MP3 Downloads HOUR 1 Featuring clips from the panel discussion on Electronic Voting moderated at the summit by Brad (9/29/05) with Attorney PAUL LEHTO, VotersUnite.org's ELLEN THEISEN and Vote-Rigging Software Whistleblower CLINT CURTIS. And a few words with our own producer, the infamous KAT L'ESTRANGE!
HOUR 2 A few words with VotersUnite.org's JOHN GIDEON, followed by a LIVE impromptu roundtable on election reform and media blackouts with Air America's THOM HARTMANN of The Thom Hartmann Program and 2004 Green Party Presidential Candidate, DAVID COBB.
HOUR 3 An uninterrupted on-stage interview from the summit with ROBERT KOEHLER (9/29/05) Bob and Brad interview each other on becoming the media! Bob discusses the surreal story of having his column spiked by TMS and Brad discusses the media and the origin of The BRAD BLOG. Plus a few minutes with Summit organizer BETH HAHN of the Oregon Voting Rights Coalition.
HOUR 4 HOLLY JACOBSON of VoterAction.org on their lawsuit against the 2004 Election in NM, KIP HUMPHREY of ElectionAssessment.org on the commission set up as a counter to the phony Baker/Carter Election Reform Commission. And a BRAD'S rousing (and funny) on-stage speech Saturday night at the summit (10/1/05) on Baker/Carter, ACVR, David vs. Goliath and fighting on every front!
Yes, it's seems like Election Day 2004 was just yesterday -- but new leaders of the Senate Democratic and Republican campaign committees are already in place, signaling the start of the 2006 battle for Senate seats. CongressDaily has taken a state-by-state look at the 33 seats that will be up next year -� 18 now in Democratic control, 15 in the hands of the GOP.
" See, in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda." � G.W. BU$H <br />***********************************<br /> HartmannWatchWatch
Posts: 641 | Location: The Stork :-)~ | Registered: 07 November 2004
This is the type of info that we do need to know. What state's seats are up for election in 06 and what seats are either vaunerable or the ones we might be able to take.
I'm also wanting to know more about the candidates and their stances on voteing issues and finance reform or sorporate money corrupting the political process.
Up untill now I've just been to lazy to do the work. lol
Posts: 31 | Location: Arkansas | Registered: 01 January 2005
We cannot change things by 'voting' because our votes are changed by hacked machines, 'ghost' voters are voting for our opposition and corruption is rampant.
I will not be wasting my time again 'voting' our votes don't count.Our 'votes' don't matter.
This country is in the control of heartless, greedy corporation and a fascist dictatorship who are driving us to ruin.
How many times must we 'lose' the vote untill we get the message-OUR VOTES ARE A SHAM!!
Both parties are in the pocket of the corporations, so there is NO 'opposition' party anymore if there ever has been.Time and time again we have been lied to, deceived and tricked by those in power.
9/11 was orchestrated by this administration, the buildings were brought down by explosives, no skyscraper in history has been brought down by a fire or a plane crashing into it and those towers were built to withstand a plane crashing in to it and fires.
We were lied about why we had to attack Iraq and we are still being lied too.
Wake up folks, we are 'living' in a unelected, fascist police state run by a lying dictator brought to you buy the corporations who only care about their botton line, not us.
Don't waste your time trying to change things by 'voting', you'll be better off and will accomplish just as much by staying home.
"Those who do not remember the past are condemmed to relive it."<br />George Santayana
Posts: 91 | Location: OR | Registered: 08 June 2004
Randall Terry, the Operation Rescue activist who this year has undergone a metamorphosis from abortion clinic terrorist to serious Republican Congressional candidate, has a simple strategy for achieving political success. "Pray for a low turnout," he tells supporters in a competitive upstate New York district. Terry explains that if mainstream voters shy away from the polls in record numbers this fall, as expected, extreme rightwing candidates will have an opportunity to win contests that were once beyond their reach.
Terry and his followers may be relying on prayer to keep turnout down. But the nation's most savvy Republican operatives are taking matters into their own hands. They're working a strategy that seeks to make the 1998 elections a private party to which most American voters are not invited.
"Politics is about two things: Mobilizing your voters, and not mobilizing the other side. Both are valid goals," says Bill McInturff , a Republican pollster. He argues that conservatives can score unprecedented victories this fall if they "reduce the juice"--lower the interest level to such an extent that the small percentage of voters who zealously back conservative causes can dominate.
The Republicans are leaving nothing to chance.
On any given day, in climate-controlled studios in suburban Washington and a handful of other locations around the country, carefully selected groups of adult men and women settle into comfortable chairs and insert their fingers into monitoring devices. The devices measure surges and downturns in their pulse rates as the nation's top political consultants show videotapes of candidates delivering speeches, present mock newscasts, and screen television commercials extolling or defaming particular politicians.
"It's all about message," explains Frank Luntz, the Republican pollster who drew up the list of ideas that became Newt Gingrich's "Contract With America." "You look for a message that gets your voters to the polls on election day. But it has to be well thought out, because you don't want to stir up your opponent's voters. You want them to stay home."
Since 1990, Luntz and his colleagues have presided over a steady decline in American voting participation, and a parallel process of shifting the political system further and further toward the right.
In 1994, Republicans helped hold voter turnout to just 38 percent of registered voters. In 1998, GOP strategists quietly acknowledge, they are shooting for a record low turnout of 35 percent or less.
They are well on their way to achieving that goal. Already, says Curtis Gans, founder of the Committee for the Study of the American Electorate, "voter turnout is sharply down in 1998." Gans analyzed turnout in primary elections this spring and summer and found that average turnout was 16.8 percent, half of what it was a quarter-century ago.
Primary turnout is down 14 percent just since 1994, says Gans. When the numbers are down in the primaries, they usually are down in November, he adds.
Low turnouts tend to favor Republicans--particularly conservative Republicans with a message that appeals to a small yet highly motivated core of activists. Democratic pollster Celinda Lake says she is worried that this year's minuscule turnout will be dominated by what she calls the "when God tells you to vote" crowd.
If the turnout actually drops to the 35 percent range or below, as now appears possible, Republican strategists figure they will be able to significantly expand their control in the Senate, improve their position in the House, maintain dominance of the nation's governorships, and win a sufficient number of state legislatures to guarantee control of the redistricting process that will follow the 2000 census. "When things happen that make one side's partisans unhappy, they stay home," House Speaker Newt Gingrich, Republican of Georgia, told a Young Republican rally in Atlanta in August. "When they stay home, they stay home for the whole ticket. I believe this fall we're going to see a surprisingly big Republican victory almost everywhere in this country."
An August Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll of all adults found a clear preference for Democratic candidates and more liberal positions on the issues. But the same poll found that, among the most likely voters, Republican candidates and conservative positions had a solid lead.
So how do Republicans plan to reduce the juice? Here is the strategy:
Step one: Undercut the appeal of issues that favor Democrats in general and economic populists in particular. Republicans do this by offering warmed-over versions of Democratic plans to reform health care, protect Social Security, and improve public education--and by promoting them heavily, as they will do this fall with a planned $37 million national advertising campaign that will seek to blur distinctions between the parties.
"The idea is to take the power out of Democratic issues rather than confront them," says Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne Jr., author of the bestselling book Why Americans Hate Politics. "If Republicans avoid too many fights, they figure they should do just fine." The key to what Dionne calls "me-too" politics is to persuade Democratic voters that, with both parties agreeing on key issues, there isn't much at stake.
In New York state, for instance, U.S. Senator Al D'Amato, a conservative Republican who faces a serious challenge in the fall, has suddenly emerged as a noisy proponent of consumer protection and women's health legislation.
Republicans are particularly pleased with their success in blunting the appeal of a Democratic initiative to pass a "Patients' Bill of Rights" that would curb HMO abuses. Republicans in the House and Senate came up with their own "Patients' Bill of Rights." The GOP plan is much weaker than the Democratic one, but Republican strategists believe it has created enough confusion to limit any Democratic advantage. This summer, U.S. Representative John Shadegg, an Arizona Republican who is a key party strategist, made the remarkable admission that, "with the task-force bill, we will largely deal with the political problem of health care. We may not solve the public policy problem, but it will move us in the right direction and give us political cover."
Step two: Undermine support for Democrats among key constituencies, such as women and African Americans. Republicans have placed special emphasis this year on courting African American voters, who since 1960 have been the most consistently pro-Democratic voting bloc in the nation. GOP leaders such as Gingrich have recruited African American candidates. And even the most rightwing Republicans are appealing to blacks. Ultraconservative South Carolina Senate candidate Bob Inglis, who earned a zero rating for support of civil rights issues while serving in the House, is now campaigning to remove the Confederate flag from the state capitol. "From the very first day of the campaign, I want to say 'Welcome' to black South Carolinians," declares Inglis. "I share an appreciation of the historic civil rights struggle, and I passionately agree that economic empowerment is the key to completing that work."
Step three: Let Monica Lewinsky work her magic. From the start, most Republican candidates have followed Luntz's advice--delivered in a memo widely circulated in GOP circles last January--to downplay talk of Presidential scandal. Luntz's theory is that the media will do the dirty work, causing Democrats to grow increasingly discouraged, while energizing prime Republican voting blocs.
After analyzing polling data from key precincts around the country, Democratic consultant Bob Beckel has concluded that the most likely voters this fall will be conservatives whose anger with Clinton has been crystallized by the scandal. Traditional Democratic voters, content with a reasonably good economy and turned off by the negative nature of contemporary politics, are less likely to vote. Political commentator Fred Barnes, executive editor of the conservative Weekly Standard, sums up the circumstance: "Democratic and Republican commentators and strategists have detected a clear GOP tilt, based largely on expected turnout this fall. The most motivated voters, those all but certain to go to the polls, are the ones furious with Clinton. They aren't happy with Congressional Republicans, but they're ready to register a protest against Clinton on election day by voting against Democratic candidates."
Republican strategists are taking advantage of voters' low spirits. After the President acknowledged to the nation in August that he had lied about his affair with the White House intern, Republicans launched a multimillion-dollar campaign to link Democratic contenders such as California Senator Barbara Boxer with the increasingly disparaged President.
Of particular concern are women voters, who in recent years have provided the margin of victory for Democrats in many races. This year, says veteran political reporter Jill Lawrence, "They may be so disgusted by the lurid sex and other details expected in the Starr report that they just stay home."
U.S. Representative Martin Frost, Democrat of Texas, admits, "It is possible this could cast a pall on the election."
Meanwhile, Republicans are mobilizing social conservatives who follow the lead of groups such as Pat Robertson's Christian Coalition and James Dobson's Focus on the Family.
For a time, early this year, it appeared as if Republicans faced a threat from Dobson. In meetings with top Republicans, Dobson attacked Newt Gingrich, Trent Lott, and other GOP Congressional leaders for failing to advance an aggressive Christian right agenda on issues such as gay rights, abortion, school prayer, and public funding of religious education.
If key Republicans didn't move quickly, Dobson said, he might just lead his followers out of the Grand Old Party--a prospect that would have spelled electoral disaster.
Republicans got the message. U.S. Representative John Linder, Republican of Georgia and one of Gingrich's top electoral strategists, circulated a confidential memo in April that said Republicans would lose control of the House and power in the Senate if they did not satisfy Dobson by throwing red meat to Christian conservatives.
That's exactly what they have done. Congressional Republicans quickly organized to promote a "Religious Freedom" amendment to the Constitution. If passed, that amendment would permit organized prayer in public schools for the first time since the 1960s. Republicans attached amendments restricting aid to family-planning organizations when the House and Senate took up spending authorizations for U.N. dues. The House also endorsed a pilot program that would use tax dollars to provide children with vouchers to attend private religious schools. And House leaders have intentionally scheduled another vote on banning "partial-birth" abortion just as the fall campaign season hits its stride.
But the big play to Dobson and his followers came on gay rights issues. Lott stepped forward with a carefully scripted statement saying homosexuality was equivalent to alcoholism and kleptomania. In the Senate, he moved to block the confirmation of James Hormel as ambassador to Luxembourg solely because the nominee is an openly gay man. And the House passed a measure that would block federal money for San Francisco and other cities that require contractors doing business with these municipalities to provide health insurance to the partners of their gay and lesbian employees. "This is a very well-orchestrated political campaign against the gay community," says Winnie Stachelberg, political director of the Human Rights Campaign, a gay and lesbian organization. Policy isn't the point, says Stachelberg, since most of the GOP initiatives face the threat of a Clinton Administration veto or a court challenge. Rather, the onslaught is all about galvanizing the GOP base for November.
So why don't Democrats and their allies in organized labor counter the GOP with a sweeping get-out-the-vote drive?
Still shell-shocked from their 1994 losses, outgunned in the campaign-finance arena, and reeling from daily Lewinsky revelations, the Democrats have done little work when it comes to responding to the Republicans.
They have actually played into the Republicans' hand by emphasizing their own "targeted voter" strategies, which operate on the premise that it is cheaper and easier to win 16 percent of the electorate in a 30 percent turnout than it is to energize new voters. Plus, a campaign that emphasizes issues of broad popular appeal might turn off corporate contributors. That's something Democratic insiders fear since, as their party has moved further and further to the right, it has come to rely on the same Wall Street donor base as the Republicans. This leaves many voters with a clear sense that the political choices they make don't matter.
Ignoring populist appeals is a terrible blunder for the Democrats. Polls show majority support for basic progressive issues: universal health care, restraint on corporations, a graduated income tax, increased spending on public education, and fundamental campaign finance re-form.
As Ralph Nader puts it, "We don't have two parties any more. We have two versions of the Republican Party fighting over the crumbs that the special interests throw them and completely neglecting the great majority of Americans who don't even vote anymore."
Not long ago, different priorities prevailed. In 1986, when California liberal Alan Cranston faced a serious Republican challenge, he poured millions of dollars into get-out-the-vote efforts that brought hundreds of thousands of new voters to the polls. Cranston won. So, too, did dozens of other liberal Democrats in key races around the state.
By emphasizing high turnout strategies, Cranston said, Democrats freed themselves to be more progressive. Better to be beholden to broad ethnic and economic constituencies, he argued, than to big-money contributors and special-interest groups.
Could a big-turnout strategy work in the politically cynical 1990s? The answer is yes. But the proof doesn't come from Democrats.
This year, the best example of a candidate challenging the right's voter suppression strategies comes from a Republican. Kansas Governor Bill Graves angered social conservatives within his own party by supporting abortion rights and ditching other planks in the religious right platform. As a result, he faced an aggressive primary challenge this summer from David Miller, a former state legislator who had served as state Republican party chair.
Miller hoped his anti-abortion followers would assure him of victory in a low-turnout context. Graves countered by pouring hundreds of thousands of dollars into a sophisticated get-out-the-vote drive that even urged Democrats to switch parties and vote in the GOP race. The strategy worked. Kansas saw a near-record Republican primary turnout in August. The governor prevailed by a stunning 73-27 margin.
Some Democrats look at those numbers and wonder why their party isn't working to boost turnout with a populist message that could draw voters to the polls.
John Nichols is the editorial page editor for The Capital Times in Madison, Wisconsin.
" See, in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda." � G.W. BU$H <br />***********************************<br /> HartmannWatchWatch
Posts: 641 | Location: The Stork :-)~ | Registered: 07 November 2004
So Sheila, as we fight to make your and our votes count you won't be there? I'm sorry to hear that, but sometimes people need to give in to that "I need to retreat" feeling just to catch a breath ... I hope that's all it turns out to be for you.
I understand your frustration, but I've had my 'vote' trashed one too many times.
Perhaps the state and local elections still count here in Oregon but if the 'votes' are being tampered with by the repuglicons, then why bother??????
If no matter how you 'vote' the vote is changed without your permission, what good is your 'vote'?
These 'cons' will get what they want whether we vote or not so I don't see any reason to go to the trouble if it's not going to matter.
Because of our corrupt, undemocratic 'voting' system, we have the lowest voter turnout in the western world. We can try to push the senate and congress to change the way our votes are taken and counted, to give us proportional representation, instant run off and get rid of the 'electoral collage' then voting will become worthwhile again, but for now with all the fraud, corruption and vote tampering, it's merely an exercise in futility.
We have been sold up the creek by the Democrats, have you forgotten it was CLINTON that gave us that job sucking NAFTA and GATT?? and most favored trade with China????
The Democrats shouldn't be wondering why they no longer get the votes and why progressives no longer bother to vote, we don't have ANY REPRESENTATION by either the Democrats(repuglicon lite) and the Repuglicons( far right wing fundi fascists) The progressive vote is divided up between several parties, but with 'winner takes ALL' the 'winner' can get all the power with ony 30% of the vote even thought most people are trying to vote against them. I have long ago left the so called 'Democratic' party because they no longer represent the interests of working class people, like the repuglicons, they follow the money, and it's not us. I see NO WAY progressives can win in a undemocratic, fraudulent 'voting' system.
You can scream all you want, pester the senate and congress all you want, have demonstrations in the fenced off "free speech zones" but realize, YOUR VOICE WON'T BE HEARD!!! WE don't matter because we are not RICH.
As the very old saying goes, money talks,poverty walks.
I see no way out of our dilemma untill this country collapses and that's not far off with the cost of energy skyrocketing, our debts are in the trillions, the dollar is falling, our jobs are gone, and we are engaged in endless unjust, illegal and very expensive wars for oil.
Once other countries start dumping the dollar it's all over. And that's now beginning to happen
We will enter a great depression that will make the crash of 1929 look like a hickup.
With oil prices rocketing upward, everything will rise in cost and businesses will fail by the thousands.
These cons are grabbing all they can because they know the party is over, they know once they have seized power by any means, there is nothing the congress or senate can or will do to stop their disasterous policies, they know with the decline of oil, the economy will tank no matter what they do or who's in power, so like the rats leaving a sinking ship, they first pig out on the ships stores while it's still there to grab.
That's why Kerry didn't fight the vote fraud, he didn't want to be in power on a sinking ship of state, let the cons take the blame. He might also have been threatened to end up like Wellstone did, do you think that crash was an 'accident'??
We are in very deep trouble and not just because of vote fraud but because we are at the end of the oil age and 6+ billon people cannot survive without abundant, cheap oil.
You think things are bad now? just wait, things are going to get a whole lot worse.
When people are frightened, they will do anything to survive one more day and follow anyone who promisess a better future, that's how Hitler got into power and that's why the people of Germany supported him.
The sh*t has hit the fan!
"Those who do not remember the past are condemmed to relive it."<br />George Santayana
Posts: 91 | Location: OR | Registered: 08 June 2004
"Neither my staff nor I have had any direct contact with anybody at the DLC since I began this campaign a year ago," Obama wrote. "I don't know who nominated me for the DLC list of 100 rising stars, nor did I expend any effort to be included on the list. ... I certainly did not view such inclusion as an endorsement on my part of the DLC platform." After realizing that his name appeared in the DLC's database, Obama asked to have it removed. The message was clear: The DLC needed Obama a lot more than Obama needed the DLC.
<<<SNIPPED>>>>
" See, in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda." � G.W. BU$H <br />***********************************<br /> HartmannWatchWatch
Posts: 641 | Location: The Stork :-)~ | Registered: 07 November 2004
State /Senator /Started Tenure /2006 Forecast California Feinstein 1993 Solid Dem Connecticut Lieberman 1989 Solid Dem Delaware Carper 2001 Solid Dem Florida Nelson 2001 Vulnerable Dem Hawaii Akaka 1990 Solid Dem Maryland Sarbanes 1977 Solid Dem Massachusetts Kennedy 1963 Solid Dem Michigan Stabenow 2001 Lean Dem Minnesota Dayton* 2001 Vulnerable Dem Nebraska Nelson 2001 Lean Dem New Jersey Corzine 2001 Solid Dem New Mexico Bingaman 1983 Solid Dem New York Clinton 2001 Solid Dem North Dakota Conrad 1992 Lean Dem Vermont Jeffords (I) 1989 Solid Independent Washington Cantwell 2001 Lean Dem West Virginia Byrd 1959 Solid Dem Wisconsin Kohl 1993 Lean Dem
" See, in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda." � G.W. BU$H <br />***********************************<br /> HartmannWatchWatch
Posts: 641 | Location: The Stork :-)~ | Registered: 07 November 2004
I am afraid that I must throw my support solidly behind SheilaCH. She is 100% right.
It doesn't matter one iota what platform the Democrats take. It doesn't matter whether they choose a left or left-of-center or centrist position. It doesn't matter who they run. It doesn't matter how much the Republicans screw things up. It doesn't matter how much money is raised or which way the unions side or even who captures the attention of media.
During the run-up to the 2004 election, many of my friends, mostly Dems or Independents, would ask me who was going to win the election. "Bush" I would say with all the confidence I could muster.
"But, John," they would invariably reply, "you hate Bush. How can you say that?"
"Well, you asked me, right?"
"Yes, of course. But Kerry is smarter. Kerry is more capable. Kerry is a war hero. And besides, the Republicans have screwed up to a fare-the-well."
"All true," I would respond. "But I still think Bush is going to win the election."
"But how?"
And I would stare at them for a moment in sheer incredulity. "Computer voting machines, that's how."
People, we're looking in the wrong direction. This is not a case of politics. If politics was all that mattered, Bush would still be digging dry holes out in the wastelands of Texas.
The neocons control the voting process. They will make the election come out any way they want until the people of this country rise up as one and put the goddamn bastards where they belong. IN JAIL!
Being a good Lefty and supporting your party, getting signatures on petitions, attending stop-the-war rallies and all the other silly things the tree-huggers usually do will not make a bit of difference.
Until we get so angry that we form a human ring a thousand deep around the congress and scream bloody murder, not one single thing is going to change.
The people of 1776 would understand. They would form a mob in the street and threaten to burn down the government house if they weren't heard. Lacking that, you might just as well stay home and watch "Friends" or pro wrestling.
If people in this country don't wake up soon, it's not going to matter.
"Today we need a nation of Minutemen, citizens who are not only prepared to take arms, but citizens who regard the preservation of freedom as the basic purpose of their daily life."<br /> -John F. Kennedy
Posts: 134 | Location: New York, NY | Registered: 01 March 2005
PLEASE VOTE! If we want out votes to count we should find ways to document how we voted. Take a picture of your ballot as it is filled out, vote two by two you witness my vote and I witness yours, call from the ballot box and send a phone picture of the completed ballot to a central data collection source, every one in a party gets absentee ballots and mail them in (all Democrats not just some) or whatever party, voting by absentee ballot at party locations before the official election date and have the ballots delivered for count, have every voter get a printout of how his one vote effected the election at the time of his vote (should say one more vote for you candidates). If we voters are not 100 percent satisfied the election is fair then stage breakdowns on the freeways jamming them up with phony breakdowns during rush hour traffic (run your car on 1 percent of the tank, or pull a fuse, or something). Whose country is this anyway?
barn raiser or Liberty Cracked
Posts: 354 | Location: Michigan | Registered: 21 January 2005
I am not trying to be a "wet blanket" in this discussion, believe me. It's just that the facts have to be faced. Your high school civics lessons were a lie!
Look around you. Look at what life is becoming in this country. People are being put out of work. Jobs are going overseas. Prices are going through the roof. Police and fire departments are being cut. Social programs are being gutted.
There is an extremely powerful and wealthy corporate elite that is running this country (hell, it always has, it's nothing new) except that now they've achieved so much control that they are able to operate with absolute impunity.
When you go to vote, you think you're being given a choice. You're not. This powerful elite, whom Winston Churchill referred to as The High Cabal, control industry, politics, the media. They tell you who you're going to vote for and no matter who wins the election, they win, because they've bought and paid for both sides.
You think that the Democrats are the answer. They are not. John Kerry is every bit as in the pocket of the elite as Bush. If Kerry had been elected, we'd still have guys dying for nothing in Iraq.
Until the people of the United States get angry, angry enough to march on Washington in numbers never seen before in history, until they get so angry they threaten to burn the government down if they are not heard, nothing is going to change.
"Today we need a nation of Minutemen, citizens who are not only prepared to take arms, but citizens who regard the preservation of freedom as the basic purpose of their daily life."<br /> -John F. Kennedy
Posts: 134 | Location: New York, NY | Registered: 01 March 2005
I can understand how people are worried, mad, scared, etc. of the direction this country is going in. All I can say is look at this country's history. We have been in tight spots over and over again. It's the pendulum of ideology.
It seems like fascism is taking hold, but I'm really not that worried. Although it's a fight for sure, this is nothing new to America. Go back and read about Adam's tenure, or read about the late 19th century corp. power struggle.
We have a battle on our hands, but we will prevail. The power of the people will win.
.
"I feel... an ardent desire to see knowledge so disseminated through the mass of mankind that it may, at length, reach even the extremes of society: beggars and kings." --Thomas Jefferson: Reply to American Philosophical Society, 1808.
Posts: 727 | Location: Wisconsin | Registered: 17 December 2004
It seems like fascism is taking hold, but I'm really not that worried. Although it's a fight for sure, this is nothing new to America. Go back and read about Adam's tenure, or read about the late 19th century corp. power struggle.
This is not like the 19th century.Our propaganda machine is far more sophisticated now, the corporations control what we hear, see and read and that's almost the same as controlling what you think. We react to the world by the information we can receive from it and if that information is false, our reactions will be wrong.
We have been lied too, deceived and mislead for many decades now. I know because I have watched it happen.
We have virtualy no power to change the course this country is on. Our 'votes' are hacked, changed or deleted, our voice go unheard, our protests are confined to so called "free speech zones".
We are at the end of the oil age and those in power are grabbing all the wealth they can anyway they can,while they can, illegal wars, theft and changes in the law are how they steal the worlds and our wealth.
We are mere pawns in their game, our children-cannon fodder. We are expendable 'consumers'.
As oil and natural gas go into their terminal decline, everything will become more expencive including food. Food production will decline leading eventually to hunger then starvation, our population will crash as will that of most of the worlds population.
This is a very different time from the end of the 19the century, we can no longer look forward to a better future, we will have to endure a decline of our quality of life and a fascist,dictorial police state.
True these fascists won't be in power forever, but so what, by the time they have lost their control, there won't be anything left of the America we once thought we knew, we will be living like our ancestors did,only worse, those that survive the population crash and the wars for oil that is.
We have no where to go now but down.
Wake up folks, it's sunset in fundyland Amerikkka.
"Those who do not remember the past are condemmed to relive it."<br />George Santayana
Posts: 91 | Location: OR | Registered: 08 June 2004
The road to defeat is paved with pessismism, no? A wise woman once told me the only time I have no power over a situation is when I allow myself to feel powerless ... besides what else you gonna do today?
Tell ya what 'Rama',because most of the electoral process is a fraud,protest is confined to barb wire enclosed 'free speech zones' and the criminals have taken over this government, I'm preparing for the worse, a economic collapse.
My garden is growing, I have a nice stock of bullion and I live where if some other country decides to toss a bomb at us I'm very unlikely to have to dodge it.
They may be able to fool most of the people most of the time, but they will never be able to fool all of the people all of the time no matter how much they control the media.
I've tried for decades to believe that we could change the system through peacefull means, but I have also seen the futility of using the electoral system as it is today.
I fear only a economic collapse and a bloody 'civil' war can change things and by the time the 'masses' wake up, the collapse will be upon us and the rich criminials will have run off with all the 'loot'.
Violence is the only path open to us now and even that may cause more damage than it fixes.
But when there is nothing more to lose, that's what will happen.
"Those who do not remember the past are condemmed to relive it."<br />George Santayana
Posts: 91 | Location: OR | Registered: 08 June 2004
" See, in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda." � G.W. BU$H <br />***********************************<br /> HartmannWatchWatch
Posts: 641 | Location: The Stork :-)~ | Registered: 07 November 2004
Sheila, you are rapidly becoming my favorite Joe Btfsplk character on this board. (No gender insult intended here please, it's only the concept that counts)
This is an absolute treasure:
quote:
Violence is the only path open to us now and even that may cause more damage than it fixes.
" See, in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda." � G.W. BU$H <br />***********************************<br /> HartmannWatchWatch
Posts: 641 | Location: The Stork :-)~ | Registered: 07 November 2004
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