Guest blogged by Winter Patriot
Project Censored has presented its annual compilation of the most important stories ignored by the mainstream media over the past year… and the rigged presidential election of 2004 came in at number three!
In normal times, the theft of a presidential election, and the virtual media blackout that followed it, would be an easy choice for the top spot. But then again these times are far from normal.
Here, according to Project Censored, are the top ten censored stories of the year:
Number 10: Mountaintop Removal Threatens Ecosystem and Economy
Number 9: Iran’s New Oil Trade System Challenges US Currency
In mid-2003 Iran broke from traditional and began accepting eurodollars as payment for it oil exports from its E.U. and Asian customers. Saddam Hussein attempted a similar bold step back in 2000 and was met with a devastating reaction from the US Iraq now has no choice about using US dollars for oil sales (Censored 2004 #19). However, Iran’s plan to open an international oil exchange marker for trading oil in the euro currency is a much larger threat to US dollar supremacy than Iraq’s switch to euros.
Number 8: Iraqi Farmers Threatened by Bremer’s Mandates
A good example of this business invasion involves agriculture. The details of this part of the “market make-over” are laid out in the Grain website article called “Iraq’s new Patent Law: a declaration of war against farmers.”
“Order 81” of the 100 is entitled “Patent, Industrial Design, Undisclosed Information, Integrated Circuits and Plant Variety.” According to Grain staff writers, this order “made it illegal for Iraqi farmers to re-use seeds harvested from new varieties registered under the law.” Plant Variety Protection (PVP)is the tool used for defining which seeds are re-useable and which are not. PVP “is an intellectual property right or a kind of patent for plant varieties which gives an exclusive monopoly right on planting material to a plant breeder who claims to have discovered or developed a new variety. So the “protection” in PVP has nothing to do with conservation, but refers to safeguarding of the commercial interests of private breeders (usually large corporations) claiming to have created the new plants.”
Number 7: Journalists Face Unprecedented Dangers to Life and Livelihood
Number 6: The Real Oil for Food Scam
According to Gordon the charges laid by the US accounting office are bogus. There is plenty of evidence of corruption in the “oil-for-food” program, but the trail of evidence leads not to the UN but to the U.S.
Number 5: US Uses Tsunami to Military Advantage in Southeast Asia
At the same time that US aid was widely publicized domestically, our coinciding military motives were virtually ignored by the press. While supplying our aid (which when compared proportionately to that of other, less wealthy countries, was an insulting pittance), we simultaneously bolstered military alliances with regional powers in, and began expanding our bases throughout, the Indian Ocean region.
Number 4: Surveillance Society Quietly Moves In
Number 3: Another Year of Distorted Election Coverage
More details to follow.
Number 2: Media Coverage Fails on Iraq: Fallujah and the Civilian Death Toll
Burhan Fasa’a, an Iraqi journalist, said Americans grew easily frustrated with Iraqis who could not speak English. “Americans did not have interpreters with them, so they entered houses and killed people because they didn’t speak English. They entered the house where I was with 26 people, and shot people because [the people] didn’t obey [the soldiers’] orders, even just because the people couldn’t understand a word of English.” Abu Hammad, a resident of Fallujah, told the Inter Press Service that he saw people attempt to swim across the Euphrates to escape the siege. “The Americans shot them with rifles from the shore. Even if some of them were holding a white flag or white clothes over their head to show they are not fighters, they were all shot.” Furthermore, “even the wound[ed] people were killed. The Americans made announcements for people to come to one mosque if they wanted to leave Fallujah, and even the people who went there carrying white flags were killed.” Former residents of Fallujah recall other tragic methods of killing the wounded. “I watched them [US Forces] roll over wounded people in the street with tanks … This happened so many times.”
and the top-ranked, most important ignored story of the year: Bush Administration Moves to Eliminate Open Government
“The Bush Administration has an obsession with secrecy,” says Representative Henry Waxman, the Democrat from California who, in September 2004, commissioned a congressional report on secrecy in the Bush Administration. “It has repeatedly rewritten laws and changed practices to reduce public and congressional scrutiny of its activities. The cumulative effect is an unprecedented assault on the laws that make our government open and accountable.”
You will notice how we get coverage of such stories; this is by Camille T. Taiara from The San Francisco Bay Guardian, I found it at truthout.org via Dahr Jamail but the original is here.
You can find much more about each of these stories at the original article, and you can even find the URLs for some of its sources at the Truthout version of the same article, here.
The section on the so-called “election” deserves a closer look, and here it is:
Source: In These Times, 02/15/05
Title: “A Corrupted Election”
Authors: Steve Freeman and Josh Mitteldorf
Seattle Post-Intelligencer, January 26, 2005
Title: “Jim Crow Returns to the Voting Booth”
Authors: Greg Palast, Rev. Jesse Jackson
www.freepress.org, Nov. 23, 2004
Title: “How a Republican Election Supervisor Manipulated the 2004 Central Ohio Vote”
Authors: Bob Fitrakis, Harvey Wasserman
Faculty Evaluator: Ann Neel, MA
Student Researcher: Mike Osipoff
Political analysts have long counted on exit polls to be a reliable predictor of actual vote counts. The unusual discrepancy between exit poll data and the actual vote count in the 2004 election challenges that reliability. However, despite evidence of technological vulnerabilities in the voting system and a higher incidence of irregularities in swing states, this discrepancy was not scrutinized in the mainstream media. They simply parroted the partisan declarations of “sour grapes” and “let’s move on” instead of providing any meaningful analysis of a highly controversial election.
The official vote count for the 2004 election showed that George W. Bush won by three million votes. But exit polls projected a victory margin of five million votes for John Kerry. This eight-million-vote discrepancy is much greater than the error margin. The overall margin of error should statistically have been under one percent. But the official result deviated from the poll projections by more than five percent – a statistical impossibility.
Edison Media Research and Mitofsky International, the two companies hired to do the polling for the Nation Election Pool (a consortium of the nation’s five major broadcasters and the Associated Press), did not immediately provide an explanation for how this could have occurred. They waited until January 19, the eve of the inauguration.
Edison and Mitofsky’s “inaugural” report, “Evaluation of Edison/Mitofsky Election System 2004,” stated that the discrepancy was “most likely due to Kerry voters participating in the exit polls at a higher rate than Bush voters.” The media widely reported that this report proved the accuracy of the official count and a Bush victory. The body of the report, however, offers no data to substantiate this position. In fact, the report shows that Bush voters were more likely to complete the survey than Kerry voters. The report also states that the difference between exit polls and official tallies was far too great to be explained by sampling error, and that a systematic bias is implicated.
The Edison and Mitofsky report dismisses the possibility that the official vote count was wrong, stating that precincts with electronic voting systems had the same error rates as precincts with punch-card systems. This is true. However, it merely points to the unreliability of punch-card and electronic systems, both of which are slated for termination under the Helping America Vote Act of 2002. According to the report, only in precincts that used old-fashioned, hand-counted paper ballots did the official count and the exit poll data fall within the normal margin of error.
Also, the report shows, the discrepancy between the exit polls and the official count was considerably greater in the critical swing states. And while this fact is consistent with allegations of fraud, Mitofsky and Edison suggest, without providing any data or theory to back up their claim, that this discrepancy is somehow related to media coverage.
In precincts that were at least 80 percent for Bush, the average within-precinct error (WPE) was a whopping 10.0 percent – the numerical difference between the exit poll predictions and the official count. Also, in Bush strongholds, Kerry received only about two-thirds of the votes predicted by exit polls. In Kerry strongholds, exit polls matched the official count almost exactly (an average WPE of 0.3).
This exit poll data is a strong indicator of a corrupted election. But the case grows stronger if these exit poll discrepancies are interpreted in the context of more than 100,000 officially logged reports of irregularities and possible fraud during Election Day 2004.
Bush campaign officials compiled a 1,886-name “caging list,” which included the names and addresses of predominantly black voters in the traditionally Democratic Jacksonville, Florida. While Bush campaign spokespersons stated that the list was a returned mail log, they did not deny that such a list could be used to challenge voters on Election Day. In fact, the county elections supervisor says that he could see no other purpose for compiling such a list.
In Franklin County Ohio, Columbus voters faced one of the longest ballot lines in history. In many inner city precincts, voters sometimes had three-hour waits to get to the poll before being required to cast ballots within five minutes, as demanded by the Republican-run Board of Elections. Seventy-seven out of the county’s 2,866 voting machines malfunctioned on Election Day. One machine registered 4,258 votes for Bush in a precinct where only 638 people voted. At least 125 machines were held back at the opening of the polls, and another 68 were never deployed. While voters were rushed through the process, 29 percent of the precincts had fewer voting machines than in the 2000 election despite a 25 percent increase in turnout.
Taken together, these problems point to an election that requires scrutiny. Even if the discrepancy between exit polls and actual vote counts is simply a fluke, other flaws and questionable practices in the voting process make one wonder whether or not the people’s voice was actually heard and if we are truly a working democracy.
Update by Josh Mitteldorf:
Some news is too important to report. People might get upset, and the smooth functioning of our democracy would be jeopardized. Thus the media has collectively done the responsible thing, and refrained – at great cost to themselves, be assured – from publicizing doubts about the legitimacy of the 2004 election, in order to help assure the “orderly succession of power.”
Unfortunately, some internet sites such as Commondreams.org and Freepress.org do not realize their obligations to the commonwealth, and have thus been less responsible in maintaining silence. And there’s an upbeat radio voice from Vermont, Thom Hartmann, who would be fun to listen to if only he didn’t insist on relating so many discomfiting truths.
But so long as you stay away from these isolated derelicts, you will be gratified to receive a reassuringly consistent story line: George Bush won the 2004 election fair and square. It’s time to stop asking pointless questions. Get with the program!
Update by Greg Palast and Reverend Jesse Jackson:
There are conspiracy nuts out there on the Internet who think that John Kerry defeated George Bush in Ohio and other states. I know, because I wrote “Kerry Won” for TomPaine.com two days after the election.
“Kerry Won” was the latest in a series coming out of a five-year investigation, begun in November 2000, for BBC Television Newsnight and Britain’s Guardian papers, dissecting that greasy sausage called American electoral democracy.
On November 11, a week after TomPaine.com put the report out on the ‘Net, I received an email from the New York Times Washington Bureau. Hot on the investigation of the veracity of the vote, the Times reporter asked me pointed questions:
Question #1: Are you a “sore loser?”
Question #2: Are you a “conspiracy nut?”
There was no third question. Investigation of the vote was, apparently, complete. The next day, their thorough analysis of the evidence yielded a front-page story, “VOTE FRAUD THEORIES, SPREAD BY BLOGS, ARE QUICKLY BURIED.”
Here’s a bit of what the Paper of Record failed to record.
In June 2004, well before the election, my co-author of “Jim Crow” Rev. Jesse Jackson brought me to Chicago. We had breakfast with Vice-Presidential candidate John Edwards. The Reverend asked the Senator to read my report of the “spoilage” of Black votes – one million African Americans who cast ballots in 2000 but did not have their votes register on the machines.
Edwards said he’d read it over after he’d had his bagel. Jackson snatched away his bagel. No read, no bagel. A hungry Senator was genuinely concerned – these were, after all, Democrats whose votes did not tally, and he shot the information to John Kerry. A couple of weeks later, Kerry told the NAACP convention that one million African-American votes were not counted in 2000, but in 2004 he would not let it happen again.
But he did let it happen again. More than a million votes in 2004 were cast and not counted.
As a reporter, it’s not my job to help the Democratic Party learn to tie its shoes. And, as a nonpartisan journalist, I’m not out to expose the Republican Party’s new elaborate campaign to prevent voters from voting – but I must report it. However, editors and news producers in my home country, the USA, seem less than interested. Indeed, they are downright hostile to reporting this story of the shoplifting of our democracy.
America has an apartheid voting system, denying African-Americans, Hispanics and American Natives the assurance their ballots will count. Worse, America has an apartheid media which denies racial disenfranchisement a seat at the front of the news bus.
It was in November 2000 I first ran into the US news lord’s benign neglect of the “new Jim Crow” methods of denying citizens of color their vote. While working with the British Guardian papers just days before the 2000 presidential election, I discovered that Governor Jeb Bush and his Secretary of State, Katharine Harris, had wrongly purged tens of thousands of Black citizens from voter rolls as “felons” – when in fact their only crime had been V.W.B.: Voting While Black.
Nothing appeared in the US press. However, I admit that the Florida purge story was picked up by the New York Times … four years later.
Just before the November 2004 election, BBC television Newsnight discovered new, confidential “caging lists” which we got our hands on from inside the Republican National Committee headquarters. These were rosters of thousands of minority voters targeted to prevent them from voting on election day: a violation of federal law. It was big news in Europe and South America. In the USA, there was nothing except an attack on BBC’s report by ABC’s web site. ABC’s only listed source for their attack on the BBC was the Republican Party.
The story of the purge of Black voters, the million missing Black ballots cast but not counted, the caging lists, and other games used to deny the vote to the dark-skinned and the poor, would have been buried long ago if not for BBC Television, Harper’s Magazine (may it last a thousand years), Britain’s Guardian and Observer, The Nation, the op-ed editors at the San Francisco Chronicle and Seattle Post-Intelligencer and, provocatively, Hustler Magazine. Even if ignored or actively ‘dissed by US “mainstream” media, the story will be continue to be reported, due to the passionate insistence of Reverend Jackson, from a thousand pulpits.
Thanks to GeorgeBush.com for capturing the ‘caging lists.’ And bless the blogs, for they shall set the truth free: TomPaine.com, Buzzflash, Working-for-Change and other Internet sites carried the story over the electronic Berlin Wall.
Finally, my gratitude to our indefatigable investigative team, particularly Oliver Shykles and Matt Pascarella for their work on this story – on which they continue today – and to Meirion Jones, producer nonpareil at BBC television’s Newsnight.
To which it only seems fair to add: Many thanks to Truthout.org and The San Francisco Bay Guardian and Camille T. Taiara and of course none of this would be possible without Project Censored … so thanks to all who have helped get these stories to this point, and please pass this link around! so even more people can learn about these important under-reported stories. Bless The Blogs Indeed!! Thanks, Greg!
Censored for how long, and by what leaders…….Who is denying the truth…
The war in Iraq reminds me of a movie….
It reminds me of The Lost World: Jurassic Park.
In the name of science and greedy survival, mankind declared a new order of strategy by politicizing a region in order to take it completely over.
They then proceeded to subvert science, by claiming man was above god….And could control the destiny and outcome of Isla Sorna as strange as that is…..
In the same way they claimed they could control the destiny of Iraq…..
Now one is a science fiction based on the fact dinosaurs were brought back to life.
The other is based off of monopolization of oil by the military, in the same consequence.
In each scenario, mankind seeks to control and profit off of forces they can not understand.
Dinosaurs are used to make a profit, become an attraction, and try to marry science with corporate exploitation.
Oil becomes used as a reason to slaughter dissidents, enslave Nigerians and then marry science with imperialism to control the industry. Again, used in corporate exploitation.
Isn’t it fascinating the parallels?
The project of the Lost World failed, and the leaders were destroyed by the very ideal they proposed to control. Its economy collapsed.
In the same way the Iraq Middle East has failed, and the leaders are destroyed by the very ideal they propose to control: Oil. The economy collapses and global warming accelerates beyond all other options.
The same message is presented….. WHEN WILL MAN GET THE MESSAGE, THAT THEY ARE NOT ABOVE "GOD" OR WHATEVER DIVINE MEANING THE WORLD HOLDS?
WHAT WILL IT IN TURN TAKE, TO RECEIVE THAT MESSAGE, AND FOLLOW IT WITH SUCCESS?
Silently..
Doug Eldritch
Doug, they aren’t going to get the message. It’s too late. The US is going down into a catastrophic depression–and very soon. A depression so savage that these amateur fascists can’t hold onto their power–and I think the smarter among them are beginning to realize this.
Forget about "fixing" things, it ain’t gonna happen. Turn your energies to compiling lists of the media whores and corrupt bureaucrats who brought our proud country to this pass.
Start with Alan Greenspan. But there’s plenty of others, like Sean Hannity and that bitchbrat Laura Ingraham, and Jim Dyke and Thomas Friedman… and the entire Bush administration.
After the collapse, search them out and bring them to justice.
I’m interested in finding out more about the 1 million "spoiled" ballots from African Americans. Any one have any links that provide facts? I’m just wondering how this was performed. I’m just guessing that there were large amounts of spoiled ballots in heavily African American precincts. Since these precincts are in democratic strongholds, aren’t the local election officials democrats? How did the evil neocons sneak in and spoil the ballots before the election officials counted the ballots?
Good catch WP. The MSM is the worst political party in america at this time.
I mean we expect politicians to go postal, but the press has a social sacred duty. When they become more postal than the politicians, it is social sacrilege.
Its like when priests sexually abuse children.
Yep, the MSM is the political party of perverts … sounds too strong, but I stick by it.
The mainstream media are businesses, first and foremost. Corporate conglomeration has made them into information trusts, with all that implies: A status-quo mentality toward the American economy, a need to please stockholders and advertisers at the expense of the truth, and a willingness to isolate and discredit any truth-tellers from the alternate media.
Bush’s dramatic loss of public standing has occurred not BECAUSE of media skepticism, as the right-wing would have us believe, but IN SPITE of it. There have been no Woodward/Bernstein stories about 9/11, or WMD, or two stolen elections. Only recently, when the truth about Rove’s outing of Valerie Plame proved to be in direct conflict with Scottie-boy McClellan’s earlier denials, have the media begun to understand how little the Bush administration can be trusted. They’re starting to fulfill their historical responsibilities at long last.
This is stating the obvious. But it deserves to be said again, if only to emphasize the power of blogs. It’s us, folks…let’s all take a bow together. It’s us, we "6 or 7" that Dr. Robert Pastor derided so arrogantly while trying to sell the Baker/Carter panel as a legitimate inquiry into election fraud.
With all your doom and gloom why do you people even try to continue to live? Even when Clinton was in charge we had a brighter outlook than you. You really know how to ralley the masses behind you. Keep this crap up, we love it, because no matter how bad things get on our side we can always point folks here to see what things really could be like. Thanks. You are defeated.
We’re doing a kindness to the administration by calling the fiascos in 2000 and 2004 "elections." The term "coups d’etat" comes to mind. There should be an independent investigation of not only these elections but also indepth auditing of Diebold et al. MSM must also be closely watched and demands made for truth. 2006 looks to be the most crucial election in our history, the outcome determining the survival of the country, its constitution, and all it stands for or the wholesale give in to greed, avarice and petty power games.
for #3, Nuclear Chemist … Greg Palast has been writing about spoiled ballots for a long time. You might want to start here and then read this.
Why don’t you all just get over it. You lost!!!!!!!!
Doug et al. – Good points and comparisons. I’ll say it again (and try not to say it too much). There is a bifurcation, a dichotomy, a schizoid condition in America that is tearing us apart and for which there is no solution other than creating new models of behavior (including drawing on democratic traditions).
The condition, at its core, is the unresolvable and tragic viewpoint that corporatism and democracy are compatible and that both are "American". That we represent "morality", yet separate our actions from consequences and are "free" to act because we have an amoral power. That self-interest (as in corporate MSM) can somehow (only "somehow" – can’t think beyond that or the unhealthy condition becomes clear) relate to the interests of Americans. Can’t have it both ways, but they’ve been telling us we can. Big problem.
But it’s in the resolving of this problem that a new meaning will be given to American life.
Oh, boy, I love hearing those troll pseudo-fascists telling us to GET OVER IT. Wake up and smell the coffee, kids. It’s OVER. And when even the MSM whores wake up to that, it’ll be too late to change sides. Their names, like yours, will already be on lists.
Read Tale of Two Cities, if you want a lesson in what’s about to happen. When this is over, there won’t be a Bush voter left alive in this country. Anyone who endorsed or promoted this criminal enterprise will have been crucified alongside the now-barren freeways.
OT – but unreported nonetheless.
Barbara Olsen arrested in Europe??
could this be accurate?
maybe it’s just me, but between Carter’s admission re: 2000, Abramoff’s ties to Delay & Rove, The Mess-o-potemia, Pressure from Cindy, NOLA, Frist’s SEC violations, Brits-as-insurgents, etc., etc., etc…is the crap hitting the fan or what.
Too bad one has to read blogs to get most of this info.
OFF TOPIC – Sorry!
Out of curiousity, i just clicked a banner for http://www.ready.gov here on bradblog. Thought it strange that a gov. website would advertize here. Anyway, I got the dept. of Home.Sec. website "informing" about these great terrorist threats. Anyway -Clicked around and saw a link named "Nuclear Blast" – this gave me this err msg:
An error occurred while processing your request.
Reference #97.da45043e.1127491388.115294d
Anyway – thought it looked like the messages people from outside of the US (such as myself) got back in November when the republicans tried to filter out us foreigners from the bush campaing website. Can you guys get that page?
its here
..Sharlene said on 9/23/2005 @ 7:47am PT…
" Why don’t you all just get over it. You lost!!!!!!!!"
Now now, don’t be unkind to the Republicans. After all, here on BradBlog we’re just out to find the truth and restore Democracy, we’re not about politics here.
Re: The arrest of Barbara Olsen?
OMG, that’s weird, surreal, almost like something that would happen during a Bush administration. What’s the world coming to when a dead person gets arrested? I can’t wait to see how the media avoids reporting on that, if the story is true.
WP – off-topic, but important. Please investigate…
It’s definitely not looking good.
From the DailyKos:
I’m seriously concerned for folks going to DC. This could be part and parcel of the intent to suppress the demonstration and mitigate the organization of it by having "plants" in the crowd, but there are documented occurrences of the Republicans actually staging scuffles in order to discredit protestors before.
This latest setup is all too convenient for planning a riot (or at least reporting one) and – with the Preznit safe and secure – locking down the capitol (and perhaps a large chunk, if not all, of the nation).
Be very careful out there, folks.
Be very, very careful.
heh. had a nice post to put up.. but it was almost nothing but spitting on the trolls.. oh well, guess I’ll just keep my mouth shut..
I can’t believe there are so many stories I’ve not even heard of yet.. Guess I got some reading to do, and some fact to disseminate. Once we get more info out there, folks like HCOCDR won’t have long to wait [before they are hunted down in the streets for trying to destroy this once great country]..
Oh, and Sharlene.. I’ve not noticed you here before, so I don’t know if you are joking or if you are serious.. if you’re "serious", you really need to get a clue sweety. Try -reading- the evidence for once.. don’t just spew more diarrhoea from the talking points of the most morally bankrupt folks in the world.. ok? Read the facts.. that’s why they are posted here. If after reading the facts, you still don’t see the truth, then just go jump off a cliff.. you’ll be doing the world a favor.
Markh,
Liberals couldn’t see the truth if it slapped them upside the head.
Bush "stole" the election(s) because minorities can’t follow instructions to ensure the hanging chad is removed… no wait, it’s because of the butterfly ballot… no wait, Diebold stole it!!! No wait, aliens beamed up democratic voters to prevent them from voting!!!!
You guys are just upset that your normal means of voting: Dead people voting, double voting, illegal aliens voting, felons illegally voting and stuffing the ballot box wasn’t good enough to steal the election.
Neuclear Chemist,
Please show me "real" reports of "dead people voting" in any kind of proportion that -might- have -every- skewed an election? and show me -proof- that it was ONLY Dems who have ever engaged in any kind of fraud.
Why is it that you morons keep trying to go waaaaay of on some fanatical comparison (aliens) to discredit reported facts? I just can’t get my head around how someone trys to have a debate like that. It only serves to show the world (those with an IQ over 75) how totally ignorant your position is.
Here’s a recap for you, since you seem to be stuck with your head up your ass..
"Bush" didn’t steal the election, he’s way to stupid to do something like that. The Republican Party stole the election. They did it with help from the companies that sold them the election machines.. machines with no paper trail.. that was the 2004 election. In 2000, they stopped counting votes.. amazing how a Bush family friend is the one that STOPPED the counting, then said "screw it, let the court do it".. When you look at -all- the problems with Florida in 2000, and -all- the other reports of massive issues that weren’t reported on in the MSM, for the most part.. you start to see that something was stinky with that election too. Guess what that should mean in a DEMOCRACY… that should mean A RE-COUNT or a NEW ELECTION.. duh? but, that doesn’t fit the agenda, now does it..
The systems that were in place in 2004 were BAD, and -anyone- that claims to love this country should be ALL FOR getting those things fixed, straightend out, verifiable, and HONEST and SECURE.. not bringing up how "uh.. duh.. I’m a friggin moron and can only say .. uh.. you guys had dead people vote". I get so damn tired of idiots out there trying to make this a partisan issue. This is an issue for AMERICAN CITIZENS, not "republicans" or "democrats".. our COUNTRY is being subverted by corrupted officals and greedy heartless bastards. Unless you are one of those, quit acting like one.
People have died and are dying in these two hurricanes. People have lost everything they own including their jobs. As energtic as you liberals are, you should put all that energy to good use and help some of these desperate people. They will need money and help reconstructing their homes and have many other needs too numerous to mention. You are very good at finding fault with everything that happens. Do you ever see anything that happens that is good? You must be a miserable bunch of people
To Comment #11 I have no worries. I am covered by the blood. Are you? I will be praying for you.
I am not going to waste any more of my time on this blog. I have much better things to do. Try looking on the bright side some time. You will wake up feeling much better. You can take care of all this next election, MAYBE.
Goodbye, Sharlene 🙂 🙂 🙂
Arry #10 –
Yours is THE most relevant comment I’ve read on the subject! Morality vs. laissez faire: regulation of ALL behaviors, including corporate behaviors, vs. an entirely hands-off policy.
We need a whole new paradigm.
If our elections are a sham, and they are, you lost, too, Sharlene.
Also, Tom Flocco isn’t a very reliable source.
See http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk...le.asp?ID=3617
Boa #13 –
Yes, that site came up for me. It’s suggestions for what to do in the event of nuclear attack. Probably quite timely, considering Cheney’s preparations. False flags all over the place…
What hurricanes don’t devastate for us, we have to obliterate for ourselves! It’s the only way to ensure that "the people" won’t be organized enough to resist military take-over.
Well Sharlene.. if I were to believe tall the pap from the Marketing firms, I’d do well just to take my little happy pill and mull along in a dazed, yet happy stupor.
Us "liberals" are the ones -trying- to do good in the aftermath of the huricanes.. problem is, "businesses" like the Red Cross are busy diverting funds (again) to protect their longevity, instead of making sure PEOPLE are being cared for.. the government.. you know, that thing we all pay taxes for?.. is busy obstructing aid.. not much we can do about that, now is there..? FEMA isn’t filled with elected officials, or even compitent officals, they are filled with party loyalists. THAT should piss you off too.. though, if you only want to look at the "bright" side all the time, I recon when you have no rights and are sleeping in the streets at the foot of a destroyed building in one of our mostly abandoned cities, you can say "well, at least that rat didn’t eat off -both- nipples".. no, really.. keep turning a blind eye to the dessimation of our society by people that only care about themselves.. You are a true patriot ..
and, there’s no way to "take care of it next election" if we don’t have a "real" election.. if the fraud of 2004 is allowed to happen in 2006, there really won’t be any hope for a "peaceful" resolution. Part of -why- we’re so doom and gloom is, we -know- the next step is a big ugly one that will leave a lot of people dead in the streets… just like the -last- civil war we had because ignorant self-absorbed shit-bags didn’t want to stop abusing and explointing human beings for their own greedy ambitions.
Gee! How surprising is that? I keep hearing foreign students say: “We know you have an independently owned press, but it sounds like it’s run by the government.”
That says it all.
I’m open to different views ,I’m not American so not repub or dem.So can somebody compile a list of Bush accomplishment so I can have both side of the arguments to consider.Thanks in advance for your help in this endeavor.
PS Dont include winning elections as an achievement in this list.
mick
Sharlene: Ah you idiot, there has been alternatives for almost 4 years or more and today even more alternatives were put on the table including a peace commission.
The fact is, they are obstructed by the GOP and the entire GOP is at fault for these disasters, why don’t you suck it up and accept it. This is what happens when mankind’s greed goes bad, this is what ALWAYS happens.
And you’re a moron to not think the elections are being rigged. We’ve seen proof of them being rigged more than 3 times by both sides. They aren’t honest, and there are also traitors in the midst. Read about "Al-Quaeda" none other than M-16 agents working with our own government….
Rawstory.com
Don’t be such a foolish hack. And by the way Barbara Olson, if she was arrested, that means the 9/11 story has just fallen through. We know it was a whitewash. Nobody knows just WHAT was really whitewashed out, however, yet….
Doug E.
Is it just me or are the right-wingers stepping up their inane, pointless rants here???
If so, it’s evidence that the truth exposed here is worrying them.
Besides… as I’ve said before…
This isn’t left or right… this is about integrity – something lacking in BOTH parties!! (but moreso in the neocon movement… A movement that does not represent conservatism, nor behave in much of a ‘Christian’ way.)
MMIIXX, i’ll try to help you out.
ummm…i’m thinking, hmmm, doh!
Aww, what-a-shame. Nothing. Sorry.
Sharlene re #11, I too am saved by the Blood of Christ. That dosn’t make me want to run out and follow any nincompoop that comes along claiming christ (small c intentional) as their father. "You will know them by their fruits…" take a good look at the fruits of the Bush administration. Where is the care of the poor? of widows and orphans? Who, besides the very rich, have benefited from Bush’s "christianity" (small c) show me a student who has gotten ahead by way of NCLB, show me the elderly who have benefited from having their Medicare threated, the poor from having due process taken away from them. Faith is not all "think good thoughts and every thing will be fine!" For all the shout and hubbub about Bush’s "religion" and "faith" I don’t see it in evedence and if you were truly familier with the Bible you wouldn’t either. M3 got it right in #28 — "this is about integrity…" someting the whole Bush administation is devoid of.
There is nothing but SIN in the land of these fake christians……TIME TO WAKE UP!!!!
Doug E.
A bit OT, but all this reminds me of the Liberal Media, or the farse that a liberal bias exists. I recall watching the coverage on CNN, pre-iraq war. It was about a week before war was declared and they showed two rallies for the day’s replayed segments:
The first was a VFW/pro-Bush/pro-war rally. The speakers seemed like people who might be neighbors or friends. My grandma was the national musician for the VFW for years. They’re all great people and that’s the portreyal CNN gave. They showed segments of speeches and the coverage of the VFW gig gave me a warm and fuzzy feeling.
The second was an anti-war rally. They showed a 3 second blip of a guy who looked like a drug addict holding a sign that said "Buck Fush." What? How did that show my side? Great coverage of the event, I’m sure. The people I’ve met at rallies like this one are nothing like that guy. What was CNN thinking? Maybe they should have switched their slogan to "fair and balanced."
Then, as I recall, they made a comment about Bush saying there are tons of evidence for WMDs in Iraq.
God bless CNN.
Hey Sharlene, you wanna come over to my house and watch football and listen to some Michael Jackson records???
After that I thought you and I could go canoeing around the flooded streets of New Orleans!
After that if you’re still wanting to hang out with me, we could go to Bourbon Street and get into a bunch of barroom brawls with a bunch of southern rednecks!
A good time will be had by all! How ’bout it, Sharlene?
Someone should tell Sharlene #9, that "we" didn’t lose…the country, the American people, and the world lost…and, of course, she lost too, which she obviously hasn’t realized yet.
# 11
Is the French Revolution and, perhaps, Rwanda your model of justice?
Understandable emotion, but get a grip.
RWANDA hah wake up you fakes…..That already happened in Louisiana. We’re past that point, stop clinging to your apple…..it already fell off the tree in tandem.
Doug
I’m surprised the truth about 2004 election didn’t come out on Hurricane Rita Day. The truth about 2000 came out on 9/11, but was ignored b/c of a disaster (convenient…. hmmmm), so it would’ve been good consistency. :plain: