually get wind of the delicious honey-sweat-fear aroma.
If he’s lucky, Rush’ll still be high on Oxycontin.
Human beings generally are stupid enough to either believe assholes like Rush or ignorant enough to be immobilized by doubt spawned by apparently self-confident windbags like Rush.
As a result, we are doomed to learning the hard way and somewhat deserving of what we get.
Still, when the shit hits the fan - as laid out in the story below - I'd really like to join the posse that brings justice to Mr. Limbaugh.
- Uke Man
Humans living far beyond planet's means: WWF
By Ben Blanchard Tue Oct 24
BEIJING (Reuters) - Humans are stripping nature at an unprecedented rate and will need two planets' worth of natural resources every year by 2050 on current trends, the WWF conservation group said on Tuesday.
Populations of many species, from fish to mammals, had fallen by about a third from 1970 to 2003 largely because of human threats such as pollution, clearing of forests and overfishing, the group also said in a two-yearly report.
"For more than 20 years we have exceeded the earth's ability to support a consumptive lifestyle that is unsustainable and we cannot afford to continue down this path," WWF Director-General James Leape said, launching the WWF's 2006 Living Planet Report.
"If everyone around the world lived as those in America, we would need five planets to support us," Leape, an American, said in Beijing.
People in the United Arab Emirates were placing most stress per capita on the planet ahead of those in the United States, Finland and Canada, the report said.
Australia was also living well beyond its means.
The average Australian used 6.6 "global" hectares to support their developed lifestyle, ranking behind the United States and Canada, but ahead of the United Kingdom, Russia, China and Japan.
"If the rest of the world led the kind of lifestyles we do here in Australia, we would require three-and-a-half planets to provide the resources we use and to absorb the waste," said Greg Bourne, WWF-Australia chief executive officer.
Everyone would have to change lifestyles -- cutting use of fossil fuels and improving management of everything from farming to fisheries.
"As countries work to improve the well-being of their people, they risk bypassing the goal of sustainability," said Leape, speaking in an energy-efficient building at Beijing's prestigous Tsinghua University.
"It is inevitable that this disconnect will eventually limit the abilities of poor countries to develop and rich countries to maintain their prosperity," he added.
The report said humans' "ecological footprint" -- the demand people place on the natural world -- was 25 percent greater than the planet's annual ability to provide everything from food to energy and recycle all human waste in 2003.
In the previous report, the 2001 overshoot was 21 percent.
"On current projections humanity, will be using two planets' worth of natural resources by 2050 -- if those resources have not run out by then," the latest report said.
"People are turning resources into waste faster than nature can turn waste back into resources."
RISING POPULATION
"Humanity's footprint has more than tripled between 1961 and 2003," it said. Consumption has outpaced a surge in the world's population, to 6.5 billion from 3 billion in 1960. U.N. projections show a surge to 9 billion people around 2050.
It said that the footprint from use of fossil fuels, whose heat-trapping emissions are widely blamed for pushing up world temperatures, was the fastest-growing cause of strain.
Leape said China, home to a fifth of the world's population and whose economy is booming, was making the right move in pledging to reduce its energy consumption by 20 percent over the next five years.
"Much will depend on the decisions made by China, India and other rapidly developing countries," he added.
The WWF report also said that an index tracking 1,300 vetebrate species -- birds, fish, amphibians, reptiles and mammals -- showed that populations had fallen for most by about 30 percent because of factors including a loss of habitats to farms.
Among species most under pressure included the swordfish and the South African Cape vulture. Those bucking the trend included rising populations of the Javan rhinoceros and the northern hairy-nosed wombat in Australia.
(Additional reporting by Alister Doyle in Helsinki)
Thursday, October 26, 2006
Star Wars
Hey Folks,
Back when Ronnie Reagan was talking “Star Wars,” the anti-missile missile “defense” system, it was clear to me what he was driving at. It wasn’t “to further U.S. national security, homeland security,” but to further “foreign policy objectives” (see story below).
It was sold to the gullible as being designed to protect them; but actually the strategy was to build a protective shield around us so that we could nuke anyone we wanted without fear of retaliation.
Actually, I probably should say: It was blackmail – i.e. with the impermeable shield, everyone would know that we COULD nuke them and they would be shit out of luck to do anything about it; hence, they would fall in line with “American interests” – i.e. with the interests of the minority of rich Americans.
Nowadays, the focus is a bit different. Yeah, we’re working on the Star Wars anti-missile missile (to take care of any Axis of Evil upstarts), but the future is in killer satellites and Moon-based micro-wave death rays that can zap anything that moves outside the lines of “American interests.”
Hence, the Bush Regime’s policy regarding space.
- Uke Man
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -
President Bush has signed a newly revised space policy that sets defense as a priority and rejects future negotiations that might limit U.S. flexibility in space, The Washington Post reported on Wednesday.
The document, released earlier this month with no public announcement, emphasizes security issues, the newspaper reported.
Bush's top goals, as stated in the document, are to "strengthen the nation's space leadership and ensure that space capabilities are available in time to further U.S. national security, homeland security, and foreign policy objectives" and to "enable unhindered U.S. operation in and through space to defend our interest there," the newspaper reported.
The top goals of the Clinton administration had been more of a balance of science and security, the Post said.
The Bush administration said the first full revision of overall U.S. space policy in 10 years was not a step toward putting weapons systems into Earth orbit, the newspaper reported.
A senior administration official, who asked not to be identified, told the paper: "This policy is not about developing or deploying weapons in space. Period."
The newspaper cited two arms experts who said that the Bush policy goes beyond the previous Clinton policy which opened the door to developing space weapons.
Theresa Hitchens, director of the nonpartisan Center for Defense Information, was quoted as saying that the Bush policy "kicks the door a little more open to a space-war fighting strategy" and has a "very unilateral tone to it."
The Bush administration official strongly disagreed with that characterization, saying the policy encourages international diplomacy and cooperation, The Washington Post said. But the official said the document also made clear the U.S. position: that no new arms-control agreements are needed because there is no space arms race, the report said.
According to the report, the Bush policy accepts current international agreements but states: "The United States will oppose the development of new legal regimes or other restrictions that seek to prohibit or limit U.S. access to or use of space."
Back when Ronnie Reagan was talking “Star Wars,” the anti-missile missile “defense” system, it was clear to me what he was driving at. It wasn’t “to further U.S. national security, homeland security,” but to further “foreign policy objectives” (see story below).
It was sold to the gullible as being designed to protect them; but actually the strategy was to build a protective shield around us so that we could nuke anyone we wanted without fear of retaliation.
Actually, I probably should say: It was blackmail – i.e. with the impermeable shield, everyone would know that we COULD nuke them and they would be shit out of luck to do anything about it; hence, they would fall in line with “American interests” – i.e. with the interests of the minority of rich Americans.
Nowadays, the focus is a bit different. Yeah, we’re working on the Star Wars anti-missile missile (to take care of any Axis of Evil upstarts), but the future is in killer satellites and Moon-based micro-wave death rays that can zap anything that moves outside the lines of “American interests.”
Hence, the Bush Regime’s policy regarding space.
- Uke Man
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -
President Bush has signed a newly revised space policy that sets defense as a priority and rejects future negotiations that might limit U.S. flexibility in space, The Washington Post reported on Wednesday.
The document, released earlier this month with no public announcement, emphasizes security issues, the newspaper reported.
Bush's top goals, as stated in the document, are to "strengthen the nation's space leadership and ensure that space capabilities are available in time to further U.S. national security, homeland security, and foreign policy objectives" and to "enable unhindered U.S. operation in and through space to defend our interest there," the newspaper reported.
The top goals of the Clinton administration had been more of a balance of science and security, the Post said.
The Bush administration said the first full revision of overall U.S. space policy in 10 years was not a step toward putting weapons systems into Earth orbit, the newspaper reported.
A senior administration official, who asked not to be identified, told the paper: "This policy is not about developing or deploying weapons in space. Period."
The newspaper cited two arms experts who said that the Bush policy goes beyond the previous Clinton policy which opened the door to developing space weapons.
Theresa Hitchens, director of the nonpartisan Center for Defense Information, was quoted as saying that the Bush policy "kicks the door a little more open to a space-war fighting strategy" and has a "very unilateral tone to it."
The Bush administration official strongly disagreed with that characterization, saying the policy encourages international diplomacy and cooperation, The Washington Post said. But the official said the document also made clear the U.S. position: that no new arms-control agreements are needed because there is no space arms race, the report said.
According to the report, the Bush policy accepts current international agreements but states: "The United States will oppose the development of new legal regimes or other restrictions that seek to prohibit or limit U.S. access to or use of space."
Wednesday, October 25, 2006
Does my Free Press look fat in these pants?
Hey Folks,
Here’s another double-barreled example of the “Free Press.”
First of all, these “talk shows” are actually corporate and privately financed propaganda machines. And the ones invited to the Bush panic convention are zealots of the right.
The story mentions the financial difficulties of Air America (the new, center-to-left talk show network) which finds it much, much more difficult to find deep-pocketed corporate/millionaire benefactors; but the reporter doesn’t comment on the implication that the press is “Free” only for those who can Pay for it. Nor does she comment on the result of that implication: i.e. one side of the debate is widely disseminated and one is suppressed.
That's a Free Press? Well, supposedly it is HERE but not in any country with which we butt heads.
Finally, the story itself presents a false and misleading “fact”:
“On Tuesday the White House invited more than three dozen hosts from both sides of the political spectrum so they could interview top administration officials” (emphasis added).
That’s just flat-out false. One has to wonder whether the reporter is stupid, simply passed along the official bullshit shoved her way by the White House, or has been so acculturated by the ubiquitous propaganda that she BELIEVES what she says.
Free Press, my ass.
- Uke Man
REUTERS
Bush, Republicans turn to talk shows for help
By Andrea Hopkins
CINCINNATI (Reuters) - American radio talk-show hosts have become frontline warriors in a drive by President George W. Bush and his Republicans to pull off a surprise and maintain control of Congress in November 7 elections.
In the face of opinion polls favoring Democrats and bad news from Iraq, Bush turned to the powerful hosts of talk radio two weeks before Americans elect 435 representatives to the U.S. House and a third of the 100-member Senate.
On Tuesday the White House invited more than three dozen hosts from both sides of the political spectrum so they could interview top administration officials.
Radio personalities and programs play a political role in many countries. In America, they have become largely a powerful ally for conservatives, even as the rise of Internet blogs has broadened the spectrum of voter voices being heard.
"The liberal media wants to suppress the vote, they want to convince you that this race is over, they want you to go away and they want us to lose. I'm here to tell you that you have the power (to prove them wrong)," conservative talk radio host Sean Hannity told a Republican rally in Cincinnati last week in a jab at what conservatives call a liberal mainstream media.
Hannity, who does a show for ABC Radio that reaches 13 million people a week as well as a television show for Fox News, said his shows give politicians the opportunity for "real interviews, not soundbites" -- the sort of unfiltered access to voters that mainstream media don't offer.
"Look, on my radio program today I had the vice president, the secretary of defense, the secretary of state, Karl Rove, Tony Snow and Dan Bartlett. That's all in one radio show," Hannity told Reuters in an interview.
American University communications professor Jane Hall said that access appeals to politicians frustrated by a traditional news cycle they have little control over.
"It's a way to go around the filter, go directly to people who might be more inclined to agree. It's a friendlier audience," Hall said.
UPHILL BATTLE
The five largest U.S. talk radio shows by audience are all conservative programs with audiences of between 4 million and 14 million people a week, according to trade magazine Talkers. Rush Limbaugh, who declined to be interviewed, has the largest audience, while Hannity is a close second.
Earlier this month, the liberal news and talk radio network Air America filed for bankruptcy after slightly more than two years on the air.
Analysts said the rise of other populist media -- most notably the Internet -- along with growing schisms among conservatives over immigration, the Iraq war, budget deficits and social policy will make it tougher this year for talk radio to help Republicans chalk up an election win.
"Talk radio is still predominantly a conservative phenomenon, but it's getting smaller in scope and if it's going to be effective for conservative Republican candidates, it's going to have to be more intense than it used to be," said Michael Frank, vice president of government relations at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative Washington think-tank.
"The conservative base itself is not exactly united and cheering on behalf of one party this time ... and that may blunt some of the effectiveness of talk radio as a kind of organizing tool for Republican candidates."
Still, radio hosts are hoping the political activism of their audience will result in another strong Election Day turnout for Republicans. A study by Talkers magazine found 74 percent of talk radio listeners voted in 2004 -- well above the average U.S. election year turnout.
"If all of us go out to the polls and get every person we know to go out the poll ... the great thing that will happen on election day is we will confuse and confound the pundits and confuse and confound the liberal media," Hannity told the Republican rally in Cincinnati.
His audience was enthusiastic.
"I'm old, I'm tired, I've got diabetes, and I'm freezing to death, and yet I'm glad I came here -- it makes me want to work harder," said Zip Jaycox, 79, a self-described "strong Bush supporter and strong Republican" volunteer who goes door-to-door with her husband to rally party voters.
"We're going to get out and work like the very dickens."
Here’s another double-barreled example of the “Free Press.”
First of all, these “talk shows” are actually corporate and privately financed propaganda machines. And the ones invited to the Bush panic convention are zealots of the right.
The story mentions the financial difficulties of Air America (the new, center-to-left talk show network) which finds it much, much more difficult to find deep-pocketed corporate/millionaire benefactors; but the reporter doesn’t comment on the implication that the press is “Free” only for those who can Pay for it. Nor does she comment on the result of that implication: i.e. one side of the debate is widely disseminated and one is suppressed.
That's a Free Press? Well, supposedly it is HERE but not in any country with which we butt heads.
Finally, the story itself presents a false and misleading “fact”:
“On Tuesday the White House invited more than three dozen hosts from both sides of the political spectrum so they could interview top administration officials” (emphasis added).
That’s just flat-out false. One has to wonder whether the reporter is stupid, simply passed along the official bullshit shoved her way by the White House, or has been so acculturated by the ubiquitous propaganda that she BELIEVES what she says.
Free Press, my ass.
- Uke Man
REUTERS
Bush, Republicans turn to talk shows for help
By Andrea Hopkins
CINCINNATI (Reuters) - American radio talk-show hosts have become frontline warriors in a drive by President George W. Bush and his Republicans to pull off a surprise and maintain control of Congress in November 7 elections.
In the face of opinion polls favoring Democrats and bad news from Iraq, Bush turned to the powerful hosts of talk radio two weeks before Americans elect 435 representatives to the U.S. House and a third of the 100-member Senate.
On Tuesday the White House invited more than three dozen hosts from both sides of the political spectrum so they could interview top administration officials.
Radio personalities and programs play a political role in many countries. In America, they have become largely a powerful ally for conservatives, even as the rise of Internet blogs has broadened the spectrum of voter voices being heard.
"The liberal media wants to suppress the vote, they want to convince you that this race is over, they want you to go away and they want us to lose. I'm here to tell you that you have the power (to prove them wrong)," conservative talk radio host Sean Hannity told a Republican rally in Cincinnati last week in a jab at what conservatives call a liberal mainstream media.
Hannity, who does a show for ABC Radio that reaches 13 million people a week as well as a television show for Fox News, said his shows give politicians the opportunity for "real interviews, not soundbites" -- the sort of unfiltered access to voters that mainstream media don't offer.
"Look, on my radio program today I had the vice president, the secretary of defense, the secretary of state, Karl Rove, Tony Snow and Dan Bartlett. That's all in one radio show," Hannity told Reuters in an interview.
American University communications professor Jane Hall said that access appeals to politicians frustrated by a traditional news cycle they have little control over.
"It's a way to go around the filter, go directly to people who might be more inclined to agree. It's a friendlier audience," Hall said.
UPHILL BATTLE
The five largest U.S. talk radio shows by audience are all conservative programs with audiences of between 4 million and 14 million people a week, according to trade magazine Talkers. Rush Limbaugh, who declined to be interviewed, has the largest audience, while Hannity is a close second.
Earlier this month, the liberal news and talk radio network Air America filed for bankruptcy after slightly more than two years on the air.
Analysts said the rise of other populist media -- most notably the Internet -- along with growing schisms among conservatives over immigration, the Iraq war, budget deficits and social policy will make it tougher this year for talk radio to help Republicans chalk up an election win.
"Talk radio is still predominantly a conservative phenomenon, but it's getting smaller in scope and if it's going to be effective for conservative Republican candidates, it's going to have to be more intense than it used to be," said Michael Frank, vice president of government relations at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative Washington think-tank.
"The conservative base itself is not exactly united and cheering on behalf of one party this time ... and that may blunt some of the effectiveness of talk radio as a kind of organizing tool for Republican candidates."
Still, radio hosts are hoping the political activism of their audience will result in another strong Election Day turnout for Republicans. A study by Talkers magazine found 74 percent of talk radio listeners voted in 2004 -- well above the average U.S. election year turnout.
"If all of us go out to the polls and get every person we know to go out the poll ... the great thing that will happen on election day is we will confuse and confound the pundits and confuse and confound the liberal media," Hannity told the Republican rally in Cincinnati.
His audience was enthusiastic.
"I'm old, I'm tired, I've got diabetes, and I'm freezing to death, and yet I'm glad I came here -- it makes me want to work harder," said Zip Jaycox, 79, a self-described "strong Bush supporter and strong Republican" volunteer who goes door-to-door with her husband to rally party voters.
"We're going to get out and work like the very dickens."
Something to Consider
Hey Folks,
I don't know what to make of this, exactly; but I DO wonder why I had never heard a word about this charge in the "mainstream" media.
Hmmmmmmmmmmm . . .
- Uke Man
from: All Headline News
Syria Says US Behind Attack On Own Embassy
September 13, 2006
Ryan R. Jones
All Headline News Middle East Correspondent
Jerusalem, Israel (AHN) - Senior Syrian government official have accused the US of being behind Tuesday's assault on its own embassy in downtown Damascus.
A Baath party official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told WorldNetDaily, "We in the government are 100 percent sure America was behind this attack, which is not the same as other attacks by Islamic groups."
He explained, "Only the Americans can succeed in carrying out an attack just 200 meters from President [Bashar] Assad's residence in the most heavily guarded section of Syria."
The official charged that Washington had orchestrated the attack to "prove Syria is filled with terrorists and to put us in a weak position" in order to extract political concessions. Following the attack, Bush administration officials said they hoped the incident had convinced Damascus of the dangers of Islamic terror and the need to cooperate with the West against the phenomenon.
The US and several of its European allies have repeatedly demanded over the years that Damascus close down the local offices and training camps of several organizations hostile to Israel and the West.
The identities of those who attacked the US embassy Tuesday have not been revealed. Three of the gunmen were killed by Syrian guards during the assault. A fourth was reportedly captured.
I don't know what to make of this, exactly; but I DO wonder why I had never heard a word about this charge in the "mainstream" media.
Hmmmmmmmmmmm . . .
- Uke Man
from: All Headline News
Syria Says US Behind Attack On Own Embassy
September 13, 2006
Ryan R. Jones
All Headline News Middle East Correspondent
Jerusalem, Israel (AHN) - Senior Syrian government official have accused the US of being behind Tuesday's assault on its own embassy in downtown Damascus.
A Baath party official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told WorldNetDaily, "We in the government are 100 percent sure America was behind this attack, which is not the same as other attacks by Islamic groups."
He explained, "Only the Americans can succeed in carrying out an attack just 200 meters from President [Bashar] Assad's residence in the most heavily guarded section of Syria."
The official charged that Washington had orchestrated the attack to "prove Syria is filled with terrorists and to put us in a weak position" in order to extract political concessions. Following the attack, Bush administration officials said they hoped the incident had convinced Damascus of the dangers of Islamic terror and the need to cooperate with the West against the phenomenon.
The US and several of its European allies have repeatedly demanded over the years that Damascus close down the local offices and training camps of several organizations hostile to Israel and the West.
The identities of those who attacked the US embassy Tuesday have not been revealed. Three of the gunmen were killed by Syrian guards during the assault. A fourth was reportedly captured.
Andy Rooney Videos
Hey Folks,
Grumpy, angry, disgusted old men can say anything we want. Here's Andy Rooney saying some sensible things (a ukethanks to Sondra) .
The first one up is most recent and on Iraq, the second discusses Korea and "nookular" weapons. Give those two a look. And there are a lot more of them there if you're interested.
-Uke Man
http://cosmos.bcst.yahoo.com/scp_v3/viewer/index.php?pid=16598&rn=49750&cl=1012930&ch=334515&src=news
Grumpy, angry, disgusted old men can say anything we want. Here's Andy Rooney saying some sensible things (a ukethanks to Sondra) .
The first one up is most recent and on Iraq, the second discusses Korea and "nookular" weapons. Give those two a look. And there are a lot more of them there if you're interested.
-Uke Man
http://cosmos.bcst.yahoo.com/scp_v3/viewer/index.php?pid=16598&rn=49750&cl=1012930&ch=334515&src=news
