Bill Moyers on the "Real News" Being Lost In The Spectacle of The Election
STOLEN ELECTIONS AND MEDIA BLACKOUTS
An Interview With Mark Crispin Miller
by Carolyn Baker
(Burlington, Vermont: October 24, 2008) Shortly before a public lecture presented at Champlain College, I sat down with Mark Crispin Miller, Professor of Media Studies at New York University, to ask him a number of questions regarding stolen elections-a subject Miller has researched and written about extensively. Greg Palast, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Bev Harris, Steve Rosenfeld, Bob Fitrakis, and Lynne Landes, have provided monumental contributions to the subject of election fraud, each with their own unique styles and methods of targeting the issue. Mark Crispin Miller's 2005 book Fooled Again, impeccably documents the stealing of the 2004 election, and Loser Take All, a 2008 collection of essays on stolen elections incorporates the research of other investigators of election fraud such as Robert Kennedy, Jr; Bob Fitrakis, and Steve Rosenfeld.
Generously, Professor Miller gave me both time and disturbing insights regarding the upcoming election of 2008.
CB: In progressive circles there are countless issues that attract people, and I'm curious about what drew you to fight for clean, legitimate, democratic elections in the United States as opposed to some other issue.
MCM: What immediately drew my interest was the overwhelmingly obvious fact that the 2004 election was stolen. We already know the 2000 election was stolen because the Supreme Court intervened so flagrantly, but I think the 2004 election was stolen on an even grander scale. What struck me was not just that fact, but no less, the general refusal to admit it which was evident not only throughout the corporate media but on the left as well. Even now I can't quite get over how the left fell into line and dismissed the evidence as "conspiracy theory" on the basis of very sloppy reporting by very good reporters in progressive circles.
So the immediate reason why I got into it was because of this staggering miscarriage of proper civic procedure and a betrayal of democracy. The more I thought about it, the more I also came to believe that this is the most important issue, precisely because we can make no progress on any other front if we don't have the right to pick our representatives, and more importantly, reject those who don't represent our interests. That's vital, so I often say in my talks that regardless of what your issue is, you're kidding yourself if you think you can get anywhere when government is able to act with impunity.
CB: So what are the maybe top half-dozen pieces of evidence that the 2004 election was stolen?
MCM: Well primarily, there is the audit of the vote in 18 counties of Ohio that was carried out by Richard Hayes Phillips who published Witness To A Crime which is the result of three years labor by Richard and his researchers who literally scrutinized every single ballot that was cast in 18 Ohio counties. This book is scrupulous, precise, and explicit-fully illustrated and comes with a
CD with illustrations of ballots and how they were tampered with.
CB: Who published this?
MCM: Well this is an interesting story. This book was supposed to be published by Kent State University Press, but when Phillips handed in the manuscript, they told him that it was twice as long as it should be and that they couldn't afford illustrations. This was not their original agreement. Phillips told them that without illustrations, the book isn't convincing, and he then decided to self-publish. Nevertheless, it's a superb book, beautifully written, but it has sold to date, 900 copies. He put his life savings into it and he's been trying to promote it, and as you can see, it's highly specific and technical. Therefore, it's a sort of an unwieldy smoking gun, but it is a smoking gun because they discovered that John Kerry was variously robbed of two hundred thousand votes in those 18 counties alone. There's no argument with this. In the illustrations you can see ballots with stickers placed over the square beside John Kerry's name, thousands of ballots that were marked so that they would be over-votes when people voted on them. The range and the ingenuity of the fraud tactics are astonishing. After Phillips did his research, 55 boards of election out of 86 counties in Ohio, in defiance of a court order, destroyed all or part of their ballots-that is 1.5 million ballots. That was a malicious destruction of evidence.
CB: Where can one purchase this book?
MCM: You can only get it on Phillips' website.
CB: What evidence do we have currently, in addition to the voluminous evidence that you've provided in your books, that the 2008 election may already be stolen?
MCM: I do resist putting it that way with all due respect to Greg (Greg Palast) and Bobbie (Kennedy). I don't like to say that it's already been stolen because it's demoralizing, but I will say that they (the Republicans) have made enormous strides toward a McCain victory already.
CB: In what way?
MCM: Well, election theft is a two-part process. On the one hand is vote suppression. The purpose of vote suppression is to shrink the electorate before the fact. In the last four years or so they have moved somewhat away from fraudulent manipulation of ballots cast toward grand pre-emptive tactics meant to prevent people from voting in the first place. So within the realm of vote suppression, they have managed to purge literally millions of names from the voter roles. In New York state alone, we learned last week, 1.5 million voters have been purged without their knowledge. That's New York; it's not even a swing state.
There was a report, I think on Daily Kos, that the Justice Department has managed to effect the purge of 13 million votes. I don't know how many of those are legitimate purges because a lot of peoples' names shouldn't be on the list because they're dead or something. But between legal purges conducted by the Department of Justice and illegal purges of the electronic voter roles carried out by various partisan secretaries of state, and voter caging and other tactics, they've managed to do a great deal to shrink the pool of voters who would vote against McCain. That kind of thing will require a lot of fighting and amassing evidence which means that there's got to be a lot of video interviews, polls, phone calls placed to the hotlines-what I'm saying is that this grand stroke of dis-enfranchisement before election day has to be exposed and evidence thereof collected and made available.
But that's not the only thing you do when you steal an election. You also engage in electronic fraud. Here, we have the testimony of an incredibly important person named Stephen Spoonamore who is the star witness in a RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act) investigation in Ohio. He's a conservative Republican and a former McCain supporter, but most importantly, he is a prominent expert in the detection of computer fraud.
CB: Yes, Spoonamore and his testimony are featured in Lynn Landes newly released documentary "Stealing America Vote By Vote" which I recently watched and for which you, Professor Miller, were a consultant.
MCM: Yes, and Spoonamore has named the principal players in the Bush-Cheney election fraud conspiracy. Specifically, he has named Mike Connell, who has been helping Karl Rove steal elections since Florida, 2000. Connell is the head of a company called GOVTECH Solutions. If you check out a piece by Rebecca Abrahams on the destruction of White House emails, which is actually about much more than that, you'll learn that there's a list made up by Spoonamore that he composed after a very troubling meeting of all the online entities and companies that Connell runs or is involved with. It's a huge menu of partisan and theocratic [Christianist, pro-life] outfits-all part of the same terrifying matrix of disinformation, subversion, and sabotage. Connell told Spoonamore that his motive for helping Bush-Cheney steal elections was "to save the babies". As progressives, this is something we have to wrap our minds around because it turns out that most of the people who are involved in the management of high-tech fraud are Christianists. These people are fanatics who hate the majority. The majority doesn't buy their pro-life agenda; the majority isn't going to sit still for bans on contraception. The only way around that, in their eyes, is to subvert the electorate.
There's an enormous corporate component to this too. One of the defendants in the RICO suit is the U.S. Chamber of Commerce because they have spent to date $400 million on front organizations to defeat candidates for the judicial bench nationwide who have an insufficiently pro-business agenda. So we have a really unholy marriage here of theocratic extremists and ruthless corporate interests.
CB: Hmmm. So how do you spell "fascism"?
Both your website, News From The Underground and Truth to Power recently reported the October 4 interview with Naomi Wolf in which she noted that police departments are mobilizing around the country for unrest in relation to the economic crisis and the election, and of course she mentioned what is now common knowledge, namely, that a brigade of troops has returned from Iraq to assist with "crowd control." In the light of this and your research on stolen elections, I'm wondering how obvious you think a stolen election would have to be in order for massive unrest to erupt.
MCM: I think at this point it would be quite obvious just because Obama's lead is so big, and McCain is doing so poorly. All the standard indicators suggest that the race is over and should be over. I think, and I believe Naomi would agree with this, that all this terrifying preparation for crackdown can only fail if there's a sufficiently widespread mass resistance movement. I have always thought that there's a lot more dissatisfaction and distrust around our last few elections than we think there is. The press and the Democratic Party are so blind to it that we tend to think that nobody cares. I don't think that's true; I think a good half of the country is suspicious.
CB: Well, that reminds me that I saw you recently on Free Speech TV presenting a lecture at University of California at Santa Barbara discussing stolen elections, and you suggested that there's kind of an addiction in this society to voting even when we know our vote may be meaningless as if we have a hopeless attachment to the belief that we have legitimate, democratic elections in the United States. Would you say more about that?
MCM: Yes, in all this talk about voting, it's important to acknowledge that we have fettishized the ballot box and overestimated voting as if it were the only instrument available to us for democratic action. It's not the only instrument-there are all kinds of things we can and should do; however, I do think that voting is a fundamental and necessary instrument, but it's not really a democratic action if there isn't popular control and oversight. We have a long way to go before we have a democratic voting system. What we actually have is a ritual-the same as in Iraq. People voted there too!
Precisely because we have fettishized voting we are often that much less able to face the fact that the whole process has been subverted just as surely as it is subverted in closed societies. It's very hard for Americans to wrap their minds around this because it's a tremendous blow to our self-image and our exceptionalism. I don't think that the general public has as much trouble facing that as the establishment and media do.
CB: Last week CNN reported the story of former GOP operative, Allen Raymond who wrote the book How To Rig An Election. What do you think about CNN's reporting of the story?
MCM: The book is actually about vote suppression in New Hampshire in 2002. The context for this is that Republicans had lost control of the Senate in 2002 as a result of the defection of Jim Jeffords. There's strong evidence that they then stole a number of Congressional elections as in Colorado, Minnesota, and New Hampshire. One of the things they got caught for doing was a phone-jamming scheme in the four cities of Southern New Hampshire which prevented the unions from getting out the Democratic vote. Allen Raymond was a hired gun and became a patsy who went to prison. After doing his time, he wrote the book, but he doesn't really talk about election rigging, and all he ends up saying is that he was part of a culture that would do anything to win and that both parties are guilty of such behavior-perfectly harmless stuff. He doesn't mention, for example, that the phone-jamming operations were paid for by Jack Abramoff with two checks from the Choctaw Indians. That's interesting because it ties the two scandals together.
The reason he gets to go on CNN is that he's a much more palatable witness to wrongdoing than I would be. Raymond's book is worth reading, but it certainly doesn't compare with Richard Phillip Hayes' book.
CB: You've just released Loser Take All: Election Fraud And The Subversion Of Democracy which is a compilation of essays on stolen elections, edited by you. In that book you offer a Twelve-Step Program for taking back the American election process. First, I'm wondering what inspired you to compile and edit this book, and I'd like to hear your twelve steps.
MCM: I was simply tired of hearing people say that there's no evidence of election fraud. There were essays out there that constitute strong evidence as well as studies that could be done to make this case, so I collected a number of pieces and asked the authors to polish them up because I wanted to make available a collection of these writings within six months of the election because I wanted it all to be in one place.
The overall effect of the collection was necessarily kind of harrowing and possibly demoralizing as this kind of analysis is for people who haven't heard of this stuff which is pretty much everybody because the press hasn't reported it. So I wanted something at the end of the book that would give people a sense of constructive possibility-of what they might fight for to fix the problem.
But the problem can't be solved unless we acknowledge that there is a problem.
Summary: Mark Crispin Miller's Twelve Step Program can be viewed at his News From the Undergroud website. I am deeply grateful to him for his generosity in giving this interview in the midst of a very busy schedule. Subsequently, we discussed our differences regarding our willingness to participate in a rigged election system, my sharing with him my unwillingness, for a plethora of reasons, to cast a vote for a president on November 4. Professor Miller and I have differences on a number of issues, perhaps the most fundamental, although we did not discuss it, my contention that the values of Western civilization itself have created not only irreparable corruption in the American election system, but have contributed to planet earth's triple threat: Climate change, energy depletion, and global financial catastrophe and my belief that without the total collapse of empire, humanity will continue to annihilate itself and the earth community. Election fraud, from my perspective, is only one aspect of a planetary affliction that is both ubiquitous and daunting.
Is that a potentially "demoralizing" perspective? Indeed it is if one feels that a solution within the current paradigm of empire is possible. Nevertheless, while I do not believe that the issue of stolen elections trumps all others, I do believe that understanding the scope and severity of electoral corruption is necessary for any individual in pursuit of unmitigated truth-telling. Awakening to the reality of rigged elections in the United States is as essential for inhabiting adult reality as parting with one's belief in Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny. Moreover, awakening from our denial about rigged elections may enable us to penetrate other and more frightening chimeras inherent in empire that not only provide illusions of choice, but threaten to extinguish life on this planet as all of its species have known it.
Mark Crispin Miller is professor of media studies at New York University and the author of the book: Fooled Again, How the Right Stole the 2004 Elections. He is known for his writing on American media and for his activism on behalf of democratic media reform. His books include Boxed In: The Culture of TV, Seeing Through Movies, and Mad Scientists, a study of war propaganda.
Take from Global Research: http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=10745
Republican Cyber Security Expert Talks to Velvet Revolution About How Easily Hackable The US Election Is
It's A Network People....
McCain By....
Here, in this shattering new interview, Stephen Spoonamore goes into harrowing detail about the Bush regime’s election fraud, past, present and–if we don’t spread the word right now–to come. Since he’s the only whistle-blower out there who knows the perps themselves, and how they operate, we have to send this new piece far and wide.
Here Spoonamore tells us that McBush’s team–i.e., Karl Rove and his henchpersons– have their plan in place to steal this next election: by 51.2% of the popular vote, and three electoral votes.
He also talks about the major role played by the Christianist far right in the electronic rigging of the vote.
And he defines our electronic voting system as a major threat to US national security, calling for it to be junked ASAP, in favor of hand-counted paper ballots.
Since Spoonamoore is a Republican and erstwhile McCain supporter, as well as a noted specialist in nosing out computer fraud, his testimony is essential–not only for its expertise, but, no less, for the impact that his views will surely have on those Republicans who have been loath to see what Bush & Co. has done to our election system.
That whole story’s just about to break. In fact, tomorrow there will be a number of articles appearing, on a recent breakthrough in the lawsuit that Spoonamoore’s testimony has enabled, and on other aspects of that all-important case.
Spoonamore says that the GOP wanted e-voting to steal elections but now foreign governments will be hacking and the winner will be determined by the best hackers. He says that if the GOP wins the hacking competition, McCain will win 51.2 percent with three electoral votes over Obama, and it will be a stolen election.
Spoonamoore also makes a crucial point about the people who have been implicated in much of the election theft: “They are religious extremists.” He names those who know about stolen elections, and he insists that the only way to protect this election is with paper ballots, hand-counted.
From News From Underground: http://markcrispinmiller.blogspot.com/
It's A Network People....
McCain By....
Here, in this shattering new interview, Stephen Spoonamore goes into harrowing detail about the Bush regime’s election fraud, past, present and–if we don’t spread the word right now–to come. Since he’s the only whistle-blower out there who knows the perps themselves, and how they operate, we have to send this new piece far and wide.
Here Spoonamore tells us that McBush’s team–i.e., Karl Rove and his henchpersons– have their plan in place to steal this next election: by 51.2% of the popular vote, and three electoral votes.
He also talks about the major role played by the Christianist far right in the electronic rigging of the vote.
And he defines our electronic voting system as a major threat to US national security, calling for it to be junked ASAP, in favor of hand-counted paper ballots.
Since Spoonamoore is a Republican and erstwhile McCain supporter, as well as a noted specialist in nosing out computer fraud, his testimony is essential–not only for its expertise, but, no less, for the impact that his views will surely have on those Republicans who have been loath to see what Bush & Co. has done to our election system.
That whole story’s just about to break. In fact, tomorrow there will be a number of articles appearing, on a recent breakthrough in the lawsuit that Spoonamoore’s testimony has enabled, and on other aspects of that all-important case.
Spoonamore says that the GOP wanted e-voting to steal elections but now foreign governments will be hacking and the winner will be determined by the best hackers. He says that if the GOP wins the hacking competition, McCain will win 51.2 percent with three electoral votes over Obama, and it will be a stolen election.
Spoonamoore also makes a crucial point about the people who have been implicated in much of the election theft: “They are religious extremists.” He names those who know about stolen elections, and he insists that the only way to protect this election is with paper ballots, hand-counted.
From News From Underground: http://markcrispinmiller.blogspot.com/
Mark Amery’s Weekly Art Column Axed by the Dominion
In line with the continuing decline in arts coverage by New Zealand’s corporate mainstream media, The Dominion has axed Mark Amery’s excellent weekly column. Amery, who is Director of Playmarket, has provided a rare critical voice on art in the capital city these past few years. In fact for many of us in the arts, his column was the only reason to ever pick up The Dominion at all. Amery’s level of local engagement and his willingness to engage in important sometimes controversial issues has made his column instrumental in propelling an arts dialogue forward in this city. This axing not only deprives us of a quality local voice but sends an ominous sign in terms of the future of mainstream arts coverage in this country as our media’s corporate owners continue to look for new ways to cut costs and lower our expectations.
Support Mark and our right to arts coverage in Wellington by writing an angry letter to The Dominion at letters@dompost.co.nz
Or write directly to Tom Cardy tom.cardy@dompost.co.nz and copy to Dominion editor Tim
Pankhurst editor@dompost.co.nz
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Obama Campaign Accuses McCain, Republicans and the Justice Department of Colluding to Suppress Voters
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America Not Ready to Vote, Says Survey
October 16, 2008 1:35 PM
by Josh Katz
As a highly anticipated Election Day nears, many polling places won’t be able to cope with voting machine breakdowns and other potential problems.
Many States Unprepared for Election Day Problems
The Brennan Center for Justice, Common Cause and Verified Voting have released a 190-page report that concludes that “Most states have not adopted laws and procedures that would allow them to effectively address all of the most common election system meltdowns.”
“Is America Ready to Vote? State Preparations for Voting Machine Problems in 2008,” analyzed the performance of all 50 states and the District of Columbia on a five-score scale ranging from “inadequate” to “excellent.” The states were judged on “polling place contingency plans,” “ballot reconciliation,” “paper records,” and “post election audits.”
This year’s tight election races could heighten voting difficulties for a number of states, in addition to the usual suspects of Florida and Ohio, according to Politico. Some experts warn that Colorado, Virginia and Georgia may become possible trouble spots on Election Day. Even though federal and state governments have taken steps since the controversial election of 2000 to prevent a similar occurrence, county election boards are still in charge of most state voting, and their “competence and equipment vary wildly,” Politico writes.
New machines could be problematic in states like Florida, but delays may also be an issue. “To me it's the possibility of the long lines that's the issue,” said Susan McManus, a political science professor at the University of South Florida in Tampa.
“Is America Ready to Vote?” indicates that the most prepared states overall for the 2008 election are Alaska, California, Minnesota, Missouri, North Carolina and Oregon. They all received marks of “generally good,” “good,” or “excellent” in most categories. The report gave ten states the worst general overall ratings: Colorado, Delaware, Kentucky, Louisiana, New Jersey, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah and Virginia. In at least three of the four categories, these states received ratings of “inadequate” or “needs improvement.”
Read the rest at Finding Dulcinea: http://www.findingdulcinea.com/news/politics/September-October-08/Many-States-Unprepared-for-Election-Day-Problems.html
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As we head into the final stretch of the election season, alarming reports of dysfunctional voter registration, purges of the rolls, and possible voter suppression are surfacing weekly, if not daily. The National Campaign for Fair Elections' hotline (866.OUR.VOTE / 866.687.8683) is already receiving roughly a thousand calls a day; while the majority of these are requests for information, some concern problems with registration. The New York Times reports that tens of thousands of voters may have been illegally purged from the rolls in swing states. Other news sources speculate there are 600,000 voters at risk of disenfranchisement in Ohio alone. What goes unreported upon amid all this turmoil is how effective the response has been, and what can still be done.
Take Montana. On October 8th, US District Court Judge Donald Molloy issued a scathing ruling denouncing the state Republican Party's effort to challenge the registration of 6,000 voters: "The timing of the challenges is so transparent it defies common sense to believe the purpose is anything but political chicanery." The Montana Republican Party and its leaders, he wrote, "are abusing the process."
The real danger is that the process itself is flawed. "We have an election system that's exquisitely designed for low rates of participation," says Tova Wang, Vice President of Research for Common Cause. "We're expecting increased turnout and we have a system that's not designed to handle it." While these problems are endemic throughout our fractured electoral system, three states--Virginia, Florida, and Ohio--present both the challenges we face and the measures we might take to solve them. All three are closely contested, and an Obama victory will require every one.
Read the rest at the Nation: http://www.thenation.com/blogs/edcut/374010/voter_registration_flashpoints?rel=hpbox
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Read the rest at Rolling Stone: http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/10432334/was_the_2004_election_stolen
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America Not Ready to Vote, Says Survey
October 16, 2008 1:35 PM
by Josh Katz
As a highly anticipated Election Day nears, many polling places won’t be able to cope with voting machine breakdowns and other potential problems.
Many States Unprepared for Election Day Problems
The Brennan Center for Justice, Common Cause and Verified Voting have released a 190-page report that concludes that “Most states have not adopted laws and procedures that would allow them to effectively address all of the most common election system meltdowns.”
“Is America Ready to Vote? State Preparations for Voting Machine Problems in 2008,” analyzed the performance of all 50 states and the District of Columbia on a five-score scale ranging from “inadequate” to “excellent.” The states were judged on “polling place contingency plans,” “ballot reconciliation,” “paper records,” and “post election audits.”
This year’s tight election races could heighten voting difficulties for a number of states, in addition to the usual suspects of Florida and Ohio, according to Politico. Some experts warn that Colorado, Virginia and Georgia may become possible trouble spots on Election Day. Even though federal and state governments have taken steps since the controversial election of 2000 to prevent a similar occurrence, county election boards are still in charge of most state voting, and their “competence and equipment vary wildly,” Politico writes.
New machines could be problematic in states like Florida, but delays may also be an issue. “To me it's the possibility of the long lines that's the issue,” said Susan McManus, a political science professor at the University of South Florida in Tampa.
“Is America Ready to Vote?” indicates that the most prepared states overall for the 2008 election are Alaska, California, Minnesota, Missouri, North Carolina and Oregon. They all received marks of “generally good,” “good,” or “excellent” in most categories. The report gave ten states the worst general overall ratings: Colorado, Delaware, Kentucky, Louisiana, New Jersey, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah and Virginia. In at least three of the four categories, these states received ratings of “inadequate” or “needs improvement.”
Read the rest at Finding Dulcinea: http://www.findingdulcinea.com/news/politics/September-October-08/Many-States-Unprepared-for-Election-Day-Problems.html
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Voter Registration Flashpoints
As we head into the final stretch of the election season, alarming reports of dysfunctional voter registration, purges of the rolls, and possible voter suppression are surfacing weekly, if not daily. The National Campaign for Fair Elections' hotline (866.OUR.VOTE / 866.687.8683) is already receiving roughly a thousand calls a day; while the majority of these are requests for information, some concern problems with registration. The New York Times reports that tens of thousands of voters may have been illegally purged from the rolls in swing states. Other news sources speculate there are 600,000 voters at risk of disenfranchisement in Ohio alone. What goes unreported upon amid all this turmoil is how effective the response has been, and what can still be done.
Take Montana. On October 8th, US District Court Judge Donald Molloy issued a scathing ruling denouncing the state Republican Party's effort to challenge the registration of 6,000 voters: "The timing of the challenges is so transparent it defies common sense to believe the purpose is anything but political chicanery." The Montana Republican Party and its leaders, he wrote, "are abusing the process."
The real danger is that the process itself is flawed. "We have an election system that's exquisitely designed for low rates of participation," says Tova Wang, Vice President of Research for Common Cause. "We're expecting increased turnout and we have a system that's not designed to handle it." While these problems are endemic throughout our fractured electoral system, three states--Virginia, Florida, and Ohio--present both the challenges we face and the measures we might take to solve them. All three are closely contested, and an Obama victory will require every one.
Read the rest at the Nation: http://www.thenation.com/blogs/edcut/374010/voter_registration_flashpoints?rel=hpbox
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Was the 2004 Election Stolen?
Republicans prevented more than 350,000 voters in Ohio from casting ballots or having their votes counted - enough to have put John Kerry in the White House.
ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR.Posted Jun 01, 2006 5:02 PM
Like many Americans, I spent the evening of the 2004 election watching the returns on television and wondering how the exit polls, which predicted an overwhelming victory for John Kerry, had gotten it so wrong. By midnight, the official tallies showed a decisive lead for George Bush — and the next day, lacking enough legal evidence to contest the results, Kerry conceded. Republicans derided anyone who expressed doubts about Bush's victory as nut cases in "tinfoil hats," while the national media, with few exceptions, did little to question the validity of the election. The Washington Post immediately dismissed allegations of fraud as "conspiracy theories1," and The New York Times declared that "there is no evidence of vote theft or errors on a large scale2."
But despite the media blackout, indications continued to emerge that something deeply troubling had taken place in 2004. Nearly half of the 6 million American voters living abroad3 never received their ballots — or received them too late to vote4 — after the Pentagon unaccountably shut down a state-of-the-art Web site used to file overseas registrations5. A consulting firm called Sproul & Associates, which was hired by the Republican National Committee to register voters in six battleground states6, was discovered shredding Democratic registrations7. In New Mexico, which was decided by 5,988 votes8, malfunctioning machines mysteriously failed to properly register a presidential vote on more than 20,000 ballots9. Nationwide, according to the federal commission charged with implementing election reforms, as many as 1 million ballots were spoiled by faulty voting equipment — roughly one for every 100 cast10.
The reports were especially disturbing in Ohio, the critical battleground state that clinched Bush's victory in the electoral college. Officials there purged tens of thousands of eligible voters from the rolls, neglected to process registration cards generated by Democratic voter drives, shortchanged Democratic precincts when they allocated voting machines and illegally derailed a recount that could have given Kerry the presidency. A precinct in an evangelical church in Miami County recorded an impossibly high turnout of ninety-eight percent, while a polling place in inner-city Cleveland recorded an equally impossible turnout of only seven percent. In Warren County, GOP election officials even invented a nonexistent terrorist threat to bar the media from monitoring the official vote count.
Any election, of course, will have anomalies. America's voting system is a messy patchwork of polling rules run mostly by county and city officials. "We didn't have one election for president in 2004," says Robert Pastor, who directs the Center for Democracy and Election Management at American University. "We didn't have fifty elections. We actually had 13,000 elections run by 13,000 independent, quasi-sovereign counties and municipalities."
But what is most anomalous about the irregularities in 2004 was their decidedly partisan bent: Almost without exception they hurt John Kerry and benefited George Bush. After carefully examining the evidence, I've become convinced that the president's party mounted a massive, coordinated campaign to subvert the will of the people in 2004. Across the country, Republican election officials and party stalwarts employed a wide range of illegal and unethical tactics to fix the election. A review of the available data reveals that in Ohio alone, at least 357,000 voters, the overwhelming majority of them Democratic, were prevented from casting ballots or did not have their votes counted in 200412 — more than enough to shift the results of an election decided by 118,601 votes13. (See
Read the rest at Rolling Stone: http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/10432334/was_the_2004_election_stolen
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Mark Crispin Miller Talks To Bill Moyers About Voter Fraud And The Election
___________________________________________
The Republican voter fraud hoax
by Brad Friedman from the Guardian
Barack Obama and the Democrats are stealing the election. Massive voter fraud is being carried out, even as we speak, by their henchmen, known by the innocuous sounding Association for Community Organisations for Reform Now, or Acorn. Clever bastards.
The only problem? Despite the screaming wall-to-wall coverage of "Democratic voter fraud in 11 swing states" as seen on Fox News and even the once-respectable CNN, none of it's true. None of it.
In just the last week, we've had a phoney stunt raid in swing state Nevada (where Acorn had been cooperating with officials for months, concerning problem canvassers they'd long ago fired); a Republican election official in swing state Missouri tell Fox News that she's being beseiged with fraudulent registration forms from Acorn (in a county where they've not done any registration work since August); a Republican sheriff in swing state Ohio, who, the very next day, suddenly requested the names and addresses of hundreds of early voters (with evidence of exactly zero wrong doing, but lots of Democratic-leaning college student in the particular county, and John McCain's state campaign chair as a partner in the investigation); and a screaming front page headline in Rupert Murdoch's New York Post about a guy who claims he was somehow tricked by Acorn into registering 72 times (but read the article closely to note he by which elections are won, the number of people wrongfully purged can make a difference. We should not tolerate purges that are conducted behind closed doors, without public scrutiny, and without adequate recourse for affected voters," said Wendy Weiser, Deputy Director of the Democracy Program at the Brennan Center.
Read the rest at Brennan Center For Justice: http://www.brennancenter.org/content/resource/study_finds_states_purging_millions_of_voters_in_secret_often_erroneously/ says he registered at the same address each time, which, even if true, would allow him - you guessed it - precisely one legal vote.)
It's an old Republican scam, but it's never been carried out with more zeal than this year. The Republicans have been putting so much time, money and resources into the propaganda leading up to this over the last four years, we should have expected no less.
Read the rest at the Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2008/oct/13/election-acorn-voter-fraud
Study Finds States Purging Millions of Voters in Secret, Often Erroneously
Brennan Center Reveals Wild Inconsistencies in Maintenance of Voter Registration Lists—Issues Public Records Requests in 12 States with Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law
New York – Today the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law released one of the first systematic examinations of voter purging, a practice—often controversial—of removing voters from registration lists in order to update state registration rolls—click here for report. After a detailed study of the purge practices of 12 states, Voter Purges reveals that election officials across the country are routinely striking millions of voters from the rolls through a process that is shrouded in secrecy, prone to error, and vulnerable to manipulation. Upon the release of Voter Purges, today the Brennan Center and the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law began filing public records requests with election officials in 12 states in order to expose the purges that happened this year.
"Purges can be an important way to ensure that voter rolls are dependable, accurate and up-to-date," said Myrna Pérez, counsel at the Brennan Center and the author of the report. "Far too frequently, however, eligible, registered citizens show up to vote and discover their names have been removed from the voter lists because election officials are maintaining their voter rolls with little accountability and wildly varying standards," Myrna Pérez stated.
According to the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, between 2004 and 2006, thirty-nine states and the District of Columbia reported purging more than 13 million voters from registration rolls. While the secret and inconsistent manner in which purges are conducted make it difficult to know exactly how many voters have been stricken from voting lists erroneously, Voter Purges finds four problematic practices with voter purges that continue to threaten voters in 2008: purges rely on error-ridden lists; voters are purged secretly and without notice; bad "matching" criteria mean that thousands of eligible voters will be caught up in purges; and insufficient oversight leaves voters vulnerable to erroneous or manipulated purges. The report reveals that purge practices vary dramatically from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, that there is a lack of consistent protections for voters, and that there are often opportunities for mischief and mistakes in the purge process.
"The voter rolls are the gateway to voting, and a citizen typically cannot cast a vote that will count unless his or her name appears on the rolls. Purges remove names from the voter rolls, typically preventing wrongfully purged voters from having their votes counted. Given the close margins
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The Republican voter fraud hoax
by Brad Friedman from the Guardian
Barack Obama and the Democrats are stealing the election. Massive voter fraud is being carried out, even as we speak, by their henchmen, known by the innocuous sounding Association for Community Organisations for Reform Now, or Acorn. Clever bastards.
The only problem? Despite the screaming wall-to-wall coverage of "Democratic voter fraud in 11 swing states" as seen on Fox News and even the once-respectable CNN, none of it's true. None of it.
In just the last week, we've had a phoney stunt raid in swing state Nevada (where Acorn had been cooperating with officials for months, concerning problem canvassers they'd long ago fired); a Republican election official in swing state Missouri tell Fox News that she's being beseiged with fraudulent registration forms from Acorn (in a county where they've not done any registration work since August); a Republican sheriff in swing state Ohio, who, the very next day, suddenly requested the names and addresses of hundreds of early voters (with evidence of exactly zero wrong doing, but lots of Democratic-leaning college student in the particular county, and John McCain's state campaign chair as a partner in the investigation); and a screaming front page headline in Rupert Murdoch's New York Post about a guy who claims he was somehow tricked by Acorn into registering 72 times (but read the article closely to note he by which elections are won, the number of people wrongfully purged can make a difference. We should not tolerate purges that are conducted behind closed doors, without public scrutiny, and without adequate recourse for affected voters," said Wendy Weiser, Deputy Director of the Democracy Program at the Brennan Center.
Read the rest at Brennan Center For Justice: http://www.brennancenter.org/content/resource/study_finds_states_purging_millions_of_voters_in_secret_often_erroneously/ says he registered at the same address each time, which, even if true, would allow him - you guessed it - precisely one legal vote.)
It's an old Republican scam, but it's never been carried out with more zeal than this year. The Republicans have been putting so much time, money and resources into the propaganda leading up to this over the last four years, we should have expected no less.
Read the rest at the Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2008/oct/13/election-acorn-voter-fraud
Study Finds States Purging Millions of Voters in Secret, Often Erroneously
Brennan Center Reveals Wild Inconsistencies in Maintenance of Voter Registration Lists—Issues Public Records Requests in 12 States with Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law
New York – Today the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law released one of the first systematic examinations of voter purging, a practice—often controversial—of removing voters from registration lists in order to update state registration rolls—click here for report. After a detailed study of the purge practices of 12 states, Voter Purges reveals that election officials across the country are routinely striking millions of voters from the rolls through a process that is shrouded in secrecy, prone to error, and vulnerable to manipulation. Upon the release of Voter Purges, today the Brennan Center and the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law began filing public records requests with election officials in 12 states in order to expose the purges that happened this year.
"Purges can be an important way to ensure that voter rolls are dependable, accurate and up-to-date," said Myrna Pérez, counsel at the Brennan Center and the author of the report. "Far too frequently, however, eligible, registered citizens show up to vote and discover their names have been removed from the voter lists because election officials are maintaining their voter rolls with little accountability and wildly varying standards," Myrna Pérez stated.
According to the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, between 2004 and 2006, thirty-nine states and the District of Columbia reported purging more than 13 million voters from registration rolls. While the secret and inconsistent manner in which purges are conducted make it difficult to know exactly how many voters have been stricken from voting lists erroneously, Voter Purges finds four problematic practices with voter purges that continue to threaten voters in 2008: purges rely on error-ridden lists; voters are purged secretly and without notice; bad "matching" criteria mean that thousands of eligible voters will be caught up in purges; and insufficient oversight leaves voters vulnerable to erroneous or manipulated purges. The report reveals that purge practices vary dramatically from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, that there is a lack of consistent protections for voters, and that there are often opportunities for mischief and mistakes in the purge process.
"The voter rolls are the gateway to voting, and a citizen typically cannot cast a vote that will count unless his or her name appears on the rolls. Purges remove names from the voter rolls, typically preventing wrongfully purged voters from having their votes counted. Given the close margins
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28 Million Anti Islam Propaganda Films Distributed In The US
Swing-State newspapers distribute 'terror' videos
Diane Sweet
Published: Saturday September 13, 2008
A 60-minute DVD, titled "Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West," is being distributed in millions of newspapers across the country this week primarily in swing states through an advertising purchase by a shadowy group called the Clarion Fund.
Editor & Publisher reports:
"Despite some protests from Muslim and liberal activists, the newspapers -- all hard hit by drops in ad revenue in recent months -- have explained that the DVD does not violate their usual standards; see our exchange with The New York Times below. A spokesperson there said the Times last Sunday inserted 145,000 DVDs in its papers delivered in the following markets: Denver, Miami/Palm Beach, Tampa, Orlando, Detroit, Kansas City, St Louis, Cincinnati, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Milwaukee/Madison. Note: These are all in swing states.
The documentary showcases scenes of Muslim children being encouraged to become suicide bombers, interspersed with shots of Nazi rallies. 'The threat of Radical Islam is the most important issue facing us today,'' reads the sleeve of the DVD. ''But it's a topic that neither the presidential candidates nor the media are discussing openly. It's our responsibility to ensure we can all make an informed vote in November.''
It was shown on Fox News just before the 2006 mid-term elections, and conservative activist David Horowitz screened the film on college campuses during 2007. An article at the group's site, www.radicalislam.org, endorsed John McCain as the strongest candidate this past week, then was pulled down. The DVD carries on-screen text near the outset that it is not indicting most Muslims."
Via Eric Ose, here's a state-by-state list of most of the other 70 newspapers in swing states that have agreed to deliver this dvd to their subscribers:
Colorado - Boulder Daily Camera, Centennial Citizen, Denver Post, Fort Collins Coloradoan, Greeley Tribune
Iowa - Daily Nonpareil, Des Moines Register, Iowa City Press Citizen, Quad City Times, Sioux City Journal
Indiana - South Bend Tribune
Florida - Daily Commercial, Florida Times-Union, Ft. Lauderdale El Sentinel, Ft. Myers News Press, Miami Herald, Ocala Star Banner, Orlando Sun Sentinel, Palm Beach Post, Tampa Tribune, Tallahassee Democrat, St. Petersburg Times, South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Michigan - Detroit Free-Press, Flint Journal, Grand Rapids Press, Lansing State Journal
Missouri - Springfield News-Leader
Nevada - Las Vegas Review-Journal/Sun, Nevada Appeal, Reno Gazette-Journal
New Hampshire - Portsmouth Herald News, Union Leader
New Mexico - Clovis News Journal, Hobbs News-Sun, Rio Rancho Observer
Ohio - Columbus Dispatch, Dayton Daily News, Middletown Journal, Morning Journal, Toledo Blade, Youngstown Vindicator
North Carolina - Charlotte Observer, Raleigh News & Observer
Pennsylvania - Bucks Co. Courier Times, Erie Times-News, Morning Call, Philadelphia Inquirer, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, Reading Eagle, The Patriot-News
Virginia - Sun-Gazette, Virginian-PilotWisconsin - Green Bay Press-Gazette, Janesville Gazette, Journal Times, La Crosse Tribune, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel)
Taken from Raw Story: http://rawstory.com/news/2008/SwingState_newspapers_distribute_terror_videos_0913.html
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Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West 'free DVD in the Oregonian
author: flapdoodle
The Oregonian distributes hate-speech DVD.
Re: 'Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West'
The following is a letter I sent to the Oregonian today in response to the Obsession hate video they sent out with the Sunday paper. I encourage others to voice their outrage, provided you too are outraged by this garbage:
'On Sunday, September 28, a free DVD came with the subscription copy of the Sunday Oregonian. The title of the DVD was 'Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West'.
Normally, when a free item, such as a packet of fabric softener or hair conditioner, comes with my newspaper, I make no judgment against the publisher. But this is different.
The free DVD that your newspaper distributed is the most irresponsible, vile, bigoted, dishonest, hate-mongering and ultimately war-mongering piece of propaganda I have seen in many years. You cannot distribute pure hate-speech and pretend that it is the moral equivalent of fabric softener.
In terms of lies, distortions, and race-baiting, this DVD ranks alongside 'The Protocols of the Elders of Zion,' 'Birth of a Nation,' 'Mien Kampf' and 'The Turner Diaries.' To distribute this toxic filth inside a normally responsible family-oriented newspaper is the single most atrocious affront to public decency I have ever seen Portland media.
I will take a moment to address one of the biggest lies contained in this DVD: The U.S toppled the government of Islamic Iran, and installed our own, hand-picked dictator in the 1950's, despite the fact that the Iranians had never threatened or attacked us. Countless thousands of Muslims have been killed by Israel and other U.S. proxies using weapons made and paid for by U.S., in countless Middle-Eastern wars. A minimum of 500,000 Muslim civilians have been killed by our invasions and occupations in Afghanistan and Iraq, neither of which nation ever attacked the U.S. [The 9/11 hijackers were mostly from Saudi Arabia, and none were from Iraq or Afghanistan.]
It is, sadly, the U.S. that is making war against Islam, not the other way around.
There are many, many other untruths within this DVD, but time and space prohibit me from addressing them at this time. Shame on you for promoting ethnic and religious hatred. Unless the Oregonian publishes an apology within the week, please cancel my subscription.'
Taken from Portland Independent Media Center: http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2008/09/380105.shtml
Swing-State newspapers distribute 'terror' videos
Diane Sweet
Published: Saturday September 13, 2008
A 60-minute DVD, titled "Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West," is being distributed in millions of newspapers across the country this week primarily in swing states through an advertising purchase by a shadowy group called the Clarion Fund.
Editor & Publisher reports:
"Despite some protests from Muslim and liberal activists, the newspapers -- all hard hit by drops in ad revenue in recent months -- have explained that the DVD does not violate their usual standards; see our exchange with The New York Times below. A spokesperson there said the Times last Sunday inserted 145,000 DVDs in its papers delivered in the following markets: Denver, Miami/Palm Beach, Tampa, Orlando, Detroit, Kansas City, St Louis, Cincinnati, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Milwaukee/Madison. Note: These are all in swing states.
The documentary showcases scenes of Muslim children being encouraged to become suicide bombers, interspersed with shots of Nazi rallies. 'The threat of Radical Islam is the most important issue facing us today,'' reads the sleeve of the DVD. ''But it's a topic that neither the presidential candidates nor the media are discussing openly. It's our responsibility to ensure we can all make an informed vote in November.''
It was shown on Fox News just before the 2006 mid-term elections, and conservative activist David Horowitz screened the film on college campuses during 2007. An article at the group's site, www.radicalislam.org, endorsed John McCain as the strongest candidate this past week, then was pulled down. The DVD carries on-screen text near the outset that it is not indicting most Muslims."
Via Eric Ose, here's a state-by-state list of most of the other 70 newspapers in swing states that have agreed to deliver this dvd to their subscribers:
Colorado - Boulder Daily Camera, Centennial Citizen, Denver Post, Fort Collins Coloradoan, Greeley Tribune
Iowa - Daily Nonpareil, Des Moines Register, Iowa City Press Citizen, Quad City Times, Sioux City Journal
Indiana - South Bend Tribune
Florida - Daily Commercial, Florida Times-Union, Ft. Lauderdale El Sentinel, Ft. Myers News Press, Miami Herald, Ocala Star Banner, Orlando Sun Sentinel, Palm Beach Post, Tampa Tribune, Tallahassee Democrat, St. Petersburg Times, South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Michigan - Detroit Free-Press, Flint Journal, Grand Rapids Press, Lansing State Journal
Missouri - Springfield News-Leader
Nevada - Las Vegas Review-Journal/Sun, Nevada Appeal, Reno Gazette-Journal
New Hampshire - Portsmouth Herald News, Union Leader
New Mexico - Clovis News Journal, Hobbs News-Sun, Rio Rancho Observer
Ohio - Columbus Dispatch, Dayton Daily News, Middletown Journal, Morning Journal, Toledo Blade, Youngstown Vindicator
North Carolina - Charlotte Observer, Raleigh News & Observer
Pennsylvania - Bucks Co. Courier Times, Erie Times-News, Morning Call, Philadelphia Inquirer, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, Reading Eagle, The Patriot-News
Virginia - Sun-Gazette, Virginian-PilotWisconsin - Green Bay Press-Gazette, Janesville Gazette, Journal Times, La Crosse Tribune, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel)
Taken from Raw Story: http://rawstory.com/news/2008/SwingState_newspapers_distribute_terror_videos_0913.html
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Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West 'free DVD in the Oregonian
author: flapdoodle
The Oregonian distributes hate-speech DVD.
Re: 'Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West'
The following is a letter I sent to the Oregonian today in response to the Obsession hate video they sent out with the Sunday paper. I encourage others to voice their outrage, provided you too are outraged by this garbage:
'On Sunday, September 28, a free DVD came with the subscription copy of the Sunday Oregonian. The title of the DVD was 'Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West'.
Normally, when a free item, such as a packet of fabric softener or hair conditioner, comes with my newspaper, I make no judgment against the publisher. But this is different.
The free DVD that your newspaper distributed is the most irresponsible, vile, bigoted, dishonest, hate-mongering and ultimately war-mongering piece of propaganda I have seen in many years. You cannot distribute pure hate-speech and pretend that it is the moral equivalent of fabric softener.
In terms of lies, distortions, and race-baiting, this DVD ranks alongside 'The Protocols of the Elders of Zion,' 'Birth of a Nation,' 'Mien Kampf' and 'The Turner Diaries.' To distribute this toxic filth inside a normally responsible family-oriented newspaper is the single most atrocious affront to public decency I have ever seen Portland media.
I will take a moment to address one of the biggest lies contained in this DVD: The U.S toppled the government of Islamic Iran, and installed our own, hand-picked dictator in the 1950's, despite the fact that the Iranians had never threatened or attacked us. Countless thousands of Muslims have been killed by Israel and other U.S. proxies using weapons made and paid for by U.S., in countless Middle-Eastern wars. A minimum of 500,000 Muslim civilians have been killed by our invasions and occupations in Afghanistan and Iraq, neither of which nation ever attacked the U.S. [The 9/11 hijackers were mostly from Saudi Arabia, and none were from Iraq or Afghanistan.]
It is, sadly, the U.S. that is making war against Islam, not the other way around.
There are many, many other untruths within this DVD, but time and space prohibit me from addressing them at this time. Shame on you for promoting ethnic and religious hatred. Unless the Oregonian publishes an apology within the week, please cancel my subscription.'
Taken from Portland Independent Media Center: http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2008/09/380105.shtml
Came a Hot Sundae: A Ronald Hugh Morrieson Festival
A ONE DAY SCULPTURE Project by Liz Allan
Looking for an art excursion this Labour Weekend? The Govett-Brewster Art Gallery and ONE DAY SCULPTURE have the answer.
New Zealand artist Liz Allan is set to commemorate the life and literary works of one of South Taranaki ’s most colourful characters - Ronald Hugh Morrieson.
On Sunday 26 October, Came a Hot Sundae: A Ronald Hugh Morrieson Festival will be a day-long festival held in Hawera, South Taranaki . Featuring films, readings, music, entertainment, an award ceremony and further festivities, the day promises to offer something for everyone.
A renowned author and musician, Ronald Hugh Morrieson lived his entire life in Hawera. He was attributed with forging the genre of Taranaki Gothic through his books The Scarecrow, Came a Hot Friday, Predicament and Pallet on the Floor, all of which except Predicament were made into films in the 1980s.
Morrieson’s novels echo the people, livelihood and milieu of South Taranaki and although he died in 1972, he remains a contentious figure in the region.
The stigma of this uneasy relationship was revealed in 1992 when the author’s family home was demolished to make way for a Kentucky Fried Chicken franchise.
Curator Melanie Oliver says that for this one day Morrieson becomes the lens through which the stories and shifting identities of the South Taranaki region can be celebrated.
“Morrieson found his characters in the places where people dally – bars, parties, dances, marae – and in this way his approach is perhaps similar to Liz Allan’s own, addressing notions of community, value and exchange.”
By drawing together a range of community groups Allan hopes to provide a space for sharing the stories of South Taranaki people, mingling the real with memories and the fictional.
Allan says “From small town New Zealand to little city Wellington Morrieson’s reputation stretched across the lands, the festival promises to be a celebration of his artistic legacy in all its myriad forms – ONE DAY for all.”
Allan is coordinating this festival as part of ONE DAY SCULPTURE, a New Zealand-wide series of 24 hour, temporary public artworks. ONE DAY SCULPTURE is a Massey University College of Creative Arts, School of Fine Arts , Litmus Research Initiative.
Allan is also the 2008 Govett-Brewster New Zealand Artist in Residence, a partnership with Western Institute of Technology at Taranaki supported by Creative New Zealand.
The festival will include:
Screenings of The Scarecrow at Hawera Cinema 2 (12.40pm and 7.05pm, tickets $7.50)
Looking for an art excursion this Labour Weekend? The Govett-Brewster Art Gallery and ONE DAY SCULPTURE have the answer.
New Zealand artist Liz Allan is set to commemorate the life and literary works of one of South Taranaki ’s most colourful characters - Ronald Hugh Morrieson.
On Sunday 26 October, Came a Hot Sundae: A Ronald Hugh Morrieson Festival will be a day-long festival held in Hawera, South Taranaki . Featuring films, readings, music, entertainment, an award ceremony and further festivities, the day promises to offer something for everyone.
A renowned author and musician, Ronald Hugh Morrieson lived his entire life in Hawera. He was attributed with forging the genre of Taranaki Gothic through his books The Scarecrow, Came a Hot Friday, Predicament and Pallet on the Floor, all of which except Predicament were made into films in the 1980s.
Morrieson’s novels echo the people, livelihood and milieu of South Taranaki and although he died in 1972, he remains a contentious figure in the region.
The stigma of this uneasy relationship was revealed in 1992 when the author’s family home was demolished to make way for a Kentucky Fried Chicken franchise.
Curator Melanie Oliver says that for this one day Morrieson becomes the lens through which the stories and shifting identities of the South Taranaki region can be celebrated.
“Morrieson found his characters in the places where people dally – bars, parties, dances, marae – and in this way his approach is perhaps similar to Liz Allan’s own, addressing notions of community, value and exchange.”
By drawing together a range of community groups Allan hopes to provide a space for sharing the stories of South Taranaki people, mingling the real with memories and the fictional.
Allan says “From small town New Zealand to little city Wellington Morrieson’s reputation stretched across the lands, the festival promises to be a celebration of his artistic legacy in all its myriad forms – ONE DAY for all.”
Allan is coordinating this festival as part of ONE DAY SCULPTURE, a New Zealand-wide series of 24 hour, temporary public artworks. ONE DAY SCULPTURE is a Massey University College of Creative Arts, School of Fine Arts , Litmus Research Initiative.
Allan is also the 2008 Govett-Brewster New Zealand Artist in Residence, a partnership with Western Institute of Technology at Taranaki supported by Creative New Zealand.
The festival will include:
Screenings of The Scarecrow at Hawera Cinema 2 (12.40pm and 7.05pm, tickets $7.50)
Music and entertainment in the Hawera Town Square (12 noon – 5pm)
The opportunity to visit the attic where Morrieson’s books were scribed (11am – 3pm)
Readings from Morrieson’s novels at KFC, Hawera (3pm)
Scarecrow dress up competition (1pm in the Hawera Town Square )
A Hawera walking tour map plotting features from the town and Morrieson’s books (available from the Hawera Town Square , 9am – 5pm)
21st anniversary celebration and award ceremony for the Ronald Hugh Morrieson Literary Awards 2008 (7pm at St Joseph ’s Hall, RSVP to pamela.jones@stdc.govt.nz)
Further festivities at Morrieson’s Café and Bar (from 9pm)
Information and maps will be available at the Hawera Town Square on the day.
Information and maps will be available at the Hawera Town Square on the day.
Published on Tuesday, October 14, 2008 by Minnesota Daily
University Student To Plead Not Guilty To Terrorism Charges
by Jon Collins and Alex Robinson
University Student To Plead Not Guilty To Terrorism Charges
by Jon Collins and Alex Robinson
A University student arrested preemptively before the Republican National Convention will be one of the first people prosecuted under a terrorism clause in the Minnesota Patriot Act since it was passed in 2002.
Cultural studies junior Max Specktor smiles Monday after a hearing for the RNC 8 at the Ramsey County Law Enforcement Center in St. Paul. Specktor, along with the rest of the eight, plans to plead not guilty to unprecedented terrorism charges. (Photo: Minnesota Daily)Cultural studies junior Max Specktor is charged with conspiracy to riot in furtherance of terrorism.
Monday, Specktor's hearing was postponed until at least November.
Specktor and seven other defendants facing the same charge will be heard together, and face a maximum of seven and a half years of jail time.
The eight suspects, calling themselves the RNC 8, plan to plead not guilty to the charges, defendant Nathanael Secor said.
Max Specktor
As a housemate fried long strips of sweet potato in the kitchen, Specktor sat on the front stairs of his Minneapolis house and dwelled on the prospect of seven-and-a-half years in jail, and the guarantee of cost and worry from a yearlong trial.
Specktor, a graduate of Minneapolis South High School, got involved with activism by planning protests against the Iraq War.
"After doing that kind of work in high school, I was kind of burned out on trying to change something with a big protest," Specktor said. "I was getting into local community work."
He got involved with a now-closed Jackpine Community Center on Lake Street in Minneapolis, where many people were planning protests with the RNC Welcoming Committee, an anti-authoritarian activist group.
"The RNC, obviously I didn't want it to come to my town," he said. "I thought, ‘Wow, maybe this is a chance to learn some skills and build community.' "
The group, which typically fluctuated between 20 and 30 people, took inspiration from mass mobilizations from the "anti-globalization movement" of the late 1990s, like the protests that helped shut down the World Trade Organization's conference in Seattle in 1999.
"I got a lot of inspiration from that," he said. "Our movement, especially the radical anti-war and social justice, needs a big event to keep it going."
The RNC Welcoming Committee wasn't planning any illegal actions, Specktor said; instead they set up housing, meals and legal support for other protesters, some of whom might engage in civil disobedience.
"Basically, we provided the infrastructure for people to survive in the city while they're protesting," he said.
But authorities pointed to the group's website, which urged a strategy called "swarm, seize, and stay" that used civil disobedience to try to shut down the convention.
Civil disobedience, while illegal, can be traced back to the foundation of the United States and is very different from terrorism, Specktor said.
"[Civil disobedience is] consciously making a decision to disobey for a higher purpose," he said. "It's a time-honored tradition that we celebrate in our history books, the people in the civil rights era who sat in at the lunch counters and wouldn't get out of their seats."
Preemptive raids
The weekend before the protests, activists' houses, including Specktor's, were raided by the Ramsey County Sheriff's Department and other law enforcement agencies.
Six members of the RNC Welcoming Committee were arrested Saturday, Aug. 30, while Specktor and another man were arrested the following Monday morning - Sept. 1, the first day of the RNC. Protesters had yet to unfurl the first banner during protests in St. Paul.
During raids, police said they found throwing-style knives, fireworks, a box containing gas masks and lock picking kits, according to the criminal complaint. They also seized activist literature concerning the RNC, maps of St. Paul, paint and electronics, the complaint stated.
After Specktor's arrest, police found a backpack containing a plastic bottle of Mylanta, black gloves, and a paper entitled: "St. Paul and the RNC burn 9/1/08."
In Specktor's vehicle, police found a pry bar, two boxes of firecrackers, five assorted black helmets and a roll of unused caution tape, the police complaint stated. The actions police and authorities took were ridiculous, said Ted Dooley , one of the lawyers representing the RNC 8.
"Anything is a weapon if it is used as a weapon," he said.
The Ramsey County Sheriff's department spokesperson did not return multiple phone calls requesting comment.
After the raids, Specktor was the only one of the RNC 8 who was held in the psychiatric ward of the Ramsey County Law Enforcement Center, he said.
"I was in a cell by myself; the whole time I was only released for an hour to walk along this short hallway and make a few phone calls," he said. "I felt powerless, but I didn't feel threatened."
After three days, he was released after being charged with conspiracy to riot in furtherance of terrorism.
read the rest at Common Dreams http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2008/10/14-0
Rose Marie Salmon At Daf
Rose Marie Salmon is making these beguiling "sewing machine drawings" using a household sewing machine and has a solo show opening 23 October at Daf106 in Aro Valley
Least said, soonest mended
Daf 109
109 Aro Valley
23 October - 16 November
Here's the blurb....hope to see you at the opening for a beer! This show is a complete group of works which I have had floating around inmy head for a while now. The show is an extension of other work I have donein the past. Mostly I just enjoy making them.I studied painting at Cashmere High School under Ross Gray and MargaretHudson-Ware. Later
I studied printmaking at Hagley Community College.I then figured Fine Arts and university were not for me and went off andstudied Organic Horticulture. I remained interested in making things andhave always had a sewing machine.
I have always worked steadily as an artist I have participated in variousgroup shows and have had five solo shows.In 2004 I was highly commended in the Anthony Harper Award for Contemporaryart at COCA gallery in Christchurch.
I use a household sewing machine to draw the images onto the canvas.I use the qualities of the thread to create areas of sharp line juxtaposedwith chaotic loose hanging thread, which allows the images to be veryformal, and also tumultuous.
I like playing with the idea of traditional Œwomen¹s work¹ which has becomeunhinged in these works.
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America’s Political Cannibalism
By Chris Hedges
It is no longer our economy but our democracy that is in peril. It was the economic meltdown of Yugoslavia that gave us Slobodan Milosevic. It was the collapse of the Weimar Republic that vomited up Adolf Hitler. And it was the breakdown in czarist Russia that opened the door for Vladimir Lenin and the Bolsheviks. Financial collapses lead to political extremism. The rage bubbling up from our impoverished and disenfranchised working class, glimpsed at John McCain rallies, presages a looming and dangerous right-wing backlash.
As the public begins to grasp the depth of the betrayal and abuse by our ruling class, as the Democratic and Republican parties are exposed as craven tools of our corporate state, as savings accounts, college funds and retirement plans become worthless, as unemployment skyrockets and as home values go up in smoke, we must prepare for the political resurgence of a reinvigorated radical Christian right. The engine of this mass movement—as is true for all radical movements—is personal and economic despair. And despair, in an age of increasing shortages, poverty and hopelessness, will be one of our few surplus commodities.
Karl Polanyi in his book “The Great Transformation,” written in 1944, laid out the devastating consequences—the depressions, wars and totalitarianism—that grow out of a so-called self-regulated free market. He grasped that “fascism, like socialism, was rooted in a market society that refused to function.” He warned that a financial system always devolved, without heavy government control, into a Mafia capitalism—and a Mafia political system—which is a good description of the American government under George W. Bush. Polanyi wrote that a self-regulating market, the kind bequeathed to us since Ronald Reagan, turned human beings and the natural environment into commodities, a situation that ensures the destruction of both society and the natural environment. He decried the free market’s belief that nature and human beings are objects whose worth is determined by the market. He reminded us that a society that no longer recognizes that nature and human life have a sacred dimension, an intrinsic worth beyond monetary value, ultimately commits collective suicide. Such societies cannibalize themselves until they die. Speculative excesses and growing inequality, he wrote, always destroy the foundation for a continued prosperity.
We face an environmental meltdown as well as an economic meltdown. This would not have surprised Polanyi, who fled fascist Europe in 1933 and eventually taught at Columbia University. Russia’s northern coastline has begun producing huge qualities of toxic methane gas. Scientists with the International Siberian Shelf Study 2008 describe what they saw along the coastline recently as “methane chimneys” reaching from the sea floor to the ocean’s surface. Methane, locked in the permafrost of Arctic landmasses, is being released at an alarming rate as average Arctic temperatures rise. Methane is a greenhouse gas 25 times more powerful than carbon dioxide. The release of millions of tons of it will dramatically accelerate the rate of global warming.
Those who run our corporate state have fought environmental regulation as tenaciously as they have fought financial regulation. They are responsible, as Polanyi predicted, for our personal impoverishment and the impoverishment of our ecosystem. We remain addicted, courtesy of the oil, gas and automobile industries and a corporate-controlled government, to fossil fuels. Species are vanishing. Fish stocks are depleted. The great human migration from coastlines and deserts has begun. And as temperatures continue to rise, huge parts of the globe will become uninhabitable. The continued release of large quantities of methane, some scientists have warned, could actually asphyxiate the human species.
The corporate con artists and criminals who have hijacked our state and rigged our financial system still speak to us in the obscure and incomprehensible language coined by specialists at elite business schools. They use terms like securitization, deleveraging, structured investment vehicles and credit default swaps. The reality, once you throw out their obnoxious jargon, is not hard to grasp. Banks lent too much money to people and financial institutions that could not pay it back. These banks are now going broke. The government is frantically giving taxpayer dollars to banks so they can be solvent and again lend money. It is not working. Bank lending remains frozen. There are ominous signs that the government may not be able to hand over enough of our money because the losses incurred by these speculators are too massive. If credit markets remain in a deep freeze, corporations such as AT&T, Ford and General Motors might go bankrupt. The downward spiral could spread like a tidal wave across the country, especially since our corporate elite, including Barack Obama, seem to have no real intention of bailing out families who can no longer pay their mortgages or credit card debts.
Lenin said that the best way to destroy the capitalist system was to debauch its currency. If our financial disaster continues there will be a widespread loss of faith in the mechanisms that regulate society. If our money becomes worthless, so does our government. All traditional standards and beliefs are shattered in a severe economic crisis. The moral order is turned upside down. The honest and industrious are wiped out while the gangsters, profiteers and speculators amass millions. Look at Lehman Brothers CEO Richard Fuld. He walks away from his bankrupt investment house after pocketing $485 million. His investors are wiped out. An economic collapse does not only mean the degradation of trade and commerce, food shortages, bankruptcies and unemployment; it means the systematic dynamiting of the foundations of a society. I watched this happen in Yugoslavia. I fear I am watching it happen here in the United States.
Read the rest at Truthdig: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20081013_americas_political_cannibalism/
By Chris Hedges
It is no longer our economy but our democracy that is in peril. It was the economic meltdown of Yugoslavia that gave us Slobodan Milosevic. It was the collapse of the Weimar Republic that vomited up Adolf Hitler. And it was the breakdown in czarist Russia that opened the door for Vladimir Lenin and the Bolsheviks. Financial collapses lead to political extremism. The rage bubbling up from our impoverished and disenfranchised working class, glimpsed at John McCain rallies, presages a looming and dangerous right-wing backlash.
As the public begins to grasp the depth of the betrayal and abuse by our ruling class, as the Democratic and Republican parties are exposed as craven tools of our corporate state, as savings accounts, college funds and retirement plans become worthless, as unemployment skyrockets and as home values go up in smoke, we must prepare for the political resurgence of a reinvigorated radical Christian right. The engine of this mass movement—as is true for all radical movements—is personal and economic despair. And despair, in an age of increasing shortages, poverty and hopelessness, will be one of our few surplus commodities.
Karl Polanyi in his book “The Great Transformation,” written in 1944, laid out the devastating consequences—the depressions, wars and totalitarianism—that grow out of a so-called self-regulated free market. He grasped that “fascism, like socialism, was rooted in a market society that refused to function.” He warned that a financial system always devolved, without heavy government control, into a Mafia capitalism—and a Mafia political system—which is a good description of the American government under George W. Bush. Polanyi wrote that a self-regulating market, the kind bequeathed to us since Ronald Reagan, turned human beings and the natural environment into commodities, a situation that ensures the destruction of both society and the natural environment. He decried the free market’s belief that nature and human beings are objects whose worth is determined by the market. He reminded us that a society that no longer recognizes that nature and human life have a sacred dimension, an intrinsic worth beyond monetary value, ultimately commits collective suicide. Such societies cannibalize themselves until they die. Speculative excesses and growing inequality, he wrote, always destroy the foundation for a continued prosperity.
We face an environmental meltdown as well as an economic meltdown. This would not have surprised Polanyi, who fled fascist Europe in 1933 and eventually taught at Columbia University. Russia’s northern coastline has begun producing huge qualities of toxic methane gas. Scientists with the International Siberian Shelf Study 2008 describe what they saw along the coastline recently as “methane chimneys” reaching from the sea floor to the ocean’s surface. Methane, locked in the permafrost of Arctic landmasses, is being released at an alarming rate as average Arctic temperatures rise. Methane is a greenhouse gas 25 times more powerful than carbon dioxide. The release of millions of tons of it will dramatically accelerate the rate of global warming.
Those who run our corporate state have fought environmental regulation as tenaciously as they have fought financial regulation. They are responsible, as Polanyi predicted, for our personal impoverishment and the impoverishment of our ecosystem. We remain addicted, courtesy of the oil, gas and automobile industries and a corporate-controlled government, to fossil fuels. Species are vanishing. Fish stocks are depleted. The great human migration from coastlines and deserts has begun. And as temperatures continue to rise, huge parts of the globe will become uninhabitable. The continued release of large quantities of methane, some scientists have warned, could actually asphyxiate the human species.
The corporate con artists and criminals who have hijacked our state and rigged our financial system still speak to us in the obscure and incomprehensible language coined by specialists at elite business schools. They use terms like securitization, deleveraging, structured investment vehicles and credit default swaps. The reality, once you throw out their obnoxious jargon, is not hard to grasp. Banks lent too much money to people and financial institutions that could not pay it back. These banks are now going broke. The government is frantically giving taxpayer dollars to banks so they can be solvent and again lend money. It is not working. Bank lending remains frozen. There are ominous signs that the government may not be able to hand over enough of our money because the losses incurred by these speculators are too massive. If credit markets remain in a deep freeze, corporations such as AT&T, Ford and General Motors might go bankrupt. The downward spiral could spread like a tidal wave across the country, especially since our corporate elite, including Barack Obama, seem to have no real intention of bailing out families who can no longer pay their mortgages or credit card debts.
Lenin said that the best way to destroy the capitalist system was to debauch its currency. If our financial disaster continues there will be a widespread loss of faith in the mechanisms that regulate society. If our money becomes worthless, so does our government. All traditional standards and beliefs are shattered in a severe economic crisis. The moral order is turned upside down. The honest and industrious are wiped out while the gangsters, profiteers and speculators amass millions. Look at Lehman Brothers CEO Richard Fuld. He walks away from his bankrupt investment house after pocketing $485 million. His investors are wiped out. An economic collapse does not only mean the degradation of trade and commerce, food shortages, bankruptcies and unemployment; it means the systematic dynamiting of the foundations of a society. I watched this happen in Yugoslavia. I fear I am watching it happen here in the United States.
Read the rest at Truthdig: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20081013_americas_political_cannibalism/
Thousands of Troops Are Deployed on U.S. Streets Ready to Carry Out "Crowd Control"
By Naomi Wolf,
Members of Congress were told they could face martial law if they didn't pass the bailout bill. This will not be the last time.
Background: the First Brigade of the Third Infantry Division, three to four thousand soldiers, has been deployed in the United States as of October 1. Their stated mission is the form of crowd control they practiced in Iraq, subduing "unruly individuals," and the management of a national emergency. I am in Seattle and heard from the brother of one of the soldiers that they are engaged in exercises now. Amy Goodman reported that an Army spokesperson confirmed that they will have access to lethal and non lethal crowd control technologies and tanks.
George Bush struck down Posse Comitatus, thus making it legal for military to patrol the U.S. He has also legally established that in the "War on Terror," the U.S. is at war around the globe and thus the whole world is a battlefield. Thus the U.S. is also a battlefield.
He also led change to the 1807 Insurrection Act to give him far broader powers in the event of a loosely defined "insurrection" or many other "conditions" he has the power to identify. The Constitution allows the suspension of habeas corpus -- habeas corpus prevents us from being seized by the state and held without trial -- in the event of an "insurrection." With his own army force now, his power to call a group of protesters or angry voters "insurgents" staging an "insurrection" is strengthened.
U.S. Rep. Brad Sherman of California said to Congress, captured on C-Span and viewable on YouTube, that individual members of the House were threatened with martial law within a week if they did not pass the bailout bill:
"The only way they can pass this bill is by creating and sustaining a panic atmosphere. … Many of us were told in private conversations that if we voted against this bill on Monday that the sky would fall, the market would drop two or three thousand points the first day and a couple of thousand on the second day, and a few members were even told that there would be martial law in America if we voted no."
If this is true and Rep. Sherman is not delusional, I ask you to consider that if they are willing to threaten martial law now, it is foolish to assume they will never use that threat again. It is also foolish to trust in an orderly election process to resolve this threat. And why deploy the First Brigade? One thing the deployment accomplishes is to put teeth into such a threat.
Read the rest at Alternet: http://www.alternet.org/rights/101958/thousands_of_troops_are_deployed_on_u.s._streets_ready_to_carry_out_%22crowd_control%22/
By Naomi Wolf,
Members of Congress were told they could face martial law if they didn't pass the bailout bill. This will not be the last time.
Background: the First Brigade of the Third Infantry Division, three to four thousand soldiers, has been deployed in the United States as of October 1. Their stated mission is the form of crowd control they practiced in Iraq, subduing "unruly individuals," and the management of a national emergency. I am in Seattle and heard from the brother of one of the soldiers that they are engaged in exercises now. Amy Goodman reported that an Army spokesperson confirmed that they will have access to lethal and non lethal crowd control technologies and tanks.
George Bush struck down Posse Comitatus, thus making it legal for military to patrol the U.S. He has also legally established that in the "War on Terror," the U.S. is at war around the globe and thus the whole world is a battlefield. Thus the U.S. is also a battlefield.
He also led change to the 1807 Insurrection Act to give him far broader powers in the event of a loosely defined "insurrection" or many other "conditions" he has the power to identify. The Constitution allows the suspension of habeas corpus -- habeas corpus prevents us from being seized by the state and held without trial -- in the event of an "insurrection." With his own army force now, his power to call a group of protesters or angry voters "insurgents" staging an "insurrection" is strengthened.
U.S. Rep. Brad Sherman of California said to Congress, captured on C-Span and viewable on YouTube, that individual members of the House were threatened with martial law within a week if they did not pass the bailout bill:
"The only way they can pass this bill is by creating and sustaining a panic atmosphere. … Many of us were told in private conversations that if we voted against this bill on Monday that the sky would fall, the market would drop two or three thousand points the first day and a couple of thousand on the second day, and a few members were even told that there would be martial law in America if we voted no."
If this is true and Rep. Sherman is not delusional, I ask you to consider that if they are willing to threaten martial law now, it is foolish to assume they will never use that threat again. It is also foolish to trust in an orderly election process to resolve this threat. And why deploy the First Brigade? One thing the deployment accomplishes is to put teeth into such a threat.
Read the rest at Alternet: http://www.alternet.org/rights/101958/thousands_of_troops_are_deployed_on_u.s._streets_ready_to_carry_out_%22crowd_control%22/
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