I've always been fascinated with stereo pictures and music for that matter. COOL!

Murtha actually brought up the permanent military bases in Iraq recently. ALSO COOL! Makes me think the Democrats really ARE serious this time.

Too bad they're not as serious about the voting machine problem. Brad was on the usual Peter B. Collins friday show, saying the Dems are wimping out with the 'machines must be working because we won the election' nonsense.

Sigh!

We have had the picture here all along. Glad others are coming on board. Check this and this.

We knew the oil baron doctrine has been in control of US policy since the daze of Nixon and before.

The oil baron pushers (dealers) have treated americans like heroin pushers treat their customers ... with disdain, contempt, and reckless disregard.

And now they have to resort to war to steal the product from other dealers.

It is a drug war. They only thing changing is the price.

And the supply of oil is running out. The oil wars will increase in viciousness, and the fact is that civilization is in danger.

BTW they also have and are bringing us global warming as a by product of their oil-drug dealing tactics.

Larry #1

Yes, this is the first time Brad has lost touch with the overall situation and become pigeon holed.

We live in a world on the brink of disaster and the congress is struggling with fascist members who want to take us head-long into the destruction.

And Brad is fighting the only ones trying to steer us away from the disaster in our congress ... the dems who have only been at the wheel about a month.

They have a one vote majority in the senate, which takes 60 votes to get anything done, and Brad and some others are bitching about things that are not on the top ten of american politics.

Iraq, congressional corruption, a wannabe dictator president, and a few dozen other things are higher in line with the people and the congress is listening to them.

We should get behind them and support them in order to bring those things under control in the order the people want them done. In so doing we will build a relationship with congress that we can utilize to fix the electronic voting machine problems.

The strategy of bitch and moan has been used by, I think implants, to destroy the voting rights movement's chances for too long now.

Since 1988 the voting rights movement with articles and the government with 1988 reports have well-informed those interested.

However, the political process utilized by activists who do the one-trick-pony bitch no matter what, has not worked during this decade upon decade strategy of stay the course and bitch.

Build working strategies and stop bitching. You are not convincing anyone because you are not using logic. You are using swift-boat emotionalism.

Why is your strategy the same for several decades as the election system gets worse? Know thy self.

I will still support all the voting activist issues and Brad blog and Velvet revolution and Black Box voting to the max, yet, we are loosing even as Super Shawn still keeps cranking out EVMS.

RE post #3

A week or so ago I posted my theory that perhaps the Baghdad assaults are practice for hundreds of thousands of troops who will use the training against americans in the future.

This idea ought not be considered so far fetched. I was involved in a lawsuit in the early 80's in which a naval officer testified that they, the US military, practice invasions of the United States all the time.

This is confirmed in a recent decision of the 2nd Circuit Federal Court of Appeals:

The Second Circuit case arose when, in October 1999, Michael Zieper put a short film on the Internet that was entitled "Military Takeover of New York City." In the film, an unseen narrator ‑‑ with shots of Times Square in the background --- discusses plans for the takeover to occur on New Year's Eve 1999, claims the tape came from his brother in the army, and reports that his brother said copies were "floating around the base." However, the narrator also directly raises an issue about whether the tape is real or fake.

Initially, the FBI simply asked Zieper to remove the film ‑‑ apparently cognizant that it would be barred by the First Amendment from ordering him to do so. Zieper's attorneys also stressed this point to them later.

However, eventually, FBI agent Joseph Metzinger and Assistant United States Attorney Lisa Korologos got more aggressive. Metzinger sent a FBI agent and several police officers to Zieper's house. Nevertheless, Zieper held his ground.

(Article link, emphasis added, Federal Circuit Opinion link).

And lest we forget that the military has also planned terrorism against citizens within the US too, note:

These proposals - part of a secret anti-Castro program known as Operation Mongoose - included staging the assassinations of Cubans living in the United States, developing a fake “Communist Cuban terror campaign in the Miami area, in other Florida cities and even in Washington,” including “sink[ing] a boatload of Cuban refugees (real or simulated),” faking a Cuban airforce attack on a civilian jetliner, and concocting a “Remember the Maine” incident by blowing up a U.S. ship in Cuban waters and then blaming the incident on Cuban sabotage. Bamford himself writes that Operation Northwoods “may be the most corrupt plan ever created by the U.S. government.”

(National Archives Documents, emphasis added).

All I am saying is that we must take note of priorities, stop criticizing the wrong people, and that we fail to do so at the peril of our freedom.

Dredd,

Did you just turn 40? I'm trying to figure out why the sudden conservative attitude. How else to explain comments like, "We should get behind them and support them", which is Republican 101. In fact, many of the problems you list are at least partially attributable to this nasty habit on the right of party before everything, including country. Sure the Dems could be tougher, but God help us all when they too stop thinking.

But while advocating blind support might be dumb, it hardly compares to the suggestion that Brad eschew voting issues because it is not among the top 10 most important in America. Excuse me? All roads lead to voting. Iraq alone is proof of this. In a functioning Democracy representatives are forced to listen to their constituents or find a new job. But Iraq proves Congress doesn't answer to the people because it doesn't believe the people decide elections. As this report shows, every time the middle class has had a stake in legislation the last couple of years it lost. We don't have a democracy.

And all the problems you mention were given life and allowed to grow into the monumental problems they are today because we lack democracy. What is also strange about your comment is that Brad and others have, thankfully, worked so hard to bring the voting issues to the front of the American consciousness and, despite the efforts of the MSM and government, have finally broken through and grabbed the country's attention. Now with momentum at their back and the finish line in sight, you suggest dropping everything and moving on to other issues? And you accuse him of not using logic?

Finally, the accusation of swift-boat emotionalism is spurious. Brad practically bends over backwards to be fair and accurate. So, perhaps you refer to me and the few paragraphs I write around the short videos I post. Certainly I am more emotional and my writing is not as precise as it should be, but I cannot think of anytime I have "Swift-boated" anyone. I will add that Brad's policy is to give guest bloggers full editorial control of their own posts.

Alan #5

My age is as irrelevant as your question about it. And your comment that my statement about getting behind democrats in power so as to positively effect voting machine issues was "Republican 101" is ludicrous. Republican 101 is thwart democrats on any issue right or wrong. How dare you use such twaddle.

Here is a quote that is not irrelevant from BBV which is more relevant to voting issues than your link to "Drum Majors":

On Valentine's Day two years ago, Black Box Voting was in Leon County, Florida with Dr. Hugh Thompson, proving that the Diebold GEMS system can be hacked in less than 60 seconds using a simple trojan horse script. GEMS is still in use and now it's in more places than ever. And the debate rages on about whether we should have voting machines at all.

(Bev Harris). The same was done in 1985 when the issues were fully made public by activists and computer scientists as shown in the links I have provided.

Either I am correct that the same issues about voting machines have been yacked by personality cult types since 1985, to no avail, or that is not the case. My post said:

Since 1988 the voting rights movement with articles and the government with 1988 reports have well-informed those interested.

(post #3).

If it is the case that what is being said by activists is not working then stop staying the course and get something done by using a better course.

There are strategies that can get it done and it is not the same ones that have failed for thirty years. Stop arguing about who is the coolest activist bitcher and get on with real change. The way change happens is not the way things have been going in the anti-electronic voting machine movements.

It is a credibility issue. The sky is falling and the great train wreck theory is not enough to get it done.

Dredd,

Of course your age is irrelevant. My comment about your age was tongue and cheek - paraphrasing, "if you're 20 and a republican you have not heart and if you're 40 and a democrat you are an idiot".

As per the rest, I really think I just don't understand your point. What are you advocating? What is the alternative that we should be doing but are not doing? What is being missed? What is the better course?

From my vantage point it sounds like you are the epitome of what you are railing against. Whining about ineffective advocacy without providing any alternative. And the idea that the current voting advocacy groups have been failing for 25 years and now need to change course is delusional. Most came into existence after the 2000 election. And in just 6 years we have seen enormous strides. And the majority of real gains were seen in the months just before the last election.

Take the NY Times as an example. The paper of record thought 2000 was a testament to the strength of our democracy. It was quick to dismiss those challenging 2004 as conspiracy theorists. Mexico last year was a bunch of lefty marxists refusing to accept the will the people. Then suddenly before the election last year the Times was writing what a joke our system was and that it was amazing that 6 years after the Florida debacle we still had not figured out how to make evoting work. That is quite the turnaround and evidence that significant gains are being made.

Lastly, all I stated was that I don't think it wise to advocate blind allegiance to anyone. If that is twaddle to you, so be it.

If it's true, that elections have been vulnerable to tampering since 1988 or even before, using unverifiable software, (totally possible in Utah because ONE MAN has been in charge of the programming), it's plausible the "Reagan Revolution" never happened.

If Jimmy Carter had been allowed to preside with honesty and continue to expose Americans to the hard truth of our unsustainable consumerism for four more years, we could have tackled the problems we ignored and been in fat city by now.

Reagan swept the problem under the rug and that has resulted in a weapons standoff with the entire world today.

Voting machines shouldn't be out of the top ten concerns for the nation, and if it is, then we're just going to have to deal with eleven.

I have no idea how the Democrats won victories in 2006, but I can't face a surprise dictatorship in 2008.

By the way, I don't think Brad actually used the term "whimping out" in reference to the Democrats, but "the machines must be working because we won the election" is just crazy talk. That's like saying "we only got hit running the last 2 out of 3 red lights, so we probably won't crash next time either!"

There is nothing wrong with proving that in 1985 the New York Times was printing panic stories about electronic voting machines:

Concern had been heightened by a series of articles published in the summer of 1985 in the New York Times. The articles cited statements by two computer experts reporting that a computer program widely used for vote-tallying was vulnerable to tampering. Several elections were identified in which losing candidates claimed that it would be possible to fraudulently alter the computer programs that were used in their contests.

(Official U.S. DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE 1988 Report, emphasis added), or that voting machine activists were very well aware of the problem too:

DURING the past quarter of a century, with hardly anyone noticing, the inner workings of democracy have been computerized. All our elections, from mayor to President, are counted locally, in about ten thousand five hundred political jurisdictions, and gradually, since 1964, different kinds of computer-based voting systems have been installed in town after town, city after city, county after county. This year, fifty-five per cent of all votes-seventy-five per cent in the largest jurisdictions-will be counted electronically. If ninety-five million Americans vote on Tuesday, November 8th, the decisions expressed by about fifty-two million of them will be tabulated according to rules that programmers and operators unknown to the public have fed into computers.

(Dugger 1988, emphasis added). If these articles and reports are not shown to be false, then the premise of my logic is valid.

No less than Bev Harris informs us that things in some contexts have even gotten worse in the past two years:

On Valentine's Day two years ago, Black Box Voting was in Leon County, Florida with Dr. Hugh Thompson, proving that the Diebold GEMS system can be hacked in less than 60 seconds using a simple trojan horse script. GEMS is still in use and now it's in more places than ever. And the debate rages on about whether we should have voting machines at all.

(Bev Harris Post, emphasis added). My premise is considerable, seeing as how it is both up to date and goes back over 40 years to 19 freakin 64 people.

Now since my premise on the substance is valid, I feel safe within the realm of valid deduction in saying that we need a different strategy in the electronic voting machine movement.

We need to work with the movers and shakers in a way they will recognize as valid, and develop a working relationship with them, not with ourselves.

When everyone settles down, becomes less shrill, and is willing to discuss a better course than staying the course (since this is an Iraq thread ), I will participate in the discussion.

The first order of business would be to identify the current strategy which is failing.

Speaking of Iraq ...

This regime and its republican rubber stamps in the Senate have been talking about the holiness of "taking care of the troops".

Meanwhile the troops who come home and happen to live, as New Orleans inhabitants know, in a primarily democratic area, will be "taken care of" in a different manner than those who live "where the good people do".

Yep, troops without legs, arms, and full mental faculty are being treated like the Katrina victims have been treated:

Behind the door of Army Spec. Jeremy Duncan's room, part of the wall is torn and hangs in the air, weighted down with black mold. When the wounded combat engineer stands in his shower and looks up, he can see the bathtub on the floor above through a rotted hole. The entire building, constructed between the world wars, often smells like greasy carry-out. Signs of neglect are everywhere: mouse droppings, belly-up cockroaches, stained carpets, cheap mattresses.

(The neoCon Hospital).

To all you hyprocritical republicans who voted not to debate the Iraq escalation in the Senate because it would not take care of our troops or send a good message to them, what kind of frigging message do you think all this wonderful care at your neoCon hospital sends to them?

Katrina is just another word for Walter Reeds great care for the troops? You lying twitty little bastards.

Sorry Dredd, but fixing the voting machine problem by focusing on everything but the voting machine problem for over 6 years doesn't seem like a good strategy.

Leave political strategy to Republicans. They are better at it.

Democrats are better at honesty.

Why can't all the Democrats go out on the steps of the capitol and demand, get shill, scream, throw a tantrum and demand democratic elections with paper ballots now?

Pat Buchanan did all of those things on the steps of the capitol to whine about the National Arts Foundation and he gets a guaranteed spot on every TV station in the country, every night.

If a "Piss Jesus" display, (probably created by a deceitful Republican artist), is more important and sticks in peoples craw more then the repeated theft of our elections, then I regress.

No to the Help America Vote Act #2!

Larry #11 and My post #9

You said:

Sorry Dredd, but fixing the voting machine problem by focusing on everything but the voting machine problem for over 6 years doesn't seem like a good strategy.

Then don't do it.

And don't keep on doing what has been done for 40 years that has failed either.

During those 40 years there have been democratic and republican congresses and presidents.

Obviously the stay the course "strategy" of the electronic voting machine activists has failed under all circumstances ... other than correctly and completely pointing out that they are not machines of democracy.

It is utterly pathetic to keep praising the glories of a failed movement.

Time for a working strategy that will get it done.

Speaking of Martial Law ... read this.

Dredd:

At the end of that article about martial law, it asks:

"So, what would you did if Bush declared martial law, laugh?"

A very good case could be made that we've been under martial law for decades. Paul Craig Roberts makes my case in the following article which I would call "First They Came For The Potheads"

Larry #13

I would agree that it is here in embryonic form. But it has a way to go. They have a plan:

It is a fundamental mistake to see the enemy as a set of targets. The enemy in war is a group of people. Some of them will have to be killed. Others will have to be captured or driven into hiding. The overwhelming majority, however, have to be persuaded.
--- Frederick Kagan, "War and Aftermath," Policy Review, Aug 03

(Psy ops link, emphasis added).

When generations have been educated in our universities to use deception on us, as Chomsky has pointed out here, and as is shown by browsing the psy ops link above, we are the enemy and the mission is to subdue our thinking and our actions.

That will necessarily involve some terrorism by the government against the people. Post #4 above points some of that out too.

The link in your post was awsome. Thanks.

Dredd:

Oklahoma bombing bombshell comes to Utah! It is a small world.

There is an awful amount of deceit in this country. Maybe there is actually some truth to the theory that the Bush gang are so far into it, that they're deceiving themselves.

Glad you liked the post. I just happened onto it. Wonder if anybody else in the country got to read it?