Dissent -Most of us Understand it!

A new AP Poll, with some interesting numbers on many questions, showed that more than 90 PERCENT OF AMERICANS BELIEVE IT'S OK TO PROTEST THE WAR!

Dissent and disagreement and protest are what this country was founded on.

All this wingnut screaming that we are traitors or that we are hurting our own sons and daughters by disagreeing with the Pres'. Policy is just so much bullshit - AND most people know that!

I am finally going to celebrate a little.....

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Wanna Help Stop the Minutemen?

A California group is going to oppose the Minutemen, a group of rascist fools claiming the right to play vigilante at the US - Mexico Border.

You can read about it ir respond at this Link

Thanks to ANGRY WHITE KID for this one.

Wanna Know about Abu Ghirab

Read the interview with the General Officer who was scapegoated over the "scandal".

And in case you want to know wherte your taxes went, here's a quote:

And in my little corner of the world and my exposure down at the Coalition Provisional Authority, I saw corruption like I've never seen before - millions of dollars just being pocketed by contractors. Everything was on a cash basis at the time. You take a request down - literally, you take a request to the Finance Office. If the Pay Officer recognized your face and you were asking for $450,000 to pay a contractor for work, they would pay you in cash: $450,000. Out of control.

Your Vote Counted

But how many times?

Or did it count in a negative way?

Read this article.

Trusting the DoD?

Where is the OUTRAGE ?

When The US Military converted the base at Guantanamo into a prison camp, there was a little outrage, but not much. And so the US went ahead and trashed the Geneva Convention, then the Constitution, and lied and hid all manner of torture and illegal actions taken by the military.

But the excuse was that these people were “enemy combatants”, members of Al Qaeda, who would use our own laws against us!

And now the Military Tribunals have admitted that some of them are innocent. But are they out? Are they even treated any differently? NOOoooooo…….

Read this:

All 15 Uighurs have actually been cleared for release from Guantanamo Bay twice, once after a Pentagon review in late 2003 and again last March, U.S. officials said. Seven other Uighurs were ruled to be enemy combatants and will continue to be detained.

Even after the second decision, however, the government did not notify the 15 men for several months that they had been cleared.

Further, Attorneys for the men only know the first names of 9 of their clients, and have never met 13 of them, and cannot file a writ of habeas corpus to see the charges or meet their clients because the whole imprisonment process is S.E.C.R.E.T.

UTAH PROTEST

Here's something that hasn't seen much National Coverage, but made the local news. We need more of this kind of thinking and action:

Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson, who called for demonstrations against President Bush when he visited the Veterans of Foreign Wars national convention, picked up the theme, both in his welcoming speech to the veterans and to peace activists two blocks away in Pioneer Park.

"We can debate, as we should in a free country, the decisions of our political leaders," Anderson told the VFW conventioneers, many who booed him. "But we must always support without wavering, and be grateful toward, our men and women in the armed forces."

After that, Anderson's comments received nothing but cheers, even as he defended his right to protest.

At the peace rally, Anderson told about 2,000 activists, "We are grateful for what [veterans] have sacrificed for our country and our freedom."

But, "Our nation was lied into war," he said.

"You are true patriots for being here today," he said, referring to the criticism of his call for protests of the president's visit.

Gas Prices Up? Go After China?

Check here for the truth about Gas Prices:

Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, says the real problem with fuel in the United States isn't that Americans are using more of it or the uncertainty in the market, but a growing demand for it in China and India.

"It's India and China deciding to give up bicycles and drive cars," Grassley said to a crowd of some 70 people gathered at a town meeting at the Washington County Courthouse.

Yup, no doubt about it, we gotta blame those pesky commies, or , uh capitalists, or, uhm, asians, or, uhm, uh, never mind.

The Daily War Score!

Al Qaeda Still Missing
Iraq still fighting for repression,
Iran is getting the Nuclear Option,
And, Rove is still free after committing treason.
And it only took the little wimp 4 years since 9-11 to accomplish all this!,

Democracy is out, freedom is out, but Self Determination may carry the day!

Iraq is struggling toward an Islamic Republic now, and that is really self determination for the Iraqi’s who are in power. I say struggling, because the militias, the Army, and the Ministry of the Interior are apparently involved in a 3 or 4 cornered war this week. The story involves at least 2 militias, the National Police, the National Army, the Interior Ministry, and at least one group of Freedom Riders, er, ummm, I mean Sunni Political Activists registering voters.

An interesting line in this article regards “the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), a key element of the coalition government.” Apparently, the Interior Minister is a leader of this council, and the Interior Ministry controls Police Commandos whose orders originate from the Minister.

Chairman Mao said that change comes from the barrel of a gun. In Iraq, everyone has guns, except the women, who have nothing but sorrow and children (occasionally dead children, whom the US media ignore).

And look at the latest about the Iraq Constitution (this from the LA Times):

The draft constitution makes Islam the "official religion" of Iraq and "a main source" of law rather than "the" source, as many Shiite conservatives sought. But secularists remain concerned about a clause that prohibits any law that "contradicts the undisputed rules of Islam."

Critics fear the provision could be used by religious hard-liners to impose a strict version of Islamic law, such as banning alcohol, restricting women's rights and imposing harsh Koranic punishments such as stoning.

"The problem is that there are no agreements on these questions," said Peter W. Galbraith, a former U.S. ambassador to Croatia who advised Kurdish politicians on the constitution. "It allows any cleric to make his own interpretation of the law and opens the door to a whole range of abuses."

Galbraith said the draft fell well short of the sort of democratic government the Bush administration hoped to install in Iraq. "The U.S. now has to recognize that they overthrew Hussein to replace him with a pro-Iranian state," he said.

The Crips, and the Bloods, and the chador grrrls.......

And this in from Whiskey Bar:

A few days ago, the Wall Street Journal itemized some of the military hardware that's been provided to the Iraqi Army -- and thus, indirectly, to the militias:

With remarkable precision, commanders can say how many assault rifles (177,000), helmets (135,000) and rounds of ammunition (328 million) the Iraqis have received in the past year.

That's just the beginning. According to the New York Times, more than 500 armored vehicles are supposed to be delivered to the Iraqi Army this month, while the first shipment of tanks -- refurbished Soviet T-72s donated by Hungary -- should arrive any time now.

Try to imagine, just for a minute, the Crips and the Bloods armed with tanks.

Finally, someone who understands the real relationships of all these tribes and religious malcontents. In the press we call it the government and the legitimate army, secular authority and religious morality. It’s all about power and money and who controls it. Note that it won’t be women.

OBSCENE CHRISTIANS AGAIN

Moxiegrrrl has the only blog I’ve seen that notes the OBSCENITY of a Christian Minister calling for the assassination of a Head of State.  But perhaps no one noticed this because to call Pat Robertson a Christian is an obscenity in itself.

Excuse me, that sound you heard was the collective vomiting of the Christian Left, both of them.  

The loudest Christian response to this was from a Texas Minister who is only concerned that missionaries in Venezuela might get hurt over this comment.

Did you know that if we called for the assassination of Pat Robertson, we would be guilty of conspiracy to commit murder?  But he can call for this because he’s asking the Federal Government to do it, and he thinks that if the US Army does the deed, then it won’t be murder, and therefore, Q.E.D., The Reverend cannot be charged.

Well, it is illegal for any member of the US Federal Government to engage in assassination, and the crime, if committed, is that of murder (And interestingly enough, we can thank Gerry Ford for this little law).  But it may not be a conspiracy to commit murder if you ask the government to do it for you.

The news (Yahoo, LA Times, etc),  notes that Robertson still “retains a huge following and occupies a revered position within a key GOP constituency.”

The White House only noted that this call for an illegal murder was the opinion of a private citizen.  

Time for Action, Boyz’NGrrrlz:  What if we take out Freeway Blogs, Advertisements, Blog Headlines, Etc., that ask Presidente Chavez to please have his Special Forces Personnel target The Reverend Pat Robertson? Before we do, we might want to get a reply from a lawyer to see if we can do this legally.

So, if it is illegal to ask a foreign president to commit murder, can we then get Robertson charged with conspiracy, incitement, or some such here?  If anyone knows a federal or local DA with the balls to charge him, let us know and we’ll help publicize it.

Qoutes to make you think

"To initiate a war of
aggression ... is not only an international crime, it is the supreme
international crime, differing only from other war crimes in that
it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole."

International Military Tribunal
at Nuremberg, Germany - 1946

*****

"Look, if you think any
American official is going to tell you the truth, then you're
stupid. Did you hear that? - stupid."

Arthur Sylvester, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs, 1965

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" The news and truth are
not the same thing. "

Walter Lippmann

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"This [the U.S. Constitution]
is likely to be administered for a course of years and then end
in despotism... when the people shall become so corrupted as to
need despotic government, being incapable of any other."

Benjamin Franklin

*****

"America will never be
destroyed from the outside. If we falter, and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."

Abraham Lincoln

*****

"If fascism ever came to the United States, it would be
wrapped in an American flag."

Huey Long

*****

"fascism - A system of
government that exercises a dictatorship of the extreme right,
typically through the merging of state and business leadership,
together with belligerent nationalism."

The American Heritage Dictionary,
1983

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